Page 47

THE LAST CHAPTER

A tticus Pünd had requested them all to assemble in the grand salon , the same room where the will had been read, only this time it was Pünd and Voltaire who had taken their places behind the card table. The entire family was present with the single exception of an angry Cedric, who had been told that children had no place here and had been banished to his room.

‘But I want to be a suspect,’ he had complained.

‘No, dear,’ his mother had cajoled him. ‘That’s the last thing you want to be, and anyway, you’re much too young.’

‘But I didn’t like Grandma. I didn’t like having to come here all summer. And I knew lots about poisonous plants.’

‘Just go to your room, Cedric. And if you talk about killing anyone ever again, you won’t have ice cream for tea.’

Jeffrey and Lola Chalfont had taken their places as soon as their son had left the room. They were joined by Harry and Judith Lyttleton, the two couples mirroring each other on opposite sofas. As always, Elmer Waysmith was on his own, dressed as if he was about to leave for a picnic in a blue blazer and white summer trousers. Robert Waysmith, who had chosen to distance himself from his father, was on the other side of the room. Three other witnesses who were not part of the family had been invited. James Fraser was never far away from Pünd, although he had tucked himself into a corner, trying not to be noticed, his notepad resting on his knee. Jean Lambert, the family solicitor, was next to him, diminished somehow, not just missing Alice Carling but blaming himself for her death. The last arrival had taken everyone by surprise. Pünd had invited Harlan Scott to the house. The art-historian-turned-detective was sitting, legs crossed, in an armchair that almost devoured him, smoking a cigar, his eyes fixed on the new painting that now hung above the fireplace. It was a very ordinary piece of work, but it was as if he were looking through it, still seeing the Cézanne it had replaced. Neither Robert nor Elmer had spoken to him and, like the rest of the family, they clearly resented having him there.

‘I hope you’re not going to keep us too long.’ Jeffrey Chalfont had looked impatient from the moment he had entered the room. ‘I have a lunch appointment at one o’clock.’

‘You have no interest in the identity of the person who killed you mother?’ Pünd asked.

‘I know I didn’t kill her, and nor did my wife. That’s all that matters to me. If you just tell us who it was, we can all get on with our lives.’

‘You will remain here and listen to what Monsieur Pünd has to say,’ Voltaire said, pinning Jeffrey down with his one good eye. ‘Your lunch is of no interest to me and you will leave only when I say you can.’

‘I want to know the truth,’ Robert Waysmith said. ‘This whole business has been horrible. Let’s get it over with.’

Pünd glanced at Voltaire, who nodded. It was his invitation to begin.

‘It was Lady Chalfont who invited me here,’ Pünd said. ‘She wrote to me a letter in which she stressed the urgency of her situation and hoped that I would arrive before it was too late. Unfortunately, due to my health and the strain of the journey, I disappointed her. By the time I was able to come to the Chateau Belmar, accompanied by my friend Monsieur Voltaire, she had been deliberately poisoned with aconitine and it was too late. I had met Lady Margaret before and thought her a generous and intelligent woman. It will always be to my regret that I was unable to help her in her hour of need.

‘For reasons that I do not need to share with you, this will be my last case and it is some consolation that it has provided such an unexpected challenge. Although on the face of it, the crime is a most straightforward one, the solution is nothing of the sort. The deaths of Margaret Chalfont and, indeed, of Alice Carling will provide a valuable appendage to The Landscape of Criminal Investigation , a work I have spent many years constructing.

‘Let us look first at the facts as they presented themselves. Lady Margaret Chalfont knew that she had little time left to live. She had also made an extraordinary will in which she had left the control of her estate not to her family but to her second husband. You all know the reason for this. It was because she did not believe her children had the wisdom or the judgement to manage a considerable sum of money without guidance.’

‘Only because that was what Elmer told her,’ Harry Lyttleton muttered.

‘No, no, Mr Lyttleton. She was aware, for example, of the construction of your hotel, the losses that you have sustained, and perhaps she also knew that you were consorting with businessmen of a dubious nature. Her son, Jeffrey, was gambling. She had a daughter-in-law wishing to put money into the theatre, a sure way to lose it. At the same time, she believed she could trust Elmer Waysmith, who was already wealthy as a result of his art business and had no need of the money himself.’

‘My father inherited plenty of money from his first marriage,’ Robert said. ‘He had no need of yours.’

‘Exactly.’ Pünd nodded in agreement. ‘But in the weeks before the death of Lady Chalfont, an event of great significance occurred – and one which must surely have influenced everything that followed. In her letter, she wrote to me how she had overheard a conversation that had shattered her faith in her husband. Later, we learned this conversation concerned a painting that once hung in this very room and which was entitled Spring Flowers , by the artist Paul Cézanne. May I ask where it is now, Mr Waysmith?’

