Bellringer

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘Partly, but I also couldn’t manage the shipping. The Occupier and the French kept throwing up the roadblocks.’

  Reichsmarschall Göring being the biggest of them. ‘How much is the stuff you’ve got in that flat of yours worth?’

  ‘In Boston and New York, or in Paris and Berlin?’

  She seemed to thrive when talking business. ‘Both.’

  ‘Lots, then. There’s an early Corot landscape that I bought for myself in the autumn of 1940, paying 28,000 francs. In June of 1941, I could have sold it for 1,210,000, today. . . ’ She shrugged. ‘And it’s only one of several pieces I have, or had.’

  The official exchange rate was 50 francs to the dollar, or 200 to the pound sterling, the black bourse rate being the more usual and at 110 to 120, and 350 to 400, a worry to be sure and maybe the reason entirely for the anxiety attacks, but one had to ask, wasn’t it being a little too free with the info? ‘Did our kleptomaniac take anything else of yours?’

  ‘Inspector, please don’t blame me for buying from the desperate. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else, and at least they knew, or thought, that the pieces were going to a place of safety and to owners such as themselves who would value them. The Paris market is everything in the art world—surely you must know this. I was just a little fish in a big and very turbulent pond.’

  Excuses. . . they all had their excuses. Time and again Louis and he had come up against these ‘buyers,’ Göring especially. ‘Just answer what I asked.’

  Were Herr Kohler and his partner really on the side of the persecuted as everyone was saying, even Untersturmführer Weber? ‘The key to my flat. It. . . it was on a string I would wear around my neck. When taking a shower downstairs, I had hung it on a hook, but when I got out, why, it. . . it had been taken.’

  ‘Why a shower downstairs?’

  ‘Because one was free, and for which I paid two cigarettes.’

  ‘Was anything else of yours stolen?’

  ‘A lipstick. The tube was empty—I’d even used a matchstick to get at the last of it—but one keeps such things as reminders of what we once had. One has to here.’

  That was fair enough, but she was still too wary. ‘You and the others asked the Senegalese to look into your futures.’

  So he had found that out too. ‘Just after the Christmas party. We all thought it would be a lark and were still in a partying mood.’

  ‘You asked about your flat?’

  ‘Bamba. . . That was his name. He said Thérèse, my maid, would come soon and she did, that very afternoon.’

  ‘Was that all?’

  Had he talked to Bamba? ‘I was to leave offerings of food—crumbs, really—and. . . and was to come back for another reading. My fortune wasn’t good, but I haven’t been back yet.’

  ‘Was anything taken from that little basket of his?’

  ‘By me, or by Caroline?’

  He waited. He didn’t and wouldn’t say another thing, thought Jennifer, until she had answered him, but she mustn’t let apprehension get ahead of her. ‘Or by neither of us, Inspector? Caroline did keep nudging me to watch Becky. That one wasn’t just tense. It was as if something exciting were building up inside her, but we. . . we didn’t see her take anything. Was something missing?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Tell me about Mary-Lynn and Colonel Kessler.’

  ‘Why not ask what you really want? Mary-Lynn had been left in the lurch by her “fiancé.”’

  ‘An SS, a Sturmbannführer.’

  ‘Oui, Karl Hoffmann. She wanted to get even—lots of girls feel like that. Colonel Kessler was friendly but not a lover, not if you ask me. It was more the friendship of one who wanted to practice his English and who enjoyed her knowledge of books and appreciated her support at the séances. Mary-Lynn wanted to find out where her dad’s remains were. It. . . it had become an obsession with her.’

  ‘One that Madame Chevreul played upon?’

  ‘Really, Inspector, I’m not the doubter Nora is. Caroline wanted to become a sitter and I. . . why, I wanted whatever Caroline wanted.’

  ‘Did she steal that L’Heure Bleue box and bottle from Madame Chevreul?’

  ‘And claim that Madame had given it to her?’

  ‘Just answer.’

  ‘Then no. Madame Chevreul pressed it into Caroline’s hands to cement the goodwill between them.’

  ‘And seal the payment of five hundred greenbacks?’

