The Titanic Secret

by Clive Cussler

  12

  From a convenient brasserie near the Massards’ apartment—Bell had noted she wore a wedding ring—he’d watched her for three days and he felt time slipping away. Mrs. Yves, as he thought of her, did not work, so she spent much of her time in her own apartment. On her occasional forays out into the continuously damp and chilly November air, she went mostly to a market for meal supplies, once to a café for tea with a woman who was not Theresa Massard, and she’d spent part of one afternoon at a cinema watching several one-reelers.

  Bell was frustrated that his plan to find Theresa through Marc’s twin’s wife wasn’t panning out. He now had to consider a more direct route, one that risked tipping his hand to Gly, Massard, and the powers that ran the Société des Mines. He could further jeopardize the miners if he was caught.

  He couldn’t imagine the French consortium keeping the American miners in Paris for much longer. The simple fact was they would never reach their destination once the seas iced over. The window to reach Novaya Zemlya was closing rapidly. So too was Bell’s opportunity to give them a warning.

  The little eatery’s owner was well compensated for Bell’s use of the front table, so as a courtesy he kept the detective’s coffee topped off. Bell nodded when the man offered to refill the bone china cup in its little saucer but then waved the man away when he saw Mrs. Yves step out from her building. Today was Friday. If she had a standing date to visit her sister-in-law, now was the most logical time and day. Bell stood quickly and gathered his coat and hat. He let the woman get halfway down the block before leaving the brasserie and giving casual chase. She was dressed conservatively and her hair was up. She usually wore it down to frame her face. But now it was in a tight bun pinned close to her skull. She was purposefully making herself seem less attractive. Bell suspected he’d finally caught the break he needed.

  As he’d predicted, the twin brothers lived just a couple of blocks from each other. Mrs. Yves entered an apartment building on the corner of a busy street. Cars and carriages jockeyed with one another for space on the congested route. Even from a distance Bell could hear raised voices, horns, and the neighing of frightened draft horses. He made a mental note of the address and retreated to a newspaper kiosk. He bought a paper and moved to a spot where he was partially shielded from view from the building’s entrance. He settled in for a long wait but soon found himself in motion again. Mrs. Yves came out of the building with another woman. Bell didn’t need to consult the old photograph in his pocket to recognize Theresa Massard.

  Marc and Theresa were young enough in the picture to believe in a fairy-tale life together and were probably on their honeymoon. Assuming that, and knowing that most French are Catholic, divorce was out of the question and so they’d still be partners.

  He was wrong in thinking Mrs. Yves and Theresa could be related. They looked nothing alike.

  Time and Theresa Massard’s current circumstance had not been kind to her. Her once dark hair was streaked with dull gray and hung limp to her shoulders. She’d gained weight since she and Marc had posed for the Eiffel Tower photograph, and her posture was becoming stooped around the shoulders and upper back. She was in her early to mid-thirties, by Bell’s estimation, but appeared well past her prime, like someone who’d endured many decades of hardship.

  Life had beaten Theresa Massard, and Bell suspected her husband had as well. He had stopped thinking of that man as the friendly reporter he’d caught stalking a story and remembered that he’d participated in the burning of innocent villagers. The man was a monster and so were his brother and the Goliath, Gly. He imagined he’d mistreated his wife badly over the years. She moved with the timidity of an oft-whipped dog. Her eyes remained downcast, and she stepped through the crowds with quick, jerky motions so that no one got too close to her. She did allow her sister-in-law to take her arm and thread it through her own.

  From a good distance back, Bell could see Mrs. Yves trying to chat up Theresa and lift her spirits but was getting only one-word answers in return. He knew even some whipped dogs missed their masters, and no matter how poorly she’d been treated by her late husband, she was obviously in mourning. The two women ate lunch at an inexpensive café. Bell left them so he could grab a quick bite from a nearby patisserie. Upon his return to the street outside the restaurant, he saw, to his horror, that Mrs. Yves was alone now and discussing the bill with a waiter. It could be that Theresa excused herself to use the ladies’, but why was the bill there so quickly? It made more sense that Theresa was too upset to even have a meal in public and had run home. Mrs. Yves was in a hurry to pay so she could catch up.

