Bellringer

by J. Robert Janes

  She would put it into the lower right corner. ‘All Caroline really knew was that he had come from a very wealthy family in Barre, Vermont.’

  ‘Tombstones and polished granite slabs for monuments and buildings.’

  ‘Maybe his is in one of the graveyards in town—Caroline did wonder, and taking a chance, even asked some of the women who came in to do laundry in the afternoons and offered to pay them if they’d find out for her. If you ask me, Caroline thought he wasn’t any good, Inspector—that he had run off to Paris as a young man, to the girls, the fun, the booze, and the drugs. Too much money, too little sense. It happens all the time. You must have seen it lots.’

  ‘And the gambling, mademoiselle?’ he asked as the ball hit the floor and went into the upper-left corner.

  ‘She thought that too, since after he had sold the villa, he must have then lost the whole bundle. He did join up in 1917 and was wounded on 29 September, 1918, and sent here to recover—that much Caroline was pretty sure of.’

  ‘Only to die in 1920 in a fire, mademoiselle?’

  On 17 July of that year. ‘Caroline didn’t know but wanted to find out, I think.’

  ‘And you have been trying to piece it together.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you if you were bored out of your skull in a place like this? All the records were lost. The debts, the names. I’ll bet arson was suspected, but I don’t know. Caroline might have whispered that to Jennifer, since she confided everything to her. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘And Madame de Vernon is aware of this?’ he asked, she having stopped the ball only to throw it again and again.

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Then Jennifer Hamilton is also a target—is this what you think?’

  The ball couldn’t be stopped now. ‘I haven’t had a chance to talk to her. Things have been happening too quickly.’

  ‘But it’s possible?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Did the couple have a falling out?’

  ‘Caroline was upset after Mary-Lynn fell, but then so were the rest of us. . . and still are.’

  A cautious answer. ‘Is Jennifer the thief, mademoiselle?’

  ‘Jen? If she thought I felt that way she would be here now, facing right up to me.’

  ‘Perhaps, but you are also hiding too much. Is Herr Weber aware of this?’

  The ball was missed! ‘That Nazihund, that bastard? He’s pointed me out three times in the lineups we have, chooses one here, another there, then I’ve had to wait for hours outside that damned office of his. Twice while Caroline was in there being grilled—the poor thing coming out in tears. Once while Jen was in there, then he showed me a spread of the anonymous letters he had received about me. My name was misspelled. Some of them couldn’t even get their grammar straight, never mind the spelling.’

  ‘British?’

  The ball was returned to the net. ‘Mostly, but not all unfortunately.’

  ‘And what were they denouncing?’

  ‘My independence, my loneliness, my long hikes even in the bitterest of weather.’

  She stopped to look out over the golf course, to the Hôtel de l’Ermitage and the forest beyond, and as the tears came again, she said, ‘It’s a perfect day for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing especially. Every time it’s like this, I think of being with my dad. I was five when he first took me with him. Five years old, Inspector. We had to camp out. The blizzard lasted for four days. Never have I felt so close to someone before or since. I loved him with a passion that was crazy.’

  ‘Did they complain about your trapping rabbits?’

  She mustn’t look at him now. ‘Everyone knew of it soon enough, and forgive me for wanting to take the Lord’s name in vain, but the others come into our room as if they own it. They stare at you even if they’ve nothing to say, or ask the dumbest of questions. If you’re at all different in this life, watch out, and the closer the community, the tighter the grip the others have on you. Beware of les originaux ou originales, Inspector, and I am definitely one of them.’

  The odd ones. She retrieved the ball, deftly picking it up off the snow as if both stick and ball were parts of her. ‘Did they object to your looking after Angèle?’

  ‘Here the aspergillum doesn’t just sprinkle holy water but kindness. Brother Étienne is a saint and everyone knows it and knows what would happen to them should they speak out or point the finger at him. Granted, he’s like a hairdresser at times and some idiots will tell him the most scandalous of things while others seek his advice and reveal far too much.’

  ‘Does he gossip?’

  ‘Is he an informant—isn’t that what you really want to ask? A man who risks his life time and again to bring a little happiness and sometimes, as today, food that is desperately needed and hasn’t been tasted in years?’

