Tapestry

by J. Robert Janes

  The gossip had reached here. ‘That too.’

  ‘What is it you want?’ Even Miya Sama, the Pekingese warlord in Madame Jeséquel’s lap was listening.

  ‘A few small questions. Nothing difficult,’ said Kohler blithely. He’d fish about in his pockets and finally pull out the notebook detectives, Gestapo and otherwise, were supposed to fill with all those things that meant so much. ‘Ah, here it is. Registration number 375614.’

  ‘Lulu.’

  The tears that welled up were genuine.

  ‘Madame de Brisac’s Lulu, Inspector. Have you found her? Never have I seen one so distressed. Every day the questions. Constant telephone calls to the Société Protectrice des Animaux to beg them not to put any Irish terriers down, especially since it is now long past the one-week period of grace. The Cimetière des Chiens has been contacted, a mausoleum designed by Lenoir, descendant of the architect Le Roman himself, the one who did the reconstructions at the Royal Abbey of Saint-Antoine-des-Champs in 1770. The stones have already been carved, the inscription done by a poet—I can’t remember which, but …’

  ‘No remains having been found, she waits in hope,’ said Herr Kohler. Petit Bob, Delaroche knew, was watching this Kripo with interest, having got his scent while licking detective fingers. Sugar … Had Kohler slipped Bob a few loose grains?

  ‘Oui, oui, it’s a tragedy,’ said Bénédicte. ‘Bedridden, Madame de Brisac depended on Lulu to brighten each day. Denise Rouget and Germaine de Brisac, Madame’s daughter, are constantly on the lookout, but each day brings only its new disappointments and what is one to do when a love such as that is so deep no other dog could ever take her place?’

  ‘Bedridden?’

  ‘Cancer. The lungs. The cigarettes. Have you found … ?’

  ‘Rouget … ? Haven’t I heard that name before?’

  ‘You must have.’

  ‘And Germaine de Brisac? Is she also a social worker?’

  ‘That I wouldn’t know, Inspector.’

  ‘But you’re sure of it?’

  No answer was needed and none would be given!

  ‘Then just tell me from where Lulu was snatched and when.’

  ‘Kohler, if you don’t mind, I’ll take Bob and leave.’

  ‘I do mind, Colonel. Stay put. When I’m finished with this one, I’ll deal with you.’

  The Cimetière des Chiens, that private last stamping ground of dogs and other pets, was on the Île de la Recette (the “takings”) in the Seine. Tombs and mausoleums, rows of little headstones, wreaths of artificial flowers in winter and more than twenty thousand graves at last count**** but formerly the island home of those who had been paid a pittance to drag corpses from the river.

  ‘Lulu had just been given a tidy up, Inspector. Three times a week. The Monday, after her walk in the park …’

  ‘Which park?’

  ‘The Monceau, of course, so that Madame de Brisac might hear her cries of joy and catch glimpses of her from the bedroom window.’

  ‘Continue.’

  ‘Then Thursday, the school holiday—that is when the Mademoiselle de Brisac’s children are home and could play longer in the park with Lulu, sometimes even letting her have a run.’

  The park warden and his underwardens wouldn’t have liked that, French parks being what they were. ‘Not married?’

  ‘The husband was killed during the invasion.’

  ‘The daughter taking back her maiden name?’

  ‘They were to have been divorced.’

  ‘Wasn’t divorce almost as hard to come by under the Third Republic?’

  This one was like a barracuda after its dinner! ‘There were family problems. Perhaps the husband wasn’t suitable. Who am I to …’

  ‘Husband fooling around on her?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, Inspector.’

  ‘Kohler …’

  ‘Be quiet, Colonel. And on Saturday?’

  ‘Lulu came for the bath and the grooming so as to look her best for Mass, and then …’

  ‘Her Sunday run in the park.’

  ‘Oui.’ He would tell her nothing of Lulu.

  ‘And on which Saturday was she snatched from the park?’

  It would have to be said. ‘She wasn’t. Mademoiselle Germaine de Brisac, coming straight from work, had the car, of course, and had put Lulu safely into the backseat. Mademoiselle Rouget had gone into the Lido to see if her dear papa was spending the evening at home and would like a lift.’

  And nicely put. ‘Time five twenty or six?’

