Century Rain

FIFTEEN

The telephone was ringing when Floyd unlocked the door to his office on rue du Dragon. He picked it up with a tingle of trepidation, thinking it might be Custine, but hoping that his partner had more sense than to call him on a number that was more than likely being monitored by the Quai.

“Hello?” he said, sitting down behind his desk.

“Is that Floyd Investigations?” The voice on the other end of the line belonged to a woman speaking French, but with an accent he couldn’t quite place. “My name is Verity Auger. I’m calling about my sister.”

Floyd sat upright and tore a clean sheet from his pad, scraping the nib of his fountain pen against it until ink blurted out. “Your sister?” he asked.

“Susan White. I believe you’re investigating her murder.”

“I am indeed,” Floyd replied. “You can speak English, too, if it’s easier. Your French sounds pretty good to my ears, but if we’re both Americans…”

“I had a good idea that you were American,” she said, switching to English, “but it seemed a bit rude to assume too much.”

“How did you hear of me?”

“I was in the crowd on rue des Peupliers when you handed out those cards. By then I’d also spoken to some of the other tenants, and they’d mentioned that you were asking questions about Susan. I should have spoken to you then, but it’s a delicate matter and I didn’t want to bring it up in front of all those people.”

“And what delicate matter would that be?”

“I’m calling about my sister’s belongings. I understand that poor Mister Blanchard gave them to you before he…”

“I have them,” Floyd said. “It’s just a box containing some papers, but you’re welcome to them. You have my address on that card, right?”

“Rue du Dragon, yes.”

“Do you need directions?”

“No. I’m sure I’ll find my way. I can be there within the hour. Will that be all right? Or we can make it later today if that suits you better.”

Floyd was about to agree to meet her in an hour, but something held him back. He was going to give her the box, no doubt about it, but he also wanted to find out what she did with it when she left his office. With Custine out of action, putting a tail on her was going to be complicated. Greta couldn’t take care of it on her own, even if she could be dragged away from Montparnasse at such short notice.

Even as he hesitated, a plan began to assemble in his head, but it was not the sort of thing he could throw together in an hour or two. “Look,” he said quickly, before she grew suspicious, “today is a bit of a problem. I have to leave the office on another case.”

“You’re a busy man, Mister Floyd.”

He couldn’t tell if she was mocking him, or quietly impressed. “It’s nothing too exciting. It would just make things easier if we could make an appointment for first thing tomorrow morning.”

“That sounds perfectly acceptable.”

“Nine o’clock it is, then.”

“See you there, Mister Floyd.” She put down the telephone.

Floyd hung up at his end and stared down at the blotted sheet of paper, upon which he had written nothing at all. Then he paged through his telephone directory until he found the number for Maurice Didot, the elevator engineer.

“It’s not broken down again, has it, Monsieur Floyd?”

“Not exactly,” Floyd said, “but I’m hoping you might be able to arrange something for me.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Can you be here at half-past eight tomorrow morning?”

“Half-past eight, on a Saturday?”

“I’ll explain everything,” Floyd said. “I’ll also make it worth your while.”

An hour later, he found Greta in the kitchen in Montparnasse, leafing through a movie magazine while she finished a cigarette. On the cover was a publicity photograph from the latest gloomy policier. She looked up, her eyes tired and her make-up smudged.

“I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

Floyd closed the door behind him. “There’s been a development. A real serious development.”

“Sit down.” She closed the magazine and slid it across the table.

“It’s Custine,” Floyd said.

“What about him?”

“He’s on the run.”

“This had better not be some kind—”

“Do I sound as if I’m joking?” he said sharply. “Monsieur Blanchard is dead.”

“Monsieur who?”

“The landlord of the building on rue des Peupliers—the man Susan White entrusted with that box of papers. The man who employed Custine and me to prove she was murdered. They found him dead on the sidewalk this morning.” Floyd pulled up a chair and sat across the table from her.

“No,” she said softly.

“Yes. And Custine happened to be in the building carrying out the investigation at the time.”

“Surely you don’t think he had anything to do with it.”

Floyd buried his head in his hands. “I want to believe he didn’t. Everything I thought I knew about the man says he couldn’t have done this.”

“Well, then.”

“But he was supposed to talk to the landlord about the possibility that he might have killed Susan White. Not by confronting him directly… but just nose around the question, to rule it out.”

