Salamander

by J. Robert Janes

  That was better, thought St-Cyr. He would take out his pipe now and begin to pack it and they would know he was doing so, because he would offer them some tobacco. Resistance tobacco!

  An uncanny silence closed in on the hill, and for a moment all the bobsleighs had gathered for a rest or had departed, or perhaps it was the riders were simply hauling them back?

  Louis waved out the match. ‘No, monsieur, I am not suggesting your sister is the Salamander.’

  ‘Then what are you suggesting?’ demanded Charlebois nervously.

  ‘Monsieur, if she telephoned you here, tell me, please, how she knew you’d be with Bishop Dufour? It’s a Saturday night. You cannot have seen her in some time or is it, monsieur, that you saw her at your shop at around seven this evening and that what she said then drove you to seek an audience with the bishop?’

  ‘Henri, let me,’ began Dufour. The Sûreté had no business being so high-handed! ‘Monsieur Charlebois and I had a meeting, Inspector, to discuss the final details for the concert. This meeting had been arranged for some time and was conducted over supper in the manse. Martine Charlebois would have known of it. She is also a member of our symphony orchestra.’

  Ah nom de Dieu, had he to contend with them both? ‘The cello … yes, yes, Bishop. But the girl did try to kill me and herself …’

  ‘Surely not. The gas is often turned off by our German friends out of necessity, is that not so? Perhaps the main valve at the school was left open, the others also?’ said Dufour.

  All right then! ‘Did you give Monsieur Charlebois absolution this evening, Bishop?’

  ‘If I did, Inspector, that is a matter between God, myself, Monsieur Charlebois and no other.’

  The bastard!

  ‘Inspector,’ said the antique dealer, ‘I have a great deal of work to do tomorrow. There is an important sale in Paris on Monday afternoon and evening. The Reichsmarschall Goering will be there. Due to the robbery at my shop in Dijon, I must place a number of pieces up for auction and must have them ready to leave with me on the first train.’

  How convenient! At 6 a.m. Berlin time, and with Frau Weidling, was that it? ‘Paris … yes. Yes, I understand, monsieur, but what of your sister? Surely you have a thought for her? A little concern, perhaps?’

  ‘Mademoiselle Charlebois will be at home where she belongs. Bishop Dufour will attest to the fact that I told her she had nothing to fear, Inspector, and that she was to go home and wait for me there.’

  ‘And then, monsieur?’ asked Louis, drawing on his pipe. God, but the city was quiet!

  ‘Then I will sort it all out, Inspector. I promise you there’s been nothing untoward. It’s all a misunderstanding.’

  ‘Yes, yes, a misunderstanding,’ echoed Dufour.

  ‘Bishop, we have the deaths of so many to consider, that of Father Adrian also, and now that of Monsieur Robichaud.’

  ‘Julien … but … but …’

  Were they both so taken aback? wondered St-Cyr. Ah, it was not possible to tell, and now … why now the shouting grew again as the boys and girls struggled back up to the heights with their sleighs.

  ‘Inspector, surely Julien was not murdered? An accident …’ said the bishop, aghast at what had happened.

  Louis was brutal. ‘No accident, Bishop, and now the city is at the mercy of the Salamander. Yes, my friends. With Robichaud out of the way, the Salamander has a clear field unless …’

  Damned if Louis didn’t pause to tap out the pipe and begin to repack it!

  ‘Unless what, Inspector?’ asked Charlebois impatiently.

  More shouting came from well off to the left. ‘Hey, Cécile, over here, my sweet little rocket. Let us have the challenge match!’

  ‘Together, Cécile, a marriage of our racers, with no holds barred.’

  ‘Marie, he wants to contest his little bit of sandpaper with our goddess of the ice!’

  ‘Every year it is the same,’ grumbled the bishop. ‘Shut up, you bunch!’ he shouted violently. ‘You are to leave the hill at once!’

  Dead silence followed, then giggles, after which came laughter and a few catcalls. ‘A meeting!’ shouted Dufour angrily. ‘An important conference is in progress. The … the fate of the city …’

  Rumble, rumble … bump … bump! Rumble, rumble … Ah merde, the first bend in the Stations of the Cross … A shriek! A cry …

  Then cheers as the racers flew past others in the darkness.

