Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 12, No. 60, November 1948

Le Château de L’arsenic by Georges Simenon

He hesitated a moment. Then he stood on tiptoe and rang the bell. He was a small man, and the bell was situated in an abnormally high position. The Little Doctor knew that he was being watched — not only from inside the château but from the houses in the village, where they must be wondering who, at such a time, would dare to ring this bell.

He was in a village in a clearing in the forest of Orleans, but the clearing was rather small for the château and the few surrounding cottages. The forest seemed to overflow, stifling the village, and you felt that the sun had difficulty in getting through the thick branches. A few thatched roofs, a grocer’s shop, an inn — all low, narrow houses — and then the château, too large, too old, falling to ruin and looking like an impoverished aristocrat in rags, but rags which had once been well cut.

On the first floor a curtain moved. A pale face appeared for a moment at one of the windows.

Finally, a servant came to the door. She was a girl of about twenty to twenty-five, pleasant-looking, prettier than you would have expected to find in such a place.

“What do you want?” she asked him.

“I want a word with Monsieur Mordaut.”

“Have you an appointment?” she asked.

“No.”

“Are you from the Public Prosecutor?”

“No, but if you would be good enough to give him my card...”

She went away. A little later she came back with another servant, a woman of about fifty with a forbidding face.

“What do you want with Monsieur Mordaut?”

Then the Little Doctor, despairing of ever passing this closely guarded gate, spoke frankly. “I have come about the poisonings,” he said, with the same charming smile he would have used to give someone a box of chocolates. The face had reappeared behind the first-floor window. Probably Monsieur Mordaut.

“Come in, please.” he said. “Is that your car? You had better drive it in too, or the children will soon be throwing stones at it.”

The drawing-room, like the exterior of the château, was sad and dusty. So also was Monsieur Mordaut in his long, old-fashioned jacket, and with his sunken cheeks covered by a lichen-like, short, dirty gray beard.

“Good morning, sir,” said the Little Doctor. “I must apologize for having almost forced an entry, particularly as you have probably never so much as heard of my name.”

“No, I haven’t,” said Monsieur Mordaut with a shake of his head.

“Well, sir, as others are interested in handwriting or palmistry, I have a passion for human problems — for the puzzles which, in their early stages, are nearly always crimes.”

“Pray continue.”

“I have been extremely interested in the rumors which have been current for some time about you and this château. I came here to discover the truth; that is to say, to find out whether you murdered your aunt Emilie Duplantet; then your wife, who was Félicie Maloir before you married her; and lastly your niece, Solange Duplantet.”

It was the first time that the Little Doctor had addressed such a speech to another human being, and his nervousness was aggravated by the fact that he was cut off from the world by a long corridor, with innumerable doors leading off it. Monsieur Mordaut had not stirred. At the end of a long piece of black cord he swung an old-fashioned eyeglass; his expression was infinitely sad.

“You were right to speak frankly... Will you have something to drink?”

In spite of himself the Little Doctor shivered. It is somewhat disconcerting to be offered a drink by a man you don’t know, and whom, in a slightly indelicate fashion, you have just accused of being a poisoner.

“Please don’t be afraid. I’ll drink out of the bottle before you. Did you come by the village?”

“I stopped at the inn for a minute to book a room.”

“That was unnecessary, Monsieur... Monsieur...”

“Jean Dollent.”

“I would be honored, Monsieur Dollent, if you would stay here.”

Monsieur Mordaut uncorked a dusty bottle of an unusual shape. Almost without thinking, the Little Doctor drank one of the best wines he had ever tasted.

“You must stay here as long as you please. You must have your meals with us. You shall have the run of the château, and I will answer all your questions to the best of my ability. Excuse me a moment.”

He pulled a long woollen cord, and somewhere in the building a reedy bell sounded. Then the old servant who had opened the door to Dollent appeared.

“Ernestine, please lay another place at table. Also prepare the green room for monsieur. He is to be treated here as if it were his own house, and you must answer any questions he puts to you.”

Once more alone with Dollent, he sighed. “You are probably surprised by this reception. But there are, Monsieur Dollent, moments when one jumps at no matter what chance of salvation. If a fortune-teller, a fakir or a dervish offered to help me, I would treat him in the same way.”

