Bellringer

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘And was there?’ asked St-Cyr.

  Was he not the more dangerous of the two? ‘Things like more firewood or even coal if possible for their stoves, or perhaps could he allow another visit from the maid of a roommate. There was a girl in Mary-Lynn’s room whose maid had been left to look after that one’s flat in Paris on the avenue Henri-Martin and but a few steps from the Bois de Boulogne and lovely, if I do say so myself. There were, I believe, several very valuable antiques and paintings this Jennifer Hamilton had purchased for wealthy clients in America but had been unable to ship due to the hostilities, so she was, understandably, concerned and had asked Mary-Lynn to speak to the Colonel on her behalf.’

  Jennifer Hamilton of Room 3–54 the Vittel-Palace, and if this one wasn’t well informed, who was? wondered Kohler.

  ‘Her family in Boston have been dealing in European art and antiques for over forty years, inspectors. The girl is really quite shy and very nervous, or so I have been given to understand. Mary-Lynn was simply trying to help her. Things can be so very confusing for the young when they’re away from home only to then find themselves locked up in a place like this for years on end perhaps, who knows? Caroline Lacy and this Jennifer Hamilton had become good friends and would visit back and forth. Nothing untoward, I assure you, though girls of such a tender age as Caroline sometimes welcome the reinforcement of the physical contact and warmth of another who is a little older.’

  And uh-oh, was that it, eh? thought Kohler, since up to now they’d been given to understand that Caroline had had to visit this building and its British to find someone to talk to, but the doors to the inner sanctum had been softly opened, the wraiths appearing.

  ‘Ah! A little refreshment, inspectors. A choice of chamomile or a particularly delightful tisane of hibiscus leaves and rose hips, sweetened with a touch of honey.’

  ‘Courtesy of Sergeant Senghor, Louis.’

  ‘And Brother Étienne, Hermann.’

  And no mention of the datura, thought Élizabeth, but a taste strong enough to mask it—was Herr Kohler not wondering this?

  ‘I think I’ll pass, Louis.’

  ‘Sleep calls, Madame Chevreul.’

  ‘It’s understandable. You have had a long and what must have been tiring day but surely a cupful will not hurt?’

  ‘There is just one thing,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Have you yourself lost anything to this kleptomaniac?’

  ‘Me? Why. . . ’

  Instinctively she had touched the base of her throat and instinctively they had known the answer, which could not, unfortunately, remain totally hidden. ‘Why, yes, I have, but it’s of no consequence save only that it unites me more with those who have suffered such losses.’

  ‘And the item, madame, just for the record?’

  Must St-Cyr be so persistent? ‘I have already forgotten it.’

  But has Cérès? ‘For now then, madame, bonne nuit. The morning will come soon enough.’

  ‘But you’ve not partaken of your refreshment?’

  ‘Another time,’ said Louis. ‘It’ll save us from getting up during the rest of the night.’

  The room was pleasant and totally unexpected. Tucked away in a far, third-floor corner of the camp hospital, the former villa of two doctors of thermal medicine, it had not only comfortable beds and a welcome fire in its grate, but warmed bricks tucked in under the covers at the foot of each bed and an unopened, unheard-of bottle of cognac, a Bisquit Napoléon.

  ‘Pure gold, Louis.’

  ‘And two unopened packets of Pall Malls. A wonderful welcome, mon vieux.’ That is, Is someone trying to buy us?

  ‘Liebe Zeit, let’s enjoy a sip and light up.’ Or simply loosen our tongues?

  Hermann indicated silence. Both began to search, and when they found the microphone placed behind a framed print of a Vittel demoiselle taking the waters circa 1894, they left it exactly where it was.

  ‘In the morning, Louis, I’d best fill Untersturmführer Weber in on things. We’re going to need all the help he can give us.’

  ‘But for now let’s get some sleep. Mon Dieu, I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.’

  Pillows were thumped, a mattress sighed. A cork was pulled, glasses were clinked, a match struck, and an appreciative sigh given as Louis went over to the blackout drapes and, indicating that this partner of his should switch off the light, opened them and silently felt about until he had what he wanted.

