The Shattered Tree

by Charles Todd

  I almost didn’t read the last several, but I felt guilty about that too, as if I owed it to Fräulein Theissen to care. She must have done so, to save them for so many years.

  Tucked in with one of them was a message without an envelope, written in a child’s hand, like a number I’d already opened. There was no salutation, and at first I thought it had been included with the previous letter, two children sharing an envelope. But as I started to read I realized it was far different from the ones that had gone before, and, either by accident or design, slipped in where it wouldn’t be easily discovered.

  You must not come to me. You must not say anything. She told me they were going to arrest Paul for what happened. She asked me to confess and save him. He is only nine. I gave my promise. For Papa’s sake. Please. I love you. Good-bye.

  There was no signature.

  I sat there, tears in my eyes.

  This was the last part of the story. And Philippe Moreau had said nothing all these years.

  A vicious, selfish woman had got her revenge in spades. She had used one boy’s love for his supposed brother to condemn him. And lied to both sons as well as the police.

  I realized suddenly that I must see that Inspector Duplessis had this, before he found Philippe Moreau.

  I remembered what Philippe had said, that the war was nearly over, let it go.

  I understood now. If he told what he knew, he believed, he would be betraying his brother.

  But if the brothers hadn’t killed the Lavauds, who had?

  And who had attacked Marie-Luc, if it hadn’t been Jerome Karadeg or Philippe Moreau?

  There was the man who had threatened me in the courtyard, shuffling away on still-tender feet.

  Philippe? Or someone who wanted me to believe he was?

  I remembered the black lacquer box that I’d never found in the cottage. Had someone else found it, only to discover it didn’t hold what it was thought to have inside?

  I desperately needed to talk to someone. Captain Barkley? Major Vernon?

  If only Simon had had one more day in Paris.

  I put my hands over my eyes, trying to think clearly, leaning back in the chair.

  There was a twinge in my side, and I sat up straight again to ease it, remembering the patient slipping on the wet floor, and the boards from her broken arm jabbing me where I’d been wounded.

  And something fell into place in my mind.

  I nearly leapt out of my chair, standing in the middle of the room, furiously trying to remember. I had been so concerned about people that I hadn’t paid any heed to something I understood, had done since I had begun my training as a nurse.

  Marie-Luc, cut across her chest. Captain Barkley cut across his arm and chest. The thin little trickle of blood beneath the bandages at my side.

  Why had all of us been slashed in the same place? Why not stabbed in the chest or the stomach, the blade aimed at our hearts if not our throats?

  We had all been so sure it was Philippe Moreau who’d attacked us. But was it? If he’d killed before, it was likely that he’d kill again. And it would come easy to him. And yet he hadn’t.

  Or—hadn’t been able to.

  But there was nothing wrong with his arms.

  Paul Moreau had an arm in a sling. But why should he want to kill Marie-Luc?

  I put the envelope back where I had kept it all this time and picked up my coat. I was going back to the hospital to speak to Marie-Luc. I needed to know what she knew about Philippe.

  Taxis were scarce again, but I found one at last, and when we reached the hospital I asked my driver to wait.

  He grumbled, but he agreed. I got out and hurried inside, going directly to Marie-Luc’s room.

  Mercifully, she was awake, though groggy and pale, lying there like someone who had run a long race and lost. She looked up as I came in, and I smiled in greeting, wondering how to begin without stirring up memories of Jerome Karadeg.

  To my surprise, she seemed pleased to see me.

  We chatted for several minutes, about the weather, about what the doctor had told her about her side as he was doing his rounds, about the war, about Sister Claire. And then I had no choice but to come right out and ask.

  “Tell me,” I said casually, one nurse to another, “about working in Belgium with the wounded. It must have been rather difficult, with the Germans occupying most of the country.”

  “It was.” She launched into an account of trying to keep enough supplies on hand, fearful that this was all they would ever get, then told me how she felt about nursing several wounded Germans who had been brought in for treatment. I guessed that Philippe was not one of them, because she talked quite calmly about them now.

  “You told me once that you’d encountered Philippe Moreau in Belgium?” I asked then. “Wearing a German uniform. Was he one of your patients?” She’d told me before that he was standing on a street corner, but this was the best entrée into the subject that I could think of.

  Her face tightened. “Thank God. That traitor? He was not.”

  “I wonder if he was ever wounded while fighting for the Germans. It wouldn’t have done for him to fall into Allied hands.”

  “I knew how it would hurt Fräulein Theissen if she knew. I never had the heart to tell her. I was traveling through occupied territory, trying not to get myself noticed. He was standing there, laughing with a group of German officers. That was bad enough. A few minutes later, he came past in a motorcar, and he stopped one of the men walking ahead of me. I’d seen the man before, as I crossed the frontier. He began to question the man in fluent French. I heard the man call him Hauptmann Theissen. I recognized him then from pictures she had of him. She called him her best and brightest. I always wondered if she loved him best. I looked away, but he had seen me looking at him. He let the man go and then stopped me, wanting to see my papers. Thank God, they were in order. He had her eyes, and I knew then I was right. Because of that, I couldn’t look him in the face. And that made him suspicious. They kept me for two days. I was afraid to go back to Belgium after that. I found another hospital near Verdun that needed nurses. That’s how I recognized him on the street here in Paris. Or thought I had.”

