Again and again St-Cyr tripped the light switch. Fortunately the match didn’t shower sparks as he set the open packet on Hubert Quevillon’s desk, one every bit as tidy as Flavien Garnier’s. Here, though, the in-tray was empty—Quevillon must have been in earlier to clean it out. The other tray held a single file folder, thin and as if waiting for more.
‘The boys?’ he heard himself blurt.
Sickened, he blindly groped for another match as he stared at the photo. Downcast and in tears, they were lined up on the pavement, and behind them was the house at 3 rue Laurence Savart.
Returning Sonja Remer’s handbag hadn’t been enough. The names of Antoine Courbet’s sisters were on another slip of paper. Lovely girls Madame Courbet would never have allowed to fraternize with the enemy, Claudette, the oldest, having promised herself to a young man who was now in one of the prisoner-of-war camps.
A further note, in a different but far more professional hand, gave only, Standartenführer Langbehn, 1000 hours Monday, avenue Foch, the note transferred by Quevillon from his in-tray, but had Gabrielle been taken to dinner and then arrested? The note had been signed by a Jeannot Raymond whose office must be next door.
Beneath the photo there was one of Giselle le Roy who had been caught unawares yesterday while leaving Adrienne Guillaumet’s building and must have been followed to the House of Madame Chabot where she’d been turned away, only to then realize she hadn’t been alone.
The desk drawers were locked and he had to wonder why, since Garnier had taken no such precaution. The secretary? he had to ask.
He was running out of matches and out of time. Lighting one of the few that were left, he got down beside the chair to peer under the desk. Had she known, Suzette Dunand could easily have opened the side drawers. These could only be locked when the central drawer was completely closed and the key turned fully round and to the right in its lock. Doing so tripped two hooks, one for each pair of side drawers, dropping a locking bar into place, which could then be released if one either pushed up or pulled down on it from beneath the desk, and then pulled back on the respective bar. Sometimes one went round to the front and felt behind the central drawer, for these hooks could also be located there, but were here at the back on either side as he had suspected. The central drawer remained locked, of course, for it needed the key but this could now be opened if …
‘Ah, bon, mademoiselle. Remind me to show you how this is done and what you’ve been missing. Hermann … Hermann, give me a little more time.’
The shops were closing. Soon, Suzette knew, there would only be those who were hurrying to the restaurant or leaving it much later if they had a pass. Alone with Messieurs Raymond, Garnier and Quevillon, she stood outside the Agence Vidocq. The last trains of the métro would leave at ten, the curfew was at twelve. Alone, she would be arrested for breaking the curfew, or maybe someone would follow her and, thinking she was selling herself to the Germans, grab her, beat her, tear her clothes …
‘Messieurs,’ she blurted, ‘I did nothing but what I always do when you are not here and Monsieur le Colonel is out of the office and I have to close up. I put the lock on. I swear I did. The chief inspector came with me to the Champs-Élysées exit. He can’t be in there. He can’t!’
‘Espèce de salope, ferme-la!’ spat M. Quevillon. He had come to the flat, had slapped her hard, blurring her vision. Now he continued to twist her arm and she knew that if he ever got her alone, he would do things to her. ‘Monsieur Raymond, I beg you. I wouldn’t have let that Sûreté …’
‘Hubert, see what’s delaying the colonel. Flavien, go with him.’
Give me time alone with this one—Garnier knew that was what Jeannot wanted: always the right move, always that impenetrable calm. The girl was terrified of Hubert and rightly so.
M. Quevillon left in a hurry—Suzette told herself not to look at him. M. Garnier gave M. Raymond a curt nod, herself nothing but a dismissive glance. She had been changing when M. Quevillon had come to get her. She had not even been given a chance to finish buttoning her blouse or put on a skirt and shoes, had simply had her coat thrown at her.
The two of them hurried into the restaurant, brushing past the maître d’.
‘You don’t use cigarettes,’ said M. Jeannot Raymond. ‘At times like this they help.’
From a jacket pocket he took a silver flask and unscrewed its cap. ‘Have a sip,’ he said, and gave her that smile of his. ‘It’s an eau-de-vie de poire and really very good. Not too sweet, but sweet enough.’
A pear brandy. He lit a cigarette, left her to hold the flask and calm herself, said nothing of its exquisite engraving or of the inscription—an award for something he’d done, a scene of snowcapped mountains in the distance. She had always felt he was different from the others, that he really didn’t belong with them. He had been married once, had had a beautiful wife and two young children. Two boys of six and eight perhaps, and a house in a strange country, but what had happened to them she didn’t know, since all that was left seemed contained in the one photograph that never left his desk.
The eau-de-vie was lovely. He drew on his cigarette, seemed not the least concerned about anything but herself, let his grey eyes rest on her every now and then, knew absolutely how terrified she had been and that her cheeks must still be hurting.
‘Quevillon should never have done that, Mademoiselle Dunand. He shouldn’t have lost control and will definitely apologize.’
Had such things happened before? she wondered. Monsieur Raymond’s smile was there again, the little toss of his head seeming to say, Everything will be all right, you’ll see.
The inscription on the flask read: À Jeannot Raymond, compagnon d’armes et pilote extraordinaire. It was signed Rivière***** and dated 7 December 1930, Buenos Aires.
‘There, you’re feeling better already.’
‘Ah, oui, oui, merci. I really did think the chief inspector would …’
‘Of course you did. Now don’t concern yourself further.’
‘He yanked Madame de Roussy’s invoice from my machine and demanded that I tell him why it was for so much.’
‘A round-the-clock. Flavien is still looking after that one, isn’t he?’
M. Garnier. ‘Yes but … but the inspector didn’t ask this. I did tell him Monsieur de Roussy was seeing another woman twice a week, sometimes more and that … that she was married and the mother of three children.’
‘The wife of a prisoner of war?’
‘Oui, the chief inspector did ask that.’
‘And what was it de Roussy pays this shameful coquine?’
‘Five hundred—at least, that is what I told the inspector but also that I … I really didn’t know. “It’s only a rumour,” he said of the five hundred.’
‘And yourself?’
‘I shrugged, I think.’
‘And then?’
‘He told me about a girl that had been found in the passage de l’Hirondelle. She’d been kicked in the face, kicked to death. Why would anyone do a thing like that?’
‘These times are not easy. Now don’t worry, please.’
