“In the village I waited with them while she inquired at the market about eggs, but I think that was not all she was doing, for when she returned she told me that there was a family who would take the boys. They were in Vichy and it would be safer. She said that it was my decision. Can you imagine what I thought? She was so confident and had taken everything into her own hands and now she asked for my decision. I told her I couldn’t let them go, and she smiled and called me a fool. I had misunderstood. She was asking if I wanted to go with them, or send them on and stay with her. I started to explain that they were not really my nephews, and that Anthony’s parents were missing and I had been brought here to safety with my brother, in hopes that together we would escape whatever was coming. She laughed again, a short brittle laugh and said ‘Who do you think arranged for you to come? You and your brother and the little Schawinskie who is now called Rieux?’ and I nearly choked, for that was Anthony’s true name and suddenly I felt that she had had her eye on us from a distance the entire time, and that was why she had arrived at just the moment when we were to be discovered.”
The next pages were stuck together, damaged by water long ago. Agnes turned to the next legible section. “This is later,” she said. “Maybe months later? I don’t see a date.
“Last night after I was in bed I heard soft noises and I listened carefully, but couldn’t hear more and so I crept quietly into the kitchen. I had not heard a car or even footsteps and les Boches always arrived with lots of noise, but I was curious and worried. Creeping out of the hall what did I find? A man! When I walked into the kitchen, he turned so fast I thought he was going to strike me. Madame stopped his arm and laughed at the expressions on our faces. I don’t think I have ever heard her laugh before, and my heart rose. She introduced us very formally, and he scowled and said to her: I thought you said she wasn’t a nuisance. And what did Madame say? That, far from a nuisance, I am a protector. She was right! I had concealed behind my back a long knife, its blade honed to a sharp edge. They talked in low voices, ignoring me, but I didn’t want to go back to bed. I couldn’t with him there. His face was smeared with something to make it black, but his teeth flashed white when he spoke, and once he smiled directly at me I didn’t care what he said, I just wanted to hear him. He was not handsome like movie stars in the magazines, but there was something strong and confident in the way he carried himself, every move seemed controlled … like a panther outside a zoo. I think he has charisma.”
Arsov snorted and Agnes shot him a look.
“He stayed for some time, and when he left he bowed low over Madame’s hand and said something to her, then he walked right up to me and brushed his lips on my hand. I felt him like an electric shock, then he was gone, out the door and into the night. I stood looking at the door after it closed behind him until Madame laughed. I think I must have blushed to the roots of my hair, then I realized that this was the second time that night she had laughed and it felt good. Before I turned for my room she said to me: ‘I think Marcel will return much sooner than usual now.’”
Agnes looked at Arsov. He had his eyes closed and motioned with his hand for her to continue. “She writes,
“It is now the middle of the night but I am unable to sleep. I have said his name into my pillow and I had to bring my book out of hiding—although I am crouched at the hiding place in case the Germans return—to write about this day. He has to return! He kissed my hand and I have to see him again. (I think I must wash my hair and see if Madame has a pair of combs I may borrow. This roll I usually wear is ugly!)”
“I remember those combs,” Arsov whispered. “And her hair, when it was down on her shoulders, was the most beautiful sight in the world.”
“You were called Marcel,” Agnes said.
“Living in France, speaking my perfect French before I took care to forget it, you did not expect me to be called Vladimir? Many people used false names for our work; I used a false name always. Except with Anne-Marie and her brother. They knew my true name. I liked Marcel; to me it rang of France. It made me belong. It is strange to hear these words of hers spoken. I have read them many times in these last years but when you read them … they come to life for me. When you speak I can hear her.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor and Agnes looked up as Petit entered. He gaped in every direction at the objects in the bedroom. She motioned for him to be quiet, rising to meet him at the door.
“The girl, Mimi, she’s still not been found,” he said.
Agnes glanced at Arsov but the old man’s eyes were closed. She maneuvered Petit behind the screen nearer the door. “You checked the tunnel?”
