by Jay Barnson
The second witness was a woman in wealthy attire who rather reeked of a potentially pleasant, but overpoweringperfume.
“Three men were sitting in a boat on the lake. When that poor girl got near enough, they grabbed her and her child and pulled them both into their boat.”
“And you, Mademoiselle? You did not follow them or alert a gentleman to assist in the moment? You did nothing at all?
“No, sir, I could not. The boat . . . it sprouted fins and dove beneath the water. For all I know, it is still down there.”
Marcel bit his tongue and looked toward the lake. The edge was undisturbed. It had no outlet. Submarines existed, but in such a shallow lake?
“Merci.” He grimaced and dismissed the woman.
Noël looked confused. “So, do we search the lake or the skies?”
“Neither.” Marcel felt certain. “There are no footprints in the sand along the edge of the lake—no evidence of a boat being drawn to shore and out again. The witness dresses elegantly but wears inexpensive perfume.”
He didn’t want to say how he knew it, but it was his wife’s favored scent, just not in that quantity, and now that the woman was gone, the scent lingered gently in the air and caused him sorrow, which only fueled his further annoyance with the witness.
“She is a charlatan out for money, as is the boy, though probably for more noble reasons. Still, both have clearly been paid to throw us off. We need to know by whom. I recommend they both be arrested for conspiracy and see which of them will squawk first. Then, renew the search for legitimate witnesses.”
“Yes, Monsieur.” Noël became giddy, as if making his first arrest was the highlight of his lifetime. Roux still remembered when he’d felt that way.
But time had taught him that it was rare to meet a man or woman who had started into a life of crime simply for the love of being a criminal. Most often, it was desperate circumstances that led people to make desperate decisions.
So he looked away instead of watching the arrest.
There was something . . . he could see the corner of a piece of paper sticking out near the bottom of the pousette’s rear tire. He reached for it—
And the next thing he knew he was face down in the dry grass.
“Monsieur!” Noël gasped, and helped him turn onto his side. “Are you all right?”
He spat out grass a moment before cursing the day he was born.
“Humiliated, thank you, but unhurt.”
“Allow me to—”
“No, wait.” Inspector Roux was not going to abandon the reason for his fall. He pulled the paper out of the pousette’s wheel. “How did no one see this before?”
“Perhaps we were all looking at it from the wrong perspective.” Noël shrugged and Roux conceded that indeed he was seeing things from a lesser height and he’d had the advantage this time because of it.
He unfolded the paper, still with great effort.
“Do we have a linguist available?” he smirked.
“What language?” Noël asked before he’d clearly thought too hard about it. “Oh right—you don’t know. Let me have a look.” Noël read it over and then frowned. “That appears to be Moroccan. I have a great-aunt who settled down there; we used to visit, so I picked up a few words here and there.” He knelt in the grass to show Roux, pointing to the text. “This means money. Bring money; ten thousand francs. This must be the address: something, something, Casablanca, Morocco. I’ll get someone else to look at it.”
“That’s about as good a lead as they’re going to get.” Marcel sighed. “Now please, take me back to the invalid home. I’m done embarrassing myself.”
“What?” Noël protested. “But we’re just getting started.”
“I can’t even pick up a piece of paper without falling on my face!” Roux gasped. No one seemed to be staring, but somewhere someone was going to be talking about this humiliation behind his back. He didn’t need that.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Noël laughed. Before Inspector Roux could remind the boy that his sense of adventure had also been left on the cobblestones streets of Aÿ-Champagne, the junior inspector had hauled him up out of the grass with ease and set him back into his chair, this time taking care to strap him in. “Besides,” Noël took out the note again, “I might not read Moroccan well, but I know what that name is.”
“Inspector Marcel Roux,” Marcel read his name at the top of the note, something Noël ought to have mentioned much sooner. “So our villain wants me, specifically, to deliver the money.”
“He must really want to get caught.” Noël smirked.
“Unfortunately, that is sometimes true.” Marcel grimaced as a cold shiver of disgust went through him. He didn’t like reflecting on those sorts of cases. “There are men who know that what they are doing is wrong but cannot help themselves. This villain may very well want for the once-famous Inspector Roux to catch him and stop him. I only wish there was a way to let him know that is entirely impossible.”
“Improbable, perhaps. Impossible, never!” Noël knelt down beside the chair. “We have no way to tell our villain that you simply can’t be there, and why should we? Let us go to Morocco. We’ll do what we can. One step at a time.” Noël winced at his mistake. “Figuratively, I meant. One push of a button, then whatever it takes to find that poor babe and his mother.”
Marcel wanted nothing more than to return to his shadowed hospital room and never speak to another living soul, including the over-eager Junior Inspector Noël.
If it weren’t for that poor babe and his mother, he would have.
He hoped the journey would prove to be a lot more imagined inconvenience than actual inconvenience. “Fine,” he conceded. “We’ll go to Morocco. But you’re going to have to rein in the optimism. It’s infuriating.”
“Excellent!” Noël exclaimed, then winced. “I mean, very good, Monsieur. To the train station!”
