Season of Snows and Sins

by Patricia Moyes

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “CHANTAL!” The word came out of Sylvie’s mouth as a sort of scream, and she jumped to her feet.

  Chantal made a small, decisive movement with the gun. She said, “Sit down, Sylvie. And keep quiet, or you’ll get hurt.”

  Sylvie subsided into her chair, dabbing at her eyes. Pierre Claudet, in a fine mixture of the paternal and the ministerial, said, “Now, Chantal, my dear. I know you are overwrought. Why don’t you lie down and…take a pill. One of the ones you like so much, eh? Have a nice quiet sleep and…now, my dear, mind what you’re doing with that gun. It could be dangerous. Chantal!”

  “And you, you fat slob,” said Chantal. “Don’t think that I’d hesitate to kill you; because I wouldn’t. Sit where you are and put your hands on the table.”

  Claudet had gone as white as dough. Without another word he laid his well-manicured hands on the dark, polished table. The diamond in his gold signet ring glinted in the afternoon sunshine.

  I sat still, rigid and terrified. If this was what Henry had intended to provoke, I could only hope that he had also considered how to get us out of it.

  Henry himself appeared perfectly and maddeningly at ease. He smiled and said, “Hello, Chantal. Nice to see you.”

  Keeping her gun trained on the Claudets, Chantal said, more rationally, “I was listening. From the balcony outside.”

  “I know,” said Henry.

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  “All right. I deduced that you would. I’m not always as silly as you think.”

  She almost smiled at that, then became fierce again. “Did you believe what she said?” Chantal indicated Sylvie by a slight gesture of the gun.

  “I must believe it, mustn’t I?” said Henry.

  “What does that mean?”

  “All the evidence goes to substantiate Mme. Claudet’s account of what happened.”

  At this, Chantal’s unfocused attention swung back to Sylvie with ferocious concentration. “You filthy bitch,” she screamed. “You thought of everything, didn’t you? Everything except this.”

  Henry was on her so fast that it was only afterward that I realized it had been a deliberate ploy of his to arouse Chantal’s fury against Sylvie, and that he must have started moving the instant Chantal’s gaze was off his face. As the gun came up, Henry’s fingers were around Chantal’s wrist, wrenching it upward, and the bullet thudded into the wooden ceiling. Sylvie jumped up, screaming, as Pierre Claudet sprang to help Henry. Chantal fought like a spitfire, scratching and biting, but she had no chance. Within a minute or two Henry had the gun and Claudet had immobilized Chantal efficiently, with both her arms pinioned behind her back.

  Sylvie said, “Oh, it’s all so horrible. I can’t bear it. I’m going—”

  “No!” said Henry, and it was as decisive as the shot had been. There was dead silence, and then he went on, “I’m sorry, Chantal, but the gun was dangerous.” He picked it up, broke it, and extracted the five remaining bullets, which fell with deadly softness into his hand. “There. That’s better. Now we can sit down and discuss this matter quietly. Please let Chantal go, M. Claudet.”

  “But—”

  “I said, ‘Let her go.’ ” Henry’s voice carried such quiet authority that Claudet did as he was told. Then he went back to the table and sat down beside Sylvie, taking one of her hands protectively in both his. Chantal rubbed her wrists in a marked manner and glared at us all. Henry went on, “Please sit down, Chantal.”

  “I’d rather stand.”

  “As you please. What I want to hear now is your version of what really happened.”

  My dream on the train came flooding back to me. “What really happened, Chantal?” And, as in the dream, Chantal replied, “Oh, you are silly.”

  “You said just now,” said Henry, “that Mme. Claudet’s account was all lies. That’s not true, is it?”

  “Of course it is!”

  “No.” Henry spoke sharply. “Mme. Claudet’s account was substantially correct. Otherwise you wouldn’t have broken in here, threatening us with a loaded gun.”

  “She was lying!”

  “You were one of the girls at Frivolités, weren’t you?” said Henry. “You don’t deny that?”

  “That has nothing to do with—”

  “Right. The point is established. We can go on. You were one of the girls, and Mario was one of the boys, and you recognized each other when you met at the Chalet Perce-neige. Correct so far?”

  Again Chantal said nothing. Henry went on, “Robert Drivaz knew all this, having been told by someone in the Veron household. And so, when he came to Paris, he called on you with the idea of blackmailing you.”

