“What do you mean?” Janet asked lazily.
“Only one toilet. I mean, what if we both have to go at once?”
“If you stay in a place like this, you’re supposed to be too refined to need to the use the toilet at the same time as anyone else. Can you believe this is somebody’s house?”
“I know, and just one somebody, too. No baroness, no little baronettes. And this isn’t even his main house.”
Ron kicked off his shoes and lay down beside her on the bed.
“I could get used to this,” Janet said.
“Well, don’t. Private eyes don’t make this much money. Benedetti doesn’t even make this much money.”
“Well, I’m going to enjoy it while I can. If I can, knowing I have a murderer to thank for the opportunity.” She gave a little shudder.
Ron put his hand on her shoulder. “Shh. All the more reason to catch him, then. We can feel as if we’ve earned this.”
“You’re terrible,” she said.
“Mmm,” he said. “How much time do we have before dinner?”
“Not enough, damn it. I should be getting ready right now. I’ve never had a baron looking at my face before; I want to be extra careful with my makeup.”
“That,” he said, “is not the American Spirit.”
“I suppose you’d like me to go in jeans and a T-shirt with no makeup, walk up to him, smack him on the back, and call him ‘Pete.’”
“He would probably find it memorable.”
“I would kill myself first, okay? And if you do anything like it, I’ll kill you.”
“You’re beautiful when you’re threatening violence.”
“Come on, let’s get dressed.”
“Okay, who gets the toilet first?”
She grinned at him. “You go ahead, I’m too refined. By the way, did you see the bidet?”
“I saw it.”
“Are you going to use it?”
“Nah,” Ron said, “I’m going to stand on my head in the shower, the way I always do.”
Janet hit him with a pillow, then they kissed, got up, and got ready for dinner.
Ron got his tie done just as Janet returned from the dressing room. “I need you to do my clasp,” she said.
“You sure do,” he told her. She was wearing her green silk gown. It was very demure in front, with a high neck and long sleeves, but it had no back at all. Janet had a beautiful back.
“You’ll leave the baron speechless,” he told her as he fastened the clasp at the back of her neck.
“Mmm,” she said as she turned around and adjusted Ron’s tie. Her eyes were owlish behind her glasses. Ron knew that look. She had latched onto something about the case. Ron had filled her in earlier. He’d yet to brief the Professor.
“What is it, dear?”
“What is what?”
“What is it that you’re picking to pieces in your mind?”
“Why did Romanescu listen to you?”
“Thanks a lot.”
“No, I mean why you as opposed to Diderot?”
“Maybe it was what I said.”
“What did you say?”
“I said that he was coming back to town one way or another, and, while I didn’t know what was troubling him, the harder he made things now, the more likely it was he’d wind up being shipped back to Romania in a straitjacket.”
Janet shook his head. “If you were a psychologist, you’d be thrown out of about six professional associations for treating an hysterical patient that way.”
“Well, it got his attention.”
“Of course it did. The man comes from a country where until recently, ‘mental hospital’ was another term for political prison.”
Ron winced. “Ooh, yeah. And he’s already had his share of trouble with that system, hasn’t he?”
“I think being denounced by your own brother fits the definition of ‘his share of trouble,’” Janet agreed.
“Maybe I ought to apologize,” Ron said.
“Just leave him alone for now. You’ve probably made him afraid of you.” She smiled at Ron and straightened his tie. “Don’t feel too much. It’s better that he’s back here, even if you scared him back, than it would be for him running across France in the middle of a psychosis. I just wish I knew what scared him in the first place.”
“I think I know that already.”
“How?”
“I was in the backseat of the police car with him heading up the mountain.”
“What did he say?”
“It was Romanian,” Ron said. “I think.”
“Oh.”
“However, I also think I know three words of Romanian; and I think he used two of them.”
“I’m waiting.”
Ron frowned. “Keep waiting a little, will you, honey? I’m going to feel foolish enough trying this out on Benedetti; let me tell you both at the same time.”
“All right,” Janet said. “But if you think you’re going to sleep tonight before I hear about this Romanian you think you know, you’re out of your mind.”
Ron shrugged. “You’re the psychologist.” He kissed her. “Come on, let’s go to dinner.”
The sommelier came around (yet again), and Ron put his hand over his glass, and shook his head. He was tempted—oh, was he tempted—to tell the guy, “I never drink...wine,” but he realized that the urge itself was a sign that he’d probably already had too much. And salad, cheese, and dessert were yet to come, each, he supposed, with its own wine. Everything else had, except for the lemon sherbet that had shown up after the fish course.
He supposed it showed a lack of sophistication on his part, but Ron had never expected to see a meal like this outside of historical fiction. A succession of meats and fish and vegetable and fowl, each on a separate dish, each with a rich sauce. And each with a wine from the baron’s own vineyards.
Pierre Benac could not eat like this every day, Ron reasoned, because if he did, he would weigh five hundred pounds. Not that he was anything like bony, but it would take a real stretch to have called him fat.
With his moustaches and imperial, his booming voice, and the pouter-pigeon attitudes he put his body through, it would have been easy to see the baron as a comic figure. But, Ron reflected, comic figures don’t build—and hold onto—multibillion-dollar conglomerates. Or put together things like OSI.