  It was reason enough for Philippe Moreau to want her dead.

  But how had he found her? For that matter, how had he found me?

  I lost the thread of what she was saying. I was trying hard to think. And then I realized she’d asked a question.

  “I’m sorry?” I said.

  “I asked if you were tired. You must be. You were here most of the night.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid I am, a little. I think I missed my lunch as well. Perhaps I ought to go have a lie-down. You’re a nurse. Why do you think you were stabbed in the chest, and not the heart? Or the throat? If the intent was to kill you?”

  She frowned. “It was strange. The doctor told me I was lucky that whoever it was had been clumsy.”

  “An odd thing to say,” I agreed. “I wonder what he meant?”

  Marie-Luc ran a hand through her short hair. “It struck me at the time that he hadn’t put a hand over my mouth, to stop me from screaming.” She closed her eyes for a moment, grimacing as she relived that terrible moment. When she opened them, there were tears. “When the blood ran down my body, I thought I would surely die. I thought he had done just what he’d meant to do, cut a major artery. I say my prayers every day that I lived.”

  We said good-bye soon after that, and I left.

  All the way back to the hotel, I tried to put together everything I knew. And everyone I’d met since I’d come to Paris.

  And slowly I began to reach an unexpected conclusion. It didn’t make sense, but I could think of no other way to account for all that had happened.

  I had walked, to give myself a chance to think. Now I hailed another taxi, eager to get back to the clinic and pay a visit to Captain Barkley.

  He was sitting on the edge of his bed with a tray on his lap, toying with his food. When I came
into the ward, he looked up, saw me, and grinned. “I thought you’d forgot me,” he said, but there was relief in the comment too. After all, he’d promised my father he’d watch out for me, and instead he was confined to a bed with wounds of his own.

  I said contritely, “I’ve been tired. I’m sorry to neglect you. But there are prettier Sisters attending to your every need. I didn’t think you’d miss me.”

  “You haven’t been doing anything foolish, have you? I asked Major Vernon to keep an eye out for you. He said there was little to report.”

  Thank God for the Major’s reticence to say too much about Petite-Beauvais.

  “He’s very nice. What do you know about him?”

  “I’ve never served with him, but word gets around. You know how it is. Bright and a good man to have at your back.”

  “I’m sure he is. And Captain Broussard? He of the available motorcar. Do you know him well too?”

  “Not really, but the man who was in Paris before me—the one I was seeing off when I ran into you at the Gare—told me that if ever I needed transportation, Broussard was the chap to speak to. He’s kept his motorcar in Paris, but he seldom has time to run it.”

  “Did you tell him why you were borrowing it? And for whom?”

  “Well, of course. It was his motorcar, after all. He deserved to know how it was being used. I even asked him directions to Petite-Beauvais. Remember, I brought him here and introduced you to him.”

  “Yes. How did he lose his arm?”

  “At Verdun, I expect. It was a blood— it was a disaster. That’s how we got ourselves involved with the Somme offensive. Trying to take the pressure off Verdun before the French line collapsed under the German assault.”

  “What do you know about his background?”

  “Very little. He’s from Nice, had his motorcar down there, and as soon as he was out of hospital, he went down and brought it back. Nearly went off the road several times, trying to manage it with one arm. Imagine shifting on some of those mountain roads. As soon as the war is finished, he’s going to have it refitted for him.”

  Nice. The south of France, where the Lavauds’ son had gone to live with his aunt.

  “Do his parents still live there?”

  “I think they’re dead. You’ll have to ask Anderson or someone. They might know.” He frowned. “Why this sudden interest in Broussard?”

  I shrugged. “He’s been very kind about lending out his motorcar.”

  “I can tell you, he probably won’t allow you to drive it. You’ll have to wait until I’m well enough to escort you.”

  “Of course. Is he an only child?” At the Captain’s raised eyebrows, I added, “If he had sisters, he might feel differently about women driving.”

  “No idea. He came to see me, you know. Last evening. I was still in a great deal of pain, and I wasn’t good company.”

  Came to see the results of his handiwork? Unwilling to wait to read of our deaths in a newspaper?

  I said, “How kind of him.”

  “Yes, he’s one of the few Frenchmen I’ve liked.”

  I rose. “You seem to be feeling much better. I’m glad.”

  “I’ve been after the doctor to let me out of here. But he says another day. He has to be watchful for infection. A bit of my shirt was driven into the arm wound.”

  I said good-bye, promised to look in again later, and went up to the Nursery.

  A man with one arm, I was thinking as I climbed the stairs, would have a problem with balance. He couldn’t use the force of his other shoulder to counterbalance a knife thrust into someone’s body. What’s more, he couldn’t allow anyone to notice that he had only one arm. And so he’d come in from the side, where the power of his good shoulder could drive the weapon home.

  He hadn’t been able to put one hand over Marie-Luc’s mouth because he was stabbing her . . .