“Carnet and I did. The entire length. Nothing. Monsieur Mulholland is probably the only person to walk that tunnel in a half century. In a few places his footsteps were clear enough in the dust.”
The nurse entered and motioned for them to step out of the room. “Monsieur needs his rest. Come back later if you want to visit. He will be better by the hour.”
Agnes followed Petit. “I think it is time we worried about Mimi.”
They were halfway across the lawn before she remembered that she still had Arsov’s book. There was time later to return it.
Twenty-eight
Everyone in the household had their assignment. Carnet and Madame Puguet were in charge and the château and the grounds had been divided into areas to search, vast dark areas. Cabinets were to be opened, shelves studied, no inch overlooked in their attempt to find Mimi’s hiding place. This time she couldn’t stay one step ahead of them even if she tried. They would flush her out. The sense of worry was pervasive, although they were still divided about the seriousness of her disappearance.
“Is this the longest she has been missing?” Agnes asked, wishing she’d not been lost in her own preoccupation earlier. They should have explored every nook and cranny hours ago, in broad daylight.
“No, she hid in a trunk in the attic for a day and a half one time. Nanny almost threatened to quit,” said Madame Puguet. “Should have been fired.”
Agnes glanced around the assembled group; their faces were serious and, she admitted, tired. Three days of cold, and now it was already growing dark. The lack of electric light made their task more difficult.
Only Daniel Vallotton was staying behind. The marquise was teamed with Marie-Chantal. Carnet and Petit volunteered to check the outbuildings again. The household staff partnered amongst themselves and with Doctor Blanchard, Nick Graves, Ralph Mulholland, and Frédéric Estanguet. Julien Vallotton had offered to accompany Agnes.
The groups broke off and she followed Vallotton. They didn’t speak until he stopped at the top of a stairway. “Our assignment,” he said, motioning to the dark hall and handing her a flashlight. Slowly and methodically they started going room to room.
“Remember, she’s tiny,” Vallotton said, looking behind and under an enormous Spanish chest, before opening it to look inside. “She hid in my aunt’s bed one time. Right there in plain sight under a thick blanket so it appeared wrinkled from a distance. I think sometimes she doesn’t hide on purpose, but we pass by her and she likes the idea and stays until she’s noticed. When her parents first died no one wanted to upset her. Bad habits caught hold.”
Agnes turned toward the next room. “How many more?”
“Five on this level, upstairs is the same, then downstairs.”
Agnes checked behind long drapes, then ran her light under the bed, marveling that even bedrooms no one occupied were kept in a state of perfect readiness. “Downstairs? We are downstairs.”
“Euphemism for dungeon.” She started and Vallotton laughed. “Mostly a wine cellar now.”
They finished the last room on that floor and Vallotton pointed up then down with a questioning look.
“Down first,” she said, thinking a dungeon sounded more appealing as a hiding place to a little girl. Besides, she was curious to see what it looked like.
Vallotton led her to a door that looked heavy but sw
ung aside on well-oiled hinges. Agnes could imagine a little girl doing the same, then sneaking into the forbidden depths. She had a suspicion that her boys would mark a dungeon high on their list of places to visit and claim as a private getaway. She wasn’t certain little girls felt the same; however, by all accounts Mimi was adventurous.
The stairs were steep and narrow. At the bottom of the flight was a wide arched opening through a thick stone wall. She paused as Vallotton changed the angle of his flashlight.
“It’s not a real dungeon,” Vallotton repeated. Before she could respond he flicked his light forward. The room was a marvel. Arches sprang from fat pillars and created domes that supported the enormous weight of the structure above. The floor was covered with fine white stones that Agnes knew would crunch pleasantly underfoot. But that wasn’t what was most impressive.
“Wine cellar,” she said matter-of-factly. She aimed her light alongside Vallotton’s, peering into the depths of the space, making a rough calculation. There had to be thousands of wine bottles. Maybe ten thousand. Or more. The long central corridor fed between rows of wooden shelves stacked with bottles.