  ‘Six thirty.’

  ‘And Lulu was taken from the car when Germaine de Brisac went to find Denise Rouget in the Lido?’

  Dieu merci, he hadn’t asked her the reason for such a delay, which could only mean that he’d find out elsewhere. ‘That … that is correct. Monday, the eleventh of January. It was bitterly cold. I … I went out with my torch to wrap the shawl I always wear at such times around Lulu so that she wouldn’t catch a chill.’

  ‘Shawl taken?’

  ‘I had clients to attend to. Lulu was safe. I swear it. I shut the car door and checked to see that it was secure as always.’

  ‘Describe the shawl. One never knows.’

  Must he sigh like that? she wondered.

  ‘Kohler …’

  ‘Be patient, Colonel. Take a leaf from Petit Bob. Listen, since it can’t be helped, but don’t make a sound. Have a half a carrot stick and give him the other half. He’s earned it.’

  ‘I can’t. They make his stools loose.’

  ‘And that troubles him, doesn’t it?’

  ‘As much as it does those who might inadvertently step in them.’

  Petit Bob looked questioningly from one to the other but grâce à Dieu, he hadn’t let out a moan. ‘Inspector, the shawl was of hand-woven wool. Russet, crimson and gold, the colours of a Canadian­ autumn, for the man who gave it to me when I was a girl of seventeen, was one of those and French too. There was a brooch of my mother’s, a shield in silver with the cabochons of banded ironstone like one of my rings. This one.’

  A real knuckle-duster. ‘Louis and I’ll see what we can do. Dog snatching at about six thirty, Monday, January eleventh. That right?’

  Serpent! she said silently, sucking in a breath as he wrote it all down. ‘Oui, c’est correct.’

  ‘And Denise Rouget and Germaine de Brisac went to school together?’

  Why could he not understand that one had to be so careful these days, that everyone was listening as they watched and that among them were those who would quite willingly, if encouraged, write damning letters to the authorities while hiding behind the innocence of anonymity? ‘I did not say that, Inspector. It’s not my practice, or that of any of my girls, to divulge information of any kind about my clients even to such as yourself, but since you demand it before reliable witnesses, then, yes, they did.’

  ‘The bac and after that the Sorbonne or whatever?’

  ‘Those, too, of course.’

  ‘Kohler …’

  ‘Now it’s your turn, Colonel, but let’s go into the Lido so that Petit Bob can say hello to all the girls and you can buy me an apéritif.’

  * * *

  To the muted sounds from the Arcade came the urgency of someone’s trying the door to the Agence Vidocq. Was it Monsieur Raymond or Monsieur Quevillon? wondered Suzette Dunand. Chief Inspector St-Cyr was still perusing the papers in his hand. Monsieur Garnier would have shaken the doorknob and then banged a fist against the door. He would have silently cursed her, thinking that she had left before the 7.00 p.m. closing, a thing she had never done but now that door was no longer being tried, now the steps were receding, and why was it, please, that Colonel Delaroche wouldn’t allow any of his agents privés to have a key, even the most trusted of them?

  Monsieur Raymond had tried that door—it must have been him, she decided: M. Jeannot Raymond who had been with the colonel since the very beginning and well before the Defeat. Though he seldom smiled, M. Raymond always sa
ved the best of those for her but never tried to get too close. Not once. He wasn’t like M. Hubert Quevillon who always knew the nearness of himself filled her with revulsion but that she would have to tolerate it in silence.

  M. Quevillon enjoyed her despair. Secretly he laughed at her—she knew he did, whereas M. Flavien Garnier could as easily have had one of his ‘fifty-year-old boots’ behind this machine for all the attention he paid to her.

  ‘Inspector …’

  ‘A moment, Mademoiselle Dunand.’

  ‘Have you the magistrate’s order?’

  ‘At your age it’s hard to put force into such words. I wouldn’t try, if I were you.’

  She coloured—could feel her cheeks getting hot again. ‘I HAVE A RIGHT TO DEMAND THAT YOU SHOW ME THE SEARCH WARRANT! I MUST GO AND CLEAN MYSELF UP!’

  ‘In a moment.’

