by Charles Todd
“Yes, I believe that’s true. She was always very fond of Marie—Sister Marie-Luc. All the same—”
“I wouldn’t think of putting you out,” I said with a smile, cutting across his objection. “It’s very kind of you to offer.”
“Why didn’t she take the keepsake with her when she left?” he asked then. “If it matters so much to her.”
“She didn’t have any inkling that she would be in hospital so soon. She had taken leave to care for Fräulein Theissen, and she intended to return to the Front as soon as possible. I expect she believed that everything was safer here under your eye, rather than dragged from post to post with her.”
Defeated, Father Robert said, “Very well. But I must insist that you show me what it is you are taking away. I am responsible, you see, if anything goes missing.”
“We’ll be happy to do so,” Captain Barkley said, offering his hand, and the priest had no choice but to accept it.
As we reversed the motorcar and turned back down the drive, he was standing by the barrow, watching us go.
“That was a near-run thing,” I said when we were out of earshot.
“Yes, but what will we take back to show him? He might as well have come with us,” Captain Barkley said.
“We’ll find something.”
We had no trouble finding the cottage the nun had come out of on that rainy day to beg us for a lift. It stood a little apart, and was well kept up. The door unlocked with ease, but the interior was dark and cold, with an odor of mustiness mixed with age and sickness.
Without a word, the Captain went back out to the motorcar and rummaged in the boot. He returned with a torch that had a low battery but was just bright enough to let me find a lamp and the match holder beside it.
The wick was trimmed and the bowl clean. It caught straightaway, and I looked around for another lamp as it brightened the room.
It was a typical cottage, with four small rooms: a parlor, a kitchen, a bedroom, and an unfinished room that had become a box room. There was no upper floor.
“It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a black lacquer box,” I said, for the cottage was spotless, clean, and well kept.
There was another lamp in the bedroom. The furnishings were simple enough, with a colorful quilt on the wooden bed, a chest for clothes, a chair, and an armoire. In one corner was an old wooden cradle with a peaked hood and a pretty floral design around the edges.
I wondered if the cradle might have been a gift from the mother of one of her charges, or perhaps she had brought it from Germany, a tool of her trade, so to speak.
In the other room, Captain Barkley was standing in the middle of the floor, an uncertain look on his face.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
“Now that we’re here, I am feeling some qualms about going through the fräulein’s possessions. I think I’d have felt better if she hadn’t been named. Anonymous and impersonal.”
“You must hurry. Father Robert might well take it into his head to walk down here and see what we’re about.”
I turned back to the bedroom. There was a framed photograph hanging above the bed. I looked at it now. Although it was faded, I could see the man with a luxurious beard, a stern face, and sterner eyes. People of that era seldom smiled when their photograph was taken. Cousin Melinda had an album of similar faces, standing still for the photographer with unsmiling expressions as the long count before the flash began. Unlike the more modern cameras.
I began my search, carefully opening the drawers of the chest and delving into the possessions I found there. The fräulein’s identity papers were in one corner, and her birthplace was given as Alsace. Her mother’s name, to my surprise, had been Moreau. I put them back. There was a small case of jewelry, a ring that must have belonged to someone in the family, for it was kept in a tissue with a lock of very fair hair. Her mother’s wedding ring? A string of pearls, not of the best quality but nice, with a gold clasp; a small watch to be worn with a uniform; and beneath that another photograph, this time of a younger woman I took to be the fräulein, with a very young child in a frilly white dress, still in leading strings. Was this Marie-Luc?
I pocketed it. This would serve to placate the priest.
From the chest I went to the wardrobe. It didn’t take very long to search, because there were no more than half a dozen black dresses in there, with matching boots and two hats, one summer and one winter, and two purses.
I made certain there was nothing on the top of the wardrobe, and then looked in and under the bed.
If there was a lacquer box in this room, it must be invisible.
Captain Barkley was just finishing with the parlor. He straightened up from peeling back the carpet, and shook his head.
“Nothing here.”
We moved on to the box room and the kitchen. In the box room I had to move several older pieces of furniture, a crate full of dishes, and other long-forgotten items to search thoroughly. Setting aside a chair with a torn cane seat, I dislodged another box holding gardening tools. They made a racket as they fell to the floor. I was about to put them back in the box when I saw something in the bottom.
It was a packet covered in oilcloth and tied with string. I opened it, thinking it might hold the box I was after, only to discover it contained letters. I put them back where I had found them, and then on second thought, put them into my pocket as well. What if there had been no lacquer box for ages, and the contents had gone into this room with the rest of the past?
My hands and feet were cold by this time, and my side was burning like fire. I went back to the kitchen.
“No luck,” the Captain said, closing the door to a cupboard.
“Is there any way into the attic, above us?”
“No, I looked.” He took out his watch. “It’s late. What are we to do now?”
I was about to mention the letters when the front door opened. We stood where we were, and then I walked toward the parlor.
