Mayhem

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘If that was meant to worry me, forget it. He’ll be dead before nightfall.’

  Ackermann crossed his legs. ‘So, a little tête-à-tête, Gabrielle? But you’ve changed your things? Now that was wise. Good travelling clothes are what will suit this whole business best.’

  Fortunately the wine arrived.

  St-Cyr waited patiently for the boy to serve them. ‘It’s a pleasure to see things done so properly, René. Not a drop wasted, eh? And the order of the serving absolutely perfect.’

  He took a sip, held the wine a moment on the tongue, then moved it around his mouth. ‘Magnificent!’ he said. ‘Countess, I commend your efforts. So, my friends, let us begin, I think, with the murder of Yvette to which Mademoiselle Arcuri has already confessed.’

  ‘But you …’ began the chanteuse. The others were startled.

  Smiling good-naturedly, St-Cyr lifted his glass in a toast to her. ‘Please allow me to proceed.’

  ‘Just don’t take too long,’ snorted Ackermann.

  ‘General, I will be as brief as possible. Countess, could I have the use of that splendid Russian table you have over there? Such inlays of semiprecious stones – the pink of rhodonite, the green of malachite and blue of lapis lazuli. For one who appreciates beauty and rarity, it’s a wonder you don’t value your daughter-in-law more. Brothers, would you mind …?’ He indicated the table.

  Together, the three of them moved the table closer to hand, but left it to one side of the gathering. ‘I prefer to stand and to walk about,’ said St-Cyr apologetically. ‘René, would you be so kind as to find my pipe a suitable ashtray?’

  That, too, was done and while the moment availed itself, the countess said quietly, ‘If she killed the girl, Inspector, why haven’t you arrested Gabrielle?’

  Could one remain so calm in the face of death? ‘Because, my dear Countess, there are confessions and confessions. Some are of the heart and worth everything to those who are students of it, isn’t that so, Reverend Father?’

  There wasn’t even a nod from that grim-faced pillar of salt. ‘Others are for the judges, juries and the lawyers,’ went on St-Cyr, ‘as the Brother Michael knows only too well.’

  ‘Then why did she confess?’ asked the countess sharply.

  ‘Why indeed, one might ask except, my friends, for the fact that these are not normal times, eh, General? The German presence implies new rules and orders under which we all must live.’

  If Ackermann thought anything of that he gave no indication beyond the smoothing of the fingers of his left hand over the palm of the right hand. St-Cyr reached for his glass and brought the wine under his nose, holding the pipe well to the side. ‘Ambrosia. A perfume, too, of the gods. So, it is my belief, Mademoiselle Arcuri, that by confessing, you are trying to protect the countess.’

  ‘She hates me,’ snorted the countess.

  ‘I do not! I have never hated you, Jeanne. I simply don’t like the way you feel I’m not good enough for you and your son.’

  ‘The son, ah yes,’ said Ackermann with a smile. It was all working out perfectly. The Sûreté was leading them down the garden path.

  ‘A small matter to which we will come,’ countered St-Cyr. It had been a good exchange, an opening volley which the abbot and Brother Michael had watched with fascination while Brother Sebastian had studied, and still did, his neglected wine.

  ‘So, a confession to protect the countess and save René Yvon-Paul perhaps.’ St-Cyr tossed a nonchalant hand. ‘Let us pass on quickly. Mademoiselle Arcuri believed, and still believes, her life in great danger. Next to Yvette, she is the only one who really knows the substance behind the killing of Jérome. She is afraid, Countess, that she will be murdered.’

  ‘That is simply not true. Who would do such a thing?’ asked the woman. An excellent performance for one who knew only too well who’d do it.

  The abbot’s look was one of incredulity. ‘Murder? Another murder? Perhaps you’d get on with simply telling us who killed the girl and the boy, Inspector. We have our prayers …’

  The old fox knew damned well whom he’d meant! ‘The Angelus, ah yes. Forgive me, Reverend Father. I know how demanding a task such as yours must be but you do see, don’t you, that the web of Jérome and Yvette has been spun to include others, eh? All those who might know even a hint of why those two tragedies have happened stand in jeopardy of losing their lives.’

