The Art of Murder (3 page)

“
After you, gentlemen.”
Gilles nodded thanks.

Giroux was used to faint praise, and
immediately set to work examining the frame, the latch, the striker
plate, and the inner portion of the mechanism. Clearly Giroux loved
his work. Gilles wondered why the key wasn’t in the lock. Men
especially, kept them on a chain attached to their belt. Surely the
housekeeper must have a key.

A man’s is defined by his actions, and
in some ways they were a lot alike. In his own case, he would have
shown up on the job the day after someone sawed a leg off. The word
on Giroux was that he had never missed a day’s work in seventeen
years, except of course for his stint in the Army.

Gilles wondered if Giroux suffered
nightmares.

Chapter Two

A grisly scene

Rene held up a hand, and the more eager
of the specialists, notably the fingerprint fellow, froze in the
doorway.

It was a grisly scene. There was a
suicide note.

‘
I love you…’ The next two
words were illegible.

“
Damn it.”

Gilles tried to avoid the major blood
spatters. The note was incomplete. There was a large-calibre pistol
on the floor in front of the decedent. There were enough blood
spatters to satisfy anybody. His legs were sprawled out in front of
him, and his arms hung limp.

“
I’m sorry…” The words on
the paper had been written in haste, or a state of extreme
agitation.

The pen was right there.

“
Stuck it in his moth and
pulled the trigger.” This from the fingerprint man, whom Gilles
thought was Boulanger.

They ignored him.

“
If he stuck it in his
mouth, it sort of rules out an accident.” Giroux’s dry humour was
not without merit.

“
Well, well, well.” Rene
raised an eyebrow at Gilles. “What do you think?”

“
It certainly looks like a
suicide.”

“
That’s just what I was
thinking.” Rene waited.

There was a long silence, as Gilles
took in the drawing tables, shelves with heaps of rolled-up
drawings, strong overhead lights, a small couch and coffee table
over in front of the windows. He strolled around the far parts of
what was a fairly large room, keeping out of the way of the others
while they worked at documenting the scene.

“
Interesting.”

“
What is it, Gilles?” Rene
came over and had a look.

“
It’s a book on
hypnotism.”

Gilles looked around with a speculative
look.

“
Monsieur Duval was a very
wealthy man.” Rene nodded in agreement.

“
He was famous. What are you
thinking, Gilles?”

“
We had better cover our
asses on this one, no matter what.” Gilles stood looking down at
the book on the coffee table. “This was a room for work. What is
this book doing here?”

Rene turned and beckoned at the
doorway.

“
All right gentlemen, we are
treating this as a crime scene until further notice.”

The silent and invisible cheer that
went through the room was almost palpable. It had been a slow week,
and this looked like a deviation from the norm, if nothing
more.

“
Take the pockets.” Another
fellow, Le Bref, started going through them one by one, after a few
quick snapshots by the photo technician.

“
Here are the keys.” Le Bref
jingled them, and there were one or two dark skeleton-type keys on
there.

“
What are you thinking,
Gilles?’

“
Two things, first, if there
was only one key, he might very well keep it on him. But, why
didn’t he finish the note? And why lock the door at all? It was his
house.”

“
A little unusual. Was he
hurried for some reason? Ten pages would have been more like it.”
Rene looked around the room. “Huh.”

“
Interesting.”

Henri poked his head in the
door.

“
Inspector?”

“
Oui?”

“
There’s coffee and cake in
the salon, if you’d like to meet the rest of the
family.”

His eyes met Rene’s.

“
You want me to take
this?”

“
Yes, I’ll be down in a few
minutes. Gilles…I go in for my operation tomorrow.”

Maintenon’s jaw almost dropped, sending
him a sharp jab of pain, but he quickly recovered. Of course! Rene
had lung cancer. People told him things and sometimes it was like
it went in one ear and out the other. It was like a trap door
opening up underneath him sometimes, for Rene was an old friend.
His own misery was blinding him to the sufferings of
others.

Slapping him on the arm, Gilles turned
and marched off to find the elevator, although he was sure there
must be a proper set of stairs somewhere in the building. What must
Rene be feeling right now?

“
Second floor, at the
front.” Gilles was tempted to follow Henri and use the stairs, but
to be afraid of the dentist, something he had been moaning about
for weeks, and then to refuse to use the elevator might be to lose
the respect of the men, and that was simply unnecessary. It was
just a stuffy little elevator, and not that bad, really.

It sure beat lung cancer.

***

When Gilles entered the second floor
salon, the gentlemen rose as if to shake hands, while the women
remained seated.

An athletic young man of stocky build
and with shoulders as big as Andre Levain’s began the
introductions.

“
This is Hermione Fontaine,
our housekeeper.” The lady nodded politely and Gilles nodded in
return.

“
First of all, who are you,
sir? And who discovered the body?” At that moment, Henri arrived,
and behind him came another servant pushing a cart laden with
coffee and cups, and something under a polished silver
dome.

That would be the cake,
then.

“
I am Alexis Ferrauld,
Monsieur Duval’s bodyguard. I found the door locked, and when I
looked in through the keyhole…well, you know.”

“
Do you live on the
premises?”

“
Yes.” Alexis went on.
“Third floor. It’s the back bedroom, the hallway on the
right.”

Nodding, Gilles pulled his notebook and
pen out of a side jacket pocket as Henri hastened to do the same.
Gilles wrote the names down as Alexis continued with his story. It
was one of those houses that required a floor plan in the case
notes. Henri had an air of repressed triumph about him, but perhaps
Gilles was mistaken.

