Gently French (10 page)

I threw a look at Dutt: he was studying his notebook.

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘We’ll come back to that later.’

‘But Monsieur, her name?’

‘Never mind her name! What I’d like to talk about now is Bavents.’

Her surprise was perfect. ‘The waiter?’

‘Indeed yes. The waiter. Who sleeps in a room next to yours. Who blushes when your name is mentioned.’

She gave a little chuckle. ‘His name is Adam.’

‘I am well aware his name is Adam.’

‘He is a dear. A furry animal. I am quite fond of my Adam.’

‘So he is your Adam?’

‘Am I not saying so? He is feeding out of this hand. It is not a bad idea to enchant the waiter. It ensures the service is dependable.’

‘And precisely how far does the enchantment go?’

She did her smiling pull-back on the chair. ‘Do not bother to be jealous, my friend. I do not admit Chi-Chi between the sheets. One would need to be butch, huh? All that hair falling over one’s face. Oh no. He is for those little thin girls with their drain-pipe bodies and sparrow’s legs.’

‘But still, the enchantment is pretty strong.’

She gestured. ‘Each one has his talent.’

‘He would run little errands and keep his mouth shut.’

‘How else could he be of service to a lady?’

I drew closer to her. ‘And on Thursday evening. Didn’t he run a little errand then?’

‘An errand for me?’

‘An errand to you. From someone requesting a private interview.’

She pretended to think. ‘It is not easy to remember. All sorts of funny things go on. One half of the gentlemen staying here keep hinting that they would like a private interview. What would I be doing on Thursday evening?’

‘At first you were in the bar with Freddy and the Silvermans.’

‘Ah yes, the Silvermans. Tiresome people. Freddy liked them because they were in racing.’

‘But then Bavents entered and attracted your attention.’

Her eyebrows lifted. ‘You are telling me this?’

‘Yes, I’m telling you. And we have a witness. Bavents brought you a message. You went out.’

She swished her hair. ‘That is very likely. Yes, I think it may have happened.’ She hesitated. ‘On Thursday, was it? I wonder what it could have been about?’

‘I am sure you know very well what it was about.’

‘But no. You had better jog my memory.’

‘When you were gone from the bar for over half-an-hour?’

‘As long as that?’ She made a mouth. ‘Where was I, then?’

‘You went out in the yard. The man who sent the message was waiting there. You took him aside, perhaps behind those garages, so that you could talk without being seen.’

‘Does Adam say this?’

‘You had got rid of Adam. Nobody was to hear that conversation. The man had just arrived, he had booked at the Three Tuns. You had to fix him up with a less obvious address.’

‘Oh yes, that’s certain! I put him under my bed.’

‘In point of fact you probably gave him a key.’

‘A bedroom key?’

‘The key of a front door. With instructions where the door was to be found.’

She shook her head. ‘A strange story, my friend. It would surely need proof to make it stand up?’

‘Proof – like a statement from the man involved?’

Her eyes flashed quickly, were calm again. ‘That would be his word against mine, huh? And how could the word of this man be trusted?’

‘You think it couldn’t be?’

‘Me, I know nothing. These are all your ideas, Monsieur. And I think I hear Freddy say to me, Ignore him, my dear, this is just a try-on.’

‘Do you wish to gamble on that?’

Her eyes were hard: then they smiled. ‘Yes. I call you.’

‘Freddy owned some property just down the river. That was where the door-key fitted.’

Our eyes locked. For a short second I was gazing into the eyes of a furious animal. It passed; she gave her breathless chuckle, dredging it up from deep down.

‘I still call you, huh? What do I know of Freddy’s properties? And now, if our interesting conversation is to continue, you must be a gentleman and order drinks.’

I
ORDERED DRINKS
. Frayling brought them himself; he was doubtless abreast of affairs in the office. He received his reward, if that is what it was, in a melting smile from Madame Deslauriers. He seemed embarrassed. He slopped Dutt’s brown ale and got himself tangled with a chair; then he backed out, ducking and grinning. You would almost have taken him for a hot suspect.

Mimi was smiling creamily to herself.

I nodded after Frayling. ‘Do you like him better than Bavents?’

‘Would it show poor judgement if I did?’

‘He has a wife. It could be stupid.’

