Son of Holmes by John Lescroart Page A

nodded.
    “I’ve made no arrests. Have you any suspicions?”
    “No.”
    “I’m inclined to think of suicide. He was your close friend, was he not? Had he been unduly depressed?”
    It went on in that vein for several minutes. I had no information for him, and he had formed no suspicions himself. He thought it odd that so few of my guests had been French, and asked me about it.
    I shrugged. “They are my friends.”
    Finally, a little after midnight, they left. Tania and Fritz came back to join me, and we sat drinking brandy for a time, pensive. The undertaker had come earlier, and my thoughts went back to Marcel’s body being removed. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine how he had been only that morning, but I could not. Perhaps it was better that way. I couldn’t think of him as a dead man yet. He was the friend of my childhood, and he was gone.
    Tania and I went up to bed, leaving the room empty save for Fritz, who sat at the edge of one of the coffee tables, fists clenched and eyes glassy.

    I awoke while it was still dark and silently got up. The house was oppressive. I needed to get away for a time.
    Two days before, the Rue St. Philip had been warming to a new day as I had walked down it to meet Lupa for the first time. Now, at four thirty in the morning, with a light rain falling—still falling, I should say—it gave no hint that it could ever be a pleasant street. The cobblestones were slick and too widely spaced, and twice I nearly fell. It wasn’t cold, but the wet darkness kept me shivering.
    I’d taken the bottle of cognac and headed for La Couronne, planning to see Lupa in the morning, resolving to enlist his aid. It was not professional. It was not even . . .
    That didn’t matter. I had to do something about my friend’s death. At that moment, I wasn’t a professional, and I didn’t care.
    The tables at La Couronne were chained in place, but the chairs had been moved inside for the night, so I pulled up an empty fruit crate and sat by the restaurant’s front door, leaning back against the building. With my coat, I performed the futile gesture of wiping the beaded drops from the table, though it was still raining. There was a small gaslight from within, and its slight glare fell across the table. The rain was so fine that it seemed to hang in the air. There was no wind.
    I hadn’t been seated more than a minute when the door behind me opened and I found myself facing Lupa.
    “Monsieur Giraud, would you care to come inside where it’s dry?”
    I noticed that I was, indeed, very wet, and got up and followed him into the bar. He sat on a stool and looked at me without a word until I spoke.
    “I’m surprised to find you awake,” I said.
    “I was thinking about your friend.”
    “Yes. I wanted to speak to you about it.”
    “I don’t understand,” he said, standing and going around the bar. He poured himself a beer.
    “I think you do.”
    He took a long draft. “Come downstairs,” he said finally. He opened the door to the kitchen, and we descended.
    “May I take your coat?” he asked. “I’m sorry, sir, but I neglect my manners. I am on edge. Come, let me take your coat. Do sit down.”
    We’d entered another room behind the kitchen. It was warmly lit and pleasant. Three of the walls were covered with tapestries of a cheap variety, and there were several bookshelves and assorted stuffed chairs. I took one of them.
    “I live here,” he explained. “You are now my guest. Would you care for some heated milk? Coffee?”
    I looked carefully at this man who had been changed so completely by the act of my coming into his living quarters. He went into some other rooms to deposit the coat, then back to the kitchen, evidently to prepare the milk. For nearly a quarter of an hour I sat while he moved back and forth, bringing first the milk, then a pair of pajamas that he insisted I change into, though they were much too large, then a warm housecoat in which I wrapped myself. He stoked the