It wasn’t the priest standing there. It was a tall man with a raw scar across his face and his right arm in a sling. And he wore the uniform of a Captain.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“We’re friends of Sister Marie-Luc. She’s in hospital in Paris and very ill. She asked us to bring her this.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the photograph I’d found.
He crossed the room, limping heavily, and took it from me. “That’s not Marie-Luc,” he said.
Scrambling for something to say, I replied, “But she said there was a photograph of her as a child.” Improvising, I added, “With her mother.”
“That’s not her mother.”
“Well, how was I to know?” I snapped.
“It isn’t even a female. The child. That’s a boy.”
It was customary to put both male and female babies in such flowing garments, although I was never quite willing to believe my father had ever had his likeness taken in ribbons and lace.
“If you know so much about the fräulein’s history, tell me where to find the photograph I’m looking for.”
“There never was one. I’d have known if there was.”
“Then who are you?”
“Paul Moreau. They just brought me home to recover. But the house isn’t open. I thought I might come here. Where is Fräulein Theissen?”
I was still trying to absorb what he was saying. It was Captain Barkley just behind me who replied.
“She died. A week ago. Father Robert can tell you.”
He swore. “Then it’s the rectory. You’ve got a motorcar. Will you run me up there? This infernal knee. I shouldn’t walk that far. Not yet.”
“I didn’t hear a motorcar,” I said, looking beyond him through the open door.
“It took me to the house. When I found it nearly uninhabitable, I had no choice. Now I must go all the way back again. I’d seen the lights on, after all.”
“I understood that Paul Moreau was a Lieutenant.”
<
br /> “I was due for a promotion but never received it. I was listed as missing. Actually I was taken prisoner, and yesterday I was exchanged for a German officer. His father is dying. Someone in the German High Command. I was badly wounded but recovering. It wasn’t likely I would be returning to my regiment. Not with this knee. It was a safe exchange. A useless soldier for an active one.” His tone was bitter.
“Why do you know so much about Fräulein Theissen’s affairs?” I asked.
“Look. I’m tired. Take me to the house. Whoever you are, get out. I don’t know if Sister Marie-Luc sent you here or not.”
“Father Robert knows why we’re here,” Captain Barkley said. “You might speak to him. I’m sure he’ll offer you a room for the night.”
Captain Moreau’s mouth tightened to a thin line. “Be damned to all of you.”
He turned and limped to the door, disappearing in the darkness.
“Well, well,” Captain Barkley said softly.
I walked over and closed the door. “We haven’t found anything resembling a lacquer box,” I said. “And Marie-Luc didn’t see it when she was here nursing the fräulein. I think someone else has it. Or Fräulein Theissen gave it to someone for safekeeping.”
“I agree. Do we go back to Father Robert?”
“I expect we ought to.” I carried the lamp I’d been using back to the bedroom, intending to set it in its place before turning down the wick and putting it out.
The light passed across the photograph of the bearded man, and I stared at it.
The only place I hadn’t looked was there.
The Captain helped me move the bed aside so that I could lift the frame off the wall. And there, caught in the back, was an envelope. Not brown with age the way the paper backing of the frame was, but relatively new.
“I think we’ve found it. Whatever it is,” I said quietly, for his ears only. “And I think we should go, quickly.”
He helped me replace the frame, saw to it that it was properly leveled, and then restored the bed to its former place beneath it.
I turned down the lamp, made certain that it was safely out, and we hurried back to the parlor. Captain Barkley put out his, replaced it on the table by the window, and ushered me out the door.
We passed Captain Moreau, still struggling back the way he’d come. We slowed to ask if he wanted a lift, but he ignored us.
When we reached the rectory, there were still lamps burning downstairs. I hurried to the door and knocked, while Captain Barkley stayed with the motorcar.
Father Robert answered, staring out at us.
“It took you long enough to find what you wanted,” he said.
“It took us a while to be certain what it was she wanted.” I retrieved the photograph of the woman and child from my pocket. “I’ve taken this from the house.”
He looked at it, frowning. “Why should she want that?”
“I don’t know. She’s feverish, I told you. Perhaps she feels it’s somehow comforting.”
“But it isn’t—” he began, then leaned forward, staring into the darkness beyond the motorcar. “There’s someone walking up the road. At this hour.”
“It’s Paul Moreau,” I said. “He’s been exchanged for a German prisoner. He said. He’s been wounded, and he was brought back here to recover. But the house is closed, and Fräulein Theissen is dead. I thought he might be coming here.”
“Mon Dieu,” the priest exclaimed under his breath. Handing the photograph back to me, he shut the door as quietly as possible, and the next thing I knew, the lamp glowing from the front window was turned out, and even as I watched, the only other light, in the hall, was extinguished.
I hurried back to the motorcar.
“What happened?” Captain Barkley asked. “What did he say?”
“He was about to tell me that the photograph wasn’t of Marie-Luc when he glimpsed Paul Moreau walking back to his house. He wanted to know who it was, out on the road, and I told him. That’s when he closed the door and the lamps went out.”
