The Twenty-Year Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

painted a faint olive green with white shutters. The low fence surrounding the property was more decorative than anything.
    The rain was holding steady, but Pelleter had refused a ride to the house, preferring to see the town on foot. The baker’s house where the body had been found was in another quarter of the town, to the north, but that didn’t mean anything. The town was not very large. Meranger could have been on his way to see his daughter, or he could have already been there. And there was still the matter of who had helped him out of the prison, and who would want to.
    Pelleter let himself in through the front gate. The house was well maintained, and somehow managed to look cheery even in the rain. At the door, shielded by the overhang, the remaining water streamed off his hat and coat before settling to a steady drip. There were no lights at the front of the house, but he could see that there were some lit towards the rear. He knocked.
    A car passed in the street, on its way to town, not yet slowing its country pace.
    There was no response from the house. Pelleter knocked again, looking up and around him as if he could gauge if the house was empty.
    It was possible that the Rosenkrantzes were out, although in this rain it seemed unlikely. And Pelleter thought they would not have left any lights burning if that were the case. He was thankful for the overhang, but he was growing tired of thesound of the rain, of the weight of his coat, of the clammy feeling of the weather in general.
    He knocked again with great force and the door shuddered a little in its frame.
    A figure appeared from the back of the house, a silhouette blocking the light, visible through the window in the door. The man came up to the door with quick strides, and pulled it open violently. “What do you want?”
    He was about Pelleter’s age. His French was almost unaccented, but something still gave him away as a foreigner. Perhaps it was his manner.
    Pelleter showed his papers. “Is Madame Rosenkrantz at home?”
    “No. What’s it about?”
    “I’d like to speak to her directly.”
    “Well, she’s not here. And I’m trying to work. So sorry.” He made no motion to close the door, but by his stance it was clear that he was about to.
    “It’s about her father. I think she would want to speak to me.”
    The man’s stance opened up, and he took a step so that he was standing at the threshold of the door. “If it’s about her father, then she definitely doesn’t want to speak to you. She’s done with him. Finished. She hates his guts.”
    “That doesn’t change that I need to speak to her.”
    The man repositioned himself, as if readying for a confrontation. He was a broad man, of a similar build to Pelleter. He had not let himself get soft with age or with the comfort of working at a typewriter. “My wife doesn’t talk to her father and hasn’t for thirteen years. So anything she has to say, I can say right now, which is nothing. You got that?”
    Pelleter didn’t answer.
    Monsieur Rosenkrantz backed up. “Now I’m working.” He started to close the door.
    Pelleter turned slightly as if to go, and then turned back just as the door was almost shut, Rosenkrantz still visible through the window. “One more thing. If your wife no longer talks to her father, then why did she choose to live in the town closest to his prison?”
    Rosenkrantz jerked the door back open, and stood glaring at Pelleter as though he were going to start a fight. Instead he slammed the door without answering, and stormed off into the back of the house, disappearing in the low light.
    Pelleter found the stump of his cigar in his pocket and put it in his mouth. He chewed it first in the left corner of his mouth and then shifted it with his tongue to the right corner. It was too wet out to light a new cigar, so the stump would do for the walk back into town.
    He stepped down from out of the protection of the overhang, walked the length of the path, and out