Bellringer (44 page)

With Marguerite Lefèvre.

‘Earlier, madame, you had banished Jennifer Hamilton,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Though she was very much in love with your maid, and that one no doubt with her, you told Marguerite Lefèvre to end the affair. Things were being stolen, albeit little things but far too many of them. There was rising discontent. You suspected Jennifer and sent her away, but then. . . ah, then, love found a means of returning.’

‘Jennifer encouraged Caroline to plead with you and Léa to let her become a sitter,’ said Kohler.’

‘Marguerite Lefèvre,’ asked St-Cyr, ‘did you, when asked by your lover and her new partner, allow them in to see Madame’s bedroom when she was called away to Herr Weber, and did Madame not soon discover what you had done in her absence?’

There was no answer, only silence.

‘And from that point on, madame, since your reputation was fast falling,’ said Kohler, ‘you realized there could well be some benefit in encouraging Caroline, particularly if that goddess of yours found the answer to what that girl desperately wanted to know.’

‘You gave her the L’Heure Bleue presentation phial to cement things,’ said St-Cyr.

‘Knowing full well that Caroline would show it to Madame Vernon and fan the flames, and that we would soon see through the lie you had told us,’ said Kohler, ‘because you wanted to draw our attention away from the Hôtel Grand and to the Vittel-Palace and that very woman.’

‘If you could prove, through Cérès, that Madame Vernon had killed her husband and we were convinced of it, that would be the crowning touch to a triumphant return,’ said St-Cyr.

‘Laurence Vernon, inspectors,’ said Élizabeth. ‘I see that you have rightly dropped the
de
. I was certain she had killed him but knew not of her nor even what she looked like then, having only the present vestige to go on. The
sûreté
—’

‘Suspected Irène Vernon but couldn’t build an adequate case,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Such things happen more often than we would like, and she was and still is abundantly aware of her legal rights.’

‘Once I got to know Laurence a little in this life, in July 1920, he readily told me of his marriage and that he was worried his family might have got in touch with her.’

‘To tell her he had inherited a bundle, Hermann, from the estate of his mother.’

‘But the tables soon took it all, didn’t they?’ asked Herr Kohler.

‘He. . . he wanted a loan,’ managed Madame Chevreul. ‘He said he needed it, that his luck would change.’

‘But you refused,’ said St-Cyr.

‘He became impossible. I left my room and went to the casino’s
cercle
to place a few modest wagers of my own.’

‘Having asked the management to chuck him out if he followed you,’ said Kohler.

‘Yes, damn you. Yes!’

‘But he persisted. He must have, Louis.’

‘Returning again and again to the casino, Hermann.’

‘I didn’t kill him. She did!’

‘Me?’ countered Irène Vernon. ‘At which casino, please, was I to have found my Laurence, inspectors? Me, in Paris and with hardly a sou to my name?
Bien sûr,
I received just such a letter but could travel nowhere without the cash to do so and did not even know where he was.’

‘Irène. . . Irène,’ interjected Brother Étienne, ‘I must tell them that is not correct. Though much younger and really quite
chic
for one so poor, you were there on the morning after the fire. You wore a light beige beret, a marvellous Hermès kerchief you had picked up somewhere, and a thin brown raincoat, secondhand, I thought at the time, but still very stylish, and you watched from among the gathering as I assisted my brother the abbot when he gave your husband’s charred remains the last rites.’

‘You fool,’ she said. ‘Why could you not have held your tongue?’

‘Because he’s a marvellous gossip, my dear Irène,’ said Élizabeth. ‘Inspectors, I didn’t attend the removal and identification of the body. It had but one arm and Laurence had also lost a huge amount at the tables. Everyone would have known who he was, and I had been seen in his company, so I simply left for Paris on the early morning train. Oh for sure, I suspected what she could well have done, but I had no proof and felt it best to absent myself.’

‘Let’s ask Cérès, shall we?’ said Louis.

‘Léa. . . Léa, tell them I’m innocent.’

‘With you, was she, in 1920?’ asked Herr Kohler. ‘Called her in for a little help—is that it, eh?’

‘Not at all, Inspector. We didn’t meet up again until Besançon in December of 1940.’

‘But did Laurence Vernon purchase that pendant for you, madame?’ asked Louis.

‘When he still had most of his new bankroll?’ asked Herr Kohler.

