Murder in Lascaux

by Betsy Draine

The room became tense. I, for one, dreaded Marianne’s scrutiny of our final products. We were all nervous for ourselves, I think, and even more so for David and Lily. I hoped that in spite of their misadventures, their dish would be edible. The communal tasting doused that fantasy. Their magret was tough, dry, and bitter. Ours was crusty on the outside and pink on the inside, just as it should be, but the sauce could have used more sugar. Patrick, assisted by Roz and Dotty, produced tender slices of rosy duck steak, with a blackberry sauce that was just tangy enough to give the dish complexity. There was no question who won the cook-off. But a mystery remained for me. What were David and Lily doing at a cooking class aimed at people who knew the basics and were looking to learn a niche cuisine? What they needed was Betty Crocker 101.

  I’m no expert myself. In fact, I had expected to be the dunce in the class, and it was fine with me to have someone else fill that slot. Given my own inadequacies, I wasn’t worried these kitchen virgins would lower the level of instruction, but I was curious. David had told Inspector Daglan that he and Lily were thrilled to find out they could combine the cooking school with a trip to Lascaux. Yet if they were so keen to study cookery, wouldn’t you think one of them would have honed just a little skill in the kitchen already? And how likely was it that two people with no cooking experience (as it appeared) would be overjoyed to spend their honeymoon learning sauté techniques?

  Maybe I was being overly suspicious. With all his questions, Inspector Daglan had made me wary of everyone. Still, this unease about David and Lily and their supposed honeymoon had bothered me from the outset. Even though I found them endearing, I was puzzled. I decided to watch them more closely.

  For a while, the buzz at the table was all about the food. Each person had taken a slice from each of the three platters of magret, and Marianne asked us to analyze how the different cooking methods affected the meat. As the expert chef, Patrick held the floor, being wonderfully tactful in glossing over the failings of David and Lily’s sample. I extolled the purée of parsnips and apples Marianne offered as an accompaniment. And soon we drifted into separate conversations.

  I tried to calm Marianne down by continuing to talk about vegetable purées, but I was also keeping an eye on Lily and David, who did not speak at all. Perhaps that was because Dotty, who sat next to David, was on a rant, complaining to her side of the table about how insulting the inspector had been. Toby, seated opposite her, took on the challenge of teasing her back into good humor. I heard Marc’s name mentioned and the sound of girlish laughter. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Dotty admonishing Toby with a brush of her hand on his forearm. At the same time, she glanced over to Patrick, to pull him into the foolery. David and Lily were poker-faced.

  Roz had overheard a bit of Dotty’s drama and sensed I had too. She frowned and leaned toward me, across the table. “I’m good and sorry we took that trip to Castelnaud,” she said in a low tone. “Dotty insisted it would be rude to ignore Marc’s invitation, and I didn’t want her visiting him alone, so I drove her there, knowing full well she would flirt with him. She doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just her southern-belle pose. But look at the complications. Now Inspector Daglan thinks Dotty is involved in some monkey business with Marc that may be connected to the murder.”

  “And you weren’t even at the cave when it happened,” I replied in commiseration. Just then I noticed Lily was following our hushed conversation.

  I turned to her. “So, Lily, was the inspector as hard on you as he was on the rest of us?”

  She looked startled, and then determined. “Actually, Nora,” she said in a firm voice that caught the attention of Dotty’s group as well as ours, “the inspector requested that we not discuss the content of the interrogation. I don’t think I should say anything more. What do you think, David? Am I taking the inspector’s request too literally?”

  “No. He was quite clear,” David asserted. He sat up straighter in his chair, looking pompous, with his chin tucked down into his neck.

  Well, well. Was this just a lawyerly display of rectitude, or were David and Lily hiding something? From then on, the atmosphere was awkward. Marianne tried to lighten the tone, as she served us an ice-cream bombe straight out of its grocery-store box, claiming that, for the French, who adore ice cream, a frozen confection makes a welcome end to a company meal. But even as we enjoyed the treat, we all remained unsmiling, with David and Lily silent again in the middle. When coffee came, I was glad to make my excuses. The group was going to spend the afternoon at a local distillery, but I was going back to the library and my research on Jenny Marie.

  I was glad to find everything as I’d left it yesterday. The second volume of Jenny Marie’s journal sat closed in the middle of the table. It took me a while to settle down to work. So many other thoughts were swirling through my head: the scene in the pit from Lascaux, the dead body in the cave, the strange cult of the Cathars, my suspicions about David and Lily, my doubts about Marc. Eventually, though, I found myself drifting back into the past, immersed again in my research.

  I picked up where I had left off in volume 2. After several years at the Académie Julian, Jenny moved on to open a small studio, which she shared with Aimée Laurance and two other friends. She set up as a portraitist and began to earn a living, though not much of one, it would appear. The pages from this period were preoccupied with financial matters. But then, when one of her canvases was accepted for exhibition at the Salon of 1898, her fortunes took a change for the better.

