Chasing Ghosts

by Madalyn Morgan

  Laughing, Guillaume Cheval motioned Claire to come further into the room. He pointed to a pair of matching settees on either side of a long table that was placed sideways on to the fire. As Claire reached the middle of the room, Eleanor Cheval appeared from behind the piano, in a wheelchair.

  Claire stopped in her tracks. The beautiful woman who she had seen in the restaurant the night before, was still unable to walk. Trying not to let Eleanor see how shocked she was, Claire said, ‘You are a wonderful pianist.’ And as Eleanor neared the settee, Claire sat down.

  Eleanor Cheval, pushing hard on the wheels of the wheelchair came to a halt beside her. ‘I don’t know the piece you were playing,’ Claire continued, ‘it is French, of course--’

  ‘Daphnis et Chloé. It was composed for Sergei Diaghilev by Maurice Ravel. It’s a ballet, but Ravel calls it a symphonie chorégraphiqué. Very exotic, and very exciting.’ Eleanor laughed. ‘Would you believe, before the war, I trained to be a ballet dancer?’ Eleanor looked down at her legs and laughed again. This time the laugh was sharp with cynicism. ‘Now I am a boring old lawyer.’ Claire swallowed hard but couldn’t stop her tears.

  ‘Claire, please do not be upset.’ Eleanor put her hand on Claire’s arm. ‘There are many people much worse than me. I don’t like being in a wheelchair, but I am alive. There were many times in the prison, especially after Alain and the others left, that I could have been killed.

  ‘But here I am. I may never be a ballet dancer, but I make a difference. My job is important, fulfilling - and I get to see men like Beckman hang, or go to the guillotine. And thanks to you, Heinrich Beckman will be punished for what he did to me, and to the other courageous people in the prison.’

  Claire smiled a sad smile acknowledging Eleanor Cheval’s gratitude. She didn’t say anything in reply; there was nothing to say except she was sorry, futile words that could never express how she really felt. She was sorry for the feelings she’d had before meeting the remarkable woman too.

  She looked across the table at Mitch. He turned his head slowly from listening to Eleanor and looked at her. He smiled and Claire nodded that she understood what he meant when he talked about loving this extraordinarily brave woman. Before guilt engulfed her, Claire said, ‘What your father has in that briefcase will prove beyond any doubt that Heinrich Beckman is a murderer and an imposter.’

  ‘Let us go to my study,’ Guillaume Cheval said to his daughter.

  Eleanor pushed on one wheel until the wheelchair was facing the door. ‘Coming, Claire?’ she called, over her shoulder.

  When Claire was at her side, Eleanor’s father took hold of the handle on the back of his daughter’s chair and began to push her across the room. ‘No, Papa!’ Guillaume Cheval let go of the handle and stepped back. Eleanor looked up at Claire. ‘It is part of my physiotherapy that I wheel myself as much as I can. It builds up the muscles in my arms and back.’ She looked back at her father, smiled and shook her head. He shrugged good heartedly in reply.

  Claire opened the door and walked along the corridor to the entrance hall with Eleanor. Outside what Claire assumed was the study she and Eleanor waited for the men to catch up with them. When they had, Guillaume Cheval opened the door and held it for Eleanor to wheel herself into the room. Claire and Mitch followed.

  The room was oblong with a polished wood-block floor and floor to ceiling panelling. A large desk stood between two sash windows overlooking the gardens and a huge round table dominated the centre of the room. It reminded Claire of the tables used by the WAAF when they were posted out to the coast to plot the whereabouts of enemy aircraft.

  Guillaume Cheval laid the briefcase on the table, opened it, and took the documents out one at a time. He placed them around the edge of the table and Eleanor began to read.

  Claire had read each of the documents several times and moved out of the way so those who had not seen them had a better view. She looked out of the window. It was noon and the pale sun had a more defined edge. She watched a pair of blackbirds picking at dead leaves, lifting them and flicking them away when they found nothing to eat beneath them. A robin flew out of a nearby bush, his chest more brown than red, a sign that spring was around the corner.

  Hearing her name being called brought Claire out of her reverie. She looked back at the table. Three piles of paper now replaced the single row that ten minutes before had circled the table’s perimeter.

