Swiss Vendetta--A Mystery

by Tracee de Hahn

  Keeping the darkest of her thoughts to herself, Agnes had assured the distraught housekeeper that they would search the lake’s edge at first light. Carnet and Petit had seen no child-sized footprints during their searches; however, they couldn’t guarantee she hadn’t ventured outside. Some patches of ice had little or no snow. Agnes didn’t know what she would do if they found the girl frozen in the lake.

  For now, for another hour, she had to content herself with waiting. Returning her attention to Blanchard, she looked around the room with renewed interest. The four walls contained a kind of mad scientist’s chamber, with weights, scales, glass beakers, and, in pride of place, a double row of sleek microscopes with gleaming brass and nickel fittings arrayed across two tables. Agnes lifted her light to the walls. Glass-fronted boxes displayed pinned butterflies in perpetual flight. She scanned past an arachnid display, hoping the eight-legged creatures were well and truly dead, before landing on a fully articulated skeleton hanging on a wire.

  “Daniel Vallotton told me his uncle was a scientist,” said the doctor. “Died young. An experiment gone awry. He left behind quite a collection of instruments and specimens.” Blanchard shifted a box of bones onto the table. “Officer Petit took me out again late last night to see our body. Mademoiselle Cowell, I mean. Nothing to be done right now, but I wanted to check on her.”

  Agnes could imagine the doctor tucking the corpse in for the night, telling her to be patient, they would get her to a morgue soon enough. Mulholland’s time in the ice house had offended the doctor’s sensibilities. A corpse should at least have privacy.

  “These bones I could do something with,” Blanchard said, tapping the box. “The microscopes are high quality even if they are antiques.”

  Agnes waited patiently through the technical jargon about the difference between the capability of the antique lenses and those in a modern lab. Surreptitiously she checked her watch. The hour they had agreed upon to start the search was approaching. If only dawn would break.

  She moved to study the scrap of rotted fabric that the doctor had placed under a different microscope. Her middle son had the makings of scientist. He would be impressed by this home laboratory. Near the microscope the doctor had placed the clear plastic bag containing the ring found with the skeleton. Agnes knew fingerprints weren’t a concern and removed it, curious about the design. The metal was dull gold, and it was heavier than she expected. But then, it was a man’s. The signet portion of the ring was deep green. Bloodstone, she recalled. The crest was elaborate and difficult to make out. She tilted it toward a candle then picked up a small lens brush and used it to dislodge some dirt. When fully revealed, it was a pretty design, a coronet of alternating leaves and pearls in trefoil surmounting a shield surrounded by draping plumes. Her heart beat faster; she rubbed her eyes to clear them.

  “I had a suspicion and was able to take a look at our bones,” the doctor finally concluded.

  Agnes ignored him, holding the ring almost in the flame of a candle. The carving on even a large signet ring was tiny. She was tired—perhaps imaging things, and needed to be sure. She looked again. She knew this crest. It was at the top right-hand corner of the painting of the marquise that Marie-Chantal had shown her. The painting done on the occasion of the marriage of Antoinette Vallotton to the Marquise de Tornay. The painting decorated by the artist with the crests of both families.

  “—had TB,” the doctor said.

  Agnes jerked her head up. “Tuberculosis? These bones? The bones of the young woman we found today … I mean yesterday? With this ring?”

  “Yes, as I was saying, once I cleaned the bones up a bit I could tell that the surface was pitted. I think it is consistent with what we would find with an advanced case of tuberculosis. Very advanced.”

  She slipped the ring back in the plastic bag and fished the diary from her pocket. It was all in here. The young woman ill, tuberculosis. The ring she took as laissez-passer. The ring that would identify her as friend of Madame’s upon arrival in Switzerland. The ring given to her by Madame. Madame la marquise Antoinette Vallotton de Tornay. Citoyen’s wife and Arsov’s friend during the war. A chill swept through Agnes. Why had the marquise said nothing? And why was the love of Arsov’s life buried in unconsecrated ground?

