The Shattered Tree

by Charles Todd

  I thanked him, shaking my head. “This was a murder.”

  He said, “The stall there, the man with the beard. Ask him.”

  I moved on, still speaking to the owners. When I reached the man with the beard, he grinned. “If you have not found it so far, Mademoiselle, you are in luck. What is it you seek?”

  I told him, and he went to the back of the stall, dug around in boxes for a time, and brought me a half dozen yellowing newspapers.

  “Could I look through them?”

  He shook his head. “Mademoiselle, I am earning my living here. Do you wish these papers?”

  The price was higher than I’d expected, but I had very little choice in the matter. I bought them, left them in the waiting taxi, and continued my search.

  The last stall but one was owned by a very old man, his hands blue veined, his eyebrows like thickets, but his eyes were a sharp gray.

  He had no newspapers to sell me, but he told me he remembered the murders.

  I wasn’t certain whether to believe him, but he sucked at an unlit pipe and narrowed his eyes for a moment, then said, “Lavaud.”

  It was the name of the family that had been murdered.

  “What happened? Did they ever find the killer?”

  “They suspected the man who had been walking out with one of the maids. He had a temper, jealous. But the doctor who examined the young boy who was visiting could find no injury to account for all the blood on his clothing.”

  “He was taken into custody?”

  “His mother was sent for, and the boy was interviewed again. He was taken up, the date was set for the trial. But it was never held.”

  “What happened?”

  “There could be no trial without someone to try.” He said it as if it were the most logical thing in the world, and I should have considered it myself.

  “But where did he go, this boy?”

  He shrugged, that Gallic shrug that can say so many things.

  I was about to thank him and turn away when he said, “Why do you want to know, Mademoiselle?” His eyes had narrowed again, as if judging me.

  “I found an old newspaper used to line a cabinet,” I said, unwilling to tell him the truth. “It was an horrific crime. I wanted to know if whoever had done it had been caught and punished.”

  He was still weighing me up, and I felt myself flush under his scrutiny.

  “When one is a patient, and healing is slow,” I said quietly, “one longs for anything that will make the time pass more quickly. Even an eighteen-year-old murder.”

  To my surprise, he nodded.

  “Then I will tell you one thing more. This inquiry was never closed. How could it be? There was even a reward for information. More money than I’ll ever see in what’s left of my lifetime. It was never collected. Whoever he may be, he’s had eighteen more years of life than they did, the dead. There is no shame in turning him in. I ask you to remember who told you about the reward.” And he gave me a mirthless grin.

  I hurried back to the taxi, glad to be inside, glad to be away from here. Even the glorious lines of Notre-Dame couldn’t take away the feeling I was left with, that if I knew where Philippe Moreau was and turned him in, everyone would think I had done it for the reward.

  I returned in time to read another chapter of The Moonstone to my circle of listeners. The group had grown, and I didn’t know whether it was the reader or the tale that brought others to listen. But they were an intent lot, interested in the story, and there was always some discussion afterward about whether Franklin Blake or Sergeant Cuff would find out who had stolen the Moonstone.

  Sitting there listening to them, I myself was thinking about another crime, the murder of the Lavaud family. Juliane Theissen was dead. But as she lay dying, had she confided in Father Robert? Or even confessed to him? Did he know what she knew about Philippe Moreau?

  There had been no time to search through the newspapers I’d bought. But after tea, I went up to my room and spread them out on my bed, drawing up a chair so that I could look through them comfortably.

  The papers were old enough to need care in turning the pages—I don’t think anyone had unfolded them in years, if ever.

  Then why had the bookseller kept them?

  The reward, surely. Like the old man’s dreams.

  I had a headache, after reading through the first paper. If it had been in English, I could have scanned the columns more quickly. I set the stack aside where Madame Ezay wouldn’t find them and toss them out, and was about to delve among the toy soldiers again to find the envelope when there was a tap at my door. I hastily shoved the box out of sight and called, “Come.”

  It was one of the staff, reminding me that today I was to be examined by one of the staff doctors. This was a routine matter, initially begun to make certain that no soldier was malingering, trying to use his wound to keep him in comfort when he was well enough to return to the Front. Most officers were more than eager to return to their men, and in the ranks, there was a strong sense of letting the side down by not rejoining one’s regiment as soon as possible.

  And yet all these men knew what they were returning to. They knew their chances of survival were slim at best. They knew what wounds looked like, what gas and shrapnel and machine guns did to the human body, the very real danger of amputation or burned-out lungs. They had struggled to rescue the wounded who had fallen out of reach in No Man’s Land, dragging men back at the risk of their own lives. And still they wanted to go back. They could not betray the men who were still out there, dying in their place. It wasn’t courage or heroism, it was a strong sense of duty to men they were closer to than brothers or parents or wives. A comradeship of shared fear and blood and determination that surpassed anything else they had ever known.

  I tidied my cap and my apron and went down to the small room where men were examined. I was the only person there other than a Dr. McDevitt.

  He was older than most of the doctors I’d worked with, sidelined to clinics and hospitals where his skill would serve his patients but his age would not be a factor.

