The Shattered Tree

by Charles Todd

  “Yes, exactly. If she thinks it wasn’t Jerome, I’m almost prepared to believe her.”

  “Then who attacked her?”

  “That’s just it. She thinks it must be Philippe Moreau. But I’m not convinced he could have brought it off, that vicious stabbing. Not in his condition.”

  “He’s had time to heal.”

  “I know. I’d thought of that.” Shaking my head, I added, “It’s impossible to sort out.”

  “Even if it was Philippe. For the sake of argument. Why would he attempt to kill a nun?”

  “Because he’s in Paris, and so is she?”

  “It still doesn’t explain why he should want to kill her.” He picked up his spoon again and finished his tart.

  Tell him all the rest? Or not?

  Across from me at the next table a woman laughed, silvery and provocative. She was wearing a satin version of a Hussar’s tunic, a turban on her head. It was pinned, I realized, with the brass shell casing from a rifle cartridge. There was a design on it, giving it the appearance of a vase, and from it sprang beautifully dyed silk violets. I wondered if they had been made from the tiny silk parachutes that kept flares over the trenches from descending too rapidly, allowing the maximum amount of light for the maximum amount of time. War or no war, French dressmakers had managed to keep women looking chic, and I thought of the clothes my mother had lovingly refurbished for four long years. England was dowdy, France—even with the war so much nearer—was still fashionable.

  Changing direction, I said, “Captain. I think you’ve been holding out on me. I think you may know more about what’s going on than I do. After all, you can speak to the French Army. I can’t.”

  He nearly choked on his wine and lowered the glass, regarding me over the rim.

  “Damn it, Bess.”

  “Fair is fair,” I said firmly. “Have you been having me followed? I need to know whether someone out there is intending to keep me safe, or to do me harm. I don’t want to be worried every time I step outside the clinic.”

  “All right, Bess, yes, those are my men. I should have known you’d spot them. But I couldn’t be there all day every day. And I was worried. What am I to tell your father if something happens to you? Or God forbid, your mother?”

  I didn’t add Simon Brandon to that list. But I had a fair idea of what he would do. The surprising thing was that he hadn’t already found a reason to come to Paris, on his own or as my mother’s surrogate.

  “I don’t mind,” I said, “but I wish you’d told me.” I did mind, but I also knew that he meant well.

  I’d successfully distracted him from asking what I knew.

  He called for the bill, and then helped me with my coat. Outside the wind had picked up, blowing bits of newspaper down the street outside the restaurant, and people hurrying past us had their collars up, hats low. Even the beggars had called it a night.

  It happened so fast that neither of us had time to react.

  I was turning to say something to Captain Barkley when someone bumped into me, and I sucked in my breath as it felt like an elbow caught my bandaged wound. I stumbled back against the door of the restaurant just as the Captain cried out, swearing on the heels of it, and jerked back against me. And then he was running after someone, other pedestrians caught off guard and trying to get out of their way. Even as I watched, he stopped, staggered, and went down.

  I rushed toward him, and bent over to take his shoulder.

  “Captain? Are you hurt? Tell me where.”

  He groaned as he rolled over on his back. I could see blood, and I ran my hands down his greatcoat until I discovered that it was coming from his arm and his side.

  A knife? Like Marie-Luc?

  I knelt there, people beginning to collect around us, reaching inside his coat.

  Then he was shoving my hands away. “Help me up. Now.”

  I started to argue, realized what he was telling me, and as he rolled over to his other side, fighting to get to his feet, I gave him my shoulder, and he managed to stand.

  “I’m sorry,” he said in halting French. “Drunk. Too much wine.”

  The gathering crowd stared at us, and I laughed, saying, “He is celebrating the end of the war too soon.”

  They looked askance but began to turn away and go about their business.

  “A taxi,” my companion said roughly. “Hurry.”

  I lifted one hand to hail a taxi coming our way, the other arm bearing a good deal of his weight.

