Authors: Edward Marston
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘I would have thought that sheer curiosity would have brought you along. You must have heard us singing the hymns.’
‘No,’ said Mulryne. ‘I was too far away. The truth is, Father, that I was attending a service in the village church.’
They both knew that it was a lie but Slattery did not challenge him. He had stopped to speak to Mulryne during a break when the navvy was wolfing down some bread and cheese and glistening with sweat. He was not pleased to be cornered by the priest.
‘You’re a Dublin man, I hear,’ said Slattery.
‘So I am.’
‘And your father was a navvy before you.’
‘Are you planning to write my life story?’ asked Mulryne. ‘You know more about me than I do myself.’
‘Would you call yourself a Christian?’
‘That I would.’
‘And are you a loyal Catholic?’
‘Since the day I was born, Father.’
‘Then we’ll look forward to the time when you join us for worship on a Sunday. They tell me that you’ve a good voice, Brendan.’
‘I can carry a tune,’ said Mulryne through a mouthful of bread and cheese. ‘I’ve always been musical.’
‘Then maybe you can favour us with a solo some time.’
‘Oh, I don’t think that the songs I know would be altogether suitable for a church service, Father Slattery. They’re Irish ditties to amuse my friends. Nothing more.’
‘We’ll see, we’ll see.’
Slattery gave him a valedictory pat on the arm before moving off. Liam Kilfoyle scrambled down the embankment to speak to Mulryne. He looked after the priest.
‘What did he want, Brendan?’
‘The chance to preach at me next Sunday.’
‘Did you tell him you’re not a church-going man?’
‘But I am, Liam,’ said Mulryne, taking another bite of his lunch. ‘I’m a devout churchgoer. As soon as I see a church, I go – as fast as I bleeding can.’ They laughed. ‘It’s not God I have the argument with, you see. I believe in Him and try to live my life by His rules. No, it’s that army of creeping priests who get between us. They’re in the way. I prefer to talk to God directly. Man to man, as you might say. What about you?’
‘I’m too afraid of what God would say to me, Brendan.’
‘Confess your sins and cleanse your soul.’
Kilfoyle was uneasy. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said. ‘One day.’
‘Make it one day soon.’
‘You’re starting to sound like a bastard priest now!’
‘Sorry, Liam,’ said Mulryne, jovially. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘It’s the other way round. I may be able to do you a turn.’
‘How?’
‘Are you still looking to earn some extra money?’
‘I’m desperate.’
‘And you don’t mind what you have to do to get it?’
‘I draw the line at nothing,’ Mulryne told him. ‘As long as I get paid, I’ll do whatever I’m asked. And there’s another thing you ought to know about me.’
‘What’s that?’
‘When it’s needed, I can keep my big mouth shut.’
‘Good,’ said Kilfoyle. ‘I’ll pass the word on.’
The letter came as a complete surprise. Written in an elegant hand, it was addressed to Colbeck and had been sent to Thomas Brassey’s office. It was passed on to the inspector as a matter of urgency. He did not at first recognise the name of Hortense Rivet. As soon as he read the letter, however, he realised that he had met the woman when he called at Gaston Chabal’s house in Paris. Madame Rivet had been the engineer’s mother-in-law. Since she requested a visit from Colbeck, he did not hesitate. He caught the next available train from Mantes and arrived in Paris with his curiosity whetted. As she was so anxious to see him again, Colbeck hoped that Madame Rivet might have valuable information to pass on to him.
A cab took him to the Marais and he rang the bell once again. On his previous visit to the house, Chabal’s wife had
opened the door with a glow of anticipatory pleasure on her face. This time, he was admitted by an old, black-clad servant with sorrow etched deeply into her face. She conducted him into the drawing room. Madame Chabal was still prostrate with grief in her bedchamber, but her mother came at once when she heard that Colbeck was there. Hortense Rivet was genuinely touched that he had responded so swiftly to her letter. As she spoke little English, they conversed in French.
‘I was not sure that you were still here,’ she began.
‘I still have many enquiries to make in France, Madame.’
‘Do you know the name of the man who killed Gaston?’
