by Kate Parker
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Is it that bad?” I hadn’t considered being trapped on the continent at the outbreak of war in what I thought of as my hunt for a killer. And it was foolish of me to ignore what was happening in the world to suit my investigation.
“Sir Horace Wilson is taking a letter from Chamberlain to Hitler saying if Germany attacks Czechoslovakia, France and Great Britain will attack Germany,” Mr. Colinswood explained.
My stomach sank. I didn’t know where Colinswood got his information, but his sources were usually spot-on. I nodded.
“If this blows over, and I hope to God it does, come back and ask me about a trip to Paris to talk to a murder victim’s wife.” He gave me a sad smile.
I nodded and left his office.
Back in the society page offices, I went through the motions of doing my job, but my heart wasn’t in it. I wondered where Adam was. I wondered whether I’d lose my job, since there wouldn’t be much use for a society page in the midst of war.
That night I listened to the radio as closely as my fellow countrymen did while Prime Minister Chamberlain gave a depressing, whiny speech on how this war was so unnecessary. When I awoke in the morning, my pillow was still wet with my tears.
Glumly, my fellow Underground riders rode in silence as we headed for our offices. The only sounds I heard were the rumble of engines and the screech of the brakes of the Underground train cars. Everyone seemed to be in their own little world, carrying their own copy of a morning paper with a gloomy headline. The Daily Premier read in huge type: “War looms.”
Our phones rang less than usual. Most of our callers apologized for bothering us with trivial news like the birth of a child after asking if war had been declared. We assured them it had not.
Late in the afternoon, word filtered in from the newsroom that Chamberlain was going to Munich to meet with the leaders of France, Germany, and Italy. They still hoped to find a peaceful solution to the Sudeten crisis. I don’t think anyone was surprised that Czechoslovakia wasn’t invited to the meeting. After all, they were the ones who would have to give up territory.
News on the radio that evening was equal parts vague and resolute.
My father called me near midnight. “I’ve just arrived home,” he told me. “If Hitler buys this deal, it will have won us some time.”
“How much time?” I asked him, thinking of Adam.
“That’s up to Hitler.”
All day Thursday we continued to hold our collective breath. It wasn’t until Friday morning as I hurried along the pavement on my way to work that I saw the Daily Premier headline: “Peace rescued.”
The phones in the office rang at their normal rate with information on births, marriages, engagements, teas, and balls. People appeared ready to consider the recent threat as a bad dream, at least publicly.
Privately, I was still frightened of what would happen next time. I guessed I wasn’t the only one.
That was when I decided to propose my trip to Paris to Mr. Colinswood again.
After he listened to me plead, he said, “Can you think of a story you could pursue in Paris? Besides a dead man’s possible widow.”
“I could contrast Mimi’s London salon and her Paris one.” I gave him a bright smile. I could tell he was weakening.
“Go over Sunday night. By then we’ll be sure that the peace will hold. You have one day in Paris, and come back Monday night. You need to be back in the office on Tuesday.”
He lit a cigarette and in a puff of smoke added, “We worry about you when you go on these foreign trips.”
I gave a silent cheer. He’d capitulated. “I’d better take a photographer with me. May I take Jane Seville? She took the shots of Mimi’s London couture house.” Jane would choke me if I didn’t put in a word for her going along. Unfortunately, she would also rather have more time in Paris than I’d been given.
“Yes. All right,” he snapped. “But only the one day. We’re not sending you there for a holiday. I’ll have the cash released for your boat train tickets.”
I tried to hide my relief. I didn’t want to pay for this trip, particularly since I wasn’t sure it would yield any benefits for Sir Henry, the paper, or General Alford. Even if Reina was Meirsohn’s long-lost wife, I didn’t believe she was his murderer.
* * *
Jane and I talked about it, and in the end decided to travel Saturday night to give us an extra day in Paris. After all, the peace was holding.
We managed to get a little rest on the train to Paris after a rough nighttime Channel crossing. My blue wool suit felt good, warming my skin against the early morning chill seeping into the railcar. After repinning our hats and powdering our noses, we were practically the last out of our carriage. While we had scarcely any luggage, we did have Jane’s camera equipment.
I had checked before we left. Mimi and Reina had not returned to London by Saturday afternoon. I just hoped we hadn’t passed them in the Channel.
As I suspected, the salon was shuttered on a Sunday. Since neither Jane nor I had any Sunday assignments for the paper, I decided it shouldn’t make any difference to Sir Henry or Mr. Colinswood if we went over one day early, as long as we returned by Tuesday morning. And we didn’t get trapped in a war zone.
If the mood was jubilant in London, the air was electric in Paris. The headlines in their newspapers were bolder, their streets were livelier, and the cafés were fuller with sharp words and laughter in equal measure. After checking into a small hotel near the train station and having breakfast in a café, Jane went off with her camera equipment and I wandered familiar streets, finally ending up at the Louvre.
I spent hours sketching.
We met up at the hotel and then dressed for an evening in a good restaurant and then a concert. “I can’t believe you managed to get us two days in Paris,” Jane said as we left the concert hall.