It was Robert Waysmith to whom Pünd had addressed the question and he replied: ‘It’s at the gallery. We’re looking for a buyer.’

‘Well, it is the reason why I have invited Mr Harlan Scott to this meeting. He met Elmer Waysmith and his son in this very room.’

‘I want to get one thing straight,’ Elmer cut in. ‘I do not accept any of the accusations you make regarding that painting, its provenance or its past history. It was purchased by my partner and no owners have ever come forward to suggest otherwise.’

‘That’s because the owners are dead,’ Harlan Scott growled. He was not a powerful man. With his thinning hair and glasses, he was more like a teacher than a detective. But his anger was palpable, cutting through the room. ‘Their whole family was wiped out in the war. You and your business partner know that and it’s disgusting that you should have uttered those words.’

‘I’m not arguing with you, Mr Scott,’ Elmer retorted. ‘I know a lot of bad things happened in the war. All I’m saying is that I was unaware the painting had been stolen and, as I told you at the time we met, if you could prove otherwise, I would have been happy to talk to the true owners.’

‘Talk to them or give it back to them?’

Elmer fell silent.

‘It was a hot day. The windows were open. And Lady Chalfont heard what was said. Because she was travelling to London the next day, she immediately telephoned the family solicitor, Monsieur Lambert, and told him that she wished to speak to him about her will.’ He turned to Lambert. ‘That is correct?’

‘ Oui, monsieur. She did not say that she wished to change it, but she asked me to bring a copy. There is no doubt in my mind that she was having second thoughts.’

‘When a very wealthy person decides to alter her will, it is often a motive for murder,’ Pünd continued. ‘And it cannot be a coincidence that Lady Chalfont was killed before the meeting could occur. She had maybe only weeks left to live on account of her illness, but that was not soon enough for the person who wished her dead. He had to strike immediately and that is what he did.’

‘ He ?’ Lola asked. ‘You’re saying it was a man?’

‘There is only one man in this room who had everything to lose if he did not take action and, as I have already explained, that man was Elmer Waysmith.’

‘Now you look here.’ Elmer sprang out of his chair, his face deep red. ‘I’m not going to sit here and listen to any more of this—’

‘You will sit down and be silent, monsieur, unless you wish to spend the rest of the morning in a prison cell,’ Voltaire exclaimed. ‘Nobody is to leave this room until I give them permission.’

‘Sit down, Pa,’ Robert said. ‘I know you didn’t do it. Mr Pünd is just playing games.’

‘It is not a game, the investigation of murder.’ Pünd waited until Elmer had retaken his place. ‘Not only did Elmer Waysmith have the most obvious motive, every single piece of evidence points to his guilt.

‘His wife believed he was a criminal. She was quite possibly intending to cut him out of her will. And although it pains me to say it, Margaret Chalfont would not have been the first woman who married him and died unnaturally.’

‘Leave Marion out of this!’ Elmer snarled.

Pünd had already moved on. ‘We must discuss what happened at the pharmacie in the Rue Lafayette,’ he said. ‘On the very same day that Lady Chalfont died, a man wearing sunglasses and a straw hat and using an ebony walking stick purchased two grams of aconitine, the same poison that the police would discover in Lady Chalfont’s tea. We are led to believe that this occurred at a quarter past twelve. He spoke in French but with an accent – quite possibly American. He did everything he could not to show his face.’

‘I’ve never been anywhere near any pharmacy,’ Elmer insisted.

‘The same man had taken a room at a neighbouring hotel. The chambermaid was able to give us a description of the person she had seen very briefly … the hat, the sunglasses, the walking stick. She also added one important detail, however. He had white hair. There are two other indications that he may have been American. It is almost certain that he used a false name when he checked into the hotel and he chose an American film director, John Ford, as his alias. Also, he left behind a bottle of shoe polish produced by an American manufacturer, Esquire.

‘Was this man Elmer Waysmith? There are two further clues that suggest it was. He signed the hotel register using turquoise ink. I saw exactly that same colour when I was in his office. He had been producing, I believe, a catalogue – and there were several pages written in turquoise. Also, I noticed a book on the shelf behind his desk. It was Erskine’s Toxicology , a study of poisons.’

‘I told you. It was relevant to my work.’

‘But it was jutting out, Mr Waysmith. You had clearly used it quite recently. Again, it cannot have been a coincidence.’

Waysmith gazed at Voltaire. ‘Mr Voltaire! You are an officer with the S?reté. Are you going to sit there and allow an amateur with no credentials to spout this nonsense?’

‘On the contrary, Monsieur Waysmith.’ Voltaire was impassive. ‘Monsieur Pünd is one of the most celebrated detectives in the world. He was invited here specifically by your late wife. I intend to sit here and listen to every word he has to say.’

