Deadly Fashion

by Kate Parker

  I couldn’t believe that. “She was genuinely upset about his death. They’d grown up together in the same village.”

  “Of course she’d be upset if she were ordered to kill someone who’d been her childhood friend. Even though they were now working for opposite sides.”

  I was disgusted. A killer was going to go free. “Have you told Sir Henry this nonsense?”

  “I haven’t. I don’t think anyone has spoken to him.”

  I rose from the table, my appetite destroyed by bad news. “I’ll call him now. Finish your dinner. You look like no one’s fed you in days.”

  I went out to the hall and dialed the familiar number. I was surprised to hear Sir Henry answer.

  “Sir Henry? It’s Olivia Denis. I just learned Scotland Yard thinks Reina killed Elias and tried to blow up Churchill.”

  “I’ve heard the same thing. Balderdash,” roared out of the receiver. “Why would they think such a thing? Or how could you have been so wrong about her?”

  “Adam and I took samples from a trunk in the basement of Mimi’s salon and he had them analyzed by Scotland Yard. One of the chemicals was the explosive in Churchill’s cigar. And Mimi and Fleur said the trunk belonged to Reina.”

  “Reina, who is no longer alive to defend herself.” By the time Sir Henry spoke, Adam was next to me, listening to the receiver.

  “Sir Henry? Captain Redmond here. If it wasn’t Reina, who did the trunk belong to?”

  “There aren’t too many choices, are there?” Sir Henry said.

  “And there is nothing to say the person who tampered with those cigars also bludgeoned two people over the head,” I said so I’d be heard over the telephone line.

  “You’re army, Redmond, not Scotland Yard. There’s no reason you have to follow Scotland Yard’s conclusions,” Sir Henry responded. “Oh, and while I have you on the phone, Livvy, Nauheim has convinced me to send you to Prague with the Mandels.”

  “What will I be doing there?” I asked. Adam stared at me with raised eyebrows, looking as surprised as I felt.

  “Nauheim wants you to smuggle some things out of Prague. Valuable things.”

  “When?” The ice in Adam’s voice must have carried down the telephone wires.

  “She leaves the day after tomorrow and will be back two days later. Well, two days or so later.” Sir Henry’s tone was unyielding.

  “What if she doesn’t want to?”

  “You can’t—”

  I was determined to stop this argument right now, or it would follow me for years. “I’m going to do it, Adam.”

  Both men fell silent.

  Finally, Adam asked, “Why?”

  “Because I believe in it. Because somebody needs to do something. Because I can help.”

  Adam made a grumbling noise in his throat and walked away.

  I clutched the receiver. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Sir Henry. Find out more about this trip.”

  “No need for you to come to the meeting tonight. I’ll fill you in at the office. Good night, Livvy.” The line went dead.

  Oh, good grief. Adam arrived in town and I forgot about meetings I should attend. I went into the kitchen to find Adam pouring the coffee. “You’re angry.”

  “Not angry. Worried. The Germans’ next step is to take over the rest of Czechoslovakia. I don’t want you trapped behind enemy lines.”

  “I think that’s why we’re going now. So we won’t be. The couple I’m going with is Jewish, and we’ll be trying to bring monetary support out of Czechoslovakia to get young families to Britain. The Mandels don’t want to be captured by the Nazis even more than I don’t.”

  “What will you be smuggling?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose I’ll find out when I get there.”

  He carried the coffee tray into the dining room. I followed, finding he’d cleaned his plate and mine, too. They must starve the army, since his face seemed thinner, although he seemed to fill out his suit jacket even better than he had before.

  I couldn’t wait to get that jacket off.

  Once we were seated with our coffee, I said, “May I make a suggestion?”

  “What?” His voice dripped with suspicion.

  “Can you put a watch on Mimi’s salon and follow either Mimi or Fleur if they leave? They are the only two possibilities for the explosive chemist.”

  “Besides Reina.”

