‘Are you all right, sir? Pardon my intrusion. . my niece noticed you seem to be in some difficulty and sent me over. Look, you’re obviously not all right. Shall I get the manager to call a doctor?’ The Englishman leaned over him, shielding him from curious eyes, concerned but discreet.
Head to the wind, Didier crashed through a final wave of pain and managed to speak. ‘It’s all right. Thank you. An old problem. Brought on by over-indulgence, I’m afraid. As you say — the food here is indeed very good. Too challenging for my decrepit old system. I have pills somewhere. .’ He scrabbled in his pocket for his pill box and shook out two. ‘I’ll be all right again in two ticks.’
The Englishman handed him his glass of water and steadied his hand as he swallowed. ‘Well, if you’re sure. .’ But the man did not leave at once, duty done, as Didier expected. He slipped on to the chair next to him, one hand comfortingly on his arm, and sat through the crisis with him. Finally, ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Less blue about the gills, I think! But, all the same, old chap, I’d see a medic in the morning if I were you.’ He held out his hand in an English gesture. ‘How do you do? Sandilands, Joe Sandilands from London. Policeman and busybody.’
Didier managed a faint smile. ‘Marmont. Didier Marmont from the Ardennes. Mayor and gourmand. Thank you for your concern, monsieur, and I’ll certainly take your advice. Oh, and thank your lovely niece, would you,’ he bowed his head in acknowledgement of Dorcas whose eyes had not left them across the room, ‘for her awareness and her kind heart.’
‘Well, your Mayor Marmont actually seems to have taken your advice, Joe.’
‘I’m surprised you sound surprised! But what makes you say that?’ said Joe, intrigued by the gleam of secret knowledge in Dorcas’s eyes.
‘As we were leaving the hotel just now, I saw him at the reception desk using the guests’ telephone. Did you know you can overhear anything people are saying if you stand behind them — the partition’s quite inadequate.’
Joe groaned. ‘I left you alone for half a day yesterday and I’ll bet you’ve produced a notebook full of potential blackmail material.’ He had been, since their first meeting, aware of Dorcas’s eavesdropping habits. A necessary tool for survival in her difficult domestic circumstances, he allowed, but it could be an embarrassment if used in more civilized surroundings.
‘I had more useful things to do yesterday,’ she said primly. ‘But listen — your new friend the apoplectic mayor was talking to a doctor as we were coming out.’ Joe remembered she’d slipped back into the hotel with a muttered excuse about checking their pigeon-hole for messages. ‘And I wondered if you or someone or other should help him? He seemed to be having no luck. . “But doctor, it’s rather urgent,” he said. “Surely you can see me before next Monday?” Think, Joe! Next Monday — that’s ages! And then his shoulders slumped and he said: “Oh, well then, if that’s the earliest appointment you can give me, I suppose I shall have to accept it.” And he wrote it down in his diary. We shan’t be here tonight to keep an eye on him — we’ll be at the château.’
‘Poor chap,’ said Joe. ‘But listen, Dorcas — he’s a man of the world. He’s a mayor, for goodness’ sake! Which, in this country, means competent, efficient and fully able to negotiate the channels of bureaucracy. They are the channels of bureaucracy! If a mayor can’t do it, it can’t be done. Put him out of your mind. You can’t look out for every waif and stray and heart-attack victim you encounter on life’s road. You’ve quite enough on your plate watching out for me at the moment.’
He spoke gently, unwilling to be critical of Dorcas’s quality of large-heartedness. At far too young an age she had assumed responsibility not only for the well-being of her three younger brothers and sister but also for her feckless father whom she protected like a lioness. Not even Joe, who was conscious of, though mystified by, his own special standing with Dorcas, was allowed to criticize Orlando in her hearing.
She grinned. ‘Did you remember to brush your teeth and have you paid the bill? Goodness! Am I so annoying?’
‘Yes! Worse than Lydia! From whom you have learned a good deal of nonsense. And the answer is yes to both those questions. I also took the trouble to enquire about rooms for our return. When we leave the château, I thought we’d spend a day back here in Reims tying up ends, making a statement to Bonnefoye — that sort of thing. It’ll be okay. They have plenty of space next week. Now — Bonnefoye. Do you feel up to encountering him again? Getting another look at those wonderful teeth? I have a date with him in half an hour. To discuss progress so far.’