  With a hasty word to the doctor she went in search of the person who could answer her questions.

  The marquise was seated on her silver chair just as she had been when Agnes first met her. There was a tray of tea and toast on a nearby table. Clearly no one in the household was able to sleep.

  “You know whose skeleton we found under that tree.” It wasn’t a question and Agnes didn’t pause for social niceties.

  “I wondered how long it would take for you to understand. Only a few hours apparently.” The marquise waved her hand toward the opposite chair but Agnes remained standing. She had little time. She had allowed herself to be distracted by the thefts and wouldn’t be again. Light was breaking and they needed to find Mimi. And she needed to find Felicity Cowell’s murderer. The woman buried under the tree, no matter who she was, could wait. The marquise appeared to read her mood.

  “Yes, I believe I know who lays under that tree.”

  “She was wearing your ring. She had tuberculosis.”

  “The disease was more common in those days.” The marquise smiled softly. “And it was not my ring. It was my late husband’s.”

  “She was in love with Monsieur Arsov.” Agnes remembered the young girl writing about Marcel. Writing about Arsov. A young girl who was given a ring before traveling.

  “Until yesterday I did not know where she rested. Unbelievable, really, after all these years to find her here.” The marquise shook herself slightly as if waking. “Anne-Marie lived with me during the war. But you clearly know this. And yes, she was ill. Her health failed quickly and we decided to risk the journey to Switzerland. There was some access to medicines even with the borders closed and the population living on subsistence. At a minimum she would be spared the constant fear that we lived with.”

  “Someone abandoned her here?”

  “Marcel, Monsieur Arsov, was in Italy and it would have taken two more weeks for him to come for her. I was afraid to wait that long; that is how weak Anne-Marie had become.” The marquise glanced to the book in Agnes’s hand. “You have read her diary. You have heard her spirit in the words she wrote. She would not believe she was ill, just tired, yet she was frail and already slipping from us. Marcel—that is who he shall always be for me in those days—arranged for a colleague to take her. They were to cross into Switzerland together and arrive here, on the shore beside my family home. We had loyal servants who would have taken care of her.” The marquise studied her hand as if searching for something. “That is why I gave Anne-Marie my husband’s ring. I needed something to give her as proof of our connection. We did not dare write anything.”

  “I don’t understand. You must have known who she was when we uncovered the skeleton?”

  The marquise lifted a hand to stop Agnes speaking. “You will not believe that I was stunned. Old habits die hard. I believe you know who my husband was. What we did during the war.” Agnes nodded hesitantly, remembering the story from the diary. The story of how the marquise’s husband died. What had the marquise said to her that night in the workroom? That she should be thankful that her memories could fade, that all she remembered of her husband was his face the last time she saw him: the night she destroyed his face so the Germans couldn’t identify him. It was the marquise who taught Arsov how to survive.

  “These things have been secret for so long I could not speak of them immediately.” The marquise pulled her fox stole closer. “You cannot imagine what Europe was like after the war. You think that peace means a return to normalcy, when in fact it is another stage of desolation. My brother had seen more of the war than me, and we were united in our desire to live in the present. I did not seek out answers. I lost my husband, many other family members. Friends. I did not
try to find Marcel. Or Anne-Marie. If you had asked me then if I thought they survived the war I don’t know what I would have answered. I was beyond thinking anyone would survive. Life and death were capricious. It was not something to examine.”

  Agnes felt she was watching the woman age before her eyes. She adjusted the wick in an oil lamp to have something to do. The pain in the marquise’s voice was difficult to bear.

  “Anne-Marie left with her guide and two others,” the marquise continued. “Important men with scientific secrets who needed to reach Zürich. I knew nothing of the details of their journey. We were very careful to compartmentalize information. I did learn later that they went by boat across the lake. Risky, but I did not question why.”

  “She made it,” Agnes said.

  “Based on what was found in that grave, yes and no.”

