I put down the pages, turned off the lamp, and leaned back on the pillows. Imo. That had to be Imogene Leblanc. Who else could it be? But why had she not said a word? Why had she not revealed where the two young people were? Was it to protect them—or to protect herself? What was it Cecile had written? She lay down next to me, and I helped her . . . Emile got angry and sad when he saw the marks. What marks? And what kind of “help”?
The question and the pictures flickered past on the inside of my eyelids, and it took some time to fall asleep in spite of my exhaustion.
The next day I was so stiff and sore all over that Elise finally had to give up fastening my corset. It was as if my bruised body had swollen in the course of the night, and I could not bear the pressure against ribs, lungs, and abdomen.
When I came downstairs, Papa was in the middle of cutting his plaster cast off his arm with a pair of surgery scissors.
“Is that not a little too soon?” I asked.
“Three weeks has to be enough,” he said, lips clenched. “I am tired of being helpless.”
I did not protest. I could see that it would do no good.
“Next week I should be able to walk again,” he said. “Then I will no longer need to impose on you the sort of unreasonable burden you have had to bear recently.”
“It has not been a burden.”
“How can you say that? Everything you have had to witness, everything you have had to experience . . . that man could have killed you, Maddie!”
There was plaster dust everywhere. The surgery scissors were too small and only nibbled mouselike at the hard plaster crust.
“Let me do that. We need better scissors.”
“Madeleine.”
“Yes.”
“Everything will be fine again.”
I did not say anything, just nodded and went down to the laboratory to find a more suitable pair of scissors. What did “fine” really mean? That everything would be as before? I hoped not. I was no longer content to listen with the door ajar, or sit unnoticed while the men debated. It was increasingly clear that I could not let myself be exiled to the back of the gallery—I wanted to be down there on the operating floor, doing things.
When I returned to the salon, the Commissioner and Marot had just arrived, one from a few hours of much-needed sleep in his room at the boardinghouse, the other directly from the préfecture. While Elise fetched coffee and extra brioches, I cut off the rest of the Mathijsen cast and tried to sweep the plaster dust off the table without having too much of it form an insoluble bond with the Bokhara carpet’s pile.
“Ah, fit again,” said the Commissioner. “Or nearly so. That is good to see.”
I could tell by the look on my father’s face that the sudden lack of support was not comfortable for his healing arm, but he tried to pretend otherwise.
“Yes, it won’t be long,” he said. “But do sit down. Any news?”
The Commissioner chose his usual chair while Inspector Marot sat down in the brocade chair next to the chaise longue.
“I intend to announce to the préfecture that the murder of Father Abigore has been solved,” he said, and smoothed the walrus mustache with index finger and thumb, a gesture that emphasized a certain smug satisfaction. “Though the murderer cannot be brought to earthly justice, having already met his Maker.”
“And Mother Filippa?” asked my father. “What about her?”
“The evidence, though circumstantial, is quite strong. We have to obtain a sample of his handwriting to determine if he is the one who wrote the comments in Vabonne’s Bible. We know that he was given to rages, and that his own daughter sought refuge behind the convent walls to escape him. That may have been the reason for his anger at the abbess. Mademoiselle Karno observed a confrontation between them . . .”
“Just the conclusion of it,” I said for the sake of precision. “It was just one sentence.”
“Yes. What was it he said?” The inspector took out his notebook and got ready to take notes.
“He said, ‘You are not God’s servant, but the devil’s.’ ”
“Exactly. That fits nicely with the disturbed notion that is expressed in the Bible passages. Is it possible to make a cast of his teeth?”
“Unfortunately not,” said my father. “The shot entered under his chin and exited at the back of his head. The lower jaw is practically pulverized and the upper jaw greatly damaged. It would not be worthwhile to try.”
“Too bad. It would have been a nice definite proof.”
“So you have completely given up on the theory that it was Emile Oblonski who killed her?” I could not prevent a certain bitterness from creeping into my voice. Emile lay in the chapel at Saint Bernardine, shot through the chest, waiting for my father and the Commissioner to have time to do the necessary yet pointless autopsy that would formally determine the cause of death. In one of the cells beneath the préfecture, Cecile’s brother sat captive, a confessed murderer. The lives of two people wasted with one shot, and all of it so meaningless and misunderstood that my soul ached.
“I consider Leblanc a far more plausible killer,” said Marot. “We will ask the daughter for a sample of his handwriting. If it matches—well, then there will no longer be any reason to keep the case open.”
Elise arrived with rolls and coffee. No one said anything while she laid the table, but when she had left the salon, the Commissioner straightened himself in his chair with a touch of belligerence.
“But the motive?” he protested. “He might well have felt an anger or a bitterness toward Mother Filippa, who placed herself between him and his daughter. But Father Abigore? Do we know if they even knew each other? And why that whole absurd story with the theft of the corpse?”
