The Scapegoat

  'Of course,' I said.

  'I have already questioned Berthe, the woman who tends the cows. She saw your wife leaning from the window, as though reaching out - so she described it - and then she grasped at the air, as it seemed, and fell. Berthe screamed for help, and was heard by the cook and Charlotte, who went instantly to the moat. The cook telephoned for the ambulance from Villars, and Dr Moutier has told me the rest. I should like to establish that nobody else went to the bedroom after Germaine, the femme de chambre whom I saw just now, took up her breakfast.'

  'Charlotte might have done,' said Renee.

  'Perhaps you would ring for her, Monsieur?' suggested the commissaire.

  'Charlotte is my personal maid: I will ring for her,' said the comtesse. A hand went out from the armchair to the bell-rope. 'It was Charlotte who broke the news of the accident to me. She was hysterical. So, I imagine, were the others. You won't learn much from her. Servants always lose their heads in a disaster.'

  When Gaston answered the bell she told him the commissaire wished to speak to Charlotte.

  'I don't quite follow,' said Paul, 'why it matters what Charlotte or Germaine said to my sister-in-law. It has no bearing on the fact that she became giddy and fell from the window.'

  'I am sorry, Monsieur,' said the commissaire. 'I quite understand the distress all this must cause to the family. It is just that, in order to conform with the requirements of the law, I must establish beyond any shadow of doubt that the cause of the fall was accidental. Unhappily, when someone falls from a height this is not always the case.'

  Renee, startled, turned suddenly white. 'What do you mean?' she asked.

  'Madame,' explained the commissaire gently, 'when a person is in a highly nervous condition it leads them, sometimes, to do dangerous things. I am not suggesting that is what happened in this case. As I have already said, in my view the cause is more likely to have been a sudden attack of giddiness. But I have to make quite sure.'

  'Do you mean,' asked Blanche, 'that my sister-in-law may have fallen from the window purposely?'

  'It is possible, Madame. Not probable.'

  There was a sudden silence in the room, a silence filled, it seemed to me, as I looked from one to another of their troubled faces, with swift, unspoken denial, born of their inner guilt that each one of them might have contributed to Francoise's death. Blanche, who had so successfully taken from Marie-Noel the affection which otherwise would have been given to the child's mother; Paul, with his endless complaints about the terms of the Marriage Settlement, which made it impossible for Francoise to finance the family business; Renee, who had cared nothing that her intrigue with Jean would cause Francoise unhappiness if it came to her knowledge; and the comtesse, whose fierce maternal possessiveness had deprived Francoise not only of her husband's tenderness, but also of her rightful place in the household - none of them was free from a measure of responsibility for the state of mind which had perhaps sent Francoise to her death.

  The tension was broken as Charlotte came into the room, looking aggrieved and suspicious.

  'You sent for me, Madame la Comtesse?'

  'The commissaire de police has some questions to ask you, Charlotte,' replied the countess.

  'I want to know,' said the commissaire, 'whether you had any conversation this morning with Madame la Comtesse Jean before the accident?'

  Charlotte flashed an angry look at me, and I realized, from her expression, that she believed he was asking her this question because of some remark or complaint of mine. She thought I had already told him about her visit to the bedroom, and that she was now to be reprimanded.

  'I only saw Madame Jean for a few minutes,' she said. 'I spread no gossip, made no mischief. If Monsieur le Comte thinks I have been causing trouble he is wrong. I said nothing to Madame Jean about the telephone conversation.'

  'Telephone conversation?' said the commissaire. 'What telephone conversation?'

  Charlotte must have realized that she had made a mistake. She looked resentfully at her mistress, and then at me. Anxiety to cover her past actions had led to her own betrayal. 'I beg your pardon,' she said, 'I thought Monsieur le Comte wanted to find fault with me. I happened to overhear a long-distance call of his to Paris, but I never mentioned this to Madame Jean. I knew my place. It wasn't for me to add to her worries.'

  Everyone turned in my direction, their expressions - from Renee's look of suspicion to Dr Lebrun's evident embarrassment - betraying the obvious conclusions which they drew from Charlotte's barbed sentences. It was the comtesse who broke silence first.