“Did you seriously think—”

“We had to exclude the possibility. Just because he seemed like a kindly old man with a plausible story—”

“But you told me the police weren’t even interested in investigating the girl’s death. Why would the old man risk the finger of suspicion pointing his way?”

“Custine and I wondered if he really wanted to be found out. If he killed her for attention and didn’t get it, of course he’d want to hire us.”

“You need nasty, suspicious minds in your line of work.”

“It was just a hypothesis,” Floyd said defensively. “The point is that I authorised Custine to turn up the heat on Blanchard. And a few hours later they find Blanchard face down on the sidewalk.”

“You think Custine may have probed too deeply?”

“We’re talking about a man who used to work interrogation duty at the Quai, a man who specialised in the application of fear and pain to get a result.”

“Someone’s been putting doubts in your mind.”

Floyd gazed at her through his fingers. “Today I heard something about Custine that I didn’t know before.”

“Let me guess. One of Custine’s former colleagues had a little word with you?”

“He said that an innocent man died in his custody, under questioning.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I have no reason not to believe it.”

“Custine’s your friend, Floyd.”

“I know, and I feel lousy for even thinking that he might have had something to do with Blanchard’s death. But I can’t help the way my mind works.”

“Were there any witnesses?”

“People saw Custine fleeing the scene. That may or may not have been before the body hit the street. Someone else saw a strange little boy.”

“And that’s supposed to mean something?”

“Strange little children keep turning up in this case like bad pennies.”

“You think a child might have done this?”

“I think a child might be involved, but I don’t know how, I don’t know why.”

Greta ground out the cigarette on her ashtray, then tapped the edge with coal-black fingernails. “Forget the children for a moment. Have you had any contact with Custine?”

“Not in person, but he left a note in my office. He must have gone there straight away, as soon as he realised how much trouble he was in.” Floyd sat back in his chair and picked his shirt away from his chest. It was sodden with sweat, as if he had been running around on a hot summer day. Forcing some semblance of calm into his voice, he said, “I’d only just had time to read the message when I got a visit from one of the boys from the Big House—lovely fellow by the name of Belliard—and two of his henchmen.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“Hope you never do. He’s got a real bee in his bonnet about Custine, and I think he’d like to take me down at the same time.”

“What did he say?”

“He wanted to know if I’d had any contact with Custine. I lied, of course, but they know Custine’s bound to get in touch with me sooner or later.”

She scrutinised him long and hard before framing her next question. “And what does Custine want from you?”

“Nothing. He says he can take care of himself.”

“But he’s your friend,” she said again. “My friend, too. We have to help him.”

Floyd studied her face, trying to read her mood. “How is Marguerite?”

“Do you really want to know, or are you just changing the subject?”

“I really want to know,” he said. “Do you think the situation in Paris is getting as bad as she says?”

“It’s clearly not getting any better.”

“Maillol said more or less the same thing when I ran into him at Blanchard’s place. It’s frightening that such a change could creep up on us unnoticed.”

“I’m sure people said the same thing twenty years ago.”

“You’re thinking of Marguerite’s comment about the weeds coming back?”

“Yes,” she said simply.

“Maybe she’s right. Maybe it takes an old person’s perspective to see things so clearly.”

“All the more reason to leave,” Greta said.

“Unless people do something about it here, now, before it’s too late.”

“People like you, Floyd?” She had difficulty hiding her amusement.

“People like us,” he said.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?”

“Yes. I’ve heard from Susan White’s sister. She telephoned the office just before I drove over.”

“It’s quite the day for developments. What did she want?”

“The tin.”

“Are you going to let her have it?”

“I want her to have it. But I also want to tail her when she leaves the office. For that I’m going to need a little bit of help.”

“I see.”

“Will you do it? If not for me, then for Custine?”

“Don’t push your luck, Floyd.”

“I mean it. Maillol said he could get Custine off the hook if I could come up with something tangible.”

“Like what?”

“Another suspect. I know it’s a long shot, but the girl’s my only lead. If I don’t follow her, Custine’s finished.”

Floyd and Greta pushed through the doors into Le Perroquet Pourpre and followed the line of framed jazz photographs that led downstairs into the basement. At eight on a Friday evening a few regulars had already arrived, but otherwise the place was quiet, with most of the tables still unoccupied. A young kid in a striped shirt was playing “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo” solo on the house piano, trying to match Duke’s moves but not quite getting there. Michel nodded coolly at Floyd and Greta, served them drinks without saying a word and went back to polishing the zinc-topped bar. Every now and then he’d raise an eye to the door at the top of the stairs leading down into the room, as if expecting someone else.