‘Ha, ha, a wife.’ She sipped her Martini.

‘Perhaps wives don’t count in your book.’

‘But yes, my friend. I find wives interesting. They are often more bored than the husbands. Sometimes I can put a man in their path.’

‘I am sure you favour advanced methods.’

‘I prefer not to create a vacuum, huh? After all, I am a woman too. I have every wife’s interest at heart.’

I gulped lager. ‘And the system works?’

She skewed her mouth. ‘Of course, there are failures. Wives who have been paralysed by their one success. These you will find in the divorce courts. But mostly, no. They are simply bored. The big adventure has become routine. And when there are also so many bored husbands, it would be a shame not to spread some happiness. That is logical?’

‘It overlooks a few factors.’

‘I talk of adventuring, my friend. There is also the grand passion, huh? The love that is proof against all adventures? But that is enfranchising, it does not imprison. The love that imprisons is mere possession. The grand passion has open doors by which we go out and may return.’

‘And that was the state of affairs with Freddy?’

She swung her shoulders. ‘You know it was not. He was a fascinating man, a tender lover, a good friend. Not more.’

‘With your husband, then?’

‘Alas no. My marriage to Charles was arranged. He was very charming, but a man of business. I am just his pretty wife waiting on the doorstep.’

‘So with whom?’

‘Perhaps I am waiting.’

‘Or perhaps it is just something you’ve read in books.’

She drank. ‘You are unkind, Monsieur. Why should I tell you all my secrets?’

‘Then there is such a man?’

‘That is always possible.’

‘A man who would undertake grave risks.’

‘Maybe.’

‘And who is not far away.’

She gazed at me fixedly. ‘He may be as close as that chair you are sitting on.’

I grunted and drank more lager. She lifted her glass to me and sipped.

It was growing dark now. I signalled to Dutt, who rose and switched on the light.

‘Let us get to something more interesting,’ I said. ‘When was Freddy proposing to retire?’

Mimi, Madame Deslauriers, had changed her perch on the chair. It could have been that she had judged I had seen enough of her legs. She looked beautifully blank.

‘Who says he was retiring?’

‘One John Sigismund Fazakerly says it.’

‘Oh . . . Siggy.’

‘Who you obviously know.’

‘But yes.’ She faded in a dreamy smile. ‘He is the yachtsman who lives in Chelsea. Freddy and he were good friends. Very good-looking, quite rich, but with strange ideas about women.’

‘And he says that Freddy was talking about retiring.’

‘Aha. But why is that so interesting?’

‘Because crooks who retire are a problem to other crooks. Who sometimes make fundamental adjustments.’

She looked studiedly dumb. ‘You think that may have happened?’

‘First, I would like to hear of his plans for retirement. When; who knew about it; what he had arranged about his mob.’

‘But, my friend, you ask the wrong person.’

I shook my head. ‘I think you would know.’

‘It is a matter of business . . .’

‘I am not accepting that. My guess is that you were Freddy’s reason.’

She smirked faintly. ‘You are obstinate, Monsieur. But it comes to the same thing in the end. I do not know what Freddy has planned, or all these other things you are asking.’

‘But you knew he was retiring?’

‘Very well. It is something we had discussed. After all, Freddy had made his pile. With him, it was getting to the point of being pure art.’

‘When did you discuss it?’

‘Oh, many times. I had always made my position clear. I did not like Freddy for ever taking such risks. Also, I wished to return to France.’

‘So it was largely on your account he bought the villa?’

‘But yes. And that was two years ago.’

‘He bought it to retire to?’

‘That was certainly in his mind. We have never talked of living anywhere else.’

‘And you, of course, never urged him to fix a date.’

She flicked her hand. ‘Just when he was ready. A little influence, perhaps: I too am a woman. But I am not so naïve as to nag.’

‘This summer? The autumn?’

‘I think this year. Earlier or later I cannot say.’

‘Cannot?’

Her shoulders moved; she tinked the rim of her glass with her nail.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘But this you can tell me. Who did Freddy use to invite to his villa?’

She shifted pose slightly. ‘All sorts of people! Once, I believe, he lent it to Siggy.’

‘People from London?’

‘Not so often. He preferred to mix with the English who live down there. People with money, cars, yachts. Freddy had the style for it. He was liked.’