  “I thought they had years together. That they married and had a whole life of happiness. To hear Monsieur Arsov speak of her, it was like she’d been dead only a few years. Not over fifty. And why didn’t he marry someone else? He must have met someone.” Her voice faltered. Was it a guarantee to meet someone else?

  The marquise reached out to hold Agnes’s arm. “I do not know what happened on that trip.”

  “You must have spoken of it later, now. Monsieur Arsov is your neighbor.”

  “What is there to speak of? Two years ago he contacted me and asked if he could visit. After so many years I was delighted when he mentioned a desire to live here. He did not mention her directly and I did not ask. I did glimpse her diary in his hand once. I recognized it. Now I suppose the men she traveled with gave it to him. They were not cruel men. I understood without a direct reference that Marcel wanted to be here, on the shore of this lake, in old age. This was where they were to embark upon a new, freer life together. Seeing her bones I understand that this is where his heart broke. Do you understand? That the heart can literally break?” The marquise relaxed her grip and dropped her hand away.

  “Yes, I understand the heart breaking.” Arsov and Anne-Marie, herself and George. She added George and Carnet. Julien Vallotton’s spouse who had died tragically, as had the marquise’s. And there was Thomason. Heartbroken and deceived. She wondered if Marie-Chantal and Daniel, with their difficult beginning, would end up the happiest of all.

  “I do not think Marcel, Monsieur Arsov, knows she died here,” said the marquise suddenly. “He would not have left her unattended. Even if he had to leave her during the war—to save someone else’s life, to do his duty to others—he would have returned and given her a proper burial. And later, he and I knew each other well enough that he could have made this request of me.”

  “Then how did she end up here, abandoned? Why?”

  “I have had nearly a day to ponder this question. She was weak. It is not unreasonable that she died during the journey. We knew it was a risk. The men she was with had other responsibilities. I trusted them, I still do. They probably did the best they could for her without abandoning their mission. They couldn’t travel with a dead woman, nor could they ask for help that might result in being turned over to the authorities. They likely dug a hasty grave and left her. Understand how we felt. The world was at war. One more death made little difference. We saw death every day. I thought every day would be my last.”

  “But Arsov knew she didn’t arrive.”

  “What do you tell a man—that his fiancée died and you had to leave her hidden among brush in a grove of trees? No, you invent a nicer story. After all, she is dead, there is no changing the fact. You say that she died in France, that a nice widow woman nursed her last moments and promised to bury her in the village. You give him her diary as a memento.” The marquise shifted slightly in her silver chair. “I don’t know what they told him, but it was not the truth. We teach our children not to lie, but in war lies are necessities. My entire life during those years was a lie. I have to forgive others for doing the same.”

  Agnes blinked back tears. She nodded. “I do understand. And I’ll make sure Arsov’s household doesn’t mention to him what we found. He’s very frail.” She couldn’t bear the thought of Arsov finding out that his true love had lain in a hastily dug grave for over fifty years. The passages of the diary echoed through her mind, the voice of a young woman in love. Perhaps she was fortunate, this young woman who would never know the sting of the loss of love.

  She had one last question. “You asked about Felicity Cowell’s siblings the other night. Why?”

  “Perhaps I was thinking of my brother and his death and how it impacted me. He was the last of my generation.”

  Agnes replayed the moment. “No.” They were talking about Felicity Cowell’s false name. How she changed her name. “Something else triggered your thoughts.” She paged through the diary. “Her brother. Anne-Marie’s brother.”

  “A tiny child. We sent him to live with a family deeper in the countryside. It was difficult to part them, but a safer place for him. Anywhere near me was unsafe by this time. I was under constant surveillance. And, whereas a grown person is difficult to explain, children blend in easier. The family had lost a child of the same age and would pass him off as their own to the authorities.”

  “What was his name? What was his and Anne-Marie’s surname?”

  “Faivre.”

  “What was his first name?”

  The marquise hesitated.