  Together, bundled against the night and with bottle, glasses, and cigarettes in hand, they slipped out onto the porch to softly close the doors behind them.

  ‘There are fifteen of these villas, Hermann. All but a few were built in 1930 along the same chalet lines, though this one is larger and earlier, 1899 if I remember it clearly. Terraces, sunrooms, and porches forced the curiste, during his twenty-one-day course of treatment to take the infrequent sun.’

  ‘When not busy chasing his mistress or downing that damned water with her?’

  Cigarettes were enjoyed, the glasses given more than a splash while above them the stars were out, and were it not for the degrees of frost, the night would have been fine.

  ‘You or me, Louis?’

  ‘Me, I think.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘An elevator gate that must have been closed in September 1939 and padlocked late in ’42 when the Americans were moved in, is unlocked and left open and yet only Caroline Lacy claims it wasn’t an accident? She insists that she saw what happened yet suffers from night blindness and a shortage of breath that has made her panic.’

  ‘And claims that she was to have been the intended victim.’

  ‘Only to be silenced a week later, Hermann. Surely all others in the Vittel-Palace must have known it was no accident?’

  ‘Were they afraid to say it was murder, Louis? Mrs. Parker did come up to calm them. Even she stated it was an accident.’

  ‘But did they agree to say that, and if so, was it out of fear of making life far more difficult for themselves?’

  ‘Since Weber would have turned the place upside down and found someone to accuse, even if the wrong person.’

  ‘Ah, bon, it’s possible they all felt it was murder, Hermann, yet were afraid to state this, except for Caroline who might just have been obstinate.’

  ‘But who then made an even bigger nuisance of herself only to become a corpse that was then tidied.’

  ‘Which brings us to Madame Chevreul, who wishes us to concentrate our efforts on Jennifer Hamilton, roommate of Mary-Lynn Allan and close friend of Caroline Lacy.’

  ‘While Mrs. Parker, patently forgetting about Jennifer, suggests we look elsewhere, namely the Grand, since Caroline had few if any friends in the Vittel-Palace and had been shunned.’

  The cognac was infinitely smooth, the two of them leaning on the railing to look out over the darkened polo grounds and racetrack.

  ‘The one lives the dream of being the mouthpiece of Cérès, Hermann.’

  ‘And unless I’m mistaken, the other fancies herself as having come from the family that make the world’s foremost fountain pens.’

  ‘Caroline Lacy lived the dream of being a prima donna and badgered everyone about it who would listen.’

  ‘While her governess, Louis, dreamt and still dreams of what?’

  ‘A dog-eared photo from 1910 of a villa in Provence, better ones in her suitcase but none from beyond that date.’

  There had also been a photo of Pétain on that wall above her bed and a map of France that hadn’t even recognized the Defeat. ‘A governess who thought that girl’s asthma was nothing more than a state of mind,’ said Hermann, who, as a former prisoner of war, instinctively cupped his cigarette in hand to hide even that tiny glow.

  ‘Yet insisted Brother Étienne, the visiting monk, provide an overabundance of datura seeds, from which she dutifully ground a little powder to mix with the dried and shredded leaves and stems.’

  ‘Before rolling them into the cigarettes that girl could not have done witho
ut. Roommate Becky Torrence claims Caroline was very upset and in tears when she came back to their room and began to search for her cigarettes, Louis. Becky turned on the light and tried to calm her while Jill Faber found them. Though she at first avoided admitting it, Becky followed Caroline out into the corridor to help her. Oh for sure, both heard Mary-Lynn fall, but was Becky really the friend in distress? And where, please, was Madame de Vernon while all of this was going on?’

  ‘Two victims, Hermann, the one claiming she was the intended and that the first killing definitely wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘Even getting someone to arrange a meeting for her with one of the sénégalais. It has to have been one of those boys, Louis. A note in French and then in Deutsch.’

  ‘But not translated by Mary-Lynn, who spoke German so fluently the former Kommandant had offered to help make her life a little easier, and perhaps that too of Jennifer Hamilton.’

  Whose flat in Paris was full of client antiques and artwork, and whose maid was looking after things and visited her when allowed. ‘But did the killer make a mistake, Louis, and compound it with the second killing?’

