The Shattered Tree

by Charles Todd

  We could hardly hover beneath the arch of the stairs, looking guilty at every sound. And it was one thing to be found in a patient’s room late at night while one was on duty. Quite another to be discovered there when one was not. Matron would not be pleased.

  “The library. But quietly.”

  He was about to protest, but I was already on my way, moving with care in the dim light of night lamps.

  We closed the door. Even in the gloom I could see that he was pale and sweating. “Sit down,” I said softly. “Before you fall down. I won’t be able to get you up again before the house arrives to see what the clatter is.”

  He did. “What’s been happening, Bess? I think it’s time I knew.”

  He was right, now that he’d been attacked.

  “Very well. Remember the cutting about those murders in the Bois district?”

  “The one we couldn’t determine why it had been kept. Yes.”

  “I’ve learned from Marie-Luc that Philippe Moreau and his brother Paul were there at the time. Visiting another student from the school the three boys attended.” I went on to explain about the Moreau family, the murders, who was in the house, who was not, and what had become of Philippe in the aftermath of the inquiry.

  Captain Barkley was frowning, trying to concentrate. “You’re saying that he was taken up for murder. But what about other servants, the groom, for one, or even the son of the house? Or the other brother, Paul? It seems to me that whoever investigated the crime, did a damn— did a very poor job of it.”

  “That’s the problem. We have the cutting that Fräulein Theissen kept. But I’ve been unable to find any subsequent reports. I even went to the booksellers on the Left Bank, and while I found a few newspapers from that period, they seem to be either before or after the crime. There’s not a single mention of it.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “My French is passable,” I said, “but now that I know the names of the victims I could search for any mention of them. And Marie-Luc refuses to see me now.”

  “There’s one person who can help us. Get your coat, Bess. I know where Captain Broussard keeps his motorcar. I can’t drive but you can.”

  I’d been taught by Simon Brandon, and a few of my tennis friends.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” I demanded, striving to keep my voice low.

  “Father Robert will know something. And if he doesn’t, there’s Paul Moreau.”

  “Do you have any idea what time it is? You have no authority to drag people out of their beds in the middle of the night and order them to answer your questions.”

  “It’s barely midnight.”

  “It’s going on two o’clock in the morning.”

  His eyebrows went up. “It can’t be.”

  He was still wearing what was left of his bloody shirt and trousers. Someone would have taken any personal possessions, including his watch, and put them securely away until he was able to keep up with them himself. And the tall case clock here in the library wasn’t working.

  “You’ve been sleeping. Unfortunately I couldn’t seem to. That’s why I’ve come down, to look in on you.”

  He regarded his bandages for a moment, then looked across at me. “Did he stab you as well? I don’t remember anyone looking at you or taking you away to be examined.”

  “He tried. Luckily it wasn’t very successful, as stabbings go.” But I’d washed away the thin trickle of blood where the knife had tracked and said nothing. I didn’t want it reported to the police that I’d lied about being wounded as well. It was of no consequence, and I could tend it myself, such as it was.

  The Captain’s mouth tightened.

  “What’s more, the Inspector was rather mysterious about Jerome Karadeg. Hinting at the identity of the body. He was fishing, and I don’t know what for. You yourself had told me that there was some question about his death.”

  “I only know what the rumor was, that there was some doubt about the suicide. The man might have tried to make it appear to be an accident, to save his parents from distress.”

  I nodded. “That’s true. Yes, ‘the accidentally shot while cleaning his revolver’ story.” It was a fairly common diagnosis by a local doctor, when a man shot himself, to stop gossip and the resulting pain for the family. “I need to pay the Karadegs another visit. And I need to find out about this talk of a witness to the attack on Marie-Luc. Was it the same person who came to her rescue? I don’t know what the Inspector deems to be ‘impeccable.’”

  Captain Barkley grinned. “His beau-frère.” His brother-in-law.