Floyd and Greta sipped their drinks without speaking. Five minutes passed, then ten.

“You know why we’re here,” Floyd said, eventually.

Michel stopped polishing and made a big show of putting aside his towel. “You take the easy route getting here?”

“No one followed us,” Floyd assured him.

“You sure of that?”

“As sure as I can be.”

“That’s not much of a guarantee.”

“It’s the best I can give you. You know where he is, don’t you?”

Michel took their empty glasses. “Follow me.”

He raised the folding section of counter at the end of the bar and led them into a back room full of casks and empty wine bottles. Another door led into a meandering brick corridor lined with wooden beer crates. Halfway down this corridor, Michel stopped at an unmarked white door and fished out a set of keys. He opened the door and stepped into another storage room, also piled high with crates. They appeared to fill the room to the back wall, but when Floyd looked closely he saw that the crates had been arranged to conceal another door.

“Through there,” Michel said. “Keep it quick, and keep it quiet. No offence, Floyd, but I’m taking a serious risk here.”

“And it’s appreciated,” Floyd assured him.

The concealed door admitted them to a tiny room not much larger than a broom cupboard. The walls were covered with flaking plaster, which was coming off in scabs to reveal damp, cracked brickwork. A single electric light bulb provided illumination. A mattress on the floor was the only item of furniture. Half-lying on this mattress, his back propped against the wall with only a few thin pillows for comfort, was Custine. A bag of provisions sat by his side. He wore the same clothes he’d had on that morning, but now they were crumpled, sweat-stained and dishevelled, as if he’d had them on for a week.

Custine placed aside a scrap of newspaper he’d been reading. “Don’t mistake this for ingratitude,” he said, “but how did you find me?”

“Lucky guess,” Floyd replied.

“Or rather, a process of deduction,” Greta said. “How many friends do we have left in this city?”

“Not many,” Custine admitted.

“So it wasn’t that difficult to draw up a short list. Michel was pretty near the top.”

“It’s good of him to keep me here,” Custine said, “but I can’t stay for long. It’s too dangerous for him, and too dangerous for me. I take it you weren’t—”

“Followed? No,” Floyd said.

“I’m in a lot of trouble.”

“Then it’s up to us to do what we can to get you out of it,” Greta said.

“But first we have to know what happened,” Floyd added. “All of it, André, from the moment I dropped you off at rue des Peupliers this morning.”

“Did you get my note?”

“Of course.”

“Then you know about the typewriter.”

“The enciphering machine? Yes. What I don’t quite understand is—”

“We used them at the Quai,” Custine said, “for secure communications between different establishments when we were trying to crack major organised-crime operations. The kind of people who tap our telephone lines. When Blanchard showed us the typewriter case—at least, what he thought was a typewriter case—I knew I’d seen one like it before. It was just a question of remembering when and where.”

“I’m glad you did,” Floyd said. “It cleared up a few things.”

“She was a spy.”

“I agree.”

“And she wasn’t acting alone, either, not if someone else is still sending those coded transmissions. She almost certainly has associates in the area.”

“As a matter of fact,” Floyd said, “one of them’s due to walk into the office at nine tomorrow morning.”

Custine’s eye widened. “The sister?”

“She showed up, just like Blanchard said she would.”

“Be very, very careful how you play this,” Custine warned.

“I’ve got the matter in hand. Now I’d like to hear your side of the story. What the hell happened today?”

Custine rearranged himself on the mattress. “I began my investigations on the second floor, with the tenant you didn’t manage to speak to yesterday. He still wasn’t in, so I proceeded to Mademoiselle White’s room and once again set about trying to record those radio transmissions.”

“Did you get anything?”

“Yes—and this time I had the benefit of a Morse book. But as I transcribed the message it became clear that it was meaningless—just a random sequence of letters. I stared at them and stared at them until something about them began to seem oddly familiar. That was when I remembered the Enigma machine in the Quai. It hit me then: it was utterly pointless trying to extract any information from the message. Even if we managed to get our hands on an intact Enigma machine of the same kind that Susan White was using, we would still have no idea of the particular settings that would need to be applied to decipher the message.”

Floyd scratched his head. “How long would it take us to work through all the possibilities?”

Custine shook his head dismissively. “Years, Floyd. The encryption’s not meant to be easily broken. That’s the whole point.”

