Beekeeper

by J. Robert Janes

  The tempest of fire … The shelling … Das Trommelfeuer, Hermann had called it from his side of that terrible war. The drumfire.

  ‘He was her worker, Inspector. Never her drone,’ interjected Mme Roulleau with a curt nod to dismiss all such Sûreté suspicions.

  ‘But he was always conscious of who she should marry?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah oui. He wanted Angèle-Marie to have a good match. Position, enough money and all the rest. A foolish thought, of course, for life is seldom so kind.’

  ‘Others shamefully mated with her, Inspector, and because of this, Alexandre knew no peace and vowed he would punish them for the rest of his life. Many times I implored him to go to the police. He said too much time had elapsed and that, you will forgive me, the police seldom cared about young girls being deflowered against their will and would only accuse her of seducing her attackers.’

  ‘His queen had flown, and several drones had mated with her, Inspector. It’s what would have happened quite naturally among the bees, only the queen would have ripped out the parties sensibles of each of them on completion of their coupling.’

  ‘They’d have died,’ said Vallée, clearly uncomfortable at discussing such things.

  ‘And Danielle?’ asked St-Cyr. ‘Did he feel the same about her?’

  Bees now covered Mme Roulleau’s finger, the woman watching them with keen interest. ‘Danielle,’ she softly said. ‘Danielle and Étienne.’

  ‘Alexandre feared those two were far too close,’ muttered Vallée fidgeting uncomfortably. ‘He always regretted that he’d had to give Étienne the family name. “That boy is useless,” he would often say, “yet Danielle, who should know better, will have nothing said against him.”‘

  ‘An artist, a sculptor … She posed for him, I gather.’

  ‘Posed?’ snorted Mme Roulleau. ‘As mannequins will before the artists who hire them. Toute nue and without even a feather!’

  ‘But as a child of three or four, and surely not since then?’

  ‘Not since this war and the Defeat took him away,’ huffed the woman. ‘But who am I to say what went on in that country house where the boy lived alone and she went regularly and often stayed for nights on end until Alexandre was forced to fetch her home?’

  ‘Étienneand he fought, of course,’ said Vallée. ‘The boy hated his stepfather. Ah! it was not good, Inspector. A girl of fifteen in 1939 …’

  ‘Alexandre was certain the boy had designs on her,’ swore Mme Roulleau. ‘Certain, too, that he did not want Danielle taking after her mother!’

  ‘Did he know of his wife’s attempts to have her son released?’ hazarded St-Cyr.

  ‘Know of them?’ seethed the woman. ‘He refused absolutely to let her do so.’

  ‘He despised that wife of his, Inspector. He knew she had begged this German, this Schlacht to intercede on her son’s behalf.’

  ‘And if the boy had returned?’

  ‘Alexandre would not have let him enter his house and …’

  ‘Captain, please continue. It’s important,’ urged St-Cyr.

  Vallée looked to Madame Roulleau for guidance and saw her nod. ‘Inspector, Alexandre vowed he would go to the authorities and accuse the boy of being among the terrorists. He even swore he could find evidence enough to have him shot.’

  ‘What evidence, please?’

  Afraid of speaking about such things, Vallée nervously glanced at the guards who were standing some distance from them. ‘My service revolver. Though I had asked him to do so for me, Alexandre never turned it in when we were demobilized. “I might need it some day,” he always claimed. “Leroux or one of the others might try to do something.”’

  The custodian …

  The Inspector did not ask where the revolver was hidden, but rather, thought Mme Roulleau, if Danielle would have access to it.

  ‘For this you must ask her,’ she said, and placing the opened jar among some primroses, patiently removed the bees from her finger, tut-tutting when they insisted on returning to it. ‘Or perhaps Madame de Bonnevies might know. A wife always has the keys to the house, Inspector, even if she claims not to, and Alexandre was often away on his rounds.’

  ‘He kept that study of his locked.’

