Salamander

by J. Robert Janes

  The couple had been in Lyon since 10 December. The tenth!

  There was no time to go through all the pages. The pompiers were arriving in the Cours de Verdun to put an end to the fire, Christ!

  Reluctantly Kohler closed the dossier but could not remember which way the bullwhip had been coiled.

  The pastis was not alcoholic but a vile concoction of anise and liquorice that was lime-green and yellow and stayed that way even when a half-pitcher of water was added!

  The beer was home-brew, made right in the kitchen sink where they washed the dishes and the pots. Little things swam among too many bubbles. The cheese was not cheese but something of sawdust, powdered milk and synthetic rubber, perhaps; the bread grey and full of asbestos. ‘Louis …’ began Kohler.

  They’d been arguing constantly. Both were bitchy, both on the run and in need of a damned good lay and a bit of comforting, not a prolonged spell on the Russian Front courtesy Gestapo Lyon. Shit! ‘Louis, listen to me. Frau Weidling gets a kick out of sadism and is fascinated by fire. Hubby brings her here and she knows a friend from the past, from Lübeck, Heidelberg and Köln. Claudine, mon vieux. Claudine Bertrand.’

  ‘Yes, yes, but—’

  ‘Shut up! They have a little fun. They want a little more. And every time Frau Weidling lights a fire, hubby gains in stature and no one thinks to question her.’

  ‘But … but Claudine was upstairs with the projectionist, is that not correct?’

  It was. ‘And Frau Weidling came in alone,’ said Kohler lamely, the steam having suddenly gone out of him.

  ‘Then there were three women, Hermann. Not two as we have been led to believe. Frau Weidling, Claudine and someone else.’

  ‘Someone special Claudine had brought along for Frau Weidling to meet. Ah Gott im Himmel, Louis, have we finally hit on it? Gestapo Lyon know all about Frau Weidling and that husband of hers and want to keep on using her but they do not know the identity of this other woman. They think, like Weidling, that it must be a man. Hell, hoisting heavy jerry cans up into that belfry proves it to them, but we both know two determined women can do as much or more than any man.’

  Louis nodded curtly and brushed non-existent crumbs from the table. ‘Claudine enters with this other woman but leaves her seat to find the key to the toilets and goes upstairs to the projectionist for it. She then comes downstairs and opens the door but does not stay long. Instead, she returns upstairs for a little visit. Others go into the toilets for a meeting of their own, but leave the key in the lock. Those others don’t return to their seats and the usherette goes to see what is the matter and finds the key but does not check to see what is going on or even if the door is locked.’

  Kohler heaved a sigh. ‘When Suzie gets back to her station, the woman who came in with Claudine is now absent from her seat but the rush bag they brought is still there.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Presumably this other woman went out to meet Frau Weidling.’

  There was a terse grunt of acknowledgement. ‘And not finding her in the toilets where expected, Louis, this third woman then locks the door to the toilets, perhaps pouting in anger at having been stood up. We may never know.’

  ‘Or perhaps she thought Frau Weidling was in the toilets, Hermann.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Trapped, Hermann. Ready to be caught in the fire.’

  ‘Ah merde …’

  ‘Claudine is upstairs,’ continued St-Cyr. ‘She remains with the projectionist until after the fire starts. She panics, she loses a shoe—she realizes what has happened, Hermann, and is far more terrified at first because she knows who did it.’

  Again there was a sigh. ‘And that, my fine Frog friend, is why she had to be killed, but how the hell was it done?’

  St-Cyr gave a massive shrug. ‘Time … Time is what we need. The white powder from Mademoiselle Claudine’s kitchen floor is being analysed. Vasseur will track us down. A careful murder, Hermann, and one that must have been planned well in advance, since she could so easily have been killed in that fire had more gasoline been splashed across the stairs to the balcony.’

  ‘Perhaps our Salamander ran out of gasoline?’

  ‘Perhaps it wanted Claudine to die in bed, Hermann, and could not bring itself to have her burnt to death.’

  ‘Then it knew Claudine well, Louis, and had some feeling for her as a person.’