“So this whole wireless business was a wild-goose chase?”

“On the contrary. It told us rather a lot about Susan White, even if it didn’t tell us what was in those messages. We also know that someone made a point of smashing her Enigma machine. Whoever did that knew exactly how important it was.”

“So she was killed by an enemy agent,” Floyd speculated.

“I think we can assume so,” Custine replied. “And whoever did that must have destroyed the rotor settings for the machine as well. Nothing in the tin she entrusted to Blanchard resembles a list of such settings. They may have been written down elsewhere. She may even have committed them to memory.”

“Talking of Blanchard,” Floyd prompted.

“When the futility of intercepting those signals dawned on me, I put the wireless back as I’d found it the day before, complete with broken connections. I packed away my tools and set off down to Blanchard’s rooms, where I intended to bring up the delicate matter we discussed yesterday.”

“And did you?”

“I never got a chance,” Custine said. “When I knocked on the door to his rooms, I found it ajar. I pushed it open and called out to him. No one answered, but I heard… sounds.”

“What sort of sounds?”

“Scuffling, grunting. Furniture being shoved around. Naturally, I entered. That was when I saw the child: a little girl, perhaps the one we saw outside the apartment yesterday, perhaps another one.”

“What was the child doing?” asked Floyd, a sick feeling beginning to churn in his stomach.

“It was killing Monsieur Blanchard.” Custine said this with a perfect, detached calm, as if he had gone over the events in his head too many times to be shocked by them any more. “Blanchard was on the floor, with his head pressed against the leg of a chair. The child was squatting over him, holding one hand over his mouth while it grasped a clawed fire iron in the other. It was smashing the fire iron against his skull.”

“How could a child overpower a man like that?” Floyd asked. “He was elderly, but he wasn’t particularly frail.”

“All I can report is what I saw,” Custine said. “The child seemed to have enormous animal strength. It had stick-thin arms and legs, but was still hammering that fire iron down on him as if it had the strength of a blacksmith.”

“You keep calling the child ‘it,’ ” Floyd observed.

“It looked at me,” Custine said. “That was when I knew it wasn’t any kind of child.”

Greta looked at Floyd, concern filling her eyes. Floyd reached out and touched her arm reassuringly. “Go on,” he said to Custine.

“It was dressed like a little girl, but when it looked at me, I knew it was something else—something more like a demon than a child. Its face reminded me of a piece of shrivelled fruit. When it opened its mouth, I saw a dry, black tongue and a few rotten stubs of teeth. I smelled it.”

“He’s frightening me,” Greta said, shuddering with revulsion under Floyd’s hand. “Is this supposed to be one of those children you say keep turning up?”

“Whatever they are, they aren’t children,” Custine repeated. “They’re things that resemble children unless you look closely. That’s all.”

“This isn’t possible,” Greta insisted.

“We’ve both seen them,” Floyd said. “So did some of the tenants in Blanchard’s building.”

“But… children?”

“Somehow they fit into this,” Floyd said. “One of them probably killed Susan White.”

“What happened next?” Greta asked, fascination gradually overcoming apprehension.

“The child looked at me,” Custine said. He reached into the little bag of provisions next to his mattress and took out a bottle of whiskey, helping himself to a nip. “It looked at me and made a sound I will never forget. It opened its mouth—that was when I saw the tongue and teeth—and it… sang.” He said the word with distaste, washing it from his mouth with another slug of whiskey.

“What do you mean, it ‘sang?’ ” Floyd asked.

“Or wailed, or shrieked—I really can’t describe it adequately. It was not a sound a child was ever meant to make, like a kind of monstrous yodel. Don’t ask me how, but I knew what it was doing: it was calling out to others like itself. Summoning them.” Custine screwed the top back on the bottle and returned it to the bag. “That was when I fled.”

“You knew that would look bad.”

“Nothing would have been as bad as staying in that room. I looked around for a weapon, but the child-thing already had the one item in the room capable of doing any damage. I just wanted to get as far away from there as possible.”

“You hailed a taxi?”

“Yes,” Custine said. “I took it straight to rue du Dragon, where I left you the note. Then I came here.”

“The men from the Big House think you killed Blanchard,” Floyd said.

“Of course they do. It’s what they want to believe. Have they spoken to you?”

“I had a real nice chat with an Inspector Belliard shortly after you fled the scene.”

“Belliard is poison. Protect yourself, Floyd. Have nothing more to do with the case. Have nothing more to do with me.”