He spoke slowly, in a tired voice, fixing his eyes on the worn carpet while, with exaggerated care, he wiped the lens of the eyeglass which he never used.

“I am a man who has been pursued from birth by ill luck. If there were competitions of bad luck, championships for bad luck, I would be certain to win. I was born to attract unhappiness, not only to myself, but to all those around me.

“My grandparents were extremely rich. My grandfather Mordaut built a large part of the Haussmann area in Paris and was worth millions. The day I was born he hanged himself because of some political scandal in which he was involved. As a result of the shock, my mother developed puerperal fever and died within three days. My father tried to make good his father’s losses — but of his whole fortune only this château remained. I came here when I was five. Playing in the tower I accidentally set fire to a whole wing, which was destroyed, and with it many objects of value.”

This was becoming too much. It was almost comical.

“I could continue the list of my misfortunes indefinitely.”

“Excuse me,” interposed the Little Doctor, “but it seems to me that up to now those misfortunes seem to have fallen more on others than on yourself.”

“Ah! Don’t you think that it is just that which is the greatest misfortune? Eight years ago my aunt Duplantet, recently widowed, came to live with us, and six months later she was dead of a heart attack.”

“They say that she had been slowly poisoned by arsenic. Hadn’t she taken out a life insurance policy in your favor, and didn’t you come into a considerable sum of money through her?”

“A hundred thousand francs — scarcely enough to restore the south tower which was crumbling away. Three years later my wife...”

“Died in her turn, and again of a heart attack. She also had taken out a policy which brought you...?”

“Which brought me the accusations you know of, and a sum of two hundred thousand francs.”

“Finally,” said the Little Doctor, “a fortnight ago, your niece Solange Duplantet, an orphan, died here, at the age of twenty-eight, of a heart attack, leaving you the Duplantet fortune, which is nearly half a million francs.”

“But in property and land — not cash,” corrected the strange man.

“This time tongues were really loosened, anonymous letters poured into the Prefecture, and an official investigation was set on foot.”

“The police have already been three times and found nothing. On two other occasions I was called to Orleans for questioning. I think I would be lynched if I dared appear in the village.”

“Because traces of arsenic were found in the three corpses.”

“It seems they always find some...”

“You have a son?” asked the Little Doctor rather abruptly.

“Hector, yes. You must have heard of him. As the result of an illness in childhood, the growth of his brain was arrested. He lives here in the castle. At twenty two he has the body of a man and the intelligence of a child of nine. But still, he’s harmless.”

“The person who showed me in, Ernestine, has she been here a long time?”

“Always. She was the daughter of my father’s gardener. Her parents died and she stayed on.”

“She never married?”

“Never.”

“And the young woman?”

“Rose,” said Monsieur Mordaut with a slight smile, “is Ernestine’s niece. For nearly ten years now she has worked here as a maid. When she first came she was a schoolgirl of sixteen.”

“Have you any other servants?”

“None. I am not rich enough to live in great style. I live among my books and my works of art. Incidentally, Ernestine hasn’t got cancer,” said Monsieur Mordaut, “but she talks of nothing else. Since her sister, Rose’s mother, died of cancer, she has an unshakable belief that she has also got it. At one moment it’s in her back, another in her chest, another in her stomach. She spends half her time consulting doctors, and she’s furious that they can’t find anything. If she consults you, I advise you...”

But a furious Ernestine now appeared before them.

“Well, are you going to have any lunch or not?”

Monsieur Mordaut turned to the Little Doctor and said sadly:

“Please fear nothing. I will eat from each dish and drink out of each bottle before you touch them. It no longer means anything to me. You should know, Doctor, that I am also suffering with my heart. For the last three months I have felt the same symptoms that my aunt, my wife and my niece all complained of at the beginning of their illnesses.”

It really required a very good appetite to eat that meal. The Doctor wondered if he wouldn’t have done better to eat and sleep at the inn. Hector ate gluttonously, like a badly brought-up child. It was alarming to watch this large youth with the face of a cunning urchin.

