Special treatment … Verdammt! ‘I knew there had to be something to bring the IKPK out of hibernation. What’s he done then, our Gypsy? Decided on an agenda of his own?’
‘This we do not know. We only know that he was sighted in Tours on the fourteenth, boarding the train to Paris. He “surfaced”, Kohler, and my superiors want to know why he did so, how he got there, and what he has in mind.’
‘And you can’t tell us who reported seeing him?’
Must Kohler always be such a nuisance? ‘The same as notified us of the Ritz but failed entirely to warn us of this.’
The mouton then, the informer. A woman the Gypsy obviously must know.
The office was spacious, the desk immaculate. The cigarette case was of platinum, with an oblong, octagonally shaped plaque of Baltic amber raised at its centre and from which incised rays sparkled as if the amber was some sort of strange sun and the entrapped fly its prisoner.
‘“Tshaya”,’ said St-Cyr softly of the inscription. ‘“Vadni ratsa”. The first is a woman’s name; the second means the gift is from the wild goose of Romani legend.’
Agitated, the clerk blurted, ‘The client came in on Saturday, Inspector. He insisted it be ready for today – ah! for Monday, yes? It is now Tuesday. It’s not easy to acquire amber like that. We worked all day Sunday and half of Monday. Enslaved, that’s what we are. Enslaved.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. A Hauptmann – you’re certain of this?’
‘Herr Oberlammers. He … he has signed for it, yes? Everyone has to these days. It’s the rule.’
‘And he was to pick it up yesterday afternoon?’
‘That is correct.’
‘At what time, please, did he come into the shop on Saturday?’
The salesman’s expression grew pained. ‘At just before closing.’
‘And were there any other customers?’
‘Seven. We’re short-handed. I …’
A breath was taken and held in anticipation of further questions not long in coming.
‘Do you mean to say you left him alone while you served others? You took your eyes from him?’ demanded the Surete accusingly.
‘Inspector, how was I to know he was looking the place over? He was in uniform. He asked if he might use the telephone so as to get the inscription correct.’
Kohler gave his partner a nudge. ‘The burglar alarm, Louis. The bastard recircuited the wires so that the alarm remained off but the light came on when the switch was thrown.’
The control box was in the office, on a wall. ‘Entry?’ asked St-Cyr of his partner.
‘A rear door. A tradesman’s entrance – grilled, but no problem. Forced with an iron bar, muffled with a horse blanket.’
‘And the safes out front?’
‘All drilled and punched. Bang on each time, Louis. First the hole to locate and expose the cam of the locking bolt, then the hammer and chisel.’
‘He came equipped but did he come alone?’
‘Apparently, but he couldn’t have carried the tools in that attache case he walked into the Ritz with.’
‘Then did he knock this place off first, Hermann, before leaving his little surprise at the Ritz, or vice versa?’
‘He would have had to come back here to open the front door for the flics to find.’
There was a nod. ‘Then he did the Ritz job first, and while we were brushing the dust off ourselves, he took his time with this, having prepared the way well beforehand.’
Clement Laviolette was sous-directeur, a far different person from his sales clerk. Clearly he didn’t want the Kripo and the Surete asking too many questions. ‘Inspectors, it’s nothing – nothing, I assure you. Those little safes we have out front are merely for show. Our vault in the cellars is inviolable. Please … a few trinkets are missing. Mere baubles.’
He was positively beaming, and when he sat down in an Empire fauteuil to benevolently fold his hands in his lap, he said, ‘Two millions at most when he could have had thirty. The rectangular, chain-linked diamond necklace with matching bracelets. Two rings with step-cut, rectangular, blanc exceptionnel stones of 31.98 and 19.53 carats respectively. A wider diamond bracelet than the others – stronger, yes. More distinctive, more of a statement. The latent pugiliste in the female perhaps? A pair of ear-rings – single droplets those – he could have had the proper ones to go with the chain-links but passed them up. A ruby pendant, a diamond brooch, an epidote-and-diamond necklace which was exquisite for the delicacy of its platinum lacework and for the warm and enticing combination of its soft green and pale yellow tints.’
He sucked in a breath, never letting his eyes leave them. ‘But it is as if this perceur de coffre-fort was searching for something he had had in mind for a long time yet couldn’t quite make up his mind when presented with the confiserie of our establishment.’
The bonbon shop, ah yes. ‘Seven years between sheet metal in Oslo, Louis, the sentence commuted by our friends in Berlin for all we know, but time enough to dream. Then one empty safe and a fortune left behind.’
‘One empty safe …? Ah! messieurs, the vault in the cellars was not touched, as I have only just informed you.’
Kohler let him have it – St-Cyr knew he would. ‘Then why weren’t the little safes out front emptied and their contents locked away below? Isn’t that the normal procedure at the close of each day?’
There wasn’t a ruffle of discomposure. ‘The pressures of business. The shortages of suitable staff. It’s understandable, is it not?’
‘Five millions,’ grunted Louis.
‘Perhaps a little more,’ conceded Laviolette. ‘When we have the final figure we will, of course, be quite willing to divulge it.’
How good of him. ‘Ten at least, Louis.’
‘The insurance, Hermann.’
They turned to leave the office. ‘Messieurs …’ bleated the sales clerk. ‘The cigarette case … It … it has only had the deposit.’
‘Tack it on to the rest, eh? Lose it if you have to.’ Kohler slid the thing deeply into the left pocket of the greatcoat that, had he worn a helmet instead of a broad-brimmed grey fedora, would have made his appearance all the more formidable.
Touching a forefinger lightly to his lips and shaking his head, he whispered, ‘Don’t even mention it to the detective out front. It would only upset him.’
The vault was indeed inviolable. Even tunnelling under it would have been of no use. ‘He had to have known the staff had become complacent, Hermann, and that things were being carelessly left overnight in the safes upstairs.’
‘Someone has to have looked the place over for him. A woman, no doubt. One who could have made several visits. This piece, that piece …’
‘See if there’s a record of the clientele. Try for a singer, for Mademoiselle Theleme. The shop is on her way to the Ritz.’
‘Done, but why did the son of a bitch leave the cigarette case behind? He must have known they’d have it ready? He’d have had access to the office and to the sous-directeur’s desk during the robbery.’
‘Perhaps our Gypsy was too busy. Perhaps it was only a means to his looking the place over and to hot-wiring the burglar alarm.’
‘Perhaps he simply forgot it in the rush,’ said Kohler, lost to it.
‘Then why have it inscribed in such a manner?’
‘That’s what I’m asking myself, Louis. Why did he deliberately go out of his way to identify himself with the Rom while wearing the uniform of those who must at least officially hate them?’
The house at 3 rue Laurence-Savart was in Belleville, on a street so narrow, the canyon of it threw up the sound of the retreating Citroen.
As Hermann reached the corner of the rue des Pyrenees, the tyres screeched and that splendid traction avant grabbed icy paving stones. Then the car shot deeply into the city St-Cyr loved, and he heard it approach the Seine – yes, yes, there it was – after which it reached place Saint-Andre-des-Arts and coasted quietly up to the house on the rue Suger. Five minutes flat, from here to there. No traffic. There seldom was at any time of day or night, and in ten minutes one could cross the city from suburb to suburb. The cars all gone. 350,000 of them reduced to 4500 or less; 60,000 cubic metres of gasoline a month reduced to an allocation of less than 600.