Pünd nodded his gratitude, then continued. ‘Finally, we can piece together the movements of Mr Waysmith on the day of the murder. Let us return, once again, to the pharmacie. ’

‘You said I was there at twelve fifteen.’ Hope flared in Elmer’s eyes. ‘Where is the Rue Lafayette?’

‘It is to the north of the Voie Pierre Mathis.’

‘That’s at least twenty minutes from my gallery in the Place Masséna. But I met my son at half past twelve, so I couldn’t possibly have got from one to the other in time.’

‘But it was not twelve fifteen, Mr Waysmith. Monsieur Brunelle, who runs the pharmacy, has poor eyesight, but even so he was able to confirm from a photograph that it was Alice Carling who came in at the same time as the man who was buying aconitine and the two of them engaged in a little performance to establish a false time. It was, in fact, closer to twelve o’clock and you would have had plenty of time to change your appearance at the hotel and then dispense with the walking stick and the clothes you had been wearing in a nearby dustbin. If you walked quickly enough, you would be able to reach the gallery at half past twelve, which is when you arrived.

‘And, indeed, you were seen running across the square just before that time. This was mentioned by Harry Lyttleton. He hoped you might be able to supply him with an alibi.’

‘Well, he’s wrong. I didn’t cross the square. I used the back door to enter the gallery.’

‘I wasn’t trying to get you into trouble, Elmer,’ Harry muttered miserably. ‘But I did think it was you. You had on that same white suit and bow tie you’d worn at the breakfast table. You were some distance away, though. I suppose I could have been wrong.’

‘Of course you were wrong. I’ve just told you. It wasn’t me.’

‘We also know that you returned to the Chateau Belmar at exactly three o’clock. On this occasion it was Jeffrey Chalfont who heard the clock strike in the petit salon and saw your car at the same time. Do you deny this?’

‘I only spent an hour with my son. I don’t know what time I got home, but I was in my study for the whole afternoon.’

‘And your study is very close to the service stairs that connect with the kitchen.’

‘Yes.’

‘Approximately an hour after you returned to the house, Lola Chalfont heard somebody go down to the kitchen, using that staircase. It was at this time that the aconitine was placed in the teapot intended for Lady Chalfont.’

‘Well, it wasn’t me.’ Elmer glared at Lola as if she had deliberately accused him. ‘I have never used the service stairs in my life and I certainly didn’t go anywhere near the kitchen that afternoon.’

‘But who else could it have been?’ Pünd asked. ‘Only yourself, Lola Chalfont and Judith Lyttleton were in the house.’

‘I was reading,’ Judith said. ‘I was very involved in my work. I didn’t hear anything.’

Pünd waved a hand. ‘We have established your motive, your method and your movements,’ he concluded. ‘Nobody else in this room had the slightest desire to harm Lady Margaret Chalfont. Why do you not admit your guilt?’

‘Because I didn’t do it!’ Elmer Waysmith exclaimed.

There was a long silence, broken by Robert Waysmith. ‘My pa would never hurt anyone, Mr Pünd,’ he said. ‘You must have made a mistake.’

‘I said at the very start that this was a straightforward crime,’ Pünd said.

‘But you also said that the solution wasn’t,’ Voltaire reminded him.

‘That is indeed the case, Monsieur Voltaire. I have outlined a sequence of events that is unarguable. Unfortunately, it also leaves many questions unanswered.’

‘What questions?’ Harry demanded. ‘Elmer did it! You’ve made that crystal clear. Who else could it have been?’

‘You yourself have questions to answer, Mr Lyttleton,’ Pünd replied. ‘It is certain that Alice Carling was killed to keep her silent. She had been persuaded to take part in a charade that went against her better nature and she knew the identity of the man who purchased the aconitine in the Pharmacie Lafayette. She believed herself to be engaged to this man and it was your photograph that we found in her handbag.’

‘We’ve already gone into this, Mr Pünd. She may have had fantasies about me, but I knew nothing about it.’

‘I find it beyond belief, though, that she would consider marriage to Elmer Waysmith, a man who was the same age as her father. You, on the other hand, have good looks and charm …’

‘And I’m happily married. I had no interest in Alice Carling whatsoever.’

‘But there are other peculiarities, things that I do not understand.’ Pünd turned to Voltaire. ‘Would you say that Elmer Waysmith is a stupid man?’ he asked.

‘I would say he’s anything but,’ Voltaire replied.

‘So why did he make so many foolish mistakes? We have already mentioned the copy of Erskine’s Toxicology that protruded from his shelf and the turquoise ink with which he signed the pharmacy’s ledger. Even using the name of an American film director in the hotel’s register pointed to his nationality. Then there was the American bottle of shoe polish he left in his hotel room. And why dispose of the walking stick and the blue linen suit in a dustbin close by in the street? My colleague, James Fraser, recovered them in less than a minute and I remarked upon this at the time. Also, why leave a book of matches with the name H?tel Lafayette printed on the cover at the Chateau Belmar? That is the work of an imbecile and seems even more remarkable when you consider that Mr Waysmith does not smoke.