“What do you want to do this afternoon, Doctor?” asked Monsieur Mordaut. “Can I be of any help?”

“I would really like to be free to come and go as I please. I’ll look round the grounds. Perhaps I’ll ask the servants one or two questions.”

And that is where he started. He moved off towards the kitchen where Ernestine was washing the dishes.

“What’s he been telling you?” she asked immediately, with the habitual distrust of the peasant. “Did he tell you about my cancer?”

“Yes.”

“Ah. He told you it wasn’t true, didn’t he? But he swears his heart is bad. Well, I’m certain that it’s nothing of the sort. He’s never had a bad heart. There’s nothing wrong with him.”

She talked on without stopping her work, and one was conscious of her health and strength. She must once have been a lovely girl, buxom as her niece.

“I wanted to ask you, Doctor. Can cancer be given to people by arsenic or other poisons?”

He didn’t want to say yes or no, because it seemed more profitable to play on the old servant’s fears.

“What do you feel?” he replied.

“Pains. As if something was being driven into me. Mostly in the bottom of my back, but sometimes also in my stomach.”

He mustn’t smile. It would make him an enemy.

“I’ll examine you, if you like.”

“As soon as I’ve finished the washing up,” she replied with alacrity.

The examination had lasted a good quarter of an hour, and each time the Little Doctor showed signs of abandoning it, Ernestine called him firmly to order.

“You haven’t taken my blood-pressure.”

“What was it last time?”

“Minimum 9, maximum 14 on the Pachot apparatus.”

“Well, well!” laughed the Little Doctor. “I see you know your medical terms.”

“Indeed I do,” she retorted. “You can’t buy health, and I want to live to be a hundred and two like my grandmother.”

“Have you read any medical books?”

“Gracious, yes. I had some sent from Paris only a month ago.”

“I suppose your books mention poisons?”

“Of course, and I won’t conceal the fact that I’ve read every word about them. When there have been three cases under your nose, you learn to look out. Especially when you’re in a similar position.

“What did they find when Madame Duplantet died?” she went on. “That she had taken out a life insurance in favor of monsieur. And when his wife died? Another insurance. Well, I’m insured too.”

“And the money goes to your niece, I suppose?”

“No. To Monsieur Mordaut. And it’s no small matter. A hundred thousand francs!”

“Your master insured your life for a hundred thousand francs! When was this?”

“At least fifteen years ago. A long time before Madame Duplantet’s death, so I thought nothing of it at the time.”

It was before Madame Duplantet’s death. This fact was immediately catalogued in a corner of the Little Doctor’s mind.

“Has your master always lived in such a secluded way? Hasn’t he ever had any love affairs?”

“Never.”

“Er... your niece Rose is young and pretty. Do you think...”

She looked him straight in the eye before replying. “Rose would never allow it.”

She had been dressed for some time, and had again become the stern old cook. She seemed comforted. Her whole expression proclaimed: “Now you know as much as I do. It was my duty to tell you.”

It was a strange home. Built to house a least twenty people, with an endless succession of rooms, corridors and unexpected staircases and corners, it now sheltered only four inhabitants. And these four people, instead of living close together as would have been expected — if only to give themselves the illusion of company — seemed to have used an extraordinary amount of ingenuity in isolating themselves as much as possible. Ernestine’s room was on the second floor at the farthest corner of the left wing.

The Little Doctor went in search of Rose.

He had just made a rapid calculation. Rose had been in the house for about a year when Madame Duplantet had died from arsenic — or from a weak heart. Could one conceive of a poisoner sixteen or seventeen years old?

He listened at the door of Rose’s room, heard no sound and softly turned the handle.

“Well, come on in,” she said impatiently. “I’ve work to do.”

It was obvious that she had expected him to come. She had prepared his reception. The room had been tidied and some papers had been burned in the fireplace.

“Monsieur Mordaut gave me permission to question everyone in the house. Do you mind?”

“Go ahead. I know already what you’re going to ask me. My aunt told you I was Monsieur Mordaut’s mistress, didn’t she? The poor thing thinks of nothing else; that’s because she’s never been married or had a sweetheart.”