Or, for that matter, play games with Benedetti on his home turf.
“But my dear Professor,” the baron said. There were five of them at dinner—Benac; his assistant Levesque, the guy who’d come to the States yesterday (only yesterday?) to fetch them; and the Professor, Janet, and Ron. They were speaking English in deference to Ron (Janet’s French was quite good) and that made him feel all the more provincial.
“But my dear Professor,” the baron said again. “Surely it is a matter of definition.”
Benedetti smiled a catlike smile. Ron could tell he was finding this an unexpected pleasure. “So many things are,” the Professor said.
“You maintain evil is always a matter of choice.”
“Always,” the Professor said.
“But cannot evil arise from good intent?”
Ron saw Paul Levesque, who’d been sort of moping along through the meal, hardly touching the food or the wine, brighten. “You must concede to the baron on this one, Professor.”
Benedetti grinned. “Must I? Why, monsieur?”
“I have researched your investigations, before approaching you to assist us here. In the HOG case, the killer planned to help thousands of people. One can hardly think of a better intent.”
Benedetti nodded. “Yes, and to fulfill that intention, this person committed cold-blooded murder and terrorized an entire city, causing the deaths of several innocent persons in the process. These actions were chosen.
“There is a difference between intention and action. Any rational being is responsible for the consequences of his actions, regardless of what the intended consequences were.”
The baron stroked his beard.
“Very well,” he said. “What of the actions of an irrational being?”
“I’m not sure what you mean. A tiger? A wolf? Obviously, since I maintain evil is a matter of choice, I absolve animals of it.”
Benac smiled. “I believe you deliberately misunderstand me, Professor. I refer to an insane human being. Suppose the killer who terrorizes this town (and may God help us) is one of those dismal wretches who are driven to their crimes by madness.”
Ron decided to join in. “Like Son of Sam in New York? Demon voices from the next-door neighbor’s dog?”
“Precisely,” the baron replied. He turned expectantly toward Benedetti.
The Professor took a sip of his wine. “One need not,” he said, “let a demon persuade one to evil any more than the people of Germany needed to let Hitler persuade them. Or the people of Italy Mussolini.”
“Just say, ‘No,’” Janet said over a forkful of veal. Ron cracked up. He was glad that no one asked him to explain why.
“And a person who is truly mad—one who cannot comprehend the nature of reality, or the fact that his—or her—actions might even have consequences, is in reality no more responsible than an animal, and any damage done must be classed as misfortune rather than the result of evil.”
“Then it does come down to a matter of definition.” The baron frowned. “Crime or misfortune, the destruction of the Olympique Scientifique Internationale will be a catastrophe for the spirit of mankind! Mad or sane, you must stop this killer!”
Benedetti sat back with slitted eyes. “Oh, our killer is sane. That is, the man or woman in question has chosen to commit the evil that has been done.”
“How do you know this?”
“It has been too well planned.”
The baron was aghast. “Planned? A strangling in a public square followed by a cremation? A ripping out of the throat in a police station?” The baron stopped short. He shrugged. “But I am sorry. It is inexcusable to discuss such things over dinner.”
Janet smiled at him. “We’re used to it,” she said.
The baron shook his head. “Well, I thank God I am not, dear lady.” He turned to the Professor. “How is it you think such atrocities are well planned?”
Benedetti gave a shrug of his own. “Perhaps I should have said too well executed. Here are two murders committed in the most unfavorable circumstances imaginable, no? And yet we lack a single witness (except for Dr. Romanescu, with his ‘man in brown’ fleeing the scene) and not a single shred of useful evidence. It is possible, I suppose, that a murderer or even a madman could have such luck, but I don’t believe it.”
“Why not?” the baron asked.
“Ronald, tell the baron why not.”
Thank you so much, Maestro, Ron thought. Recitation time for the man paying the bills.
“Please do tell me,” Benac said.
“You stated the reason yourself just a few minutes ago, Baron.” Ron said. “What is true of these murders that wouldn’t be true if they happened right now in any other community in France? In the world?”
Benac frowned. “I—I am sorry, I still do not understand.”
“Why are we here? More specifically, why is Niccolo Benedetti here?”
“Because I asked him to come. To find the killer.”
Ron grinned. “We’re getting there, Baron. Why did you ask him to come?”
“Because the gathering is threatened! These murders might destroy the Olympique Scientifique Internationale!”
“Bingo,” Ron said.
“Bingo?”
Paul Levesque came to his employer’s rescue. “It is an American expression, Monsieur le Baron. It means you have won the game.”
The baron’s eyes and mouth opened wide. He turned to the Professor. “You mean to say that some madman is killing innocent people for the deliberate purpose of destroying this gathering?”
“It is a possibility that must not be ignored,” Benedetti said.
“Mon dieu. Who would do such a thing? Why?”
“That is something we shall ask the killer when we find him.”
The response didn’t do much to cheer the baron up. To look at Benedetti, one would have thought he hadn’t noticed, except Ron knew the old man noticed everything.
