by Jean Stubbs
‘It opens,’ he said.
Inside, two portraits had once been placed. Unrecognisable.
Carradine touched the bracelet, and was silent.
‘Would you call that identification, sir?’ Lintott asked quietly.
‘Yes,’ Carradine said at length. ‘I remember this. The portraits were of my father, and Gabrielle. I had forgotten. I remember.’
‘She didn’t make a mistake,’ said Lintott. ‘And he didn’t get off scot free.’
Carradine walked slowly to the window, and stared out. Montmartre was flame. He covered his eyes.
‘Just suppose it was Mr Roach, sir,’ said Lintott, trying to distract him, because it was useless for the man to torment himself after so long, ‘what good will it do to know? Except that you won’t want to see him again in a hurry.’
‘I shall hound him,’ said Carradine in a low voice. ‘I shall see he suffers retribution, of whatever kind.’
‘“Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord,”’ Lintott reminded him.
Carradine spun round, colourless. ‘The Lord won’t get as much satisfaction as I shall, Inspector.’
‘Now, now, now, sir. Folks as try to take the law into their own hands find the law coming pretty heavily on them afore they’re done.’
‘Oh, I have no intention of killing him. That would be too easy. I shall see that he lives with their deaths.’
‘You might find yourself landed with those two ladies to support!’ said Lintott, deliberately humorous, for Carradine’s obsession troubled him. ‘That’d be vengeance of another sort!’
A faint smile warmed Carradine’s mouth. ‘You’re a good fellow, Inspector. And not two ladies, but three, are under the Minister’s protection.’ And he gave a brief summary of Valentine, a sad little thumbnail sketch, lightened by affectionate amusement.
‘Well, there you are then,’ said Lintott, relieved. ‘You don’t half go looking for trouble, sir! I can see you lumbered in London for life, with madame entertaining your friends on the sly, and Miss Valentine getting herself in the family way every twelvemonth.’ He omitted mention of Claire, out of delicacy. ‘I’d like to hear Mrs Tilling on that subject, I would indeed!’
‘Oh, she would insist that I kept them all upstairs, and pretend they didn’t exist!’
Lintott grinned, and Carradine smiled.
‘If you’ll take a piece of advice from me, sir, you’ll wait until I get back from Brittany. You haven’t a shred of evidence to go on, and the gentleman has a reputation to keep up. And he hasn’t got where he is without knowing whose back to scratch. He’ll be fly, sir. And, meaning no disrespect, you’re a babby in arms compared with him. Besides, if he’s innocent you’ll look a proper fool and offend him into the bargain.’
‘I take your point, Inspector.’
‘Now if I find Bertha, and if she says, “Oh, his name was Mr Émile Roach, and Mrs Carradine used to call him D for darling!” or something of that sort — it’ll be a different matter. Are you with me, sir?’
‘I’m with you, Inspector.’
‘And would you lend me that bracelet, sir? There’s something about it worries me. And I wouldn’t want you to go drawing pictures of it, or anything of that sort. I believe in facing facts, but there’s no use mauling yourself with them.’
A timid knock at the door closed the subject.
‘Would you mind, Inspector? I must dress.’
‘But I don’t know the lingo, sir!’ Lintott protested, suddenly at loss.
‘I shall be in the next room with the door open. They can bawl French at me past your shoulder, Inspector!’ And he disappeared.
Don’t look much of the bawling sort, Lintott thought, shyly saying, ‘Bonjour, madame’ to a childish figure in a grey mantle and mended gloves.
‘Ever so sorry to trouble you, sir, but could I speak to M. Carradine, if you please?’
‘Hello, Valentine!’ Carradine called. ‘Come in and sit down.’
Lintott stood embarrassed as they exchanged news through the open door. In a few moments Carradine entered, kissed her hand, paid compliments, and escorted her out.
‘So that’s Mr Roach’s third lady?’ said Lintott. ‘He’s a brave man, sir, you have to say that!’
