Monsieur Spade
Season 1 Episode 2
Episode Title: n/a
Original release date: January 21, 2024
After a horrific murder shocks a small town, retired detective Spade takes the case. Secretive Teresa has clues but won’t share. Spade digs deeper, unaware the killer may target him next.
* * *
[Birds chirping]
[Ominous music]
[Doctor speaking French] What monster…?
Doctor?
Let’s go.
[Door slams shut]
Terribly sad. Outside of the antique, I barely got you for St. Valentine’s or whatever. Do you still possess a working pistol?
Anyone who wants to shoot me will have to bring their own gun.
I have no idea what that means, but it has the ring of your usual moral foolishness. Still, there’s a madman running around. You might want to protect yourself with something more reliable than just your wits.
[Slow jazz music]
[Engine revving]
[Liquid pouring]
[Glass clinks]
[Clock ticking]
[Speaking French] Is it true? The sisters? All of them?
[Clock ticking]
Where’s Teresa?
[Speaking French] I prepared the blue room for her. Let the poor thing sleep. Whatever you need from her will wait.
[Door slams shut]
[Crickets chirping]
[Gasping]
[Ominous music]
[Heavy breathing]
[Distant clunks]
[Radio playing in background]
[Speaking French] Someone slept late? How did your meeting at the bank go? In order to get a loan, I would need to have almost as much as I want to borrow.
[Speaking French] Why don’t you ask Sam?
[Speaking French] Don’t start.
[Speaking French] You wore the necklace.
[Speaking French] Fuck luck. Always.
[Speaking French] Or forget the bank and sell it?
[Speaking French] When Gabrielle gave this to me, she said “Give rubies away, but not your precious heart.”
[Speaking French] Wait. Leave it on.
[Speaking French] What happened to us?
[Speaking French] I don’t know. The war?
[Speaking French] The easy answer.
[Speaking French] Maybe you could pretend that I am someone else.
Teresa?
[Knocking]
[Ominous music]
Have you seen Teresa?
[Speaking French] This morning? No. Is she not in the bedroom?
No.
[Speaking French] Well, she couldn’t have gone far. Not on foot.
She could have. If she left last night. Or if someone came and took her.
[Slow string music]
[Engine revving]
[Breaks squealing]
Cheeky little automobile, Mr. Spade. Out to enjoy some of that fresh country air, are we?
Something like that.
Ah, both you and the girl.
You saw her?
Yes. At dawn, I was on my way here. The colors at sunrise are a painter’s dream.
She was on the road?
She came past me. Her shoes were muddy. As if she’d been running. And her eyes, they were downcast. Seemingly upset.
What color were they?
I think they were… Ah, yes. Sorry, a bit obsessed with details. Occupational hazard, I’m afraid.
Yeah, you said she was upset?
Yes, well, I imagine the massacre at the manor was the cause.
Oh, you heard about that, huh?
Everyone’s heard about that.
From the girl?
No, I waved. Tried to chat with her, but she just ignored me.
Can’t say I blame her.
Pardon?
[Engine revving]
[Intense orchestra music]
[Distant dog barking]
[Car door slams shut]
Teresa?
[Mysterious piano music]
[Water sloshing]
[Scrubbing floor]
You’re asking the wrong guy. In my experience, the better souls never stand a chance.
[Ominous music]
[Ominous music intensifies]
[Bell tolls]
[Bell tolls louder]
[Sam coughing]
[Slow string music]
[Chain rattling]
[String music intensifies]
These things will kill you.
These are the same ones doctors smoke.
I saw on TV.
[Coughing]
Yeah, you really seem to be enjoying them.
Yeah, all right, climb down before you
make yourself dizzy and break your neck.
I’m not leaving.
Philippe’s not coming.
He promised.
I’m sure he did.
Did you do this?
No. You know who did?
How could I? We’re not allowed up here.
And yet, here you are.
They’re all dead.
What difference did their useless rules make?
I’ll tell you what.
You stay and wait for your father to show up,
smoke to your lungs’ content. I’ll be back at sundown.
If you’re still hanging around, you come home with me.
If not, then swell knowing you and I hope
you and Philippe have a nice life on the run.
[Barn door opening]
Shit!
[Engine revving]
Any idea how she ended up inside the chapel last night?
I don’t play with dolls anymore.
So, no idea how she lost her head?
I gave her away years ago.
You know this car still smells like roses.
