Authors: Barbara Corrado Pope
“But these are old pictures. I’ve told you. Can’t you tell how much better Paul has gotten?”
“Yes, yes, of course.” He tried to assure her. “But I want Paul himself to tell me about these.”
To tell me whether they are evidence of a murder or only the product of a disturbed mind.
These were thoughts he would not dream of expressing to the poor mother.
Martin stood there like a fool for a few minutes, gingerly holding the paintings. He did not want to barge out. He still needed the mother’s help.
“Here, let me,” Mme Cézanne finally said as she took the canvases away from him, rolled them together, and tied them with a string. She was frowning during the entire operation. Martin was no longer a nice young judge.
Mme Cézanne thrust the two rolled paintings into his hand.
“One more thing.” Martin took a deep breath.
The most important thing
. “You need to tell me where your son is.”
She shook her head. “I don’t—”
“If I have to, I will question everyone in the house, including the maid and your husband.” Martin could see from her face that he had hit the mark.
“My son did not do anything.”
“Madame—”
“Is this what you call justice? Allowing a family to be bothered and bullied? Accusing them?”
“This is a murder case. Others may be in danger.” Martin said the words slowly and distinctly, hoping that this would persuade her.
There was a moment of silence, then she relented.
“Please be quiet coming down the stairs. I will explain everything when we get back to the salon.” Behind closed doors, out of the hearing of the father.
In the salon, Mme Cézanne revealed a secret that was far beyond anything Martin had imagined. Cézanne had a mistress who had borne him a son thirteen years before. According to the proud grandmother, Paul Jr. was a beautiful, strapping boy, but his grandfather had never been told that a grandson existed. Louis-Auguste believed that a man should be able to support a wife before marriage, and so Paul and his mistress, Hortense Fiquet, were waiting for the right moment to inform the patriarch of their relationship. Then, and only then, would they marry. This summer Paul had settled his family in Gardanne, about ten kilometers away. That is where he went almost every day to work. After the Westerbury disturbance, Mme Cézanne explained, he had told Marie that he would be staying with Hortense and Paul Jr. until things quieted down. He did not want Papa to be disturbed, and he needed peace to do his work.
Martin left the Jas with a sense of relief. He had managed to bypass the bulldog of a sister and gotten Mme Cézanne to talk. Best of all, he believed the old woman. Finally, someone was telling him the truth! The most urgent question in Martin’s mind, as he headed back to town with the two rolled canvases in tow, was whether he should organize an expedition to Gardanne that evening, or wait until the morning. That was the first thing he intended to take up with Franc when he got back to the courthouse.
F
RANC WAS IN A TRIUMPHANT MOOD.
He’d been waiting for Martin, to tell him that they had caught Westerbury “drowning in his sorrows” in a bar just outside the ramparts. When the inspector heard about what had happened at the Jas, he was even more buoyant, praising Martin for making Mme Cézanne “come clean” and for confiscating two pieces of the artist’s “decadent works.”
“Good work, sir, good work,” Franc said, putting on his cap, getting ready to leave.
“But there is still so much more to do.” The rolled canvases lay on Martin’s desk, requiring a more thoughtful analysis than “decadent.” Then there was a unopened telegram from Paris, the missing boy, the unfinished search for the artist, and Martin’s notes to go over. So many things that warranted discussion here and now.
“Monsieur le juge,” Franc said, as a crooked grin spread across his grizzled face, “I beg you, rest on your laurels. Enough for today. The Vernet woman will be dead forever.”
“Let’s at least see what Paris has to say.” Martin picked up the telegram from the
police judiciare
, hoping to recapture his inspector’s attention.
“Okay,” Franc swiped off his cap and sat down impatiently in the chair. He folded his arms and kept shaking his head as Martin read the report, which, indeed, did not tell them much that they did not already know or suspect.