‘But the most foolish mistake of all takes place at the time of the murder. Elmer Waysmith has returned home. He makes his way down the service stairs, ignoring the fact that they will creak and alert the entire house that they are being used. He enters the kitchen and slips the aconitine into the pot containing the lemon and ginger tea. And he fails to replace the lid. Of course this was noticed by the housekeeper, Mademoiselle Béatrice. Think for a moment. An elderly lady with a heart condition dies on a hot day in the garden. Nobody for one minute will suspect there is anything amiss. But Mr Waysmith has almost deliberately signalled that he has added something to the tea. He has invited the police to suspect foul play.’

‘I suggested to you that the killer did not have time to replace the lid,’ Voltaire said.

‘I did not wish to argue with you, Monsieur Voltaire. But it struck me that this was unlikely. It was the work of two seconds to replace the lid, but to leave it off would be a catastrophe.’

‘You’re right, Monsieur Pünd. I can’t disagree.’

‘Mistake after mistake after mistake,’ Pünd went on. ‘But there are other aspects of this case that make no sense – and this I have said all along. Let us return to Lady Chalfont. She has overheard a conversation with her husband that suggests he is a criminal. She telephones her solicitor to change her will. And then she meets me in London and asks me to investigate what she has heard. Why does she not then cancel her meeting with Monsieur Lambert? Either her husband is guilty or he is not. If he is, she does not need me. If he is innocent, she does not need Monsieur Lambert.

‘And there is something else that I have always found strange. Why was Dr Lyttleton so unhappy to see me?’ Pünd turned his eyes to Judith. ‘You did everything you could to move Lady Chalfont quickly out of the room.’

‘We had a plane to catch, Mr Pünd.’

‘You were not concerned that your mother had consulted a detective?’

‘Of course I was. I had no idea what was going on in her head.’

‘But still you did not mention the encounter to anyone else in the family.’

‘I’ve already told you this. My mind was on other things and I forgot.’

‘I do not believe you, I’m afraid, Dr Lyttleton.’

Judith’s face went red. ‘It’s true. I came back to France, to the sunshine, and I forgot all about it.’

Pünd turned his attention back to the rest of the people in the room. ‘The most important question still remains,’ he said. ‘It has been asked many times, but I will mention it once more. Why kill a woman who has only weeks to live? Why risk prison or the guillotine when the outcome is already assured?’ Pünd looked across the room at James Fraser. ‘You will recall that we had exactly this discussion after the reading of the will. And what did I say?’

‘I did wonder about that,’ James remarked. ‘I asked you why anyone would murder a woman who was already dying and you answered, “Because it does not matter.” I have to say, I had absolutely no idea what you meant.’

‘And now I will tell you, my friend. Now I will describe what really occurred.’

There was another silence, finally broken by Robert Waysmith. ‘Are you saying that my father didn’t kill Lady Chalfont?’ he asked.

‘That is exactly what I am saying,’ Pünd replied.

‘Thank God for that. I told you. He wouldn’t kill anyone.’

‘Of course I didn’t kill her,’ Elmer rasped. ‘I loved her.’

‘But if he didn’t, who did?’ Voltaire exclaimed.

‘To answer that question, we must consider the character of Lady Margaret Chalfont, a woman who was kind and generous, who had no enemies and who was in the last weeks of her life. Never has there been a victim of a murder who deserved to die less. It seemed to me from the moment I arrived in France and heard what had happened that she could not have been the true target.’

‘You mean … the poison was intended for someone else?’ Robert asked.

‘No. That is not what I mean. When I said to James that her death did not matter, I meant that since she was going to die anyway, she could be killed with a clear conscience, even by someone who loved her – if her death could be used to benefit them in a certain way! Do you understand what I am saying? The murder of Lady Chalfont was not an end in itself. It was simply a means to an end.’

‘And what was that?’

‘Her wealth. Not the small amounts that she left in her will, but her entire fortune. Above all, it was about control.’

Pünd looked around the room, taking in the entire family.

‘This was ingeniously planned,’ he continued. ‘Even before Lady Chalfont came to England, it had all been decided. It was only the fact that she happened to meet me in a doctor’s waiting room in Harley Street that changed things. Ah, yes! That meant the plan had to be modified, to be accelerated. The poison had to be purchased on the very same day it was to be used. But otherwise it all went ahead as had been agreed.’

He turned to Judith. ‘You lied to me, Dr Lyttleton – and you insult my intelligence if you ask me to believe that you kept the accident of our meeting to yourself. You told your husband. You told everyone. When Lady Chalfont wrote to me, the letter was opened and read. Likewise, the telegram that I sent to her. And it was decided that I would be folded into the plan. A murder needs not just a victim. It needs also a detective, and that was the part I was to play.