  I wasn’t sure that anyone short of the Prime Minister would do, but then it would still depend on which political view the Inspector followed.

  I got the Captain back to his bed and slipped up the stairs myself, disturbing no one on my way.

  The next morning I didn’t wait for breakfast in the dining room. I let myself out and found a taxi to take me to the café where Marie-Luc and I had quarreled over Philippe Moreau and she had gone off on her own to find Jerome Karadeg.

  I wasn’t even certain that the café would be open. There would have been a service for Jerome, and his parents might well have decided to keep a period of mourning for their only son.

  But when I got there, the doors stood wide, and I could see workmen and shopgirls eating breakfast. Madame Karadeg was there, serving. She wore the severe black of heavy mourning, a small black lace cap on her dark hair, and her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she hadn’t slept in days.

  I hesitated, and then stepped inside. She looked up, and the ready smile for a new customer, the practiced and professional expression of welcome, faded into a glare.

  I stood there, not knowing what else to do.

  She set down the dishes she was carrying, said a brief word to the men at that table, and crossed to the door to meet me—or cut me off before I could take a table. I couldn’t be sure.

  She took my arm in a painful grip and ushered me out into the foggy morning. “I can’t believe you would show your face here. My son has scarcely been put in the ground.” Her voice was low, almost a hiss of dislike.

  “I was here with Sister Marie-Luc—” I began, but she cut me off.

  “Bien sûr,” she said. “I know who you are. The two of you quarreled just there, and she went to find my son. And what happened? He was hunted by the police, for something he didn’t do. Why should he harm a nun? I ask you!”

  “I know nothing about that, except to say there was a witness. Ask the police. They will tell you. But Marie-Luc begged them to listen to her, she tried to make them understand that it wasn’t Jerome who’d attacked her. She still denies it.”

  Madame stared at me. “You are lying.”

  “Why should I lie? I’ve never even met your son.”

  “They told me the witness was a woman. I thought it was you. You were with her, and I was certain you’d followed her, to make up your quarrel.”

  A woman?

  I’d been told it was a man.

  Had Inspector Duplessis invented the witness? But someone had pointed him in the direction of Jerome Karadeg, which made me wonder if he had followed Marie-Luc, only to run away when the screaming started. Looking guilty . . .

  “I went back to the clinic where I’m recovering. I didn’t know what had happened to her until much later. She’s still in hospital. The wounds are deep. I wanted to ask you why your son would turn on a friend, and a nun at that. That’s why I came. I want to find answers to what happened.”

  “Why?” Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “My son is dead. We took his body to Brittany, and buried him there. What can you do now?”

  “Take away the black mark of suicide, and find out if he was murdered.”

  “Murdered? When it was the police hounding him that drove him to kill himself? Zut alors. You are mad. Go away and leave us to make sense of our loss. He was an only son, do you understand that? Now, go. And don’t come back. Or I will summon a gendarme and te
ll him you are harassing us.”

  “Madame, last night I myself was attacked with a knife, and my friend, an officer in the Canadian Army, as well. Your son is dead. He couldn’t have harmed us, could he? Then who is it? Who has a reason to try to kill us? If I knew the answer to that, it might go a long way toward clearing your son’s name. It won’t bring him back to you, but he will no longer be a suicide in the eyes of the world. Because it might well be the same person, you see, who is doing this.”

  She stared at me, her eyes filled with something I couldn’t read. I didn’t think she could see beyond the loss of her son. Beyond watching him being put in the ground. What happened to Captain Barkley, whom she’d never met, was of no importance to her. Sadly, I couldn’t blame her.

  And then she said, so much venom in her voice that I stepped back away from her, “I hope God punishes you for the vile woman you are.”

  With that she turned on her heel and marched back to the café like a soldier setting out to do battle. If it hadn’t been for the patrons in the café, I think she would have slammed the door, to emphasize that she had shut me out.

