Chapter 8 #2
The underground space was damp, the river close by. Mold blackened the corners of the ceiling and stone floor.
The cells lay at the end of a corridor, beyond various storage rooms where more gendarmes worked, coats off in the humid air. Though it was far cooler down here than on the summer street, the mugginess was oppressive.
Thick doors with small, grilled windows enclosed those arrested this day. Behind one, a woman was singing at the top of her voice, the words slurred with drink.
“Madame Marais,” Vernet said when I turned to the noise. “She is in here almost every day. She will quiet down to sleep and go home later this afternoon.”
At the sound of her name, Madame Marais increased her bellowing, the song becoming a ribald one about gendarme officers and their endowments.
Ignoring her, Vernet took a ring of keys from his coat pocket and unlocked the cell door opposite that of the serenading madame.
The chamber was lit only by a window high up in the wall. By that dim glow, I saw Claude Devere hunched in on himself on a stone bunk, his head in his hands. He raised that head slowly when he heard the door open, defeat in his eyes.
He blinked when he saw me then regarded Vernet in confusion. “Why is he here? Did my father send him?”
“Captain Lacey has come to talk, that is all,” Vernet said sternly. “I advise you to be truthful with him. I will return in a quarter of an hour, Captain. The only way out is the stairs, and I have many men between here and there.”
“I assure you, I have no intention of absconding with him,” I answered.
“Good. I would hate to have to shoot you. A quarter hour.” Vernet gave us both a warning glare then backed out of the door and closed it. Claude flinched as the key turned in the lock.
I’d met Claude Devere during our tour of the ironworks, which I now realized had been carefully orchestrated.
Claude was about the same age as Emile and resembled his cousin with his brown hair and eyes, though Claude’s hair was a shade darker.
His face was sharper, his chin more pointed, traits he’d likely inherited from his deceased mother.
He possessed a sullenness Emile lacked, a deep burning anger at an unknown target.
He’d inherit a share of the business, as would Emile and their other cousin, Camille, daughter of their uncle Julien.
Claude hadn’t been as eager to welcome us into the factory, his entire bearing telling me he’d attended the introduction because he’d been ordered to.
Claude gazed at me in belligerence as I seated myself on the end of his bunk and set my hat next to me. “My father sent you,” he stated in French. “Or Emile did. Why?”
“On the contrary, I sent myself here.” I stretched my knee, which the many flights of stairs had not helped. “I admit that Emile alerted me to your predicament.”
“They believe I stabbed Vincenzo Gallo.” Claude scowled at the cell’s door. “As though I’d waste my time on that mountebank.”
“Did you?” I asked.
“No.” Claude jerked back to me, enraged. “I told you, I’d not sully my fingers with him. They showed me the knife they found next to him, but it is not my knife. The one I carry is much better, and I wouldn’t have incriminated myself leaving it beside Gallo’s body.”
“But you might have taken someone else’s, or used an old one you were rarely seen with, and left that to point another direction.”
Claude glared at me. “If I was as angry as they say and struck out at Gallo’s disgusting face, when would I have had time to think about stealing another man’s knife beforehand? I would have thrown the weapon into the river, in any case, no matter whose knife it was. Maybe leapt in after it.”
“You make very good points,” I answered in as calm a tone as I could muster. “The murder was either carefully planned or committed in hot blood. It could not have been both.”
“Well, I did not do either.” Claude deflated. “But that gendarme captain will not believe me. He is from the mountains,” he finished with derision.
“He is very capable of reasoning, I think. He will send you to trial, I’m certain, and who knows what a magistrate will believe?
A way to spare yourself that is to tell me exactly where you were last night.
If you can prove you were a long way from Gallo when he was meeting his attacker, then you will be cleared. ”
Claude’s head dropped to his hands again, and he clenched his now greasy hair with pale fingers. “I do not wish to speak of it.”
“Why not?” I slid out my pocket watch and clicked it open. “I dislike to hasten you, Claude, but Vernet gave us a short time only, and at least half of that has elapsed. If you tell me the truth, I can help you.”
Claude raised his head and regarded me stubbornly. “Emile has talked a great deal about you, and Gabriella does as well. She is very proud of your honor and your assistance to others.”
I warmed at Gabriella’s faith in me. “Exactly. Your father will be brokenhearted if you are accused and condemned.”
Claude’s eyes pinched, as though he hadn’t thought about the consequences to his father.
“I am appealing to that honor Emile and Gabriella boast of,” Claude said. “You will understand if I do not wish to dishonor another.”
“Perhaps,” I answered. “But will you die to preserve this other person’s honor? For a crime you did not commit?”
