by Mark Hebden
Seventeen
Pissarro was in the garden of Number 17, Rue Louis-Vinneroy, at Annonay when Pel and Darcy arrived. He was standing among the rose bushes with the heavy horn-handled knife they’d seen him use for pruning at his home, cutting blooms for the woman who stood alongside him. She was a languid blonde past her prime and she held a shallow gardener’s trug in which she was laying the roses that Pissarro cut. They assumed she was Madame Morcat and the scene was one of rustic charm. It didn’t impress Pel much.
As the car drew up, out of the comer of his eye, he saw Pissarro spot him. Abruptly, his face changed and, turning, his head down between his shoulders, he began to push further into the rose bushes. Pel went after him like a dog after a rabbit, the woman watching, startled, from the door of the house. As he drew nearer, Pissarro, aware that he’d been seen, put on an elaborate show of innocent affection, plucking petals from a rose and beaming at the woman as he dropped them to the ground.
‘Je t’aime.’ A petal fluttered from his hand. ‘Beaucoup.’ Another petal twisted down. ‘Passionnement.’ A third left his fingers. ‘A la folie.’ The next petal was plucked with a gesture. ‘Pas du tout.’ He glanced at the woman, pulled a face and went on faster. ‘Je t’aime. Beaucoup. Passionnement.’ He stopped at last, dropped the ruined rose to the ground and called out. ‘I love you passionately, chérie.’
As Pel appeared alongside him, popping up from among the roses like the devil through a trapdoor in a ballet, he affected a start. His smile had enough gold in it to be dazzling.
‘Inspector Pel!’ Slowly the smile grew wider and more confident. ‘Fancy seeing you here!’
Pel gave his imitation of a snake about to strike. ‘Fancy seeing you here,’ he replied. He glanced at the woman. ‘A business associate?’ he suggested.
Somewhat uneasily, Pissarro introduced her. ‘Madame Adrienne Morcat,’ he said. ‘An old friend of mine.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ Pel smiled. ‘And of Madame Pissarro’s too?’
Pissarro’s smile dried up. ‘Well, ah – no,’ he said. ‘Not exactly. We’re just old friends. Known each other for years. Long before I was married.’ The walls were trembling with his efforts to convince.
As Pel watched him, unconvinced, Pissarro put on another big show of innocence. ‘We were just discussing the chances of our team in the Tour de France, Inspector.
‘Our team?’
‘Madame Morcat is the widow of Martin Morcat, who owned Plastiques St Etienne. A small firm, which is included in the “Touts Produits” title, which covers all the other firms helping to finance our team. Pis-Hélio-Tout, you’ll remember. “Pis” for Pissarro, “Helio” for Héliogravure Sud.’ He was talking at full speed, as if he hoped that by doing so he could stop Pel asking questions. ‘Everybody talks about the Tour de France, of course, at this time, don’t they?’
‘I don’t,’ Pel said, his voice as flat as a smack across the chops.
Pissarro tried to struggle on a little longer. He gestured at the paper lying on the terrasse. ‘After all, it’s an industry, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘It requires seventeen hundred regular employees, a changing work force of eight hundred new personnel a day, four thousand police at bridges, roads and sprint areas, three hundred vehicles, seventy motor cycles, two helicopters, an entire fleet of radio planes to relay television and press reports, and media coverage greater than the Paris Peace Conference. The only comparable organisation was D-Day.’
‘It also,’ Pel said coldly, ‘disrupts traffic, ruins the journeys of thousands of totally uninterested people and disorganises the forces of law and order which could be better used in stamping out crime.’
Pissarro made a last despairing effort. ‘I hope you’ve got your money on our man, Maryckx,’ he said. ‘He’s going to be the winner, you know.’
‘He’s not lying anywhere near the front, I notice,’ Pel said.
Pissarro managed a weak smile. ‘Well, he’s hardly an “untouchable” but he’s splendid in the mountains and he’s got the deep chest of a sprinter. It’s the purest sport in the world, cycle racing – a man on a shiny steed alone. It’s like the old knights in armour again. He’ll pull up, you see.’
‘He’s got a long way to go,’ Pel pointed out.
