‘Is the cousin her only family?’
‘Yes, and she’ll inherit the estate. But since it consists of the currant biscuits plus a tea caddy with a few banknotes in, I can’t see the cousin or her husband cutting Madeleine Châtelain’s throat for that.’
‘But if someone wanted to use a chalk circle, how would they have known where there was going to be one that night?’
‘That is indeed the question, my little ones. But we ought to be able to work it out.’
Danglard got up carefully, to put Number Five, René, to bed.
‘For instance,’ he resumed, ‘take the commissaire‘s new friend, Mathilde Forestier: it seems that she’s actually seen the chalk circle man. Adamsberg told me. Look, I’m managing to say his name again. Obviously the conference is doing me good.’
‘At the moment, I’d say it was a one-man conference,’ Édouard observed.
‘And this woman, who knows the chalk circle man, she worries me,’ Danglard added.
‘You said the other day,’ said the first-born girl of the second set of twins, ‘that she was beautiful and tragic and spoilt and hoarse-voiced, like some exotic Egyptian queen, but she didn’t worry you then.’
‘You didn’t think before you spoke, little girl. The other day, nobody had been killed. But now, I can just see her coming into the police station, on some damfool pretext, making a big fuss, getting to see Adamsberg. And then talking to him about this, that and the other, before getting round to telling him she knows this chalk circle man pretty well. Ten days before the murder – bit of a coincidence isn’t it?’
‘You mean she’d planned to kill Madeleine, and she came to see Adamsberg so that she’d be in the clear?’ asked Lisa. ‘Like that woman who killed her grandfather but came to see you a month before, to tell you she had a “presentiment”? Remember?’
‘You remember that dreadful woman? Not an Egyptian princess at all, and as slimy as a reptile. She nearly got away with it. It’s the classic trick of the murderer who telephones to say they’ve found a body, only more elaborate. So, well, yes. Mathilde Forestier turning up like that does make you think. I can just imagine what she’d say: “But commissaire, I’d hardly have come and told you I knew all about the chalk circle man if I was intending to use him to cover up a murder!” It’s a dangerous game, but it’s bold, and it could be just her style. Because she is a bold woman, you’ve probably gathered that.’
‘So did she have a motive for killing poor fat Madeleine?’
‘No,’ said Arlette. ‘This lady, Madeleine, must just have been unlucky, picked by chance to start a series, so they’d pin it on the circle maniac. The real murder’ll happen later. That’s what papa is thinking.’
‘Yes, maybe that is what he’s thinking,’ Danglard conceded.
VIII
NEXT MORNING, MATHILDE CAME ACROSS CHARLES REYER AT THE foot of the stairs, fumbling with his door. In fact she wondered whether he hadn’t been waiting for her, and pretending not to find the keyhole. But he said nothing as she went past.
‘Charles,’ said Mathilde, ‘you’re putting your eye to keyholes now, are you?’
Charles straightened up, and his face looked sinister in the dark stairwell.
‘That’s you, is it, Queen Mathilde, making cruel jokes?’
‘Yes, it’s me, Charles. I’m getting my retaliation in first. You know what they say: “If you want peace, prepare for war.”‘
Charles sighed.
‘Very well, Mathilde. In that case, please help a poor blind man put the key in the lock. I’m not used to this yet.’
‘Here you are,’ said Mathilde, guiding his hand. ‘Now it’s locked. Charles, what did you think of that cop who came round last night?’
‘Nothing. I couldn’t hear what you were saying, and anyway I was distracting Clémence. What I like about Clémence is that she’s got a screw loose. Just to know there are people like that in the world does me good.’
‘Today my plan’s to follow someone else like that, a man who’s interested in the mythical rotation of sunflower stems, goodness knows why. It could take me all day and the evening as well. So if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like you to go and see the policeman for me. It’s on your way.’
‘What are you up to, Mathilde? You’ve already got what you were after, whatever that was, by getting me to come and live here. You want me to get my eyes sorted out, you get me to babysit Clémence for a whole evening, and now you’re flinging me into the arms of this policeman. Why did you come looking for me? What are you trying to do with me?’
Mathilde shrugged.
‘You’re making too much of it, Charles. We met in a cafe, that’s all. Unless it’s to do with underwater biology, my impulses generally don’t have any particular reason. And listening to you, I’m sorry I don’t have more of a reason for them. Then I wouldn’t be standing here, stuck on the stairs, having my morning spoiled by a blind man with a bad temper.’
‘I’m sorry, Mathilde. What do you want me to say to Adamsberg?’
Charles called his office to tell them he would be late. First, he wanted to run the errand for Queen Mathilde and go to the police station; he wanted to help her out, to do something to please her. And this evening he would like to be friendly, to admit that he had placed his hopes in her, and tell her, perfectly courteously, that he had carried out the errand perfectly courteously. He didn’t want to murder Mathilde, that was the last thing in the world he wanted. For now, he wanted to cling on to Mathilde, doing his best not to let go of her, not to spin round and slap her in the face. He wanted to go on listening to her talking, about anything and everything, with her husky voice and her tightrope-walking ways, always on the brink of missing her step. Perhaps he should bring her some jewellery this evening, a gold brooch? No, not a gold brooch, a cooked chicken with tarragon, she would surely prefer some chicken with tarragon. And then he could listen to the sound of her voice, and drop off to sleep with warm champagne in his pyjama pockets, if he had had pyjamas. Or pockets. Certainly not tear her eyes out, not massacre her, absolutely not, no, he would buy her a cooked chicken. With tarragon.
He should have arrived at the police station by now, but he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t one of the buildings whose location he had managed to map in his head. He would have to ask. Hesitating, he scraped the pavement ahead of him with his stick, walking slowly. He was lost in this street, obviously. Why had Mathilde sent him here? He began to feel desperately tired. And when he felt that way, anger was sure to follow, welling up in lethal pulses from his stomach into his throat, until it invaded his whole head.
Danglard, feeling seedy and with a blinding headache himself, was just arriving for work. He saw the very tall blind man standing stock-still near the door of the station, an expression of arrogant despair on his face.
‘Can I help you?’ Danglard asked. ‘Are you lost?’
‘ Are you?’ Charles asked.
Danglard ran his hand through his hair.
What a mean question. Was he lost?
‘No,’ he said.
‘Wrong,’ said Charles.
‘Is that any of your business?’ said Danglard.
‘Is my standing here any of your business?’
‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ said Danglard. ‘Suit yourself. Stay lost if you’re lost.’