The Art of Murder (6 page)

“
As for the company, day to
day operations will continue, of course. The stock will probably
fall, at least in the short term, but it’s nothing to be alarmed
about. The firm is solvent and Theodore had a kind of approach that
allowed executives to hold considerable power of decision. The
company will go on, we must have no doubts about that.”

“
I see.” Gilles went through
a list of questions in his head, but asked none of them.

“
This is a great shock to us
all.” Babineaux sat straight in his chair, with his hands folded in
his lap.

“
Suicide requires some
compelling reasons.” Gilles struck a chord, he saw it resonate
within Monsieur Babineaux.

“
Yes, absolutely.” He took a
deep breath, pursing his lips together as if trying very hard. “If
so, Theo never shared it with me. Or with anyone, I’ll
bet.”

“
So far, you are right.”
Gilles regarded the man for a moment.

Patient, yet sincere, his emotions were
under control. It’s not that he didn’t look stricken. Of course he
did. It’s not that he hadn’t seen or heard similar things before,
but Gilles was interested in the subconscious attitudes of anyone
connected to Duval. With a little prodding, Gilles hoped to get him
to open up ever so slightly. Babineaux would have little choice but
to provide something tangible under questioning, no matter how
reluctant he might be to discuss business matters or his employer’s
personal life with the police. He seemed practiced in the art of
putting people off of his true emotions. It was a necessary trait,
when playing the game at his level.

If he read him right, Babineaux should
have been screaming inside, to leap out of his chair and go tearing
off to his lair at head office and start the damage control
immediately.

“
I hope that we don’t have
to waste too much of your time, Monsieur Babineaux.”

“
Every company needs
direction, not just in business affairs, but also philosophical.
Theodore was good at that, possibly the best. But it’s more than
that. There will be share-holders and the Board of Directors to
appease, there will be problems getting short-term credit for day
to day operations, including payroll. This will throw everything
into a tizzy, no doubt about it. But I was aware of nothing
bothering Theo, far from it.”

“
And you have no idea of why
he might wish to take his own life? There was nothing else going
on, no big problems, no un-resolvable issues?”

“
None whatsoever, Inspector
Maintenon, in fact suicide would be quite foreign to his nature.
While I know nothing of his personal life, he was a very strong and
quite frankly, a persistent man. I can think of nothing that would
be sufficiently traumatic, to make him give up on life, let alone
commit suicide. If anything, he would only try harder, fight
harder. The man was a force.”

It seemed to be a consensus, and while
not based on any discernable facts, fit with what Gilles knew of
what he always referred to as the archetypes of human nature. Duval
was used to getting his own way. So far, no one had a bad thing to
say about him, and there were no suggestions of problems in his
life.

“
So you came for a business
meeting?” Gilles threw down the pen and leaned back, putting his
hands on the back of his head in a familiar and relaxing pose.
“Tell me about the young lady.”

“
Oh, well, Inspector.” The
implication was that this would not be seemly. “I couldn’t really
comment.”

Gilles knew that much before he asked
the question, but it was always worth a try.

“
How long have they known
each other?”

Babineaux sighed. He would try to
accommodate the police, against his better judgment and more
civilized manners. It was just a whiff of arrogance. He couldn’t
conceal it after all.

“
I think maybe a few months.
Six months, maybe a little longer.”

“
What does Duval Industries
do best? What is the company about?” This was a matter of some
pride, and of public record.

It was easy bait. Gilles waited to see
what came out.

“
The firm specializes in
taking Monsieur Duval’s drawings and prototypes, and bringing them
into production, sometimes by way of licensing agreements,
sometimes in partnership with other firms as well as suppliers and
stock holders—”

Gilles grinned in spite of himself, and
the gentleman coloured, a faint blush in his cheeks. The brightest
blue eyes he had seen in some years gazed back at him with a
surprising familiarity.

“
Yes, but what do you do?
What do you make, exactly?” Gilles was more succinct, more specific
as to the question.

A small touch of humour, even humanity,
might go a long way.

“
Ah! I’m sorry. Of course.
We produce household, er, forgive me, but I always call them
gadgets, for the kitchen. We make sporting goods, tools for work
and home, often with a great improvement in design, or convenience,
or even just weight. All kinds of things for the farm, and just
handy little things made more efficient. We hold numerous patents
in the automotive accessory field, for example.”

“
Weight?”

“
Yes, weight. To make
something lighter is to often make it more useful, I’ve heard
Theodore say that many times.” Those bright blue eyes glowed with
something now. “Theodore loved making things more
efficient.”

Gilles had underestimated him a little.
It was possible for a man like Babineaux to like his work, perhaps
even to love the company. He wasn’t completely cynical, a
misjudgment on the part of Gilles.

“
You know, my job is a lot
like yours.” Gilles settled into the seat, leaning forward to make
notes if necessary, if any little thing came up. “It is about
detail. It is about being meticulous, and not making one single
assumption about anything.”

“
Yes, Inspector, and I agree
with you. If there is anything you want, or anything you need, just
let me know. And all of our staff members will cooperate fully with
the police. I can assure you of that. Theodore was extremely
well-liked by all of his people, myself included.”

Gilles nodded in approval, as he could
think of no other response.

“
So you’re up from Lyons?”
The other man nodded. “What’s down there?”

“
One of our major plants, a
subsidiary. I was there for a week. We’re bringing in a new product
line. I visit the various production centres to assist in training
high-level executives, and of course Theo was always interested in
what was going on. Off the record, the cooking’s not bad here,
either. Our discussions often came over lunch.”

