by D. W. Buffa
There were no more questions and no more speeches. The invited guests began to talk among themselves as they waited for the chairs to be rearranged and food brought to their tables. Hart watched as Jean Valette stood at his place next to the podium exchanging brief greetings with the men and women who came up to express their appreciation for his remarks, or to ask a question they had not wanted to ask in front of an audience. Valette had just finished talking to someone and was about to turn to another when, suddenly, he looked the length of the room straight at Hart. He nodded, and then broke into a smile, as if he were greeting an old friend, or someone who might become a new one.
Hart had come to Mont Saint-Michel believing Jean Valette to be the head, the Grand Master, of a world-wide organization for which murder and political assassination were just other ways of doing business, only to discover that, if he was telling the truth in the speech he had just given, the main, the only, ambition he had was to be the master of a school that would teach a handful of students to see the future through the eyes of a very distant past. Hart felt helpless and confused, without any idea what he should do next, whether he should confront Jean Valette or just get away. Nothing made sense, and the more he tried to understand, the less he understood.
Still, he was there, and given what would happen if he did not find some answers, there was nothing to lose. He started toward the front of the Refectory and Jean Valette. Someone took him by the arm and held him back. The heavy-set, plainclothes security guard who had tried to stop him from getting in was insisting that he leave. Hart tried to free his arm, but the guard’s grip only grew tighter.
“Jean Valette wishes to see you,” said the guard as he turned Hart around and marched him toward the door. “He’s not someone you want to keep waiting.”
As soon as they were out into the hall, he reached inside Hart’s jacket and removed the gun that Hart had forgotten he had. A smile full of cruelty and knowledge curled over his large, misshapen mouth, and then, as if at some private joke, he began to laugh, and he kept laughing as he dragged Hart down the hall and out the back to an open courtyard and a waiting car, a black limousine with dark tinted windows. He let go of Hart’s arm, and to Hart’s astonishment, gave him back the gun.
“No one goes armed to a cathedral, Mr. Hart. Even an American should know that.”
The back door of the limousine swung open and in the shadows on the other side sat Jean Valette.
“Please get in, Mr. Hart. Bring the gun, if you think you need it, but I can promise that, while you might kill yourself with it accidentally, no harm will come to you from me. I have been waiting too long to talk to you to let anyone hurt you.”
Chapter Twenty
Hart was not sure whether to take Jean Valette at his word or err on the side of caution. Valette caught the look of indecision.
“Perhaps it would be better if you kept it. After everything that has happened, I can understand why you might feel reluctant to trust me.” He turned to the plainclothes guard, waiting with his hand on the door as Hart got in. “Come with us, Marcel. We’ll give you a lift to your car. It’s too far to walk, and besides, there are a few things we need to discuss.”
The limousine started down a winding, narrow street, around the back of the cathedral to the village in front and, beyond it, to the causeway across the river. There were tourists everywhere, crowding onto the steps up to the famous place where kings and queens had come to worship, pushing into the shops that sold souvenirs to remind them later of where they had been. For a few brief moments, Jean Valette viewed the scene with grim amusement, as if, like someone come to honor a long dead relative, he had discovered the cemetery taken over by a visiting troupe of puppeteers, come to give a children’s show. With a distant smile, he turned to his guest.
“If I had known for certain you were going to be here, Mr. Hart, I would have tried to speak with more intelligence. As it was, with this audience….” The thought finished itself. Then he tried to explain. “And I only do it, you understand, because of this strange obligation I feel to try to keep certain things alive. But enough of that! I’m very glad you came and we finally have the chance to— But you must be exhausted, and—how thoughtless of me—terrified, after what happened last night. No, that is the wrong word, the wrong emotion. You don’t strike me, Mr. Hart, as someone who would ever be terrified of anything. Still, after what you’ve been through…. Poor Austin Pearce! He was remarkable, as I’m sure I don’t need to tell you; one of the most—one of the few really intelligent men I’ve met. I can’t believe he’s gone, and murdered like that! Incredible!”
Valette shook his head in disgust. He leaned back in the corner of the seat and lit a cigarette and for a short while watched the thin trail of smoke spiral into the air. And then, cracking open the window to let the smoke out, shook his head again, but this time with an air of resolution.
“What do we know so far, Marcel?” With a sudden, helpless shrug, he looked at Hart. “Where are my manners? This is Marcel Dumont, Mr. Hart: Inspector Dumont, chief detective of the Surete Generale.” He had anticipated Hart’s surprise. “You thought he was there to provide security, a private guard? You could probably do that, couldn’t you, Marcel?” He turned back to Hart. “Marcel was on our Olympic boxing team.”
Marcel Dumont grinned modestly.
“Nearly thirty years ago, and I did not make it past the quarterfinals.”
“He lost to the one who went on to win the gold medal.”
“As I say,” insisted the inspector, “thirty years, and about fifty pounds, ago. But about last night,” he went on, becoming serious. “You’re lucky you’re still alive, Mr. Hart.”
