Bellringer

by J. Robert Janes

  And able to use a pitchfork—was that it? ‘Where, Brother?’

  Ah, cher Jésus, these two! ‘The former riding stables.’

  ‘Behind the former polo and jumping grounds, now the soccer field when weather permits, Hermann, and not all that far from our lodgings. Near to the fencing pavilions and the tir aux pigeons.’

  The clay-pigeon shoot, but was St-Cyr, having been in Vittel recovering from wounds prior to when the American wounded started to arrive in 1917, the more dangerous of the two since he was still able to remember the locations? ‘Colonel Kessler, the former Kommandant, liked to ride and kept two geldings there and a plentiful supply of hay. On the days that Angèle was with me, he felt a little comfort should be allowed. Today is fortunately no different. Mademoiselle Arnarson will be looking after her.’ But could Nora really handle St-Cyr or Kohler if either should go after her? wondered Étienne. Would it be possible to get a warning to her? ‘Now, may I leave, inspectors, and go on my rounds since I have nearly a thousand to deal with in this hotel alone?’

  ‘Aren’t there four French doctors in the hospital and one Scot?’ asked Hermann.

  ‘And do such ever really listen to their patients, Herr Hauptmann und Detektivinspektor? I do, and therein lies the rapport I have with each.’

  Reluctantly Kohler stepped aside, the brother hoisting the heavy, iron-bound wooden medicine box of his surgery on to a shoulder and even closing the door after himself.

  ‘An ammo box, Louis, stamped with the First American Army.’

  And another leftover from that other war. ‘He knows of Mrs. Parker’s supposed fountain pens, having encountered them here as a teenager.’

  ‘And probably knows of a hell of a lot of other things, having lived in the area all his life. Isn’t a homosexual and never has been,’ said Hermann, still not happy about having let him go.

  ‘Yet is somehow able to use that cologne, the herbs, sour milk, and cow shit that cling to this cloak of his to suggest otherwise, but does Brother Étienne have more than an idea of what must have happened to Madame de Vernon’s husband? Knowing of the casino fire here in 1920, he was taken aback by my mention of the husband’s probably having gambled her money away, but refused to tell us what had troubled him.’

  ‘It smells about as strongly as he does, Louis, since he just happened to mention that Madame de Vernon played the piano in Paris for a ballet studio. Did he learn that with his vows or just out of idle curiosity? And while we’re on him, is it that he came here today just to have a look at us and find out how far we’d got?’

  ‘Perhaps, but for now let’s consider this. Caroline Lacy wanted Madame Chevreul to ask Cérès what had really happened to Madame de Vernon’s husband. The girl had borrowed a photo of her governess’s former villa from that one’s locked suitcase and was terrified the woman would discover it was missing before it was returned.’

  ‘But Madame de Vernon didn’t lose that little perfume presentation box and bottle.’

  ‘Madame Chevreul did?’

  ‘And claimed she slept like a baby after every séance and was so emotionally exhausted she dropped right off,’ said Hermann.

  Yet suffered from insomnia. ‘Was it stolen by our kleptomaniac?’

  ‘No doubt, but according to Madame Chevreul not by Caroline or Jennifer, who held hands through seven preliminary interviews, each needing reassurance from the other and having had no access to her bedroom, they being interviewed in the next room which was kept locked and still is, but supposedly has an entrance off the corridor. Frankly, I didn’t believe her. Why not interview them in her reception room, given that I had to walk right through it to get to her?’

  ‘A sleight of hand then, better even than that of Houdini?’ asked Louis.

  ‘Certainly as fast as Madame Chevreul’s cigarettes disappeared without her noticing the extra ones I took.’

  ‘Bon! And on the evening of Mary-Lynn’s death, they were alone in Room 3–54 when an enraged Madame de Vernon came to get Caroline and had the door slammed in her face.’

  ‘By Caroline, who was in tears, Louis, and very upset.’

  ‘Enough for Madame de Vernon to claim that the couple had broken up, and for Brother Étienne to now echo it, but did things go far beyond that?’

  ‘A wad of chewing gum. . . ’

  ‘A substance Madame de Vernon claims she has no taste for, Hermann.’

