One by one the bundles of notes were arranged on the table. Then he took out the envelope that had been left at the solicitor’s for Vernet. ‘Mademoiselle Chambert’s underpants, General. A last touch Madame Vernet could not resist presenting to her husband.’
When she spat in Vernet’s face and stamped a foot, she was led away. ‘She’ll be on the evening train to Berlin. That is all I can promise,’ said von Schaumburg gruffly. ‘These things are never easy, and once out of my jurisdiction, her fate falls into the hands of others.’
She could well become the toast of Berlin, thought Kohler ruefully, and, taking the little roulette wheel, pushed in the plunger and let the ball bounce and land where it would.
At another nod from Louis, the General found a letter and, handing it to Vernet, said simply, ‘Sign it. Refuse to do so and you will join your wife on that train.’
All it said was that should any harm come to Nénette Micheline Vernet, her uncle and guardian would forfeit all interest in the family holdings.
He signed without a murmur. It would have to do, but could the child remain in the same house with him?
‘You will move to your club on the Champs-Élysées,’ said von Schaumburg. ‘You will bear the ridicule your associates will heap on you. You will have no further contact with your niece, who will remain here in her home. That is an order.’
They met in secret in the Bois near the Carrefour des Cascades overlooking the Lac Supérieur. Three days had passed, three days of rest, reports and healing of bruises that still caused St-Cyr to limp.
‘Jean-Louis, it’s good to see you.’
‘You also.’
He took her arm in his and it felt good to be here with her. Gabrielle Arcuri tossed her head to indicate the coming rain. He said, ‘It does not matter.’
‘Then walk with me to my place. I’m cold.’
‘Don’t prolong things, please.’
‘Very well. The message from London was received on the fifteenth at oh-one-fifty hours. When decoded it read, “No news of Henri-Claude Vernet and wife other than official view. Sorry. Better luck next time.”’
‘Then the child’s parents were really killed in the bombing. I had hoped … An industrialist like that, a brilliant designer, a maker of weapons at a time when they are needed.’
‘Ah, stop worrying. If it helps, I don’t think so. The official view is simply what they had to give us. The “better luck” tells me her parents are alive and well but that you cannot give her such information.’
‘Even though she needs it?’
‘A suggestion perhaps.’
‘Will you come with me?’
‘It’s a long walk. Let’s take a vélo-taxi.’
‘Those things are too easily followed. Besides, the Gestapo’s Watchers are often lazy. We can talk on the way and cut through the woods. The child will give us tea.’
‘And cakes?’
‘Yes, cakes.’
The child presented them with the crystal of clear quartz. ‘It is magic,’ she said seriously. You will need it, I’m afraid, for the cards, they are not good. A visitor is to come into your lives—both of you. This person will pit you against each other with terrible consequences. Please do not forget this. Remember to be true to each other.’
It was von Schaumburg’s chauffeur who caught up with them on the way back to hand St-Cyr a telex Heinrich Himmler had sent to Mueller, Head of the Gestapo in Berlin, who had then sent it on to Walter Boemelburg, Head of the same in France, and it was really for Hermann, who wouldn’t want it at all and was probably asleep in some freezing cinema while his Giselle and his Oona watched with rapt attention some tired rerun from the thirties.
MOST URGENT. REPEAT URGENT. IKPK HQ BERLIN REPORTS INTERNATIONAL SAFE-CRACKER GYPSY REPEAT GYPSY HAS REPORTEDLY SURFACED. LAST SEEN TOURS 1030 HOURS 14 JANUARY HEADING FOR PARIS. APPREHEND AT ONCE.
HEIL HITLER.
The IKPK … the International Criminal Police Commission thought to have ceased to exist at the outset of the war …
‘Gypsy …?’ blurted Gabrielle, sickened by the message. Jean-Louis, he could not know the Resistance had received a wireless message tacked on to that about the child’s parents. GYPSY … REPEAT GYPSY DROPPED TOURS NIGHT OF 13 JANUARY. PROVIDE EVERY ASSISTANCE. MOST URGENT. REPEAT URGENT. WILL HAVE EXPLOSIVES. GIVE FULL PRIORITY. CODE NAME ZEBRA.
