Bellringer sak-13

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘Her gris-gris. That’s Wolof, I think-Senegalese-for talisman.’

  A can of corned beef, probably from Argentina via Britain, was opened and sampled.

  ‘She must really have her enemies,’ said St-Cyr.

  ‘And competes with Duclos. Ach, she did tell me that her powers were being questioned and that whether I liked it or not, all were watching and waiting for the outcome.’

  ‘And right after that séance a week ago, took the trouble to publicly warn Mary-Lynn to take great care.’

  ‘Nora having constantly derided Madame’s efforts, Louis, which could only have been bad for business.’

  ‘Léa, then, Hermann, which causes Nora to worry if she herself was the intended victim or soon to be.’

  The corned beef was really quite tasty. ‘Why choose to meet at the Chalet des nes? Why not simply in the open, or at the wood compound?’

  ‘That chalet can’t be where the resident kleptomaniac hides her loot, Hermann. It’s far too visible and would have required borrowing the key time and again or making a copy of it.’

  A packet of Lucky Strikes was opened, one lighted, and after two deep drags were taken, passed over.

  ‘Mary-Lynn’s things were tidied, Louis. When asked, Jennifer claimed Becky must have done it that first time, but to me they looked as if they’d been tidied again, and recently.’

  When given, the order they’d first been seen in was definitely not the same.

  ‘Jennifer, then, and not Becky, Hermann? Please don’t be too soft on Mademoiselle Torrence. She refuses to go along with Weber’s request that she become one of his informants but knows Caroline is to meet with Corporal Duclos because she was the very person who had set that meeting up.’

  ‘And can’t have Caroline telling Colonel Jundt that she helped her fiancé to escape to the free zone, something she couldn’t have known Weber already knew.’

  ‘The Star of David then being crammed into Caroline’s pocket and the pitchfork seized and driven home on impulse.’

  ‘But by a killer, Louis, who then returns to the scene to find her victim and then, after lying to me about her having had a look, admits that she did?’

  ‘That cowrie shell, mon vieux. Was Caroline planning to return it to Corporal Duclos with an apology, and if so, was she the thief or given it by the same so as to get him to agree to take that note to the Kommandant?’

  ‘Given it by Jennifer who would have told Weber who Caroline was to have met and when and where. We’ll have to ask her.’

  ‘But first, Madame Chevreul and Léa Monnier. Since the house visits have been somewhat delayed, let’s hope the brother is still with them.’

  Three birds with one stone and a locked room too. ‘Ach, I almost forgot. I found something.’

  Not until the pipe was packed and the furnace going did St-Cyr heave a contented sigh and say, ‘Merci, mon vieux, I knew I could count on you.’

  ‘As can Becky.’

  There was choking, coughing, wheezing as the passport and papers were set before him-tears, too. ‘I couldn’t leave them, Louis. We might never have got another chance.’

  Alone, worried about Weber, for if true, Hermann and he couldn’t withstand another run-in with the SS, St-Cyr drew on his pipe. Before him were the windows of Madame Chevreul’s reception room. Already the ground fog, that bane of Vittel’s existence, had returned to sweep slowly in and up over the snow-covered ground and all but hide the tree trunks and pavilions. Bien sûr, there was still a view-magnificent if earlier in the day. The Chalet des nes could still be seen. Caroline Lacy had headed for it at 1530 hours Friday, Nora Arnarson had been over by the perimeter fence. .

  ‘Something,’ he muttered softly to himself. ‘We are missing something so simple, it’s right before us.’

  Off in the distance, against the wire and seen, then not seen, the lone figure of that girl prowled the edge of her cage like a trapped cougar.

  ‘She must know this park better than anyone yet claims not to have found the hiding place but has admitted to suspecting Jennifer Hamilton and of not only tracking that girl and Caroline Lacy into this hotel but also of asking others where the couple have been and to whom they’ve spoken.

  ‘Has said of the relationship between the two that at first she felt it was out of character of Jennifer and then opportunistic because Caroline’s family were very wealthy and yet. . and yet she lies. She confesses only when confronted with the hard and inescapable truth. Is still hiding something.

  ‘Will be twenty-six years old on Wednesday. Isn’t married. Doesn’t even have a fiancé anymore.

  ‘Why not?

