Swiss Vendetta (Agnes Luthi Mysteries #1)(53)

They returned to the main salon to find several hundred candles had been lit and placed on every available surface. “I was tired of the dark,” Arsov remarked. When they were seated near the fireplace he looked from Agnes to Petit. “You didn’t come here on a cold night to tell me I may have been robbed.”

“Yes, we did,” Petit said.

“Young man, I have never said such stupid things. Oh, maybe when I was very young. And you”—Arsov waved toward Agnes—“if he is too eager, you are too worried. Maybe you will make a good team. It is possible.” He shrugged and adjusted the tube leading to his oxygen tank, snorting in air.

“We’re not a te—” Agnes stopped Petit with a glance.

“I know what you came here to say, Inspector,” Arsov said, fingers gripping the armrests of his wheelchair like talons. “If there was a burglary at the chateau and also here, maybe you change your focus of investigation. Trust me. I have not been robbed since I was eighteen. You know that I have security that the Vallottons don’t. We lock our doors.”

A bottle of wine had been decanted. Arsov took a drink, sucking the ruby liquid in between his teeth and rolling it in his mouth.

“The Rothschilds know how to make wine,” he said after swallowing. “I used to visit their vineyard every year and buy cases and cases. Oh, the pleasure of talking wine with Philippe de Rothschild. It was the culmination of a dream I didn’t even know I had.”

Agnes took a small sip. “This is good.”

“Good? It is the nectar of the gods.”

Flames in the fireplace crackled and Agnes let her mind drift across the frozen lawn. She was tired to the point that each individual muscle ached. The wine and Arsov’s confidence relaxed her. First her muscles, then her mind. The strands of her thoughts untangled, making them easier to compartmentalize. Arsov was right, she hadn’t needed to come tonight to tell him about the theft, but she was glad she had. The old man reached for his silver box of cigarettes, seeming content, for he smiled at some private thought. The room was silent for some time. Petit shifted uncomfortably.

“Tell me why you are here,” Arsov said.

“About the burglary.” Agnes jolted out of a near doze.

“You are as bad as the young man. We have discussed this and for the Vallottons it is nothing. You tell me what they are missing and I say it is like losing the coins from your pocket.”

“I think Monsieur Vallotton is worried.”

“He will always worry, that one. What of the marquise?” Arsov flicked a piece of tobacco from his lip.

“I didn’t speak with her this evening. She spends most of her time alone, in her rooms.”

Arsov sucked on his cigarette, exhaling deliberately. “Officer Petit, you are restless, and this disturbs me. Have Nurse Brighton resume our tour. There is much else to see.”

Petit nearly objected, but the nurse emerged from the shadows and took him by the elbow, urging him into the next room. Agnes stood as if to follow but Arsov motioned her to a closer chair.

“You are looking for something—something beyond your murderer. You are at the end of your capacity.”

She straightened, but he waved her down. “You remind me of my American friends. You think I speak of your capacity as an officer of the law. Of your work. I do not think of that, I think of you as a person. You came tonight here to escape.”

To object was meaningless. The old man could see.

“Few have confronted their limits, but you have. I recognize this. You are unsure. Was it the worst life will give you or is there something more? I have known the same feeling. First, when my mother and sisters died. Then when my brothers died in the battle for Stalingrad. What I saw there made me flee the armies, barely human at the time in my filth and hunger and fatigue. Later I heard the stories of cannibalism and I could not cast judgment, even though it may have been my brother or friend who was eaten. We were at the end of salvation, pushed beyond human capacity.”

Agnes took another drink of her wine. Arsov smoked and stared toward the black reflection in the windows overlooking the lake.

“I do not know your troubles, but I do know it is possible to survive this low point in your life. I know because I did. Because I still am. Surviving.”

“I lost my husband,” she said without thinking. “He killed himself.” She had never volunteered this information before; had avoided it, leaving the news to official channels or gossip.

Arsov peered at her. “And you were witness.” It was not a question. “Like her,” he said softly. “You will need to be strong like her.”

“Who?”

“I tell you why I open this wine tonight. This fine bottle. It was not for you who have no taste for it, it was for the past. This storm has put my mind in the past. The distant past.” He looped the oxygen tube onto his head before shoving the entire apparatus off the side of his chair.

“France was very different from Russia. For one thing it was warmer. I was young and, despite what I had suffered, I was still a na?ve peasant. I had the buoyancy of youth. I didn’t think or plan. I didn’t think that no one would trust me. Why would you trust someone you do not know when neighbors, even family, were turning one another in? I had never lived in a place where I knew absolutely no one. It shook me. I should have been even more worried, however, like your Officer Petit, youth is stupid and I was in a mood that could be called euphoric. That is what kept me alive. Compared to Russia the air felt free from death. Compared to Russia, the land was green and easy and I was happy to be there.”