She’d bring treats to the orphanage at Christmas.
Gabrielle.
Oranges from California.
Imagine that.
Sometimes she’d bring me books or a blouse,
or some other piece of clothing she was done with.
The books were all in French.
She said that once I started to dream in French,
I’d be fluent.
She said the same to me.
Sadly for everyone, I still dream in English.
Though usually French wins.
She didn’t want me to hate you,
for what you did to my father.
[Gunshot]
Get down.
[Tires screeches]
[Intense music]
[Engine revving]
Stay down.
[Gunshot]
[Tires squeal]
You all right?
[Motorcycle revving]
[Engine revving]
[Intense string music]
[Motorcycle revs in distance]
Mr. Spade?
Nasty business. This car’s cursed.
Not the person who shot that window,
that’s for sure.
Are you saying they missed on purpose?
The car was moving too slowly
for the gunman not to have hit me.
And what about the second shot?
Self-defense. I was about to run him over.
Yes, of course you were.
I’m not even sure it was meant for me.
George: Ah! Lovely. That’s great.
That’s my new neighbor.
An odd fellow.
[Sighs]
Philippe could have taken the shot.
With Teresa in the car?
Hard to imagine even Philippe doing that.
And he’s wounded, which shouldn’t make him too hard
to find for a pair of top detectives like you and…
[In French] your idiot brother.
Samuel, we talked about you using words
like “moron” and “idiot” when speaking to my brother.
Terms of endearment.
We’ve checked the two hospitals in the area.
No one with a bullet wound has been admitted.
Same goes for veterinarians and dentists.
Sounds like you two are right on top of things.
[Footsteps]
Mr. Spade, can I borrow your lawyer?
You were four years old.
[Pencil scrawling on paper]
[Bike chain winding]
Henri: I took her to Le Canard Noir,
that old place in Rodez.
Set me back 20 francs.
I’ll take care of that.
Best 20 francs I ever spent.
With that stupid grin, I’ll assume that
you and Mademoiselle Ruse are once again exchanging…
[In French] the heat of passion.
In the General’s office. On his desk.
I hope one of you didn’t wrinkle Philippe’s file.
Sergeant Saint-Andre’s file is rather short.
On several pages, names, dates, places are blacked out.
He’s army intelligence.
I’m sorry, I couldn’t get more.
That’s plenty.
Philippe, a spy.
I guess the war really did deplete the supply of able men.
There was something I heard, just a rumor.
Well, there’s this bow near the base,
where a lot of ex-Deuxième Bureau guys hang out.
Every so often, I go there for a drink,
and the other night, there was some joking about
Saint-Andre hiding a young woman in his quarters
his last time on base.
He’s probably not the first.
The woman was Algerian. No one heard her name.
Thank you, Henri. Much appreciated.
Any time.
I must confess, since I was a child,
you’ve been my hero.
Your hero?
Oui.
My advice, trade up.
[Water splashes]
[Ominous music]
[People talking in the distance]
[Romantic Latin music]
Woman: You know what they say,
“Marry for money, divorce for love.”
I thought it was, “marry for money, earn every nickel.”
Which do you believe?
I’ll get back to you.
You forget something, sweetheart?
We’re having a swim, aren’t we?
What will the gardener think?
I’m not worried about the gardener
leaving me for someone younger.
If I were you, I’d be more worried about mosquito bites.
I’m not going anywhere.
I’m just reminding you, there’s more to me than my money.
How could I ever forget?
[Water splashes]
Doctor: Why must the innocent always pay for the rest of us,
for our sins?
When the Nazis paid their little visit,
mother superior ran guns for the underground.
Your point?
No one’s innocent.
Still, one tries to be on the right side of things.
If only one knew what that was.
Six dead nuns, five files.
Which one is missing?
I know these women. I examined them every six months.
Three were from Spain, one was from Portugal,
and the mother superior was born here.
The last was an African. We had not yet met.
There’s no file for her.
I met that one briefly. [Coughs]
Can I see the bodies?
Patrice had them all bagged for transport to Paris.
Does Patrice really want Paris
crawling up and down his town?
He does not,
but he understands that six massacred nuns,
or dead nuns in any number,
bring much unwanted pressure.
And Paris is better equipped.
The extent of the autopsies I can do
run from death from fall off ladder
to death from heart attack.
Don’t forget boredom.
You joke, but the ministry was quite serious
and quite clear in their instruction.