Again Claude hesitated. “There are things you do not understand, Captain. Things I cannot tell you.”
My patience thinned. “I am not asking you to betray another, Monsieur Devere. I know that you were arguing with Gallo earlier in the evening, which Vernet told me. All you must do is prove you were elsewhere in the small hours of the morning, when Gallo was being murdered. You need name no one else.”
“It is not so simple.” Claude was defiant but becoming more miserable as we sat there.
Had I once been this young and foolishly obstinate?
Yes, was the answer. I’d been even more of a hothead than the young man next to me, not only willing to die for my convictions but excited to do so.
“It is perfectly simple,” I said. “If you were with this person you do not wish to dishonor, then you weren’t killing Signor Gallo, and neither was this other person.”
Claude’s brows drew together. “He might be accused?”
I leaned forward to catch his words. Claude spoke rapid French, and I didn’t hear every syllable. But I swore he’d said il, not elle. He, not she.
“Not if he has an alibi. Where were you, Claude?” I asked in a hard voice. “Not with a woman?”
“No.” Claude flushed, and then went redder. “And not with a man, not in the way you are thinking. I was in La Guillotière. At a wine shop. The proprietor will no doubt remember me.”
Vernet had said that Claude was seen arguing with Gallo in La Guillotière, the town across the Rh?ne. “Were you that unruly?” I asked.
“Possibly,” Claude mumbled.
“Let me summarize,” I said. “Last night, you argued with Gallo, say around eight in the evening, in La Guillotière, where several people saw you. Gallo left you at the argument’s end, and you stayed in La Guillotière and met with someone you don’t wish to mention in a wine shop.
You stayed there until you went home, probably drunker than when you arrived.
You don’t wish to cause trouble to this other person, so you will not name him. Is that the gist?”
Claude nodded, his scowl now tinged with shame.
“Why did you not say so to Captain Vernet?” I demanded in exasperation. “Why did he have cause to arrest you at all, if you were out of the city entirely?”
“Because when he came to our home today, I would not say where I’d been. I have no reason to. I did not kill Signor Gallo.”
I supposed I was that illogical at twenty. I rose, not bothering to hide my irritation. “While you waste time here, a murderer has gotten away with killing a man, no matter how unliked that man was. It is not fair to Gallo, do you not think?”
Claude stared up at me in incomprehension. “Gallo was not welcome in Lyon. Many wanted him gone.”
“It would be helpful if you could follow that statement with the names of those who did want him out of Lyon. Perhaps one of them wanted it so much, he did not stop short of murdering him.”
Something like amusement flickered across Claude’s face. “Too many to mention, Captain. It would be a very long list.”
I regarded him with annoyance, but inwardly, I was relieved that Claude could prove he was elsewhere. The Deveres did not need such tragedy, and neither did Gabriella.
Keys rattled in the lock, our time at an end. The door opened, Vernet himself once again acting as turnkey.
I said my farewells to Claude without admonishing him further. He’d have to sit and stew for a while, but I hoped he’d soon admit the truth of what he’d been up to.
Madame Marais across the hall had quieted somewhat, her voice fading into an incoherent humming. Vernet led me back along the line of cells and storage rooms to the stairs.
“You need not repeat the conversation to me,” Vernet said as we ascended. “I heard every word. There is an open space in the in the corners of the cells, and I listened from the next one.”
I wasn’t certain how gentlemanly this was, but on the other hand, Vernet would have heard Claude explaining his innocence.
“You will release him?” I asked when we reached the ground floor.
“That remains to be seen.” Vernet led me to the open front door and paused there, clearly wishing me to leave.
“We will check this wine shop in La Guillotière. It would be more helpful for Claude to name the friend he was with, but who knows? The friend might have slipped away and murdered Gallo, and Claude fears to implicate him.”
“If so, he would have to be a very good friend.”
“Young men have much loyalty to one another.” Vernet shrugged. “You must recall this from your army days. Good day to you, Captain. Thank you for your assistance.”
It was a dismissal. I bowed to him. “Anytime I can help.”
Vernet’s expression told me he wasn’t likely to ask for it again soon. He gave me a cordial nod and then gestured me out.
I settled my hat as I exited the building and trudged down the lane to the quay. The day had warmed, though a cool breeze wafted from the river.
I found Brewster at the entrance to the wide bridge over the Rh?ne, surrounded by four men, the populace of Lyon darting impatiently around them.
Brewster’s new companions were the Deveres—Fernand and Emile’s father, and the other two uncles, Julien and Giraud, who was Claude’s father.
Fernand regarded me with a face like thunder. “What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded. “I warned you not to interfere, Captain.”