‘A pity you don’t speak French, Inspector. She would undoubtedly have confided to you that I was the father of her child! I see that honour ahead of me in her imagination. The ladies sent her to enquire how we had survived last night’s orgy. I wish Natalie wouldn’t let her out. She gets lost. And but for pinning the main news to her pocket we should be working in the dark!’ and he held out a note. ‘This is Le Jallu’s address, which Madame Picard was practical enough to extract from him. I should have had to return to Mère Catherine’s and ask. These little matters are inclined to escape me. Fortunate poet! He will find a warm welcome from our Madame, if he cares to visit at the right hour!’
‘I’m not so sure, sir,’ said Lintott. ‘I have a feeling he tends in the gentlemen’s direction, but I could be wrong, of course!’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Now Lintott was indeed cut adrift and cast forth. Le Jallu, clad in an outlandish assortment of garments which combined warmth with drama, led him into the flowering wilderness of the French provinces. Berthe Lecoq was no longer in Paimpol or its environs. The priest to whom Walter Carradine had sent her compensation money was retired to Sarlac in Périgord. After three further days of inquiry they set off to find him.
‘Truffles, sir,’ Le Jallu promised. ‘Truffles in such abundance that the peasants roast them over the fire for breakfast.’
‘Don’t they melt?’ asked Lintott, whose only acquaintance with truffles had been the chocolate variety resembling walnut-sized hedgehogs. ‘No, don’t trouble to explain, lad. I shan’t try them anyhow!’
Trains were rattling them from one exile to the next, further and further south. They stayed that night in a farmhouse where Lintott examined the goose-feather bed for fleas, and woke sweating and suffocating simultaneously. The priest, old and nearly blind, could give them no information other than Berthe’s taking a post as housekeeper with an attorney called M. Cluny who practised in Lyons. On this thread of a clue they wound their way to Lyons, tracked down every attorney in the place and discovered that this particular one had retired too. The son of his former partner believed the house to be near Orange. They took a train to Orange.
Lintott’s stomach had ceased to protest at its change of diet, though he would have given much for a wedge of Cheddar cheese. He now eyed the evening bottle of wine with the wariness of a connoisseur rather than of a beer-drinker. He watched Le Jallu haggle over prices, silently applauding him when he won, shrugging when he did not. He sympathised, as the poet explained the difficulty of different dialects. And he found another France: a place of frugal living and plain thinking, of poverty and beauty, of tight morals and traditional attitudes, with an excellent habit of going to bed early to save light and fuel. He liked that.
Le Jallu, exotic and egocentric, was less at home here than Lintott. It was at Lintott that the old women in dusty black directed their rare smiles, Lintott to whom leathery farmers and gregarious shopkeepers nodded in salutation. The language barrier blocked only one method of communication, the others flowed together. A tacit approval warmed their brief acquaintances. Unconcerned with anyone’s opinion of him, the poet imposed his presence and his questions on those who seemed likely to be useful. In between he was silent, or he ate and slept. Clearly he regarded the expedition as akin to the mills of God, which grind exceeding small; and Lintott as the miller in charge of a long slow process. He addressed the Inspector with polite indifference. He allowed himself to be used because he would be paid eventually, and meanwhile was living well for no expense. Lintott comprehended this, but it made him feel lonely.
They arrived in Orange to find, as the Inspector had feared, that no one knew anything about the attorney or Berthe Lecoq. But the country grapevine, in its metaphorical sense, pr
omised to yield fruit. Time and patience was yet again required of them. So they ‘holed up’ as Lintott put it, let it be known that information equalled francs, and waited.
‘These people have no excitement in their lives,’ said Le Jallu carelessly, ‘A Parisian poet, an English Inspector, a mystery. They shall speak of it until they die. They shall discover Berthe for you. Fear not.’
‘I’m feared of precious little,’ said Lintott stoutly. ‘I’ll just take a turn outside.’
His solitary figure, bowler hat square on, plaid cape defying the evening breeze, strode mournfully about the town, taking note of landmarks so he might find his way back. That night, by the light of an oil-lamp, he wrote laboriously to Bessie, and surveyed the result with less than satisfaction. His had been a small world after all. He spoke only the language of his birth, and could not express himself fluently on paper even in that.
