Chapter Thirty-Five

“I can’t believe the butler did it,” Alan said. He, Magda, and Rachel were clustered around a table at the back of Bistrot Vivienne that evening. Alan gazed dejectedly at the tabletop as he spoke. “I didn’t want to say, but I thought it would be Mathilde. After those arguments about money.”

Rachel shook her head. “There were no arguments.”

“But—”

“Fulke made them up.”

“He made them up?”

“Isn’t that terrible?” Magda was still outraged by this, as if being a murderer came a distant second to being a liar.

“I gave him an opening to steer me in the wrong direction, and he took it. There were no arguments with Edgar about money, and she wasn’t cruel to Elisabeth.” Rachel self-corrected, “Well, she was, but no more than usual. Fulke just made it up so we wouldn’t consider him.”

Magda’s fingers strayed to the side of her neck. She said grimly, “When he was pushed, he had what it took.”

“But pushed how?” Alan shrugged. “That’s the part I still don’t get.”

“I don’t blame you.” Magda had heard the explanation already. “It’s weird.”

“It’s not weird!” Rachel thought of Fulke as she had last seen him, sitting grayly across from her under the fluorescent light of an interview room. The police, delayed by a student demonstration on the Boulevard Saint Michel, had finally shown up and taken them all to the commissariat, where, after his interview, Fulke had asked to see her. He said he wanted to apologize. “It’s not weird,” she repeated. “It’s sad. He killed them because he wasn’t in their wills.”

Alan stared at her blankly. “What?”

Magda said, “I told you it was weird.”

Rachel sighed. “They didn’t leave him anything. Remember, I told you that early on Magda and I thought Mathilde might have killed Edgar because she knew he’d reduced the amount of her bequest?” Alan nodded. “Well, we overlooked the effect of being left nothing at all.” She leaned forward. “Fulke worked for Edgar for decades, with absolute devotion, but Edgar didn’t care. When it came to it, he didn’t make any provision for him. He included Elisabeth des Troyes, whom he’d used for his embezzlement, and he included his ex-wife who’d divorced him, but he didn’t include the man who’d overseen his life for more than twenty years. And then, after Fulke stayed to do the same for David, the same thing happened! He was good enough to witness wills, but not to be in them.” She paused. “So he did it because he felt”—she chose her words carefully—“taken for granted.”

Silence. Then Alan said, “Are you serious?”

She nodded.

“But, I mean, it’s counterproductive. If you’re going to kill somebody over a will, surely you want it to be a will you’re in?”

“That’s exactly what Fulke said when he was trying to put me off the scent! And of course it’s the logical way to look at it. But jilted lovers aren’t logical. And effectively that’s what Fulke was.” She gave a sorrowful shake of her head. “He lived with Edgar for more than twenty years, cooked for him, anticipated his needs. And then all of a sudden he found out that he didn’t feature as a person in Edgar’s mind.” She thought for a second. “That’s the problem with anticipating needs, I guess. If you do it well, the other person doesn’t realize they ever had them, so they can’t be grateful that you’ve anticipated them.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking about that.” Magda’s voice was speculative. “I suppose it does make a strange kind of sense for Edgar. But David had only just inherited—there hadn’t been any time to create expectation.”

Rachel remembered Fulke’s shoulders slumped over the aluminum police table, his eyes wide as he looked at her: “Monsieur David knew Monsieur Bowen had left me nothing. And if I had been working for Monsieur Bowen for over twenty-five years, I had been working for Monsieur David his whole life.” His voice trembled. “I helped him tie his shoes!”

Rachel had longed to take his hand, but she knew the young gardien on duty would tell her there was no touching.

“I’m sorry, Fulke,” she said, then reflected that it must be the first time someone had apologized to a murderer for his motive.

“Thank you, Madame Levis.” He would remain formal to the last.

“Constancy creates its own bond,” she said to Magda, refocusing. “Or it can. It had in Fulke. He’d been a constant in David’s life, a loving and devoted helper. But for David, that constancy just made him part of the furniture. Like father, like son. And so,” she grimaced, “like father, like son.”

“Well, not exactly like,” Alan pointed out. “David’s murder was much more violent. Why such different methods?”

Rachel shrugged. “Different circumstances. With Edgar, he had more time to plan, to brood on his injury and eat his revenge cold. Whereas with David …”

“I was so angry. I was overcome,” Fulke had said. “Otherwise, I would never have used the candelabrum.” He looked regretful.