“Bit late for that.”

“It’s never too late for common sense.”

“Well, maybe this time it is. I spoke to our old friend Maillol. He was sceptical, but deep down I’m pretty sure he thinks you’re innocent.”

Custine shook his head resignedly. “One good man can’t help any of us.”

“I told him I’d clear your name. He said he’d look at any evidence I was able to turn up.”

“I’m warning you, as a friend: leave this whole business alone. Do what I intend to do, which is to get out of Paris at the earliest opportunity.”

“There’s nowhere for you to run,” Floyd said. “I can hop on the flying boat and be in America two days later. You can’t. Wherever you go in France, the men from the Quai will find you eventually. Our only hope is to clear your name.”

“Then you have set yourself an impossible task.”

“If I give Maillol one of those children, things might look a bit different.”

“No one will believe that a child was capable of those murders.”

“But if enough witnesses come forward—enough people who’ve seen one of these demons hanging around—that might change things.”

“Floyd,” Custine said, with sudden urgency, “please use your head. Those things are out there, even as we speak. They are in the city. They move without attracting suspicion. Furthermore, they seem to be doing their utmost to kill anyone who had the slightest connection with Susan White—which now includes the three of us.”

“Then I guess that makes it personal,” Floyd said.

“Drop the case, my friend. Drop the case and go with Greta to America.”

“Not yet. Like I said, I’ve already got an interview lined up with the sister.”

“You are playing with fire.”

“No,” Floyd said, “I’m playing with the only lead left in this whole case. And the only thing that’s going to lead me to those children, and get you off the hook.”

Custine slumped back against the wall. “I can’t argue with you, can I?”

“It’s no more than you’d do for me.”

“Which only goes to show that we both lack common sense.”

“It’s overrated anyway,” Floyd replied, smiling.

“Be careful,” Custine said. “Those children may be demons, but there’s no guarantee that the sister isn’t just as dangerous.”

At nine the next morning, Floyd watched Verity Auger walk into his office. The slatted light shining through the blinds caught her from one side, electric silver highlights dancing on every curve and curl. She wore a dark pinstriped business suit with low-heeled shoes, and if she had arrived with a hat she must have hung it up outside. Her neatly parted light hair fell in a straight line down to her shoulders and then flounced back up at the ends, as if it had changed its mind at the last moment. Her hair made Floyd think of the flukes of whales in old Dutch lithographs. She had very fine eyebrows, and her face seemed to shift from severe to serene and back again between heartbeats.

She had already helped herself to a seat before it occurred to Floyd that she really did not look very much like her sister.

“I’m sorry about the state of my office,” Floyd said, indicating the piles of barely sorted paperwork. “Someone decided it needed rearranging.”

“You needn’t apologise,” Auger said, resting a handbag on her lap. “I’m just grateful that you’ve agreed to see me at such short notice.” She looked him squarely in the eye. “I appreciate that this is all very unusual, Mister Floyd.”

“There’s nothing ‘usual’ where a homicide’s concerned,” he said. “And I don’t imagine any of this has been easy on you.”

“I won’t pretend it’s been easy,” she said. “On the other hand, I won’t pretend that Susan and I were the closest of sisters, either.”

“Family trouble?”

“Nothing so dramatic. We were just never very close when we were growing up. We were half-sisters, for a start. Susan’s father died before I was born. She was four years older than me, which might not sound much, but it’s a world of difference when you’re children. Susan may as well have been a grown-up for all that we had in common.”

“And later, when you were both older?”

“I suppose the age difference became less important, but by then Susan was spending less and less time at home. She was always running off with boys, bored out of her mind with our little town.”

“Tanglewood, Dakota,” Floyd said, nodding.

Her eyes widened in what was either mild surprise or mild disbelief. “You know it?”

“I know of it, but only because of what I learned from the papers in your sister’s tin. Funny thing is, I looked it up in a gazetteer and it doesn’t seem to exist.”

“You mean it wasn’t in the gazetteer. I assure you it exists, Mister Floyd. I would have a great deal of trouble explaining my childhood if it didn’t. Do you have an ashtray?”

Floyd passed her one. “It must be a real one-horse town.”

Auger shook her head as she lit a cigarette. “It has wild ambitions of becoming a one-horse town.”

“Like that, is it? In which case, I understand why your sister felt she had to leave. A place like that can begin to feel like a prison.”

“Where are you from, if you don’t mind my asking? I don’t even know your first name.”

