Night Without Stars (25 page)

“I'll do it for you.”

He opened them, but a wind came into the room and began to blow the curtains wide. She said in a low voice that seemed a part of the new noise of the cool air and flapping curtains:

“That's how it is sometimes. You undertake something without facing up to it. Then it comes and … I tried to pretend that night—but the feeling was too strong. He stopped at last—upset, of course.… With a man like Pierre it had always been hard to keep him at a distance. It had meant—pretending to a special goodness, and getting him to accept that estimate. Now he began to taunt me—about you and … to sneer. I kept calm over that and because I was calm he got more angry. He began about other things, trying to smear—unforgivable things as I thought then.… I lost my temper too.… We quarrelled wildly. And then suddenly it all stopped. In his anger, in his need to hurt me …”

She paused, pushed back her hair, said carefully: “He did what we'd been waiting for all the time. He said he'd seen someone in a place in Hyères—and it happened I knew that other person had not been near that place until a fortnight after Pierre had been ‘arrested'.… You see, if Pierre was taken on the 80th April he couldn't have been free in Hyères on the 11th May.

“The quarrel stopped too suddenly. He started to apologise for his anger as if he meant it, and all the time I could see he was turning over in his mind—getting nearer the truth every minute. The way I'd been that night showed I didn't love him and never had: he worked back from that. I knew when he realised the truth because the sweat came out on his face.”

She straightened her back, let her hands fall. “Then he asked me if I was still willing to go away with him. I had to say I was. Then he said would I come with him to-night, drive up to Grasse, sit and watch the sunrise in the mountains, have breakfast at a wayside
auberge
? I knew then that he wasn't going to let me out of his sight. I knew when I went up into the mountains he would kill me. It was at the back of his eyes, like pain, like—like a new
sort
of lust.…

“I tried to make excuses, but it wouldn't do. He was so frightened that if the worst came he was ready to kill me there in his flat. So I said I'd go. We were both pretending and half knew the other was, but were afraid to let the pretence fall. There's—an awful chasm between the last thought and the first act.… I said I must go and pack a few clothes; but he said we could send for anything I wanted and he'd buy me things in Grasse to-morrow. Then I said I couldn't possibly go without at least phoning Mme. Colloni—otherwise she'd get alarmed and call the police.”

Charles Bénat shut the windows and went across to the bureau behind me.

She said: “I suppose it was panic, that call to you. But there was no one else. If I phoned a Villefranche number he would know at once that I was not getting my apartment. My only hope was that you'd realise there was something wrong and begin to ask questions which I could answer yes or no—as you did. When you offered to come round I thought that would save me. I only had to delay long enough in the flat and Pierre would be helpless.… But I made one mistake. He wasn't very far from the phone and heard it was a man's voice at the other end.

“Of course, even then I tried to put him off. I said I'd got on to Mme. Colloni's husband—I tried any sort of excuse that came into my head. But excuses were no use any more.…”

She stopped.

I heard Bénat come up. He put a black spanner into my hand. It was about eight inches long.

“That's what I killed him with,” he said.

I looked at the spanner. Grutli, interested, came over and sniffed at it, his great head nearly level with my shoulder. Alix reached for the cigarettes and lit one; I saw her face twitch a little. I handed the spanner back.

“Exhibit A.”

“I've killed three men with that,” he said. “An accidental choice in the first place, but it happens to be weighted right, and fits the pocket. Of course the other two were Germans.”

“And they hardly count, do they?”

“In some things you've the right ideas.” He went back and put the spanner away.

I said: “And how did you contrive to kill Grognard?”