  'My son's telephone call was a business one,' she said. 'It can have no possible bearing on the present situation.'

  The commissaire coughed apologetically. 'I have no desire to probe into Monsieur le Comte's financial affairs, Madame,' he said, 'but anything that might have increased his wife's anxiety is of interest.' He turned to me. 'Did she know about this telephone conversation?' he asked.

  'She did,' I said.

  'There was nothing about it to cause distress?'

  'Nothing whatsoever. It referred to a contract I had negotiated in Paris.'

  The commissaire turned to Charlotte. 'Why did you think the telephone call to Paris might have added to Madame la Comtesse Jean's worries?' he asked. His tone was not unkindly, merely abrupt.

  Charlotte, already hostile, took it as further reproof. Once again she looked at me spitefully. 'That is for Monsieur le Comte to say, not me,' she replied.

  Paul intervened. 'This is quite ridiculous,' he said. 'My brother had renewed a contract with the firm of Carvalet in Paris, who take a large proportion of our glass. We were delighted he had done so. Failure would have necessitated closing down the verrerie. As it is, we have renewed on terms which will enable us to carry on, at any rate for a further six months. My sister-in-law was as pleased as the rest of us.'

  Talbert stepped forward, looking puzzled. 'I don't want to contradict you, Monsieur,' he said to Paul, 'but your facts are surely wrong? Carvalet sent me a copy of the new contract only this morning. It is substantially different from the last: the terms are most decidedly to your disadvantage. I was amazed when I read it. Naturally, today's tragedy put it out of my mind, but since it is now mentioned ...' he glanced at me, 'possibly Madame la Comtesse Jean was a trifle upset. She must have realized that the birth of an heir was more important than ever.'

  Paul stared at him, stupefied. 'What do you mean?' he said. 'How can the contract be to our disadvantage? The terms are most favourable.'

  'No,' I said.

  I saw the commissaire glance surreptitiously at his watch. The tangled finances of the de Gue were not his concern.

  'I can explain to my brother later about the contract,' I said to him quickly. 'I can assure you now that my wife was not in the least concerned about it. I took her into my confidence, and she appreciated it. There is nothing more I can say. Now, are you ready to go upstairs and inspect her room?'

  'Thank you, Monsieur.' He turned to Charlotte for his last question. 'Apart from natural anxiety over the little girl, you found Madame la Comtesse Jean her usual self?' he asked.

  Charlotte shrugged her shoulders. 'I suppose so,' she said sullenly. 'I don't know. Madame Jean was easily discouraged and depressed. She told me this last upset of hers had come about because some favourite pieces of porcelain had been broken. She set great store by her possessions. She even dusted them herself, and would let no one touch them. "At least they're mine," she used to say. "They're not part of St Gilles."'

  The venomous parting stroke embraced us all. The chateau stood condemned. I wondered if the commissaire saw Francoise as I saw her, an isolated figure clinging to the treasures of the home she had left, lonely, neglected, sought after solely for her fortune.

  He asked me whether he might now see the bedroom, and I took him upstairs, the others remaining below in the salon. As we went along the corridor he said to me, 'I must again express regret, Monsieur, for all this inconvenience, and f
or adding to your distress at such a time.'

  'Please don't apologize,' I said. 'You have been very considerate.'

  'It is a curious thing,' he said, 'but generally, after a tragedy such as this, those most concerned with the deceased feel themselves, as it were, on trial. They wonder whether it was their fault, and what they could have done to prevent it. In this case, the answer is nothing. Everyone who mattered was out of the chateau. It was unfortunate, but nobody's fault. The only one to blame, perhaps, was your little girl, and she will never know.'

  I opened the door of the bedroom, and as we entered I saw that the shutters were no longer closed, as I had left them, but were flung wide, and the windows too thrust back against the wall. The child's body was across the sill, one hand grasping the window-frame, the other, with her head and shoulders, out of sight. I heard the commissaire catch his breath. I put my hand on his arm. To dash forward was the impulse of us both, yet to do so might have startled her, causing her to lose the hold she already had. For the eternity of perhaps ten seconds we waited, immobile. Then the child's hand shifted its grip, the body wriggled back across the sill, and the whole of her emerged from the wide space between the windows. She slipped back into the room to face us, her eyes shining, her hair dishevelled.