“I’m from Galveston, Texas.” Floyd said. “My father was a merchant marine. I was a trawlerman by the time I was sixteen.”

“And you ended up in Paris?” Auger blew out a line of smoke. “I hope you weren’t the navigator.”

“I was the navigator, wireless operator and a lot of other things until the day I decided I liked making music more than catching fish. I’d just turned nineteen and I’d heard that Paris was the place to be if you wanted to make it as a musician. Especially if you were American. Bechet was here, Baker, Gershwin. So I caught a boat to Marseille and decided to try to make my name. I landed in nineteen thirty-nine, a year before the tanks rolled into the Ardennes.”

“And?”

“I’m still trying to make my name.” Floyd puffed out his cheeks and smiled. “I gave up on my serious jazz ambitions after about six months. I still play as a hobby, and now and then I make more money out of it than I do from the detective business. But I’m afraid that’s more of a sad reflection on the business than my luck as a musician.”

“How did you get into this line of work? It’s something of a jump from trawlerman to private detective.”

“It didn’t happen overnight,” Floyd replied, “but I had an advantage before I even landed. My mother was French, and I had the paperwork to prove it. The French army was undermanned and unprepared for the German army lining up on the border. When they finally woke up and realised they were being invaded, they weren’t too fussy about who they let into the country.”

“And did you man those guns?”

“I told them I’d think about it.”

“And?”

“I thought about it and decided there were things I’d rather be doing than waiting around for German Seventy-Sevens to pound the hell out of me.”

Auger abandoned her cigarette, barely smoked, stubbing it out in the ashtray. “Didn’t the authorities come after you?”

“There were no authorities. The government had already cut and run, leaving a city run by mobsters. For a while back there, it really looked as if the German invasion was going to succeed. It was only luck that those armoured divisions got bogged down in the Ardennes—bad weather working for us, for once. That and the fact that we realised they were in trouble in time to put some bombers over them.”

“A close thing, in other words. It almost makes you wonder what would have happened if that advance hadn’t stalled.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad,” Floyd said. “At least there’d have been some kind of order under the Germans. Still, it was the right outcome as far as I was concerned. There was a lot of dirty work to go around. A man who could speak American and French and pass as either was very valuable in those days.”

Auger nodded. “I can imagine.”

Floyd waved a hand, compressing years of his life into a single dismissive gesture. “I got a job as a bodyguard and chauffeur for a local gangster. That taught me more ropes than I ever knew existed. When the local gangster opposition wiped out my boss, I made a couple of sideways moves and found myself running a small, struggling detective agency.”

“Shouldn’t there be another chapter—the one where you end up running a huge, successful detective agency, with branches all around the world?”

“Maybe next year,” he said, smiling ruefully.

“I like your attitude, Mister Floyd. You don’t seem to feel that the world owes you a living.”

“It doesn’t. I’ve played jazz with some of the best musicians alive. And I’ve seen them paid in bottles of medicinal alcohol, which they gladly sucked down until they went blind from it. While I still have a roof over my head, I can’t feel too sorry for myself. This little operation won’t make me or my partner Custine rich men, but somehow or other we stumble on from year to year.”

“Actually—and this is going to sound somewhat indelicate—it’s your little operation I came to talk to you about. Or rather one particular investigation being conducted by your agency.”

“I wondered when the small talk was going to end. Pity—I was actually beginning to enjoy it. Shall we get to Susan’s belongings?”

He could see the relief on her face. “You have them, then. I was so worried when I heard about what happened to her landlord.”

“I have the box she gave him for safekeeping,” Floyd said. “I don’t have anything else, and it’s only good luck that I have the box.”

“Why did Mister Blanchard give it to you?”

“He thought the contents might shed some light on why she was killed. The old man was pretty convinced she was murdered.”

Auger sighed. “Well, I can understand why he might feel that way. But it wasn’t murder.”

“You know that for a fact?”

“I knew my sister. Not well, as I’ve already told you, but well enough not to be surprised that this happened.”

Floyd opened the desk drawer and took out the biscuit tin. He placed it on the desk between himself and Auger, then removed the metal lid so that she could see the items inside. “Go on,” he said.

“Susan had problems. Even when she was still living at home, she was always getting into trouble, always making up stories to suit whichever version of the truth she wanted people to believe at a particular moment.”

“Her and half the human race.”

