John Lescroart - Son of Holmes

“I’ve heard already. Routier’s been killed. No clues. You were there. Who did it?”

The man was in his twenties and would have looked perfectly nondescript except for the great swelling in his left cheek. His hair was short and brown, his suit common, and he wore no tie. Occasionally he chewed at his cheek.

“I haven’t much of an idea,” said Lupa. “It could have been any of us. Oh, excuse me, this is Jules Giraud. Joseph Watkins.”

We shook hands as the woman returned.

“Look at his cheek, will you?” she said. “Those damned olives again.”

Watkins grinned crookedly. “Addicted,” he said. “Can’t get enough of the blasted things.”

“He’s been horrible all morning,” said the woman. “Eating so many of them he can’t talk, spitting the pits wherever he happens to be. I should have tossed him out long ago. If he wasn’t so . . .” She smiled and touched his arm. He moved aside. “Hello,” she said, crossing to me, “my name is Anna Dubrov. I’ve seen you before in town.”

I nodded. “Jules Giraud.”

Lupa suggested we go to the back of the shop. On the way, Watkins leaned over one of the potted plants and straightened up again without the swelling in his cheek. He was grinning broadly.

“Anyone care for an olive?” he asked, taking ten or fifteen from his coat pocket. When no one responded, he deposited the entire handful into his mouth.

Lupa stood with an arm around Anna, waiting for this frivolous Englishman to finish chewing. When the pits had been stuffed into his cheek, Lupa began.

“Any news?”

“Yes, and specific.” Once he started talking, he was entirely businesslike. Perhaps he wasn’t as frivolous as he seemed.

“Continue.”

“Well, naturally you’re here on your own affairs, something about assassinations and so forth, but I thought—”

“You can drop that,” said Lupa. “M. Giraud, as you know, is an agent of the French, and he is now in our confidence.” He turned to me, continuing, “I am a free operative working for the English government. I know all this has been denied time and again in your inquiries about me. You know how that is. My uncle is a nonambulatory genius whom I detest, but he is probably the most important man in England, and we share some views during wartime.”

“So you work for England?”

“For the time being, yes, but I direct my own inquiries.”

“By the way,” said Watkins, “Altamont says—”

“That will do,” Lupa said abruptly. “Let us get on with your information.”

“Yes, well, um . . .” He fumbled a moment, then leaned over and spit out the pits. “We’ve got information that he is not here for assassination. You’re aware of the arms and munitions factory at St. Etienne?”

Lupa’s gaze was withering.

Watkins pressed on. “It’s going to be blown.”

I found myself smiling. “How do you know?”

“One of the boys flushed a Kraut spy and persuaded him to drop a few tidbits, and this was one of them. Unfortunately, our man brought some friends. They all got a bit carried away during the interrogation, and the Kraut died before he could be of much more use.”

Lupa looked at me. “And they say that we are fighting the barbarians.” To Watkins: “Did you get any descriptions, anything definite?”

“Not of your man, no. But there was something.”

“What was that?”

“It’s to be an inside job.”

I laughed, and the man looked at me angrily.

“What’s funny, mate?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but it would have to be. Have you seen the place? It’s guarded rather completely.”

Lupa was absently running his fingers through some dirt in a pot next to him. He seemed lethargically calm until he spoke, at which time he fired his questions at the other man.

“Where was he caught?”

“Marseilles. Usual narcotics stuff. He was delivering to their man in St. Etienne.”

“Why didn’t the fools let him deliver?”

“I think you’ve answered your own question. The fool—that is, our man—wanted to make sure he didn’t escape. They knew something big was going on in this area. He wanted to get a piece of it.”

“And lose the pie in the bargain.” Lupa was annoyed, and I could see why.

“One other thing bothers me,” Watkins said.

“What’s that?”

“I think he is here to assassinate. That is patently a part of it. Remember, we have had—what is it now?—three deaths of operatives in the past year. It’s just a hypothesis, but it is corroborated by the lack of any other overt activity until he moves. That’s all. Of course, no clues. But the man must sooner or later make a mistake. He must.”

