Vertigo Read Free

talent, or that’s what they say. I’m not much of a judge of that sort of thing.’
    ‘Was she studying with a view to teaching?’
    ‘Good heavens, no!… Just because she liked it. She never had to think about earning her living. Why, she had her own car at the age of eighteen. Her father was a big industrialist.’
    Gévigne turned and walked back into the office. In the way he walked, at any rate, he showed real assurance now. Formerly he had had a hesitant step, a sort of stammer in his movements. His wife’s money had transformed him.
    ‘Does she still paint?’
    ‘No. She gave it up little by little. Found she hadn’t got the time. The life they lead, these Parisian women!’
    ‘But… these troubles you’ve been telling me about… they must have had a cause. Can’t you think of any incident that might have started the ball rolling? A quarrel, for instance, or a bit of bad news… You must have thought of that.’
    ‘Of course I’ve thought of it, and I’ve racked my brains to discover something… Don’t forget I spend half the week at Le Havre.’
    ‘These… these attacks, as you call them… could they have anything to do with your being away?’
    ‘I don’t think so… The first one occurred soon after I got back. It was a Saturday. I had found her in excellent spirits; then in the evening I thought there was something odd about her. Naturally I didn’t pay much attention to it at that moment, particularly as I was tired at the end of a heavy week.’
    ‘Before that?’
    ‘She may have been a bit moody at times, but no more than anybody is.’
    ‘On that Saturday, you’re sure nothing unusual happened?’
    ‘Absolutely. All the more so as we were together the whole time. I got back about ten in the morning. Madeleine had just got up. We chatted for a while… But you can’t expect me to remember every detail of the day. There was no reason for me to remember them. I know we lunched at home.’
    ‘Where do you live?’
    Gévigne looked surprised, then smiled.
    ‘Of course… I was forgetting we’ve completely lost touch with each other. I bought a block of flats on the Avenue Kléber, quite close to the Etoile. We live in one of them. Here—you’d better have my card.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘In the afternoon we went out. I had to drop in at the Ministry for a few minutes, but she wasn’t left alone for long. After that we pottered about round the Opera, and then… Well, it was an afternoon like any other.’
    ‘And the attack?’
    ‘It came on just after supper.’
    ‘Can you give me the exact date?’
    ‘Really! How should I know?’
    But he studied the calendar on the lawyer’s desk.
    ‘I know it was in February, and towards the end of the month. I see the 26th was a Saturday. Then it was certainly the 26th.’
    Flavières sat down on the arm of an easy chair, close to Gévigne.
    ‘What gave you the idea of coming to me?’ he asked.
    Again Gévigne wrung his hands. It had been a tic of his in the old days. He had had others—several—but this was theonly one left. It was a way of taking hold of himself when he wasn’t sure of his foothold.
    ‘I’ve always thought of you as one of my oldest friends,’ he murmured. ‘And then I remembered how interested you always were in psychology and all that… You wouldn’t have expected me to go to the police, would you?’
    Flavières winced, and Gévigne noticed it.
    ‘It was just because you’d left the police that I felt I could come to you about it,’ he added.
    ‘Yes,’ said Flavières, stroking the leather upholstery, ‘I left the police.’
    He looked up sharply.
    ‘Do you know why?’
    ‘No. But—’
    ‘You’d find out sooner or later. Things like that can’t be kept dark for ever.’
    He would have liked to smile, so as to prove his self-possession, but a sour note had already crept into his voice.
    ‘I came a cropper… Another glass of port?’
    ‘No, thanks.’
    ‘It’s a rotten story… I was a