Captain Barkley was already reversing, but that done, he stayed where he was, the bonnet pointed toward the road, the headlamps off, the motor idling softly, until we could no longer see the dark shape of the Frenchman.
And then we hurried down the drive, turned toward Paris, and I think we both felt a flash of relief.
Even though neither of us could have possibly said why.
Chapter Ten
It was after hours at the clinic, and there was nowhere we could talk, no quiet lounge or the like. Nor were we ready to go to the hospital.
We had traveled back to Paris in silence, the sound of artillery accompanying us most of the way.
Captain Barkley found a café that was open, catering to men who worked at night. Most of them were over fifty, tired men who had done heavy labor on the roads or the Métro.
We sat in a corner in the back. Captain Barkley ordered wine for both of us, though it would be watered, and we waited until it had been brought to us before having a look at what we had taken from the Theissen cottage.
The letters, I quickly realized, had been written to the fräulein by her charges over the years. Grateful letters, for the most part, and affectionate in tone.
After I had quickly skimmed through the first four or five, Captain Barkley said, “These aren’t important. The envelope.”
Casting a quick glance at the men at the other tables, I took out the envelope and then said, “Perhaps we shouldn’t open it. Perhaps we should just take it on to Sister Marie-Luc.”
“Not on your life,” the Captain said in a low, fierce voice. “I want to know what the hell this is all about.”
And so I slipped my finger under the flap of the envelope and gently, carefully, opened it.
Inside were several pieces of paper.
One was the deed to the cottage. I set that to one side. Next, there was another photograph, this time of a woman in front of the Eiffel Tower, still under construction. But not the same woman. I set that aside as well. Under that was what appeared to be an official paper in German. It was written in script, and neither my companion nor I could decipher it.
“A baptismal record?” I asked. “See, that appears to be the word for ‘church.’”
“I’m not sure that’s what it is.” He examined the sheet more closely. “I can’t tell. The script is so ornate, I can hardly make out a single word, never mind decide what it might mean in English.”
We set that aside as well. There was another sheet in German, and this appeared to be a letter.
After that was another photograph.
And this time I recognized the man, if not his surroundings.
“It’s Philippe Moreau,” I exclaimed in a whisper.
“It is, by God.” He took it from me and studied it. “Taken before the war? He’s not in uniform.”
“Possibly. But who is he? And why did Marie-Luc’s old governess have a photograph of him?”
“I expect that’s what she wants. To show it to the police and tell them that it wasn’t Jerome Karadeg who attacked her? It would make sense. You’ve said she feels guilty over what happened to him, and wants to make it right somehow.”
“But I had a photograph. She could have used that.”
“And who would believe her, when the man was wearing an American uniform?”
“That’s true,” I said slowly. “She called him a monster.”
“Who? When?”
“I went to see her. I thought she might tell me whatever it was she knew about Philippe Moreau. She refused to talk about him, save to tell me he was a monster.”
“What else have you got?”
“A cutting from a newspaper. French this time. Something to do with a murder.” I read on. “A murder, but no one had been taken up for it. At least not by the time this was printed.” I looked for a date, and found it on the reverse. “1900?”
“Makes no sense. The whole lot. I don’t see anything here that will clear Jerome
Karadeg’s name.”
“No. Perhaps not directly,” I said after a moment. “But there may be something that Marie-Luc understands.” I gathered the bits we’d taken out and put them carefully back into the envelope, then tried, wetting my fingers, to make it seal again. “Well. Perhaps she won’t know that it was sealed to start with.”
“It’s too late to be allowed in the hospital.”
“I don’t think it is. If we tell the porter at the gate that this is in regard to Marie-Luc.”
He was tired, eager to return the motorcar. And I was fighting pain with every breath I took. But I was worried about her. If she was agitated, her fever wouldn’t break.
In the end he agreed. Then, as we were walking out of the café, I glanced up at his face. And it struck me suddenly that he was disappointed by what the envelope contained.
What was he expecting? Or more to the point, what was he hoping for?
The porter, sleepy and claiming that he couldn’t comprehend our French, finally let us in, as much to be done with us as to be helpful.
Sister Claire was summoned. She greeted us and took us to the room we’d been in before. And she said, as we walked there, “There’s little change. I hope you were successful in finding whatever it is she wanted so badly.”
“I’m not sure. We tried, that’s what matters.”
She opened the door, and I could see for myself that there was no change. Captain Barkley waited outside while I walked up to the bed and took Sister Marie-Luc’s hand.
“It’s Bess Crawford,” I said softly. “I’ve come back. There was no lacquer box, although I looked very carefully for it. But behind the framed photograph above the bed was an envelope. I hope that’s what you wished me to find.”
At first she didn’t respond. I continued to talk to her. At one point Sister Claire spoke from behind me. “The infection hasn’t spread. That’s a blessing. But she’s very ill.”
I could feel the heat of her body as I held her hand, and her hair was clinging damply to her forehead where someone had been bathing her face with cool water.
I was about to give up when she stirred, her eyes fluttering before opening, and she looked around blankly until she was able to focus on my face.