  Salaud, she winced. Tears would streak her mascara—Well, let them! He knew she had peed herself. He must know she was but the latest of the secretaries the colonel had employed, the fifth in the past two-and-a-half years of this Occupation, and that she desperately needed to keep the job or else the STO would come and take her away to Germany to work in a munitions factory and she’d be blasted to pieces by the bombs of the British RAF. Hadn’t that been what M. Hubert Quevillon had whispered into her ear the last time he had caught her alone and found her cringing at the nearness of him? Wasn’t that why so many other girls had left the agency?

  Or was it, perhaps, that Colonel Abélard-Armand Delaroche had let each one go before she had found out too much?

  ‘This statement of invoice, mademoiselle.’

  He had yanked it from the machine. Stricken, she had stiffened and he had noticed this, as he did everything.

  ‘It … it is simply Madame de Roussy’s account. On the fifteenth of every month she is …’

  ‘Oui, oui, but …’

  ‘But what, Inspector?’

  ‘Twenty-five thousand francs? For what, please?’

  ‘I only do as I’m told. Here … here is the invoice in pencil, as Colonel Delaroche has written it for me to type up.’

  ‘The investigation is continuing?’

  ‘I … I think so, yes. I …’

  He’d say nothing of the rue La Boétie killing, decided St-Cyr. He’d try to calm her but only a little. ‘You really don’t know what it’s all about, do you? Ah, bon, relax. Forgive me, too. You see, my partner and myself are desperately trying to put an end to this plague of blackout crime but now have yet another savage killing to deal with—the passage de l’Hirondelle, mademoiselle. A girl a little older than yourself whose face was kicked in and trod on so hard all the bones were smashed, both eyes as well. Bruises … never have I seen such bruises.’

  He would give her a moment to digest this. He would watch her like God did a sinner. When he said, ‘The passage de la Trinité’s victim is still in hospital,’ he let the words sink in and only then added, ‘That one is not expected to live.’

  ‘La toilette, s’il vous plaît, Inspector. I know nothing of these. NOTHING, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’

  A handkerchief was found and pressed into her hand. ‘The De Roussy investigation, mademoiselle?’

  ‘A … a round-the-clock.’

  ‘On Monsieur de Roussy?’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘The file, then. Where is it? Which drawer?’

  There were banks and banks of oak filing cabinets, most of which were empty and only for show and not like those the colonel kept locked up in his office, but if the inspector should look, he’d find this out. ‘There … there isn’t one. The investigation’s progress reports are given by …’

  ‘Word of mouth,’ came the sigh. ‘It’s a puzzle, though, that there’s even an invoice.’

  ‘Taxes must be paid; income must be reported.’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  Again he gave that sigh. Undoing the shabby overcoat with its buttons that hung by their threads and understandably gave no evidence of a woman’s touch—what woman would ever put up with such a one?—the chief inspector dumped his fedora on to her desk and took off his coat, preparing to stay for as long as he wished.

  ‘We’ll see that you get home safely,’ he said, the trace of fatherly­ concern bringing a sickness of its own, for he’d soon add, and he did, ‘Where is that?’

  ‘A flat. It’s not far. I’ll be perfectly safe so you don’t have to worry.’

  And given bravely, but a flat, not a room. Had Colonel Delaroche set her up or had someone else since the rents in this quartier were prohibitive? Probably one or the other but best to leave it for now. ‘Madame de Roussy’s husband, mademoiselle. Bien sûr, Alexandre de Roussy is on the board of directors of the Renault car company and important, since they supply the Occupier with all sorts of things, but …’

  Again there was that pause!

  ‘But it always takes two to commit adultery, doesn’t it?’

  ‘The wife of another, yes.’

  ‘That of a prisoner of war?’

  The girl bowed her head and crushed the handkerchief. Tears were splashed on the desk, her voice like that of France on the day of Defeat. ‘Oui, the … the mother of three young children. Monsieur de Roussy sees her twice a week, sometimes more if … if necessary.’

  ‘And pays her how much a visit?’

  ‘Five hundred. I … I really don’t know. It’s …’

  ‘Only a rumour, that five hundred, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oui.’

  Steep, dark and narrow, the side staircase from the Lido’s stage plunged to the dressing rooms, bare flesh and bare of privacy, the girls fabulous, thought Kohler. Gott sei Dank, the colonel had hustled him right past the Agence Vidocq, right into the restaurant and down the stairs to the club.

