Bellringer

by J. Robert Janes

  The son of a bitch! ‘You had to find out how close Colonel Kessler was to Mary-Lynn. He’d a history of such affairs, so you made damned certain you planted a Spitzel in her room.’

  And the room not far from those attic stairs and elevator-gate—was this what was now going through Kohler’s mind? wondered Weber. ‘Kessler was an arrogant fool and insufferable. Mein Gott, he wouldn’t listen to a thing I said and thought he knew everything there was to run a place like this and that he could do as he pleased. Play golf when he wanted, shoot clay pigeons or go for a ride on one of his horses—horses that were needed on the Russian Front, Kohler—and afterwards, ah yes!—dine with that slut in town or stroll with her here in the Parc Thermal while talking to her as one would to a friend. One of the enemy?’

  ‘Admit it. He knew you had been going on and on about him behind his back to Berlin-Central so he recommended you for the Russian Front. You had to get rid of him. What better way than to blame him for the suicide of that girl and make sure it happened?’

  Had Kohler been into the safe?

  ‘Afterwards you must have wanted to know what she had said through Cérès in that séance, Untersturmführer. Was it Léa who told you, or Marguerite Lefèvre?’

  ‘The crystal-ball gazer. Is it that you fancy her? Let me tell you, she thinks you must and is willing.’

  ‘Even though she may still be in love with Jennifer Hamilton?’

  ‘Is she, Inspector?’ asked Nora softly. ‘If so, then Marguerite must have hated Caroline.’

  ‘Hermann, please don’t push your luck. Go easy,’ whispered St-Cyr.

  ‘Love. . . is that what you would call it, Kohler?’ shouted Weber. ‘Oberfeldwebel Reinecke. . . ’

  ‘Wait!’ cried Herr Kohler. ‘Ach, think about it, Untersturmführer. Von Schaumburg, the Kommandant von Gross-Paris, is asked for our help by an old and much valued Kamerad from that other war, a former schoolmate as well, but a man you’re now intent on putting up before the firing squad. . . or is it the piano wire you want them to use? A man who would have left us a directive on what must have happened to Mary-Lynn Allan, you then realizing you’d best destroy it. Mein Gott, Dummkopf, isn’t von Schaumburg bound to demand a full enquiry should anything happen to Louis and me? It won’t just be you who’s grilled, SS or not. Reinecke, here, will come in for his full share, as will that boy.’

  The light dipped, the light flew up. ‘I’m not a boy! I’m a soldier!’

  ‘Call them out now, Kohler. Now!’ yelled Weber.

  Reinecke had heard enough and had swung the Schmeisser round and jammed it into his back. ‘OK, OK, Oberfeldwebel.’ Damned if that door Louis was behind hadn’t a calendar pinned to it: 15 September, 1939, and circled; an end to the season as usual but the start of yet another war.

  ‘Louis, he’s got my gun.’

  Though muffled, that voice soon replied. ‘Zut, Hermann, I wish you wouldn’t keep losing it. A moment, please, Untersturmführer. We were looking for an essential piece of evidence when you interrupted us.’

  Nora tried to focus on the pages as the flashlight was switched back on and his revolver slid away.

  ‘Hurry, mademoiselle,’ he whispered. ‘We need it.’

  Down page after page her forefinger fled. There was nothing. It seemed all such a waste but then. . . then, ‘The Vittel-Palace, Room 3–15,’ she heard herself whispering. ‘Arrived 3 July, 1920, but couldn’t have left or paid his bill.’

  But had lost another fortune at the tables, thought St-Cyr. There wasn’t any need for Nora to search for Madame Irène Vernon’s name. The woman wouldn’t have tried to renew old vows or have stayed in any of the hotels, couldn’t have afforded a room here in any case or wanted to.

  She would have watched him from a distance, picked him out from among the crowd, seen who he was with and who was interested in him, and even heard his voice and laughter, having sat in that alcove whose window Nora had broken.

  ‘The Chalet des nes, Hermann,’ he called out. ‘Please inform the Untersturmführer that it is necessary we search it now.’

  ‘That can’t be where the hiding place is, Inspector,’ whispered Nora earnestly. ‘It’s far too open to view.’

  ‘Agreed, but we’ll search it anyway so as to buy us a little time.’

