‘A champagne bottle?’ asked St-Cyr.
‘Oui, peut-être, but that I wouldn’t really know. How could I? Oh for sure, I watched them from the foyer of the Hôtel de l’Ermitage where he was staying. As a couple, they attended the theatre, where séances were held each night, my Laurence even asking the medium to contact the comrades he had lost in battle, that. . that woman egging him on. Then I found them on the terrace of the Grand and in the shops. That Alexander thing was from Boucheron at 175,000 francs. A pendant and a scheme of their own that was being hatched as they embraced. Bold, I tell you. Having sex in their rooms, his, then hers, and not just during the hours of five to seven before the first serving but afterwards also. Ah, mon Dieu, the things the maids told me. The noises she made, the sheets they then had to remove. A wealthy American veteran and a wealthy British girl, unmarried, I tell you. Oh, là là what a pullet for my Laurence to pluck, only she had the same thing in mind for him and had had plenty of experience!’
There was silence, but was the outburst over? wondered St-Cyr. ‘And years later, Madame Vernon, you found yourself here again but with Caroline Lacy who needed to know the answer to what had happened to him.’
He rang the bell.
‘She wouldn’t leave it because of that. . that Jennifer Hamilton,’ quavered Irène. ‘What was I to have done? Allowed myself to be blamed for something I hadn’t done?’
‘And on the night of Saturday, 13 February,’ said St-Cyr, ‘Caroline slammed the door to Room 3-54 in your face.’
‘You had gone there to beg that girl to come back to you,’ said Herr Kohler.
‘They had been fighting-having a raging lovers’ quarrel,’ said Irène, now in tears. ‘My poor Caroline was distraught and coughing terribly. I knew her chest would be bothering her. Always when emotional, the asthma would come on at its fiercest.’
‘But she refused to leave-is that it?’ asked Hermann.
‘Inspectors. . Inspectors, please, her heart,’ said Brother Étienne.
‘You found that elevator gate had been opened, madame,’ said Louis. ‘You couldn’t have known why this had happened but in such a state would have seen how it could well be used.’
‘I didn’t push that girl. I didn’t, inspectors.’
‘Caroline did leave that room and head back to her own,’ said Herr Kohler, ‘but as for Jennifer, she stayed put out of fear of encountering you.’
‘And Jennifer was the one she wanted to kill, Hermann, but then first Jill Faber and Marni Huntington came up the stairs and went along to their room, and then a half hour or so later, Mary-Lynn and Nora started up those same stairs. They were shouting at each other, the one in tears, the other claiming this whole business was a fraud.’
‘Again you waited, Madame Vernon,’ said Kohler. ‘You hoped Jennifer would hear them and leave that room. The corridor lights were blinking on and off.’
‘I didn’t wait, as you say, Inspector. I went downstairs to the toilet after the first two had gone to their room. Me, I tried to calm myself.’
‘And along that third-storey corridor, Hermann, Caroline stepped out of Room 3-38 with Becky close behind to steady her hand and light one of her cigarettes, even as Mary-Lynn fell.’
‘Having been pushed by that one, Inspector,’ said Élizabeth Chevreul, pointing at Nora.
‘Who had no reason to push her nor to even have accidentally done,’ said Louis. ‘You see, madame, Nora had stumbled and fallen behind and didn’t reach that gate and corridor until afterwards.’
‘Then who killed Mary-Lynn?’ she asked.
‘Perhaps it is that you should ask the goddess.’
‘Her gris-gris, Louis. You’d best hand it back to her.’
Again hands were to be joined, eyes closed, but first all items were to be laid out inside the circle: Mary-Lynn’s suitcase with the things Jen had stolen and had tried to get rid of when it was taken away; the basket Bamba Duclos had used; and the last meal Jen had eaten: the pound cake, the empty stew pot, pie, and cup of tea; along with everything that had been found in Caroline’s pockets.
A single wad of chewing gum was set beside papers of the same, Becky swallowing tightly, Léa laying a steadying hand on Madame Chevreul’s left shoulder, Madame Vernon, flushed and dabbing at her eyes.
Marguerite Lefèvre stared emptily at the things Jen had stolen, until warned by Léa.
‘Cérès. . Cérès, are you there?’ asked the medium.
‘I am here,’ came the distant answer.
The bell was rung.
‘Can you reach Mary-Lynn Allan for us?’
‘Allan. . Allan. . ’ began Cérès. ‘She was climbing some stairs but says she turned to look back down them through the darkness, for the light had gone off. Nora was yelling at her, she says. Nora was telling her that it was all a fraud and that you, Madame Chevreul, had informants of your own and knew virtually everything that went on in the camp, each person’s personal history if needed, all the little things that would make each séance appear real. You had been in that other war as a nurse and knew what its front had been like for those who had fought.’
There was a pause and then, ‘Is someone waiting to push her?’ asked the medium.
‘Yes, oh yes,’ said Cérès, ‘I didn’t know it then, but now.’
‘And is that person present in this circle?’
‘Yes, oh yes.’
‘Who is it, please?’
‘She was in tears and didn’t want to listen to what her friend was shouting at her,’ said Cérès. ‘She tells me that she reached her floor in darkness and started towards her room. The lights came on and she blinked to clear her eyes. There was someone, but this person had ducked back out of sight. She went on but was grabbed, shoved-pushed-pitched into space and knew she was falling. “I panicked,” she says. “I screamed and tried to grab hold of one of the cables but it tore my face and hands and turned me upside down and I knew I couldn’t stop myself. Down. . down. . Nora. . Nora, you were my friend.”’
The bell was rung by the medium, who then collapsed, Léa supporting her.
‘Ah, bon,’ said St-Cyr.
The woman was revived-the brush of wet fingers across her brow.
‘Madame Monnier,’ he asked, ‘are you convinced the goddess said “Nora”?’
‘Oui.’
‘Then please have your mistress ask her to contact Herr Weber. Here is the ribbon that was in his sister’s hair when that one was tragically killed.’
‘Herr Weber, Inspector?’ blurted Madame Chevreul.
‘Has passed over, but before he did. . ’
‘Must I?’
‘If you are to prove you still have your powers,’ said Louis, ‘and that the planets with their asteroids are aligned.’
‘Léa. . ’
Again she concentrated on the pendulum and gave the incantation, the ribbon having been stretched out in full view of the sitters and her.
‘Ask the goddess to ask him if he hadn’t desperately needed something to relay to Berlin that would ensure that Colonel Kessler was recalled,’ said Hermann. ‘Ask him if the suicide of the girl the colonel had made pregnant hadn’t been perfect?’
Cérès’s voice was lost, the questions stammered by the medium who could barely find her own.
‘Ask him if access to the Vittel-Palace would have presented any problem to the head of security, especially if after curfew and lockup?’ continued Herr Kohler. ‘That side door’s laundry room would probably have been empty, especially at suppertime or after it.’
When most would have been in their rooms or those of their neighbours and friends.
‘He could easily have gone down into the cellars, Hermann, and made his way through to that far wing to climb its stairs and wait, then unlock and open that gate when no one would suspect.’