Men! They would now be at her if she wasn’t careful. First the one and then the other, each baying for the sheer joy of it. ‘He became insufferable and made a terrible scene, begging me to return it to him so that he could cover his bets. He had suffered to save France, he said, was a hero, but had no medals to show for it, just an empty arm.’

‘You first loaned him fifty thousand francs,’ shouted Irène Vernon. ‘Admit that you did or I will swear to it in court!’

‘
Garce,
he hated you! Frigid—that is what he said of you.’

‘Better that than
une fille des rues
, eh Madame? Inspectors, this impostor killed him. She hit him with an empty champagne bottle and then had a little problem only a fire could solve.’

‘A champagne bottle?’ asked St-Cyr.

‘
Oui, peut-être,
but that I wouldn’t really know. How could I? Oh for sure, I watched them from the foyer of the Hôtel de l’Ermitage where he was staying. As a couple, they attended the theatre, where séances were held each night, my Laurence even asking the medium to contact the comrades he had lost in battle, that. . . that woman egging him on. Then I found them on the terrace of the Grand and in the shops. That Alexander thing was from Boucheron at 175,000 francs. A pendant and a scheme of their own that was being hatched as they embraced. Bold, I tell you. Having sex in their rooms, his, then hers, and not just during the hours of five to seven before the first serving but afterwards also.
Ah, mon Dieu,
the things the maids told me. The noises she made, the sheets they then had to remove. A wealthy American veteran and a wealthy British girl, unmarried, I tell you.
Oh, là là
what a pullet for my Laurence to pluck, only she had the same thing in mind for him and had had plenty of experience!’

There was silence, but was the outburst over? wondered St-Cyr. ‘And years later, Madame Vernon, you found yourself here again but with Caroline Lacy who needed to know the answer to what had happened to him.’

He rang the bell.

‘She wouldn’t leave it because of that. . . that Jennifer Hamilton,’ quavered Irène. ‘What was I to have done? Allowed myself to be blamed for something I hadn’t done?’

‘And on the night of Saturday, 13 February,’ said St-Cyr, ‘Caroline slammed the door to Room 3–54 in your face.’

‘You had gone there to beg that girl to come back to you,’ said Herr Kohler.

‘They had been fighting—having a raging lovers’ quarrel,’ said Irène, now in tears. ‘My poor Caroline was distraught and coughing terribly. I knew her chest would be bothering her. Always when emotional, the asthma would come on at its fiercest.’

‘But she refused to leave—is that it?’ asked Hermann.

‘Inspectors. . . Inspectors, please, her heart,’ said Brother Étienne.

‘You found that elevator gate had been opened, madame,’ said Louis. ‘You couldn’t have known why this had happened but in such a state would have seen how it could well be used.’

‘I didn’t push that girl. I
didn’t,
inspectors.’

‘Caroline did leave that room and head back to her own,’ said Herr Kohler, ‘but as for Jennifer, she stayed put out of fear of encountering you.’

‘And Jennifer was the one she wanted to kill, Hermann, but then first Jill Faber and Marni Huntington came up the stairs and went along to their room, and then a half hour or so later, Mary-Lynn and Nora started up those same stairs. They were shouting at each other, the one in tears, the other claiming this whole business was a fraud.’

‘Again you waited, Madame Vernon,’ said Kohler. ‘You hoped Jennifer would hear them and leave that room. The corridor lights were blinking on and off.’

‘I didn’t wait, as you say, Inspector. I went downstairs to the toilet after the first two had gone to their room. Me, I tried to calm myself.’

‘And along that third-storey corridor, Hermann, Caroline stepped out of Room 3–38 with Becky close behind to steady her hand and light one of her cigarettes, even as Mary-Lynn fell.’

‘Having been pushed by that one, Inspector,’ said Élizabeth Chevreul, pointing at Nora.

‘Who had no reason to push her nor to even have accidentally done,’ said Louis. ‘You see, madame, Nora had stumbled and fallen behind and didn’t reach that gate and corridor until afterwards.’

‘Then who killed Mary-Lynn?’ she asked.

‘Perhaps it is that you should ask the goddess.’

‘Her gris-gris, Louis. You’d best hand it back to her.’

Again hands were to be joined, eyes closed, but first all items were to be laid out inside the circle: Mary-Lynn’s suitcase with the things Jen had stolen and had tried to get rid of when it was taken away; the basket Bamba Duclos had used; and the last meal Jen had eaten: the pound cake, the empty stew pot, pie, and cup of tea; along with everything that had been found in Caroline’s pockets.

