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CALVIQUE, THE POLICE inspector familiar with the chateau’s vandalism, was a small, olive-skinned man with a thin black moustache. At the station he had begun by pacing his office with a vehement indignation that made the teenage culprit cringe like a scolded puppy. Tom and I stood in a corner well out of the way.
"Robert D'Van. What reason did you have for throwing paint at the gate of the chateau, Robert D’Van?" Calvique asked in their natural language. The redheaded boy's lanky frame twitched like a marionette lifted then quickly dropped.
"No reason. Just for fun," he answered with attempted bravado.
Calvique allowed his voice an angry edge, "Destroying property is not fun–it is something fools do. Surely there was another reason."
Robert's brow creased with the effort of a decision. His cheeks puffed and deflated twice before the answer finally burst forth. "I heard the chateau will be turned over to the Miquon School if it closed."
"That’s nonsense!" Tom exclaimed. "I have already spoken to the headmaster about those awful rumors. The chateau was intended to remain a museum permanently.”
The policeman weathered Tom's outburst with folded arms, then once again addressed the boy. "Am I to understand your loyalty to your school is so great you would risk committing a crime for it?"
Robert's lips tightened. "Yes...Yes, it is," he replied.
Calvique's pacing turned toward me just then, yet I detected no reaction to the improbable answer. "Was that why you dismantled the stone wall in the courtyard and dug up the garden?"
The boy's pale eyes widened. "That was not me!"
"Who was it then?"
"I don't know. But it was not me."
"Perhaps not," Calvique agreed. "But you must have some idea who did the rest. Friends of yours who also felt strongly about the school?"
"No. I don't know..."
"Who told you vandalizing the chateau would benefit the Miquon School?" Calvique asked suddenly.
For a moment the teenager's breathing appeared to stop. His eyes jumped from the table to Tom, to me and the police officer and back again.
"Come now, son. I seriously doubt you arrived at this mistaken conclusion by yourself. Like others you must have heard a rumor. I am merely asking who repeated it to you."
The boy's gaze settled on the table in front of him. "A man," he said.
"Ah. And where did this conversation take place?"
"I was standing in front of the school with my friends, and the man was just...there. We started talking, and he told me he heard if the chateau had much more mischief it was going to be given over to the school, and wouldn't that be a fine thing for Miquon."
"Who did you suppose this man to be?"
Sitting still was now impossible for Robert. "I don't know. I didn't think about it. Someone connected to the school probably.”
"Had you ever seen the man at the school before?"
"No..."
The policeman sighed and appeared to be finished with his interrogation. "Ah well, you are probably right. He was merely a teacher or janitor you had never noticed sharing a bit of gossip. Do you happen to remember what he looked like?"
The boy eagerly described a man of about forty-five, tall, dark hair, dressed in a business suit much as you see everywhere. When he said the man’s only distinguishing feature was a long Roman nose which tilted to the left, "as if someone had punched him with his right fist," Calvique quickly turned to conceal a satisfied smile.
A clerk delivered the formal complaint in to be signed, but Tom balked.
"Let's face it, Calvique," he said. "This is only going to blacken the young man’s record. Don't you think catching him at his mischief is enough to make him stop?"
"Getting away with a crime will never make anyone stop, Monsieur. Please think of how frequently these problems have occurred and how much they have cost the chateau."
Tom looked like a father about to give a spanking that would hurt him more than the child. "All right, Calvique. I'll sign if you feel I must."
Calvique produced a pen.
Outside Tom took a deep breath of cool evening air and clapped me on the back.
"Richie, I can't tell you what a load this is off my mind. I’m glad the boy did something stupid this time and got caught. Now I can go to Spain with an easy conscience."
I had been wondering why a redhead would be foolish enough to throw a can of paint from a popular sidewalk, even if no one was nearby. It was almost as if the man with the tilted nose had found himself a sucker. Carefully, I asked Tom how confident he was the boy was the only vandal.
"Very,” he replied. “He was caught throwing the paint, so he had to admit it. But I don't think even Calvique believes anyone else is involved. Do you?”
To allow Tom and Marie a worry-free honeymoon, I said, “Guess not,” with more conviction than I felt.
We had been walking through back streets of the village toward the water and now emerged at the chateau's front gate. Marie must have enlisted someone's help to remove the paint Robert had thrown, because the only evidence of the prank was some gravel spattered red.
Tom firmly shut the gate behind us, we said good-night at the gatehouse, and I proceeded toward my apartment alone.
Passing through the courtyard, my doubts about Tom’s optimistic assessment returned. Where I came from teenage pranksters might throw a few stones and run, but disassemble a wall built with over twenty sizeable rocks? Never.