  He smiled as I walked in. “A pleasant change to see a pretty face instead of a line of ill-tempered men. How are you, Sister?”

  “I’m progressing quite well, I think.”

  And it occurred to me as I said those words that he might well send me back to work before I’d found out anything more about Philippe Moreau.

  I suppressed a sigh. My duty was there, with wounded men, and anything else would have to wait.

  “Yes, most of my patients tell me they’re faring very well,” he said dryly, “as if they could convince me of that fact without any further ado.”

  After peering at my wound, he went through a list of questions: Any discharge? Bloody or clear? Had there been any redness or swelling of late? Was the incision healing regularly, or were there pockets where it was not, soreness I could feel but he couldn’t see? Had I noticed any odor of infection? How much pain? How was my gait—could I walk normally and without pain. Stand? Stoop? Bend over? Lift normal weight? Demonstrate, if you will, Sister.

  By the time I was finished with Dr. McDevitt, I had the strongest feeling he was going to send me back. But he said, peering at me over his glasses, “Another few days, perhaps. The food is not the best here, and no better in British hospitals. You will need to be at full strength when you return.”

  I didn’t tell him how little rest I’d been getting, nor how tired I was at the end of the day.

  “If I am careful, and go to one of the base hospitals instead of forward aid stations?”

  He shook his head. “We’ll talk again in a few days.”

  I thanked him and left, only to turn around. Surprised, he looked up at me. “Something else, Sister?”

  “Sir, no. Not in regard to my case. How many French clinics are there, similar to this one? If I’m to stay a bit longer, I’d like to look up a former patient to see how he’s progressing. He was French, brought in to us by a stretcher party.
I had to translate for him. It was a very serious case.” Not completely the truth, of course, but very close.

  “My dear, Paris is full of them. Fifty? A hundred? I couldn’t begin to tell you how many there are. Finding him will be nearly impossible, even if you had the time.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “It does you credit, Sister, to want to know the outcome. But our duty ends when men leave our care. We can only say prayers for their well-being, whether they return to their regiments or are invalided home.” He took a deep breath. “I daresay the outcome is often much the same.”

  Another avenue closed to me.

  I went back to my room and read through two more of the newspapers, without any luck. One was dated three months after the murders, which meant that there was nothing more worth printing about it, or the killer had long since been taken up and was awaiting trial. The other was two weeks later than the previous one.

  I went down for my dinner and found a table by myself, near the back of the room. I must have looked as cross as I felt, for no one came to ask if he might sit in the other chair.

  Afterward, I found a taxi to take me back to the hospital. I didn’t see my watcher, but I knew he was there. I could feel eyes on me as I stepped into the Renault.

  Sister Marie-Luc was just finishing her meal. I could tell she wasn’t very pleased to see me.

  And I saw too that she had not remembered sending me to Juliane Theissen’s cottage in search of a black lacquer box from Japan. I had expected to offer the envelope to her, but bit off what I had been about to say and instead asked how she was feeling.

  “There is so much pain,” she said, “and whichever way I move, I seem to pull at stitches somewhere. Still, I’m grateful.”

  I could see that her dinner had consisted of a broth and a dish of carrots. There must have been a glut of carrots at the market today.

  “Is there anything I can do for you?” I asked.

  She looked away. “I have heard nothing from the Karadegs. They will blame me for what became of their son. It’s not surprising. But I tried to explain to the police.”

  She went on in that vein, and I could see that what had happened to Jerome still weighed heavily on her conscience.

  Apparently the police had refused to listen to her, and instead believed the witness, claiming that the shock of the attack had left her with no useful memory of it. “I have asked the nuns to light candles for me in the chapel. But it will never be enough.”

  “You can’t feel guilty,” I said. “You did what you could.”

  “The policeman is not a practicing Catholic,” she said. “He doesn’t understand.”

  I wasn’t quite certain what that had to do with her deep-seated sense of guilt, except that he had not believed her, had not tried to find another answer.

  “I know you are certain the man wore a military uniform. But can you be certain that it was Philippe Moreau who attacked you?”

  “I didn’t see his face, I tell you. But I know Jerome. It wasn’t Jerome.” She was suddenly agitated. “Why must everything come back to that monster?”

  “Did Juliane Theissen believe her son had killed all those people in the Bois?”

  Her eyes held mine. “You know nothing of this. You will do well to say nothing to anyone about this. Now you must go, and I would prefer it if you didn’t come to visit me again.”

  “He’s in Paris, Marie-Luc. And someone has been following me. Had he followed you before you were attacked? Should I be afraid of shadows in the dark?”

  But she ignored me, folding her napkin and setting it beside her plate.

  I had one last question for her. “Had Fräulein Theissen ever worked for the Lavaud family? Could that have something to do with why Philippe might have killed them?”

  I think that if she could have got out of her bed, she would have physically shown me to the door and shut it after me.

  Instead she did the next best thing. She pulled her rosary from her pocket and closed her eyes, her lips moving as her fingers threaded the beads between them.

