Dollmaker

by J. Robert Janes

  Glenn Miller was playing ‘Moonlight Serenade’. The deep and mellow sounds of that fantastic trombone filled the place. Pretty, pink-cheeked Breton girls danced with pasty-faced U-boat ratings in dark blue sailor suits that did nothing to hide their jaundiced looks or overly large eyes. Close … close … cling, cling …

  The Blitzmädels from home, apart from the one sitting beside him, were determined to have a good time. All ranks and branches of the services mingled, the boys from the band, the boys from the garrison. All ages from sixteen to fifty-six at least, this one included.

  Due to the severity of the storm, Lorient would most likely be spared a visit from the RAF, so everyone who could possibly get leave had got here early. Men outnumbered girls by at least twenty to one. Starvation either drove the boys to hunger after the girls or to cluster in little groups round the tables and try to out-talk and outboast each other over beer, wine and cigarettes with brandy chasers. Slosh time was coming up.

  There was still no sign of Louis. Verdammt, where was he?

  ‘Let’s dance. Come on, it won’t hurt you. It’ll help to keep the bees from swarming and you might even enjoy it.’

  ‘I can’t. I won’t. He … he isn’t coming.’

  ‘He’s in jail. Even Baumann wouldn’t take it upon himself to let the Captain out just for this.’

  ‘But it is a party, yes? Both for the homecoming boat and for … for U-297’s departure on Thursday.’

  Ah merde, more tears. Kohler took her by the wrist and pulled her from the bar stool. Barging through the crowd, he swept her into his arms. ‘Relax. It’s only a dance. Hey, there’s a war on and even detectives get lonely.’

  ‘You’ve two women in Paris and a wife back home.’

  When he didn’t say a thing, she gave up and let him hold her. Already he was caught up in the music. Already he was making her feel that if she shut her eyes and let her mind go, it could just as easily be the Captain. For a big man, with big shoes, Hen Kohler was very light on his feet, deceptively smooth and, though sensitive to her every move, very strong. Yes, strong. ‘Your wife must miss you,’ she said, finding her cheek pressed against his own.

  ‘She doesn’t. Not any more.’

  ‘Pennsylvania 6-5000’ was next and it was fast and really quite a lot of fun but suddenly the music stopped, suddenly there was cheering, such cheering …

  Kohler felt her leave him. He felt her hesitate.

  A space was cleared ahead of the Dollmaker and his entourage of Baumann, the boy Erich Fromm and the Second Engineer.

  Préfet Kerjean, looking dismayed and unhappy, brought up the rear.

  Men stepped back, their girls too. Kaestner acknowledged the homage with head held high. Grinning he clicked his heels lightly together as he bowed and brought her hand to his lips.

  ‘Fräulein Krüger, may I have the honour of this dance? Herr Hauptsturmfuhrer, you will not mind, yes? The Préfet Kerjean wishes a quiet word, I think.’

  Already the command had gone ahead to the stack of records and a selection had been made. Already the trumpet of Harry James was playing ‘You Made Me Love You’.

  ‘He’s just too damned smooth,’ swore Kohler. ‘Now he’s going to mine that woman for all she’s worth and she’ll do anything he wants.’

  ‘Inspector, please. I … I had no choice but to give in to their request that the Captain be allowed to attend. My job, it is not always easy. The Admiral …’

  ‘You’re sweating, Préfet. Where’s Louis?’

  ‘Where is the pianist, that is what I want to know.’

  Deep in the attic’s clutter, and far from the spyglass window, the child had made a place for her dolls, a house of last retreat. Black sheeting closed in the light from two megalithic stone lamps on the floor. A large and very floppy, red-rosed chapeau rested on her head as she sat quietly in her nightgown on a cream silk chaise-longue that was draped with intricately fine, antique black Breton lace. And all around her and behind and into the distance among the gathered mirrors of her imagination, the dolls stood or sat on ramparts of covered trunks, old suitcases, boxes, chairs and commodes.

  Wire and bamboo birdcages had even been used – were the dolls inside them being incarcerated for minor misdemeanours or crimes like murder? he wondered.