Valette lifted his chin and tapped his fingers together. His mouth was shut tight and his eyes half-closed in the way of someone used to calculating probabilities.
“I doubt Mr. Hart feels very lucky, do you, Mr. Hart? The whole world thinks you’re a murderer. No, I don’t imagine Mr. Hart right now thinks he’s been very lucky at all. But go on, Marcel—what do we know about this? Austin Pearce and the head of the embassy’s political section—he was a kind of spy, wasn’t he?—were murdered. One of the gunmen was killed, and the other one wounded, but got away. You did that, didn’t you, Mr. Hart? Go ahead, Marcel: What else do we know? That woman—the landlady—she told the police that Mr. Hart here was downstairs with her when the shooting began. It’s a good thing she was there; otherwise, everyone would think you killed both of them. Although I’m not sure that would have made things any worse for you than what’s happened instead. I’m sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself. Go ahead, Marcel.”
The driver turned into an alleyway on the other side of the river and pulled up next to where the chief of detectives had left his car.
“Mr. Valette is correct. The landlady gave us a very precise account of what happened. You came there looking for Mr. Wolfe—Aaron Wolfe. You told her you were expected. Is that true, Mr. Hart—did Mr. Wolfe expect you?” he asked, exchanging a glance with Valette.
Hart noticed the glance. They knew something he did not. He began to worry that he had stepped into a trap.
“I went there to see Wolfe. That’s true.”
“But did he expect you? We know that you were about to be arrested at the embassy, and that you got away. Did Mr. Wolfe warn you, did he tell you that was about to happen, or did Mr. Pearce do that? You came over on a private plane, and Mr. Pearce and the ambassador were old friends, were they not?”
Hart looked to Valette for an explanation, but Valette lit another cigarette and said nothing.
“What difference does it make if I was expected? I went to see him; that fact has been established. I went to see him, heard the shots, told that woman—the landlady—to call the police, ran upstairs and found Wolfe dead and Austin Pearce dying. Wolfe had shot the first one, and I picked up the gun, and Austin warned me, and I looked behind me and saw the second one and I fired and hit him in the shoulder.”
“Di
d the man you shot say anything? Could you tell where he was from? Was he an American?”
“No, he didn’t say anything. So if you’re asking whether he spoke French or English, I don’t know. But I was chased in the streets after I left the embassy, and I can’t be sure, but I think he was one of them.”
The inspector raised his eyebrows and nodded as if that fit with what he knew.
“The dead one, the first one through the door, the one Wolfe managed to shoot, was an American, but we couldn’t be absolutely sure about the other one.”
“He had identification? You found something that told you who he was?”
“They were in a hurry. They probably started chasing you as soon as they discovered you had left the embassy. They didn’t have time to plan anything. So, yes, we found identification on the body. He worked at the embassy, a ‘cultural attaché,’ which means in his case someone with one of your intelligence agencies. That’s why I’m asking whether Mr. Wolfe expected you. How did they know to go there? They could not have been following you; they were already there when you arrived.”
“Well, Wolfe wouldn’t have told them, would he?”
“Then he did expect you? Before you left the embassy, you had made some arrangement.” With a knowing look, the inspector turned to Jean Valette. “Which means that Wolfe had some reason to believe that the charges against Mr. Hart weren’t true, and that Mr. Hart was somehow being used. Is that what happened, Mr. Hart? You have some evidence that you weren’t involved in the murder of the president, Robert Constable?”
Hart’s first reaction was to ignore the question, but then he changed his mind. He was tired, confused, and fast losing patience.
“Maybe he just believed me. Maybe because I had come all the way to find out who was behind the murder of the president, and whether or not The Four Sisters might be involved,” he added with a quick, questioning glance at Jean Valette that stopped just short of being an accusation, “he realized that the suggestion that I might have wanted the president dead did not make any sense.”
Inspector Dumont did not show any surprise. He turned to Jean Valette.
“The Four Sisters?”
Valette stoked his chin as if he were considering the possibility.
“Everything you’ve learned leads back to us, doesn’t it, Mr. Hart? The Four Sisters, I admit it, reaches almost everywhere. There would be no reason not to think that we might be involved in something like this. We wouldn’t be the first financial institution to help get rid of someone or bring down a government we didn’t like. But the question, Mr. Hart—the immediate question—is what Marcel has just now asked: How did anyone know that after you left the embassy you would be at that apartment?”
“It’s what I said before,” said Dumont, referring to an earlier, private, conversation.
“Yes, I think you must be right,” agreed Valette.
“Right? About what?” asked Hart.
“They didn’t go there for you,” replied the inspector. “You had gotten away, lost them in the streets of Paris. That’s when they decided they had to clean up the loose ends. It would not have been difficult to figure out that you had been warned—told you were about to be arrested—when you were at the embassy. They had to believe that Wolfe knew something, and that Pearce, who was in the room, had to have known the same thing: the name of the person you thought was really behind the murder of the president. They could not afford to let them talk to anyone. That was the reason they went to Mr. Wolfe’s apartment: to kill them both. If they had gone there to kill you, they would have waited for you, but they didn’t do that, did they? Not only did they not expect to find you there, you ruined their plan when you showed up.”
