The Painter's Easel (A Jules Poiret Mystery Book 20) Read online

  Mrs. Corazon cried in her handkerchief and the poet put his hand tenderly on her shoulder.

  The neighbor, who had been watching the pair thoughtfully with his head a little on one side, looked the detective in the face for an instant and said, “All for naught. Poor Lord Corazon.”

  “The police, they have been called and when they arrive they will arrest the murderer.”

  “Murderer?” asked the poet.

  “Oui, Monsieur,” said the little detective. “Please to confess.”

  “I didn’t murder him!” said the poet, springing to his feet. “I loved him like my own brother.”

  “Or, Monsieur, did you love the wife of the painter?”

  The poet shook his head angrily.

  “I love her, but I didn’t murder him.”

  “Madame, you loved your husband, but you also love Monsieur le poete. Please to confess to Poiret, what you have done.”

  “I,” she sobbed, “I was tired of his selfishness. I loved him, but he treated me not like his wife, but his mother. His drinking, opium, painting. Mr. Poiret, I’m not an old woman, I was lonely. I’m foolish in many ways, but I loved him and I didn’t end his life, though many times I wished for it.”

  Poiret nodded. “Merci, Madame, for the candor of your answer.” He turned to Mr. Wright, the neighbor. “Please to confess, Monsieur.”

  “Confess? What? Look at the canvas! It was a suicide.”

  “Non, Monsieur, it was the murder.”

  The neighbor pointed at the canvas with the words, “I die by my own hand!”

  “That is my proof! Where is yours, sir?”

  Poiret pointed at the same canvas. He took a magnifying glass from his pocket and went to the painting, which the painter had painted for him.

  “The painting for Poiret, it is done.” Poiret looked at the neighbor triumphantly.

  Haven looked at the abstract formless colors on the canvas and asked, “How do you know, Poiret?”

  “Excellent question, mon ami,” said Poiret. With his magnifying glass he illuminated the painter’s signature. “There is the proof. Now please to look closer and to see that the letters on the painting for Poiret, they are different than the letters on the blank canvas.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Turner.

  “It means the painter, he did not write at the same hour the letters differently on both. Therefore, one is not genuine. The painting of Poiret, it is not important. The suicide painting, it is paramount. Therefore that is the forgery.”

  “But why, Mr. Poiret?” asked Mrs. Corazon.

  “To hide the murder, Madame.”

  It was silent.

  Poiret looked at the assembled audience and continued with a sigh, “When there is the murder, there must be the opportunity and the motive.”

  “My brother, here, gets a small legacy and the rest goes to me,” said Mrs. Corazon quietly.

  “Ah, the will,” said Poiret, “but it is all wrong. First we must find out, who has the opportunity to go into this room and murder the lord as he is sleeping, having taken the sleeping medicine. Is that correct, Monsieur Wright?”

  “Yes, I think Mr. Turner stands to gain the most, so he did it.”

  “But, Monsieur, why the motive again?”

  “Well there are six people present. I’d put my money on Mr. Turner.”

  “Mais, c’est impossible! He was in the view of Poiret and Captain Haven, ever since he received the money from his brother-in-law. He has not the opportunity and since Poiret and Haven were seated in front of the door all the time, all three had not the opportunity to be alone with the painter to murder him. Who else, Monsieur?”

  Mr. Wright looked at the wife and her lover, the poet.

  “The poet, here, he had the opportunity.”

  “Again, Monsieur, he was in the view of Poiret all the time. He was sitting on the bench, writing the poetry, one can only assume. Who else, Monsieur, has the opportunity?”

  “You mean me?” asked the neighbor, after looking at Mrs. Corazon for a while.

  “But, Monsieur, you were outside, in the garden and the house, it has only the front entrance, where there sits Poiret and Captain Haven.”

  Poiret looked at Mrs. Corazon, who was kneeling next to her late husband, her face on his hand.

  Poiret continued, “But it was you, Monsieur.”

  “Me,” said the neighbor, “but why would I murder my best friend?”

  “Monsieur, it is clear why. Poiret only has to follow your eyes.” Poiret looked from him to the wife of the dead man. Wright followed his glance.

  “No, no, no, no! Not at all.”

  “Oui, Monsieur, you too love Madame Corazon.”

  The latter raised her head and looked at him, with tears in her eyes.

  “But I couldn’t have, Poiret. You said so yourself.”

  “Not when Poiret, he is outside. The murder it happens, when Poiret, he is looking at the canvas with the suicide note. You, Monsieur, go to Monsieur Corazon, who is sleeping on the sofa and using the knife, which Poiret, he has found in the garden, you murder him, your best friend. And Poiret, imbecile-moi, his eyes are on the strange painting.”

  Mr. Wright shook his head, then shrugged.

  “All for nothing anyway,” he sighed, looking at Mrs. Corazon sobbing in the shoulder of the poet, who had now put both arms around her shoulders.

  Poiret nodded.

  “Captain Haven,” he said, “there is the long seat on the veranda, where we can smoke and wait for the police. Poiret, he wants to talk to you. Or, perhaps, be silent with you.”

  They established themselves comfortably in the veranda seat. Poiret accepted a good cigar from his friend and smoked it in silence, while the rain shrieked and rattled on the roof of the veranda.

  “Mon ami,” Poiret said at length, with a sigh.

  Captain Haven turned to his friend, but that was all the little man said.

  The End

  Jules Poiret Mystery Series

  The Five Casks

  Murder on the Liverpool Express

  The Party

  The Murder of Lady Malvern

  Murder in Torquay

  Lord Hammershield dies

  Panto

  English Rose

  Sir Alexander dies

  A Woman’s Life