  Nora didn’t know if she would ever leave this place. Bathed in floodlight, they crowded around where children used to see the donkeys resting. The two who had been on guard outside the chalet and the one who had remained with Angèle had been dismissed and that wasn’t good. It couldn’t be. The chief inspector stood to one side of her, Herr Kohler to the other, their weapons having been taken from them. Herr Weber and the Oberfeldwebel were keeping them covered, and she as well.

  Matthieu Senghor and Bamba Duclos, having been summoned, had cleared away the dried straw and dung and were now lifting the iron grill of the sewer in the centre of the hard-frozen, earthen floor.

  Caroline’s body, though earlier removed, had been just behind them, in that stall. Try as she did, Nora knew she couldn’t help but glance into it. The pitchfork was still leaning against that far wall, the overturned water bucket was still to her left. There had been only two other items beyond what had been in Caroline’s pockets, and these were now in the chief inspector’s hand.

  Sickened by the sight of what he held, she waited, knowing he had noticed her reaction.

  ‘There’s nothing in this drain but ice, Boss,’ said Senghor to Kohler.

  ‘Search all the stalls but that one,’ said the chief inspector.

  ‘Schnell!’ shouted Weber. Hurry!

  Now the Senegalese had their backs to him and to the Oberfeldwebel, felt Nora. Would they be shot and left in one of the stalls? Weber did intend to kill them—why else his having dismissed the guards and that other man and then accused these two yet again of having raped and killed Caroline?

  ‘Einen Moment, bitte, Untersturmführer,’ said St-Cyr.

  ‘Did I not tell you fifteen minutes and that was all?’ demanded Weber.

  ‘Of course,’ the chief inspector went on, companionably gesturing with pipe in hand, ‘but I need to ask you something. Why would one of your Spitzel have stolen the ribbon of your dead sister? Surely that was a dangerous and very foolhardy thing for her to have done.’

  On entering the chalet, the Oberfeldwebel had embedded the ax in one of the uprights. Fortunately it wasn’t far from her, thought Nora. It was just behind Herr Weber and within easy reach. The boy with the light was nearest to it and in partial shadow.

  ‘Danger’s the thrill, Louis,’ said Herr Kohler, taking another drag at his cigarette and gesturing with it. ‘That’s what drives our klepto to steal.’

  These two, thought Weber. They wouldn’t be missed by Berlin-Central or by Gestapo Paris. ‘Ach, I’ve no idea why it was stolen, only that it was a loss I personally felt and still do.’

  ‘But could it have been that something of your sister’s was needed so that Madame Chevreul could use it to reach the goddess during one of the séances?’ asked St-Cyr.

  ‘Who would then question his sister Sonja, Louis, to find out exactly how she had died.’

  ‘Haven’t I told you Sonja was raped by one of those black bastards?’ demanded Herr Weber.

  ‘And they’ve been paying for it ever since,’ insisted Kohler, ‘but just suppose Cérès says it differently? Suppose Sonja tells her she had a crush on one of them?’

  No one moved. Everyone waited.

  ‘DAS IST SCHEISSE, KOHLER! SCHEISSE! YOU’RE INSANE!’

  ‘Lieber Gott, Hermann. Sonja Weber had given the boy a cup of hot soup—an act of kindness, that is all. Isn’t that correct, Untersturmführer?’

  They were simply trying to rattle him, but why? wondered Weber. ‘When arrested, he confessed readily enough.’

  ‘Yes, yes, but have you never asked to attend one of those séances?’ persisted Herr Kohler. ‘You who loved your sister and still miss her every day? You who still want revenge?’r />
  ‘Hermann, he was only ten years old at the time, or was it eleven?’

  ‘Friday 23 December, 1921, Louis, at 1807 hours and the Occupation of the Rhineland, the Americans having moved out of Koblenz.’

  ‘Leaving the Senegalese to do their duty, is that how it was, Hermann?’

  ‘Big buck niggers, Louis. Sex with them and lots of fine young Mädchen enjoying it, too, judging by the number of illegitimate births, eh, Untersturmführer? Admit she had taken an interest in the boy and that it could well have gone a little further than your father felt decent.’

  In a rage, Herr Weber had taken aim at him.

  ‘Inspectors. . . ’ managed Nora. ‘Listen, please. Can’t you hear that sound?’

  Senghor and Duclos paused, the boy with the light hesitating, Herr Weber smiling cruelly at her now.

  ‘Perhaps it is you, Fräulein, who should get it first.’