  ‘Unless we have the truth, Bishop. The truth!’ leapt the Sûreté. ‘Mademoiselle Charlebois made a tragic mistake. Once committed, she had no other choice but to follow through.’

  ‘What mistake?’ demanded Charlebois.

  Stung, Louis turned on him. ‘Please do not interrupt a police officer in the exercise of his duties, monsieur. A mistake compounded by a history of your abuse! Now I must have answers from you both!’

  ‘What abuse?’ asked Dufour, his suspicion all too clear.

  Others had arrived. ‘Not physical, but mental,’ said Madame Rachline. ‘Admit it, Henri. You have always wanted Martine for yourself and to protect her purity. Oh not to love in a sexual way, Inspector—she would never have agreed to that—but to keep from others who would only violate her.’

  ‘Hermann …?’

  ‘Louis, I’m over here.’

  ‘Good! Préfet, this man is to be placed under arrest.’

  ‘Now wait a moment, Louis. Monsieur Charlebois …? Pah! It’s impossible. You must be out of your mind. You expect me to put the bracelets on him for what, please?’

  Guillemette had always been difficult.

  ‘For the murder of Robichaud?’ snorted Charlebois.

  The antique dealer was breathing quickly, but was it the moment to pounce? ‘Three people were involved in the cinema fire, monsieur …’

  ‘Three, Louis?’ demanded Guillemette. ‘Don’t tell me our Salamander is three women and if so, hah! how does that explain your inclusion of Monsieur Charlebois?’

  Hermann had best be working the shadows. If only the bob-sleighs would cease their torment again. ‘Madame Rachline, did you go to that cinema with Claudine Bertrand?’

  It was all coming back to haunt them. Concarneau and the beach, Henri and his little sister. ‘I did not, Inspector. There are several who were at La Belle the night of the fire. Any or all of them, if necessary, will tell you I was at the house over the supper hour and left it to cross into my own house at about 9 p.m. to be with my children.’

  ‘Good. Then please tell us, madame, when Claudine came to your door, having lost one of her shoes, did she come in tears? Was she distraught?’

  ‘She’s dead, Inspector. It cannot matter,’ came a woman’s voice in German.

  ‘Ah, Frau Weidling, I am glad you are here at last. Leiter Weidling, Obersturmführer … we are all now gathered before a city in darkness and fear,’ said Louis in German. ‘Was she distraught, Madame Rachline?’ he asked in French, only to translate so as to bring it home to the others.

  The time had come, and she had known all along that it would. ‘Yes. Claudine was in very bad shape, Inspector. She had been scared out of her wits but more than this, was terrified she’d be killed.’

  Rumble, rumble … bump, bump … bump! Rumble … rumble …

  ‘She was certain Frau Weidling had been involved in the fire, Inspector, and that the woman would … would see to it that she …’

  ‘Ange-Marie, be careful what you say.’

  ‘Henri, why should I, with two police officers beside me?’

  Klaus Barbie would be translating for the Weidlings. Charlebois waited. Perhaps he held his breath in impatience, perhaps he was figuring out what to do.

  Louis told Madame Rachline to continue. Klaus Barbie said in French, ‘Yes, please do. I’ve a prior engagement I must attend.’

  Another visit to the favourite brothel, eh? snorted Kohler, hugging the deeper darkness of the Basilica.

  ‘Yes, please continue,’ said Frau Weidling in brittle German. ‘A
m I a suspect, Inspector? Johann, ask him if I am.’

  ‘You most definitely are, Frau Weidling, as I believe you are only too aware. You were at those other fires in 1938. In each, it would not surprise me if you—’

  ‘Ah no, of course,’ said Madame Rachline. ‘Why could I not have seen it before? Another cinema, a crowded lecture hall …’

  Was she being clever, wondered Kohler, or honestly blaming herself?

  Again the bobsleighs took to the ice. Again there was the rapidly dwindling rumble of their runners, the bump, bump, bump as they went down over steps, then the awful gaps in sound, the sudden pauses as the sleighs took wing …

  ‘Herr Obersturmführer, this is preposterous. I must insist that we return to the hotel. My wife is very tired and I must go back to the theatre if I am to search it thoroughly,’ said Weidling.

  ‘Your wife,’ said Louis. ‘Herr Weidling, tell us how the two of you met.’

  ‘That’s none of your business nor does it concern us here.’

