“Yes,” he said casually, “ but it won’t be confined to that, will it, unless we take some precautions? Blind tenacity is a sign of the bulldog breed. Let me fill your glass.”
I said: “ D’you insult all your guests so charmingly?”
“Only those who are intelligent enough to understand and conceited enough to care.”
Alix said: “Oh, what’s the use of this, Charles? If you intend to tell Giles about Pierre, then tell him. You can’t make conditions.”
“Would you rather I made threats?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then I make conditions.”
“I accept the first two,” I said. “The third I think must wait.”
He broke a piece of biscuit and gave it to Grutli. “Oh, well, perhaps that’s for Alix to consider. I leave it to her. Shall we go into the other room?”
Chapter 12
He said: “Am I the only one to take cognac? Really all the other wines only set the right note for this.”
His thin sallow face had no flush on it as I felt there was on mine; I glanced at Alix who was standing by the window, one hand on Grutli’s shoulder. The rain had stopped; its drumming had been with us nearly all through dinner; now the piled clouds were turning and splitting one over the other so that soon the sky would show.
I said: “ Is your mother still alive?”
Alix half turned but looked away again, waiting for Charles to take it up.
“She’s in Barcelona at the moment. She got mixed up with some colonel who had to leave the country when the Germans retreated. She must be forty-nine by now. Getting stout, I expect. She had a few years of freedom before she let this sex business clog her life again.”
Alix said: “You were going to tell Giles about Pierre. I married Jacques Delaisse in 1944. That’s how you should begin. Six weeks later he was captured and hanged.”
“He won’t understand anything if you tell him that way.”
“Then tell him your own way, but get it over. I think that will cure him of his ambitions to associate with us.”
Bénat said: “Nonsense. There’s a glamour about murder. Especially to those who’ve led sheltered lives.”
I said: “ So it was murder.”
“If you accept the conventional definition.”
“Which you of course don’t.”
For once I caught his gaze. He smiled perfunctorily.
“As a matter of principle, no.”
“Do you for loyalty—or any of those things?”
“Well, loyalty is only another name for enlightened self-interest, isn’t it?”
“I wonder that you’re willing to trust my self-interest.”
“It’s an experiment.”
“Rather an expensive one for you if it doesn’t come off.”
“Oh,” he said. “You have no proof. And it would be expensive for you too.”
We stared at each other for a bit. “Go on, then.”
“I’m afraid it will take a little time. I must first explain that during the war I controlled this district for the C.A.D.F., which worked in liaison with the Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur. Among the two hundred men and women under me were both Pierre Grognard and Jacques Delaisse. I believe they were close friends, but their work for the Resistance was quite different. Pierre was used for contacts and intelligence, Jacques was an active saboteur. Pierre I knew slightly, Jacques not at all. If you’re unfamiliar with the way the underground movement worked that may seem strange, but in fact of all the people under me I only knew twenty-eight by name. Knowledge was danger, instruction was by contact, the movement interlocked, but everyone’s knowledge stopped short at the first second or third link beyond himself—usually the first. It was the only sure way of cutting ones losses.… My sister began carrying messages when she was eighteen. Sometime after that I heard she was going to marry Jacques.… I couldn’t give my consent to the wedding or be present at it because at the time I was living with a goldsmith in Toulon under the name of Flaubert. I made some inquiries about Jacques from a friend who knew him and was told that he was handsome, agreeably reckless, and enthusiastic in his work for the movement. That was all I knew, but my own feeling was that a man like Delaisse could hardly have the character or the breeding for Alix.…”
I tried to tell from the silhouette of Alix’s head against the window how much she resented this, but she didn’t stir.
“However, in April of that year, 1944, I was arrested in Antibes—and this time identified. A disagreeable experience.” He got up and went to the table. “I didn’t suggest a Benedictine. Would you like that?”
After hesitating a second I said I would.
