by Katie Penryn
Monsieur Bonhomie smiled. “It was my grandfather’s tales of daring; of the little man fighting the mighty German military machine that drew me into studying that period of our history.”
We followed him into his office and took our usual places in front of his desk. He asked his secretary to bring us tea and settled himself in his magisterial chair.
“Now what exactly do you want to know?” he asked us as he leant forward and steepled his fingers as he was wont to do.
I let Felix answer for us both as he was the one involved in the primary research.
“Some general background about the events of the time and their impact on the Bordeaux region,” he said.
The mayor smiled again, sat back in his chair and crossed one chubby leg over the other.
“Nothing I’d like better. I don’t suppose you can tell me why you’re both suddenly so interested in the war?”
Felix said, “Not for the moment, monsieur,” and I shook my head.
“Bien. A quick history lesson is required. When the German army approached Paris in June 1940, the French government moved south to the city of Tours. As the German army continued its advance, the French government withdrew further south to Bordeaux as they’d done in the First World War. When the forced Armistice was signed between France and Germany later on that month, the French government moved to Vichy. Bordeaux was occupied by the German army and placed under military authority.”
“I suppose they wanted to control one of France’s major ports,” I suggested.
“Absolument. Bordeaux is an important port, sitting as it does on the Atlantic Ocean. Also, its geography makes it strategically useful. The Gironde estuary is fed by the Garonne and the Dordogne. The River Garonne bends in from the south and it is around this bend that the port of Bordeaux is situated, sixty miles from the sea. Its position shelters it from attack from the sea. What you may not know is that from 1940 to 1943 the Italian Royal Navy set up a submarine base here.”
“In support of the Germans?” I asked.
“Of course. The Italians and Germans signed up as fellow members of the Axis Powers in September 1940. It was the Italians who built the gigantic submarine base here. Their submarines took part in the battle of the Atlantic.”
“I’ve seen photos. The pens are so strong that it’s been impossible to break them up.”
“That’s so, but we French are a pragmatic people. We’re turning those symbols of oppression and misguided military might into a place of culture and learning.”
“But there were German submarines, too?” asked Felix.
Monsieur Bonhomie nodded. “Bordeaux was the home of the powerful 12th U-boat Flotilla.” He smiled. “But much good did it do them. When the tide turned in 1944, the Americans advanced from the north and the French from the south. The German military abandoned Bordeaux in August 1944.”
He signed deeply and uncrossed his legs. “But not without one last spiteful maneuver.”
“Yes? What was that?” I asked.
“They scuttled 200 ships in the River Garonne, blocking the port of Bordeaux: supply ships, submarines, tankers and smaller auxiliary craft. The damage to the city and port would have been worse if a German soldier hadn’t blown up part of the ammunitions and explosives to be used in the complete vandalism of Bordeaux.”
“Did any of the shipping escape?” I asked him.
“Not to my knowledge. Nothing significant anyway. Enough of history. Here’s the tea,” the mayor said as his secretary entered.
It would have been impolite to continue with our questions, so we chatted and drank tea for a few minutes, thanked the mayor and left his office.
“That wasn’t much help was it?” I said to Felix as I tucked my hand under his arm. “I didn’t pick up any clues, did you?”
“No. Possibly all the shipping was sunk by the Germans before their departure. Any ship that survived would have been unable to get out of the harbor. But we have to be missing something. Ben didn’t spend all those hours on research for nothing.”
“And his secret log does show the Princesse going out to sea.”
“I’ll have to read through the material Ben looked at. Maybe something will strike me as important.”
“Two heads are better than one, Felix. I’ll use my text to speech app and follow along with you.”
*
We spent the rest of the morning and all the afternoon wading through the mass of documents in the library’s database of archives. Nothing leapt out at me nor at Felix. All we did was fill in the basic background the mayor had given us. Gwinny fetched Jimbo from the school bus to allow us to work through until supper time. When Gwinny called us, I had reached the point where I was drifting off and daydreaming. The unnatural voice of the reading app had become monotonous. Suddenly, an idea sprang from my subconscious to my conscious mind.
“Felix,” I called out to him, making him jump, so deep was his concentration on the German document he was reading.
“Yes?” he looked up with hope in his eyes. “You’ve found something?”
“Not yet. Just an idea.”
“Well, go on. Spill the beans.”
“It’s occurred to me that we didn’t finish exploring the sand pit at Désirée’s house.”
“But, boss, we found the box with the JB2 logbook.”
“There might be something else there.”
“Aren’t you clutching at straws again?”
I flipped the lid of his laptop down almost trapping his fingers. “You’re the one who doesn’t like loose ends. That sandpit is a loose end.”
Felix sighed long and deep. “Very well. What do you want to do?”
“Return to the house tonight when everyone’s asleep. We can’t ask Désirée to let us wander round her garden again.”
Gwinny called us again from the kitchen.
“All right, we’ll go at midnight. Do you need to brush up on any of your spells?”
“I’m all right with the one for metals, but we should go over the one for invisibility just in case.”
