The Last Judgement

Fortunately her offer was not accepted. Mrs Richards wiped her eyes, and slowly the mournful sobbing ebbed away and then stopped.

‘Jean?’ she asked. ‘You know this?’ You’re certain?’

Flavia nodded. ‘It seems so.’

‘If he’s in danger, you must save him.’

‘We can’t do much if we don’t know what’s going on.’

She shook her head.

‘If I help you’ll promise?’

‘Very well.’

‘Tell me about these others first. This — what are they called? Ellman? Muller? Who are they? And what is their connection to Jean?’

‘Ellman is a German who apparently changed his name from Schmidt. Muller also changed his name; he was originally called Hartung.’

If mentioning Rouxel had been like hitting Mrs Richards, the name of Hartung had a similar effect. She stared at Flavia silently for a few seconds, then shook her head.

‘Arthur?’ she whispered. ‘Did you say Arthur was dead?’

‘Yes. He was tortured, then shot. We now think by this Ellman man. For a painting stolen from Rouxel, as far as we can tell. Why — well, that’s what we were hoping you could tell us. How did you know his name was Arthur?’

‘He was my son,’ she said simply.

Both Flavia and Argyll were stopped in their tracks by this one; neither had the slightest idea of what to say. And so they said nothing at all. Fortunately, Mrs Richards wasn’t listening anyway; she was off on her own path now.

‘I ended up in England by accident, I suppose you could say. When the Allies liberated Paris, they found me, and evacuated me, to England for treatment. They did that for some people. I was in hospital for several years, and met Harry there. He treated me, did his best to put me back together again. As you see, he didn’t have much to work on. But eventually he asked me to marry him. I had no ties anymore to France, and he was good to me. Kind. So I agreed, and he brought me here.

‘I didn’t love him; I couldn’t. He knew that and accepted it. As I say, he was a good man, much better than I deserved. He tried to help me bury the past, and instead let me bury myself in the countryside.’

She looked at them and gave them a little smile, a sad little effort with no amusement behind it. ‘And here I’ve stayed, with death eluding me. Everybody I’ve ever cared for had died first, and they deserved it much less than I did. I’ve earned it. Except for Jean, and he should live. Even poor Arthur is dead. That goes against nature, don’t you think? Sons should outlive their mothers.’

‘But—’

‘Harry was my second husband. My first was Jules Hartung.’

‘But I was told you were dead,’ Flavia said a little tactlessly.

‘I know. I should be. You seem confused.’

‘You could say that.’

‘I’ll start at the beginning then, shall I? I don’t suppose you’ll find it at all interesting, but if there’s anything that can help Jean, you’ll be welcome to it. You will help him, won’t you?’

‘If he needs it.’

‘Good. As I say, my first husband was Jules Hartung. We married in 1938, and I was lucky to have him. Or at least, that’s what I was told. I was born into a family that lost everything in the Depression. We’d had a good life — servants, holidays, a large apartment on the Boulevard St-Germain — but with the collapse, it all began to disappear. My father was used to high society and gave it up unwillingly; his expenses always exceeded his income, and progressively we got poorer. The servants went, to be replaced by lodgers. Even my father ultimately saw the need to get a job, although he waited until my mother had got one first.

‘Eventually I met Jules, who seemed to fall in love with me. Or at least, he thought I would be a suitable wife and mother. He proposed — to my parents, not to me, and they accepted. That was that. He was nearly thirty years older than I was. It was a marriage without any passion or tenderness; very formal — we used to call each other vous and were always very respectful. I don’t mean that he was a bad man, far from it. At least to me, he was always correct, courteous and, I suppose, even devoted in his way. You see I am telling you my story without the benefit of hindsight.

‘I was eighteen and he was nearly fifty. I was exuberant and I suppose very immature, he was middle-aged, responsible, and a serious man of business. He ran his companies, made money, collected his art and read his books. I liked to go dancing, to sit in cafés and talk; and, of course I had the politics of youth whereas Jules had the outlook of the middle-aged industrialist.

‘I found myself visiting my parents more and more often; not to see them, of course, they were as dull as Jules and not half as kind, but to spend time with the lodgers and students who increasingly filled up their house.

‘My father, you see, had assumed that once I was married, a nice flow of money would pour from my new husband and restore him to his accustomed style of life. Jules didn’t see it like that. He didn’t like my father and had not the slightest intention of supporting someone who openly despised him.