“It is not satisfactory,” admitted Marot, and reached out distractedly for a brioche, which he tore into pieces with his fingers and began to chew without making the effort to butter it. “We know that he was the one who set the trap for Abigore. We know that he was the one who later set his dog on the hearse horses and stole the body. It is most likely that he deposited it at manufacturer Ponti’s as a sort of bizarre revenge for the quarrel they had over the dog. We know it was Leblanc who abducted and incarcerated Louis Mercier, and we know he was strong enough to deliver the blow that brought down the priest. We even have him admitting as much to Madeleine. But why did he do all of this? He was a religious man. Might he have confessed something to Abigore and later regretted it? Perhaps he feared Abigore might break the Seal of Confession? These are guesses; I do not know why. But I do know that he did these things.”
“He said that he was only shortening the priest’s suffering,” I offered. “Could that be a motive? A sort of mercy killing?”
“Unfortunately that is a justification, not a motive,” said Marot.
The Commissioner rubbed the corner of a drooping eye. The bags were even more pronounced than usual, after yet another far too wakeful night.
“We know that he had reason to kill Mother Filippa, but we don’t know that he actually did it, at least not yet. We know that he did kill Father Abigore, but not why. Is that how the case may be summarized?” he said, and did not sound all too thrilled at the diagnosis.
“Yes, that is reasonably accurate,” admitted Marot. “Luckily the préfecture requires only that I can prove who. It is not necessary to explain why.”
The Commissioner looked even more tired, and I understood him. To determine the cause of death was the focus of all his efforts. He most definitely concerned himself with why.
“Mademoiselle Karno, I actually came to ask if you would speak with Imogene Leblanc for us,” said the inspector. “If possible today? It would be a great help if you could convince her to come out of the enclosure.”
I thought of the diary pages that now lay in the drawer of my dressing table up in my room. Oh, yes, I would like to speak with Imogene Leblanc. Very much so.
“I will do what I can,” I said virtuously. “Should we go at once?”
Imogen
e Leblanc’s arthritis-twisted hand rested on the head of a large spotted mixed-breed hunting dog.
“I borrowed it from Vabonne’s gamekeeper,” she said. “Michel Carreau. This is a large house to be alone in, so it is comforting to at least have a dog with me.”
She was no longer dressed in the convent’s postulant attire but was wearing a high-necked white blouse and an ill-fitting skirt in dark blue serge. A black ribbon around her right upper arm was the only sign of official mourning, but her eyes were red rimmed, and she dabbed them regularly with a handkerchief. The eczema on her face flared red against her pale skin.
At the convent, we had learned that she had gone home as soon as she received word of her father’s death, and that they did not know if she was coming back. There were two travel trunks on the parlor floor, which she was apparently in the process of unpacking, one with various items of clothing, the other full of books and papers.
She had let us in herself. There were no longer any servants at Les Merises, it seemed, which was also obvious from the layer of dust on the dark mahogany furniture and the heavy smell of wet dog and old pipe tobacco that hung in the carpets and the drapes. Imogene Leblanc apologized for neither.
“What is it you want?” she said, with a harshness in her voice that teetered on rudeness.
“Allow me to express my condolences for your loss,” said Inspector Marot.
Imogene nodded briefly. “Thank you.” She pressed the handkerchief against the edges of her nose and sniffed a little.
“And forgive us if we are intruding. But there are certain circumstances that must be clarified before we can close this tragic case.”
She did not say anything, just let her free hand slide across the dog’s brown-and-white head, only waiting, it seemed, for us to finish and leave. The inspector took out Vabonne’s Bible and placed it on the dusty tea table. He opened it to the passage from Revelation, marked with an inexpertly embroidered bookmark that I suspected was a gift from his daughter.
“Mademoiselle Leblanc, is this your father’s handwriting?”
She stared at the page for what seemed to me quite a long time. It was the longest comment, the one that contained the despairing cry: HAIL MARY FULL OF GRACE HELP ME PREVAIL NOT SUCCUMB FILL MY MIND WITH WISDOM GIVE ME COURAGE.
“Yes,” she said at last. “That is my father’s hand.”
“Thank you. Can you, for the sake of thoroughness, give me another example of his handwriting?”
“If you insist.”
She got up, with a bit of difficulty, and left the parlor with the dog at her heels. Luckily it was not a “devil” like the deceased Iago but a rather more amiable creature. It had barked at us when we arrived but its tail had been wagging at the same time.
“She is not particularly pleasant,” I said quietly. My eye had been caught by one of the books that stuck out of the trunk. On Bacteria: The Theory and Practice of Louis Pasteur.
“We are here to obtain proof against her dead father,” answered Marot. “Why should she be pleasant?”
I took the book and opened it. On the title page was a dedication, written in a confident and easily legible hand: “To Imogene Leblanc, from Louis Pasteur, in hopes of a rapid recovery. Endure. We conquered the Mad Dog, one day we will also conquer the Wolf.”
Louis Pasteur himself. He was the one who had written this inscription. Pasteur.
Imogene Leblanc returned with a few scraps of paper just as I was putting the book back into the trunk.
“I am sorry,” I said. “I did not mean to rifle your personal belongings. But did Pasteur really write this?”
Her gaze did not become any warmer, but she nodded briefly.
“When I was fifteen, I was very ill for a time,” she said. “My father took me to Paris for a consultation at Pasteur’s institute. As you can see, he was very kind.”