I was not to touch the bodies.
Of course, they said that after I found this
around the neck of the African.
[Bell rings]
[Envelope rustles]
I didn’t know nuns were allowed to wear jewelry.
[Locket clicks]
Real nuns, that is.
[Suspenseful orchestral music]
[Discordant music]
[Laughing]
[Clock ticking]
[Suspenseful piano and orchestral music]
[Footsteps approaching]
[Door opens]
[Gun clatters]
[Gun clatters]
-[Door thuds and squeaks]
[Door slams]
We must wait for the replacement windows
to come from England.
How long?
[Dog barking]
Who shot you?
Technically, I was shot at.
Just a second.
I care about this car, so whatever your feelings for the late Jacques Laveront, promise me you’ll take good care of her.
I’ll treat the car as I would any beautiful woman I despise, with respect in her presence and lust in her absence.
Good, then we understand each other.
I think.
Ciao, Anatole.Sam.
Just happened to be passing by?
No one has been shot or shot at here for a long time.
Not since the war.
And that was collaborators killing partisans and partisans killing collaborators, not some crazy person executing nuns.
There’s been another war since, in case you’ve forgotten.
And we both know that one’s made plenty of people crazy and desperate.
This is not really about people though.
This is about you.
There are six dead women who might say otherwise.
That was yesterday.
Today someone shot at you.
But you’re not worried about me.
Could Jean-Pierre have done this?
Sure, he could have, but he didn’t.
How do you know?
He’s all talk. But murder, no.
Jean-Pierre would disagree.
So would every man who went to war.
That’s why they give them medals, with snappy uniforms to pin them on.
That way, whenever they look in a mirror, they see a soldier.
And what about the man who burns his uniform and sells his medals?
What does he see?
You may think you understand him, but you make him feel small.
You make most men feel small.
That’s because they don’t know me.
Then, I’ve never much cared what other men thought of me.
Not caring doesn’t make one bulletproof.
You should needle point that one on a pillow.
Sometimes, Sam…
[Birds chirping]
[Cuckoo cooing]
Spade, I’d like you to meet my mother.
Lady Cynthia, Sam Spade.
How do you do, Mr. Spade?
I’ve been better.
I’m so sorry for invading your devastatingly attractive
home without being asked, but George said he…
he didn’t think you’d mind.
I don’t. Nice to meet you.
Oh, Mr. Spade.
Um, please feel free to say no,
but may I ask you an enormous favor?
Sure, you can ask.
I’ve never seen the landscape
my husband painted for your late wife.
Um, would you mind, terribly,
if I came inside with you and took a peek?
May I come, too?
I… I haven’t laid eyes on that painting
since the day of the unveiling.
More the merrier.
Ah. Ah.
George and I have rented the villa next door.
Uh, we’re neighbors.
Though, of course, it’s hardly as scrumptious as all this.
Gabrielle’s family got the house on the cheap.
The previous owner died suddenly.
Oh.
He was guillotined.
[Cynthia gasps]
In fact, he got his head chopped off
right after Marie Antoinette.
Oh, dear.
Mother, he’s pulling your leg.
Oh, capital. [Laughing]
Oh, you’ll find I’m extremely gullible, Mr. Spade.
Somehow, I doubt that.
[Door opens]
Oh, thank you.
George, look at this marvelous place.
Oh, they don’t make them like this anymore, do they?
Ooh, oh, oh.
[George and Cynthia sighing and laughing]
It’s just wonderful!
Yes, Mother, notice the shadowing.
Ah.
Ah.
Singeon’s sense of color was always divine.
And look, George, look how he’s captured
the… the delicate flesh tones of this lovely, naked lady.
Well, I’ll leave you two to show yourselves out.
Yes, thank you so much.
Awfully kind of you.
[clock chimes]
Oh, one more thing.
I believe we have a mutual friend,
Philippe Saint-Andre.
I wouldn’t say that Philippe and I are friends,
more like, a long time ago, we bumped into each other.
Oh, oh, I… I… I… I see.
Well, I… I hear he’s returned to Bazuel.
I would love to say hello.
I’m afraid I can’t help you.
I’ve no idea where he is.
Mm, pity.
How do you know Philippe?
Well, uh, years ago,
he purchased one of my husband’s masterpieces.
Really?
Mm.
He paid a generous sum for it, too.
Are you sure we’re talking about
the same Philippe Saint-Andre?
