Gypsy

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘And rucksacks too?’

  Louis was really upset. ‘Look, the six of them didn’t pile into that little car of hers. Only three of them did. The others stayed behind to remove the road-block. She and De Vries were driven right into the city where she alone was let out at the métro, at the Saint-François-Xavier station.’

  ‘It’s closed. Did they not know that? The Mabillon, Chambre des Députés, Solférino – every second station has been closed to save electricity. If you had to take the trains, you’d know!’

  When Kohler didn’t say anything, Louis blurted, ‘Did she try to warn us, Hermann? Was that why she dropped that handkerchief?’

  Was it proof she’d been there with De Vries and against her will? ‘She had no choice but to take him there, Louis. He still had enough nitro with him to fragment that little car of hers.’

  ‘And Boemelburg believed this? And Herr Max?’

  ‘I … I don’t know. I wish I did.’

  ‘And what about the controls? Surely they must have been stopped? Their papers … their laissez-passers …?’

  ‘You’re forgetting De Vries wore uniform. A Hauptmann … He’d have done the talking.’

  Kohler fished about in his pockets and, finding a mangled cigarette he had cadged from Giselle, broke it in two, lit up and passed one half over. ‘Don’t draw on it too hard, eh? Give it time. Slowly, Louis. Make it last.’

  They could have been back in the front lines waiting for each other’s artillery barrage to begin at dawn. ‘This is what happens when those in authority decide to let criminals out of jail for purposes of their own, but you’re holding back on me, Hermann. Like the river, you’re keeping the corpse I need from rising.’

  ‘They’re to raid the zebra house. It’s to be a combined Abwehr-Gestapo operation to show the Führer that those two organizations really can work in harmony. They’ll find that wireless set.’

  ‘Suzanne-Cécilia will be arrested, and since I have been fool enough to share my mother’s house with her, I, too, will be arrested.’

  A fait accompli.

  ‘Giselle says she’s going to kill herself and the baby by leaping from the belfries of the Notre-Dame. Oh bien sûr, it’s the notion you’d expect from an hysterical lorette, not a sensible, practical girl like her, but Oona says she means it.’

  The last of Louis’s half of the cigarette was not saved for another time but crumbled to dust and given to the river as the offering of the desperate. ‘And herself?’ he asked.

  ‘The Seine, I think. I don’t know. There’s another thing, Louis. Boemelburg’s out for our blood. He hasn’t slept, hasn’t eaten. Berlin have been dinging his ears with our disloyalty. There’s more talk of his being “retired” early.’

  ‘And Herr Max?’

  ‘Hides behind the flak knowing he’s the son of a bitch who took it upon himself to let that bastard out of jail in the first place. We’re what he has to have out of this, and all the rest.’

  ‘The loot.’

  ‘That car full of explosives. The wireless transceiver. Those three women … What’s to happen to their children, to the Countess?’

  ‘Why did Gabrielle not confide in us?’

  ‘Because I’m one of them and suspect though a friend.’

  ‘What else is there? Come on, Hermann, give it to me.’

  ‘Then read the headlines. Our boy’s been busy in our absence.’

  Kohler showed him Wednesday evening’s Paris Soir. GYPSY STRIKES AGAIN. WEHRMACHT PAY TRAIN PLUNDERED IN THE SMALL HOURS.

  Thursday’s Pariser Zeitung hit with their own little lament but not as a headline, as an article tucked away on the back page. Late-night break-in at villa in Saint-Cloud nets gold bars, jewels, cash, identity cards and passports.

  Both robberies had been committed on Wednesday. It was now Friday the twenty-second.

  St-Cyr thrust the papers back at him. ‘Like you said, he’s been busy.’

  ‘Read further. That villa was Nana Thélème’s.’

  ‘The party. Tshaya was there.’

  ‘And must have found out where the safe was and its combination.’

  ‘Cyanide, dummköpfe!’ hissed Boemelburg, purple with rage. ‘One hundred capsules, and now the terrorists are in possession of them!’

  ‘The villa robbery …’ croaked Kohler, only to be silenced by the savage lift of a fist.

  ‘But how many are to be poisoned? All officers at the Ritz? All those at the Claridge? Who, please, is to receive one-half to one-third of a capsule?’