‘Every single member of this family has been an actor, a participant in what followed. All of you worked together to convict Elmer Waysmith of a crime he had not committed.’

‘Wait a minute—’ Jeffrey Chalfont exploded.

‘You will not speak, Monsieur Chalfont!’ Voltaire slammed his fist down on the card table in front of him. ‘If anyone interrupts before Monsieur Pünd has finished, I will have them arrested!’

Silence returned to the room.

‘All the mistakes that I have described – the lid of the teapot, the book on the shelf, the matches from the H?tel Lafayette, the turquoise ink – were placed deliberately for me to find. And then there is the little pantomime played by Jeffrey Chalfont and Harry Lyttleton at the moment Lady Chalfont dies. “No, no, no!” they say. “We never thought she had been poisoned.” So why, then, do they call the police? Why do they describe her death throes in such detail and even mention that she complained her tea had a strange taste? If anyone had wished to kill her, they could simply have remained silent and the whole world would have believed that she had succumbed to her heart disease. But there must be a clear signpost. This is not a natural death – it is a murder. They are demanding the police investigate.

‘And every time anyone speaks to me, they incriminate Elmer Waysmith. Harry Lyttleton supposedly sees him running across the Place Masséna. It is Jeffrey Chalfont who provides the exact time of Elmer’s return to the Chateau Belmar because he hears a clock strike at the same moment as he sees the car – even though, as I demonstrated to James, it would be impossible to see out onto the driveway if you were standing by the petit salon , where the grandfather clock is located. And when I interrogate Judith Lyttleton and Lola Chalfont for the first time, they work hard. The picture they paint of Elmer Waysmith is not a pleasant one. He is a gold-digger. His first wife would have been happier dead than living with him. His second wife had changed since she married him. And for good measure, it is Lola who hears the creaking of the stairs as the unknown assailant – who can only be Elmer Waysmith – makes his way to the kitchen.’

‘But if it wasn’t Elmer Waysmith at the Pharmacie Lafayette, who was it?’ Voltaire asked. He had broken his own rule, interrupting Pünd.

Pünd didn’t mind. ‘All along, it has been suggested that it was Elmer Waysmith who was buying the aconitine and who attempted to conceal his identity with the hat and the sunglasses,’ he said. ‘But what if it was another person, pretending to be him, even speaking with an American accent? Now, finally, we have the reason for the bottle of liquid shoe polish that was found in the room used by the killer and which was, I believe, the only real mistake that was made. It was thrown into the dustbin, where it was later discovered by the maid – and even I failed to ask the one question that was most important. What colour was the shoe polish? It was a natural assumption that the liquid in the bottle was either black or brown. But what if it was white?’

‘Someone used it to change the colour of their hair!’ Voltaire exclaimed.

‘That is exactly the case, Monsieur Voltaire, and it explains why the pharmacist thought he smelled surgical spirit, which confirmed his belief that the man was a doctor. But it was, of course, white spirit that he smelled. This is the principal ingredient of liquid shoe polish.

‘It all becomes clear. Our mystery man has taken a room at the H?tel Lafayette. He changes into different clothes, disguises himself with the hat and the glasses, colours his hair and then visits the pharmacie . While he is there, he has arranged for Alice Carling to walk in and ask the time. The pharmacien is easily deluded into thinking that it is a quarter past twelve when in fact it is ten or fifteen minutes earlier. This extra time allows our man to return to the hotel, use the sink to remove the shoe polish, change his clothes and then disappear into Nice. At half past twelve exactly, Elmer Waysmith will arrive at the gallery for lunch with his son and it is assumed that the great detective Atticus Pünd will put two and two together and come to entirely the wrong conclusion.’

‘You’re saying they were all in on it!’ This time it was James Fraser who had spoken. ‘They were framing Elmer Waysmith. But why?’

‘For the simplest reason, James. It is child’s play – and indeed it was young Cedric who gave us the answer when we met him in the garden. “ They were cross because Grandma gave all her money to Elmer. ” That is what he said. Jeffrey and Lola Chalfont and Harry and Judith Lyttleton all loved Margaret Chalfont in their own ways and they would never have dreamed of harming her had she not been dying anyway. But they did not see hastening her end by a matter of weeks as being the same as murdering her. They were using her death to rid themselves of Elmer Waysmith. Monsieur Voltaire explained it to us. Had Elmer been found guilty of the crime …’

‘… he would have faced the guillotine.’ Voltaire completed the sentence.

‘And under French law, he would have inherited nothing. It was not just about the money. It was the control of the money and so, by extension, their lives. And that was Elmer Waysmith’s greatest crime. He was a man who always had to be in control.’

‘So they all came together to get rid of the stepfather!’ Voltaire exclaimed. He was staring at the family in disgust. ‘But which one of them killed Alice Carling?’

‘That, of course, was Harry Lyttleton.’

