Gypsy (26 page)

She had given a signed statement to the police.

The Seine seemed not to care about his or anyone else's troubles. When Kohler found him not in the nearby cafe as agreed but staring bleakly at the river, he steeled himself and, putting an arm about Louis's shoulders, said, ‘They're holding her in a cell at the rue des Saussaies. Boemelburg is saying that since she's the only one who has had recent contact with De Vries, her life is in danger.'

That was simply Gestapo jargon for polite arrest.
Sonderbe-handlung
. ‘And the other two?' asked St-Cyr, not looking up from the river.

‘Now under constant surveillance in hopes they'll lead them to him.'

‘But … but they'd have been under surveillance anyway?'

‘Not entirely. Not by far. Some idiot got slack, but now it's round the clock.'

Fortunately Hermann still had his inside sources at Gestapo Paris-Central, but must have paid dearly for the information. And what price exactly had he paid? His undying loyalty? His renewed oath of allegiance to those monsters? ‘What of Tshaya?'

‘No one knows. She's probably with De Vries. Everyone's asking what they'll do next, where they're hiding, and who's helping them.'

‘And Gabrielle's car, what of it?'

‘The Wehrmacht and the préfet's boys are doing another sweep of the city. All courtyards, passages, garages et cetera. She gave them a detailed list of the explosives.'

‘
Freely
?' demanded Louis, his eyes full of tears.

‘Freely. No torture. Not yet.'

‘And who did she say the
résistants
who stole it were? She must have described them. She did, didn't she?'

‘Easy, eh? Easy,
mon vieux
. The car was stopped at a roadblock on their way out from the quarry. She was blindfolded. She had a pistol pointed at the back of her head. All six of them wore bandannas over their faces and carried rifles.'

‘
And rucksacks too
?'

Louis was really upset. ‘Look, the six of them didn't pile into that little car of hers. Only three of them did. The others stayed behind to remove the road-block. She and De Vries were driven right into the city where she alone was let out at the
métro
, at the Saint-François-Xavier station.'

‘It's closed. Did they not know that? The Mabillon, Chambre des Députés, Solférino – every second station has been closed to save electricity. If you had to take the trains, you'd know!'

When Kohler didn't say anything, Louis blurted, ‘Did she try to warn us, Hermann? Was that why she dropped that handkerchief?'

Was it proof she'd been there with De Vries and against her will? ‘She had no choice but to take him there, Louis. He still had enough nitro with him to fragment that little car of hers.'

‘And Boemelburg believed this? And Herr Max?'

‘I … I don't know. I wish I did.'

‘And what about the controls? Surely they must have been stopped? Their papers … their
laissez-passers
…?'

‘You're forgetting De Vries wore uniform. A Hauptmann … He'd have done the talking.'

Kohler fished about in his pockets and, finding a mangled cigarette he had cadged from Giselle, broke it in two, lit up and passed one half over. ‘Don't draw on it too hard, eh? Give it time. Slowly, Louis. Make it last.'

They could have been back in the front lines waiting for each other's artillery barrage to begin at dawn. ‘This is what happens when those in authority decide to let criminals out of jail for purposes of their own, but you're holding back on me, Hermann. Like the river, you're keeping the corpse I need from rising.'

‘They're to raid the zebra house. It's to be a combined Abwehr-Gestapo operation to show the Führer that those two organizations really can work in harmony. They'll find that wireless set.'

‘Suzanne-Cécilia will be arrested, and since I have been fool enough to share my mother's house with her, I, too, will be arrested.'

A
fait accompli
.

‘Giselle says she's going to kill herself and the baby by leaping from the belfries of the Notre-Dame. Oh
bien sûr
, it's the notion you'd expect from an hysterical
lorette
, not a sensible, practical girl like her, but Oona says she means it.'

The last of Louis's half of the cigarette was not saved for another time but crumbled to dust and given to the river as the offering of the desperate. ‘And herself?' he asked.

‘The Seine, I think. I don't know. There's another thing, Louis. Boemelburg's out for our blood. He hasn't slept, hasn't eaten. Berlin have been dinging his ears with our disloyalty. There's more talk of his being “retired” early.'