Pissarro smiled and shrugged. ‘Well, perhaps we’re just deluding ourselves,’ he admitted. ‘Perhaps we shall lose a little money on the deal. But, let’s face it, Van der Essen or Filou might well be using one of our sprockets. I shall be at the feeding point at Boine to cheer them past.’
He gestured towards a chair, his face a mask of affability, snapped the horn-handled knife shut and slipped it into his pocket before sitting down and giving up the struggle. ‘Still, I don’t suppose you’ve come here to talk about the Tour de France,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Just a little talk, Monsieur,’ Pel said patiently. ‘Preferably in private. I’m sure it can be arranged.’
Pissarro turned to Madame Morcat who was watching from the door. ‘Ma chérie,’ he said. ‘Business.’
As she headed into the house, Pissarro gestured at the bottles on the terrasse. ‘A drink, Inspector?’
‘Not on duty, Monsieur.’
As they sat down, behind Pissarro’s head Pel saw a line of ducks trudging across the wall. In the corner was a tiny butterfly with a broken wing.
‘Nice picture,’ he observed.
‘Yes.’ Pissarro smiled. ‘I had it done as a birthday present.’
‘By Maurice Jacqmin?’
‘Who, Inspector?’ Pissarro’s face was blank.
‘Maurice Jacqmin. Sometimes known as Jean Casse-le-Papillon.’
Pissarro gave a shrug. ‘I don’t know, Inspector. I don’t know his name.’
‘But you said you commissioned it. Surely you must have chosen the artist.’
‘Well, no.’ Pissarro looked uncomfortable. ‘I had a Swiss friend, you see, whose work I admired, and thought he could do the job. But he insisted he never did that sort of thing and promised to find someone in his place. This fellow turned up. That’s how it happened.’
‘Did you never find out what his name was?’
‘Er – no. Never.’
Pel studied the picture. ‘How much did it cost? I’m a great admirer of art but I can never afford it.’
‘Oh—’ Pissarro gestured airily ‘—two or three thousand francs. I’m not certain now. It’s been there some time.’
‘Expensive,’ Pel observed. ‘Pay cash?’
‘No, the usual way—’ Pissarro stopped dead and Pel smiled.
‘Cheque?’ he said. ‘Then how did you make it out if you didn’t know his name?’
Pissarro floundered and finally came up with the story that he’d paid his Swiss friend who had then paid the artist. Pel didn’t believe that either.
‘Name?’ he asked.
‘Of whom?’
‘The Swiss friend.’
‘I forget now.’
‘But you commissioned the picture through him?’
Pissarro’s mouth opened and shut. ‘It’s some time ago now, of course,’ he managed. ‘You can’t expect me, with all the things I have to carry in my head about business, to remember things like that.’
There was a long silence in which Pissarro hurriedly rose and poured himself a drink. Pel watched him, his eyes icy. As Pissarro sat down again, he leaned forward.
‘We’re interested in some of the gadgets you’ve been making,’ he went on. ‘Ever make anything concerned with reversing electric current?’
Pissarro took a lot of pains to appear deep in thought. ‘Not to my knowledge. Why?’
‘I had occasion yesterday to inspect a device which seems to have been appearing in large numbers in the north of France.’
Darcy had quietly appeared and seated himself alongside Pel. Pissarro didn’t seem to notice.
‘It seems to have been used in the north rather than around here,’ Pel went on. ‘For purposes of security, I imagi
ne. It’s a device that’s been troubling the electricity authorities for some time, a device for reversing electricity meters to produce a considerable reduction in the current used, a device to defraud that has caused the electricity authorities a great deal of concern. It interests me for a different reason.’
Pissarro frowned. ‘And you wish to ask my advice about it?’
‘More than that,’ Pel said smoothly. ‘The man who sold the one I saw yesterday seems to have been Claude-Achille Cormon, lately in your employ.’
Pissarro looked startled. ‘Cormon? Good God! I knew he was a funny chap but I didn’t think he was dishonest.’
‘He’d been in prison,’ Darcy said. ‘He also only recently left your employ and found work with an Englishman who runs a small factory at Montbard. A man called Robinson, trading as Accessoires Montbard.’