My dear wife, I hope this letter finds you as well as it leaves me at present. The folk outside Paris are homely enough like our neighbours in Richmond. Mr Carradine has sent me here with a young student who does the talking for me. We are hoping to find the little girl’s nurse. I am pretty comfortable and the landladies make a good stew which they call Pot-o-fer.
He re-read this line, scented domestic danger, and added to it.
It reminds me of home, and is near as tasty as your Irish stew but not quite.
He then set down two profound truths.
Tell Lizzie that Paris is only part of France even if it is a fancy place. I shall be glad to get home.
He signed himself, your loving husband, John.
He printed the address very large and clear, handed the letter to Le Jallu, and extracted a promise to see it safely posted. He watched it disappear into the boy’s pocket with profound regret. The writing had been a link, and he could not hope for a reply in his present state of transit. Besides, Bessie was even less of a hand with the pen than he. Suddenly he was so homesick that he would have welcomed the sight of Carradine striding in, demolishing his solitude with charm, with wild notions which Lintott could dispel, with self-mockery, with a breath of England.
‘I’d best send another word to Mr Carradine while I’m about it,’ he remarked, and was comforted, though his missive would be briefer and more wooden than the one he sent to Bessie. ‘Keeps him in touch,’ he said, and attacked the inkwell with renewed energy.
On the fifth day of their sojourn a very small woman carrying a very large basket arrived. Though they were breakfasting she had broken her fast before dawn, walking from a village some miles away with her message.
‘It is the Old One,’ their hostess announced, with some pride. ‘The Old One knows everything.’
The Old One evidently wished to share her universal knowledge in detail, and Le Jallu was lost in the first round. Lintott, experienced in questioning, watched and fretted as the boy resolutely interrupted her, and she as resolutely began again at the beginning.
‘Half a minute, lad,’ Lintott commanded. ‘Excusez-moi, madame. Now look’ee here, lad,’ as the ancient wisp laughed and pointed at him, ‘I’ve met this sort of lady afore. Lives alone, friendly nature, getting on in years, needs a bit of a chat. Savvy? Sit yourself down and listen. She’ll be a while reaching the point, and we may as well be comfortable while we’re waiting.’
Le Jallu’s melancholy face lengthened.
‘She tell me all, but she tells me nothing.’
‘I know, I know, but that’s her way. Just do as I say, lad. Bonjour, madame. Give her a cup of coffee and a croissant.’
The Old One ate and drank with noisy appreciation. Their hostess launched into a rapid biography. Her staff gathered round for a convivial half-hour.
‘What’s she got in that there basket?’
‘A little goat’s milk, a little cheese, a little butter, a few eggs. She sells them. They say she is one hundred years old. I do not believe them.’
‘I do,’ said Lintott. ‘I’ve never seen an older Old One in all my born days!’
Age had shrunk and withered her without obliterating one jot of her zest for living. The eyes in that brown landscape of a countenance were bright and inquisitive. The hard hands gesticulated. She crouched on her stool by the fire, drinking in coffee and company. Only life was left her, but it sparkled still, and was precious.
‘If I lived hereabouts,’ said Lintott, ‘which God forbid, she’d be my Number One. She would indeed. I’d sit and have a chat with her, quite apart from professional reasons. She’d be fine gold to me, as far as information went. Hears the lot and forgets nothing. Fire away, lad, and give me the gist of it.’
‘Her husband fought with Napoleon. He died many years ago. She has a goat and a cow and six hens. She collects fuel from the wood nearby. Everyone is kind to her. The miller gives her flour and she bakes bread once a week. What use is this, sir?’
‘Let her talk, lad, let her talk,’ said Lintott, lighting his pipe.
And so she did, slapping her knees in amusement, faltering over losses, stoical over hardships, momentarily illuminated by past joys: a human epic, looking forward to tomorrow’s humble chapter.
‘Fine old lady,’ said Lintott. ‘Let her talk, lad, let her talk.’
The chain of circumstance leading to Berthe was enumerated link by link: what had been heard, been said, been surmised.
‘My friends and I do not talk like this,’ cried Le Jallu, exhausted. ‘We speak of the great truths of life, of poetry and philosophy.’
