The Ways of the World (6 page)

‘We can go now.’

IT WAS ONLY
a short drive to Carrefour Vavin, where they emerged from the car into the heart of Montparnasse. But the neighbourhood’s artistic reputation was belied by a scene of workaday ordinariness. The weather was dank and cold, the shoppers and passers-by had no time to pause for intellectual banter and the café terraces were empty.

Fradgley had had much less to say for himself since visiting the mortuary and glum introspection had claimed Ashley. It was left to Appleby to direct proceedings and to Max to ask the questions that needed to be asked.

Appleby led them away from the junction, where Boulevard du Montparnasse met Boulevard Raspail, along Rue du Verger, a quieter side-street, to the entrance to an apartment building, where Appleby stopped by the door. Max noticed, rather before his brother, the brownish-red stain on the pavement.

‘Is this where he fell?’ he asked Appleby directly. Coyness on the point was futile.

‘Yes. I’m afraid it’ll take some time for all the traces to disappear.’

Max looked up. He counted seven storeys, including the parapeted attic windows set in the mansard roof. A fall from such a height could only ever be fatal. Appleby gave the doorbell a hefty yank.

‘The concierge doesn’t speak a word of English. But she’s expecting us, so …’

Expectant or not, she was in no hurry. There was time for Max
to light a cigarette and another for Ashley, who then paced around tensely with his for what felt like an age before the door was opened by a small, spry, elderly woman with a pronounced stoop, who eyed them as if they might be a pack of burglars.

Fradgley addressed her in fluent French and she gave ground. They were admitted to a vast and gloomy stairwell. Appleby demanded ‘
la clé pour le grenier
’, which she surrendered with some reluctance and much rattling of a key-chain. ‘Shall we take the lift, gentlemen?’ Appleby asked.

No one answered, so by default they squeezed aboard and, after a struggle with the inner door, rose through a wire shaft between the flights of stairs. Nothing was said during the ascent. Max could have asked if either Appleby or Fradgley knew what had brought Sir Henry to this place. So could Ashley. Neither did. But reticence, Max felt sure, would carry them only so far. Eventually, some facts, however unpalatable, would have to be faced.

They exited at the top, on the mansard level, and headed along the landing towards the nearest door, which Appleby unlocked with the key the concierge had given him.

‘The information I can supply comes from Commissioner Zamaron. You can ask him to confirm it if you want to, when we see him later. He speaks good English. This attic room is used by the tenants to store possessions they have no space for in their apartments. They all have a key. It’s supposed to be kept locked, but it was found to be unlocked when the police came here following your father’s fatal fall. He had no key on his person and none was discovered in the attic. So, we must assume someone had simply neglected to lock the door, allowing him to enter unimpeded.’

Appleby pushed the door open and they followed him in. Four dormer windows facing the street lit a long, dust-moted chamber crammed with old furniture, packing-boxes and trunks. Most of the articles were stacked along the inner wall, where the ceiling was highest, allowing easy access to the windows. Appleby closed the door carefully behind them and crossed to one of the windows. He opened it, startling a pigeon outside, which took off in a burst of flapping wings that caused Fradgley to jump. He for one was not at ease. That was painfully clear.

‘This window corresponds to the position on the pavement where Sir Henry was found,’ said Appleby. ‘There’s also an accumulation of sludge and mud in the gutter behind the parapet in which the police discovered a boot print matching Sir Henry’s footwear. So, there’s no doubt it was from here that he fell.’

‘Perhaps I could take a look,’ said Max, sensing that Ashley was in no hurry to. Appleby stepped aside for him. Max hooked the window open as wide as it would go and leant out. The tiled roof sloped down from the window, as Appleby had described, to a leaded gutter behind a low brick parapet. There appeared to be numerous different boot prints in the silt clogging the gutter, mostly filled with rainwater.

‘I’m afraid French policemen are no lighter-footed than their British counterparts, Mr Maxted,’ said Appleby. ‘There’s also been quite a lot of rain since Friday night. But Zamaron tells me a good plaster cast of Sir Henry’s boot print was obtained. The actual print, alas, is no longer visible.’

That was either convenient or inconvenient, Max supposed, depending on your point of view. ‘How does Zamaron suggest my father climbed through the window? It would have been quite a scramble.’

