by Betsy Draine
“I see,” he said, screwing up his lips. “And you claim that until meeting today you never knew each other?”
“That’s right,” I replied.
He scrutinized Toby and me. His look was doubting. “Your names and addresses, please.”
“Toby Sandler, and this is my wife, Nora Barnes. We live in Bodega Bay in California. That’s near San Francisco. We’re American citizens.”
“Passports?”
We had ours with us. We’ve both traveled enough to know that a passport can be demanded at any time. We had them in our jackets, along with our money and the car keys. I hate to have my passport checked, but I duly fished mine out and handed it over. Inspector Daglan did the usual double-take. “Ah, I see you have changed your coiffure, Madame.”
The photo was taken in my last year of graduate school, when there was no problem with looking young and flirty. At my first job after finishing my degree, one week of teaching freshmen with raging hormones sent me to the hairdresser with a firm order: “The look we’re going for is professorial.” So much for the long mane. I do look different now from my passport photo. The bangs are still chestnut brown, but the overall length is to the chin, and I pull the hair back behind my ears when I’m working. Still presentable, I hope, but definitely less come-hither.
Toby, now, looks exactly like his passport photo. I’d say he was photogenic, but the truth is, he’s always just as handsome in person as he is in his pictures: dark hair, high cheekbones, tanned skin, round brown eyes, strong jawline, and a twinkling smile. Average height but compact build. He stays in shape.
Daglan nodded as he continued shuffling through our passports.
“I see you arrived in France yesterday, is that correct?” It was. “And the purpose of your visit is to follow a stage de cuisine at the Château de Cazelle?”
“Yes,” I replied for both of us, “but that’s not all. I teach art history, and I’m here to do some research on an artist who was a member of the Cazelle family. I’ve been invited to use the family archives at the château.”
“I see. And you, Monsieur?”
“I’m here for the cooking school, too, and to shop for antiques,” replied Toby. “I’m a dealer. But the main reason for our trip is my wife’s research.”
In fact, attending the cooking school was a bonus added to our original plan, as was our visit to Lascaux. A year or so back I became interested in a minor artist named Jenny Marie Cazelle, and I traced her descendants to the current occupants of the château. I spent a full day working on a letter in carefully composed French inquiring whether the family could provide me with information about her life. In reply I received a friendly letter in breezy English from Marianne de Cazelle, along with a color brochure advertising her gourmet cooking school, which would start in mid-June. Should I be interested in attending classes, she wrote, she would be happy to grant me access to the family library containing the papers of her relative. I took the hint. The cooking-school tuition would serve as a permissions fee to examine the family archives. And once I knew we’d be in the vicinity of Lascaux, I applied to visit the cave.
I tried explaining all this as best I could in French.
Daglan listened attentively. “And how were you able to make an appointment to visit Lascaux on the very day your stage de cuisine begins?”
“That was luck,” I replied. “When I wrote for an appointment, I mentioned I was planning to be in France at this time to do research, and we were given the date of June 18 to tour the cave. We planned our entire trip around the time the Cazelles would allow me to see their archives.”
Daglan nodded and looked expectantly at David Press.
“We also started our plans with the cooking school,” said David. “My senior law partner, who knows your minister of culture, arranged for us to visit Lascaux. He said it’s easier to get on the list for a Monday, and he was right. When we learned the cooking school would start on that evening, we asked Madame de Cazelle if we could arrive at the château a night early, since it’s so close to the cave.”
“Make a note of that, Jackie,” said Daglan, turning to his assistant.
“Oui, Inspecteur,” was the response. I spun my head to check who had spoken. Jackie, giraffe-like in height and thinness, had a voice like a teenage girl. And now that I was looking, I saw a mop of brown hair that could be a girl’s as well as a guy’s. Was “Jackie” short for Jacqueline or long for Jacques? I decided to watch the inspector’s pronouns to find out. I didn’t want to insult the young man—if that’s what he was—by calling him mademoiselle. And a tall, flat-chested female would be just as miffed at being called monsieur.
“Please speak more slowly,” said Daglan to David, whose face registered pride at this acknowledgment of his fluent French. Daglan nodded toward his assistant. “I want him to get all this down.”
So Jackie was a “him.” That settled that. But there was more to be worried about right now than gender politics.
Daglan next turned to Toby and me.
“I am going to ask you some important questions about the crime you have witnessed, and I would like you to think carefully before responding. First, where exactly was the guide positioned when the lights were shut off ? Is it possible he extinguished them himself ?”
“Impossible,” I immediately replied. “I was standing right next to him, and he was never near the switch.”
“That’s right, Inspector,” Toby added. “The guide was pointing to the paintings, and he was in the middle of his explanation.”
“And just where was each of you standing when the lights failed? Madame, I think you said you were closest to the guide. Is that correct?”
I nodded yes.
“And who was directly behind you?”
“I was,” Toby said.
“Then Lily, then me,” said David.
“And where was the victim standing?” Daglan raised an eyebrow with his question.
“Behind me,” David replied.
