The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(22)
“Very well, Inspector, if you insist, I shall tell you about him. Armand was a man in a class of his own! Honorable and wise, extremely wise. I suppose intellectual pride was his only weakness, if you can consider it as such. He loved to paint me . . .” Clayton heard a sorrowful sigh. “He did my portrait many times. He used to say I had an unworldly beauty, and he was the humble chronicler whose sacred task was to preserve it for posterity.” The inspector heard her take a few steps forward until she was standing beside him. “However, this portrait is particularly dear to me, because he painted it days before . . . well, you already know about his tragic end.” Valerie’s words caught in her throat, as if she were on the verge of tears.
“It was painted in his study, wasn’t it?” Clayton asked, insensitive to her pain.
“Yes, that was where he did all his research.”
Clayton pursed his lips with a mixture of anger and sorrow as he recalled his surprise at discovering a haven of secret knowledge in Tom Hollister’s humble, dilapidated abode, amid the rats and piles of refuse. The man had spent a long time poring over the numerous manuals on taxidermy neatly lining the shelves in order of size and even color. These stood next to endless rows of substances in jars and some alarming-looking implements: skull scrapers, pincers, colored powders, cotton-wool balls, containers filled with glass eyes, like macabre sweets . . . All meticulously arranged, to the millimeter, composing a cocoon of harmony amid the confusion that reigned in the shack.
“What were the count’s areas of expertise?”
“Everything,” the countess replied with evident pride, increasingly intrigued by the inspector’s sudden interest. “All areas of knowledge and art. He was a brilliant scholar and a scientist far ahead of his time. Centuries ago he would doubtless have been burned at the stake, but fortunately we live in a different age. Nowadays, those who are different or superior merely have to endure envy and slander,” she concluded.
“Did you love him?” the inspector asked, still not looking at her.
The countess hesitated.
“I felt a profound admiration for him. And I was deeply grateful for—”
“But did you love him?” Clayton repeated abruptly.
Valerie de Bompard remained silent for a few moments.
“I could tell you to mind your own business, Inspector,” she replied softly but firmly.
“You could. But all I want to know is whether you are capable of love,” he replied, mimicking her tone as he turned to face her.
“I didn’t love him, Inspector. But that doesn’t mean I can’t love others.” The countess smiled, her small white teeth glistening like precious pearls. “You must understand that the relationship between Armand and me was never that of a normal couple.”
“I see.”
“I don’t think you do.” She laughed. “I was terribly young when I met Armand, Inspector. You might say that I was a feral child, without a shred of education, who lived in darkness, and that Armand kindled in me the flame of knowledge. He educated me, not simply to be a young lady, but to be an equal, like a man. He taught me everything I know, including, when the time was right, about love and pleasure. For, according to Armand de Bompard, if someone hasn’t experienced love and pleasure, they cannot aspire to true knowledge. And so I don’t know whether he married me because he was in love with me or simply because he couldn’t imagine my education being complete without the mastery of love, the highest of the arts. But the fact is, he completed his masterpiece by making me his wife. And you ask me if I loved him? Why, I’m not even sure he loved me!” The countess bit her lower lip and looked defiantly at Clayton. “No, I don’t suppose I loved him. But perhaps what we had was greater than love.”
A silence ensued, which they both allowed to continue as they regarded each other intently.
“Well, I’ve told you about Armand,” the countess said at last. “If your theory is correct, you should know me better now than you did five minutes ago. So, tell me, Inspector, who am I?”
“I’d gladly give any part of my anatomy if it helped me to discover who exactly you are, Countess.”
She laughed sarcastically.
“Well, I shan’t ask that much of you, Inspector. But no more talk of the past. Or of Armand. Tonight we are celebrating,” she said, recovering some of her vivacity. Realizing her glass was empty, she went back to the table to refill it. “You don’t know how grateful I am to you for having caught that idiot Hollister. He always seemed to perpetrate his crimes whenever I threw a ball. It was becoming something of a habit for the chief constable’s men to burst in and silence the orchestra, loudly informing their superior of bloodied corpses and spilled entrails. Can you imagine anything more tasteless? Despite all one’s efforts to look beautiful and make a grand entrance that enchants one’s guests, such interruptions are enough to ruin any ball. It’s hard to continue enjoying oneself after something like that. You were at the last one, so you could see for yourself.” She sashayed back over to Clayton. “Although, I must confess, my real regret when Hollister interrupted my party by killing dear Mr. Dalton was that he did so just at the moment you appeared to have plucked up the courage to ask me to dance. What a pity. Still, at least you used that courage to catch the killer and solve the case.”