‘Hold my hand,’ she said.
‘Of course.’
‘Please remove your mitten.’
‘It’s too cold. Here, put your hand in my coat pocket with mine. I’ve emptied it.’
Emptied it of all but the child’s crystal.
Acknowledgement
All the novels in the St-Cyr-Kohler series incorporate a few words and brief passages of French or German. Dr Dennis Essar of Brock University very kindly assisted with the French, as did the artist Pierrette Laroche, while Ms Bodil Little of the German Department at Brock helped with the German. Should there be any errors, they are my own, and for these I apologize but hope there are none.
Turn the page to continue reading from the St-Cyr and Kohler Series
1
At last the dust began to settle, and all about the room things began to change colour.
Grey grew on the gold and crimson of an Aubusson carpet. Grey gathered on the Generalmajor’s dressing-table. It was on the mirror that had split into shards just waiting to fall. It was on his jackboots that were set so neatly to one side, and on the silver and cobalt blue dish of Russian caviar, on the black of those exquisite little pearls not tasted in years, yes, years.
The spoon had been tossed aside to fling a fortune on to the floor. A fortune Herr Max of the Berlin Kriminalpolizei and the IKPK had injudiciously put a shabby brown brogue squarely and uncaringly over. Squish. All gone. Ah merde, the stain, and dry cleaning was so expensive these days. Impossible for most.
Shattered flutes stood where once they had held champagne. The Taittinger 1934, a great year, was being soaked up by the settling dust, and the sight of its bottle on ice parched the throat and made one swallow.
As if to mock their panic, the door to the old black iron-studded safe suddenly relaxed and slowly turned inwards, allowing yet another of its firebricks to fall. An avalanche of rubble carelessly accompanied the brick, causing Hermann to blurt dumbfoundedly, ‘Has the fire alarm finally stopped?’
The bang had been deafening. Herr Max had only just stepped into the suite and now ruefully wiped the dust from his face. ‘So, und where is he? Verdammt, dummköpfe, is he still in the hotel?’
The Gypsy, the international safe-cracker. The Ritz Hotel, the place Vendôme – Paris and the Occupation; 18 January 1943 at precisely 10.59 p.m. Berlin Time. Monday evening, one hour and one minute before curfew.
‘The hotel?’ demanded Herr Max.
‘He can’t be,’ breathed Louis in deutsch.
‘What is this you are saying?’ shrieked the visiting Detektiv Inspektor.
‘The safe. It’s empty, but as the Gypsy was not in the suite when it blew, how could he have emptied it then?’
‘Then?’
Kohler could hear Louis sighing inwardly before his partner said resignedly, ‘The Gypsy must have emptied it earlier, Herr Max. His little pleasure was to blow it for our enjoyment. When the door knob was turned – it was yourself who did so, wasn’t it? – the circuit was completed and an electrical current passed through the blasting cap. Those are bits of electrical wire, are they not? Those are the remains of at least two dry-cell batteries?’
‘Nitro, Louis. The fumes are giving me a headache.’
‘Me also.’
‘He has used beeswax to seal the seam between the door and the walls of the safe. He has poured the nitroglycerine in at the top and has used too much.’
‘Ah now, has he really, Herr Max?’
Kohler swore under his breath but said loudly, ‘Louis, our visitor is absolutely correct.’
‘That is exactly what I said.’
‘Don’t be difficult.’
‘Then, Hermann, please inform all those who have come running to put their fire-extinguishers away and to calm themselves. Perhaps one of us – yourself, Herr Max – could summon the Generalmajor? Try any of the bars in the hotel or perhaps the main foyer? Who’s to say, really, where a high-ranking officer of the Third Reich will meet a woman he has asked to share a little repast in his quarters?’
‘A woman?’
‘There are or, rather, there were two glasses. I am of course assuming une affaire de coeur, n’est-ce pas? Une liaison dangereuse peut-être.’
‘Speak clearly. You know I can’t understand you.’
‘Pardonnez-moi. An affair of the heart, a dangerous liaison perhaps.’
Max Engelmann grunted disparagingly. ‘We will let the General-major return when he chooses. For now it is sufficient for us to examine the scene of the robbery. Please do not disturb a thing.’