  ‘This Claire,’ Guillaume said, pointing to the documents of the real Lucien Puel, murdered on the day Heinrich Beckman escaped from the prison at Saint-Gaudens, ‘is the proof we need to put the sadistic creature behind bars.’

  ‘And my testimony,’ Eleanor said, ‘might get him hanged.’

  Guillaume excused himself, saying he needed to make a telephone call. When he returned it was with a triumphant smile on his face. ‘A manhunt for Heinrich Beckman and Nurse Bryant, the nurse who assisted him at the Louis Bertrand hospital, has begun.’

  ‘The nurse?’ Claire said, surprised. ‘She couldn’t have been at Saint-Gaudens, she is too young.’

  ‘She wasn’t at Saint-Gaudens. She isn’t German. She’s Canadian.’

  ‘Then why are the authorities after her?’

  ‘The police think she murdered Beckman’s secretary.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The police told my associate that Beckman’s secretary was killed on the day Alain was due to fly back to England. You were probably the last person to see her alive,’ he said, turning to Alain. ‘Initially, because you missed the plane, the authorities thought it was you who had killed her.’ Mitch gasped. ‘She was stabbed. They haven’t found the knife, but they found a nurse’s fob-watch under the dead woman’s body. They searched the staff lockers, looking for the knife, and found Nurse Bryant’s uniform with a hole where her watch had been ripped from it. They think Beckman’s secretary must have grabbed the watch when she was attacked, it came off the nurse’s uniform, and somehow the secretary ended up lying on it.’

  Mitch looked at Claire. ‘I find it hard to believe Nurse Bryant could kill anyone.’

  ‘I agree,’ Claire said, ‘Nurse Bryant seemed like a kind, sensitive, woman. Why would she kill her work colleague, someone who she knew and probably liked?’

  ‘People have done worse things for love,’ Eleanor put in.

  ‘Whether she was involved or not, there’s an alert out for her too. The police are stopping and questioning everyone, irrelevant of age or gender. The docks and passenger ports, railway stations and airports are on high alert. It’s a vast country, but I’m told it is only a matter of time before they are caught.’

  ‘Beckman is ruthless,’ Eleanor said. ‘He’ll kill the nurse if she gets in his way.’

  ‘And he’ll get a false passport and any other document he needs,’ Mitch said. ‘He knows what he’s doing and he must have enough money to pay for a passage to anywhere. Those guys at the hospital, particularly the specialists, are at the top of the tree when it comes to salaries.’

  Guillaume grinned. ‘It doesn’t matter how much money he has, it won’t help him. His bank account has been seized. As soon as he or anyone else tries to draw money out of it the Montréal police will be alerted.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Everyone applauded the news of the manhunt - except Mitch. Claire knew her husband would be blaming himself for the murder of Heinrich Beckman’s secretary. She reached out and took his hand.

  ‘I think we should come back to this lot after lunch,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘Excellent idea. That Beckman’s reign has come to an end has given me an appetite,’ Guillaume said. I hope you’re hungry, Alain? This morning, after you telephoned, I told Cook we hoped you and Claire would stay for lunch and she took a ham out of the refrigerator in celebration.’

  Claire followed the others out of the study. Guillaume walked at his daughter’s side and Claire with Mitch. The dining room was the second room off the main hall. It was as plush as the other rooms but lighter.
The windows were wider and faced south. A woman in her late fifties, as round as she was tall, with greying hair and an olive complexion, welcomed them as if it was her house, her dining room.

  ‘Esme, I would like you to meet Claire, Alain’s wife.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Madame.’

  Claire returned the greeting.

  ‘Nice to see you again, sir,’ Esme said to Mitch.

  Esme pulled out the chair at the top of the table for Guillaume. She then pulled out chairs on his left for Claire and Mitch. Eleanor wheeled herself to the right of her father, where at least two dining chairs had been removed.

  Lunch was delicious. The ham was succulent, large potatoes had been roasted in their jackets and there was a selection of small pastries stuffed with spicy meats and cheeses. In the centre of the table were dishes of pickled cabbage, onions and gherkins, and a large basket of crusty bread rolls, still warm from the oven.