  ‘Madame Chevreul having warned that first victim to take great care.’

  ‘And having enhanced her reputation by that one’s death, she then sends an invitation to the second, telling her to bring what she had but not telling us a damned thing more.’

  Their glasses were refreshed. Another cigarette was found and shared. Louis would be longing for a little pipe tobacco. ‘That juju woman has power well beyond her celestial orbit. Those skirmishers of yours were afraid of her and you know it.’

  ‘Wallpaper, Hermann. Why use that to light a stove when collabo newsprint from Paris is clearly available?’

  ‘And whatever Léa wants, Léa gets.’

  ‘But not golf balls, which must have come from over there. Beyond the racetrack, there’s a golf course and beside it, the Hôtel de l’Ermitage that was built in 1929 to offer luxury in excess even to that of the Grand, only to find the Great Depression on its doorstep and then, after but a few years, this war and Occupation.’

  ‘Mothballed, is it?’

  ‘Certainly it is well on the other side of the wire that encircles the landscaped parts of the Parc Thermal that are open to the inmates, and that has to mean it’s out of bounds for them but not necessarily to our Senegalese, since Colonel Kessler must have gone there with one or two of them to get his golf balls.’

  Again they paused, both warming their cognac by cupping the glass in hand, Hermann even blowing cigarette smoke into his.

  ‘A truck driver from Limehouse, Louis.’

  ‘Madame Léa Monnier wearing jewellery as if she was a safe deposit box.’

  ‘She’d have spent time at Besançon.’

  Where, on December sixth, 1940, the British females, almost four thousand of them who had been rounded up by the French police, had been housed in the old brick military barracks that had been vacated but a few days before by a division of the Army of the Armistice, who had mistakenly thought the Wehrmacht were to be moving in and had wrecked the place.*

  No heat, no window glass, and no plumbing, to say nothing of the absence of food and water in the first few days. Latrine trenches, then. . . there had only been three of them, and in winter who could have dug others? And that, why, that had left the courtyard to be used even during the blizzards that would have hit the plateau.

  ‘The old, the young, the very young, Hermann. It’s a cross we all have to bear, not just me.’

  ‘You weren’t to blame, and neither was I. We didn’t even know about it until later that month.’

  ‘Ah, oui, oui, Inspector, but their graves are witness and I must go there someday to pay my respects.’

  ‘Don’t take it so hard. Our Léa’s a survivor.’

  ‘As is Madame Chevreul, who claims she came to France as a nurse, but when exactly, and from where? What family? What circumstance? There is something about that woman that isn’t quite right, Hermann. Wealth, breeding, and a good education, yet she chooses as her henchwoman one with whom she can have absolutely nothing in common?’

  ‘Did our truck driver become an ambulance driver in that other war?’

  It had happened lots of times. ‘Did they meet en route only to lose contact for all the intervening years and then find themselves together again in Besançon? Interred, the two of them, but whereas the one now wears a fortune, the other doesn’t even wear her wedding ring yet speaks fondly of undying love and a departed husband who left her his family home and Percherons.’

  ‘Six hundred francs, Louis. That’s all they were allowed to keep on arrival.’

  ‘Watches and jewellery. . . Shouldn’t they have been handed over and put into safekeeping on receipt of the usual piece of paper?’

  ‘Maybe Colonel Kessler felt he’d have a riot on his hands.’

  ‘Both at Besançon and here, Hermann? Perhaps, but some items being handed over and others not?’

  ‘Those last having been kept hidden.’

  ‘That still doesn’t explain the blatant display.’

  ‘To which others were definitely silent, but afraid to mention it for fear of Léa beating them to a pulp?’

  Ash was flicked, their glasses drained. ‘Perhaps, Hermann. Perhaps.’

  ‘Things have been stolen. Little things, not the big and the obvious.’

  ‘Items so insignificant to male eyes we couldn’t possibly realize that they could well have been the essence of cherished female memories no matter the coarseness of their former owners. Why make a point of saying such a thing?’

  ‘And when asked, Louis, admit to having suffered such a loss herself but having forgotten entirely what it was.’

