Bellringer

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘Have I not just said that?’

  ‘Then for now that is all. Please see that this building is locked and guarded twenty-four hours a day. No one is to be allowed in unless with Hermann or me, and that includes you and the Kommandant. Something is not right.

  ‘Oh, there is one other matter. Everyone seems to have lost a little something. Since you have had to interview many of the inmates, and often several times, has anything been taken from you? Some small, personal item of no value to anyone other than you?’

  How could this one even begin to understand the loss? ‘The bloodstained ribbon that was once in my sister’s hair. Her attacker had tried to use it to tie her wrists. It was always kept neatly folded in front of her photo on my desk.’

  ‘But at first you didn’t notice that it was missing?’

  ‘I often touched it.’

  ‘That is not the answer.’

  They were alone now. There was just the two of them. ‘One day it was there, then it wasn’t. I immediately thought of the cleaning staff, who come in from town for an hour or two, but as would be expected, those bitches denied taking it. I had already searched the floor, my pockets, the drawers—the safe, even. Occasionally I would have it in hand only to set it aside to get on with something. I felt it must have slipped to the floor and then been swept up. No one would have wanted it for a ribbon.’

  ‘Because of the stains, of course, but please, the length, the original colour?’

  Did he doubt the loss? ‘Prussian blue. Twenty centimetres by two, and with a thin, very fine white lace border on each side. Silk from the old days before that other war and the Occupation it brought, which led to her defilement and murder by your blacks. Our grandmother gave that ribbon to her. Sonja wore it often, always with pride.’

  ‘And of those who are among your informants who might have taken it?’

  ‘Have I been trying to discover that on my own—is this what you think?’

  ‘Please just answer.’

  ‘None of them would have dared. I, too, have ways of twisting an arm, even if it breaks.’

  7

  Both from within and outside the once-elegant shops of the Grand, Becky was certain people stared at her. They thought her guilty as Herr Kohler hurried her along the terrace toward the Vittel-Palace. They accused her, asked silently, How could you have pushed Mary-Lynn and then stabbed Caroline? You lied when first asked by Herr Kohler about Mary-Lynn. You tried to deny having followed Caroline out into that corridor but had to admit it when Marni and Jill reminded you.

  The looks from the British were by far the most damning, those from the Americans as though betrayed, she having let down their side.

  ‘Inspector. . . ’

  It was Jill, it was Marni, it was Nora.

  ‘Inspector, Becky wouldn’t have killed anyone. Not our Becky.’

  Jill had said that. Jill. They’d been watching for her. They held her tightly, clasped her mitten-covered hands, made him pause only to then be confronted by Léa Monnier, who, porkpie hat cocked to one side, sable collar up, flashed a hideous grin and rasped, ‘Caught you, eh, did he, ducky? Bet that black number, that mumbo-jumbo man you went to, didn’t tell you you’d get pinched. Bet he told you life was going to be a bed of roses, if only you’d give him a can or two of pork and beans, a couple of packs of Lucky Strikes, one of raisins, two chocolate bars, and some gum, but Cérès has it differently. Cérès says that little ballet dancer was killed by you to shut her up.’

  All who were around looked at them, all stood still, but then. . . then from a distance came the creaking and sighing of frost-gripped branches.

  ‘Cérès was consulted last night, was she?’ asked Herr Kohler cautiously.

  In for a penny, in for a pound, felt Léa. ‘Perhaps if you and the chief inspector were to consult the goddess, you might find the answers. Unlike the dancer having been stabbed by that one, Mary-Lynn told Cérès she had been pushed by this one!’

  A fist whacked Nora on the shoulder, she turning so swiftly on Léa, one would have thought her lacrosse stick in hand.

  ‘Ridiculed Cérès, did you, luv?’ taunted the woman. ‘Told Mary-Lynn that she was being hoodwinked, that Bamba Duclos was every bit as good as Madame Chevreul but that neither of them spouted anything more than bullshit? Well now, we’ll see, shall we?’

  Nora didn’t back off. Nora stood right up to her and said, ‘I didn’t push Mary-Lynn. I would never have done that.’