I was seized by jealousy. It was not very noble of me, and definitely not particularly mature, but I did in fact feel a moment’s regret that I had never suffered an illness deemed sufficiently interesting for a consultation with the Great Man.
“But you are better now?”
She held up her free hand so you could see the knots of arthritis. “I still suffer from occasional rheumatism.”
She had not mentioned the eczema, and perhaps it did not have anything to do with her more serious illness. Still, I could not help but begin to speculate. If arthritis was only one of the symptoms . . .
She handed the papers to the inspector, whose age luckily rendered him so farsighted that he had to hold them at a certain distance, giving me the opportunity to peek.
“Papa must have thrown away most of his papers,” she said. “But I found this.”
One was something as prosaic as a shopping list, the other a crumpled and unfinished letter.
Dear Madame Arnaud,
it said.
It is with deep regret sorrow that I must inform you that Lisette is not among gave up the ghost passed away in her sleep Sunday evening after some week’s
It stopped in midsentence and showed the effects of having been crumpled up. Presumably Leblanc had started again with a fresh sheet, and the letter, or, perhaps more correctly, the draft, had remained undated and unsigned. It was not written in capitals like the exclamations in Vabonne’s Bible, but the angular, clumsy handwriting was still recognizable.
“A sad message, it appears,” said Marot.
“We lost our old cook some months ago,” Imogene explained. “My father wrote to her sister.”
“What was the cause of death?” I asked.
Imogene Leblanc looked at me expressionlessly and still managed to indicate that she found the question inappropriate.
“She was past sixty,” she said. “At that age death needs no excuse to come calling.”
“Mademoiselle Leblanc, do you know if your father knew the priest at Espérance, Father Abigore?”
“No. I don’t think so. Is he the one who was killed?”
“Yes. But you know of no connection between them?”
“My father was a man of faith. He might of course have sought out Father Abigore, but our usual church is Trois Maries down in the village.”
“Was he the one who drove you and the students to Espérance for Cecile Montaine’s funeral?” I asked.
Once again that expressionless look. She did not care for my interference, I could feel that quite clearly.
“Yes. That is in fact correct.”
“Then he might have spoken with Father Abigore on that occasion?” Marot grasped at this straw with a certain eagerness.
“It is possible. I did not notice.”
“Mademoiselle Karno observed a confrontation between your father and Mother Filippa,” said the inspector. “Do you have any idea what that might have been about?”
“My father did not support my decision to seek admission to the convent. I think he believed Mother Filippa was an . . . inappropriate abbess.”
“In what way?”
“He understood, of course, that the convent had to keep a wolf pack for historical reasons. But that it was necessary to live with these animals as the abbess did . . . even to keep a wolf in her cell at night . . .” A deep blush spread under the eczema, the first sign of human emotions I had seen her express. “It was . . . improper. Unclean. That is what he called it.”
“Did you share his opinion?”
She hesitated. Dabbed her eyes and nose and cleared her throat loudly before she continued.
“I . . . I cannot deny that I found it disturbing. One could come up against that animal in the halls at any time. It was . . . wrong.”
“Why, then, did you wish to become a nun there?”
“When God calls, one does not question, Inspector.”
“But there must be other convents?”
“Not like this one. I attended the school myself as a child and a young woman, and have taught there for three years now. Believe me—that was where my mission lay.”
/>
“Mother Filippa told me that your father tried to prevent you from returning to the convent,” I said. “Is it true?”
“Yes. He did not understand how important it was. I tried to make him accept my calling and my mission, but I was never successful. It made him terribly upset that I set God’s authority above his. Finally he even tried to . . . lock me up. Until I ‘got better,’ he said. As if my calling was a kind of illness. But that is not how it is, little miss.” Her voice suddenly became strangely accusatory. “You arrive with your loupe and your pipettes and think you can tell the healthy from the sick. But not until one is called does one understand that the world is sick, and that one has now been healed.”
She had not liked being examined, I remembered. Only Mother Filippa’s calm authority had made her submit.
One day we will also conquer the Wolf, Pasteur had written.
“Do you suffer from lupus?” The words flew out of my mouth before I had considered the wisdom of speaking them.
She stared at me with hostile eyes. “I cannot see how that is any business of yours.”
I suppose I should have been polite and dropped the subject, but I could not help observing her with a certain clinical interest. Lupus was such a mysterious illness. It crept up on the sufferer in widely different forms—the catalog of symptoms included fever, dermatitis, edemas, hypersensitivity to sun, stomatitis, muscle aches, arthritis, chest pains, cramps, temporary dementia or depression, personality changes, organ failure, hair loss, anemia . . . The list was long and confusing. Some patients had only one symptom, others a whole array, and the illness could lie dormant for years only to reappear with entirely different symptoms. As far back as the 1100s, Rogerius called it le loup—the wolf—not only because some of the skin lesions that might occur were reminiscent of wolf bites, but also because of its lurking, inexplicable behavior.
“Do you have symptoms other than the arthritis and your eczema?” I asked.
“Madeleine . . . ,” Marot protested. But Imogene Leblanc just continued to look at me with the same cold expression.
“No,” she said. “Was that all you wanted to know?”