Swiss Vendetta--A Mystery

by Tracee de Hahn

  “The others ate earlier,” Thomason said, as if they were expecting a party.

  “I’ve news,” Agnes began. “About Felicity. The doctor is fairly certain she was killed by a knife or long blade. It punctured her heart and she—” She caught herself before completing the sentence with: had bled out into her chest cavity. “She died nearly instantly. Within a few minutes. Probably without time to understand what was happening.” She hesitated. “It would have been painless.”

  The image of George flashed through her mind. Carnet appearing from nowhere, kneeling beside her on the street, saying it happened fast and that George hadn’t felt anything. One minute he was alive and the next, nothing. Agnes swallowed. She had known it was not that simple. There was a moment in between. Did it matter that he had done this to himself? Had he regretted his decision in the seconds it took to fall from the Pont Bessières? Had he seen the end coming—the hard pavement at the center of the Rue Centrale—and at the last moment cried No!

  “He assured me that she would have only felt a slap on her back. No pain. Death came rapidly.” Agnes swallowed, remembering that long day. Shock, despair, and anger in quick succession, all overloading her emotions. Then Carnet driving her home and the final horror, in some ways worse than telling the boys, of telling George’s parents. They understood the finality of death.

  She focused on the task at hand, and on the information in Carnet’s note. He had spoken on the radio with the gendarmerie. They had communicated with their counterparts in London. Most of Nick Graves’s revelations about Felicity Cowell were now confirmed.

  “You won’t be the one to tell her parents,” she began. “The police in the United Kingdom sent an officer to them with the details and by the time you’re back in London they will be through the first stage of grief, and you can be a comfort.” She fought rising panic. She had not been a comfort to Sybille. She was a reminder.

  Thomason looked up bleary-eyed. “Her parents aren’t living. They died years ago and she lived with distant relatives until she was old enough to be on her own. They treated her well enough, but she felt she was a burden; they were much older and had their own lives and suddenly she was dumped on them. They’ll be sorry, and may miss her but won’t grieve. I am her family now.”

  Petit looked up sharply and Agnes willed him to silence. She felt Julien Vallotton’s subtle reaction and she shifted uncomfortably, wanting to look at him but also unwilling to show Thomason her confusion. The message Carnet had relayed to her from the gendarmerie was simple but clear. The police in the United Kingdom had done their part and confirmed that Felicity Cowell was Courtney Cowell. Her parents were very much alive and well and they had shared details about their daughter’s life, including her real name and education. Or lack thereof. Agnes was thankful Vallotton had the gift of silence and tried to remember what Thomason had said the day before. Something that made her think he understood that Felicity was trying to make it in a world much different than her background. Something was wrong, but she wanted him to show his hand first.

  “You said she had a strong sense of being an outsider.”

  “We both do … did. My parents never come to London, they’d left the townhouse closed for years, and when I moved to the city you’d have thought I was going to a foreign war. We’re strictly gentleman farmers and my father takes it seriously. My sisters ride to hounds and will marry other farmers and all will continue as it has forever. I think my going to work for Mother’s cousin about caused a divorce. I offered not to be paid—’course that woke the old man up. He’s no objection to money, and an auction house isn’t ‘trade.’” Thomason laughed bitterly. “We’re practically on the border of Scotland and as isolated as we were a hundred years ago. That’s what I meant by being an outsider. Felicity came to London after she was on her own. Her guardians took care of her and she had every advantage growing up—in terms of school and traveling and all the usual stuff. They don’t like England, but felt an obligation to rear her there. She felt they resented her tying them down when she was young. It was the feeling of affection that she said she missed by not having her parents. That was important to her. That was what we had together.” His voice cracked with emotion.

