4
I had supposed that Jacques Magiot, an old acquaintance of mine and the chief of police, would have come out for the investigation, but he sent a young inspector and two gendarmes, who made it clear that their chief’s appearance was by no means necessary for the gathering of evidence. The flics stationed themselves by the door while the inspector walked around inspecting. He leaned down and sniffed the rug where the beer had spilled.
“Prussic acid,” he said.
“Some form of cyanide, at any rate,” I answered.
He nodded. “Are you familiar with poisons?”
“Oh come. The almond smell is distinctive.”
He noted something in his book.
The others stood about nervously. The inspector spent a bit of time looking at a spiderweblike impression on the coffee table and after a series of “ahems” said that he’d like to question each of us separately.
“But before I do, I will say that while you are all free to move about in town, no one is to leave Valence for any period of time without checking with the authorities.”
“But I don’t live in Valence,” said Paul. “I’m from St. Etienne.”
“In that case, monsieur, we will escort you to your home by way of the St. Etienne constabulatory, and you will report to them.”
While we waited to be called to the kitchen for questioning, Tania and I sat without a word on the divan, her arm linked into mine. She seemed too calm, almost to the point of breaking, as though she were under some unbearable pressure. Undoubtedly this local tragedy had turned her thoughts to her sons at the front.
The inspector first called Lupa, then Georges, Paul, Henri, Tania, and Fritz. The first four were led to the back door and excused, while Tania and Fritz waited in the kitchen after their questioning. The inspector interrogated me in the front room.
“Monsieur Magiot sends his compliments.”
I nodded.
“I’ve made no arrests. Have you any suspicions?”
“No.”
“I’m inclined to think of suicide. He was your close friend, was he not? Had he been unduly depressed?”
It went on in that vein for several minutes. I had no information for him, and he had formed no suspicions himself. He thought it odd that so few of my guests had been French, and asked me about it.
I shrugged. “They are my friends.”
Finally, a little after midnight, they left. Tania and Fritz came back to join me, and we sat drinking brandy for a time, pensive. The undertaker had come earlier, and my thoughts went back to Marcel’s body being removed. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine how he had been only that morning, but I could not. Perhaps it was better that way. I couldn’t think of him as a dead man yet. He was the friend of my childhood, and he was gone.
