by Charles Todd
“There is more,” I said quietly, as the nuns went ahead and I pushed her chair. “I spoke with Monsieur Karadeg this morning. When you saw Jerome, it wasn’t a gift from God. He’d slipped into the hospital to speak to you, only you were so heavily sedated you didn’t realize it. His parents claimed a body taken from the river. It wasn’t their son. They wanted the police to believe he was dead, and then they took him to Brittany with the body of that stranger to be buried in their son’s place.”
She was still fragile. “Are you very sure?” she asked, closing her eyes, as if afraid to read my answer in my face. “Don’t lie to me, in the name of God.”
“I haven’t lied to you.” I thought she was going to weep then, but she dashed away the tears, and calling to Sister Claire, she asked again to be taken to the chapel. “I will say a prayer for him. And for the man pulled from the river.”
I said, as we moved down the passage, “There’s something more. The police have found the killer of the Lavaud family. It was their own son.”
Frowning, she said, “Are you sure of that?”
“It seems very likely to Inspector Duplessis. You remember him.”
“No, I can’t believe it. They must be wrong.”
I walked as far as the chapel with her, but I couldn’t convince her of Philippe Moreau’s innocence.
Making my way back through the busy corridors, I thought to myself that it would take more than a confession from Captain Broussard to persuade her. For she had seen Philippe Moreau in Belgium, with German officers. She was prepared to believe anything against him.
At the clinic, I packed my belongings, readying them for the evening, then went downstairs for my lunch. I’d missed breakfast completely. On my way, I stopped to return the pin and the scarf that I had worn last night.
I found Major Anderson in the dining room, just sitting down to his own meal.
“Have you heard?” he asked almost at once. “Captain Broussard has been arrested. It’s unbelievable news. There was a to-do at a restaurant last night, and the police took him into custody.”
“What is the charge?” I asked, unfolding my napkin and putting it across my lap.
“That’s just it. No one seems to know.”
“How did you hear about this?”
“One of his friends sent a message. Broussard’s motorcar was still standing outside the door of the restaurant this morning. He went inside and found one of the waiters, who told him that there had been an altercation, and the police had come.”
“It sounds quite serious,” I said, wishing for butter for the tough slice of toast just set down by my plate.
My mind was still on what to do about Philippe Moreau, and I was listening now with half my attention until the Major said, “I must go to the bank in a bit. I’m running out of francs. Can I change money for you?”
“What? Thank you, but no, Major, I’ll be leaving this evening, according to Matron.”
“Lucky you,” he said, smiling ruefully. “I shall miss you, you know. And you’ve never finished that book.”
“I hope someone else will.”
He left, and I was alone with my thoughts, shutting out the voices around me, the clink of cutlery and china, the footsteps of the staff.
The bank.
What had become of the sums that Fräulein Theissen had collected from Captain Broussard?
From the look of the cottage, she had been comfortable enough in her retirement, but it had been a simple life. Commensurate with the income she must have made over the years as the governess to families with young children. What had she done with the money she had been paid for her silence?
There was nothing in the envelope I’d taken. No bank book, no will with directions to deal with her estate. Had she not wanted to keep it? Had she only wanted to punish Captain Broussard?
I couldn’t believe that. She had had a reason to stoop to blackmail, surely. If she couldn’t prove her case against the real killer, she could at least make him aware, every day of his life, that someone else had such power over him that she could ruin him in an instant.
And where ought the money to go?
To the child she had brought with her from Alsace and given up to a better life.
But where was this money? Had she sent it on to Philippe Moreau? Kept it safely for him if he should ever be cleared? Given it to him on his last visit?
Who would know—who would Juliane Theissen believe she could trust?
Marie-Luc?
But she had taught the nun that Philippe was all that was said about him, in order to protect him. To let the world think that she believed it too.
A bank? But how would Philippe know where to find it, much less to claim it?
The priest, Father Robert. Who probably knew more about Philippe than anyone else alive, now that Fräulein Theissen was dead, and Madame Moreau. Who would be honor bound to keep the secrets of the confessional at any price.
A priest who had been so anxious every time we spoke to him. Was he fearful that we might be hunting for that money?
Of course, it had to be him!
Leaving my meal unfinished, I got up, forced myself to walk sedately from the dining room, and then took the stairs at speed. Catching up my coat and my gloves and a woolen hat I’d been given by a villager at home who had knitted it “for the dear Sister Crawford,” I left the clinic and almost stepped in front of a taxi I wanted to stop.
Giving the address of The Golden Door, I sat back, silently urging him to hurry. Would it be there? Had someone already dealt with it for the Captain?
But no, when we turned the nearest corner, I could see the motorcar still parked in front of the restaurant like a deserted ship. I shoved my cap in my coat pocket and pulled the woolen one over my hair. There were enough pseudo-uniforms in the city that no one would take notice of my coat.
I stopped the taxi driver, paid him, and thanked him, then watched him out of sight before I went down the street to the motorcar.
