‘Of which you are a member?’ she asked coyly. She could have knocked him over with a fan.
‘As was my grandfather before me,’ came the answer stiffly. ‘Julien knows the theatre intimately and could be of immense help. He and I and the other members of the committee have been over the building hundreds of times. If … if it is not impertinent of me, Frau Weidling, might I suggest you urge your husband to have him released?’
‘Does the theatre mean so much to you?’
‘It was my grandfather’s pride and joy.’
‘Then I shall ask Johann to request that the Obersturmführer Barbie release him, and I shall do so in return for this.’ Delighted with the dress, she swirled around and grinned happily. ‘But I will pay you in cash, have no fear.’
Had they been feeling each other out? Had she everything to do with the fires or absolutely nothing?
And what of Charlebois? What really was his game, if anything?
It was dark now, and the wash of dim blue light inside the crowded tram-car made it hard to concentrate, though St-Cyr knew he must. Bathed in this horrible light, the passengers appeared sickly and from another, quite alien world. Suspicious of him, accusative—Why cannot you solve this thing, monsieur? they seemed to ask with silent lips and furtive looks. Beaten, yes. Afraid, yes. A Salamander, monsieur. A Salamander …
Henri Charlebois, Claudine and Ange-Marie had experienced something so profound among the sands at Concarneau, it had come back to haunt them but would Madame Rachline tell him?
The car rumbled on toward another stop as though blind, for all the windows had been painted blue to shut in the light. Concentrating hard, he tried to stay awake. Concarneau, he said and heard the wind in from the sea.
Again he dozed off. Again he was awakened—ah maudit! The chasing around in that school, the warmth of the Charlebois apartment … When a seat became available, he threw himself into it and slept. Dreamed of flames and of their warmth, of Gabrielle and a few days of holiday, then of the fires and only then of Hermann, whom he saw from high up in the second balcony of the Théâtre des Célestins. Hermann was dwarfed by the magnificent vault of the ceiling and the glow from the stage curtains. Alone among the rows of empty plush-red seats the Gestapo’s Bavarian nuisance was slumped dead centre in a front-row seat. Snoring up into the gods, melodiously and uncaring, his long legs stretched out so as to ease himself in the crotch. That left testicle … ah merde, was it bothering him again? During the last war Hermann had caught a cold in that most unfortunate of places and had ever since been proud of it as one would an appendix scar or a torn ligament!
The snoring continued. The house lights were dimmed. From high in the flies, Frau Kaethe Weidling watched with Martine Charlebois and her brother … her brother … and the ghost of Claudine Bertrand. Ange-Marie Rachline was there also, and Leiter Weidling—yes, yes, even Robichaud and his Élaine, and someone else, someone wearing the finery of La Belle Époque perhaps. Someone into whose face those of all the others dissolved until the mask was empty, the Salamander had disappeared again, and the house lights had been extinguished.
When the tram-car reached Perrache and the end of its loop, he was rudely awakened and told to get off.
‘The rue Grenette,’ he muttered, digging into a pocket for the notecase his mother had given him so many years ago, it was seedy and all but falling apart at the seams and had been mended many times with fishing line. ‘I must cross the pont Alphonse Juin and make my way to a seamstress off the rue de la Baleine,’ he said, still half asleep.
The conductor snorted as he took the fare. ‘A seamstress … he talks of seamstresses, Arthur,’ the man shouted to the driver. ‘He’s not drunk on methylated spirits, perfume or shaving lotion.’
‘Then let him sleep if he pays.’
‘Until curfew?’ asked the conductor, thinking the worst, that they’d have a corpse on their hands, dead from the cold.
‘Ah no, not until then,’ said the detective. ‘Please awaken me when we get to my stop.’
A tip of five francs was handed over. Another was demanded. ‘For the driver. He’s the one who has to strain the eyes to watch for ice build-up on the tracks. Me, I am the one who must chop it out.’
‘Then take two more and be sure to awaken me unless you want the city to burn. I’m a Chief Inspector from the Sûreté who has not slept in over two days.’
‘Without transport?’