  Agnes glanced at Vallotton, who raised an eyebrow but didn’t speak. Over his shoulder Petit’s eyes were wide with interest. Agnes hesitated to share more of what she knew. If Thomason didn’t know Felicity’s parents were alive, what else didn’t he know? Using a different name was one thing. After all, many people dropped or added nicknames, but clearly he didn’t know that her education was more of the street-smart variety than of a girl carefully chaperoned through museums by her cold but very proper relatives. Agnes marveled that Felicity had been able to pull it off. How had she created a new person, correct in all the details, out of her past? Agnes knew how hard it was to assimilate. She had been born in Switzerland yet didn’t feel Swiss. There were too many deeply ingrained customs that weren’t part of her parents’ household. Somehow Felicity Cowell had broken into what was by all accounts one of the most insular clubs in the world: the British landed gentry.

  “Had you set a date for the wedding?” she asked before Petit could blurt out what he knew. She wanted to learn from Thomason, not tell him what they knew. Not yet. Thomason gulped slightly and didn’t reply. “Had she met your parents?” She hated herself for thinking that his parents might have suspected Felicity’s background. He had painted their picture very effectively and she sensed they might suspect something was odd about their potential daughter-in-law.

  “No, we were planning to, but they live so far north, and it was difficult.”

  Particularly if one of you has so much to hide. “If she wasn’t close to her guardians, your mother would have filled that void, the interest in the details of the wedding. I imagine your family, steeped in so much tradition, would have wanted something special.” She didn’t know exactly what she was probing for, but she wanted to draw him out about their plans and his relationship to the dead woman. Had his parents suspected something even before they met her?

  “We hadn’t set one.” Thomason fiddled with an empty coffee cup, his thumb looped through the handle. Agnes was afraid the delicate china might break, he was so tense. He took a few short, deep breaths and seemed near to tears, then he spoke in a burst. “Sod it. We weren’t absolutely engaged. I asked her and she wanted time to decide. She was worried about my parents. I think I’d made them sound too cold, and told her too many stories about my sisters locked up there in the north, ready to marry men just like my father. Maybe she thought I would change once we were married. She knew that I would eventually inherit Harley House, but I promised that we could always live in London. I swore to her we would stay there, but maybe she was right, maybe I would have changed my mind and wanted to live on the estate once it was mine.” He turned to Vallotton, his voice shaky. “You understand. Why can’t it be both ways? Who wouldn’t want to live there? I would go back and make my mark and I wouldn’t have to be like my father. She and I could have put our own stamp on the place. But she was worried, she wanted time, and I gave her that time and now she’s dead and I know we would have been married. I know she would have said yes.”

  Anguish aged his face and for a moment it appeared that he would lose control, but he placed the tips of his fingers on the edge of the dining table and focused on them. He took a deep breath and blinked several times then looked at Agnes. She hesitated and felt Vallotton shift in his chair. She knew what he wanted; they had to tell Thomason the rest, they couldn’t justify keeping these details from him. Thomason had to be near thirty, but she could tell that he had lived a sheltered life and for him love was simple and sweet. This would be the final blow to his innocence. This would in some ways be worse than death. She drew a deep steadying breath.

  “The local police in Britain have spoken with Felicity’s parents and her sister.” Agnes spoke forcefully, but was careful to keep her voice emotionless. “I’m sure the
family will want to meet you once you return. They had been estranged from Courtney—that was her birth name—for years, at least a decade. They don’t know anything about her life in London. The news of the promise of a happy future with you will be a double-edged sword. Sorrow for what is lost, tempered by the thought that their daughter had the chance at happiness.” She doubted Courtney’s family and the young man in front of her would find anything in common, but it wasn’t for her to decide.

  Thomason’s face drained to white with shock. Petit shifted in his chair as if preparing to catch the other man if he collapsed. Agnes knew she had to ask Thomason about the baby.

  “How … who…” Thomason’s words were choked and barely audible. He shoved away from the table, his chair falling backward. Some deeply ingrained reflex made him apologize to Vallotton, then he abruptly fled the room. Vallotton glanced at Agnes, then walked after the young man.