The restaurant was closed until five in the afternoon. So proclaimed a discreet sign in a window.
I turned the crank and got into the motorcar without looking to see who might be watching. As if I had every right to be there. And then I was off toward the Champs with apparent calm, turning into a side street as soon as I could.
There was sufficient petrol. I found a place where I could leave the motorcar safely, then went looking for Philippe Moreau. I sat in the cold wind for an hour in my accustomed place at the café, telling myself that he wouldn’t come. He would avoid me now after our confrontation in the alley.
But there he was, suddenly, across the street. He hadn’t been there—then a lorry had crawled by—and he was standing in the doorway of a shop. Watching me.
I left my table and the cup of coffee that had enabled me to sit there for so long, and set out across the street. A taxi narrowly missed me, blowing its horn, the driver shouting at me out his window, but I kept my eyes on the man in uniform, for fear he was going to bolt.
“You must come with me,” I said urgently. “I have a motorcar. This way.”
“Come where?”
“I’ll explain on the way.”
It took ten minutes of persuasion, but in the end he followed me to the motorcar, walking four paces behind, still wary of a trick. Then, as I turned the crank, he said, “Where are we going?”
“There’s something you ought to know. I’m taking you to Petite-Beauvais.”
“No. I don’t want to go back there.”
“If you don’t, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life,” I said, impatient now to be on our way before some passing French officer recognized this motorcar and stopped to ask questions.
I thought he was going to refuse. But in the end, he said, “Move over. I’ll drive.”
“I can drive, you know,” I said, affronted.
“It will attract less attention if I do,” he retorted, and I knew he was right.
We traveled out of Pa
ris in silence, wary of policemen and officers and the possibility of being seen and reported. But on the open road, I told him what Fräulein Theissen had done.
“If I’m to be shot as a spy, why are you telling me this?” he demanded.
“Because she wanted you to have it. It might pay for your lawyers.”
“I don’t need any lawyers.”
“Then it will pay for a nice tombstone.”
We said nothing for a number of miles.
“Why do you trust me?” he asked then. “This road is all but deserted. I could kill you now, toss your body in that ditch just ahead of us, and who would know?”
I had also brought with me the little pistol that Simon had once given me.
“I was there when you were found. I was there when you spoke in German at the base hospital. I know you were court-martialed. I know too that you were seen in a German uniform on a street in Belgium. But the money ought to be yours. I’m leaving tonight. I won’t be back in Paris. The French Army will find you eventually. What happens to you then will probably depend on how magnanimous they feel.”
“Then turn me in. There must be a reward.”
Stung, I said, “I don’t want a reward. We probably saved your life at the aid station that night. The base hospital nursed you back to health. I have done my duty. I found you in Paris, against all the odds. I have helped to show that you weren’t a monster, as Marie-Luc thought. I expect you have nowhere else to turn, or you wouldn’t have met me again.”
“It’s true,” he said, and pulled to the side of the road.
Alarmed, I felt in my pocket for my pistol. I was a good shot. I wouldn’t miss at this range. For an instant I wondered if perhaps he would prefer to be dead.
“All right. Do you want the truth? I’ll give it you. I escaped to Alsace, with some help from Juliane. When the war started, I didn’t want to be drafted into the German Army. I came back to France, and using my name from before I was adopted by the Moreau family, I enlisted as Karl Theissen. Somehow the French Army discovered I was an escaped murderer. They told me I could go back to Paris and stand trial. Or I could spy for them in Germany. We faked the court martial, to give me a reason for fleeing to the Germans. I took some secrets with me to buy my way into their confidence and helped two German officers escape. It was touch and go—which side would shoot me first. But in the end the Germans were desperate for good officers, I was Alsatian, and I spoke fluent German. More than half their sergeants had been killed, and there were no replacements. Still, they nearly broke through to Paris this past winter. That was touch and go as well. I did what I was ordered to do, and I found ways to send information back. Truces to find the wounded and recover the dead. Signals. You wouldn’t believe how inventive I was, because I knew they’d betray me to the Germans if I failed.” He took a deep breath. “The war is finished, all but finding a way to end it. I was afraid I’d be abandoned. I didn’t want to be sent to Berlin with the rest of the Germans. But I knew if I told the French where I was, there was a good chance they’d hand me over to the police to stand trial for the Lavaud murders. I’ve got no home, you see. I don’t belong in Alsace, if it stays German. I won’t belong there if it comes out that I spied for France. I don’t belong in France. I don’t—I can’t—trust anyone. Even you. And yet I couldn’t stand the loneliness any longer.”
I listened in growing horror. Was he lying to me? Or was he telling the truth?
“How did you live? With no money, no friends, no help?”
He smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “I begged on street corners in old clothes I found in a dustbin. It was the only way. It barely kept me alive, but I was grateful to those who dropped a few sous or a few francs into my cap.”
Dear God.
If only I could find Simon, or the Colonel. If only I could decide if this was the truth or if he was a master at manipulating it.
