After working hard for a time, he allowed himself a cigarette, and offered one to me. I refused. Was I a detainee, or merely a witness? How would he react if I got to my feet and declared I was going back to my hotel? I decided to try my luck, and asked the whereabouts of the toilets.
“In the corridor, sir. The door at the end.”
He went back to hammering at his Underwood. I left the room, unaccountably thrilled by this semblance of freedom. But as I emerged into the corridor, an alarm rang and an officer appeared. He sat himself on the leather banquette without looking at me. There were thick bars on the toilet window. When I returned to the secretary’s office I was surprised to hear my own voice.
“Listen here, Inspector, it seems to me that Mrs Faulks is a scheming bitch and Mrs Morton is a mad old woman…”
The officer looked up distractedly. I was of no interest to him. A moment later, I was visited by a preoccupied-looking man in a white coat. He held a lidless cardboard box in one hand and a metal spatula in the other.
“Allow me, sir?”
He knelt down in front of me and lifted one of my feet. Then he placed the empty box under the sole of my shoe and scraped the latter with his spatula. The mud plastering my shoes was drying now, and fell easily into the cardboard box with a noise like a sudden rain shower. The man in the white coat might have been fitting me for a pair of brogues.
“Thank you, sir.”
More time passed, and I was about to ask for some food, but found I had no desire to eat a meal in this police station. To do so would be an abdication of hope.
And so I fell asleep, leaning back in my chair with my head resting against the partition wall.
The young officer was still typing. And my voice came in snatches from the tape recorder, a strange voice, tinged with the accents of fear. I barely recognized it as my own.
“Mr Valaise, if you please!”
I started. My elbow had slipped and I almost fell out of my chair. Brett was standing in front of me. No doubt he had just eaten lunch; his face was quite flushed.
“Come into my office, would you?”
Why did I feel the need to ask the time? It seemed the most important thing in the world to me.
“It’s two o’clock in the afternoon, sir.”
He must have taken my question as some sort of reproach, because he added:
“Forgive me for keeping you waiting so long. There were a few essential checks to carry out, as I’m sure you understand?”
“What checks?”
“That’s what we’re going to talk about now. Do you need anything?”
“Yes, a glass of water.”
My short sleep had left me feeling dreadfully hung-over.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a glass of beer?”
What was I to make of all this solicitous attention? Was my case resolved?
“I’d prefer water, Inspector.”
His office contained a cupboard, divided into two sections. The first was fitted with a coat rail, the second contained a small sink. He took a glass from a narrow shelf and rinsed it carefully before handing it to me, filled to the brim. The water tasted faintly of chlorine, like all city water. Brett brandished Marjorie’s letter as I drank.
“I requested a graphologist’s report on this letter, Mr Valaise. I’m sorry to have to tell you that it was not written by Mrs Faulks.”
I stared at him, trying to ascertain if this was a trap. Then I drained my glass of water. This new mystery was completely beyond me.
“What do you say to that?”
I needed to think. Every mystery is an illusion, like luck. Apply reason, and you’ll find a way through.
“How did you acquire a specimen of her handwriting?”
“Dear Lord, by the simplest means possible: by asking her to write a few lines on a piece of paper!”
The paper in question was in his folder. Obligingly, he held it out to me, with the letter.
“See here. I even asked her to write the same text. The translator claims that the message written by Mrs Faulks under our noses is full of mistakes. She writes your language very, very badly. As for the characters, you can see they have nothing in common with those in the first letter.”
“She’s disguised her handwriting!”
“No, Monsieur.”
He spoke the French word in so appalling an accent I found it hard to suppress a smile.
“The expert is quite positive: the two letters were not written by the same person, and the first was definitely written by a man!”
He took back the two documents and placed them in his folder. Brett’s attitude had changed. No longer the cautious, neutral officer of that morning, he was a determined man now, certain of his facts.
“There is still no sign of Nevil Faulks, Mr Valaise.”
“What can I do about that?”
“The analysis of the mud on your shoes shows that it’s the same as that clinging to the shovel you say you… found. And so, where did you… find it exactly?”
I gave no reply.
“In an ironmonger’s shop on Charlotte Street, am I right?”
He rose and lifted an umbrella from the coat stand. It was the one lent me by the maid at the Fort William Hotel.
“We found traces of dried blood on the underside of the silk,” Brett continued. The laboratory will carry out a more complete analysis, but our chemists are already convinced that it’s human.”
He laid the umbrella across his desktop, its steel tip pointing straight at me.
“Would you show me your hands, Mr Valaise?”
Miserably, I held them out in front of me. At nursery school, a large, severe teacher would inspect our hands every morning. I held mine out now with the same frightened gesture, one I hadn’t performed for at least twenty-five years! And Brett did exactly what the schoolmistress had done before: turned my hands over with a slight twist of the wrist.
