The Art of Murder (5 page)

“
And how did you get in to
clean the studio?” He’d been saving that one up, but she had a
ready answer.

“
I, or I should say Emilie,
cleaned only during the day, when he was there to let her
in.”

All of this was interesting enough in
its own way. During the course of the interview, he made copious
notes and began to build a picture of the daily patterns of life in
the household.

According to Madame Fontaine, Alexis
was a wonderful man, very strong, very brave, and a good bodyguard.
While she wasn’t very competent to judge such things, that was his
impression as well. The driver, Frederic, was a dull person, fond
of his wife but not overly faithful by inclination, complained
about everything, liked to take a drink, and was basically an
honest fool by his own lights. He was perfectly content with an
easy job, three square meals a day and spending pretty much every
night at home with his family. While the Verene woman was certainly
pretty and she could see why Monsieur Duval found her attractive,
she was suspicious, subject to nameless fears for the well-being of
her employer, whom she had always treated with the utmost in
professional deference. This was not hard to believe. As for Jules
Charpentier, she didn’t know much about him, but he was
scrupulously polite and easy to provide for on his short visits,
and she had the impression he did not abuse his power with the
employees, of whom there were several hundred. He lived in town in
quite a nice neighbourhood. Presumably he had shown up on business
affairs, which he did routinely, but she did not keep track of
Monsieur’s appointments. That was between Monsieur Duval and
Alexis, who apparently could type and took dictation on the rare
occasions when that was necessary. She had picked up most of this
by a process of osmosis that he was not unfamiliar with.

Madame Fontaine had four children of
her own, a son and three daughters. They were all grown up and had
moved out, successful enough people in their own way, as well as
seven grandchildren. A widow, she lived with her cat in a small
flat at the back of the house on the third floor. At one time, the
fourth floor had been rooms for servants, but Duval lived alone and
they didn’t need a lot of people to look after the
place.

“
Would children have been a
problem for your employer? I mean, if they were running around the
house?”

“
No. We would have taken a
flat elsewhere, but the question never came up.”

A knock came at the door. Henri popped
his head in.

“
A gentleman has arrived
from Lyons.” Madame Fontaine’s hand flew up to her mouth in a look
of consternation. “And Andre will be along shortly, he just rang
up.”

“
Thank you, Henri. Well, I
guess that will be all for now, Madame.”

Chapter Three

No known enemies

The housemaid had only been employed
for a short time, and to her knowledge Monsieur Duval had no known
enemies, and there had been no recent tension in the household. She
was of the opinion that he was a wonderful man, a very good
employer, and seemed to be happy with life most of the time. There
were the occasional irritants in everyone’s life, of which she
could not give an example right off the top of her head. He did not
press her on it, as he had no wish for her to begin making things
up.

She had her impressions of the
household but her state of mild shock and a kind of dread of
unemployment overcame her. She had never met Alain. Yvonne was a
regular in the household, of indeterminate status to Emilie, for
the maid insisted Gilles call her that. She knew her own status in
this place well enough. Only ladies and gentlemen were entitled to
a surname. She waited on Yvonne but didn’t report to her or take
her orders. She got her instructions from Madame Fontaine and
Monsieur Duval, in that order. She knew nothing of Jules
Charpentier and not much about Frederic who had flirted with her at
first until she made it clear this made her uncomfortable. They had
remained distant.

She worked during the day unless other
arrangements had been made, in which case she needed some notice as
she had an infant and a mother-in-law, who looked after her
daughter during working hours. Her mother-in-law had her own life
to live and her own responsibilities. Emilie’s husband was employed
at a dairy, also during daylight hours. They were presently
estranged, due to his alcoholism, but she had some hopes of
eventual reconciliation. She was from a village thirty kilometres
east of the city and had moved here years ago.

After asking her to write down her
daily routine, and account in writing as best she could for her
movements in the preceding forty-eight hours, he reassured her that
she was not a suspect and was startled at the look of sheer terror
this inspired in her pallid and rounded features. It was wise to
remember that class expectations played a role in his relationship
with people at a crime scene, and he spent an inordinate amount of
time trying to make her understand that this was all dull, drab
routine.

In the end, he didn’t think she
entirely bought it, but he did his best.

Gilles took down the details of her
home address. She lived with an elderly aunt and uncle in a small
flat about six kilometres away across the city. A plain girl with a
distinct black hairiness to her forearms and side-burn areas, he
had little reason to suspect any romantic attachments on the part
of Theo Duval, and she was such an innocent kind of person he
didn’t inquire further. It would only embarrass her and interfere
with future conversations.

His interview with the driver wasn’t
very enlightening and had about the same result. In spite of their
stated reverence for their employer, perhaps even some personal
liking on his part, Frederic was terrified when he realized there
might not be much need for his services any longer.

Although he insisted that he drove
Madame Fontaine and Alexis everywhere on their household errands,
and that there was some small possibility that Alain might employ
him if he took over the house, his heart wasn’t in it and his
attention seemed elsewhere. Gilles gravely noted that he ate lunch
in the kitchen and took his breaks there as well. His movements
could be accounted for at least, for his daily routine was a thing
of comfort and guidance to one such as Frederic. He had a wife and
two daughters, and lived in a small flat on an upper floor about
ten blocks away. Gilles knew the neighbourhood, nodding at this bit
of information.

It was almost a relief to get rid of
the man, and yet such a familiar type to Gilles.