Now Benedetti turned to Ron and said, “But my young friend, you have had an eventful afternoon, have you not? You must tell me all about it.”
“Here? Now?”
“Of course. We have no secrets from Monsieur le Baron or Monsieur Levesque.”
“Okay,” Ron said. He tried not to sound dubious. He’d known Benedetti a long time, and had yet to catch the Maestro not knowing what he was doing.
Ron reported the way the Professor had taught him all those years ago. First, a straightforward recounting of events, with all the dialogue, vocal tones, and facial expressions, then Ron’s own thoughts, impressions, and deductions. In this instance, that part was taken care of simply by giving him an edited version of his earlier conversation with Janet.
“You know what Romanescu is afraid of?” Levesque demanded, when Ron had concluded. His handsome face seemed impressed. “I spoke on the telephone to Diderot earlier, and he said he knew nothing.”
Ron shrugged. “He wasn’t sitting in the back seat. Besides, I only said I think I know.”
“I am amazed to learn you speak Romanian,” the Professor said. “There are no ends to your talents, it seems.”
“Very funny, Maestro,” Ron said. “I said I think I know three words of Romanian.”
“And how did you learn these?”
“I’ve read Dracula six times.”
Benedetti was positively beaming. “Come to my quarters after dinner, amico, I wish to show you something. In the meantime, give us all a lesson in the Romanian language.”
“Okay. The three words I know, if Bram Stoker got them right. The first is wampyr, the meaning of which is obvious, and which I didn’t hear Romanescu say. I did hear him say stregoica, which means witch...”
“And the third?” the baron asked breathlessly.
“The third he said a lot. It was vrolok. You think of the strange figure with long hair running away; you think about this ‘full moon’ business, and it makes sense.”
“I don’t believe this,” Janet said.
Ron ignored her. “Vrolok,” he said, “means werewolf.”
10
THE PROFESSOR RARELY DREW a cartoon before plunging in on a painting—he usually worked too rapidly—but this time he had.
“I was fatigued from jet lag,” the old man explained, “and I knew there was little time before I would need to get ready for dinner, but I was drawn to the canvas.” He pointed to the easel that was always the first of his belongings to be unpacked. “I simply took hold of a piece of charcoal and began sketching. I’m glad now I did.”
Janet looked at the easel. The sketch was rough but perfectly recognizable—a hunched, hairy figure that was obviously a werewolf was running with an unconscious woman in his arms. A faceless horde of villagers with torches pursued him.
“Creepy,” Ron said.
“The whole idea is creepy. Do you two mean to tell me you think there’s a werewolf loose in the middle of twentieth-century France?”
“It’s not the middle,” Ron corrected, “it’s more like the southern edge.”
Janet looked at her husband. “Is that supposed to make a difference?” she demanded.
“You never know,” he told her. “It pays to be accurate in this business.”
Janet opened her mouth to go on, then saw the twinkle in Ron’s eye. “You are very lucky,” she said, “that I love you.”
“Not a day goes by that I don’t tell myself that very thing,” Ron said.
“If I may interrupt this touching scene,” the Professor said, “I think Janet has raised a most pertinent question. Do we think there is an actual werewolf at large here?”
“Of course we don
’t. I’m just reporting what I think Romanescu was afraid of.”
“Why are we so sure he is wrong?” the Professor asked.
It was a new experience for Janet to see her husband at a loss for words. Ron was staring at Benedetti like a man who suspected the pope of using a joy buzzer.
“Because,” Ron said. “It’s legend. Superstition.”
“Yet Ion Romanescu, a man of science, a man who has endured torture at the hands of one of history’s nastier totalitarian regimes, ran screaming into the—not even into the night, into the afternoon sun—because he fears one is afoot.”
“Well, Romania is where all that folklore comes from....”
The Professor shook his head. “Amico mio, every culture on earth that knows the wolf has legends of the werewolf. All the others have tales of humans who become the fiercest beast they do know.
“It is true that in Eastern Europe these legends are especially vivid and strong, but has your devotion to Mr. Stoker’s masterpiece led you to believe that all Romanians cross themselves and cower at the full moon? Buon Iddìo, you might as well believe all Italians cry ‘Mamma mia!’ and slap themselves on the forehead when they are surprised.”
“I’m sorry, Maestro,” Ron said.
The Professor waved it off. “If the lesson is learned, that is all we need say about it.”
It was a part of the relationship between the old man and Ron that Janet seldom saw. When Ron called Benedetti “Maestro,” it wasn’t badinage or a matter of form. He meant it—Master, Teacher.
“We still haven’t answered the question,” Janet said. “Do we give any credence to the idea of a real werewolf?”
Benedetti smiled. “I don’t think we need raid the church and melt down candlesticks for silver bullets, just yet. On the other hand, what we do find may be something stranger and more frightening than any superstition.”
“What do you mean, Maestro?”
“If I knew that, I would know everything.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Ron said. “By tomorrow afternoon at the latest, this town is going to be buzzing with werewolf talk. Romanescu will bend the ears of the staff at the hospital, and judging from the looks on their faces, I don’t think our dinner companions will be able to keep this to themselves, either.”
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