‘I had to go to the lavatory. I had to leave him alone but only for a few moments.’
‘Of course, but did this St-Cyr say anything else?’
‘Only that he didn’t think Madame Guillaumet was going to live. Why would someone have done that to her?’
‘And the other invoices, the ones that were on your desk?’
She had best tell him everything—the estimate to the Scapini Commission and to the parents of Captain Jean-Matthieu Guillaumet for a full inquiry, the invoice to Madame Morel, but … ‘Would the inspector have gone into M. Garnier’s office to find the files on that one’s desk?’ she hazarded. ‘The one on Madame Guillaumet, the one of Madame Barrault …’
M. Jeannot Raymond put a finger to his lips. He was, she knew, always there in the office even when out on an investigation and often away for days on end. A presence, an anchor, he was in his late forties or early fifties, was tall and handsome, the hair black like silk but receding from a brow that was always furrowed. The lips were thin but when he softly smiled as now, they curled up gently at the corners in such an honest way.
Never once had she seen him wear a shirt and tie. Always it was the black turtleneck under the dark grey pinstripe jacket, always the long fingers without the wedding ring—why was it that he no longer wore it? His wife looked happy in that photograph, the children also.
He handled all the investigations involving the recovery of stolen property and was, with Colonel Delaroche, the one who met with the German authorities. Sometimes the illegal hoarding of food and the black market took him away; sometimes insurance fraud or embezzlement, or even labour strikes and/or prolonged absenteeism in a factory or mine. He didn’t handle the troubled marriages, not since she had been with the agency. He only advised on them. After the client had met with Colonel Delaroche and the fee had been set, such investigations were turned over to M. Garnier and, under his supervision, M. Quevillon—admittedly the bread and butter of the agency and booming now. Other investigations might briefly involve those two but only if Colonel Delaroche or Monsieur Raymond needed help, and yes there were part-time employees she never saw who didn’t even come to the office, nor was any record kept of their names or wages, a puzzle for sure, but fortunately the chief inspector hadn’t asked.
Lost to his thoughts, M. Raymond still took a moment to again reassure her. ‘I once worked in South America,’ he said. ‘The Patagonia–Buenos Aires airmail service. Santiago, in Chile, too, but it was a long, long time ago.
‘Ah! here they are at last.’
The desk was locked and none of its drawers would budge, though Kohler tried each of them. Bob had gone straight to the lower right-hand one and was now waiting expectantly for it to be opened. Louis shrugged.
‘Bob, come,’ said Delaroche, having stepped back into the corridor.
‘Bob, stay.’
Uncertain, Bob looked questioningly up at this Kripo, then toward his master.
‘See that this is opened, Colonel.’
‘Mon Dieu, what is this, Kohler? You accept the hospitality that is extended while another invades the agency’s premises? You do not have a magistrate’s order and now you tell me what to do in my own offices?’
‘Abélard …’
‘Jeannot, these two have no place here. Hasn’t the Höherer SS and Polizeiführer Oberg explained things to them?’
‘Monday, Abélard. I haven’t yet had a chance to inform them.’
‘Then do so.’
‘Inspectors, we’ve set up a meeting at …’
‘Later,’ said Kohler, his gaze taking in this Jeannot Raymond. ‘I want this opened now. Whose desk is it and where’s the key?’
‘It’s my desk but that drawer has been tightly jammed for months.’
M. Quevillon had said that. Suzette knew he was lying.
A dancer’s candy-striped warm-up stocking was dangled over the desk’s blotting pad to be slowly lowered to coil in on itself.
‘Open it, Hubert,’ said M. Jeannot Raymond.
‘I can’t. I left the key at home.’
St-Cyr knew that if Hermann and himself forced the issue, the agency would rightly conclude that the desk had indeed already been burgled. They would then threaten to use the photo of the boys, yet if no objections were raised and the matter meekly left, they’d believe it anyway. ‘Put in a call to Walter, Hermann. Tell him we’ve run into a stone wall.’
‘Now wait, Inspectors,’ managed Delaroche. ‘From time to time it’s necessary for Hubert and Flavien to produce certain pieces of evidence. Things are constantly being gathered. Clients do, at times, need convincing.’
‘Just like I do, eh?’
‘Hermann, perhaps we should all sit down. Perhaps the restaurant could …’
‘Colonel,’ said Suzette, ‘would you like me to ring through for coffee and …’
‘A few sandwiches …’ prompted the prompter.
A sigh was given. ‘Very well. The ham that I had at noon, Mademoiselle Dunand.’
‘With mustard,’ went on Louis. ‘The Dijon mélange crémeux if possible, mademoiselle. A few olives also and please forgive me for having upset you earlier and for deceiving you. I’m not usually like that and am ashamed of myself.’
The creamy mustard, but Louis had meant it too, and was bound to do something about what had happened to her as a result. Flustered, though, and glad to escape the others if only for a moment, the girl turned away and was at the phone when they reached the outer office.
‘Yours, I think, Colonel,’ said Hermann, indicating its totally locked door. ‘If you’ve a bottle of cognac in there, we could all use a drink.’
‘Hubert, find what the inspector was looking for and bring it to my office.’
Check that desk of yours to see if anything is missing or has been disturbed.
As the door to this inner sanctum sanctorum was unlocked and opened, Louis simply said, ‘After you, Colonel,’ but then he stopped in the doorway as if struck.
The painting was absolutely magnificent. Automatically it drew the gaze away from the ample leather-topped, carved French oak desk that faced out from a far corner through a scattering of armchairs. It was seen in the half-mirrored doors of an open Louis XIV Boulle armoire, was seen also in a late Renaissance Spanish mirror, the two throwing the painting’s image back and forth but allowing varied perspectives of prospective clients should the colonel feel the need.
Apart from a bank of filing cabinets panelled in that same oak, the office was all but a salon in the old style. The beautifully flowered Aubusson would smother sounds. Louis XIV fauteuils and settees were strategically placed for quiet tête-à-têtes. There were bronzes—a superb copy of Boizot’s Nymph, another of Chinard’s Apollo …
‘Inspectors,’ said Delaroche, indicating the chairs in front of his desk, the room lighted by a rock-crystal chandelier—how had he acquired it, wondered St-Cyr, this colonel who didn’t stint himself and had such an obvious passion for the finer things in life?