‘There was a chair in front of the window. One of those, I believe.’ Appleby pointed to a stack of plain deal chairs. ‘He could simply have stepped out.’

‘Then I believe I’ll do the same.’

‘Would you fetch him a chair, Mr Fradgley?’ Appleby asked, apparently unsurprised.

Carrying furniture, for however short a distance, did not appear to agree with Fradgley. But he did as he had been asked.

‘Is this really necessary?’ Ashley put in. ‘It seems clear enough how Pa got on to the roof, James.’

‘But not why.’

Ashley’s expression signalled strongly that he was not sure he wanted to know why. But his own diffidence embarrassed him. It was a legitimate question.

Apparently taking pity on him, Appleby said, ‘Commissioner
Zamaron is in possession of information that may point to an explanation, Sir Ashley.’

‘The information is not altogether edifying,’ said Fradgley.

‘I think we’d better hear it, even so,’ Max responded, drawing a reluctant nod of approval from his brother.

‘Very well.’ Appleby smiled grimly. ‘We’re all men of the world, I trust. I’m obliged to speak plainly. According to the concierge, Sir Henry regularly visited a war widow, one Madame Dombreux, who occupies an apartment on the third floor. Madame Dombreux told the concierge she was giving Sir Henry French lessons.’

‘French lessons?’ Ashley spluttered. ‘But …’

‘How old is Madame Dombreux?’ Max enquired calmly.

‘Like many war widows, Mr Maxted, she is not old at all. I haven’t met her myself. Zamaron described her as …
très jolie
.’

‘Good God,’ murmured Ashley.

‘Also like many war widows, Madame Dombreux must support herself as best she can. She has a poorly paid job in the ticket office at Montparnasse station. It wouldn’t be surprising if she sought to … supplement her income.’

‘By giving French lessons.’

‘Exactly so.’

‘In the evening, no doubt.’

‘No doubt.’

‘This is disgusting,’ Ashley grumbled.

‘It may not be, Sir Ashley,’ said Fradgley. ‘It could all be entirely above board.’

‘So it could,’ Appleby agreed. ‘The fact is that Sir Henry called here frequently. That much we know for certain.’

‘But I don’t imagine he frequently went on to the roof,’ said Max. ‘Does Zamaron have an explanation for that?’

Appleby sighed. ‘He does.’

‘Which we aren’t going to find palatable either?’

‘I’m afraid not. Zamaron’s responsible for overseeing foreign residents in Paris. Hence his involvement in this matter. He happens to know that the attic room in the building opposite is the studio of an Italian artist named Spataro. Zamaron knows a lot of
artists. He seems to fancy himself as something of a connoisseur, as you’ll see later. He believes Madame Dombreux sometimes models for Spataro. Make of that what you will. What he makes of it is that Sir Henry may have suspected she did rather more than pose for Spataro and that he went on to the roof on Friday night in order to spy on them, then … slipped.’

Ashley groaned and gave ground. ‘We certainly can’t relay such a story to our mother, Mr Appleby. It would be … impossible.’

‘Then I suggest you invent a more acceptable alternative.’

‘The commissioner’s lurid speculations will form no part of any official conclusion on the circumstances of your father’s death, Sir Ashley,’ said Fradgley. ‘You may rest assured of that.’

‘Is Madame Dombreux likely to be at home at this hour, gentlemen?’ Max enquired.

‘Most likely not,’ Appleby replied. ‘And, frankly, I’m not sure what you’d gain by speaking to her.’

‘We don’t want to speak to her,’ Ashley declared, apparently believing it was for him to declare their wishes in such matters.

Max had already decided he would speak to the woman with or without Appleby’s assistance. He did not bother to contradict his brother, but turned back to the window.

He could see at a glance that the parapet blocked the view of the attic of the building opposite. Out on the roof it would be a different matter, of course. To that extent, Zamaron’s theory was sound enough. ‘I believe I’ll take that look outside even so,’ he announced in a deliberately nonchalant tone. ‘Since we’re here.’

He stepped up on to the chair and out through the open window. It was quite a stretch down to the gutter. It was not difficult to imagine his father taking a fatal misstep out there at night.

