The Splendour Falls

by Susanna Kearsley

“It is a lovely painting, that one, is it not?” She smiled, understanding.

  “Very lovely.” I bit my lip. “Is it very expensive?”

  “Not so expensive as his others. It is a smaller canvas, and there are no cows in it. Tourists,” she informed me, “like the cows, and so the cows have higher prices than the river. But if you like, I have a price list.”

  I came inside and waited while she went to fetch the list.

  The gallery’s interior was bright and white and spotless, meant to show off every sculpture, sketch and painting to advantage. Martine had a clever eye for art, I thought. I didn’t see a single work that I would not have wanted to own myself. Still, I fancied most of it was well outside my price range, and when Martine finally found the list and ran her finger down it, I braced myself for the inevitable. Not that it mattered, I consoled myself. I hadn’t come to buy a painting, anyway. I’d only come to ask Martine some subtle questions about her ex-husband, Didier Muret.

  “Painting number 88,” she said at last. “Yes, here it is.” The sum she quoted was almost twice what I earned in a month.

  I heard a quiet footstep on the polished floor behind me. “Perhaps Christian will reduce his prices, for a friend.” A man’s voice, but the accent was distinctly French, not German. I hadn’t seen Armand Valcourt come in. Martine had, though; she didn’t bat an eyelid as she shook her head, a smile softening her sigh.

  “Christian,” she said, “would give them all away, I think, these paintings. He has too generous a nature. Always I must watch him and remind him painters, too, must eat.”

  I glanced round at Armand, and said good morning. “I saw your daughter earlier, by the river.”

  “Yes.” He smiled. “This is her morning with François. The ducks, I think, and then the ice cream… such a simple way to happiness. She likes her Wednesdays, my Lucie.”

  His eyes were quite unhurried as they roamed the quiet gallery, and he didn’t seem in any rush to move. So much, I thought, for my chance of a private chat with Martine. I tried to hide my disappointment by asking him how old his daughter was, exactly.

  “Lucie? She has nearly seven years.”

  “And already she has genius,” said her slightly biased aunt. “She can tell you every step of how the wine is made, that little one.”

  “She is a Valcourt,” Armand said, as if that explained everything. “It will be hers one day, the Clos des Cloches, and so I pass traditions down, as I learned from my father.”

  Martine smiled. “But she is half her mother’s child, remember. She likes the vine but also likes the art. Perhaps one day she will begin the home for artists that Brigitte so often talked about.”

  “God help us.” Armand shuddered. “The artist by himself, he can be interesting. A few of them at dinner, when they are not fighting, that also can be interesting. But a house of artists,” his eyes rolled heavenward at the thought. “They would drive me mad.”

  “You will forgive my brother-in-law,” Martine said, her dark eyes teasing. “He likes only the art on his wine labels.”

  Armand looked offended. “That is not true. I like this painting very much.” He nodded at a watercolor hung behind the cash register, a sweeping vista of a vineyard with a mellow-walled château nestled in the distance. “This shows great talent.”

  “This shows grapes.” Martine’s voice was dry. “But no matter. I’m sorry, Armand, was there something that you needed?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Oh.” Surprise flashed momentarily across her lovely fragile face, from which I gathered that Armand Valcourt didn’t often visit the gallery without a reason.

  “No, I was just passing, and I thought I would come and see what you have done. Lucie says there are sculptures, somewhere, that are new.”

  Martine considered; shook her head. “Not new ones, no. I do not think…”

  “Ah, well. You know Lucie, she sometimes gets her story wrong.” He didn’t seem concerned. Hands in his pockets, he leaned closer to me, his breath feathering my neck as he studied a smaller pen-and-ink drawing on the counter. “And this is also nice, Martine. It is by Christian, yes?”

  She looked, and nodded. “Yes.”

  “It looks like Victor’s place.” He reached to pick the drawing up, his arm brushing casually against my shoulder. “Yes, so it is. I wonder sometimes what Victor does with himself, these days. Do you ever hear from him?”

