Madrigal

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘The keys,’ he said when Hermann came to find him. ‘I’ve been the world’s biggest fool, mon vieux. Keys meant far more to those of the Renaissance than they do to us today.’

  ‘None of those keys would have been a damned bit of use to her, Louis.’

  ‘But that’s just it! Keys could and did signify many other things. That the subject’s heart was locked up, that her thoughts and loyalties were true, her faith in God still resolute.’

  ‘She wanted others to unlock things,’ said Kohler softly. ‘She knew she might not survive.’

  ‘I just wish you had brought along her order book. I’m missing something obvious, Hermann. I know I am. She’d have smiled gently at me or laughed, but then … ah,’ he shrugged. ‘She wouldn’t have laughed, would she?’

  ‘The sign of the two fishes is often repeated.’

  ‘Merde, what an idiot I am! The two fishes … The label on the sardine tin. The sign of a Pisces – is this why she had it in her aumônière? Not to give to Dedou at all, but to tell us a Pisces had killed her?’

  ‘Genèvieve Ravier?’ muttered Kohler. ‘Hey, the sign of the Virgin, with wheat stalks in hand, is also often repeated.’

  ‘Idiot, that’s not just the Virgin; that’s the Gleaner, the winnower of facts!’

  Kohler pointed to the martinet, Louis said, ‘The Goat, I think.’

  The bishop and Adrienne de Langlade. ‘There’s a tiny triangle in gold that’s formed of letters.’

  ‘C, A, M, A, E, L,’ said Louis, ‘with the C alone and in the upper corner. That is the name those of the Renaissance would have used for the Angel that rules the planet Mars which, in turn, ruled the House of the Scorpion.’

  ‘Simondi?’

  ‘Or his wife?’

  ‘Why not tell me what happened at the mill with de Passe? You scared the hell out of me. You know that, don’t you?’

  Louis appeared to pay no heed.

  ‘Her gimmel ring links lapis lazuli with a saffron-yellow topaz, which is one of the stones of the Archer, Hermann. Her gown was of the same shade.’

  ‘Dédou, then. Now quit keeping me in suspense about the mill.’

  ‘Inadvertently de Passe confessed to having been present when Adrienne de Langlade was drowned. He had tried to tell me Brother Matthieu was responsible for both killings.’

  ‘And?’ hazarded Kohler.

  A hand was tossed at fate, a shrug given. ‘He threatened all sorts of things and shouted, “Do you think we will let you and that partner of yours destroy everything we have worked so hard for?”’

  They stood in silence, looking down at the rebus, then Kohler found his voice and said, ‘Where’s Peretti, Louis? Why the hell isn’t he here with you?’

  It would have to be said. ‘Ovid has been sent to Lyon, Hermann. He only had time to give me his report and to release these items into my care. De Passe and the others got to him. He said he was sorry, but …’

  Louis shrugged again. It was the way of things these days. Someone was always interfering.

  Kohler told him of the telex from Mueller. Longing for a cigarette, he found he had none.

  ‘Lies upon lies, Hermann,’ said Louis, offering one and a light. ‘Always the song they all must sing infuriates the ears of one who once played the euphonium in the police band. But we shall see if, as singing masters to them, we can’t improve things.’

  Oh-oh. ‘You didn’t …’

  It had best be said quickly. ‘I told de Passe we would hold an audition in the Palais’s Grand Tinel this evening at twenty-two hundred hours. I advised him most strongly to have the singers present as well as the judges and Madame Simondi, though I felt, and still do, that that one would not be “well”.’

  ‘Dummkopf! Verdammt!’

  ‘Hermann, I really had no other choice. When our prèfet told me to pack up and leave immediately or else we’d be lucky to escape with our lives, I had to give him the only answer I could.’

  A purist! ‘What about Frau von Mahler, eh? You’re forgetting her.’

  ‘Not at all. That’s why we’re going to take these things to her for safe keeping.’

  ‘Idiot, von Mahler won’t let you get within shouting distance of that woman!’

  ‘Then we shall have to see that he does.’