  Gold and tinsel were everywhere, see-through pearly water wings on some. High heels, of course, headbands or tiaras, bracelets and earrings, and there was the toddler of one sucking on his soother and looking up at his dear maman who was changing too and just as naked as he. Joy in her heavily made-up eyes, ostrich plumes still on her head and Bob having a hell of a time resisting the impulse.

  Background noise from the club above them filtered down. The colonel didn’t say a thing. Bob waited, watching the girls and hearing the babble of them as, in single file, a robe or some other flimsy bit of costume tossed over a shoulder, they came down the stairs ready to change for the next act but were momentarily more worried about taking a tumble and crashing into the others. Legs … beautiful legs …

  Pungent on the air came the scent of talcum powder and cigarette smoke, eau de Javel and chlorine, too, for didn’t the Lido have a bathing pool up there? Of course it did, with nymphs en costume d’Ève who swung back and forth on swings above the audience before throwing their arms straight out or up to take the plunge.

  Perfume, the cheap and the expensive, was on the air with body odours of all kinds, those of clogged drains, too, and of blocks of limestone, for these last made up the cellar walls. Garlic, Louis would have said. Onions, mon vieux, and the vin d’ordinaire, the rouge, n’est-ce pas? The sulphur of freshly struck matches as cigarettes are lit and quick drags taken.

  ‘Bob!’ shouted one. ‘Ah, mon Dieu, mon petit brave, you’ve come back to see us again.’

  ‘No more worries, eh, Bob?’ shouted another. ‘No more thoughts of Lulu?’

  Bob didn’t bark. Bob didn’t wag his tail. Bob waited.

  ‘Come to Martine,’ urged one with open arms, bare breasts, bare everything. ‘Colonel, let him come. You know how he likes to see us. You’ve been keeping him away too long.’

  A smile was given, not a grin, for a man like Delaroche never grinned. Bob’s lead was unclipped but still he stayed until the colonel softly said, ‘All right. Go and say hello.’

  Still he didn’t bark or bay. Nose to the floor, he went into the lights, to mirrors upon mirrors and gowns and scattered or unscattered female underthings and lots and lots of loving.

 
Bob said hello to every one of the thirty or more that were crowded into the two long rooms. He didn’t play favourites. They laughed, whistled, clapped, called, cuddled, told each other not to be greedy and urged him to come to them, competing totally for his affection.

  He didn’t run and knock the children over. He was careful. The baby, nestled in its bassinet and asleep after a quick snack, was given but the gentlest touch of his muzzle, not even a lick; the four-year-old who had constantly sucked her thumb, had to pull it out to timidly pet and then hug him dearly. A hero.

  But then, puzzled, he looked around for someone else and couldn’t understand why they weren’t also present. He started to hunt, and no amount of the colonel’s calling him back, not even a muted curse, could stop him. He went out into the foyer at the base of that staircase. He sniffed at two or three of the steps, went right up them and came back. Satisfied, he hurried along the dimly lit corridor that led, probably, to one of the club’s many storage rooms, only to stop when he reached the wall telephone. Standing, he got a whiff of that too, then headed right back and into the dressing rooms to look about and try to decide what was still missing.

  Under the chintz skirt of one of the dressing tables—bare knees had to be quickly swung aside—he worried over something, gave a throaty growl, angry at first, the hindquarters up and tail ready.

  ‘Lulu’s b …’ said one, only to stop herself as Bob dragged it out, worried at it with a paw, then laid it at his master’s feet.

  An India rubber bone. Well chewed by the look and a constant comfort, but no comfort at all? wondered Kohler. Delaroche had thought it best to distract this Kripo with female flesh and keep him from going to the agence but was now thinking better of it.

  Back Bob went for more, and when he had that item, he dragged it out by its handle and the one who had swung her legs aside blurted, ‘Élène’s case.’

  No one moved. Not Bob, not any of the girls.

  ‘Where is she, Colonel?’ asked another. ‘What’s happened to her?’

  Merde, something would have to be said, thought Delaroche. ‘We’re working on it.’

  ‘That makes two of us, Colonel.’

  ‘Kohler, we’ll discuss it later.’