  Martine shook her head. “Christian sees him, now and then. They have a drink and talk.” She smiled at me, in vague apology. “This is a friend of ours we speak of, an old friend.”

  Victor Belliveau, I nearly said. Of course, they all would know each other from the days when Brigitte Valcourt had held her magnificent parties up at the Clos des Cloches. A poet would have been included on the guest list, I decided, alongside musical Neil and clever Christian. I longed to ask Martine about those parties, just as I longed to ask her if her former husband ever talked of history, or of Englishmen named Harry. But even as I tried to summon up the nerve, a telephone rang shrilly in the gallery’s back room, and Martine excused herself to answer it, her heels clicking on the hard tile floor as she walked away.

  Armand shifted at my shoulder, looking down at me. After a moment’s silence, he cleared his throat and spoke. “I have a confession.”

  “Oh, yes?” I glanced up.

  “I have not much interest in art. And sculpture bores me.” He moved around to lean against the counter, facing me, and raised one hand in an automatic gesture before remembering he shouldn’t smoke here. The hand went back inside his pocket. “When I said that I was passing, that was true. But I only stopped because I saw you here.” He grinned. “It is no easy matter, in a town this size, to find someone.”

  Harry always said I had a talent for deducing the obvious, and I displayed it now. “You were looking for me?”

  He shrugged. “I thought, if you had not made plans already, you might let me buy you lunch.”

  “Lunch.” I repeated the word rather stupidly, and he brought his smiling eyes back to mine.

  “Yes. Most days my lunch hours are reserved for Lucie. My work, it keeps me very busy, so I try to keep this hour for her, our private time. You understand?” Convinced I did, he carried on. “But on Wednesdays, François takes Lucie for half the day, and they eat lunch together, so I am left with no one.”

  No one? On the contrary, I thought, the women must be queuing up.

  “You don’t believe me?” His eyes were warm behind the coal-black lashes. “It is true. I am a rich man, Mademoiselle, but the price one pays for influence is isolation.”

  It was a blatant attempt to play upon my sympathies, and while it didn’t work, I must confess I couldn’t see the harm in having lunch. Besides, I thought, Armand Valcourt had also known Didier Muret. Perhaps I could ask him the questions I had meant to ask Martine.

  “All right, then,” I said, on impulse, “I’d be happy to have lunch with you.”

  “Good.” He flashed a smile briefly, raised his eyes, then dropped them to his watch. “Good, then I shall pick you up at your hotel at noon, if you like?”

  My own watch read nine forty-five. “All right.”

  “Good,” he said again, pushing away from the counter. “In that case I will leave you for the moment, to enjoy the paintings. I have business still to do before we eat. You will excuse me?” His smile was very charming, but it wasn’t serious. It didn’t mean anything.

  He showed the same smile to the rumpled young man who bumped shoulders with him in the doorway. “Morning,” Simon said cheerfully, as Armand slipped past him into the shaded street. Whistling an aimless happy tune, Simon stepped into the gallery and stopped short at the sight of me. “There you are!” From his tone, one would have thought I was some errant schoolgirl, late for lessons. “Paul’s been looking everywhere for you, you know. You
missed breakfast.”

  “Yes, well—”

  “He’s back at the hotel now, waiting for you to turn up.”

  Martine emerged from the back room, having dealt with her telephone caller. Her dark eyes, dancing, traveled from Simon’s face to mine. “You are much in demand, I think, this morning. All these men come looking for you.”

  Simon, bless his heart, said: “I’m looking for Christian, actually. Thought you might know where he is.”

  She arched a curious eyebrow. “Christian?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to borrow… something.”

  “If he is not at home…”

  “He isn’t.”

  “Then you might try in the next street,” she advised him, “around this corner. He talked last night about making a drawing there.”

  Simon, to my surprise, showed no desire to hang about chatting to Martine. Thanking her, he turned to me. “You should probably come with me,” he decided, “so we don’t lose you again.”