Dorcas blushed. ‘I’d simply love to,’ she said.
Joe looked her up and down with a critical eye. ‘Ah, yes, I do see that. New yellow dress, gloves. . and aren’t those silk stockings? Good Lord! Now what game are you playing?’
‘If anyone’s playing games, it’s Bonnefoye,’ she said with spirit. ‘You know he’s using you, Joe? He hasn’t time or interest in this case, I think, and he just let you fish about in this murky pond vaguely hoping you might stir up something from the bottom that repays attention.’
‘Well, of course I realized. He was so keen to warn me off — to tell me how disturbed he would be by any interference — I interpreted this as a quite deliberate challenge, and he calculated that my response would instantly be to defy him and go my own way, risking the displeasure of the French police force.’
‘You’re double-bluffing each other?’
‘Exactly A comfortable arrangement. And, should anything go wrong, anything embarrassing occur, each of us feels he can cover himself. Misunderstandings, misinterpretations — all easily explained by the foreignness of the other player in the game. I liked Bonnefoye. Very professional. I’d have done just the same. But I still think I’d like to quiz him on the information he’s been holding back from us.’
‘Commander! How good to see you again.’ Bonnefoye did a gratifying double-take and added, ‘And Miss Dorcas?’ He gave her the benefit of his slanting smile, dazzlingly accentuated by the sharp black line of his moustache. He took Dorcas’s hand and kissed it with unnecessary gallantry, Joe thought. ‘But a Miss Dorcas transformed!’ he exclaimed with an admiring glance at her hair. ‘I see you have benefited from the skill of our local coiffeurs? Charming! Charming!’ Joe also noticed that he was addressing her in fast French. Communication on several levels had obviously occurred between the Inspector and the doctor. Just for once Dorcas was rendered speechless. She reddened and dimpled prettily. Joe sighed.
‘Now, Commander, perhaps you could tell me what progress you have made? Have you proved to Dr Varimont’s satisfaction that the patient is English? I have ready all the forms you will need if you feel we may now take the step of confirming officially his nationality and subsequently arrange for his repatriation.’ He poked at a file on his desk with the end of his pencil.
‘Hold your horses, Bonnefoye,’ said Joe firmly. ‘I have little evidence and no proof that he is English. Furthermore, I would say it’s unlikely that this could ever, in the present medical circumstances, be established.’ He gave a brief account of his encounter with Thibaud, knowing that he must already have had a similar version from Varimont.
‘But you believe the doctor when he tells you that the patient spoke in English, surely?’ Bonnefoye objected.
‘I do. But I have not heard him speak for myself. I do not think a foreigner like the doctor could be one hundred per cent certain, from this hearing, that the language was used as by a native speaker. After all, I might replay a nightmare scene quoting bits of French but my accent would not deceive a Frenchman. Though a fellow Englishman might well be taken in.’
‘I see what you mean. It all comes down to speech, doesn’t it?’ said Bonnefoye, shrugging. ‘Just a few words, that’s all we’d need. If he were French, Varimont could identify his class and the part of France he comes from, I don’t doubt. We’d know straight away whether he were an officer from Champagne or a sergeant from Brittany. Our accents are as
much a give-away as our faces. Communication! We’ve got to get the man to communicate.’ He pondered this for a moment. ‘I wonder if they’ve tried sign language?’
‘It’s an interesting fact,’ said Dorcas, ‘that studies of shell-shock have turned up victims — and I believe they are victims,’ she added firmly, ‘who suffered from aphasia — dumbness — before entering the war. After their neurasthenia was diagnosed these poor men were found to be unable to remember their sign language. Nothing wrong with their hands as there is probably nothing wrong with Thibaud’s speech mechanisms — it’s the ability to communicate that’s cut off. The root of the problem is what appears to be a paralysis in the brain.’
‘Indeed?’ Bonnefoye looked at her in astonishment. ‘Mademoiselle interests herself in psychotherapy?’
Dorcas looked uncomfortable for a moment then raised her chin and favoured him with one of her best smiles. ‘As a matter of fact, I do. I intend to study the subject at London University and qualify as a medical psychologist, perhaps a psychiatrist.’