  They’d think about that. The countess and the abbot exchanged hurried glances, she shaking her head ever so slightly even though she must have known the gesture would be noticed by others.

  Mademoiselle Arcuri sat very quietly with her hands folded in her lap and her son, equally subdued, sat beside her.

  Ackermann was waiting. So be it then. Ah yes. ‘No, Mademoiselle Arcuri did not kill Yvette. But could it have been the Resistance? Black coffins were received in the mail by them both but only after Yvette had already been killed. General, you were there at the flat when I opened them.’

  ‘I believe you also received one.’

  Could nothing unsettle the man? ‘Yes, a sad mistake, General, but a horse of a different colour, I think. It is possible, I suppose, that the Resistance should wish to make an example of Mademoiselle Arcuri and her maid. After all, she is extremely popular with the Wehrmacht’s troops and makes lots of money.

  ‘But it is also far too convenient. On the night Yvette died, she received a telephone call and left a message which said, “Tell Mademoiselle Arcuri it’s all going to be fixed.”

  ‘What, you might well ask, Reverend Father, and you also, Brother Michael, but not, I think, Brother Sebastian.’ Ah no, not him …

  ‘“It’s all going to be fixed,” my friends. She changed her clothes – wished to look her best at short notice for a meeting with the Resistance? How could that be? She knew with whom she was going to meet. She’d settle things.

  ‘Once in the car, she was taken to Fontainebleau Woods. Her wrists were tied behind her back. She was pushed – shoved up the trail – brutally hustled into the forest and thrown to her knees. Weeping, my friends. Begging for her life and for forgiveness.

  ‘Ah yes, Reverend Father. Forgiveness. You see, she’d done a very brave but foolish thing. Yvette had kept a diary of her brother’s travels over the past several months – since early in April, I believe, the fifth to be precise – and that diary, my friends, had fallen into the hands of the Sûreté and, what was more important, those of the Gestapo.’

  St-Cyr paused to take a sip of wine. It was not a time, however, to give them opportunity to think, nor was it a time for him to worry too much about their individual reactions, but simply to put the run on them.

  ‘Word gets round in those circles, isn’t that right? Word got to Berlin. Himmler and the Führer became genuinely concerned. The wires started buzzing. Hermann, my partner, received marching orders for Gestapo Kiev; I was to be sent to Silesia.’

  ‘Where you’ll go in any case,’ said Ackermann quietly. He’d had about enough of this. Gabrielle was looking at him. So many questions in her eyes, so many doubts and worries.

  St-Cyr saw that his pipe had gone out. He’d relight it and talk at the same time … ‘Perhaps I will go to Silesia, General. But it is to the diary we must turn, is it not?’

  He waved the match out and puffed in. ‘You see, General, it really does detail liaison after liaison. It even details a chase from Marseilles to Angers.’

  Nothing could be read in Ackermann’s look. ‘I was using the boy to find the truth about Gabrielle’s husband.’

  Merely performing his duties, was that it? St-Cyr gestured expansively with the pipe. ‘Of course you were, General.’

  ‘I really don’t see what this all has to do with us,’ complained the abbot.

  ‘Everything, Reverend Father. A little patience, eh? That is all I ask. So, General, you were investigating the whereabouts of Captain Charles Maurice Thériault. And perhaps, my friend, that is why Yvette’s entry for 13th July read, “After the cha
se there is resignation and acceptance.”’

  ‘The boy agreed, finally, to assist me.’

  St-Cyr tossed the hand of dismissal. ‘Then Hermann’s accusation is incorrect, General, and you may well shoot him in this duel you insist is so necessary.’

  ‘That is correct, although I would have said, I will shoot him.’

  ‘Ah yes, were it not for two things, General. First, the murder of Brother Jérome – the catalyst, I think – and second, the weapon that was used and the manner of his killing.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Of course not. A rock? A flint boulder from the perruches, eh, Reverend Father? A crime of passion, my friends. A sudden impulse after a violent argument in which voices that should have been discreet were raised in anger and, in the case of one of them, jealousy, such jealousy.

