Free Under African Skies by Charles Larson

nor the future of Algeria nor the state of the colonial territories preoccupied those who swarmed across the beaches below La Croisette.
    Above, on the road leading to the Hermitage, two old-style Citroëns, one behind the other, were moving up the mountain. They stopped and several men quickly got out, rushing down the gravel walk toward a house on which a worn sign spelled out VILLA OF GREEN HAPPINESS. The men were the police chief of the town of Grasse, a medical officer, and two police inspectors from Antibes, flanked by officers in uniform.
    There was nothing green about the Villa of Green Happiness except its name. The garden was kept in the French manner, the walks covered with gravel, set off by a couple of palm trees with drooping fronds. The chief looked closely at the house, his eyes stopping at the third window, the broken glass, the ladder.
    Inside were other inspectors and a photographer. Three people who seemed to be reporters were looking with rather absentminded interest at the African statues, masks, animal skins, and ostrich eggs set here and there. Entering the living room was like violating the privacy of a hunter’s lair.
    Two women were hunched together, sobbing. They looked very much alike, the same straight forehead, the same curved nose, the same dark circles
about eyes reddened from crying. The one in the pale dress was speaking: “After my nap, I felt like taking a bath. The door was locked from the inside”—blowing her nose—“and I thought to myself, it’s the maid taking her bath. I say ‘the maid,’” she corrected, “but we never called her anything else but her name, Diouana. I waited for more than an hour, but didn’t see her come out. I went back and called, knocking on the door. There was no answer. Then I phoned our neighbor, the Commodore …”
    She stopped, wiped her nose, and began to cry again. Her sister, the younger of the two, hair cut in a boyish style, sat hanging her head.
    â€œYou’re the one who discovered the body?” the chief asked the Commodore.
    â€œYes … that is, when Madame Pouchet called and told me that the black girl had locked herself in the bathroom, I thought it was a joke. I spent thirty-five years at sea, you know. I’ve roamed the seven seas. I’m retired from the Navy.”
    â€œYes, yes, we know.”
    â€œYes, well, when Madame Pouchet called I brought my ladder.”
    â€œYou brought the ladder?”
    â€œNo. It was Mademoiselle Dubois, Madame’s sister, who suggested the idea. And when I got to the window, I saw the black girl swimming in blood.”
    â€œWhere is the key to the door?”
    â€œHere it is, your honor,” said the inspector.
    â€œJust wanted to see it.”
    â€œI’ve checked the window,” said the other inspector.
    â€œI’m the one who opened it, after breaking the pane,” said the retired Navy man.
    â€œWhich pane did you break?”
    â€œWhich pane?” he repeated. He was wearing white linen trousers and a blue jacket.
    â€œYes, I saw it, but I’d like to ask precisely.”
    â€œThe second from the top,” answered the sister.
    At this, two stretcher-bearers came down, carrying a body wrapped in a blanket. Blood dripped on the steps. The magistrate lifted a corner of the blanket and frowned. A black girl lay dead on the stretcher, her throat cut from one ear to the other.
    â€œIt was with this knife. A kitchen knife,” said another man, from the top of the stairs.

    â€œDid you bring her from Africa, or did you hire her here?”
    â€œWe brought her back from Africa, in April. She came by boat. My husband is with aerial navigation in Dakar, but the company only pays air passage for the family. She worked for us in Dakar. For two and a half or three years.”
    â€œHow old is she?”
    â€œI don’t know exactly.”
    â€œAccording to her passport, she was born in