‘Not yet,’ he confessed, ‘but we will. I’ll not rest until he’s caught and punished.’
She looked into his eyes for a full minute as if searching for something. Then she indicated a chair and sat opposite him. Hortense Rivet had impressed him at their first meeting. When he had told Chabal’s young wife that her husband had been murdered, she had been quite inconsolable but her mother had shown remarkable self-control, knowing that she had to find the strength to help them both through the harrowing experience. Madame Rivet’s beauty had been somehow enhanced by sadness. Wearing mourning dress, she was a slim and shapely woman in her early forties. The resemblance to her daughter was evident. Colbeck could see exactly what the young widow would look like in twenty years’ time. It made him wonder yet again how Gaston Chabal could have betrayed such a lovely wife.
‘How is your daughter, Madame?’ he asked, solicitously.
‘Catherine is suffering badly. The doctor has given her a potion to help her sleep. When she is awake, she simply weeps. Since we heard the news, Catherine has hardly eaten.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘I wanted to thank you for the way that you broke the tidings to us, Inspector. It was difficult for you, I know, and I was not able to express my gratitude to you at the time. I do so now.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
There was a long pause. She studied his face before speaking.
‘You strike me as an honest man, Inspector Colbeck.’
‘Thank you.’
‘So I will expect an honest answer from you. I would like you to tell me how Gaston was murdered.’
‘I’ve already told you, Madame,’ he reminded her. ‘He was stabbed to death in a railway carriage.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but you did not tell us where the train was going at the time and what my son-in-law was doing on it in the first place. You spared us details that would only have caused us even more pain. I would like to know some of those details now.’
‘The French police were given a full account of the murder.’
‘There are reasons why I do not choose to turn to them, Inspector. The main one is that the crime did not occur in France. They only know what they have been told. You, on the other hand,’ she went on, ‘have been in charge of the investigation from the start. You are aware of every detail. Is that not true?’
‘There are still some things we
don’t
know,’ he warned her.
‘Tell me the things that you do.’ She saw his reluctance. ‘Do not be afraid that you will hurt my feelings, Inspector.
I am not as frail as I may look. I have already buried my husband and seen my only son go to an early grave. They both died of smallpox. I have survived all that and found a new life for myself. What I must do now is to help Catherine through this tragedy.’
‘I’m not sure that you’d be helping her by disclosing the full details of her husband’s death,’ said Colbeck, gently. ‘They are rather gruesome, Madame.’
‘What I am interested in are the circumstances.’
‘Circumstances?’
‘I think you know what I mean, Inspector.’ She got up to close the door then resumed her seat. ‘And whatever you tell me, it will not be passed on to Catherine. That would be too cruel.’
‘Madame Rivet,’ he said, ‘we are still in the middle of this investigation and I can only speculate on what we will discover next. As for what you call the circumstances, I fear that you might find them very distressing. Some things are best left unsaid.’
‘I disagree, Inspector Colbeck. I do not believe you can tell me anything that would surprise me.’ She took a deep breath before going on. ‘When he was working on this new railway, my son-in-law rented a room in Mantes.’
‘I know. I visited the house.’
‘Did it not seem odd to you that he did not live at home and travel to Mantes every day by train? It is not very far. Why did he have to be so close to the railway?’
‘He worked long hours.’
‘That was one of his excuses. There were several others.’
‘I hear a rather cynical note in your voice, Madame.’
‘It’s one that I take care to hide from Catherine,’ she
said, grimly. ‘You may as well know that I did not wish my daughter to marry Gaston Chabal. He was a handsome man with a good future ahead of him, but I did not feel that I could ever trust him. Catherine, of course, would hear none of my warnings. She was young, innocent and very much in love. For the last two years, she thought that she had been happily married.’ She pulled a piece of paper from the sleeve of her dress. ‘This is something you may have seen before, Inspector.’
‘What is it?’
‘One of the letters that were found at the house where Gaston was staying in Mantes. The police returned his effects to us earlier this week. Fortunately,’ she said, unfolding the letter, ‘I was able to see them first. I’ve destroyed the others and will make sure that my daughter does not see this one either.’
