The smell of bitter almonds, of nitrobenzene, though minor, was still present, for the corpse exuded it. Some, too, had been spilled on the worktable and tiled floor, and some had been absorbed by a fistful of rags. These things had had to be cleaned up and removed by Hermann and himself, both wearing rubber gloves and before they had gone out into the apiary to find that the hives had been robbed. Hermann had put a match to the stains and had burned the rags in the stove — no other course of action had been possible. The damned stuff was just too dangerous.
He, himself, had capped the bottle of ersatz Amaretto and never mind the fingerprint artists fooling around with it while open. He had picked up and had capped the tin container of nitrobenzene that the beekeeper, in his panic, had taken down from a shelf and had hastily opened.
Flung wide, the doors to the garden still let in the cold night air as an added precaution, while the heavy black-out curtains kept in the light. Fortunately, the Occupier hadn’t chosen to switch off the electricity to this quartier or the whole city in reprisal for some act of ‘terrorism’ or because the Citroën and Renault works, et cetera, were in desperate need of the power to make things for the German war machine.
‘Nitrobenzene is nothing to fool with, is it, monsieur?’ he said to the dark blue-suited, scarved and cashmere-sweatered victim who lay on the floor near the desk, curled into the fetal position by a final spasm, and in rigor. ‘The poison is rapidly absorbed through the skin and lungs, and that is, I fear, what really killed you. Death by misadventure, albeit with intent.’
The right side of the head, and a portion of the white woollen scarf, were awash in now frozen vomit. Everything, at first glance, had pointed to the bottle of Amaretto that sat on the desk among his papers. Oil of mirbane was soluble in alcohol, not in water, so there was, perhaps, no problem there. But drinking it was to experience its fiercely burning taste and to die long after ingestion.
De Bonnevies had probably first smelled the liqueur, and finding its bouquet acceptable, for Amaretto’s flavour came normally from apricots and their stones which have the odour and taste of bitter almonds, had apparently taken a sip or a mouthful and then had instantly spat it out and set the bottle down.
‘In panic, you thought the worst, monsieur — your wife, perhaps?’ he said, gesturing companionably with his pipe. ‘You rushed over to the shelves and took down the tin which you had kept in here for safety’s sake, and not in the honey-house in the garden. You had to see if it had been the source of the poison. You had to, mon ami. Let us make no mistake about this.’
Giving the matter a moment’s thought, St-Cyr then said, ‘The container had been put back in haste, n’est-ce pas? The cap was loose, wasn’t it? Accidentally you spilled some. You grabbed the rags to wipe it up. You were extremely agitated. Angry, I should think. Your fingers shook. Did the realization of what you felt had happened cause your shaking hands to accidentally knock that tin over? Had you argued with your wife, monsieur? Had she threatened you?’
The fingerless gloves which de Bonnevies had used while working in the cold at his desk, had absorbed some of the spilled nitrobenzene. He had dragged them off and, yes, they, too, had been burnt in the stove by Hermann.
‘You tried to wipe the residue from your hands with the rags, monsieur. There was also some on the workbench. In your haste, your panic, did you then knock the tin over again and is this what caused it to fall to the floor?’
Suddenly feeling very dizzy, had he cried out to madame? Had he seen in the container lying on its side on the floor, the truth of what he felt she had done to him?
‘Did you then look at the door which you had kept locked so as to shut her out? A door that opens into a narrow corridor and a set of stairs down which that woman would have had to walk each time she wanted to talk to you?’
The rest was clear enough. Breathing in more and more of the fumes and unable to get the pale, lemon-coloured oil from his hands, de Bonnevies had started for the garden. ‘Suddenly you felt very drunk, monsieur. You had a splitting headache. You began to throw up — first over there by the table you used when selecting queens for your colonies, then by the one on which is the apparatus you use for artificially inseminating them. You had left the tin lying on its side on the floor. You had to get out. Out!
‘You tripped and fell. You hit your head and threw up violently. Your vision was blurred, your skin began to itch. Drunk … you felt very drunk and as you got up, you stumbled, only to realize then that you had just put your hand down into the spill and that container had rolled across the floor towards you.’
A bloodied froth of vomit and mucous had erupted from the mouth and nostrils. The rictus was far from pleasant and exposed tobacco-stained and gold-filled teeth. The lips and mucous membranes, the fingernails also, were the deep shade overripe blackberries give to their juice when crushed. The skin was but a paler shade of the same.
At fifty-eight years of age, de Bonnevies had once been distinguished-looking — tall, but otherwise of medium build, and with a face that was broad and strong. The hair was iron-grey, coarse and rapidly receding, the eyes grey and with heavy, horn-rimmed glasses that had been knocked askew.
The nose was long and broad, fierce and determined, a full Roman even in death; the eyebrows those of an academic, a professor perhaps: thick, bushy, well arched and demanding. The cheeks were cleanly shaven … Had he been about to go out? These days shaving was not a priority due to the scarcity of soap, razor blades and hot water but de Bonnevies had shaved early on Thursday evening.
The lips were thin, their expression probably often tight with impatience. The white shirt had been freshly laundered in cold water without soap, of course, and with fine sand for the collar stains — there were still sufficient grains to indicate the shirt hadn’t been well rinsed but had been washed in a hurry. The tie was a dark royal blue and had many golden-threaded bees woven into it. A meeting of the Society? he wondered.
The gold signet ring bore the image of a honey hive with a tiny cloud of departing workers — a swarm perhaps.
Madame de Bonnevies was deeply asleep. Exhausted, no doubt, thought Kohler has he stood in darkness at the foot of the woman’s bed. She had closed and had locked the door, but had left the key in the lock. And as any housebreaker worth his salt knows, he snorted inwardly, that’s as good as giving him the key.
Her breath came easily — a clear conscience, he wondered, or relief at last that it had finally been done?
As with the rest of the house, the room smelled strongly of Javel and he had to wonder about this too. Lavender water had been liberally sprinkled and used when wiping down the furniture, but it couldn’t begin to suppress the other. He had found bottles of Javel in the armoire by the bathtub, more of it in the toilet down the hall and still more in the kitchen. All from late 1940 or even up to mid-1941 probably, but as with so many things people had taken for granted, now it was no longer easy to come by unless she had a ready source.
There were lace and silk in the mirrored armoire, the soft wool of a dress, another of crêpe de Chine, a suit, a pair of slacks, a chemise, full and half-slips … Silk stockings were in a bureau drawer. Five, maybe six pairs and virtually unobtainable except in certain places. And oh bien sûr women kept those with runs in them — nothing was thrown out these days and one of the pairs had laddered runs in it. He could imagine her despair.
The brassiere he fingered was light and airy. There were two garter belts, and these had the same lace. But so, too, were there serviceable, everyday undergarments of cotton, linen and satin. All prewar. Nothing ersatz for her in that department, and damned hard to get in any case.