‘And Herr Max?'

‘Hides behind the flak knowing he's the son of a bitch who took it upon himself to let that bastard out of jail in the first place. We're what he has to have out of this, and all the rest.'

‘The loot.'

‘That car full of explosives. The wireless transceiver. Those three women … What's to happen to their children, to the Countess?'

‘
Why did Gabrielle not confide in us
?'

‘Because I'm one of them and suspect though a friend.'

‘What else is there? Come on, Hermann, give it to me.'

‘Then read the headlines. Our boy's been busy in our absence.'

Kohler showed him Wednesday evening's
Paris Soir
.
GYPSY STRIKES AGAIN. WEHRMACHT PAY TRAIN PLUNDERED IN THE SMALL HOURS.

Thursday's
Pariser Zeitung
hit with their own little lament but not as a headline, as an article tucked away on the back page.
Late-night break-in at villa in Saint-Cloud nets gold bars, jewels, cash, identity cards and passports
.

Both robberies had been committed on Wednesday. It was now Friday the twenty-second.

St-Cyr thrust the papers back at him. ‘Like you said, he's been busy.'

‘Read further. That villa was Nana Thélème's.'

‘The party. Tshaya was there.'

‘And must have found out where the safe was and its combination.'

‘
Cyanide, dummköpfe
!' hissed Boemelburg, purple with rage. ‘One hundred capsules, and now the terrorists are in possession of them!'

‘The villa robbery …' croaked Kohler, only to be silenced by the savage lift of a fist.

‘But how many are to be poisoned? All officers at the Ritz? All those at the Claridge? Who, please, is to receive one-half to one-third of a capsule?'

Never mind the threat of explosives or the loss of so much loot. Like cancer, syphilis and tuberculosis, the Occupier most feared poison, and Paris was his playground. Berlin must really be tearing their hair. ‘We'll get on to it, Sturmbannführer. We'll find them.'

‘Passports,' breathed Boemelburg. ‘Identity cards –
Ausweise
, you idiots – and all necessary franking stamps to make the forgeries appear genuine to the most careful scrutiny. Four British Webley revolvers also, and eighty rounds – yes, eighty!'

Ah
merde
…

The Webley, along with the Lebel, was the Resistance's weapon. During the Defeat of 1940 God alone knew how many of them had been quickly passed from hand to hand. But the presence of the Webleys in that safe confirmed beyond doubt that the SS of Nana's villa in Saint-Cloud had been equipped for counter-subversion – for infiltrating
réseaux
by providing their infiltrators with high-quality documents and a suitable British weapon. A
Sonderkommando
, then, a special unit. Had they been helping Herr Max in this little venture? Of course they had.

Kohler had worked it all out and so had St-Cyr. Boemelburg told himself again that he had had need of these two in the past, but now? he demanded. Now what was he to do with them?

St-Cyr had taken up with the chanteuse they had put in the cellars so that she might prepare herself for honest answers. He had allowed her friend to stay in his house until the veterinary surgeon and zoo-keeper could find new accommodation.

Clandestine wireless signals had been coming from the Jardin des Plantes whose zebra house and paddock were that one's responsibility.

‘Walter …'

‘It's Sturmbannführer, damn you!'

‘Forgive me. If … if the Gypsy had agreed to work with those of the villa in Saint-Cloud, why did he not go directly to them from Tours? Surely he had been told by Herr Max to check in with them first before he did anything?'

‘That whore he's with must have let him know what happened at the party those idiots threw to kick off this insane operation. They felt its outcome a foregone conclusion but she must have told De Vries how the Spade had been using her.'

‘So the couple went out on their own and began a series of robberies – is this how it was?' asked St-Cyr.

Is this what Gestapo Paris-Central believe – wasn't
that
really what Louis was asking? wondered Boemelburg. There had still been no mention of the
réseau
De Vries was to have made contact with, no confession of their knowing anything untoward had been done by those three women.

