She sensed Blanchard eyeing her, judging where to strike and hesitating.
“I’m ready for you. And you don’t have a knife. You won’t hurt me.”
He pushed forward with his knuckles and Agnes knew that wasn’t what Felicity Cowell felt, but it did propel her forward and she gave in to the motion. As she slid from the chair instinct kicked in. She stumbled to her feet. Dissatisfied, she glanced around until settling on the mound of cloth sacks in the corner. She moved them to the floor in front of the chair.
“Do it again.”
This time Blanchard was firmer and she was mentally prepared to not resist. She fell forward, catching herself on her palms just before her face struck the bags. She was dusting herself off when the door to the outside opened. Carnet entered. “The good doctor decided to strike you down?”
“An experiment,” Agnes said. “We believe Felicity had her head tucked down when she was thrust forward. She didn’t have time to get her hands under her although she tried to. That’s why she broke a wrist. I landed on my knees. I think my legs would have shot back and extended under the chair if I’d passed out. Hers might have caught on the stone legs of the bench.”
“We can check the photographs,” Carnet said.
“She died so quickly she didn’t have time to stir,” said Blanchard.
“She was not expecting a blow,” said Agnes.
“Either she was alone or comfortable with whoever was with her,” Carnet said. “Comfortable enough to let them walk behind her.”
Agnes thanked the doctor and motioned Carnet outside.
“Petit and I finished walking the entire place. Every room,” he said.
Agnes raised an eyebrow.
“Every room we could find,” he said. “I’m sure we missed a stair here or there. It’s impossible to figure the place out. Stairs tucked away. Corridors that end abruptly.”
“I could have helped.”
“No, I’m working for you. You’re in charge and I am—”
“The experience?”
“The legs. The housekeeper says a knife is missing,” he added.
“There are probably a half dozen missing in my house, doesn’t mean they’re murder weapons. Julien Vallotton just told me the six-year-old discovered the body, and he only came along later. I don’t think anyone gave it a thought; just sent her to bed with hot chocolate and never considered she might be a material witness.” Agnes took a deep breath. “To be fair they left her with the nurse. But they certainly didn’t say anything to me about it last night.”
“Not surprising. How can anyone be normal living the way they do? They’re trapped in another century and not even the last one.” Carnet glanced up at the château. “You may have missing knives; here they count the silver every night and one is missing from yesterday’s tea tray. A tray taken to the library.”
“Where we find Nick Graves,” said Agnes. “It couldn’t be this easy. What kind of knife?”
“A pear knife, whatever that is. I’m going to have Madame Puguet show one like it to Blanchard. If we’re lucky it will match the entry wound.”
“It’s time I talk to Graves, then the child.”
Walking away she hazarded a smile. It felt good to be in charge.
Eight
“I’m sure your embassy would also love to hear from you, but the phones aren’t working.”
Agnes had taken the measure of the American college student, Nick Graves, and found him lacking. He was just a kid, a tall muscular kid full of bluster. With his khaki pants and button-down blue-striped shirt she could have guessed his nationality from twenty meters. His attitude didn’t alter her first impression. In the vast space of the Vallotton library, he ranted and raved against the police, swearing his first call would no longer be to the embassy but to his congressman. While he paced around a table she kept her features expressionless, not admitting she knew what a congressman was. She pondered the dichotomy that had made her an American in Switzerland and a Swiss in America. She was positive that everyone else in the household suspected her American connection at first meeting, whereas Graves seemed to have no hint of her parentage. Sitting astride two cultures had bothered her more since George’s death than at any other time in her life.
Admiring the library in daylight, it was more remarkable than she remembered from her hurried tour the night before. Occupying the length of one wing of the fortress, the double-height space was lined with heavily carved bookshelves picked out in fine gilding. At regular intervals the bookcases turned toward the exterior wall of the château to create deep niches in front of the tall windows overlooking the lake. Partially enclosed twin spiral staircases at each end of the room led to the narrow walkway at the second level. From there the bookcases extended to the carved and painted ceiling high overhead. The central space of the room was occupied by four long tables covered with antique globes and other artifacts. Nick Graves had appropriated one of the tables, spreading books and papers across the surface, and this was where Agnes had found him.
He rounded the table a final time, abruptly flopping onto an upholstered chair, long legs extended, trying to look relaxed and at home.
“It’s routine,” she repeated, feeling a bit malicious that she didn’t switch to English. Graves’s French was good enough to be serviceable, although the accent was straight off-the-boat American, but that wasn’t the reason. She wanted to keep him off guard. “We need to know where everyone was yesterday afternoon. I’m only confirming what you told Monsieur Carnet last night. I like to hear things for myself.”
He had just mumbled something about not spending his day staring at his watch, when from all corners of the library clocks drummed nine. “I can see how it would be difficult to track time here,” Agnes said, privately wondering how the family stood the constant reminder that the hours were passing. “Try guessing,” she said. “You were in the library until…”
“I might have left,” he said. “I like to pace. I went to the next room to walk a bit. Came back in and then left.”
“This was before or after tea was served?”