  Never mind the threat of explosives or the loss of so much loot. Like cancer, syphilis and tuberculosis, the Occupier most feared poison, and Paris was his playground. Berlin must really be tearing their hair. ‘We’ll get on to it, Sturmbannführer. We’ll find them.’

  ‘Passports,’ breathed Boemelburg. ‘Identity cards – Ausweise, you idiots – and all necessary franking stamps to make the forgeries appear genuine to the most careful scrutiny. Four British Webley revolvers also, and eighty rounds – yes, eighty!’

  Ah merde …

  The Webley, along with the Lebel, was the Resistance’s weapon. During the Defeat of 1940 God alone knew how many of them had been quickly passed from hand to hand. But the presence of the Webleys in that safe confirmed beyond doubt that the SS of Nana’s villa in Saint-Cloud had been equipped for counter-subversion – for infiltrating réseaux by providing their infiltrators with high-quality documents and a suitable British weapon. A Sonderkommando, then, a special unit. Had they been helping Herr Max in this little venture? Of course they had.

  Kohler had worked it all out and so had St-Cyr. Boemelburg told himself again that he had had need of these two in the past, but now? he demanded. Now what was he to do with them?

  St-Cyr had taken up with the chanteuse they had put in the cellars so that she might prepare herself for honest answers. He had allowed her friend to stay in his house until the veterinary surgeon and zoo-keeper could find new accommodation.

  Clandestine wireless signals had been coming from the Jardin des Plantes whose zebra house and paddock were that one’s responsibility.

  ‘Walter …’

  ‘It’s Sturmbannführer, damn you!’

  ‘Forgive me. If … if the Gypsy had agreed to work with those of the villa in Saint-Cloud, why did he not go directly to them from Tours? Surely he had been told by Herr Max to check in with them first before he did anything?’

  ‘That whore he’s with must have let him know what happened at the party those idiots threw to kick off this insane operation. They felt its outcome a foregone conclusion but she must have told De Vries how the Spade had been using her.’

  ‘So the couple went out on their own and began a series of robberies – is this how it was?’ asked St-Cyr.

  Is this what Gestapo Paris-Central believe – wasn’t that really what Louis was asking? wondered Boemelburg. There had still been no mention of the réseau De Vries was to have made contact with, no confession of their knowing anything untoward had been done by those three women.

  ‘The SS and Herr Max, the Abwehr and the Gestapo Listeners have been running a Funkspiel, Sturmbannführer,’ said Kohler levelly. ‘The Gypsy was released and probably “dropped” near Tours on the night of the thirteenth. He was then met at the railway station on the fourteenth by Tshaya because the Spade had told her to keep an eye on De Vries and to report everything he did, and everyone he met, but instead of his infiltrating the réseau Paris-Central and Abwehr-Paris had thought they had fingered, the two of them decided to do what they knew best and buggered off on everyone.’

  ‘Herr Max should have confided fully in us,’ said St-Cyr, grimly shaking his head. ‘It’s unfortunate he failed to.’

  ‘He didn’t trust us,’ said Kohler accusingly. ‘How could he not have told us everything, Chief?’

  ‘Explosives,’ grunted Boemelburg. ‘We’ll get to them in time but first, the bimonthly pay-train. 2,587,000 Reichskassenscheine, all in pay packets wi
th unit designations and the names of every German officer and man in Paris and its environs. A perfect documentation of the whereabouts and movements of our troops here and the sizes of our garrisons!’

  And at the twenty-to-one exchange rate, a further 51,740,000 francs had been stolen.

  ‘What more valuable information to send the British by wireless?’ demanded Boemelburg, toying with a pencil only to snap it in half and throw it into the metal waste basket.

  ‘Have the Listeners had any evidence of renewed signals?’ asked St-Cyr, far too quickly to hide his alarm.

  A mint was found and carefully unwrapped. The question would deliberately be left unanswered. ‘There were six of those grey, wooden boxes, each weighing fifty kilos and with rope handles. All had been stamped with Paymaster Kliest’s insignia and padlocked by him personally in Berlin. The guards … Verdammt!’ Angrily Boemelburg gripped his broad forehead as if he was catching the flu. ‘Those idiots left their positions to go to one of the Army’s mobile soup kitchens for the midnight meal they had missed but are now digging latrines in Russia.’