  5 May 1898

  They have hung my portrait of Mme. Roissy so high up on the wall, never mind in a corner, that it is barely recognizable, or in “the sky,” as the artists say, with dozens of other paintings underneath it, reaching from the floor to ceiling. But even so, I heard a few favorable comments about it from the judges as we circulated around the hall. That may be because there aren’t many portraits in this year’s competition. So many landscapes with peasants and military subjects and even mythological scenes, which everyone thought had gone out of fashion. Well, so much the better for me! In Paris there are scarcely a dozen collectors willing to buy a painting without the imprimatur of the Salon. Not to mention clients who will order portraits. M. Julian always said to us, if you can make a splash at the Salon, the buyers will come knocking. Well, finally I have been accepted. Will it make a difference? We shall see.

  With her debut at the Salon behind her, Jenny began to prosper. She started receiving regular commissions, and she was able to rent an atelier of her own. I now read through pages detailing sales and exhibitions. Her friend Aimée seemed to drop out of her circle, for she no longer was mentioned. In fact, there was little of a personal nature in the remaining pages.

  The third volume of Jenny’s journals dated from 1905, when she was thirty-five years old, to 1917, when she was forty-seven. Almost at once I noticed a livelier tone. These were the years of her flowering and success. They were also the years when love entered her life.

  4 August 1906

  I have met the most wonderful man, a fellow artist. I shall call him P———.

  This was the first time in her journals Jenny had mentioned a romantic interest. I didn’t learn her lover’s name, for she continued to refer to him only by an initial.

  19 October 1907

  We have found the perfect studio for us both. It is a walk-up flat in Montmartre with four large rooms and good light where we can live together and do our work. P——— worries that working where we live may harm our relationship, but I tell him that is foolish since we aren’t in competition. Our styles are completely different, and so are our buyers, especially now that I am doing only portraits. My clientele wants realism, his, impressionism. In fact, we get on so well that you might take us for a baker and his rosy-cheeked wife, except our smocks are daubed with paint instead of flour.

  A warm, sunny afternoon today. We were both at our easels until the last bit of good light was gone. I am finishing a portrait of an old dowager whose son
has paid me well.

  These were the best of times for Jenny Marie Cazelle. Paris was in its heyday: after all, it was the belle epoque. Realism, impressionism, and post-impressionism jockeyed for favor, bohemian life was in full bloom, the cafés glittered, and Jenny Marie was in love.

  23 May 1908

  This afternoon we went to see the new landscapes by Monet and Renoir at the Galerie Durand-Ruel. Glorious paintings, filled with light and joy. I prefer Renoir’s landscapes to his women, but Monet outshines him, no matter what he does. Unfortunately, we quarreled on the way home. As usual, P——— indulged his habit of ranking artists. We agreed about Monet, but what set me going is that he had unpleasant things to say about Berthe Morisot. Well, she was every bit as good as the men, I said, and then we quarreled.

  I know I am right, but when we argue, I sometimes lose confidence in our love and start to worry that one day he may leave me for a younger woman. He says he never will and that the difference in our ages is unimportant, but still. Then we make up as we did tonight, and I feel calm again. I think he does love me deeply. Tonight we talked again of marriage, and I told him I am happier with him than with any man I’ve ever known. But marriage? This way we each have our work and independence, and perhaps it is better not to spoil things. Now look who is holding back, he said. I have given you my heart, I told him. There is nothing I am holding back. Besides, you’re the one who says that marriage is a convention. That’s right, it is, he says, but I want you for myself. Well, then? We laugh and go to bed. And afterward I remind him Morisot was just as good as any of them, certainly Renoir.

  So Jenny Marie was capable of wit as well as feeling—good for her! During the next few years her life was both happy and productive. She was living with P——— and working well. She sold paintings and exhibited regularly at the Salon (though whether P——— did is unclear). Her corresponding sketchbooks from the period showed her at the height of her powers. But it all came to an end with the Great War.

  5 June 1914

  More talk about war. You know, if the war comes, I may have to go, P——— says. Why, I ask. To fight for the industrialists? The nationalists? It has nothing to do with them, he says. Then with what? With me. With my father and brother. But you hardly see them, I say. I’m French, after all, says P———. We can’t let the Germans take what they will. You don’t understand.

  No, I don’t. I don’t.

  22 August 1914

  P——— has enlisted, despite my protests. All his friends are going, and he says he can’t stay behind.

  Don’t worry, P——— tells me, they say the war will all be over in a few months, you’ll see, and then everything will be fine again. Paris will be different after the war. We’ll live in a fine house with a garden and I’ll build us a great studio in back with good light. And who knows? Maybe you will marry me.

  Maybe. And if he doesn’t return? My heart trembles with fear.

  P——— didn’t return. He was sent to the trenches and died at the second battle of Ypres. Jenny was disconsolate. In her notebook she recorded a single line on what must have been the day she received the news.

  26 April 1915

  Gassed. Humanity is mad.

  The next day she continued railing against the war.

  27 April 1915

  So many dead for no purpose. It will go on until everyone is exhausted, and then it will stop, but only then. Afterward life will be no better. What will happen to art? How can we paint with so much horror and ugliness in the world? What will happen to me?

  Her work went badly. She broke off recording her thoughts. And two years later, she gave up her life in Paris and returned to the family château in the Dordogne.