He paused briefly. “Both, I suppose.”
“You were out of the library more than in?”
“Yeah, just in the next rooms, like I said.”
“It’s surprising that you left.” She took a deliberate look around. “Most people would find this space large enough to accommodate the need to stretch their legs.”
He stared at her glumly. “Ice and wind were hitting the windows and driving me nuts. I needed to get out.”
She made a note in her book. “You knew Mademoiselle Cowell before arriving?”
He frowned, his handsome face suddenly that of a sullen child. “I suppose not. No.” Agnes cast him a quick look but didn’t interrupt. “I met Felicity Cowell when she came here. She worked in the library for a few days. Afterward she mostly stayed in her workroom.”
“Which is reached by the small stair in the next corridor?”
“That’s one way, but she used the other stair mostly. The one from the outside, near the portcullis. I never went up there. She liked to be left alone.”
“Did you leave her alone?”
“You think I harassed her?”
“No, I meant more of a friendly visit. Perhaps you got to know her, some personal details that would help us in our investigation. Right now we’re having trouble contacting her family or place of employment. Networks are down and we’re not a priority call according to those making the decisions.” She paused. “You felt someone was harassing her?”
“No, I meant that you … never mind. Yeah, I tried to talk to Felicity but she wasn’t interested. Why would I kill her?”
“You’ve already said why—she wasn’t interested in you. Of course, we may be wrong about that. The victim isn’t necessarily perfect. Maybe she was preying on you or knew something she shouldn’t have.”
“That’s rich. She was what—stalking me—and I couldn’t put an end to it wi
thout using a knife? You do know she’d only been here a few days? Hardly long enough for an annoyance to develop to the point of murder.”
“Two weeks. You’ve been here only a month longer. And I don’t think time alone moves people to kill.”
“Good god, I think I may need an attorney.” He tapped the table with his fingertips. “Forget I said that. Go on.” He crossed his arms. “She just looked like—well, she looked like someone I would know and she wasn’t. I don’t know what her game was and you’re right, she told me to get lost.”
“You mean she looked familiar?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t know Felicity Cowell before she was introduced to me here.”
“You arrived six weeks ago. Your first trip to Europe?”
“Yes.”
“Unusual, isn’t it, that a graduate student would be given such a prestigious fellowship if they hadn’t traveled before?”
“I’ve traveled alright. Asia, South America, lots of places, and this would let me continue that research in Europe. Made sense to my advisors.”
Agnes didn’t think it mattered why he was here. “You know that she was killed in an evening dress?” It was impossible to keep details secret in such close quarters. “Do you have any idea why she would have been dressed so extravagantly in the middle of the day?”
He shrugged. “She liked pretty things. Don’t most women?”
Agnes wondered if he had hit upon a truth. Could Felicity Cowell simply have been playing dress-up in the world’s best closet? Not very professional but a secret passion fulfilled? The secret passion of a woman who loved antique things? Not unrealistic. She frowned. That didn’t explain why Felicity left the room wearing a historic dress worth a fortune, or why she wandered out into a killing cold with a borrowed coat and boots.
“Is that all?” Graves asked and Agnes nodded. He left the library like he was being released from prison.
A glance at her mobile phone confirmed what she already knew: still no signal and the battery was slowly dying. She turned it off and wished the château had a generator; she would have traded the faulty two-way radio for a power source now that the indoor temperature had fallen close to that of outdoors. The fires at either end of the library were lit, but did little to warm more than a few feet beyond their hearths. Agnes wiggled her toes thankfully in the borrowed boots; she’d be frozen without them.
Moving near a fireplace she poured herself a cup of excellent coffee from a silver pot before walking the length of the library. Sixty paces. It would be impossible for anyone to say if the room was empty. The window niches were too deep and the upstairs walkway was completely obscured by shadow even in daylight. Perhaps Marie-José was wrong and Nick Graves was there most of the time, only stepping out for a few brief seconds as he claimed? Agnes studied the bookcases, swiftly calculating the number of volumes. Twenty thousand? Thirty? Each shelf was faced by finely worked metal covered with glass. She lifted a handle and had a soft leather volume in her hand when the door at the far end of the room opened. Frédéric Estanguet entered.
Earlier in the morning she had seen their Good Samaritan from a distance. Up close Estanguet’s face was tinged gray with fatigue. Evidently they had both slept poorly. Handing him a cup of coffee she thanked him again for helping Carnet and Blanchard down the hill. It would probably be the last time he offered to do the police a favor.
“I wish we had a way to get you home,” she said, knowing it was impossible.
“I can’t leave, not yet.”
Her face registered surprise and he shook his head. “I don’t know what I’ll find there. The damage will be the same everywhere. Roofs crushed by trees, water pipes frozen.” He shrugged, “And like here, I would have no electricity.”
Agnes pictured a small, dark, cold apartment. The château was cold but there were other amenities. She glanced at her hot coffee and the plate of pastries.
“And I live in Estavayer-le-Lac. It would be impossible to travel so far.”
“You don’t live in Ville-sur-Lac?”
