Beneath the photo there was one of Giselle le Roy who had been caught unawares yesterday while leaving Adrienne Guillaumet’s building and must have been followed to the House of Madame Chabot where she’d been turned away, only to then realize she hadn’t been alone.
The desk drawers were locked and he had to wonder why, since Garnier had taken no such precaution. The secretary? he had to ask.
He was running out of matches and out of time. Lighting one of the few that were left, he got down beside the chair to peer under the desk. Had she known, Suzette Dunand could easily have opened the side drawers. These could only be locked when the central drawer was completely closed and the key turned fully round and to the right in its lock. Doing so tripped two hooks, one for each pair of side drawers, dropping a locking bar into place, which could then be released if one either pushed up or pulled down on it from beneath the desk, and then pulled back on the respective bar. Sometimes one went round to the front and felt behind the central drawer, for these hooks could also be located there, but were here at the back on either side as he had suspected. The central drawer remained locked, of course, for it needed the key but this could now be opened if …
‘Ah, bon, mademoiselle. Remind me to show you how this is done and what you’ve been missing. Hermann … Hermann, give me a little more time.’
The shops were closing. Soon, Suzette knew, there would only be those who were hurrying to the restaurant or leaving it much later if they had a pass. Alone with Messieurs Raymond, Garnier and Quevillon, she stood outside the Agence Vidocq. The last trains of the métro would leave at ten, the curfew was at twelve. Alone, she would be arrested for breaking the curfew, or maybe someone would follow her and, thinking she was selling herself to the Germans, grab her, beat her, tear her clothes …
‘Messieurs,’ she blurted, ‘I did nothing but what I always do when you are not here and Monsieur le Colonel is out of the office and I have to close up. I put the lock on. I swear I did. The chief inspector came with me to the Champs-Élysées exit. He can’t be in there. He can’t!’
‘Espèce de salope, ferme-la!’ spat M. Quevillon. He had come to the flat, had slapped her hard, blurring her vision. Now he continued to twist her arm and she knew that if he ever got her alone, he would do things to her. ‘Monsieur Raymond, I beg you. I wouldn’t have let that Sûreté …’
‘Hubert, see what’s delaying the colonel. Flavien, go with him.’
Give me time alone with this one—Garnier knew that was what Jeannot wanted: always the right move, always that impenetrable calm. The girl was terrified of Hubert and rightly so.
M. Quevillon left in a hurry—Suzette told herself not to look at him. M. Garnier gave M. Raymond a curt nod, herself nothing but a dismissive glance. She had been changing when M. Quevillon had come to get her. She had not even been given a chance to finish buttoning her blouse or put on a skirt and shoes, had simply had her coat thrown at her.
The two of them hurried into the restaurant, brushing past the maître d’.
‘You don’t use cigarettes,’ said M. Jeannot Raymond. ‘At times like this they help.’
From a jacket pocket he took a silver flask and unscrewed its cap. ‘Have a sip,’ he said, and gave her that smile of his. ‘It’s an eau-de-vie de poire and really very good. Not too sweet, but sweet enough.’
A pear brandy. He lit a cigarette, left her to hold the flask and calm herself, said nothing of its exquisite engraving or of the inscription—an award for something he’d done, a scene of snowcapped mountains in the distance. She had always felt he was different from the others, that he really didn’t belong with them. He had been married once, had had a beautiful wife and two young children. Two boys of six and eight perhaps, and a house in a strange country, but what had happened to them she didn’t know, since all that was left seemed contained in the one photograph that never left his desk.
The eau-de-vie was lovely. He drew on his cigarette, seemed not the least concerned about anything but herself, let his grey eyes rest on her every now and then, knew absolutely how terrified she had been and that her cheeks must still be hurting.
‘Quevillon should never have done that, Mademoiselle Dunand. He shouldn’t have lost control and will definitely apologize.’
Had such things happened before? she wondered. Monsieur Raymond’s smile was there again, the little toss of his head seeming to say, Everything will be all right, you’ll see.