I swerved sharply to miss a fox as we turned into Désirée’s street. Off in the distance a dog barked. Apart from the animal life, all was quiet. Not a light showed in any of the houses as we passed. I pulled to a stop two doors down from Désirée’s. Felix and I had decided to go invisible after all in case the nosy neighbor woke up and looked out of her window. We ducked into a narrow passage way to work the magic, thinking that if anyone spotted us, they would believe we had disappeared because we had carried on walking. Once invisible we emerged onto the street again and walked down to Désirée’s house, opened the gate quietly and made our way round to the back yard and Marcel’s sand pit.
As I was preparing myself to cast the veni metallice spell, a flurry of white wings swept past me almost brushing against my face. I took a hasty step backwards, but it was only a dame blanche, a white lady—a French barn owl.
“Did it scare you?” asked Felix in a whisper.
“Yes, but in a good way. Owls are magic creatures, wise and a source of joy in this world. Perhaps it’s a good portent.”
“Don’t count your owls, boss,” the annoying man said. “Breathe deeply and say your spell. I don’t want to hang around here any longer than we have to. It’s cold and I’m tired.”
I tutted back. “It’s your loose end, Felix. You could at least be patient while I steady myself.”
Down the street near our car, a dog barked. Across the street, another dog took up his warning. If they kept it up, we stood every chance of being discovered. Yes, we were invisible but for how long? We still had no idea how long my spells lasted. And what about our car? I was on the point of cancelling the mission as too dangerous and a long shot, anyway, when a soft wharf followed by a whine came from the fence beside us. We both snapped round. A long wet nose poked through a hole in the fence of Désirée’s kind neighbor’s house. Her cute and friendly cockapoo stood there wagging his tail.
“H
ey, Mpenzi. What are you doing here in the middle of the night?” Coco asked me.
“How come you can see me?”
“I’m not blind. My eyesight’s good. Twenty twenty for a dog.”
“But I’m invisible,” I said unable to keep the squawk out of my voice. This wasn’t going to work if I was still visible.
I turned to Felix. “Can you see me?”
“No,” he said. “But you’re forgetting about dogs and the supernatural. They can see many things we human beings can’t see. Like ghosts and fairies. And invisible witches.”
Coco gave a muffled wuff of amusement.
“Your friend has it in one, Mpenzi. Anyway, even if I couldn’t see you, I’d be able to recognize the scent of you. The dogs that are barking are too far away to see you or smell you, but they sense you. If they carry on barking like that, they’re going to wake the whole neighborhood. Would you like me to send them a message that all’s quiet and you are friends?”
I tickled his curly fur above his nose. “That would be a good idea.”
Coco withdrew his snout from the fence and sat on his haunches. Lifting his head up to stretch his neck, he let out a long howl, dropped his head and uttered three little yelps.
“That should do the trick,” he said. “You can carry on with whatever you’re up to. I guess it’s something magic and I’m sure you’ll be helping Désirée.”
“You’re right there, but you must turn away. I have to cast a spell and no one is allowed to watch me. Also, we can’t afford to have a witness to what we’re doing.”
“Sure thing,” he said and walked off back up to his house.
Felix whispered, “Where are you, boss? We must hurry.”
“Over here,” I whispered back from the edge of the sandpit. “I’m casting the spell now.”
The words and symbols came to my mind easily as it wasn’t long since I’d used the veni metallice spell.
“Well done,” said Felix. “Start from the point where you left off last time.”
I stepped into the sand and set off shuffling from one side to the other, waving my arms slowly over the ground like the metal detector I had become. From time to time Felix would call out a whisper to me asking me how far I’d traveled and whether I had any reaction. Each time I had to say I’d found nothing. I stepped across to the last body width of the pit fearing that we’d been wasting our time when my hands began to twitch. The ripples moved up my arms until they were jerking strongly.
I dug my toes into the sand and called out, “Felix, there’s something buried here.”
“End the invisible spell so I can help you,” he whispered back.
I clicked my fingers and Felix sprang into view poised with the spade at the ready. I moved out of the way. He scraped the sand gently away from where I’d been standing. One inch, two inches, three…. Nothing.
“Wave your arms again, boss, to be sure.”
I did as he asked. This time the reaction was obvious, and he returned to his task. He had to proceed with care but we were both desperate to uncover what was hidden in the sand. Felix dropped to his hands and knees. I crouched alongside him as he continued to push the sand aside. The white owl flew past us again adding to the suspense. I dug my fingers into the sand and hit something solid.
“You’ve found something,” Felix asked me.
I nodded and continued to feel round the edges.
“But it’s not metal. It feels like polythene.”
“Here, let me,” he said pushing my hands aside and delving down with his hands to disclose a white plastic container about six inches by four. He levered it out of the sand and placed it on the grass.
“Moment of truth,” he said as he prized off the lid.
Polystyrene packing chips filled the space around an object wrapped in black plastic.
“It looks like a slab of chocolate,” I said.
“Very heavy chocolate,” he said as he lifted the object out of its protective bed. He hefted it in his hand. “I’d say that weighs at least one and a half pounds, maybe as much as a kilo.”
“Take the wrapping off.”
