‘How did he take it? When you confronted him with the letter, I mean?’ Lady Lucy was feeling full of sympathy for a woman so badly wronged by a member of the opposite sex.
‘His first reaction was to laugh. I found that strange. Then he said that he had always thought he might get caught at some time on either side of the Channel. I think he found that element of danger exciting. He said he still loved me and our children. He wasn’t going to run away from his responsibilities.’
It was one thing, Powerscourt thought, to travel to France and tell somebody they were married to a bigamist. Then you had to tell them that their husband was dead. Not to tell Madame Drouhin would have been too cruel.
‘I fear there is more bad news, madame,’ he said.
She looked him straight in the eye. ‘You’re going to tell me he’s dead, aren’t you?’
‘I’m afraid I am.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ she said, ‘I think I’ve known he was dead for about three weeks now. I couldn’t think of any other explanation. Always before there were letters. Always. This time there were none. That bastard from up the road has got to him at last. I knew it, I knew it!’ Madame Drouhin paused for a moment while she contemplated the bastard from up the road.
‘My wife and I extend to you our most sincere condolences.’ said Powerscourt.
Madame Drouhin folded her hands over and over again in her lap. She looked at them both in turn, as if in supplication.
‘Can you tell me how he died?’
Powerscourt gave a heavily censored version of what had happened. The unfortunate event, he said, took place at a house in Norfolk. He did not say that there was a wedding in progress. He made no mention of wedding guests either. Jean Pierre had been shot, he told her. He decided to mention the dead man’s brother being found in the same room with a gun in his hand, and that the brother Cosmo was about to stand trial for murder in London any day now, and that he, Powerscourt, was trying to secure the release of Cosmo. Madame Drouhin only asked one question. The killing itself, the arrest of the brother did not seem to interest her very much.
‘What was he called? In England, I mean. My husband.’
‘He was called Colville, madame, Randolph Colville.’
That seemed to please her. ‘Colville.’ She rolled the strange English word round her tongue. ‘Randolph Colville. So he was one of the family. No wonder he always seemed to have so much money. He bought an enormous amount of land over here, you know. Vineyards, mostly.’
Powerscourt wondered if this was where the missing Colville money had gone, beautiful houses on the edge of the Burgundy hills, another wife to maintain, another life to lead, another family to feed and support.
‘Forgive me, madame, we have no wish to disturb you any more at this time. We shall make our departure in a moment. Just now you referred to somebody as that bastard down the road who has got him at last. Could I ask who that somebody is?’
Madame Drouhin got up and walked over to the windows. ‘This is difficult for me, very difficult,’ she began, still facing the square. ‘I’m sure you can understand that any man with two wives is going to have an eye for the ladies. That’s how he got into marital difficulties in the first place, being unable to resist the charms of another woman. Jean Pierre or Randolph in the English version was a relentless pursuer of women. I imagine he had been like that since he was about sixteen years old. Chase anything in a skirt, as my grandmother used to put it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying he was committing adultery all the way from here to Dijon. It was just a kiss here, an embrace there and he was on his way. Sometimes I’m sure he would have liked to go further. Anyway, the point of this story is that in the street that runs into the bottom of the square here there lives a very pretty young wife of about twenty-five years. Yvette is her name, Yvette Planchon. It was she who told me this story.’
Powerscourt thought suddenly that Randolph’s targets seemed to drop ten years each time.
‘Jean Pierre was very struck with this girl. Her husband was believed to be away in North Africa. He was a soldier, a sergeant in the Army. Eventually the young wife gives in to Jean Pierre’s flirting. She gives him a kiss in their kitchen. She told me later that she thought he might go away after one kiss and leave her in peace, But then, dear me, in the middle of the kiss the husband walks in. He has unexpected leave from his regimental duties. He swears that he will take the traditional Frenchman’s revenge against my husband. He does not believe Yvette when she tells him it was only a kiss. They were never in the bedroom upstairs, never. Yvette’s husband does not believe her. He is very jealous. He is consumed with jealousy. He tells my Jean Pierre he is going to kill him. Jean Pierre flees out the kitchen door pursued by the jealous husband with a poker in his hand.’
‘What is the traditional Frenchman’s revenge, madame?’ asked Lady Lucy.
‘Why, in some parts of the country it still holds good. The French male believes he has the right to kill a man who has interfered with his wife without penalty. You can’t be sent to jail or the guillotine, you get off scot free. It’s as simple as that.’
‘God bless my soul,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘It does seem rather extreme.’
‘Does it still apply in these parts?’ asked Powerscourt, wondering about court cases where defendants could be given a sort of automatic acquittal for murdering their wives’ lovers.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that,’ said Madame Drouhin. Powerscourt thought there was no chance he would be able to persuade any of these women to cross the Channel with him and give evidence in an English court. Could he, perhaps, find a lawyer who would take a signed statement from them? But first they had to meet Yvette.
‘Madame,’ said Powerscourt, ‘could you give us the name of the house where Yvette lives? We would like to hear her story for ourselves.’
‘I will take you to her myself,’ said Madame Drouhin. ‘You have been very kind to me, coming all this way with the unhappy information.’
A couple of moments later the strange party of three, the French widow, the Irish peer and his wife, were seated round Yvette’s kitchen table where Yvette was doing something culinary with a chicken. She was so mortified by her behaviour with the man she thought of as Madame Drouhin’s husband that she would hardly speak of it at all. It was Lady Lucy who solved the problem, narrating what she believed to have happened and asking Yvette to nod her head or to say yes in agreement. When they were past the dangerous rapids of the kissing Powerscourt asked her where her husband was now.
‘I do not know, monsieur. He went away after the events of that unhappy day and I have not seen him since.’
‘Has he gone back to the Army? Perhaps his leave was very short.’
‘I do not know, monsieur. He had not been in touch with me since that day.’
‘Really?’ said Powerscourt. ‘You don’t happen to know, madame, if your husband went over to England at all?’
‘Once again I just don’t know, monsieur. My Philippe is very impulsive, he is always changing his plans.’
‘And do you think he meant it when he said he was going to kill Monsieur Drouhin?’
‘Oh yes, I did believe it, he is a very violent man, my husband. He is perfectly capable of killing somebody. They teach you how to do those things in the Army. That is what armies are for, after all, killing people. May I ask you a question, monsieur? Do you know where my husband is? Do you know where Madame Drouhin’s husband is? This is not a good time for wives in Givray, I think.’
Powerscourt smiled. ‘We do not know where your husband is. Madame’s husband, as she has suspected for some time, is dead. He was shot over in England. We are not sure who killed him. We have been hired to try to find out who the real murderer is. We think the police have arrested the wrong man and the trial is due to start any day now.’