‘What about the work? Was it just painting?’
‘Exclusively. Painting, and replacing old wallpaper with new. He was insistent that the old wallpaper be removed carefully. He didn’t want us to use a blow torch or a scraper, it had to be entirely by hand. And afterwards we had to wash down the walls and paint them before putting up the new wallpaper.’
‘That’s strange. What was under the old paper?’
‘I wasn’t interested. As long as he paid for the work to be done like that, I didn’t pay attention.’
‘Did you do the work yourself?’
‘No, it was one of my men.’
‘Can we talk to him?’
‘He doesn’t work for me any more.’
‘Do you know where we can find him?’
‘He’s disappeared from circulation. It’s strange, because that work was the last he did. He quit immediately afterwards. I was disappointed, because Auguste was a good worker. I was very happy with him, even though he was a bit strange. He studied... I don’t know what. As soon as his work was done, he went to his room and read or wrote. And he wasn’t very talkative.’
‘Did he give you a reason for leaving?’
‘He told me some story I didn’t understand.’
‘So, in short, we have no way of knowing what went on inside the house whilst the work was being done.’
‘Just a moment,’ interjected Maryse. ‘Normally, you wouldn’t just use one worker. There’s usually an assistant.’
‘Of course. His was Gégène. He’s here. I’ll call him.’
‘The two of us, me and Auguste, we slogged away in those rooms and didn’t see much. The bloke kept coming in with another one,’ began Gégène. ‘They plonked themselves down somewhere and we didn’t see them. Anyway, we had our heads down, and when we’re pushing it, we don’t bother with anyone else. The bloke, it was his place, and he could bring in who he liked. If it was chicks, we might have noticed, but another bloke, no sweat. And also, Auguste was a bit of a nutcase. There were times when he couldn’t stop talking, and others when he would go for hours without opening his gob. To be fair, he was a know-it-all, he was always reading these massive books. Sometimes he stopped during the work to write something down in the notebook he always carried.’
‘Could you describe exactly how the work wasdone? Where did you start?’
‘We started with a coat of whitewash over the walls and ceiling of the entrance lobby and stairs. Then the bloke asked us to go to the upstairs rooms.’
‘Of which there are twelve, I believe?’
‘Like the oysters, yes. What was strange was the way he wanted us to proceed. We started by removing the wallpaper from the first bedroom. The next day, we did the same thing with the second, and washed down the walls of the first completely. On the third day, it was the turn of the third bedroom to be stripped, we washed down the second and painted the first. And so on. It was weird, but we’re used to that sort of thing, as long as it doesn’t increase the work. And the bloke gave us each a tip.’
‘Of course. Let’s see. Just now you told us the stranger shut himself in with his visitors in half-finished rooms. In which rooms, exactly?’
‘Any one of them. No, wait a minute! It’s funny. You’ve made me think. It was always in the room where the paper had been removed that morning.’
‘And before the walls were washed down.’
‘That’s right. Funny, isn’t it?’
‘Well, interesting, at least. But you say the client insisted that great care be taken in the removal of the wallpaper?’
‘Yes, he even explained how to do it. He promised a tip if it was done cleanly. So we paid attention. Auguste was more fanatical than the bloke himself.’
‘I suppose that what concerned him most is that you not damage what was beneath the wallpaper.’
‘Probably. He told us often enough.’
‘And what was beneath the wallpaper?’
‘Under the paper? The wall.’
‘A blank wall?’
‘No, it was painted. Each room was a different colour: there was a blue room, a yellow one, green, red...’
‘Just uniformly painted?’
‘At the bottom, yes. But, sixty centimetres higher up, there were pictures all round the room.’
‘Frescos?’
‘I think that’s what they’re called.’
‘What did they represent?’
‘Nothing. Just a lot of spots, green, blue, red, pink. It’s funny, I don’t know anything, but I found them nice to look at. No matter which way I looked, I couldn’t make any sense of them. The funniest was Auguste. He would stand staring in front of the... thing... fresco. He must have asked me a hundred times if I saw anything in the paintings. I kept telling him no, but he kept asking. And he was always writing a ton of stuff in his notebook.’
‘And did he do the same thing in all the rooms?’
‘Now you mention it, it’s all coming back to me. Every day, after we stripped a room, he would write in his notebook, and that was when he talked the most.’
Richard turned to Lévèque:
‘We have to find this worker of yours, Auguste, as soon as possible. Don’t you have any idea where he’s gone? He didn’t have any friends, for example?’
‘My word, monsieur, it’s not going to be easy. I’ve never met someone so unsociable. Outside of his work and his books, nothing mattered. He took his meals at a restaurant on the road to Orléans and had a room in a local hotel. That’s it.’
‘What was his full name?’
‘Auguste Duroyer. He’s about