“It’s been a wine cellar for two hundred years,” Vallotton commented. He started down the central aisle and Agnes joined him, then she realized that this was a waste of time since the bottles were too closely packed to allow anyone to hide, even a small girl.
“If Mimi climbed on the shelving she would have caused an avalanche of glass and wine,” she said. “Is there anywhere else she could hide down here?”
“There’s an older section through a door at the end of the room.”
“I’ll start there.” Agnes marched down the middle aisle, enjoying the crunch of gravel beneath her shoes. At the far end of the room a thick wood door was nestled in a recess. She pushed it aside with one shoulder and immediately felt the air change. Behind her might be a wine cellar but this was a dungeon. Even the air smelled of despair; thick with damp and earth. She stepped into the darkness and a second wall forced her to turn sharply to the right. She flicked the beam of her flashlight, orienting herself. The ceiling lowered until she felt she might touch it with her hands. The walls were not made from well-cut and aligned stone, as they were in the wine cellar. They were rough-hewn, darkened with age. Her arm brushed against a wall and came away moist. She stumbled over the uneven ground, thinking it was not merely constructed, but was actually carved out of the rock. The surface sloped down and she walked carefully, wishing she had a wider beam of light, only able to see directly in front of her feet. Everything else was pitch darkness.
She paused but heard nothing. She called out. Still nothing. She had the sense that there was another barrier ahead.
The corridor had transformed into a tunnel and it switched back and forth three times, each direction descending slightly farther into the cut rock, each turn cutting off more fresh air from the outer room. Finally she reached another door. This one was metal. Iron, she suspected, and for a moment she considered turning back. Surely a child wouldn’t wander this far alone? Nothing about this path was charming or intriguing. It was frightening. She pushed the door, testing it. There was a loud screech of metal on metal but it swung open and Agnes continued. If Mimi came this far she might easily pass through the opening and become too frightened to find her way back out. All the more reason to look.
Agnes swept her light into the room. “Mimi?” she called. The beam glowed against the far wall. Here, the stone was more than moist, it was damp and dotted with moss. Iron rings were fixed at intervals, the metal glistening with orange rust. She shivered.
“Mimi?” she called out again, louder this time, running her light across the floor and over the walls, trying to ignore the piles of chains lumped at intervals. This was what her boys would imagine and it was more frightening than she wanted to admit. People came to sad and lonely ends down here.
She was nearly finished with her survey of the long room when she realized that the fourth wall wasn’t original. It was more like what she remembered in the wine cellar. The stones were well cut and nearly smooth. More modern than their surroundings. She ran her light along the entire surface, looking for a door, or any indication of a passage or hiding place. Nothing. She wondered if they had considered extending the wine cellar into this chamber, started the work, then changed their minds.
It didn’t matter. This was a dead end and there was no Mimi.
Quickly and carefully she retraced her steps. Vallotton met her by the door. He shook his head. Desperate to be aboveground, Agnes turned toward the stairs and led the way up. On the main floor of the château they crossed to other stairs and started up another level. She felt calmer now. It was somewhat of a relief that the little girl hadn’t been trapped in such a terrible place. She had slowed to catch her breath, hoping Vallotton wouldn’t remark on what smoking did to lungs, when his light flickered. He tapped it hard. The light dimmed then doused.
“I’ll get batteries. Wait here and I’ll be right back,” he said.
For a few moments Agnes waited in the semidarkness, then, unwilling to stand in one place in the cold, she continued up the flight of stairs and headed for the other end of the corridor, hoping to get a view out across the lake and rid herself of memories of the dungeon. She was nearly at the end when she saw a shadow. The figure moved. It was Ralph Mulholland. She lifted her flashlight to illuminate his face and he pulled a cigarette from his gold case and offered her one. Reluctantly she shook her head no.
