“NOT RED WINE THIS time! What happened? You get into street fight?” The Vietnamese girl in the cleaner’s in Saint Symphorien grinned as she wrote up a slip. “This may take two days—you very hard on clothes.”
The “Poste Provisoire” of the gendarmerie was not easy to find. Pertois had told me that it was in the primary school, but classes were in session and I had no wish to interrupt the flow of wisdom that was being imparted to French youth.
Finally, I spotted a—well, shack was the only description—a wooden construction with a tricolor flag flying above the door and a shiny new telephone line running into it.
I knocked and went in to find Pertois sitting at a school desk that might have fitted him once but didn’t now. His long legs stuck way out in front of it and he had a pile of papers in front of him on the tiny top; other piles were on more desks. Around the walls were shelves, mostly empty, and Pertois waved a hand at them.
“This used to be the book depository for the school. They no longer use it and have kindly loaned it to me as a poste provisoire.”
He carefully withdrew his legs from the small cramped desk, completing the motion with a flourish like pulling a cork from a bottle. He stretched to his maximum height, which was a full six feet. Behind the round lenses, his eyes were like disks of black coal.
“We haven’t been able to find the man who fired the crossbow yet,” he said. “We don’t even have a physical description. Can you help? You are the only one who recalls seeing him.”
“I had only a fleeting impression. I couldn’t point him out in a lineup.”
“Height? Build?”
“I’m afraid not. In those robes, I don’t remember any distinguishing characteristics. He was not exceptionally tall, or short. He wasn’t noticeably heavy…”
He nodded, resigned.
“There was one thing though …”
“Yes?” He leaned forward eagerly.
“The way he fired the crossbow—he must have been familiar with it. There was no hesitation or fumbling. He swung it up and fired as if he were well practiced in using it.”
Pertois grunted. “That might be some help. It’s not a common accomplishment.” He paused. “You still think he was shooting at you?”
“Fox believed I was threatened and after two attempts on my life, I naturally suspected it was a third when a crossbow bolt seemed to be fired at me.”
“Two attempts on you?” He fixed me with a piercing stare through his round lenses that plainly said I had been holding out on him. “I fished you out of a wine vat—that was presumably one. You didn’t tell me about the other.”
I told him now. He rubbed the top of his short, scrubby black hair in a ruminative gesture as he listened. “I was groggy from sleep when I half-woke and saw this huge thing above me. It looked like a giant insect—like a dragonfly. Naturally, I wasn’t going to tell anybody—it would have sounded too absurd.”
“Demoiselle …” He used the same word that I had used, the French for dragonfly. “That’s what they call those aircraft—those flimsy little things that look as if Louis Blériot might have flown them.”
I went on to tell him the rest and about Suvarov. “It was his aircraft,” I concluded, “but he says he wasn’t flying it. Says he was in Sophia Antipolis—I suppose that could be checked. I saw him at the festival and he said he was close to finding out who flew it that day.”
Pertois grunted. Abruptly—most of his movements were abrupt and jerky like a marionette—he swept a pile of papers off a desk and waved a hand at it. I sat on the top, not wanting to get trapped in it whereupon school memories might come flooding back. Pertois sat on another. “Two attempts on your life! And now I find you standing next to Elwyn Fox who is shot dead!”
Was this the time to bring up the charge of the sangliers? I thought not.
Pertois shifted his position on the uncomfortable desk top.
“You say you have never heard of Andre Chantier?”
“Not until you asked me about him when we talked in the bar. You said he worked at the Willesford vineyard but left.”
He nodded. “He left, yes, and was found dead a week later.” After a pause he said, “So you can see why I was perturbed to find you standing over a dead body at that same vineyard.”
“I suppose so,” I admitted.
He squinted at me. “And why is someone so determined to kill you? Because you are writing an article in a magazine?”
He had boxed me into a corner very neatly. “Fox warned me,” I said, trying to extricate myself. “How was Chantier killed?” I asked.
“I didn’t say he was killed. I said he was found dead. He was drowned.”
“You mean he drowned or he was drowned?”
He looked away, pondering how much to tell me. “We had a little luck. As part of a national program, the medical examiner’s office was trying out some new methods. These concerned the analysis, of stomach contents and went as far as analyzing water in the stomach and lungs. You see, water varies in different locations. The differences are small but we were able to determine that although Chantier’s body was found in Marseille harbor, the water in his lungs was the water of Ajaccio in Corsica.”
“A triumph for French science,” I commented.
“In addition, the forensic people were able to establish the time of death fairly accurately and you didn’t have anything to do with it.”
I eased my position on the desk. “I’m glad to hear you … You say you know I had nothing to do with it? How?”
“Because you were in Scotland at the time.”
It would have been forgivable if he had looked smug. All I could do was goggle at him.
“How do you know that?”
“Our Sûreté office in Paris talked to Scotland Yard. An inspector there called Hemingway vouched for you. He mentioned your unfortunate habit of having your food investigations become mixed up with criminal activities.”
I probably showed my relief. Better to have my cover blown than be a murder suspect. Pertois continued.
“Chantier’s death seemed merely strange at the time, but then the private detective, Morel, began poking into Willesford vineyard affairs. When you found Laplace dead, the vineyard was obviously at the center of the case. I called Willesford in London and asked what you were really doing here. Sir Charles didn’t give me much detail but he authorized you to tell me whatever I need to know. You can call him and verify this, of course.”
“Of course,” I said weakly.
“With two—or perhaps three—attempts on your life and now three deaths, you’re becoming a one-man crime wave, aren’t you?”
“Not me!” I said fervently. “It’s this vineyard—”
“My first reaction was to have Sir Charles recall you. This is a murder investigation and it might be better for both us if you were out of it. However, he didn’t agree. He reminded me that I am a French policeman and he is a British lord. He pointed out that he would not accept such a—well, such a request.”
“So you’re stuck with me,” I said brightly. “We have to cooperate.”
He sniffed. It wasn’t the vote of confidence I would have liked but it would have to do. He slid off the desk and stood before me. He said reluctantly, “It also means that I have to confide in you. I am not a gendarme.”