  ‘Of course, but perhaps it was only locked to some and not to others?’ offered the woman. ‘Juliette de Goncourt was, and still is, très belle, très adorable, n’est-ce pas? One of the Saint-Honoré crowd, that also of the Sorbonne and things I know little of. But when it comes to a pregnancy out of wedlock, one shopkeeper’s daughter is the same as another, no matter the class of shop. The boy responsible refused to marry her and daily poor Monsieur de Goncourt would look at her growing belly and wince!’

  ‘It’s not the past that I want at the moment, mes amis, but the present. Could the mother of that boy have paid to have her illegitimate grandson freed?’

  ‘Mon Dieu, what is this, Inspector?’ exclaimed Mme Roulleau.

  ‘It’s just a thought.’

  ‘Then who, please, was the father of that bastard of hers?’

  ‘That sculptor, madame,’ chided Vallée uncomfortably. ‘The boy is talented. Even though Alexandre would never acknowledge this, I myself happened to see some of his work in a gallery before the Defeat and was much taken with it and surprised.’

  ‘Who, Inspector? Was it Henri-Christophe de Trouvelot? I’ve long considered this matter, though of course such circles were not mine to question.’

  ‘It’s confidential.’

  ‘And when you catch the killer?’ she hazarded.

  ‘Perhaps then Mme de Bonnevies will no longer care.’

  ‘But it is only to you that she gives a secret she has guarded all these years?’ muttered Madame Roulleau, concluding that she’d been right all along. Yes, right! ‘What reason, please, did she have for suddenly breaking a vow she had kept even from the Père Michel, her confessor?’

  ‘Has the boy been released, Inspector?’ asked Vallée. ‘If so, then God forgive me for saying it, but there is your poisoner.’

  ‘And Madame de Bonnevies must, if she doesn’t already know what the boy did, be thinking it,’ said Madame Roulleau.

  ‘And Danielle?’ asked St-Cyr.

  ‘Danielle?’ leapt the woman. ‘Oh for sure the girl would worry about such a thing, should the half-brother have come home, but she loved her father dearly and worked constantly with him. She would never have …’

  ‘Well, what is it?’ asked St-Cyr.

  It made her sad to have to say it. ‘Alexandre would most certainly have told her what he intended to do if … if the boy was released. She’d have been terribly hurt – he was never one to let the feelings of others intrude once his mind was made up. But as for Danielle trying to stop him in such a way, ah no. No, I can’t believe it.’

  But she would consider the matter, thought St-Cyr and said, ‘Then let us move on to Monsieur de Saussine and his associates.’

  ‘Who had every reason to kill him,’ hissed the woman, ‘and who knew exactly how to do it!’

  ‘Alexandre always considered M. de Saussine to be beneath him, Inspector,’ confided Vallée. ‘A student to whom he had devoted considerable energy, and had helped to become established, but a great disappointment. Not dedicated enough, he’d say. Too greedy.’

  ‘Too cavalier. Monsieur de Saussine had little interest in selective breeding to produce disease-resistant stocks, Inspector, and was more interested in selling his queens which he shipped to beekeepers in competition with Alexandre.’

  ‘Disease-free queens?’

  ‘Ah!’ clucked the woman. ‘How could they have been in times like these? AJexandre would never do such a thing, no matter the circumstance, and had sent notices out to warn others, even though Monsieur de Saussine threatened legal action.’

  ‘And Messieurs Jourdan and Richeaux?’

  ‘Are like most politicians, simply front men for others. The one has been placed in a position of power by his friends so as to be used by th
em. But always, as in a hive, there are parasites to guard against and battle.’

  ‘Alexandre knew M. de Saussine was a threat, Inspector, and feared he would convince Herr Schlacht to take serious measures against him.’

  ‘To clip his wings. To not let him speak out,’ said Mme Roulleau, ‘and to silence him for ever, perhaps.’

  ‘Inspector, is it true that Mme de Bonnevies was having an affair with this German?’ asked Vallée. ‘Alexandre was convinced that she was. I tried to urge caution. One of the Occupier, but he wouldn’t listen and swore he had followed her to a hotel near the omnibus yards and the freight yards of the Gare du Nord. “Many German servicemen go into that hotel,” he said, “and so does that wife of mine, though she always looks first to see if there are those who are waiting for her.”‘

  ‘And Herr Schlacht?’

