Aaron Elkins - Old Bones

"Mathilde?" Gideon exclaimed inadvertently and glanced at her. She had remained standing a few feet away, edgy and suspicious, watching him, straining every nerve to hear, not bothering to pretend otherwise. An eyebrow flicked at the sound of her name.

He turned away from her and cradled the receiver against his shoulder. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said, young man. Without Mathilde, Guillaume would have died. Certainly he would never have recovered his identity. Ah, Mathilde-Mathilde Sylvestre, as she was then; a strapping, buxom girl with skin like rose petals. She had just become engaged to Rene, and she had volunteered as a nurse at the hospital. She sat with the mutilated hulk that was Guillaume for two whole days and most of two nights, talking to him, crooning to him, keeping his interest focused on this world instead of the next." Dr. Loti heaved a gusty sigh.

"And?"

"And? His memory came back. It never would have happened without her; I’m convinced of it. And from that moment he began to recover. You could see it in him, in the renewed fire in that single fierce eye gleaming through the bandages. He had decided," Dr. Loti pronounced with sentimental relish, "to live."

"I see," Gideon said slowly.

He had decided to live, all right-with Mathilde’s earnest help and counsel-but not his own life. More pieces of the puzzle: As a girl Mathilde had been engaged to Alain; Gideon already knew that. Now it seemed that she had still been in love with him when he returned. For whatever their reasons-his terrible injuries, her engagement to Rene-they had decided not to take up where they had left off. But they had put their heads together long enough to hatch a plot that put Guillaume’s wealth in Alain’s hands instead of Claude’s for forty long years…and finally, a week ago, into Mathilde’s.

"These are not the sentimental imaginings of an old man," Dr. Loti cautioned him. "I tell you as a responsible physician: If not for Mathilde, Guillaume du Rocher would never have returned to this life."

"I believe you," Gideon said. "Sincerely."

When Gideon hung up Mathilde was still watching him intently. This time he returned her gaze, mulling over what he’d heard. There could be no question about her being involved in Alain’s deception; very probably she had authored it. How much else was she involved in?

"And what did Dr. Loti want with you?" she demanded before he had removed his hand from the telephone.

He hadn’t meant to engage her. Better to let Joly handle it. But when he floundered, searching for a reply, she prodded him.

"It was about Guillaume, wasn’t it?" Her fluty voice sliced through the chitchat. Conversations were suspended; heads turned in their direction.

"Yes, it was." Obviously, there wasn’t much point in denying it.

"What did he tell you?"

"I think it’d be better if we talked somewhere more private, Mathilde."

Gideon heard Rene’s imploring whisper behind him. "What is it? What the devil is he talking about? What’s the-?"

"Sh!" someone said imperiously, and the seigneur du manoir subsided.

"I am not afraid to talk in my own house, in front of my own family," Mathilde said firmly. She stood with her stocky legs planted, her deep, square prow of a bosom thrust aggressively forward. "I believe I have every right to know what you discussed."

Well, Joly wasn’t going to like it, but Mathilde was clearly determined to have it out right then, and Gideon wasn’t in the mood to play games putting her off. It had been a long day.

"Mathilde," he said, "I know Guillaume du Rocher was killed in 1942. And I know Alain wasn’t killed in 1942, but was alive until a week ago, playing Guillaume’s part."

There was a collective gasp and a few exclamations of consternation. Rene laughed disbelievingly. Then, abruptly, utter quiet, thick with expectancy and confusion. Stunned faces stared at Gideon. A lazy, disinterested tick of the golden clock on the mantel looped through the silence.

"And I know you know it too," he concluded flatly.

Under a layer of powder Mathilde’s face reddened momentarily. Then, like someone putting down at last a burden she’d carried too long, she exhaled a long breath. "Yes," she said, her voice perfectly steady. "You’re quite right."

Now there was an explosion of questions and ejaculations. People shouted at each other, at Mathilde, at Gideon. Mathilde waited for the noise to die down. "I think I should like to sit," she announced, and set herself bolt-upright on one of the crushed velvet chairs, hands clasped one on the other in her lap.

"And a glass of vermouth, I think." She drank briefly from the fluted tumbler that Marcel brought to her and opened her mouth to speak.

"Mother," Jules said, "you really don’t have to-"

"Oh, be quiet, Jules. What’s the difference now? It’s out. I knew he’d find out." Jules shrugged and withdrew, and Mathilde continued, not speaking to anyone in particular. "What Dr. Oliver says is true. Guillaume has been dead for forty-five years. The man who died last week was Alain du Rocher."

"Impossible!" Sophie said. "You think I wouldn’t know Alain? My own brother?"

"Well, you didn’t," Mathilde said proudly. "It was Alain here in the manoir all these years, and none of you guessed." She looked disdainfully from face to face, challenging them, then took a measured sip of vermouth. "Alain was not executed by the Nazis. They let him go."

"But-but-" Ray stammered.

Ben was more terse. "Why?"

Mathilde’s hand went to the strand of pearls that lay against her black sweater. "Well, I’m not really-"

"They let him go for informing on the others, didn’t they?" Gideon asked.

There was a shocked hubbub of denial, but Mathilde closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and nodded. "Yes," she said, looking straight ahead. "They tortured him with electrical prods." She looked sharply up at him. "How could you possibly know that?"

He hadn’t known; he’d guessed. Joly had told him that Alain had been picked up at dawn, the others five or six hours later. He’d wondered about it at the time, and now he’d simply put two and two together. He didn’t answer Mathilde’s question. The more she thought he already knew, the more she’d tell.

"We all thought they’d killed him," she went on without emotion, "but he came here to the manoir the next night, a little before eleven. I’d been here for two days. We were all trying to comfort each other the best we could, waiting to hear something definite. Guillaume, Rene, me. You too, Sophie."

"Yes, I remember," Sophie said softly.

"Guillaume and I were the only ones still awake. When he opened the door and saw Alain standing there he was furious."

"Furious?" Ray asked. "Why should he be furious?"

"He grasped what had happened right away. He made Alain admit it. To him, Alain was a traitor, a coward. Don’t forget, Guillaume had already killed that SS pig a few hours before, in revenge for his death. His supposed death." She glanced up irritably at the ring of rapt faces. "Will you all sit down, for heaven’s sake? I feel like a-I don’t know what. And don’t look so ludicrously glum. This happened forty-five years ago."

They dropped obediently into chairs, pulling them around to face her. Gideon leaned against one end of a marble-topped side table, John against the other. Only Marcel and Beatrice, next to invisible, remained standing at the edge of the room.

"I had to pull Guillaume from Alain’s throat," Mathilde said. "I was so shocked and happy to see him alive I barely knew what I was doing. He was terribly weak from what they’d done to him. I took him to the kitchen to see if there was some brandy and something to eat. He tried to explain to Guillaume that he’d tried with all his strength to hold out, but Guillaume was beside himself, screaming with rage."