Free Cezanne's Quarry by Barbara Pope Page B

politicians called, with a mixture of affection and cynicism, the “little people.” What an appropriate name, Martin thought, for men and women shrunken and bent by ceaseless labors in dank, dark shops. Because of his friend Merckx, Martin had known many such laborers in Lille. As a judge, he had become well acquainted with their counterparts in Aix. The “little people” never liked his chambers very much.
    Martin leaned over to address the sobbing woman. “Mme LaFarge. Mme LaFarge.”
    She knelt down, clinging to his leg. “Don’t send me back, sir. Please. He’ll kill me. I know he will.”
    “Who will kill you?” Martin forced the woman off of him and back onto the bench.
    “He beats me terribly.”
    “Who? M. Westerbury?” Martin was holding onto Arlette’s shoulders trying to get her to look at him.
    The name caught her attention. “Oh, no, sir. Not M. Westerbury. No. Never. My husband, Jacques, who’s waiting for me in Paris.” She broke into sobs again. “Mme Solange promised, she promised I’d never have to go back.”
    “The poor woman is terrified,” Martin said to Franc.
    The inspector shrugged. “She doesn’t want to have to face a judge and tell the truth.”
    “Did anyone threaten her?”
    “No, no,” Franc seemed disgusted by the question. “We just told her she would have to tell us everything she knows. And that she would have to talk to you. And,” he added, directing his words toward Arlette, who had flattened herself against the marble wall, “she has chosen to tell us nothing, except to give us a description of the messenger that would fit about a hundred street urchins in Aix alone.”
    Martin bent down to the woman. “Mme LaFarge, listen to me. Don’t you want to find the person who killed your mistress?”
    She nodded, her eyes wide and frightened.
    “Then you must talk to me. It is the law. I will not hurt you. I will not send you back to Paris.”
    Her chest began to heave again. More sobs. And this was the woman who Martin had hoped would be his entrée into Solange Vernet’s world.
    Franc cleared his throat to catch Martin’s attention and asked if they could speak in chambers. Martin was eager to speak to Franc as well, about why they hadn’t been able to find Cézanne.
    Before Martin could open his mouth, Franc began. He was quite agitated. “Don’t be too easy on her, sir, I beg you. I just talked with Riquel. She came to the morgue late yesterday afternoon while me and my men were off searching the quarry. Apparently the Englishman told her that she could have ‘the honor’ of dressing the corpse. If you don’t mind my saying so, I think that Riquel played the fool. He left her alone with the body.”
    “How did that happen?” Not that Martin could see the harm.
    “According to him, she begged to be left alone ‘one last time’ with her mistress. And she wanted to look at the clothes she was murdered in, to fold them nice and neat for her mistress.” Franc’s voice was laced with sarcasm. “She said that her mistress was a lady ,” practically spitting out the word, “and she wanted to treat her like one.”
    Martin could not fathom why his inspector found the maid’s regard for her mistress so infuriating. If it was only because Solange Vernet had found a way to rise above her origins, then Franc, the ambitious, self-proclaimed man of the people, was a flaming hypocrite. And if it was something else, why should Franc care so deeply about whether or not the murdered woman had had lovers?
    Franc took Martin’s silence as leave to continue his ranting. “By the time I got back to bring the evidence box to you, the Vernet woman was dressed in a fancy white nightgown—as if she were some pure young thing—and every piece of clothing had been smoothed out just as nice as you please. I only got all the details of the ‘final visit’ this morning when I asked Riquel about her reactions.”
    After building up this head of steam, Franc suddenly