Sitting next to his wife, Harry jerked upright as if he had been electrocuted. ‘No …’ he gasped.

‘There can be no doubt of it,’ Pünd said. ‘You pretended to be in love with her. It was from her that you learned the details of Margaret Chalfont’s will and, as a result, this entire scheme was born.’

‘It’s not true!’

‘She had your photograph. She believed everything you told her. It was you who played the part of Elmer Waysmith in the pharmacie and it is you who likes to wear white tennis shoes. You are wearing them even now. Unfortunately, when poor Miss Carling heard that Lady Chalfont had been poisoned with aconitine, she understood her part in what had occurred and threatened to go to the police. That was why she had to die.’

‘You’re wrong.’

‘I am never wrong, Mr Lyttleton. And it is certain that you will face a terrible death, your head removed from your shoulders by the deadly fall of the guillotine.’

Harry Lyttleton had gone deathly pale. His wife was on the edge of tears. ‘It wasn’t Harry! He has an alibi. He was with me when I gave my talk at the Church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste!’

‘You gave the talk. He was not present.’

‘No!’ Harry Lyttleton had got to his feet. ‘It was him! He was the one who killed her. I had nothing to do with it. He was the one behind it! It was all his idea!’

He was pointing at Robert Waysmith.

Pünd smiled. ‘And so, at last, the truth comes out.’ He turned to Voltaire. ‘You will forgive me, but I had to put the fear of death into him to force him to tell me what I already knew to be the case.’

‘Robert Waysmith …’

‘Yes. Robert Waysmith. He is the evil genius who concocted this entire plan.’

Harry Lyttleton sank back into his chair. Judith was crying now, clinging on to her husband’s hand. Jeffrey Chalfont was scowling. His wife was in shock. Elmer Waysmith was staring at his son in disbelief. But Robert Waysmith had only contempt on his face. ‘You bloody fool,’ he muttered, addressing Harry. ‘Why couldn’t you keep your mouth shut? Don’t you see? You’ve landed us all in it.’

‘You’re the devil,’ Harry gasped, struggling for breath. ‘You should never have come here—’

‘That’s enough!’ Voltaire snapped. He nodded at Pünd. ‘Please continue, Monsieur Pünd.’

Pünd began again. ‘It was you, Robert, who impersonated your father at the pharmacie and purchased the aconitine before you joined him for lunch.’

‘You’re wrong, Mr Pünd. I told you. Before I met my father, I was with a client, Lucas Dorfman, in Antibes.’

‘That may be true. But you also suggested that it took you a great deal of time to return to Nice because of the traffic and that was most certainly a lie.’

‘How can you possibly know?’

‘Because you were followed to the house by Mr Harlan Scott. He told me that he was unable to follow you back as it would be too easy for you to see his car. This suggests to me that the road must have been empty.’

The investigator leaned forward. ‘You’re right, goddammit,’ he growled. ‘There wasn’t a single other car in sight. I had no choice but to let him go back on his own.’

‘You stayed briefly with your client and raced back to Nice. This gave you more than enough time to enter the H?tel Lafayette, change into your disguise, purchase the aconitine and then change back again, getting rid of the suitcase and walking stick before meeting your father at half past twelve as agreed.’

‘You’re suggesting I deliberately framed my father. Why would I want to do that?’

‘On every occasion I have met you, you have defended your father and spoken up for him while at the same time making clear your hatred of him. It is evident that the way he has controlled you has considerably harmed your life. You wished to be an artist. That was your dream. But he refused to acknowledge your talent and forced you first into a career in law and then, when that did not succeed, into his own business, as a junior partner. You were terrified of him when you were a child. You told us this before the reading of the will. “ He’s not quite the monster you think. ” That was what you said. But you were telling us that he was a monster nonetheless.’

‘Robert …’ Elmer couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘I always cared for you. I never did anything to hurt you.’

Robert said nothing.

‘You son blames you for the death of the mother he loved,’ Pünd said. ‘She took her own life and he believes this was because of you. You told us that she suffered from a condition known as “housewife syndrome”. I have read of this. The symptoms are said to be fatigue and unhappiness, but there are psychiatrists who are now suggesting that this may tell only half the story. A great many men see their wife as their property, someone who can do nothing without their approval. These women are shown no respect. Their self-confidence is destroyed. Is that how your mother was, Robert?’

‘Yes!’ When Robert looked up, there was something almost childlike about him; the child he had once been. ‘She did everything for him. She lived for him … but only because she wasn’t allowed any life without him. And in the end, it became too much for her. She killed herself because of him.’

‘That’s not true!’ Elmer rasped.

‘You didn’t even come home when you heard the news, Pa! You were too busy in Geneva selling the paintings that you got cut-price from the Nazis!’

‘That’s a lie!’

‘You know it’s true.’ Robert pointed at Harlan Scott. ‘He knows everything!’