  Bell started walking quickly back toward the apartment building where Theresa Massard lived. He cut through the crowds without looking like he was hurrying and soon saw the slope-shouldered silhouette and the jerky, awkward tics. Bell settled his pace to stay behind her. She reached her building before Mrs. Yves caught up. Bell waited across the street at the news kiosk again. When he spotted Mrs. Yves hurrying on the sidewalk, he started back for the apartment building, timing his move so he arrived just a second after the woman. She acknowledged his presence with a look and started up the wooden stairs that rose up through an open shaft in the building’s center. Bell gave her a polite few seconds and started up after her. She climbed past the second floor and up to the third. Bell slowed a little more and watched her move down the short, carpeted hallway to apartment C and knock. He continued climbing up to the building’s top floor to wait.

  He heard the woman knock a second time, then a third, and call Theresa’s name. To no avail. Theresa wasn’t going to let her sister-in-law try to cheer her up. Mrs. Yves gave up after a minute more. Bell listened to the clack of her shoes as she descended to street level and waited until the building’s front door squeaked open and clicked closed.

  He descended to the third floor. He took the old photograph from his pocket and slipped it under the door of apartment C. He knocked, and said in French, “Mrs. Massard, I was there when Foster Gly murdered your husband.”

  For thirty seconds he got no reaction. The door remained closed, the apartment beyond silent. Bell was raising his hand to knock again when he heard the lock thrown. She pulled the door against herself and looked out like a frightened mouse peering from its den.

  “Je m’appelle Isaac Bell. Je suis Américain.”

  “I speak English,” Theresa said. “They told me my husband died in a fight at a bar.”

  “That isn’t true. We were in the mountains outside of Denver, Colorado. They had just tried to kill me and another man. I managed to chase down your husband. He was unarmed. I had this.” Bell opened his coat to show the butt of his .45 in a black leather shoulder rig. “I was just about to begin questioning him. Gly couldn’t risk Marc telling me anything, so he shot him from a great distance with a rifle.”

  “You are police?”

  “A private investigator.” She appeared not to know what that meant. “Like a policeman people can hire for themselves.”

  She nodded. “Why should I believe you?”

  “May we do this in your apartment?”

  “Non. Until I know what you want, you will remain where you are.”

  Bell was surprised that she’d refused him. Apparently, her timidity did not make her compliant. “You should believe me because you already know what kind of man Gly is.” She shuddered at the mention of his name. Bell knew he’d touched a nerve. “And because I took the time to find that picture and return it to you.”

  Looking at the photograph in her trembling hand brought her to a conclusion. She opened the door fully and turned back into her apartment so that Bell could follow. The place was nicely furnished and tidy. The kitchen had an ornate ice chest with brass accents, and the stove had two separate burner rings. Bell could see there was a bedroom, though he couldn’t directly see into it, and a private bathroom with a porcelain shower.

  “I have no c
offee,” she said. “Would tea be all right?”

  “Only if you are making some for yourself,” Bell said.

  She’d been tracking toward the kitchen, but Bell’s answer changed her plan and she shuffled to the couch and wedged herself up against one arm. On the nearby table sat a stack of fresh white hankies and several used ones looking like they’d absorbed so much grief they’d never be clean again. She took an unsoiled handkerchief and absently kneaded it with her thin fingers. The photo she placed on the coffee table.

  Bell removed his hat and outer coat and settled into a chair opposite the widow. Outside, the sky was a melancholy gray. Into the quiet he said, “Do you know what your husband did for the Société?”

  She didn’t answer his question. She said instead, “That pig Foster Gly told me that even though they were in America on company business, the fight was Marc’s fault, and so they will not pay me his insurance. We have just a little in savings. I cannot afford this apartment. What am I to do?”