‘This is a sixteenth-century portrait of the Magdalen as a young girl of substance, Colonel. It’s breathtaking.’
Though one didn’t want to dwell on it, one had best be gracious. ‘Please take a closer look while I find us a little something to drink. I’d value your opinion.’
And if that wasn’t pleasant, what was? The painting was worth at least 250,000 old francs. Perhaps this red-haired girl who wore a turban of the softest gold and beige had been fifteen. Penitently the eyes were downcast, she reading an illuminated breviary, a corner of whose spine rested on the smallest of beautifully carved desks before her, and hadn’t the colonel found exactly the same sort of desk—not a prie-dieu—and positioned it just a little to one side so that the viewer saw the one then automatically was drawn to divert the gaze and thoughts to a similarly velum-bound breviary beside which lay an identical pomander to the one in the painting and the same gold rings whose modest cabochons of bloodstone were similar to those worn on each of her forefingers. There were no other rings in the painting.
‘Droplets of the blood of Christ,’ said St-Cyr, throwing the words over a shoulder. ‘That’s what the people of those times believed that type of stone must hold. The jewellery and garments are of the very middle of the High Renaissance, Colonel. Perhaps the year 1500, or very close to it. I commend your taste. One sees at once the sharp contrasts of colour that so delighted and intrigued with their unspoken messages. The under-sleeves are crimson and juxtaposed with the kirtle’s cocoa-brown silk, whose folds have an almost metallic sheen and whose trim …’ He would point it all out as if a buyer in a gallery or patron of the Louvre.
‘Propriety is total, Colonel, modesty complete, the reformation of the fallen absolute, even of one so wealthy, but the hints of what helped to cause the trouble are definitely there all the same. Vanity, n’est-ce pas?’
Bob would be disobedient, cursed Delaroche silently. Bob would let him down at a time like this and sit at Kohler’s feet. ‘Your cognac, Inspector.’
‘Merci. Two gold chains are about her neck. The shortest of them is beaded and that, too, would have had meaning, and from it hangs an emerald and gold pendant whose droplet pearls shed the tears that are to remind her and all who view her that when chastity or the vows of marriage are broken, the reward can only be disgrace, no matter how enjoyable or profitable the moment.’
And on and on, was that it, eh? ‘It’s by Adriaen Isenbrant, of the Flemish School.’
‘Also given as Ysenbrant, a pupil of Gerard David. One sees the master’s influence but this is definitely a major work in its own right. She reminds me of the madrigal singer and costume designer whose murder in the Palais des Papes we unfortunately had to investigate.’
In Avignon during the last week of January. ‘You and Kohler never seem to stay long in one place, do you?’
‘That way we never get bored. Hermann and myself need answers and it’s time we had them.’
‘You have only to ask. We’re here to help.’
They walked in silence. M. Jeannot Raymond said nothing. Did he count off the lampposts as she always did and reach out to touch them? wondered Suzette. He had no need of the pocket torch she knew he never left the agency without, had gone into his office and then that of Hubert Quevillon to see if anything had been disturbed, had stayed in there several minutes and then had come back to escort her home after first having spoken quietly with the colonel.
Everywhere along the rue de Ponthieu the blackout was complete, except for the occasional glow of a cigarette or the sudden on-and-off of a blue-shaded torch in an uncertain hand. A vélo-taxi went by, the dimness of its taillight receding.
‘It’s this way,’ she heard herself saying, the voice overly sharp but frail on the cold, damp air. Had she doubts about the Agence Vidocq? he must be wondering. Fears? she asked herself. Hubert Quevillon had not apologized and this, too, was making her nervous and when they started to cross the rue Paul Baudry, there was no hesitation on M. Raymond’s part. He simply took her by the hand.
The passage clouté’s white marker studs were all but hidden, his fingers cold and stiff. Her street was next and when they came to the rue La Boétie, he didn’t hesitate.
‘Hubert will have left the lock off the flat,’ he said. ‘Since you haven’t your handbag, I presume he didn’t give it at thought.’
Ah, merde, her papers …
‘The fifth, at the back. I’ll just come up to make certain everything is all right.’
Did he know the building that well?
Hole for hole, laddered run for run, the warm-up stockings were compared, Hermann deliberately letting Bob smell them. Slightly built and in his mid-thirties, with small, slim hands, closely trimmed nails and no bite marks that could be seen even on the wrists, Hubert Quevillon stood looking down at him while Flavien Garnier, in his late fifties and also lacking these but with big enough hands for the Trinité assault, watched his subordinate with a grim wariness that implied he’d had to do so constantly.
‘Good, Bob. There’s my soldier,’ said Hermann, seemingly ignoring everyone as he folded the stockings and placed them in Élène Artur’s fitted case.
He scratched Bob behind the ears and under the chin. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he went on. ‘Bien sûr, I’ve known a lot of dogs and loved every one of them, but never a prince like yourself. I’m envious, Colonel.’
As his hand dropped, he looked up at Hubert Quevillon, let that emptiness his partner knew only too well fill his gaze and give warning of its own. ‘So how is it, my fine one, that you had that stocking in your desk?’
‘Kohler …’
‘Colonel, let him answer.’
To smirk would infuriate this Kripo the SS had marked for life, thought Quevillon, so he would do that and then tell him how it was. ‘I’m constantly gathering things that might be useful.’
A smart aleck—was that it, eh? The hair was dark brown and carelessly parted so that a hank of it fell rakishly over the brow. The dark-blue eyes were hooded, the expression at once intense and looking always for signs of the mischief his words might cause, the perpetual evening shadow something the girls might or might not like, but a regular at any number of brothels so that he could make his choice and do as he liked. ‘And is it that you simply stole it while that girl was hurrying to get dressed because you had told her to?’
Hermann, urged St-Cyr silently. Don’t accuse any of them yet. Wait! ‘The time, please, Agent Quevillon?’
Please … ? What the hell was this? ‘Louis, you leave him to me.’
‘Hermann, there’s likely a plausible answer. Colonel, from time to time I have to remind my partner that the blitzkrieg our friends demand must still have its little pauses.’
Though taken aback, Hermann was still ready to charge blindly forward and could not be warned of what had been discovered in that desk, nor on it or under it, nor could he be told yet of what had been on and in Flavien Garnier’s. For now this information, especially the sawdust and wood shavings that must have been emptied from the turn-ups of Quevillon’s trousers, would have to be kept from him, since these last were identical to those encountered in the Jourdan household and the gerbils would have loved them.
