‘So, Fraulein Theleme, perhaps you would be good enough to explain this sudden turn of events.’
Engelmann was going to kill her. He knew she was hiding things he had to have. ‘Did he take a cramp?’ she asked, her voice barely audible. ‘He was a strong swimmer. I … I have no idea why he should have drowned.’ Dear God, please help her …
Lies … it was all lies, he thought. Kohler and St-Cyr stood warily on either side of the woman, each trying to anticipate what must happen and what the other would do to prevent it. Kohler had her by the left arm. Her hands were deep in the pockets of that fancy overcoat of hers. The collar was up. There was no hat this time. Her handbag was clamped under the left arm.
St-Cyr had taken a step away from her so as to be free and ready should the need arise, and it would. Buroklammern, both of them. Klotze who should by rights be redeeming themselves by shoving that pretty head of hers under water to make her talk.
‘Berlin,’ he mused, fingering the table settings to see that everything was exactly in its place, and wasn’t that what was needed? he wondered. An order to things. ‘Fraulein, he had been recalled. The telex … Ah! I have it here. He left it beside the pool with the wineglass he used. “Suspected terrorists … an association with one of them. Possible breaches of security … Questions” your Generalmajor could not bring himself to face.’
Ah Christ! swore Kohler silently.
‘Why did he order this little repast?’ shrieked Engelmann, filling the air with the sound of his voice.
In panic, she blurted, ‘I … I’ve no idea. We were not supposed to meet. I … I haven’t seen Hans since … since the night of the robbery.’
There had to be a gun in that purse of hers, thought Kohler. Don’t! he silently prayed. Engelmann will have brought help.
‘“You haven’t seen him,”’ said Herr Max. ‘A correction is necessary, Fraulein. You have not seen him since the night you gave Janwillem De Vries the key to the suite and told him where to find the combination.’
‘No! Why are you still trying to accuse me of such a thing?’
She was quivering. ‘Then why did you say, “Not supposed to meet?” Please explain this.’
She must try to kill herself. She couldn’t let him force her to tell them the truth. ‘I meant only that we had not arranged a meeting. I thought Hans had returned to the Reich.’
‘To see his wife and children.’
‘Yes.’
Below them, around the pool and under subdued lighting, there were deck chairs among the Grecian columns. The wineglass Wehrle had drunk from was with his towel at the poolside, the Beaujolais half gone. ‘I’m going to ask you once more. Why would he have ordered this only to leave it untouched to take his life?’
The grip she had on her handbag tightened.
‘Herr Max, shouldn’t we examine the body?’ asked St-Cyr anxiously.
‘Was it strychnine that killed him, or was it potassium cyanide?’ demanded Engelmann swiftly of the Surete.
Merde … ‘Cyanide is very rapid. Strychnine would have taken longer – from five to twenty minutes on average, sometimes an hour or two or even more,’ said St-Cyr, watching him closely.
‘There’d have been time enough for the attendant to have pulled him out,’ interjected Kohler hurriedly. ‘A doctor could have been summoned.’
The champagne bottle was removed from its ice-bucket. ‘But one wasn’t,’ sighed Engelmann as he began to untwist the wire that held the cork in. ‘Instead, there was an agony so great, Fraulein, it shot needles through his heart. He panicked – anyone would have. Repeated seizures were so violent, he thrashed about and frequently went under.’
Please, she silently begged. Let me kill myself and take you with me.
‘His eyes bulged,’ went on Engelmann, his thumbs easing the cork out. ‘He tried to scream but took in water. He did not know what was happening to him.’
‘All right, all right! He had fallen in love with me!’
The cork flew into the pool. Champagne foamed down over Engelmann’s hands. ‘You betrayed him.’
‘I didn’t! I tried my best to avoid his advances. I meet many men, some of whom become infatuated with me. They’re lonely. It’s only natural but …’
‘But he was different. He was the target.’
‘No! There was none of that!’
She was frantic. ‘Please remove your coat and gloves. Take off your shoes and sweater.’
‘Herr Max, a moment,’ interjected St-Cyr. ‘De Vries has had no contact with her. He blames her for putting him in the Mollergaten-19 in ‘38.’
‘Janwillem was very angry,’ she cried. ‘He wanted revenge and you … you …’
‘Ah! And what did I do, Fraulein? I who know so little of him?’
As champagne filled a glass, her dark eyes glistened with tears. Her handbag was now on top of her coat and accessible.
‘Drink this,’ he said.
Sickened, she frantically glanced about for escape. ‘I … I don’t know why Hans would do this to me,’ she said of the champagne and the caviar. ‘Was he trying to implicate me in something?’
‘How cheated he must have felt,’ breathed Engelmann. ‘Just like Janwillem De Vries.’
Swiftly she smashed the glass he had handed her. Blood ran from her fingers as she clutched the stem and used it to keep him away. Desperately she tried to get at her purse but others ran up the stairs from the poolside, others crowded in on them, tearing Kohler from her, slamming her against a pillar.
St-Cyr fought to get clear of them. A table collapsed beneath him, a chair went over. Seized, yanked up from the floor, his revolver was torn from him and he was held at gunpoint.
She wept as her purse was opened. Frantically she shrilled, ‘Janwillem sent that to me! It’s one of those he took from the Gare Saint-Lazare.’
‘And the others? Where are they?’ shrieked Engelmann.
‘I don’t know. I really don’t! Can’t you see he was trying to implicate me too? Ah damn him, damn him! Why must he hate me so?’
*
The leg of venison had been laced with salt pork and marinated in dry white wine with bay leaves, peppercorns, savory and onions. Drained, it had been roasted for an hour at a medium heat and then for fifteen minutes at a high heat, after which brandy had been poured over it and set aflame.
Brandy as if at a dinner party! and here they were, the two of them, dining with Gestapo Boemelburg in his villa as though nothing had happened and their lives were not in jeopardy. And what was to become of them? fretted Gabrielle anxiously. Suzanne-Cecilia, her nose all but broken and her lips split and swollen, sat across the table from her. Dressed in borrowed evening gowns and wearing diamonds that had, no doubt, been stolen from deported Jews, did they appear to him to be defenceless, demure, sophisticated, poised or just so damned afraid, they could hardly bring themselves to face him?
The Sturmbannfuhrer had come to the chateau to witness the conclusion of that nothing murder which had brought Jean-Louis and her together. But now, she asked as her plate was set before her, now what was to happen to them all?
‘Enjoy,’ said Boemelburg, gruffly indicating the roast. ‘Try the sauce. You’ll find it superb.’
Furious with them and with how things had gone, he had to ask himself what he was to make of these two? Von Schaumburg and von Srulpnagel were yelling their heads off about the dynamite and the cyanide capsules; Oberg, Head of the SS in France, was demanding an immediate end to things, as was Gestapo Mueller in Berlin. Everyone wanted the loot. Everyone was being greedy. He’d be the laughing stock of Paris and of Berlin if the debacle continued and the Gypsy escaped.