‘Of course. There’s nothing left to …’
‘Louis, shut up!’
St-Cyr grabbed his partner by an elbow and hustled Kohler into the bedroom to violently hiss in French, ‘What would you have me do, idiot? Let that Büroklammer put his big feet on top of everything? Why is he here, Hermann? Who invited him and how, please, did he know “this” safe was the one to be robbed and by the Gypsy? Why not any other?’
‘Those are all good questions but they’ll have to keep. For now, hold your temper. That’s an order.’
‘You know I don’t like taking orders from you!’
‘Then just back off. He’s from Berlin, eh? That can mean many things. Besides, he’s no paperclip and you damned well know it!’
‘Ah yes, Berlin. I had thought the IKPK fini. Kaput! Disbanded at the outset of the war.’
The International Police Commission had been based in Vienna, linking many of the major police services in Europe and around the world, but then the Anschluss had come, the takeover of Austria in 1938, and in ’39, the war.
‘Quite obviously I should have remained far more alert to its continued existence,’ confessed St-Cyr sourly.
‘Me too.’
Though much coveted by Reinhard Heydrich before his assassination by Czech Freedom Fighters in May of 1942, most had felt the IKPK had simply ceased to function, but why should it have? Pimps, prostitutes, pickpockets, con artists, forgers and safe-crackers could still migrate like gypsies. And of course the SS would not only want to keep track of them but to use them whenever necessary. Ah merde, wondered St-Cyr, was that how Herr Max had obtained word of this job?
‘The IKPK’s card-index files, Hermann. The SS will have them. Every international criminal, every safe-cracker …’
‘Come on,’ said Kohler softly. ‘Hey, we’d better get back to him.’
‘Of course.’
The fight against common crime had always been difficult, only the more so now under the Nazis, for one never quite knew exactly what the SS and the Gestapo might be up to. A robbery such as this could well have been engineered by them for purposes quite unrelated even to the loot.
In the interlude Engelmann had relighted the butt of a small cigar and was savouring its rich blend of tobaccos, straight from Rotterdam and budgeted to the very end. ‘So, meine Kameraden der Kriminalpolizei, are we ready to work together?’
Louis threw him a dark look. Kohler simply grinned and said of his partner, ‘He’s a Chief Inspector of the Sûreté Nationale who’s used to handling things himself. Once you’ve got that under your belt, the rest is easy.’
‘Easy or not, just see that he behaves.’
Max Engelmann took them both in at a glance. These two Schweine Bullen from Gestapo Paris-Central and the Sûreté would soon find he’d been a policeman under the Kaiser and that his father had been a Swabian woodcutter, his mother a laundress, himself once a poacher who had betrayed others. Friends, yes, and fellow countrymen but no matter.
Kohler was giving the en suite washroom a good going over. St-Cyr was at the Generalmajor’s dressing-table but was watching his Büroklammer in the shattered mirror. Und what do you see, my friend? grunted Engelmann inwardly. A giant like your partner, but one whose gut is far more prominent? Of course I need a shave and haircut but the scruffy, ten-day-old, grey-black beard is my usual – a skin condition, you wonder? Please don’t trouble yourself. The poorly clipped beard and moustache simply enhance a natural fierceness that is deliberate, as is the shabby trench coat. Und ja, mein lieber Franzose, the spectacles are large and thinly gold-rimmed, the bifocals to correct the nearsightedness of grey-blue little eyes my mother’s youngest half-sister shared with me. Unfug a Detektiv such as yourself might wonder about, so I will not elaborate.
Mischief …
Miraculously a crystal vase had escaped the blast, though the hothouse roses were coated with dust. The Baccarat or whatever went over, sending its little flood across the inlaid fruitwood of the King Louis-Whatever table the Ritz had felt suitable.
Startled, the Frenchman stiffened, and just for good measure the mirror relaxed, letting its shards rain on to the dressing-table.
Perfect! sighed Engelmann, grinning inwardly. ‘We must question the Generalmajor, Herr St-Cyr, and then his guest. Perhaps if you were the first to do so, I could come in at the end for another spin of the wheel.’