“I didn’t. I got us one day, tomorrow, and tickets on the night train coming and going. I’m going to have to sell Mr. Colinswood on us being here on a Sunday.”
“Maybe my photographs will convince him. Or your report on the Louvre. You never know.”
I was pretty certain I knew. Mr. Colinswood would be angry with my failure to follow directions. “I don’t think we should tell him.”
* * *
We arrived too early the next morning at the shuttered salon, so we went around the corner and had a leisurely breakfast first. Jane watched the bustle on the pavement and said, “I love Paris. Every street looks like a photograph waiting to be taken.”
“If you can take some before the salon opens, go ahead. But I want to get in there the second they unlock the door. I must speak to Reina. And it would be better if I talked to her alone.”
“You want me to distract Mimi.”
Jane wolfed down her breakfast and coffee and hurried out the door with her camera. I finished at a slower pace and brought the rest of her equipment with me.
I spotted her down the block, taking aim at a building across the street. While the Champs-Elysées would be busy at this hour, the side streets off the Rue Saint-Honoré were still relatively quiet. Jane saw me, waved, and rejoined me.
As she picked up one of her camera cases, I said, “It’s time. Wish us luck.”
“I’ll let you do all the talking, shall I? And when you get done, may I take some more photographs until we have to get back to catch the night train?”
“Sounds good to me.” If I couldn’t get the full story out of Reina, it would be nice if one of us could have a successful trip.
I heard a key turn in the lock as I reached the door. I immediately opened it and stepped inside to greet the startled clerk in French. “I hope to see both Madame Mareau and Reina,” I told her. “I’m from the Daily Premier in London.”
If anything, the young, willowy clerk in the familiar deep rose coat looked more surprised when I spoke. Then Jane walked in with her camera gear and the young woman fled to the back.
I was surprised
to see Brigette come out to greet us. In unaccented English, she said, “You want to see Madame and Reina?”
“I didn’t realize you returned, too. Did Fleur as well?”
“No, she’s running the London salon.” Her tone turned suspicious as she said, “What do you want?”
“I want to do a companion piece on Mimi’s Paris salon, and I want to talk with Reina.”
At that moment, Reina walked in the front door. “Sorry I’m late,” she said in French.
“Good. You’re here,” I told her in French. “You didn’t say Elias was married.”
She gave a deep sigh, glanced at Brigette, and said, “Come with me.”
I left Jane waiting in the front room with a startled Brigette while I followed Reina to an office on the third floor filled with filing cabinets. “Patterns from Mimi’s designs,” she said, gesturing to the wooden drawers as she pulled her deep rose duster over her clothes.
I didn’t have time to be distracted. I suspected Mimi would bring our talk to a halt as soon as she heard from Brigette that I was here. “Tell me the exact conversation you had on Oxford Street with Josef Meirsohn.”
“We greeted each other in surprise, and expressed more surprise that we’d met in London. He’d last heard I was in Paris, and I’d last heard that he was in Berlin. Then he said the Gestapo was hunting him everywhere, even in London, and nowhere was safe. I told him about the basement and that the door to the street was unlocked because of the workmen. He said he would meet me the day after the next in the morning. He would have something to bring me that was important. Someone wanted it, and I must hide it for him. Keep it safe.”
“Someone wanted it,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
“A particular person. Not a country or the Nazis. Someone.”
“Yes. I’m very sure of that. It surprised me, too.”
“Did he say what he wanted you to hide?” I hoped he’d said something clear.
“No. He gave me no hint.”
“Then what did he say?”
“He was in danger standing out on the street and had to leave. He said he would see me, and then he hurried away.”
“Did he say anything else? Anything at all.” I hoped my trip had not been in vain.
“I do not think so.”
“Once he went away to school and left your village, did you ever see him again?”
“A few times, when he came back to see his family. Once he brought his wife.”
“He was married?” Confirmation of what Miss Mandel had told me.
“Yes.”
“But not to you?”
“No.” She smiled ruefully. “My family wasn’t sufficiently grand for his parents. He married while he was in school. An arranged marriage. His wife seemed quite young. And rich.”
“You met her?” This was good luck.
“He only brought her to the village once, shortly before I moved to Paris. She was a city girl, uncomfortable in our village with everyone staring.”
“Staring?”
“She was an outsider. She was pretty. And she was too young and quiet for Josef.”
“Do you know what happened to her? She needs to be told—” I was eager to begin a trace.
Reina shook her head. “She died, I think. And then the Nazis came to power and people like Josef, communists and Jewish, began to disappear. Anyway, she never came back to the village and we heard no more about her.”
“Do you remember her name?”
Reina shook her head.
“What did she look like?”
“I remember people commenting that she was pretty. Other than that, nothing.”
“Did Josef seem to be in love with her?”
“No.” She sounded quite certain about that. “It was an arranged marriage. I’m sure they would have learned to care about each other in time, but this was early in the marriage. She seemed frightened and he seemed annoyed that his father was so thrilled.”
Interesting. “Why was his father happy?”
