LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

of the Highlands, let us endeavor to become better acquainted with the lady of the house. When she appeared in Canterel’s life, thirteen years earlier, Lady Clawdia MacRae still bore the name of her French husband, a civil servant whose absence never ceased to cause gossip. People said he was posted in Dagestan, somewhere in the Caucasus. Supposedly well-informed persons asserted that his wife was, for her part, of Russian blood, with a maiden name ending with “-anov” or “-ukov,” which her sharp cheekbones and slightly slitted eyes seemed to substantiate. The only undeniable facts were that Clawdia Chauchat was recovering from some kind of chlorosis at the Sanatorium Berghof, near Davos, and that no one had ever seen a wedding ring on her finger. Certain ladies believed that she had engaged in various encounters with men who passed through the facility, but did not, for all that, consider her a loose woman; at worst, they accused her of neglecting her manicure from time to time—a fact that sheds light on her incredible ability to charm.

      Martial Canterel, too, had found her “delicious.” They had met in Biarritz, during her stay in the Pyrenees, one of the trips that she had frequently gone on to get away from the stifling atmosphere of Berghof. The story of their passionate love deserves to be told, but it lasted only three weeks and interests us only because of its disastrous results: after having returned to Davos with another man—Mynheer Peeperkorn, a Dutch millionaire spoiled by the Tropics—Madame Chauchat realized that she was pregnant with Canterel’s child. Whatever the reasons for her decision, she chose not to tell him anything and gave birth to a daughter she named Verity. Seven years later, long after the death of Peeperkorn, and at the exact moment that her mother was becoming a lady by marrying Lord MacRae, Verity had gone to sleep on a church pew and never woken up. In a moment of great distress, Clawdia had written to Canterel to inform him both that he was the father of a little girl as gracious as she was bright, and that, by the gravest of misfortunes, this girl had just turned into a Sleeping Beauty. Having thus learned of his child, Martial made unsuccessful pleas to see her, then his responses became less frequent, and then he stopped sending letters altogether. It had now been four years since he had heard anything about his daughter, or about the woman who was, to him, ever the bewitching and mysterious Madame Chauchat.

      “How is Verity?” asked Canterel, avoiding her gaze.

      Clawdia rubbed her neck.

      “No noticeable changes,” she replied, icily. “But I don’t believe that subject interests you very much.”

      “That’s not the case, as you can see.”

      “She’s still sleeping. I had her moved to Glasgow, where I go see her as often as my occupations allow. At least once a fortnight, no matter what. She has grown up, she’s a young woman now. But it is painful to see her.”

      Canterel looked at her, making that strange little grimace that is the prelude to a question, then changed his mind.

      “The doctors know no more today than yesterday,” Clawdia continued. “It’s some kind of lethargic slumber, her brain has not gone through any changes, she may continue to sleep for the rest of her life or wake up this very moment, no one can say.”

      Holmes waited for silence to settle in again, then cleared his throat. “I would not want to hurry you, Lady MacRae, but you know very well that, in this kind of situation, every minute counts. When will we have the chance to examine the sinister items you told me about?”

      “Right away, if you wish. The coroner brought them by the castle this afternoon. My late husband was very generous with the county, which accounts for this little bending of the rules. Come with me, they are in the kitchen.”

      They followed her there. The valet opened the heavy door of a tall icebox and pulled out a wooden box, which he placed on the serving table. Having donned a pair of white gloves, Holmes lifted the lid, uncovering the three shoes they had come to examine.

      “Sizes 42, 39, and 37, the investigation found. Rubber soles, white leather uppers, brand Ananke on a machine-sewn insert . . .”

      He cautiously brought them out one by one and set them on the table. Each one still contained fragments of bone and waxy flesh from the feet that had been severed at the ankle.

      “It is strange that they were severed in the same place,” remarked Clawdia, with a look of revulsion.

      “No, it is quite normal, in fact,” responded Grimod. “When a body decomposes in the sea, it is common for the head, hands, and feet to detach. The extremities always give out at the thinnest point, but normally it all stays on the sea floor; in our case, the rubber soles allowed them to float up.”

      “As for the shoes’ shape,” suggested Holmes, “it must have preserved the contents for longer.”

      “It certainly helped,” said Grimod, prodding the flesh, “but when bodies—and feet in particular—are left in seawater, they can change into adipocere, or ‘grave wax.’ The lack of oxygen combined with the influence of the cold and the damp causes a process similar to saponification; thus, the flesh becomes waterproof and takes on the waxy look that we see here. However, this makes any calculation of time of death very problematic. I highly doubt that the tests will give us anything.”

      “May I see the soles?” asked Martial.

      Holmes tilted the shoes, and Canterel bent down to inspect them, hands behind his back for fear of touching them.

      “And here’s the odd thing,” he said. “The pattern of the nonslip grooves is different on each, even though they are the same model.”

      “You’re right,” noted Grimod. “I’m going back up to our rooms to look for something to take their imprints.”

      “Don’t trouble yourself,” said Clawdia. “What do you need?”

      “Ink and paper. A sponge, as well.”

      A look from Lady MacRae sent the valet off in search of the required equipment.

      “Well,” said Holmes, “I believe that’s everything on this side of things. For now, we have three right feet, that is to say three bodies, and one . . . ‘necessity.’ It’s not much, I must say.”

      “Where was the diamond?” asked Canterel.

      “In my safe. A Delagarde Amiens with a lock and combination. It was not forced open, and I don’t understand how it’s possible.”

      “The key?”

      She looked him right in the eye, tugging on a small gold chain that slid the key between the curves of her breasts. “I always have it with me.”

      “How did you come to have such a jewel in your home?”

      “Unusual circumstances. I always leave the Ananke in the Royal Bank of Scotland, but the Duchess of Kent was supposed to visit me, and I had promised to show her the gem. No one knew about it.”

      Holmes shook his head. “Besides the employees at the bank, the deliverer, and the security officers who accompanied him . . . Let’s say between fifteen and fifty persons. That’s a lot of people, milady.”

      The valet returned, and Grimod quickly began taking the shoes’ imprints. Having swabbed the soles with an ink-soaked sponge, he applied them to three pieces of rice paper. The macabre remains went back into the icebox, and everyone returned to their seats by the fireplace to go over what they had learned, though they did not refrain from partaking in some of the best malt in Lady MacRae’s cellar.

      “It’s extremely confusing,” said Grimod, passing the imprints to Holmes. “This does not resemble anything I recognize.”

      “Indeed,” replied Holmes. “The circles in these tread patterns appear to have been placed completely at random. You’d swear they were leopard spots . . . Perhaps there were three machines, one for each shoe size, with their own unique patterns?”

      “Unlikely . . . I would lean more toward a custom-made fabrication, but that doesn’t make sense.”

      “These three shoes, however, seem to have the same

Скачать книгу