‘Your shoes. Let me see them.’
Paul was wearing carpet slippers. ‘My shoes …?’ he managed. ‘They’re …’
‘They’re under his side of the bed, Inspector. I’ll get them for you if you wish.’
‘I don’t.’
The headboard was against the corridor wall, the sister having that side closest to the door and window, the brother the one next to the far wall; the things one had to do these days to make do.
‘One pair of boots without hobnails or cleats, one pair of leather shoes with soles of the same, pre-war and needing attention, and a pair with wooden soles,’ said Herr Kohler.
Running those fingers of his over the wooden soles, he looked at Paul and then at her, didn’t say a thing about their having to share a bed but … but for just a moment his fingers hesitated on the right sole and then … then began to trace something out. A gouge, a deep scratch? wondered Blanche, sickened by the thought. ‘Inspector …’ She heard her voice. It was too sharp. ‘Inspector, you’ve not told us why you want to know when we last saw Lucie, or what has happened to her to make you ask. She met us on the avenue Thermal, if you must know.’
The main thoroughfare.
‘She had just come from the Église Sainte-Jeanne-d’Arc on place Chanoine Gouttet, had been praying to the Virgin for help and guidance, and had gone to confession. I … I knew she was pregnant. Paul hadn’t been told but … but must have sensed the reason for her distress of late and … and has now tried to protect her reputation. She was a good friend, and she readily said we could borrow her gramophone and the record while she was away at home to see her father. She …’ Merde, it was going to sound badly but Paul had to be rescued. ‘She gave me her key and said to leave it in her box at the front desk, that she’d collect it later that evening.’
‘Then she wasn’t on her way here?’
‘She … she said she had to meet someone.’
‘Who?’
‘Céline, I think, but … but she must have known Céline had already gone to work at the Theatre de Casino.’
The girl was desperate. ‘As one of its dancers?’ he asked. Had the sister read the note Céline had left for Lucie on Saturday and said this simply to protect her brother? he wondered.
‘The piano also,’ she said. ‘An … an operetta. La Bayadère. All I know about it is that it’s the one that Dr Ménétrel thought would most please the Maréchal. It was only to run for a few nights, a week at most, and is still on, I think, or … or has it finished its run, Paul?’
The brother didn’t answer. Ignoring her, he tried to find a cigarette but finally gave it up. ‘You’re not going to take those, are you?’ he demanded spitefully.
‘These?’ Herr Kohler indicated the shoes. ‘No. They’re all yours for now.’ And coming round to her side of the bed, took to examining the wooden soles of her shoes, then those of the others and of her boots. In summer it would be so hot in that bed, so cold in winter – was this what he was thinking, that they must hold each other, comfort each other, see and touch each other when naked? Satisfy each other?
‘I think you both know that early on Saturday morning she was murdered in that room of hers,’ he said. ‘I think the whole damned hotel knows by now, but what I want are answers.’
‘Murdered?’ bleated Paul, throwing her a glance of alarm, not being able to stop himself, poor darling.
‘Here,’ said the Detektiv, and then … then, on noticing above the baseboard the hole in the plaster that she had plugged, ‘You don’t have a problem with rats in this hotel, do you? You ought to, from what I’ve seen of it.’
‘Rats?’ said Blanche. ‘Why … why, yes, we do, but … but Albert comes and … and takes care of them.’
‘Albert.’
‘That is so,’ she heard herself saying. ‘He’s very good at it and studies each problem thoroughly before setting his snares …’
In a rush, Kohler left them. Louis wasn’t in any of the corridors or on any of the staircases, nor was he still in Lucie Trudel’s room, which was locked.
He was with the concierge deep in the cellars, was jammed head and shoulders between two ceiling joists and the floor above, and bent double over the top of a stone wall, his feet no longer touching the backless chair he had used to get up there.
‘I heard you talking in that room, Hermann,’ he managed. ‘I knew then that you were all right. Earth,’ he grunted, his voice still muffled. ‘Very fine earth has been mixed with the powdered white sugar that’s been dusted over the tripwire and noose. I’m certain it’s sugar and not potassium cyanide.’