“
I knocked a couple of
times, as it was most unusual for Monsieur Duval not to be
available first thing in the morning. He considered it his most
productive time of the day.”

“
Ah.” Gilles scribbled and
waited.

They would tell their story in their
own way, and it was sometimes best to just let it flow
naturally.

“
I called for Madame
Fontaine. Emilie, the housemaid came as well. After seeing for
themselves, we were going to break the door down, but Frederic, he
is our driver, insisted upon calling the police.” He gave a nod to
an older man, very grave and looking like he was recovering from a
bout of crying. “He was right, of course.”

“
Yes, very commendable. The
normal reaction is to break the door down. You did the right thing.
Who is Monsieur Duval’s next of kin? Are they in town
here?”

Alexis clammed up, shrugged helplessly,
and looked to Hermione for support.

She was angry, it was at the forefront
of her grief.

“
He had a brother. His
sister lives in Martinique.”

“
Had?” Gilles waited, pen
poised over the pale blue lines ruled upon the notebook page.
“We’ll need to speak to Emilie as well.”

“
That’s me, sir.” The
housemaid bobbed her head and retreated to the far corner of the
room, where she stood in a formal pose of attention, chin up, very
straight and with hands comfortably clasped at her
waist.

Her eyes looked off into some vast and
empty space known only to the servile classes.

“
Monsieur Alain lives in
town, yes, sir. I will get you the address.” Her lips were tight,
and she was struggling with the emotions.

Alexis shrugged, giving Gilles an
expressive look, as if to imply that he could go no further at the
moment. It was a complex set of relationships, nothing new here. He
could almost fill in the blanks. Duval was a self-made man. His
brother wasn’t, so much, and Alexis had some professional
discretion.

“
We will need a proper
identification.” This was from Henri, who had a habit of sticking
an oar in, unwelcome as it was sometimes, although it was useful at
others.

Henri was available, and Andre would
turn up when he could. Gilles let it drop momentarily.

“
And you, sir?” The other
gentlemen extended a hand.

“
I am Jules Charpentier,
plant manager for all domestic operations.” Gilles gave it a brief
shake, noting it was a professional handshake with little pressure.
“I arrived shortly after nine.”

It was pro forma, and while a bit damp,
the man did not try to crush his hand in an effort to impress. He
knew better. To gain an impression, Gilles smiled faintly and
extended his hand to Alexis, whose hand was dry and hard, and very
strong. This man could break bones if he squeezed, Gilles
understood that instantly, but the man was aware of his strength
and surprisingly gentle.

Frederic, who had subsided into his
seat again, rose with alacrity and came up to shake with Gilles. He
squeezed Gilles’ hand, pumping it up and down quickly and for
slightly too long.

“
Pleased to meet you.” It
was an Americanism, and an unfortunate attempt at pleasantry.
“Frederic Maillot. I have been Monsieur Duval’s…I was his chauffeur
for nine years.”

He clammed up suddenly, eyes moist with
tears, and wordlessly returned to his seat, where he sat looking
out the window, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings. Stiff as a
board, his shoulders suddenly slumped and he allowed himself some
visible emotions.

“
I can identify…the body for
you.” It was the other woman in the room, a tall, willowy blonde
girl who looked vaguely familiar.

She burst into tears and covered her
face with her hands. Madame Fontaine clamped her lips shut in
disapproval and looked away in a decisive gesture.

“
And she is…?” Gilles asked
Alexis in a quiet tone.

“
A very good friend of
Monsieur Duval’s.” Alexis’ eyes bored into Gilles’ in some unspoken
message of importance. “This is Yvonne.”

The housekeeper spoke up.

“
She is Yvonne Verene. She
is a nightclub singer.” There were certain implications in her
statement, polite disapproval being foremost among them.

It didn’t ring too many bells, but
Gilles might have heard the name, or read it in the paper or
something.

“
Thank you.” Gilles and
Henri scribbled, the sound of quiet sniffles in the background
adding urgency to their efforts.

“
That’s quite all right,
Mademoiselle Verene. It is best in these cases to have the most
immediate next of kin do the identification.”

“
Is it…bad?” It was the
housekeeper.

She shuddered at the memory of what she
had seen.

“
Bad enough.” Gilles
understood the nature of grief, and would make it as easy as
possible for the survivors.

His eyes flicked up and met
hers.

“
It is pretty much as you
would imagine it.”

In the back of his mind he was
wondering why he had been called in at all, but there was no such
thing as the routine suicide of a very rich man, and they must fill
in the blanks as best they could and leave no question unasked, or
unanswered.

***

Henri was handy in his own way, and
produced paper enough for them to write statements of what they had
seen and done.

“
Did anyone hear the shot?”
Gilles asked the most obvious question first, knowing the answer
before they spoke.

“
No.” Alexis had appointed
himself the unofficial spokesman for the group. “It’s a big house,
solidly built, and as you have seen, Monsieur Duval’s studio was on
the third floor.”

Gilles nodded.

“
Unless someone was in the
room above or below, or in the immediate vicinity, that is
certainly possible.” He didn’t necessarily buy it, but this was not
the time. “Did Monsieur Duval own the weapon?”

Andre nodded.

“
Yes, and there are several
more in the games room.” Alexis hesitated. “It’s a very masculine
room.”

“
Ah.” There were certain
things implied here, perhaps only that Duval had taken an interest
in the one room and let a designer do the rest.