‘The SS and Herr Max, the Abwehr and the Gestapo Listeners have been running a
Funkspiel
, Sturmbannführer,' said Kohler levelly. ‘The Gypsy was released and probably “dropped” near Tours on the night of the thirteenth. He was then met at the railway station on the fourteenth by Tshaya because the Spade had told her to keep an eye on De Vries and to report everything he did, and everyone he met, but instead of his infiltrating the
réseau
Paris-Central and Abwehr-Paris had thought they had fingered, the two of them decided to do what they knew best and buggered off on everyone.'

‘Herr Max should have confided fully in us,' said St-Cyr, grimly shaking his head. ‘It's unfortunate he failed to.'

‘He didn't trust us,' said Kohler accusingly. ‘How could he not have told us everything, Chief?'

‘Explosives,' grunted Boemelburg. ‘We'll get to them in time but first, the bimonthly pay-train. 2,587,000
Reichskassenscheine
, all in pay packets with unit designations and the names of every German officer and man in Paris and its environs. A
perfect
documentation of the whereabouts and movements of our troops here and the sizes of our garrisons!'

And at the twenty-to-one exchange rate, a further 51,740,000 francs had been stolen.

‘What more valuable information to send the British by wireless?' demanded Boemelburg, toying with a pencil only to snap it in half and throw it into the metal waste basket.

‘Have the Listeners had any evidence of renewed signals?' asked St-Cyr, far too quickly to hide his alarm.

A mint was found and carefully unwrapped. The question would deliberately be left unanswered. ‘There were six of those grey, wooden boxes, each weighing fifty kilos and with rope handles. All had been stamped with Paymaster Kliest's insignia and padlocked by him personally in Berlin. The guards …
Verdammt
!' Angrily Boemelburg gripped his broad forehead as if he was catching the flu. ‘Those idiots left their positions to go to one of the Army's mobile soup kitchens for the midnight meal they had missed but are now digging latrines in Russia.'

When St-Cyr asked again if the wireless listeners had had any evidence of this new information having been relayed to London, Boemelburg glanced at his wrist-watch as if checking on the time of the raid on the zebra house, but continued talking of the robbery. ‘That railway truck had only a simple padlock, easily broken with a hammer and chisel. All of those boxes were ready and waiting just inside the sliding door, and were quickly loaded into an ambulance. We really do not know for certain yet, but a nurse was seen – this has definitely been confirmed.'

Nurses were as common as dust in train stations these days, what with all the wounded on rest and recuperation. ‘The robbery took place between 0330 and 0500 hours,' said Kohler, ‘and about two hours after the explosion I accidentally set off at the Gare Saint-Lazare. He must have borrowed one of the ambulances from there.'

‘He had to have had help. A great deal of help,' seethed Boemelburg. ‘Now perhaps you'd both be good enough to tell me why you left Paris without my authority, to say nothing of that of Herr Max?'

‘The explosives … that blast on the rue Poliveau,' said Kohler quickly. ‘We went to Tours to question the prospector about them.'

There was a sigh. ‘But what led you to suspect Jacqmain knew anything of them?'

‘The Gypsy had to have got them from somewhere,' said Kohler. ‘He had met up with Tshaya who knew the prospector intimately. Prospectors are known to dabble with explosives, aren't they? We also thought to question Jacqmain about his dealings with the Generalmajor Wehrle, but …'

‘Yes, yes, the prospector had shot himself which would indicate what, Hermann? What, exactly, do you think?'

Ah
Gott im Himmel
! ‘That … that he was more deeply involved in things than we had surmised.'

‘But just how deeply, Louis?'

‘This we do not know, Walter. He might simply have been afraid he'd be connected to the diamonds and thus sent into forced labour or worse.'

A cautious answer. ‘And what else did you uncover?'

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but it? The flypapers? The suitcase with its banknotes and flask of nitroglycerine? Gabrielle's taking it to Château Thériault and then on to Senlis with Nana and back to Paris, the two of them getting explosives for De Vries, a first visit to the powder magazines?

‘A fondness for the gypsy woman, Tshaya,' said Kohler, ‘and that she worked for the Spade who was after the diamonds the prospector had illegally kept.'

‘As was Nana Thélème, but for the Generalmajor and the Reich,' said St-Cyr.