The Adventuress (24 page)

Chapter Eighteen

A
D
ETECTIVE IN
T
RANSIT

FROM THE CASE NOTES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

Poor old
Watson! Here I sit usurping one of his rare privileges, that of recording my investigative adventures for “posterity.”

Posterity, I fear, will little mark nor long remember the current case, a straightforward matter of a young woman’s apparent murder. As far as Watson knows, I went to Paris as a courtesy to my colleague in its Prefecture of Police, Monsieur le Villard. This promising detective communicated his distress and eagerness for myself to come and take a look in person.

In fact, I was also eager to preview his translations of my monographs into French, my works’ debut in foreign print. It is perhaps my authorship of various monographs that allows me to tolerate my friend Watson’s literary ambitions and related vanities.

Watson would take offense at the notion of my jotting down the facts of my own efforts, but his thus-far-unpublished accounts of my cases convince me of the value of recording events as they occur. Of course, my memoirs are far more likely to see print than Watson’s sensationalized versions, but there is no sense in pointing out the obvious to the oblivious. And he means well, as always.

Watson seldom inquires into my jaunts abroad, recognizing that they often involve heads of state, some of them crowned, and require strict secrecy. The current journey will draw me into such deep waters, though I dare not even hint at these delicate matters other than to say that they involve hemophilia, the succession of an important European duchy and a certain deadly species of camellia.

“My dear Monsieur Holmes!” M. le Villard had greeted me from the threshold of my hotel parlor on the evening of my arrival. “How kind of you to come so far to assist in this troubling problem of mine.”

“And how thoughtful of you to have brought the typeset pages of my monographs,” said I.

The French detective lifted the parcel wrapped in brown paper that had been tucked under his arm. “But how—?”

“You would not be bringing me a sheaf of musical scores, my dear fellow. Although I play the violin, you could hardly know that, and besides, my repertoire is written on the staffs of my memory, not on paper. May I see them?”

“But of course! You did not say that you knew French.”

“Oh, I speak it enough to make myself understood, but not well enough to translate my own writings.”

I unveiled the printers’ galleys, not failing to notice that they had accompanied my French friend to lunch, where he had enjoyed a filet of sole somewhat overweighted with garlic and had partaken of a rather inferior sauterne in the company of a one-armed bistro-keeper.

Of the man himself, neat as a monkey and as genial as a poodle, the particulars were as unexceptional as
his
lunch. He had served in the French Army until requiring retirement for an injured back; he had been born left-handed, but early and diligent correction had changed him to right-handed in all respects save tying his shoes, an exception of mild interest; he was married and had three children, one of whom was deaf. And he was a fair translator, to judge by a glance at the galleys.

“I am grateful, Monsieur le Villard, for your interest in translating my monographs. They will no doubt prove most instructive to the French detective force.”

“My pleasure, Monsieur Holmes. I admit to marveling evermore at your range of esoteric knowledge as I labored over the translation. Unfortunately, pure genius is not to be translated.”

“You underestimate me. I am a man of science and system rather than one prone to bursts of inspiration. That is always translatable.”

“That is what is so admirable, my dear Monsieur Holmes!—the consistency with which you approach a variety of problems, and with which you obtain results. Yet it cannot all be method; there must be some passion in it.”

How like the French to find passion even in science. “My friend Dr. Watson would argue with you. He accuses me of a stunning lack of curiosity about my fellow humans’ deepest emotions. He would call my methods bloodless, however successful.”

“If your methods are successful, then bloodshed may be avoided in many cases; that is a bloodlessness to be desired. And I hope that shall be true of my current case as well.”

“What is the problem?”

Le Villard shrugged, taking the seat I indicated. “I am puzzled not so much by the facts of the case as by my own unease regarding it. The enforcement of the law is my passion, hence my enthusiasm for your monographs. I have watched men whom my work has convicted meet Madame Guillotine and have felt no regret. But in this case, I find myself harboring the doubts that afflict the timid. Perhaps I am wrong in accusing the murderess.”

“A woman who murders always impales men’s consciences upon the double barbs of law and chivalry.”

“Madame Montpensier is not a strikingly sympathetic figure in any obvious sense. She is not young and beautiful, although the victim was. She is a suspect primarily because she was last seen with her niece in a clandestine meeting alongside a mere behind the house. A misty, dank, forsaken spot, Monsieur Holmes! From its marshy waters was later recovered the missing girl’s bracelet.”

“But no body?”

“No.”

“And you believe—?”

“I believe that Madame Montpensier is the most likely suspect, a position she reinforces by refusing to talk to the police. We are not ogres.”

“Assuredly not,” I reassured him before lighting my pipe. In physical appearance, le Villard was a small, neat man with peculiarly barbered whiskers and a scent of Macassar oil about his person. By no stretch of the imagination—which Watson insists that I do not possess— was he reminiscent of an ogre.

“If the woman in question will not submit to an interview with you,” I said, “will she see myself?”

He shrugged again. “She is a woman. She may be intrigued by the famous English detective’s interest.”

I laughed, what Watson no doubt would have described as “a cynical bark of mirth.”