Colbeck remembered the
billets-doux
he had seen at the lodging. Out of consideration to her, he had taken it upon himself to tear up the letters from Hannah Marklew but it had never crossed his mind that he should also get rid of the anonymous correspondence from the young Parisian woman. He felt a stab of guilt as he realised the anguish he had inadvertently caused and he was grateful that Chabal’s wife had not been allowed to read the letters from one of her husband’s mistresses. He knew how explicit they had been.
‘Did you see any letters, Inspector?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you must have read them.’
‘I glanced at one or two.’
‘Then you appreciate the sort of person who wrote them.’
‘I think so.’
‘Do you know who Arnaud Poulain is, Inspector?’ she asked.
‘No, Madame.’
‘He is a banker here in Paris, a wealthy and successful man. Gaston convinced him to invest in the railway between Mantes and Caen. My son-in-law was not simply an engineer,’ she went on. ‘If he could persuade anyone to put money into the project, he earned a large commission. Arnaud Poulain was one of the men he talked into it. As a consequence, others followed Monsieur Poulain’s example.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ wondered Colbeck, guessing the answer even as he spoke. ‘Monsieur Poulain has a daughter.’
‘A very beautiful daughter.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Danielle.’
Colbeck thought of the ‘D’ at the end of the letters. It seemed as if Chabal had used his guile to ensnare another woman in order to secure some investment for the railway on which he was engaged.
‘We may be wrong,’ cautioned Madame Rivet. ‘I have no proof that Danielle wrote these letters and I will certainly not confront her with them. The girl will have suffered enough as it is. I doubt very much if Gaston mentioned to her that he was married. In a liaison of that kind, a wife must always be invisible.’
‘The young lady must have read about his death.’
‘The discovery that he was married would have come as a terrible shock to Danielle and, I suspect, to her father. Monsieur Poulain would no doubt have welcomed Gaston into his home. The daughter was used callously as a means
of reaching the father. Now, Inspector,’ she continued, ‘even if Danielle is not the woman who wrote this letter, the fact remains that somebody did and that does not show my son-in-law in a very flattering light.’
‘I should have destroyed those letters when I had the chance.’
‘You had no right to do so.’
‘It would have saved you unnecessary pain.’
‘The letters confirmed what I already knew,’ she said, tearing the paper into tiny pieces before tossing them into a wastepaper basket. ‘So, please, do not hold anything back. What were the exact circumstances of the murder?’
‘M. Chabal was on his way to visit a woman in Liverpool,’ he said. ‘I’m not at liberty to give you her name, but I can tell you that someone close to her was persuaded to invest money in the railway.’
‘At least we know what they talked about in bed.’ She raised both hands in apology, ‘I am sorry, Inspector. That was a very crude remark and I withdraw it. I have been under a lot of strain recently, as you can understand. But,’ she added, sitting up and folding her hands in her lap, ‘I would still like to hear more about what actually happened that day.’
‘Then you shall, Madame Rivet.’
Colbeck was succinct. He gave her a straightforward account of the murder and told her about the clues that had led him to come to France in the first place. What he concealed from her was the series of incidents that had occurred on the new railway that was being built. Hortense Rivet listened with an amalgam of sadness and fortitude.
‘Thank you,’ she said when he had finished.
‘That is all I can tell you.’
‘It was more than I expected to hear.’
‘Then my visit was not wasted.’
‘Catherine is heartbroken now but she will recover in time. She will always nurture fond thoughts of Gaston and I will say nothing to her of the other life that he led. It is over now. He died before his wife could learn the ugly truth about him.’ She let out a long sigh. ‘Who knows? Perhaps it is better that way.’
Colbeck got up. ‘I ought to be going.’
‘It was good of you to come, Inspector.’
‘Your request could not be ignored, Madame.’
‘You will understand now why I wrote to you.’
‘I do indeed.’
‘Have you learned anything from this conversation?’
‘Oh, yes. I feel as if I know your son-in-law a little better now.’
‘Does that help?’
‘In some ways.’
‘Then there is one last thing you should know about him,’ she said, rising from her chair. ‘The last time I saw Gaston was in this very room. He had come home for the weekend. He did something that he had never done before.’