‘This is poetry and philosophy,’ said Lintott. ‘You and your friends have got a deal to learn yet!’
Berthe Lecoq had found, as Mrs Tilling prophesied, that a thirty-year absence means too much change. Time, of which there had never seemed enough, became a desert. A solitary cottage and no attachments seemed poor exchange for a busy prosperous household and the beloved. She asked the cure to inquire as to domestic service, and eventually heard that an attorney in Lyons needed a housekeeper. A country peasant would never move more than a mile or so beyond the home boundaries, but Berthe was used to Paris and London. Lyons beckoned, and she took her chances with the Cluny family. He was a man of such morality that his sons left home, and his daughters allowed themselves to be married, as soon as they decently could. When his wife died, Berthe took over the household. Her references were splendid.
Mrs Carradine must have given her a letter of sorts, before they parted, Lintott registered. For he had found nothing else to suggest such a paper, nor a request for one.
Berthe had come into the wide-ranging sphere of the Old One when the attorney retired five years ago, due to ill health. She and M. Cluny were both reported to be rich. An English lord had given Berthe a fortune, and the old man had been mean enough to save every sou of his own. They saw no one, and wished to see no one. They lived in complete seclusion, and Berthe reigned over his senility, a devoted despot.
‘Where is she?’ asked Lintott, quietly jubilant.
‘Only eighteen miles away, but we must hire a carriage to get there!’ Le Jallu replied. ‘It is an isolated house in a small village with a long name. I shall make arrangement.’ He sprang up, released.
‘You do that, lad. I’ll have a word with the Old One here. Give her the money she’s been promised.’
As she bestowed it in different parts of her petticoats, Le Jallu demanded arrogantly, ‘How can you speak to her?’
‘I don’t have to talk,’ said Lintott briskly. ‘Off you go, lad.’
He drew his chair close to the stool, knocked out his pipe-bowl on the bars of the grate, refilled it. Their hostess was scolding her servants back to their tasks and posts, recommending someone (probably a relative! Lintott thought) who could drive them there and back in a day.
‘Bonjour, madame,’ Lintott bawled, jerking his chin up and down in a friendly fashion.
‘Bonjour’... she was off again on that long exhilarating adventure which most people would have named cruel existence.
Lintott nodd
ed and smoked, and understood not a single word, and comprehended everything.
The house was secluded, walled and shuttered. Inquiries in the village, over bowls of soup and hunks of bread, had brought inhospitable response. Berthe emerged only for shopping purposes. No one had seen the old man since his arrival there five years previously. Visitors were discouraged. Public opinion felt they might keep a large fierce dog, except that they were too mean to feed it.
‘Well, we’ll have to manage without encouragement,’ said Lintott briefly. ‘At least, with all that time on their hands, we shan’t be interrupting anything.’
So he sounded intrusion with the iron bell. A warm breeze riffled newly-fledged leaves. A starling ran through his programme of mimicry. A gate creaked apology.
‘Proper old dungeon!’ said Lintott, and rang again and again.
Steps trod the stone passage reluctantly. The door was unbolted top and bottom, unlocked, and opened two inches. A stout chain barred entrance.
‘Say something quick and fancy, lad.’
Le Jallu launched into courtesies which were as unwelcome as themselves. The door showed signs of closing for good.
‘Mention the name of Mr Carradine, and tell her I’ll ring this bell all day if needs be, lad.’
And there she was, evidence come to life, and much as Lintott had expected. White-headed now, but spare and straight and obdurate as ever.
Lintott regretted the starling, who had at least been cheerful.
Perhaps the kitchen at the back was more homely, but Berthe’s sense of propriety led them into a tomb of a parlour. Dust sheets over cold furniture, a spotted mirror over the cold fireplace, four cracked porcelain cups lying in their saucers across the mantelpiece, a stopped clock rearing from floor to ceiling against one wall, the long dead glowering from sepia photographs. Berthe removed two covers and motioned them to sit. She offered no refreshment. She stood, hands folded in front of her decent black dress and black apron. They were not wanted.