‘That safe was first opened using its combination lock.’
‘Did the woman the Generalmajor was expecting to entertain give it to another?’
‘Or did he foolishly write the combination down somewhere as so many often do?’
‘Perhaps we should look.’
‘I am and I have.’
There was a desk, ornate and gilded, but the Frenchman had already been over it. Still, the challenge was out and one had best have a look.
‘You will find it on his memo pad beside the photo of his children,’ said St-Cyr drolly. ‘“Erika’s birthday, 23/5/35; Johann’s is 18/1/40.”’
‘Did you try it?’ asked Engelmann.
Was the discovery such a surprise? ‘Alas, our Gypsy friend also used beeswax around the mechanism and blew the dial off. Only a check with the manufacturer will settle the issue if our victim remains silent on such an oversight, but I leave that to you since the safe is from Mannheim, from the firm of Leinweber und Friesen. They went out of business in 1908.’
‘He should have used something newer.’
‘It’s the shortages,’ interjected Kohler passionately as he rejoined them. ‘Everyone has to make do.’
They set to work. They fussed, they probed. Did the General-major swim or dine in his absence? Did the woman? Just what the hell had been in the safe and how had the Gypsy gained entrance and known the victim would be absent?
Everything pointed to the woman, but why had someone let Engelmann know of the job in the first place so that they would arrive after the fact?
‘Why prepare that little surprise for us and yourself, Herr Max?’ asked Louis.
‘Why, indeed,’ grimaced the visitor distastefully.
‘Who told you about it, and when?’ asked Kohler.
Engelmann drew in a tired breath, taking the time to size them up again before saying, ‘A little bird sang like a nightingale but unfortunately forgot to get the words straight. I received a telephone call at my hotel this evening from her conductor at 10.17, telling me the time and location of the robbery. He then contacted Srurmbannführer Boemelburg, who then notified yourselves.’
‘And this little bird?’ asked Louis.
‘Will now have to answer for the mistake she has made in not letting us know sooner and in not warning us.’
Oh-oh. ‘Can’t you put a name to her?’ bleated Kohler.
‘That’s just not possible.’
‘Then who the hell is her “conductor”?’
‘That I cannot tell you either.’
Verdammt! ‘Perhaps she didn’t know the Gypsy would leave this little surprise for us, perhaps he lied to her about the timing,’ mut
tered Kohler, lost to it.
The visitor tossed his head as if struck. ‘Lighten her punishment – is this what you are suggesting?’
Ah damn. ‘Something like that, yes.’
Engelmann thumbed dust from his glasses. ‘Then please realize that when the cage is opened, the bird tastes freedom and rejoices. It is only understandable. But soon it realizes that if it fails to return, the hand that scatters grain will set snares and pluck its feathers.’
A mouton, then. Not a little bird at all. A prison informer who had been told what to do by her ‘conductor’.
When the Generalmajor Hans-Albrecht Wehrle arrived in grey flannels, shirt and tennis sweater with a towel still about his neck and badminton racket in hand, they were ready for him. He took one look at the safe, let his lower jaw drop and fought for words as his dark blue eyes flicked in panic over the carnage.
At last a dry whisper was heard. ‘The diamonds … Berlin … Berlin have been expecting them.’
Wehrle fought to comprehend the future, was sickened by the thought, blanched, gripped his forehead in distress and swore at last and loudly, ‘Mein Gott, it’s happened. I’ve been operating for over two years without a hitch. I wasn’t careless – one can’t afford to be, but …’
Louis plucked at Engelmann’s trench-coat sleeve to ask if he might begin. ‘Of course. It’s as we agreed, ja? You first und then myself.’
‘Generalmajor, you were expecting a guest?’
‘She has nothing to do with this.’
‘That’s what they all say. Her name, please?’
Ah damn the man! ‘Nana … Mademoiselle Thélème. She’s … she’s having her hair done. The hairdressers all work such odd hours due to the power outages. She … she’ll be along in a few minutes.’
‘We hope so,’ said the Sûreté flatly. As if on cue, the lift down the corridor sounded and they waited but the wretched thing went on and up to the second floor and then to the third.
Sandman Page 28