“I heard that you left Omega,” Agnes said to Christine. They met on the lawn in front of the Perrault et Chavanon factory, Agnes having called ahead.
“I couldn’t leave Marie with all of this—” Christine waved her hand around the property. “Knowing that Father was killed has shaken her badly. And Leo. We tried to spare him the worst, but he knows. He liked Monsieur Patel. It was a shock.”
“Particularly since Patel took great care to appear interested in Leo in the week after his father’s death. Learning that he had an ulterior motive is traumatic.” Agnes turned to look down the hill toward town. The sun was shining and it didn’t look as gray as she remembered from previous visits.
“You’ve decided to rejoin Perrault et Chavanon? Carry on the tradition?”
Christine didn’t speak for a minute. “Yes, the tradition. We will return to our roots and focus on the highest-quality pieces we can manufacture. It’s what I always wanted to do.”
“But not what your father wanted?”
“No, it wasn’t. We just thought it was. Funny how a tradition can mean different things to different people.”
A car pulled in and Christine flushed. Agnes watched a handsome man step out. Gianfranco Giberti. She stifled a smile. “You broke it off with him, not the other way around.”
“I couldn’t believe that he wanted to be with me.” Christine waved and he waved back and gestured that he was going to the house. “He’s been a real help these last days, after … everything.”
“I hope you didn’t mind me bringing Leo’s box here and asking you to return it. He challenged me to the nine-drawer discovery. I didn’t have time to find more than two.” Agnes held Christine’s gaze. “Were you more fortunate?”
Giberti called out and Christine said she’d be there in a moment. “Yes, Inspector, I was able to open all nine drawers.”
“That’s what you were looking for the day you visited Leo at the Institute?”
“I was convinced Father had saved an important part of his work electronically. He went to see Leo so often, almost too often, that I started to wonder if he was using the Institute as a place to keep something hidden. I knew Leo had a few of the boxes, just not how many. That day you saw me in Leo’s room, I’d searched them all and decided I was wrong.”
“It was only chance that Leo had loaned his newest box to a friend,” Agnes reflected. “It was fortunate, actually. That’s the day Monsieur Patel delivered the photograph to Leo. It was an odd thing for him to do, not in keeping with Indian tradition, and it bothered me later. If Leo hadn’t loaned the box out, Patel would have found it before you.”
“Would he have destroyed it?”
“I think so. He wanted to protect his uncle, which meant erasing all evidence of a business deal. I don’t know that he wanted to steal the invention, only eliminate the connection.”
“It was thanks to you we found it. I wouldn’t have gone back to look. The flash drive was there.” Christine gave a bright smile. “Finding all nine secret places was almost impossible. I nearly took a hammer to it.”
“You didn’t give me his real notebook, did you?”
Christine blushed. “It was Father’s notebook, just not the one you wanted. He’d started keeping two. He loved a secret and kept making notes in the one that matched the series. I suppose he liked the idea of a decoy. The real one he kept with him at all times.”
“This means his legacy isn’t lost.”
“No, Inspector, my father’s legacy isn’t lost. Although it won’t be a Perrault et Chavanon legacy. Not exactly.” Christine looked into the distance. “Marie made a decision when Leo asked why Monsieur Patel killed Father. She didn’t want to tell him it was because Father backed out on an agreement with his friend. That’s a hard thing to tell a boy.”
Agnes nodded. This was a nuance that did not concern the police. Narendra Patel had killed two men to appease his own sense of betrayal. He had killed. End of story. Nothing would justify what he had done.
Christine wrapped her arms across her chest, but it didn’t strike Agnes as the gesture of a woman protecting herself; it was the gesture of a woman content. “I don’t object to the large brands. They have a role and I loved my time at Omega. But I have a chance now to make Perrault et Chavanon what it once was. A company that makes fine, exceptional, sometimes unique timepieces. That’s my dream.”
Agnes smiled at Christine. “Now you have a way to finance the company’s future.”
“It’s like a miracle, isn’t it?”
Agnes’s phone rang.
It was Petit. “Are you finished there?” Before she could answer, he continued, “Because you’re needed. They’ve arrested the woman you called the most beautiful woman in the world. She says she’ll only speak with you.”
Agnes grinned. Maybe they would find out where the Roach hid all that money after all.
After saying goodbye to Christine, she slid into her car. Something crinkled in her coat pocket. When she pulled it out, she remembered that Vallotton had put a note there the night she took him to the barn to uncover Fontenay’s distillery. She’d forgotten about it until now.
She opened the note and read it. Then read it again. I must go to Paris in a few days. Would you accompany me? We can stay at my house there, or I can put you up in a suite at the Meurice. Either way I promise you an adventure.
Agnes grinned. Paris. What would Sybille think? Agnes was shocked by the realization that she didn’t care. She would go.