  When they had finished eating, Eleanor beckoned Claire with a flick of her head. ‘If you’ll excuse us?’ Both men said they would. ‘You’ll be going back to the study, Papa?’

  ‘Yes, but first I shall smoke a cigar while I tell Alain what happens now we have Beckman in our sights.’

  ‘Let us leave the men to it, Claire. You and I shall take the documents that I need to study before the trial to the music room.’ Claire thanked Guillaume, and then Esme, for the delicious lunch, got up from the table and followed Eleanor out of the room.

  On the way to the study, Eleanor said, ‘While my father is not watching my every move, I shall show you my gymnasium, as he calls it.’ She laughed. ‘It is where I have my physiotherapy treatment. Come,’ she said, pointing to a door on her left. Claire opened the door and entered the room first, holding it open for Eleanor. When she had negotiated the doorframe and was safely inside, Claire let go of the door and it closed automatically.

  At one end of the gymnasium was a thick padded mat that looked about ten feet square. There were weights on one side of the room and two parallel metal and wood rails on the other. Claire ran her hands along the top of the nearest rail.

  ‘They are for me to hold onto when I stand up,’ Eleanor said, ‘but I’m only allowed to stand when my physiotherapist and his assistant are here. I need two people to catch me if I fall.’ Eleanor laughed and wheeled herself to the beginning of the rails. ‘What they don’t know,’ she said, with a mischievous glint in her eyes, ‘is that I stand at these rails as often as I can when they are not here.’

  Eleanor manoeuvred the wheelchair as close as she could to the nearest rail, put on the brake and pulled herself up. ‘Ta dah!’ she said as she stood and gripped one of the rails. She reached out and lunged towards the other rail, ‘Got you!’ she said, breathing heavily. ‘Now, what do you say to that, Claire?’

  Claire wanted to say petrified. Instead, she applauded and stepped behind Eleanor in case she fell. ‘I’d rather you didn’t stand at the back of me, it puts me off my stride. If you know what I mean.’ Claire moved to Eleanor’s left. ‘I am quite safe. All the pushing myself about in the chair has made my arms very strong. They won’t let me down. Oh!’ she said, ‘but my legs might. Would you take the brake off my chair and push it nearer, so the seat is against the back of my legs? I think I need to sit down.’

  Claire did so with relief and when the chair was in place behind Eleanor, she put the brake on again. Eleanor took her hands off the rails and dropped onto the seat of the wheelchair. ‘Damn!’ she said. ‘I managed twice as long yesterday.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Claire said.

  ‘Don’t be. I didn’t stand for long today, but I did yesterday, and I shall tomorrow.’

  As she moved to let Eleanor pass her, Claire noticed a ballet bar. It ran along the four walls, two with floor to ceiling mirrors on them. She gazed at it wondering why Eleanor hadn’t had it taken down. Tears threatened and Claire cleared her throat.

  ‘I won’t let my father take the bar down.’

  Claire was miles away. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The ballet bar. Papa wants to take it down, but I plan to walk around the room one day. And when that day comes, the bar will come in handy to hang on to. Come on, let’s look at the documents. I think I’ve had enough exercise for one day.’

  Claire carried Eleanor’s pile of papers from the study to the music room. Eleanor wheeled herself over to the piano and took a notebook and pen from inside the piano stool, before joining Claire by the fire.

  Claire on one settee and Eleanor in her chair at the end of the settee opposite, looked through the papers that Heinrich Beckman had killed for. As she read each of them, Eleanor tutted and made noises of disgust. She asked Claire how the papers had come into her possession and Claire told her about meeting the murdered doctor’s grandfather. She omitted to say she was looking for her at the time. She told Eleanor how she had first met Thomas Durand in Paris, and how he had driven her to the prison and together they had met the late Lucien Puel’s grandfather and namesake.

  Remembering the broken-hearted old doctor’s tears, Claire told Eleanor how he had found his grandson in the road, dying, after the beating Beckman had given him on the day the camp was liberated, the day Beckman had escaped.

  Eleanor sat for an hour hunched over the documents, reading and making notes. Then she sat upright, stretched, and rolled her shoulders.