The Parisian police had kept a sharp eye on Westerbury, because he was a foreigner who lectured in public, and, depending on one’s beliefs, promoted science or flirted with blasphemy. Yet he had never committed a blatant enough offense against public morality to warrant arrest or expulsion. As for Solange, “born Sophie Vernet in 1850 in the Seine-Maritime Department,” she had arrived in Paris around 1868, and apprenticed at the Widow Charpentier’s millinery. The tax rolls indicated that Mme Charpentier had been on the brink of financial ruin. But after Vernet took up residence, the shop not only survived, but it expanded, becoming a hat emporium attracting a quality clientele. This reversal of fortune elicited the special scrutiny of the police; however, no criminal activity was discovered. Vernet herself had called upon the gendarmes on two separate occasions to deal with disturbances caused by Jacques LaFarge. She paid her taxes regularly and on time, making her a singularly law-abiding shop owner, and left Paris a wealthy woman.
“You see, Franc, you were right about the money,” Martin said after he finished. “And it’s not only a question of how Solange Vernet brought so much money to Aix, but how she and her aunt managed to transform a failing shop into a huge success.”
“You’re going around in circles. You need to take your mind off all this.”
“You don’t think the money could be part of the motive?”
“Sure I do. But so could jealousy. Or godlessness. We’re not sure yet. Murder investigations take time.”
“Picard will be back any day now. I’ll see what he thinks,” Martin said more to himself than to his companion, who had already risen to his feet and put his cap back on his head.
“When the notary comes back you can ask him all about the money,
and,
in the meantime, my men will search for the boy through the night. We’ve already agreed to take off for Gardanne first thing tomorrow. So for now, my—” Franc stumbled over the words that were about to come out of his mouth. Was he about to say “my boy”? “For now,” Franc repeated, “I know exactly what will take your mind off all this. How about a nice dinner served by a pretty girl?”
“I don’t think—”
“Is an inspector too lowly a companion for a little dinner?”
“Of course not.” Martin bristled at the implication that he shared the social prejudices of his well-born colleagues.
“Well, then? We can talk about the case.
Again. If you insist.
And you, you can get something good into that stomach of yours.”
Martin brushed a damp strand of hair from his forehead. What could be the harm? Franc was determined to leave, and Martin was starving. The last thing he had eaten were two little tea sandwiches served to him by Arlette LaFarge. And the last thing he wanted to do was to have another solitary meal surrounded by the staid, contented souls of La Bonne Ménagère. With a nod, Martin gave in.
“Good!”
The twinkle in the inspector’s eyes should have been a signal to Martin that Franc had scored yet another victory.
Once they got outside the courthouse, Franc led Martin at a breathless pace down the rue Rifle Rafle, the aptly named street abutting the prison, toward the university. A new restaurant, Franc explained as they galloped along, was the kind of thing you noticed when you kept an eagle eye over the town. The Choffruts had just come from Arles with the idea of opening a place for homesick students from their town. The food was good and cheap, and, Franc added as he stopped and gestured toward Chez l’Arlésienne, he and Martin had the chance to become favored regulars before the onslaught of law and literature students in the fall.
When Franc swung the door open, a bell tinkled overhead, announcing their arrival. As soon as they stepped inside, they were enveloped in the tantalizing aroma of tomatoes and garlic. In a glance Martin saw that Chez l’Arlésienne was the kind of good, humble eatery that he and his fellow law students had cherished in Paris. It was small, holding only ten or twelve tables. The two longest were already occupied by workmen.
“M. Franc, M. Franc.” A short, stout middle-aged woman came out of the kitchen to greet them. She was attired in traditional Arlésienne style, a lace fichu wrapped around her shoulders and fastened at the waist over a printed dress and her head crowned with a knot of gray hair circled by a wide black ribbon. Franc introduced her as Henriette Choffrut.
“Come in, come in. So this is the judge. He does look like a nice young man.” Before Martin had a chance to react to the fact that he had obviously been expected, Henriette Choffrut was leading them to a small table in a cool corner. She told them that she would send her niece, Clarie, over right away.
Martin gave Franc a murderous look as they sat down, but the inspector ignored him. Franc was in his element, happily surveying the surroundings and sniffing the inviting smells, while Martin kept his head low, determined to get away as soon as possible.
