“Good girl!” He saw that she was on her feet, ears back, nose pointing toward the drive.
When he looked again toward the moving light, he was able to make out a small group of men beyond the near row of trees, carrying a lantern toward the courtyard.
Would Sibilat be among them? The first to enter! He was certainly muscular enough to scramble over those gates or climb the wall.
Fric-Frac continued to growl.
The intruders were curiously threatening because as yet they had made no sound. It was like watching a silent film…
He glanced up at the Château but all the windows remained dark.
Nick would be preparing his monster with Pouchet’s help, getting ready to make an appearance. And Tendrell was probably stationed at one of those dark windows, telling them what was happening below.
Damiot looked toward the drive again and saw that the villagers had reached the lower edge of the courtyard. They had paused, facing the castle and looking up at the terrace, no doubt deciding on their next move. The single lantern made a timid circle of light.
The dog growled, menacingly. Damiot saw that she was pointing back, toward the side of the Château where he had parked the Peugeot.
Someone there? He hadn’t heard a sound…
A faceless gray figure appeared out of the night. Damiot recognized the walk and the blur of silver hair. “Monsieur Tendrell!”
“We heard your car arrive.”
“And I thought I was being quiet!”
“There are microphones everywhere, to pick up every sound.” He lowered his voice as he came closer. “Nick wants you with us, so you’ll be able to see everything.”
“Splendid!”
“I drove without lights and parked near your car.” He turned back, Damiot walking beside him. “Knew you wouldn’t have gone far.”
“Come, Fric-Frac!”
“You’ve brought Aurore’s dog again?”
“Thought she’d be company while I waited. What time does the performance start?”
“Any moment, I should think.” He glanced toward the drive as they left the courtyard, keeping in the deep shadow at the edge of the forest. “A few of the villagers have already come up the drive and more are gathered outside the gates. We’ve been eavesdropping on them through microphones hidden in the shrubbery. Takes them an hour to get enough courage to climb over that wall.”
“I’m not surprised.” He was aware of the Ferrari, a dark mass to their left, but said nothing to Tendrell.
“I still wish Nick wouldn’t do this tonight. I’ve begged him again not to show the bloody puppet, but he refuses to listen. Here’s your car! I’ll go ahead and you can follow. Better keep your lights off.”
“Right.” Damiot got into the Peugeot with Fric-Frac and tailed the Citroën around the castle to the rear. There, in the faint light seeping from the sky, it was impossible to see the distant stables. He took off his waterproof and left it in the car with his hat, before joining the Englishman at the kitchen door.
Tendrell unlocked the door and went inside. Damiot followed, Fric-Frac darting ahead.
A dog barked in another room, beyond the dim kitchen, the sound muffled.
Fric-Frac growled.
“Pouchet’s dog?” Damiot asked.
“Locked up for the night. We go up here.” Tendrell led the way toward a stone staircase curving into darkness.
Damiot climbed after him, grasping the heavy wooden railing. “Your daughter knows you’re here tonight?”
“Certainly not! Jenny went to bed after dinner. Usually she’s curious to find out where I’m going, but tonight she was exhausted.”
They had reached the next floor, and Damiot saw that they were in a narrow stone passage, lighted by a single lantern.
“I’m certain Jenny thinks I’m seeing Aurore! One day I shall have to tell her the truth, and she’ll want to meet Nick. Tonight, fortunately, she was too tired to ask questions. Jenny’s an extremely busy girl! Runs everything for me, you know. From the daily menus to a schedule of chores for our staff.”
Damiot smiled. Jenny had obviously been acting for her father, pretending to be sleepy. She would be off somewhere, meeting Michel Giroud before he paid his Monday-night visit to Blanche Carmet.
“I came straight here, after she went to her room. Drove round the back, as usual. Never use those front gates…”
Damiot followed as he listened—Fric-Frac trotting beside him—through another stone passage. This one was wider, with a vaulted ceiling and thick columns spaced at intervals. More lanterns.
“…and I’d only just arrived when we heard your car. Nick hopes you’ll stay after the performance, for another evening of conversation.”
“I would like that.”
The Englishman opened a door into an unfamiliar small salon, across a narrow corridor to another door and through a larger salon. These rooms were unfurnished, and heavy curtains covered every window. The only light came from lanterns resting on the floors or hanging from walls.
There was a musty smell of damp.
Damiot made a mental note of each door and corridor, in case he might have to return this way alone.
“You’re the first new visitor since I was invited in last year,” Tendrell was saying. “Nick’s fascinated by your criminal investigations in Paris. He reads everything! Newspapers as well as scientific journals.” He paused, hand on the knob of another door. “You will help me persuade him not to do this monster trickery again? Not after tonight. The whole thing’s much too risky!”
“I can only try, Monsieur.”
“Tonight must be the monster’s last appearance. I’ve a feeling Nick will listen to you.” He swung the door open.
The dog darted ahead, vanishing into the shadows.
“Fric-Frac! Come back here!”
“She can’t go far,” Tendrell said as Damiot closed the door. “This leads to Nick’s private suite.”
They were in a windowless corridor lighted by candelabra wired for electricity, walls hidden behind faded tapestries.
