Read Online She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau - Free Book Online Page A

for it but to stop. Once again, as in the bathroom, he felt like being sick. He put the brake on hard, automatically, throwing Lucienne forward. She groaned. When he switched off his headlights everything went dark except a flashlight which was trained, first on the hood, then onto their faces. A head surmounted by a kepi peered in through the window. The gendarme’s eyes were only a few inches from Ravinel’s.
    ‘Where are you from?’
    ‘Nantes… Traveling salesman.’
    Ravinel hadn’t lost his head. Traveling salesman sounded respectable. Perhaps it might save him.
    ‘Did you overtake a medium-sized van somewhere near Le Mans?’
    ‘I might easily have. But, you know, one doesn’t notice.’
    The gendarme’s eyes inspected Lucienne. As naturally as could be, Ravinel asked:
    ‘Gangsters?’
    The gendarme threw a cursory glance into the back of the car, then switched off his flashlight.
    ‘They’re carrying an illicit still. The excisemen are on their track.’
    ‘A funny trade to choose,’ said Ravinel. ‘I’d sooner have mine any day.’
    The gendarme moved off and Ravinel slowly drove past the row of men. Not till he was comfortably past did he accelerate.
    ‘That time, I thought we’d had it,’ he muttered.
    ‘So did I.’
    Her voice was hardly recognizable.
    ‘Of course they may have taken my number.’
    ‘And then?’
    It didn’t matter. Not in the least. It wasn’t part of the plan to conceal that nocturnal journey. In a way, it would be just as well if his number had been taken. If necessary, the gendarme could give evidence that… Still, there was one snag—the presence of a woman in the car. But would the gendarme be likely to remember a detail like that?
    The clock on the dashboard moved on patiently. Three o’clock. Four. The lights of Chartres were far behind to the southwest. They were approaching Rambouillet. The night was as dark as ever. That had been taken into account in fixing the date. But there was much more traffic about now. Milk trucks, peasants with handcarts, a mail truck. Ravinel had no time now for thinking. He watched his road with hard eyes. Versailles. Some street cleaners about; otherwise the town was still asleep. Ravinel’s shoulders sagged with fatigue. He was thirsty.
    Ville-d’Avray… Saint-Cloud… Puteaux… Buildings everywhere, but still no lights in them. Lucienne hadn’t budged since the gendarme incident. She wasn’t asleep. She simply stared straight in front of her through the misty windshield.
    Another stretch of black water—the Seine. And soon the first villas on the outskirts of Enghien. Ravinel’s house was near the lake at the end of a little dead-end street. As he turned into it, he went into neutral, switched off the engine, and let the car glide noiselessly, on its own momentum, to its destination. When he got out, his hands were so stiff he fumbled with his keys. Having unlocked the gate, he pushed the car in and hastily closed it again. The house was on the right, on the left, the squat well-built garage which looked more like a little fort. A sloping path led past a clump of bushes to a low shed.
    When Lucienne stepped out of the car she staggered and only steadied herself by clutching at the handle of the door. So stiff was she that she had to flex her knees one after the other to bring her legs into action. She had the sulky, forbidding look on her face which belonged to her black moods. Ravinel was already opening one of the rear doors of the car.
    ‘Lend me a hand.’
    The bundle was intact, except for one corner where a shoe was visible. The leather had buckled in the water. Ravinel took one end, Lucienne the other.
    ‘Ready?’
    She nodded, and together, with bent backs, they carried the thing down the path which, beyond the clump of bushes, was flanked by a row of espalier pear trees. The shed was really a washhouse or lavoir . A tiny stream entered at one end and broadened into an artificial pool which was maintained at a