  I held his gaze. “You don’t need to follow her anymore.”

  He rubbed his hand on my bare forearm. “You liked her and trusted her. I’m sorry she’s dead.”

  I nodded, already considering the other possibilities. “What do we know about Mimi? She has a daughter, Brigette, born just after the war. Father reported to be a married Jewish banker from Stockholm. She currently has a duke for a lover who is rabidly pro-German.”

  Adam nodded. “What do we know about Fleur?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “She answers questions with the bare amount of information. Her surname is Bettenard. She’s only been with Mimi a few years. I don’t know where she was before that. And she doesn’t like having her picture taken, but we did get one, a group photo that Jane Seville took.”

  “Do you have it?”

  “Sir Henry has a print, and Jane has the negative in her office.”

  He smiled. “I’ll drop in at the Daily Premier in the morning.”

  “Then you agree one of the two of them has to be the chemist who sent Churchill the exploding cigars.” I felt vindicated.

  “I think we can’t afford to blame Reina and ignore any other possibilities.”

  “Especially since someone phoned that coded message into the newspaper. Has there been any luck decoding it?”

  “None at all. We have no idea if it has anything to do with the French assassin.” He slipped his fingers between mine. “Scotland Yard is bringing Reina’s cousin to London tomorrow for questioning. She doesn’t speak English. Can I have you act as my interpreter?”

  “I’ll be glad to, although I know you speak some French.” I squeezed his hand, excited that I’d have an opportunity to do some questioning of my own.

  “I’ll arrange it.”

  We had a pleasant rest of the evening by staying far away from murder and espionage. But after Adam left in the early morning, I got very little sleep. My mind struggled with what I knew about Reina as opposed to what I believed, how little I knew about Fleur, and a question Adam had asked me about our future.

  I wore a dark blue dress and jacket to work in the morning under my mac and made sure to carry an umbrella. Our unusually long streak of fine weather had ended during the night.

  My first task after shedding my coat, hat, gloves, and umbrella was to phone down to Jane’s desk and ask her to print another copy of the photo she’d taken at Mimi’s, focusing on Fleur. Then I called Sir Henry’s office, and after being connected by his secretary, I told him I would be put to use by Adam and Scotland Yard as a translator for Reina’s cousin.

  We agreed we’d talk afterward.

  At ten I received a call from the lobby that Adam was there. I told Miss Westcott I had a task to perform for Sir Henry, pulled on my outerwear, and hurried down to the lobby.

  “Do you have the photograph?” he asked me.

  I patted my handbag.

  “I received word that Mimi left her fashion house early this morning. We’re having her followed.”

  Despite everything, I didn’t want the assassin to be Mimi. I found I was still carrying a rose-tinted picture of Mimi in my mind.

  We took a taxi to Scotland Yard and were waved in through the gates. Adam had me placed on some sort of list that the guard consulted, allowing me to enter the maze of red and gray fake-towered buildings. Only the Victorians would build something so unified and yet so incongruous, I thought as Adam led me to one of the entrances.

  Two police constables stood along the wall near the door when we entered the conference room. Two
men in suits sat on one side of a large table. They rose when we came up to them and introduced themselves as a detective chief inspector and a detective sergeant. Adam introduced us as he shook hands with the men.

  On the other side of the table, a thin young man stood as we approached them. He sat again next to a girl of about twenty in what appeared to be a hand-me-down frock.

  None of them looked comfortable.

  “Bonjour,” I said, and introduced myself in French, gaining a faint smile from the girl as I pulled up another chair and sat at the end of the table near the girl.

  The thin young man introduced himself as René, the official translator, and we greeted each other.

  The girl introduced herself as Deborah Feld, Reina’s cousin.

  “It isn’t Blumfeld, like Reina?” I asked in French.

  “You knew Reina?”

  “Oui.”

  She looked down, and finally gave a little nod. “I changed it to make it easier to find work in Paris. Our fathers were brothers.”