  ‘Claims to have seen Brother Étienne on Friday but claims not to have waved. When asked who was with him, answered, “Caroline, I think.”

  ‘“Becky?” he had asked, Nora answering, “Was she? I didn’t notice.”’

  Had mentioned the very ground fog and the poor visibility, that the tree trunks had been in the way, and then had said, “How was I to have seen anything?”

  And knowing that, had she then gone to the chalet to confront Caroline Lacy?

  Few if any would have seen her. Caroline must have entered the chalet at close on 1600 hours, would either have found someone waiting for her or would have waited herself for that person.

  Had somehow acquired that cowrie shell.

  The time of death, though calculated to be 1600 hours, could well have been somewhat later. A time for confrontation? Argument?

  Nora Arnarson would have had no problem getting in there, but what had she found? Caroline simply waiting to be met or already dead?

  It would have been all but dark inside, a light needed, a candle, a flashlight? But these last had been confiscated on arrival at the camp and were illegal.

  A match, then, a simple match. But if so, the burned stub had been pocketed. Hadn’t she since taken care to dispose of just such a thing?

  Like a wraith, the trapper had lost herself and though he searched and searched, she could not be found. But had Madame Chevreul watched the proceedings from her windows late on Friday afternoon as he was now, and where, please, had Becky Torrence really been, Becky who had gone out there early yesterday morning to find Caroline’s body and yet had said nothing of it until forced to by Hermann?

  The aroma of smouldering rosemary, the incense, felt St-Cyr, of medieval monks that had perfumed the otherwise saturated air of their abbeys, filled the bedroom, instantly clearing the mind with its flavourful sharpness and competing with the lingering eau de cologne. Léa Monnier had just been attended to. With evident propriety, Brother Étienne hurriedly tugged the grey Blitzmädel dress and flannel slip down over the last of that backside to swollen ankles, cracked toenails, and bunions.

  Madame Chevreul, her timing all but perfect, had opened the door, only a glimpse of the patient’s state of undress having been offered.

  ‘Chief Inspector, how good of you to have been patient. Léa, dearest, perhaps a few of your delightful canapés de raifort à l’anglaise and a glass of Brother Étienne’s magnificent elderberry wine to polish off the inspector’s lunch of cold pork and beans and SPAM.

  ‘Really, Inspector, we would have heated it for you had we but known.

  ‘Léa, dearest. . ’

  A dark look was given this sûreté, a beet-red fist wrapping itself around a corked brown medicine bottle, the admonition breathed.

  ‘Couillon, you didn’t arrest the little one. How many times must I tell you it was her?’

  Becky Torrence. ‘Léa, Léa, I won’t have this. Please don’t be vulgar. The chief inspector is a guest, n’est-ce pas? Be the eminently polite and capable woman I know.

  ‘Inspector, you must forgive her upbringing. Léa has been in terrible pain all morning, last night as well.’

  Washing his hands in a large cut-glass bowl, the same as was used in the séances, no doubt, and uncertain if he should say anything in the presence of the sûreté, the brother did. ‘Madame Monnier, please have w
homever rubs you down use a glove. No cuts or scrapes in your skin or theirs, you understand, otherwise it will enter the bloodstream and we do not want that.’

  The hands were dried, a doubtful glance given before taking hold of Madame Chevreul by a forearm, as one would an old and dear friend.

  ‘I must emphasize its danger, Élizabeth. Oh for sure it will work like a charm. Our brother, the abbot, swears by it and blesses the day it was first administered, but I must urge extreme caution. Only a little at any one time, and rubbed in only until the numbness is felt. The skin will tingle. There will be that welcome sensation of warmth, but all in moderation and with great care, as emphasized.’

  The Art Deco and other jewellery that Léa Monnier had worn when first encountered caught the light, setting off the fair hair, dark-blue eyes, and perfectly made-up cheeks and lips of this medium whose powder-blue woollen suit and soft grey silk blouse were magnificent.

  Earrings matched the bracelet and one of the rings. The high heels were of dark-blue patent leather and worth an absolute fortune in themselves.

  ‘Isn’t he wonderful, Inspector?’ she said, having noted with pleasure his scrutiny. ‘Léa suffers terribly from sciatica and lumbago.’

  ‘Gout, too,’ grunted the woman defiantly.

