Murder in Lascaux (10 page)

Besides the castle, there wasn't much else to see in town: a tiny square boasting an old stone cross, a
mairie
(town hall), a few shuttered shops, and a sleepy outdoor café shaded by a sprawling linden tree. We parked in the small lot nearby—since it was lunchtime, the tourists had deserted—and we seated ourselves at a dented metal table at the café. We were the only customers. A cluster of yellow stone houses built against the steep hill blocked our view of the fortress, but we could still feel it looming over the village as we enjoyed our lunch: a bowl of soup, a slice of pâté, and a piece of homemade walnut cake. The cake was drier than Madame Martin's, but because it was feather-light and yet full of walnut flavor, it tasted heavenly. For the first time since the murder, I was starting to unwind.

Or at least I was, until Toby started talking about the forbidden subject. “You know, I've been thinking about that bird that was left at the scene. It was put there for a purpose, but whether the purpose was rational or crazy is the question.”

“Do we have to talk about the murder? Now that you got me away from that hothouse, I like being out here and I don't want to spoil it.”

“Not if you don't want to, but just listen to one point. The motive for the killing has to be connected to the cave art, because the bird is a specific reference to it. So who would have a grievance against Lascaux?”

“There are lots of nutty people who get worked up about art and do crazy things to desecrate it. Remember the madman who attacked Michelangelo's statue of the Pietà with a hammer? But chalking the crime up to a madman doesn't get us very far, and besides, I'd rather think about other things right now. Can we change the subject?”

“Right,” said Toby. He could see I was tensing up. “Let's go see the castle, then, and make the most of the afternoon.” He pushed back from the table.

“Thanks.” We rose to go.

The
mairie
, just across from the café, was connected to a small stone house to its left by its second story, making a sort of overpass, leaving a passageway beneath for pedestrians. A little sign saying “château” pointed through the passageway. We followed, to discover a steep path lined by cozy rectangular houses, all hewn from the same limestone. The colors of the stone changed as sun or shadows played over its surfaces. Sometimes the blocks appeared yellow, sometimes ochre, sometimes orange or even white in the bright daylight. The village, especially now during its quiet hour, seemed little changed from the Middle Ages.

Up close, the castle was enormous. Although it had been heavily restored, there were sections left in partial ruin as a reminder of its age. The interior now housed a Museum of Medieval Warfare, with exhibits of arms and armor, computer projections of the castle's stages of construction, and dioramas of sieges. But nothing prepared me for the panoramic view of the valley as we exited the castle onto the terrace. Toby took a perch on the low wall of the terrace, his legs dangling in space, as we gazed out across an immense vista. To the west, the Château of Beynac, also perched high on its cliff, glared at Castelnaud as an equal—and indeed, the two fortresses had been bitter rivals, in war and in peace. Straight ahead, the Château of Marquesac soaked up the afternoon sun. To the east, the lovely village of La Roque-Gageac could just be made out in the distance.

I sat down next to Toby, smooched his cheek to cement our truce, and began to read aloud from the visitor's brochure as he gazed across the valley. And as I was reading, something in the narrative caught my attention. The Château of Castelnaud first entered the historical record in 1214, when the ill-named Pope Innocent III launched a bloody crusade against a heretical sect called the Cathars, who were plentiful here. The master of Castelnaud, one Bernard de Casnac, was a follower of the count of Toulouse, a leader of the heretics, when the pope unleashed a brutal warrior named Simon de Montfort to wipe out the group. Which Simon did.

What piqued my interest was a sentence in the brochure that described the pope's “crusade against the Cathars of Languedoc.” “Languedoc” was the term Guillaume de Cazelle had used the night before at dinner to describe his pride in the region. For him, the old name still meant something. But who were the Cathars, exactly? I made a mental note to myself to find out more.

“All very interesting,” said Toby, swinging his legs back onto the ground and getting to his feet. We made our way down the path to the village, admiring the views of the valley as we descended. Back in the tiny main square, we checked out a couple of shops that had been closed during the lunch hour. One sold local products for the tourist trade (canned pâté, walnut liqueur, souvenirs bearing the image of the castle), another sold hats and scarves, and one featured miniature châteaus.

The
mairie
had two doors dividing the ground floor of the building between the mayor's office (closed) and a provincial one-room library, which doubled as a bookshop. Inside, a petite young woman with freckles and short red hair greeted us and asked if she could be of assistance. “
Merci
,” we said, but we added that today we were only looking. The room was orderly and attractive, with stone walls and wooden shelves piled high with books. The subjects were fiction mainly, with a hit-or-miss selection of other items and an entire wall of books of regional interest: volumes on local history, cooking, archaeology, prehistoric art, medieval warfare, architecture, and agriculture; as well as books and pamphlets on the Resistance in Périgord. A table displayed glossy photograph books; these had price stickers on them. We thumbed through a couple and moved to the door.

“Be sure to visit the exposition of fossils before you leave,” the librarian advised us in a pleasant voice. “It's free.” Indeed, a sign posted on the outside of the building indicated that a display of fossils was open to the public on the second floor. We climbed the outside staircase and took the open door as an invitation to enter without knocking.

Inside, rows of trays and glass boxes displayed minerals and stones containing traces of small sea creatures, or imprints of their shells, or insects trapped in amber. There were some odd lots of arrowheads and other Neolithic tools. The old wooden floor squeaked as we moved from case to case. The proprietor, seated behind a desk, was a slightly heavy, nervous-looking man in his middle years wearing jeans and a checkered shirt. He had thick brown hair and a walrus mustache. Although we were the only customers at the moment, he tried not to hover, but he gave us a welcoming smile and followed us with his eyes as we wandered around.

“Would you like to see the earrings, Madame?” he asked optimistically, as I paused over a case of jewelry featuring items made of purple quartz.