“They didn’t give you Benedictine at the Villa Mont Fleur. But they had other means of loosening the tongue. They burned my feet chiefly; thats why I limp. If—”
“Don’t say any more about that, Charles.”
“Well, it’s an experience not without its own peculiar adventure. There’s a point at which pain can do no more—and then you become superior to God and the devil. You’re free.… Most interesting. Well, I stood it for three days and then feigned madness. A dangerous trick, because at that point there’s only a single thin fence of reason between pretence and reality.… On the fifth day I escaped. Two days later Pierre Grognard was arrested and six others. A fortnight after that Jacques Delaisse went and three more. A sweep of our best men.”
It had been going dark in the room. He switched on a couple of table lamps, and they brought all the colour back: the cinnamon satin curtains, the lace-like shadows of wrought-iron, Alix’s hair and skin.
“I think those days and weeks my last ideals were squeezed out. Thinking I was going to die, I forgot my more enlightened views and it seemed worth while to be keeping faith with the men under me. Then I escaped, and most of the men were arrested just the same. I might have told the Germans all I knew and saved myself the heroics. Anti-climaxes can be very salutary.”
He put the drink beside me. As he bent I noticed there were tiny beads of sweat round the roots of his hair. It was the first time I’d seen him so close. His eyelids were very thin, almost transparent. For all his appearance of suavity and balance, there was something here that I wasn’t so sure about.
“Of the eleven men arrested five were taken to Cannes for questioning. Two died there and three survived. Jacques Delaisse and two others were hanged in Nice. Grognard was taken to a concentration camp near Toulon where he was kept until released by the Allied landings. Is my telling brief enough for you, Alix?”
“Yes.…”
“The arrests had been very smart—a little too smart. We all felt there had been a deliberate leak. For a time we were all under suspicion, but in the end, by elimination, we came to think of Grognard. He had no witness to his movements—and when he came back he was much better off. He had made money out of the Germans legitimately—we did not begrudge him that—but confidential reports showed him a man of wealth.… There were other little things.
“It was hard to believe the worst. He’d been one of our earliest and most active members. He’d lost his father in the first war and was known to have Communist sympathies. He had proof of his captivity in Toulon. The thing was impossible. Then early last year he began to pay attentions to Alix.”
The great dog shook himself till his collar fairly rattled, came across and put his head on his master’s lap. Charles’s hand slid over the creased, shiny skin. A hand shaped like Alix’s but sinuous instead of smooth.
“Will you go on, Alix?”
“No. You.”
“We—Alix and I—had had our differences of opinion—over her marriage, and some other things, and when peace came she chose to live her own life and earn her own living. She didn’t care very much for Pierre; but I felt—and the relatives of those who had been betrayed felt the same—that it was up to her to encourage him for a while to see what came of it. There’s nothing like infatuation for unlocking a man’s tongue
. We didn’t, of course, need evidence to satisfy a court of law—only to satisfy ourselves. It was at this stage that Alix took pity on a blind man, and so made things difficult for us all.”
I said: “And incidentally saved the blind man.”
“Quite incidentally. I expect if you know her at all you’ll realise that she’s a woman given to these sudden impulses.… Tiresome conflict between inclination and duty. Then after some weeks she was silly enough to take you back to her apartment and Pierre surprised you on the stairs. This naturally made things very strained between them. He’d been jealous of you, but now felt himself deceived as well. They might have quarrelled finally, but she was conscience-stricken, felt she had let us down. So she made it up with him, even though his terms had changed. Now you must tell the next part, Alix.”
“I can’t.”
“Oh, yes, you can.”
She turned slowly from the window, sat on the arm of a chair, put her hands round her knee.