  Not one doll looked her way. All looked at him through the flickering light from the past as if with breath held, waiting to see what he would do. Blue eyes, brown eyes, large eyes … their pink cheeks stiff with stillness. Dolls with big hats and red roses like her own. Dolls in frilly bonnets, lace nightcaps and kerchiefs. Dolls without anything to hide their masses of blonde curls or waves of lustrous brown or black or blonde hair. Some wore night-gowns but these were far better than her own. Most wore extravagantly elaborate gowns of silk brocade, taffeta, lace, velvet or satin in shades of sapphire blue, soft pink, citrine yellow – even a bright orange, a burgundy, a crimson, a black – yes black silk. Draped necklaces of pearls were much in evidence, of amber too, and agate and coloured glass. Diamonds also.

  There were about forty dolls. Some were obviously quite old, others much more recent but still perhaps turn of the century.

  Directly behind her in the distance, on a bare wooden box before an oblong mirror, there was a row of heads with piled curls in waves and rosy cheeks. These dollheads were of Parian and among them the child had placed the head the Captain had modelled after herself.

  ‘Oh, it’s all right,’ she said at last. ‘I suppose you had better come in but don’t trip. Don’t touch anything. It wasn’t fair of you to cheat like that. I thought you were asleep.’

  ‘I apologize.’

  ‘It’s perfect, is it not? They are all waiting for you to tell them who killed the shopkeeper since you do not believe it was her.’

  The doll that Kaestner had made of Hélène Charbonneau stood enclosed in gilded wire. The gown was of a deep brown velvet that glowed softly in the lamplight of lamps that could well be more than four thousand years old.

  There was a diamond at her throat. A saucer of water lay behind her.

  ‘Well?’ said Angélique sharply. ‘Aren’t you coming in? You had better not keep them waiting.’

  ‘A moment, please, mademoiselle. The cameras of my mind refuse to rest.’

  The dolls were exquisite, yet the more he searched among them, the more he realized they stood or sat not waiting for his verdict but in judgement of Hélène Charbonneau.

  The lamplight was disturbing for it gave to the dolls and the child the aura of some mystic rite.

  Ah, at last! he said to himself. One is missing. There is a space next to the sailor doll on the floor beside where she has forgotten to pick up her scissors.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, and the shrillness of her voice seemed to startle the dolls.

  He found himself reflected in the mirrors and this was also disturbing. ‘May I?’ he asked, indicating the chaise-longue.

  ‘No. There is a chair. You are to sit before us.’

  The large hazel eyes of the stepmother peered through the bars at him. Forehead, nose and chin, the ears and the throat, the long almost dark black hair with its coppery hues and the fine brush of the eyebrows, all were of Hélène Charbonneau. The Dollmaker had spared no effort. She was perfect.

  ‘This is Adèle, my mother,’ said the child, watching him closely.

  ‘Which one?’ he was forced to ask.

  ‘There, I told you so. All of you. He calls himself a detective, a Chief Inspector!’

  The gown was of sky-blue satin. The deep blue sapphire pendant was very real.

  ‘Hélène should be with her dearest friend,’ he said uncomfortably.

  He was making her so angry. ‘She’s going to the guillotine,’ she hissed. ‘I won’t even put her head with the others.’

  The detective longed for his pipe and tobacco but these had unfortunately been soaked through at the clay pits, though he felt the pockets of the robe for them. Rain thrashed the roof above. The wind cr
ied out.

  ‘There are so many of them,’ he said. ‘They are so very beautiful.’

  ‘She and my mother used to collect them for me when they were with my father on his concert tours.’

  ‘Ah!’ He tossed his head in acknowledgement. ‘Vienna, Berlin, Thuringia perhaps and Waltershausen or Erfurt – a side trip, a little holiday. The Parian heads. The Captain didn’t make all of those. They were picked up in secondhand shops. Shops of fine antiques and beautiful little curios.’

  A Bru, a Steiner or a Jumeau, Kaestner had said of the fragments of bisque, but of these only the Steiner was German.

  ‘What makes of doll have you?’ he asked, again wishing for his pipe. He would now be very difficult for her to deal with. Even the flames of antiquity would not disturb him any more.