“Ruined their plan? They did what you said they had gone there to do. Both Aaron Wolfe and Austin Pearce are dead!”
“Yes, unfortunately, that fact is true. But, you see, I’m almost certain that they planned to blame both murders on you.”
“Me? But why would I kill Austin Pearce? Why would I kill Aaron Wolfe?”
“You?—A fugitive from justice, someone who arranged the murder of a president? What would stop a man like that from killing two people who might have known where he was heading, or who might have refused to help him get away? The question of a motive would never have entered into it.”
Something had been bothering Hart since he first found out that Marcel Dumont was the chief detective of the Surete Generale.
“Why were you here today? Why were you waiting outside the door? Of all the different places I could have gone, how did you know I would be coming here?”
The inspector exchanged a glance with Jean Valette and then opened the door.
“Do you think anyone recognized him?” asked Valette.
“He was sitting in the back, and we got him out before anyone had a chance to really notice. So, no, I don’t think so. Still, there is a risk….”
The inspector got out of the car. Valette followed him and closed the door behind him. They stood together, talking earnestly, and while Hart could not hear what they were saying, he could tell from the way they were gesturing that it was about him. After a few minutes, Valette got back in the car and told the driver to start.
“You’ll come home with me,” he explained to Hart. “You’ll be safe there.” He paused, and then added with a serious expression, “At least for a while. Marcel wanted to arrest you, take you into custody. He is an old friend, but he’s a policeman, and you, I’m afraid, are the most wanted man in the world. Every police organization in Europe has been told to look for you.”
“I didn’t do a damn thing!” protested Hart, letting all his pent-up frustrations burst forth.
Jean Valette had a way of tilting his head back at an angle that made his gaze seem distant, remote, detached from any feeling of common sympathy or understanding. It was the look of someone completely analytical.
“That, of course, is not, strictly speaking, true.”
“You think I had something to do with—?”
Valette stopped him a quick movement of his head, a look of disapproval for an obvious mistake.
“What you did was to let yourself be used. You came here to discover who, or what, was behind the murder of Robert Constable. You, a single individual—an important one, it is true—but not part of some investigative unit of your government! And you did this before there was any investigation, any official investigation; before there was so much as a public announcement that the president had not died, as first reported, of natural causes. That means, does it not, that someone knew, or had reason to know, that the president had been murdered and had some reason to ask you to look into it?” A shrewd, knowing smile crossed his lips. “I can understand why Hillary Constable would want someone to do that; the more interesting question is why she chose you. Do you think it was because someone intended to blame you from the beginning?”
“I didn’t tell you that Hillary Constable asked me to look into it.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“And you still haven’t told me—your friend, the chief inspector, didn’t tell me—why he was here.”
“He came because I asked him to come. I knew you would come, Mr. Hart. You had to come; there was not anything else for you to do. There isn’t anything mysterious about it. Austin Pearce called me yesterday, just after you left the embassy, just after you made your escape. He was very agitated. That is a serious understatement: He was angry. He accused me of all sorts of things. I had a very difficult time getting him to calm down. He told me why you had come, what you thought I had done.”
In the failing light of late afternoon, the limousine raced down a tree-lined country road. Sunlit shadows cast a dappled pale glow on Jean Valette’s finely formed auburn-colored face. He had to be over sixty, but he looked almost as young as Hart, even though Hart, still in his forties, also looked younger than his age. There were differences, of course. Hart did not yet have any of the gray hair that, in the right propor
tion, added a certain distinction, and none of the web-like lines around the eyes that made Jean Valette’s face, even in repose, look so serious.
“He told me why you had come,” he repeated in a way that suggested not so much astonishment as a deep curiosity. He seemed intrigued by what Austin Pearce had told him. “He demanded—there is no other word for it—demanded that I tell him if it was true; demanded to know if I had had anything to do with this plot to murder Robert Constable.”
Valette seemed almost to enjoy it, the memory of that accusation. If Austin Pearce had not been murdered, if he were still alive, it is quite possible that Valette would have laughed out loud as he recounted their strange conversation. Hart, on the other hand, did see anything even the slightest bit amusing in any of it.
“And did you?—Did you have anything to do with this, the murder of the president, the murder of Frank Morris, the murder of Quentin Burdick, the murder of—?”
“Mr. Hart! I promise you, I’m not what you seem to think.” Valette’s eyes flashed with contempt. “What did I care whether Robert Constable lived or died? What did I care about any of this? I’m not interested in what happens to this person or that person; I’m not interested in individuals. I’m not interested in what happens today or tomorrow; I’m interested in what is going to happen fifty years from now, a hundred years from now.”