These two, they were nothing but trouble, thought Delaroche. ‘The time, Hubert. As close as you can give it.’
‘Nine. Maybe nine ten. Élène and the other girls were hurrying to get back on stage. One of her butterfly wings wouldn’t stay up so I had to help by tightening its wires.’
‘Ja, ja, mein Lieber. And the stockings?’ persisted Hermann.
‘Kohler, Kohler,’ interjected Delaroche. ‘The girl had other such stockings that were much better. Why should it matter if Hubert, thinking it was long past its useful life, should borrow one? Why not tell us where and how you found her?’
‘I thought you knew.’
‘How could I possibly? Chief Inspector, please inform this colleague of yours that the Agence Vidocq is not, and never has been, engaged in murder.’
‘Was she murdered, Colonel?’ asked Hermann.
‘If not, how then did you come by her wedding ring?’
These two would go at it now if a companionable gesture wasn’t given. ‘Colonel,’ said St-Cyr, ‘just tell us why Agent Quevillon was in the Lido’s dressing room at 2110 hours or thereabouts last Thursday.’
‘Yes, please tell us. It would help, I think.’
Had Kohler been mollified by his partner and if so, why the need if not the contents of that damned desk of Quevillon’s? wondered Delaroche. ‘I had asked Hubert to check if any of them had heard or seen anything that might help us find Lulu. Madame de Brissac—Catherine-Élizabeth—has not long to live but the telephone is there beside her, you understand, and she was constantly using it to call me.’
‘And now you’re going to have to tell her what’s happened,’ breathed Hermann, his patience all but gone.
Delaroche studied the glowing end of his cigar. ‘What did you find in the Parc Monceau? It was there, wasn’t it? You must have found something of Lulu’s—why else your chasing after me to Chez Bénédicte’s?’
Bob barked. Bob got all excited and had to be calmed. Louis told them the remains were in the Citroën’s boot and that Élène must have wanted to bury what she could where Lulu’s spirit would be most content and as close to her mistress as possible.
‘You’ll let me have them, won’t you?’ asked Delaroche, ignoring the fiction of an indochinoise superstition—was it really fiction, wondered Kohler, and did Delaroche really feel so duty-bound? Flavien Garnier didn’t seem to give a damn. He simply budgeted his cigarette as if still mired in the trenches and waiting for the tempest of fire to start up all over again.
‘At 2313 hours Thursday, Colonel,’ went on Louis, ‘Élène Artur was forced to telephone the Commissariat of the quartier du Faubourg de Roule to alert them to the killing at the École des Officiers de la Gendamerie Nationale. Hermann and myself didn’t get there until 0511 hours Friday but believe the young man, still unidentified, must have been killed at between 2000 and 2130 hours the previous evening.’
And right when Quevillon was supposed to have been helping Élène with her wings, thought Kohler, but if Garnier considered any of this important, he didn’t let on. Was the expression always so grim? he wondered. A blunt man, made blunter by the blotched bald dome of his head, the greying brown fringe above and behind the ears, the heavy, dark horn-rims with the big lenses and the Hitler soup strainer. Prominent jowls reinforced the grimness, deep creases the rarely parted lips. A man of few words, was that it, eh, or one who simply knew too much and felt it best to say little? ‘She had, we understand, Colonel, first been forced to let the press in on things. Bob, as you know, went straight to that telephone.’
Kohler was definitely the one who had found her. ‘But of course Bob would have. All of those girls use it, as they do that staircase. The scent was old. Maybe she made a telephone call, maybe she didn’t. How could any of us possibly know?’
And stubborn to the last, eh? ‘Your agency was tailing three of the victims Louis and I had to encounter that evening, Colonel. Madame Guillaumet was the first, and voilà, what did we later find but that the press had been in to photograph her at the Hôtel-Dieu?’
Ah, merde, Hermann, go easy, said St-Cyr to himself. ‘Colonel, we’re not accusing anyone, merely trying to get at the facts.’ There was a knock. ‘Ah bon, I’m famished.’
Louis had said it as if relieved.
‘A little wine?’ asked Delaroche. Relieved too, was he? wondered Kohler.
‘If you have it, that would be perfect,’ said St-Cyr, gesturing appreciatively with pipe in hand. Jeannot Raymond had still not returned from escorting Suzette Dunand home. ‘The flat is just along the way,’ the girl had earlier said. Then why the delay? he had to ask himself, but would have to be patient.
The lift began its journey. Suzette knew she should say something, but M. Raymond had spoken privately with the concierge about her and about the trouble she had mentioned. Monsieur Louveau had looked her over as they’d spoken—she knew he had. Even though she had instantly dropped her gaze, she had felt him doing so. A girl in an overcoat and slippers? A secretary who had been slapped hard but one who had also, he would have been told, deliberately misled a Sûreté just to keep him from this building where she lived and where there had been some terrible trouble—she knew there had.
M. Raymond didn’t say anything of what had happened in the building nor of what Concierge Louveau had told him about herself. Perhaps it was that someone had been taken away. People were being arrested all the time. No restaurant, café or bar was safe, no street, but surely not here, not when two of les Allemands lived in the building and all the other tenants must have been given security clearances, herself included?
The lift continued making all the noises that were usual in this quietest of residences. They reached her floor and Suzette watched as he opened the cage, she faintly saying, ‘It is this way.’ Had she not said that very same thing to him out on the street?
He was so silent and when, at last, they did reach her door, it was ajar. M. Quevillon had not pulled it tightly closed. Dieu merci, her handbag was still on the little table under the oval of the Empire mirror whose mahogany gleamed because she had made certain it would.
‘I’m so very lucky,’ she heard herself saying, her back still to him. ‘Never in a thousand years could I ever have afforded a place like this. There are so many beautiful things. A Beauvais tapestry chinoise that is very old, Gallé, Lotz and Lalique glass figurines and vases, and others, too, from Czechoslovakia. An absolutely magnificent vitrine has a superb collection of Sèvres porcelain.’
Had she said too much? M. Raymond was silently studying her reflection in the mirror, he having closed the door to lean back against it, but had he put the lock on? Had he sensed how uncertain she was, a girl who knew far too much? Was this why his gaze didn’t waver?