A single wad of chewing gum was set beside papers of the same, Becky swallowing tightly, Léa laying a steadying hand on Madame Chevreul’s left shoulder, Madame Vernon, flushed and dabbing at her eyes.

Marguerite Lefèvre stared emptily at the things Jen had stolen, until warned by Léa.

‘Cérès. . . Cérès, are you there?’ asked the medium.

‘I am here,’ came the distant answer.

The bell was rung.

‘Can you reach Mary-Lynn Allan for us?’

‘Allan. . . Allan. . . ’ began Cérès. ‘She was climbing some stairs but says she turned to look back down them through the darkness, for the light had gone off. Nora was yelling at her, she says. Nora was telling her that it was all a fraud and that you, Madame Chevreul, had informants of your own and knew virtually everything that went on in the camp, each person’s personal history if needed, all the little things that would make each séance appear real. You had been in that other war as a nurse and knew what its front had been like for those who had fought.’

There was a pause and then, ‘Is someone waiting to push her?’ asked the medium.

‘Yes, oh yes,’ said Cérès, ‘I didn’t know it then, but now.’

‘And is that person present in this circle?’

‘Yes, oh yes.’

‘Who is it, please?’

‘She was in tears and didn’t want to listen to what her friend was shouting at her,’ said Cérès. ‘She tells me that she reached her floor in darkness and started towards her room. The lights came on and she blinked to clear her eyes. There was someone, but this person had ducked back out of sight. She went on but was grabbed, shoved—pushed—pitched into space and knew she was falling. “I panicked,” she says. “I screamed and tried to grab hold of one of the cables but it tore my face and hands and turned me upside down and I knew I couldn’t stop myself. Down. . . down. . . Nora. . . Nora, you were my friend.”’

The bell was rung by the medium, who then collapsed, Léa supporting her.

‘
Ah, bon,
’ said St-Cyr.

The woman was revived—the brush of wet fingers across her brow.

‘Madame Monnier,’ he asked, ‘are you convinced the goddess said “Nora”?’

‘
Oui
.’

‘Then please have your mistress ask her to contact Herr Weber. Here is the ribbon that was in his sister’s hair when that one was tragically killed.’

‘Herr Weber, Inspector?’ blurted Madame Chevreul.

‘Has passed over, but before he did. . . ’

‘Must I?’

‘If you are to prove you still have your powers,’ said Louis, ‘and that the planets with their asteroids are aligned.’

‘Léa. . . ’

Again she concentrated on the pendulum and gave the incantation, the ribbon having been stretched out in full view of the sitters and her.

‘Ask the goddess to ask him if he hadn’t desperately needed something to relay to Berlin that would ensure that Colonel Kessler was recalled,’ said Hermann. ‘Ask him if the suicide of the girl the colonel had made pregnant hadn’t been perfect?’

Cérès’s voice was lost, the questions stammered by the medium who could barely find her own.

‘Ask him if access to the Vittel-Palace would have presented any problem to the head of security, especially if after curfew and lockup?’ continued Herr Kohler. ‘That side door’s laundry room would probably have been empty, especially at suppertime or after it.’

When most would have been in their rooms or those of their neighbours and friends.

‘He could easily have gone down into the cellars, Hermann, and made his way through to that far wing to climb its stairs and wait, then unlock and open that gate when no one would suspect.’

‘The former smoking rooms, the location of the poker game, were well to that side of the main entrance,’ said Herr Kohler.

‘A risk, a gamble, oh for sure, Hermann, but they
did
take that far staircase. Had they not, Room 3–54 was close enough. Nora would most likely have gone into room 3–38 when they reached it while Mary-Lynn, remaining in the corridor, would have continued coming towards where he was hidden.’

‘He would first have heard Jill and Marni coming up those stairs, wouldn’t have known what the hell to do except wait.’

‘That would have put him right on edge, Hermann, but then he
did
hear the other two shouting at each other and could easily have identified them by the names they were using for each other. Parking his chewing gum, he would push the one or both if necessary since it didn’t matter to him so long as he could tell Berlin that Colonel Kessler’s mistress had taken her own life.’

‘Nora, if she’d also been pushed, having simply made the mistake of rushing to her assistance and falling as well, Louis.’