by Evelyn James
“Thank you,” Colonel Brandt replied. “And let me add that as a military man, and a friend of Colonel Matthews, I do not intend to leave Belgium until I know for sure who the traitor was. If it was Lound and he is dead, then so be it. But if it was someone else and they have escaped justice to live their life as if nothing happened, then I intend to hunt them down and expose them to the world. Betrayal does not deserve mercy.”
Brandt’s words were hard, but he had a point. Treachery could lead to the deaths of innocents and enable a wretched enemy to conquer a neutral country such as Belgium was at the start of the war. It could not be just forgotten.
“What I hoped you could help me with was how treachery might have occurred here? I can understand how information was obtained, but how was it sent to the Germans?” Brandt concluded.
Mercier perked up.
“That is a very valid question and one I investigated diligently at the time. A traitor can only commit his betrayal if he has the ability to communicate with the enemy. In 1917, the town was behind the British front line, therefore direct communication was impossible. We had to look for other methods,” Mercier was excited as he explained the problem. “After assessing the situation and determining that there was no means of a local communicating with the enemy directly, my colleagues and I agreed that they must be using an intermediate in the area. Probably enemy agents who were living on the fringes of the community and were passing intelligence from someone in the town to the Germans.
“We had received reports of a pair of unknown men loitering about the area, sometimes stealing from farms. They were unlikely to be refugees as they avoided contact with the locals. We suspected they were agents working for the Germans and had probably persuaded someone in the town to pass information to them. As they had been seen near the shrine of St. Helena a few times, that seemed to make it all the more likely Father Lound was their source of intelligence.”
“Did Father Lound often go to the shrine?” Tommy asked.
Mercier seemed put out by the question.
“He was a Catholic priest and it was a saint’s shrine,” Mercier responded, as if that made it obvious. “In any case, I made it my job to find these men, with the permission of Colonel Matthews. After the disappearance of Father Lound, it was the only link I had to the treachery in town. These man had to be caught and dealt with, before more information was stolen.”
Colonel Brandt was sitting forward in his chair, listening keenly.
“Did you capture them?”
Captain Mercier had grown enthused as he talked, now he looked a little embarrassed.
“Not precisely. We searched the countryside and eventually found an abandoned woodsman’s hut. Inside there were wicker crates, the sort used for carrier pigeons and a crude wireless set. It could send Morse code messages to the Germans. It was interesting, because one of the reasons we knew we had a leak was because Morse messages had been overheard through our own wireless sets giving vital information to the enemy.
“The pigeons had all been used and it looked like the wireless had been abandoned. Probably the Germans had realised it was pointless as we were overhearing what they were sending and changing our tactics and deployments as a result. Though it was damn annoying! We kept having to alter our plans and that must have delighted the Germans. Inconveniencing us was almost as good as being able to smash our positions.
“We did find paraffin, which we suspected was for use in a signalling lamp. They must have found a position that was isolated and from which they could signal short messages to their commanders. I hoped we could track the men, as they did not seem to have left long before. It wasn’t to be.”
Colonel Brandt’s face fell.
“They got away?”
“Not entirely. As I said, they had been raiding local farms and stealing food. Unfortunately, they had a habit of visiting the farms in a set order. The farmers worked out this pattern and plotted to all be at the farm they thought would next be hit. The men appeared as expected, the farmers attempted to catch them and they fled. In the chaos that followed both men were shot. One died instantly, the other lingered just long enough for the farmers to work out the pair were German. They buried them in a nearby field,” Mercier’s tone indicated how disappointing this had all been. “We eventually learned of what had happened and went to the farm. The bodies were exhumed and examined for any papers or clues to their identity. Aside from a book on Morse code and a letter from one fellow’s mother, there was little to aid us. We reburied them and promised the farmer there would be no trouble for him. He had shot enemy agents, after all.”
Colonel Brandt joined Mercier in looking slightly disappointed. It was, however, understandable. War was a different kettle of fish to peacetime.
“Were you hoping they might still be alive?” Mercier asked.
“I was hopeful you had had the chance to speak with them and learn something about their activities.”
“Sorry,” Mercier said, without looking particularly apologetic.
Outside, in the corridor, there was a slow scuffle of feet and the older man Tommy had surmised was Mercier’s father appeared in the doorway.
“If you are done, Renaud wants to get going,” he said in a voice that indicated there was no real rush. “Oh, and a lad has ridden over from the town. He says that the police are asking for all able men to gather near the shrine of St. Helena with shovels, as they are going to begin a search of the place for a second body, like that one they found before.”
Tommy glanced at Colonel Brandt and in unison they said.
“Clara!”
“What is this?” Mercier asked them.
“We have colleagues in the town,” Tommy explained. “They are pursuing the disappearance of Father Lound from a different angle. Now, we know that the bones in the woods are not those of the priest, but I would guess our friends believe that he may be resting in a similar grave there all the same.”
Mercier’s eyes twinkled.
