A complete silence greeted this, with not even the woman sitting in the chair breaking it with any protest. Eventually it was Argyll who reacted first.
Oh, Flavia, really, he said. What an idea! Does she look like a murderer to you?
Do you have any evidence for this, either? Janet asked.
She shook her head. Nothing conclusive. But Monsieur Rouxel was in Rome that day, heading a delegation to the Interior Ministry. The call which summoned Ellman to Rome was made from the Hotel Raphael. And in the next room but one to Ellman was a witness that Detective Fabriano interviewed. A Madame Armand. That was you, was it not?
Jeanne Armand looked up and nodded. Yes. But I told the truth. I heard nothing of any interest. It was a dreadful coincidence that I was staying in the same hotel, of course
Dreadful, Flavia agreed. And not entirely frank of you.
I thought it best to protect my grandfather. I
didnt want his name in the papers just before the prize-giving. Yes, of course.
But it was still a coincidence, Janet said quietly. Unless you convince us otherwise.
I say again, I have no proof. But I can tell you a story, if you like. You can believe it or not as you wish. Then I will quietly take the next plane home and forget it.
She looked around, but nobody either urged her on or told her to keep quiet, so she took a deep breath and began.
We have a whole loose network of people, spread over several generations and several countries. Some dead, some alive. Jules Hartung, already fairly old when the last war began. Jean Rouxel, Mrs Richards, Ellman, all the same generation and in their twenties in 1940. Much younger was Arthur Muller. Youngest of all is Jeanne Armand here. They came from Switzerland and Canada and England and France. But all of them were profoundly marked by that war, and in particular by what happened on the twenty-seventh of June 1943. The day that the Resistance network dubbed Pilot was broken up by German army Intelligence.
If you want, we can talk about that later. First I want to tell you what happened. When Arthur Muller commissioned Besson to steal that picture, he was acting very much out of character. A more upright, honest and straightforward man could scarcely be imagined. He did not do things illegally. But in this case, he got involved quite deliberately in a crime. Why? We know he wanted to examine a picture, but why not write to Jean Rouxel and ask?
The answer, I suspect, is simple. He did. And was fobbed off.
Thats not true, Rouxel said. I had never heard of the man before last week.
No. Your secretary screens all your mail. She saw the letters, and answered them for you. Initially, I imagine she thought Muller was potty; he had good reason for not being entirely frank and saying why he wanted to look at the picture. Whatever, she blocked all his approaches.
Youll have a hard job proving that, Jeanne said.
I know. When you killed Ellman, you made sure you took and destroyed the file of correspondence hed taken from Mullers apartment. I imagine that contained all your letters to him.
And maybe not.
Indeed. As I say, Im just telling a story. When the police arrested Besson, he was interviewed and passed on to Montaillou. He rang to enquire about the painting. You talked to Madame Armand, is that right?
Montaillou nodded.
So she knew the picture was heading for Muller, and she now had an idea why it was so important. She wanted it stopped, so she said that Muller was a complete madman, obsessed with revealing that Rouxel had bungled the inquiry into Hartungs guilt. It was she who pressed you to get it back before it left the country, warning of possible embarrassment.
He nodded again.
And you failed. As far as she was concerned, by that time it was too late. Even if the painting was recovered from Muller, there was no guarantee that its contents had not been removed. Muller was dangerous and had to be taken care of. And before you interrupt, I will tell you why in a moment.
It was a delicate matter, and she needed someone she could trust. So she called Ellman. Phoned him from her hotel, and told him what to do. He agreed.
Ellman arrived in Rome and went to Muller. Muller denied having the painting, and was tortured to make him reveal where it was; when he said Argyll had it, he was killed and Ellman left with the documents.
Ellman then met Madame Armand, who had stayed behind after Rouxel left for Paris. Perhaps he tried to be too clever; I dont know. But she shot him with his own gun, then left with all the papers he had in his room. I assume she destroyed them.
A couple of days later, Jonathan Argyll returns the picture, free of charge, and Madame Armand, just to be sure, burns it.
She looked around to see how the audience was taking what was, after all, a pretty weak account. Much supposition, little substance. She could almost hear Bottando grumbling in the background.
The reactions fitted well with her expectations. Argyll looked faintly disappointed; Janet surprised that he had been dragged out late at night for such stuff; Montaillou was contemptuous, and Jeanne Armand seemed almost amused. Only Rouxel himself was unmoved, sitting quietly in his chair as though he had just heard some junior but enthusiastic manager expound something truly outlandish.