The Little Doctor looked at the ashes in the fireplace and asked more slowly, “Haven’t you a lover or a fiancé?”

“Wouldn’t that be natural at my age?”

“Can I know his name?”

“If you can find it out... Since you are here to look, look. Now, I must go downstairs, because it’s my day to polish the brass. Are you staying here?”

“Yes, I’ll stay here if you don’t object.”

She was annoyed, but she went out and he heard her going down the stairs. She probably didn’t know that it is possible to read the writing on burned paper. She hadn’t bothered to disperse the ashes, and there was an envelope which, being of thicker paper, had remained almost intact. At one corner the word “restante” could be made out, which led him to suppose that Rose fetched her mail from the village post office. On the other side the sender had written his address, of which the words “Colonial Infantry Regiment” and, lower down, “Ivory Coast” could be deciphered.

It was almost certain that Rose had a follower, a fiancé or a lover, who was at present stationed with his regiment in the tropics.

“I’m afraid I’m disturbing you once more, Monsieur Mordaut. You told me this morning that you felt pains from time to time. As a doctor I should like to make sure, above all, that there’s no question of slow poisoning.”

Without protest and with the trace of a bitter smile the master began to undress.

“For a long time,” he sighed, “I have been expecting to suffer the same fate as my wife and aunt. When I saw Solange Duplantet die in her turn...”

The consultation lasted half an hour, and the Little Doctor became more and more serious.

“I wouldn’t like to say anything definite, until I had consulted some colleague with more experience. Nevertheless, the discomfort you have been feeling could be caused by arsenical poisoning.”

“I told you so.” He was neither indignant nor even afraid.

“One more question. Why did you insure Ernestine’s life?”

“Did she tell you about it? Well, it’s quite simple. One day, an insurance salesman called. He was a clever young man with a persuasive manner. He pointed out that there were several of us in the house and all of us getting on in years...”

“I know exactly the arguments he used. Someone was bound to die first. It would be sad of course, but why shouldn’t it at least help you to restore the castle? If all your family died... But, excuse me,” the Little Doctor interrupted himself. “Is Hector insured too?”

“The company won’t insure mental deficients. Anyhow, I allowed myself to be persuaded, and I insured Ernestine in spite of her wonderful health.”

“Another question. Did you insure yourself?”

This idea seemed to strike him for the first time.

“No,” he said in a reflective voice.

Should one treat him as an inhuman monster, or just pity him? Or should one read the greatest cunning into everything he said? Why had he so willingly given the Little Doctor a free hand? Wouldn’t a man who was capable of poisoning his wife and two other women also be capable of swallowing poison himself, but in insufficient quantities to do any real harm?

The Little Doctor, overcome by a kind of disgust which his curiosity only just succeeded in dominating, wandered round the château and the grounds. He was standing by the gate, wondering if a stroll to the village wouldn’t be a good thing — if only for a change of atmosphere — when sounds of confusion reached him, followed by a loud cry from Ernestine.

He ran round a corner of the château.

Not far from the kitchen was an old barn containing some straw and milking utensils. Inside this building Hector lay dead, his eyes glassy, his whole face contorted. The Little Doctor did not even have to bend down to diagnose.

“A large dose of arsenic.”

Near the corpse, stretched out on the straw, lay a bottle with the inscription “Jamaica Rum.”

Monsieur Mordaut turned slowly away, a strange light in his eyes. Ernestine was crying, while Rose, standing a little on one side, kept her head lowered.

Half an hour later, while they were waiting for the police who had been summoned by telephone, the Little Doctor, his brow covered in a cold sweat, was wondering whether he would live to see the end of this investigation.

He had just elucidated, in part at least, the story of the bottle of rum.

“Don’t you remember the conversation I had with Monsieur Mordaut after lunch?” asked Ernestine. “You were there. He asked me what there was for dinner and I said ‘A vegetable soup and a cauliflower.’ ”

She was quite right. The Little Doctor remembered vaguely having heard something of the sort.

“Monsieur Mordaut replied that as you were staying here it wasn’t enough, and asked me to make a rum omelette.”