“You’ve no scratches, sir. How did blood come to be on this item? It’s fresh blood, yet the umbrella spent several months in a cupboard before it was lent to you.” I couldn’t help but admire his technique. He was working his way through the investigation like a labourer scything a hay field. Obstructions fell at his approach, and the truth was laid bare, as clean-cut as the lawns in Princes Street Gardens.
“You have very fine hands, Mr Valaise. Are they the hands of a murderer?”
I let them fall at my sides, exhausted and overwhelmed.
“Yes,” I sighed, “they are.”
20
I was sitting in the chair facing Brett. The tape recorder emitted its quiet electric buzz. The sound terrified me whenever I paused in my confession, forcing me to continue. I began at the beginning, the moment when, while lunching in a restaurant in Juan-les-Pins, I spotted a woman sitting in my car. I told him about the meeting at the casino, the beach bag she came to fetch from my hotel. I told him about the frenzied state in which I had written my letter. I talked about Denise, and our few carefree days together.
“I don’t know the Côte d’Azur at all,” said Brett, with a melancholy air.
I was touched by his words. But he quickly recovered his gruff concentration. I think he too was a little frightened of the tape recorder. He let slip nothing but the occasional, thoroughly professional, phrase. When I came to Marjorie’s letter, quite without thinking, I seized the inspector’s arm. He had to believe me.
“She wrote it, Inspector. I swear it was her! Your expert’s made a mistake, or perhaps… No, wait, I see it now – she was frightened of her jealous husband. What if she had the letter copied out by a friend, as a precautionary measure?”
Brett made no reply. He stroked his close-shaven, pink cheeks, offset now, after lunch, by a network of delicate purple veins.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Go on, Mr Valaise.”
I went on: the telegram, my arrival in Edinburgh, my stupefaction at finding no one at the Learmonth, my searches, Mrs Morton’
s bed and breakfast, my wait at the street corner, and…
“Dear God, Inspector! I will prove to you that Marjorie felt exactly as I did!”
I began a vigorous search of my pockets, and found what I was looking for: a small, balled-up piece of paper. I smoothed it out between my thumb and forefinger while translating the text for Brett.
Dear Jean-Marie,
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thank you for being here. Alas, I’m with my husband. I’ll explain. Be in Princes Street Gardens near the bandstand this evening at 5.
Je vous aime.
“Your Ma Jolie”.
“She dropped this note in front of me when she walked by, on her husband’s arm.”
Brett took the letter and opened the folder containing the handwriting specimens.
“This was not written by Mrs Faulks,” he said.
I felt my insides heave, as if with an irresistible urge to vomit. There was clearly some confusion over the graphologists’ reports. Try as I might, turning the problem every which way, I could see no other explanation.
Still perfectly calm, perfectly precise, Brett said quietly,
“Go on, Mr Valaise.”
*
When my confession was complete, the inspector stopped the tape recorder.
“Thank you. You are now under arrest!”
Guards came to fetch me. They escorted me down endless corridors. A veritable labyrinth, from which I was sure the execution chamber was the only way out.
I was locked into a space that looked nothing like a cell, or nothing like my idea of a cell, at least. It was a proper bedroom, plain and simple, with a white wooden bedstead, washbasin and commode. True, the window was barred, but the panes weren’t frosted. It looked out onto a narrow, sloping street at the bottom of which there rose an immense, black building. People were going quietly about their business. I could see a bric-a-brac shop window, in the centre of which was a huge, red-bellied set of bagpipes. From a distance, the instrument looked like a new-born calf on spindly legs. A guard served me a meal on a tray: poached haddock and a slice of veal with undercooked potatoes. As a gesture to this Frenchman, no doubt, someone had added a basket full of bread rolls. Everything had the sad taste of fried food gone cold, the authentic flavour of Scottish cuisine. I ate little. Besides, I wasn’t hungry. When I had finished I banged on the door. The sight of the leftover food made me feel sick. But no one came. And so I stretched out on the bed to think. Closing my eyes, I felt I was still in Juan-les-Pins.
I would have given what little clearly remained of my life to experience the heady smells and sounds of the Côte one more time…
They came to fetch the tray. There were two of them. Were they suddenly afraid I might try to escape? The idea would certainly never have crossed my mind. The prospect of wandering the hostile streets of Edinburgh terrified me more than prison. Here, at least, there was nothing left to decide. I would let events unfold, hands laced behind my head. It was up to others to act now. Up to others to make sense of it all. I was letting go. I had committed an act of madness, and I was preparing to pay the price. The secret of life, the one great secret, is acceptance. A man who accepts his fate is a happy man indeed! The two guards left, but just as they were closing the door, a third came to escort me to Brett’s office.
The inspector was smoking a black pipe. He looked up as I was shown in, and quickly placed it in an ashtray, as if ashamed to be found smoking in front of the accused.
He was looking at me strangely.
“Have you found the body?” I asked, taking my seat.
I was beginning to feel at home in the office. I was familiar with the chair’s straight back and slanting armrests. I savoured the aroma of light tobacco. Quietly, the pipe fizzled out.