  “No!” shouted Chantal.

  “No? Then perhaps you will tell us your version, as I suggested.”

  “It was her!” Chantal pointed a white, accusing finger at Sylvie; in her flowing black robe, she looked like a witch designating her victim. “If Robert Drivaz blackmailed anybody, it was her!”

  “How do you know?” Henry asked quietly. Sylvie had gone very pale, and was twisting her handkerchief between her fingers.

  “Well, I know he went to her apartment, because I met him coming out one day as I was going in, and he looked very pleased with himself. And now, if she tells you he was blackmailing me—where would she have got the idea, unless it was from personal experience?”

  Sylvie said, “Oh, Henry, please be…please understand. Chantal is hysterical. She doesn’t know what she is saying. What on earth could Robert Drivaz have blackmailed me about?”

  “Frivolités!” shouted Chantal.

  “But, Chantal dear, it was I who took you away from there. It was I who had the place closed down.”

  “I wonder,” said Chantal with an ugly sneer.

  “You wonder,” put in Claudet icily, “but you do not know. So far, M. Tibbett has the choice between your wild accusations and Sylvie’s proven facts. Go on.”

  “On the day before the murder,” said Chantal, “Sylvie told me she had to go all day to this conference, and asked me if I wouldn’t like to borrow the car.”

  “Oh, Chantal,” Sylvie protested, “you know that’s not true. You begged to be allowed to—”

  “She told me,” Chantal went on unsteadily, “to bring the car back and come in for a drink that evening—but not before ten, as she wouldn’t be home. And that’s what I did—and then the gendarmes arrived—”

  “Oh, Henry,” said Sylvie softly, “don’t you see? My poor Chantal—she is utterly confused and not responsible for what she does. Can’t you understand how I tried to protect her, even when I felt sure of the truth? And now her poor demented brain spins around and accuses me… ”

  “Chantal,” said Henry, “did you happen to notice the car that was parked outside the chalet? The one Emmy and I hired in Geneva.”

  “The blue Volkswagen?” Chantal was offhand, uninterested.

  “What about it?”

  “You don’t recognize it?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Of course she recognizes it!” Sylvie burst out. “She knows very well it’s the one she hired that day—”

  “Are you crazy?” Chantal demanded.

  Henry said, “No, Chantal. Mme. Claudet is not crazy. You have put up a good fight, but facts are facts.”

  “What facts?” Chantal demanded.

  “I have proof,” Henry said, “that that particular car was hired by Mlle. Chantal Villeneuve from Geneva Airport on the afternoon of April 14, and returned on the same evening, with the distance to and from Montarraz on the clock. With the other evidence we have just heard, I don’t think any court would hesitate to decide that it was you, and not Anne-Marie, whom Jane Weston saw going into the Drivaz chalet just before five o’clock. There seems to be—”

  Chantal was moving slowly toward Sylvie. Suddenly she threw back her head and let out an unearthly scream of hysterical laughter. “So that’s it! That’s how it was done! Oh, very cleve
r! Brilliant!” She swung to face Henry. “The perfect frame-up—and she might have got away with it, if I hadn’t nearly hit that lorry outside Versailles!”

  In a small voice Sylvie said, “What do you mean, Chantal?”

  Chantal was still talking to Henry. “I missed the lorry, but there happened to be a gendarme around, and he asked to see my license. I looked in my bag, where I generally keep it—but it wasn’t there. Neither was my passport. I know I’m scatterbrained, so I thought I’d simply left it in another handbag. Anyhow, the gendarme told me to bring it to a police station within three days. Well, when I got home that night, after being at Sylvie’s apartment, I searched everywhere, but I couldn’t find it. And the next day—wonder of wonders!—there it was, with my passport, in my handbag all the time. Well, I didn’t give it a thought—just imagined I hadn’t looked properly after the accident. But now…don’t you see, she pinched my passport and my driving license, used them for hiring the car, and slipped them back into my bag during the evening!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Chantal,” said Claudet. “Sylvie is more than twice your age. She couldn’t have traveled on your passport.”

