The Birds Fall Down (60 page)

The man in plain clothes alluded briefly to the unfortunate incident in the street below, disregarded Laura’s inquiry as to whom the victim had been, and went on to show an unexcited curiosity regarding Hippolyte Baraton of the Villa des Mimosas, Nice. He accepted the papers of identity which were handed to him and passed them to his uniformed assistant, who bent his head over them, raised it and nodded, while the unlucky policeman watched with under-lip protruded. Chubinov answered the question with unexcited verbosity, passing into an impersonation of a bore operating under no stress at all, in favourable circumstances such as he rarely enjoyed. He had four strangers to listen to him. Familiars, he must have learned long ago, do not listen. It appeared that Hippolyte’s grandfather had been a Russian, and was tutor to both the Count Diakonov and his brother, who was Ambassador in Paris for some time.

“Oh, an Ambassador?”

“My Uncle Ivan,” said Laura. “He was Ambassador at Berlin too.”

“And had been appointed to London at the time of his death.”

The man in plain clothes and his uniformed assistant looked very hard at the unlucky policeman, whose under-lip protruded still farther. There was a faint shrug of his shoulders.

The grey stream of denatured facts went on. One winter the Diakonovs wintered in Nice, and brought grandfather Baraton with them. He married a Frenchwoman, whose father was engaged in the manufacture of crystallized fruits: a description of the process, which demanded more care than the public usually realized, was with difficulty cut short. The couple’s son had in turn tutored the Ambassador’s children, here in Paris and down at Nice, and some of the Count’s older children, when they spent any length of time in France. Once three of them had been down in Nice for several months, convalescent after suffering in Russia from a peculiar form of measles, not at all like ordinary measles, oh, no; differing from it in several of the symptoms.

“Yes, yes.”

The grandson, Hippolyte himself, had tutored some of the younger children of the two families and some grandchildren. The Diakonovs had always been very kind to the Baratons. They had bought for his grandfather the little villa at Nice, which was small but commodious. They had given his father in his turn some shares in Russian mines and railways which had risen enormously in value. Thanks to them, he himself was quite comfortably off, not rich but never in need of a franc, and it was for this reason that he had been able to spend the last twenty years writing a book on Lord Byron.

“Has it been published?”

“Oh, no. It isn’t nearly finished.”

A look of trust passed over the faces of the three men. The unlucky policeman’s lower lip ceased to protrude. They could not believe that a man would say he had spent twenty years writing a book if it were not true.

“Is it a very long book?”

“No. It will be very short.”

The confidence established was nearly complete.

“It is because of the book, really, that I’m here, with this dear young lady at this moment.” He had taken a post as a French teacher in England, in order to do some research on Lord Byron. Sometimes he felt as if his studies had only just begun. When he broke his journey in Paris, he had rung up the Count, suggesting that he might call on him. This had worked out unfortunately, for the Count had explained that he and his granddaughter were leaving for Mûres-sur-Mer the next day, and had proposed that he should travel with them on the Calais train, and when they had got off proceed on his way to England. He had felt obliged to fall in with the Count’s wishes, but had not wished to do so, for his purpose in breaking his journey in Paris had been to inspect some letters, apparently by Byron, but possibly not genuine, owned by an old lady living at Versailles. It was very important that the authenticity of the letters should be proved or disproved, for they bore on a crucial event in Byron’s life.

“I have the vanity to believe that I would know, I might claim at a glance, whether they are genuine or not.”

“Yes, yes. Yes, yes.”

“Well, I had a pleasant journey with this young lady and the Count, who was a great man, great in body, great in brain, great in soul.”

He began to weep. His tears were real. They were true. Laura saw him change back from Baraton to Chubinov, and feared the truth was going to burst out of him. She handed him a glass of vodka, not daring to speak. Hell was this, being afraid of hearing someone tell the truth. She begged Nikolai’s pardon, but could not see how she could have avoided being in this room, with these sordid things happening around her.

“But before we had reached Mûres-sur-Mer, at Grissaint, to be precise, the Count felt ill and decided not to proceed to his destination and to stop the night in a hotel there, and return the next morning to Paris. Then, gentlemen, I was guilty of a grave error of judgment, a dereliction of the duty owed by the Baraton family to the Diakonov family. Tempted by the opportunity it gave me to inspect, after all, the Byron letters in the possession of Madame Jellinek, I took the first train back to Paris, and left this poor young lady alone with her grandfather, who died shortly after I left. I cannot forgive myself.” He could hardly get the lies out because of his terribly honest tears.