‘What else is there?’ he asked, giving her that smile of his, she instantly grinning with relief.
‘Fabulous dolls in one of the Boulle armoires. Jumeau Parisiennes and bébés, Kammer and Reinhardts and those of Armand Marseille. Their party dresses are of velvet, silk and satin, their jewellery so real, it must be.’
She swallowed hard. He didn’t move. ‘Was I not to have touched them?’ she heard herself asking. ‘I know the colonel has said I’m only to use the smallest of the bedrooms and that, from time to time, he would be sending others to stay here, but … but there hasn’t been anyone yet and if I’m to keep the flat clean, I … It does get lonely. One does wonder what’s in a drawer or armoire …’
Where, please, had it all come from—wasn’t this what the silly thing was wondering, but something would have to be said. ‘From time to time Colonel Delaroche picks things up and keeps them here or in one of the other flats the agency has for clients who feel they have to leave home for a little. Some of them have very young children who are desperately in need of reassurance, and for each child, he tries to find what’s best.’
‘There’s a teddy bear in my room,’ Suzette heard herself saying but was he demanding she tell him everything? ‘His eyes are like polished anthracite. There are little felt pads on his paws.’ Pads that she kissed every night—would he wonder this? ‘I … I keep him on the side table next to the music box I borrowed whose larks sing to me every morning when the lid is opened, after … after I’ve managed to switch off the alarm clock.’
How young and inexperienced she must seem to him—young and with a tongue that had been loosened? ‘The music box is of gold and enamelled flowers and was made in Geneva in 1825, but its wind-up mechanism was stuck. I felt I might have broken it and was so very worried, but Monsieur Frères Rochat, its maker, did exceptional work, so the trouble was not his or mine but simply the dust of the years.’
The girl had taken it to a shop.
‘But I really don’t know much about such things,’ she gushed. ‘How could I, coming from where I do?’
Charenton and the house of the aunt and uncle who had taken her in before the Defeat, the father having been called up and now a prisoner of war. ‘You must know the Bois de Vincennes well.’
One of the city’s largest and most popular of parks. ‘A little, yes. Charenton is right next to it and when I visit with my aunt and uncle on the last Sunday of every month, I … I sometimes go there afterwards.’ Why had he asked it of her?
He said no more of this but did he know they had put themselves out to send her to secretarial school and that she was trying to pay them back and desperately needed to keep her job, that with the rationing it helped them tremendously to have her living here? He must know that Maman and the rest of the family, except for Papa, were at home in Dreux, at least eighty-five kilometres to the west of the city and that she sent money and things to them when she could but hadn’t been home since coming to Paris, not with the travel restrictions and the need for laissez-passers and sauf-conduits. The cost too.
Indicating that she should show him the flat, he told her he had best look through it but didn’t explain further. She took off her slippers, he his shoes, which he set neatly side by side, even to cleaning a bit of mud from the toe of one.
But had he really put the lock on? wondered Suzette. The Savonnerie carpet in the salle de séjour was soft and warm underfoot, the living room perfect—Louis XVI chairs and sofas she never sat in, lamps she never used, even a glazed cheval screen before a fireplace in which she had never once lighted a fire, the stove in the kitchen being hers to use. Oil paintings hung on the walls with the tapestries—landscapes, portraits, sketches—beautiful things were everywhere and worth an absolute fortune and yet … and yet it was but one of such flats the agency kept for its clients—hadn’t that been what he’d said? Flats here, flats there. ‘I … I don’t use any of the rooms except for the kitchen and my bedroom,’ she said.
Teddy was waiting. Teddy would look up at him. ‘It does get lonely,’ she said and stupidly had to shrug, was nervous too, nervous at the nearness of this man she had sometimes thought about when in bed with Teddy—would he have realized this? ‘Working six days a week, I … I haven’t had a chance to contact any of my friends from school here and am not from Paris anyway—ah, mon Dieu, how could I be?’
Which only showed how well Abélard vetted their secretaries, thought Raymond, but he wouldn’t give her one of those rare smiles she welcomed, not yet. He’d make her wait for it.
The girl followed him to the kitchen, but had she realized he’d known of the teddy bear? She would take that music box to have its mechanism freed, a problem for sure. An offer would have been made, but had she been stunned by the value and come away only to then realize what the contents of the flat itself must be worth?
‘Colonel Delaroche gives me vouchers,’ she said of the kitchen. ‘I use them with my ration tickets but only at certain shops. He has said my time is better spent at my desk and not in the queues, so I … I just hand the vouchers in and each shopkeeper takes what tickets are needed and I, in turn, take what I’ve been given.’
She had set the table for two and had piled books on to the chair opposite the one she would use, the day’s events at the agency to then be relayed to her little friend. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays were meatless days, and though there must be meat available, the frying pan hadn’t been taken down and set to ready on the stove. Instead, noodles were in soak. The Maréchal Pétain would have been pleased.
‘Were some of the shopkeepers I go to once men under the colonel’s command?’ she asked. ‘Most are veterans, many from Verdun. Some even wear their medals and ribbons on their smocks.’
Fear of himself, of a man and all that it must entail yet the forbidden excitement of it, too, had made her breath come quickly, but she wasn’t aware of this and certainly the little fool had been taking note of far too much. ‘Look, I must get back to the office. Please don’t worry about Hubert. Everything will be fine.’
Pressing her forehead against the door, her fingers still on the lock, Suzette didn’t hear him take the lift. He had gone down one of the staircases. A floor, two floors—on which had the trouble been and why, please, had he to check? Hadn’t Concierge Louveau told him all about it?
Teddy didn’t help. Teddy said, Don’t you dare!
The side staircase was the closer, stocking feet the best, no sign of M. Jeannot Raymond in the corridor below, nor was he on the third floor, not that she could see, but one of the flats nearest to this staircase had been sealed with stickers, they having been placed both above and below the lock and covering the seam between the door and the jamb. Stickers whose eagle clutched a swastika.
‘ “Zutritt verboten. Défense d’entrer,” ’ she whispered as she read the notice. ‘ “Befehl der Kripo Pariser-Zentrum. Par ordre du Préfet et de la Police Judiciaire.” ’
Herr Kohler had signed the notice. The building was quieter than quiet but … Suzette glanced up at the ceiling—had she heard someone in that corridor?