“Oh, God! … Well, then.… I can’t tell it like Charles, detached, amused. Perhaps I have a sense of humour that doesn’t work in this. After that meeting on the stairs I was very upset. In those days it seemed to matter.… Both my friendship with you and my loyalty to—them. I thought somehow, in a few days, I can find something out; then be done with it all. I hated it. When I saw him next time his attitude was … if you, why not him. He proposed we should go off for a fortnight, be married while we were away. I knew he didn’t mean that but I agreed. I was sure, once we were alone together … in that way. Once or twice he’d begun to say things and had to pull up short … While this was going on Charles was away, but I went to Villefranche, told them. I wrote a note for Charles that he’d get when he came home. The arrangement was to spend a few days in Grasse first—then go on to Grenoble, and perhaps Paris. The evening before we left he took me out to dinner; then he asked me back to his flat. I didn’t usually go, but in the circumstances didn’t like to say no. When we got there he began to make love to me. I found when it came to that I …” She got up. “It’s hot in here, Charles. Can I open a window?”
“I’ll do it for you.”
He opened them, but a wind came into the room and began to blow the curtains wide. She said in a low voice that seemed a part of the new noise of the cool air and flapping curtains:
“That’s how it is sometimes. You undertake something without facing up to it. Then it comes and … I tried to pretend that night—but the feeling was too strong. He stopped at last—upset, of course.… With a man like Pierre it had always been hard to keep him at a distance. It had meant—pretending to a special goodness, and getting him to accept that estimate. Now he began to taunt me—about you and … to sneer. I kept calm over that and because I was calm he got more angry. He began about other things, trying to smear—unforgivable things as I thought then.… I lost my temper too.… We quarrelled wildly. And then suddenly it all stopped. In his anger, in his need to hurt me …”
She paused, pushed back her hair, said carefully: “He did what we’d been waiting for all the time. He said he’d seen someone in a place in Hyères—and it happened I knew that other person had not been near that place until a fortnight after Pierre had been ‘arrested’.… You see, if Pierre was taken on the 80th April he couldn’t have been free in Hyères on the 11th May.
“The quarrel stopped too suddenly. He started to apologise for his anger as if he meant it, and all the time I could see he was turning over in his mind—getting nearer the truth every minute. The way I’d been that night showed I didn’t love him and never had: he worked back from that. I knew when he realised the truth because the sweat came out on his face.”
She straightened her back, let her hands fall. “Then he asked me if I was still willing to go away with him. I had to say I was. Then he said would I come with him to-night, drive up to Grasse, sit and watch the sunrise in the mountains, have breakfast at a wayside auberge? I knew then that he wasn’t going to let me out of his sight. I knew when I went up into the mountains he would kill me. It was at the back of his eyes, like pain, like—like a new sort of lust.…
“I tried to make excuses, but it wouldn’t do. He was so frightened that if the worst came he was ready to kill me there in his flat. So I said I’d go. We were both pretending and half knew the other was, but were afraid to let the pretence fall. There’s—an awful chasm between the last thought and the first act.… I said I must go and pack a few clothes; but he said we could send for anything I wanted and he’d buy me things in Grasse to-morrow. Then I said I couldn’t possibly go without at least phoning Mme. Colloni—otherwise she’d get alarmed and call the police.”
Charles Bénat shut the windows and went across to the bureau behind me.
She said: “I suppose it was panic, that call to you. But there was no one else. If I phoned a Villefranche number he would know at once that I was not getting my apartment. My only hope was that you’d realise there was something wrong and begin to ask questions which I could answer yes or no—as you did. When you offered to come round I thought that would save me. I only had to delay long enough in the flat and Pierre would be helpless.… But I made one mistake. He wasn’t very far from the phone and heard it was a man’s voice at the other end.
“Of course, even then I tried to put him off. I said I’d got on to Mme. Colloni’s husband—I tried any sort of excuse that came into my head. But excuses were no use any more.…”
She stopped.
I heard Bénat come up. He put a black spanner into my hand. It was about eight inches long.
“That’s what I killed him with,” he said.
I looked at the spanner. Grutli, interested, came over and sniffed at it, his great head nearly level with my shoulder. Alix reached for the cigarettes and lit one; I saw her face twitch a little. I handed the spanner back.
