by Michael Bond
The officier turned away from the window. ‘Very few things in this world are entirely black and white. The Allies had their gangsters too, not to mention just plain opportunists. The American army, who were first on the scene, wasn’t just made up of good people. No army ever is. In some areas corruption was rife. Small-time gangsters got big ideas.’
‘Things went missing … en route?’ Somewhere at the back of Monsieur Pamplemousse’s mind a glimmer of light began to dawn, but he decided to say nothing for the time being.
‘There was chaos everywhere. Those who had survived the war were still in a state of shock; dazed and apathetic. The railways had been destroyed. Roads were blocked by refugees pushing prams, carts, bicycles – anything with wheels they could lay their hands on. Cities and towns lay in ruins. In some areas there was a total breakdown in communication, water, power, gas – all the things one normally takes for granted. No one was going to query the movement of trucks for the simple reason they all had their own problems to do with the simple process of staying alive. People would do anything for a carton of cigarettes or a pound of butter. For anyone wanting to make a quick fortune the opportunity was handed to them on a plate.
‘It wasn’t so much the gold. Gold is one thing – solid bullion is heavy – each ingot weighs anything between 10 and 20 kilograms – it has its problems. Also, it was mostly accounted for, counted and checked, and always – again by its very nature – it was sent under escort. Gold was to do with governments.
‘But works of art were something else. Who really knows the true value of a painting? The task of cataloguing it all was monumental. A truck-load of gold bullion has a certain value. Who can say what a truck-load of paintings or other works of art is worth? Imagine being a GI detailed to take a lorry containing untold treasures to some destination you had never even heard of before – just a pin-prick on the map – five or six thousand kilometres away from home.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse broke in. ‘You are saying that even now, forty-five years later, there is still a lot that is unaccounted for?’
‘Of course. How could it ever be otherwise?’
‘So?’
‘So.’ The officier sat down in his chair again and closed his eyes. ‘Picture a night in 1945, 20th April to be precise. A lorry draws up outside the Hôtel des Dunes. It is driven by a young lieutenant in the American army. He is accompanied by three other men and his current mistress – a German girl. They ask for accommodation and they are given it. They are free with their cigarettes and their food and they clearly have plenty of money. The owner is only too willing to oblige. They stay at the hotel, mostly sleeping during the day and going out at night. Some days later, when the time comes for them to leave, the lorry is empty. The owner of the hotel – Monsieur Bouet’s father – is sworn to secrecy. He hasn’t seen a thing. Anyway, what is there to tell? He truly hasn’t seen anything. Then they drive off into the night and they are never seen again.’
‘Never? Isn’t that a little strange?’
‘There are a number of possible reasons, but it may simply have been that the authorities made it too hot for them. The U.S. Office of Strategic Services formed an Art Looting Investigation Unit. It was made up of experts in the field and their brief was to track down looted art treasures and return them to their rightful owners as quickly as possible. In a desire to establish good relations with freshly occupied countries it was given top priority.
‘A lot of those who on the spur of the moment thought they were on to a good thing quickly discovered that stealing a lorryload of treasure is one thing, reaping the benefit is something else again. Actual cash can be laundered gradually over a period of time without arousing too much suspicion. Works of art have their own problems. How do you get it back home? What do you do with it once it is there? A lot of people must have written the whole thing off as a bad job; a kind of drunken spree which looked totally different in the cold light of day when they eventually sobered up.
‘Even back home they weren’t safe. The CIA and the FBI started watching bank accounts, looking for any sign of sudden wealth.
‘Some people managed to solve the problem, but it didn’t do them much good. Here, I will give you an example.’ The officier leaned forward, reached across the desk and turned over the pages until he came across the one he wanted.
Monsieur Pamplemousse glanced at a press cutting taken from an American journal. It was dated 1 July 1990. On one side of the page there was a picture of a tumbledown group of buildings. It was captioned ‘The Texas Connection’. Alongside the opposite page someone had attached a translation of the accompanying text.
It had to do with the discovery in some small derelict farm town in Texas – a town of boarded up shops and deserted streets about an hour’s drive from Dallas - of a cache of Nazi loot. Investigation showed it had been smuggled back to the States over a long period of time by a former GI whose unit had accidentally stumbled across the hoard in a cave outside Quedlinburg. It had been the subject of an investigation at the time, but that had ceased in 1949 when Quedlinburg became part of East Germany. The extraordinary part of the whole story was that over the years the man had had it sent home through the mail without a single item being queried. The total value was many millions of dollars. The man – respected owner of the local hardware store and an orchid-fancier in his spare time – had died of cancer ten years ago. Steps were being taken to return the property to its original owners.
‘Truth,’ said the officier, ‘is often stranger than fiction. I could give you many more examples.’
‘And you think something similar may have happened here in Arcachon?’
‘Whoever stayed at the hotel didn’t drive all that way for the oysters. It must have been because they wanted to bury something in the dunes.’
‘But why Arcachon? It is a long way from Bavaria.’