  When he gave no answer, Nora found she still couldn’t stop throwing the ball, because it really did help not to have to face him. ‘Chacun pour soi, Inspector? Is that what you still think?’

  Everyone for him- or herself.

  The lower-left corner of the net received five direct hits.

  ‘It’s the catechism of the times, isn’t it,’ Nora continued, ‘so why shouldn’t it be even worse in here behind that bloody wire? Lying, cheating, stealing—did you know we had a terrible bout of underwear theft from the laundry lines and had to post guards? Can you imagine waiting while the damned laundry dried in a place like this? But now it’s only the little things.’

  Wanting that pipe and tobacco of his, he again took out the one and clenched its stem between his teeth for comfort.

  ‘Which brings us right back to Jennifer Hamilton and Caroline Lacy,’ he said, gesturing with the pipe.

  Ah, damn! ‘All right, I was suspicious of Jen but really only because of her relationship with Caroline. It was out of character, I felt at first, and then opportunistic because Caroline’s family has a whopping lot of money. Jen had tried and tried to get Mary-Lynn to speak to Colonel Kessler about her flat in Paris. She needed to get there—everyone agreed that she did, and exceptions here are being made every now and then. Some do buy their way out or have it paid by someone else. Bien sûr, Jen could have sold some of the things in her flat if she had been able to get there. The prices are fabulously high now for Old Masters and antiques, especially if the latter were originally from the Third Reich.’

  ‘Where’s the cache of petty thefts?’ he asked so suddenly the ball was caught but not thrown. ‘Come, come, out with it, mademoiselle. If you know that, then you are in more than just danger.’

  ‘Kleptomaniacs don’t kill, Inspector. As far as I know, it’s not in their nature. They’re usually quite gentle and retiring. Look, if I knew where it was, do you think I’d still be wondering who was taking things?’

  The ball was again thrown.

  ‘Whoever it is, Inspector, she’s uncanny about it. No one has ever seen her steal anything, so why should anyone be able to find out where she’s been hiding the loot, such as it is?’

  ‘And the missing datura seeds, mademoiselle?’

  Was he close to the truth? she wondered. ‘All of us in that room of ours knew where that Frenchwoman kept a spare key to that suitcase. Caroline, me, Jill, Marni, and Becky. We’re all terrified, isn’t that so? Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be by myself.’

  ‘Before you broadcast the Brother’s news bulletin?’

  He would ask and she would have to tell him. ‘At first it only goes out to a very few. You’ve been privileged.’

  ‘Ah, oui, oui, but does Herr Weber suspect this breech of security has been happening?’

  ‘He might. I really don’t know. Often the Free French broadcasts are jammed, or the weather’s too off and Étienne can’t get a thing.’

  Étienne. ‘Yet all must be hungry for the news he brings.’

  ‘We let it out only in little bits and with days between and as rumours.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid of informants?’

  ‘Always.’<
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  ‘Was there anything else in the note he left for you?’

  Why had he asked? ‘Nothing. How could there have been?’

  ‘Let me try the stick. I used to play soccer. Left centre forward.’

  ‘You’d only lose the ball and I haven’t got another.’

  ‘Then for now, enjoy your dream. Hermann will be wondering where I’ve got to. I think I’ll tell him I attended a lacrosse game in which so many goals were scored, I completely lost count.’

  The furor had died down; the door to Room 3–38 had been closed for maybe five minutes, maybe ten.

  Kohler took another look around, wishing Louis were with him. Louis would have picked up on things this Kripo might well have missed.

  Jill Faber sat silently on her cot against the wall nearest to the kitchen corner with its stove leaking trails of woodsmoke, for she’d built the fire up too high and the sound of its crackling pine and smell permeated. Marni Huntington, the redhead, was to his left, against the inner wall, the girl sombre too, as if, in having Brother Étienne in the room, demureness was best.

  Becky Torrence, the blonde from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, held the slimmest wedge of Port-du-Salut in her lap, the room’s share, a treasure, while the camp’s nothing monk consoled Madame Irène de Vernon on that one’s cot.

  Gone was the bonheur, the booming bluster, the open-armed gestures. Instead, this Pied Piper of Hamelin who had climbed the stairs with the whole of the Vittel-Palace following now held that woman’s hands and let her pour out her heart to him.

