Bellringer (30 page)

The hardtack was white and heavy. ‘Put a little of this chutney on it.’

‘
Ah, mon Dieu,
it’s comforting to know you want to play nursemaid as well, but those are orange-juice crystals.’

‘Oh.’

A can of cold pork and beans was opened and, after hammering the hardtack with a fist, a slice of the SPAM was laid to rest and covered, spoonful by spoonful with the other.

‘
Bon appétit,
’ said Louis. ‘Now, please enlighten me.’

The Wehrmacht’s cooks had refused entry to the kitchens, having locked all doors to prevent contamination by datura. Apparently the rumours were rife.

Kohler leaned forward to confide the worst. ‘Weber and Kessler were at each other’s throats. The one, having put the other up for the Russian Front, was targeted to Berlin-Central as a traitor soft on the Americans and the father of Mary-Lynn’s unborn, the girl having unfortunately—now get this—tampered with that padlock and then committed suicide.’

Immediately causing the abrupt recall of Colonel Kessler, but caution had best be urged. ‘The Untersturmführer kills her to establish the necessary proof?’

The missing sticks of chewing gum were mentioned, Louis choking on a bit of biscuit.

‘Hermann, if this is true, we’ll never get out of here and you know it. Granted, Jennifer would have had to tell him beforehand that Mary-Lynn would be attending yet another of Madame Chevreul’s séances and that Nora would again be with her, the others off playing poker, except for herself and Caroline.’

Becky having stayed in her own room, a fact not likely known beforehand. ‘Entry for Weber wouldn’t have been a problem, Louis. It was the most distant wing of that hotel and late at night.’

‘But,
ah, merde, mon vieux,
one lone male—an SS at that, and head of security—among 992 females, any of whom could get out of bed or leave that poker game to walk the corridors or climb those stairs at any moment?’

‘He was desperate. He had to get rid of Kessler before that one got rid of him. They’d probably been at each other’s throats since the British first got here.’

‘But couldn’t have known when those two would come back from that séance, Hermann, nor even which staircase they would take.’

Louis could be difficult. ‘Just listen, will you? These aren’t bad, by the way.’ The spoon was given a flourish. ‘We both know that padlock wasn’t tampered with. The corridor lights were blinking off and then on, something Weber need not have engineered, since it happened often.’

‘Good. Your opinion is comforting, but all we really have is Jennifer Hamilton’s word that Caroline Lacy left Room 3–54 at about midnight to return to Room 3–38 for those cigarettes. A lover’s tiff that was soon settled, according to Jennifer, the couple parting on good terms, Becky claiming otherwise and that Caroline was distraught, Madame de Vernon telling me that when the girl left her on Friday afternoon, two days ago, she felt Caroline was going to meet Jennifer to end the affair.’

‘That woman was still out in the corridor, Louis. I’m certain of it.’

‘Perhaps, but what, really, did Caroline see, Hermann?’

‘Since she absolutely must have seen something.’

‘And wouldn’t otherwise have done what she did.’

For beverage there was tea made with cold water and sweetened with Borden’s Condensed Milk courtesy of a Canadian parcel, for dessert, a Neilson’s chocolate bar, eight ounces or 226.8 grams.

‘Let’s set Weber aside for the moment. Was the wrong one pushed, Louis?’

‘Madame de Vernon hating Jennifer.’

‘Who repeatedly went along with Caroline to beg Madame Chevreul to let her become a sitter.’

‘So that Cérès could be asked to contact Madame de Vernon’s unfaithful husband.’

‘Caroline hoping to find out exactly what had happened to him.’

‘Something Madame de Vernon definitely did not want.’

‘Did she steal that datura from herself, Louis, as Brother Étienne accused, she hotly denying it but now waiting to put it to use?’

If so, they were in even deeper trouble, since Weber would be only too willing to blame them for having let it happen, and Berlin-Central only too eager to hear of it. ‘That monk knows far too much for his own good, Hermann. A nocturnal fire destroys the casino here but he fails to mention it?’

‘And twenty-three years later Madame de Vernon finds herself back in Vittel at the very scene and enduring five confrontations with our head juju lady, demanding that she not let that ward of hers into any séance.’

‘A request Madame Chevreul refuses.’

