by Mark Hebden
Seventeen
Half an hour later Pel had dug out Sergeant Darcy and they were heading out of the city. Darcy looked tired but he seemed to be enjoying a private joke.
‘Well, go on,’ Pel said. ‘What’s it all about?’
Darcy chuckled. ‘You’ll never guess. Nosjean’s girlfriend’s thrown him over.’
‘And that’s funny?’
‘No. Not that. I think he’s got another.’
‘That’s quick. Is she pretty?’
‘Not specially. But I saw them talking in the carpark this afternoon and I must admit she looked different.’
‘Who is it? One of the typists?’
‘No. Odile Chenandier.’
Pel said nothing. In a strange way he felt better. Life had a habit of producing something worthwhile occasionally. Nosjean was an ardent young man and he just hoped that Odile would get some pleasure out of his company.
‘We’ll call at the station at Aigunay as we pass,’ he said. ‘To pick up a couple of men.’
‘Why, Chief?’
‘We might need them. I warned them to stand by.’
Darcy was silent for a while then he looked at Pel. ‘I think you know who did it, Patron,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Pel agreed. ‘I do.’
‘Who?’
‘It’s not a question of who,’ Pel said. ‘It’s more a question of “how”. I’ve been puzzled by that all along. I couldn’t make out how the house was entered, the woman murdered and the house left again without the murderer being covered with blood. It’s pretty simple really, though, when you know.’
Darcy glanced sideways. ‘Well, how?’ he said.
Pel shrugged. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it was either a burglar or a tramp who was disturbed, or someone who bore her a grudge, wasn’t it? And if it was someone who bore her a grudge, it was someone she knew.’
‘But all that blood, Patron? Nobody involved in that mess could have entered the house and left in the ordinary way.’
‘This one did.’
‘But what about clothes?’
‘There weren’t any.’
Darcy stared long enough at Pel for the car to wander from the right of the road to the left. He wrenched it back. ‘There weren’t any?’
‘The only way to avoid getting blood all over your clothes is to take ’em off.’
‘There were–’ Darcy glanced again at Pel. ‘The doc said there was no sign of recent sexual intercourse.’
‘No. No intercourse.’
‘Well, you don’t take your clothes off to pick a fight with someone. If you did, they’d probably die laughing.’
‘She probably did die laughing,’ Pel said dryly. ‘But there was no passion in it. Either way. It wasn’t a quarrel. It was premeditated. And it wasn’t an intruder going for jewels. In fact, the jewels weren’t even stolen, were they? Except by Odile.’
‘But naked, Patron! Without a stitch on! It’d have to be without a stitch.’
‘It was.’
‘Who?’
‘If you can walk into a house without clothes on, as this one did, you’d have to be well-known to the murdered woman, wouldn’t you?’
‘Go on, Patron.’
Pel lit a cigarette and passed the packet across. ‘It might have been Odile,’ he said. ‘I thought of her and wondered if she’d done it for the jewels. She certainly knew exactly what there was and where they were. And it wouldn’t seem wildly crazy to her mother to see her without clothes – or perhaps in the briefest of underclothes – would it? Odd, but not mad.’
‘Patron, I checked her flat for bloodstains and bloodstained clothes. There was nothing.’
Pel nodded and Darcy went on. ‘And it wouldn’t be Estelle Quermel,’ he said. ‘Housekeepers don’t usually walk around in their skin in front of their employers.’
‘Not unless there was some odd sexual interest.’ Pel peered through the windscreen at the road winding ahead of them in the lights. ‘And these days you have to consider these things. There are some funny people about.’ He sniffed disapprovingly and went on. ‘And if there were some special interest of that sort, then it wouldn’t disturb Madame Chenandier, would it? But that wasn’t the way it was done either. Who’d be least likely to startle a woman by wearing no clothes? Two people: her husband – or her lover.’
‘Laye!’ Darcy grinned. ‘She was having an affair with him so she must have seen him without his clothes.’
