‘Louis. . ’
‘Hermann, we’ll deal with Herr Weber later. Mademoiselle, who arranged the meeting at the chalet?’
‘Becky, but she. . she has already told you this. Jill. . Jill didn’t get one of the guards to open that padlock. Caroline. . ’
She couldn’t face them now, thought Jennifer, but would have to say, ‘Ah, mon Dieu, inspectors, I know she must have found someone who had a key.’
‘Louis. . ’
‘Not yet, Hermann. Had Caroline found out who the kleptomaniac was, Mademoiselle?’
A nod was given. ‘She must have, but. . but why didn’t she tell me, inspectors? I would have gone with her. Together we could have stopped whoever did that to her.’
‘A fanatical tidier, Louis.’
‘One who visits back and forth, Hermann, just like everyone else.’
‘But also goes for long, long walks in the Parc, in the freezing cold, inspectors, all by herself. Who else has the capability of hiding things every day in a place no one else would find or even think of? Caroline really did see something the night Mary-Lynn fell, but she wouldn’t tell me. She was afraid that if I knew, it would then put me in danger.’
Already the Ouija boards, the cards, and such were out in the Vittel-Palace, and in nearly every room of this giant dormitory it was as if each occupant was secretly wondering if she would get through another night. So muted were the conversations, thought Kohler, he and Louis could hear a throat being cleared several doors away. Lots read in bed, all bundled up and knowing that one by one the stoves would go out and the temperature plunge. Some thought they could already see their breath and would look for it as a page was turned. Those who had gloves wore them. Others clutched mugs of hot water, and of course all the hot plates were fully on, and what lights there were already blinking.
Nora Arnarson had still not returned to Room 3-38.
‘She’s probably gone to check on Angèle,’ said Jill Faber, somewhat subdued. ‘Nora’s very conscious of that mare and loves her almost as much as does Brother Étienne. He’ll be wanting to get away soon. Nora usually likes to say good-bye to him.’
‘As a young girl, she loved to ride the plow horses they used when hauling logs out of the bush,’ said the redhead, Marni Huntington, trying to smile at the thought. ‘Her brothers would dare her to ride bareback and even to stand on her hands.’
‘She has two brothers in the services, inspectors,’ said Becky. ‘One’s in the USAF, the other in the Navy. P-51 Mustangs and antisubmarine patrols on a destroyer, but she hasn’t heard from either in well over three months and is afraid both have been killed as well.’
‘As whom, mademoiselle?’ asked Louis.
‘As her fiancé, Einar. He was in the Marines and was killed in action on Makin Island in the Gilberts, 17 August of last year.’
‘Hermann, I’ll find her.’
‘You’ll need my scarf.’
And a flashlight. ‘Try to pry some answers out of Herr Weber. Let’s meet in the foyer here.’
‘What if he’s opened that. . ’
‘Safe of his? Better the gamble now, Hermann, than later.’
And wasn’t the office in the casino?
‘Find Nora, inspectors. Please find her,’ said Becky, unable now to look at either of them, simply twisting her hands in despair. ‘I don’t know what we would do without her. Madame de Vernon hasn’t come back either.’
Jennifer Hamilton had wrung her laundry out by hand and had climbed the stairs with Louis and him but had gone on alone to her room. ‘Maybe we’d best stay together,’ said Hermann.
It was almost 1800 hours Sunday, 21 February, 1943, and they had been here since the day before at 1522 hours. ‘Weber, mon vieux, and I out there.’
‘The curfew for us internees is at six in winter, inspectors,’ said Jill. ‘The entrance doors will be locked in a few minutes. Nora. . ’
She left the thought dangling, couldn’t bring herself to say it: a night outdoors in weather like this.
The wind from the northwest was punishing, thought St-Cyr. Caught in the Valley of the Petit-Vair, with the Butte de Sion to the north, Vittel and its internment camp had the Haute-Saône and the Vosges Mountains to the south and the east, and not that far. Simply put, it was damned freezing and dangerous, for it blew in such unforgivable gusts, he was in fear of becoming lost.
‘Merde alors, mademoiselle, where the hell are you?’
She wasn’t in the stables, but he did find the leftovers from some sprigs of beech. Each stem had been clean cut with a knife that was very sharp. ‘An Opinel,’ he muttered. ‘The peasant’s constant companion. Wooden-handled and cheap.’
Rubbing the mare behind the ears and caressing her, he discovered that the forelock had been gently tied and patiently undid the knot.
Things weren’t good-indeed, Nora’s absence was terrible. ‘Mademoiselle,’ he sang out, wishing the wind wouldn’t pluck his voice away even inside the stable.
She wasn’t in the first of the fencing pavilions, nor in the second, though why she should have been in either at this time made no sense. Recent footprints hadn’t been encountered, but would they have all been quickly filled in?
Something must have happened to her.
In spite of the concern, he had to ask himself, Why does a nonbeliever bother to make a Ouija board? There had been one under her bed when Hermann and he had first had a look around that room.
When and why had she come to France and why hadn’t she got out before it had become too late for her?
She had been looking for the thief and had been following Caroline’s and Jennifer’s steps or retracing them, and had been asking questions: whom the two had spoken to and where they had gone.
Had she finally found the hiding place? he wondered. She did know the camp like no other, and had doubted Jennifer’s sincerity with Caroline, had felt her opportunistic-must have known of the previous affair between Marguerite Lefèvre and that girl, would have spoken to the former, yet had so far said nothing of it.
And as for the Datura stramonium, only Brother Étienne had been as knowledgeable of the hazard.
Had even lied to this sûreté, had chased up those stairs after Mary-Lynn Allan, who had been in tears because of what her friend had been yelling at her. Derision.
Was being used by Brother Étienne to relay news of the war. Had seen Caroline go into the Chalet des Ânes and had known Becky had followed the girl.
‘Sacré nom de nom, this investigation!’ he cursed and, turning his back to the wind, pulled up the collar of his overcoat, having returned to the stable.
‘Is she out on her trap line?’ he asked Angèle. ‘Has she fallen and become lost?’
Outside again, the intermittent visibility was terrible. ‘Pour l’amour du ciel, mademoiselle, how many metres of fence line have you forced this poor detective to walk in such weather? What am I going to find when I come across you?’
Had she become so desperate she had gone over the wire? Had she tried to leave a message for Brother Étienne, had that been why the mare’s forelock had been tied?
‘Even now I can’t ask myself if she’s been murdered but she always did wonder if she would be next and if she had been the intended victim on the night her friend had fallen.’
A fortune’s worth of cigarette butts was heaped in the ashtray, the Untersturmführer with hands folded in front of him.
‘That Arnarson girl, Kohler. What do you make of her?’
Clearly Weber was on to something. ‘A loner.’
‘Guilty of causing the death of the mistress of Colonel Kessler?’
Was the bastard about to back off on claiming it a suicide?