‘Rats,’ confided Rigaud, cradling the Sûreté’s overcoat and fedora, the Lebel also and suit jacket. ‘He’s curious about how ours are caught.’
‘And butchered,’ came the tunneller’s voice. ‘Butchered and sorted as to their sex, then saved.’
The metal doors to the service lift from the furnace room opened on to the pavement outside the Hotel du Parc. Still smoking, the ashes and clinkers overflowed their metal drums, carrying the acrid stench of sulphur. A waiting gazogène lorry intermittently banged and roared as its engine fought to suck into its cylinders enough of the wood-gas to keep itself running. The tank and gas-producer’s tubing were up there on the roof of the cab, the firebox in front, and God help anyone if the lorry should happen to run into them, thought Kohler.
‘Inspectors,’ said the elder Grenier cautiously, ‘my son always sorts them. So many males, so many females. It does no harm, and helps him to keep track of how much he should charge each client.’
Louis crowded him, putting his back to one of the assistant groundsmen. ‘And the livers?’ he asked, hands jammed deeply into those overcoat pockets of his, collar up, breath billowing and fedora yanked down. Frost on the thick and bushy brown moustache too. ‘They were, I believe, absent from the little corpses we found.’
‘The livers,’ murmured Grenier, only to hear the Sûreté breathe, ‘Mystery meat?’
‘Albert sells them, yes, to … to others.’
‘Restaurants?’
‘Sometimes. The meat is … is as good as chicken, Inspector. When boiled for ten minutes and marinated in a little wine with herbs and a little salt, one can’t tell …’
‘Yes, yes. These days especially. The British have even issued such instructions to their aircrews in case of their being shot down. The cellars, I think. You and I. Hermann, please ask the concierge for the keys to our vehicle.’
Following the elder Grenier, Louis stepped off the pavement to take the service lift slowly down into the cellar. As it descended, those same hands were still crammed deeply into the pockets of that shabby overcoat, the shoulders still squared. ‘He may look grim but he’s happy,’ confided Kohler to an assistant groundsman. ‘We’re making progress. Where are the rats kept after they’re taken?’
‘In the shed behind the Grenier house. Now that it’s winter, Albert can dress them when he has the time, though he usually sees to this right away.’
‘Ten francs apiece – that’s what they’re asking for crows in Paris.’
‘The rats are evidently much tastier. Albert does quite well with them but only charges five for those he traps; ten if the client wishes to keep them, as some do. The rest he sells for twenty. There are always buyers.’
Down in the furnace room, the elder Grenier pulled off his asbestos gauntlet gloves and said, ‘Some coffee, Chief Inspector? A little something to warm us up?’
‘A cognac? Ah, merci, that would be perfect, as would the coffee, but alas we haven’t time. Your son, monsieur?’
‘Is out on a job. The racing stables again. Monsieur Deschambeault, Sous-directeur of the Bank of France, came to tell us. His son …’
‘Runs the stables, yes. And your Albert?’
‘Went with the sous-directeur and the Mademoiselle Charpentier, she to see the horses, my Albert to set more snares.’
‘And the sculptress? How did she …?’
‘Albert
was showing Mademoiselle Charpentier his books, Inspector,’ said Grenier, indicating them.
Both were open, the fairy tale to the illustrations of Pétain sitting under that giant oak with the little children dutifully attentive to his all the rats, the wasps and worms that had done so much damage … the termites, too, and spiders …
‘My son believes he’s helping the Maréchal, Inspector. That not quite all of the rats disappeared as our Head of State says, but that a few of the really bad ones managed to stay behind.’
In Vichy.
Among the scattered newspapers that had been perused over lunch were copies of L’Humanité destined for the furnace, but Grenier was far too polite to let him know he’d read the Black List.
‘The sculptress has left her valise,’ said St-Cyr. Opening it revealed what he’d seen before, except for the absence of the perfume. Lifting out the tray, he found a clutch of white table napkins, cushioned by still others, and inside this, the face of Pétain in wax. Flesh-toned, the grey hair and moustache carefully woven strand by strand into the wax, the eyes of that same china blue.
‘She showed it to my Albert, Inspector. It’s really very good and only needs a little touching up.’
