John Lescroart - Son of Holmes

Henri’s hand had gone to the missing button. His face clouded over; then he grinned sheepishly. “I’ve got to be more careful,” he said, somewhat enigmatically.

I had earlier marveled at Lupa’s perspicacity, so I was prepared to some extent for his displays. The others, I noticed, were beginning to look as though they felt slightly apprehensive, as though they were all unwittingly under some unseen magnifying glass. Before anyone else could comment, however, Fritz entered with the beer, walked to the various seats, and deposited the new bottles, setting a glass before Lupa. He might have simply brought the tray into the room, but the pride he took in his work demanded that certain rituals be performed.

We looked to Tania, who by tradition delivered the first toast after the whole company had assembled. We had not all opened the bottles yet, which Fritz refused to do because, he said, of the danger. Once a bottle had exploded as he was about to open it, a common enough occurrence with home-brewed beer, and since then he’d refused to participate in any opening.

Tania looked at Lupa and then at the rest of us. Georges was still fiddling with his bottle, but she began.

“To our new guest, M. Lupa, and . . .”

Before she could say, “and to France,” there was a loud pop, and Georges was grabbing his right hand with his left, swearing. We all leapt up and crossed over to him, and Fritz entered silently with a cloth.

“Damn the bottles,” said Georges, and there was general agreement as Tania took the cloth and wiped the blood away. “Have you any gauze?” she asked, and I told her there was some in the bathroom.

Georges said he’d get it himself, that he was all right, and he walked out to clean up. Lupa sat in the chair Georges had vacated, where he’d gone to inspect the bottle, while the rest of us reassembled ourselves. Marcel said something conciliatory to Henri, and they retired to what had been the American corner. Tania and I went back to the divan, and Paul stood joking with Fritz about his wisdom.

When Fritz had finished cleaning up the spilled beer, he went to get another, and Paul turned and sat with us. “So much for that toast,” he said.

Forgoing the next one, we all reached for our beers and drank. Henri and Lupa drained their glasses, and Henri had just yelled in through the kitchen for Fritz to bring more than one more, when Marcel stood up straight, grabbing his throat. He croaked out, “I feel . . .” but before he could finish, he reeled forward over the small table onto his face. Lupa was to him in a flash, rolling him over and lifting his eyelids. Georges came back to the door in time to hear him say, “He’s dead.”

The events of the next moments were confused and rapid, though they seemed to me to follow one another with agonizing slowness. Tania, sitting next to me, put down her glass and stared, then covering her face with her hands cried, “Oh God, no!” and leaned back. I was aware of Georges stopping in the doorway, gauze over his recent cut, turning pale and being the second one to reach Marcel’s side. Lupa had turned him over onto his back and undone his collar, but it was too late. Georges slapped the corpse several times, saying, “Marcel!” over and over in a scolding tone, then looked over to me as Lupa finally stopped him.

“What happened?” he asked.

Fritz came to the door as I stood to cross the room, and I told him to take the car to town and get the police. Paul and Henri stood where they had been sitting and watched in stunned silence. I walked to where Marcel lay and felt for his pulse. There was none.

“Get back! Get away!” I yelled at Lupa and Georges. Paul had gone out to the hall for his coat, and he returned, placing it over Marcel’s head. Georges limped back and forth across the room, hands thrust deep in his pockets. Tania had stopped crying and stood by the settee. Everything began moving at normal speed again, and everyone began talking at once. I went back to Tania and sat next to her, watching the others. Finally Lupa, who had been sitting, stood again and bellowed out, “Silence!” and we obeyed. “Let us sit,” he said, “and wait for the police.”

“Who are you to tell us what to do?” demanded Henri, who seemed quite shaken. Georges, standing next to him, put his arm around his shoulder. Paul sat alone by the fire, looking at the flames.

4

Ihad supposed that Jacques Magiot, an old acquaintance of mine and the chief of police, would have come out for the investigation, but he sent a young inspector and two gendarmes, who made it clear that their chief’s appearance was by no means necessary for the gathering of evidence. The flics stationed themselves by the door while the inspector walked around inspecting. He leaned down and sniffed the rug where the beer had spilled.

“Prussic acid,” he said.

“Some form of cyanide, at any rate,” I answered.

He nodded. “Are you familiar with poisons?”

“Oh come. The almond smell is distinctive.”

He noted something in his book.

The others stood about nervously. The inspector spent a bit of time looking at a spiderweblike impression on the coffee table and after a series of “ahems” said that he’d like to question each of us separately.

“But before I do, I will say that while you are all free to move about in town, no one is to leave Valence for any period of time without checking with the authorities.”

“But I don’t live in Valence,” said Paul. “I’m from St. Etienne.”

“In that case, monsieur, we will escort you to your home by way of the St. Etienne constabulatory, and you will report to them.”

While we waited to be called to the kitchen for questioning, Tania and I sat without a word on the divan, her arm linked into mine. She seemed too calm, almost to the point of breaking, as though she were under some unbearable pressure. Undoubtedly this local tragedy had turned her thoughts to her sons at the front.

The inspector first called Lupa, then Georges, Paul, Henri, Tania, and Fritz. The first four were led to the back door and excused, while Tania and Fritz waited in the kitchen after their questioning. The inspector interrogated me in the front room.

“Monsieur Magiot sends his compliments.”

I nodded.

“I’ve made no arrests. Have you any suspicions?”

“No.”

“I’m inclined to think of suicide. He was your close friend, was he not? Had he been unduly depressed?”

It went on in that vein for several minutes. I had no information for him, and he had formed no suspicions himself. He thought it odd that so few of my guests had been French, and asked me about it.

I shrugged. “They are my friends.”

Finally, a little after midnight, they left. Tania and Fritz came back to join me, and we sat drinking brandy for a time, pensive. The undertaker had come earlier, and my thoughts went back to Marcel’s body being removed. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine how he had been only that morning, but I could not. Perhaps it was better that way. I couldn’t think of him as a dead man yet. He was the friend of my childhood, and he was gone.

Tania and I went up to bed, leaving the room empty save for Fritz, who sat at the edge of one of the coffee tables, fists clenched and eyes glassy.

I awoke while it was still dark and silently got up. The house was oppressive. I needed to get away for a time.

Two days before, the Rue St. Philip had been warming to a new day as I had walked down it to meet Lupa for the first time. Now, at four thirty in the morning, with a light rain falling—still falling, I should say—it gave no hint that it could ever be a pleasant street. The cobblestones were slick and too widely spaced, and twice I nearly fell. It wasn’t cold, but the wet darkness kept me shivering.