  I stood there, thinking how unfair it was to blame me, and yet all too aware of the fact that she was grieving.

  Monsieur Karadeg came to the window just then and peered out at me. Then he lifted his fist and shook it, his face dark with anger.

  I turned away and walked swiftly toward the nearest street where I could hail a taxi and go back to the clinic.

  The staff was still serving breakfast when I got to the Hôtel de Belle-Île.

  Major Vernon was there, and he looked up as I walked in.

  “Your friend is a patient now,” he said in greeting. “What happened to him?”

  “A madman. Just outside a restaurant near the Boulevard.” I sat down, although I wasn’t certain I could swallow food. I was still very upset about what had happened at the café.

  We talked for a few minutes, Major Vernon and I, before it occurred to me that he might also have access to Captain Broussard’s motorcar.

  I said, as we were finishing our meal, “You don’t by any chance know Captain Broussard well enough to borrow his motorcar for the morning, do you?”

  He considered me for a moment, then said, “I could probably manage it. Where do you wish to go? Versailles? Have you ever been there?”

  “Some years ago, with my parents,” I answered. “We came through Paris on our way home from India.”

  “Chartres, then? The great cathedral there?”

  I smiled. “Actually, I want to go north.”

  “Where the fighting is? Are you quite serious?”

  “Not that far. I can drive myself, of course. It’s just that I don’t believe the Captain would agree to my borrowing his vehicle.”

  Major Vernon grinned. “You would probably be right in guessing that he would be concerned. I hear he’s very careful with that motorcar. The surprising thing is that he lent it to Captain Barkley. The Americans—the Sams, as they call them here—have a rather Wild West reputation.”

  “Worse than the Australians?” I asked, thinking of my friend Sergeant Lassiter.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said dryly. “I don’t believe the French were quite ready for Paris to be taken by the Allied armies, rather than the Germans.”

  It was true, I thought. Everyone on leave wished to come to Paris. Even the Russian émigrés preferred to live in Paris, since most of them spoke French.

  “Would you ask Captain Broussard? Without mentioning me, unless you must. I really need desperately to go to Petite-Beauvais.”

  “Finish your coffee, such as it is, and I’ll see to it.”

  An hour later, we were on the road.

  I had said nothing to Captain Barkley about our journey when I had looked in on him before I went to the kitchens to fetch my coat. It had been sponged and dried by the cooker, and Madame Ezay had done a remarkable job getting out the bloodstains.

  Chapter Thirteen

  We made good time to Petite-Beauvais.

  The sun was out, pale and watery. The village looked no better in daylight, and the women on the street were not the fashionable ladies of Paris but drab in black with black scarves over their heads against the chill. The old men wore coats of another era, with the omnipresent black beret. It was as if the village was waiting for the war to end before making itself more habitable, in case the Germans won after all.

  Major Vernon had been curious, asking questions all the way here, and I had tried to put him off to some extent, saying nothing about the murders.

  We found Father Robert in the tiny church. The stone floor was cold, and I doubted it ever really warmed up even in high summer. I could see my breath when I called to him. He looked up from the lectern, where he was turning pages in the large, gold-edged Bible, readying it for Sunday’s service. Even at this distance, I could see it was the handsomest thing in the plain little church, and must have cost the parish dearly.

  He didn’t appear to be happy to see me, and he examined Major Vernon as if trying to decide whether he was the same officer who had accompanied me the last time.

  “Sister Crawford,” he said politely, and came up the aisle to meet us.

  “Bonjour, Father.” I waited until he was closer, then said, “I have come about a matter that distressed both Sister Marie-Luc and myself. We found a cutting in the late Juliane Theissen’s papers. It was rather frightful, what we read there. I was wondering if you might have more information on what happened—if there were other mentions of the murders in the press. Was the killer ever caught?”

  I could read the shock in his face as I spoke, and he shook his head, as if to say it was not something he wished to discuss.