“When you need rum,” asked Dollent, “where do you get it from?”

“The cupboard in the dining room, where all the spirits are kept.”

“Have you a key?”

“No, I ask for it when I want it.”

“Did you return the key?”

“Yes, to Monsieur Mordaut.”

“What did you do with the rum?”

“Put it on the kitchen mantelpiece, while I cleaned the vegetables.”

“Did anyone come into the kitchen? Did you see Hector wandering round?”

“No.”

“Did you leave the kitchen?”

“Only for a few minutes to feed the dogs.”

“Was Hector in the habit of stealing drinks?”

“It has been known to happen. Not only drinks. He was terribly greedy; he stole anything he could lay his hands on, and went off, like a puppy, to eat it in a corner.”

What would have happened if Hector hadn’t found the bottle of arsenic and supposed it to contain rum?

Ernestine would have prepared the omelette. Would anyone have noticed an unusual taste? Wouldn’t any bitterness have been put down to the rum? Who would have managed not to eat the omelette — an omelette made in the kitchen, served by Rose, with Monsieur Mordaut, Hector and the Little Doctor in the dining room?

There was no dinner at the château that evening. The police were in possession, and two of them stationed at the gate had difficulty in restraining the crowd, which was becoming noisy.

In the dilapidated drawing-room Monsieur Mordaut, white and haggard, tried to understand the questions which were flung at him by the police. When the door opened after the interview, he was handcuffed. He was led into an adjacent room to remain in custody of two policemen.

How often had Dollent said to himself: ‘A solid fact, even one, and then, if you’re not sidetracked, if you don’t lose the thread, you must automatically arrive at the truth.’

Solid facts. They were:

1. Monsieur Mordaut had placed no obstacle in the way of the Little Doctor’s investigation and had insisted on his staying at the château.

2. Ernestine was strong and healthy. She counted on living to be a hundred and two like her grandmother, and everything she did was with this single aim in view; and she was haunted by the idea of cancer.

3. Ernestine said that her niece was not Monsieur Mordaut’s mistress.

4. Rose was healthy, too, and had a lover or fiancé in the Colonial forces.

5. Rose also said that she was not Monsieur Mordaut’s mistress.

6. Monsieur Mordaut showed all the symptoms of the beginnings of slow arsenical poisoning.

7. Like the three dead women, Ernestine had a life insurance which would be paid to her master.

“Would you like to know what I really think?” It was Ernestine’s turn to be questioned in the ill-lit drawing room.

“Well, my idea is that my master has gone slightly mad... and when he knew that he was being found out, he preferred to finish with it all. But, as he was unbalanced and not like other people, he didn’t want any of us to survive him.

“If poor Monsieur Hector hadn’t drunk that rum, we should all be dead by now, including the Doctor.”

This thought gave Dollent shivers down his spine.

“Monsieur,” he murmured to the Police Superintendent, moving towards the door, “I’d like to have a word with you in private.”

They spoke in the corridor, which was as gloomy as everywhere else in the house.

“I suppose — I hope that you have the necessary powers,” the Little Doctor concluded. “There is still time... if you send an officer by car.”

His work was over. The mystery was solved, and as usual, it had been in a single flash. Diverse facts, little points of illumination in the fog, and then, suddenly...

The only way in which the Superintendent and the Little Doctor had managed to escape public curiosity was to take the banqueting chamber on the first floor of the little inn.

After an omelette, made not with rum but with fines herbes, they had ordered stewed rabbit, which they were now eating.

“Until we hear from the solicitor, all that I can tell you, Monsieur, is simply hypothesis.

“Well, I was struck by the fact that a man who took out a life insurance for everyone else didn’t take one out for himself. If the man is a murderer, and if his object is to get the money from all those policies, what would he do to conceal his intention? First and foremost take out a policy for himself, so as to avert suspicion... Monsieur Mordaut has no life insurance. For some time he has had no family. For some time also he has been suffering from the effects of slow arsenical poisoning, just like the previous victims. So I ask, who will inherit on his death? Which is why I asked you to send an officer to the solicitor.

“Follow me closely now,” said the Little Doctor. “It would seem that the person who inherits from Monsieur Mordaut must almost inevitably be the murderer...”