“The trouble with Susan was that she didn’t know where to stop. She was a fantasist, Mister Floyd, living in a dream world of her own making. And it only became worse as she got older. It was one of the reasons we drifted apart. I was on the receiving end of her fantasies one too many times.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with her being killed.”

“What started as simple fantasising gradually took on a darker edge. I think she began to believe her own fairy tales. She started seeing enemies everywhere, imagining that people were whispering things behind her back, plotting against her.”

“In these times she might have had a point.”

“Not the way you mean it. She was a paranoid delusional, Mister Floyd. I have the medical files to prove it.” Auger reached into her handbag and produced a sheaf of papers. “You’re welcome to examine them. Susan received treatment for her delusional problems throughout her twenties, up to and including electroconvulsive therapy. Needless to say, none of it worked.”

Floyd took the papers and flicked through them. They looked convincing enough. He passed them back to Auger, noticing as she took them that she had no rings on her fingers. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said. “But what I don’t understand is how your sister ended up in Europe, if she was so unwell.”

“In hindsight it was a silly idea,” Auger said, stuffing the medical papers back into her handbag, “but she’d had a promising few months and the doctors thought a change of scenery would do her even more good. She didn’t have much money herself, but between us, the family was able to scrape together enough to put her on the boat and give her some pocket money to spend when she got here.”

“That must have been some pocket,” Floyd said, remembering the rate at which Susan White had bought magazines and books.

“I can’t account for Susan’s actions once she was here,” Auger said. “She could be very persuasive, and it’s possible she may have exploited the good trust of other people to get what she wanted.”

“That’s possible,” Floyd allowed. “Mind if I ask something that might sound a little indelicate?”

“I’m not easily offended.”

“How did you know she was dead, if she was so out of touch? From what we can tell, Susan had almost no contact with anyone else in Paris. The authorities didn’t know who she was and didn’t care, either. And yet you’ve arrived from Dakota just over three weeks after she died.”

“I didn’t know she was dead until I reached the apartment building,” Auger said. Her face was an unreadable mask: she might have been incensed or indifferent, for all Floyd could tell. “But I had a very good idea that something must have happened to her. Susan didn’t keep in touch with me, but she did send regular postcards back to our uncle in Dakota. He’d heard from her about once or twice a week since she arrived in Paris.”

“So the postcards dried up?”

“Not just that. The last few she sent showed signs that she was going off at the deep end again.” Auger paused and lit another cigarette. Floyd wondered why she bothered: she had barely smoked the last one. “She started going on about people being out to get her. The same old story, in other words: everything we hoped she’d put behind her. Well, clearly she hadn’t. But it was worse this time, as if in Europe her fantasies had come to full bloom. Nobody is the same person on vacation as they are at home, Mister Floyd: we all change a little, sometimes for the better. With Susan it was very much for the worse.”

“What was in these postcards?”

“The usual stuff, only magnified. People shadowing her, people out to kill her. Conspiracies she saw all around her.”

“Was she in the habit of underlining things that mattered to her?”

He caught a moment of doubt cross her face. “Now and then, I suppose. Why?”

“Nothing,” Floyd said, waving the question away. “Passing thoughts.”

Auger looked at the tin sitting on the desk between them. “She mentioned that box. She said she had accumulated a lot of evidence and given it to her landlord for safekeeping.”

“But if she was delusional, none of the papers in that box are worth anything.”

“I’m not saying that they are,” Auger answered. “But Susan made a final request, in one of the last postcards we got from her. It said that if anything was to happen to her, she wanted me to come and collect that box. She said it was the most important thing any of us could do for her, and she would die happy if she knew that the box would eventually end up in safe hands.”

“And did you answer her?”

“I sent a telegram back to her saying I would collect the box should anything happen to her.”

“But you knew it was valueless. Are you seriously telling me that you came all the way across the Atlantic for a boxful of worthless papers?”

“They weren’t worthless to Susan,” Auger said, with a bite in her voice. “They were the most important things in her world. And I made a promise. I don’t know about you, Mister Floyd, but I don’t break promises, no matter how pointless or absurd they might be.”

Floyd reached out and pushed the tin across to Auger. “Then it’s yours. I can’t see any reason not to give it to you, especially after what you’ve just told me.”

She touched the box guardedly, as if not quite believing her good luck. “You’ll just let me walk out of here with this, no questions asked?”