He shrugged and reached into his pocket for some more olives. Someone walked into the store and Anna went to the front. Lupa pulled up a stool and sat down. He seemed completely engrossed in the plant beside him. Suddenly he looked up and spoke.

“I hope you’re right. Because if he is only here to blow the factory, then when the job is done, he’ll disappear. Whereas if he is here for a dual purpose, one job may give us the clue to the other.”

“You think he’s the man who killed Routier?” asked Watkins.

“Do you think he isn’t?”

“Then he must have been . . .”

“Precisely,” Lupa said, “he must have been among our gathering last night.”

I started to object. After all, everyone who had been there was a friend. But even as I began my defense, I realized that there was no other conclusion.

“That’s good,” Watkins said. “It narrows the field considerably.”

“Yes,” Lupa agreed. “Yes, it does.”

He got up and beckoned me to follow him. He paused at the screen to the back door. “Joseph, you’ll have to go to St. Etienne.”

Anna turned around to wave good-bye, and we proceeded back through the cellar, which was now brightly lit and stunning in color as well as fragrance. Another walk through the tunnel, and we reappeared in Lupa’s rooms.

I sat across from him. The weight of my friend’s death had begun to settle on me again. I must have looked tired.

“What are your ideas?” Lupa had gone to an oversize, overstuffed chair. “I’d like a beer,” he said, but he didn’t get up.

“I’d like some sleep,” I said. We spoke in English.

“I’d say you need it. But first, what do you think of St. Etienne and our list of suspects?”

“That’s been bothering me,” I said. “I mean the fact that it looks like the man we’re after is a friend of mine. Going on that assumption, everyone has a plausible opportunity, but . . .” I stopped.

He grunted. “It begins to look that way.”

“More than you know,” I said.

I got up, walked out to the kitchen and up the stairs, ordered two beers at the bar, and returned. He nodded graciously when I handed him a bottle, and took a long drink.

“I detest drinking beer from a bottle, but what can one do?” He drank again. “More than I know?”

“List our suspects,” I said. “Paul Anser lives in St. Etienne. Georges Lavoie delivers there, as does Henri Pulis—I would assume even to the arsenal itself. Georges with his first-aid supplies and Henri, of course, with his food. It’s one of those newfangled buildings where the workers have their own cafeteria and medical facility. I’ve heard Tania talk about it.”

“Tania?”

“That’s the worst part.”

He finished his beer and waited.

“One of Tania’s oldest acquaintances, through her husband, who was a French officer . . . Anyway, one of their friends was Maurice Ponty, who happens to be the director of the St. Etienne arms factory. She still sees him about once a month.”

Lupa leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply. “That’s everyone.”

“Except Fritz.”

“No, not except Fritz.”

“You have something on him,” I asked, “some connection?”

Lupa shook his head. “I was loath to consider him because of his cooking. He is so sympathetique. Still, that is a flaw in my own method.”

“But you just said you have nothing on him.”

“Nothing definite, Jules, but certainly something. It stretches the bounds of coincidence that every one of your guests has some foreign connection. Until I have satisfied myself with Fritz’s references in Germany before the war began, I have to include him among the suspects. I have a man working on it now.”

“But what possible . . . ?” I began.

“Jules, please. I must suspect everyone.”

“Even me?”

He was young. A look of ineffable sadness crossed his countenance. “I’m afraid, my new friend, even you.”

I stood up. “The beer is terrible, but it isn’t that. I must be getting on home. Would you like me to have Fritz send up a case of my beer, if it wouldn’t spook you?”

“That would be excellent,” he said, lifting the corners of his mouth in what perhaps he thought was a broad smile.

“Meanwhile, I’ll get some sleep and then try and contact everyone and see what I can find.”

Lupa seemed to consider something, then stopped me from leaving by raising his hand. “Jules,” he said, “a small point, but in English the word ‘contact’ should never be used as a verb.”

“Au revoir,” I replied with dignity, then turned on my heels, left him, and began walking home through the gray and dismal afternoon.

Stones crunched noisily under my feet as I trudged homeward, the sound a somber coda to the theme playing over and over in my mind. Lupa had said, “I must suspect everyone,” and he was right. I walked slowly, hands deep in my pockets, head down.

Everyone . . .