‘Respectable people.’

‘Oh yes. Down there he is just another rich man. He is creating an image, you understand. For when all the business is behind him.’

‘Yet sometimes he would take acquaintances from London.’

‘Well, he knew honest people there, too.’

‘Not honest people.’

‘He would not take crooks.’

‘For example, associates. Like Wicken. Or Fring.’

‘Fring?’

‘Jimmy Fring.’

She hung on momentarily, her eyes searching. Then she chuckled. ‘Ha! Now I understand. It is Jimmy who has the money, huh?’

‘You know Fring?’

Her eyes sparkled. ‘Of course. I have met them all at some time. Jimmy is a funny one. He is well-educated. He wrote me a poem on a bank-note.’

‘And he has been to the villa?’

‘I do not know that. No, I should think it is unlikely.’

‘Why wouldn’t you know?’

‘Why should I? I am only at the villa now and then.’

I stared hard at her. ‘You’d know, Madame Deslauriers, because the villa was bought on your account. You were the hostess there. It is very improbable that people would visit it without your knowledge.’

She pouted. ‘Very well, then. I say no. None of the boys have been to the villa.’

‘Not Fring.’

‘Not any of them. They perhaps do not know that the villa exists.’

And she looked me straight in the face with frank eyes. The liar.

I took her through her statement. Either it was true or she had the memory of the devil. Nothing was added to that beguiling sketch of innocent crookery gone astray. Quarles had received the message from Rampant; he had majestically programmed and mounted the crime; then disaster had struck. The gang had been shopped, and Quarles slain in a quarrel with Rampant. Simple and logical. What more did I want? Rampant had been taken with blood on his sleeve. Fring and the loot were adrift, certainly, but that was a loose end to tie up at leisure; while sooner or later, suppose it mattered, I might learn the identity of the squeaker.

Simple and logical! Then why confuse it with Peter Robinsons and that malarkey? Which would only turn out, if I chose to pursue it, as an amorous intrigue of poor Mimi’s? Mimi had secrets, very well, but it was only the turn of events that had made them seem sinister.

And the more we went over it, the better it sounded. You could feel her poise, her confidence, hardening. This was the picture: but if it wasn’t, who was ever going to prove different?

Nobody, of course.

So we talked it over, her cigarette to my pipe.

‘It is truly an irony, my friend. Poor Freddy deserved his success.’

‘He was a thief. He left behind him a trail of injured guards and bank officers.’

She issued smoke. ‘And that makes him different? Worse than other rich men? The capitalist who steals from the workers and injures them with industrial diseases? No, my friend. Freddy is in step with the moral climate of his culture. His exactions are perhaps less harmful, his initiative more to be admired.’

‘An honest thief in a theft-society.’

‘That is very nicely put. I am sure you would have liked Freddy. He was a subtle man too.’

I took some puffs. ‘I lack his initiative. I am not in the same financial league.’

She sighed. ‘No. He was very successful. I think he was perhaps a millionaire.’

‘That means there is a lot of money going loose.’

‘Oh, I expect he made arrangements. A lawyer, huh? It is not very often that you catch them with their trousers down.’

‘A will?’

‘That is almost certain.’

‘Did Freddy have any close relatives?’

‘Uhuh. He had a married sister.’ She gave a throbbing laugh. ‘I foresee a moral problem there, my friend.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘She is the wife of a clergyman, I think you call him a rural dean. I have met her, a great hypocrite. She regarded Freddy as dirt.’

‘Perhaps she won’t inherit.’

‘Oh yes, I think so. It would appeal to Freddy’s sense of humour. So what is she going to do, poor lady, with all that dirty money in her lily-white hands?’

‘Give it away.’

‘Aha. Not so easy! She is one with an eye to the main chance. No, I think she will find a way to double-cross her conscience. After all, she is Freddy’s sister.’

I floated a smoke-ring. ‘Would the money hurt your conscience?’

She chuckled. ‘No. But I am a sinner.’

‘He may not have made his will for the laughs.’

She hesitated, quizzing me; then shook her head. ‘No. Not possible.’

‘Why not possible?’

‘You do not understand. Money was never a thing between us. We had a relationship where money was nothing.’