“No thank you,” I replied. “I was just looking.”

“Perhaps you are interested in fossils, Monsieur?” he shifted to Toby, raising his bushy eyebrows and getting up from his desk. “Everything you see here is authentic, I can assure you. And some of these are quite rare, like this (here he mentioned the name of a creature we had never heard of ), which dates from the Pleistocene.” He lifted a rock fragment from one of the trays and explicated the squiggles on its surface. “Or this trilobite, which is a very fine specimen and over 4 million years old!”

“Thank you,” said Toby, declining the offer as affably as he could. “In fact, I'm interested in antiques, but nothing that old.”

“Monsieur is an
antiquaire
?” asked the proprietor. Toby nodded yes.

“American?” he asked again. The French are very good at figuring out your accent.

“That's right. We're from California.”

His face folded into a frown. “You are the Americans who are staying at the Château de Cazelle?”

“How did you know that?” Toby asked, surprised.

“And you were in Lascaux when that man was killed yesterday!”

“That's true,” admitted Toby, who was now off balance. “But how—?”

“It's in the newspaper, Monsieur. Here, look.” He went to the desk where he had been sitting when we entered and came back with a copy of the
Sud-Ouest
. A stark headline announced the death of a visitor to the famous cave of Lascaux. The accompanying photo showed Inspector Daglan speaking to a reporter. Our names were not mentioned, but the story identified as witnesses several American tourists who were currently lodged at the Château de Cazelle. They were described as an American lawyer and an American antiques dealer who were visiting the region accompanied by their wives.

“Besides, I heard about it last night from my uncle. I am going to be questioned myself later today.”

“Your uncle?” I asked.

“Monsieur Gounot, the guardian of Lascaux. He was extremely upset.”

I remembered Gounot mentioning a nephew to Inspector Daglan, a nephew who had access to the key and alarm code of the cave. I now looked at the fossil vendor with interest. He seemed to catch my glance. “Of course, I had absolutely nothing to do with it. I was here in my shop all day yesterday, as the librarian in the
mairie
will attest. But you were there yesterday. Can you tell me what really happened?”

“We've already spoken to the police,” I said. “I'm not sure if we're allowed to talk to anyone else about what we saw.” (Especially to a potential suspect in the case, I thought to myself.)

“Perhaps I can be helpful,” he persisted. “After all, I know every corner of that cave.”

“Look,” Toby interjected.

“Marc,” said the proprietor. “Please call me Marc.”

“Marc,” Toby complied. “I'm Toby, and this is my wife, Nora.” Marc nodded. “I don't think Inspector Daglan will be happy if we talk to you before he has a chance to question you himself. And I don't want to make him angry. When are you supposed to speak to him?”

“This afternoon. Here.”

“In that case, it may be best for us to leave.”

“I don't expect him before six. I'm anxious to hear what happened. Can't you tell me anything at all?”

“I'm sorry,” I stammered, “but …”

Marc raised his palms. “I understand. We're being questioned, so we're in the same boat. Look, I'm about to close up shop for the day. Will you let me buy you a drink?”

“I don't think …”

“Please. There is a café right next door. It would be my pleasure.”

Toby looked at me. I could tell his curiosity was aroused. So was mine.

“All right,” he said to Marc, “but we won't talk about the murder.”

“
D'accord
,” Marc agreed. He closed up shop, and we moved next door, taking the same table where we had eaten lunch a little earlier. Now several of the other tables were occupied too. Marc ordered a pastis, a cloudy, licorice-flavored liquor mixed with water. Toby and I each ordered a glass of white wine. Marc avoided the topic of the murder and asked us the usual questions posed by locals to visitors: how we had learned French, what our impressions were of Périgord, what we thought of the view from the château. We responded, nursing our drinks.

After a pause, Toby sat back, searching for another neutral topic. “So, how did you become interested in fossils and minerals?”

“That's a long story,” replied Marc, giving his long mustache a nervous twist. “But the short version is that I was always interested in ancient things, ever since I was a boy. My father was a prehistorian, and I thought of becoming a scholar myself. But I wasn't able to go to university. I had a friend who was in the business of dealing in fossils, and he taught me something about it. Showed me I could make a living at it and keep my interest in prehistory at the same time.” He shrugged. “I get by. Business is quiet right now, but when the full tourist season starts in July, I'll make enough money to get through the winter.”

“And what do you do in the winter?” I asked.

“This and that. I help out my uncle when he needs me, and I sometimes get work as a substitute guide in the other caves. But I also have time for my own interests. You might say I'm an amateur prehistorian. I do a lot of reading and my own research. I've even published an article in one of the professional journals.”

“Then you're an independent scholar,” I said. “I know several art historians in the United States who are doing important work but who never were lucky enough to get university appointments. I admire them very much.”

“Independent scholar? Yes, I suppose that's what I am. I like the sound of that. And what about your work?” He looked intently at me from behind bushy eyebrows.

Feeling a little too well attended to, I talked about my teaching and research. Then Toby talked about his shop. Marc wanted to know where exactly it was and what kinds of pieces Toby specialized in. Toby described the Russian River valley north of San Francisco where his gallery is located, in Duncans Mills. Marc responded by telling Toby about an upcoming antiques fair in a neighboring town and how to drive there.

At the end, we were getting on rather well, I thought—until a police car bearing Jackie and a glowering Inspector Daglan turned into the square and screeched to a stop in front of the
mairie
. Daglan got out and closed the car door with exaggerated care.

“Old friends, I see,” he said with a smile, approaching us with a leisurely stride. He inclined his head toward Toby, rubbing his hands. “You will excuse me if I interrupt your aperitif to talk to your
copain
about a matter of homicide.”

“Shit,” muttered Toby under his breath.