Pünd turned once again to the art historian. ‘You spoke to Robert Waysmith at the gallery,’ he said. ‘He then invited you to the Chateau Belmar to meet his father. Were you surprised?’

‘I was very surprised, Mr Pünd. I never thought he’d invite me into the house. But he insisted on his father’s innocence and wanted me to see the Cézanne for myself, to show that they had nothing to hide.’ He glanced at Elmer. ‘I must say, his father was much less pleased to have me here.’

‘You met in the grand salon . Can you recall if the windows were open?’

‘They were closed when I arrived. Robert opened them to allow me to smoke.’

Pünd smiled. ‘He opened the windows for the same reason that he invited you to the house. Always the manipulator! He knew that his father would argue with you. He knew that Lady Chalfont, on the terrace above, would hear everything that was said. He was creating a motive – a reason for his father to murder her.’

‘And that was why she changed her will!’ Jean Lambert had been listening to all this in horrified silence, but he couldn’t wait any longer.

Pünd sighed. ‘When we first spoke, you told me that Lady Chalfont was under a great deal of strain when she made that call. You said she did not sound well.’

‘That’s right. She had a chill, I think. A sore throat …’

‘I do not believe it was Lady Chalfont at all. We have an actress amongst us. It was when she was playing Mata Hari that Lola Chalfont met her husband-to-be. Jeffrey Chalfont told us that she captured both the look and the voice of the famous spy. I am sure it would be a matter of no difficulty for her to impersonate Lady Chalfont, particularly if she feigned a sore throat.’

‘I did what I was told!’ Lola hadn’t even tried to deny it. ‘I never wanted any part in it! I didn’t …’ She buried her face in her hands.

‘You must tell me about Mademoiselle Alice,’ Lambert said. ‘Did she really tell him what Lady Chalfont had written in her will?’

‘I am afraid so. Poor Alice was an innocent, a country girl who dreamed of perhaps one day living in London or Paris. But she was also a Catholic who went every week to the church of Saint Isidore. There is, I am sure, no way she would have considered marrying a man who was divorced and it was not Harry Lyttleton who had beguiled her.’

‘It was Robert.’ Jean Lambert stared at him with something close to hatred.

‘Handsome, ambitious, wealthy … and single! It could be no-one else. It was he, of course, who impersonated his father in the pharmacy. He had, after all, his father’s looks. I do not know how he persuaded Miss Carling to help him. Perhaps he told her that he was playing a joke. But once she realised what she had done, she was finished.’

‘But what about the photograph?’ Lambert asked. ‘You said she was carrying a picture of Harry Lyttleton!’

‘Why do you not answer, Monsieur Lyttleton? You know it is all over. You have nothing more to lose.’

Harry had been sitting like a dead man. His face was grey, his eyes empty. He gestured at Robert. ‘He made me give him a photograph of myself – and he pressed it against her lips to make it look like I was the one she had been seeing. He said we didn’t have any choice.’

‘It is an irony, is it not, that Robert hated his father because of his controlling nature – but he was exactly the same. He controlled all of you and talked you into this wicked scheme. It was a diversion! Harry Lyttleton was indeed at a lecture and then at a dinner where he would have been seen by many people at the time when Alice was killed. Robert committed the murder. But Harry had the alibi. They exchanged places.’

‘I’m so sorry …’ Harry was holding his wife’s hand as if for the last time.

‘What will happen now?’ Jeffrey asked.

Frédéric Voltaire took over. ‘Robert Waysmith – you will be charged with the murders of Lady Margaret Chalfont and Alice Carling … murders with premeditation. Jeffrey Chalfont, Lola Chalfont, Harry Lyttleton and Judith Lyttleton, you will be charged as accessories to murder and quite possibly for the attempted murder of Elmer Waysmith. As it turns out, Mr Waysmith himself is the only innocent man in the room – at least in so far as these deaths are concerned. But the S?reté will be working with Monsieur Scott to discover the truth behind your repulsive trade in stolen art.’

Robert Waysmith looked up, suddenly defiant. ‘Oh … I can give you lots of evidence, Mr Voltaire. I’m going to make sure Pa gets what’s coming to him. At least I’ll die with a smile.’

Voltaire shook his head slowly. He was disgusted.

‘There are cars waiting for you outside. You will not take anything with you. You are all of you to leave with me … at once.’

Two days later, Pünd and Voltaire met for the last time.

James Fraser was overseeing the departure from the Grand-H?tel, checking the porters had brought down all the cases and settling the account. He would have been happy to stay another week, but Pünd wanted to be on his way. The death of Lady Chalfont had affected him more than he had expected because it had been so arbitrary. It wasn’t even as if she had been the real target. She had never harmed or offended anybody and hadn’t deserved her life ending this way, even if he could console himself that it was already over and it was perhaps only a few weeks that had been taken from her. Pünd was feeling a chill wind in the Riviera sunshine and knew that he had to go home. This time, he and Fraser were taking the plane.