“If you found his body, that would be interesting. The shrine was the rendezvous for the spies, we knew that. I always wondered who that skeleton was. I think I shall go over with my shovel and help with the search.”
“What about the tractor?” Mercier’s father asked in that same, placid tone, as if it really was not all that important and could wait.
Mercier frowned.
“Eh, buy it father, you know you want to.”
Mercier’s father grinned from ear to ear, then he excused himself and vanished. Mercier shrugged to his guests.
“He loves engines.”
A short time later they were back at the woods. Several men were already at work, scouring an area around the shrine where the first skeleton had been found. Peeters was supervising and Dr Jacobs was on hand to identify anything that was brought out of the ground.
Brandt and Tommy noticed Clara and Annie standing near the saint’s statue and joined them.
“How did you persuade Peeters to do all this?” Tommy asked his sister, smirking at her.
“Persistence,” she winked at him. “Also, it is damn irritating having an Englishwoman twisting your ear for any length of time.”
“How long have they been at it?” Colonel Brandt was watching the workers.
“Half an hour or so,” Clara was about to say more when a cry went up and they all hurried over to see what was going on.
One of the men had been digging in the area near where the first bones were found and had come across something in the soil. He held it out to Dr Jacobs. It was not a bone, but a very small item. Dr Jacobs carefully brushed dirt from it.
“It is the remains of a bullet casing,” he said with a frown. Then he bent down and dug with his fingers in the soil where the casing had been discovered. He was at it several moments before he came across something. Clutching his fingers around the object he wriggled it out of the soil.
It was a revolver. Badly corroded by its time in the soil, but obvious as a gun. The bul
let chamber had been broken open before it was buried, allowing the spent bullet casing and several unused bullets to scatter into the earth. Dr Jacobs frowned.
“How very odd. Someone broke open the gun then discarded it.”
Captain Mercier walked over and asked to see the gun. He cleaned it as best he could with his fingers, then examined it all over.
“It’s not German. The bullets are, but not the gun,” he said, clearly surprised. “I think it is a British gun.”
Tommy glanced at Clara.
“Father Lound,” Clara said to him in a whisper. “I feared he might have been the one to kill Ramon.”
Tommy frowned.
“Ramon?”
“Those are his the bones in the grave. He was not in Lugrule, has never been there. I don’t know why his mother lied, as she would not speak to me,” Clara explained.
“Looks like we now know what killed the man who was buried here,” Captain Mercier was saying, having not overheard Clara.
The party continued to dig on. Odd things appeared from the soil and gave brief moments of excitement, only to prove to be something innocent and not worthy of further investigation. The greatest excitement was caused by the discovery of a long rib bone, which Dr Jacobs confidently asserted belonged to a large dog and not a man.
The sun worked its way across the sky and everyone’s enthusiasm drooped. There was no sign of another grave and their search area had widened far away from where they had begun. It was becoming plain that no one else was buried here.
“Sorry Annie,” Clara said when Peeters called it a day. “It was a good theory.”
Annie was frowning.
“I really thought we would find Father Lound. He has to be buried somewhere.”
“Maybe he killed Ramon and ran away,” Clara suggested. “The gun was British.”
“Do you believe that?” Annie asked her.
Clara was not sure. She found it hard to imagine the priest as a killer, just as it had been hard to imagine him as a traitor. There was no real evidence for either accusation, but there was also no body.
They started to walk back into town. Monsieur Coppens joined them.
“Were we looking for Father Lound?” He asked Clara. The diggers had not been told who they were searching for, only to look for bones.
“We were,” Clara replied.
“Hmm,” Coppens mused. “Well, it got me out of doing a job at home. The corner of the house is sagging again. Shouldn’t be with all the rubble and concrete they put under it, but the cracks are definitely returning. We’ve had a builder come over and he thinks the hole was not packed well enough and a gap has formed.”
“The foundations,” Clara mumbled to herself, then she glanced up at Monsieur Coppens. “Maybe something that was put in that hole has disintegrated?”
“Yes, that is possible,” Coppens nodded. “In any case, we shall have to excavate and refill it, unless we want to lose the corner of the house.”
“I think you should dig it out right away, this instant,” Clara came to a halt, the other diggers were behind her along with Chief Inspector Peeters. “In fact, I think we should all come along and help you.”
“What is this?” Peeters asked moodily.
“Chief Inspector, I think I know where the body of Father Lound was buried. I think I know who killed him and why, and how he disposed of the body. What happened afterwards I am not so sure about, but this, this I know and we must act at once.”
Peeters grumbled.
“You’ve had us on one wild goose chase today already.”
“Annie was right, I was right also when I said I thought Father Lound was dead. We just needed to find his grave and if it isn’t in the woods, then there is only one logical place for it to be. Chief Inspector, you must trust me on this.”
Peeters looked like he would protest again, but with all the townsfolk around him he was hesitant to be rude. He finally sighed and agreed.