Marcel had to shake his head. The boy certainly had the energy and spirit for adventure, but did he have enough for both of them?
Junior Inspector Noël slept on the train, but Marcel Roux had slept altogether too much for the six months since the accident, so he watched the scenery of France go by.
The advent of new technologies had changed the look of many once-familiar places. Monstrous factories lined many rivers. Self-guided, steam-driven farm equipment crawled along the fields in their perfectly straight lines, replacing the oxen-drawn plow on the larger farms of men who could afford them.
Still, here and there a simple farmer made his living in the old ways.
Marcel admired those simple farmers.
Nearing the border of Spain, he had to awaken Noël once for personal reasons. The embarrassment of having no control of his own bodily functions was one of the strongest points he might have made for never wanting to leave the invalid hospital and brave the world.
“My great-grandfather lived with my family when he was quite old.” Noël’s only comment kept Marcel from having to ask why Noël just acted like it was normal to assist a grown man—his superior even—in changing an adult-sized diaper.
“Merci.” Marcel sighed.
Noël nodded thoughtfully and returned him to his window seat.
They continued through Spain to the Strait of Gibraltar.
Marcel swore the moment he saw the Zeppelin awaiting them as they exited the train. Indeed, Heaven forbid that he should have to even look at such a mechanical monster after nearly dying in one, let alone be expected to take another ride.
The fear the Zeppelin evoked in him brought on an entirely different loss of control. Images of fire and screams of death conjured only in his memory pressed down on him with a weight that took his breath away.
Then darkness took him.
A splash of water brought him back.
They were on a boat. It bounced and skipped over the surface of the water far too quickly to be enjoyable. Several dozen passengers were crammed together on seats that lined the deck,
and Marcel was stretched out across several seats with Noël’s jacket over him.
“Monsieur Roux.” Noël noticed he was awake and looked concerned. “I am sorry. Your accident. Was it on a Zeppelin?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?” Noël asked. “Can you talk about it?”
He shook his head. He hadn’t spoken of the accident in a long time. He had been asked, months ago, to provide as many details as he could to the Champagne police in order to further their investigation of the incident. Even then, he had begged they not share those details with the other victim’s families so they might never have to envision how their loved-ones had died.
“I am sorry.” Noël frowned. “I am beginning to see how much it still affects you.”
“Yes, but even I did not expect that show of cowardice.” Marcel gasped. “I am an embarrassment to my former self.”
“You’re fine, Monsieur,” Noël replied kindly. “But perhaps it is about time you begin to consider how you might react differently the next time you are offered a Zeppelin ride.”
“Never,” Roux gasped, trying to fight the rising fear back down lest he hyperventilate again. “Never again, Noël.”
“I will try to keep that in mind.” Noël said with a shrug.
The boy did not understand, and how would he if Marcel was unwilling to share the depth of his fears?
He drew in a breath, and then another. “I was . . . we were sent to investigate a kidnapping in Aÿ-Champagne, just as the riots broke out,” he began quietly. He was awarded by Noël’s rapt attention, however. “When we approached, the village was already burning. The rioters didn’t want us to interfere, and we were hit by an incendiary device. I can only hope they were uneducated in Zeppelin technology and didn’t realize what that would do . . .”
“Whoosh,” Noël said, when Marcel found he could not continue.
Marcel shivered, which was the exact opposite of what he’d felt there that night. “A terrible moment.” His voice grew hoarse. “A dozen people around me were instantly engulfed in flame. I was about to be next and I didn’t want to die that way, so I jumped.”
“Then you made the right choice,” Noël agreed.
“Did I?” he gasped. “I have debated that for these many painful months.”
“Your family . . .?” Noël continued to ask questions Marcel did not want to answer. “Did you lose them in the fire?”
“Thankfully, no,” Marcel winced as a tightening in his chest accompanied the images that came to mind with the possibility. “My wife and son remained in Paris. It was weeks before they knew I was alive; weeks before I even knew it. I was in so much pain.”
“I can’t imagine,” Noël conceded. “So your wife, she found you?”
“Eventually, when I could finally speak my name and they moved me to Paris to the invalid hospital. I implored Zelie to divorce me and move on with her life. I haven’t seen her since.”
“That is a tragic tale, Monsieur,” Noël sniffled.
Marcel hadn’t a tear left to weep. “And all for an argument over grapes,” he muttered cynically.
He’d known six of the dead. They were his coworkers and friends. One had been the commissaire of his station. Another, his junior inspector partner—much like Noël with his youthful enthusiasm.
He had watched them all dying in the flames. There was nothing he could have done differently to save any of them. In fact, the only thing he could have done differently was to die the same way they had.
“Monsieur?” Inspector Noël brought him back to reality with a soft touch to his arm.
“Yes, enough,” Marcel told himself, and forced the images of the past out of his mind. “So, clearly we are taking the ferry instead.”
“We’ll arrive in Tangier and take the train to Casablanca. We are losing time, but not enough to cause worry. You should get some rest.”
Marcel nodded, though his junior partner would not understand how hard it was to sleep when the images of death were still prevalent in his thoughts. However, eventually the movement of the boat won over his frenzied mind and let sleep come.
