The Provence Puzzle: An Inspector Damiot Mystery(64)
“When’s the last time you were in Toulon?”
“I’ve never been there. Marseille, but never Toulon.”
“Who do you think killed those two girls?”
“The monster, of course.”
“What monster?”
“They say it hides in the old Chateau. The villagers are going up there again tonight and try to catch it.”
“You’ve seen this monster?”
“No. I’m going this evening for the first time.”
As Damiot studied his face he remembered Lisette Jarlaud’s two children. The little one had the same curly auburn hair…
“If there is a monster,” Savord continued, “it should be put to death before it harms anyone else! And if I could be sure it murdered Lisette, I’d like to be the one who kills it.”
“I’m told you wanted to marry Lisette Jarlaud.”
“She’d have married me, if she had lived. Promised me she would! Only there was another guy. She wanted to marry him. Said she’d talk to him, and if he refused she’d marry me.”
“Who was this man?”
“She never told me his name.”
“A man in the village?”
“I suppose so, because she said she was seeing him, and Lisette didn’t have a car to drive anywhere.”
“Didn’t you resent her seeing other men?”
He shrugged. “What could I do?”
“You would marry her? Knowing all this…”
“Of course!” He hesitated. “She’s the mother of my son.”
“Oh?”
“Lisette had two kids.”
“I know. I’ve seen them.”
“Mine’s the boy. I thought if we were married and she came to live here on the farm, she would give up her job at the hotel and her old life. I promised her she could bring the little girl and I would give her a good home. Just like the boy…”
“What about your family?”
“I would’ve told my father that both kids were mine.”
“Why didn’t she agree to that?”
“She said this other guy could give her a better life. Take her away from here. I guess she really loved him.”
“Some older man?”
“I suppose… But he told her he was already the father of a child. He’d never married the girl, and hadn’t seen her in more than a year. Lisette thought if she told him she was pregnant he might forget the other girl and marry her.”
“Was that what she planned to do?”
“So she said.”
“When was this? How long before she died?”
Savord scowled. “It was—the last time I saw her…”
“She died on a Monday.”
“This was Friday night.” He turned to Damiot, his young face twisted with emotion. “We drove over to Arles and had a nice dinner. That night, before I took her home, I asked her again to marry me. And that’s when she told me about this other guy. If he didn’t fall for her story and agree to marry her right away, she would marry me. I never saw her again.”
“Maybe he did fall for her story—and killed her.”
“I’ve thought of that…”
“You still would’ve married her? After she told you this?”
“Of course!”
Damiot was surprised at the vehemence in Savord’s voice. “Why?”
“Because I loved her, M’sieur! In spite of everything I knew about Lisette. I still love her…”
CHAPTER 20
Damiot was preoccupied as he ate lunch on a hillside terrace with a view of Aix, the ancient capital of Provence.
The roadside restaurant had looked inviting but the bored waiter was half asleep, the food disappointing, and the local wine barely drinkable.
He tried to sort out the jumble of information he had turned up about Annie Deffous and Lisette Jarlaud. The most important thing he had learned today seemed to be young Savord’s account of his last evening with the Jarlaud girl.
Who was this man she had planned to threaten with a false pregnancy? Hoping he would agree to marriage…
The same man Annie Deffous had come to see in Courville? Only Deffous had given birth to his child! Some man she had met in Toulon? Some businessman?…
Marc Sibilat?
Was Sibilat’s story—that the Deffous girl had noticed his name above the florist shop—an attempt to throw off suspicion? Had she traced Sibilat to Courville? Did he identify her because he hoped that would make him appear to be innocent?
Certainly his mother was a shrewd one. Although she apparently didn’t suspect her son was with Blanche Carmet this morning. So he was clever enough to deceive the old woman…
And what about Achille Savord? He would be going up there tonight, for the first time, he claimed. Was there a murderer hiding under his seemingly ingenuous appearance? Had he killed Lisette Jarlaud when she refused to marry him? Had he told that story about another man to conceal the truth? How could he have been involved with Annie Deffous?
The good weather held through the afternoon, as Damiot returned to Courville after many hours of driving on country roads.
When he parked behind the Auberge, he noticed a scattering of white clouds high in the western sky.