  I was ruminating on these events when the door to the library swung open without a knock and in walked the old baron. He was wearing a rumpled vested suit and tie, though shuffling in his bedroom slippers. It was obvious my presence was a surprise.

  “Ah, Madame! Excusez-moi!”

  “Not at all, Baron. Please come in.”

  “I had no idea you were working here today, or I would have come some other time.”

  “Please, Baron. I was just getting ready to leave. I’ve been doing research on your relative, Jenny Marie Cazelle.”

  “Yes, I know. Marianne informed me. But do continue.” He turned to go. I decided to seize what might be an opportunity.

  “Baron, would you be willing to spare me a few moments to tell me a little about your father’s aunt?”

  “Ah, oui?” He seemed surprised by the request, thought for a moment, shrugged, and walked slowly across the room to a brown leather armchair. He now seemed amused, his eyes twinkling—but not kindly, I thought— his pink, tight skin crinkling his bald pate. “If I can be of service to you, I shall be happy to, although my memory is not altogether clear about those days.” He crossed his legs, fished in his vest pocket for a pouch of tobacco, withdrew a pipe from his jacket pocket and filled it. He lit the pipe, sucked a few times, blew some smoke toward the ceiling, and raised his head. “What do you wish to ask?”

  “Do you have any personal memories of your great-aunt that you could share?”

  “Memories? Of course. She was living here when I was born. That is to say, there was a great difference in our ages. But she was a member of the family. Naturally I knew her.”

  His response left me feeling foolish. “Yes, of course, Monsieur. What I meant was do you remember anything of particular interest about her life that might be useful to me in my research?”

  “I’m not sure. For example?”

  “For example, I was just reading in her journal that the reason she decided to come home in 1917 was that her fiancé had been killed in the Great War. Do you know anything more about him?”

  “He was never her fiancé, but they were living together in Paris. The family did not approve. All I know is that my father thought very little of that man.”

  “Did you know his name?”

  “Philippe something or other. She never spoke of him, not to me, at any rate. But my father often said that perhaps it was best he died in the war. He was something of a radical, it seems, without money or morals. The family welcomed her back, I can tell you, when she needed us.”

  “I see. Was there anyone else in her life after she returned to the Dordogne? A man, I mean.”

  “If there was, she kept it a secret. No, no, there was no one else. She lived quietly here, always working in her room or in the garden.” While his answers seemed casual, the old man was scrutinizing me with his eyes, clearly trying to size me up.

  “Painting, you mean.”

  “Painting, drawing, yes.”

  “And what became of all those paintings, besides the ones here in the château I have seen?”

  “Who knows? Many she gave away, to friends, relatives, comrades from her student days. She sold a few, as well, but really, I do not know much about that side of things. She had talent, but she was lost down here, far away from Paris and the art world. Everyone forgot about her. Except the family.”

  “I think she was a very fine artist. Did she ever talk about her work to you?”

  “I was just a boy at the time. She lived as a recluse as far as I remember. She took her meals with us but spent most of her time alone and had few visitors. No, now that I think about it, I knew very little about her habits or her thoughts.” He paused, tamping down his pipe. “There was one time I remember she tried to give me a drawing lesson, but I was very bad at it and bored, too, to tell the truth. I think I disappointed her. After that, she never spent much time with me. And later I was away at school. In those years I saw little of the family.”

  “I understand.” Shifting gears, I pretended to consult my notebook, as if I were checking a list of questions I had jotted down during my reading. Looking up, I asked, “I wonder if you know whether she was religious?” I was thinking of Madame Martin’s description of Jenny Marie as a daughter of the French Revolution.
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br />   The Baron’s face darkened a shade with suspicion. “Why do you ask that question?”

  “Only because I am curious about her views.”

  “Her views? She was absent, as I recall, at family religious services, but I never discussed the subject with her. It was of no concern to me.” Here I sensed the old man was concealing his feelings, but I hesitated to force the question, as I had been slowly moving toward the subject I really wanted to ask about—the war years.

  “There is one other thing, Baron, if I may. I don’t seem to have any information about Jenny Marie’s death. She died, I believe, in 1944, during the Second World War. Can you tell me anything about the circumstances?”

  “That, Madame, is a painful subject I do not wish to discuss in detail. She was ill, she died, along with many others who suffered and died. My father, my comrades, many patriotic Frenchmen. It was a terrible time.”

  “Yes, of course. I certainly don’t wish to bring back painful memories, Baron. But I have been wondering what life was like here during the war. Was the family able to remain in the château?”

  “It was our home. Where else would we live? Of course, there was hardship, but still it was better here than in the North, thanks to Marshal Pétain, who made a necessary arrangement with the Germans.” He meant the Vichy government, which was accused after the war of collaboration. “We had to make accommodations, and we did.” The baron said this as if he expected to be challenged, but I let it pass.

  “Was there fighting here?”

  “Some,” he nodded, with a grunt. “The partisans only made things worse for the population. They weren’t always the heroes you hear about, I can tell you that.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They would provoke the Germans, and then there would be reprisals against the local population. And many had their own reasons for fighting, which were not the reasons of France. Communists—I don’t say all of them, but some nevertheless.”