  ‘A crime of passion,’ said St-Cyr, letting his voice climb sharply to startle them all. ‘Not a simple matter of the Resistance having shoved the muzzle of a 9 millimetre pistol against the back of some young girl’s head, eh?’

  His voice fell to quietude. ‘No, my friends, it was much more than this. Berlin would not have taken so much notice and you, Brother Sebastian, would not have lost your rosary.’

  As he drained his glass, he watched them all. St-Cyr refilled the glass and offered the bottle.

  There were no takers. The countess began to say something … ‘Countess, a moment, please. You have said that this strand of beads was not the Brother Sebastian’s and that it was the one you gave Jérome when he first entered the monastery. Yet Jérome had his rosary wrapped around his hands?’

  ‘That was the one he had as a child. I also gave that to him.’

  What a marvellous woman! She should have been born two hundred years ago. ‘Forgive me, Countess, if I say that you are like the lawyer whose client is guilty. You have an answer for everything but if I have to, I will have that casket dug up and the rosary examined. All the brothers have similar ones, is that not so, Reverend Father?’

  He yanked the thing out of a pocket and thrust it at the abbot. The answer he would leave to the gods. ‘This one was accidentally left with the body of Jérome Noel on the road that lies below the monastery. When you found the boy dead and realized what had happened, Countess, you kept it until the funeral. A crime of passion, Brother Sebastian, for which God will be your judge but for which I charge you with the murder of Alain Jérome Noel.’

  St-Cyr moved swiftly to stand over the monk whose head was still bowed. What prayers were going on in that mind, what guilt, what shame …

  The voice was tortured. ‘He wouldn’t listen. I tried to tell him …’ began the monk.

  ‘It’s all right, Brother. Me, I am certain there were reasons enough. Keeping bees must be a solitary vocation and God’s love is, after all is said and done, a little distant for most of us.

  ‘Reverend Father, would you and Brother Michael be so kind as to take Brother Sebastian home? My partner and I will call in later. A signed statement, that is all. The Préfet can then …’

  ‘Your partner will be dead,’ said Ackermann.

  Stung by the interruption, St-Cyr turned on him. ‘General, you are so sure of yourself. Is it that generals, having all the power, never question their own judgement?’

  ‘Not when they hold the cards.’

  ‘Even though I might try to make a deal with you to let the matter lie?’

  How harsh and unexpected of him. The abbot, of course, and the monks. That’s why he’d sent them away. ‘It’s an offer you would never make, Inspector. In any case, I’m not interested.’

  The abbot and the two brothers had reached the main entrance to the salon. Ackermann had to give the okay for them to leave and he did so with an uncaring wave of dismissal.

  St-Cyr struck. ‘Countess, would you like to fill in the details or shall I?’

  Was there sadness in the look she gave him? He felt it everywhere, from all angles of the room.

  ‘You seem to know everything, Inspector. Am I to be charged as an accessory?’

  St-Cyr feigned surprise. ‘To Jérome’s murder? You knew who had killed the boy and you hid this from the authorities, that is correct. But you also used that little piece of information to blackmail the abbot into giving up his land claim.’

  ‘That is nonsense and you cannot prove it.’

  ‘But I can, Countess. On the night of Jérome’s murder, Yvette went to meet her brother and found him dead. She then ran to you for help and we know the rest except that Brother Michael was a witness to your removing the body, so when you placed the rosary in the casket you accomplished two things.

  ‘You let the abbot know that you knew who had killed the boy, and you told him by that action that you would say nothing so long as the land claim was settled.

  ‘You then,’ he indicated the seating arrangement, ‘showed the town and the district that there would be no more talk of this claim or of disharmony.’

  ‘I have my duties. I have my husband’s lands to protect and the interests of my grandson.’

  ‘But not those of your daughter-in-law.’

  Mademoiselle Arcuri and the countess exchanged glances. Ackermann was carefully watching the proceedings. Good!

  ‘Let us now go back to the night of Jérome’s killing. When you and a distraught Yvette moved the body to a roadside in Fontainebleau Woods, you took a terrible chance. There was every possibility you’d be stopped by a German patrol or at one of their controls. You would have to use your cousin as an excuse. After all he was a general, a hero, one of the SS. Am I right? A visit to Paris – urgent business perhaps – a body in the boot of the car, a bicycle tied on to the back – that would have to be the girl’s. You’d have to tell them she was pregnant perhaps – reason away the tears.

