‘Cérès can tell you who the father was, Inspector,’ said Léa. ‘All you and the chief inspector have to do is ask. Madame Chevreul will be only too willing.’
‘And the fee?’
‘Peace and an end to the matter.’
Herr Weber, the Senegalese, and the chief inspector were waiting in the cellar near the elevator, thought Becky. Livid, Mary-Lynn’s face was swollen. Her eyes, once of the loveliest shade of grey and often full of concern for another, were horrible. Her nose and teeth had been smashed, her lips broken. Deep, yellowish-green to copper-red, the skin at the base of her throat was now putrefying. Soon the stench would be unbearable.
‘Mademoiselle,’ asked St-Cyr, the corpse having been lifted out and placed on a stretcher in the corridor.
Herr Weber was watching her closely. Swiftly Becky turned away, Herr Kohler grabbing her as she bent double to throw up, choke, and blurt, ‘Dear God, why did you have to make me look at her?’
‘Ah, bon, mademoiselle. Now a few answers.’
‘Louis, those had better wait. We need to talk.’
‘Sacré nom de nom, Hermann, what now? Sergeant Senghor, please see that Mademoiselle Allan’s body is also taken into Sister Jane’s care. Vite, vite. Away with the two of you.’
‘A moment, Louis. Corporal, for the record, tell us what the sun revealed of Mary-Lynn’s future when those of Rooms 3-38 and 3-54 paid you to read the basket for them in December after that Christmas party the British held for the Americans.’
Herr Weber smiles knowingly, Inspector, thought Bamba, but if one were to draw attention to this and refuse to answer truthfully, one would only suffer ten times the usual. ‘In addition to her future, she asked if Cérès would reveal where her father’s remains lay and if the goddess would convince him to speak to her, but through Madame Chevreul who would relay his words.’
‘And?’
‘I told her that such an impenetrable fog as surrounded her father on that battlefield would only part if she believed absolutely in me and the basket and no longer went to Madame Chevreul, but that she would have to come back alone.’
‘And did she?’
‘Three times, Boss.’
Somehow Becky found her voice. ‘They compete, Inspector. Ever since the one started speaking to an asteroid, Corporal Duclos and Madame Chevreul have known about each other. At the party several of the British girls made a point of tormenting Léa by saying to others how good the corporal was and that he could, if pressed, even reach one’s ancestors. Léa. . Léa said she would have to see about it. We thought no more of it except to agree that we’d all go together for a session with him.’
No lies could be told, not now, thought Bamba, not with Herr Weber knowing what his informants must have told him. ‘Each time I saw the sun rise for Mary-Lynn Allan in the basket, Boss, I saw her falling down a deep, dark well. I couldn’t understand this, since we had no such wells but couldn’t tell her what had been revealed.’
‘But you did tell someone else?’
‘Yes, Boss, but only because that one paid me well. Two boxes of Del Bey raisins, a bar of Lifebuoy soap and four packs of Camels, three tins of Klim, two of SPAM, and two of the Hershey’s nut-chocolate bars.’
‘A lot, so what about the name, Corporal? Come on, out with it.’
‘The lover of the one who was stabbed.’
‘Jennifer Hamilton. . ’ began Louis. ‘But why would she want to know the future of Mary-Lynn, Hermann? Oh for sure a little curiosity, but to pay far more than necessary? Certainly Corporal Duclos and Sergeant Senghor were wary because of Weber’s presence, but both were also hiding something we might desperately need to know.’
‘The fierce competition between jujus and that Weber knew exactly what had been going on. Jennifer couldn’t have supplied all those things, not from Room 3-54’s larder without a lot of explaining. Someone had to have given them to her, and that someone has to have been Weber.’
‘Hermann, this isn’t good.’
‘He needed a suicide, Louis. Now, back off for a moment and eat. I can’t have you flagging out on me because of low blood sugar, not with what I have to tell you.’
‘Ah, bon, Inspector, although we’ve apparently little time left to enjoy life if what you’ve said is true, I always knew my partner was clever and myself indeed fortunate, but now you’re also a medical doctor, or is it an herbalist?’
Admittedly the biscuits from a British Red Cross parcel were as hardtack, thought Kohler, the Hôtel Grand at 1435 hours, an all-but-empty dining room down the length of which, between its Art Deco columns, a muted group of four in overcoats, fingerless gloves, hats, and boots smoked cigarettes to the butt while playing whist as though damned to it for the rest of their lives. ‘Just eat. Don’t argue. We’re going to need each other.’
With deliberateness Louis opened a can of SPAM from an American parcel and deftly ran a knife around the contents before upturning the tin and shaking it out onto a sheet of collabo newsprint. Then he sat back to survey the corpse with the eye of a connoisseur who had just been betrayed.
‘Fried with onions, peppers, and mushrooms, it might be all right, Hermann, if a sprinkling of parsley and a little thyme were added, but cold and alone on those as a last meal?’
The hardtack was white and heavy. ‘Put a little of this chutney on it.’
‘Ah, mon Dieu, it’s comforting to know you want to play nursemaid as well, but those are orange-juice crystals.’
‘Oh.’
A can of cold pork and beans was opened and, after hammering the hardtack with a fist, a slice of the SPAM was laid to rest and covered, spoonful by spoonful with the other.
‘Bon appétit,’ said Louis. ‘Now, please enlighten me.’
The Wehrmacht’s cooks had refused entry to the kitchens, having locked all doors to prevent contamination by datura. Apparently the rumours were rife.
Kohler leaned forward to confide the worst. ‘Weber and Kessler were at each other’s throats. The one, having put the other up for the Russian Front, was targeted to Berlin-Central as a traitor soft on the Americans and the father of Mary-Lynn’s unborn, the girl having unfortunately-now get this-tampered with that padlock and then committed suicide.’
Immediately causing the abrupt recall of Colonel Kessler, but caution had best be urged. ‘The Untersturmführer kills her to establish the necessary proof?’
The missing sticks of chewing gum were mentioned, Louis choking on a bit of biscuit.
‘Hermann, if this is true, we’ll never get out of here and you know it. Granted, Jennifer would have had to tell him beforehand that Mary-Lynn would be attending yet another of Madame Chevreul’s séances and that Nora would again be with her, the others off playing poker, except for herself and Caroline.’
Becky having stayed in her own room, a fact not likely known beforehand. ‘Entry for Weber wouldn’t have been a problem, Louis. It was the most distant wing of that hotel and late at night.’
‘But, ah, merde, mon vieux, one lone male-an SS at that, and head of security-among 992 females, any of whom could get out of bed or leave that poker game to walk the corridors or climb those stairs at any moment?’
‘He was desperate. He had to get rid of Kessler before that one got rid of him. They’d probably been at each other’s throats since the British first got here.’
‘But couldn’t have known when those two would come back from that séance, Hermann, nor even which staircase they would take.’
Louis could be difficult. ‘Just listen, will you? These aren’t bad, by the way.’ The spoon was given a flourish. ‘We both know that padlock wasn’t tampered with. The corridor lights were blinking off and then on, something Weber need not have engineered, since it happened often.’
‘Good. Your opinion is comforting, but all we really have is Jennifer Hamilton’s word that Caroline Lacy left Room 3-54 at about midnight to return to Room 3-38 for those cigarettes. A lover’s tiff that was soon settled, according to Jennifer, the couple parting on good terms, Becky claiming otherwise and that Caroline was distraught, Madame de Vernon telling me that when the girl left her on Friday afternoon, two days ago, she felt Caroline was going to meet Jennifer to end the affair.’