Swiss Vendetta (Agnes Luthi Mysteries #1)(42)
“That’s absurd, as absurd as anything we’ve heard during this investigation.”
“You should spend time with my mother-in-law. She’ll give you plenty of details. I try, but I’m always just a little bit wrong. I still don’t like to eat rabbit and every Easter she acts like I’ve committed sacrilege.”
“Not everyone has rabbit at Easter.”
“In our village they do.” Agnes smiled. “When I think about the expense my parents went to arranging for a turkey to be delivered for our holidays. And yams and marshmallows and cranberry sauce. My mother did it because she had her own childhood memories from America and wanted to share them, but it didn’t help. I was always pretending at school. Pretending I did what everyone else did. Not wanting anyone to know we celebrated the American Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday of November.”
“George didn’t die because you don’t like rabbit.”
“That’s only a tiny example. He wouldn’t want to admit his mistake to anyone. He wouldn’t want to divorce me and upset the boys. Or hurt his parents.”
“Divorce is hardly the end of the world.”
“To my in-laws it is. Laws may change and times march on but they live in a small village and hold to the old ways. They’d prefer I came from a family who had lived in a neighboring village for the last thousand years. George loved them and knew this. He wouldn’t have wanted to embarrass them with a divorce. Standards have to be upheld. The illusion maintained.”
“Agnes, listen to yourself. His death upset the boys and brought more negative attention than a divorce would have. He had to have known that.”
“Everyone has an opinion but no one, definitely not you, knows why.”
She lifted her hands to cover her face and smelled the tang of hand lotion. George’s lotion.
Fourteen
Agnes started at the sound of footsteps approaching Felicity Cowell’s workroom. She dropped her hand from Winston’s muzzle, embarrassed to be caught talking to him.
“My father’s dog,” Julien Vallotton said from the doorway, “has probably heard more confessions than some priests.”
Winston shifted away from Agnes and looked from one human to the other. This section of the chateau was so isolated she hadn’t expected anyone to join her. Perhaps that was because she had taken care to follow the route Felicity Cowell favored. That meant exiting through a heavy paneled door directly to the outside. From there, under the covered passageway between the menacing iron portcullis and the courtyard, she had taken a narrow door leading to an equally narrow stairway. It led up to Felicity Cowell’s workroom. Winston had followed her. At first his size was intimidating, but he looked well fed and she decided it wasn’t on guests. After that she appreciated his presence.
Similarly, Vallotton’s appearance wasn’t exactly unwelcome but he had startled her. In fact, more than startled her. She was starting to see menace around every corner. There were too many dark and unexplored places.
“What is it you do exactly?” she asked to cover her discomfiture.
“I’m a collector.”
“Art? Antiques?”
“Buildings. Houses mainly. They’re an art form of sorts.”
She sighed. Most people she knew collected hotel soaps or postcards.
The workroom was nearly dark and Vallotton stepped into the hall and returned with a bundle of candles. He stuck them in a brass candelabra and lit them. Shadows sprang onto the walls, illuminating corners not visible with Agnes’s flashlight beam. She was reminded of her initial impression: this room was not large or attractive when compared to the others in the chateau. In the center was a plain wooden desk and on it were stacks of unbound pages from the working auction catalogue. A digital camera, notebook, row of neatly aligned pencils, and a teacup—used and not empty—were arranged beside a small stack of books. The ceiling was high enough to give a sense of scale not seen in modern life, and normally the room would be illuminated from a bank of clerestory windows. Today ice blocked most of the light, and the sun was already low. The only heat source was a small fireplace. It was unlit and the room was bitterly cold.
“What were these rooms originally? They’re isolated,” said Agnes.
“Originally? Sleeping quarters for the guards,” said Vallotton. “Easy access to the main gate and to a stair leading to the battlements.”
“How did Felicity end up here?” Agnes asked.
“My story won’t change, you know. That’s the best part about telling the truth, it’s consistent.” When she didn’t respond he continued, “I probably see or speak with Evelyn Leigh every month or so. He calls about something coming up for auction that we might want, or sometimes I ask him to keep an eye out for a particular item, a gift for my aunt, or my brother. I mentioned that we would have a formal sale to honor Father’s wishes.” He paused. “You might argue that Evelyn was able to use his very substantial powers of persuasion to convince me to stage a more public sale of many items. I think this was good business sense for him, and not part of a murder plot, but I will leave that to you. Evelyn suggested Mademoiselle Cowell should handle the preliminary onsite details. I looked at their website while we were on the telephone and glanced at her photograph—more out of idle curiosity than anything—but that was all I knew of her. I didn’t have a reason to care, it was the firm we were hiring, not this one employee.”