  “I’ve looked for newspapers of the period. But it’s been eighteen years, Father. I expect most of them were used to start kitchen fires or line cupboards. You were here at the time, weren’t you? You must know how the case ended.” I didn’t add that I knew some of it from Marie-Luc.

  “It was a tragic business,” he said finally, “and best forgot.”

  “Yes, I know. I agree. But you see, something has happened that has brought it all back. I’ve seen Philippe Moreau in Paris. He claims he’s a French officer, but he’s not in the Army’s records. How can that be?”

  I could feel the cold seeping into my boots as we stood there, but Father Robert seemed to be oblivious to it.

  “I know nothing about this man,” he said. “As for the murders, no one was ever tried, as far as I recall. We are rather out of the way here in Petite-Beauvais, and news seldom reaches us.”

  “Philippe Moreau grew up here. He lived here to the age of twelve. Surely you remember him? Or should I be addressing such questions to his brother, Paul Moreau?”

  “No!” he said quickly, and then took a deep breath. “Why must you bring up matters that are best forgot? Let the past alone.”

  “I can’t. You see, I don’t know where my own duty lies. Should I report what I’ve seen to the police? The Army? I don’t know. And someone has tried to kill Sister Marie-Luc, and last night, Captain Barkley was attacked. Do I put these things out of my mind? Tell myself it’s none of my business, only to find that I’m the next victim because I know what they knew?”

  He stared at me. Then he said, “There are beggars in Paris. Deserters too, I’m told. Some of them are desperate. Starving is a painful way to die.”

  “And yet Sister Marie-Luc’s crucifix and her rosary weren’t taken, and Captain Barkley still has his purse and his watch.”

  “Perhaps he was frightened off, this poor man, before he could rob anyone?”

  “These were knife wounds, Father. Very painful ones that could easily become infected. They were intended to kill.”

  Where did this man’s loyalties lie? With Philippe Moreau? Why? Did he remember the small boy that Juliane Theissen had brought here with her from Alsace? Did he know the truth about his parentage? And why the elder Moreau adopted him?
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br />   Major Vernon touched my arm. I knew what he was saying, that it was useless to ask the priest for his help. I’d tried everything I could think of to reach him, to make him understand that we needed answers. Because if Jerome Karadeg was dead, he couldn’t have attacked the two of us last night. And Marie-Luc must be right, that he hadn’t hurt her. If Philippe Moreau had already killed five people, taking a knife to three more wouldn’t stir his conscience.

  In the end, we left Father Robert in his church. I considered speaking to his housekeeper, but it was unlikely that she would tell us anything he didn’t want her to gossip about. A priest’s housekeeper, like a vicar’s wife, knows how to keep secrets.

  We did go to the house where the Moreaus lived. It still had that air of abandonment, the brass knocker sounding through empty rooms.

  If Paul Moreau was living there, alone and without staff to help him, he had no intention of opening the door to us.

  I did wonder why it was that the priest was so afraid of him.

  As we walked back to the Captain’s motorcar, Major Vernon said thoughtfully, “You wanted to know about that court martial. And now you want to know about murders that took place years ago. What does one have to do with the other?”

  He was in Intelligence. He was not someone who could be palmed off with a few lies.

  “I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “There’s this, you see. I think Philippe Moreau has a secret, and I don’t know what it is. Did he kill five people when he was twelve? And why isn’t he on the French Army rolls, either as serving, missing, captured, or killed? They must know something about him. When I saw him as a wounded man wearing a ragged uniform that hardly kept him warm enough to survive, it was a French uniform. If he’d been court-martialed, he wouldn’t be listed on the active rolls, would he? Have you learned anything more about the court martial?”

  “The French must be embarrassed about the outcome. They are not talking.”

  “Yes, well, they’ve had a mutiny in their own army—hanging some of the ringleaders. It’s not surprising that they don’t want to discuss court-martialing an officer.”