‘A very worthy aim, mademoiselle. I wish you the best of good fortune.’ Bonnefoye looked genuinely admiring, Joe thought, realizing suddenly that he was not treating Dorcas as a child but as a young woman. And Dorcas was lapping it up. He decided to reclaim the initiative.
‘So. Your best course, Bonnefoye, would be to prove by some means or other that our man is definitely the relation claimed by one of the four feuding families. This I believe to be the only clear solution open to us. Yes, I appreciate, of course, that this entails quite a bit of detective work. Work which cannot be undertaken by the usual government agencies which interest themselves in these matters. Awkward, really, and delicate stuff. Emotions running high, public opinion being manipulated by means of the press. . I do understand. It’s not police work. You have much more demanding affairs to deal with. So,’ he finished brightly, ‘I’m pleased to give you what I have. Make life a bit easier for you perhaps. And. . if we were to pool our knowledge. . how much more efficiently we would bring this affair to a satisfactory conclusion. Now. .’
Joe slapped down on the desk notes he’d taken in his three interviews. ‘That’s what I’ve got. You’re very welcome to it. And I’ll fill in the gaps with your findings and we’ll be getting somewhere. Case number one. Mireille Desforges, claimant. Says the man is one Dominique de Villancourt. Have you checked this man’s details in the army records?’
‘We have.’ Bonnefoye’s tone was clipped and businesslike. ‘There was such an officer in a cavalry regiment. The 8th Dragoons. Born and educated in Paris, trained at the military academy at St Cyr. Well-to-do family.’ He paused. ‘Problem is. . his only living relations, mother and father, are practically fossils. Not interested in staking a claim and positively deny that this could possibly be their son. Refuse point blank to co-operate with us. They live in the past. And for them life ended with the receipt of the letter telling them of Dominique’s death. We have accounts from fellow officers written later to the parents and we can draw up quite a clear picture of his last days. He died in the charge on von Kluck’s forces in the first battle of the Chemin des Dames. Not the second affair in 1917, no, this was in 1914, early on, following on the first battle of the Marne before everything got bogged down in trenches.
‘We know he crossed the Seine with the cavalry in the first days of September and rode north to the Marne to fight on the right flank of the British Expeditionary Force. The British and French fighting together,’ he said with a slight smile, ‘took advantage of an opening gap and cut their way through to divide the opposing forces. Just like us, you’re thinking! The action led to the first allied victory of the war. But you were there, I understand?’
‘Right in the middle,’ said Joe. ‘Effecting liaison between the British GHQ and General Joffre.’ He swept a negligent hand over his eyebrow. ‘Souvenir of the Marne. If Dominique was 8th Dragoons he must have ended up in the French Cavalry Corps under General Louis Napoleon Conneau?’
Bonnefoye nodded. ‘We have a sighting of him on 3rd September, massing under Conneau behind the Petit Morin river ready to cover the left flank of the French Fifth Army. The next reference is an account from a fellow officer (I have a copy) describing Dominique’s last movements. He’d survived the Marne and fought his way north up to the plain at Sissonne, caught between the German First and Second Armies but hoping to storm the plateau between Soissons and Craonne.’
‘Huge casualties up there, British and French, in the second half of that September,’ Joe said quietly. He could never repress a shiver at the sound of the word ‘Craonne’.
‘His death was reported as taking place on 15th September, trying to break through the front between Cerny and Craonne. An eyewitness, again a fellow officer, wrote at length to the parents after the war so we know there was no censorship. It was his moving account which led to the award of the Croix de Guerre for Dominique. He tells that they were out on patrol, a flying column of seven men and two officers, when they came upon a thirty-strong and very fresh German cavalry troop. The French horses were exhausted, their backs stinking with running sores, the men hadn’t eaten for two days and they’d run out of ammunition. Only one thing to do!’ His chin went up, jutting with pride. ‘They attacked.’
Joe left a respectful silence.
‘In the skirmish that followed, Dominique’s horse was shot from under him and he was last seen grappling in combat with the German commander. Sabre to sabre. The French troop was wiped out with the exception of the letter writer, who was knocked unconscious and carted off for interrogation and three years of prisoner-of-war camp by the Germans.’