  ‘Steiner,’ she said hollowly. ‘Jumeau – there are several with the Jumeau Médaille d’or de Paris incised on the body and only sometimes on the back of the head and hidden by the hair. The Bru dolls have the letters BRU in a vertical row on the left shoulder. The Captain has told me this. He has identified the makers of all of my dolls and has even done so first with his eyes closed. He made a bet with me and he won it. He knows each one simply by touching the bisque, by touching their cheeks, their skin like this.’

  She shut her eyes and felt the softness of her cheek and chin and then her throat.

  ‘There are some Armand Marseilles – he was a German but had a French name. It’s curious, is it not? The A.M. is incised on the back of the neck. Simon and Halbig made others. H.H. stands for Heinrich Handewerck. I’ve three of those and like them very much but then, I like all of my dolls. Well, almost all of them.’

  The child was holding something back. She didn’t like him asking about the makers of the dolls, nor did she like him looking at her scissors on the floor and that empty space. ‘The Royal Kaestners?’ he asked.

  ‘They are the finest, can’t you tell?’

  ‘Please, I am more interested in their trademarks at the moment.’

  She fidgeted. She looked away. ‘A king’s crown, of course, with two streaming ribbons. The left ribbon has the initials J.D.K.; the right ribbon, Germany.’

  ‘Good. Any others?’ he asked suddenly and got up to reach out to take a doll down from its perch.

  ‘You’re not to touch them!’ she hissed, alarmed.

  ‘I will if I must,’ he countered.

  ‘It’s a Bru, so there! Can’t you tell by its face? Don’t you know anything? The face is always heavier. It’s more highly coloured than the jumeau that is nearby. Jumeaus have the largest, most beautiful, soulful eyes and the best clothes, though the Captain says this is not so. The clothes, that is.’

  The Royal Kaestners were better.

  ‘You have lost a doll, Angélique. Please tell me what happened when you and your father went into the shop of Monsieur le Trocquer. It was the day before his murder. You purchased a pair of green-glass candlesticks for your stepmother.’

  They had turned on her in the mirrors. Now all the dolls were watching her and it was as if she herself was on trial and it wasn’t fair.

  ‘Well?’ he asked. He would not leave it now. He even picked up one of the lamps and held it out before him so as to see her better.

  ‘Then, yes,’ she spat. ‘I purchased candlesticks for her.’

  ‘What did you pay for them?’ The stonework of the lamp was so very beautiful, the design so very simple, the shape, the long half of a small butternut squash. ‘Well?’ he said.

  Why must he ask? ‘Twenty-five francs each. It … it was a lot. Candles can’t be bought except on the black market and that’s illegal. He knew this, yet he insisted on the price.’

  ‘But you made the sacrifice anyway.’

  ‘Yes,’ she muttered spitefully and wished he would put the lamp down.

  ‘Did your stepmother like the candlesticks?’

  Anger flared. ‘Of course not. That is why I bought them!’

  He set the lamp down carefully on the floor. ‘What happened to the doll that is missing?’

  She could not tell him. She mustn’t. ‘I … I don’t know. Someone stole it, I suppose.’

  ‘Was there anyone else in the shop besides your father and Monsieur le Trocquer?’

  ‘Paulette … Paulette was there. Of course! It was she who stole my doll. It was, Inspector. It must have been.’

  ‘Paulette?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘But … but Paulette has told me she went up to see to her mother? Please don’t lie, Angélique. Not now. Lives are at risk. A murderer hides and though you say it was your stepmother, this may not be so.’

  ‘Paulette le Trocquer stole my doll. I … I set it on something. I can’t remember. I had thought to sell it to Monsieur le Trocquer or at least to exchange it for the candlesticks but… but he didn’t want to. He said the doll did not interest him.’

  ‘Yet he must have taken it in his briefcase when he went to find the Captain Kaestner on the following day. The Préfet had come to the shop. They had had an argument. Things were broken. Paulette and her mother each swear they heard them cry out a name. I think you know whose name that was and I think you should tell me what really happened to that doll and why you took it to the shop in the first place.’

  ‘I can’t. I mustn’t! She killed him and she’ll kill me too if you’re not careful!’

  He could not leave it. He got up again from his chair and, seizing the scissors, threatened to strip all the dolls if necessary to examine the marks of their makers.