  Agnes watched Petit close his notebook carefully.

  “I’ll go check the tunnel now if you don’t need me anymore,” he said.

  She nodded, wondering if he was getting too strong a lesson in the possible pitfalls of parenting. Alone she picked up a heavy silver knife and balanced it in her hand, thinking that her heart was so heavy she could understand how an end to suffering was appealing.

  Twenty-four

  “This trip gets more and more interesting,” Doctor Blanchard said, pulling on his outdoor gear. “What you need is a forensic pathologist, but you also needed a regular pathologist so I’m as good at standing in for one as for the other. Actually, I’m a bit more interested in this problem. Occasionally people find bones in the woods or in a field in my village and they need to know the story. Usually animal bones.” Coat, hat, and gloves in place, he decided he needed a last sip of hot coffee. Agnes didn’t blame him and tried to stem her impatience. She was so tired she thought she would fall asleep if she sat down, but more coffee was out of the question. Her hands were nearly shaking with caffeine.

  “’Course then they have a question because there’s only one or two specimens. I think anyone would recognize a whole cow if they found it.” Blanchard snorted a laugh. “Bones are interesting when you start to compare the diets and other factors that—”

  Before he could get too far into his lecture, Agnes asked what he proposed they do with their skeleton.

  “Julien Vallotton told me he has a good camera so we start with that, and then I’ll plan to remove the remains before they are overly exposed to the elements or an animal hauls them away. Who can help?”

  Twenty minutes later, Agnes watched from an upper window of the château. Carnet and Doctor Blanchard walked to the damaged grove carrying a camera, small shovel, broom, and plastic tarp. She was thankful she was seeing Carnet again for the first time at a distance. She leaned closer to the window and something moved against her leg. Patting her coat pocket, she remembered the small book she had taken from Arsov when he collapsed. She pulled it out, noting the age and condition of the delicate leather cover, careful not to damage it. The front pages of the book were stuck together and she opened it near the middle. The pages were covered with handwriting. It wasn’t Arsov’s; that was clear. The old-fashioned script was a woman’s. A young woman’s or girl’s, she amended, studying the careful rounded flourishes. She skimmed a few pages, excerpting only bits and pieces, when something made her stop. Dates. This was a diary. She was reading in February of an unknown year during the Second World War.

  I’ve counted the days since my last period and there are too many days and I know that my health is poor. Madame already worries too much about me and there is nothing to be done. There is too little food, and I worry constantly. When I am in bed, alone in my room and cannot sleep, I think of her strength and try to emulate it, but I always fail when morning comes. The only thing that can distract me when my cough erupts is thinking of him.

  Agnes smiled, remembering her own early crushes. This sounded like a young woman.

  Today is six months since we met and I cannot speak to him or even write to tell him how I feel, how he has changed my life. I had hoped to find a way to send a letter, but Madame says it is too dangerous, even if we knew where to send it, and she is right, the last thing I can do is risk his life. I have decided that I will write to him here, and when we next meet I will give it to him.

  Agnes leaned against the wall, unsteady. Young love. Full of promise. And agony. She turned the page and was surprised that it was in the form of a letter. A letter intended for Arsov. That was why Arsov had the diary. This was Anne-Marie’s.

  Mon Amour, One day when we are old and gray and sit along the Seine enjoying baguettes like we have not eaten now in many in year …

  Agnes skimmed ahead.

  … I will remember this war and think not of the bad days, but only that it brought us together. Isn’t that enough? We will forget everything that happened to us, we will make our love cancel all the death, the death of our loved ones.

  Thinking of Arsov, Agnes smiled. Their love had canceled all other tragedy.

  You have my answer, we will marry and it cannot happen quickly enough. Come back to me and we will be united the moment you walk through the door. Then you will be mine forever. I miss you. Return to me dear heart.