‘Brought like this from Paris?’
‘Oui. There is a bust in clay that she’s been working on at the Musée Grévin. First they do that, then they make a plaster cast of the bust, the cast in pieces so that it can be easily removed when the plaster has set. This then becomes their mould, and into it they pour beeswax, making a layer a centimetre or two in thickness. Then carefully – very carefully, she said – they take the plaster mould apart and voilà, they have a bust in wax of the Maréchal. Surgical glass eyes are used, their shape and size exactly matching those of the subject. Albert … my Albert was speechless, Inspector.’
‘And the sculptress?’
‘Apparently the École de Dressage in Paris is at the end of the street on which she rents a small studio. Like my Albert, she’s fascinated by horses and often likes to help groom them, so was looking forward to seeing those at our racing stables. Dr Ménétrel had told her it would be impossible for her to see the Maréchal today.’
Merde, what the hell was she up to?
It was only as they were on the stairs to the lobby that Grenier stopped him to say, ‘Inspector, that knife my son found. Will it really be possible for your partner to replace it? You see, he’s … Well, Albert’s counting on Herr Kohler’s finding another. If he’s to be disappointed, could I ask that you inform me first? The tears, the anger, the frustration … All such things are much easier to cope with if my wife and I know ahead of time. He’s a good boy, and we want only what’s best for him.’
‘The knife …’
Grenier nodded.
Taking it out of his overcoat pocket, the inspector looked at it, felt it, thought about it and ran a forefinger slowly over the design on its spine. ‘Would Albert know whose this was?’ he asked. ‘You see, if he does, my concern is that the assassin or assassins may be all too aware of it.’
He opened the knife. There was a sharp click, a snap as the blade fixed itself in place.
It would have to be said. ‘Albert may know, Inspector. He’s very alert to such things and has quite a remarkable memory which he often keeps hidden in fear that people will only ridicule him if he says anything.’
‘There was white sugar in that van he got the coffee from, wasn’t there?’
‘And cognac. A Rémy-Martin VSOP. Louis XIII, the 1925. There were, apparently, cases of it. Champagne also from that same year, the Bollinger Cuvée Spéciale, the Clicquot.’
‘And when did your son find them?’
‘Well back in December, I believe, but Albert, feeling he had been bad, didn’t say a thing about it for weeks, and only at the end of that month produced them. A bottle of the champagne for his dear maman and one of the cognac for his papa. Both were magnificent and allowed us to ring in the New Year as never before, the coffee and sugar also.’
‘And the chocolates?’
‘And those as well as the scented handsoap, the candles, the flour and the ginger.’
‘Now tell me about the wire he uses for his snares.’
‘The wire …? It’s just some he found at the chateau where his grand-uncle is now the custodian. Ordinary wire, but fine and pliable so that it’s very easy to work with. Why do you ask?’
‘Simply routine. One always asks. It’s in the nature of detectives to do so.’
5
Snow filtered down, and as the light over the Allier River and the hills beyond it became a deeper grey in the gathering dusk, the line of waiting traffic moved ahead a few metres. Homeward-bound farm wagons and gazogène lorries that had obviously hauled firewood and other produce into Vichy were ahead of them and, at the very end, this lonely Peugeot.
‘Merde,’ swore Louis bitterly. ‘The nation that expects the Blitzkrieg from us at all times provides delays that can only impede progress! Deschambeault cuts short an important meeting to visit a racing stable but makes certain he takes along the resident rat catcher? Inés Charpentier insists on joining them and wears Shalimar when first encountered but no longer does so, and no longer carries the flacon in her valise because I was foolish enough to have mentioned it? The 1925, Hermann, and, as you well know, the same as Céline Dupuis was wearing when killed! That dress, the necklace and earrings could all be from the same year!’
And Marie-Jacqueline had had three-fifths of a bottle of the Bollinger Cuvée Spéciale in her, the 1925.
‘Our sculptress worries me, Hermann. She’s like a leech that has to draw blood, only with her it’s a fascination with what we are about that is so troubling. Did she once possess a knife like this?’