Felix handed it to me while he took his penknife out of his pocket. I almost dropped it. It was heavy, much heavier than it looked.
A car drew up in front of the house and the headlights shone down into the garden. We didn’t dare hang about to see who it was. I cast the invisible spell. We tiptoed up the garden and past a police patrol vehicle. We made it to our car and climbed in. Once we were both in our seats, I clicked the invisible spell off. As I drove home Felix began to pick at the plastic tape with his penknife, but I warned him he might damage whatever the mysterious object was. We had to wait until we reached home to find out what was so important to Ben he had wrapped it in plastic and buried it in his son’s old sandpit.
Chapter 30
We hurried into the house and made straight for the study. Felix set to work unpicking the tightly bound packing tape while I made us a cup of tea to chase away the autumn chill.
I returned with the hot drinks to find Felix staring down at the item on my father’s desk, his eyes wide with awe. He shook his head slowly from side to side and covered the object quickly with a sheet of paper as I approached. I put the mugs down and reached out to pull the paper away but he grabbed hold of my wrist to stop me.
“What’s wrong, Felix? What is it? Something dangerous?”
“You could say that. Sit down because you aren’t going to believe your eyes. Take a deep breath.”
I did as he said. Anything to get him to let me see what we’d found, even if it was the knife used to murder Joseph.
He whisked the paper away. A bar of yellow metal shone up at me in the glow of the desk lamp. I shut my eyes tightly while my mind tried to make sense of what my eyes had seen. I looked down again. Yes, I’d been right the first time. We’d dug up a bar of gold. As if the eagle with outspread wings carrying a swastika wasn’t enough, the bar was stamped with DEUTSCHE REICHSBANK : 1 KILO FEINGOLD : 999.9 and a serial number.
I had difficulty making my lips move. “Nazi gold?”
Felix nodded. “Unbelievable, isn’t it?”
“Is it real?” I asked him.
“At first glance, yes. The weight is right for the volume, I’d say, but we must carry out further tests.”
“Can we do that now? In the middle of the night?”
Felix laughed. “Well, we can’t take it to an official assay office but, if I remember my physics classes correctly, we can try.”
I sighed. “Good thing you’re here. I was never any good at physics.”
Felix took down one of the little magnets from the whiteboard in the office and placed it on top of the bar and tipped the bar. To my amazement the magnet slid off. It didn’t stick.
Felix laughed at my astonishment. “Gold is not magnetic.”
I stared at the bar for a few seconds. “It could be a mixture of gold and something else with similar properties.”
“Yes, it could. Possibly tungsten.”
I pulled a face at my ignorance.
Felix said, “Tungsten shares many properties with gold and is much cheaper.”
He held the bar up and hit it with the handle of the metal paper knife and it rang clear and sharp. “Another point in its favor. Tomorrow, we’ll order an acid test kit, but for now we should assume it’s real. I’m sure Ben was savvy enough to test it.”
I lifted the bar and felt the weight. “Feingold means pure gold. What does the 999.9 mean?”
“Out of a thousand parts, 999.9 are gold. That’s 24 karat, boss. The real thing. I’ll check the current value.” He opened up his laptop and clicked a few keys. “Just under $40,000.”
“What?” I gasped nearly dropping the bar on the desk.
Felix took the gold bar from me and laid it back in its kitchen container. I sat back in my chair trying to process the evidence before my eyes while my tea cooled.
Felix bent down and took something out o
f the waste bin. He passed me a sheet of newspaper folded to the shape of the gold bar.
“This was wrapped around it. Check out the date.”
“The fifteenth of April this year. Why, that’s the date of the first entry in Ben’s agenda on his laptop.”
“And the first entry in the duplicate logbook, the JB2,” Felix added.
“So the gold must have been buried in the sandpit on or after the 15th April. Presumably by Ben Marin as we found it in his garden.”
“We’ll never be certain of what happened with both Joseph and Ben being dead, so we’ll have to assume they picked up the bar on their trip out to sea that day. Something important happened to make Ben start his secret logbook. I’d say finding a bar of Nazi gold qualifies.”
I picked up my lukewarm tea and drank slowly while I pondered over what we’d discovered. Not much. It was all guesswork, and I had another guess to add to the mix.
“Felix, that would be round about the time Joseph and Ben were trawling for baby oysters out in the ocean. What if they picked up the gold bar in their nets?”
“My thoughts exactly. It must have been a stray bar because they began a search, presumably along the line they trawled that day.”
“Looking for the wreck of a German ship?”
“Of course, all known wrecks are marked and have been explored. It’s possible this one is still buried in the sand. They may never have found the wreck even if they hadn’t been killed.”
“So why were they murdered, Felix? Someone else must have been monitoring them and considered them a threat. The two things are connected, surely?”
“I fear so. And whoever the murderer is he will stop at nothing to protect their interests.”
“Wouldn’t it have been safer for Joseph and Ben to report their find?”
Felix opened up his laptop again. “I guess they were greedy and hoped to find the rest of the treasure and keep it for themselves.”
“No wonder Ben wasn’t worried about taking out a new business loan. Joseph being the older more cautious brother must have wanted to wait until they had the bird in the hand.”