  ‘Is it that you wish me to tell them?’ demanded Louis. ‘Come, come, Leiter Weidling. She was a prime suspect in the Lübeck fire. From there, you followed her to Heidelberg—is that not right?—and then to Köln. She was in those cities as were Martine Charlebois and her lover.’

  ‘Her fiancé …’ said Madame Rachline. ‘And … and Claudine, Inspector. Claudine asked for some time and I gave it to her. A little holiday, she said, a few addresses we all knew about, oh bien sûr. Martine was in the Reich on a student exchange. Claudine said that Henri wanted her to … to check up on his little sister, that Martine had … had found herself a lover.’

  ‘Louis …? Louis, one of them has left the terrace.’

  ‘Hermann! Why did you not stop him?’

  He’d been there and then he’d not been there, but was he still close and was he really the Salamander?

  Rumble, rumble, rumble … bump, bump, bump … ‘Johann … Johann, do not leave me now! Please, my liebling, I beg it of you.’

  St-Cyr grabbed the préfet and told him to make certain Frau Weidling was not let out of sight. Then he shouted to Hermann and began to run, to slip and slide and almost end up on his ear! Ah merde, the ice! ‘Hermann, where are you?’

  ‘Over here, Louis. Here!’

  A small incline, nothing much—the grand slide perhaps. Silhouettes standing around, objecting. Hermann shouting, ‘Gestapo. This sleigh has been requisitioned!’ Teenagers … teenagers … Ah no.

  ‘Get on, Louis. That’s an order.’

  ‘But … but …’

  ‘The girl, idiot! The sister. She must be hiding at the shop!’

  Rumble, rumble … Rumble, rumble …

  ‘Push, Louis! Heave! Ah Gott im Himmel, idiot. Give it a run and leap on or stay behind!’

  They bolted down the hill. They took the bends, shot out over something. Hit the ground only to lift again. Ah mon Dieu, mon Dieu …

  Hurtling through space, the sleigh crashed on to a street, crossed over, bashed sideways into a wall … the hands … the hands … ‘Hermann!’

  ‘Hang on, Louis!’

  Bump, bump, bump—rumble, rumble, rumble … Ah no, the montée des Chazeaux …

  Streaking past a foot patrol, they turned onto the rue de la Bombarde, shot past the Palais de justice and downstream along the quais, across the pont Bonaparte and across place Bellecour.

  Coasting to a stop, they ended up in front of the shop of Henri Masson, Fine Antiques.

  ‘Are you still there, Louis?’ asked the captain doubtfully.

  ‘Yes, I am still alive. Me, I am continually being surprised by your talents. Please enter the shop, find the girl and arrest her before the brother arrives.’

  ‘I take it we don’t need the magistrate’s order?’

  ‘No. Not if you are from the Gestapo.’

  ‘Then wait here and stop him when he comes along.’

  ‘Of course. It will be my pleasure.’

  Verdammt, but that had been one hell of a run! Walking nimbly up to the door, Kohler fired two shots into the lock and yanked on the wires to silence the alarm. Then he vanished inside, leaving his partner and friend to gradually still the shaking that was in him.

  St-Cyr considered things. The sleigh had best be moved, the street allowed to return to itself.

  When, after twenty minutes perhaps, he had heard nothing, he crossed the road and hesitantly entered the shop, saying silently, Hermann … Hermann, what has happened?

  The girl was on her knees. Bathed in the glow from a single candle stub set on the floor in front of her, she trembled as she waited for them to apprehend her. And the trembling was such that the nubby end of the needle-pointed dagger at her breast quivered in the light, throwing little flashes of ruby.

  Kohler sucked in a breath. Ah merde, what was he to do? All around her were the trappings of the shop—fine antiques, exquisite gold and glass, marble and oils. The pickings of a scavenger who fed on the deaths of others. The bones of the centuries.

  They were on the second floor of the shop, behind so many things—tucked away in a far corner beside a case of weapons. And all about them, the warm air stirred as the draught from the open door below let in the frost.

  ‘Don’t come any closer!’ she shrilled at last. There wasn’t a hint of hesitation about the dagger now. ‘Have you taken my brother?’

  When no answer came, she shrieked the question at him and he saw then that the pale cheeks were stained by tears.

  ‘Look, I … We … My partner and I won’t harm you, Mademoiselle Charlebois. I swear it.’