Louis dragged the thing out. ‘Does she know Paul Varollier and his sister, Blanche?’ asked Kohler. ‘The soles of Monsieur Paul’s shoes matched those the flics circled in the snow.’
‘And you let me wait in this line-up? You don’t tell me things like that right away? Sacré nom de nom, how could you not have done so?’
‘I just did. Blanche had keys to both Céline’s and Lucie’s rooms but says she returned the latter.’
‘And was able to come and go at will, leaving love letters presumably to taunt Ménétrel; the identity card to warn Bousquet that les gars are indeed being watched?’
‘Those letters are to Céline, aren’t they?’ asked Kohler.
‘Of course they are! Ah mon Dieu, you doubt my word? Look, then!’
Madame Dupuis, Hôtel. d’Allier was written on the top envelope, the hand firm enough, the cancellation stamp dated Monday, 1 February 1943.
‘Read it,’ said Kohler. ‘Go on, don’t be shy. Since when did you owe the Maréchal any privacy?’
‘Must I?’
‘And spoken like a loyal poilu! I might have known!’
They were both exhausted and bitchy. Kohler yanked the packet from him and tore it open, freeing the envelope to let him have it verbatim. ‘Ma chère Ange,’ – my dear angel – ‘your eyes are like the blue of the finest sapphires, your breath the soft, sweet nectar to whose scent the bee finds he must come.’
‘Foragers are females!’ snorted St-Cyr. ‘Doesn’t the old drone know anything about bees?’
They’d just come off the case of a Parisian beekeeper …
‘When I see you dancing, I want to make you my Goddess of the Water Sprites. More bullshit, and even more of it,’ said Kohler, flipping impatiently through the thing until … ‘There are places we can meet where no one else will know. Please say the word and still the quivering of a heart that longs to kiss its little flower and caress its soft and exquisite petals. Oh-oh, the horny old goat, eh, Louis?’
The line of traffic moved ahead one space, the car jerked as Hermann let out the clutch, then slammed on the brakes.
‘I must embrace you. Bernard can arrange everything. Bernard, my sweet. Look upon him as a friend in need and his loyalty and absolute discreti
on will be yours, as they are my own. No wonder Ménétrel wants the letters, Louis. They as much as say he arranged the liaison that led to her death, but why the hell would anyone, even Blanche Varollier or that brother of hers, remove and then return them?’
‘To be found not by Bousquet or the doctor, Hermann, but by ourselves.’
‘But … but surely our killer or killers couldn’t have known we’d go there soon? Surely Blanche and her brother couldn’t have?’
‘But someone did. Someone who knows us well. The very staircase I would take in that hotel, my name on that list before we even knew we’d have to leave Paris.’
‘Someone so close to things here, he, she or they are not only aware of what’s going on moment by moment, but can come and go at will.’
‘And aren’t even noticed, Hermann, because, like others in the Government and the town, they are a part of the woodwork. They must be, and they know this and are confident of it. Supremely so.’
Lost to the thought – feeling exceedingly uncomfortable because of it – Louis took back the letter and began to retie the ribbon. ‘A good ten letters … no, fifteen,’ he said, ‘but not all of the envelopes, though of the same colour, use identical stationery.’
‘Pardon?’
‘These …’ He quickly sorted through them. ‘Are to a Madame Noëlle Olivier.’
‘And the dates?’ muttered Kohler, knowing now that they had been left for them on purpose!
‘June, July, September, October and November 1925, Hermann, and all from the Maréchal.’
‘To another married woman? Another of his conquests? Was the bugger so arrogant as to have sent them to her home? Well, was he?’
‘To 133 boulevard des Célestins, Vichy.’
‘Jésus, merde alors, take the topmost one and read it, then. Let whoever’s trying to tell us something, tell it!’
Paris, 15 November 1925
My dear Madame Olivier,
You will excuse me if it appears harsh when I tell you enough is enough. Should you wish to pursue your intentions, please do so through my solicitors. Remember, though, that such a scandal as you envision is always a two-edged sword. Your good name and those of your husband and children are at present free from all such concerns. To wound them so grievously is to wound yourself and gain nothing. Love is always a battleground. Some you win, and from some you must inevitably retreat.
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