There was no one there, and Dieu merci, it was the same on the fifth. The door to her flat was still tightly closed, she having silently eased it shut. Hurriedly she stepped inside, closed the door, put the lock on … warned herself to do so quietly.
Sighed when it was done, and pressed her forehead against the door again. ‘There,’ she said but couldn’t find the will to turn, couldn’t find her voice anymore, knew only that she wasn’t alone and that he was right behind her.
The cigarette box that Hermann kept digging into on the colonel’s desk was Czechoslovakian, the mid-1930s and a time when such things could still be made. It was of beautifully banded, polished malachite, whose frosted green glass lid held in relief, as if in gauze, a reclining nude, full exposure. At once it was evocative and provocative, and one had to wonder if the box had been deliberately placed there to incite further jealousy in already embittered female clients.
‘You enjoy the finer things in life, Colonel. Again I commend your taste,’ said St-Cyr. Quevillon, Garnier, Hermann and himself were sitting in front of the desk, the colonel behind it, his gestures effusive, the cigar hand slicing the air when emphasis was needed.
‘Come, come, what is this? More suspicion? You know as well as I, the market is flooded with objects of virtu. Business has been good and when I can, I pick up what fancies me.’
Hubert Quevillon couldn’t resist darting a knowing glance at his mentor, Flavien Garnier, who patently ignored his subordinate. ‘Of course, I meant nothing other than that I, too, appreciate such things, Colonel.’ If Hermann had any further thoughts of being incautious, he had, one hoped, now thought better of it. ‘Let’s get back to our discussion of the Ritz. Surely Agent Garnier must have some idea of who our Trinité victim was to have met.’
‘For sex,’ muttered Hubert Quevillon.
‘None,’ grunted Garnier, the black horn-rims lending severity to the silent warning he gave his subordinate.
‘Not a General, a Generalmajor, or even a Major?’ asked Hermann, the Deutsch deliberate.
Garnier tapped cigarette ash into a cupped palm, the dark brown eyes behind those specs not even having to glance down at it.
‘The assistant doorman who delivered the note to the Guillaumet subject’s concierge refused to tell me. His job, he said, and I must agree with him, Colonel, would not only have been jeopardized but forfeited. Decour, the head doorman of the Ritz, is an absolute bastard.’
Agent Garnier was as if of reinforced concrete, thought St-Cyr. No doubt this impersonator of himself ate his meals as though still in the trenches just as Hermann did, stolidly lump by lump while waiting for the next onslaught, but something would have to be said. ‘And how, please, did you learn of her tragic assault?’
Was it to be nothing but the most inane of questions from this Sûreté? wondered Garnier. St-Cyr must have gone through that desk of Hubert’s and his own but had been valiantly trying to hide the fact. ‘Like everyone else, we noticed it in the newspapers.’
‘She takes a good photo, doesn’t she?’ quipped Quevillon who seemed always to be driven to let his gaze flick from this Sûreté to Hermann, as if not just to gauge what the response might be, but to incite it if possible.
‘We were as distressed as yourselves,’ countered Delaroche warily.
‘But none of you had the unenviable task of having to find her, Colonel. Perhaps Agent Garnier would be so good as to tell us who else was tailing Madame Guillaumet?’
‘Yes, tell us,’ breathed Hermann, dragging out his notebook as Quevillon brushed crumbs from the creased knees of trousers that still had the turn-ups of the 1930s.
‘You see, Colonel, your assistant may well have noticed he wasn’t alone in asking questions about her,’ said St-Cyr.
‘Someone sure as hell knew what that “subject” of yours was up to,’ added Hermann.
‘Flavien, did you or Hubert … ?’ hazarded Delaroche. ‘Kohler, must you write everything down?’
There were no bite marks on the colonel’s wrists or hands either, no broken-off, closely trimmed fingernails. In short, none of these three could have assaulted the Trinité victim, nor could Delaroche have been bitten by Élène Artur. ‘Oh, sorry. Force of habit, I guess.’
‘There were two of them, Colonel,’ said Garnier levelly.
‘Two?’ asked Louis who had yet to accuse Garnier of impersonating a Sûreté.
‘Oui. Both of medium height, the one much bigger about the waist than the other, who was built like a wedge, and probably as strong as an ox. They must have seen that I was on to them, for puff, they vanished.’
And how very convenient, thought St-Cyr, but something had had to be given and Garnier had done so. For each advance, first the little retreat; for each lie, the slender element of truth.
Quevillon flashed a knowing grin, but had to lose it suddenly under a scowl from the colonel. ‘And when, please, was that?’ asked St-Cyr.
‘Yes, when?’ asked Hermann.
These two would never be convinced to leave well enough alone and to cooperate, felt Garnier. ‘At first I thought a competing agency must be after the same things, but then they lost interest. Colonel, how was I to have known the subject would be assaulted and robbed? How was Hubert?’
‘Raped and beaten,’ said Quevillon, darting an expectant glance at each of them. ‘But … but wasn’t there something else rammed up inside the …’
‘Hubert!’ cautioned Delaroche.
‘The truncheon of a gendarme de contrôle, peut-être?’
A traffic cop. The press hadn’t known of it, thought Kohler, not even that young doctor at the Hôtel-Dieu had been specific, but Louis wasn’t going to let on and didn’t pause while repacking that pipe of his and making sure his pouch was again filled to overflowing. ‘And with Madame Barrault and Gaston Morel?’ he asked.
St-Cyr had not only stolen more pipe tobacco, he was like a termite with this little interview of theirs, snorted Garnier to himself. Sometimes one couldn’t hear the termites in the night, sometimes they would set up such a racket, sleep was impossible but as with all such insects, it was often best to give them something to gnaw on while one got the paraffin and the match or the solution of arsenic and sugar. ‘They were enjoying each other’s company in secret, or so they thought.’
Hastily Hubert Quevillon pushed that hank of hair back off his brow. ‘But I was able to gain access to that little nest of theirs in the Hôtel Grand and to watch the circus through a crack in the bedroom door.’
‘Hubert …’ tried Delaroche.
‘Toute nue, the legs spread and down on her knees with Morel’s bitte in her hands and …’
‘HUBERT! that is enough,’ snapped Garnier, impatiently flicking cigarette ash into that palm of his. ‘The inspectors asked if you had noticed anyone else tailing the Barrault subject.’