Estanguet refilled his coffee cup. His color was improving. “I was in the village for a drink on my way home. It was wrong,” he continued. “She had her whole life in front of her. Dead where she didn’t belong. It’s all wrong. She shouldn’t have been out in the storm.”
Agnes was in agreement: Felicity Cowell deserved a chance at a long, productive future. She let Estanguet talk about the unfairness of life, her mind drifting to her own parents. She almost smiled. Her father would shrink from any mention of a violent death, while her mother would use it as an excuse to visit each of her friends. The story would guarantee she was the center of attention for a month. Agnes started to take a pastry from the tray then remembered the two she’d had earlier in the kitchen and checked the fit of her waistband. As a substitute she sipped her coffee, appreciating the warmth.
Finally Estanguet stopped talking, sat back in his chair, and sighed. Agnes reached over to pat his hand, hoping that he would one day forget the sight of the frozen body, although she knew she wouldn’t.
“You said that you don’t know the family but you do know the château. That’s curious.”
“I like the library, and they let people use it. A retirement project.”
“Were you a teacher?”
“Nothing of the sort. Started off as a guide. Hikes. Did some steep hills but not mountain climbing. That’s how I know we are stranded here. People think they can out-anger or out-think any obstacle but it’s not so. Mother Nature has a way of beating you down. She likes to fool you.”
Agnes remembered him staring at the bench earlier that morning. “Mademoiselle Cowell didn’t seem like a person to be outdoors in a storm. You said you didn’t know her?”
“I didn’t know her to recognize her, maybe I’d heard her name.”
“She’d been at the château for two weeks, and you are here often. I’m surprised. She used the library some.”
“I’ve been away for nearly a month myself. Vacation.”
Agnes had to smile at a vacation from retirement. “Not a good time to return, in the middle of a storm.”
“I’d picked my date and here I was. Didn’t think it would be a storm like what came. As I said, Mother Nature can be tricky. Saw your man, Carnet, and knew he wasn’t fit to walk down, not like he was planning to. People think they can sit and slide. They don’t realize that the ice will take you, hurl you off the edge. He needed something to hang on to, no different than mountain climbing. And crampons. Something to grip.”
“You got them down the hill safely.”
“She ought to have had more respect for the storm and stayed inside.”
“It must be a change to retire from an outdoor life and sit in a library and do research.”
“I left working as a guide long ago, when I was still nearly a boy. Met a man on one of my tours who liked what I could do with a needle. Fixed his tent and he talked me into apprenticing as a tailor. Took over from him when he passed and sewed my way through a lifetime.”
“What led you to do research here? I wouldn’t have known it was possible.”
“Fate.” He sat forward in his chair. “I was having a drink at the hotel in the village—they have nice views—and there was a caravan of trucks passing by and going down the hill. It was summer, and we could see them from the terrace. The waitress knew the village gossip and told me who was moving in.” He paused. “Vladimir Arsov.”
“Recently? I thought he’d lived here forever.”
“Last summer. The day before the Fête Nationale. Trucks and trucks of things they brought. The day of the Fête they have tours here, and I came down out of curiosity to see what kind of man had so many belongings. Someone told me the château library was open to research by the public.” He set his cup down. “It seems like so long ago.”
She knew that most of the furnishings and larger paintings at Arsov’s belonged to the Vallottons and were already in place when the old man arrived wi
th his truckloads. Estanguet would be truly amazed if he saw the inside of the mansion.
“You must like history.”
“What? Yes, I do.”
“Do you have a topic, something special you are interested in?”
“This and that. There’s lots to read and see here.”
Agnes thought about her retired parents and understood the need to feel like you belonged and could still be productive. Estanguet likely puttered about most days.
“You hadn’t met Felicity Cowell. You must know Nick Graves, though?”
“He’s been here since the new year. About six weeks. I know all the fellowship winners who come through. I’m a help to them, know my way around the organization of the books. Know where the maps are kept.” He thumped his leg. “She shouldn’t have been outdoors on a day like that. The young are foolish. But foolish doesn’t mean you deserve to die.”
Agnes wondered how it was that her boys stayed safe. They did foolish things. How did anyone manage to stay safe? She sat back and took another sip of coffee and made an effort to shake off melancholy. Despite the tragedy and the gloomy atmosphere, they were at one of the few places in the region used to doing without modern conveniences. And the food was excellent.
Nine
Carnet brought news to the library, and Agnes followed him to where Blanchard was waiting. They instructed her to lean near the wall of the corridor. She did, quickly stepping back, grimacing. “You’re sure it’s hers?” The acrid smell of vomit was offensive at a close distance.
Blanchard slapped one hand against the other. “Deductions are what we’re making until we can get her to a morgue, but I think we’ve hit on something important.”
“Walk me through it again,” Agnes said, suspecting that the doctor was enjoying himself. He looked better than he had earlier in the ice house.
“The maid”—Carnet glanced at his notebook—“Marie-José, found the mess while sweeping. She’s a smart girl and didn’t clean anything.”
“She assumed it was Mademoiselle Cowell’s?” Agnes asked.
Swiss Vendetta--A Mystery Page 9