  “It was Frédéric,” Agnes said, finding the page in the diary. “Anne-Marie’s much younger brother was Frédéric Faivre. And you can change your name. What was the family called he went to live with?”

  “I don’t recall, I didn’t know them personally.”

  “Estanguet?” asked Agnes. There was a long pause. When the marquise nodded, she ran.

  Thirty-two

  Julien Vallotton was at the door when Agnes ran into the room.

  “We’re waiting for daylight to start the search,” he said.

  She pushed past him wordlessly, stopping only when she reached Ralph Mulholland. She grasped his arm, ignoring the stunned expressions of the three Vallottons.

  “Monsieur Arsov wouldn’t see you on Wednesday, yet you waited for him. You said that you waited outside. Why did you wait outside on a cold day to see a very old man?”

  Daniel Vallotton hoisted himself up on crutches and his brother drew near but Agnes ignored them. “Why outside during a storm?”

  “He goes out every day,” Mulholland replied. “Sits on that bloody bench and stares out over the lake. Someone—a servant or a visitor—pushes him there and leaves him for a while. I wanted him alone. Where he couldn’t walk away from me, or call for someone to haul me off. I needed to explain to him how serious my situation was. He’d have to listen.”

  “Frédéric,” Agnes whispered, turning to the group. “Where is Estanguet? Frédéric Estanguet?”

  They looked around the shadows of the room as if expecting the man to jump out at them.

  “Is he missing now?” Julien Vallotton asked.

  “It was all about revenge. Revenge on Monsieur Arsov. Estanguet thought Arsov was sitting on the bench and because of the storm didn’t realize that he stabbed Felicity Cowell by mistake. They are both slight in build, and she was wearing a man’s coat. That first night he was stunned. We thought it was the sight of the body or the cold. He was stunned because he thought he’d killed a man, not a woman. And since then Monsieur Arsov hasn’t been unattended or outside, there hasn’t been another chance to get near him.” Agnes grabbed the stuffed elephant from a chair and waved it under their noses as if that were proof. “Estanguet knows how Arsov feels about Mimi and he took her. I don’t know what he has done with her, but her took her because she is what Arsov loves best in the world.”

  Winston paced nearby, his head and shoulders brushing her skirt. Julien Vallotton nudged the dog away.

  “Let’s hope he only hid her,” Agnes said. “He can’t have taken her far. She must be here, somewhere on this property. They couldn’t have
made it up the cliff without our knowing.”

  “Why revenge on Arsov?” Daniel Vallotton slumped back into his wheelchair, rolling it backward and forward rapidly. Marie-Chantal put down her coffee cup and joined him.

  “If Estanguet’s sister hadn’t died in the last year of the war Arsov would have married her. But Frédéric Estanguet was very young, little more than a toddler. He was separated from her and he blames Arsov.” Agnes took a deep breath. “She’s the skeleton we found yesterday.”

  “This makes no sense,” said Marie-Chantal. “Many children were orphaned.”

  “I don’t think we can understand his mental state, but I know whose bones are on your lawn, and I know that she is the woman Arsov was in love with, and that Frédéric Estanguet is her brother.”

  Julien Vallotton stepped forward. “Mimi is our prime concern, the details don’t matter now.”

  “Did someone check the ice house tunnel?” said Marie-Chantal.

  “We looked there,” said Agnes. “And in all of the other buildings: the summer pavilion, the old stables, the Orangerie. They aren’t complicated structures. They don’t have secrets. Plus, they’re not heated. A few hours in one of them and she would freeze to death. I don’t think that’s what Estanguet wants. At least not yet or he would have made sure we found her body. He has a plan for revenge.” She looked around desperately. “She has to be here. Somewhere in the château.”

  “We’ll call for help—” Julien interjected.

  “Call who?” Agnes asked.

  “Inspector Lüthi is the police,” Marie-Chantal added.

  Officer Petit walked through the door, bundled for the worst outdoor weather from his boots to his cap. Carnet was close on his heels, pulling on his puffy coat.