  Hermann hunted for a fag and, finding none in any of his pockets, looked desperate. Their coffee came but he shoved it aside, planning no doubt to dump everything on the floor as they left. ‘So why share the perfume, Louis, and give Frau Weidling a sample?’

  ‘Because it was Claudine who insisted Madame Rachline distribute the perfume yet not give its source, and because she may well have been told to do so by our third “woman”.’

  ‘Who was not Madame Rachline?’

  ‘Perhaps, but then we are dealing with a Salamander, Hermann. One so slippery it can murder with confidence and present us with all sorts of hints. An expert, Hermann. One who is so sure of itself, it relishes the dare and thrives on the meal.’

  ‘Was it Frau Weidling who came back with Claudine to the flat at Number Six, or was it Madame Rachline as the concierge maintains?’

  ‘That concierge was absent from his cage, Hermann. A matter of some plumbing in the courtyard lavatory. It is possible Claudine’s murderer could have gained entry while Madame Rachline, if it really was her, was still upstairs with her friend.’

  ‘Our third woman, then.’

  ‘Or man.’

  ‘And our girl with the bicycle, Louis?’

  ‘Ah yes, Mademoiselle Martine Charlebois. I must pay her a little visit while you occupy yourself with Madame Philomena Cadieux, I think, the caretakeress of the Basilica.’

  ‘Those shoes … Ah merde.’

  ‘Yes, Hermann, those shoes and a little more perhaps about the gasoline and Father Adrian.’

  ‘And the bishop, Louis. The bishop.’

  6

  FROM THE PLACE TERREAUX TO THE PONT Morand it was not far to the Parc de la Tête d’Or and the allée des Villas which overlooked it.

  St-Cyr paid off the vélo-taxi, wondering if he oughtn’t to tell the man to wait, since the streets had been so difficult. He searched the identical grey-stone façades whose precise elegance of tall French windows and Louis XVI iron railings was matched only by the view across the park.

  The wind had died, the snow had stopped and in the soft blue blush of the closing day, the solitary trees, long walks, distant woods, lake and iron-and-glass dome of the arboretum were sharply defined.

  There were a few cross-country skiers, a few walkers, some with their dogs, one throwing a stick. Children, of course. Children always loved the magic of a park like this.

  There were a few Germans, two black Mercedes, a general in one with a motor-cycle escort, but these were both too distant to matter and no one seemed to pay them any mind.

  He searched the changing light, sought out each tonal variation and what it delineated, breathed in deeply, thought of the Loire, of Gabrielle and her son, then returned to duty with regret.

  There were only two apartments on each floor at Number Twelve, and the central staircase, with the warm, dark amber of its polished banisters, made a rectangular spiral above him. Tall mahogany doors—good, solid things—led into each apartment. The concierge, if there was one, was not about and probably lived in a couple of rooms at the back, looking out on to the central courtyard. That’s where the girl would have left her bicycle, but had she been the one to leave the lock off the outer door?

  Unbuttoning his overcoat and loosening the scarf his mother had knitted for him thirty years ago, he rang the bell.

  The bolt was undone, the door yanked open, the girl’s, ‘Henri … Oh, pardon,’ was caught in the air and held until it was too late for the shock to be hidden.

  ‘Monsieur …?’ Ah no. It was him!—and he could see this written in the anguish of her expression. ‘My brother,’ she said
, running a worried hand through her light brown hair. ‘I … I was expecting him, monsieur.’

  Her brother. She was every bit the school mistress he had settled on. Affably St-Cyr motioned with his trilby. ‘Permit me to introduce myself, Mademoiselle …?’

  ‘Charlebois.’

  ‘Mademoiselle, I am Chief Inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Sûreté Nationale from Paris Central, but please do not be alarmed.’

  ‘My brother … You have found his body among the deceased. Ah no. No!’

  She buried her face in her hands and broke into tears. He tried to comfort her but she turned her back on him, making him feel terrible. Always there was this time bomb of the Sûreté introduction. One used it often but one never quite knew how it would be taken. ‘Mademoiselle, I did not come to tell you your brother was among the dead but merely to return this.’