  When St-Cyr asked again if the wireless listeners had had any evidence of this new information having been relayed to London, Boemelburg glanced at his wrist-watch as if checking on the time of the raid on the zebra house, but continued talking of the robbery. ‘That railway truck had only a simple padlock, easily broken with a hammer and chisel. All of those boxes were ready and waiting just inside the sliding door, and were quickly loaded into an ambulance. We really do not know for certain yet, but a nurse was seen – this has definitely been confirmed.’

  Nurses were as common as dust in train stations these days, what with all the wounded on rest and recuperation. ‘The robbery took place between 0330 and 0500 hours,’ said Kohler, ‘and about two hours after the explosion I accidentally set off at the Gare Saint-Lazare. He must have borrowed one of the ambulances from there.’

  ‘He had to have had help. A great deal of help,’ seethed Boemelburg. ‘Now perhaps you’d both be good enough to tell me why you left Paris without my authority, to say nothing of that of Herr Max?’

  ‘The explosives … that blast on the rue Poliveau,’ said Kohler quickly. ‘We went to Tours to question the prospector about them.’

  There was a sigh. ‘But what led you to suspect Jacqmain knew anything of them?’

  ‘The Gypsy had to have got them from somewhere,’ said Kohler. ‘He had met up with Tshaya who knew the prospector intimately. Prospectors are known to dabble with explosives, aren’t they? We also thought to question Jacqmain about his dealings with the Generalmajor Wehrle, but …’

  ‘Yes, yes, the prospector had shot himself which would indicate what, Hermann? What, exactly, do you think?’

  Ah Gott im Himmel! ‘That … that he was more deeply involved in things than we had surmised.’

  ‘But just how deeply, Louis?’

  ‘This we do not know, Walter. He might simply have been afraid he’d be connected to the diamonds and thus sent into forced labour or worse.’

  A cautious answer. ‘And what else did you uncover?’

  The truth, the whole truth and nothing but it? The flypapers? The suitcase with its banknotes and flask of nitroglycerine? Gabrielle’s taking it to Château Thériault and then on to Senlis with Nana and back to Paris, the two of them getting explosives for De Vries, a first visit to the powder magazines?

  ‘A fondness for the gypsy woman, Tshaya,’ said Kohler, ‘and that she worked for the Spade who was after the diamonds the prospector had illegally kept.’

  ‘As was Nana Thélème, but for the Generalmajor and the Reich,’ said St-Cyr.

  ‘The Generalmajor …’ breathed Boemelburg.

  ‘What about him?’ leapt Louis, alarmed.

  The Sturmbannführer studied these two in whom he had invested such patience. Louis and he had worked together with the IKPK before the war but old alliances and friendships could count for nothing. ‘I want him questioned thoroughly. I want no more surprises. I want the location of those explosives and the names of the terrorists who took them. I want the cyanide capsules returned in total, and I want the hiding place of this Tshaya and her safe-cracker, and I want, yes, all those who have helped them in the slightest even though misguided they might have been.’

  Gabrielle and Nana and Suzanne-Cécilia … ‘And your sense of things, Walter?’

  ‘Is that now he’ll go underground and make us wait for his next surprise.’

  ‘Louis, why doesn’t he just have us arrested and put an end to it?’

  ‘Because he knows we’re his only chance of getting the Gypsy, and because he has trusted us in the past. If he admits to having been wrong, he condemns himself. Now leave me. Let me do this myself. Please. It’s for the best. We’ll meet up later.’

  Beneath the rue des Saussaies there was a vault, and within its sturdy iron grille, a solidly bolted door.

  ‘St-Cyr, Sûreté, to see the prisoner Arcuri.’

  The guard took his time. Ah! it was a distraction and everyone knew this Sûreté and his partner were for it. Key by key the search went on, the suit ill-fitting, the cheeks unshaven, the greeny-brown deceitful eyes full of mischief. ‘Open it.’

  ‘That is what I am trying to do. There is no hurry.’

  Reluctantly the key grated in the lock, the hinges squeaked. Repeatedly a boy, a young man, cried out from somewhere until there was the sound of a wooden stave solidly cracking a tibia or femur.

  ‘Talk!’ came the shriek. ‘Tell us where your friends are?’

