J. Robert Janes
Bellringer
1
To Vittel’s Parc Thermal there was but irony. Landscaped vistas of field, forest, and distant hillslope stretched to and beyond band shell, pavilion, and storybook chalet through the gathering ground fog of evening, offering nothing but a constant reminder of freedom denied. Shrouded in barbed wire, the two luxury hotels near its entrance-one of five storeys, the other of four-rose in a multitude of makeshift rusty stovepipes protruding this way and that from every window and trailing woodsmoke into the frost-hazed air.
It was 1522 hours Berlin Time, 20 February, 1943, a Saturday, and things were far from good, St-Cyr felt. The Kommandant who had summoned them from Paris with such urgency hadn’t bothered to stick around or leave a note or word of advice, his replacement being most notable for his own absence. True, they had been expected six days ago-another derailment by the Résistance, who were still learning their lessons and fortunately hadn’t put the whole train off the rails-but they were starting out here with virtually no information.
‘Gott im Himmel, Louis, what the hell have we been saddled with this time?’ said Kohler. ‘Something no one wants, eh? A nothing town in a nothing place!’
That could not go unchallenged. ‘An international resort. A spa, Hermann. The former playground of kings, queens, and tsars, the bourgeoisie aisée, especially.’
Almost due south of Nancy, due west of Colmar, and tucked away in a forgotten corner of southernmost Lorraine, the Parc Thermal faced the rounded summits of the Vosges to the east, and was well out of sight and mind for most.
‘Ein Internierungslager, Dummkopf,’ retorted Kohler. ‘Der Führer, who is always right, must have thought it a marvelous joke.’
An internment camp for foreign nationals. . ‘Whose population, unless I am very mistaken, Hermann, is presently crowding those very windows to watch every move we make.’
The hotels in question were perhaps three hundred metres from them, across a Siberia of hard-trampled snow to which the day’s thin sheath of ice had come.
‘Nine hundred and ninety-one Americans, Louis, who failed to leave when the Führer thought to declare war on America on 11 December, 1941, yet neglected to lock them up until September of ’42.’
‘In the Hôtel Vittel-Palace, the four-storeyed one to the right and a little more distant from us,’ said St-Cyr.
‘And sixteen hundred and seventy-eight British in the Grand and locked up since September of 1940. Two Louis XIII, Renaissance-style henhouses side by side and packed solidly with women, most of whom have been starved for male company for years. They’ll tear us apart and you know it. What are we supposed to do, question each of them?’
Vittel’s population alone was less than 3,500, but Hermann often tended to jump to conclusions.
‘Or let them watch us work, Inspector?’ suggested St-Cyr.
And take note of their reactions. . Kohler knew this was what his partner had implied. ‘You or me?’ he asked, turning his back on the hotels.
‘Me, I think,’ came the usual reply. Louis was always better at it. After nearly two and a half years of working together, one simply knew.
The signboard, in place since the day the camp had been established, gave notice in heavy black type: ACHTUNG: BETRETEN VERBOTEN. DÉFENCE D’ENTRER. ENTRY FORBIDDEN!
Built in 1923, the stable, Le Chalet des Ânes, had once held the half-dozen donkeys that the children of the wealthy would have ridden, but since the Defeat and Occupation of June 1940, the building had been empty. Suitably Alsatian and near enough to that new border of the Reich, its darkly timbered, white-plastered walls and solid oaken door made it look like a little place in a little forest of its own. There were even windowboxes with hearts cut into them.
‘A bit of Hansel and Gretel, Louis.’
‘Freud, or was it Krafft-Ebing, maintained that fable had deep sexual undertones.’
‘Jung. . I’m sure it was him. Girls with girls, eh? But hard to gain access without being seen. Those trees might help, but the circular track beneath that snow and ice makes the view far too clear from far too many angles. Two thousand, six hundred and sixty-nine pairs of eyes out having a stroll just to catch a bit of fresh air and have a peek at what was happening.’
‘Or find a bit of kindling, Hermann.’
Kohler jabbed a forefinger at the padlock, a curiosity in itself. ‘How many of them saw this thing being opened, not picked, not out here in full view?’
It was a good question. ‘But was the stable then entered by one, or by two, and if the latter, was the former expecting that person?’
‘Or surprised by her or by someone else?’
The victim was fully clothed and lying flat on her back in the middle of the three stalls to their left. Light entering the diamond-shaped panes of the windows behind them gave a languidness to the settling dust. Long-dried dung and mouldy straw were strewn about. A froth of blood and oedematous fluid had erupted from the mouth. The eyes, perhaps a girl’s most treasured feature, were hazel but were staring unfeelingly up at a painted ceiling where swans, fairies, and wood nymphs frolicked.
Still in rigor mortis, one hand clutched at a wounded chest, though this had not been a last impulse. ‘First she slumped to her knees, Hermann, her back still being against that far wall.’
‘And only then was she tidied, that hand being placed where it now is?’
‘Be so good as to examine the weapon.’
‘Ach, I’m really all right.’
‘Of course, but I believe our killer wiped it clean. At least five of those tines must have. . ’
‘The lungs, the heart. . ’
‘The diaphragm, too, but especially the pericardium.’
The sac around the heart would rapidly have filled with blood as that thing had been yanked from her. ‘Anger, then, Louis. Hatred, jealousy, rage in any case.’
‘Impulse, Inspector? Let’s not forget that, since the chalet has been locked and placed out of bounds.’
‘And the killer couldn’t have known of the pitchfork. Silenced, then, Louis. Told to shut up or else.’
‘Perhaps, but then, Ah, merde alors, mon vieux, is it not too early to say?’
Of hardened steel, the tines, each five centimetres apart and a good thirty long, were curved in a gentle arc whose maximum depth was the same as the spacing and ended in exceedingly sharp points.
There were six of these and, as Louis had noted, each had been tidily wiped clean before the hayfork had been leaned upright against the wall behind the victim. Fingerprints would be out of the question. In this weather, gloves or mittens were mandatory-even spare socks in lieu of either-but did it really matter? There was never time to dust for fingerprints. Always it was blitzkrieg, blitzkrieg.
The handle, long and of oak, had been polished smooth by years of use, but irony of ironies, ‘The metal’s been stamped “Made in Austria,” Louis. Exported to America well before that other war, then brought back but branded “US First Army” on the handle.’
General Pershing and the 1914-18 war. An American, then, killed with an American-owned Austrian hayfork. Kept busy, Hermann seemed to have conquered his little problem. ‘There’s something else, mon ami. Our victim has at least three dozen of the Host in this coat pocket. God has been most generous and has given her a snack.’
And hadn’t that telephone call to Kommandant von Gross-Paris to urgently summon them here mentioned a ringer of bells? But that had been six days ago, of course, and by the look of this one. .
Ah, bon, Hermann had finally realized. ‘She hasn’t been dead that long, has she, Chief?’ said Kohler lamely. ‘Even if we allow for the degrees of frost to defer and lengthen rigor while retarding putrefaction.’