“One moment, please.”
Brett fixed a new reel into the tape recorder. The motor began its feeble hum, thrumming ad nauseam.
“We have exhumed Nevil Faulks, indeed.” He hesitated to continue; doubtless he had a delicate question to ask, and was wondering how best to broach it.
“Mr Valaise…”
I appreciated his courtesy. In France, no policeman would address a murderer as “Monsieur”.
“Mr Valaise, there is something not right about your confession. You claim to have killed Nevil Faulks shortly after five o’clock in the afternoon, do you not?”
“And I’ll reaffirm it now, it’s the truth!”
“No!”
“I swear—”
“You’ll swear to nothing!”
He looked angry now. His admirable patience had deserted him.
“Faulks was killed between 11 p.m. and midnight. The forensic examiner is positive!”
“Dear God,” I stammered, “he lay dying for six hours! And we thought he was dead.”
“He was killed outright – the bullet went straight through his brain. You claim legitimate self-defence and seek to implicate Mrs Faulks in the crime, but it won’t work, Mr Valaise. Because you’ll be forced to alter the stated time of the murder to support your theory. Unfortunately for you, Nevil Faulks dined with his wife in a restaurant on Aberdeen Street at 7 p.m. After that, he went back to Mrs Morton’s, still in the company of his wife. At around 10 p.m. he received a telephone call from you. Mrs Morton took the call and put you through to the Faulkses’ room. She’s quite certain of that: the caller had a French accent! A little later, Nevil Faulks called to tell you he was on his way to your agreed meeting, and he left.”
I was suddenly alone, in a fourth dimension. Brett was convinced he was walking on solid ground, but I knew he was treading on smoke. And opium smoke at that! I knew the truth all right; but as the result of I knew not what skulduggery, it no longer looked like the truth.
Everyone was lying to save Marjorie.
“It’s impossible, Inspector. Impossible! I killed him at 5 p.m.!”
His anger gave way to pity.
“You’re denying a bundle of evidence. Your technique might persuade a French jury, Mr Valaise, but it’s not the sort of thing to dent the quiet assurance of their Scottish counterparts, believe me!”
I clasped my hands until my knuckles were purple. I could see why people banged their heads against walls. I felt a burning desire to break my head open and roll on the floor.
“Inspector, either I’m stark, staring mad, or Marjorie Faulks has several accomplices, keeping her out of all this.”
Brett turned white, and his network of tiny veins faded to blue.
“I don’t believe you’re mad, Mr Valaise. But I believe it would suit you to pass yourself off as such. Between 5 and 6 p.m., Nevil Faulks was in a meeting with three highly respectable gentlemen in the offices of a large building firm. At the restaurant in Aberdeen Street, before dinner, he enjoyed a cocktail at the bar with his wife. The barman, the head waiter and a waitress all formally identified the body, half an hour ago! Mrs Morton too! Are you seriously suggesting that these people are all lying to save Mrs Faulks?”
I felt I was running blindfold towards the parapet of a high roof. Perhaps I was mad? Madness is a form of delusion, after all.
The inspector recovered his composure. Nervously, he picked up his pipe, sucked at it once or twice then put it back down on his desk after hesitating to relight it.
“Last night, a police officer spoke to you on the corner of Princes Street and Frederick Street. You claimed to be waiting for a friend.”
“I was waiting for Mrs Faulks.”
He laughed out loud. A short, angry, insulting laugh, like a snap from a bad-tempered dog.
“And when she didn’t come, you simply went around to her lodgings! A rather illogical thing to do, wouldn’t you say?”
A pause. The tape turned in the emptiness. I pictured the secretary in the neighbouring office. He would get a decent moment’s respite. He might wonder whether the interview was over.
“Your crime was premeditated, Mr Valaise.”
“No!”
&nb
sp; “Oh, but it was. The revolver that killed Faulks was French.”
Another low blow, leaving me thoroughly winded.
“Well?” Brett insisted.
“Do you know what, Mr Brett? At times like this, a man ought to be able to wake himself up!”
“Is that all you can say?”
“That’s all, Inspector. I killed Nevil Faulks; but I killed him at five in the afternoon, in the presence of his wife, in order to save her from him.”
He heaved a sigh.
“So that half a dozen people who saw him and spoke to him at that precise moment, and subsequently, are the victims of a collective hallucination?”
“They may be mistaken.”
“A doppelganger, then. Or, who knows, an identical twin brother? Come on now, Mr Valaise, I thought you Frenchmen had a more logical cast of mind!”
“I killed Faulks at about five o’clock, give or take a minute or two.”
“And the body remained on the lawn?”
“Yes.”
“Mr Valaise, I’m afraid you’re going to have to come up with another story. Yesterday evening, the park keepers mowed the lawns in Princes Street Gardens. All of the lawns, as they do every evening. If they had found a body, I think they might have told us!”
The King of Fools Page 10