  Darkness had fallen and with it had come a fresh uneasiness Kohler didn’t welcome. Across the place de I’Horloge the Kommandantur was just too busy. Though showing a light from any window or door was verboten, repeatedly there were glimpses of the entrance. Armed men in uniform came and went. Two sentries guarded the door and oh bien sûr those boys had been there earlier, as they were each and every hour of the day, but now he was going to have to pay particular attention to them. ‘Louis, this is crazy. They’ll have Schmeissers.’

  ‘Trust me. It’s the only way. Just keep the engine running. I won’t be long.’

  ‘You’re an idiot. You know that, don’t you? He’ll have you shot.’

  ‘Perhaps but then … mais alors, mon vieux, perhaps not.’

  Louis was gone from the car before anything further could be said. Still keeping his eyes on the entrance, Kohler reached over the back of the seat to Nino for comfort and felt the dog respond immediately. ‘You were there at the Palais the night she was killed,’ he said.

  She licked and nuzzled his hand, got all excited. Was he going to let her out of the car? Were they going for a hike?

  ‘Hey, take it easy. No, stay in the back seat. Stay, Nino. Stay!’

  The beagle had a mind of her own and found his lap readily enough. Eagerly she licked his face, was all over him. He had completely missed seeing Louis go into the Kommandantur.

  ‘You know all of them,’ he said as he patted her head and scratched behind her ears. ‘You had this around your neck, didn’t you?’

  At the sound of the clochette, bedlam ensued. Nino barked joyously and tried to get out of the car. It took time to calm her down. ‘Who else was there?’ he asked. ‘Was it Madame Simondi?’

  Nino put her head down on his lap and waited to be punished.

  ‘Was it Genèvieve?’ he asked and felt her lift her head instantly at the sound of that name.

  She got up and looked out into the night. When he said the Primo Soprano’s name again, Nino searched the darkness and barked expectantly.

  ‘Good for you,’ breathed Kohler. ‘Now let’s try Mireille. Where’s Mireille, Nino?’

  The dog returned to his lap and tried to work her muzzle between the buttons and in under his overcoat.

  ‘You loved her, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘Almost as much as you did Xavier. He tidied things up, didn’t he? He had to. He couldn’t have us knowing that sickle came from the props room. Where’d he hide it, eh? Come on, you can tell me.’

  *

  Seated at his desk, the mayor of Avignon passed unblinking moist brown eyes over the sudden intruder and let him be. But in that one glance was summed up so much. The humiliation of having to work under the Occupier, the outright willingness now to not see things one should even if it meant an assassination and that the intruder could well be a résistant, the knowledge, too, that they were both patriots.

  Not one of the Comité secret or of its Cagoule, not anything but an honest, hard-pressed individual in his mid-fifties, the mayor knew very well who it was and went calmly on with his work beneath the portrait photograph of the Maréchal Pétain that graced every such office. Teleprinters hammered beyond the confining walls of the corridor. Telephones rang. Conversations in French and German incessantly bombarded the ears. Something was said about Banditen in the hills, something else about the Reich’s need for olive oil and other foodstuffs.

  Words went on and on about the Service de Travail Obligatoire and February’s inauguration of the local detachment of Vichy’s newest police force, the Milice. Strong-arm boys and men whose job it would be, among other things, to fill the labour quotas – 50,000 a month was demanded – with those plucked from the streets, homes, tram
cars, buses and cinemas, remembering always that if such were on a bicycle or in a gazogene-powered lorry or auto, or merely carrying home a few hard-won staples for an impoverished larder, these items were an added bonus.

  Von Mahler was on the telephone. St-Cyr cursed his luck, for all three doors to the office were open and he was certain one of the secretaries in an adjacent anteroom had seen him. Hermann had been right. This was crazy, but desperate situations require desperate solutions.

  ‘St-Cyr, Sûreté,’ he said, softly mouthing the words to the secretary and, putting a hand over hers, pushed the telephone receiver she had been listening in on down until it was back in its cradle. ‘Come with me. Please walk in front. I am, as you can see, armed.’

  Louis still hadn’t returned; he was taking far too long. ‘Verdammt! What the hell has happened to him, Nino? Christ, I need a cigarette!’

