‘A man’s?’
‘Yes!’
‘Cigar ashes?’
‘None.’
‘Cigarette, then?’
‘None again. He’d have flicked them into the wind. No struggle either.’
‘Did she know him?’
‘It’s possible, but maybe he had a gun.’
A man and a woman. It would be best to let a sigh escape, thought St-Cyr, and then … then to simply say for all to hear, ‘Ah bon, mon vieux, the marmite perpetuelle begins to look interesting.’
The perpetual pot of soup that was to be found at the back of every kitchen stove in rural France! ‘It smells, and you know it,’ hissed Kohler.
More couldn’t be said, for they’d fresh company: dapper, of medium height and with newly shone black leather shoes — real leather — below dark blue serge trousers that were neatly pressed — no turn-ups these days, a concession to the shortages of fabric; the grey woollen overcoat was open and immaculate; the suit jacket double-breasted and with wide lapels, no shortages there; the grey fedora neatly blocked; the round, boyish cheeks of this thirty-seven-year-old freshly shaven, the aftershave still not dry; the dark brown eyes livid.
‘Pour l’amour du Ciel, why can’t people do as they say they will? Inspectors, why was I not taken to meet you at Moulins? The Secretaire general promised to include me.’
Doctor Bernard Menetrel was clearly up early and in one hell of a huff. ‘It was very late,’ tried St-Cyr, giving him a shrug.
‘Pah! That was nothing. Nothing, do you understand? It is I who am in charge of security. I who was left waiting at the train station here when I should have gone with them to meet you. Isn’t the Marechal my responsibility? Don’t I look after his every need? An assassin? An abduction from our hotel? Another killing? Three … it is three of them now!’
‘And this?’ asked Louis, indicating the goose egg and not bothering to ask who had got the doctor out of bed or why Bousquet had chosen not to include him in the welcoming party.
‘Ferbrave?’ demanded Menetrel.
‘The very one,’ mused Louis.
‘He will apologize. For myself, I regret the discomfort you have suffered, but you should have had clearance from me and I was not taken to meet you. Henri-Claude was just doing his duty. Surely a veteran such as yourself can understand the reflex of a defensive action?’
Oh my, oh my, thought Kohler. The nose was fleshy, the mouth not big, not small, the neck close down on the squared shoulders. A medium man all round, the voice cherubic but acidic, the chin narrow and recessed so that the nose led the way in emphasizing everything he said. ‘Fix him, Doctor. Stitch him up. I need him.’
‘And you?’ demanded Menetrel, stung by the intrusion and still incensed.
‘Kohler, Kripo, Paris-Central.’
‘Gestapo. You belong over on the boulevard National* with Herr Gessler. Have you checked in with him? Well, have you?’
‘He sent me here,’ lied Hermann. ‘He told me to keep an eye on you.’
‘On me? Well …’
The doctor gave a shrill laugh. Quick-tempered, jealous of his place in the scheme of things, this court jester to some set down his bag and, motioning to Ferbrave and the others, called for a chair. ‘Sit,’ he said to Louis. ‘Let me have a look at that.’
In addition to an ample desk, propaganda posters of the Marechal, designs for a. new postage stamp and banknotes, children’s books, school books, maps of France, directions to housewives on the baking of bread without flour or sufficient of it, to farmers on the need for their work, et cetera, Menetrel’s office held a made-up cot that, judging by the scattered items on it, hadn’t been recently used.
The taint of moth crystals was mingled with those of disinfectant and aftershave; the doctor was clearly agitated. The needle went in. ‘Don’t move, Inspector!’ he breathed. ‘Five should do it and we still have four to go. In a few days they can be taken out and I’ll be pleased to do this since it will give us another chance to speak in private, and speak we must. Is that understood? These walls have ears, though, so one must whisper, and I don’t want the Marechal upset any more than he already is. He knows nothing of Madame Dupuis’s murder, was completely unaware that she was even to have paid him a visit.’
It had to be asked. ‘Were there billets doux?’
Love letters … ‘If there were, you will see that I receive them immediately. Come, come, we can’t have a scandal. We don’t want to trouble the Marechal with this business. He’s far too busy with the affairs of state, is worried enough.’
‘I’ll try to keep that in mind, but my partner …’
The needle went in, the gut was pulled, a gasp given by the patient. ‘Such things are larger than any of us,’ cautioned Menetrel. ‘Please don’t be fooled into thinking that because the country is now fully occupied, power no longer rests in Vichy.’
‘Then when did the Marechal first notice her?’
‘How long has the infatuation been going on — is this what you’re after? Ah! you police. Always looking for dirt, always suspecting the worst even when you should be doing your duty and finding this … this assassin before he strikes again — again, Inspector!’
‘And the Marechal has had his eye on others, has he?’
‘Some.’
‘What was she like?’
‘On stage or in the drawing room and around the dinner table?’
The gut was being tugged! ‘Both, please.’
Menetrel’s eyes lit up with mischief. ‘She’d a way with her, that one. Mon Dieu, I must grant her that. Naughty, ribald, voluptueuse, sensuelle yet diabolique — it was all an act, when on stage; when not, why, well brought up, tres belle, tres intelligente et differente. The Marechal recognized this last instantly and, yes, he had set his cap at having her.’
‘Then there may well be love letters?’
‘Find them, damn you! I haven’t been able to!’
The patient winced, which was good and necessary, thought Menetrel. St-Cyr had been a sergeant in a Signals Corps at Verdun. Wounded twice — the left thigh and left shoulder — he had managed to crawl back to the trenches. Unruly as a boy, he had been sent to the farm of distant relatives near Saarbrucken for the holidays each summer for three years; had then used the Deutsch he had learned to good effect in 1917; had managed to convince the Boches he was one of theirs in no-man’s-land and had got away.
No medals, no awards, just memories he shared with that partner of his from the other side. Like brothers, those two, grated Menetrel. Both honest, both insufferable seekers of the truth who couldn’t be bought. And damn Laval for having asked that they be sent from Paris! Damn Bousquet for not having overruled that boss of his and found others who would listen! Damn him, too, for not having had the decency to have kept his word and included him, the Marechal’s confident, in the briefing!
‘Where were you on the night of the murder, Doctor?’
The gut was yanked!
‘Was I here, in my office, eh? Did I plan to let that woman into his room and then to watch over the evening’s performance? Of course not. Have more sense. When privacy is called for, privacy is always guaranteed.’
‘Then where, exactly, were you?’
‘With my wife and children in the Hotel Majestic which is but a few steps away. I’ve a suite there, as has the Marechal for Madame Petain, but can be here in a matter of minutes.’
The needle was inserted again and again, the gut drawn, the carefully manicured short and finely boned fingers deft and swift. Menetrel concentrated even as he clipped the gut at last, then sighed.
‘Now we will leave it bare, I think, so as to have it heal faster and better. Unfortunately you will look like a boxer who has just been punished, but that can’t be helped.’