‘According to Laye’s daughter, she had,’ Pel said. ‘He had me puzzled for a long time because he was the same shape and size as Chenandier, had the same kind of car, and could easily be mistaken for him. In fact, the gardener did mistake him – in the lane. I felt it must have been one of them but I never really knew which until this morning. Laye even had an office in Bazay where Albertini lived and that suggested a connection straight away.’
‘How was it done, Patron?’
‘The murderer entered the house naked. There was a struggle and he ran out.’ Pel made it sound as simple as crossing the road, and Darcy frowned.
‘But, Patron, there must have been blood all over his body. When he put his clothes on again, they’d have been marked.’
‘Agreed,’ Pel said. ‘But he didn’t put his clothes on. Not until he’d taken a bath.’
‘Where? You can’t run down the lane stark naked. Not even to next door. Or up the stairs. So where did he take a bath? There’d have been traces of blood somewhere.’
‘There were,’ Pel pointed out. ‘In the garden, you remember. But not many, because the rain washed them away. It poured that night. It was the hit and run that told me what had happened.’
Darcy drew a deep breath. ‘Near Laye’s office at Bazay,’ he said. ‘Was it Laye?’
‘It’s not a bad guess,’ Pel said cheerfully. ‘Because it connects up with the office in Bazay and being in the Chemin de Champ-Loups at the right time. And certainly whoever hit Albertini with a car killed Madame Chenandier. Now that Albertini’s dead there’ll be two charges of murder. One with a blunt instrument. One with a wheeled vehicle.’
Darcy was still baffled. ‘But how was it done? All that blood. Where did it go?’
‘I couldn’t work that out,’ Pel admitted. ‘Not until yesterday when I saw a small boy strip to go into the river to fish out a hook caught in the reeds. He did it to avoid getting mud on his clothes. Then I knew at once. He’d worked it all out ahead. He arrived outside the house wearing only something to cover him, gloves and shoes, and entered by the front door, leaving them outside. When Madame Chenandier saw him she probably burst out laughing because he was wearing nothing but a pair of gloves.’ Pel shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose she laughed for long.’
Darcy was still puzzled. ‘But the blood, Chief? How did he get rid of it?’
‘He went out through the french windows. The bath was right there. A few yards away. Waiting for him.’
‘The stream!’ Darcy drew his breath sharply.
‘Exactly. He knew he couldn’t be seen from the houses on either side and could run down the garden stark naked. At the stream, he flung the poker away. So it would be found and look as if an intruder had done it. He knew quite well he could take his time bathing because he couldn’t be seen, and at the other side of the stream his clothes were waiting. It seemed from the beginning it was Laye, because of the office at Bazay and the fact that he could walk along the stream to his own garden if he wished, and climb out there, washed, clean and ready to face anybody who came. His house was even empty that night. His whole family was out.’
Pel became silent and Darcy looked quickly at him. His features were caught by the dashboard light and he was wearing a smug look.
‘But it wasn’t Laye,’ he said eventually. ‘It was Chenandier.’
Darcy’s head turned again. ‘Chenandier?’
Pel shrugged. ‘Well, a man doesn’t murder his wife when he’s been indifferent to her for years. But if another woman appears and wants him to marry her
, it changes the picture a bit, doesn’t it?’
‘But, Chief, he was in Paris! He must have been in Paris! He couldn’t use the train and his car was at the station every bit of the time.’
‘He didn’t use the train. And his car was at the station all the time.’ Pel opened the window to toss away his cigarette end. ‘He used a hire car from Paris. Luxe Cars, of Rue Henri-Padac. One of Laye’s companies. He probably used them because his wife and Laye were known to them and he wasn’t, and he thought it might throw suspicion the wrong way. I checked with them this morning. He hired it by telephone to go to Rennes and got a student from the Alliance Française called Berthelo to pick it up and deliver it to him at a prearranged rendezvous near the Closerie des Lilas. I got that too. The boy volunteered the information willingly enough when the question was asked around by the Quai des Orfèvres. He was innocent enough. But the car didn’t go to Rennes. Luxe Cars thought it did because the mileage was right.’ He paused. ‘The mileage would also be right if he’d driven here.’
‘And he did?’