  ‘Me, I told Caroline not to go outside so late in the day, mon Frère. I begged her not to. The chest.’

  ‘Yes, yes, madame, you did as you should have.’

  ‘She was determined, was still very upset—had been that way for the whole week since that. . . that other one had fallen. I asked her who she was going to meet, and she said. . . Ah, Sainte Mère, Saint Mère, mon Frère Étienne, she said, “It’s not what you think. You’ll find out soon enough.” Soon, Brother? Soon?’

  ‘Now, now, Irène, please try to calm yourself.’

  ‘It was that Jennifer Hamilton. Caroline went to meet her, to tell her their affair was over. Over, you understand. I’m certain of it. Who else would have killed my child? She was always after Caroline and followed her everywhere just as that one over there did.’

  Uh-oh, thought Kohler.

  ‘Becky Torrence?’ asked the brother, startled.

  ‘Oui. I’ve seen the way she looked at my Caroline when a glimpse of flesh was revealed while having a wash. That one would seek her out, mon Frère, Caroline embarrassed by the look, me quickly closing the gap in the curtain. Lust, I tell you. Lust!’

  Louis should have heard it.

  ‘The child did not understand at first, but that Jill over there who talks so lewdly of the Senegalese is very aware of what that Torrence girl felt for my Caroline. Ask her. She knows. Look how she tries to stare me down now. She once caught that other one trying to kiss my Caroline who was so innocent, the Virgin herself would have been astounded. Caroline pulled away in shock. Instinctively, I tell you. Instinctively, while that one, that garce Jill said. . . ’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ managed the brother, all ears now no doubt, felt Kohler.

  ‘She said, “Better luck next time, eh, if that’s what you really want.”’

  ‘I didn’t!’ swore Jill. ‘That’s all a pack of dirty lies.’

  ‘Lies, is it?’ spat the woman. ‘Then who was it, please, who went after Caroline the night that other one fell?’

  ‘I. . . I felt sorry for her, that’s all,’ said Becky. ‘I was worried, yes, but I definitely wasn’t secretly in love with Caroline, nor did I kill her in a fit of jealousy. It’s horrid of you to suggest such a thing.’

  ‘Horrid, is it?’

  The two were all but shouting now.

  ‘Caroline lived in hell because of you, Madame, and as for my glimpse of bare flesh, it’s hard to avoid in such cramped quarters.’

  ‘You wanted to see her nakedness. Her cul. You enjoyed it.’

  ‘Inspector, I lowered my eyes as quickly as I could, but guess who was telling that girl how to wash herself?’

  ‘You would have lain with her if she had let you,’ spat Madame de Vernon, ‘and then. . . then I would have had to listen to the two of you!’

  ‘Becky. . . Becky, leave it,’ cautioned Jill, getting up to reach out to her. ‘Marni doesn’t think it’s true, and neither do Nora or I.’

  ‘I didn’t kill her, Jill. I swear I didn’t!’

  ‘Jésus Christ, Madame, look what you’ve done,’ Jill said shrilly. ‘Destroyed us all!’

  ‘Mesdemoiselles. . . mesdemoiselles,’ urged Brother Étienne, ‘a moment of privacy. Inspector, somehow I must calm Madame. Her pulse, it is racing.’

  ‘Pull the curtain and tell her to hold her fire or a charge of murder will.’

  Jill swiftly closed the curtain, then went back to Becky to brush the backs of calming fingers over a tearstained cheek.

  The hand was seized and pressed to those lips. Becky Torrence was a mess, felt Kohler. Nervous as hell, afraid—terrified, but of what? Death—they all were, but was it also of something else, something far worse, like the shame of being discovered having been the thief of things of no consequence except in a place like this?

  After Caroline, she was the youngest. Maybe twenty-three and missing home and everything else.

  The Port-du-Salut had been splashed by Becky’s tears, Jill setting it aside as Marni Huntington went to join the two.

  Now both comforted the room’s littlest one, death having passed that title on. Together they hugged her, putting foreheads against hers as if girls of ten consoling one after some terrible trouble at school.