  It was Mme Roulleau who touched his arm to softly confide, ‘Monsieur Durand, over there, kept bees on his roof for Alexandre, who found his daughter Mariette a job as housemaid to the wife of this businessman. But that was before our troubles started.’

  ‘The girl followed Madame de Bonnevies to that hotel,’ said St-Cyr.

  ‘And then confided to her papa what she knew was happening,’ went on Mme Roulleau. ‘Mariette was very worried, Inspector, and insisted that Frau Schlacht was insanely jealous and very angry.’

  ‘This German woman wanted him to poison her husband, Inspector. He was to lace a bottle of Amaretto with the nitrobenzene but had adamantly refused in spite of her many threats.’

  ‘To have done so would have brought the Gestapo down on him, Danielle also, n’est-ce pas?’ said Madame Roulleau. ‘Mon Dieu, to poison one of the Occupier, at least the firing squad. That also for Juliette and her son, of course, though he didn’t care about them, only Danielle.’

  She caught a breath. ‘That bottle of Amaretto was in his study, on his desk, wasn’t it?’ she sighed. ‘The doors would have been locked, the gates also, but were they really locked?’

  ‘Could M. de Saussine, or one of the other two, have had access to it?’

  ‘For this they would have to have known of it,’ muttered the woman, again lost in thought. ‘But then … why then, someone must have told one of them of it and, of course, Monsieur de Saussine could well have brought along his own nitrobenzene.’

  ‘Why not ask him and the other two, Inspector?’ advised Vallée. ‘Why not demand the statement, the procès-verbal they must sign and swear to?’

  The furnace and boilerworks in the cellars of the School of Mines were gargantuan and warm … mein Gott, so cosy, thought Kohler. Coals glowed when the firebox door was opened – coals like he hadn’t seen since before the Great War.

  Leaning the crutches against the bin where sacks of anthracite, no less, were piled, he pulled off his greatcoat and draped it over some of the hot-water pipes.

  Neither Jurgen nor Hans had ever experienced a fire like this – at least, he didn’t think the boys would have. He warmed his hands and, when female steps hesitantly picked their way in from the Jardin du Luxembourg’s greenhouses, gingerly lighted a twig and brought its flame up to the cigarette he offered to Frau Käthe Hillebrand.

  ‘Inspector, what’s the meaning of this?’ she shrilled in deutsch, not liking things, for the SS major’s adjutant had brought her to the cellars in silence and then had departed.

  ‘A quiet word, that’s all. Why not sit down? The caretakers use that broken chair, but I’ve given it a wipe just for you.’

  The Höherer SS Oberg must have been convinced of the usefulness of the meeting, Käthe warned herself, but why had Kohler left the door to the firebox open? Why had he switched off the electric light? ‘I’ll stand,’ she heard herself saying emptily. Flames licked upwards from around each glowing coal and clinker, but every now and then gases would erupt and the flames would rush to unite and race about the firebox. The smell of sulphur was in the air …

  Unbidden, the woman’s fingers began to nervously pluck at the top button of the beige overcoat she wore. Light from the firebox flickered over her, making her lipstick glisten and burnishing the fair cheeks. Uncertain still, her blue eyes tentatively sought him out, and finally she took a hurried drag at the cigarette.

  ‘What the hell do you want with me that couldn’t have been asked in the greenhouse?’ she demanded. The boyish grin he gave only upset her more.

  ‘Look, if I’m to help that boss of yours, I’m going to have to know everything you can tell me.’

  Oberg must have agreed. ‘All right, a private conversation. Just the two of us.’

  ‘I’ve been the blindest of fools, haven’t I? Herr Schlacht is up to his ears in mischief and wallowing in the shit.’

  ‘I … I’m only a part-time secretary for him. I’ve others I must look after.’

  ‘Others you’ve had sex with?’

  ‘Verdammt! What if I have? It’s got nothing to do with this business!’

  ‘But one that must have kept on for a good long time, otherwise, why would he have blamed you for losing his little pin?’

  ‘That was a mistake.’

  ‘Then why did the affair end, if it did?’

  ‘I was new. I was inexperienced. It … it just happened, that’s all.’