The Englishman paused in an open doorway, looking into a dimly lighted room. “Here’s Inspector Damiot!”
“Come in, Monsieur Inspecteur!” Nick answered.
Damiot followed Tendrell into a small, uncluttered antechamber. The incredible room he had seen on his previous visit was visible straight ahead. More electricity here.
“We’ve been waiting for you!” The Comte, in another monk-like robe, this one gray, held out a welcoming hand from his wheelchair. “I thought you’d be able to see more of our entertainment from up here.”
“I should indeed.” He shook the extended hand, aware of its surprising strength. His eyes were held briefly by the ancient eyes in the childlike face.
“We are ready…” Pouchet’s voice.
Damiot glanced around and saw the old man with Madame Léontine in the shadows beyond the pool of light from a shaded lamp, arranging the monster on a chaise longue. The clumsy head was propped against the higher end of the chaise, the long cloak stretching across the seat and hanging down over the other end. “Madame Léontine! Monsieur Pouchet!”
The two servants smiled and bowed.
Damiot glanced toward the Comte. “Even in repose, your monster looks monstrous.”
Nick laughed. “That was my intention!”
The mastiff, Lautrec, was stretched out near the wheelchair, Fric-Frac already snuggled beside him.
“Now that Inspector Damiot’s here,” Nick looked toward Pouchet as he freed both hands from the sleeves of his robe, “shall we proceed?”
“At once, M’sieur le Comte.” Pouchet lifted the puppet and held it tight as Madame Léontine gathered the folds of the cloak into her arms.
“Lead the way.” Nick pressed the small device in his lap, revolving th
e wheelchair. “The rest of us will follow.”
“Yes, M’sieur.” Pouchet carried the awkward figure, raised like a banner, toward an open wall panel that was barely visible in a dark corner. Madame Léontine trailed behind, clutching the heavy cloak in both arms.
Nick sent his wheelchair rolling after them. “Messieurs!” Damiot and the Englishman followed, both dogs racing ahead, through a seemingly endless stone corridor with electric bulbs embedded in the ceiling. The musty dampness Damiot had noticed earlier must have come from here.
“This is a secret passage,” Nick called back over his shoulder. “The castle’s riddled with them and I know every one! I would hide for hours when grand-mère wanted to lecture me for some prank, and even the servants couldn’t find me! Unfortunately, most of these passages are too narrow for my wheelchair.” Damiot thought, as the Comte explained, that he was still a child, with his secret passages and his monster. Playing this infantile trick on the villagers. “Monsieur le Comte? Nick…”
“Yes, Monsieur Inspecteur?”
“I would suggest that you should not show your monster tonight.”
“And why not?”
“Anything might happen. The villagers have been roused to a pitch of excitement that could result in an explosion.”
“But it wasn’t I who began it! Someone in the village started the rumor of a monster. Not I! The psychiatrists say there are monsters hidden in every man. Lurking beneath the surface and waiting to appear. So I have given the villagers their own monster. Is it illegal, what I’m doing? Am I breaking any law?”
“Nothing like that. But it could be dangerous.”
“I enjoy danger!”
“After tonight I hope you will never show your monster again.”
Nick glanced back over his shoulder. “Is this official?”
“Certainly not. I’m asking you to destroy the monster for the sake of the villagers. So that peace can return to Courville. People will be able to sleep nights.”
“In that case…” He shrugged. “After tonight the villagers will have to find their entertainment elsewhere.”
“Good!” Tendrell exclaimed. “I’ve been trying for weeks to persuade him to stop.”
“You get your wish, Allan!” Nick laughed. “Chief Inspector Damiot was more persuasive.” Raising his voice. “You hear, Pouchet? After tonight we get rid of our handsome monster!”
“Yes, M’sieur le Comte. I heard.”
“And a good thing!” Madame Léontine glanced back toward Damiot.
Pouchet swung a door open. Raising the monster higher, he led the procession into a large, empty salon where a lighted lantern rested on the marble floor.
Once again, Lautrec and Fric-Frac ran ahead.
As Damiot followed the wheelchair, he saw that this was the large salon he had entered Saturday afternoon after inspecting the corner of the terrace where the monster had appeared Friday night.
Tonight the heavy curtains had been drawn over all the windows. The dogs were playing games, running and leaping.
“I hope I didn’t startle you last night, Monsieur Inspecteur…”
“Startle me?” He faced the Comte.
“When you were parked in the Square and I appeared in my Ferrari.”
“So that was you!”
“I decided after you and Allan left that I would enjoy some fresh air. I frequently do that, late at night, after the village is asleep. Drive south for a breath of the sea. Last night I went to Monte Carlo and back.”
So the Comte could drive the Ferrari! Drive anywhere!
“You’re wondering how I handle such a powerful car? I’ve redesigned the steering equipment so that my miserable legs can manage everything. A new engineering technique that will one day be on the market for every make of car…”
“That Ferrari is his other toy!” Tendrell exclaimed.
“Like my father, I have a passion for fast cars.”
Damiot saw that Pouchet was carrying the puppet figure toward a pair of curtained windows near the west corner.
