‘The mistake I made was to let that girl accompany Mary-Lynn Allan. With Caroline, I decided once was enough. Belief is in the believer, not in the skeptic.’
‘Vocal was she, our Nora?’
‘Very.’
‘And was this Jennifer Hamilton also a skeptic?’
‘Again I must ask, is it that you think it all a con, or am I truly opening doors for those who seek a peace of mind and happiness far beyond anything they’ve known? Yours is not just an inquiry into two unfortunate deaths. Whether you wish it or not, my very being as a medium has been put on trial. All are watching and waiting for the outcome.’
‘What did you really lose?’
‘My talisman-is this what they whispered, those dreadful harpies who gossip at every opportunity? What I lost was an empty perfume bottle of no consequence. A piece of trash, nothing else.’
‘Describe it for me.’
‘I have already forgotten any details of it. You’ve recently lost two sons in the Battle for Stalingrad. If you would like to become a sitter, I could ask Cérès to contact them.’
‘If that was an offer of peace, forget it. I haven’t anything tangible of them, not even a photo. Nothing.’
‘But yourself. Cérès will understand and accept.’
‘And my aura?’ he asked.
How dare he? ‘Mary-Lynn’s was vibrant. Electrified by danger. Yours. . well, if you must know, is even more vibrant and not unlike that of the aurora borealis at its greatest excitation.’
‘Good, then tell me, what’s in that other room?’
The bell was rung, Léa entering to clear away as the cook brought in Madame’s soft-boiled egg, toast made from white bread, and a conserve, the maid her café au lait. Somehow Louis and he were going to have to turn this house of dreams inside out. And yes, he had just heard another bell ring, if only for tea.
Though the darkness still intruded, St-Cyr could see that the forehead was high and broad, the hairline well receded, the goatee a prominent ear-to-ear fringe that set off what might have been a wrestler’s build, but apart from the smells of various herbs, the cowshed and all, eau de cologne wafted pungently. Startled by it, he had to wonder if Brother Étienne had deliberately drenched the cloak or if it was but the norm.
‘Chief Inspector,’ came the booming from the depths, ‘how good of you to come out to meet me. An extra pair of hands, is it? Ah, bon, take these and I will get my box.’
The burlap sacks were thrust into the sûreté’s hands and weighed far more than thought, the patois that of the Vosges.
‘Indoors, Inspector. Vite, vite. We mustn’t let you catch cold. I’ve enough to treat as it is.’
Was concern to be masked by bluster and humour, or were these but a defence behind which to hide nervousness?
The snow was brushed off, the heavy homespun cloak unhooked, the shout he gave echoing up from the foyer to staircases and railings that were crowded.
‘Mes chères amies, your melancholy is with me. Our Caroline? Give me but a moment with the chief inspector and I am totally yours until noon.
‘It is this way, Inspector. The consulting room I never use except to leave my things. Merde, what a trip. Ice on the road, my Angèle slipping so many times I had to lead that wonderful creature down the hills at the pace of the snail. A Percheron. One of Madame Chevreul’s, we are certain. Absolument.’
The door was closed.
‘Now, what can this humble servant do for you? A few small questions-Ah, oui, oui, I think that you have those. Begin please.’
The cloak was thrown off, the soutane just as heavy, of a dark-brown homespun, its many pockets bulging but having far fewer of the odours, especially that of the cologne.
The overboots, high and enviously dry and warm, were unlaced and removed, the big toes wiggled beneath heavy woollen socks.
‘I make this trip as often as possible but believe Untersturmführer Weber is determined to put an end to my visits, hence my having come today and brought more than usual.’
Somehow a handkerchief was found, its red that of field and harvest or cowshed, felt St-Cyr. The nose was blown, the dimpled cheeks and chin mopped of its snowmelt, the big, dark-brown eyes as well, and wary. At thirty-eight, the brother would have been too young for Verdun but more than acceptable for 1939. Had he hidden behind the cloth, as some might wonder if succumbing to the invective typical of veterans of that other war who sought to find those to hold accountable for the nation’s failure in this one?
Having sat down, facing him across the table, felt Brother Étienne, this sûreté took out pipe and empty tobacco pouch, gesturing at the hopelessness of such a situation.
‘Frankly, mon Frère, I don’t know where to begin. Two murders and a petty thief.’
As well as a visiting monk who was supposed to arrive next Wednesday but had told them all he would come today, a Sunday, and early at that-was he wondering this also or had he accepted the excuse? ‘And almost a thousand souls to question here, and nearly seventeen hundred in the Grand.’
‘And one missing capsule of Datura stramonium.’
The massive fists were clenched.
‘Madame de Vernon, that most persistent of creatures, was robbed?’
‘But not, I think, by our petty thief.’
‘Who seems only to have impulsively snatched the visible and all but worthless,’ muttered Brother Étienne, running his hands over the table between them. ‘Kleptomania. . They say it can’t be treated with herbs or anything else. Believe me, I’ve searched. I even went back to Culpeper, the British herbalist who died in 1654.’
‘It’s a disease of the mind, though invariably ignored by psychologists and little studied.’
‘But in a place like this, is it that those so afflicted subconsciously demand of themselves that they acquire some little item which then defines each of their victims? Items, mon cher chief inspector, with which to identify their owners and possess a tiny part of them. Is it power over others that is desired, the afflicted not even knowing this of themselves?’
The depth of thought and sincerity were evident, the conclusion not easily arrived at, the expressions and gestures reinforcing these, the initial cloud of cologne very at odds with them. ‘You’ve lost things too, have you?’ asked St-Cyr.
‘Often I must empty overloaded pockets to find an item.’
‘And?’
How anxious this sûreté was, though waiting pensively now to look beyond the answer. ‘A bent, hand-forged nail I kept to remind me of the Cross. It could not have been easily straightened and was of no use otherwise, lest one had magnetized it, of course, which I had.’
‘To pull grains of iron oxide from sand?’
‘Ah, bon, Chief Inspector. Magnetite which I then grind for those needing it, just as a prisoner of war will file a nail or bit of wire to place the filings on the tongue each day. The body needs its iron but such a thing is too often overlooked.’
Hermann had done that very thing during the more than two and a half years he had been a prisoner in that last conflict, but had this one known of his imprisonment? ‘Anything else?’
‘The woven string I used to wear at all times around my left wrist. Its knots were to remind me of the sister who had woven it for me when I entered the priesthood. Celibacy, she said, would be the hardest task of all. If I had any doubts at any time, I was to touch each knot and think of her. The string had worn through long ago but I couldn’t part with it, for she was very dear to me. Put plainly, Inspector, our father couldn’t afford to keep either of us. Marie became a nun, I being given to les Pères Tranquilles.’