“But it didn’t matter,” Laura said, “I’ve told you it was all right. There were doctors all over the place. If it had mattered, I wouldn’t have sent you that telegram inviting you to come here at four o’clock for the service.” She was enraged against him. Some of his tears were certainly for Nikolai, but some were for Kamensky, who was wicked. It would be this unnatural sorrow, which was not of God, which would break him, if he should break. To give him time, she said to the policeman, “Monsieur Baraton was exceptionally kind to my grandfather and me in the train.” But the eyes of all four men had gone past her. Her mother was standing in the doorway, her skin glowing because she took her grief indignantly, the bright hair the brighter because of her black dress. “Good evening, gentlemen,” she said, “I’m sorry to hear of—” her long white hand saved her the trouble of clearly recollecting what this tragedy, not relevant to her own, might precisely be—“all this. Have you everything you want?”

Chubinov rose clumsily, not with the clumsiness of Chubinov, but with the greater clumsiness of Baraton, who was not so wellborn, knocking over his chair. When he had touched Tania’s hand with his lips he said, “I would have known you anywhere. All the ladies of the Diakonov family look as if they were covered with diamonds, even when they are wearing none. This is no time for diamonds, but still you shine. You dispel the darkness of the spirit,” he added, as if to make it clear that this was not a worldly compliment. He was within a hairsbreadth of breaking down and telling the truth. But painfully he forced himself to lie. “I am Hippolyte Baraton.”

“Ah. And I’m Tania, the one who never had the good fortune to be taught by you. But so often when the family photographs are brought out, all those of the gardens at Nice, it always was, ‘Who is the boy who looks so shy, who’s trying to hide behind his neighbour?’ and the answer was, ‘Oh, that was our dear Hippolyte.’”

The man in plain clothes said, “I’m sorry we have to intrude on you in your time of grief, Madame. But there’s been a man killed on the street just below, and we thought that this gentleman, who was passing by at the time, might be able to tell us something about the incident. But first, just as a matter of routine, may I ask you some questions about yourself and your household?”

The unlucky policeman gave up his chair to her and stood leaning against the wall and staring at her under puckered brows, while she gave the answers. The man in plain clothes finally said, “That’s all, I think. To sum up, this is the apartment of Count Diakonov, formerly a Minister of the Tsar, and brother to a former Russian Ambassador to Paris. You’re his daughter, and the wife of an Englishman, a Member of the House of Commons. And this is your daughter of eighteen. And you remember Monsieur Baraton from seeing him in your family photographs.” He and his assistant looked over at the unlucky policeman with an air of malicious triumph. “And we didn’t really need to ask who the young lady is, for her hair makes that evident.”

At that the assistant nearly laughed aloud, and the unlucky policeman bit his lip. It was plain what he had been telling them. “There was something fishy about the couple. I think the man might have done the job, and the girl with him looked strange, and I believe her hair was dyed, as a decent girl’s hair wouldn’t be.”

“Now, Monsieur Baraton, you told the officer here that you didn’t know the man who was killed. When did you first see him this afternoon?”

“On my way here, at the corner where the Rue Belloy runs into the Avenue Kléber. I noticed him because he was carrying those white roses. Just afterwards I remembered I’d not packed any tooth-powder, so I went back to a chemist’s shop I’d just passed, and bought a tin of the stuff. It’s in the pocket of my overcoat, there on the door. Then I made my way up the avenue, but the Count being dead, I had my own preoccupations, and I didn’t think of this man again, until, suddenly, I saw him lying on the pavement.”

“And then our officer here questioned you, Monsieur Baraton. Since then he’s thought over your answers and we’d like them clarified.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I can. But I really didn’t see anything.”

“It isn’t quite a matter of what you saw or didn’t see. It’s a matter of what you said. Our officer thought the man had been stabbed. He was told so by a witness who had formed a false impression. He therefore asked you if you had seen a man stabbed. You replied that you hadn’t seen anybody stabbed, and each time, you laid a slight emphasis on the word ‘stabbed’ as if you were surprised by the notion that that was the way he had died.”

