“The only way I go there with you is if you arrest me,” he said coolly. “And you’re not going to arrest me because there are so many holes in your so-called evidence that you could use it for a colander.”
Olivet was not accustomed to having his invitations so calmly declined, but he recovered quickly.
“Perhaps you do not understand, Monsieur Templar, that in France it is you who are required to prove yourself innocent, not the police who must prove you guilty.”
“I know all about the Code Napoleon,” Simon said imperturbably. “But you still have to present some sort of case, and you don’t have one that would last five minutes in court.”
Olivet fidgeted beneath the ice-blue gaze that was focused on him. When the Saint continued, he was addressing the sergeant for the benefit of everyone present.
“Let’s look at this so-called evidence. You have a murder weapon, lucky you. It’s from my room, unlucky me. But that’s as far as it goes. You haven’t yet had time to test it for fingerprints. You don’t have a professional opinion about when Gaston was killed, so you don’t know whether I have an alibi or not. You don’t even know why he was murdered. In fact the sum total of what you don’t know is staggering.”
Simon paused for a moment, to make his counterpoint more telling.
“What you do know is that if you arrest me tonight, it’ll be front-page news in every paper in Europe tomorrow, and in a few hours there’ll be more reporters around here than vines. You’ll be the big hero for a day. The cop who finally sewed up the Saint. But you also know that if you don’t make it stick you’ll be the laughing stock of every police force from Paris to Pago-Pago, and afterwards you’ll be lucky if your bosses trust you to look for lost dogs.”
For effective punctuation, the Saint took another unhurried sip from his glass. He went on with nerveless precision, taking aim and scoring like a marksman:
“When you stop being dazzled with dreams of glory, you know damn well that I wouldn’t have my reputation if I went about murdering people and leaving clues that a blind man couldn’t help tripping over. The only thing we know for sure is that the killer was someone who’s free to go anywhere in the château — which doesn’t include only me.”
It was an effective enough speech in its own way, he decided, even if it didn’t reach the heights attained in some similar confrontations in the past. But the mixture of contempt and logic was still volatile enough to have had Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal groping for another soothing strip of Wrigley’s or Inspector John Fernack yearning for the freedom of a downtown backroom and a length of rubber hose.
However, the Saint knew the kind of ground he was on. The averagely ignorant foreigner, if he thinks about such matters at all, thinks of all French law officers as “gendarmes,” whereas in fact the gendarmes are the rural constabulary, who operate outside the metropolitan districts which have their own police forces, whose officers are correctly called agents. It was Simon Templar’s business to know things like that; he knew that he was not dealing with a really sophisticated top cop, nor would any such phenomenon materialise to take charge in the instant future. A case at Ingare would have to percolate up through enough echelons of bureaucracy to give time for quite a few developments before it came into summit jurisdiction.
Olivet looked distinctly unhappy. His black eyes probed the Saint uncertainly. As a rural policeman, not a big-city detective, he was not used to prospective prisoners arguing so eloquently and adumbrating pictures of potential disaster that infiltrated his stomach with butterflies.
Philippe was less impressed.
“He’s bluffing,” he told Olivet. “If he isn’t the killer, it would have to be one of us. Which is absurd.”
Simon cocked a sardonic eyebrow.
“How comforting for you,” he murmured.
The sergeant tried to reassert the authority of his office.
“As I have already said, Monsieur Florian, this is only a preliminary inquiry. I am here to make a report on which the department will act, and that is all.”
“And I apologise to Monsieur Templar,” said Mimette, “for any attempt to make him our scapegoat.”
Yves Florian looked intently into the Saint’s face as if seeking some form of reassurance. Finally he said: “Monsieur Templar has helped us a great deal since he arrived here, and I personally have confidence in him. If it would be any help, he can remain here as my guest until your investigations are completed.”
“Et en voilà pour la solidarité de la famille,” said Philippe scathingly.
Olivet was plainly undecided, although Yves’s offer had made a deep impression on him. And then, to the Saint’s surprise, Henri came in on his side.
“I think that offer should be accepted,” he told the sergeant, and continued in the same flat unemotional tone as if addressing a tribunal. “As a lawyer, I must agree with Monsieur Templar that you have insufficient grounds on which to arrest him, certainly not enough to even contemplate going to court. Therefore if he gave an undertaking to remain available for questioning, there need be no sensational publicity. You have said that he is well known, surely that is the one reason why he is unlikely to run away. He would be caught within hours.”
The Saint kept a straight face as he remembered the days when half the police forces of Europe had hunted him across the continent without success, but he did not feel it politic to air his reminiscences at that moment.
Henri added: “I was very fond of my uncle. I want to see his murderer caught. But I also know that he would not have wished the family to be subjected to the publicity that will surely result if Monsieur Templar is arrested.”
Olivet was visibly relieved. He avoided looking at Philippe and spoke directly to Yves.
“Eh bien — we shall continue when I have fingerprints and a medical report. Meanwhile, I shall expect all of you to be at my disposition here.”
“But you can’t leave us like that,” protested Norbert. “None of us will be safe. We still have a murderer in the château!”
“Then you will be most anxious to find him,” Olivet said maliciously. “I don’t think you have anything to fear for the moment, but I shall leave a man here in case.”
Carefully he rewrapped the poker and picked up his képi. The gendarme at the door fastened his holster and returned to his former pose of stolid indifference. The sergeant bowed himself out with a curtly formal “A bientôt, messieurs-dames.”
Understandably, it was a far from convivial dinner that Charles served, soon afterwards, with impeccable frigidity. The tension across the table was almost tangible. Jeanne and Henri sat in a frosted silence which showed that their quarrel of the afternoon had not been made up. In addition Henri was subjected to a cold shoulder from his employer that must have had him wondering where his next pay cheque was coming from. Norbert stayed as far away from the Saint as the confines of the room allowed, and hurriedly excused himself as soon as the cheese was served. Only Yves and Mimette made a brave pretence of table talk, and that was clearly at the dictation of good manners.
Mimette made one forlorn attempt to lighten the general pall of gloom.
“Sitting here like so many zombies won’t bring Gaston back,” she said. “And I don’t think he would have wanted to be remembered this way.”
“It is hardly amusing,” Philippe said heavily, “to think that even a Florian could be accused of his murder, if suspicion is not confined to others.”
“Sans doute,” retorted Mimette, “every murderer’s family has always felt the same, when one of them turned out to be a bad egg.”