‘Yes, did you notice others were “investigating” the woman’s private life?’ said Hermann.
‘Isn’t that what an agent privé does?’ countered Quevillon. ‘Villeneuve, the manager of the Cinéma Impérial, did tell me that others had been making enquiries. With women like that it’s understandable, is it not? The Barrault subject needed the part-time work and he gave her just enough of it to have the use of her and often.’
Oh and did he? asked Kohler silently. Quevillon avoided glancing at the colonel and for a moment no one could find a thing to say but was this twit of an agent privé confident they couldn’t be touched? Delaroche, having tired of his cigar, had quickly stubbed it out, then polished off the last of the Romanée-Conti, one of the finest of Burgundies, if not the finest and once given to Louis XIV spoonful by patient spoonful, the Sun King’s doctors thinking it might cure the great one’s painful fistula, an outright case of gastric ulcers, no doubt.
Quevillon lit another cigarette, his fifth, or was it the sixth? ‘I have the proof,’ he said, tasting it too. ‘Sworn statements from the cinema’s staff as well as from its manager.’
‘But … but, monsieur, these others who were tailing her?’ asked Louis, gesturing companionably with that pipe hand of his. ‘Could we not have …’
‘Those others, Inspectors, also didn’t maintain their surveillance,’ said Garnier flatly.
‘But were they the same two as with the Guillaumet investigation?’ insisted Louis as if he believed every word of what had been said.
‘That’s correct but we didn’t see them,’ said Garnier. ‘It was only after having been given a description of them, that Villeneuve of the Impérial became certain they were the same. We didn’t expect anyone else to have been tailing the subject, Colonel. Ah! perhaps a slip-up on my part, the need always to be in more than two places at once. One of the usherettes must have let them know we’d been in and asking questions.’
‘Okay, okay,’ breathed Hermann, apparently jotting it all down. ‘Louis and me, we’ll have to check it out. Now give us what you can on …’
Deliberately he thumbed through his notebook, going well back into other investigations before thumbing forward just to let them know the partnership didn’t fool around. ‘Give us what you can on a Father Marescot.’
Had the bell of that church just sounded? wondered St-Cyr, for each of them had glanced at the others.
‘The priest of the Église de Notre-Dame de Lorette, Colonel,’ offered Garnier, having somehow silenced his subordinate. ‘The good father couldn’t tell me what the Barrault subject had revealed in the confessional she repeatedly subjects herself to out of guilt, but he did go so far as to say she had damned herself before God, as had all of the others who attend those special Masses of his and that … yes, yes, he had personally written to the Scapini Commission some time ago demanding that they inform the husband.’
‘A prisoner of war,’ said Delaroche with a sigh, sadly shaking his head. ‘Far too many of their wives are simply taking advantage of their absences. Is it any wonder there has been both outcry and retaliation, especially since our boys can’t defend their property or even have the use of it?’
‘They’re all making sluts of themselves,’ said Quevillon. ‘Chatte is so common these days, one can get it for a half a cigarette the hour and more if one insists.’
The salaud! ‘But had anyone else gone to that priest with a similar inquiry?’ asked Louis, patently ignoring the use of ‘property’ and all the rest.
‘I had no need to ask,’ went on Garnier. ‘Father Marescot offered the information as was his duty as a concerned citizen. Tell them, Hubert.’
‘With pleasure. We weren’t alone, Inspectors. “A woman comes,” he said. “She is older than that one by a good twenty years and doesn’t have to drag around an eight-year-old daughter.” ’
‘Madame Morel?’ asked the termite, as startled by the news as was his partner.
‘Gaston is known for his affairs,’ said Delaroche amicably. ‘Before this Defeat of ours he employed the Barrault subject’s husband as a lorry driver, clearly putting the woman in debt to him. What better a conquest than the stepsister of one’s wife, especially when poverty and loneliness cause such women to do things they might not otherwise agree to.’
Like getting down on their knees for hire, was that it, eh? wondered Kohler. Sûreté that he was, Louis glanced at that wristwatch of his whose crystal had been cracked in that other war but would never be replaced, for it was at once a shining example of French frugality and constant reminder of what he had survived when so many others hadn’t.
‘Ah, bon, Colonel, for now the wrap-up, I think. Attacks are being committed all over the city. The wives and fiancées of prisoners of war, though not the only victims, are being singled out, wedding rings demanded, handbags stolen, et cetera, et cetera. Gestapo Boemelburg, at our briefing this afternoon, told us that he feels certain there is a gang at work, that the attacks are being planned and carried out with military precision backed by exceptional sources of information and that the violence is being deliberately escalated because the defeat at Stalingrad has made such criminals bolder, but with the result that Berlin has been constantly on the line demanding an immediate end to the crimes and a return to safety on the streets.’
Ach du lieber Gott, how had Louis got it all out in one breath? wondered Kohler. A cigar had best be taken, one for him too, the colonel’s cigar cutter borrowed indefinitely.
These two, thought Delaroche, each was so very different yet they were the same. ‘And that is why the Höherer SS Oberg has engaged the Agence Vidocq in the matter, mes amis, and wishes you to join us when we meet with him at 1000 hours Monday, the avenue Foch.’
‘Head Office, Louis,’ breathed Hermann. ‘I told you but you never listen, do you? That’s why I went there right away.’
‘But what did you find and when did you visit Herr Oberg’s office? Come, come, Inspector,’ demanded Delaroche. ‘Is it not time you let us in on what must have happened to Élène Artur? If we are to work together, and I am certain that is what the Standartenführer Langbehn will insist on, then it is best we know everything.’
‘The Standartenführer?’ blurted Louis.
St-Cyr had just been kicked in les joyeuses but surprise had best be registered. ‘Ah, mon Dieu, is it that you have already met?’
‘Briefly. Colonel, who, exactly, is to be at that meeting?’
Such caution was admirable, but why had Jeannot not returned? Had the Dunand girl given trouble? ‘Myself, my partner, Jeannot Raymond, Flavien, of course, and Hubert, yourselves also and I believe a translator, a Blitzmädel, Sonja Remer, who was, apparently, a victim also of this tidal wave of street violence and crime.’
Oh-oh, here it comes, thought Kohler, sighing inwardly.