‘So much the better. Picture yourself in the same situation. There you are in a strange country: an alien land. You hardly speak the language. You certainly don’t trust the natives. After all, for six years you have been at war with them. Suddenly you have the chance to get your hands on untold wealth.’
‘The stuff that dreams are made of …’
‘Dreams, yes – we all have them from time to time. Dreams of winning the Loterie nationale perhaps, or being left a fortune. But we are dealing with the harsh practicality of a lorryload of art treasures.
‘What do you do with it?’
‘Hide it?’
‘Yes, but where? Bearing in mind you may not be able to touch it for a long time; certainly not for many months, possibly years, it needs to be somewhere safe.
‘Then I know what I would do. I would get the hell out of it. I would drive as far away from the scene as I possibly could. Which is exactly what they must have done.
‘Having made their getaway they probably talked it over between themselves. Someone suggests going to Paris. People are naturally more observant in the country; they know all that is going on. A big city would be safe. But no one knows Paris, so that is out. Lyon? Marseille? Nice? They are just names. Time is of the essence.
‘They rack their brains. Then someone mentions Arcachon and its dunes. Perhaps they had passed through after the invasion and it stuck in their mind. In many ways it must have sounded ideal. The dunes are not getting any smaller. If anything, they are growing in size. No one is ever likely to build on them. Any tracks they left in the sand would have been obliterated almost immediately. It is safe from the elements … all, that is, except one.’
The officier reached across and turned to another page.
‘They reckoned without the wind.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse recognised the press cutting. It was identical to the one Elsie had been carrying in her handbag. This time he took the trouble to read the caption beneath the picture: ‘The hulk of an American-made Sherman tank found on a beach near Arcachon, south-western France. The tank, which had been buried in sand, was uncovered by heav
y storms on Wednesday.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse looked up. ‘The storms were that bad?’
‘The worst ever recorded. Millions of pounds worth of damage was done.’
It was true. Paris had suffered that year. Trees in the Bois de Bologne and the Luxembourg Gardens had been uprooted.
‘And you think Monsieur Bouet may have discovered something much more valuable than a tank?’
‘I know he did. The first of the pictures began appearing on the walls of his hotel soon afterwards. It was spotted by one of our men when he was making a routine check about anothermatter. He happened to pass some lighthearted comment about business being good and Monsieur Bouet went into a great panic. Anyway, he carried on about it so much the officer’s suspicions were aroused.’
‘How about Madame Bouet?’
‘She swears he never told her where he found them. He said it was better she didn’t know. The fact is that by then, as he began to realise the true nature and value of his find, he was probably almost beginning to wish he hadn’t come across it. Like the ones who originally buried them he suddenly didn’t know what to do. Again, it was a matter of quantity and of ergonomics. His first instinct was probably “finders keepers”, but where was he going to keep them?
‘He was probably taking legal advice. Laws on these matters are not as clear cut as one might imagine.’
‘They seldom are,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse drily.
‘Establishing the rightful ownership could well involve a long and costly legal battle. The laws of each country are different. There are organisations whose sole purpose is to make sure the property is returned to its rightful owners. I think Bouet was biding his time until he got sound advice as to what to do next.’
‘In the meantime the walls of the Hotel were beginning to groan under the weight.’
‘Exactement. We were about to pull him in for questioning when he disappeared. It is my belief that shortly after Bouet began hanging the pictures in his hotel someone must have stayed there – probably quite by chance – but someone who knew about these things. The art world is small. News travels fast.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse suddenly thought of his conversation with Elsie.
‘It is a wonder that so far no one has attempted to steal the paintings,’ he said innocently.
‘They will. It is only a matter of time. Up to now they have held back for reasons of greed. They believe there must be more where the present ones came from and they don’t want to draw attention to the fact But when they do …’ he reached under his desk and flicked a switch. An alarm bell rang. ‘The pictures are wired.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse sat lost in thought for a moment. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’
The question was met with another. ‘In your experience, Monsieur Pamplemousse, what is the most important thing to do when you bury something for a long time?’
‘First, make sure it is well protected – in a waterproof container of some kind.’
‘And then …’
‘Of equal importance, I would say, is to make absolutely certain you remember where you buried it: not the next day, or the next week, but possibly years later.’
‘For that you would need either something very special and immovable to mark the exact spot or a very accurate bearing – preferably more than one – ideally a triangulation.’
‘How about the blockhouse nearest to the hotel?’
‘That would be useless. It started off at the top of the hill and now it is halfway down.’
‘They wouldn’t have known that was going to happen.’
The officier nodded. ‘That is true. But instinct tells me no. You don’t go to the trouble of transporting treasure all across France to the Dune du Pilat and end up burying it somewhere obvious like that. It has to be somewhere within the dune itself.’
‘Have you tried looking?’
The officier gestured towards a cardboard box in the corner of his office. ‘I have had men posing as tourists working on it with metal detectors for several weeks. So far we have unearthed two hundred and thirty francs in coins, three cigarette lighters, two powder compacts, two metal trouser buttons and a selection of items from a lady’s handbag which even you might find hard to believe. If we keep going we could end up with the cleanest dune in western France and still be no further on. It is an impossible task.’