  The dog licked hands that trembled. She got up to look out into the darkness as he was now constantly doing. She knew he was anxious and wanted to help.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he said, remembering the souls of dogs long past. ‘Giselle and Oona could take you for walks. They’d love you, too, but it isn’t healthy for dogs in Paris these days. Count yourself lucky. The citizens here aren’t quite so hungry, not yet.’

  But give it time, he said sadly to himself and went to open the door, to follow Louis, to …

  The engine idled. His breath, and that of Nino, were causing frost to build up inside the windscreen. He began to scrape this away. He occupied himself, fought for patience, and asked, ‘What really happened in those last few moments before she died? If, as the judges have stated, they left the Palais together, then they left that girl all alone up there in the Grand Tinel. But she wasn’t alone – we all know this – and Albert Renaud said he thought he had heard someone in the stairwell when he went to get the chairs.’

  Nino put her head down in his lap and felt his hand come to rest, warm and gentle, so gentle.

  ‘Why did Renaud come forth with that little bit of info, Nino, unless trying to plant the thought that blame must surely lie with Madame Simondi?’

  Mireille would have gone into the Kitchens Tower next to the Latrines to get her overcoat and things, but she hadn’t put the coat on, had she?

  ‘She’d have had to take one of the candelabra with her unless she had left a torch with her things. But who put out the other candles, and did that person or persons then call out to her, because sure as hell, she must soon have put out her own light.’

  Still desperate for a cigarette, he searched the side pockets of the Renault but found only maps. ‘Was it Frau von Mahler who called out a warning to her, Nino? You must have heard it. Xavier had released you by then so that the sound of your clochette would lead him to her.’

  Had he killed that girl? Had he done so for Madame Simondi?

  ‘Artemisia absinthium – that’s wormwood to us, Nino. You take the leaves and flowers and pound them in a mortar along with angelica root, sweet flag root, the leaves of dittany of Crête, aniseed, the fruit of the star-anise and other aromatics. You macerate everything – soak it in a high-proof alcohol and let the mixture sit for eight davs before distilling, which gives an emerald green liqueur. To this you add more of one of the essential oils; anise most probably – my partner loves it – and voilà, you have l’Extrait d’Absinthe, the milk of the gods, he’d probably call it. Pure knock-out elixir. How close was Xavier to that woman, Nino? Did she tell him things she’d tell no one else? Did she offer him a job for life as her little companion if only he’d take care of a certain problem, but not like he’d taken care of Adrienne?’

  Nino whined and snuggled closer, didn’t raise her head.

  ‘Being under the empire of alcohol is no fun, my friend, but as sure as we’re sitting here awaiting a disaster, that woman would have been in really bad shape. The shakes like you wouldn’t believe. That’s why Xavier had to do the killing for her; that’s why he took you with him. An accomplice! He played on your loyalty and innocence. He forced you into it.

  ‘The reed warbler’s nest!’ he cursed, startling Nino. ‘I forgot all about it, didn’t I? You and Xavier had been over to the Îie de la Barthelasse and were on your way home. That’s how it was, and how you came to be in the Palais when it happened. You found the damned door open.’

  Again he anxiously searched the darkness for Louis, but there was no sign of him.

  Von Mahler looked at the revolver St-Cyr had promptly given up and placed on the desk not nearest to himself but to the one he had intended to kidnap.

  ‘Four things, Colonel, that’s all I ask you to listen to.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  The door to the office had been closed; the secretary had been told to leave and ordered to remain silent.

  ‘First, your wife planned to kill herself and had purchased a Belgian FN semiautomatic on the black market, and most probably in Paris on one of her periodic journeys there for medical help. She knew you were very fond of Mireille and that, in her mind at least, the girl would make an ideal replacement for herself.

  ‘Second: two weeks after Adrienne de Langlade’s body was freed by the flood, Frau von Mahler took a Cross of Lorraine from beneath the lapel of Mireille’s overcoat. This, though she hasn’t admitted it, must have made your wife very afraid for your as well as your children’s wellbeing. A résistante, a frequent visitor and close friend of the family? The Gestapo would most certainly have been interested in such an association should it ever have come to light.’