Nick laughed. “Pouchet lifts my monster like a holy monstrance! Did you know, mes amis, in early times the word monster meant a divine omen?”
“Can’t say I’m surprised,” Tendrell answered.
The Comte halted his wheelchair beside Pouchet, who had leaned the puppet against the wall, near the windows. Madame Léontine began to straighten the folds of its cloak. “Monsieur Damiot! Why don’t you and Allan stand outside those far windows?” He motioned toward the other end of the salon. “You’ll be invisible from below if you keep close to the wall, but you should be able to observe everything.”
“Come along, Inspector!” Tendrell headed across the salon. “I’ve done this before.”
Damiot hesitated. “What about the dogs?”
“They can run outside,” Nick replied. “Nobody will notice them in the dark.” He reached under an arm of his wheelchair. “I forgot the bell!” He snapped a lever, and the castle vibrated as the great bell began to toll.
Both dogs howled.
Nick grinned impishly. “Our play begins…”
Damiot turned and hurried after the Englishman, who was waiting beside the curtained windows.
“We squeeze through here.” Tendrell carefully lifted an edge of the curtain and slipped underneath.
Damiot ducked under the heavy material into complete darkness, the curtain falling into place behind him. He wondered where the Englishman’s daughter would be meeting Michel Giroud. Pushing the curtain aside a few inches, he glimpsed a strange tableau.
Nick was standing now, laughing as he supported himself on his crutches. Pouchet held the puppet, like some bizarre crown, above the Comte’s head and slowly lowered it until the robe covered his body. The monstrous head seemed to rest on Nick’s shoulders. Madame Léontine swept up the bottom of the robe as Pouchet lifted his lantern from the floor and slid a cover over the light.
“Here we go!” Tendrell whispered.
Damiot felt cold air strike his face as he heard the window open.
The terrace was ghostly in the blue wash of starlight, with a black mass of forest visible against the sky beyond the marble balustrade.
“We’ll be able to see everything,” Tendrell explained, pausing outside the windows. “Last time I came out here I actually went some distance away from these windows, and nobody noticed me. There’s a sort of buttress where we can be in complete shadow. I’ll show you.” He bent low and darted across the open terrace.
Damiot crouched down and followed.
The bell tolled again.
Now there was that same curious rolling of voices from the villagers he had heard last week when he was on the hill.
He bumped into the Englishman in the dark.
“They can’t possibly see us here!” Tendrell murmured.
Damiot straightened beside a mass of stone that seemed to rise toward one of the invisible towers.
Moving toward the balustrade, he saw that a second cluster of villagers was streaming up the drive. This group seemed to contain at least a dozen men, carrying more lanterns.
Turning toward the castle, he glimpsed a blur of motion at the far end of the terrace. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he could see the collapsed bulk of the monster lurching forward, with Pouchet walking behind awkwardly, like a second monster. Madame Leontine’s plump figure, bending low, held the puppet’s cloak like a royal train.
The two dogs came running across the terrace, barely visible against the marble floor. Lautrec, after sniffing at Damiot’s shoe, raced back toward the others, but Fric-Frac remained crouching beside him. He leaned down to scratch her head as he watched the mastiff join his master.
Peering below, Damiot saw that the second group of villagers had joined the first. Now they all stood together at the edge of the courtyar
d, staring up at the terrace where the monster had appeared last week.
“In my opinion,” Tendrell whispered, “Nick is slightly mad.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly that! Every genius is touched by madness, but Nick is, I think, somewhat psychotic. That’s why I’ve never permitted Jenny to meet him. He’s urged me to bring her here but I’ve refused. She would very likely fall in love with him. She’s seen him driving the Ferrari—as she told you—but has no idea who it was. I’m quite genuinely fond of Nick, but I do think he’s mentally disturbed as a result of his accident. Damaged emotionally as well as physically. Deeply troubled by what happened to his body. He jokes constantly about his legs to mask his true feelings. That, I suspect, is why he created this fake monster to frighten people. A monstrous joke, if you will! The living monster hidden under the fake.”
The bell tolled again. Much louder. Its deep metal voice rolling across the courtyard and fading away through the forest.
A strange flapping sound came from overhead.
Damiot looked up to see a cloud of doves, roused from their nests, frantically circling above the Château like pale gray bats.
Tendrell nudged him, pointing down the drive.
Damiot turned to see a third group hurrying to join their friends. Several villagers had electric torches that they flashed between the tree trunks, sending grotesque shadows dancing through the forest.
No light as yet on the terrace, but he glimpsed Madame Léontine returning toward the open windows. The performance would be startling…
A terrifying scream came from the depths of the wood.
Fric-Frac growled.
“Quiet, Madame!” Damiot ordered.
“Those damn peacocks!” the Englishman muttered.
Damiot saw a wave of movement pass through the crowd as heads turned and arms gestured. One man seemed to be the leader. He appeared to be directing the others. Waving his arms and motioning them forward. It was the Mayor—Hercule Mauron!
A muffled crash sounded from the drive.
“They’ve smashed the gates!” Tendrell exclaimed.
The Provence Puzzle Page 21