  Would his questions never stop? ‘That, too, since you ask. Madame Chevreul knew only too well that Madame de Vernon had been getting after Caroline for wanting to become a sitter. The presentation box was something Caroline would love to have for the thoughts it would bring, and of course having it would strengthen her resolve.’

  ‘Picked up from Madame’s dressing table, was it?’

  Why had he to ask that? ‘It. . . it was near the photos of the friends Madame had left behind when she came to France. A Rebecca Thompson and a Judith Merrill. Léa Monnier used to work as kitchen help for Mrs. Merrill. That’s. . . that’s how Madame Chevreul first met her.’

  ‘Léa Easton.’

  ‘Yes, but Madame Chevreul wasn’t married then. Her maiden name was Beacham. You. . . Ah, merde, merde! You don’t know, do you?’

  Herr Kohler took her by the arm and, leading her out of the room, walked her along the corridor toward that elevator shaft with everyone looking at them. Just everyone. ‘No place is more private,’ he said. ‘Now, you start telling me what I don’t know and should.’

  The gate to the elevator had been locked again, and using another chain, and he saw this as they stopped, would know that Mrs. Parker had insisted on it, but wouldn’t know how sick she, herself, still felt at the thought of it having been left open. ‘They were suffragettes. Judith Merrill took Léa Easton to their meetings and convinced her to join. Léa was only sixteen at the time but soon found herself leading a screaming mob of umbrella-wielding, vote-demanding women. She would have, wouldn’t she? She’s a natural.’

  He said nothing, this Gestapo detective. He just looked at her, she with her back now to that gate. ‘Léa wasn’t the only one who spent time in prison, Inspector, in London’s Old Bailey, where they were force-fed in the summer of 1914. Judith Merrill, being the oldest, was accused of being the ringleader. A bomb had been set off in Oxted Station on 4 April, 1913, four houses torched on the third in the suburb of Hampstead Garden, then later, I think, the Yarmouth Pier pavilion. It had just been built at a cost of 20,000 pounds, but the police and Scotland Yard didn’t catch up with Léa and the others until 1914.’

  Still he waited, saying nothing but giving no further hint of what he was really thinking. ‘When Lord Merrill finally got his wife out of jail, he sent her to the remotest of his country estates and kept her there without her ever being able to see their children.’

  Still he didn’t say anything. ‘She killed herself with an overdose of white arsenic.’

  Rat poison. ‘And the other one?’ he asked, but only after seeing that they were still quite alone, though some along the corridor were watching them.

  ‘Rebecca Thompson was twenty-three years old. Separated from the mob, she had run up a narrow lane to avoid the truncheons but was caught, beaten, and then savagely raped by no less than four men, each of them a bobby. The judge was solicitous and committed her to an insane asylum.’

  ‘While Élizabeth Beacham and Léa Easton volunteered to go to France for king and country.’

  ‘Eventually, yes, that is correct, insofar as I was told. The one as a nurse, the other as a truck driver.’

  And now resident head juju woman and her number-one flunky. ‘So how is it that you know all this, and do the others in Room 3–54 and Room 3–38?’

  She winced. She couldn’t help but do so, looked desperately away to the distant onlookers, then at his shoes, and only when her chin was lifted, at him. ‘I. . . ’ The tears couldn’t be stopped. ‘I was told it by two of the British. They. . . they grabb
ed me in the Hôtel Grand and forced me into the darkness of the cellars where they. . . they said that if I ever told anyone who had said it to me, they would see that I never told anyone another thing.’

  ‘And Caroline, did you tell her of the suffragette past?’

  ‘I couldn’t. She. . . she wanted so much to go to that séance, I had to keep it all to myself.’

  ‘How many times did you wander about in the Hôtel Grand by yourself?’

  ‘Lots, but. . . but not after that happened. After that, I avoided the hotel like the plague and only later went there with Caroline.’

  ‘And did those British women ask if you had broadcast that choice bit of news about Madame Chevreul in the Vittel-Palace as they would have wanted you to?’

  ‘Twice, but I. . . I told them I had to wait for an appropriate time.’

  Both of her hands had been gripping the gate and she felt him freeing them, but all he said was, ‘Don’t be telling anyone else, not until I give you the OK. Now, I’d best find my partner.’