He had not expected the Frenchman to come to the hotel. Voltaire himself was on his way back to Paris, travelling on his own. There is nothing a police officer finds more disagreeable than paperwork, but there was a mountain of it for him to process as a result of the five arrests he had made. More than anything, he longed to be back with his wife and son in their appartement in Montparnasse. He looked worn out. From the way he walked, clutching his injured arm and holding it closely to his side, it was clear that the wounds he had suffered fifteen years ago were still plaguing him.

He was waiting in the reception area when Pünd came out of the lift.

‘Monsieur Pünd!’

‘Monsieur Voltaire. I hoped I would see you again.’

‘You are leaving.’

‘We have a flight in two hours.’

‘Then perhaps you will allow me a few minutes? There is something I wish to say.’

‘Of course. Perhaps a last drink on the terrace?’

‘That would be excellent.’

They found a table close to where Pünd had met with the art expert, Harlan Scott. Voltaire ordered un grand crême . Pünd chose mineral water.

‘I will be brief,’ Voltaire began. ‘I wish, first of all, to apologise for the antagonism that I displayed when we first met. I will be honest and say I was irritated to be advised by my superiors that a crime committed on French soil was to be investigated by a detective from England. But for reasons that will be obvious to you, I also considered us to be enemies. It was foolish of me and I regret my error.’

Pünd held up a hand. ‘Please do not concern yourself, Frédéric. I may call you that? My work would have been a great deal more difficult without you and I fully understand your perspective. I might have felt the same had our positions been reversed.’

‘I also want to say that I was astounded by your perspicacity. All the evidence was there before me. I was present at almost every single one of the interviews you conducted. I met every suspect. And yet I saw nothing. It was only through the brilliance of your mind that the true circumstances of this terrible crime came to light. Everything they say about you is true, Atticus. You are a remarkable man.’

Pünd smiled – but modestly. ‘You are too kind.’

Voltaire’s eyes clouded. ‘It seems strange to me that an entire family should be so tainted. Robert Waysmith is evidently a psychopath, but his father is little better. And as for Jeffrey and Lola Chalfont and Harry and Judith Lyttleton, they allowed themselves to be led down a very dangerous path, to risk their liberty, their wealth and even their lives simply to rid themselves of a man who might not have been as much of a threat to them as they believed.’

‘You will arrest Elmer Waysmith?’

‘I think it is quite possible that he will escape justice. But he will have lost his wife, his son and his reputation. He will spend the rest of his life waiting for the knock on the door that will tell him his crimes have caught up with him. Are you a religious man, Atticus?’

‘My belief in God was taken from me by my experiences in the war.’

‘That is a shame. I have a belief in, if not God, then the possibility of divine retribution and it is this that has been delivered to Elmer Waysmith as surely as human justice will lay claim to his son.’ He paused. ‘You are not well, Atticus.’

‘You can see it?’

‘I do not need to. You told us all that this was your last case. You also said that you had met Lady Chalfont in a doctor’s waiting room. It is serious?’

‘My time is limited.’

‘The world will be a poorer place without you.’

‘Do not be sorry for me.’ Pünd smiled. ‘I must tell you, Frédéric, that I am at peace with my life and the leaving of it. Je suis fatigué. I have been tired for a long time. It is strange, do you not think, the life of the detective. We are not like other people. We make our living from evil and from inhumanity. Lady Chalfont is poisoned. The poor girl, Alice Carling, is strangled, just like the actress Melissa James. Sir Magnus Pye is decapitated. His housekeeper is pushed down the stairs. On and on it goes. We arrive, we ask questions, we find the killers and they themselves are arrested and perhaps executed. But what have we really achieved? For every Robert Waysmith there is another malefactor waiting in the wings, preparing for his entry onto the stage.

‘And it is inevitable that they will bring us down to their level. We will walk through the streets and we will see this person and that person and we will wonder what they are thinking, what they are planning, who they hate, how far they are prepared to go to achieve their ends. Every day, we see only the worst of humanity until we come to believe that every person on the planet may be tempted to do evil. Murder, blackmail, larceny, revenge … they become what you would call our raison d’être. That is our life. The detective has no escape. Without evil, there is no reason for him to exist.

‘I will not miss it. I am looking forward to the great tranquillity that must come to all of us. You speak to me of divine retribution and I find in that some consolation. I do not know where I am going, but when I think of the time we have spent together and the work we have done, I take great comfort in what I leave behind.’

‘I understand exactly what you say. I have a wife and a son. Were it not for them, I might feel the same.’

The drinks had arrived while they were talking. Pünd lifted his water and looked at the bubbles dancing to the surface, each and every one of them reflecting the sunlight. ‘ Au revoir, mon ami ,’ he said.

‘ Adieu ,’ Voltaire replied.