  Léa’s bushy, dark-rooted hennaed eyebrows arched. ‘But you thought the lift gate closed and locked, luv? You didn’t think she’d fall, and when she did, you had to lie.’

  Mein Gott, this place, this den of females, thought Kohler. ‘Well?’ he asked Nora.

  She would have to tell him. ‘I chased her up the stairs. She yelled at me that I was being unfair, that all her life she’d heard stories about her dad and that she had needed to know where his remains were lying and had wanted and wanted to speak to him and finally had.’

  ‘Admit it, luv, you tried to grab her in the dark and instead she stumbled and fell and that is what Caroline Lacy told Cérès last night, Inspector, when Madame made contact with her and the other one.’

  A week ago that corridor light had been on and then had gone off, but not before Caroline had seen what had happened to Mary-Lynn Allan, or thought she had. ‘You went back down the stairs a bit to avoid being seen by anyone else, did you, Nora?’ asked Kohler.

  ‘It wasn’t like that, Inspector. She’s lying. I was on the stairs and, yes, we were yelling at each other and I was chasing after Mary-Lynn, but she was my friend. I had even loaned her that last fifty to pay off this. . . this greedy cow’s incessant demands for the cash or cheque up front.’

  ‘Cow, is it?’ began Léa, only to be shushed by Kohler.

  ‘Fifty American?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes! Otherwise Mary-Lynn wouldn’t have been at that séance, even though Colonel Kessler would have been waiting for her to sit beside him.’

  ‘And hold his hand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Cérès can tell you who the father was, Inspector,’ said Léa. ‘All you and the chief inspector have to do is ask. Madame Chevreul will be only too willing.’

  ‘And the fee?’

  ‘Peace and an end to the matter.’

  Herr Weber, the Senegalese, and the chief inspector were waiting in the cellar near the elevator, thought Becky. Livid, Mary-Lynn’s face was swollen. Her eyes, once of the loveliest shade of grey and often full of concern for another, were horrible. Her nose and teeth had been smashed, her lips broken. Deep, yellowish-green to copper-red, the skin at the base of her throat was now putrefying. Soon the stench would be unbearable.

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ asked St-Cyr, the corpse having been lifted out and placed on a stretcher in the corridor.

  Herr Weber was watching her closely. Swiftly Becky turned away, Herr Kohler grabbing her as she bent double to throw up, choke, and blurt, ‘Dear God, why did you have to make me look at her?’

  ‘Ah, bon, mademoiselle. Now a few answers.’

  ‘Louis, those had better wait. We need to talk.’

  ‘Sacré nom de nom, Hermann, what now? Sergeant Senghor, please see that Mademoiselle Allan’s body is also taken into Sister Jane’s care. Vite, vite. Away with the two of you.’

  ‘A moment, Louis. Corporal, for the record, tell us what the sun revealed of Mary-Lynn’s future when those of Rooms 3–38 and 3–54 paid you to read the basket for them in December after that Christmas party the British held for the Americans.’

  Herr Weber smiles knowingly, Inspector, thought Bamba, but if one were to draw attention to this and refuse to answer truthfully, one would only suffer ten times the usual. ‘In addition to her future, she asked if Cérès would reveal where her father’s remains lay and if the goddess would convince him to speak to her, but through Madame Chevreul who would relay his words.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I told her that such
an impenetrable fog as surrounded her father on that battlefield would only part if she believed absolutely in me and the basket and no longer went to Madame Chevreul, but that she would have to come back alone.’

  ‘And did she?’

  ‘Three times, Boss.’

  Somehow Becky found her voice. ‘They compete, Inspector. Ever since the one started speaking to an asteroid, Corporal Duclos and Madame Chevreul have known about each other. At the party several of the British girls made a point of tormenting Léa by saying to others how good the corporal was and that he could, if pressed, even reach one’s ancestors. Léa. . . Léa said she would have to see about it. We thought no more of it except to agree that we’d all go together for a session with him.’

  No lies could be told, not now, thought Bamba, not with Herr Weber knowing what his informants must have told him. ‘Each time I saw the sun rise for Mary-Lynn Allan in the basket, Boss, I saw her falling down a deep, dark well. I couldn’t understand this, since we had no such wells but couldn’t tell her what had been revealed.’