You must forgive me if I say that this is very thin, young lady, he said after it became clear that no one else was going to break the silence. And he smiled, almost apologetically, at her.
There is more, she said. Except that I dont know whether you want to hear it.
If its as feeble as the first part, I imagine well survive, commented Montaillou.
Monsieur Rouxel? she asked with considerable reluctance. What about you?
He shook his head. You are committed. You cant stop now. You know that as well as I do. You have to say what you think, however foolish it may be. My opinion scarcely matters.
She nodded in acknowledgement. Very well. Now we turn to motive. Both of them. Montaillou for wanting to get hold of that painting so urgently. Jeanne Armand as well.
Madame Armand first. A cultivated, intelligent woman. Who went to university, began a promising career then, gave it up to help her grandfather temporarily. Except that he could never do without her again, and persuaded her to stay when she wanted to get on with her own life rather than looking after his. Despite her abilities, she was treated as little more than his secretary.
Monsieur Rouxel married in 1945, his wife died young and he never married again. His daughter died in childbirth. Madame Armand was his nearest relative, and was extremely solicitous of his welfare. Although how she managed it, considering the way she was treated I, for one, do not fully understand. But she worked for him, looked after him, kept the troubles of the world at bay. Is that correct?
Rouxel nodded. Shes everything an old man could want. Entirely selfless. Shes been wonderful to me, and I must say, if you are going to attack that, I shall begin to get angry...
I presume she is also your heir.
He shrugged. Of course. Thats no secret. Shes my only family. Who else could possibly be?
I presume she is also your heir.
He shrugged. Of course. Thats no secret. Shes my only family. Who else could possibly be?
How about your son? Flavia asked quietly.
A silence so profound followed the question that she wondered if it could ever break. There was not even the slightest sound of breathing to disturb the quiet.
Arthur Muller, the first victim in this affair, was your son, monsieur, she went on after a while. The son of Henrietta Richards, previously Henriette Hartung. Shes still alive. Your mistress for several years. Muller was born in 1940, at a time when, according to his mother, she and her husband had not had what she termed close relations for a couple of years. You had. She kept who his father was a secret. It would have damaged her sons chance of inheriting and, by her own lights, she wanted to be a good wife. Which meant being discreet where she couldnt be faithful. And she didnt want you going to Hartung to demand that he give her up.
Rouxel snorted. There was no chance of that.
Pardon?
Me? Marry Henriette? The idea never crossed my mind.
You were in love with her, said Flavia, the hatred mounting now.
Never, he replied contemptuously. She was fun, and attractive and amusing. But love? No. Marry the penniless cast-off of Hartung? Absurd. And I never once told her that.
She loved you.
Even now, in these circumstances, Rouxel gave a little shrug that was almost vain. Of course, he seemed to imply. She was a silly girl. Always was. And bored and wanting excitement. I gave it to her.
Flavia paused and studied him more closely, breathing carefully to control herself. As hed said, she was now committed. No holding back any longer. She owed Henriette Richards that. Shed promised.
But she didnt tell anyone about you, except her son. When he was shipped out of danger to Argentina and then Canada, she told him his father was a great hero. He was only small, but he understood and clung to that belief; even when he was told what had happened to Hartung, he refused to believe it. His adoptive sister thought he was living in a fantasy world. But he believed what his mother had said. It was certain that even before he was accused of treachery Hartung himself was not the stuff of heroism. Therefore his father must be someone else. When he read the letters from his parents, he knew his long belief had been correct, and began to search.
He did the obvious thing; that is, wrote to people who were connected to his father and went looking around the archives himself; not that he was any sort of historian. He talked to the archivist in the Jewish documentation centre. His letters to Rouxel that Jeanne intercepted and read, other casual remarks shed picked up over the years and a certain amount of reading the papers in your office to which she had free access allowed her to work out what he was after. She knew who he was; she knew he was after documents proving it; but she didnt know where they were.
What Muller wanted was the evidence Hartung talked about. In the last judgement. He identified it, so he thought, and stole it. It was the worst mistake of his life.
When the painting was stolen, and Montaillou told her who had stolen it, everything fell into place. She moved fast. She killed your son, monsieur. Had him murdered in cold blood. Tortured to death by the same man who tortured and destroyed the life of your mistress. That is her repayment for the way youve treated her.