  ‘What?’ She would blow her nose and wipe her eyes—yes, yes, that would be best so as to distract him—and she would pray to God and the Blessed Virgin for assistance in this moment of crisis. ‘What?’ she asked, her back still turned to him, her head bowed, the shoulders thin.

  St-Cyr closed the door behind him. ‘The yellow work card of a woman who is now dead, Mademoiselle Charlebois. Dead!’

  ‘Ah no! No! Dead? But … but how can this be?’

  He tried to be kind as he spoke to her back. ‘A few small questions, mademoiselle. Nothing troublesome, I assure you. Please, why not sit down? It … it would be better, would it not? You’re worried. You’ve had a terrible shock. Come, come, let us go into the salon. Ah! I will remove the shoes and you will forgive the holes that have developed in my socks since I last washed them.’

  She wasn’t having any of it. ‘Why have you come? I hardly knew Mademoiselle Claudine. She was not a friend of mine, not even an acquaintance.’

  Her eyes were smarting. Tears glistened in them making greener still their greeny-brown. There were freckles over the bridge of her nose and on the pale cheeks and chin but these served only to heighten a gentle handsomeness that was really quite attractive were she not so distressed and wary, and touching her pearls as though grasping for a lifeline.

  St-Cyr indicated his overcoat and hat, and reluctantly she allowed him to put them on a chair. ‘This way, then, Inspector. My brother and I live alone. He’s away a lot and I … Well, I have thought a fire like that … We’re both great lovers of the cinema. It’s our only form of relaxation these days. I have thought … well, you know … The worst, of course.’

  ‘And the work card of Mademoiselle Bertrand?’

  It was no use. ‘She came to see me on the day of the fire, in the afternoon. I … I said that … that I didn’t think my brother could help her any more, but that when he returned I would ask.’

  ‘And the card?’ he asked again. ‘How did you come by it?’ Her back was still to him.

  ‘It … it must have fallen from her purse. I … I have found it on the sofa between the cushions.’

  For now that was enough and he would not push the matter yet for fear of upsetting her too much. ‘Your brother, mademoiselle, what does he do?’

  ‘Henri …? Henri runs the shop of our grandfather, Inspector. The Henri Masson of Lyon. Fine antiques and estate sales. Jewellery, rare and old books, porcelains, crystal and paintings. Silver too, of course. It’s … it’s on the rue Auguste Comte near place Bellecour. Henri was always there with our grandfather and when the old monsieur died, why he left the shop to my brother. And … and the one in Dijon, of course, though Henri, he has a manager for that—well, two of them. One for the Lyon shop and one for Dijon.’

  Through the awkward silence that developed between them came the sound of a finch and then that of a canary. ‘Excuse me, please, a moment,’ she said, giving a brief, shy smile while wiping her eyes. ‘My family, Inspector. My little friends. I have been so worried about the tragedy, I have forgotten to give them seed and water.’

  He knew she needed a moment to herself and gave it to her. He could not believe their luck. A brother. Estate sales and fine antiques. A link at last to the jewelled cross and Father Adrian. Ah nom de Dieu, had they struck so close?

  Everywhere the eye settled it fell on a gorgeous clutter of exquisite pieces. A Buddha, fourteenth-century at least, in a lime-green glaze, complemented the satin damask that covered the walls with soft green and gold floral patterns. There were paintings in richly gilded frames—oils that impressed. A bouquet of roses, tulips, peonies and lilacs by Jan Frans van Dael, a vase of lilacs by Pierre-Joseph Redouté. A Gobelin tapestry of Africa with chattering monkeys and parrots. A chinoiserie cabinet in a deep-red lacquer that glowed. Art deco vases with etched patterns, the colours sea-green, amber-rose and turquoise from the Daum-Brothers’ glassworks—not old, probably 1925, but totally in keeping with all the rest. Another glass vase from that same period was by Maurice Marinot. An almost Gauginesque nude in a wash of pale citrine mended a net against a background of dimpled, frosted glass, the lines so simple yet masterfully evoking the rhythm of life for which Marinot was justly famous.

  A sixteenth-century portrait of a lady reading an illuminated breviary. Savonnerie carpets, a fluted white marble chimney-piece, a large gilt-framed mirror and a Louis XVI clock with flanking elephants in silver. Louis XVI armchairs whose velvet upholstery had been faded not so much by use as time, yet venerated throughout those years.