  ‘Hence the horseradish canapés?’ he asked, gesturing with pipe in hand: thin slices of buttered black bread with chives and mustard to which had been added a topping of finely grated horseradish.

  ‘The goutweed poultices are better,’ grunted Léa.

  ‘And a tincture of juniper, Inspector,’ hastily added the brother to avoid further unpleasantness. ‘A teaspoonful thrice daily, with a little water.’

  ‘Juniperus communis?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Juniperus sabina being occasionally fatal, if taken internally. ‘And the monkshood rub?’ asked St-Cyr.

  The wolfsbane, the blue rocket of gardens, the little turnip, and sûreté thoughts that would not be good. ‘Aconitum napellus, first used by Welsh physicians in the thirteenth century. Dissolved in alcohol and mixed with belladonna.’

  Deadly nightshade. ‘A liniment, then, of not one but two poisons, Brother, the first one of the most deadly.’

  The latter containing atropine, hyoscyamine, and hyoscine, as did the Datura stramonium, the belladonna having been favoured by Venetian ladies in waiting whose pupils would then be dilated by beautifying draughts.

  ‘Belladonna, itself, is nothing to play with. A hallucinogenic and a sedative, Brother? Respiration and body temperature increase until, with restlessness and giddiness, numbness leads to a comatose state, usually causing death, albeit delayed for some hours, even days; the former, the aconite, if but 0.00405 of a gram is ingested, one-sixteenth of a grain, within two to six hours, sometimes less.’

  It was clear that this sûreté thought him imprudent, but one must be firm. ‘The aconite giving a most agonizing death, Inspector. Hence my urging the utmost caution.’

  ‘You don’t fool around, do you? A bitter taste, after which there is that tingling and numbness you mentioned, but on the tongue and lips. Ah, mon Dieu, mon Frère, as little as 0.0000324 gram-one two-thousandth of a grain-will give the taste test, but that alone is sufficient to kill a healthy mouse in but a few minutes.’

  ‘Inspector. . Inspector, shouldn’t you be more concerned with those missing seeds? Brother Étienne and I both agree that Irène de Vernon must have them. Caroline Lacy was terrified of her and very clear about the hatred that woman bore her and her roommates and, I must add, Jennifer Hamilton.’

  ‘One capsule of four pods, each of which will contain from fifty to one hundred seeds, each in turn of about 0.1 milligram strength, one hundred seeds at most yielding the ten milligrams that are needed,’ said Brother Étienne, sadly shaking his head. ‘Caroline Lacy, I am certain now, must have been in danger of it, Nora Arnarson also, and Jill Faber, and Marni Huntington.’

  ‘And Becky Torrence, Étienne. We mustn’t forget her,’ said Madame Chevreul.

  ‘Each seed is but from two to three millimetres long, Inspector, and all can be easily hidden if removed from the capsule and its pods.’

  ‘Jennifer Hamilton is in the greatest danger, Inspector. That is what Cérès said Caroline Lacy had insisted when the goddess spoke through me last night. Léa can confirm. We are all, as a result, extremely worried about that girl. Please make certain that nothing untoward happens to her. I have this feeling, and it makes me tremble.’

  Jennifer then. A wineglass was brought and filled, the canapés offered, Léa Monnier’s expression remaining grim and unrelenting.

  The brother gave a nervous smile. ‘Since I uncorked it myself, Inspector, I think you will find it untainted.’

  ‘Ah, bon, merci. And did Caroline Lacy give the name of her killer?’

  ‘Léa has already told you,’ said Élizabeth.

  Becky Torrence. ‘A fait accompli, then?’

  Time. . was it an opportune time? she wondered. ‘That girl was seen entering the Chalet des nes on Friday afternoon at around 1600 hours, Inspector, and all but on the footsteps of the Lacy girl. Perhaps Becky Torrence chose not to tell you this, but should have known that from here there is an excellent view which neither the gathering dusk nor that wretched ground fog entirely obscured. Léa and I were earnestly awaiting Étienne’s arrival as, I dare say, were many others. Would this dear servant of the Lord bring the oft-promised liniment or again “forget” due to his deep concern over its nature? We saw him speak to Caroline first, giving her a few items, which she gratefully tucked away in her overcoat pockets. Then, as he would have done, he blessed her.’