“Questions have been asked,” Floyd said, “and you’ve answered them to my complete satisfaction. I’ll be honest with you: I looked through everything in that box and saw nothing of value. If I’d found cash, or bearer’s cheques, or the key to a safety deposit box, I might have wanted some more concrete proof that you are who you say you are. But a handful of old maps, some meaningless papers and an expired railway ticket? You’re welcome to it, Miss Auger. I just hope it brings your sister some peace, now that the box is back in family hands.”

“I hope it does, too,” Auger replied. She picked up the box and slid it under her seat. “There’s just one more thing to deal with. You’ve been very reasonable, Mister Floyd, and I’m sorry to take your case away from you as well.”

“My case?” Floyd asked.

“Like I said, there was no murder. My sister may have killed herself deliberately—she attempted suicide once before—or she may have had an accident in her delusional state, imagining herself to be under attack. But the one thing I am absolutely certain of is that there was no murder, and therefore there is no murder case.”

“It’s all right,” Floyd said. “The case closed itself the moment Blanchard hit that sidewalk.”

“Right,” she said, nodding. “You were his agent in the investigation?”

“Yes, and now that he’s not around, there’s no one to pay our expenses. Anyway, from what you say, there wasn’t exactly a case to begin with.”

“Do you think Blanchard’s death had anything to do with Susan’s?”

“It’s crossed my mind,” Floyd said. “One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, of course… especially of someone who’s only been a dead a matter of hours. But it occurs to me that maybe Blanchard had an idea of what had really happened all along. Maybe he felt he could have done more to help her, and that guilt began to weigh on his mind. In the end, it was too much for him to bear.”

“Then Blanchard killed himself because Susan died? Is that what you’re saying?”

“The two deaths can’t be unrelated. Suggesting that the landlord killed himself as a result of some vague sense of responsibility might not satisfy a jury, but it’s a lot neater than blaming some mysterious third party.”

“Look,” Auger said, “I’m sorry about the way this has happened. You’ve been the piggy in the middle of something that didn’t concern you.” She reached into her handbag and pulled out a plain manila envelope. She slid it across the table towards Floyd, who left it sitting there like a ticking bomb. “It’s not much, but I do appreciate your efforts—you looked after the box, after all—and I feel you deserve some kind of termination fee now that the case is closed.”

Floyd put his hand on the envelope, feeling its seductive plumpness. There were easily several hundred francs in it, maybe more. “There’s no need for this,” he said. “My contract was with Blanchard, not you.”

“It’s common human decency, Mister Floyd. Please accept it. I talked to some of the people at the apartment building and I know you’ve not been having an easy couple of days. Please accept this as recompense.”

“If you insist.” Floyd took the envelope and dropped it into the same desk drawer that had held the biscuit tin. “And I do appreciate the gesture.”

“Then we’re done, I think,” Auger said, standing up. She slipped her bag over her shoulder and tucked the tin under one arm.

“Guess so,” he replied, also standing.

She smiled. It was the first time he had seen any recognisable expression on her face. “Somehow I expected there would be more to it than this. Papers to sign, legal people to argue with… I didn’t think I’d walk out of here with the tin without putting up a fight.”

“Like I said, it’s just a tin with some papers in it. And I wouldn’t want to make your life any more difficult than I have to. Losing a sister like that…”

She reached across and took his hand. “You’ve been very kind, Mister Floyd.”

“Just doing my job.”

“I hope things work out for you and your partner. You deserve some good luck.”

Floyd shrugged. “Me and everyone else on the planet.”

She turned around, looking back at him over her shoulder. Her hair framed her face in a nimbus of shining white, like the sun behind a thundercloud. “Thank you again. I can see myself out.”

“It’s been a pleasure doing business.”

She paused at the door. “Mister Floyd? You never did tell me your Christian name.”

“Does it matter?”

“I’d like to know. You’ve been so kind, after all.”

“The name’s Wendell.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“It’s always sounded like a sucker’s name to me. That’s why my friends call me Floyd.”

“As a matter of fact,” she said, “I rather like it. Wendell seems such an honest sort of name—to me, at least.”

“Then to you I’m Wendell.”

“In which case… goodbye, Wendell.”

“Goodbye, Miss Auger.”

“Verity, please,” she said, correcting him, then walked out of the office, closing the door behind her.

Floyd waited a moment and then slipped his hand into his pocket, reassuring himself that the postcard was still there.

He liked her. She had the looks and seemed to be a nice enough lady. But he couldn’t help wondering how she would have reacted if he’d mentioned “silver rain.”