  Was St-Cyr trying to blackmail him? ‘And the third thing?’

  ‘Dédou Favre was arrested by Alain de Passe in the early hours of Monday.’

  ‘Verdammt! What is this you’re saying? De Passe …?’

  ‘Colonel, the reward of one hundred thousand francs was paid. Xavier turned the boy in. It’s my belief that he didn’t act alone, but was compelled to do so, not out of loyalty to the Reich, but to Bishop Rivaille, Madame Simondi, her husband and the other singers. Like all of them, he didn’t want that girl destroying everything they had.’

  ‘And the fourth thing?’

  Von Mahler would deal with de Passe in his own sweet time, thought St-Cyr. ‘Your wife knew something of what Mireille intended to do. She went to the Palais either to protect or to stop her. She had already told the girl you would refuse to act as the third judge, so was certain in her own mind you wouldn’t be there. She has also admitted to having seen someone, Colonel, even if you think it too dark, and hasn’t denied being there, but again I must remind you that as well as being a friend, the girl was very much a threat that couldn’t be overlooked.’

  ‘And you want me to ignore an order from Gestapo Mueller? You must be mad.’

  ‘Doesn’t the Army still believe it’s above the Gestapo and the SS, or has it finally come to take orders from them?’

  The High Command and upper echelons of the Wehrmacht still distrusted and despised the Gestapo and the SS with a vengeance and were extremely jealous of the Führer’s misplaced trust in them. ‘How certain are you of this pistol you say she has?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Then let us hope she hasn’t shot herself because if she has, you will be held responsible.’

  10

  No sentries stood in the darkness outside the Colonel’s house. Unchallenged, Kohler anxiously nudged the Renault as far out of sight as possible. ‘Louis, this isn’t right. First we have a meeting after curfew on the bridge and von Mahler tells us it never happened, and now he’s given his boys time off to warm their toes.’

  ‘And I’ve been an even bigger fool than I thought. Was he there at the mill when that girl was drowned, Hermann? Isn’t this really the reason his wife found it so necessary to go to the Palais on Monday night? Are they both covering things up as well?’

  It was a heartfelt plea for answers. Von Mahler had had to get along with the local establishment. And sure he was pissed off about what de Passe had done with Dedou but had a
lso wanted to talk to the boy before anything untoward had happened. Another cover-up, was that it? wondered Kohler.

  ‘It’s all in the rebus, Hermann. The Archer points his arrow; two fishes are joined but swim in opposite directions; the sign of the Twins often lies beside them.’

  ‘Genèvieve Ravier and Christiane Bissert?’

  ‘The Colonel … Was he seen with those two at the picnic?’

  ‘Did he make mischief with them, Louis, and help those bastards drown that girl, or close his mind to it?’

  Nino had to pee but her paws were still too sensitive to the cold and Hermann had to help her. Dogs and horses had always been his friends. He had a way with them. A natural. ‘Come on,’ said St-Cyr gently. ‘Let’s go in and get this over with. We haven’t long until the audition.’

  At 2200 hours …

  *

  ‘In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,’ said Marie-Madeleine hesitantly, ‘the five-pointed star, the pentacle, was thought to be the most powerful of talismans and was worn not only to protect one from all enemies but to give long life, peace of mind and harmony. Mireille was convinced of this.’

  Frau von Mahler had yet to say a thing. The belt was laid out on a table, the order book and pomander were beside it. Von Mahler was looking decidedly uncomfortable.

  ‘The tiny silver bells were to ward off the devil with their sound,’ went on the former nun, her fingers lightly touching them as if in doing so she could bring back her friend. ‘This button in which the capital letter I intersects another, has the letters A, G, L, A in the quadrants so formed. Ate Gebir Leilam Adonai. Thou art mighty for ever, O Lord. People wore this in the fourteenth century to protect them from fever and … and other things.’

  ‘Against lies?’ asked Louis sharply. Kohler sat in an armchair with Nino at his feet. Frau von Mahler sat some distance across the room with the Colonel nearby, but the woman had yet to look up. She was composing her thoughts, was deciding on what and what not to say.