  ‘Maybe yes, maybe no, but how many of those gold wafers does he agree to let you send to Switzerland with that wife of his?’

  ‘Switzerland …? Bitte, I … I don’t know what you mean.’

  A button came undone, and then another, and when he’d undone them all, Kohler took her coat, hat and gloves and, indicating the chair, said in best Gestapo form, ‘Get comfortable. It’ll be easier for you.’

  The dress she wore was off-white, of cashmere like the scarf he had let her keep. Fine goods, thought Kohler appreciatively, but not suitable for a furnace room, and she knew it and was worried about this, if not about other things. Silk stockings, too, and high heels. Bracelets of gold, and a citrine brooch to match the superb stone on the middle finger of her left hand. No wedding ring, of course, he reminded himself and heard her tartly ask of his scrutiny, ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘Lovely,’ he said and grinned as he turned to hang her coat on a nail, ‘but I told you to sit down, and I really do want an answer to that question I asked.’

  ‘From time to time Oskar lets me send the few wafers I can manage to buy from him. A small favour, in return for the one that I rendered,’ she said acidly.

  ‘And what, exactly, is that favour worth?’

  There was no feeling in the look he gave, only an emptiness that made her tremble. ‘Five each quarter. Sometimes a few more; sometimes a few less.’

  ‘Then that wife of his is important to you and you wouldn’t want anything to happen to either of them.’

  ‘No … No, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘It’s big, what he’s doing, isn’t it, and I really have been blind?’

  ‘Candles aren’t the only thing he deals in.’

  ‘I didn’t think they were, but what he does for one, he does for all, right? He claims to buy the beeswax on the black market, even though his relatives steal much of it for him.’

  ‘There are prices and prices.’

  ‘And no accounting beyond what he writes himself and you type up for him – that’s another little service you offer, by the way, but never mind. The wax is “bought” many times over, even though he’s already acquired most of it. The candles are made and sold to that same black market and then … then, and this is where I’ve been so blind, they’re bought back at even higher prices.’

  ‘And are shipped to the Reich. Well, most of them. What he … he doesn’t sell to the churches here and … and to the catacombs and other places.’

  ‘But the ones that go to the Reich are at vastly inflated prices, so the profit is pretty good.’

  She would sit down now, Käthe told herself. She would cross her legs and finish her cigarette while gazing openly up at this Hermann Kohler who had such a reputation with
the ladies but was far from the brutal Gestapo he had tried to indicate.

  ‘As I’ve said, Inspector, Oskar isn’t just into candles. He makes a water-proofing compound as well.’

  ‘For the Wehrmacht – ja, I’ve heard all about it.’

  ‘Propolis is bought and made into varnish, and this is shipped at a modest profit which is donated to the SS, as a loyal member of the Förderndes Mitglied should.’

  ‘And the honey?’

  ‘Some of it is donated to the Secours National – the National Help – for the soup kitchens, where it is doled out to young children and nursing mothers.’

  ‘But not much of it, I’ll bet. And the rest?’

  ‘Is sold to beekeepers, to the black market, and also “bought” back from it and shipped to the Reich.’

  ‘Again at a very healthy profit.’

  ‘He’s a businessman and everything he does for the Palais d’Eiffel is done under that mandate, so what, please, is wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing but the ten or twenty or fifty times profit the “creative” book-keeping allows.’

  ‘Nobody cares so long as the needs are met.’

  ‘And they’ll only become greater now, won’t they, with the defeat at Stalingrad?’

  She shrugged and did so beautifully, thought Kohler. He’d take the cigarette from her now and would stub it out. ‘For my little tin,’ he said. ‘With us, nothing is wasted.’

  ‘Us?’ she asked.

  ‘My partner and me, and the two women I live with but seldom see.’

  ‘Look, I really must get going. Herr Schlacht—’

  ‘Wanted you to keep track of things here for him. De Bonnevies was a distinct threat – bitching about what was happening; going to the Kommandant von Gross-Paris with tales of robbed and butchered hives and diseased bees. Old Shatter Hand’s no fool, Frau Hillebrand. He’s not some dumb Detektiv Aufsichtsbeamter like me.’