“My dear le Villard, no murderer is sufficiently intrigued by even the Queen of Spain to wish to unburden himself, or herself, to a pursuer.”

“She has insisted privately that the girl is not dead.”

“She has, has she? What are the facts?”

“Louise Montpensier is an orphan of decent family. For most of her life she has resided with her father’s elder brother, Édouard, and his wife.”

“Then the aunt is unrelated by blood.”

“That is true, and another reason she is a suspect.”

“How comforting to know that if Watson, say, were to be found throttled, I would be the likeliest suspect because we are unrelated. I propose to you, le Villard, that relationship is always a more plausible motive for murder than not. She is wealthy, this Louise Montpensier?”

“No. Nor is her uncle.”

“And the aunt?”

“She brought some wealth to her husband. The Montpensier family had money once, but the fortune dissipated. The suicide of the girl’s father, Claude, in Monte Carlo, did not help the family finances. But that was years ago.”

“Since you have asked it, my friend—and have brought me this excellent reading material—I will attempt to see Madame Montpensier, but not in my own guise.”

“Yes, I have heard that the art of concealment is another you have mastered.”

“All arts are subservient to science for the detective. You must let me go about this in my own way. Merely give me the address. I will report when my explorations are done.”

“But I wished to observe your methods.”

“A good detective moves mysteriously, Inspector le Villard, like a planet in transit across the heavens. The effects, rather than the process, are all that should be seen. I will inform you when I know more.”

Chapter Nineteen

T
HE
R
OSE
T
ATTOO

“A tattoo
, sir, indeed the most bizarre tattoo I have ever seen. I remember it well. To find a tattoo upon a gentleman is most unusual. And then the m
ann
er of death....

Dr. Jamac straightened slowly over a Maréchal Niel rose. Our party stood surrounded by rosebushes in full bloom and of dizzying scent. The white stones of Monte Carlo sparkled on the horizon like a low cloud bank. Below us, the sea snapped at a strand of sand and rock. We were high on a headland, in the garden behind a simple cottage.

But such a garden! Its small environs illustrated why the Beaulieu coast was called La Petite Afrique. Alongside magnificent roses grew miniaturized examples of the tropical vegetation that only this small, sun-seared slice of Western Europe would nurture: gum and calabash trees, banana trees and date palms, mangoes, prickly pears and Indian figs. Dr. Jamac had pointed out each to us. Godfrey’s eyes had narrowed as he surveyed this lush property, estimating what such a desirable location would bring on the current market.

“This tattoo?” Irene had drawn her sketch of Louise’s defacement from her handbag. The wind whipped at us; she had to use both hands to hold the paper up to the doctor’s faded brown eyes.

“Like it, Madame. Like it. I cannot say how much. It was many years ago.” He bent to sniff a full-blown beauty too ripe to pick. “The senses dull with time, but even age cannot blunt the perfume of these lovelies.”

“The dead man was my father,” Louise said suddenly. “We must know the circumstances.”

The doctor straightened to regard her with as much tender concern as he did his roses. “Who can know the exact circumstances but God, Mademoiselle? I have lived long enough to know
that.”

He was a small man, and shrunken, so he seemed a strangely elderly child among us. Yet we hung on
his
words, even Irene, who often disdained to take words at face value. This frail man had arrived upon the scene shortly after Claude Montpensier had died.

Dr. Jamac offered Louise the Maréchal Niel he had plucked. “Have faith, my child.” He turned to a ravishing scarlet variety. Use-rusted shears snapped through a tough stem. Irene graciously accepted the vivid flower he extended. “And hope, Madame.”

He faced the roses again. I heard the snip of the scissors. When he turned to me, a yellow rose shone buttercup-bright in his palsied hand. “And you, Mademoiselle, charity.”

The physician’s courtliness instilled an odd virtue in all of us: patience. We smiled at each other and watched him dodder to a stone bench overlooking the sea.

He laid his shears and straw hat beside him, sighed, then began his story. “I was already old when I attended the body of Claude Montpensier. It was in the early seventies, I think—”

“Seventy-three.”

The old man nodded at Godfrey’s prompting. “Dates blur, but certain particulars remain vivid. Emotions never fade, and I was distressed to see such a fine young man dead by his own hand. I am glad I retired soon after; many more have chosen to embrace the rope after the dice disappoint them.”

“What of the tattoo?” Irene asked.

“It was here, over the heart. An odd placement.”

“Fresh?” Godfrey inquired.

The doctor tilted his snowy head. Freckles lay scattered like sand beneath his thinning locks and flecked his hands and face. “I doubt it. That is what was surprising, beyond the issue of his station in life. A new tattoo has a sheen; this one had dulled to become one with the skin.”

“And the marks of death?”

Dr. Jamac glanced at Irene’s intent face. “That is why I gave you the ruddy rose, Madame; you are implacable in the face of opposition, even death. Yes, he bore all of the marks of his suicide. The rope welt around his throat, the broken voice box, the bruises upon his calves and shins where his feet flailed.”

Louise made a sharp sound and buried her face in her hands.