‘While probably taking great delight in so doing, Louis, because she can use the publicity, or Léa has convinced her she can.’
Ach,
the tea was exactly like the bilge water they’d often found in the overrun trenches of the British.

‘And everyone lies, Hermann, if not to protect one another and the herd, then to protect themselves.’

‘With or without the others realizing it, but secretly thinking it in any case. Women, Louis.
Girls!
Why the hell must they be so difficult?’

Apparently the orange-juice crystals didn’t help the tea. ‘Mary-Lynn was shoved, Hermann, of this there can be little question.’

‘But was the shoving meant for her or for Caroline, as that one repeatedly claimed, or for Nora Arnarson who fears she will be next?’

‘Weber knew about Becky Torrence’s fiancé, Hermann, and was secretly using that information to get her to cooperate.’

‘So that he could have an informant in each of those two rooms and was planning to get rid of Mary-Lynn so as to pin the paternity and death on Kessler and be free of him.’

‘Caroline claiming she had been the intended victim in order to hide behind that, Hermann, until she could tell the Kommandant what she had really seen.’

They ate in silence. They didn’t know where to turn, and certainly they’d need absolute proof, felt Kohler, but something else would have to be mentioned. ‘Jennifer has let everyone know the contents of her flat.’

‘A fortune. Granted, it’s curious for one to be so open, especially if cognizant of the huge inflation in such things, but. . . ’

‘Guess who has a list and has invited himself to Paris in April for a little look and a tête-à-tête with the ERR?’

The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg.

This definitely wasn’t good. ‘Then are we dealing with one or two killers, Hermann, and is that not the question we most need to answer?’

‘Whoever killed Caroline must have known the Chalet des Ânes’ padlock would be open and had either been waiting inside for her or had stepped in right after her.’

‘But did her killer know ahead of time, Hermann, that Sergeant Senghor would be bound to order Corporal Duclos not to meet with that girl?’

‘Maybe Brother Étienne knows more than he’s saying.’

‘Then let’s hope he doesn’t fall prey to his own medicine.’

‘While treating a certain juju lady and her henchwoman. Jennifer told me she was hauled into the cellars here, Louis, and given the lowdown on Madame Chevreul and Léa. Those two were suffragettes, something she has yet to broadcast in the Vittel-Palace. I’ve told her not to until we’re ready.’

‘But a past that caused them to volunteer for active service. . . ’

‘They knew each other from London’s Old Bailey in the summer of 1914, but before that too.’

‘The street riots, Hermann, the smashed windows, the bombings, and the arson. That battle with suffragettes had been going on for years in Britain.’

‘Madame Chevreul claims to sleep like a baby after every séance but is being treated by the brother for insomnia.’

‘A lie we were most certain to uncover.’

‘She also claims that Guerlain sample box was stolen by our kleptomaniac but that neither Jennifer nor Caroline could possibly have done it, the former then claiming that Madame had given it to Caroline to cement things.’

‘Knowing full well, Hermann, that Caroline would show it to everyone, Madame de Vernon in particular.’

‘And another lie that Madame Chevreul must have known we’d be bound to uncover. Maybe she wants to draw attention to herself or to Madame de Vernon. Maybe, too, she really does want us to ask Cérès for answers, since that would bring acclaim. She did lose her talisman—at least, that’s what one of her “dreadful harpies” told me when I was reviewing the troops here with Weber.’

‘Her gris-gris. That’s Wolof, I think—Senegalese—for talisman.’

A can of corned beef, probably from Argentina via Britain, was opened and sampled.

‘She must really have her enemies,’ said St-Cyr.

‘And competes with Duclos.
Ach,
she did tell me that her powers were being questioned and that whether I liked it or not, all were watching and waiting for the outcome.’

‘And right after that séance a week ago, took the trouble to publicly warn Mary-Lynn to take great care.’

‘Nora having constantly derided Madame’s efforts, Louis, which could only have been bad for business.’

‘Léa, then, Hermann, which causes Nora to worry if she herself was the intended victim or soon to be.’

The corned beef was really quite tasty. ‘Why choose to meet at the Chalet des Ânes? Why not simply in the open, or at the wood compound?’

‘That chalet can’t be where the resident kleptomaniac hides her loot, Hermann. It’s far too visible and would have required borrowing the key time and again or making a copy of it.’