“I came back from Lyons in the afternoon to find Alix's note waiting on my desk. She told me briefly what she'd decided to do. All the rest of the afternoon I tried to work but could not. So eventually I faced up to the fact that I was not willing to let my sister go with this man merely to clear up who had betrayed a dozen saboteurs. The act itself of course is unimportant, but I didn't look on it with favour in the circumstances. It was like rewarding a cheat with the first prize.… And it was”—he hesitated, his lip drooping—“it was unsatisfactory for reasons of prestige. Alix spoke just now of coming to the brink of a thing before realising all that it means. Perhaps for once that happened to me. Our attitude seemed irrational. Revenge is as useless as regret.”

“I agree with you there.”

His face had got curiously in the shadow again. “It's true, isn't it that only the present is valid. A cut finger to-day is more important than yesterday's martyr. Well, I decided to put a stop to this particular—cut finger. I drove down and went to her apartment. Mme. Colloni said she had gone out with Grognard. I phoned one or two restaurants and discovered they were at the Luxembourg. They were just leaving when I got there, so it interested me to follow them. They went to his flat. I drew up outside and waited, hoping she would come out alone. Unless it was unavoidable I did not want him to know anything. After about twenty minutes, when I was trying to think up some excuse for calling, I saw a shadow on the curtain, and a hand pull the curtain roughly aside and then itself seem to be pulled away. It was a woman's hand. The curtains fell back, but I went up at once and rang. I rang twice and knocked before Pierre came. He opened the door a few inches and was obviously shocked at the sight of me. After a minute while we kept up the courtesies he tried to shut the door. I forced my way in. Alix's bag was on the settee. I went through to the bedroom. She was lying on the floor. I turned back as Pierre reached the bureau in the corner where he kept his revolver.”

Alix stubbed out her cigarette and got up. “That's enough, Charles. The details …”

Bénat said: “After I'd hit him I put my hand over his mouth and supported him a few paces to the settee: that was instinct, not to let them cry out, not to let them fall. Then I went in to Alix. After three or four minutes she began to come round. Then the doorbell rang.”

“Yes,” I said. “ Very inconvenient.”

“It wasn't until I helped her back into the living-room that I saw the outer door had been left ajar. We got into the kitchen just before you began to push the door open. My own preference would have been to use the spanner again, if more mildly, but Alix said no.”

“Very considerate of her.”

Alix gave me a long, steady look.

“We went down by the back stairs,” Bénat said, “and waited outside in my car, which was on the other side of the road, hoping that you would find nothing. As time passed we wondered if you had also left by the back stairs. I left Alix in the car—she had partly collapsed again—and phoned Villefranche. Then I phoned Pierre's flat and you answered. When I got back you were just coming out. Throw me a cigarette, will you, Alix?'

I said: “I wonder if it ever occurred to you that you might have put the murder on me?”

“It did. But there might have been flaws I knew nothing of. I have the stick you left in the flat, but I suppose you don't use one now.”

“Not except when intending to deceive.”

“I'm sure the opportunities for that must be decreasing.”

“That first time I came to see you,” I said. “Was Alix here?”

“No. I sent her to Dijon. She was—very much shaken up. When all this was begun we knew there would be some risk to her, but it had hardly occurred to us that things would happen as they did. We had thought of her being able to report to us, and then dropping out and taking no further part in anything we did to Grognard. There would have been no question of her disappearing from the town—an act which obviously might cause comment. But as you had been dragged in there was no alternative to her going. She could not continue in her flat or at the shoe-shop if you were likely to come round asking questions.”

I said: “How forbearing you've been not to use your
tot-schlager
on me.”

Bénat inclined his head. “ Glad you appreciate it.”

“Several people have been predicting an early funeral.”

Bénat said: “What people?”

“Oh.… John Chapel among others.”

“What does he know of this?”

“Not more than he knew twelve months ago.”

There was a minute's silence.

“Well,” said Bénat casually, losing interest again. “ Now you know the truth. Honour is satisfied. Is there anything more we can do for you?”

“… I can understand your not wasting too many sleepless nights over Pierre.”

“I've wasted none,” said Bénat. “And the conditions?”

While they had been talking I'd been watching them both, trying hard to understand things that went a good lot deeper than the killing of Pierre Grognard.

