Maintenon: The Dead Man's Touch, Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery #11. Chapter Seventeen. Louis Shalako.

...and then there were the shoes...

Louis Shalako

And then there were the shoes—

Pelletier had pulled them out, one cardboard box at a time, and in an almost inevitable fashion, a kind of fate, had lined them up in rows on top of the filing cabinets along Maintenon’s wall.

The shoes were a mixed lot, not surprising for such a large household, family and servants, and it was also true that the bedroom closets had held at least as many shoes as the front closet. These were only a small sample.

There were traces of mud on at least some of those shoes. Kids were kids and they were in and out ten times a day, including in the rain. That part was no surprise. Concentrating on the males, (but what did that prove?), at least three pairs of man-sized shoes had traces of such mud. It was also true that Sherlock Holmes would have had an encyclopedic knowledge of the terrain and geology of London, (and therefore, the mud), in fact such knowledge was a feature in the solution of several such cases, whether in the original books or the innumerable film and theatrical adaptations produced subsequently. Some of which were pretty damned bad, but he’d grown up on those serials, those Saturday matinees where you paid your ten centimes and got your free drink and a small box of popcorn as part of the deal. Kids loved those matinees.

Gilles held his tongue and studied his hands as Pelletier warmed to his subject.

They had no such knowledge, and as someone had said, mud was mud was mud—no matter what town this was, or where the hell it came from, and yet there might be something in it after all.

Gilles had basically sat there, fascinated, as the young officer took painstaking scrapings from any shoe that showed signs of mud, putting those in labelled envelopes, each properly identified in terms of room, (or closet), the owner, et cetera. Always the name and the date and the incident number. It was a bureaucratic system and there was no escaping it, and you’d better play by the rules.

All of this would be going down to the lab at some point, along with the dirt-samples from the houseplants for comparison. That part was an interesting part of the theory, which they were still working out until some other great revelation came in…

While others came and went from the room, it was mostly just the two of them, with anyone working in the background keeping it quiet and not butting in without being asked, due to the fact that Maintenon was clearly flagging a bit, and this was only his fourth day back on the job—what that actually meant, was only now becoming clear.

It was also true that a much bigger room would offer at least one solution—distance, separation, for the distractions were many in such an environment. Separate offices would offer quiet, above all else—you could at least close a door.

All very fascinating...

Still, there were conclusions to be drawn now. For one, Monsieur Boitard—or at least a pair of his shoes, had recently been through a mud puddle—or doctored to look like they had. This sort of evidence was always a two-edged sword in that it could be interpreted any which way, and therefore raised as many doubts as it provided answers. It could also be fake, one of the points he had made before.

And Pelletier had a very thorough mind—as Gilles had already noted. Almost an obsessive mind, worrying away at the Gordian knot of all plots...

The middle boy, Patrick, had also been in the mud, and yet the shoes were too small to have made the prints observed in the original photographs. Yet his younger brother, who might have been expected to be tagging along, had no such crud on his shoes.

Pelletier had brothers and sisters, while Gilles was childless, in that sense the perspective had its value.

There were also a few surprises.

Madame, Louise Boitard, had more than one pair of what could only be referred to as ‘sexy’ shoes, fuck me shoes as some might say, yet there was no evidence of their ever having been out of the house, and certainly no mud on them. The heels were extremely high and she (or he, her partner, whoever that might turn out to be), seemed to have a thing for red patent-leather. While they appeared to be happily-married, that did not preclude a lover on her part or a mistress on his. At that social strata, it wasn’t as much a requirement, as statistically notable compared to the stodgier middle and working classes. As for the truly poor, they were a rabble and fairly cheerful in their transgressions. They also could not afford such shoes, in which case much cheaper copies would have to do.

This in a rather wry tone and Gilles could only shake his head and marvel…what the hell, and why not let him talk.

What was also surprising, was that Cynthie had also had a pair of similar shoes. These had been tucked away on the end of an upper shelf in one of her two closets, along with some rather interesting lingerie, in behind a row of hat-boxes and it was clear this was to keep them something of a secret, certainly from her parents but also the servants, and probably the younger kids as well. The psychology wasn’t too hard to read, but one had to wonder just how far to take that psychology. Again, there was no evidence they’d ever been out of the house, although the leather soles were pretty smooth and shiny, there were enough nicks and scratches to show that they had at least been worn a time or two. If only to try them on, and one had to wonder where she might have bought them, possibly trying them on, and walking about the store a bit…just to see if they fit, and probably checking them out in the nearest mirror.

He didn't know much about women. (Although he wished he did. - ed.)

“…that’s if I know anything about women, and I probably don’t…” Pelletier.

Gilles let that one lie where it fell. There was no use talking about it anyways—at least not on company time and probably not without a couple of stiff drinks either.

Scratches on the bottom of a pair of sex-kitten shoes…belonging to a seventeen year-old girl.

Hmn.

Whether that was even possible when the room was wall-to-wall broadloom carpet was a very good question, and the techs would have their opinions on that as well. A few grains of sand in that rug and it just might be true. It didn’t seem very likely that she could steal a pair of her mother’s shoes and get away with it either, and there was nothing wrong with the logic there.

That much was self-evident.

Another surprise was that the oldest boy, Marcel, had shiny black shoes, in the same size as his father. He was said to be a tall young man, and again, there was evidence of mud on the bottom of a couple of pairs. When he might have worn them last, or whether he’d been out on the rainy day or days in question was unknown. What was known, was that he’d been in the house on the night in question, only going off to school some time later. The story there was that it was a proper university, not a boarding school, and that they’d had to find him lodgings, and a room-mate. He’d taken some time to furnish the place, get his clothes and luggage there, and settle in before day one. It was his first year. He was studying business and finance at the Université de Bourgogne, not surprising considering his father’s profession, and the influence of a strong personality.

Monsieur Jardine’s shoes were one size smaller than Monsieur Boitard’s, size nine rather than a ten, and the chauffeur’s were an eleven, one size larger. Yet this did not represent any great difficulty in terms of putting down big, smudgy footprints on a wet and rainy night. As for the chauffeur, he had been somewhere muddy, at least one pair of shoes showing mud, and with Jardine, a completely different type, all the shoes in his closet were scrupulously clean. Which again, proved nothing except that he was a certain kind of personality, which they already knew.

“If only I’d thought to bring a camera.” Pelletier was being a little hard on himself, considering that no one else had thought of it either—this with handfuls of photos taken by the original investigators, which really ought to have been a hint of not a clue. “Fuck. If someone walked with muddy shoes across a pristine white carpet, how much mud would we expect to actually be left on the bottoms…”

“No one thinks of everything, Édouard.”

With every stinking pair of shoes labelled, identified, documented, plus the diary, plus the samples of potting soil, he’d had enough on his mind to begin with.

“…no, sir.”

“Don’t worry. We do have help now, and hopefully LeBref and Firmin will get back to us soon enough. In the meantime, we still have the case from the restaurant…”

And now, they had come to the diary.

As for the clock, it was ticking up there on the wall.

END

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