‘I’ve never heard of him.’
‘He’s not very important,’ Pel admitted. ‘Except to us. One of the things he’s engaged in making is a gadget in use in electric lifts and single-handed sailing. A device that can reverse things electronically. So that a rising lift could be made to descend. So that a sailing vessel on a starboard tack could be brought on to the port tack. You understand me?’
‘Of course, of course.’ Pissarro was all ears. ‘It sounds fascinating.’
‘It does indeed. It occurs to me that your former employee, Cormon, saw possibilities in this device and managed to steal one. He then, I suspect, made a mock-up of the device I saw yesterday and tried it himself before eventually manufacturing a similar device in numbers. The authorities are worried. So are the police. Whoever made them is likely to be the subject of prosecution.’
Pissarro was looking nervous suddenly. ‘It’s a good job in a way that he’s dead,’ he said slowly. He paused. ‘I don’t mean that exactly, of course. What I meant was – well, the disgrace. That sort of thing. Making electrical devices at home to defraud the authorities.’
‘He couldn’t have made at home the device I saw yesterday,’ Pel said quietly. ‘It was a complicated affair inside a sophisticated black box.’
There was a long pause. Pel and Darcy were both closely watching Pissarro.
‘Could Cormon have made these devices?’ Darcy asked.
‘Oh, most certainly. He was quite capable, I imagine.’
‘Could he have made them at your place?’
Pissarro paused. ‘It’s possible, of course. People who have benches, drills, lathes, saws and soldering equipment will always use them for their own purposes. It’s one of the perks of the trade. The number of cigarette lighters that are made must be enormous. When I did my military training, I was in the workshops and everybody was making them. The case of a cannon shell made a splendid desk lighter. A 303 cartridge case made an excellent pocket lighter. You must be aware of it.’
‘I am,’ Pel said quietly.
‘Well—’ Pissarro seemed to be talking for the sake of talking ‘—as you can imagine, television switches are repaired when they go wrong. Radios are fixed. Bills are high and they’re bound to take advantage of the situation. Chiefly in their lunch hour—’ he smiled ‘—or when they’re supposed to be doing overtime. I’m not always there, of course, and even if I were, I don’t see everything, and they each have a drawer for their private equipment. Things can disappear pretty quickly into a drawer. They’re all at it, I’m sure. Even the foreman – ’
Pel held up a hand to stop the flood of information on the iniquities of the working population of the Republic. ‘But Cormon was no longer in your employ,’ he pointed out. ‘He left you some months ago.’
Pissarro pulled a face. ‘He must still have had friends at my place. He probably contacted one of them and got him to make these things for him.’
‘I would suggest it’s probably more sophisticated than that. That it would need careful work, not merely a little after hours or in the lunch break. It wasn’t made with your approval, was it?’
Pissarro gestured feebly. ‘Why do you ask?’
Pel nodded at the painting on the wall. ‘The man who painted that – and I know exactly who it was, Monsieur – was approached by Cormon to draw a device that was brought to him. One of Accessoires Montbard’s gadgets, I suspect. Doubtless Cormon “borrowed” it long enough to have it copied and then returned it. Then, with the drawing, the dimensions, et cetera, and with his own skill, he got his sophisticated device made to defraud the electricity authorities. Probably with the help of a man called Rambot.’
There was a pause and Pel looked hard at Pissarro, ‘Ever met a man called Rambot?’ he asked, ‘He looks like Darcy here.’
Pissarro shook his head, ‘Never. What is he? A manufacturer?’
‘We don’t know what he is. We’d like to know. He sounds interesting.’
‘I’ve never heard of him. How does he come into it?’
‘He also contacted your artist friend to have some drawings made. Perhaps for the same device. Perhaps something else. We’d like to know. It could have been the sort of thing that appears in a letter bomb.’
Pissarro shook his head, a pained expression on his face. ‘What are you suggesting?’
‘I was wondering if your association with Maurice Jacqmin went as far as Cormon’s. And Rambot’s.’