Ah nom de Jésus-Christ! were they to argue? Numbly he shook his head. ‘With adequate transport suitable to the condition of your streets. Please see that you do as I have asked and please do not stop suddenly. Let the baby sleep or I will personally fire all six rounds from my revolver into your rheostat and call it self-defence.’
Having returned to the Theatre des Céletins and nodded off, Kohler awoke to find the house lights out. Verdammt, what was the trouble now?
Easing himself upright in the pitch darkness, he listened hard. Weidling and Robichaud had been arguing off in some distant room. Fists raised like their voices. Something about there not being enough extinguisher globes—the lightbulb-shaped glass globes filled with red-coloured retardant that were to be tossed like hand grenades at the base of a fire-front. Weidling had wanted more of them mounted on the corridor walls and in the stairwells, no matter if they spoiled the décor and to hell with consulting the theatre committee; Robichaud had maintained that the globes would not be of much use anyway, because if the fire became that bad, then God help them.
But now there was not a sound. Seven fifteen p.m. and about two and a half hours of sleep.
Yawning, he got to his feet and tried to get his bearings. He was at the front of the theatre, right in the middle and just before the orchestra pit. Exits at the corners led to the stairwells and around to the foyer and backstage areas. Robichaud? he asked again, not liking the thought. Had someone got to the fire chief? They’d never stop the Salamander in this place without him. Ah merde!
Feeling his way, he made it to the exit in the far right corner and slipped behind and through its hidden entrance. Now there were the stairs up to the balconies but these would still be some distance ahead of him.
When he came to the corridor that led backstage, he went along it, feeling his way. Then down the long ramp deep into the cellars, to a warren of storerooms and dressing rooms, to smells of greasepaint, face powder, mothballs, sweat, laundry soap, stale tobacco smoke and stale perfume.
He struck a match. Oh mein Gott, the corridor had narrowed to a tunnel. The ceiling was now so low, his head all but touched it. Waving out the match, he struck another and another—cursed the French for their lousy matches—said, Robichaud, where are you? but said it silently. Did not look for a light switch, not yet. Ah no. There was something … a feeling. A sixth sense that troubled.
The dressing room had a toilet in a far corner, no privacy wall or screen and Turkish, a hole in the floor with a pan around it. Shadows were flung about from the flame of the match in his hand.
There was a narrow counter with a mirror and an inadequate sink, walls that were scratched with the graffiti of lesser artists. Playbills that advertised Das Rheingold, Tristan und Isolde, Madam Butterfly, Tannhäuser, Falstaff, Carmen, Die Meistersinger, Don Giovanni, Faust, Salome, La Traviata and others. Faded, curled-up photographs of the singers, all of the greats he supposed, though he could not think of any but Caruso and envisioned that great tenor squatting in the far corner before racing up on stage to sing an aria from Puccini.
Notices advertised rooms to let, with and without meals. One in large block letters, read: DON’T TRY TO FLUSH THE TOILET UNLESS YOU’RE READY TO RUN!
There was greasepaint on the wire cage of the gas mantle that was used to heat it and probably to fry eggs or melt cheese if needed. There was a buzzer nearby. There were coathooks on one wall, a few cheap, wooden chairs, a steamer trunk with a broken lock, everywhere the calling cards of barbers, hairdressers, dressmakers, wigmakers, boarding houses, whorehouses and
economical wine merchants.
There was not a sign of Robichaud in this or in any of the dressing rooms and he knew now, positively, that the main electrical switches had been pulled and that he’d run out of matches.
It was a bitch having to get about the city on foot when transport was so desperately needed. Breathless and half-frozen, St-Cyr banged on the door of the house behind La Belle Époque. Not a light showed. Like a tomb, the passage to the courtyard closed in on him and he wondered if he’d been right to come here, if he was not already too late.
Again the pounding echoed. ‘Ah nom de Jésus-Christ, my fist!’ he shouted. ‘Open up at once. Gestapo! Raus! Raus!’ Get out! Get out!
No light showed even when the door was opened, but this was usual these days so one must not panic.
‘Monsieur, what is it you desire?’ came a hesitant voice, young, so young, a boy often perhaps.
Ah merde, the children, of course! ‘A word with your mother, but please do not be alarmed. The vestibule, eh? Permit me to step inside a moment. This weather … I feel as if I’ve just crossed the Mer de Glace without decent boots or brandy.’