The inscription on the flask read: À Jeannot Raymond, compagnon d’armes et pilote extraordinaire. It was signed Rivière***** and dated 7 December 1930, Buenos Aires.
‘There, you’re feeling better already.’
‘Ah, oui, oui, merci. I really did think the chief inspector would …’
‘Of course you did. Now don’t concern yourself further.’
‘He yanked Madame de Roussy’s invoice from my machine and demanded that I tell him why it was for so much.’
‘A round-the-clock. Flavien is still looking after that one, isn’t he?’
M. Garnier. ‘Yes but … but the inspector didn’t ask this. I did tell him Monsieur de Roussy was seeing another woman twice a week, sometimes more and that … that she was married and the mother of three children.’
‘The wife of a prisoner of war?’
‘Oui, the chief inspector did ask that.’
‘And what was it de Roussy pays this shameful coquine?’
‘Five hundred—at least, that is what I told the inspector but also that I … I really didn’t know. “It’s only a rumour,” he said of the five hundred.’
‘And yourself?’
‘I shrugged, I think.’
‘And then?’
‘He told me about a girl that had been found in the passage de l’Hirondelle. She’d been kicked in the face, kicked to death. Why would anyone do a thing like that?’
‘These times are not easy. Now don’t worry, please.’
‘I had to go to the lavatory. I had to leave him alone but only for a few moments.’
‘Of course, but did this St-Cyr say anything else?’
‘Only that he didn’t think Madame Guillaumet was going to live. Why would someone have done that to her?’
‘And the other invoices, the ones that were on your desk?’
She had best tell him everything—the estimate to the Scapini Commission and to the parents of Captain Jean-Matthieu Guillaumet for a full inquiry, the invoice to Madame Morel, but … ‘Would the inspector have gone into M. Garnier’s office to find the files on that one’s desk?’ she hazarded. ‘The one on Madame Guillaumet, the one of Madame Barrault …’
M. Jeannot Raymond put a finger to his lips. He was, she knew, always there in the office even when out on an investigation and often away for days on end. A presence, an anchor, he was in his late forties or early fifties, was tall and handsome, the hair black like silk but receding from a brow that was always furrowed. The lips were thin but when he softly smiled as now, they curled up gently at the corners in such an honest way.
Never once had she seen him wear a shirt and tie. Always it was the black turtleneck under the dark grey pinstripe jacket, always the long fingers without the wedding ring—why was it that he no longer wore it? His wife looked happy in that photograph, the children also.
He handled all the investigations involving the recovery of stolen property and was, with Colonel Delaroche, the one who met with the German authorities. Sometimes the illegal hoarding of food and the black market took him away; sometimes insurance fraud or embezzlement, or even labour strikes and/or prolonged absenteeism in a factory or mine. He didn’t handle the troubled marriages, not since she had been with the agency. He only advised on them. After the client had met with Colonel Delaroche and the fee had been set, such investigations were turned over to M. Garnier and, under his supervision, M. Quevillon—admittedly the bread and butter of the agency and booming now. Other investigations might briefly involve those two but only if Colonel Delaroche or Monsi
eur Raymond needed help, and yes there were part-time employees she never saw who didn’t even come to the office, nor was any record kept of their names or wages, a puzzle for sure, but fortunately the chief inspector hadn’t asked.
Lost to his thoughts, M. Raymond still took a moment to again reassure her. ‘I once worked in South America,’ he said. ‘The Patagonia–Buenos Aires airmail service. Santiago, in Chile, too, but it was a long, long time ago.
‘Ah! here they are at last.’
The desk was locked and none of its drawers would budge, though Kohler tried each of them. Bob had gone straight to the lower right-hand one and was now waiting expectantly for it to be opened. Louis shrugged.
‘Bob, come,’ said Delaroche, having stepped back into the corridor.
‘Bob, stay.’
Uncertain, Bob looked questioningly up at this Kripo, then toward his master.
‘See that this is opened, Colonel.’
‘Mon Dieu, what is this, Kohler? You accept the hospitality that is extended while another invades the agency’s premises? You do not have a magistrate’s order and now you tell me what to do in my own offices?’