  The Senegalese had slipped into a far stall but would it happen now? wondered Nora, looking up to the ceiling above to frolicking wood nymphs the children would have loved.

  Again the smell of pipe smoke came to her, the aroma soft but warm and spicy, yet sweet too, like honey. ‘My dad. . . ’ she said, the memory close. ‘He would often smoke a tobacco mixture like that. Virginia tobaccos with a touch of perique, a medium blend from England, sometimes from Scotland.’

  Please don’t do anything foolish, said St-Cyr silently to her. ‘Untersturmführer, since you hold all the cards and Kommandant Jundt will require adequate explanations, why not let us see this thing through?’

  Had Kohler found the police photos of Sonja? wondered Weber. Had he been into the safe and read Colonel Kessler’s telexes and his own?

  That pipe tobacco. . . When they had arrived yesterday, St-Cyr had had none, Kohler not even a cigarette, yet now both had plenty.

  ‘You’ve five minutes left,’ he said. It was now 2035 hours.

  Senghor and Duclos could no longer be seen by Weber and Oberfeldwebel Reinecke, thought St-Cyr, but Mademoiselle Arnarson had been torn between glancing at the beechwood sprig and curls of inner bark in his hand and at that ax, and had already tried once to distract them by mentioning the sound and looking up to the ceiling above.

  Weber would kill her. Reinecke would deal with Hermann and him. Secretive at times, Senghor and Duclos had used eye contact to signal to each other. Both had brought along their hessian satchels as if heading off into the woods for a fortnight’s woodcutting. Both must be armed and had but one task: Reinecke first, then Weber, then that boy. They knew they had no other choice. Duclos would have brought along his little basket, Senghor his medals.

  ‘Mademoiselle, this sprig of beech,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Did you leave it in that stall?’

  ‘Me?’ managed Nora. ‘I swear I wasn’t here when Caroline was killed. I did notice that Becky had followed her.’

  ‘A fact which you denied when asked.’

  ‘Yes, I know I did. I. . . I was afraid for her and for what Caroline might well say to the new Kommandant, those I won’t deny, but I didn’t kill her. Not to save Becky, nor myself, not for any reason. I did know Caroline was to have met someone but. . . but as she had just spoken to Brother Étienne, I. . . I felt everything must be all right.’

  ‘And this sprig? It, too, has been cut in exactly the same way as those I found in the stable at Angèle’s hooves.’

  ‘Someone must have picked it up.’

  ‘To pin the murder on you?’

  ‘Lots know that I nibble on those buds and the inner bark from time to time and also share them with Angèle.’

  To break her would be hard after what they’d just been through with her, but she gave every indication of being guilty, had even dragged off her toque and bowed her head, had closed her eyes and was now silently moving her lips in prayer.

  Weber was smirking, Hermann lighting yet another cigarette, having begged another match from the Oberfeldwebel.

  ‘Boss. . . ?’

  ‘Well, what is it, Sergeant?’ asked Herr Kohler.

  Bamba was as ready as he was, thought Matthieu. They were never going to get out of here alive but somehow they had to get that girl and St-Cyr and Kohler to move aside. ‘Ask the girl to step into that stall where she killed the other one, Boss. Ask her why Bamba and me, we saw her earlier opening that padlock. Ask her to show you how she used that pitchfork and to tell you why she took the time to tidy things and hide what she did.’

  Weber had turned to face Senghor and Duclos, Kohler noticed, but Reinecke hadn’t. Nora Arnarson was now deathly pale, the boy with the light holding it as steadily on her as he could.

  ‘Aircraft, Louis. RAF bombers. Those are what she was hearing.’

  They’d flown over Vittel before but was it Munich that would get it tonight, wondered Kohler, or Augsburg again? On 17 April of last year, in a daring daylight raid, they’d hit the MANN U-boat diesel-engine plant there, a first for the Lancaster which could, it was reported, carry a bomb load of 6,350 kilograms.****

  ‘Four Merlin engines, Hermann.’

  ‘Cruising speed of 338 kilometres per hour, Louis; range when loaded, of 2,675 kilometres. Nothing’s safe anymore, mon vieux. No wonder Colonel Kessler had his doubts about the Reich, eh, Untersturmführer?’

  The boy with the light knew his duty yet hesitated, waiting for the command until at last he blurted, ‘Untersturmführer, what shall I do? There are windows. The light will be seen.’

