Death Before Breakfast by George Bellairs Page B

onions.
    â€˜Shall we go in?’
    Luc knocked at the door discreetly. A tall gangling peasant of a man, who hadn’t shaved for days and whose eyes were red, opened it. He gave Luc and Littlejohn a cursory look and seemed to know at once who they were.
    â€˜Is Madame Jourin in?’
    â€˜Police?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Enter. We thought you’d call. Last time it was the men in uniform. Now it’s the flics. We can’t tell you anything.’
    â€˜May we see Mme. Jourin, please?’
    â€˜I said come in.’
    A dark, narrow place, smelling of old stone and decayed woodwork. A step down into the living-room. Beyond, another door, presumably to the sleeping quarters and the kitchen.
    A large hearth with an iron cooking-stove. Old furniture scattered here and there. A plain wooden sideboard. Faded photographs of years ago hanging on the walls. A crucifix over the sideboard with a little holy-water stoop beneath it. On the sideboard, a jam-jar of faded wild flowers in water green from a need of a change.
    At the bare wooden table in the middle of the room a plump little old woman with a large stomach was preparing a meal. A mixing-board, a small pile of fresh bones, onions and the smell of garlic. Her hands were covered in flour. On one corner of the table, a bottle of wine, half-full, and two coarse glasses with the dregs of drinks in them.
    â€˜Police,’ said the man.
    Judging from the attitudes of the pair of them, the oldwoman and the peasant had been quarrelling. She gave him a nasty look.
    â€˜What of it? The fellow from the gendarmerie’s been here already to let us know he’s dead.’
    â€˜You might show some sorrow.’
    â€˜I ought to be glad. Better dead and in God’s peace than carrying on the way he has done since he came back. Disgracing the family.’
    She put her hands on her hips and the row looked like starting again.
    â€˜I know you admired him. You were always on his side. …’
    She turned to Luc and Littlejohn and then pointed at the man.
    â€˜He used to say Etienne had been led astray. I ask you. Is a man led astray unless he wants to be? He’s Etienne’s brother, in case you don’t know. I’m his mother. The boys always ganged-up against me and now, he thinks because Etienne’s met his death through the life he’s been leading, I ought to rouse the street with my lamentations.’
    Luc was trying hard to get a word in edgeways.
    â€˜We’re sorry to call at an inconvenient time, Madame Jourin, but we’re anxious to ask you one or two questions which might help us to trace Etienne’s murderer.’
    â€˜I’m a god-fearing woman, monsieur, and God will avenge the wrong. He doesn’t need a lot of inquisitive detectives to help Him.’
    â€˜We’re only doing our duty, madame. We deeply sympathise with you. We’ve come all the way from Paris to see you. I hope you’re going to help us.’
    â€˜There’s nothing much I can tell you. He wouldn’t listen to what I had to say, and this is the result. I told him he was no son of mine. What his father would have said, I don’t know. He was a sensitive man. It would have killed him.’
    She cast her eyes towards one of the photographs of a heavily bearded man, who looked more scared than anything else.
    She had a tired, lined face and hard dark eyes. A woman who had obviously endured a lot in life and had fought her way through it somehow. She looked at the meal she was preparing and then at her two visitors.
    â€˜I suppose I’d better listen to what you have to say. Otherwise you’ll be here all afternoon and there’ll be no dinner. My daughter and son-in-law will be here before long, and they’ll expect feeding whatever’s happened to her brother. What did you want to know?’
    â€˜When did you last see your son?’
    â€˜In the Spring. From what he said, he’d spent a