“So, if the victim was standing behind you, that means you were the person in the group closest to him, is that correct?”
“Well, I don’t know about that. We were all close together. Now, look here. I wasn’t very close to him. I don’t know how far back he was. In fact, I was holding my wife’s hand.”
“No doubt she will confirm that.”
David translated, and Lily nodded yes.
“Of course.” Daglan’s tone bore a trace of sarcasm.
David colored. “Are you saying I’m a suspect in this crime?”
“No, I haven’t said that. But one thing is clear.” His glance swept the four of us. “Unless someone else was present in the cave, either one of you or the guide is a murderer.”
Lily, attuned to the raised voices, looked anxiously at her husband. David’s face darkened. I found myself staring at him. Could he possibly be a killer? It hardly seemed likely. But the inspector was right: if not the guide or one of us, then who? Daglan moved on to the next logical question. Had any of us seen a shadow or heard a sound or noticed any indication of another person in the cave? I told him of the queasy feeling I had earlier in the visit that someone was lurking in the dark, but I had no evidence to support it.
After a moment, Daglan stood, turned his chair around, and sat down facing us with his arms folded across the top of the chair back. “So.” He paused, with two fingers pinching the flesh under his lower lip. “Describe what you remember when the lights were restored.”
David took the lead. “When the lights came back on, I was looking toward the back of the cavern, reaching for … the man who was killed. I saw him slumped along the wall, choked and bleeding, with his arms spread out, as if in surprise. And he had that weird thing by his side. The sounds I heard occurred in the dark.”
“What sounds, exactly?”
“Scuffling, punching, or maybe it was just bumping against the wall, and this terrible gurgling and gasping.”
“Madame Barnes, does this accord
with your experience?”
“Yes, that’s right. But I was also staring at the bird next to the body. It was just like the one the guide described, pierced on a stick.”
“And this bird, what did you make of it?”
I was surprised to hear Lily speak up, in English. “It was disgusting. A poor bird, speared, bloody, looking horrible.” Daglan appeared to comprehend the emotion in Lily’s voice and didn’t request a translation.
“I was thinking,” Toby said to the inspector, “that the killer must have meant to leave a message, referring to the scene drawn in the pit, which the guide described.”
“What message?”
“That I don’t know,” answered Toby. “We never saw the scene ourselves. That area of the cave is off limits to visitors. But the image was so important that our guide wanted us to know about it.”
“I see,” said Daglan.
At that moment, Gounot himself charged through the door of the hut, looking harassed. “I’ve been sent back,” he sputtered to Inspector Daglan. “I demand that you allow me to return to the cave to make sure your people don’t harm the site, not to mention the paintings.” He seemed out of breath. Daglan sat back patiently, waiting for him to resume. “I respect your position as a policeman. Please be so good as to respect my position as the guardian of the cave.” He looked exhausted, but he also looked defiant.
“I do respect your position, but at this moment I am responsible for your safety. Has it occurred to you that a murderer may still be somewhere inside?” Gounot considered the possibility. “Now, if you will let the police do their job, I will ensure that they do it carefully. Did you provide my colleagues with a map of the cave’s tunnels and chambers, as I asked you to?”
“Yes, and I showed them where the light switches are, and where the public paths are, as well as the forbidden paths.”
“Is there any precaution you failed to mention to my colleagues, Monsieur Gounot?”
“No, but their job isn’t to protect the cave. Who knows what they’ll do if they think they see a clue? They might scrape at a painting or run their hands over a wall. Even one touch can start a process of destruction that will erase paintings that have been preserved for seventeen thousand years.”
“Rest assured,” Daglan said with authority, “my men will do less damage than any group of visitors you have led through the cave.”
“That’s not saying much,” Gounot grumbled. He collapsed into a chair and doubled up, with his face in his hands.
“Calm yourself, Monsieur. I still have questions to ask you.”
The guide looked up, as if in disbelief at Daglan’s lack of appreciation for his distress.
“What else do you want to know?”
“First, tell me where you were standing when the cave went dark.” Daglan had already extracted that information from us, so he was testing the guide for any inconsistency.
“At the head of the group, of course. I had led them back into the Hall of Bulls for the last lecture before the end of the tour. As we came near to the exit, I stopped the group and turned their attention to the wall on our right. That’s when it happened.”
“And at that moment, were all five members of your group within your sight?”
“Not at that very second, but I had just looked back to make sure they were all together. The fifth member, Monsieur Malbert, had the habit of falling behind. But I saw he was sufficiently caught up, just a few meters behind the rest of the group.”
Daglan’s face registered interest. “Ah, so the victim was close to the group. Close to which member of the group?”
“To this gentleman,” Gounot replied, gesturing toward David.
“Do you recall this gentleman’s name?”
“No. Actually, I must have read it when I checked each person’s documents, but I don’t remember it at this moment.”
“Then how is it that you remember the name of the victim? You called him Monsieur Malbert. Why is that?”
