Their looks were questioning, the cigarette butt carefully pinched out by the sûreté and returned to Herr Kohler for that one’s little tin. ‘All right, I worried because I felt she might well misuse them. Madame de Vernon hates those with whom she has to share a room and blames them for her plight, as much if not more than that dead husband of hers.’
‘Who sold her villa out from under her and ran off with his mistress, Louis, thereby losing the cash.’
‘Having gambled it away, no doubt, Hermann. Apparently Caroline Lacy thought there must have been a problem with his death in 1920.’
‘As did Jennifer Hamilton, the girl’s lover whom Madame de Vernon must have hated with a passion,’ added Kohler.
Ah, bon Dieu, de bon Dieu, thought Étienne, the husband a gambler but did neither of them know of the nocturnal fire that had destroyed the casino here on Saturday 17 July, 1920?
‘Brother, what’s the problem? You seem to have thought of something,’ asked the sûreté.
‘I was just thinking of my patients and wondering when I might be allowed to attend to them.’
‘Perhaps. On Friday last, at about 1530, Caroline Lacy went out-of-doors. You must have met her. You were, I believe, among the last, if not the last, to have spoken with her.’
And the prime suspect, was that it? ‘I had arrived late. A flat. My petrolette. I’m always having trouble with the tires. These days one can’t find a replacement for the inner tubes when needed. Mine date from 1938, or was it 1936? One of the Senegalese offered to patch it and I had wheeled the bike over to him and another.’
And so much for his also having had a flat and arriving late on the last day of Mary-Lynn Allan’s life, thought Kohler. ‘Their names, please?’
‘Sergeant Senghor and Corporal Bamba Duclos. Caroline motioned to me, and I went over to her first before leaving the bike with them. Inspectors, I have been given to understand that the girl was killed in the Chalet des Ânes. Is such a terrible thing possible?’
‘Who else was nearby?’ asked Hermann.
‘Or did I follow her inside that stable and kill her with a pitchfork, I who have the hands and strength that could have done the job far more easily? A child, the hesitant lover of Jennifer Hamilton? Ah, mon Dieu, you two seem so in the dark it frightens me. Caroline needed the comfort of another human being; Jennifer offered it, and what was that lonely, desperate girl of nineteen to have done when she found herself a friend just along the corridor from her own room and in a hotel where most had shunned her? Certainly one thing led to another, but for the first time in her short life, she thought she was being valued by another. She had found, if I must put it bluntly to you, that sense of worth which is so necessary.’
‘Was Jennifer Hamilton predatory when choosing her relationship with Caroline?’ demanded Louis.
Ah, bon, Chief Inspector. Bon! thought Étienne, but I will not give you the benefit of the answer you appear to want. ‘That I could not say nor think.’
‘But when you met her on that last afternoon, Caroline was uncertain?’
‘Hesitant. Upset and very depressed, which caused me to believe she had lost her lover and was brokenhearted. I gave her what she asked for and said she needed most, which was God’s blessing, and then a little snack and the few things I had brought for her.’
‘The nettles, Louis.’
‘The Host wafers and that small bar of soap, Hermann. Beechnut oil.’
‘Alfalfa seeds,’ said Herr Kohler.
‘A seashell,’ said the sûreté.
‘I didn’t give her that, inspectors.’
‘But you knew of it,’ said Louis.
Ah, merde, without so much as a hint, the two of them had worked together to lay a trap for him. ‘A creamy white to yellowish, oval seashell with coarse, short teeth along its aperture, but only because the girl had shown it to me.’
‘But did she show you anything else?’ asked Hermann.
‘Nothing, Inspector, nor did she tell me why she had shown me the seashell. I think perhaps that she had simply been feeling it for reassurance.’
Like the buds of that beechwood sprig, but fair enough, thought St-Cyr. ‘It was near the end of the day, Brother. Most of the other internees would have gone indoors. A few were about but not too near?’
Ah, nom de Dieu, how much did they really know? ‘All right, Becky Torrence was near. I. . May God forgive me, I felt the girl might well have been following Caroline, for she stood some distance from us among the trees on the other side of the clearing where they used to walk the donkeys.’
‘Was Caroline aware of her?’ asked Louis.
‘I don’t think so. Her back was to her.’
‘Anyone else?’ asked Hermann, not taking his gaze from this healer for a moment.
It would have to be chanced. ‘Is it that you want me, Herr Hauptmann und Detektivinspektor, to name anyone, or am I to tell you how it really was?’
‘Don’t get too cocky.’
‘Zut, why would I? Nora Arnarson was some distance away and homeward bound from one of her forages.’
‘Trapping rabbits, Brother?’ demanded Louis.
Brother Étienne’s fists were again instinctively doubled.
‘Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu, so what if she traps a few of them in a place like this? Look, I know it’s illegal and that there are either three years forced labour if caught, or prison, but here. . Surely you would overlook such a thing?’
Or would they? They gave no hint.
‘Did Mademoiselle Arnarson wave, pause, or start towards you and Caroline Lacy?’ asked Kohler.
‘Nora was cold and, seeing that I was occupied and late, pressed on.’
‘Nora, Louis. He knows her well enough.’
To have used the informal. ‘Must suspicion run constantly in your veins, Inspector? Nora looks after Angèle when I bring her, as I have today. She will have stabled her, rubbed her down, talked to her, thrown the buffalo robe my great-great Uncle Marcel brought home from the Western Plains of Canada and the United States of America over her, and forked out a plentiful supply of hay.’
And able to use a pitchfork-was that it? ‘Where, Brother?’
Ah, cher Jésus, these two! ‘The former riding stables.’
‘Behind the former polo and jumping grounds, now the soccer field when weather permits, Hermann, and not all that far from our lodgings. Near to the fencing pavilions and the tir aux pigeons.’
The clay-pigeon shoot, but was St-Cyr, having been in Vittel recovering from wounds prior to when the American wounded started to arrive in 1917, the more dangerous of the two since he was still able to remember the locations? ‘Colonel Kessler, the former Kommandant, liked to ride and kept two geldings there and a plentiful supply of hay. On the days that Angèle was with me, he felt a little comfort should be allowed. Today is fortunately no different. Mademoiselle Arnarson will be looking after her.’ But could Nora really handle St-Cyr or Kohler if either should go after her? wondered Étienne. Would it be possible to get a warning to her? ‘Now, may I leave, inspectors, and go on my rounds since I have nearly a thousand to deal with in this hotel alone?’