  ‘But you did tell someone else?’

  ‘Yes, Boss, but only because that one paid me well. Two boxes of Del Bey raisins, a bar of Lifebuoy soap and four packs of Camels, three tins of Klim, two of SPAM, and two of the Hershey’s nut-chocolate bars.’

  ‘A lot, so what about the name, Corporal? Come on, out with it.’

  ‘The lover of the one who was stabbed.’

  ‘Jennifer Hamilton. . . ’ began Louis. ‘But why would she want to know the future of Mary-Lynn, Hermann? Oh for sure a little curiosity, but to pay far more than necessary? Certainly Corporal Duclos and Sergeant Senghor were wary because of Weber’s presence, but both were also hiding something we might desperately need to know.’

  ‘The fierce competition between jujus and that Weber knew exactly what had been going on. Jennifer couldn’t have supplied all those things, not from Room 3–54’s larder without a lot of explaining. Someone had to have given them to her, and that someone has to have been Weber.’

  ‘Hermann, this isn’t good.’

  ‘He needed a suicide, Louis. Now, back off for a moment and eat. I can’t have you flagging out on me because of low blood sugar, not with what I have to tell you.’

  ‘Ah, bon, Inspector, although we’ve apparently little time left to enjoy life if what you’ve said is true, I always knew my partner was clever and myself indeed fortunate, but now you’re also a medical doctor, or is it an herbalist?’

  Admittedly the biscuits from a British Red Cross parcel were as hardtack, thought Kohler, the Hôtel Grand at 1435 hours, an all-but-empty dining room down the length of which, between its Art Deco columns, a muted group of four in overcoats, fingerless gloves, hats, and boots smoked cigarettes to the butt while playing whist as though damned to it for the rest of their lives. ‘Just eat. Don’t argue. We’re going to need each other.’

  With deliberateness Louis opened a can of SPAM from an American parcel and deftly ran a knife around the contents before upturning the tin and shaking it out onto a sheet of collabo newsprint. Then he sat back to survey the corpse with the eye of a connoisseur who had just been betrayed.

  ‘Fried with onions, peppers, and mushrooms, it might be all right, Hermann, if a sprinkling of parsley and a little thyme were added, but cold and alone on those as a last meal?’

  The hardtack was white and heavy. ‘Put a little of this chutney on it.’

  ‘Ah, mon Dieu, it’s comforting to know you want to play nursemaid as well, but those are orange-juice crystals.’

  ‘Oh.’

  A can of cold pork and beans was opened and, after hammering the hardtack with a fist, a slice of the SPAM was laid to rest and covered, spoonful by spoonful with the other.

  ‘Bon appétit,’ said Louis. ‘Now, please enlighten me.’

  The Wehrmacht’s cooks had refused entry to the kitchens, having locked all doors to prevent contamination by datura. Apparently the rumours were rife.

  Kohler leaned forward to confide the worst. ‘Weber and Kessler were at each other’s throats. The one, having put the other up for the Russian Front, was targeted to Berlin-Central as a traitor soft on the Americans and the father of Mary-Lynn’s unborn, the girl having unfortunately—now get this—tampered with that padlock and then committed suicide.’

  Immediately causing the abrupt recall of Colonel Kessler, but caution had best be urged. ‘The Untersturmführer kills her to establish the necessary proof?’

  The missing sticks of chewing gum were mentioned, Louis choking on a bit of biscuit.

  ‘Hermann, if this is true, we’ll never get out of here and you know it. Granted, Jennifer would have had to tell him beforehand that Mary-Lynn would be attending yet another of Madame Chevreul’s séances and that Nora would again be with her, the others off playing poker, except for herself and Caroline.’

  Becky having stayed in her own room, a fact not likely known beforehand. ‘Entry for Weber wouldn’t have been a problem, Louis. It was the most distant wing of that hotel and late at night.’

  ‘But, ah, merde, mon vieux, one lone male—an SS at that, and head of security—among 992 females, any of whom could get out of bed or leave that poker game to walk the corridors or climb those stairs at any moment?’

  ‘He was desperate. He had to get rid of Kessler before that one got rid of him. They’d probably been at each other’s throats since the British first got here.’