“Because he was known to me. Admission to Lascaux is limited. In principle, no one visits more than once. Except for scholars who are working on a special project—and they come earlier in the day—or officials from the Bureau of Historical Monuments and Antiquities. I had seen this man among a group of visitors about a year ago. So I noted his name when I looked at his papers: Michel Malbert.”
“Do you have any idea why Monsieur Malbert was visiting the cave on this particular day?”
“No, but from time to time the bureau arranges an unannounced visit of inspection to make sure the guide is enforcing the rules protecting the site. I assumed that Monsieur Malbert had visited for that purpose a year ago and that he was here for the same purpose today. The only other repeat visitors are scholars whose projects have been approved by the bureau, and they come earlier in the day.”
“At what time?”
“From ten in the morning till noon. Even the scholars with special projects must be limited in the amount of time they spend in the cave. They pollute the atmosphere with their breath, just as public visitors do.”
“And were there any special visitors here this morning?”
A little pink came into the parchment gray of the guide’s skin. He looked embarrassed.
“There were supposed to have been. But I had to cancel the morning session. You see, I’ve been sick all weekend. Yesterday I called to put off the researchers for this morning. They’re based in Périgueux, nearby, so they can come on another day. But the public appointments in the afternoon are sacred. People from all over the world wait months or years to get their appointed time. I had to come do this tour…. I should have stayed in bed.” He again dropped his head into his hands, shielding his eyes, as if that would make the nightmare go away.
“Monsieur Gounot, I must still ask a few more questions. Where were you, then, before you arrived to lead the afternoon tour?”
“At home, trying to sleep off this flu, or whatever it is.”
“Was someone else assigned to guard the cave in your absence?”
“No. When I go on vacation or have to be absent, there is a substitute I can call. But that wasn’t necessary today, because the Périgueux scholars could be rescheduled. There’s no guard on duty at night or for the hours of the day when no one is scheduled to visit the cave. But the security system is impeccable. The door to the cave is very secure. The manual lock is connected to an electronic alarm, wired to the gendarmerie in Montignac. If the key is turned without being preceded and followed by the secret code, the alarm is triggered. Also, there are motion detectors in the cave that are set off whenever there is movement inside except when the system has been disarmed, between ten and noon or between four and five in the afternoon.”
“Then, if someone wanted to lie in wait for the afternoon tour group, he could simply enter between ten o’clock in the morning and noon.”
“Yes, but he would need the key and the alarm code. And I have the key with me at all times. In any case, today there was no morning research session, so the alarm was not disarmed,” Gounot added defensively.
“And this alternate who can be called, does he have a key and the code?”
“Yes, but he is as careful as I am. He’s my nephew, and I have trained him to be vigilant in protecting the cave.”
“His name?”
“Marc. Marc Gounot.”
“Jackie, get the address of this nephew and arrange for us to visit him.” Then, turning back to Gounot: “Who else had access to the cave besides you and your nephew?”
“No one. Not a single other person.”
Daglan thought a moment and then asked, “Is it possible someone could have sneaked in behind the group today as you led them down into the cave?”
Toby shot out, “Impossible. We would have noticed it.”
“What about after the murder?” Daglan asked. “If someone was hiding in the cave, is it possible he could have escaped afterward without your noticing it?
“I don’t see
how,” Toby replied. “We’ve all been together here since then.”
“Monsieur, from here I can’t see the entrance, so you could not have either,” Daglan asserted calmly.
Daglan was right. From here in the hut, we didn’t have a view of the cave entrance.
Daglan turned again to Gounot. “When you led the group out of the cave, did you secure the door?”
“Of course I did. It’s routine to lock the door immediately after exiting. I didn’t lose my head. I locked the door, as always, the moment the last person in the group exited. That was Monsieur.” He was nodding toward David. Having conveyed that information, Gounot fell into a coughing spell. “I don’t feel well,” he said.
“All right,” said Daglan. There is one other thing I need from you. What can you tell me about the dead bird? Monsieur Sandler says you described a drawing of such a creature, which the group was not allowed to see.”
“Yes, down in the pit a bird is represented below the hand of a man falling backward. What it symbolizes nobody knows. One theory is that the drawing represents an effigy of a bird that a shaman may have carried on a wand—in other words, not a living bird. But, then again, the fact that the drawing looks like a bird run through by a spear might mean the object is associated with the hunt. Another possibility is that it was the totem of a clan.”
“Hmm,” pondered Daglan, his chin supported by his fist. “How well known are these theories?”
“Everyone in the professional community knows them. Archaeologists. Anthropologists. Prehistorians. The image is famous, and there is no end of theories as to its meaning.”
“I see. So, what do you suppose could be the message of a killer in leaving such an object at the scene?”
“I have no idea,” Gounot replied. “None at all.”
In the silence that ensued, I felt a sense of impasse, followed by curiosity, followed by worry that no answer would be found. Until someone could decipher the killer’s motive, we were all under suspicion. At the very least, we were witnesses, which meant our return home could be delayed. That was a selfish reason for wanting to know who the killer was. Even stronger, though, was the primitive urge for justice. A man had been murdered. Someone must be held accountable.