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lining one wall, Gilles studied
the woman before him in his peripheral vision. There had been some
books on a shelf in the salon as well. Those were all
leather-bound, a set of matching tomes such as any wealthy person
might display more for status reasons than any real reading
pleasure. The ones in here, many of them paperbacks like the one in
the studio, looked as if they had actually been read.
    “ I understand your feelings
in this matter, and I want you to know I take everything you say
very seriously.” The Madame’s eyes bored into his from across the
desk.
    “ I meant what I said.” She
hesitated. “I know what you are thinking.”
    He didn’t bother to ask what he was
thinking. In her black house dress and flat shoes, she was a
stereotype, but he was never fooled by such things. She was a
product of her upbringing, rather than any real defect of
intelligence or environment.
    “ Did Monsieur Duval have
enemies?”
    She shrugged in contempt at his
stupidity. He was a fool not to see it, but he needed hard
information, and the man was a perfect stranger to him.
    “ Had he received any threats
that you know of? Had he had any unusual visitors
lately?”
    “ No, not really, I—” She
flushed and started over. “Yes, and no. They are all unusual. But
that’s not what I mean.”
    “ Well, take your time.”
Gilles sat back. “Was Monsieur Duval behaving any differently
lately? Were there any deviations from his normal routine? Did he
go out, or come in, or stay away unexpectedly? Who has he been with
lately?”
    The throbbing in his jaw was subsiding,
but only a little. He had taken two of the pills. Perhaps he should
have tried three or even four, although the doctor had prescribed
two.
    “ Monsieur had some unusual
friends?” Gilles jotted a quick line on his page.
    He underlined it carefully three times,
and then looked up into her hot black eyes.
    “ What I am trying to say,
Inspector, is that he had no reason to want to do this terrible
thing, and would have been fundamentally opposed to it. He was a
very moral man, strong in his beliefs as well as his
character.”
    The spring sunlight came slanting in
through the window and the room was heating up.
    “ All right. Not the sort of
person who commits suicide, and in fact, Madame, people almost
always show some signs, that in reflection, looking back, may have
been obvious. You saw no such signs?”
    “ None.” The dark-haired
woman, about forty-five years of age, stared back at him with a
calm dignity in her black, moist eyes. “He had every reason to
live, and no reason to go to that extreme.”
    “ What about his
health?”
    “ He seemed fine lately,
although you would have to speak to others.” She reached again for
the pen and the paper. “I will give you his doctor’s name and
address, and get the addresses for the others.”
    “ Yes, the brother and
sister. Give us as many friends, as many names as you can think
of.” Gilles thought for a moment. “When do you get up? When do you
go to the kitchen, or begin work, that sort of thing?”
    Hermione was prolific once away from
the others, and many of his questions centred on neutral subjects
of the daily routine in the house. If anyone could be said to
cooperate fully, it was her.
    When she showed signs of drying up, he
prompted her for more.
    “ Did he go to church? Did he
go to confession, or to Mass on Easter, that sort of thing? Did he
ever see a psychologist? Nothing like that?” At one time it was the
fashionable thing to do, to get one’s dreams analyzed.
    “ No psychologist, but he did
go to Mass sometimes, usually on Sunday.”
    So he didn’t do the evening Masses.
That would have been out of character for one such as Duval. He
would have gone out at night, but there wasn’t much to do on a
Sunday morning in the city. The country might be different, but
according to her Duval didn’t have a hunting lodge or a villa, or
anything like that. When he traveled, which wasn’t