  ‘You were stopped, Countess. Not once but several times, if my guess is right. But one can’t say anything to German patrols but that word of it gets around – slowly sometimes. It reached the avenue Foch, didn’t it, General? After all, you were heading the investigation into the whereabouts of Charles Maurice Thériault.’

  ‘The boy had served his usefulness.’

  ‘So you kept an eye on things and said nothing. But then … ah then, General, the fur began to fly in Berlin. A purse was found. Condoms in little silk sleeves, perfume, a cigarette case, a small pouch of uncut diamonds. A diary no less. All left as if dropped in haste by the killer. All pointing the finger if it should be pointed at …’

  ‘Please, that is enough,’ said the countess anxiously. ‘I did not attempt to pin the murder of Jérome on Gabrielle. You must believe me, Gabi. As God is my witness, I swear it was a foolish accident – an impulse. Yvette was beside herself with grief. She kept on saying he was just asleep. She tried to make him comfortable. I …’

  ‘You went through his pockets like a killer, Countess, and you found the purse,’ said St-Cyr.

  ‘Yes … Yes, I found it. Jérome had decided to leave the monastery for good. That’s why he was dressed the way he was. That’s why Yvette had come home – to stop him. I … I thought it would help to remove his identification. I took the purse up into the woods and threw it as far away as I could.’

  ‘In the dark and in among the trees, which you would surely have known were there,’ said St-Cyr drily.

  ‘Yes … Yes, I knew it had hit a tree and fallen somewhere near.’

  ‘Yet you did not try to find it – even though you knew it might incriminate Mademoiselle Arcuri?’

  Damn him! ‘I couldn’t wait that long! There was so little time. A patrol … When would one come by? I’d torn my stockings, scratched myself …’

  ‘Countess, please allow me to correct you. It was not yourself who took that purse up into the woods, but Yvette Noel.’

  The woman bowed her head and ran a worried hand over her brow. ‘May God forgive me, yes.’

  ‘You knew the police would find it.’

  ‘I didn’t. I swear I didn’t!
I was far too anxious about the patrols. I didn’t want them searching the car and finding anything incriminating. Yvette … I sent the girl up into the woods – yes, I forced her to do it! I waited in the car with the engine running. The girl said she’d thrown it away.’

  He’d have to let it go like that but it saddened him to think ill of her. All of Jérome’s ID would have been burned in the girl’s absence, including his last will and testament, the countess leaning out of the car window to do so while anxiously listening for the patrol.

  Even greatness had its weakness. Especially greatness.

  ‘Then you are forgiven and I must ask you why you drove all the way to Fontainebleau Woods to dispose of the body?’

  Must he continue with it, dragging each detail out of her? ‘Because Yvette had to return to Paris if I was to hush up what had happened – one look at her and everyone would have known. I was afraid of the Nazis – yes, you, Hans. I knew you’d see in Jérome’s murder the final straw and come looking for Charles even though he was dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ exclaimed Ackermann with genuine disbelief.

  ‘Yes, dead, my cousin. I’m sorry to have to disappoint you but Charles died last August. We dared not bury him so I kept him here in the château. Jérome … Jérome thought my son was still alive. He was blackmailing Gabrielle.’

  ‘The condoms and the cigarette case were to signify my past,’ said Mademoiselle Arcuri sadly. ‘The diamonds I’d given him … even you must know, Hans, that by the decree of June 1940, all valuables above a sum of 100,000 francs were to have been reported to the authorities in writing. By not declaring them I had committed an indictable offence and would be deported to Germany, to a concentration camp. Full responsibility for hiding Charles would then have rested with Jeanne, and Jérome … Jérome would be left to claim the ChâTeau Thériault and all of its lands. No doubt you made that little deal with him, fool that he was.’

  A perfect candidate for a monastery, thought St-Cyr. ‘So, my friends, we come full circle to an Yvette who knew too much and who set out to “fix” things.’