  The driver slowed, staring at us. I smiled. “Too much wine,” I called, and he stopped.

  I got the door open and helped the Captain to drag himself inside. His face was grim in the little light there was, and I gave the direction of the clinic, thinking it was a better choice than a hospital, where questions might be asked.

  It seemed to take an eternity to reach the Hôtel de Belle-Île. I couldn’t tell how badly the Captain was bleeding, for he was hunched over in the far side of the vehicle.

  And then we were pulling up before the gates. I handed the driver a fistful of francs, then with clenched teeth got my companion out of the taxi, all the while scolding, “I told you not to drink that fourth glass. What is Matron going to say about this? Really, Captain, it’s too much. I have never been so embarrassed.”

  He grunted something that would pass as an apology. Shutting the door of the taxi with some force, I gave him my shoulder and somehow we got through the gates and across the courtyard before he collapsed on the steps in front of the door.

  I saw with relief that the taxi had driven on, then said, “It’s all right, he’s gone.”

  Moving around him, I managed to get the door open, and called to the orderly, praying that he hadn’t gone off duty already.

  He was there in a matter of seconds—I thought he must have caught the urgency in my voice. Between us we got the Captain inside, and then the orderly was calling for members of the staff.

  I looked up to see that there was blood on the orderly’s hands. Just then one of the Sisters came running, and Dr. Wallace was at her heels.

  Between us, Sister Franklin and I got his greatcoat off and, with more difficulty, his tunic. As the doctor cut away his shirt, I could see that the knife had slashed across his arm and gone on to open up the flesh over his ribs. It was bleeding profusely, but I didn’t think there was any serious damage done.

  More orderlies came, and Captain Barkley was carried to one of the free beds and laid carefully on the sheet that Sister Franklin had pulled across the mattress. Dr. Wallace was busy trying to clean and close the chest wound while I attended to the arm.

  Captain Barkley, back with us now, looked up at me and said, “How bad?”

  Dr. Wallace, his hands busy, answered for me without even looking up. “You’ll be all right. Sore as hell, but all right.”

  Another Sister had come up behind me to take my coat. “I’ll sponge it before the blood dries,” she said, but when she had helped me out of it, she gasped. “Sister—”

  I looked down, and saw that my apron and my skirt had been slashed. But when had that happened? When whoever it was appeared to bump into me?

  I turned away and quickly put my fingers into the gaping tear. It went through my undergarments and there was even a long rip in my bandage. In fact, there was a thin red line oozing blood in my side.

  The bandaging had saved me.

  “Nothing,” I said, turning and smiling at the doctor and Sister Franklin, who were waiting to hear how badly I was hurt.

  They went back to the task of washing and closing the Captain’s wounds, sprinkling antiseptic powder on them as they worked. Dr. Wallace began making small tidy stitches, drawing the edges of the wounds together. There was never time for such things at the Front. The doctors sewed up a wound quickly, even though it would leave a heavy scar, because there were more men waiting for care, and one did the best one could.

  It took nearly half an hour to finish working on the Captain, and when Matron came t
o see what all the fuss was about in her quiet clinic this evening, I gave her a brief account of what had happened.

  “There was no one about as we stepped out of the restaurant—that’s to say, everyone was walking along, head down against the wind, minding their own business. And then someone bumped against me, hard, knocking me back into doorway. I heard Captain Barkley cry out, and then he gave chase. But whoever it was got away. I managed to get the Captain this far, thinking it was best.”

  “Yes, of course, far better,” Matron said. “Was it an attempted robbery?”

  “I don’t think it was. He never spoke, and I’ve wondered if he was waiting out there for us—or for someone,” I amended hastily. “The next person to come out? I don’t know.”

  We were just settling the protesting Captain into his cot—he wanted no part of staying the night, angrily assuring us that he was well enough to return to his own flat—when there was a resounding knock on the clinic door.