  Chapter Twelve

  A light rain had begun to fall while I was in the hospital. I had to walk to the next corner before I could find a taxi, and I wondered as I strode as quickly as I could up the dark street if there was someone behind me biding his time. I’m not usually given to such fears, but there was no one else about at this hour, and my footsteps echoed against the high walls on either side. Windows were dark, their shades pulled against the possibility of a German air raid, and my feeling of being alone and vulnerable was very strong.

  I told myself quite firmly that there was no way that Philippe Moreau could know I was in Paris, a nurse he’d last seen in a base hospital in the British sector. It seemed more than likely that the police might have an interest in my comings and goings, because I had come to see Marie-Luc so often. But even that was not a satisfactory explanation for the watcher outside the Hôtel de Belle-Île.

  For a moment I even wondered, as the taxi came toward me and slowed, whether Captain Barkley had put someone on to watch me, thinking that I might find myself in trouble running about Paris while I was healing. It wouldn’t do for a British nursing Sister to faint on one of the boulevards.

  Arrived back at the clinic, I found Captain Barkley waiting for me, as if conjured up by my own thoughts.

  “You’ve been out,” he said, gesturing to the raindrops on the shoulders of my coat and the damp curls struggling to escape from my cap.

  I wanted to reply that I had just come through the doors, and so it must be fairly obvious that I had been outside. Instead, I answered, “I needed a little fresh air.”

  “There will be fog tonight, if I’m not mistaken. I’d not go walking on my own after this. I’m late coming to offer you dinner. Have you dined?”

  “I have.”

  He looked disappointed. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “The truth is, I went to call on Marie-Luc. There’s still a good deal of pain—well, the incision is a long one, running right across her body. But the fever seems to have broken.”

  “You shouldn’t be wandering around Paris after dark all on your own.”

  “The days are so short already that if I must only step out in sunlight, I will not see very much of the city before I’m sent back to work.”

  “I’ll arrange a tour tomorrow if you like.”

  “I’d really prefer going back to question Father Robert.”

  “You should leave that business alone. There’s nothing in that cottage left to be found. There’s nothing more you can do. It’s not your place to search for this missing officer. If he is missing, and not just recovering in a flat or a clinic. For all I know he might be next door to this house, or in the Sixth Arrondissement—or the Seventeenth.”

  “In that café you were eager to sort through the contents of the fräulein’s envelope with me. Now you want no part of it. Or anything else.”

  We were on the verge of quarreling. Looking more closely I could see that he was tired, and heaven only knew how long he’d been waiting for me. And I was still stung by Sister Marie-Luc’s refusal to talk to me. She had every right—and yet it seemed that no one wanted to say anything about Philippe Moreau, even though he was more often than not the elephant in the room.

  Then it occurred to me that if the watchers were the captain’s, he knew very well that I’d visited the nun again, and he wanted very badly to find out what more I’d learned. Small wonder he was cranky after I’d refused his dinner invitation.

  “No, that’s unkind of me. I’ll go with you to dinner, if you like, and perhaps have a glass of wine. We can enjoy the company and talk of something else.”

  He was glaring at me, not yet ready to make peace.

  “I saw the doctor this afternoon. He says I’ll be fit to leave in a few days.”

  That changed the atmosphere considerably.

  “I must say I’ll be happier when you are under the Army’s eye rather than
wandering about Paris, ill and lost.”

  Hardly ill, and very definitely not lost. I bit back my answer and smiled.

  We set out for a restaurant he’d wanted to try, and my amusement nearly got the better of me when I saw that carrots were on the menu. I had a small glass of wine, and we talked about England, mostly, and the island of Mackinac, where he’d spent so many happy weeks as he was growing up. It was a cheerful meal after all. And then, as he was dipping a spoon into a very odd-looking tart (the crust gray but the apples thinly sliced and fanned out in perfect symmetry—the French, trying to cope in spite of the war), he commented as casually as possible, “What does Marie-Luc have to say? Is she still convinced that Jerome wasn’t the man who attacked her?”

  “She is certain he wasn’t. But she didn’t see the man’s face, worst luck. Or claims she didn’t. Still, she knows it wasn’t Jerome.” I thought about that. “People are distinctive. In feel, in odor, in manner,” I went on slowly, lowering my voice as I considered the problem. “If you came up behind me and put an arm around my throat, and tried to stab me while I struggled to stop you, ending up slashing me across my chest, something about you would register, surely. I might not see your face, but I could honestly swear that I knew it was you. Or conversely, if it was a stranger, that it couldn’t have been you, that something about him was quite different.”

  He set his spoon aside, looking down at his plate. “I know what you are referring to. I have two young cousins. Sometimes when they arrive unexpectedly, one will put her hands over my eyes and disguising her voice, ask me to guess which one it is.” He lifted his gaze to meet mine. “Cynthia favors lavender scent. But Nan is more adventurous, likely to be trying a scent of her mother’s or buying a new one she thinks she might prefer. I hadn’t realized it, but I always guess it’s Cynthia if I catch the fragrance of lavender. If it’s any other scent, I always guess it’s Nan.”