  The lineup outside Herr Weber’s office was that of the silent and subdued. Becky was third from the far end, and when she saw St-Cyr approaching, she panicked and turned away, and when he came near, she flinched but still kept her back to him.

  The aroma of spearmint was clear, her left hand surreptitiously opening near to that thigh to drop the crumpled sleeve from a stick of chewing gum.

  ‘Wrigley’s,’ he said, having picked it up. ‘Ah, bon, Mademoiselle Torrence, while my partner is probably now upstairs questioning others, a few small questions for you; nothing difficult.’

  ‘Here?’ she bleated, desperation registering in sky-blue eyes that rapidly moistened as she glanced at others in the line, others who had now taken a decided interest in the proceedings.

  ‘I won’t detain you long.’

  ‘But Herr Weber wants to see me.’

  Ignoring her panic, he smoothed out the wrapper and its covering, folded them precisely in half, unbuttoned his overcoat, and tucked the silver paper and the other away in a waistcoat pocket.

  ‘We’ll let him wait if necessary.’

  ‘But. . . but I haven’t done anything! I really haven’t.’

  Pale and quivering, she was vulnerable. The cheeks were fair, though sunken, the lips those of the young, the nose not aquiline or overly Roman but dusted with freckles the colour of which the pallor increased. In all such things St-Cyr knew he searched for answers, and yes, Hermann’s accusations of being overly harsh were true at times, but answers were desperately needed. ‘Let these two go ahead. The theatre is empty. We’ll go in there.’

  ‘The theatre. . . ?’

  Seat after seat was covered in wine-purple fabric, worn and faded by the years, the cigarette burns and spills all too evident, and from the seats came the stench of sour sweat and old tobacco smoke. Art Deco flames seemed to leap and fan out from along the side aisles and from the stage itself, above whose closed curtain hung a huge portrait of the German Führer and two swastika flags, one on either side of him.

  ‘Smoke damage from the fire in 1920 necessitated redecorating,’ he said. ‘Not bothering to replace the seats must have been a cost-saving measure.’

  He indicated one of these next to where he was standing, then took the one directly behind, forcing her to awkwardly turn to face him.

  ‘The thefts, mademoiselle. What did you lose?’

  ‘Me?’ she yelped.

  He waited. Not for a moment did he take those dark brown, ox-eyes of his from her, felt Becky. The mustache was bushy and wide and badly in need of a trim, as was the hair. Had he no time for such things?

  There was the mark of a recent bullet graze on that broad brow. The nose had been broken several times but not recently. A boxer? she wondered, the smell of anise, wet wool, and old pipe smoke coming to her now.

  Again he asked.

  ‘Me?’ she yelped again. ‘A photo from home of the dog we once had. A beagle. Harry. . . his name was Harry. The fake gold compact my brother gave me on my sixteenth birthday. Its mirror had broken long ago and the catch was no longer any good but I couldn’t part with it, not here. . . not in Paris, either. A letter from my mom. A button. It. . . it was pink, from the cardigan she had knitted for me before I left for France in 1939, fresh out of college. I had set that button aside and was planning to sew it back on, but then. . . then it was gone.’

  ‘Were others in the room at the time?’

  ‘Others? Caroline and Jennifer—yes, yes, Jennifer was there, and. . . and Jill.’ What did he really want from her?

  ‘Madame de Vernon wasn’t present?’ he asked.

  ‘Jennifer wouldn’t have dared come if that woman had been in the room.’

  ‘And at that first session with Bamba Duclos, mademoiselle?’

  ‘We all went, all but Madame. Mary-Lynn had wanted us to try it. Nora. . . Nora said, “Why not?” Marni. . . Marni agreed. Jill set it up.’

  ‘Tell me about the items in his little basket.’

  ‘Was something stolen?’

  ‘Just tell me what you can recall.’

  ‘So that I can trip myself up if I’m the thief? I’m not, Inspector. I’m not!’

  Hermann would have said ‘Go easy, now,’ but Hermann could sometimes let concern for the suspect intrude when least needed. ‘Was anything stolen from it?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘But you went twice more, mademoiselle. You would have seen if something was missing.’

  ‘What? What was taken?’