“She was from a big banking family. I’m sure she was only from a minor part of this family to have married someone so far beneath her, but his father knew his son had married well. Far above his station, but then everyone thought Josef would do well. His parents felt he should become an employee of the bank, but Josef wanted to become a lawyer.”
“What did his parents and his wife think when he became a communist?” I suspected I knew. I wondered if I were wrong.
“I didn’t hear about that until after he got out of jail, and don’t ask me how he managed to escape or get released. His wife was out of the picture by then. Dead, perhaps, or in jail herself.”
“A communist in a banking family. That couldn’t have been popular.” Perhaps he’d wanted to break with all of them.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Reina grinned at me, suddenly looking cheery. “The letter I received from home told me his father was beside himself. He’d had high hopes for his son, and then all his hopes were dashed when Josef became a communist. I imagine Josef would have been pleased.”
“He and his father didn’t get along?”
“No. And from what I heard, Josef didn’t like being ordered into the family banking business by his wife’s father.”
“Do you remember the wife’s family name, or the name of the bank?” Anything to start a search. If she was still alive, she should learn what happened to her husband.
“No. They weren’t the same, and I don’t remember either one.” Reina seemed disinterested in Josef’s wife. I suspected Reina had dreamed of marrying him herself.
With a shrug, she added, “Her family was a small part of one of the big banking groups, though, with branches in Berlin, Prague, Stockholm. Everywhere.”
“How long ago did you move to Paris?”
“Ten years ago, and I’ve been with Mimi for eight.”
“So Jacob’s marriage would have been—?”
There was no expression in her dark eyes. “In 1926 or ’27.”
“In your hometown?”
She looked at me with raised eyebrows. “In a synagogue in Berlin.”
“That will make getting records more difficult.” The Nazis had been cracking down on Jewish activities even more since they took over Austria. Who knew what would happen after this mess in the Sudetenland settled down?
This was my one chance, and there was more I needed to know. “Did you see Josef again after your meeting on Oxford Street?”
“I checked the basement as many times as I dared that morning, but he never showed up. When it got close to lunchtime, Mimi told me to leave right then to buy some thread in a particular color that we had run out of. We needed it to sew the costumes for the play and this color is very hard to find in London. By the time I had matched a sample and returned, you were with Mimi and you had already found Josef dead in the basement.”
“So the last time you saw Josef alive was on Oxford Street?”
“Yes.”
Drat. “And you have no idea what he wanted to give you?”
“None. He didn’t want to stand talking on the street where he felt vulnerable. He would have told me if I had been there when he came in the basement.”
“Who knew he would be in the basement that morning?”
“I told no one.”
But Josef Meirsohn, in his guise as Elias, might have told anyone on the committee or someone at his hotel or anyone else he had met in London. “Did any of your coworkers see you coming or going to the basement? What about the painters?”
“The painters ignored us. And I found lots of reasons to go into the basement that morning, so it wouldn’t have seemed suspicious.”
I wondered if that was true. “Did any of the others go down there?”
“Brigette and Fleur both went down there, but they didn’t say they found a man lurking in the basement. And I was the last one down there before I went out to look for the thread.”
I had to ask Reina the n
ext question. “Could Mimi have sent you to buy this difficult-to-find thread to get you out of the salon for some reason?”
“There is no reason she would have known Josef or wanted anything to do with him. He was Jewish. She and her duke hate Jews. They want the Nazis to control England, so they can force us all to work slaving in their factories or scrubbing floors.”
I knew Marshburn was conservative enough to believe in the divine right of kings, and he’d claimed the Nazis were right about the “master race,” but I didn’t realize he was into hating groups of people other than all of us peasants. “Was Mimi like this before she began to see the duke?”
Reina gave me a smirk. “You mean before she started sleeping with that fabulously rich aristocrat?”
I didn’t change my expression as I said, “Yes.”
“No.” She sighed. “She wasn’t that bad. I was better in her eyes than the other seamstresses because I have more talent and work harder. Equal to Fleur. Now she favors Fleur over me, because Fleur is a Christian. And the duke likes her.”
“The duke’s met her?”
“Of course. He’s met all of us. But he talks to Fleur. He says little more than hello to Brigette and he ignores me.”
“Do you still keep in touch with anyone from your village who might remember Josef’s wife’s name or the name of the bank?”
“I have a cousin living here in Paris who fled our village just a couple of years ago. She’s working as a domestic. She’s younger than me, but she might remember. I’ll see her tonight.”
“Thank you for asking her. Send me word here of anything she says. Anything at all.” I handed her my card.
Mimi bustled in then and Reina slipped my card into her pocket. “There you are. Has Reina been showing you around my salon?” Suspicion dripped from every syllable.
“She’s been entertaining me until you arrived,” I said, rising. “I’m doing a piece comparing your two salons. It will appear in the Daily Premier, so you may want to favor your London salon in what you point out to me.”
“Ah, a woman who understands commerce.” Mimi turned and left the tiny office. I followed her, knowing I had as much information as I could get from Reina.