  She prepared to turn the page when Julien Vallotton appeared at her shoulder. She slipped the book back into her pocket. Vallotton looked out the window briefly.

  “You recognized the name of Thomason’s home,” he said. “Once he calmed a little, I asked him about it. They inherited the property from his mother’s family, Harley House, home of the Smythson-Markums.”

  “‘My house,’” Agnes said, remembering the words penciled in Felicity’s book beside the photograph of the tall gray house in the north of England.

  “At least we know she was trying out the idea,” he said, “and it confirms that she and Thomason had a relationship. Hadn’t you wondered? You had proof of what Graves said—her name, her other life—but still wondered if Thomason was telling the truth about the two of them.”

  “He’d have to be a good actor.”

  “Not entirely. The relationship could have been in his mind only. Now I think there’s enough to agree that she was thinking of his house as possibly hers.”

  “True. What else did Thomason say to you?”

  “I barely asked about Harley House when he broke down again. I offered him a sedative and left him in his bedroom. It was cruel to ask more. I think he’s not inventing his connection to her.”

  “You’re right, I believe that he had asked her to marry him, but I still need to talk to him; we need to know what he knew about her pregnancy. He’s not in the clear yet.” She turned to face Vallotton. “We’ll give Thomason a little time; until then, what about the missing items? I haven’t forgotten about the theft.”

  “Maybe I’ll care next week, but today, knowing a woman died violently I can’t feel that it matters. They were simply things. I have many others.”

  Through the ice-frosted window Agnes watched Carnet and Blanchard glance from the site where they found Felicity Cowell to the newly uncovered grave only a few meters away. With so many trees destroyed, the area was now visible from the château’s windows.

  “I’m afraid I have to care today,” she said. “Maybe Felicity thought Thomason expected her to have money of her own? He certainly thought she came from money. Who knows how far the lie had gone before she realized that Thomason was interested in her romantically. Maybe she introduced herself as having a trust fund, isn’t that what you people usually have?”

  Vallotton frowned as Blanchard knelt. “How old do you think the bones are, really?” he asked. “I realize they’re not new, but ten years? Fifty? A hundred? That piece of fabric, or whatever it was, makes me think they’re newer than I would like.”

  “Any missing relatives in the family tree?”

  “You should also ask about friends of relatives, servants, who knows where this will lead. I ha
ve a bad feeling.”

  Suddenly, Agnes did as well.

  Twenty-five

  No one had a right to put her here. That was her first thought when she woke. Then she realized that her elephant, Elie, was not with her and she wanted to cry. She had dozens of hiding places in the château, most where she could see and hear what others were doing without being observed. There were cozy warm places and dusty uncomfortable places, but this was different. This place was cold and damp and scary. She hadn’t seen a face when the hands covered her mouth and nose and she had tried every trick she could think of: struggling, kicking, then pretending to go limp. That’s when the nasty person hit her. Or at least that’s what she thought had happened. Now, lying on a cold damp floor, her head hurt and she wished above all things that Elie was with her.

  Twenty-six

  Ralph Mulholland walked through the room pulling on an outdoor coat.

  “You recovered quickly,” Agnes said. He was startled to see her and she took advantage of his hesitation and asked him to be seated, pointing out the fire in the hearth and saying that it was small but put out a surprising amount of heat.

  “I’m surprised you are going back outside after your overnight ordeal. I thought you’d be sleeping.”

  “Madame Puguet gave me a concoction to drink, set me right up again.”

  “You should have seen the doctor. Let him look at your hands.”

  He scowled. “She knows what to do.”

  Agnes wondered at the household’s distrust of outsiders. Surely an unknown doctor was better than a housekeeper if you have suffered a shock.

  “But outside so soon?” she said. “Is that a good idea?”

  “Probably have nightmares if I sleep. Besides, I’m not a child. I can do on a few hours’ nap. I’m going to talk to Monsieur Arsov. A neighborly chat. That’s allowed.”