  'I've got it,' she said. 'It was caught on the ledge.'

  The commissaire found his voice before I did. I could not speak. I could only stare at Marie-Noel, who was safe and unaware of danger. She seemed to be holding what looked like a duster in her hand.

  'What have you got, my child?' he asked gently.

  'Maman's locket,' she said, 'the locket Papa brought her last week from Paris. She must have been shaking her duster out of the window, as she always did, and the locket was caught in it. They were lying together on the ledge below. I leant out and saw them.' She came towards us. 'Look,' she said, 'the pin of the locket is sticking into the duster. Unless I had climbed out as far as I did I couldn't have reached them. If Maman had only rung her bell, Gaston or someone would have rescued them for her. But she was impatient. She thought she could reach them herself.' She looked at the commissaire. 'Are you religious?' she asked.

  'I hope so, Mademoiselle,' he said, taken aback.

  'Papa is not. He is a sceptic. But finding the locket and the duster was an answer to prayer. I said to the Sainte Vierge, "I did little for Maman when she was alive. Let me do something for her now she is dead." The Sainte Vierge told me to lean out of the window. I did not want to do it. It was unpleasant. But I found the locket. I still don't know why that should help Maman, unless it is that to her, in Paradise, it seems better for her daughter to wear the locket than to let it lie sadly rusted and forgotten on a ledge.'

  23

  Before the commissaire left he assured me that he was perfectly satisfied my wife had fallen accidentally from the window, and asked me to call on him the next day at eleven o'clock. He understood that my brother had arranged for the body to be brought home to the chateau afterwards. Once again he expressed his condolences, once again I thanked him. A moment or two later he left in his car, closely followed by the two doctors. Only the lawyer now remained, and he had the grace to apologize for his presence.

  'I only stayed, Monsieur,' he said, 'because I understand, from the conversation I have had with your brother, that he knew nothing whatsoever of the terms of the new Carvalet contract. I thought perhaps a few words now might clarify the position.'

  'Nothing will clarify the position,' I said, 'except for my brother to read it, which he is at liberty to do whenever he pleases. I have it upstairs in my dressing-room now.'

  Paul hesitated. 'I'm sorry to be persistent, especially at this moment,' he said, 'but you can hardly blame me. From what Maitre Talbert has been telling me, the new contract differs from the old on the only vital points. Does that mean everything you told Jacques and me on your return from Paris was a lie?'

  'Yes,' I said.

  'What's that to do with you?' interrupted his mother. 'Jean owns the verrerie, not you. He had a perfect right to make what arrangements he pleased.'

  'I try to direct it, don't I?' said Paul. 'God knows it's always been a thankless task. I never wanted to do it. There was nobody else. But why should Jean lie, that's what I want to know? What was the point of making fools of us all?'

  'I didn't want to make fools of you,' I said. 'I thought it was the only way to save the verrerie. I changed my mind after I came back from Paris. Don't ask me why. You wouldn't understand.'

  'How did you think you were going to raise the capital?' asked Paul. 'Talbert says that under the new terms it would mean running the verrerie at a complete loss.'

  'I don't know. I hadn't thought.'

  'Monsieur was hoping for an heir?' suggested the lawyer. 'No doubt that is why he confided the matter to Madame la Comtesse Jean? Of course, as things have turned out ...'

  He stopped. Discretion overwhelmed him. The comtesse stared at him from her chair beside the fire.

  'Well?' she said. 'Finish your sentence, Maitre. As things have turned out - what?'

  The lawyer spoke apologetically to me. 'I am sure it is no secret to any one of the family, Monsieur, that under the terms of the Marriage Settlement you come into a considerable fortune on the death of your wife.'

  'No secret at all,' I said.

  'So that in point of fact,' the lawyer continued, 'whether the terms of the Carvalet contract are favourable or unfavourable, it doesn't matter so very much. Increase of capital will cover the loss.'