Uncertain of what to do, the boy waited, forcing him to add, ‘Please tell her Monsieur Jean-Louis St-Cyr is here from Paris.’
The attempt to hide his true identity and cushion the shock failed. ‘You’re a detective,’ bristled the boy. ‘Did you think we would not recognize such a one? You’ve come about the fires.’
‘And about the murders of Mademoiselle Claudine and her mother,’ said a girl sadly. ‘Do not deny it, Monsieur the Chief Inspector of the Sûreté Nationale whose specialty is murder. The préfet himself has been here and has informed maman of the details.’
‘The préfet … Yes, yes.’ Ah damn it, the young … so tender of age. Had they relatives to take them in if necessary? Tour mother?’ he reminded them.
‘She didn’t do it!’ shrilled the boy, trying to shut the door in his face. ‘Our mother only tried to help Mademoiselle Claudine!’
‘Yes, yes, I understand,’ he said, pushing firmly on the door. ‘Could you …? Would you please tell her I’m here.’
‘She’s busy!’ hissed the girl fiercely. ‘She has important work to finish and must not be disturbed!’
‘A German lady,’ piped the boy, still shoving manfully on the door. ‘A dress for the concert.’
His foot was slipping! ‘Now listen, eh? Lives are in danger. Time is very short. Take me to her at once!’
He heaved on the door and reluctantly they gave up but now, in the light, he found himself subjected to such a hurtful scrutiny, it was unsettling. The boy was the image of the mother; the girl, taller and two years older, bore only touches of her. ‘Our mother isn’t here,’ confessed the girl. ‘Mademoiselle Charlebois …’
‘Our aunt,’ said the boy.
‘She’s not our aunt, René. She’s only a … We only call her that because …’
St-Cyr let his shoulders relax a little. He took off his hat and heaved a sigh. ‘Then Mademoiselle Charlebois came to see your mother as I suspected. Where have they gone? Come, come, it’s important.’
‘Our mother wouldn’t let her stay here with us,’ confessed the boy. ‘They argued. Aunt Martine, she … she has shed the fountain of tears, monsieur, and cried to God for mercy.’
‘She tried to kill me. She was distraught,’ said St-Cyr sadly. ‘I think she did something she need never have done and, fearing the worst, then attempted to take her own life and that of myself so as to protect her brother.’
‘Uncle Henri?’ asked the boy, startled.
The detective nodded gravely. He said that he did not yet understand everything, but felt a great mistake had been made. ‘Where did they go?’ he asked and one could see how weary he was both in the body and the spirit. ‘To the shop of Mademoiselle Charlebois’s brother?’ he said and then, urging, ‘Come, come, I must have answers.’
‘We don’t know,’ said the girl, ‘but could you not use the telephone, Inspector?’
The telephone … Would Hermann have gone to the shop? Suddenly it all seemed so futile, this chasing around without adequate transport. It was as if the préfet and Gestapo Lyon wanted the Salamander to succeed! ‘If I telephone, I will only warn them,’ he said. There was a chair in the vestibule, and though it was chilly here by the door, he slumped into it. ‘Christmas,’ he said. ‘This is how a detective must spend his holiday, my little friends. Don’t ever forget it; don’t ever consider the life. Now, please, don’t push a man who is exhausted. Tell me what they said to each other. They argued. Mademoiselle Charlebois said things your mother would not have wanted you to hear, is that not correct?’
Their silence told him this was so. ‘Mademoiselle Charlebois has always come to your mother for help when she felt there was trouble with …’
The detective waited for them both to say it. He was searching them with the eyes of a priest …
Paulette Rachline swallowed with difficulty and dropped her gaze to the floor. ‘When … when there was trouble between her and her brother, Inspector. Yes, that is so. You are correct’
‘What sort of trouble?’ he asked, but one could hardly hear him, his voice was so gentle. ‘The fires,’ he said, softly again. ‘Lübeck, Heidelberg and finally Köln. Now the cinema of the Beautiful Celluloid.’
‘But not the tenement?’ asked the girl, suddenly looking up at him with the clarity of truth betrayed.
‘No, not the tenement,’ he said, ‘but then … ah then perhaps it is yet too early to say.’