‘Herr Oberg is determined to punish the boys who stole the girl’s handbag,’ went on Delaroche. ‘Flavien, were either of you able to pin down their identities? I know the bag has been returned by a devious route but it was, I believe, still missing some items.’
The termites had just choked in the darkness of their little tunnel, the one behind on the shit of the one in front. ‘There’s a photo of them in your out-tray, Hubert,’ said Garnier.
‘Get it,’ said Delaroche, ‘and while you’re at it, if Jeannot is in his office, please ask him to join us.’
The building was silent. The lift had made no sound even after M. Jeannot Raymond had left her, but that had been some time ago, Suzette knew, and talking to Teddy simply wasn’t going to help. Indeed, if others knew she did such a thing, they’d think her crazy and she should stop, would have to now anyways, but she wasn’t alone in this. She couldn’t be. Didn’t the Occupation encourage people to retreat into illusion and cultivate their fantasies and daydreams? Wasn’t that just about the only way to counter the terrible loneliness and uncertainty?
‘Look, I’m sorry I didn’t make us a sauce for the noodles. I was still uncertain, still agitated.’
There, she had confessed that much. He paid not the slightest attention, must really be upset with her.
‘The red-lacquered Chinese gate, Teddy. You can’t miss it if you’re in that far corner of the Bois de Vincennes. The gate is at the entrance to the tropical garden and the Institut National d’Agronomie Coloniale and can be seen from a distance, but it … it’s close to something else.’
Even such a hint failed to move him. ‘Very well,’ she said spitefully. ‘I’m going to meet Monsieur Raymond there tomorrow morning at nine.’
Picked at, the noodles were cold and soggy, the slices of carrot like wood. ‘The gate is near the Annamite Temple that is a memorial to the Indochinois who died for France in that other war. The mother of that girl who was murdered downstairs goes there to pray and to introduce her grandson to his ancestors. Monsieur Raymond said that Concierge Louveau told him the dead girl always went there to visit with her mother and little boy early on Sundays just as I go to Charenton on the last Sunday of every month.’
Still there was nothing but an ever-deepening frown from Teddy. ‘Jeannot feels that someone should tell the mother what has happened, that she will have to claim the body from the city’s morgue and that … that funeral arrangements will have to be made. Oh for sure, the daughter was prostituting herself and was the wife of a prisoner of war, but to kill her for betraying her husband was not right, he said. “What is needed is compassion.” There’s a restaurant nearby, on the Île de la Porte Jaune in Lac des Minimes. He has said he will take me to lunch there afterwards.’
Even this news didn’t move him. He was insisting that he be told everything.
‘Jeannot says there’s a bronze funeral urn in the temple’s courtyard and that perhaps the mother could arrange to have the daughter’s ashes placed there among those of her ancestors. Then her little boy could always visit. The temple, a pagoda,****** was donated to the Colonial Exhibition of 1906 in Marseille and is really called a dinh, he says. A large communal house that was used for worship and where the elders of the village would go to discuss important matters. Frankly, I can’t understand how anyone could let such an important building be taken away but they did, and in 1917 it was moved to the Bois de Vincennes to become the memorial. Is it not good and kind of him to want to see the mother, Teddy, and to offer to help her financially with the funeral? A girl he didn’t even know but whose mother and child shouldn’t be made to suffer more than they already will? He … he thought that if I were with him it might make things easier for the little boy and that … that Colonel Delaroche would insist on our taking something from here. He was certain you could help that little boy.’
Let me have the rest of it then, said Teddy.
‘Look, I’m sorry. Really I am but you’ll see everything I do. There’s a passage, Teddy. Jeannot says it’s well worth a visit. All along its walls are beautiful bas-reliefs that were copied from those at Angkor Wat in Indochina. He’s been there. He really has. He’s seen the ruins of that great temple. He says that among our scholars there were some who at first felt that the temple at Angkor Wat was Buddhist but that there is a magnificent shrine to Vishnu, the Hindu Preserver, another to Brahma, their god of Creation, and yet another to Siva, their destroyer. I … I hadn’t realized he would even know or care about such things. Honestly I hadn’t, but … but people don’t visit those memorials much now, so we and the mother and little boy should have the place much to ourselves.’
Teddy didn’t say anything for the longest time. His feelings had, of course, been hurt and she was going to have to do something about that.
You fool, he said at last. Wasn’t this Jeannot of yours standing inside the door here when you ran back upstairs? Didn’t he stop you from crying out in panic?
‘He … he did grab me from behind, but …’
He clamped a hand over your mouth and held you pinned against the door. You thought you were going to die. You did! You nearly fainted.
Teddy never missed a thing, not even that Jeannot had come back to tell her what had happened to that girl. ‘When he released me, I saw that he had been badly bitten on the left wrist and thought that I’d done it in panic, but … but I’d only pulled the bandage off.’
It was inflamed and you stood helplessly before him in tears.
‘He knew where I’d been, knew I’d followed him.’
Yet didn’t accuse you of it?
‘He was too polite.’
Admit it, you couldn’t face him.
‘All right, all right, I won’t go. I won’t! On Monday, when I get to the office, I’ll tell him I wasn’t feeling well.’
She would clear things away now, thought Suzette. She would turn her back on Teddy, wouldn’t throw anything out. They would just have to eat it tomorrow for supper. ‘He’s not like the others at the agency, Teddy. He’s decent, honest and kind, and keeps to himself. That’s why he insisted we sit in the salle de séjour among all those lovely things, and that I drink the last of his eau-de-vie. He was genuinely worried about his having terrified me and held my hands. I had no need to fear him and said I would help him. I promised, Teddy. He’ll be expecting us—he really will. I’m not to tell Concierge Louveau where we’re going even if that one asks, which he will. It’s … it’s best we don’t.
‘ “Let’s keep it to ourselves,” Jeannot said. His fingers trembled when he kissed me on the cheek and I felt the warmth of him. He said, “Please don’t worry. Everything will be fine. It’s probably best that you’re not here when the coroner and the police come to remove that body.” I can’t have the police asking me any more questions. I can’t. I know too much. I’ll lose my job if they make me tell them things.’
And what about that bite you saw? Did Bob do it or some other dog like that Lulu?
‘Bob wouldn’t have bitten him. Not Bob. I … I don’t know how he got the bite. I wish I did but couldn’t ask.’