  ‘Becky Torrence knowing that woman couldn’t have been asleep, since neither was she, the others having gone off to play poker.’

  ‘Nora Arnarson publicly deriding Madame Chevreul’s success, both at the séance and later when the two dropped in to tell the poker players. She and Mary-Lynn argued vehemently, the one then running ahead and up the stairs in tears.’

  ‘Only to be shoved by Madame de Vernon, who was really after Caroline to put a stop to her enquiries?’

  ‘It’s possible, Hermann, but then. . . Ah, mais alors, alors . . . ’

  ‘Louis, if that woman’s bed was empty, Becky Torrence must have known of it, hence her nervousness when I first encountered her.’

  ‘And then her interest in Caroline’s whereabouts late last Friday afternoon, if the brother was telling us the truth? If, Hermann, but why wasn’t Jennifer Hamilton with Caroline, if for no other reason than reassurance, since that girl, if still a lover as Jennifer has claimed, would have confided in her?’

  ‘Women, girls. . . Caroline was wanting to tell the new Kommandant that Mary-Lynn’s death hadn’t been an accident and that she’d seen her being pushed.’

  ‘But was convinced, Hermann, that she herself had been the intended victim.’

  ‘Jennifer must have known who Caroline was to have met in the Chalet des nes. I’ll look forward to seeing her.’

  ‘But you already have? The girl said so.’

  ‘A soup-and-bread carrier?’

  ‘With a childhood scar on her chin.’

  ‘She’s one of Weber’s informants. I’m certain of it.’

  ‘Then chase after our healer. If my guess is right, he’ll either be in Room 3–38 or Room 3–54. I think I’ll take a walk and have a word with that horse of his. Nora Arnarson tried to lie to this chief inspector, and the others in that room of hers, knowing that she was, went right along with it to shield her. Instinctively the female herd closes round to defend the threatened.

  ‘There’s another thing, Hermann. Brother Étienne is also treating Jennifer Hamilton. The girl’s a tidier with her own things, but did she lay out and tidy Mary-Lynn Allan’s last effects, or did some, as yet unknown, fanatic tidier have access to that room and reason beyond that of the others?’

  ‘What’s he treating her for, an irrepressible desire to steal little things?’

  ‘Find out.’

  ‘Two flat tires, Louis. Each causing him to arrive late, but hours before Mary-Lynn’s killing, the second too damned close to Caroline’s.’

  ‘Bien sûr, it’s a puzzle, especially since a man like that can’t be suffering from memory loss and wouldn’t have forgotten that he had already used such an excuse.’

  ‘Have you had breakfast?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  The riding stables had the look of the long-abandoned, the stock having been requisitioned by the Wehrmacht and used for transport to the Russian front or sent to farms in the Reich. Apart from one stall, halfway along the central aisle and chosen for its maximum shelter, there was no other sound save that of the mare moving about as she enjoyed the hay the girl had thrown down from the loft above.

  Of Nora Arnarson there was no sign, but was she watching him? wondered St-Cyr. Patting the mare’s neck, he ran a hand over the robe of the brother’s ancestor. Was it a tidy arrangement, the mare being used on those days the petrolette wasn’t?

  Beneath the fur there was a moth-eaten backing of wine-coloured, faded velvet. The seam had been torn open long ago—an arm could be slid well in-between the two, though by now anything that had been left would have been re
moved.

  The loft was empty but for the remains of the winter’s hay and a wooden-tined pitchfork that leaned against a nearby wall. Had she gone off on one of her traverses? Had she sensed she might be followed here and taken precautions?

  Out across the open expanse of the polo grounds there was no sign of her or of anyone else, nor across the former racecourse beyond it and right to the three-metre-high barbed wire of the perimeter. The golf course on the other side gave only winter, the Hôtel de l’Ermitage, that of luxury and temptation. It had to have been the source of the golf balls and wallpaper, but the road that led up to it from the Parc Thermal had not been plowed, and neither was there any sign of wheeled tracks or of chimney smoke.

  Sacré nom de nom, where was she?