‘Abélard …’
‘Jeannot, these two have no place here. Hasn’t the Höherer SS and Polizeiführer Oberg explained things to them?’
‘Monday, Abélard. I haven’t yet had a chance to inform them.’
‘Then do so.’
‘Inspectors, we’ve set up a meeting at …’
‘Later,’ said Kohler, his gaze taking in this Jeannot Raymond. ‘I want this opened now. Whose desk is it and where’s the key?’
‘It’s my desk but that drawer has been tightly jammed for months.’
M. Quevillon had said that. Suzette knew he was lying.
A dancer’s candy-striped warm-up stocking was dangled over the desk’s blotting pad to be slowly lowered to coil in on itself.
‘Open it, Hubert,’ said M. Jeannot Raymond.
‘I can’t. I left the key at home.’
St-Cyr knew that if Hermann and himself forced the issue, the agency would rightly conclude that the desk had indeed already been burgled. They would then threaten to use the photo of the boys, yet if no objections were raised and the matter meekly left, they’d believe it anyway. ‘Put in a call to Walter, Hermann. Tell him we’ve run into a stone wall.’
‘Now wait, Inspectors,’ managed Delaroche. ‘From time to time it’s necessary for Hubert and Flavien to produce certain pieces of evidence. Things are constantly being gathered. Clients do, at times, need convincing.’
‘Just like I do, eh?’
‘Hermann, perhaps we should all sit down. Perhaps the restaurant could …’
‘Colonel,’ said Suzette, ‘would you like me to ring through for coffee and …’
‘A few sandwiches …’ prompted the prompter.
A sigh was given. ‘Very well. The ham that I had at noon, Mademoiselle Dunand.’
‘With mustard,’ went on Louis. ‘The Dijon mélange crémeux if possible, mademoiselle. A few olives also and please forgive me for having upset you earlier and for deceiving you. I’m not usually like that and am ashamed of myself.’
The creamy mustard, but Louis had meant it too, and was bound to do something about what had happened to her as a result. Flustered, though, and glad to escape the others if only for a moment, the girl turned away and was at the phone when they reached the outer office.
‘Yours, I think, Colonel,’ said Hermann, indicating its totally locked door. ‘If you’ve a bottle of cognac in there, we could all use a drink.’
‘Hubert, find what the inspector was looking for and bring it to my office.’
Check that desk of yours to see if anything is missing or has been disturbed.
As the door to this inner sanctum sanctorum was unlocked and opened, Louis simply said, ‘After you, Colonel,’ but then he stopped in the doorway as if struck.
The painting was absolutely magnificent. Automatically it drew the gaze away from the ample leather-topped, carved French oak desk that faced out from a far corner through a scattering of armchairs. It was seen in the half-mirrored doors of an open Louis XIV Boulle armoire, was seen also in a late Renaissance Spanish mirror, the two throwing the painting’s image back and forth but allowing varied perspectives of prospective clients should the colonel feel the need.
Apart from a bank of filing cabinets panelled in that same oak, the office was all but a salon in the old style. The beautifully flowered Aubusson would smother sounds. Louis XIV fauteuils and settees were strategically placed for quiet tête-à-têtes. There were bronzes—a superb copy of Boizot’s Nymph, another of Chinard’s Apollo …
‘Inspectors,’ said Delaroche, indicating the chairs in front of his desk, the room lighted by a rock-crystal chandelier—how had he acquired it, wondered St-Cyr, this colonel who didn’t stint himself and had such an obvious passion for the finer things in life?
‘This is a sixteenth-century portrait of the Magdalen as a young girl of substance, Colonel. It’s breathtaking.’
Though one didn’t want to dwell on it, one had best be gracious. ‘Please take a closer look while I find us a little something to drink. I’d value your opinion.’