‘Down the motorway, I expect. It’s only a four-hour drive if you hurry. Especially in the evening when it’s quiet.’
Darcy was silent and Pel went on quietly. ‘He’d armed himself ahead with a theatre ticket from the Bobino,’ he said. ‘Probably bought at the booking office the night before. He did what he had to do then drove back. Down in the evening, and back after dark. He undressed in the car and left it in the shadows at the bottom of the Chemin de Champ-Loups. He walked to the house wearing shoes, gloves and the plastic mac from his suitcase which, in the dark, would seem opaque and would cover him from shoulders to calves. The lane was deserted, as he knew it would be, because there are only three houses and few people went down there. Afterwards, he bathed in the stream and, because it was cold, put on a tracksuit that must have been waiting for him, while he cleaned up some more.’
‘The one the gardener mentioned?’
‘Exactly. I was thinking of waterproofs all the time because of the rain and was looking all over the place for an anorak to account for the zips Nosjean found. And because I’d got my mind set on an anorak and because Chenandier had never owned one I thought it was Laye who’d done it, because he did own one. Then when I saw that kid in the red tracksuit who did the supermarket at Talant I suddenly remembered the gardener saying he’d seen Chenandier in a tracksuit, having a necking session with Quermel. Then I realised that was where the zips Nosjean found in the fire came from. Because he was meticulous he’d also brought a thick sweater, but it wasn’t as cold as he’d expected and because he was always a bit careful with his money and he hadn’t worn the sweater and it wasn’t touched by blood, he didn’t need to throw it away.
‘However, the stream comes down from the hills and it’s chilly even on a warm day so he did drink the brandy that was waiting for him – some to give him courage, some after it was over to warm him. He then drove back to Paris; and Berthelo, the student from the Alliance Française who’d picked up the car for him, met him and took it back. The boys from the Quai des Orfèvres have impounded it and I expect they’ll find his fingerprints on it somewhere. There was no blood. I asked Luxe Cars.’
Darcy was silent again and Pel went on quickly. ‘He arrived back at his hotel the morning after the murder – early, and looking clean and smart as if he’d just got up. He appeared in the hall as if he’d been out to buy a paper and even complaining he couldn’t get what he wanted, to draw attention to himself. He was quite unmarked by blood by now and looking as if he’d never been out of the capital. He’d probably even taken another bath at some woman’s.’
‘He’d got a nerve, Chief.’
‘Yes. He went to Paris prepared for it all because the desk clerk at the Meurice thought he had a black bag when he arrived but couldn’t remember seeing one when he left. I checked the house later and found no black bag – or tracksuit – so he probably used the bag to carry the tracksuit to Paris when he first went and dumped it later in the Seine. Probably the frogmen will find it.’
Darcy shifted behind the wheel, his eyes on the road. ‘And then?’
‘And then he went on with his affairs in Paris and spent a normal day until the evening. In the evening he pretended to learn of the murder from the papers, asked for his bill and caught the early train down the next day, picking up his car in the ordinary way.’
Darcy frowned. ‘He was working to a pretty tight schedule, Patron,’ he said. ‘He had to burn the tracksuit and the gloves before he set off back north. And what about the plastic mac and the shoes he left on the doorstep?’
‘Not too difficult. He had some help.’
‘Quermel?’
‘She probably also helped him drink the brandy – to steady her nerves.’
‘What makes you think she’s involved?’
Pel was silent for a while. ‘Your telephone call last evening,’ he said. ‘It was Chenandier who ran down the gardener.’
‘You sure, Chief?’
‘I am now. The car he hired in Paris was in the lane the night of the murder. It was tucked away in the shadows where it becomes a footpath. Three people said so – Darcq, Laye and Laye’s daughter. They thought it was dark blue or black. In fact, it was dark green, but it would look black in the shadows. They didn’t go near it, though, because no one goes down that lane much.’ He paused. ‘Except for one person, who used that lane as a habit.’
‘The gardener. To go home.’