They were quiet for a moment. They knew there were things they should tell him but knew also they must not do so.
‘Tell me about the dress,’ he said, catching them off guard. Suspicion rose in the girl’s expression, doubt more slowly in the boy’s.
‘The dress …?’ said the girl. ‘It’s upstairs in mother’s work room, Inspector.’
‘Good. Take me to it.’
Frugal snippings of fabric littered the floor along with tiny bits of thread, lace and elastic and the trimmings from paper patterns. There was a sewing machine, a lamp over the work table—remnant bolts of cloth to the ceiling on shelves. Dressmaker’s dummies—a half-finished blouse, being made over from another—several pairs of lady’s bloomers, slips, suit jackets, skirts, dresses, overcoats and boxes of buttons and spools of thread, a measuring tape … The work was everywhere and so much, he had to wonder how Ange-Marie Rachline could possibly have found the time, then realized she must have delegated virtually everything at La Belle Époque to her sous-maîtresse, thus hiding the truth from her children and others.
The dress was magnificent and when told again that the owner was a German lady, a Madame Weidling, he thought he understood what was planned.
‘Our mother didn’t want to do the alterations, Inspector,’ said the boy, plucking at the fabric. ‘Uncle Henri, he …’
‘He, what? Come, come, young man. To protect your mother is admirable, but to deny an officer of the police information vital to a case is to reject all that society has struggled through the centuries to accomplish. Like your mother and Mademoiselle Charlebois, they also argued, is that not correct?’
It was. ‘Mother … mother already has far too much work, Monsieur the Inspector,’ said the girl, ‘She cannot simply set aside everything else, even for a German lady.’
‘She … she has said it was unwise, monsieur.’
‘Very dangerous?’
‘Very stupid—foolish. That …’
‘René, shut your mouth! We must let maman tell him. It is not up to us!’
‘But it is, because in your hands rests the fate of the city,’ said St-Cyr. ‘With this weather, the waterlines may freeze. Once a major fire gets out of hand, it spreads from roof to roof until it cannot be stopped and the wind is drawn in so that the sparks and the flames rush up, up and up to silence the screams of all those who are trapped within.’
They shuddered. The girl said bleakly, ‘Uncle Henr
i has told maman he will dismiss her if she doesn’t do exactly as he says, Inspector. And … and that we … we will be thrown out of our house.’
‘Had they argued like this before?’
‘Yes. Yes, often—well, not so often, but yes, it was not the first time.’
‘Think back. On the night of the cinema fire, did your mother go there with Mademoiselle Claudine Bertrand?’
‘Mademoiselle Claudine had a bad chest,’ said the boy. ‘When she came to our door that night, maman was upset with her for being out in such terrible weather.’
‘She took her home,’ said the girl.
‘Yes, yes, but did they go to the cinema first?’
‘The cinema?’ asked the boy. ‘But why, monsieur? It was too late. It was already nine thirty or ten and Mademoiselle Claudine had lost a shoe.’
‘Then did your mother know Mademoiselle Claudine had been to that cinema?’
They glanced at each other and kept silent. ‘Look, you’ve already said you overheard the préfet telling your mother Mademoiselle Claudine and Madame Bertrand had been murdered. Your mother was the last to see them alive, but me, I do not think she killed them.’
‘Then she could not have been the last to see them alive,’ said the girl with wisdom beyond her years.
St-Cyr curtly nodded agreement. ‘Someone must have followed them and gained entry when the concierge was absent.’
‘Absent …’ muttered the boy, hunting for something on the work table. ‘Paulette, the big shears, they … they are gone.’
‘The shears?’
‘Yes,’ said the girl. ‘Mother was up here when Aunt Martine came to see her. It was here that they argued.’
Ah merde! A pair of shears with blades perhaps twenty centimetres in length. ‘Take me to the telephone at once,’ he said. ‘Hurry!’
From somewhere distant in the darkness of the theatre, the sound of a telephone came. His pulse hammering, Kohler listened for it. Ja, ja, it was up over there at the back, beyond the first balcony, in the manager’s office probably. No, no, it was in front here, down below him along the corridor to the dressing rooms in a little booth whose door must now be closed. Extensions? he asked.
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