The more Gaston found himself in love with his mannequin, Henriette, the more impatient he felt with his wife, Yvonne, and the more pity he felt for his good friend, Alfred.
But since Henriette skillfully soothed the troubled waters of his spirit, and satisfied his persistent need for sympathetic female understanding, he gave the matter of his wife very little thought for a time, living in a dream world of his own in which he found myriad excuses to visit Grasse on business for Rousseau Frères, and stop each time for a blissful interlude with Henriette in St. Paul de Vence.
Such a make-shift arrangement could not possibly last, of course. Henriette soon began to fancy herself a little. As a result, she began to put on a few charming airs. Next, she found herself wishing she were Madame Gaston Beaujolais, rather than merely Gaston’s little “mountain blossom” as he called her fondly, carefully concealed from society and shut off from city gaiety as surely as though she were one of the pretty but useless white doves that gathered to gossip on the roof of Les Colombes, the local inn nearby. This, she said vehemently to Gaston one afternoon, while hugging his handsome head to her bosom, was no way for a girl to live, do you know it, mon cher?
Gaston was forced to agree, upon thinking it over, that she had reason on her side. He could not blame a sensitive girl like Henriette for feeling as she did. For several months after she mentioned it to him, his manner both at his laboratory and at home, was rather distrait.
It was during this period of restless brooding that Gaston came to his decision: Yvonne must be got rid of to make room for Henriette. It was as simple as that. Once this decision was made, he was not unduly troubled by the prospect of having to make away with his wife. It was the method of murder that kept him awake at night, tossing fretfully.
He would kill her, he thought feverishly. Yes, it must be. There was no other practical solution. But how? She was not to blame for her shortcomings, poor Yvonne. She was probably as bitterly unhappy in their marriage as he was. He must kill her, he thought, yes, but he must kill her in some way that would give her pleasure. She must be happy at the last. This was a sentiment that did him credit, but it posed a problem, all the same: what method of murder would be pleasant for Yvonne as well as quick and sure for him?
The “quick and sure” requirements occasioned him no difficulty. After all, was he not a brilliant cosmetic chemist, thoroughly accustomed to the compounding of all kinds of beauty aids, including lipsticks? Yes, he decided, a lipstick would be a fitting weapon. To a man of his knowledge and experience, it was the work of but a few minutes to blend a lethal solution of potassium cyanide with the pulp of one of Rousseau Frères’ Petal Pink lipsticks that Yvonne always used.
After this simple preliminary step, there followed some weeks of serious research, the net result of which was the new lipstick ingredient that Gaston now stood watching as it bubbled merrily over the Bunsen burner on his laboratory table.
Unfortunately, his brilliant solution of his problem made it imperative that Alfred, his oldest friend and Yvonne’s still faithful though frustrated admirer, should die, too. But again, Gaston’s conscience proved comfortably elastic, and although he regretted the necessity of finishing off poor Alfred, he was able to console himself by reflecting that Alfred, when the moment of death came, would be happy, too — happier than he had been for years.
Gaston determined to act that very night. Hastily he cooled the bubbling solution in his test tube, combined it skillfully with the body of the lipstick already liberally spiked with hydrocyanic acid, poured four precise drops of a colorless fluid he took from his laboratory shelf into the mixture, added a trifle more scent to the lipstick than was usual (to conceal the odor of almonds), then carefully rolled the finished preparation into lipstick shape, rounded it at one end as though it had been slightly used, and inserted the whole into a black and gold lipstick holder that was the exact duplicate of the Rousseau Frères 80-franc holder that Yvonne regularly used. The holder he put into his pocket.
They heard a performance of Simon Boccanegra at the Casino Mediterranée that evening, the three of them, Alfred, Gaston and Yvonne. Their seats were together, Yvonne sitting between the two men. It was a La Scala company from Milan, very good, and they enjoyed the opera immensely. Halfway through the last act, Gaston had the opportunity to remove from Yvonne’s evening purse, without her knowledge, her black enameled lipstick holder and replace it with the one he had prepared at the laboratory. A few minutes later, as the curtain came down to thunderous applause, he struck himself on the forehead with his clenched fist and said to Yvonne: “What a fool I am, darling! I told you that I must drive up to Grasse tonight, to be there for the early flower market tomorrow.” She nodded as she slipped into her wrap. “But,” Gaston continued easily, “I have forgotten some important papers that I must have with me. They are at the laboratory. I’ll just run down and get them now, do you mind? It will save me time in the end.”
“Alors,” said Yvonne with a transparent lack of interest, “I’ll come with you. Then you can take me home and be on the road for Grasse by midnight.”
As though suddenly struck by the possibility, Gaston said, “Unless Alfred would take you home while I go to the laboratory?”
Alfred rose gallantly to the occasion, as Gaston knew he would. “I insist on it, dear fellow,” he said warmly. “I’ll drive her home with pleasure. If you agree, Yvonne?”
“Why not?” she said indifferently. She took out her compact, unsheathed the pink cylinder of her lipstick and applied it to her lips as they made ready to leave the auditorium.
Gaston’s own lips curled in a slight smile.
Outside, it had begun to rain very heavily. They ran to the parking lot, and Alfred hustled Yvonne into the front seat of his Renault, then went around and climbed under the wheel. Gaston waved them away, and went to his own car farther down the rank. He got in and sat listening to the raindrops beating on the canvas over his head, the while he peered through a window at Alfred’s Renault. When the car left the lot, he could clearly see the silhouettes of Alfred and Yvonne limned against the lights of the Casino. The silhouettes were surprisingly close together.
Gaston did not go to his laboratory. Instead, he drove carefully from the parking lot and, at a discreet distance, followed Alfred’s Renault. It turned north, up the Avenue de la Victoire toward the suburb where Gaston and Yvonne lived, but he was amused to note that at the next turning, Alfred continued straight on toward the rising hills behind the city. “Ah,” Gaston said to himself with quiet satisfaction, “already it marches.”
When, presently, the Renault turned off the main road into a dark tree-lined track, Gaston winked and watched the streamers of rain that his headlights disclosed lancing thickly downward. Shutting off his lights, he then pulled up calmly at the edge of the road, several hundred yards short of the dark lane into which Alfred and Yvonne had disappeared.
He lit a Gauloise and sat in his car for five minutes, savoring the strong, black, biting tobacco, then confidently descended into the rain and walked openly up the road to the track where he had last seen the Renault.
He turned into the track, making no effort to conceal his presence. He was sure no one would see him in this deserted locality on such a miserable night. The rain was a stroke of luck, he thought. Certainly Yvonne and Alfred would not see him! He began to breathe a trifle rapidly. That was the only sign of tension about him.