Ah, bon, the blonde. ‘She left right behind my Caroline.’
‘Dressed to go outside?’
How eager he was. ‘That is correct.’
‘Then for now, madame, we’ll continue our little discussion at another time.’
She didn’t even pause but said, ‘Sister, I am well enough to return to that room to which I have been assigned. I must pack Caroline’s things and see if they can be returned to her family. They’ll be devastated. We must see that a proper letter is written. No details beyond a case of the flu. Night after night, my tireless attempts to save her. They must understand that I did everything I could to shield the little girl they had entrusted to me.’
Even lying about it. ‘Sister, please see that one of the doctors checks Madame’s blood pressure before she leaves,’ said St-Cyr.
Give me time to go through Caroline Lacy’s things.
Hermann. . where the hell was Hermann?
The line was long and it stretched from the kitchens of the Vittel-Palace through the unused dining room to the foyer and even up the main staircase, to its left and right. Sleep-fogged, wearing winter coats, housecoats, cardigans, flannel shirts, and nightgowns or pajamas, the feet in heavy woollen socks, the hair still in paper twists on some or under nets that had been mended with parcel string, they coughed, muttered, dinged their canisters and pots, swore at would-be line jumpers and generally were miserable since Berlin Time definitely did not agree with them.
The room representatives of the 990 tenants, two perhaps chosen from each six or so, had been detailed for the day’s firewood, soup, and bread. Some smoked cigarettes they’d managed to save, some kept stepping up and down, wanting to make a run for the toilets yet knowing they would lose their places.
‘It is this way, Kohler,’ said Weber with a grin. ‘A shortcut.’
Barging through the lineup, he headed for a side door and went down a corridor toward the kitchens and the smell of boiled, ripe cabbage with suggestions of blood sausage.
Wehrmacht mobile canteen trolleys were in use, the cooks with ladles in hand, the officers in their greatcoats and ready to hand over the already-sawn slabs of black bread. Unabashedly some of the interred had unbuttoned their coats, et cetera, to give tantalizing glimpses in the hope of getting a little extra.
Others had secreted things to trade, but the cooks had to watch out for the officers and were wary.
‘Let me show you how it’s done,’ confided Weber, all spit and polish in his grey greatcoat, the collar up, the shiny peak of his cap glistening, its white skull and crossbones clear enough. Black leather gloves, too.
First the soup canister was filled, then the measured slab of bread was thrust, by an officer, so hard into waiting hands that the girl, the woman, would gasp, bend forward, slosh the hot soup if still holding it and sometimes be forced to clean up the mess, the others having to step around or over her. But every now and then there would be a smile, a larger slab, a more gentle thrusting as soft brown eyes were lifted and lips that might once have driven some boy crazy, quivered.
At thirty years of age, a girl is reduced to this? thought Kohler. Ach, du lieber Gott, she had even brushed her pale cheeks with some of the brother’s rouge and had touched up her lips. A comb had been hastily run through the fair, shoulder-length hair, which was worn parted high on the left and pinned back by a dark blue Bakelite butterfly that let a wisp fall over a furrowed brow as the head was ducked and wounded eyes were lowered. The nose was sharp and fine and turned up a little, and on the left of the dimpled chin there was a childhood scar, maybe two centimetres long, its stitch marks still evident.
‘Danke, Herr Untersturmführer,’ she said as the slab of bread was gently handed to her, the voice so soft it was but in the motion of those lips that it was really heard against the incredible din.
‘Some we treat a little better than others,’ confided Weber, intently watching her departure.
Awkwardly soup and bread were carried away, the girl concentrating on them so as not to spill or lose any.
Out in the foyer, Louis was going up the stairs two and three at a time.
4
The Vittel-Palace was chaos. Some were brushing their teeth or having an impromptu wash, others combing their hair or trying to sleep or hurriedly getting dressed, still others lighting the stoves or complaining about the smoke that filled the corridors at times for the pipes often ran along them.
Unheated, the hotels would normally have been closed at the end of the season on 15 September, but now, thought St-Cyr as he hurried, carelessness and inexperience, if nothing else, were threatening to burn this one down.
There were lineups for the toilets. Doors that should have been closed were wide open to air the smoke, space at an absolute premium, the shrieks, yells, and whistles shrill at the sight of a lone male hurrying down a corridor to Room 3-38.
‘Inspecteur!’
‘Ah, merde, pardonnez-moi, mesdemoiselles. St-Cyr, Sûreté.’
He didn’t wait. Jill paused in pulling up her slacks; Marni had yet to put on a blouse; Nora had to step out of the way with the soup and bread; Becky was using the vase de nuit.
‘Mademoiselle Arnarson, a moment.’
‘I have to get the firewood, Inspector. If I don’t run like the blazes, we won’t get any!’
‘Madame was supposed to have helped her,’ said Marni. ‘It was her turn.’
‘Go, then, but hurry back.’
‘She’ll have to, won’t she,’ said Jill, ‘since she has already lit the stove?’
That one was watching him closely now, as were the others. That one had yet to even find her brassiere.
Still he didn’t hesitate, thought Jill, but went straight to Caroline’s bed and, taking the suitcase from under it, found the case locked.
‘Sacré nom de nom,’ he swore, ‘I should have realized Madame de Vernon would have locked it too. Where is the spare key to this?’
No one moved. All shrugged. Pocketknife in hand, he ruthlessly did the necessary and flung back the lid, going through everything with a speed that was impressive.
Not finding what he wanted, he ran a hand under the pillow, thumbed through the books on ballet and the scrapbook, too. The ballet shoes were checked, the remains of the latest Red Cross parcel, the clothes in the armoire, even the vase of silk chrysanthemums, but of course Caroline would never have hidden anything in that, not with Madame rearranging those flowers every day, but he couldn’t have known of this.
The mattress was searched along its edges for a hidden seam that would have given away its little pocket. ‘Something,’ he said, finding the three of them staring at him. ‘Madame Chevreul asked that girl to bring whatever she had to the séance. What was it and where is it?’
They glanced from one to another. Again they shrugged, then the older one with the straight black hair, dark grey eyes, and dimpled cheeks, the one called Jill, found her brassiere, and still dangling it from a hand, said, ‘Perhaps she left it with Jennifer.’
‘Room 3-54, Inspector,’ said the green-eyed redhead named Marni Huntington, whose bed was under the Marquette University pennant. ‘The same room as Mary-Lynn’s.’
‘Was Mary-Lynn Allan Jewish?’ he asked, startling them. ‘Come, come, an answer is demanded.’
Was he thinking of Caroline, too? wondered Jill.
‘Those people are in the Hôtel de la Providence, Inspector,’ said Becky, having leapt to her feet and hiked up her pajama bottoms. ‘There aren’t many of them.’
‘Most have Honduran passports and are waiting for permission to leave or hoping that they’ll just be left alone,’ said Jill, wondering what had caused him to ask such a thing. ‘Though their hotel is out of bounds to us, they do walk in the park, but Caroline and Mary-Lynn. . Neither would have had anything but casual contact with any of them. Those people tend to stick to themselves, Inspector. Most speak fluent German as well as their native Polish. Some speak French very well, but. . but we seldom mix.’