  He waited. He didn’t back off. ‘And I was near Mary-Lynn when she died, wasn’t I, and near Caroline too—that’s it, isn’t it? You think I did it. You’re just like Weber. Demanding everything and thinking the worst. He has a list he keeps. Did you know that? Names are crossed off, but mine keeps coming up and I’m being asked back again and again. I won’t squeal on my friends. I mustn’t. Sure we have our arguments—who doesn’t in a place like this, but I’d never rat on anyone. Everyone in that room of mine has been good to me except for Madame. I’d. . . I’d kill myself if I did a thing like that to them or to anyone.’

  ‘Yet Herr Weber keeps asking.’

  ‘He doesn’t just ask, Chief Inspector. He tells me my papers aren’t very good and that a delegation from Berlin is coming to examine all those in the Hôtel de la Providence, and that he’s going to get them to check mine thoroughly. I. . . I was late getting my visa, the last time I had to, and once one is late for such a thing in France, it’s on one’s record, isn’t it? Well, isn’t it?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Later I. . . I was arrested but simply because I was an American.’

  ‘Why didn’t you leave when you could?’

  ‘I had a job with the Foyer International in the boulevard St-Michel. We had exchange students from South and Central America, the States, and other countries. I. . . I stayed because I felt responsible.’

  ‘Even after the Führer had declared war on America on 11 December, ’41?’

  The Foyer’s purpose had been to bring students together to help prevent wars, but did he already know why she had stayed? ‘There weren’t many of us Americans scattered about. I did plan to go into the zone non occupée when our embassy moved from Paris to the town of Vichy after Germans declared war on us, and later I did have to check in with the local commissariat de police, but no one seemed to worry too much about me being in Paris.’

  ‘Then the net suddenly closed.’

  Had he really believed her? ‘Oui, c’est correct.’

  ‘Mademoiselle, it will go no further.’

  Ah, Sainte Mère, Saint Mère! ‘All right, I had a lover. A French boy.’

  ‘Age?’

  Why did he have to know that? ‘Twenty-five.’

  ‘Eyesight, health? Come, come, Mademoiselle Torrence, at that age he should have been in our forces and, therefore, most probably in a prisoner of war camp in the Reich.’

  She turned away but there was n
owhere to look but the rows and rows of empty seats and the Deco lights. ‘As a child, he had had tuberculosis. That “Army” of yours didn’t want him. He tried and tried but they. . . they wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘But you wanted him.’

  ‘Was that so wrong? He was every bit as French as you are, probably lots and lots more.’

  To insist on it was one thing, to emphasize it further, another. ‘And on 29 May, 1942, mademoiselle?’

  ‘Why must you ask me a thing like that?’

  ‘Because I must if Hermann and I are to help you and get to the bottom of this.’

  Salaud, she wanted to shout at him, but would have to tell him. ‘I made Antoine give me his jacket, damn you. I unstitched that thing you people had forced him to wear, then I told him to go south into the zone libre, that I would follow as soon as I could, but. . . but one thing led to another and I had to wait because the Kommandantur in the avenue de l’Opéra wouldn’t let me have the necessary laissez-passer and sauf-conduit. I was being kept in Paris.’

  ‘And the star, mademoiselle?’

  ‘I’m not a thief. I wouldn’t have stolen a thing like that from myself. I’d have left it in my sewing basket, where it had been hidden away tucked under the lining for months and months.’

  She’ll hate you now, Louis, Hermann would have said, but weren’t sewing baskets often borrowed by others? ‘Did this boy ever send you a postcard?’

  Her lower lip was bitten, the eyes clamped shut to hide her tears but then she turned away, resting her forehead on the back of the seat in front of her, which she gripped with both hands as if he were laying into her with a rawhide Schlag.

  ‘The postcards, mademoiselle?’

  ‘Two. They were also stolen. Each was so blacked out I could hardly make sense of them. Am well. Blank, blank, blank. No news of my family. Blank, blank, blank. Am going to work. Blank, blank, but where, please. Where?’

  The urge to be compassionate would have to be resisted. ‘And then nothing?’ he asked.

  She nodded, then blurted, ‘He didn’t even have a Jewish name! His great-grandfather had changed it but now. . . now Herr Weber must know. He must, but he never says. He just smiles and tells me my papers need looking at when I know they don’t!’