  ‘You and you, into that stall, inspectors,’ said Reinecke, motioning at them with the Schmeisser. ‘The girl to stay where she is.’

  And that ax? wondered St-Cyr.

  Nora felt herself being pulled and thrown to the floor. Flame flashed through the pitch-darkness, shots filling the chalet, the Oberfeldwebel turning to fire burst after burst at the Senegalese; Herr Weber firing once, twice, and then again; the sound of each weapon harsh and very different from each of the others until silence intruded.

  ‘Hermann, are you all right?’

  ‘And you and Nora?’

  For ages, it seemed, they waited. The boy whimpered for his mother. Someone gave a sigh. Something metallic slid to the floor as the smell of cordite came to her.

  Finally the flashlight came on briefly. Nora blinked, and as she did, the chief inspector gently brushed the back of a hand against her cheek, then got to his feet and helped her up.

  The boy was slumped against the upright under the ax, the Untersturmführer had been hit twice, once in the forehead, once in the chest—horrible messes where the slugs had exited.

  Cut to pieces, Duclos and Senghor lay in the stall from which they had fired the revolvers they had found in those boxes.

  Oberfeldwebel Reinecke had been hit in the chest but only once.

  Sickened, Nora waited.

  Picking their way through the dead, the two collected their own weapons, St-Cyr the satchel of Duclos, leaving everything else for others to find, others who would be there all too soon.

  ‘Hermann, find Jennifer and bring her to Madame Chevreul. I’ll take this one to the Grand. We’ll pick up the brother on the way.’

  ‘Angèle, inspectors. You can’t leave her out in this weather.’

  ‘The stable, then. The two of us. We can’t let this girl escape, Hermann. I wish that we could, but it’s just not possible.’

  Louis had the bracelets out and had already clamped one on her and the other around his sûreté wrist.

  Outside, on the cold night air, the sound of aircraft was even louder and then, from the Hôtel Grand and the Vittel-Palace, their voices rising first in a cheer, and then in song, ‘Bless ’em all, the long and the short and the tall . . . ’

  The revelry on hearing the RAF continued in the Vittel-Palace, the corridors crowded with every type of sleeping garb: scarves, toques, overcoats and fingerless gloves, nightgowns or pajamas but with heavy woollen work socks pulled all but to the knees, hair in paper twists or nets, hair with all the pins and ribbons out. Brother Étienn
e’s face creams were on some, their eyes like saucers in the dim light, their lips unmade as they faced the grim countenance of Mrs. Parker, who pushed her way through them.

  She climbed the stairs. Kohler was right behind her, and as they went up, the hush they left behind followed.

  Obviously anxious and very troubled, Jill Faber, who had urgently summoned the woman, met them outside Room 3–38. ‘We’re holding her, Inspector. She isn’t going anywhere.’

  Irène de Vernon, her hair in curlers, sat propped up in bed with her own and Caroline Lacy’s pillows behind her and a cigarette she was obviously enjoying.

  Marni Huntington stood guard with Nora Arnarson’s lacrosse stick.

  ‘OK, so what the hell has happened?’ he asked of Madame de Vernon, not liking the look of things.

  The grey eyes behind their wire-gold frames coldly took him in. Ash was flicked. ‘They accuse, but you will find that it wasn’t me.’

  ‘Jennifer. . . ’ began Marni. ‘She’s been poisoned by that one.’

  ‘Pah! A plague on you! I did no such thing, Inspector. Bien sûr, I might have suggested it, but me, a killer? Cher Jésus, forgive them. Mon Dieu, such bitches. Look closely.’ She tossed the hand with the cigarette. ‘It could have been any of them.’

  They all began to talk at once.

  ‘The caramel pie with the Del Bey raisins,’ blurted Marni, so close to tears and sickened by what had happened, she wanted to bash the woman.

  ‘The stew,’ said Becky, shattered by the thought.

  ‘We were all in here having such a good time talking about home,’ said Jill, ‘we didn’t even notice that that bitch had hurried past the door.’

  ‘Garce, is it?’ shouted the woman.

  ‘Later, after that one had come back, Jen ducked in to say she’d be with us just as soon as she’d had her supper,’ said Marni, threatening her with the stick. ‘The. . . the others had left it in their room for her. That’s how Madame was able to poison it.’

  ‘A stew that Dorothy had made with potatoes scavenged from this morning’s soup ration and two cans of pork and beans,’ said Jill, knowing it must have been the stew.