  The stones were yellowish-grey, the light dim. Fresh vomit lay pooled on the steps, blood also. In a cell whose door was wide open, a skinny, rib-showing, naked human being with dark curly hair was suspended by the thumbs from a meat-hook. He had pissed himself, had shat himself, and the bastards who were his interrogators, their breath billowing in the frigid air, were stripped to the waist and sweating!

  The guard paid the prisoner no notice, but as they passed the cell, he hawked up phlegm which he spat against the wall down which bloodied, now frozen pus had run. More steps led to another iron grille, beyond which sat one of the Blitzmädels from the Reich, the ‘grey mice’ who had come in their droves to catch a man and help out as secretaries, telegraphists and prison warders, ah so many things.

  Sucking on a tooth, she surveyed the visitor with disdain. Had she seen the films of Marianne and the Hauptmann Steiner? wondered St-Cyr in dismay. Had she seen his wife fornicating with that one and crying out for more?

  The laughter in the Blitzmädel’s blue eyes reinforced his thoughts. The warder’s baton indicated he was to follow. It beat upon the doors. It slammed them, and when the woman came to the far end of a corridor, she shrieked, ‘Achtung, Hure. Schnell! Schnell! Aufstehen!’

  The palliasse was filthy, the cell no more than the length of the iron bed. In deutsch St-Cyr said, ‘Leave us.’

  ‘Das ist verboten.’

  ‘Get out!’

  He heard her lock the door. ‘Ah merde,’ he said and began immediately to pull off his overcoat. Tearing the filthy blanket from Gabrielle’s shoulders, he wrapped the coat about her, pulled off his scarf and gloves, and made her take them. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘but I’ve come to take you upstairs. A few questions.’

  ‘Nothing difficult?’ she croaked but seemed to imply, You’re one of them, aren’t you?

  A tin pail served all needs. There was ‘coffee’ in the morning at 5 a.m. Soup followed at noon, with perhaps fifty grams of soggy, mouldy black bread and a piece of gristle floating in the watery broth among the shredded cabbage leaves. Then at 8 p.m. there was more ‘coffee’, nothing else.

  Seepage had formed oozing runnels of badly stained ice on the walls. High up, and with a pin or secreted carpenter’s nail, someone had scratched the warning, Silence á tout prix. Silence at all cost.

  ‘Jean-Louis, I’ve given them my statement. I don’t know anything else. I was abducted. I was forced to drive him to Senli
s, to a quarry nearby. It’s crazy of them to keep me here. My voice … I’ve a radio broadcast tonight – it is Friday, isn’t it?’

  And then, a moment later when he could find no answer for her, ‘They’ll cancel it.’

  She bowed her head to indicate the door and he turned to see the Blitzmädel watching their every move through the slot.

  It was slammed shut as he approached it. He said aloud, ‘Grâce à Dieu,’ and when he went over to sit on the edge of the bed, he pulled Gabrielle to him and let her weep. ‘Courage,’ he said. ‘You must have courage.’

  ‘Walter, forgive me for intruding, but isn’t it a little unwise to leave Paris’s première chanteuse in the cellars? The General von Schaumburg, the General von Stülpnagel and yes, even the General von Paulus at Stalingrad, will all be most upset if she should lose her voice and fail to sing for the men.’

  Boemelburg took his time. ‘What would you suggest?’ he asked warily.

  ‘The villa at Neuilly. You keep it for your most distinguished guests. At least let her go there.’

  ‘Then she’s a suspect and you’re convinced of this?’

  ‘I … I’m not sure. Not yet. We need more time.’

  ‘Those three women have been up to no good, Louis. Please don’t try to shield them.’

  ‘We don’t know what, if anything, they’ve been up to, Walter. Is it that you want the whole of the OKW down on your neck?’

  ‘The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht …? Verdammt! would you go to them? Would you?’

  Ah merde … ‘Stalingrad is all but lost, Walter. The morale of the front-line troops not only in Russia, but in North Africa, Sicily, Greece, Italy – wherever there is fighting of any kind – needs bolstering. Do you want the rage of their officers and men by silencing the Songbird of Montparnasse at such a time? Certainement, mon vieux, we’ve a terrible crisis on our hands but why make it greater than need be? Von Schaumburg and von Stülpnagel will know you have been telling Berlin you hold them both responsible for the explosives. The one for not finding them yet, the other for not having had them destroyed in the first place and for patently ignoring the repeated warnings of the garde champêtre of a little village.’