  She didn’t listen. With one hand, she ripped the white cotton blouse open—tore at it until brassiere and flesh were exposed and he could see that blood was trickling.

  Again the hilt was firmly clasped with both hands. ‘Okay, okay. You win, eh? Here, let me put my pistol on the floor where you can see it.’

  A warning sounded in him but the detective paid no attention to it, and in any case, no matter what she said, he would not understand, would not care because everyone would blame her. ‘I didn’t want to do it. You have forced me to, monsieur! You have raped my mind until I had to do it to save him.’

  Had Louis come upstairs? Had she seen him? ‘Now look, crimes of passion are always dealt with less severely. If there are extenuating circumstances, the courts will be lenient.’

  She gave the half-smile of tragedy. ‘Eighteen, monsieur? Eighteen? Were you not the one to catch the child that fell from it’s mother’s arms?’

  ‘The tenement fire … You lit it to take the heat off your brother.’

  ‘A Salamander, monsieur! A creature of mythology. One that lives in fire and basks in its warm embrace as naked lovers do in the act of their union. A scaleless, slippery animal whose skin is soft! A creature that can change its colour when trapped! A chameleon, monsieur—that would have been a far better code-name for you people to have used. A lizard that can vanish!’

  ‘Will he torch the theatre?’

  ‘As he torched the cinema of the Beautiful Celluloid?’

  Again there was that half-smile both cruel at what life had dealt her and yet bemused. ‘Another fire for which there is no need, monsieur? You see, I didn’t know. Until that fire at the cinema, I never thought for a moment that my brother might have been responsible for those other fires. He was my saviour. He was the one person to whom I could run for shelter. And in any case, he could not have done the cinema fire alone, could he? Oh mais certainement he must have had help before, but had he had it this time? I hesitated to approach the ruins. I was so afraid Henri would have been trapped inside. Burnt to a crisp. Ashes … nothing but ashes. But the memories kept crowding me and I saw my Max in flames. I saw his face begin to melt, I heard his screams. Now I know Henri must have found us together just as he discovered Father Adrian with me.’

  Ah Gott im Himmel, the kid was going to kill herself!

  ‘My brother has always been fascinated by fire, monsieur, and has always w
anted me. Henri used to watch me when I was naked as a child. He would strike matches and hold them up, and I would not understand the intensity of his gaze. Oh for sure he would never bring them too close to me and I knew this yet was always afraid. He used to bathe me, did you know this? He used to worship his little sister whom he called “perfection”.’

  She became more matter of fact. ‘You see, monsieur, Henri would play a game with Claudine and Ange-Marie, a game in which fire was discovered to cause arousal. Really it was fear, I guess. Oh mon Dieu, who’s to say? But Ange-Marie knows all about it. You’ll have to ask her.’

  ‘And Claudine? What about her, mademoiselle? What about the keys to your school?’

  He wanted the phosphorus. He wanted to keep her talking so as to still death’s sweet moment for as long as possible. ‘Claudine had to be killed, isn’t that so? She could not be allowed to live knowing what she did. She had made a telephone call for Henri that had summoned Father Adrian to his death, she had agreed to meet with a certain woman in a certain cinema. The white sugar of oxalic acid was placed in the bowl, then the concentrated sulphuric allowed to drain slowly down the inside to cover the oxalic which immediately began to fizz.’

  ‘Yes, but who did it?’

  ‘Claudine would never know. You see, she feared another—isn’t that correct? A German lady. Beautiful, wanton, eager to touch Claudine’s breasts with fire as a lover would. Naked and alone but secretly watched by another who would take photographs of them. Photographs that would then anonymously fall into the hands of the Gestapo thus pointing the finger of suspicion at the two of them. Me, I have found the negatives and destroyed them.’

  The girl took a breath. Perhaps she wanted to quickly brush the hair back from her left cheek, perhaps she simply wanted to swallow, thought Kohler.

  ‘Carbon dioxide gas is heavier than the more deadlier carbon monoxide, monsieur. Both are released in equal quantities and they tend to displace the air that is in the bowl above the mixture but …’ Again there was that smile. ‘But it really doesn’t matter, does it? Once the gases are breathed, the blood absorbs the poison and the mind slips into unconsciousness. Then death comes quickly to steal the soul and silence the tongue for ever.’