Max steadied himself against the roof and stood upright. Paris stretched grey and smoke-wreathed around him. There was the Eiffel Tower away to his right. Below, a tram was clattering round a curve in the tracks in Carrefour Vavin. And directly opposite were the windows of the attic Sir Henry had supposedly climbed out there to see into. Max could not make out much of the interior. The windows were uncurtained but dirty. Something that might have been an easel draped in a sheet stood at one end of the room.
Rectangular, stacked shapes that could have been paintings were also visible. Beyond that … nothing.

If Spataro fulfilled the archetype of a Montparnasse artist, he was probably asleep. At night, with lights burning within, it could have been very different. Had his father seen what he had feared he would see? Or worse than he had feared? Shock could have played its part in the disaster that overtook him. If so, it was a pitiful end.

The cooing of a pigeon close by drew Max’s attention to the chimney-stack behind him. He turned and glanced up at the bird, perched by one of the pots. The stack formed part of a wall supporting it and chimneys of the next building. Max noticed there were skylights set in the roof just below the apex, serving a second attic above the one he had just emerged from.

At that moment, a pale glimmer of sunlight pierced the prevailing gloom and was reflected off the rain-slicked roof. Something sparkled in Max’s field of view and he realized there were fragments of broken glass scattered across the tiles immediately below the nearest skylight. Then he saw that one of the panes in the skylight was broken. How had that come about? he wondered. How – and when?

Grasping the wooden finial above the window, he hauled himself up past the dormer roof.

‘Where are you going, Mr Maxted?’ Appleby called, leaning out to follow his progress.

‘There’s a broken window up here.’

‘One of the policemen probably put his boot through it. They’re a clumsy lot. Watch your step, now.’

‘I will, I will.’

Max doubted if any of the police had climbed up to the skylight. It was an awkward scramble, with little available in the way of foot- or hand-holds. One wrong move and Max could conceivably go the way of his father. A glance behind him was hardly reassuring.

But flying over the battlefields of Flanders in wire-and-canvas biplanes had immunized him against vertigo. He made it to the skylight with nothing worse than a few short slips to show for it. A
hole had certainly been punched in one of the panes. A piece of wood had been nailed beneath the remnants of the pane to keep the weather out. It was obvious no policeman’s boot was responsible for the damage, however. The fragments of glass on the roof proved the skylight had been broken from inside, not outside. It was puzzling – very puzzling.

He peered down through the undamaged pane into a cramped roof space. The boarded floor he could see below was thick with dust, pierced in places by assorted footprints. The footprints themselves were entirely free of dust. They had clearly been made recently – probably no longer ago than Friday.

A fatal accident in the circumstances envisaged by Commissioner Zamaron was plausible, he could not deny. But there were enough oddities and inconsistencies to suggest that something else might have happened, though what that might be he could not yet imagine. He needed to learn more. And he would, whatever Ashley said.

He slithered back down to the attic window and cast another glance towards Spataro’s studio. There was still no movement there. It struck Max that if anyone had seen what happened to Sir Henry, it could only be Spataro. He would have had a perfect view – if he had been looking.

‘Seen enough, Mr Maxted?’ Appleby called.

‘Quite enough, thank you.’ Max clambered back in through the window and brushed himself down.

‘Satisfied?’ Ashley asked sharply, frowning at him ominously.

‘I believe I am, yes.’

‘Then perhaps we should be going.’

They left the attic, Appleby locking up carefully behind them, and headed for the lift. As they reached it, Ashley said suddenly, ‘No sense our cramming in there again like sardines. You go ahead, gentlemen. My brother and I will walk down.’

Ashley brushed aside Fradgley’s offer to give up his place in the lift. Appleby made no such offer. The expression on his face suggested he knew, as did Max, that Ashley had decided a quiet word between brothers was now in order.

The lift groaned and clanked arthritically down its wire shaft as Ashley and Max began a slow descent of the stairs. Max lit a cigarette and waited for Ashley to declare his position. He did not have to wait long.

‘I was afraid it would be something like this, you know. Falling to his death while spying on some tart he’d become besotted with. I mean to say, it’s pathetic.’

‘You seem to be assuming it’s true.’

‘Of course it’s true. How else do you explain a man of Pa’s age prancing around on a roof in the middle of the night?’