  “She didn’t, stupid! She traveled on her own—but she produced mine for the car-hire people! The young photograph on the license wouldn’t surprise them—I’ve seen Sylvie’s own, and it was taken when she wasn’t much older than I am now—and the car people don’t look at the passport photo; they just compare signatures! If I hadn’t happened to need my license that day…”

  Henry said, “It would be interesting, Mme. Claudet, to know how you came to know that it was a blue Volkswagen which was hired that day. I don’t think the fact had been mentioned.”

  “Well…you implied…” Sylvie was thoroughly confused.

  “And another thing. As I understand it, when Chantal was here in the winter, Jane packed up her work at half-past four. However, you had been here more recently, and knew that she went on until five. Whoever impersonated Anne-Marie had planned it carefully, to make sure that Jane Weston saw her. So if it had been Chantal, she would have arrived before half-past four. She had plenty of time, after all—the whole day to get here. Whereas you were in the conference till noon.”

  “That doesn’t mean—”

  “In any case, Mme. Claudet,” Henry went on, “Jane Weston recognized you—in spite of the blue overall and the umbrella.”

  “You’re lying! She swore in court that it was Anne-Marie—”

  “Ah, yes. At that time, it never occurred to her that it could have been anybody else. But once I had shown her that it might have been, she thought back—and she remembered. She has known for some time, and she has been very unhappy about it, because you have been so kind to her. Not, perhaps, for entirely altruistic motives.”

  Suddenly Sylvie became calm. She leaned back in her chair and almost smiled. She said, “Prove it.”

  Chantal was shouting again. “I don’t need to prove it! I’ve got a better weapon against you, Sylvie. You thought I’d never use it, because I loved you—and I did love you, but I don’t any longer, so I’m going straight from here to the dirtiest scandal sheet I can find, and I’m going to tell them the whole story about Frivolités and Pierre Claudet and—”

  Sylvie was on her feet, two bright red spots burning on her cheeks, her eyes blazing.

  “You little bitch! You wouldn’t dare—”

  “I wish I’d done it years ago.” Chantal was suddenly deadly quiet. “I held my tongue because I loved you and I thought you loved me.”

  “But I do, Chantal!”

  “Your whole life has been one great confidence trick for the last six years, hasn’t it? Not a shred of truth in it anywhere. No wonder you had to kill Robert Drivaz—he didn’t have any emotional inhibitions. He’d have sold his story to the highest bidder, and good luck to him.”

  Suddenly a change came over Sylvie’s face—a sudden shaft of comprehension, turning to pure hatred. She whispered, “It was you who told him! It wasn’t Mario or Giselle or Michel. It was you…”

  Chantal laughed, full in her face. “Of course it was me. I told him! I told him everything!”

  “And made me into a murderer! My God, it may have been me who stabbed him, but it was you who killed him! Well, you can take the consequences. They say it’s easier the second time—”

  Claudet, who was looking utterly dazed, tried to stop her, but he was too late. Sylvie was at Chantal’s throat, scratching and clawing. It was unbelievably horrible—not just the obscenity of two women fighting physically, but the terrible transformation of Sylvie from a charming sophisticate to…to her real self.

  Henry was on his feet at once. He shouted to me, “Emmy! Police!” and launched himself onto the two struggling, kicking bodies. I pulled myself together and ran out of the open door to the telephone in the hall.

  The duty officer at the gendarmerie had a slow, deliberate voice with a pronounced regional accent. My idea had been just to report an emergency at Les Sapins, and ask for a police car to be sent at once, but I was not allowed to get away with anything so simple. The name of the chalet had to be spelled out, letter by letter, and a detailed description given of how to get there. Then the officer demanded to know what the emergency was.

  What could I say? “There’s a fight going on…”

  “Ah. Had a bit too much to drink, I expect.”

  “No. Not that. Please hurry.”

  “Now, now, not so fast, madame. There are certain formalities—”

  “For God’s sake, this is a matter of life and death!”

  In other circumstances, I would have felt sorry for the gendarme. Apart from the Drivaz affair, which had been handled from Charonne, the most that the local police had to cope with was the regulation of traffic during the high season, the clearing of snow from the roads, and the occasional drunken punch-up at the Café de la Source. Obviously, my call had been pigeonholed among the last category.

  “Don’t you worry, madame.” The officer’s voice was infuriatingly unruffled. “We’ll be along in no time. They’ll soon sober up, I promise you.” He laughed ponderously, and rang off.