“Oh, the conditions.… Well, I've a proposal to make.”

They both looked at me.

I said: “ This has all been very friendly—except the last condition. For people of such good taste it strikes rather a wrong note, don't you think? Robs the evening of its—warmth.”

“What do you suggest?”

“That you extend your trust a bit further. What do you do with yourself when Charles is away, Alix?”

“Oh … the usual things.”

“Well, I suggest that—for the sake of last year—you agree to spend three or four days with me, doing the sort of things we did then. Perhaps it would be a bore to you, but it would be a gesture to end on. That done, I'll leave Nice and not bother either of you any more.”

Eventually Bénat said: “Are you a poker player, Giles?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so.”

Alix said: “ I don't think it will help anyone if I agree to meet you.”

“It will help me.”

“Is that important?”

“I think so.”

“He means,” said Bénat, “ that he still hopes to make you love him. Failing that, he will go back to the fogs with a beautiful memory.”

“I don't want to revive anything of those days,” she said. “ I'm trying to forget them.”

“You'll have the rest of your life to do that.”

Bénat yawned. “ Why don't you go to bed with him, Alix? Then he could return home satisfied.”

“No,” I said. “ Profoundly dissatisfied.”

She looked at me queerly through her lashes.

“Grutli,” Bénat said, rubbing the dog's ear, “ we are a patient and an understanding family, but this foreign gentleman requires all our patience and forbearance. We have confessed murder to satisfy him, and thrown in a little illegal trafficking to make a full load. We have bared our hearts and offered our bodies, but he rejects them and asks for our souls. What would you say to that?”

The Great Dane barked gruffly.

“Exactly. We would say that he is asking for the impossible, like the little dog baying at the moon. Or worse, for the moon does exist. The gentleman is out of date; he hasn't read the right books; he is sublimating his sex instinct and giving it a halo. Very disgusting. Perhaps after all the spanner would have been more valuable.”

“All right,” said Alix, who was still looking at me. “ If you want me to meet you I will for a few days. It won't do any good, but I'll do it. I don't dislike you; I've nothing against you now. You don't mind, do you, Charles?”

“Nowadays,” said Charles, his lip drooping again, “ the fashionable word is not soul but Ego. A rose by any other name—at least it has the advantage of depriving the religious-minded of a useful lever. But be careful, Alix, that this ardent Englishman doesn't re-convert you. Also, in turning your mind back to superstition, be sure that he doesn't protestingly seduce you after all. It comes better that way, and one doesn't need a cassock to be expert at the game.”

I said to Alix: “You'll do that?”

“Yes.… If you want me to.”

“Can I see you to-morrow?”

She shrugged slightly, embarrassed. “As you please.”

“I'll keep to the contract. One week.”

“One week. All right.”

“I'll phone you in the morning.”

I glanced at Charles, and he looked down quickly at his glass.

“I suppose you've no objection?”

“Would you take notice of it if I had?”

“No,” I said. “After all, you've had her for a year.”

There was a sudden short silence.

“As you graciously put it,” Bénat said.

I realised as soon as I'd spoken that that was not the remark of a poker-player.

We were back in Cagnes by soon after midnight. The sky was limpid, and the last clouds crouched over the sea. It seemed ages since Maurice had driven up under the shadow of the storm.

The precautions I'd taken looked a bit juvenile: letter deposited with John, a chauffeur asked to wait. Bénat's cool, logical, civilised brain had blown foolish suspicions away. His way of telling his story had put it all on a nice common-sense level. The German occupation, the betrayals, the killing of Pierre, were all “thrown away” as a sort of intellectual amusement. One didn't imagine it as the violent truth.

That was clear enough to reason. Everything was fine.

But one's reason doesn't fill up the whole picture. Instincts get a share. It was pretty evident he was telling the truth about Grognard; no one could doubt that. This was something deeper that was troubling me.