‘Once started, it’s insidious. At times the bees become so weakened they can’t fly and will crawl around the entrance in desperation.’
‘And the treatment with nitrobenzene is the only way to get rid of them?’
‘The most effective way so far. One could kill all of the bees and destroy the hives, I suppose. The mites can’t live long without a live host.’
‘And the honey that is taken from those hives?’
‘Will be fine unless the bees have been infected with foul brood, chalk brood or other diseases which do get into the honey. In spite of the danger to his own hives, Monsieur de Saussine was selling it to other beekeepers. Papa tried to stop him. They often argued vehemently, and Monsieur Jourdan, the vice president, and Monsieur Richaux were against him also.’
‘Yet all three must have known the honey was contaminated?’
The girl glanced at her guard and shuddered, but was determined to reply.
‘Of course but … but when your winter stores have been depleted by the ever-increasing demands of others and you cannot buy sugar with which to make syrup so that the bees can feed on it, you do what you have to and buy what you can. We didn’t. We refused the excessive quota demands and made certain our little friends would always have what was needed to best tide them over the winter. Good, clean, disease-free pollen also, for that, too, is necessary at times.’
‘How many hives does de Saussine keep?’
‘Forty in out-apiaries about the city; thirty in each of two home apiaries — he fights the disease and fumigates also, but believes my father was overreacting. Monsieur Jourdan has only fifteen hives; Monsieur Richaux, about twenty.’
‘And de Saussine works for Herr Schlacht?’
‘Very much so, both as an adviser and in selling some of the honey, so you see, Inspector, my accuser deals on the black market himself!’
‘How much of the honey?’
‘A considerable amount. After all, he’s a beekeeper, isn’t he, and what could be more natural than for him to sell it to those he first provides with extra ration tickets?’
‘Which Herr Schlacht gives him?’
‘As a way of legitimatizing everything so that Monsieur de Saussine will not have to face arrest, should the authorities question his dealings.’
Had the girl finally agreed to tell them everything? wondered St-Cyr, or was she merely giving what she could in order to hide something else? ‘My partner and I are almost certain, mademoiselle, that the bottle of Amaretto sat unattended on your father’s desk for at least a few hours.’
‘From when he had returned from the Salpêtrière, until after the brothel, yes.’
‘Did you know the two he went with?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘A moment, then.’
The notebook was again consulted. Danielle felt her heart sink as the Inspector found what he was after and said tersely, ‘Georgette purchased a cigarette lighter from you.’
‘All right, I do know of them. I’m not proud of myself, Inspector, but … but I had to see who they were.’
‘Did Georgette and Josiane let you visit his cemetery room?’
‘Angèle-Marie was my aunt. I had a right to … to know what had happened to her.’
‘And what your father had been up to for all those years since he had returned from the war. Did you know of Héloïse Debré? Well, did you?’
‘And of Monsieur Leroux, the custodian? Yes! I … I visited the catacombs once. Only once to … to see what kind of a man would … would do such a thing when but a boy.’
‘On last Thursday afternoon, mademoiselle, were the gates to the apiary and garden left unlocked?’
‘They shouldn’t have been, but …’
The girl looked desperately across the aisle to where her mother gazed steadily back at her from behind the veil of mourning.
‘But maman could have unlocked them, yes.’
‘Using whose keys?’
‘Mine. I left them in my room.’
‘Unlocked for whom, then?’
‘For that one, perhaps.’
‘Father Michel?’
‘Oui.’
‘Mademoiselle, please explain yourself.’
‘Many times over the past few months Father Michel has watched us fumigating infected hives. He knew where my father kept the nitrobenzene, knew exactly how poisonous it was. He … he was receiving candles for his church, was benefiting from what was happening.’
‘The candles, yes.’
‘The mother church,’ she said harshly. ‘Any of them could have … have done it.’
‘Any priest, bishop, or cardinal?’
She bowed her head and, choking back a sob, said, ‘Please, I … I can’t give you more. I’m so afraid.’
‘Mademoiselle, did you return to the house on Thursday?’
‘In time to poison that bottle?’ she yelped.
‘Please just answer the question.’
‘Then no, I did not!’
‘The names, please, of those who can corroborate this?’
‘The guards on the controls. Ask them! I … I stayed overnight at … at the country house, as I told you earlier.’
‘Near Soisy-sur-Seine.’
‘Yes. I … I arrived late, and well after dark, as is my custom always, and I left in darkness before dawn.’
‘Then your half-brother, mademoiselle. Is it that you’re afraid he really has been released and that, to free the mother you both share and put a stop to Angèle-Marie’s return, he killed your father?’
‘My brother would have had to have known what was happening, n’est-ce pas? But, you’re right, of course. War hardens us all, doesn’t it, Inspector? It makes monsters out of house painters, butchers out of banana merchants, so why not killers out of sculptors?’
‘It also makes liars out of decent, law-abiding citizens, mademoiselle. For now that is all I want from you.
‘Herr Unterscharführer,’ he said in deutsch to the guard who had understood little, if anything, of what had been said, ‘you may escort this one back to her chair. Next …? Who’s next?’
The small glass jar of honey was twisted open by work-worn fingers that might, at one time, thought St-Cyr, have cared about manicures and lotions, but had long since set all such concerns aside.
‘Lifelong apiculturists, especially those such as myself, are nothing compared to Alexandre, Inspector,’ said Mme Roulleau. ‘To comprehend what has happened regarding his sister, it is necessary for you to understand this.’
A forefinger was dipped into the honey and held up. ‘Immediately les abeilles are attracted to the aroma and greedily rush to gorge themselves — it’s easier, since the honey is ripe and the whole process of making it cut short. They show no fear, neither do I, and this, too, they intuitively know, but …’
The rheumy, large and soft brown eyes, with their sagging pouches and scars, looked up at him. ‘But unlike others, Alexandre loved bees as a man sometimes loves a woman. Intensely, you understand. Fiercely, passionately, protectively and possessively.’
‘Angèle-Marie was the cross he had to bear for his love of all things about bees,’ coughed Captain Henri-Alphonse Vallée, clearing a chest that had obviously been gassed several times during the Great War. Quickly he brushed a fingertip over his moustache to tidy it. ‘Often he would have tears in his eyes when we discussed that sister of his, Inspector. At Verdun, on 21 February of ‘16, he broke down completely when la tempête de feu seemed like all the world had come crashing down upon us and death swept too close. He was badly wounded and begged me to look after her and to see that the wrong was righted. She was his little queen.’
The tempest of fire … The shelling … Das Trommelfeuer, Hermann had called it from his side of that terrible war. The drumfire.
‘He was her worker, Inspector. Never her drone,’ interjected Mme Roulleau with a curt nod to dismiss all such Sûreté suspicions.