  Nobody seemed to have noticed, or even cared, that Marie-Noel was seated on a stool beside her grandmother, and was listening intently to the conversation.

  'Does Monsieur Talbert mean that Papa gets some money after all?' she said. 'I thought he only got money if I had a brother?'

  'Be quiet,' said her grandmother.

  'Yes,' said Paul slowly, 'I suppose we did know that. But it's not one of the things people discuss in a family. Naturally, every one of us was hoping my sister-in-law would have a son.'

  The lawyer said nothing. There was nothing he could say. Paul turned to me. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but if you don't mind, I still think it's only fair to me if I see the contract.'

  I threw the bunch of keys on the table. 'It's in the valise in the wardrobe,' I said. 'Go and find it, if you like.'

  Marie-Noel jumped to her feet. 'I'll find it,' she said, seizing the keys. She was out of the room before anyone thought of stopping her. Not that it mattered; the contract would have to be read.

  'Really, Paul,' said Renee, 'you're being very inconsiderate. As Maitre Talbert says, the position is changed now, because of poor Francoise's death, and I hardly think this is the moment to start talking business. It makes me feel extremely uncomfortable, and it must be very painful for Jean.'

  'It's painful for the whole family,' said Paul. 'I don't want the verrerie to benefit because of Francoise. I hate being made a fool of, that's all.'

  Maitre Talbert was ill at ease. 'I apologize,' he said. 'I would not have mentioned the matter had I known there was this unfortunate misunderstanding between you as to the terms. Naturally, I am at your disposal, Monsieur,' he said to me, 'for a full discussion on this and other matters at any time convenient to you after the funeral.'

  'The funeral will be on Friday,' said the comtesse. 'I have already arranged it with Monsieur le cure. My daughter-in-law will be brought home the day after tomorrow and will lie here so that our friends and everyone in the district will have time to pay their respects. I shall of course receive them.' The lawyer bowed. 'You will have the kindness, Maitre, to see that notification of the death goes to the newspapers this evening, so that it can be read in tomorrow's editions. I have written the notices myself.' She took some sheets of paper from her lap, and handed them to him. 'Monsieur le cure is arranging with the Mother Superior of the convent at Lauray to send sisters to the chateau to watch during the nights of Wednesday and Thursday.' She paused for reflection, tapping the arm
of her chair with her fingers. 'The bearers, of course, will be our own people on the estate. Let us hope the weather holds. My husband died in winter when the snow was on the ground, and the men found it very slippery as they carried him over the bridge.'

  The sound of Marie-Noel running down the stairs and across the hall could be heard through the open door.

  'Not so much noise, child,' said the comtesse as she burst into the room. 'One should tread softly in a house of mourning.'

  Marie-Noel went straight to Paul and gave him the document.

  'Have I your permission?' he asked, glancing at me.

  'Naturally,' I said.

  For a while there was no sound except the rustling of paper as Paul turned the crisp pages of the contract. Then he turned to me.

  'You realize,' he said, his voice expressionless, betraying nothing of what he must have felt, 'that this contract goes against all we agreed to before you went to Paris?'

  'Yes,' I said.

  'You've signed the duplicate and returned it to them?'

  'I signed it in the office on Saturday, and posted it on the way home.'

  'Then there's nothing more to be done. As Maman says, you own the business, you can make what terms you please. It just means that, as far as I am concerned, trying to run it for you becomes impossible.'

  He stood up and handed me back the contract. His frustrated, harassed face looked suddenly old and tired. 'Heaven knows I don't pretend to have brains,' he said, 'but if I had gone to Paris I could have done better than that. Only someone with immense capital behind him could afford to put his name to such terms. All I can conclude is that you were in an extraordinarily reckless frame of mind the whole time you were in Paris.'

  For a moment no one spoke. Then the comtesse reached for the bell beside the fire. 'I think,' she said, 'that we needn't detain Maitre Talbert any longer. A prolonged discussion on the future of the verrerie is quite out of place at the present time, and I am sure that he must have plenty to do in Villars, as we have here in the chateau.'