“Well then, where must we dig now?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Madame Coppens made them all coffee. It was a long job, requiring her to boil a lot of water and routinely refill her little coffee pot. Annie helped her. She also helped her cook food for the workers. It was the least the Coppens could do for the men who were now helping them with their subsidence problem, even if the reason for that help was because Clara believed that the unfortunate Father Lound had been buried amid the rubble and concrete used to shore up the Coppens’ house footings. It was a hunch, but the more she thought about it, the more certain she was.
Father Lound had not just walked away. He was not that sort of man. To vanish the way he did, meant he must have been dead. And dead men have to be buried somewhere. Clara had not mentioned to anyone yet that the person who had filled in this hole was Ramon Devereaux, and that he was also the last person to see Father Lound alive, and the one who argued with the priest just before he vanished. Not to mention, a prime suspect for being the town’s traitor. Everything made sense.
As long as they found the body, of course.
A few of the men went away and fetched sturdy wooden beams, which they could wedge beneath the wall of the house as the ground was excavated beneath it. It was rather like digging a mine shaft, someone explained to Clara, you had to put in joists to support what was above, while you dug out the soil, rubble and lumps of concrete. It was soon plain that the work to improve the foundations had been very slipshod. The rubble had not been packed down and air pockets had been left. The concrete had been made too thick and had not filled the gaps well. Over time, the pressure of the house above had pushed the air from the gaps, allowing the rubble to collapse, with the result the house started to slip again.
There were a dozen men working to dig out the foundations, they had formed a chain with some filling solid baskets with rubble, while others brought it out of the hole and put it in a pile nearby. Others were hacking out the lumps of concrete. There were mutterings about how poor the previous work had been. Coppens was looking a little embarrassed about the mess beneath his house, even if it had nothing to do with him; he had just bought the property.
Chief Inspector Peeters stood to one side smoking a cigarette and looking disinterested about the whole affair. Clara hoped she had not made another bad guess when she suggested they dig here. Peeters would certainly not help her again if that was the case. She accepted a cup of coffee from Madame Coppens, even though she really was not keen on coffee, but because she was desperate for something to distract her. Colonel Brandt and Tommy were being as supportive as they could, but even they looked worried. What had Clara done?
“Hey! Look at this!”
The workers came to an abrupt stop. Clara took a tentative step forward. Peeters had not moved but was looking over. One of the men who had been hacking out concrete had just pulled out a large chunk and discovered a hole in the debris. Within this hole he had spotted an object.
Clara held her breath as he pulled the thing from the small space. It was rectangular, badly squashed by the weight of the stones and broken bricks piled on it, yet still recognisable as a suitcase. Clara hurried forward and took the suitcase from the man. She had to slip into the hollow growing beneath the house to do so, then climb back out. Once she was back above ground, she put the battered case on the grass and tried to open the locks. Unsurprisingly they would not budge. They had clearly been immersed in water for some time – there were pools of water amid the rubble, where it had seeped down through the ground soil – and were bent out of shape.
Peeters walked over and crouched down. He produced a pocket knife with a large blade and wriggled it under the catches. He was able to prise them from the case, the leather covering being so softened by water that the tiny pins that held the catches in place pinged free with ease. Dr Jacobs wandered over and everyone paused and hovered around the discovery as the lid was finally pulled open.
All the objects inside were soaked through. There were a pair of pyjamas, a set
of trousers and a shirt, on top of a priest’s cassock. Clara breathed a sigh of relief. Here was Father Lound’s missing suitcase. It had never left town, which surely meant he had never left either. Captain Mercier moved closer and examined the case. He saw the cassock too and a look of concern crossed his face. Peeters turned around and faced the workers.
“Dig carefully. We are looking for the remains of a person in there.”
A new resolve came over the men. They were tired and their muscles ached, but they had a purpose. While they continued to dig, Clara carefully unpacked the suitcase. Captain Mercier loitered at her shoulder to examine the contents. Aside from the clothes, there was a hair brush and shaving kit. What struck Clara, however, was the lack of personal belongings. There were no photographs or letters, no diary, no books, trinkets or tokens, all the little things a person carries with them. This suitcase was full of essentials and nothing else.
“No slippers,” Captain Mercier mused as the paltry contents were laid out. “When I pack my suitcase, I always make sure I have my slippers.”
“No paper or envelopes for writing to family,” Clara added. “No money or passport. This is not the way a person packs if they intend to leave a place for good, or even just to be gone for a few days. It is the way a person might pack for someone else, a person in haste who wants to make it look like someone has left town in a hurry.”
Captain Mercier gave a soft groan, then sat on the ground beside Clara.
“It looks like I may have been wrong about Father Lound,” he said glumly.
“If it is any consolation, I think Father Lound was very wrong about the person he was trying to protect,” Clara sighed. “He made a mistake and I think it cost him his life.”
“Who do you suspect?”
“Ramon Devereaux.”
Captain Mercier mused on the name.
“I didn’t know him,” he said, looking ashamed by the fact.
From the expanding hole in the ground there was another cry and Clara hastened over to see what had been discovered. Dr Jacobs had clambered into the pit and was very gingerly removing a portion of bone from a space in the rubble.