  The orderly who had let us in had lingered to hear what had happened. He turned and walked swiftly out to Reception to answer the summons.

  We could hear voices, but not what was said. And then the orderly, protesting, was following someone into the room where we’d put the Captain.

  I looked up to see the cold-eyed policeman who had dealt with Marie-Luc’s stabbing, and my heart sank.

  His eyebrows went up as he recognized me, but he turned to Matron, greeted her politely, and said, “My name is Duplessis. There was a taxi driver who discovered blood all over the rear seat of his Renault. He reported this to the police, and told us where he’d dropped off the man and the woman who had taken his taxi from a restaurant to this place.”

  If I’d been alone, I might have succeeded in convincing him that the patient who had taken me out to dinner this evening had had his wound reopen while trying to stop a thief who had attempted to rob us.

  Instead, Matron, indignant over the whole affair, and Dr. Wallace, who was just drying his hands, gave the police a full account of the evening’s events. And the Captain, lying there listening grimly to what was being said, looked as if he would have gladly disappeared under the pillows.

  The policeman insisted on viewing the wounds for himself, and I thought at first he was going to insist that the bandaging be removed. Nodding to the Captain, he waited until the bedclothes had been pulled back and the remnants of the bloody shirt that Captain Barkley was still wearing had been opened to show the site and extent of the knife’s work.

  He asked the Captain if he had recognized the man.

  “I did not. It happened too quickly. That’s why I went after him.”

  “But failed to catch him.”

  I intervened before the Captain could say what was obviously on his mind.

  “He could hardly leave me. What if this assassin had somehow doubled back? I was frightened and called to Captain Barkley not to go too far.”

  “Did you indeed?” the policeman asked dryly.

  Captain Barkley, for once, said nothing.

  “I should like to know,” Matron said firmly, “what the police intend to do about this matter? Captain Barkley and Sister Crawford were clearly English, and I am hoping this is not going to be allowed to happen again to another of our people.”

  The patient, about to claim he was an American, thought better of it, and his mouth snapped shut.

  Dr. Wallace said, “If you’re finished with my patient, kindly take yourselves elsewhere. I’m about to give him something to help him rest.”

  Sister Franklin, casting a last glance at the patient, hurried to usher the rest of us back into the lobby.

  Matron was speaking to the policeman, but his eyes were on me. He remembered me all too clearly from St. Anne’s, and here I was, involved in another knife attack. I kept my arm close by my side to hide the rip in my uniform, and stood a little behind Sister Franklin.

  After the orderly had given his evidence, the policeman nodded and said, “Thank you all. And now I wish to have a word with—Sister Crawford, is it? Yes, thank you—Sister Crawford, if you please.”

  Matron said, “Inspector, if you wish to interrogate one of my nurses, I shall remain.”

  But the others quietly left us alone.

  “You are a friend of the nun Sister Marie-Luc?”

  “I am,” I said evenly, as if I was in no way perturbed by the question.

  “And here you are, attacked tonight by a knife. You and the Captain.”

  “I was not injured,” I said.

  “Then why should this unknown assailant be lying in wait for him?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that.” I realized he was goading me.

  “A busy street, and not a single witness?”

  “It wasn’t busy, but I’m sure people were aware that the Captain was chasing someone when he collapsed in the road. They came to stare at him. No one offered to call the police or find a doctor. My first thought was not to take their names but to get medical care for Captain Barkley.”

  “No one has come forward to report a disturbance on that street.”

  “They were there, Inspector. You found a witness to Marie-Luc’s stabbing. I’m sure you’ll find one here.”

  “He was an impeccable source. We aren’t always so fortunate.”

  “Impeccable or not, he was wrong. Marie-Luc knew her assailant wasn’t Jerome Karadeg, and you wouldn’t believe her. You haven’t even asked me for a description of our assailant. Medium height, and compactly built. I could see that much as he ran away.”