  ‘But couldn’t have known when those two would come back from that séance, Hermann, nor even which staircase they would take.’

  Louis could be difficult. ‘Just listen, will you? These aren’t bad, by the way.’ The spoon was given a flourish. ‘We both know that padlock wasn’t tampered with. The corridor lights were blinking off and then on, something Weber need not have engineered, since it happened often.’

  ‘Good. Your opinion is comforting, but all we really have is Jennifer Hamilton’s word that Caroline Lacy left Room 3–54 at about midnight to return to Room 3–38 for those cigarettes. A lover’s tiff that was soon settled, according to Jennifer, the couple parting on good terms, Becky claiming otherwise and that Caroline was distraught, Madame de Vernon telling me that when the girl left her on Friday afternoon, two days ago, she felt Caroline was going to meet Jennifer to end the affair.’

  ‘That woman was still out in the corridor, Louis. I’m certain of it.’

  ‘Perhaps, but what, really, did Caroline see, Hermann?’

  ‘Since she absolutely must have seen something.’

  ‘And wouldn’t otherwise have done what she did.’

  For beverage there was tea made with cold water and sweetened with Borden’s Condensed Milk courtesy of a Canadian parcel, for dessert, a Neilson’s chocolate bar, eight ounces or 226.8 grams.

  ‘Let’s set Weber aside for the moment. Was the wrong one pushed, Louis?’

  ‘Madame de Vernon hating Jennifer.’

  ‘Who repeatedly went along with Caroline to beg Madame Chevreul to let her become a sitter.’

  ‘So that Cérès could be asked to contact Madame de Vernon’s unfaithful husband.’

  ‘Caroline hoping to find out exactly what had happened to him.’

  ‘Something Madame de Vernon definitely did not want.’

  ‘Did she steal that datura from herself, Louis, as Brother Étienne accused, she hotly denying it but now waiting to put it to use?’

  If so, they were in even deeper trouble, since Weber would be only too willing to blame them for having let it happen, and Berlin-Central only too eager to hear of it. ‘That monk knows far too much for his own good, Hermann. A nocturnal fire destroys the casino here but he fails to mention it?’

  ‘And twenty-three years later Madame de Vernon finds herself back in Vittel at the very scene and enduring five confrontations with our head juju lady, demanding that she not let that ward of hers into any séance.’

  ‘A request Madame Chevreul refuses.’

  ‘While probably
taking great delight in so doing, Louis, because she can use the publicity, or Léa has convinced her she can.’ Ach, the tea was exactly like the bilge water they’d often found in the overrun trenches of the British.

  ‘And everyone lies, Hermann, if not to protect one another and the herd, then to protect themselves.’

  ‘With or without the others realizing it, but secretly thinking it in any case. Women, Louis. Girls! Why the hell must they be so difficult?’

  Apparently the orange-juice crystals didn’t help the tea. ‘Mary-Lynn was shoved, Hermann, of this there can be little question.’

  ‘But was the shoving meant for her or for Caroline, as that one repeatedly claimed, or for Nora Arnarson who fears she will be next?’

  ‘Weber knew about Becky Torrence’s fiancé, Hermann, and was secretly using that information to get her to cooperate.’

  ‘So that he could have an informant in each of those two rooms and was planning to get rid of Mary-Lynn so as to pin the paternity and death on Kessler and be free of him.’

  ‘Caroline claiming she had been the intended victim in order to hide behind that, Hermann, until she could tell the Kommandant what she had really seen.’

  They ate in silence. They didn’t know where to turn, and certainly they’d need absolute proof, felt Kohler, but something else would have to be mentioned. ‘Jennifer has let everyone know the contents of her flat.’

  ‘A fortune. Granted, it’s curious for one to be so open, especially if cognizant of the huge inflation in such things, but. . . ’

  ‘Guess who has a list and has invited himself to Paris in April for a little look and a tête-à-tête with the ERR?’

  The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg.

  This definitely wasn’t good. ‘Then are we dealing with one or two killers, Hermann, and is that not the question we most need to answer?’

  ‘Whoever killed Caroline must have known the Chalet des nes’ padlock would be open and had either been waiting inside for her or had stepped in right after her.’