“Tonight daube or aioli.” Martin glanced up. Clarie was a surprise. Dressed like her aunt, except that her hair was bound by virginal white, she was taller than most southerners, and slender. But it was her eyes, sparkling with some secret amusement, that really caught his attention. They were dark brown, almond-shaped, and very large. Above them, her black eyebrows were drawn in an arch of curiosity. Not quite as gay and mocking as Solange Vernet’s green eyes had been, but almost as bold. Her aquiline nose gave her oval face more length than it needed, but it also led one quite naturally to her red lips, pressed together in a long, bemused smile. Head tilted toward him, hands on hips, she gazed at Martin with an air of expectation.
He began to trace the red and white checks on the stiff cotton tablecloth with his finger.
“Daube? Or aioli?”
“Aioli—I should explain to him, he’s from the north, you know—” Franc intervened.
“
I do know
,” she said with a sigh and turned to Martin. “It’s cold fish and vegetables with a sauce. Very good on a hot night.”
“Good, yes, good.” Martin was avoiding her eyes.
“Good choice. Me too,” Franc chimed in. “And some of that tapenade with your good bread and white wine.”
“Two aiolis,” Clarie called to the kitchen and left their table.
Martin glared at Franc. Match-making was the last thing he would have expected from someone so deeply embedded in the virile camaraderie of police work.
Franc met Martin’s stare with a wink. “Quite a gypsy, isn’t she? Those dark eyes. Those gold earrings. She’s their niece, but she’s half Italian. Falchetti. Clarie Falchetti.”
Realizing that any sign of anger or embarrassment would only encourage his companion, Martin decided to do his best to show neither. Just as he was fitting on this mask of indifference, the bread, the tapenade and a jug of wine were slapped on the table. Clarie had returned. And Franc could not keep his mouth shut.
“I was about to tell the young judge over here that you are thinking about going to that brand-new school near Paris so that you can teach high school. Imagine a young woman like you around all those overgrown brats. Doesn’t seem right.”
“Better the brats than men with big paws,” she said, as she removed Franc’s hand from the top of her skirt.
“Now don’t take offense. We were just wondering why a beautiful girl like you would want to teach a bunch of brats instead of bringing up a stable of your own.”
“We?”she looked at Martin, who was trying to signal his innocence by shaking his head. Her lips parted in a big smile, as if to say she understood. Then she took off to serve another table.
“I think we had better change the subject,” Martin said, as Franc poured the wine and began to slather the black paste on their bread.
“Try this.” Franc handed him a piece. “Anchovies and black olives all mashed up together.”
Martin bit into the rich mixture, which was salty, but good. He reached for the wine and drank, a little too quickly. It was sour, and he almost had a coughing fit. Martin closed his eyes.
Slow down, relax
, he told himself. After all, he had succeeded in communicating his innocence to the girl. And he’d have no trouble getting Franc to go on about any number of safe topics. His inspector was, after all, a great talker.
And, indeed, Franc held forth through most of the meal, while Martin listened and observed. He watched the laborers laughing together as they gulped down their food. He noted how often Mme Choffrut kept making the rounds, clucking like a mother hen, making sure that everything was in order and everyone was satisfied. He saw Clarie, strong yet graceful, carrying trays back and forth, fobbing off the attention of forward customers. As they ate their way through a pile of cold whitefish, carrots, potatoes, and green beans, Martin heard all about Franc’s heroic role in the annals of Aixois crime and how much he was looking forward to solving his greatest case yet,
their
case, with its special cast of characters: the foreigner, the artist, and the loose woman trying to force herself into high society.
As the evening wore on, Martin was finding himself more at ease and increasingly amused by Franc’s yen for the dramatic.
“You know, my hero is Vidocq.”
“Vidocq?” Martin put his carrot back on his plate, and lifted his glass to his lips to cover his smile. Anyone interested in crime knew of the brawler, petty thief, convict, and escape artist who had served both the Emperor Napoleon and the monarchy. Vidocq’s methods for infiltrating the underworld had left an indelible mark on the way the police operated in Paris.
“I would have thought you fashioned yourself more after Javert,” Martin said, referring to the police inspector whose relentless pursuit of Jean Valjean was the subject of Hugo’s great novel. “He was more on the up-and-up, righteous and persistent, like you.” Vidocq had been brought down because his ever-expanding corps of agents and informers turned out to be every bit as unsavory as the lawbreakers they were pursuing.