  ‘We’re all boiling, Inspector,’ said Jill, drawing away a little. ‘That bitch behind the curtain has made our lives hell.’

  Kohler found the last of the cigarettes he had taken from Madame Chevreul’s case and, lighting it, took two drags before gently placing it between Becky’s quivering lips. ‘Not too much,’ he said softly, gently lifting her chin to give her a smile. ‘The others need a little. It’s always good to share.’

  Jill looked at him; he looked at her, he to ask and she to answer straight enough. ‘Oui, I translated that note for Caroline. Look, I didn’t know whom she was hoping to meet or who had arranged it, but when she begged me to put it into Deutsch, I did. “Bitte sagen Sie dem Kommandanten, dass es kein Unfall war. Ich sah wie es passierte und wer es war.”’

  Please tell the Kommandant that was no accident. I saw it happen and know who did it.

  Becky dried her eyes and wiped her nose with the back of a hand. ‘I really only wanted to help her the night Mary-Lynn was killed, Inspector. She was very upset about something and had been coughing and wheezing like crazy. I felt she’d die if I didn’t. She couldn’t find her cigarettes, had panicked. I grabbed her in the dark and said I’d help. I found the light switch and turned the room light on.’

  ‘Madame’s bed was empty, was it?’

  ‘I. . . I think so. The cigarettes weren’t anywhere near where they should have been. Jill found them on that thing we call a coffee table. Marni had been looking too. Caroline. . . Caroline knew she was being punished by that woman behind that damned screen.’

  ‘Garce! Masturbator! The widow, the wrist, eh? I heard you earlier that night! I did. I really did!’ yelled Madame de Vernon.

  Ach, mein Gott, did the hatred run so deep?

  ‘Were you really listening, madame?’ asked Jill. ‘Did she make you envious, our Becky, you whose life has been so dry you would leave that bed of yours to try to kill Caroline only to make a terrible mistake?’

  ‘Fucking bitch, you’ll get yours, too. The settling of accounts!’

  All this time Brother Étienne had been urging calm, but at last he said, ‘Irène, what did you do with those missing datura seeds? Come, come. I gave you three of those capsules. Oh
for sure, you were in the hospital being attended to. I have my sources and know you were, but you could easily have returned without the others in this room knowing. You would have had the times they’d be away, the daily round of things that always have to be done. The roster.’

  This was hotly denied, but it was Jill who said, ‘This room of ours is often empty, except for her, Inspector.’

  And wasn’t dénonciation a favourite French pastime? ‘Hand it over, madame. Save yourself a lot of grief.’

  ‘And someone else—is that what you think, Inspector?’

  ‘I’m waiting.’

  ‘Then wait, for I haven’t stolen it from myself.’

  Stubborn. . . Ach, the woman was pure poison and should have been the one to have fallen. ‘Come on, you three. Let’s find us a quiet corner in that dining room that’s never used.’

  Except for lineups. ‘I have to lug the hot water,’ said Jill. ‘There’s always one hell of a crowd and I’m late enough as it is.’

  ‘I’ve got to see if there’s any mail,’ said Marni Huntington, who all this time had continued to rub the back of Becky Torrence’s neck only to pause as something had been said that had struck her, the three of them in this room by then that night. The three of them, then Caroline coming back to find her cigarettes.

  ‘And I’m supposed to be waiting outside Herr Weber’s office,’ said Becky. ‘Am I for it this time?’

  Hermann was deep in conversation. Tense, subdued, and not liking their being kept from things, Jill Faber, Marni Huntington, and Becky Torrence sat across the table from him, Brother Étienne’s cloak to one side.

  ‘The Senegalese, Louis,’ he said, but nothing else.

  Out in the cold, on the terrace of the Hôtel Grand, the lineups were long. Breath billowed, feet were stamped, cigarettes cupped for their meagre warmth. Interspersed, in small groups or as singles, the British and Americans each muttered and bitched just as others did in Paris and Lyon or outside the shops of any other city, town, or village, but here. . . here where there had been the shops of the elegant—of Hermès, Molinard, Coty, Boucheron, and Cartier, of Elizabeth Arden, too, and Barclay—there were now root vegetables and dried herbs, an occasional very worried rabbit, a solitary hen, and pieces of another.