“Drive on,” I said finally. “I must be back in London by this evening, or Matron will send out a search party.”
He looked at me for a moment longer, and then let in the clutch and drove on.
We found Father Robert at his devotionals, and I waited quietly in the back of the little church for him to finish. At last he came up the aisle to where I was standing, and he said, “I wish I knew why you persecute me this way.”
“I don’t,” I said. “I’ve come to ask a favor of you. Did you keep secrets for Fräulein Theissen?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“Then here is someone who may be able to ask—and receive an answer.” I opened the church door, and Philippe Moreau stepped inside.
The two men stared at each other.
“You’ve aged, Father,” Philippe said.
“I am not sure I know you.”
“You should. When I was a child you protected me once from my mother’s wrath.”
“When you had taken Paul riding, and he was thrown. I have never seen any woman so angry,” Father Robert said slowly, searching the face of the tall man in front of him.
“I didn’t know then. I didn’t understand. But she must have thought I’d deliberately tried to kill him.”
“Yes. I knew better. So did your father. You loved your brother.”
“I thought he was my brother. Until much, much later.”
“Why are you wearing an American uniform? I don’t understand.”
“A long story. I won’t be wearing it much longer.”
“You have your mother’s eyes,” the priest said after a moment. “I should have seen that straightaway. Forgive me, my son. Come with me to the rectory.”
“I can’t. I don’t want to be seen. I was not here for Juliane’s burial. While I waited in the church porch, I went out to look for her grave. There’s no stone.”
“It has been ordered. It will come.” He asked us to excuse him for a moment and left us standing in the cold church.
Philippe looked around him, remembering. Too much? I wondered.
He said, “I used to imagine, sitting here, what was in store for me. Even though I was the eldest, I knew the house and land belonged to Paul. That was made clear to me early on. That he must have them, but I would be taken care of. My father would take me for long walks and talk to me about that. That I would always be safe. I believed him.”
I said nothing, looking up at the beams in the shadows of the vaulting above our heads.
After a time, the priest came back, and in his hands he held a black lacquer box. “I was to give this to no one but you, my son. It has been a grave responsibility. There was a time when I wondered if it was beyond my power to carry out.”
Philippe took the box, started to open it, and instead walked a little way toward the altar. With his back to us, he sorted through the contents, reading some bits, setting others aside. I heard him clear his throat once or twice, as if moved.
When he finally came back to us, he said, “I can’t keep this money.”
“You can,” I replied, before Father Robert could speak. “It is a small recompense for your suffering.” Possibly not what my mother would have told him, but he was penniless now, and he would need it.
He refused to argue, but he thanked Father Robert for his stewardship, and gave him some money for care of the grave of Juliane Theissen. And then we left.
“You’re a fool,” I said, “if you don’t keep it.”
But he was standing there on the church porch, looking toward the house where he’d grown up. Then he turned toward Fräulein Theissen’s cottage and said, “I came once or twice to that cottage. In the dead of night, like a thief. She met me in Paris once. That was all the time we had.”
He stood there a moment longer, his expression sad, then roused himself and said, “We must go.”
He drove out of Petite-Beauvais without looking back. We didn’t speak for a while. Then he said, “What am I to do?”
“How’s your Flemish?”
He turned to stare at me, nearly missing a bend in the roa
d and rocking the motorcar as he recovered in time. “I speak German. It’s not so very different.”
“How would you like to become a Belgian soldier in the British Army?”
He shook his head. “You mustn’t laugh at me.”
“I’m not. If you want to leave France, I can arrange it. I think.”
“No. This is my country. Whatever happens, I must stay. And fight, if I can.”
It was the ultimate test. And he’d passed it.
“You need to speak to Captain Barkley,” I said, and wouldn’t tell him why.
Chapter Nineteen
Captain Barkley, sitting in a chair in the library, was furiously angry.
“I won’t do it,” he said. “Bess—you don’t understand. This was the man I was sent to Paris to find. Matron at the base hospital contacted Army HQ and they decided to send me to Paris because no one would think an American was looking for him.”
“She didn’t tell me what she’d done,” I said, equally angry. “She told me not to be concerned. Otherwise, I’d have left it to the Army. I’d have left him to the Army.”
“You’re not an officer in the Army.”
“But I am. I have comparable rank.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Isn’t it? Matron would never have known about this man if I hadn’t told her. I should have been told. After all, I found him, didn’t I? And you used me as well; you pretended to be helping me to keep my father happy, and all the while you were letting me discover what you couldn’t find out on your own. It’s unconscionable.”
“I didn’t have much choice, Bess, and you have to believe that. But I won’t be a party to this.”
“Then I’ll ask Major Vernon. He’s an Intelligence officer.”
“Great God, Bess, will you leave it alone? Why do you believe this man is innocent?”
“This man, as you call me, is sitting right here,” Philippe Moreau put in. “I have a say in this matter.”
