Inspector Pascal Mysteries 1000 #32 Details

INSPECTOR PASCAL MYSTERIES 1000
#32 Details by T.K. Naliaka ©2022-2023
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It was a long, narrow, bright, high-ceiling gallery with tall, glazed windows and doors nearly four meters in height, framed by pale green crushed velvet drapes held back by gold silk corded tie-backs.  Two men, one big and broad-shouldered in a police uniform and the other, lean and dressed in a brown suit walked slowly along to the end.  The suited man grasped the brass handles of the last set of doors with gloved hands, pushed the doors open and stepped out to the wrought iron railing to view the garden below.

A voice behind them called dismissively. “Inspector Pascal, Sergeant Braque, we searched all that!  There’s nothing!”

Braque growled. “Inspector Wilson is insulted that Inspector Kingston called you in.”

Pascal shrugged and closed the doors. “Inspector Kingston’s draft chronology suggests the killer must have hidden the murder weapon inside here, as he had no time to do otherwise.  We simply prove or disprove that premise.”

Wilson, stocky and ruddy-faced, called over. “Did you look under the rug?  Maybe you’ll trip over something we just didn’t see!”

Pascal turned aside to Braque.  “Kingston suspects the killer is the victim’s uncle, Darrell, but Wilson hasn’t located the murder weapon.”  They watched Wilson leave to rejoin the group of police in the grand salon.

Pascal, more cheerfully then, considered the uniformed man with him. “Sergeant Braque, have you ever read Zola?”

“No sir, what’s that?”

Pascal peered up and down at the closest set of doors. “Not what... who.”

“All right, who’s that?”

Pascal clasped his gloved hands behind his back as he paced slowly along the gallery hallway, “An author.”  Pascal halted to gaze thoughtfully overhead. “Zola created a literary style called, ‘naturalism’.”

“He liked the outdoors?”

Pascal laughed. “That would have spared generations of students the misery of being required to read him!” Pascal pulled one drape away from the next set of doors. “No, Zola obsessed in excruciatingly descriptive details.  One didn’t just write ‘a door framed with curtains.’  One added every grain of the wood, examined the cracks... could there be meaning in the peeling of one flake of paint... the minutia of the weave of the fabric, the texture, a pulled thread that might evoke the tugging of a heart... nuanced shadings of colors... the bleak purposeless of that solitary chair in this vast emptiness.  Such minute details could reveal the scene, a character...” Pascal rolled his eyes, “Not to suggest Zola actually knew anyone of even reasonable character to model for his literary efforts.”

Braque was game. “So, this room tells a story?”

Pascal let go and paced further along, “Perhaps!”

Braque squinted. “It’s an old money family that likes to hunt.”

Pascal shook his head, “Mais, non!  That is deduced from the taxidermy decorating the salon, not this room. What do we see, here?  Certainly, from the unusual custom height of the windows and doors and the volume of curtains required for them, once no expense was spared.” Pascal pulled another curtain away from the wall. “These drapes are becoming threadbare in places, and are sagging.”

Braque lifted the bottom of it to look closer, “Years past replacement date.”  He straightened, tallying the sets of drapes in the room. “It’ll cost a lot to redo.”

“Possibly contradicts their current outward appearances of comfortable wealth or perhaps it’s simply carelessness.” Pascal stepped backwards. “This window has one silk cord.”  He looked up and down. “Where’s the other one?”  Pascal shook, spread, then turned out the drape.  “Houp-la!  What does that look like?”

Braque peered at the lining. “It’s a dark stain.”

“That?”

Braque stretched as high as he could to see to where Pascal was pointing on the window sill. “I can’t really tell, maybe a smudge of blood.”

“Odd place for one if it is. Can you bring me that chair?”

Braque crossed over to pick up the sole piece of furniture in the entire hallway.

Pascal set it in front of the window, lifted his foot to step up on it, then noticed a deep depression in the cushion.  He hesitated. “Why is this, the only chair here?”  Pascal cautiously set it aside. “Can you give me a boost, Sergeant?”

“No problem, sir.” Braque squatted and clasped his hands together.

Pascal positioned his foot, then nodded as he reached up, “Ready!”  As Braque heaved him up, Pascal grabbed the sill to steady himself and set his other foot on Braque’s shoulder.  There were two smudges, one like a tip of a shoe, the other a smear.

Wilson, returning with two policemen yelled. “Careful! Those are very expensive curtains!”

Startled, Pascal overbalanced slightly, grasping at the drape.  There was a clatter overhead of a slipping rod and clacking rings as the screws attaching the left curtain rod bracket pulled out of the wall. 

“Look out!”

Pascal jerked aside, throwing his arm over his head a second before he was suddenly enveloped in darkness as meters of plush, lined heavy velvet plummeted on top of him.  Braque staggered, unable to keep Pascal being swept off by the material.

Wilson burst out laughing, but his two officers saw Braque’s scowl and thought better of it. They heard an exclamation behind them. “Where did that come from?”

Inspector Kingston with his two officers and Darrell, the uncle of the deceased, were staring at a large hunting knife tied with a gold silk cord embedded in the wood floor next to a heap of fallen drapery.

Wilson opened his mouth, then shut it.

Darrell abruptly shoved Kingston, sending him sprawling.  He grabbed Wilson, pulled Wilson’s gun from its holster and held it to Wilson’s head. “Stay back!”

Braque and the other police raised their hands.

BOOM! Darrell flinched, dropped the gun and folded to the floor. Three officers piled on him as Wilson stumbled clear.

Pascal threw the folds of velvet aside and climbed to his feet.  Kingston stared at him with baffled astonishment as Pascal holstered his pistol, “C’est tout, Sergeant?”

Braque lowered his hands, “Absolutely, sir!”
 
©2022-2023 T.K. Naliaka for TIPTOPduTOP
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