Casablanca, Morocco by train meant magnificent coastal views and a sunset that brought Marcel back to the old days at the academy.
A summer trip with a few of his classmates to Casablanca was where he had met Zelie, then on vacation with her family. The moment he’d laid eyes on her across the dance hall was one of the turning points of his life. It took seven more years—as well as a volatile marriage on her part that had ended in her being somewhat publically disgraced—for her to even consider him a viable candidate for marriage.
He had forgiven her all of that.
And this was where it had all begun.
The wide streets, the horse-drawn carriages, the magnificent clock tower, and the steam-driven trolleys were all familiar, but also changed over time. The French presence in Morocco had waxed and waned, and recently waxed yet again, so currently a Frenchman could walk the streets even at night and feel almost at home.
If he could walk.
From train to trolley to horse and buggy, they traveled to the outskirts of the coastal city until they came to the address on the paper.
It was a workshop.
Noël helped Marcel into his chair and he maneuvered his own way into the shop. He was getting better at using the chair and that little bit of freedom gave him great pleasure.
The shop’s wares were unexpected, somewhat morbid even. Hands, arms, legs—all manufactured and hanging on the walls as if the loss of a limb was a celebratory chance to replace it with a monstrosity.
Noël was more fluent in Moroccan than his reading ability had led Marcel to believe. He could only look around for clues while Noël interrogated the owner. The argument was getting a little heated.
Finally, a flustered Noël came to find him coveting at a display of mechanical fingers. He felt caught, but Noël didn’t seem to even notice.
“Nothing . . . nothing but another message, another location!” Noël handed him the paper, but he immediately dropped it. It fluttered down to where his right hand couldn’t quite reach. Absent-minded Noël was still going on and made no effort to help and Marcel could not pick the paper up with the nubs of his right fingers.
“I am so sorry, Monsieur Roux. I thought we would be done with this and you could return home to your hospital and enjoy your tranquility, but now we must continue—”
“Inspector Noël,” Marcel interrupted quietly, still reaching.
“It is unequivocally unfair to even ask for the continued disturbance of your peace—”
“Noël—”
“Monsieur, I have just the thing you need.” The Moroccan shopkeeper spoke rough French and brought out a shoulder-length glove with a sort of thin metal framework attached. It was nothing gaudy or outlandish like most of what could be seen on the walls, just a glove.
With fingers.
Before Marcel could even begin to protest, the glove was on him. With a few adjustments at the shoulder he was opening and closing a workable hand. He reached down and picked up the note easily. The emotion that rose in him over accomplishing such a simple task was a bit alarming.
“That is impressive.” Noël had been distracted out of his rant and traded him the note for a pen and then placed a pad of paper in front of him. “Try signing your name.”
Marcel had to stop and look at the pen in his hand. It was the strangest sensation. He couldn’t feel the pen, yet he could control it.
He signed his name on the pad.
“Chicken scratch,” he laughed, “but not much worse than before.” He printed his name and it was almost legible.
“Well done,” Noël said with more enthusiasm than might have been necessary.
Marcel sighed almost happily, and then looked up at the shopkeeper. “I can’t afford it, but thank you for the experience.”
“Just put it on Monsieur M’s tab, for pity’s sake!” Noël exclaimed.
“I could not take advantage of the unfortunate man, not even for your pity’s sake,” Marcel insisted, appalled.
“If it helps you, then it helps him,” Noël remained firm. “If we must indeed continue our journey, what is the harm in making it easier on you?”
Marcel frowned. Could he really justify such an expense? The idea of being able to button his own pants won out.
“Fine, then.” Necessity helped him make peace with his decision. “May I see the note, please, Inspector Noël?”
Noël showed the second ransom note to Marcel. It looked like some version of Chinese.
“Not helpful.”
“Let’s see . . .” Noël narrowed his eyes to focus on translating the note, again to Marcel’s considerable surprise. “Tree, no . . . I mean guest. Money . . . Give. We have exactly ten days for the delivery. It looks like they want twenty-five thousand francs this time.”
“A natural progression.” Marcel said, followed by an unhappy smirk. This was a wild-goose chase in the making. “But we don’t even know if their victims are still alive.”
“Oh, there was this.” Noël unwrapped a handkerchief containing a lock of golden hair tied up in a piece of blue string. It pained Marcel to see it and touch it. It made the victims real again.
“Where are we taking the money this time?” he asked when he found his voice again.
“French Indochina—”
“French . . . Indochina?” he gasped. “Not by Zeppelin.”
“Then back to Paris we must go immediately to take the Trans-Siberian Railway, to Peking, and from there to Hanoi through our own newly built Kunming-Hai Phong connection.” Noël always had an answer that seemed to cheer himself. Marcel couldn’t match it.
“That is going to be a long, miserable ride.”
“Yes, it is,” Noël conceded. “Perhaps you might be better off returning to your hospital bed and I shall go alone in your name. Unless you have a better suggestion.”
He wasn’t as keen on returning to the hospital room now that he was out of it. “Isn’t there an express version?”
“Only when one can afford it.” Noël nodded.