  ‘Another splash, mon vieux. Just a touch to wet the throat.’

  ‘Four splashes. Weber might decide to remove the bottle tomorrow.’

  ‘Ah, bon, merci. Now, where were we? Madame Chevreul gets us to accept that for her to differentiate between a suspect and that one’s anonymous accuser, she must place both among the sitters while asking Cérès to speak through her, thereby disclaiming all responsibility.’

  It had to be asked. ‘Have they been holding secret trials?’

  ‘Indirectly she did ask us to understand that she had no other choice but to look into the matter.’

  ‘Since she had lost a little something herself, Louis! Now tell me where Nora and Mary-Lynn went after that final séance and why our trapper didn’t bother to enlighten us. An hour and a half. Drunk and hallucinating—that much Nora did tell me, Jill Faber claiming Mary-Lynn was the drunker, Nora insisting that she was and that she couldn’t remember a thing, but obviously could.’

  ‘And was very afraid, Hermann, and thinking she was the intended victim—is that it? She knew where that spare key to Madame de Vernon’s suitcase was kept and had looked into that little box well before I did, had known there had originally been three of the seed capsules.’

  ‘But who needs one of those when there’s a handy elevator shaft and a pitchfork that’s been branded by the First American Army?’

  It was a soldier’s breakfast, if one who was under fire could ever be so lucky, and served piping hot at 0610 hours in the casino’s canteen: Schmalzbrot und Stammgericht—black bread with lard spread on it—before salting, and the dish of the day, a viscous soup of potatoes, potato flour, lard, salt, and suggestions of questionable meat.

  Weber was already having a cigarette; Louis had wisely stayed behind.

  ‘Golf and the clay pigeons, Kohler? Attending séances? Mein Gott, what was I to have done? Colonel Kessler was all too familiar with the enemy. Berlin were not pleased.’

  ‘The murder of Mary-Lynn Allan finished him off, did it? A girl in different circumstances?’

  ‘Ach, you use the polite term for pregnant? That damned whore repeatedly opened her legs. She spoke our language. She knew books and Colonel Kessler loved to talk of them with her because she also gave him the oppor
tunity to polish his English. A coffee, a glass of wine in his office; strolls, too, in the park, and visits to the dentist in town? I tell you, Kohler, when that one claimed he couldn’t come here as required, Colonel Kessler took her in his own car, himself behind the wheel and knowing the prisoners were never allowed to leave the camp unless under orders from Berlin!’

  There was more, and Kohler was waiting for it with bread and spoon poised as he should.

  ‘That monk he favoured tried to help her, but is it that Colonel Kessler told him what to do, Kohler? Milk, cheese, eggs, soap, herbs, and honey—always that monk had a little something for that girl. Had he been paid to bring her things that the others couldn’t afford? Things the child might need in the womb?’

  And if that wasn’t a hint, what was, the bread being sour, the soup bringing but memories of that other war and idiots like this. ‘Your superior officer did say Brother Étienne was harmless.’

  ‘A homosexual is harmless?’

  Must he be so shrill? ‘When Colonel Kessler telephoned the Kommandant von Gross-Paris, he mentioned a bell ringer.’

  ‘Ach, I thought so. The brother rings the order’s bell for vespers.’

  Again the Kripo waited like a dog for its master to tell it to continue eating. ‘He also oversees their dairy, Kohler. Endless vats of milk, cream, and whey. Butter and cheeses, the Port-du-Salut those people call it, and the Camembert.’

  ‘Is he into soap as well?’

  ‘And the black market, you ask?’

  ‘I’m just filling in details.’

  ‘Then keep in mind that we’re going to get the monk on that charge if needed.’

  And from three to five years of forced labour, if lucky. Weber was a dyed-in-the-wool Nazi who looked like a heavyset schoolmaster, boyish even at the age of thirty-two, the light brown hair cut in military style, the big hands folded on the table as at a high-level conference, the gaze not only steadfastly watchful but accusative, the world at large always being distrusted. The jaw was bony and prominent in defiance, the frown permanent, the look perpetually wounded, so one had best ask, ‘Does the brother also bring things for the Senegalese?’