Seemingly uncalculated, it was an
admission of a little humanity of his own.

“
Oh, really.” Gilles thought
for a moment.

Unprompted, Babineaux went
on.

“
The company has acquired
assets, other small firms that might have run into trouble, or
simply been offered for sale. Sometimes the owner wants to move on,
or the firm might be acquired from an estate. Otherwise, we would
probably concentrate all production in one location.”

This was exactly the sort of
relationship he was after.

“
How so?”

“
In other words, if it was
an opportunity, and a good fit for us, we often made an offer. I
was very much involved in those deals.”

“
So, as an accountant, you
would look over their financial situation?”

“
Yes, among other things,
and of course others would be involved as well.”

Now was not the time to ask. First a
little softening up.

“
What other sorts of things
did the company do?

“
Well, Theo was working on a
prototype for a better mousetrap, if you can believe it. It’s not
that the present ones don’t work, but the average housemaid or the
woman of the house doesn’t like the sight of a dead mouse, let
alone the thought of touching one for disposal, and of course they
have to be removed from the trap.”

“
And?”

“
Monsieur Duval had some
drawings which showed real promise. It was a flat-bottomed
half-cylinder, containing what is essentially a similar mechanism.
The thing is loaded with bait, and then when you shove the
mechanism in again, the door locks open, and only closes when the
trap is tripped by an unsuspecting mouse. Or a rat, even. The
person with the duty of disposing of the dead mouse only has to
check and see if the door is closed. There is a little red flag,
stamped out of metal. It pops up when sprung. Then they push a
button on the other end, and the thing pops open, and the mouse
goes right into the dustbin.”

“
Ah, I see. Build a better
mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.”

“
That’s how we all saw it,
Inspector. But Theo was truly a genius at that nuts and bolts
visualization. Honestly, my explanation is murky at best. It
doesn’t cover the half of it, really.”

“
But you had full confidence
that it would work?”

“
Oh, yes. His prototypes
sometimes didn’t work very well, and that’s where his genius for
problem-solving in the mechanical sense came in.”

Gilles duly noted it down.

“
What if Monsieur Duval came
up short? What if he ran dry? How would that affect him?” Gilles
wondered if such a thing would be enough to drive a man to
suicide.

It seemed unlikely, and Babineaux
agreed as Gilles figured he would. Suicides were about love, and
honour, and shame. Suicide was about atonement, or punishment, or
guilt, or sheer loss of hope. Suicide was about ending the
suffering. Gilles wondered when it would dawn on Babineaux that if
it wasn’t suicide, then it had to be something else.

“
Oh, no. Monsieur Duval had
many, many years of ideas ahead of him. The truth is, he would
never come to the end of work that he wanted to do, and there were
never enough hours in the day when he really sank his teeth into
something. I don’t think he ever really abandoned a project,
although he might set it aside when higher priorities
intruded.”

“
Yes, he impresses me the
same way, although I’ve never actually met him.” Gilles regarded
Babineaux from a few feet away, such a small distance but a gulf
which seemed insurmountable sometimes.

If only he could get inside of the
man’s head for a few minutes. He was sure it would be a revelation.
There were too many things that would be hidden, and have to be
hidden, in the eyes of a man like Babineaux. The world of business
could be cut-throat at times, yet it was also a polite world where
there was much that could never be talked about openly. The death
of Duval might have opened up an opportunity for someone else like
him. Even now, it was not the time to ask, or perhaps Babineaux was
not the right one to ask. He’d have to think on it.

“
I wonder if you could just
write down your impressions of the people on this list. It’s
strictly confidential, purely for my own understanding. Just
whatever you are comfortable saying, n’est pas? Also, we would like
to get the fingerprints of everyone closely connected to Monsieur
Duval. As you can imagine, the studio is a mass of unidentified
prints. Have you ever been up there?”

“
Why, certainly, Inspector.
Yes, lots of people have been in that room, all over the house in
fact, when there was a party or something big going on.”

“
Something big?”

“
The launch of a new
product, for example. Theo had parties for all the usual reasons,
of course.”

“
Ah.” Gilles nodded his
understanding.

A knock came at the door.

“
Oh. What was today’s
meeting about?”

“
Pardon,
Inspector?”

“
What did you come for
today?”

“
Oh, ah, we go over the
books once a week or so, Theo and I.”

Gilles rose.

“
Excuse me for a moment,
s’il vous plait?”

***

While Monsieur Babineaux composed his
thoughts and worked on his list, Gilles and Rene conferred in quiet
tones in the hall.

“
The body’s gone, and the
lab boys are pretty much done.” Rene looked very tired. “We have
statements from all the people here, none of whom saw or heard a
damned thing.”

Deep inside, Rene was a frightened man,
and it saddened Gilles to see him that way.

“
Very well, thank you.”
Gilles had no idea of what to say.

“
It’s all right Gilles. We
have no evidence of foul play. If you want to hand this off, that’s
all academic to me right now.” Rene was offering him an
out.

Just at that moment in time, Gilles saw
him as he once was, a much younger Detective Inspector Lavoie, tall
and proud, rather than a suddenly-old friend, collapsing into
himself like any street-corner derelict. As likely as not, Rene
would not come back. He was old enough to retire on half-pay, and
his recovery if he survived the next year, would be long and
tedious. Belatedly Gilles recalled Rene was only five or six years
older than him. He brushed aside the thought, for he always saw
that sort of thing as a kind of weakness, pure
narcissism.