And if that wasn’t pleasant, what was? The painting was worth at least 250,000 old francs. Perhaps this red-haired girl who wore a turban of the softest gold and beige had been fifteen. Penitently the eyes were downcast, she reading an illuminated breviary, a corner of whose spine rested on the smallest of beautifully carved desks before her, and hadn’t the colonel found exactly the same sort of desk—not a prie-dieu—and positioned it just a little to one side so that the viewer saw the one then automatically was drawn to divert the gaze and thoughts to a similarly velum-bound breviary beside which lay an identical pomander to the one in the painting and the same gold rings whose modest cabochons of bloodstone were similar to those worn on each of her forefingers. There were no other rings in the painting.
‘Droplets of the blood of Christ,’ said St-Cyr, throwing the words over a shoulder. ‘That’s what the people of those times believed that type of stone must hold. The jewellery and garments are of the very middle of the High Renaissance, Colonel. Perhaps the year 1500, or very close to it. I commend your taste. One sees at once the sharp contrasts of colour that so delighted and intrigued with their unspoken messages. The under-sleeves are crimson and juxtaposed with the kirtle’s cocoa-brown silk, whose folds have an almost metallic sheen and whose trim …’ He would point it all out as if a buyer in a gallery or patron of the Louvre.
‘Propriety is total, Colonel, modesty complete, the reformation of the fallen absolute, even of one so wealthy, but the hints of what helped to cause the trouble are definitely there all the same. Vanity, n’est-ce pas?’
Bob would be disobedient, cursed Delaroche silently. Bob would let him down at a time like this and sit at Kohler’s feet. ‘Your cognac, Inspector.’
‘Merci. Two gold chains are about her neck. The shortest of them is beaded and that, too, would have had meaning, and from it hangs an emerald and gold pendant whose droplet pearls shed the tears that are to remind her and all who view her that when chastity or the vows of marriage are broken, the reward can only be disgrace, no matter how enjoyable or profitable the moment.’
And on and on, was that it, eh? ‘It’s by Adriaen Isenbrant, of the Flemish School.’
‘Also given as Ysenbrant, a pupil of Gerard David. One sees the master’s influence but this is definitely a major work in its own right. She reminds me of the madrigal singer and costume designer whose murder in the Palais des Papes we unfortunately had to investigate.’
In Avignon during the last week of January. ‘You and Kohler never seem to stay long in one place, do you?’
‘That way we never get bored. Hermann and myself need answers and it’s time we had them.’
‘You have only to ask. We’re here to help.’
They walked in silence. M. Jeannot Raymond sa
id nothing. Did he count off the lampposts as she always did and reach out to touch them? wondered Suzette. He had no need of the pocket torch she knew he never left the agency without, had gone into his office and then that of Hubert Quevillon to see if anything had been disturbed, had stayed in there several minutes and then had come back to escort her home after first having spoken quietly with the colonel.
Everywhere along the rue de Ponthieu the blackout was complete, except for the occasional glow of a cigarette or the sudden on-and-off of a blue-shaded torch in an uncertain hand. A vélo-taxi went by, the dimness of its taillight receding.
‘It’s this way,’ she heard herself saying, the voice overly sharp but frail on the cold, damp air. Had she doubts about the Agence Vidocq? he must be wondering. Fears? she asked herself. Hubert Quevillon had not apologized and this, too, was making her nervous and when they started to cross the rue Paul Baudry, there was no hesitation on M. Raymond’s part. He simply took her by the hand.
The passage clouté’s white marker studs were all but hidden, his fingers cold and stiff. Her street was next and when they came to the rue La Boétie, he didn’t hesitate.
‘Hubert will have left the lock off the flat,’ he said. ‘Since you haven’t your handbag, I presume he didn’t give it at thought.’
Ah, merde, her papers …
‘The fifth, at the back. I’ll just come up to make certain everything is all right.’
Did he know the building that well?
Hole for hole, laddered run for run, the warm-up stockings were compared, Hermann deliberately letting Bob smell them. Slightly built and in his mid-thirties, with small, slim hands, closely trimmed nails and no bite marks that could be seen even on the wrists, Hubert Quevillon stood looking down at him while Flavien Garnier, in his late fifties and also lacking these but with big enough hands for the Trinité assault, watched his subordinate with a grim wariness that implied he’d had to do so constantly.
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