“That’s quite wrong. What surprised me was that someone should be murdered, by any means at all, in the Avenue Kléber. It doesn’t seem appropriate, someone being murdered in a Haussmann Boulevard. Down by the Marais, that would seem much more suitable, if you know what I mean. Not that I want to take issue with our friend here, for it can’t be an important point.”

“But it is. For the man who was lying on the pavement had been shot. The man who murdered him would, therefore, have been very much surprised, if he were asked whether he’d seen the victim stabbed. Wouldn’t he, Monsieur Baraton?”

The blood was racing in Laura’s ears. She did not hear Chubinov’s faint answer.

“The victim must have been shot just about the time when you and he were within some yards of each other on the corner of the Rue Belloy. Are you a revolver shot, Monsieur Baraton?”

The nostrils of the unlucky policeman were distended, his profile looked noble and triumphant.

The answer came loudly and confidently: “Yes, I am an excellent revolver shot. The Count himself taught me. I am still quite fair. It would have been child’s play for me to shoot him just before I went into the chemist’s shop. I couldn’t have missed.” He took another drink of coffee and slopped it down his waistcoat, gaping about him in hurt astonishment, as Tania and Laura, the man in plain clothes and his assistant, burst into nervous laughter. “If you ask your brothers,” he told Tania, “they could confirm what I say.” Then his eyes fell on the unlucky policeman who was still leaning against the wall, still pouting in implacable suspicion. “I suppose what I have just said sounds foolish,” said Chubinov stiffly, “but I’d like to point out that I could hardly be accused of shooting this poor man, as I haven’t got a gun nearer than Nice. I’ll be only too pleased if you’ll search me.”

The man in plain clothes smiled down at his notebook, and there was a pause. Tania said, “There’s been a lot of coming and going in this apartment this afternoon. I see you might quite well want to be assured that nobody here, either of my household or among my visitors had anything to do with this horrible business. Please search the apartment. But I’d be obliged if you’d let the servants help you. If you’re going to turn out this room, for example, I’d like the servant who sees to the mending and the care of the linen to be with you, so that she can put things back.” She spoke placidly, as if in the interests of abstract order. But then her voice shook. “And of course, you won’t go into the room where my father is lying.”

“Of course not,” murmured the man in plain clothes, bowing.

“In any case it couldn’t interest you, for in our Church the Psalms have to be recited perpetually over our dead, and two people have been there all the time.”

“Actually we won’t search that room or this room or any other in the apartment,” he said. “At least not now. If this gentleman will come down to the police-station, I’m writing down the address, and make a statement later tonight, that’s all we need for the moment. If we need more help, we’ll call on you again. But I hope we’ll not need to intrude on you.” He spoke, as men often did in the presence of Tania, in the character of a man more elegant and fortunate than himself.

When Tania had thanked him she did not rise and leave. She asked gravely, “Who was the man who was killed?”

“We’ve no idea, beyond the fact that he was middle-aged, dark, short, and healthy. He was one of those men of mystery we sometimes find on our hands. He must have been quite wealthy, and had a secret to keep. All the labels on his clothes had been carefully unpicked, even the tailor’s marks which customers don’t usually know about had gone. But coat, suit, underclothes, they’re all of good quality. His shoes must have been quite expensive. Handmade, of the best. Handkerchief of fine lawn, but no monogram.

A silver cigarette-case, but no monogram. No papers of any sort, no letters. Only a considerable amount of money in francs and sovereigns. And these.” He held out a pair of spectacles, lying flat on his palm. “But you will be surprised. The lenses are clear glass.”

“What horrible sinister things,” sighed Tania. “Sinister because they’re useless.”

“Not wholly useless. If he wanted to change his appearance quickly when he was pulling off a fraud.”

“Well, fraud is uselessness,” said Tania. “I wonder who he was. You know, I thought I might know. My father, like all Tsarist Ministers, was persecuted by the terrorists. I was afraid that one of the friends who came to mourn my father, a general, perhaps, or a high official, had been shot down by one of these misguided men. But none of our friends would have had the labels on their clothes unpicked, or carried such spectacles in their pockets. I also wondered whether the dead man might have been one of the terrorists. They’re always having feuds among themselves, my father used to say. But in that case his clothes wouldn’t have been good, and he wouldn’t have had all that money on him. These revolutionaries live very poorly. To do them justice, they’re idealists.”