  There was little point in staying, I thought glumly, as heavy footsteps sounded on the front step and an elderly couple entered the gallery, calling out a greeting to Martine. She saw us graciously to the door, her eyes faintly puzzled as they met mine over our handshake. “Was there something else, Mademoiselle, that you were wanting to ask?”

  “No.” The lie fell heavy as a lump of lead.

  “It’s only that…” She stopped, and shook her head, and the bemused expression cleared. “No matter, it is nothing. Enjoy your day, the both of you.”

  The day, I found, had swiftly changed its character. The sun now hung, suppressed, behind a screen of dull gray cloud, and the air smelled faintly of motor oil and coming rain.

  Simon took the lead and I followed him, head down and deep in thought. So deep in thought, in fact, that at the next corner I nearly ploughed straight into Christian Rand without seeing him. Not that it would have mattered to Christian—he probably wouldn’t have noticed. The young artist was lost in contemplation of a different kind, staring with half-seeing eyes at the bakery across the road.

  Neil Grantham was something of a recurring theme this morning. He was standing next to Christian now, head back and hands on hips, his calm gaze focused on the same building. I looked, saw nothing too remarkable, and offered my apologies to Christian for so nearly tripping over him.

  At first I thought he hadn’t heard, but then the roughly cropped blond head dipped forward slightly, in a silent nod of acknowledgement.

  “Working, eh?” asked Simon, and again the artist nodded, not moving his eyes.

  “I must tear down this building,” he said, slowly, “it spoils my composition. But how… how…?”

  I shot Neil a quizzical glance.

  “He doesn’t mean it,” he assured me. “He does it all in his head, you see—pulls things down, or lumps them closer together, to make a better picture. Artists can do that sort of thing.”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t really taken Christian literally, if only because knocking down a building required a physical energy that seemed quite beyond him, somehow—but it always helped to have a proper explanation.

  Neil smiled, understanding. “I only know because my brother paints, and he tears things down all the time. He’s very much like Christian, actually, my brother is, though his paintings aren’t nearly as good.”

  “You’ve a talented family, then.”

  He shrugged. “It comes from my mother, I suppose. She used to sketch, and teach piano.”

  “So what did your father do?” Simon asked drily. “What was he, a writer? Actor? Opera singer?”

  “He worked for British Rail.” The boyish grin was like a flash of light.

  I looked away and checked my watch again. “I’d best find Paul,” I said. “Excuse me.”

  I left the three men standing like a mismatched group of statuary in the middle of the street, with Simon chattering on to Christian about borrowing a shovel and bucket. Rather like a child going to play at the seashore, I thought with a smile. Well, perhaps he’d find his treasure, after all. No harm in trying.

  The hotel bar was closed until the lunch hour, but I found Paul sitting in there anyway, reading in the semi-darkness. He put Ulysses down when I came in, and stretched, his expression relieved. “Well, it’s about time. I was starting to get worried.”

  “Sorry.” I sat down, stretching out my own weary legs. “I went out rather early, for a walk along the river.” I didn’t mention meeting the cat, or Neil—for some reason, that part of my morning seemed private and not for sharing. But I did tell Paul about Lucie Valcourt, and how we’d fed the ducks together earlier, and what she’d said about her uncle’s English friend.

  “Wow,” he said. Leaning back, he absently rumpled his hair with one hand. “So you think Muret might have been the guy who was supposed to meet your cousin here in Chinon?”

  “It certainly sounds like it, don’t you think? I mean, he could have read the journal article at Victor Belliveau’s house. They knew each other.”

  “Only everybody so far says he didn’t know English.”

  “I know.” I frowned. “And I haven’t figured out yet why he would be interested at all in what my cousin wrote about. There are so many questions. I was going to ask Martine about it, actually. I went round to the gallery this morning.” I smiled. “But it was rather too crowded to talk properly, and I’m not sure I would have had the nerve to ask anything, anyway. I mean, it isn’t done, is it? Not when you hardly know a person, and it’s her ex-husband you’re asking about, and he’s only been dead a week. Still,” I told him, brightening, “I’m having lunch with Armand Valcourt, and he might be able to—”

  “I beg your pardon?” Paul cut in, with an incredulous smile. “You’re what?”