  The men sitting across from her leaned forward and the younger of the two, the sergeant, in his thirties and with a notebook in his hands, demanded, “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m Mrs. Denis, sent by the army to translate.”

  “You’re not needed.”

  “Tell that to General Alford.”

  The detective chief inspector snorted and leaned back. Obviously, he’d dealt with General Alford before. The younger one asked, “What has she told you so far?”

  “Her name, and that Reina was her cousin because their fathers were brothers.” The official translator, René, concurred.

  The younger one scribbled in his notebook. “Go on.”

  I turned to Deborah. “Have they told you they suspect Reina of killing Josef Meirsohn and trying to kill Mr. Churchill?”

  “What? Why would they think that? Are they crazy?” spilled out in rapid French. “Reina was always a good girl.”

  “They think she may have done it to keep her family safe. They found a letter from her mother hidden in her room here in London.” I turned to Adam and said in English, “Is the letter from Reina’s mother available? May we see it, please?”

  “This is highly irregular,” the sergeant said while Adam stared at him. The older man handed the letter to Adam, who handed it to me.

  I showed it to Deborah.

  She read it once quickly and then again more slowly. “Where did you get this?”

  “Hidden under the floorboards of Reina’s room here in London.”

  “It wasn’t written by Reina’s mother,” Deborah said. “It’s a forgery.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Her words were surprising, but her tone of certainty was shocking. “How do you know?”

  “What did she say?” the detective sergeant ordered in English.

  We both ignored him.

  “Reina’s mother’s pet name for Reina was ‘Navah,’” Deborah said. “It was what her older sister called her when they were tiny. She would never address a letter to her as Reina. And Reina had two younger brothers. Her mother wouldn’t say ‘your younger brother’ without saying which one. And the letter is in German. We speak Yiddish.” She slapped the letter down on the table and folded her arms.

  “What do you think of Reina’s mother’s claim that their lives were much easier now that Reina was working for the Reich?” I asked her, curious to hear her reaction.

  “I know there are those who sell out their friends and neighbors to save their families, but not Reina. She would do whatever she could if it would do any good, but she knew there is nothing that can be done.” She gave me a look through eyes dark with anger. “And this is a forgery. Reina wasn’t helping them, and our family’s lives aren’t any better. Why is this the only letter Reina has received from her family in over a year? Why haven’t I received a letter?”

  “What is the name of her village?”

  “Brechelstof. It is my village, too. Why?”

  “We wondered exactly where Reina came from. And how hard it would be to reach the village from outside Germany.”

  “It was close to the Czech border. Before the Sudeten crisis. Now that way is closed, too.”

  I translated all Deborah had said.

  “She’s lying,” the sergeant murmured to his superior in a voice loud enough for me to hear.

  “Based on what?” Adam said. He’d heard the sergeant, too.

  “How do you know this woman is reliable?” the sergeant countered.

  “I speak enough French to understand part of their conversation. I also know General Alford trusts her. And the official translator hasn’t corrected anything she’s said.” Adam stared at the man for a moment. “Now, why do you think the girl is lying?”

  I was proud of Adam for sticking up for me.

  At that moment, another uniformed constable came in and handed Adam a note. He looked at the men at the table and said, “Fleur Bettenard has disappeared. She gave our man the slip in the Underground. We need to have everyone looking for her.”

  “Wanted for murder?”

  “Wanted for attempted murder of Mr. Churchill. She’s the French assassin we’ve been looking for,” Adam said.

  “How can you be sure of that?” the chief inspector asked.

  “By the drugs and chemicals in a trunk she brought to the salon where she worked here in London.” Adam looked grim. I suspected he’d been told of the assassin’s crimes associated with the various chemicals.

  “Fleur and that Madame Mareau she works for both swore it was Reina’s. In separate interviews,” the sergeant told Adam.

  “Do you have a photo of this woman, Fleur?” the chief inspector asked.