  There was nothing Bell could say. He simply watched her hands worry as she worked the hankie as though it were a rosary.

  “Gly lied so the Société de Mines didn’t have to pay the widow’s benefits. He and Yves are the real friends. Marc just went along with whatever his older brother told him to do. Marc is younger by a few minutes and this is something Yves has used their entire lives to control my husband. Late husband,” she corrected quickly.

  She finally looked up from her lap. Her eyes were glossy, but no tears wet her cheeks. “He was good to me in the early days. He wanted to be a draftsman. He was really very good at it. I was a shopgirl. We met in a park, quite by accident. I knew he was the one for me the very second I saw him. I know now that I was the first girl to ever show any interest in him. It’s why we started dating and why he proposed so quickly. It’s funny. They’re identical twins, but there’s something . . . I do not know the English word.”

  “Yves is the kind of rogue that girls fall for,” Bell offered, thinking of that dark intensity he’d seen.

  “Yes. That is it. Yves always had girls around him. Pretty ones. Marc was so shy. Unsure of himself because Yves had belittled him since they were boys.”

  “Things changed when Yves met Foster Gly.” It was a statement by Bell, not a question.

  “Yes. Yves didn’t really have employment. He spent his nights in bars. He knew people. Did things. Illegal things, you know? I am not sure if Gly knew his reputation and sought him out or if they met through mutual acquaintances, but the two became friends. Gly was an employee of the Société and he offered Yves a legitimate job.

  “Yves hadn’t been able to recruit Marc for any of his schemes because I would not allow it. But when Yves told Marc he could have a job too, it was too much. Marc had to follow his older brother.

  “Up to then, I was able to protect Marc from Yves’s influence, but that was no longer the case. Yves won. Marc changed. He would stay out drinking after work. He would just grunt at me when I had questions. The love drained from our marriage, Monsieur Bell. No, that is not true, Marc let Yves and Gly suck the love from our marriage.”

  Tears finally started down her cheeks and she began sobbing in earnest, deep and gut-wrenching sobs. There were two responses open to Bell at this moment, a choice men must make at their own peril. Either the sobbing woman wants to be comforted or she wants to work through it on her own. There was definitely a correct answer, but the problem was that the solution changed from cry to cry with no clue as to what was now desired.

  He figured she’d spent a lot of time alone, so he let her be. He had to give her credit, though. She was crying over a life she’d expected but didn’t get. For many people, that was an inconsolable circumstance, but she pulled herself together, dabbing at her eyes and finally giving her nose a good blow.

  “Forgive me,” she said at last, her eyes and nose red.

  “There’s no need. I understand. And if our roles were reversed, I see myself crying just as much.”

  She smiled at that, and there was a shadow of gratitude in her gaze. “Did Marc . . . Did he . . .”

  “Suffer?” Bell supplied. “No, he died instantly.” Bell returned to his original question. “Do you know what your husband did for the Société des Mines?”

  “Not specifically. He had an office here in Paris, but he traveled often.”

  “With Gly?”

  She nodded. “Or Yves. And sometimes both.”

  “Would you like me to tell you what they did specifically?”

  The tone in his voice gave her pause. While she was curious to know some things about her husband’s life he’d kept from her, he’d died a violent death at the hands of someone who was supposedly his friend, and her truer self knew that whatever kind of man Marc had become, she was better off not knowing the details. “I do not believe I would like to know, monsieur.”

  “That is a wise choice.”

  She asked, “You came here for more than to tell me the truth about Marc’s death, yes?”

  “He and Gly were in the United States to escort a handful of men to Paris and see them off on a polar expedition.”

  “I understand.” But clearly she didn’t.

  “I have strong reason to believe that these men will be murdered upon the completion of their mission.”

  She gasped, now seeing the full picture.

  “I need to get word to the team leader to expect betrayal. I know they are here in Paris getting the last of the supplies they will need. I don’t know where, exactly. Did your husband ever mention any houses the company owns?”