  ‘I’m so sorry you had to read them,’ Claire said, ‘they must have brought back horrific memories.’

  Eleanor looked up, her eyes sparkling with anger and revulsion. ‘Day after day this monster, Heinrich Beckman, had me taken out of my hut and paraded in front of a dozen men; mostly Resistance members, patriots from our colonies - and occasionally a woman.’ Eleanor shook her head. ‘I was made to watch them as they were executed. The guards,’ she caught her breath, ‘showed no mercy. They would make the prisoners stand against the wall for sometimes as long as ten minutes while the firing squad laughed and joked and smoked cigarettes. They sneered and taunted them when they prayed, or they cursed them. Sometimes men wet themselves before they were executed - and the guards would ridicule them, or shout obscenities at them--’ Eleanor paused and clenched her fists.

  ‘There were a couple of guards who put black bags made of coarse sacking over prisoners’ heads, but others, the more sadistic among them, made the prisoners look at me. I was an unwilling spectator at their cruel games, Claire.

  ‘Some weeks before the Allies liberated the prison, I was dragged out of my hut and propped up against the wall with half a dozen other prisoners. This time they did put black bags over our heads. The sergeant in charge of the firing squad ordered them to take aim, then fire! I braced myself and began to pray. When the firing stopped I heard the bodies of the men on either side of me falling to the ground while I was still propped against the wall.

  ‘That was the latest game. Ordered by Heinrich Beckman as a punishment because, although he was sure that I was a member of the Resistance and he suspected a Jew, I wouldn’t confirm either. I wouldn’t tell him anything, except under the influence of one of his mind-meddling drugs.’

  Eleanor spat out a harsh laugh. ‘But that wasn’t good enough for Doctor Beckman. He was an egomaniac. He needed to personally break me, not have a truth serum do it for him. So that was the torture he designed for me. Propped up against the wall, in agony from legs already broken, not knowing if I would be executed that day or the next, or in a week’s time.’

  ‘You said women were executed?’

  ‘Yes, there were only a few women in the prison. Some, like me, were members of the Resistance. Each hut had at least one woman in it. It was another way to break the men. Most of the prisoners had spouses or sweethearts back home - the women too. They missed their loved ones, so the Germans put temptation in their way. Two or three years in a place like that can make the most faithful man lonely for a woman.’ Eleanor shook her head. ‘Relationships between prisoners was a breach of discipline, punishable by death. If two people
were caught together, or even suspected of having an affair, they were taken out and shot.

  ‘Thankfully, most of the men were like Alain, able to control their needs. But then Alain knew you were waiting for him. Never doubt that he loved you then, Claire.’ Eleanor sighed. ‘Alain is the best of men. I owe him my life.’

  Eleanor looked into Claire’s eyes. ‘Without Alain, I would not have survived the torture Beckman dished out to me. I think if I hadn’t had Alain to go back to, Beckman would have broken me. But every time the guards dragged me back to the hut, Alain would wrap me in his blanket and hold me, taking care not to do more damage to my broken body.’

  Guilt and shame swept over Claire. She couldn’t help herself, and said, ‘Last night I saw you in Le Restaurant du Parc and I thought--’

  ‘You thought I was in love with him?’

  Claire lowered her eyes, her cheeks red with embarrassment. ‘Yes. I’m sorry. Can you ever forgive me?’

  ‘There is nothing to forgive. I was in love with him in the prison, but Alain was in love with you. As for last night?’ Eleanor reached out and took Claire’s hands. ‘Last night I felt the warmth and love of a big brother. I want to always know him, and always feel that love. I shall do nothing to risk losing it.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘No. Thank you.’ Letting go of Claire’s hands Eleanor stacked the documents one on top of another. ‘With these,’ she said, ‘we’ve got the devil.’

  ‘We have the proof, but how do we get him to a court in France for a trial?’

  ‘The Canadian police will find him, and when they do they will bring him to France and turn him over to the French authorities. Or, two of our investigators will fly to Canada and bring him back.

  ‘It is usually investigators working for the lawyers who find the proof to put war criminals away - and that can take time.’ Eleanor lifted the documents and waved them above her head, ‘but with all this, Beckman won’t know what has hit him,’ she laughed.