“Exhibit A.”
“I’ve killed three men with that,” he said. “An accidental choice in the first place, but it happens to be weighted right, and fits the pocket. Of course the other two were Germans.”
“And they hardly count, do they?”
“In some things you’ve the right ideas.” He went back and put the spanner away.
I said: “And how did you contrive to kill Grognard?”
“I came back from Lyons in the afternoon to find Alix’s note waiting on my desk. She told me briefly what she’d decided to do. All the rest of the afternoon I tried to work but could not. So eventually I faced up to the fact that I was not willing to let my sister go with this man merely to clear up who had betrayed a dozen saboteurs. The act itself of course is unimportant, but I didn’t look on it with favour in the circumstances. It was like rewarding a cheat with the first prize.… And it was”—he hesitated, his lip drooping—“it was unsatisfactory for reasons of prestige. Alix spoke just now of coming to the brink of a thing before realising all that it means. Perhaps for once that happened to me. Our attitude seemed irrational. Revenge is as useless as regret.”
“I agree with you there.”
His face had got curiously in the shadow again. “It’s true, isn’t it that only the present is valid. A cut finger to-day is more important than yesterday’s martyr. Well, I decided to put a stop to this particular—cut finger. I drove down and went to her apartment. Mme. Colloni said she had gone out with Grognard. I phoned one or two restaurants and discovered they were at the Luxembourg. They were just leaving when I got there, so it interested me to follow them. They went to his flat. I drew up outside and waited, hoping she would come out alone. Unless it was unavoidable I did not want him to know anything. After about twenty minutes, when I was trying to think up some excuse for calling, I saw a shadow on the curtain, and a hand pull the curtain roughly aside and then itself seem to be pulled away. It was a woman’s hand. The curtains fell back, but I went up at once and rang. I rang twice and knocked before Pierre came. He opened the door a few inches and was obviously shocked at the sight of me. After a minute while we kept
up the courtesies he tried to shut the door. I forced my way in. Alix’s bag was on the settee. I went through to the bedroom. She was lying on the floor. I turned back as Pierre reached the bureau in the corner where he kept his revolver.”
Alix stubbed out her cigarette and got up. “That’s enough, Charles. The details …”
Bénat said: “After I’d hit him I put my hand over his mouth and supported him a few paces to the settee: that was instinct, not to let them cry out, not to let them fall. Then I went in to Alix. After three or four minutes she began to come round. Then the doorbell rang.”
“Yes,” I said. “ Very inconvenient.”
“It wasn’t until I helped her back into the living-room that I saw the outer door had been left ajar. We got into the kitchen just before you began to push the door open. My own preference would have been to use the spanner again, if more mildly, but Alix said no.”
“Very considerate of her.”
Alix gave me a long, steady look.
“We went down by the back stairs,” Bénat said, “and waited outside in my car, which was on the other side of the road, hoping that you would find nothing. As time passed we wondered if you had also left by the back stairs. I left Alix in the car—she had partly collapsed again—and phoned Villefranche. Then I phoned Pierre’s flat and you answered. When I got back you were just coming out. Throw me a cigarette, will you, Alix?’
I said: “I wonder if it ever occurred to you that you might have put the murder on me?”
“It did. But there might have been flaws I knew nothing of. I have the stick you left in the flat, but I suppose you don’t use one now.”
“Not except when intending to deceive.”
“I’m sure the opportunities for that must be decreasing.”
“That first time I came to see you,” I said. “Was Alix here?”
“No. I sent her to Dijon. She was—very much shaken up. When all this was begun we knew there would be some risk to her, but it had hardly occurred to us that things would happen as they did. We had thought of her being able to report to us, and then dropping out and taking no further part in anything we did to Grognard. There would have been no question of her disappearing from the town—an act which obviously might cause comment. But as you had been dragged in there was no alternative to her going. She could not continue in her flat or at the shoe-shop if you were likely to come round asking questions.”