  It was then that I became aware of the curious silence in the sitting room. Whatever had happened, the fight was over. I did not know what to expect when I went back through the open door.

  Whatever else, I certainly had not expected to find the scene of apparent normality which confronted me. The two antagonists had been separated, and now sat on opposite sides of the table again. Chantal was flushed, tense, and breathing deeply, but Sylvie had been miraculously transformed back into her usual self. She must have become disheveled in the fight, because she was now studying her face intently in a small mirror from her handbag, combing the odd errant strand of hair back into place. She looked more at ease than either of the men.

  Henry glanced up as I came in, and said, “Come and sit down, Emmy. No, leave the door open. Now, Chantal—please go on.”

  “Well,” said Chantal, “when Sylvie first went to work there, she thought it was just an ordinary shop. Or so she says. Actually, I believe her. Most of the vendeuses came in all innocence, and some of them even stayed that way. But not Sylvie.” Chantal spoke with pulsating excitement, the unburdening of a lifetime of secrets. She took a deep breath and went on. “Sylvie found out what was going on soon enough. Oh, very fast. And then she found me. She also found out what most people didn’t know—the name of the man behind the whole thing. Pierre Claudet.”

  I had to look at Pierre and Sylvie. They seemed curiously unmoved, like people listening to a familiar gramophone record.

  “So what did she do?” Henry prompted.

  “Well…” Chantal hesitated. “I think perhaps she really was interested in getting the place closed—not for any normal reason, but because of me. To have me to herself, you see. However, she also decided that it would be a good thing to marry Pierre Claudet—his first wife had recently been killed. So she didn’t do anything so crude as
to confront him with what she knew about Frivolités. Oh, no. She made friends with a young man called Jacques Lamaire, who was Pierre’s private secretary. She told him that she had enough evidence to make a big scandal over Frivolités. She advised him to tell Pierre that he might as well cash in and get the credit for exposing the place, because if he didn’t, somebody else would. Well, that suited Pierre. He’d only run the racket because he needed money—lots of it—and the first Mme. Claudet kept too close a hold on the purse strings. Now, she was dead and he had inherited. Frivolités was a positive embarrassment—he wanted to be rid of it, and the best way of keeping his own nose clean was to report it to the authorities himself—keeping himself carefully out of it, of course. Creating the mystery man who was never caught.”

  Pierre Claudet held out his hand to Sylvie, who took it. It was somehow moving to see them, middle-aged and defeated, in the face of Chantal’s young hatred.

  “Go on,” said Henry.

  “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” said Chantal with a sneer. “Pierre Claudet was established as a knight in shining armor. But he had put himself in a position where he could never risk the truth coming out. So Sylvie—whom he had not met before—scraped an introduction and then brought out the blackmail. He must marry her, or else…”

  “That’s not true!” Sylvie burst out.

  “Isn’t it? How odd. If it’s not true, why did you have to kill Robert Drivaz to shut his mouth? He came to you in Paris, didn’t he? He threatened to sell the story to a newspaper, unless you paid him. So you agreed to pay, you said you would come down here with the money. But it wasn’t the money you came with, was it, Sylvie? It was a neat plan for framing Anne-Marie. And if anything went wrong with that, you had a second line of defense. Me. If Anne-Marie didn’t kill Robert, then Chantal Villeneuve did. Go on. Deny it if you can!”

  There was a moment of absolute quiet. Then Sylvie said, “I don’t deny it. I just say—prove it.”

  “But—”

  Sylvie leaned forward and fixed her eyes on Chantal. “You,” she said, “are a poor, perverted, warped child. Not your fault, of course. Forced into prostitution…oh, I have ample proof. You are also a habitual drug addict. Here, this afternoon, you lost control of yourself completely. You began by threatening us all with a loaded gun. You then attacked me physically. The police had to be called.” Sylvie nodded briefly at me. “You made wild accusations against me which Henry and Emmy overheard—but of course I shall deny that there was any truth in them. Perhaps I made a few injudicious remarks in the heat of the moment. Henry and Emmy may repeat them. Do you think that your word and theirs would stand up against the testimony of Pierre Claudet, against the documentary evidence that it was you who hired the car? The word of a drug addict against the word of a cabinet minister? My poor, silly Chantal. I can hardly wait for the police to arrive.”