“Well, I didn’t,” stormed Henri. “I goddamn well didn’t!”
“I didn’t say you did, Henri. Calm down. But it isn’t unreasonable to assume that one of us planted that poison now, is it? You might as easily assume that I did it.”
I looked sharply at him.
Georges spoke up. “Have the police mentioned to any of you their suspicions? Motives, hints, clues?”
Everyone said no.
“The point is, they mentioned to me . . . well, we shouldn’t go around picking each other to pieces. They mentioned that it seemed to them to be at least as good a bet that it was suicide.”
“That’s absurd,” I said. “I’d been with him most of the day. He hadn’t been depressed. In fact, he’d been looking forward to the summer.”
“Well, the alternative, of course,” said Paul, standing up, “is that one of us did it.”
“Again, not necessarily,” said Georges.
“What do you mean?”
“Not necessarily one of us. One of ‘us’ isn’t here.”
“Lupa!” said Henri.
“It does seem strange he didn’t come,” said Tania, “though some people simply cannot abide funerals.”
Paul laughed. “No one likes funerals.”
“My wife does.” Henri shook his head, and we all laughed as the tension broke. “Speaking of . . .” He smiled at all of us and began to walk to the carriage. Tania called after him and asked if she might go with him, since I’d told her that I had business in St. Etienne.
The three of us remaining watched them move off slowly, and I asked Paul if he needed a lift. Georges said he had some deliveries to make at St. Etienne and would I mind if he accompanied us? Since he had to pick up his supplies, we all agreed to meet later in the afternoon, and I drove off alone toward La Couronne. On the way, I remembered the beer I’d promised Lupa and detoured back by way of my home.
Chez moi, I changed into something more comfortable and asked Fritz if he’d mind arranging the delivery of several cases of the beer to Lupa. Since it was lunchtime, Fritz insisted I stay and have something to eat, and he quickly prepared a small plate of ham croquettes, fresh bread, and a delicious paté made, he said, from the liver of a wild hare. Since he didn’t hunt, I had reason to doubt him, though one of the neighborhood boys might have come around with his catch. Still, wild hare or not, it was excellent. I had one of my own beers to overcome my lurking fear about them, and during the first few sips, Fritz looked at me with real anxiety. I smiled.
“They don’t produce cyanide of themselves,” I said.