“And when he realized that there was no way to cover up such a violent crime,” Rachel continued, “he told a story about the men in the elevator coming around. That wasn’t true either; they were just plausible suspects. But with Edgar he wanted something that would look natural, so there would be no suspicion and he could stay to help David. So he waited until a night when Edgar decided to have soup, and he made some extra. Then he … well, he …” She took a breath. “He drowned him in it. He told me that he stood where he would stand to serve, as if he were waiting for Edgar to taste the soup, and just as he picked up his spoon, Fulke pushed his head down.” Alan looked shocked.

“Of course, everything went everywhere,” said Magda, who had heard this part of the story in the taxi from the commissariat. “But he knew where replacements were. A new tablecloth, napkins, and he’d made extra soup, so he could fill a new bowl and make it look as if Edgar had just fainted into it. And then he hid the table linens to take them to the pressing when he went out the next day.”

“And that’s where Catherine comes in,” Rachel cut in. “Because she came to pick up her things from the appartement before he’d taken the linens to the pressing. He didn’t say how, but she found the original tablecloth where he’d hidden it—”

“She did seem like the type to snoop,” Magda interjected

“Talking about snooping,” Rachel said, “the receipt for them was still in the pile I saw, buried in there. If only I’d had the sense to look at each one closely.”

“Beginner’s mistake.” Magda patted her hand.

“Anyway, she found them, and she took a picture of them with her phone before she left. Then she blackmailed him with the photo.”

“Madame Nadeau was a very foolish woman.” Fulke had shaken his head under the harsh light. “One would never have thought she’d make the connection. Perhaps her need for money sharpened her powers of reasoning.” He didn’t seem particularly sorry that he’d killed her, and he confirmed this impression by adding, “But it didn’t sharpen them enough. I offered to bring her payments to her apartment, and I made two visits before I did anything, to accustom the neighbors to seeing me. The third time, when I got there, it was easy to back her out of the window and then wait and slip out in the hubbub over the body.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I always found her very vulgar.”

“And leaving the tablecloth to be discovered wasn’t his only stumble.” Magda’s interjection brought her back to the present. “In the heat of the moment, he made a mistake with the wine too.” She and Rachel exchanged a glance of vindication.

“He was nervous,” Rachel said to Alan. “You can see how it might happen.”

“Oh yes.” He nodded. “I’m always nervous after I drown someone in a bowl of soup I’ve spent all day preparing.”

She ignored him. “He was nervous, and Edgar had knocked over the original bottle while he was … um … struggling in the soup. But Fulke wanted it to look like a simple faint, nothing disturbed. And after he’d changed Edgar into new clothes—”

Alan gave a small twitch.

“I know, but I suppose he was used to at least helping Edgar dress, and fully dressing him was just one more step. And after he’d done that, and changed the linens, and the bowl, the nearest bottle to hand was the one he’d been planning to have with his own veal.” She looked down. “I never considered that Fulke might like rosé.” She felt ashamed. Fulke was right: she’d never really granted him any more humanity than the others had.

“Wait, the butler was having veal?” Alan raised his eyebrows. “It sounds to me like he was doing just fine. He didn’t need to be included in anybody’s will.”

“Oh, Alan!” Rachel laughed, but then she sobered. “That’s not the point, and you know it. Loyalty is the point. He’d been loyal to them, and he thought they should be loyal to him.”

“And quite right.” Alan put his hand over hers. “Loyalty deserves loyalty in return.” Then he straightened up. “So, ‘Amateur Investigatresses Solve Unnoticed Murder.’ ”

“Investigatrices,” Rachel corrected automatically.

He let it go. “Very well done, ladies. Allow me to buy you a bottle of ruinously expensive champagne in admiration.” He raised a hand to catch the waiter’s eye. “I’ll tell you this, though,” he said over his shoulder to Rachel.

“What?” She smiled at him.

“You can cross ‘butler’ off that list of servants you should have. We’re never hiring one.”

“Wait,” said Magda, who wasn’t quite done. “I have one more question.”

“What?”

“Edgar said you could choose a book for yourself when you’d finished. Now you’re finished. So, which one are you going to pick?”

“Oh, that.” Rachel saw the waiter coming toward them. “I’ll tell you next time.”