  “Having lunch with Armand Valcourt,” I repeated. “And you can wipe that smug look off your face, Paul Lazarus, because I really don’t—”

  “OK, OK.” Paul lifted both hands in self-defense. “And it’s not a smug look, I’m just jealous, that’s all.”

  Jealous? Heavens, I thought, he surely didn’t think of me that way, did he? “Paul—”

  “Hardly seems fair, you eating lunch with a rich guy while I’m stuck with cheese-on-a-bun and Simon.” He grinned at me. “Where’s he taking you?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “Somewhere disgustingly expensive, I’ll bet. There are a couple of gourmet restaurants down the rue Voltaire, the kind of restaurants where they have six forks, you know the type. What time are you meeting him?”

  “At noon.” I turned my wrist to read my watch. “Oh, Lord, it’s just gone eleven now, and I haven’t even showered.”

  “Go on then, I’ll cover for you.” He leaned back in his seat and reached for the tattered paperback. “Just remember your mission, Dr. Watson.”

  “And that is?”

  “Get the man drunk and ask him about Didier Muret.”

  “Right.” I smiled, and turned to leave. “Let’s hope he tells me something useful, then.”

  “Let’s hope he doesn’t. I, for one, would feel a whole lot happier knowing there was no connection between Martine’s husband and your cousin.”

  He didn’t need to tell me why. My own mind had already gone this route a few hours earlier, and reached the same unsettling impasse: if my suspicions were correct, then Harry had been here in Chinon last Wednesday, feeding ducks with Lucie and chumming with her uncle Didier. And by Thursday morning, Didier Muret was dead.

  Chapter 21

  …call’d mine host

  To council, plied him with his richest wines,

  He didn’t choose a gourmet restaurant, after all, and I only had to muddle through three forks, a simple feat recalled with ease from my days of eating at Embassy dinners. Except for the forks, my lunch with Armand Valcourt bore no resemblance t
o those plodding Embassy events.

  For one thing, the surroundings were more comfortable. The restaurant’s dining room was rustic, whitewashed country French, its deep-silled windows stuffed with flowers blooming pink and red in the slanting midday sunlight. Pine tables, artfully distressed in keeping with the country theme, were set at discreet intervals around the room, and the russet tile floor gleamed warmly mellow, spotless, at our feet.

  They’d seated us beside the fireplace. Not yet in use, it too was filled with flowers, shell-pink roses mixed with ferns and feathered pale chrysanthemums. The smell of roses, delicate, seductive, clung to every breath I took. It swirled around the scent of wine, the whiff of garlic, and the tender tempting fragrance of the shellfish jumbled on my plate.

  Exquisite food, a charming ambience, and the close, attentive company of a handsome man who, if not exactly an aristocrat, was clearly near the top rung of the social ladder, as evidenced by the quietly respectful service we’d received. It was a shade surreal, the whole affair, which was perhaps why I felt so terribly relaxed. That, or the fact that Armand had twice refilled my wine glass.

  He was holding out the bottle now, dividing the remaining wine between our empty glasses as he finished off an anecdote about his daughter and her bicycle.

  “She looks like you, you know,” I told him. “Not feature for feature, but the smile is the same.” We were speaking English, mainly I think because it gave us the illusion of privacy, encircled as we were by three tables of French-speaking patrons.

  “Thank you,” he said, and looked at me. “You have no children?”

  “No.”

  He didn’t push it, didn’t pry. “They are like nothing else, children. Nothing can prepare you for the feelings they create. You would do anything.” He pried a mussel from its shell and chewed it thoughtfully. “I was not sure, myself, that I wanted a child, but when Lucie was born…” He set his fork down with a shrug. “Everything was changed.”

  “It must be difficult, though, raising her alone.”

  “Not quite alone.” He smiled, a smile that forgave my ignorance of the privileged world he lived in. “There was a nurse, in the beginning, to take care of her. Then, when Brigitte died, Martine came back to live with us. And of course, there is always François.”