‘Terrible story. And you think our Mademoiselle Desforges is utterly confused? Her man whom she identifies convincingly and without prompting by his birthmarks was, according to her, present at the Chemin des Dames but I could have sworn she meant the second battle of that name in 1917. But, Bonnefoye, she even told me how many service stripes he would have had on his sleeve. Claims — and convincingly, I have to say — that she sewed his second wound stripe on his sleeve. The wound to the jaw. Result of a blow from a rifle butt, he claimed. It’s all in the notes. She was firmly convinced she had continued to meet her Dominique until his disappearance in 1917.’
‘I’m afraid the evidence rules her out. A body — complete with identification, I have to say — was returned to the parents, was buried with no query raised in the family vault in Paris. In October 1914.’
Joe was aware of Dorcas’s disappointment.
‘Can we be absolutely certain that it is his body?’ Joe ventured to ask on her behalf. ‘In the chaos of war strange things happened. .’
‘We’ll have to take it as established, I’m afraid. There is no way in the world we’ll get permission to disinter a war hero. Posthumous Croix de Guerre and all that. The parents categorically refuse permission. And, the facts being what they are, I can’t say I blame them. We’d be flying in the face of common sense and the evidence if we pursued this.’
‘Don’t cross Mireille off your list yet!’ said Dorcas. ‘Oh, sorry, Uncle Joe.’
‘I understand your sentiments, mademoiselle, and sympathize,’ smiled Bonnefoye.
‘Talking of burials,’ said Joe. ‘If you look at my notes on the third lot, the Tellancourts, you’ll see I discovered — you might have warned me! — that their Thomas is comfortably buried where every French soldier wants to be buried, in the shadow of his own village church steeple. Amongst a whole tribe of Tellancourts. So what is all this nonsense about their claim?’
‘Ah, yes.’ Bonnefoye had the grace to look shifty. ‘Wondered if you’d trip across that. Are you aware, I wonder, of a rather disgusting type of business which has sprung up in these post-war entrepreneurial times? A business which is hard to suppress since there is such a continuing demand for it. There are companies which — you will find this hard to believe — have set themselves up as retrievers of corpses from the battlefields. It goes on. It still go
es on. They dig about in mass graves occasionally finding bodies which still have the name tag of the soldier around his neck or wrist and they track him down and approach his relatives. Sometimes the families of the missing themselves, having exhausted all other channels — the Red Cross and so on — advertise for information in the newspapers, so desperate are they to bring their sons and fathers home to the village.
‘It was in response to such a plea posted by the mother that one of these firms contacted her. They had found the boy, they declared, and had his tag to prove it. They could box up the remains in a coffin and return it to St Cérésur-Marne. For a fee, of course. They charge a franc per kilometre, I understand. So, for a small fortune, a body was returned and buried in the family plot. And until that wretched photograph of Thibaud was printed, they were at peace, content to take their flowers along to his grave every Sunday. But now? Well, how certain can we be that the body in the grave is the Tellancourt boy? You tell me!’
‘Not at all,’ said Joe quietly. ‘And I have to tell you, Bonnefoye, that the wife I was to discover he had when I arrived at the farm roundly declares that Thibaud is not Thomas. She didn’t tell you that? No? Probably keeping quiet under duress from the rest of the family. I managed to get her by herself and found she was eager to communicate this.’
‘Silly woman! But that was well done, Sandilands. A denial by the wife! I’ll fetch her in and take her statement. That’ll amply satisfy the powers that be. Good, that’s one more off our list,’ Bonnefoye said cheerfully.
‘Wait! Not so simple, I’m afraid. I was to discover that the lady values her widow’s status and means to remarry. The thought of remaining chained to a mental patient for the rest of her life doesn’t appeal. And gives her a jolly strong motive for denying him.’
Bonnefoye opened his mouth to exclaim, caught sight of Dorcas and limited himself to ‘Dear, dear! What a nuisance.’
‘But wait! You’ll see I had a roller-coaster of a day — I also managed a private interview with the mother, though I can’t be certain that she didn’t do the managing. . Anyway — when asked, she offered conclusive evidence as to the birthmarks. It’s all in the notes. She was even able to describe the one on the rear which apparently escaped the attention of his soi-disant lover, Mireille Desforges.’
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