Celine’s note to Lucie had stated they needed to talk. ‘It’s urgent,’ she had said.
‘Monsieur, when found, Madame Dupuis was wearing one of these. The stones are blancs exceptionnels, the earrings perhaps from the fin de siecle, or from the twenties.’
Paquet didn’t need to touch them. ‘Was there an exquisite strand of sapphires?’
It would be best to lay the necklace on the table and tell him of the dress.
‘And why wasn’t she wearing both earrings?’
‘That is one of the questions we are trying to settle.’
‘Then please don’t avoid the obvious.’
‘She tried to remove and hide them from her killers, succeeding only with one.’
‘Was she also wearing the silver dress and the sapphires?’
‘Ah no. No, she wasn’t.’
‘A white silk chemise de nuit and black-meshed underthings, the cabaret costume?’
Word must be flying. A nod would suffice, Paquet raising a forefinger to indicate he would need a moment.
When he returned much saddened, it was with a box of Choix Supremes, quite obviously a part of a client’s private store but long forgotten. ‘The Marechal was not the only one to favour these, Inspector. Auguste-Alphonse Olivier and his wife would often come into the shop on their way to the theatre or casino, or to some function or other. There was also a tiara, a thin headband that had been purchased for Madame Noelle Olivier in Paris, from Cartier’s on place Vendome by Monsieur Olivier, as had the necklace. The earrings had been his. mother’s, I believe. But … but why should Madame Dupuis have had them? Surely that one was no thief? She had a daughter she missed terribly. Always a postcard or two from the child, or the latest she was sending her. She was fiercely determined to return to Paris, felt she had saved up enough. “It’s all been arranged,” she said. “The laissez-passer and sauf-conduit will soon be here, the residence permit also.”’
‘Did she say who had arranged them for her?’
‘Ah no, but … but I felt it had to have been Dr Menetrel, the Marechal’s personal physician. Inspector, why would such as these not have been in Monsieur Olivier’s safe-deposit box? Oh certainly, there are now the lists everyone has to fill out just as they did in the north, in the zone occupee in 1940. All items above a value of a hundred thousand francs, the louis d’or one has kept against the devaluations and the inflation. Has anything happened to him?’
To admit that they didn’t know would sound foolish but had best be done.
‘He’s never been the same, not since she took her life on 18 November 1925. Thirty cubic centimetres of laudanum and into the river with her. Toute nue, which only made the heads here buzz all the more, I’m afraid. She was only thirty-four years old. Lovely, so lovely. It broke his heart. A cuckold.’
‘And now?’
‘A bitter man who keeps much to himself and is seldom seen except in the late evening when strolling through our English Garden along the river. Solitary, the hat pulled down, the scarf tight, the walking stick and stride no longer purposeful.’
Olivier had withdrawn his last cigar from the box at noon on that fateful day.
‘Monsieur Auguste-Alphonse used to love his after-dinner cigar, Inspector. It was then that he would contemplate the day behind him and plan for the one ahead. Madame Noelle … She was his life away from the world of finance, his constant ray of sunshine in a world that was too often clouded with difficulties. Not only had he been our mayor for several years, he was our foremost banker.’
Laval had said to take Paquet into their confidence but would it be wise to reveal more?
The inspector laid a number of billets doux on the table; the powder-blue envelopes and handwriting of the address were enough. ‘God seldom makes us perfect,’ said Paquet. ‘Even a most esteemed and austere Head of State has weaknesses. The Marechal set his cap for her and won, only to then leave her in despair. She and Monsieur Olivier had two children, a boy and girl. In spite of this, there were frequent trips to Paris by Madame Noelle — too many, some said; others that she was young and beautiful and that to live in Vichy must be stifling for her after being raised among les hauts of Paris. The grandmother had left her a mansion in Neuilly, not far from the Bois de Boulogne.’
‘But when the Marechal wrote this, she killed herself?’ asked the Inspector, tapping the missive.
‘Oui. Auguste-Alphonse went in search of her, the letter in his hand, but found only her clothes and the empty dark blue bottle that had held the laudanum her grandmother must once have been in the habit of taking. There is a weir and a footbridge that crosses our river, the Pont Barrage. It leads to the sports club and golf course. Her clothes were found on it, the body downstream on one of the islands where, in summer, it is said couples sunbathe in secret.’
‘The two children, monsieur, where are they now?’
This one would leave no stone unturned. ‘In the north, in Paris. He sent them away to avoid the scandal that had erupted and ruined him. They were raised by his wife’s family, and he has had, I believe, no further contact with them.’
‘Their ages now?’
‘They were twelve at the time.’
‘Thirty, then, and a set of twins.’
‘Inspector, there was one other item Madame Noelle left with her clothing. A knife. A Laguiole. It was felt she had thought of killing herself with it but had, at the last, taken what she felt was a better way. The slumber. The water, though cold, would soon have overcome her.’
The inspector opened its blade, and, laying the Laguiole on top of the billets doux, tossed off his cognac, needing no further answer.
‘You’re sworn to secrecy, monsieur. What you now know could well be dangerous for you and your son. Just let it rest in peace among your cigars and leave my partner and me to deal with it.’
The gate to 133 boulevard des Celestins was rusty, the gilding of its heraldic fleur-de-lis gone. Above twin neoclassical pillars of black Auvergne basalt, single Grecian urns of the same would once have held spills of ivy and fuchsias in season but were now broken and devoid of all but the last of their earth.
His breath billowing impatiently, Hermann lowered the beam of his torch to the rusty bell pull. Seizing its loop, he gave it a yank and then another. Like death, the dull, flat sound of a cracked bell thudded in the near-distance.
No lights would come on. It was now almost nine, the blackout complete, the boulevard unlit except for the soft diffusion of clouded moonlight on snow.
Across from them in the Parc d’Allier, where Napoleon III had had the river dyked, its marshes filled in and acacias, sycamores and cedars planted, there wasn’t a sign of life. But then, these days, when automobiles of any kind pulled in alongside a house and two men in fedoras and overcoats with raised collars piled out, people tended to wait and watch from a distance or vanish.
Hermann shook the gate but the lock was fast. ‘And freshly oiled,’ he swore, having dropped the beam of his torch to it. ‘So why the uncaring disrepair of the recluse yet the oiling, in a nation that has so little of that commodity nearly everything squeaks, even its filles de joie?’