  As he started toward the Institute of Physical Education, the sound that came was that of the persistent: a thump, a pause, a thump, the three repeated with a constancy that puzzled until he found her in the first of the fencing pavilions, which was open on three sides and facing the polo grounds. Lacrosse stick in hand, the hard rubber ball was being flung against the inner wall only to bounce back, be caught and returned. She had even marked out the size of the goal net and could put that ball wherever she wanted. Sometimes she threw it so that it bounced on the floor first, just ahead of the goal; sometimes it hit the top-left corner or the lower right, but with a swiftness and surety that impressed. She never missed, always caught the rebound, worked ball and stick both before her and above her head as she sometimes ran in to turn and put it into a corner behind her imaginary goalkeeper.

  The three-quarter-length brown anorak had its hood thrown back. The dark-brown toque fitted snugly.

  ‘Inspector. . . ’

  Ah, merde, she’d been crying, had been startled by his sudden appearance, and was wary.

  He didn’t come closer, this sûreté, Nora noticed with a wince. Instead, he stood and searched the pavilion’s floor where she had shovelled the windblown snow away, and when at last he found what he wanted, he crouched to examine the spot.

  Then he pulled off a glove and ran a finger over the concrete.

  ‘Ashes, mademoiselle. What, please, did you burn?’

  Ah, damn him, damn him! ‘Une cigarette.’

  ‘The butt, then, since you were in hock for weeks. The firewood purchase, n’est-ce pas?’

  Shit!

  ‘First, mademoiselle, we now know that you were seen by Brother Étienne late on Friday afternoon, and shortly before Caroline Lacy was killed.’

  Étienne must have had to tell him. ‘It was late. I was cold. I. . . I didn’t even wave.’

  ‘Who was with him?’

  He would persist until he got the answer he wanted. ‘Caroline, I think.’

  ‘But Becky Torrence was nearer to them than you were?’

  ‘Was she? I didn’t notice.’

  And lying again, was it? ‘Would Becky have followed Caroline from the Vittel-Palace?’

  ‘To kill her? Becky? You must be crazy. Inspector, I’d been out for hours. I had to get warm. The ground fog that hangs over the valley here had come in. Visibility was poor. Tree trunks were in the way. How was I to have seen anything?’

  The lacrosse stick was now held lightly with its curved and open end just touching the floor at her feet, the ball in her left hand, the girl seemingly at comparative ease but poised like a coiled spring.

  The short-cropped hair protruded from under the toque, giving its wisps of amber-to-blonde; the dark blue eyes assessed all possibilities and risks as the throat, beneath its woollen scarf, constricted.

  ‘A moment ago you were crying, mademoiselle. Even as you threw the ball.’

  ‘Am I not allowed to?’

  ‘Bien sûr, but were the tears from relief or despair?’

  Over something Étienne had left for her—this was definitely what he was thinking. Beyond him, the footprints of the path he had trod showed plainly enough, but there wasn’t anyone else’s that she could see.

  The note Étienne had left had burned in but a few seconds, the ash falling grey and crinkled and very fine, and she had tried to remove it and hide the evidence. The match had been buried in the snow she’d shovelled away, but if he wanted to he could find it.

  And in the room early this morning he had asked if Mary-Lynn had been Jewish and was Jennifer, had said that neither he nor his partner would do a thing about it if true. He’d taken one hell of a chance with them, would have to be told something—he had that look about him, but could he be trusted? These days one never knew.

  A brief grin would be best and then, ‘All right, you win. Early this morning the Marines and the Forty-Third Division took the Russell Islands in the Solomons. They’re going to build fighter aircraft landing fields there in but a few days so as to hit the Japs well before those people get to our boys and our ships.

  ‘Last Thursday, German U-boats intercepted a convoy in the North Atlantic sinking another fifteen merchant ships. In Tunisia, British and American forces are taking heavy losses because Rommel has a new tank against which nothing seems to work.** But last Tuesday. . . last Tuesday, the Russians reoccupied Kharkov and are now six hundred kilometres to the west of Stalingrad. Tears of joy, Inspector, and tears of grief.’

  She bounced the ball and caught it, swung the stick out and pulled it back still with the ball. Again and again she did this. Easily, fluidly, teasingly, threateningly, silently saying, Are you now going to turn me in? If so, tell me and see what happens.