“And the murderer is?”

“A moment. Do you want to know who I think is Monsieur Mordaut’s heir? Rose.”

“So that...”

“Not so fast. Let me follow my fantasy, if I can use such a word, until your officer returns from the solicitor. I came to the conclusion that at some time, years ago no doubt, Mordaut and Ernestine were lovers. The years went by. He married to restore his fortunes, and Ernestine didn’t oppose the match.

“She just killed his wife, slowly, as she had killed the aunt whose death brought in so much money. For she was more than Mordaut’s mistress, she was his heir. She knew that one day everything he possessed would come to her. I am sure it was she, and not some insurance agent, who was behind that long series of policies. And she had the splendid idea of making him take one out for her, so that she would appear, when the time came, as a potential victim.

“You don’t understand all this? It’s because you don’t live, as I do, in the country, and you are not familiar with long-term schemes. Ernestine intends to live a long time. It hardly matters that she wastes twenty or thirty years with Mordaut. Afterwards she’ll be free, and rich. She’ll have the house of her dreams and live to be as old as her grandmother.

“That’s why she’s so frightened of illness. She doesn’t want to have worked so hard for nothing. But, the fortune she is eventually to inherit must be big enough. Emilie Duplantet, Madame Mordaut, Solange Duplantet. One by one they die, and their fortunes go to Monsieur Mordant — and finally to Ernestine.

“What’s the risk? No one will suspect her because nobody thinks site is the beneficiary of all these deaths. No one knows that she made her lover draw up a will leaving everything to her in default of direct heirs. She kills without any danger to herself. If anything happens, he will be the one to go to prison, to be condemned. She only starts worrying the day that she feels that her niece, whom she unwillingly brought into the house, is beginning to exert some influence. For Rose is young and pretty, and Mordaut...”

“It’s disgusting,” interpolated the Superintendent.

“Alas, it’s life. His passion for Ernestine is transferred to her niece. Rose has a lover or a fiancé, but what does it matter to her? Rose has something of her aunt’s character. She’ll wait a few years. She’ll wait for the inheritance her master has promised her. She doesn’t have to kill anyone. Did she have any suspicions about these murders? She could ignore them, because, in the end, they fare to her benefit.”

“It’s been a long business, Messieurs,” sighed the police officer who had had no lunch and was now confronted with the remnants of the feast. “Apart from the son,” he continued, “all Monsieur Mordaut’s property is left to Mademoiselle Rose Saupiquet.”

The Little Doctor’s eyes shone.

“Is there no other will?” asked the Superintendent.

“There was another, in which everything was left to Mademoiselle Ernestine Saupiquet, but it was altered nearly eight years ago.”

“Did Mademoiselle Ernestine know?”

“No, the change was made in secret.”

The Little Doctor laughed. “So now do you see it all? Ernestine didn’t know about the new will. She was certain, one day, of profiting from her crimes, but she wouldn’t kill Mordaut until he had amassed enough money.”

“And Rose?”

“Legally she’s certainly not an accomplice. But still, I wonder if she hadn’t guessed what her aunt was up to.”

Another bottle was placed on the table, ostensibly for the police officer. But it was the Little Doctor who helped himself first and who, after a gulp, said:

“Do you know what put me on the right track? It was when Ernestine affirmed her niece’s virtue, because to doubt that would be to doubt Mordaut’s virtue, and if I became suspicious of this, I might begin to suspect other things.

“In fact, we interrupted her in the middle of her work. She only killed Hector by chance in her attempt to get rid of the poison and to incriminate Mordaut. He had ordered the rum omelette for dinner. What better way to throw suspicion on him than to poison the rum? I’m sure that the rum wouldn’t in fact have been poured over the omelette — but how easy to say afterwards that it seemed to have a funny smell — and so lead to the rum-bottle being examined!

“Little more would have remained to be done. And then the pretty home in the country and forty years of life lived according to her dreams.”

The Little Doctor replenished his glass once more and concluded:

“There are still people, especially in the country, who make their plans for ahead. Which is why they need so desperately to live to a great age.”