  “They own a great many for factory workers.”

  “No, not like that. This would be one where they would lodge visiting dignitaries, heads of other companies, potential clients.”

  She shook her head. “I am sorry, monsieur, but Marc did not discuss such things with me.”

  Bell doubted he’d have told her anything, but it was worth the shot to ask. Now he had to go the old-fashioned route. “Did your husband leave behind any keys?”

  “No,” she said, then immediately amended her reply, a little buoyed by being able to help. “Yes. In his strongbox.”

  She rose from her spot on the couch and vanished into the bedroom. She returned a moment later with a gray pressed-metal box about the size of an encyclopedia volume. She held it out to him. She took back her place, wedged tightly against the sofa’s armrest, and began fidgeting with a fresh handkerchief. Bell examined the box. The lock was a simple clasp type that was better at showing evidence of tampering than keeping contents safe. Bell used the knife he kept strapped to his ankle to work at it, bending the cheap metal until the internal lock snapped in two and the clasp popped open.

  Inside was a set of substantial brass keys on a very fine chain of silver. In addition to a snub-nosed revolver and a box of ammunition still in its grease paper, there were bundled stacks of francs. With the lid open so Theresa couldn’t see, he thumbed through one of the stacks of mixed bills and quickly calculated the value. He removed the keys and money and closed the lid.

  “These the keys he took to work every morning?”

  “Yes. They are for his office and desk and the like.” She spotted the money. “Mon Dieu!”

  He stood and handed the sheaves to her. “I’d guess about twenty thousand francs.”

  “How did—” She wisely reconsidered asking. “No. I do not want to know.”

  “You’re right. You don’t. I do not wish to alarm you, but there is also a gun in this box. If you would like, I will get rid of it for you.”

  “Yes, please. I want nothing to do with any of that.”

  “I have no advice for your future, madame,” Bell said as a way to wrap up their meeting. “Your sister-in-law seemed to pay you kindness.”

  Theresa dismissed the notion with a wave of her hand, the handkerchief c
lenched tightly in her other fist. “Bah. She’s a former dancer at Les Follies. Little better than a whore, and now she is pregnant and only talks about her having a son and naming him Yves after his father. The mere sight of her is a reminder of why my marriage turned out so poorly.”

  “Then I am truly sorry.” Bell stood and slipped into his overcoat and hat. He tucked the box under one arm. “You have been a tremendous help to me and I am grateful. I would not be surprised if Gly and your husband’s brother know about the money. They will likely come for it. Hide it someplace outside of this apartment and plead ignorance when they ask. Spend it slowly.”

  “I understand. Merci. I guess I too am grateful, monsieur. I might never have found the money before Gly and Yves came for it. Also knowing the real”—she paused, trying to recall the English word—“circumstance around Marc’s death. I suppose it helps a little knowing the truth.”

  She escorted him to the door. He asked for, and she gave him, the specific floor of the office her late husband shared with his brother and Foster Gly. As he stepped out into the hallway, he said, “I often find knowing the truth helps, Madame Massard. You have my condolences. Bonne chance et au revoir.”

  13

  Bell returned to the environs near the Société des Mines where he had started out. This was not the shiny headquarters in the second arrondissement close to the Paris Bourse, the city’s fabled stock exchange, but a satellite facility to house the worker bees who kept the hive humming—accountants, copy and file clerks, ledger keepers, and the like.

  The building took up the entire block and could probably house a thousand workers comfortably. He circled the block, discovering one of the green iron and glass Art Deco Métro station entrances designed by Hector Guimard that were rapidly becoming as familiar a symbol of the city as Monsieur Eiffel’s Tower. The back of the building was punctured by an alley that led to an open central courtyard. The alley was protected by a grillework gate that was chained shut. Bell could see into the brick-paved court. There was nothing of interest, but he took a moment to note that, in a pinch, he could climb up and over the gate.