I thought of the word as a sledgehammer pounding into the wall of reluctance I had built against suspicion of my friends. And they had been my friends, every one of them. Now, until this was all over, they would not be friends, and they might never be again.

I remembered how it had all begun, with Paul Anser. It had been in Paris around 1911. What had he been doing there? Ah yes, publishing something. He did actually publish poetry. I had two or three of his bound collections and even an autographed manuscript at the house. There had been a party, I recall, with lots of young men from London taking the Grand Tour, as well as several charming young women. I had the feeling that I’d been asked to chaperon, but that suited me. The crowd was lively and intelligent, a far cry from the stultifying soirees held by the wives of military men to further their husbands’ careers.

Paul had been the entertainment, or part of it, and he was well received. Afterward, though, when most of the younger set had paired off, I had seen him standing alone, looking rather at sea, and I took pity on him. His command of French then was not so good as it has become, and we spoke English, discovering to our mutual delight that we were neighbors. When he had returned to Valence several weeks later, he had called on me while Marcel had been visiting, and we’d had such a good time drinking beer and—significantly?—talking politics that we all decided to make a regular event of it.

So it had been Paul, Marcel, and me from the start. Seen from a certain perspective, and one that I had truthfully never considered until this moment, it had been, or could have been, a most fertile field for espionage. Back in the beginning, we’d all shared the common confidences of new-found friends. Had it all been masterful grilling on Paul’s part?

I thought back. I had aired my disagreements over policy rather freely. Marcel had done the same. To the extent that Paul had been fascinated, hanging on our words, we had felt flattered, viewing him with friendly condescension. Those naive, neutral, isolationist Americans, we had thought. Now I bitterly recast the litany in my mind: we naive, romantic, gullible French!

Dark rain clouds scudded against the overcast sky. I had been wandering, lost in contemplation. Though Valence wasn’t a particularly large city, I found myself in an unknown neighborhood as a light drizzle began to fall. Ancient houses leaned threateningly over narrow stone streets. I considered turning around, trying to retrace my route, but since I’d been paying no attention whatever, I realized that I was truly lost. Turning back wouldn’t help. There was nothing to do but continue walking, hoping I would stumble upon some familiar landmark.

Everyone . . .

Henri had been the next. It had come about naturally enough, since I bought my beer-making supplies from his shop. I remember the first time we’d gotten into a discussion of technique. He had a particularly dependable supplier of excellent German hops. German hops! His interest was so genuine, his personality so forthright, that I had spontaneously decided to ask him around.

And he became the most regular of the guests. His attendance was never in doubt, which, now that I thought of it, was provocative. With a wife and a large family as well as a prospering business, he might have been expected to have the most demands on his time. Instead, our weekly gatherings were obviously a matter of great priority to him.

Why, just the past night he’d left his wife in the middle of a disagreement, as Lupa had pointed out. Were our beer meetings more important to him than his domestic harmony? And if they were, why?

Again I reflected on his bluff exterior—a happy, life-loving Greek. And the more I thought on it, the more incongruous were his business successes and his easy camaraderie with our varied and rather highbrow group.

A dead-end street brought me up short. I was just as content to be lost—the physical disorientation matched my mental turmoil. I was losing faith in the world I lived in—a world where my friends were not as they seemed, where love and trust might be bargaining chips, and duplicity the coin of the realm.

Everyone . . .

I could not have met Georges more innocuously. Late last summer, just after I’d come down here, I was returning from a bit of business in St. Etienne in my motorcar when I came upon a well-dressed limping figure hitchhiking on the roadway. New to the area, Georges had miscalculated the distances between a few of his sales calls in St. Etienne and so had missed his train back to Valence. During the drive, we struck up a fascinating discussion on the question of reincarnation, and I sensed that he would fit in perfectly among my beer guests. And so it had proved.

And yet there were coincidences that a mind more suspicious than my own might not have overlooked. That first Wednesday meeting with Georges in attendance was also Marcel’s first day back in the area. In other words, it was within two weeks of our first operative’s death. And that of course meant that Georges’s arrival in Valence occurred within days of that “accident.” Further, of all of our number, he had the least history. I had known of, or had references to account for, each of my other friends, each of the other suspects.