Pel nodded. ‘He went that way as usual that night, to his sister’s at Boux, and he was the only one who could go that way, because he rode a motorbike and could drive it that way on to the Langres road. He saw the car, though he insisted he didn’t. He even had a good look round it and saw the strange number plate. It was written on the wall in the shed where he ate. 1167–BR–75. The number of the Peugeot that was hired in Paris.’ Pel gestured. ‘It puzzled him. He’d noticed that all the numbers round here end in 21 – Côte d’Or; 71 – Saône et Loire; or 25 – Doubs; with an occasional 39 for the Jura or a 45 for Loiret. The number 75 made him think. Being Italian, he didn’t know French numbers well, so he asked around. He even tried Estelle Quermel. Odile heard him.’
‘And Quermel guessed what he was up to?’
‘Not at the time,’ Pel said. ‘Our friend Albertini was pretty crafty and, though he’d guessed she and Chenandier were having an affair, he didn’t suspect she was involved in the murder. But he’d guessed what had happened. He wasn’t very bright but he was bright enough for that, and he took care to write the number down.’
‘Why?’
‘Blackmail. He’d tried it once before, remember, and I think he was going to try it again. Unfortunately, he never got the chance. Chenandier found out and realised he was in trouble. He followed him home when he left last evening.’
‘How did he find out?’
‘From the person who removed the plastic mackintosh and shoes from the doorstep. The person who met him at the other side of the stream with the brandy – at a time when she claimed she was in the Cours de Gaulle – who poured paraffin on the gloves and the tracksuit when he took them off and set light to them, the only person Albertini asked about the numbers who could have passed it on to Chenandier.’
‘Quermel?’
Pel nodded. ‘She probably didn’t associate Albertini’s questions about car numbers with Chenandier until I asked her if she’d seen a strange car down the lane that night. Then she realised exactly what Albertini had been getting at, and told Chenandier. That signed Albertini’s death warrant.’
Eighteen
They had reached Aigunay now and the sergeant was waiting for them as the car pulled up at the police station.
‘Message for you, sir,’ he said. ‘From one of your people. You’re to ring Sergeant Nosjean.’
Pel glanced at Darcy and headed for the telephone. Nosjean sounded excited. ‘I’ve just had Odile on the telephone, Chief – Odile Chenandier.’
‘I heard you’d got a new girlfriend,’ Pel said dryly.
‘Not exactly a–’ Nosjean started to explain then changed his mind. ‘Listen, Chief, she sounded scared! It seems she saw her father’s car come back last night. It had red paint on it and she’d heard about the gardener. She decided he’d done it.’
‘He had.’
‘Well, she’s been putting one or two things together and she’s worried sick. She wanted to see me. To talk to me.’
‘What about?’
‘I think she thinks it was her father who killed her mother and she’s scared stiff he knows and might try to do something to her. She didn’t say so, not outright, you understand, but I could read between the lines, as you might say.’
‘You’re cleverer than you look, Nosjean.’
‘Chief–’ Nosjean sounded worried ‘can I come out there? It’ll only take me half an hour.’
‘Got transport?’ Pel asked.
‘My own car, Chief.’
‘Then get moving.’
Pel was almost running when he came out once more to the car.
‘On your way,’ he snapped at Darcy. ‘And make it fast!’
‘Right, Chief!’
‘Got your gun?’
‘Yes.’ Darcy glanced sideways. ‘What’s up, Chief?’
‘Odile rang Nosjean. She thinks he’s after her now.’
‘He’d never try to do his own daughter in!’
Pel gestured irritably. Murder was an accumulative thing. One case invariably led to another, as this one had. A frightened man might do anything and a man who could plot so careful a murder as Chenandier had was possibly not wholly sane.
‘He did his wife in,’ he growled. ‘Can’t you go a bit faster?’
As they sped through the tunnel under the trees created by their own headlights, Pel was worried. Against his normal procedure, he had taken a curious liking to Odile. It was a liking composed chiefly of sympathy for her gracelessness and the feeling that, given the chance, she could find some happiness.
When the car drew to a stop in the Chemin de Champ-Loups, there were lights on in the Chenandier house. They rang the bell but there was no response.