  I reached into my handbag and passed the photograph over my shoulder to Adam. A photo, trimmed by Jane Seville, showed only Fleur. Adam gave it to the older Scotland Yard man.

  “We’ll put out an alert. At the very least, this presents more information to follow up on,” the man added.

  The sergeant grumbled as he stood and walked out of the room with the photograph.

  “What has happened?” Deborah asked me in French.

  “The trunk that contained the explosives and poisons associated with a French assassin that we were told belonged to Reina actually belonged to a colleague of Reina’s called Fleur.”

  “Reina knew nothing of poisons, of science, of medicine. She hated noise and fire. She hated school. She liked to sew and talk to her friends and watch handsome boys, although she was too shy to flirt with them.” Deborah grabbed my hand. “Reina wouldn’t assassinate anyone.”

  I looked at her closely, trying to let her see my sympathy on my face. “I didn’t think she would,” I said before I translated Deborah’s words for Scotland Yard.

  “And she didn’t like Fleur,” Deborah continued. “She didn’t trust her. She was wonderful at cutting fabric, but Reina was afraid of her.”

  “Why?” I hadn’t picked up on Reina being specifically afraid of Fleur. Only that Reina was constantly frightened.

  “Fleur told her once she could cut patterns out of human skin. Reina said that was terrible. Fleur answered, ‘The master race can do what they want.’ With a bright smile on her face.”

  I shivered at the words. The translator, René, looked ill.

  When I repeated the words, in English, for Adam and the older policeman, they both looked distressed. “A Nazi infiltrator,” the policeman said.

  “I wonder what her name really is,” Adam said. “She’s probably taken everything incriminating with her.”

  “I would hope you’ll allow Deborah to go home.” Then I switched from English to French. “They’ve sent Reina’s possessions in London home to Paris?”

  Deborah nodded.

  I switched back to English. “We need to go to Mimi Mareau’s to ask her for Fleur’s Paris address. The Sûreté could check her Paris home for anything that might lead to her identity or where she might be headed.”

&
nbsp; The Scotland Yard chief inspector thanked Deborah for her help. I assured her that Reina was no longer under suspicion and her name had been cleared. Then one of the constables escorted her and the translator out.

  Adam and I traveled with the chief inspector and another constable to Mimi’s a few minutes later. Adam spoke to the girl at the desk, who immediately called the designer.

  Mimi arrived a minute later in a pale-red knit dress and jacket worn with pearls and black and white two-tone shoes. Next to her, the rest of us looked rumpled and shoddy.

  “What do you want? Reina is dead. Fleur has left. You’ve wiped out my top assistants. I should never have come to London. You English!”

  “We’d like Fleur’s Paris address,” Adam said.

  “You’ll be too late,” Brigette said.

  I hadn’t noticed Brigette until then. She stood silently near the entrance to the back room, her face a blank mask hiding her feelings concerning all that had occurred.

  “Why would they be too late?” I asked.

  “Fleur’s much cleverer than everyone else. Mother didn’t know what she was up to until she left, and she usually knows what’s going on under her roof. And Fleur knew you were from the government right from the start,” she added, sneering at me.

  With that attitude, Brigette would hold her own against the Duke of Marshburn’s family. She’d need strength to deal with Lady Patricia, but only if Mimi’s affair with the duke survived this disaster.

  “I need to go upstairs to get Fleur’s address for you,” Mimi said and headed up the front staircase. At Adam’s nod, I followed.

  I discovered Mimi had carved a tiny office for herself out of the dressing area behind the showroom on the first floor. “Why are you following me?” she demanded as she sat down at her desk.

  “You’d rather a policeman followed you?” I asked.

  She shook her head and pulled out a large notebook full of papers, some attached, some stuffed inside, to set on the desktop. Finding a scrap of paper, she copied an address out and handed it to me.

  “I wonder how long I would have stayed in London if you hadn’t driven me out.”

  I looked at her, stunned. “I’ve done nothing of the sort, Mimi.”