‘Are there not more sophisticated devices these days? Can the army not help?’
‘It would cause too much comment. Can you imagine what would happen once the word got out? It would trigger off another gold rush. The dunes would be swarming with people.’
He had an answer for everything.
‘May I ask a question?’
‘Of course.’
‘You are not telling me all this for nothing.’
‘It is my experience, Monsieur, that few people in this world ever do anything for nothing. You are in a position to help. You are sitting in the hot seat as it were. We would like more information on those who are staying at the hotel before we make our next move.’
‘There are very few left now,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘The English family have gone, so have the Germans. Now the restaurant is closed I suspect most of the others may have departed too. The only ones left apart from myself and my colleague, are Monsieur and Madame Blanche and the Americans.’
‘Precisely! The Americans.’
‘You think one of them may be the lieutenant who stayed at the Hôtel des Dunes all those years ago?’
‘No. He is dead. That much we know. We checked back through the hotel records and got all their names. They were probably so sure of themselves they didn’t bother with false ones. Besides, everyone was very identity conscious in those days.
‘The FBI have been very helpful. The others have all either died of old age or disappeared without trace. However, it is my belief that before he died the lieutenant passed on at least part of his secret, perhaps quite inadvertently when he saw news of the storm. It would have brought back memories.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse looked at the newspaper cutting again. ‘I see it has a Reuters’ credit – it will have had worldwide circulation.’
The officier laid his hands flat on the table. ‘Monsieur Pamplemousse, do not lose sight of the fact that this is no longer simply a case of looking for buried treasure. It is also a case of murder. Double murder.’
‘Monsieur and Madame Blanche are neighbours of mine in Paris. Madame Blanche may be une emmerdeuse – a pain in the arse – but I doubt if she would ever be a party to such things.’
‘Exactement.’
‘If you suspect the Americans why do you not arrest them?’
‘On what charge? If we arrest them on suspicion of murder where does it get us? Other than the fact that Monsieur Bouet disappeared soon after they arrived, we have no proof. At this moment in time we do not even have any bodies. All we have is a photograph showing a part of one.’
It suddenly occurred to Monsieur Pamplemousse that Pommes Frites could be charged with concealing vital evidence; worse still, destroying it! But he dismissed the thought. It would be impossible to prove.
The officier clearly felt the same way. After a slight pause he continued. ‘We also have a big query against their names from the other side of the Atlantic. A query which says in effect – watch out!
‘Other than that we have absolutely nothing against them. Their visas are in order. They pay their bills. They play the casinos – but they are not alone in that. It does not make them criminals.
‘Once again, arresting them will only draw attention to the whole affair, and that I wish to avoid for as long as possible.’
‘How can I help?’
‘We would like more information about your … er … travelling companion. It seems to me that, yourself excepted of course, she does not always keep good company. I think she is in need of care and protection. It could be that through her association with the Americans she has learned s
omething we do not know. In which case your co-operation would be appreciated …’
‘That is not possible.’ The words came out automatically, before Monsieur Pamplemousse recalled that Elsie had on occasions behaved very oddly.
The officier gave a sigh. ‘I feared you might say that. It is a pity. It makes my job less pleasant than it might otherwise have been.’ He reached across the desk again and turned the pages of the file until he reached the last one.
Monsieur Pamplemousse gave a start. It was a blow-up of a photo taken of him standing by the train earlier in the day; hat over face, watched in amazement by the occupants of the carriage; in colour. The gendarme must have been quick off the mark: not half as dozy as he had made himself out to be.
‘That would not look good in Ici Paris. An unhappy follow-up to your unfortunate affair at the Folies, would you not say?’
‘That is blackmail,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse indignantly.
‘Oui.’
‘Blackmail of the very worst kind.’
‘People are arrested every day for less.’
‘Oui.’
‘That is very unfair.’
The officier allowed himself a smile for the first time. ‘Life is very unfair at times, Monsieur Pamplemousse.’
‘And that is all you have to say?’
‘For the moment, oui. I am sure we shall meet again.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse rose to his feet. ‘One last question. The lieutenant … the one who stayed at the hotel all those years ago. When did he die?’
‘Just over a month ago.’
‘Of natural causes?’
‘He was shot through the back of the head by a bullet from a .44 Magnum. A favourite weapon, I believe, of the American Mafia.’
‘I think,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘it is time I returned to the Hôtel des Dunes.’
9
A MATTER OF DEGREES
The Hôtel des Dunes was in semi-darkness when Monsieur Pamplemousse arrived back. The dining-room windows were shuttered and a piece of paper bearing the single word FERMÉ was pasted across the glass-fronted menu case. A quick glance around the parking area revealed only three other cars; the Blanches’ Renault 25, the Peugeot belonging to the Americans, and a third – a Renault estate which had been there from the beginning and which he guessed must belong to the hotel.