“I thought you were helping with the search?” she asked.
“I needed a minute alone.”
“You had enough strength to go for a walk after spending the night with a corpse and now you can’t help find a little girl?”
“I needed a minute to think. To get my head straight. I haven’t slept and my eyes hurt and we were looking everywhere. The maid, what’s her name? Marie-José, she thinks Mimi was kidnapped and there will be a ransom note.”
“I think we would have already had a ransom note if that was the case.” Agnes didn’t mention the real reason she had agreed Mimi must be hiding: it was impossible to leave the Vallottons’ grounds. The little girl had to be here. Hiding. Because of her sons she knew firsthand how easily children could hide if they wanted to, and how much they enjoyed knowing the adults were searching. It was possible the little girl hid because of the furor she created. Children her age didn’t understand the repercussions and the real fears of adults.
Mulholland shuddered and Agnes didn’t think it was because of the cold.
“Something may have gone wrong,” he said. “Maybe they didn’t mean to kill her and now that she’s dead they won’t send a note. Like in America with the Lindbergh baby. We’ll never know what happened.”
“You’re letting your imagination run away. It’s the atmosphere here and you’re tired. Doctor Blanchard may have something to help you sleep.”
“There are bad people in the world. They wouldn’t hesitate to hurt a girl.”
He pulled out a gold lighter and lit his cigarette. Agnes wanted to pluck it from his lips and inhale; she breathed in deeply, catching a little of the scent. His panic was palpable and she touched the note in her pocket. Remembering what had occurred to her earlier about his coat.
“You know Monsieur Arsov,” she said.
He hesitated. “Of course, we all know him.”
“But you were cultivating a special relationship. You were planning to visit him the day Felicity Cowell died. He’s not very understanding, is he? He sent me a note this morning. It said he’d been too strict, not helpful enough.”
Mulholland narrowed his eyes at her.
“I thought he meant too strict with Mimi,” Agnes continued. “I wondered if he’d been uncharacteristically strict and that was what caused this hiding episode. But I don’t think that was it at all.” She looked carefully at the young man in front of her. His eyes were deeply shadowed and he didn’t look well. “Why are you stealing from the Vallotto
ns?”
Mulholland placed his hand to his chest. He stepped back, into the darkness away from her light, and she followed him. His shoulders collapsed forward and he appeared to shrink into himself, trembling. She waited and watched.
“They wouldn’t wait.” He stumbled over his words. “I think they meant to kill me and got Felicity Cowell instead; she was wearing my coat and the storm was so dense it could have been me.” That was what Agnes remembered. His panic the night she arrived.
“And now Mimi is missing,” he continued. “I never thought they would hurt someone else, I thought it was only me they would come after. I thought I was safe here.”
She felt his fear, a wave of palpable emotion that spread like an airborne disease, and almost stepped away from him. “Who are they?”
“Russians, a Russian.”
“Arsov? He threatened you?” She raised her light to see his face. This made no sense. Arsov was too old and feeble to threaten a strong young man. And there were no Russians on his staff.
Mulholland shook his head, all bravado finished. Even his voice changed. “No, not him. The ones I borrowed money from. They want it now. All of it.”
Clarity came in a flood, as did memories of stories she had heard while working in financial crimes. Arsov’s note also now made sense. He was wealthy enough to help and perhaps less judgmental than the Vallottons.
“Monsieur Arsov knew of your trouble?”
“I’d hinted. I’d hoped he would volunteer to help. Maybe ask if he could help. He knew what I needed.” Mulholland wiped his brow. “The day she was killed I knew time was running out.” The words tumbled from Mulholland’s lips. “That’s why I was outside. Trying to work up my nerve to see that—well, to see him. Then his butler turned me away. Said the old man didn’t have time for me. For me! The godson of—” He stopped abruptly. “I was waiting, sitting in the summer pavilion, about to freeze to death, when I saw the policeman.”
Swiss Vendetta--A Mystery Page 23