A packet of Lucky Strikes was opened, one lighted, and after two deep drags were taken, passed over.

‘Mary-Lynn’s things were tidied, Louis. When asked, Jennifer claimed Becky must have done it that first time, but to me they looked as if they’d been tidied again, and recently.’

When given, the order they’d first been seen in was definitely not the same.

‘Jennifer, then, and not Becky, Hermann? Please don’t be too soft on Mademoiselle Torrence. She refuses to go along with Weber’s request that she become one of his informants but knows Caroline is to meet with Corporal Duclos because she was the very person who had set that meeting up.’

‘And can’t have Caroline telling Colonel Jundt that she helped her fiancé to escape to the free zone, something she couldn’t have known Weber already knew.’

‘The Star of David then being crammed into Caroline’s pocket and the pitchfork seized and driven home on impulse.’

‘But by a killer, Louis, who then returns to the scene to find her victim and then, after lying to me about her having had a look, admits that she did?’

‘That cowrie shell,
mon vieux
. Was Caroline planning to return it to Corporal Duclos with an apology, and if so, was she the thief or given it by the same so as to get him to agree to take that note to the Kommandant?’

‘Given it by Jennifer who would have told Weber who Caroline was to have met and when and where. We’ll have to ask her.’

‘But first, Madame Chevreul and Léa Monnier. Since the house visits have been somewhat delayed, let’s hope the brother is still with them.’

Three birds with one stone and a locked room too. ‘
Ach,
I almost forgot. I found something.’

Not until the pipe was packed and the furnace going did St-Cyr heave a contented sigh and say, ‘
Merci, mon vieux,
I knew I could count on you.’

‘As can Becky.’

There was choking, coughing, wheezing as the passport and papers were set before him—tears, too. ‘I couldn’t leave them, Louis. We might never have got another chance.’

Alone, worried about Weber, for if true, Hermann and he couldn’t withstand another run-in with the SS, St-Cyr drew on his pipe. Before him were the windows of Madame Chevreul’s reception room. Already the ground fog, that bane of Vittel’s existence, had returned to sweep slowly in and up over the snow-covered ground and all but hide the tree trunks and pavilions.
Bien sûr,
there was still a view—magnificent if earlier in the day. The Chalet des Ânes could still be seen. Caroline Lacy had headed for it at 1530 hours Friday, Nora Arnarson had been over by the perimeter fence. . .

‘Something,’ he muttered softly to himself. ‘We are missing something so simple, it’s right before us.’

Off in the distance, against the wire and seen, then not seen, the lone figure of that girl prowled the edge of her cage like a trapped cougar.

‘She must know this park better than anyone yet claims not to have found the hiding place but has admitted to suspecting Jennifer Hamilton and of not only tracking that girl and Caroline Lacy into this hotel but also of asking others where the couple have been and to whom they’ve spoken.

‘Has said of the relationship between the two that at first she felt it was out of character of Jennifer and then opportunistic because Caroline’s family were very wealthy and yet. . . and yet she lies. She confesses only when confronted with the hard and inescapable truth. Is still hiding something.

‘Will be twenty-six years old on Wednesday. Isn’t married. Doesn’t even have a fiancé anymore.

‘Why not?

‘Claims to have seen Brother Étienne on Friday but claims not to have waved. When asked who was with him, answered, “Caroline, I think.”

‘“Becky?” he had asked, Nora answering, “Was she? I didn’t notice.”’

Had mentioned the very ground fog and the poor visibility, that the tree trunks had been in the way, and then had said, “How was I to have seen anything?”

And knowing that, had she then gone to the chalet to confront Caroline Lacy?

Few if any would have seen her. Caroline must have entered the chalet at close on 1600 hours, would either have found someone waiting for her or would have waited herself for that person.

Had somehow acquired that cowrie shell.

The time of death, though calculated to be 1600 hours, could well have been somewhat later. A time for confrontation? Argument?

Nora Arnarson would have had no problem getting in there, but what had she found? Caroline simply waiting to be met or already dead?

It would have been all but dark inside, a light needed, a candle, a flashlight? But these last had been confiscated on arrival at the camp and were illegal.

A match, then, a simple match. But if so, the burned stub had been pocketed. Hadn’t she since taken care to dispose of just such a thing?