  In tears, the girl blurted, ‘It was a K and R, so there. Kämmer and Reinhardt, does that make you feel better? A dark green velvet gown with a décolletage and appliqués of frilly white lace at its cuffs and down its front and real jade buttons. They were really real.’

  ‘K and R …?’

  The letters meant nothing to the Chief Inspector, and when she saw this, Angélique wiped her tears away and shuddered involuntarily. Paulette would know all about it. Paulette would tell him.

  *

  Kohler listened intently as Préfet Kerjean told him of his search for the pianist, and only occasionally did he catch a glimpse of the shopkeeper’s daughter. The girl was dancing with one of the junior officers from Kernével. She was having the time of her life and getting lots of hungry looks from the boys.

  ‘That girl should know better,’ grumbled Kerjean testily. ‘No respect for the dead. None either for convention and morality.’

  The stump of a grimy forefinger stabbed at the map he had spread between them on the zinc. ‘I went first to the alignments nearest Yvon’s house but without success. As I expanded the search towards Plouharnel, I began to see more and more that Yvon must go to one of his special places. Locations where I had often found him in the past.’

  The girl’s tight black leather skirt was far too short. Her legs … silk stockings … there was only one way she could have got them, thought Kerjean. ‘He had hurt your friend quite badly. Indeed, he might well believe he had killed him.’

  ‘What was in the briefcase?’

  ‘That I do not know. Papers of agreement for the Captain to sign, perhaps a portion of the missing money – a show of good faith.’

  ‘But le Trocquer definitely went to the clay pits to see the Captain?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course. Why do you ask? Is there something I have missed?’

  ‘No. No, I just wondered. Verdammt, I wish Louis was here. No partner and I need to talk.’ And you’re still sweating, said Kohler to himself. ‘Another fine à l’eau?’ he asked, indicating the empty glass. Another house brandy with water.

  ‘One for the road and then I must go. Yvon … Yvon Charbonneau is a very difficult man to fathom, Inspector. Please appreciate that he is not in his right mind. He is also a demon on that bicycle of his. Eighty, ninety kilometres. Nothing stops him, especially not the weather.’

  ‘Get to the point, Préfet. You’re making it sound like you’re building yours
elf an alibi.’

  Kohler was of the Gestapo and whether he was one of their ‘best’ or ‘worst’ members would not matter. ‘I did not kill le Trocquer, Inspector. I had no reason to. I am a police officer.’

  ‘Since when did belonging to the law stop anyone?’

  Nom du ciel, must he be so difficult? ‘As I was just saying, increasingly I came to believe – and still do – that Yvon, in fear and great anxiety, would retreat to one of his very special places. Of those nearest Carnac, the tumulus of Saint-Michel, which is on the north-eastern edge of the town, seemed the most promising. Yvon could have hitched a ride part way in a lorry – there were plenty of them heading here, isn’t that so?’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It is a place in which I have found him many times. There are two entrances and he has ways of getting in there no one else knows. A hill some twelve metres high and one hundred and twenty long beneath which there are the passages which are lined with large upright stones and massive cap rocks, and the graves, of course, the firepits. The entrances to the tumulus are at the base of the hill. Long passages go to the right and left. There are rooms and other, lesser passages – turnings. One has to have a light – ah, it is so dark in there. One also has to duck the head and crouch or crawl. It is not easy particularly if you are dealing with someone who is deranged.’

  ‘But he wasn’t there?’

  It would be best to shrug. ‘What can I say? I was only one man looking for another. He has no fear of such places. Indeed, he is so steeped in them, he is of them and knows them far better than anyone else. My trousers, the palms of my hands – you can see for yourself the state I am in. Soaked to the skin from the clay pits, worn to a frazzle.’

  ‘And you’re certain he tried to kill Louis?’

  ‘No, I did not say that. I said he might well think he had. This might …’

  ‘Might make him do something foolish?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Such as?’

  There was much sadness in Kerjean’s dark blue eyes and for a moment the Préfet found he could say nothing. ‘He might kill himself, Inspector. Hélène … Madame Charbonneau would never forgive me, so you see, I must find him not just so that we can settle this matter but that another tragedy will not happen.’