Pissarro looked indignant. ‘In the name of God,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t do a thing like that! I’m a straightforward man.’
Looking at the painting on the wall and at Madame Morcat who was moving about inside the house, Pel felt he had good reason to doubt the statement.
Eighteen
From Annonay they drove towards Rambillard to see Robinson. Though Pissarro wasn’t aware of it, Madame Morcat’s house was already being placed under surveillance. A short conference with the Commissaire at Annonay had made it possible.
‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘We’ll keep tabs on him.’
For a while in the car, Pel was silent. When he spoke, it was slowly, as if he were chasing ideas through the busy channels of his mind.
‘Did you check on Cormon’s background?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Patron.’ Darcy kept his eyes on the road. ‘We’d already done it once, of course, and found nothing. This time I concentrated on his political views. He seems to have been Leftish – but never enough to be Left. He wasn’t a communist or anything like that. Just a sort of pink socialist. I’ve found provincials tend not to be too definite in their views.’
‘Belong to any organisations?’
‘Only a union. Nothing else. Doesn’t seem to have been to any political meetings or anything of that nature. Of course –’ Darcy shrugged ‘—he’d hardly let it be obvious if he belonged to something subversive, would he?’
At Rambillard, Doctor Robinson met them with what appeared to he genuine pleasure.
‘Inspector Pel,’ he yelled. ‘Come in! Come in! And Sergeant Darcy, too! What joy! You’re staying to lunch, of course! I’ll see my wife and arrange it all if you’ll just hang on a moment!’
As they awaited Robinson’s return, Pel decided that the British had let him down badly in recent weeks. He’d always thought them boorish and humourless, standing about in draughty country houses, wearing checked caps like plates, accompanied by dozens of dogs and possessing wives as flat as boards and about as interesting, to say nothing of eating food which wasn’t fit to give to the pigs. He could see he would have to reconsider his position.
Sitting behind a pernod big enough to drown a cat in, he explained what they were after. He described the investigation into Cormon’s death, and Jacqmin’s connection, and voiced the suspicion without mentioning any names that the electrical reversing devices that had been found were being manufactured within a hundred kilometres of Montbard.
Robinson listened carefully, not attempting to interrupt until Pel finished.
‘I would suggest, Inspector,’ he said slowly as Pel sat back, ‘that you make a few enquiries round the works of one Louis-Napoléon Pissarro.’
Pel sat bolt upright. ‘You’ve had problems before with this Pissarro?’ he asked.
‘I know very well that one of my gadgets turned up in television sets manufactured in Lyons and when I enquired I traced it back to Pissarro.’
‘Did you now?’ Pel said thoughtfully. ‘Was that after Cormon came to work for you?’
‘No. Before. I wouldn’t like to suggest that the thing was deliberately copied. But there are pirates who copy things – everything from films, books, tapes and gadgets of a minor nature. They’re covered, of course, but it’s very difficult to prove they’ve been copied because it’s always possible for two people to have the same idea – or even for someone to have an idea put into his head by something he’s read or seen – without being aware it’s already covered by a patent or a copyright.’
‘Have you ever been contacted by this man called Rambot you saw with Cormon?’
‘No. And the name means nothing.’
‘He could have used an alias, I suppose. We’ve learned a bit about him.’
Robinson shook his head. ‘Who is he?’
‘We haven’t got that far yet. Probably some sort of industrial spy. Perhaps more than that. Are you manufacturing anything at this moment that Cormon might have copied while in your employ? Something he might have been able to remove for a day or two, perhaps, without being noticed and then returned? An important part of one of your inventions?’
Robinson suddenly became blank-faced. ‘I’ve turned out nothing new for a long time,’ he said. ‘Not since I made the reverser switch.’
Pel explained the electrical fraud device. ‘Could that have been part of your device?’ he asked. ‘Could Cormon have stolen part of your reverser – the main part – and fitted it into this device he built to defraud the electricity authorities?’
Robinson frowned. He looked worried. ‘It’s possible,’ he said.
‘What about bombs?’
‘Bombs?’ Robinson looked startled.
‘Letter bombs. There’ve been a few about lately. Could your switch device have been used in some way?’