  ‘Is the brother of the FTP?’ St-Cyr asked, unruffled.

  The Francs-Tireurs et Partisans. ‘A devout Catholic, Inspector? One of the Pères Tranquilles? Aren’t the FTP communists?’

  ‘Some of them, but you’re well informed. Perhaps it is that you are also aware that the Vosges and this whole region are known for its partisans. The Franco-Prussian War, the Great War, Mademoiselle Arnarson, and now again, Alsace having changed hands once more.’

  She shrugged. She took to throwing the ball against the wall. He would get no further with her on the matter, decided Nora, but he hadn’t mentioned that Étienne must be listening to the Free French broadcasts from London—a highly illegal act—and he would have mentioned it if of the enemy.

  ‘Two murders, mademoiselle, and now some answers, please. Apparently you frequently went through the Hôtel Grand not only in search of Caroline Lacy and Jennifer Hamilton but asking where those two had been and with whom they had talked. Did you suspect either of having stolen that good-luck penny your father sent?’

  Did he never forget anything one said? ‘In a place like this, superstition thrives, Inspector. People believe others can contact the dead and learn all kinds of secrets from them or simply get words of endearment and reassurance. Others seek to find out when the next shipment of Red Cross parcels will arrive, or if a parcel from home will come or a letter or postcard from a prisoner-of-war husband or fiancé.’

  ‘While still others believe they are prima donnas of the gods?’

  Madame Chevreul. The ball had best be kept bouncing. At least then she wouldn’t have to look at him. ‘Lots of us are playing roles of one kind or another. How else are we to survive?’

  ‘But dream? Is yours that of the trapper?’

  She swung the stick.

  ‘The loner? Even in a cage like this, I’ve found ways of being by myself.’

  The ball hit the upper left corner of the goal. ‘And what, please, have you learned that is enough for someone to want to kill you? Come, come, mademoiselle, put that stick down and talk to me. This little presentation box of Guerlain’s was stolen from Madame Chevreul and found in Caroline Lacy’s pockets. Was Jennifer Hamilton the thief?’

  She would stop. She would have to, decided Nora, but had they found the Star of David? ‘Wouldn’t a kleptomaniac have kept it all to herself?’

  ‘Was Caroline the thief, then?’

  Throw the ball again, she told herself. Again! ‘Or neither of them, Inspector? As far as I and t
he others know, Madame Chevreul gave that little box to Caroline to tell her everything was fine and that she could count on being a sitter at the séance that was to be held last night and wasn’t even cancelled because of her death. Caroline couldn’t resist showing it to us. Madame de Vernon came into the room and tried to snatch it from her. There was a scene. The girl was slapped several times and took to shrieking, which only made Madame angrier until the four of us parted them and faced up to her and she cursed us and gave it back to Caroline but with a warning to us. The Kommandant was going to hear about it and what we had all been up to, but that is why Caroline had it with her. She knew Madame de Vernon would smash it or throw it in the stove.’

  And not stolen at all?

  The ball was stopped. He must long for his pipe and tobacco, thought Nora, for he took them out as one would from compulsive habit, only to quickly tuck them away as he spoke his thoughts aloud: ‘My partner was informed otherwise, mademoiselle, and we will have to deal with it when time allows, but with Madame de Vernon we have a woman whose husband had stolen everything and left her to eke out a living playing the piano in a ballet studio.’

  Had Madame Chevreul told his partner that or had Étienne? wondered Nora. ‘Where she met and saw a chance to get a meal ticket and maybe enough for her retirement? All Caroline ever wanted was to dance, and being the youngest of a very wealthy family, she went to work on her daddy, as girls will, until he agreed to let her study in Paris and let that woman be her guardian and mentor.’

  ‘But it never happened, the dancing career.’

  ‘Not with Poland in September of 1939 and the Blitzkrieg in 1940. The villa in Provence must have looked pretty good then, it being in the zone non occupée.’

  ‘Was it empty?’

  Had he experience of such? ‘It was but they couldn’t stay there. Even though the caretaker knew her from before, he wouldn’t let them, so they found a place in the village until the call went out for Americans and someone turned them in for the reward.’

  Again she began to throw the ball. ‘What really happened to the husband?’ he asked.