  I stood in the middle of the room and tested my theory, nearly falling as I held one arm tightly against my side and thrust with the other. Too high, and he was off balance. To the side, he still had control. That’s why he’d caught the Captain and me just coming out the restaurant door. The facade behind us held us in place, well positioned for his attack. He couldn’t have accomplished it out in the open. Not two people.

  All well and good. But how to prove any of it?

  I paced the floor, thinking.

  There was one possibility. It was dangerous, but it could work.

  I went down the stairs in search of Madame Ezay. And then I went to speak to Captain Barkley.

  It occurred to me to speak to the doctors first.

  They agreed that a gentle outing would not harm the Captain.

  “I promise to bring him back safely,” I said, smiling. “But he’s restless, and it might cheer him up.”

  “The food will be no better than it is here,” Matron told me.

  “Perhaps he won’t notice,” I said, and she smiled in return.

  After that I went to speak to the Captain. He was in the worst of moods, and as I chatted with him, I realized that he was worried about something.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he said, turning away. “Everything. Being pinned to this bed is enough to drive any man mad.”

  “Then I have a proposal. I’m inviting you to dine with me tonight.”

  “I haven’t been allowed to walk as far as the dining room.”

  “At a restaurant. I hear there’s one near here that Captain Broussard favors. Do you know it? Will you escort me?”

  His mouth twisted. “Only if you smuggle me out of here.”

  “I’ll do just that. Is the food any good, do you think? Or is there a pretty girl working there?” I teased. “Is the captain in love?”

  Captain Barkley laughed. “Both. She’s the daughter of the owner, and since her mother’s death from influenza, she greets diners and seats them. As for the food, the owner has a farm near Lyon. And the chef can work miracles. So I’m told.”

  “Then I must go there. I’m so tired of carrots and onions and turnips.”

  He studied me, suspicious. “Are you up to something?”

  “I’m feeling much better. I think Matron and the doctors are planning to discharge me. I expect it’s a celebration.”

  He was only half convinced, but I rattled on, and in the end he agreed to take me to La Porte d’Or. The Golden Door.

  I had only to speak to Madame Ezay now. And after she had accompanied me to the hospital to see Marie-Luc, I was rather afraid she might have second thoughts about what I was going to ask of her.

  Instead she greeted my suggestion with a quick embrace. “I have lived a very dull life until now. I am more than curious about this business. Will you tell me why you are doing this?”

  I explained as best I could, and she nodded as she listened. “I don’t think there will be any danger for you,” I finished. “But you never know.”

  “I shall need something more à la mode than this,” she said, looking down at the rusty black of her uniform. “But I will manage. My sister will help me. She lives not too far away. Tonight?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “I must speak to those in the kitchen. I am to help prepare the meal.”

  And what if the staff said no? I couldn’t cause trouble for her.

  “If they give you any trouble, tell me. It can be another night.” But I wasn’t convinced of that. I was feeling a sense of urgency. Duplessis might be making an arrest at any moment.

  That urgency wasn’t helped by an encounter with Matron as I was going up the stairs.

  “Sister Crawford? A word.”

  “Yes, Matron?” I turned and went back down to follow her to her small office, feeling like a schoolgirl caught in the act. She wouldn’t appreciate what I had been up to, and I could very easily be given my marching orders sooner than I’d planned.

  “You are fully recovered, if you can venture out as often as you do. Yes,” she went
on as I was about to speak, “I have had a word with the orderlies on the desk. To their credit, they were reluctant to answer me. I think it’s time you return to duty as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, Matron,” I said, praying as I did that it wouldn’t be tonight. Or tomorrow.

  “There is a convoy of patients coming in tomorrow evening. I wish you to be ready to accompany the ambulance back to Rouen. You will find your orders waiting for you there, and transport to your next post.”

  “Thank you, Matron,” I said.

  And then she stunned me by asking, “What is it that you’ve been up to, Sister Crawford? Policemen coming here, your leaving and returning at odd hours . . . If you are involved in anything rash, I should be told.”

  “Unfortunately, I became involved after the stabbing of a French nun. As she knew no one else in Paris, I was sent for when she was ill. Sadly the man who was to be charged for this crime drowned himself in the Seine. The police were not able to question him, and there is some doubt still that he was indeed the man they were after.”

  Matron was no fool. “Did this have anything to do with the attack on Captain Barkley? You were uncertain when I spoke to you before.”

  “The man who attacked Sister Marie-Luc was dead by the time the Captain was stabbed.”

  “I see. We don’t encourage our staff to involve themselves in the affairs of civilians. As a rule, I strongly agree with that policy. But if the nun was alone and ill, I can appreciate your wishing to care for her.”

  “She had left her convent to nurse the wounded. She has worked in Belgium and Verdun and Boulogne.”

  “Ah. That’s clear then. Thank you, Sister Crawford. Be prepared to leave tomorrow night.”

  I was dismissed. Outside the door I allowed myself to breathe again. Matron, whoever might be serving in that position, had the power to send me back to England for punishment if I broke the very strict rules of the Queen Alexandra’s. It was one reason we were held in high esteem. The other was our training and our discipline.

  I was hurrying back to the stairs when the outer door was flung back so hard that it slammed against the wall.