  “A description that could fit anyone in France,” he said, almost with a sneer.

  “Sister Crawford has just had a shocking experience. I must insist that you treat her with courtesy and let her rest,” Matron snapped.

  “I will leave you with one piece of information, Sister Crawford. We have come to the conclusion that we might well have been mistaken in our identification of the body taken from the river and identified as that of Jerome Karadeg.”

  With that bombshell, he turned, thanked Matron for her cooperation, and without glancing at me, walked out the door, nearly slamming it behind him.

  Matron, staring at it as if she could still see the man who had just left, said, “There’s more here than meets the eye, Sister Crawford. What is there between this policeman and you?”

  I told her the truth, about Marie-Luc, about Jerome Karadeg, and the nun’s certainty that he would never have harmed her. “But the police prefer to believe it was Monsieur Karadeg. To be honest, I don’t know. But there has been some sort of history with a French Infantry officer, and he is the one she blames. I don’t think the police cared very much for the fact that I believed her.”

  “Who is this other man? ”

  “He appears to be someone her former governess knew.”

  She considered that. “Why should he wish to harm her? A nun?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps she knows something about him that he doesn’t want told.”

  Thinking about that, I wondered how much Fräulein Theissen might have told Philippe Moreau about Sister Marie-Luc.

  “Or because you are also a nursing Sister, if not a nun, and English, if not French,” she said pensively.

  I hadn’t thought about it from that point of view—that someone might be targeting nurses. As a rule our work and our rank as officers kept us safe. But what if someone blamed a nurse for a treatment gone wrong or a report to doctors that changed his life, like identifying him as shell-shocked? It was sobering.

  When I didn’t answer straightaway, she added, “And do you, as well as Captain Barkley, also know what this nun might know?”

  That was difficult to answer.

  “I don’t think it’s a matter of what we know. It may be a matter of his fearing it.”

  “And that could be as dangerous. Guard yourself. Well. Go up and change your clothes. Yes, I’ve seen the rip in your apron and your uniform. Madame Ezay can help you mend it. You are certain there is not also a
rip in you?”

  I grinned sheepishly. “I was just in the way.”

  “We don’t know that yet. Good night, Sister Crawford.”

  And she waited as I climbed the stairs and turned down the passage.

  It was well after midnight, and I hadn’t been able to sleep. I got up, dressed, and walked down the stairs, thinking I might look in on Captain Barkley. The house was dark, save for a small lamp in Reception that burned all night, and I had brought my torch down with me.

  When I tapped lightly and then opened the door of the room he’d been given—it was one Matron kept for use as a recovery ward for surgical patients—the low lamp on the table beside his cot showed me an empty bed.

  Where had he gone? He’d been given a sedative to help him rest, and he appeared to be in some pain when I last saw him. He couldn’t have improved enough to be sent on to his flat at this hour. When the orderly in charge of Reception went off duty at eleven, the main door was locked. A clinic full of recovering patients considered a late night on the town to be most unwise, although a few officers were allowed to dine out on occasion, as a test of endurance. Major Vernon, with his eye patch, for one. Not fit to return to the fighting, but not precisely an invalid either.

  I closed his door softly and tiptoed on to the library in case he’d gone there, where he could sit more comfortably. It was empty.

  I went back to the hall that served for Reception. Even with the lamp it was shadowy at best, especially under the stairs. But I heard an odd sound, and shone my light in that direction.

  There was a door leading to the kitchens behind the staircase and I was moving toward it when something seemed to uncoil, just visible out of the corner of my eye, and I whirled.

  “Bess—for God’s sake, don’t scream,” the Captain said in a harried voice.

  Far from screaming, I was prepared to use my torch as a weapon if this were an intruder. “What are you doing out of bed?” I demanded quietly.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” he said, frustration in his voice. “Where the devil have they put you?”

  “Upstairs,” I said shortly. “Are you in pain? Feverish?”

  “No. I want to know what is going on.”