had coming. He was on the steps outside, having a cigarette.
'Inspector?'
He turned, blew two thick streams of smoke out of his nostrils and looked down his nose at me. He was taller than I'd realized, about six-three, straight as a ramrod, and with a way of carrying himself that was somewhat austere, to put it kindly. Or embalmed-looking, to put it otherwise.
'Yes? Monsieur Norgren, do I know you?'
'I don't think so.'
'Are you sure? Your name is familiar.'
I considered asking him if possibly he'd read my recent monograph on Andrea del Sarto and the early Italian Mannerists, but thought he might take it the wrong way.
'Sorry,' I said, 'I don't know why it would be familiar.'
He peered coolly at me. 'Weren't you recently involved in an art theft affair in Bologna?'
'Well… yes… last year. Only incidentally, actually. I happened to be there at the time, you see. About something else entirely. I was able to, er, provide the carabinieri with a little help.'
The reason for this abject sniveling was that my encounter with the minions of the law in Bologna had taught me that policemen were not likely to take kindly to amateurs who stuck their noses into police matters without being asked. Even with the best of intentions. Even, in fact, when you wound up solving their case for them.
And, although I hadn't stuck my nose anywhere yet, and didn't intend to, I was in no hurry to get on the wrong side of the steely Inspector Lefevre.
'That's not quite what I recall,' he said stiffly. 'If memory serves, you seemed to be at the center of a number of misadventures that rather complicated matters for the carabinieri.'
'Not on purpose,' I said with a grin, hoping a little self-deprecating American humor might soften him. 'Colonello Antuono's theory was that someone put an evil eye on me when I was still in the womb.'
Lefevre was unsoftened. 'Well, I can't speak for the Italian police, but we, here in France, are perfectly capable of solving our crimes without unsolicited assistance. If you have pertinent information, we would like to have it. If we have questions, we would appreciate honest answers. Beyond that, please be kind enough to leave matters to us.'
'Absolutely,' I said. 'Definitely.'
His glance shifted to a man in shirt sleeves and a loosened tie who came out of the house, a toothpick jiggling at the corner of his mouth. 'Phone call from the public prosecutor, Inspector. Wants to see you right now.'
'Moury wants to see me now? This minute? Doesn't he realize how much we have to do?'
The man shrugged. The toothpick wagged. 'He has some instructions for you.'
I have since learned a little about the French criminal justice system, in which police inspectors are subject to the wishes, not of police superiors, but of public prosecutors. The police, as might be expected, often resent these intrusions.
Lefevre was no exception. 'Mon dieu, ' he murmured fervently. (I leave it in French to provide the authentic Gallic flavor.) His eyes rolled skyward and stayed there for a long time before he brought them down. His cigarette was flung onto the cobblestones and viciously ground out.
'All right, Huvet,' he said. 'Go inside and tell them it will be half an hour before we start.'
Huvet grinned. 'You're going to get Moury to shut up in half an hour?'
Lefevre sighed. 'I know, but tell them anyway.' Huvet nodded, and went back in.
'I'm sorry,' Lefevre said to me. 'There was something you wanted to say to me? I have a moment.'
'It's going to take more than a moment.'
'Nevertheless.'
'Well, it's, uh, about something that, uh, happened last night,' I began. 'Urn…'
Talk about misadventures. Lefevre was going to love this. I sighed, cleared my throat and went nervously ahead. 'It concerns an occurrence that… that occurred last night. It may be pertinent to, ah, that is to say, relevant to the matter of which-'
'You can speak English if you prefer,' he said bluntly. A perceptive man. No wonder he was a chief inspector.
'Someone pushed me out of Vachey's study window,' I said. In English.
He looked at me without comment for a long moment, squeezing his nose between thumb and forefinger. Then he turned, squinting into the sunlight and looked up at the window.
'Someone tried to push you out of that window last night,' he said as if he were trying out the words for himself and not much liking them.
'Someone did push me out of it.'
He looked back up at the window. He looked at the rough cobblestone paving-there were no cars there now- then up again, taking his time. Then at me.
'I, uh, landed on a car,' I said. 'It's not there now.'
'Ah. And am I to know who it was that pushed you out of that window and onto the car that is no longer there?'
He had, I was beginning to see, that distressing knack for making you feel-making me feel-that, whatever I said, I was in the wrong, or at least that my foot was in my mouth. Handy for dealing with miscreants, I supposed.
'Now look, Inspector-' I began through clenched teeth, but then thought better of it. I couldn't really blame the guy. As far as he was concerned, flushed with my recent success with the carabinieri I was now embarked on complicating matters for the Police Nationale.
I swallowed my irritation and told him the whole thing: about my discomfort with Vachey's conditions on the Rembrandt, about Gisele Gremonde's pointing out the blue scrapbook, about my sneaking into Vachey's study later on to look at it, about my subsequent exit through the window, and about the book's disappearance.
By the time I finished, he seemed resigned, as if deep in his heart he'd known, from the moment he'd recognized my name, that I was going to screw things up for him too.
He took a pack of Gauloises from his pocket and lit another cigarette. 'I would be interested in knowing,' he said, 'exactly what you hoped to find in that book.'
'I'm not sure. A record of where that Rembrandt really came from. Some clues to its history.'
'You don't believe his story about the flea market?'
'Junk shop. It was the Leger that came from a flea market. Let's say neither story is highly likely. The book would have had information on the rest of his affairs during the Occupation too- he started it in 1942. I'd like to ask Madame Gremonde-'
'I,' he said, 'will ask Madame Gremonde. You will be so kind-'
Huvet reappeared. 'Sorry, Inspector. Moury called again. He's having one of his fits. I think it might be best if-'
'I'm going, dammit,' Lefevre snapped. 'Mr. Norgren, I'll want to talk with you again. I assume you'll be available for the next few days?'
My heart sank. Anne would be in Seattle tonight. I had started to hope that I might be there tomorrow. 'Actually, I was hoping to get back to the States. There are some things…' His look was hardening. 'Well, of course,' I said, 'if I can help, I'll stay.'
'Good,' he said. 'Tell Sergeant Huvet how to reach you. I must go now.' He shook hands formally, as the French do at every opportunity, sighed deeply, squared his shoulders, and marched off for his meeting with the public prosecutor with all the joy of a man heading for the guillotine.
'Well, you know, he has a hard life,' Huvet told me matter-of-factly, as we watched him go.
Huvet seemed like a more easygoing man than his boss, and I wondered if he might be less likely to bite if I dared to ask a question. 'Sergeant,' I said, 'can you tell me anything at all about Rene Vachey's death? I don't know any of the details.'
'Details? He was killed at approximately five-thirty this morning,' he said. 'A single, small-caliber bullet behind the right ear, not self-inflicted. His body was found in the pond of the Place Darcy at seven. Blood spatters and tissue fragments indicate that he was shot while sitting on a bench a few feet away. Is that what you wished to know?'