  A far more modern sofa and comfortable armchairs were in an off-cream and flowered silk velveteen. There were apricot-coloured taffeta drop-curtains with tassels and fringes, bits of statuary, bronzes from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—Italian, he thought. Eighteenth-century leather-bound books, bibelots, snuffboxes, jewel cases, bits of crystal and ivory, a sapphire bracelet … Ah nom de Dieu, three chains of superbly matched dark blue beads, each with a tiny clear-white diamond and diamond-encrusted clasp. It was just lying there on the secretaire as if cast off in despair.

  ‘As you can see, Inspector, my brother is a collector whose fancy does not always run to things that are very old. That bracelet is from Cartier in New York, not twelve years ago. Ah no, it was thirteen years. Yes, the stock market crash on Wall Street. A suicide in the family and the wife on holiday in France and forced to part with it at once. Henri bought it from the estate of the aunt to whom she had sold it for a pittance, believing the old lady would then leave it to her in her will.’

  ‘And the icons?’ he asked. They were centuries old.

  ‘Purchased from German soldiers on holiday from the Russian Front. Oh they’re stolen, of course—everyone knows this including Henri, but saving them from the ravages of such careless hands is better than having them destroyed through misadventure.’

  The soft yellow mohair cardigan, strand of pearls and plain beige skirt suited her but she stood as if condemned. ‘And yourself, mademoiselle?’ he asked gently. ‘What do you do besides keep house for your brother?’

  She was still some distance from him, she thought, and he would not see the pain she felt, revealed as it must be in her eyes. ‘Me? I am a teacher, an assistant professor at the Lycée du Parc. Germanic studies and French literature.’

  ‘Then you must speak German very well.’

  ‘Of course. It is essential, is it not? Otherwise the students would become bored with their studies and do quite badly.’

  To avoid any further awkwardness, she decided to break with tradition and offer coffee. ‘It … it is already made, Inspector, and just needs warming up. Henri … it is my brother’s and my custom to always share our day’s events over coffee at this hour of the apéritif. Neither of us take alcohol, not even wine. Henri says that it destroys the brain cells and in this I am forced to agree, though at times, of course, one longs for a little taste.’

  Had she once been under the empire of alcohol? he wondered. She didn’t look the type, but then with those it was often so hard to tell. Shattered dreams, a love affair never consummated … There were any of a thousand reasons.

&
nbsp; The ersatz coffee would be fine and when she brought it on an antique silver tray, the complete service was a deep Prussian blue and jewelled Sèvres porcelain with beaded white and gold rims and a jade-green, rose-red, white and turquoise floral pattern. Ah mon Dieu, it would be like sipping vinegar out of a fortune among kings and princes.

  ‘Your brother has exceptionally good taste, mademoiselle.’

  She would lift her chin and proudly say it. Yes … yes, that would be best. ‘We both had an excellent teacher in our grandfather, Inspector. When one has access to such fine things, it elevates the soul to use them now and then in the fashion for which they were originally intended.’

  He would give her several moments of silence and deliberately let them grow into uncomfortableness. He wished he could take out his pipe and begin to pack it—always that tended to set people off and was most useful, but the shortages … that last crumb of tobacco had already been used.

  She thought she had best say something, but she would do so demurely since he had not grimaced at the taste of the acorn-and-barley water. A disgrace, of course, to sully such pieces with such mud. ‘My brother specializes in breaking up estates whose owners have died and left them to heirs who do not care to keep them, Inspector. This salon—indeed, the whole of the flat—changes its décor often as pieces come and go. One mustn’t become attached to anything.’

  ‘And the shop in Dijon?’ he asked, taking out his notebook to unsettle her more.

  Flustered, she pressed her knees together and tried to shrink from things. ‘On the boul de Sévigné, of course, near the place d’Arcy. Inspector, why are you writing this down? Is Henri suspected of something?’

  Of what, mademoiselle? his look said, but he shook his head. ‘Ah no. No, of course not. A mere ritual, I assure you. One becomes so accustomed to interrogating people, one automatically takes out the little notebook.’