  ‘And wheeled my bike over to Sergeant Senghor and his corporal before coming in, it being the Hôtel Grand’s turn to receive the first of my visitations.’

  ‘Becky Torrence spent no more than seven or eight minutes inside that chalet, Inspector. Certainly when Cérès contacted her last night, Caroline anxiously stated that she hadn’t expected Becky to confront her. I, of course, have no recollection of what was said, for when in clairaudience, it is only my voice that the goddess uses to reach the needy.’

  ‘They argued violently,’ said Léa, again passing the canapés. ‘She said she had been wrongly accused of something, a star perhaps. The Milky Way was mentioned and that when she had denied any wrongdoing, the Torrence girl had seized a pitchfork and pinned her to the wall, demanding she confess.’

  ‘Really, Inspector, if only you and Herr Kohler would agree to become sitters, all would be made most clear.’

  And they had known precisely, felt St-Cyr, what had been found with Caroline-that Star of David that would have worried Becky the most.

  Quickly at a signal from Madame, lunch was served to avoid further questions. Oeufs brayons, a favourite in Normandy: baked eggs with crème fraîche on crusty white bread, the last of the sauce then being added, with butter, salt and pepper, and chopped parsley. A warm potato and frisée salad with bacon would follow, une salade au lard champenoise, the frisée being winter’s curly endive.

  Unfortunately there was just enough for Madame and the brother, and one had to settle for the canapés and wine.

  ‘Your partner, Inspector?’ she asked. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Hermann? Interviewing your maid, I think, and now your cook.’

  ‘Léa. . ’

  ‘Stays, Madame Chevreul. For now just trust to the gods that nothing untoward will be revealed.’

  It was a room like no other, for the signs of the zodiac, half-moons, asteroids, comets, stars, and other things in silver and gold paper covered its walls and hung from the ceiling, and when he had closed and locked the door behind himself, Kohler stood looking down at this ‘maid’ of Madame Chevreul’s, this former waif with the jet-black hair who had somehow, in that first crush of a mob encounter, slid a hand inside a greatcoat to steal his Walther P38.

  She was like a sparrow yet a merlin, and her soft violet eyes looked up at him from under natura
lly curving, long black lashes as if from adventure’s doorway. Not that of a room on the other side of Les Halles or even one from around the Carrefour Vavin in Montparnasse, but rather that of the 5th arrondissement, the rue St-Jacques or rue St-Germain and the Sorbonne. Innocence, then, and intelligence, but the dream of both and the memory.

  ‘Cosy,’ he said of the room. She wouldn’t smile, wouldn’t say a thing, thought Marguerite Lefèvre. Men like this had wanted to use her often enough in the past and she was certain she knew exactly what he was thinking.

  The tent, the ‘cabinet’ that blocked the doorway into Madame Chevreul’s bedroom, was both circus and child’s playhouse, yet neither. From its inner sanctum, behind its dropped curtained doorway, the resident medium could conjure up anything she liked while the sitters pensively waited all but in darkness and with eyes tightly closed, holding hands in a semicircle around the table out front.

  ‘Wallpaper,’ he said. ‘That of flowers, birds, Chinese pagodas and sampans, glued and pinned to cloth. Louis could give you the makers even if from a hundred years ago, but where did they get it?’

  ‘They?’ she softly asked, blinking up at him but only once.

  ‘The blacks. The Senegalese.’

  Her French was Parisian and perfect, her age not more than twenty-five, though she would definitely, with the Brother’s help, keep that youthful complexion for years-the figure, too.

  Block printed and of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century design, the wallpaper had been patiently stripped from opulent walls, dried, coiled, smuggled in, and sold to Madame Chevreul or simply handed over in return for a favour.

  ‘The Hôtel de l’Ermitage?’ he asked, now fingering an uncoiled curl of the paper as if a silk chemise he would trail down a girl’s thighs before teasing off her step-ins.

  She must shake her head and shrug, felt Marguerite. He looked inside the cabinet, the tent, saw that the door to Madame’s bedroom was curtained off but easily accessible, saw the armchair she used, the throw rug on the floor, all such things, the luminescent gauze as well, the white ectoplasm that would appear to issue from Madame’s throat when in a trance.