The Provence Puzzle: An Inspector Damiot Mystery(55)

“Now, Allan!” the Comte protested. “I’ve been enjoying my public performances.”

“The whole thing could so easily get out of hand. When you first had the idea, I thought it was amusing. Playing a joke on the villagers. But now I’m not so certain.”

“Help yourself to that whisky, mon ami. And more Calvados for Monsieur Damiot.”

Tendrell rose from the sofa and picked up the Calvados bottle from the desk. He filled Damiot’s glass as he talked. “My daughter, by the way, has no idea that the Comte exists. Although she’s getting terribly suspicious because of the evenings I spend away from the farm. Fortunately, we have only the one car, so Jenny can’t follow me.” Replenishing the Comte’s glass. “I suppose, one day soon, I shall have to tell her the truth and bring her to meet Nick.”

“I look forward to that day! Meeting your delightful daughter…” The Comte picked up his drink. “Merci, mon ami.”

“Inspector Damiot, I wish that somehow you could convince Nick that he mustn’t play this little game.” Tendrell filled his own glass to the brim. “He should destroy his monstrous toy!”

The Comte stared at his glass, frowning. “Why must I destroy my beautiful monster?”

“Because the thing is evil. Even though it’s only a clumsy contraption of cloth and metal!”

“Clumsy? It’s nothing of the sort!” Lifting his glass to Damiot as he talked. “We designed it here in our laboratory. One of my assistants created the head, the wig came from Paris, and Madame Léontine made the costume.” He sipped the Calvados, then abruptly set his glass down. “Would you like to meet my monster, Monsieur Damiot?”

“I would indeed.”

“Splendid!” His eyes gleamed mischievously as he got to his feet. Standing erect, his waist was barely level with the top of the table desk. “You shall judge for yourself whether he is clumsy.” He produced two oblong metal objects from somewhere in his wheelchair. Snapped and shook one, causing it to shoot out into a curiously shaped crutch. “I designed these too. Collapsible and much lighter than any others.”

Damiot saw that the crutch was made of flexible metal, jointed and shaped to support the arm. Like no crutch he had ever seen.

The Comte snapped a second crutch into shape and slipped both of them up his voluminous sleeves before circling the desk. “I’ll be with you in a moment, Monsieur Inspecteur!” He crossed the room, moving awkwardly, followed by the mastiff.

Under his long brown robe, the Comte appeared to have the muscular shoulders and torso of a grown man, but his invisible legs must be those of a child. This was the boy Jenny Tendrell had glimpsed through the entrance gates! Damiot watched the stunted figure swaying from side to side until it vanished into the dark passage with the mastiff.

Fric-Frac, left behind, came to sit at his feet.

“So now you know the truth!” Tendrell murmured. “I’ve no idea what Nick was telling you before I arrived, but I must add that, in my opinion, he’s an authentic genius. Many of his inventions are already being produced by a corporation he owns in Paris. I think the idea of creating a monster amused him, after the long hours he spends with his colleagues on more serious projects…” The Englishman moved around the room, glass in hand. “But the whole thing’s become much too dangerous. I hope, Monsieur Inspecteur, that you’re able to make Nick put his toy away and forget it!”

“He won’t listen to you?”

“No, indeed!”

“What about the murders of those two girls?”

“Nick had nothing to do with their deaths.”

“How can you be so positive?”

“You saw him! It would be physically impossible.”

“With Pouchet’s help, he might have reached that field across from here in his wheelchair.”

“Nick has killed no one! He could never get down to the village in his wheelchair, to that alley where the Jarlaud girl was found.”

“Pouchet has a car.”

“Nick did not kill Lisette Jarlaud. I know that for a fact.”

“Do you?”

“I was with him that night. We spent the evening together. I didn’t arrive home until long after midnight. Pouchet had to help Nick to bed and it was necessary for me to drive rather carefully.”

Damiot was distracted, as the Englishman talked, by a whisper of sound from the passage. A monstrous figure loomed out of the dark. Damiot recognized the great head with lank black hair hanging down to the huge shoulders. A long, multicolored cloak, not unlike the Comte’s robe, swaying with the body in an awkward rhythm that made the strange figure seem even more ominous.

Fric-Frac growled.

Tendrell turned and saw the approaching figure. “Ah! The famous Courville monster! In person…”

As the towering figure came closer, Damiot realized that the face was a skillfully painted mask with black holes for eyes, hollow waxen cheeks, and a crimson slash of mouth.

Tendrell set his empty glass on the desk. “Startling, eh?”

“Amazing!” Damiot jumped to his feet and crossed the room with Fric-Frac growling at his heels. “No wonder the villagers thought this was real!” He circled the slowly moving figure as Pouchet and the mastiff followed the monster out of the darkness.