Jules Charpentier had managed the local
plant for six and a half years, and was assistant manager before
that. He had started with the company at about the age of
twenty-five, and was in his early forties. Like the new arrival
Babineaux, whom Gilles had briefly met, and who was now awaiting
his own questioning, he was balding. In his case, it was simply
buzzed short and ignored. This was also a kind of vanity, realized
Gilles, the vanity of one who wants the world to know that he
simply doesn’t care. It was all business. It was a genteel
stoicism, rather than a ruthless repression of emotion.

He seemed to know a lot about the inner
workings of the corporate side of things. The local plant was the
largest one they had, and he was naturally consulted on many
aspects of policy-making, especially additions to the product line,
some portion or component of which might be built or assembled in
his plant.

“
Monsieur Babineaux should
have been a vice-president at the very least. We’ve been sort of
expecting it any day now.” Jules had plenty of observations on the
business, not too many on Theo, and virtually none regarding the
household staff other than Alexis.

“
A good man.” That was his
impression of the bodyguard. “And Theodore was lucky to have him. A
lot of these fellows can’t type or spell. But he was in some ways a
professional friend, the sort of person that a man like Theo can
never really have. Theo enjoyed having him around.”

“
What do you mean?” Gilles
had found that himself over the course of time.

Police work did that to you.

“
Think about it. Who were
his peers? In some ways the inventive all know each other, but they
are also very competitive. Some of them are a little bit unbalanced
and some are real back-biters, and emotions can run very high. We
have been sued for patent infringement, for example, although it
was later dropped. It was a proper nuisance at the time, as you can
well imagine. As a matter of fact, Theo was furious.”

“
Do you think there’s a
grudge there, with the other party?” Even as he asked, it didn’t
seem too likely as a motive for murder.

The proper
marchand,
businessman,
moved on to greener pastures.

“
Oh, probably.” Charpentier
took it with a grain of salt. “It was a nuisance lawsuit, without
much merit, and Theo bought him off, essentially. What is there for
them to be angry about? We’re the ones who ought to be angry, and
the fellow is still alive and kicking somewhere about
town.”

“
So tell me about
Babineaux.” Gilles made a face. “He seems like a very high-powered
personality, and yet like a well-polished sword, he remains
sheathed.”

“
He’s a prodigy. He’ll be
running the whole place someday.” The statement was a recital of
fact, nothing more than the truth as Charpentier saw it. “He’s
brought in efficiencies and found all sorts of economies. He has
generated fresh sources of investment capital for the firm. It grew
out of cash holdings held at high interest, in savings. To Theo,
this was so much better than borrowing at even the most favourable
rate.”

Gilles saved the prodigy Babineaux for
last. Finally the man sat before him as he took a moment to compose
his thoughts. He had many questions, some of which could and should
wait.

“
Your arrival has thrown
Madame Fontaine into consternation.”

Eduard Babineaux was in his early
fifties, with a pugnacious, bulbous nose, a heavily-dimpled chin,
and fleshy round ears. His hairline went up and over the back of
his head. The strands of black hair combed sideways across his
baldness did little to hide the glare of the small light fixture
above. He had combed his hair that way since day one and would
never change. It said everything and exactly nothing about him.
With a face like that, the man might have appeared the fool, if not
for the subdued yet expensive and very conservative business suit.
It was the sort of brown suit that looked equally good at a
business luncheon, a wedding, or a funeral. He could have made a
speech in that suit, and yet the man apparently had spent a
lifetime eradicating all outstanding traces of personality. This
man would take everything, not just seriously, but literally, and
himself most of all. The man projected confidence, as upset as he
was. He was in total control of his demeanor.

He was an accountant, financial
comptroller for the firm’s worldwide ‘obligations,’ a manner of
speaking Maintenon had never heard before. Without the suit, he
would have felt naked.

“
I was expected, of course,
but she has obviously forgotten all about it. Naturally I
understand. This is a terrible tragedy.”

Gilles nodded absently as he put the
man’s name, title and home address down into his notebook in good
form. Bad notes meant bad errors when typing it up, and both
prosecutors and attorneys for the accused read them very
thoroughly. They looked for problems from both sides of the
fence.

“
And where is your
office?”

“
I have a suite and several
assistants. Head office is only two kilometres away from this very
spot. There are accounts offices in every plant. We have a major
production facility on the outskirts of town.” The gentleman
provided details which Gilles duly noted. “That’s where Jules has
an office as well.”

It was out on the east side, a conflux
of industry, rail and canals, close to a large working population,
and easier to supply with their own specialized raw materials than
some of the establishments that smudged the southern horizon, right
in the heart of the city, with their stink and their
smoke.

“
It has been a very great
shock to her, and quite often there is a kind of affection among
members of a household.”

“
Hmn.” This man was a
professional at communicating—or not.

“
This is a terrible
thing.”

“
Yes, Inspector. While I am
not a demonstrative man, Theodore will be sorely missed, and of
course this will cause quite a crisis within the firm.”

“
What do you mean?” Gilles
listened intently to the tone as much as the words. “Incidentally,
are you married, and do you have children?”

The gentleman provided details of his
family, including a wife, and two sons, one of whom had taken vows
at a Benedictine abbey, and one who was employed at an accounting
firm across town. Maintenon played the bait-and-switch, asking an
innocuous question and then alternating with a tougher one, just to
see how the subjects responded.