The Philippe I know isn’t one to part with a generous sum,
or any kind of sum,
for anything that he could just as easily take.
[Radio announcer speaking French]
[Item thuds]
No.
[Footsteps retreating]
[Birds chirping]
Well, this morning, I had to get a ride from Basem
to buy two new tires.
You had to slash the spare, too?
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
You sound like your mother.
That was her favorite answer to every question.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
It was like a tick. [Coughs]
And that’s what you get
for saying such things about my mother.
[Sam coughing]
Are you all right?
Are you sick?
Couldn’t be better.
Just tell me where you saw this glint.
Yeah, no one’s gonna take a shot from there.
What’s that? Is that a clue?
Right now, it’s just an empty pack of cigarettes.
Well, they haven’t been here very long.
Really?
Yeah, it was windy last night,
so if the pack was here before,
it would’ve been covered in leaves.
Interesting theory.
Okay, tell me what you saw in the chapel.
I’m really hungry.
Teresa.
Helena said she’s making me ravioli.
What did you see in the chapel?
I told you.
That monk fellow hit the mother superior
and then we all ran away.
Yeah, you said that before, and you were very convincing,
but someone locked the kids in the closet,
and this morning, someone took a shot at you.
At me?
To scare you, to keep you from talking,
which means you either saw something you shouldn’t have
seen or you know something you shouldn’t know.
Why did Philippe come running to you?
I’m his daughter.
You’re his daughter, yet he didn’t feel the need
to fill you in on who shot him and why?
He was protecting me from knowing things I shouldn’t.
Protecting you how?
By then, just leaving you alone?
[Birds chirping]
My father didn’t come to see me.
He was there to meet someone else,
one of the sisters.
Which one?
The new one, soeur Angelique.
Then his plans changed when he got shot.
[Locket clatters]
Yeah, that’s them.
“Them”? What, the kid was with her?
No, he came a month later with Papa.
So, Philippe shows up wounded, with a kid,
and tells you what?
To hide the boy
while he found a place to stay and got patched up.
He said he’d come back for us in a day.
He leaves the kid with you, takes off,
and the monk comes knocking.
[Birds chirping]
I was hiding Zahid in the tower
when I heard the kids screaming.
[Children screaming]
They were running from the chapel.
They said a priest hit… [In French] mother superior.
So, you didn’t actually see him hit her
like you’ve been saying?
No.
Then what? You locked the kids in the closet?
To keep them safe.
[Door slams]
[Key rattles]
Shh, shh!
I ran back to my room.
And heard the first gunshot.
[Gun fires]
[Monk speaking in French]
The monk was shouting.
[Monk and nuns whispering in French]
He was telling soeur Angelique that she had to watch
while he asked each of them where the boy was.
[Gun clicks]
[Monk speaking in French]
And when they wouldn’t say…
[Gun fires]
he shot them…
one by one.
[Nuns whispering in French]
[Gun clicks]
[Monk talking in French language]
[Nun screams]
[Gun fires]
[Teresa panting]
[Nun moans]
[Gun fires]
[Gun clicking]
[Nun screams]
[Gun fires]
[Nun screams]
[Gun fires]
I tried to close my eyes, but I couldn’t look away.
And then…
Then what?
He saw me.
[Gasping]
[Thuds]
[Teresa panting]
[Monk grunts]
[Knife scrapes]
So, you told him where the boy was?
No.
You weren’t afraid?
I had my knife.
Well, sadly, I lost it.
In the chapel?
In the monk.
[Knife stabs]
[Monk screams]
[Squelches]
[Footsteps thudding]
[Door slams]
I ran to the bell tower, but the boy was gone.
Who is this kid
that someone would kill six people to find him?
I don’t know.
But right before he killed her…
Soeur Angelique said something.
The Mahdi?
What the hell has your father gotten you into?
[Suspenseful orchestral music]
[Suspenseful orchestral music continues]
[Wood clatters]
[Suspenseful orchestral music intensifies]
♪
♪
♪♪Let’s play a game, you and I, called “I won’t lie to Sam.”
♪
We got a meeting with the bishop. Want to come along?
As long as no one asks me to confess.
Mr. Spade, do you have any specific information you want to share?
I just did.
I need to find Philippe.
[Chuckles]
If I want you dead, I just have to wait.
[Telephone rings]
You want to have a real conversation, knock on my door.
♪
