‘They crossed the main courtyard?’ asked Louis.
‘No. They stayed indoors and went into the Great Audience Chamber and up the main staircase. They had blinkered torches but when they reached the Grand Tinel, César quickly drew the black-out curtains, then helped the bishop find the candles. Suddenly there was light, a beautiful light. Albert Renaud, he … he went to get the chairs.’
‘They had passed through the Chambre du cerf’and the Pontiffs bedchamber,’ said Louis;
‘And the Robing Room, which is just before the Grand Tinel. Monsieur Renaud set up the chairs and they each sat down but … but still there was no sign of Mireille. I wondered if she’d come at all, or simply was late, but knew she wouldn’t have avoided things or hesitated.’
‘And where were you?’ asked von Mahler.
Again she would look steadily at Kurt, she told herself, and then she would tell him. ‘I wanted to see her and yet not be seen. I … I knew there was another tower I could use.’
‘The Saint John’s Tower,’ interjected Marie-Madeleine.
‘Yes. It opens off the lower Consistory and the Grand Tinel above. I retraced my steps and … and that’s when I saw someone. This person was as startled as I. We had almost collided. She gasped, “Ah non!” and retreated swiftly.’
‘Was it Genèvieve Ravier or her lover, Christiane Bissert?’ asked Louis firmly.
‘The latter, I think, because she was not so tall, but I really don’t know either of them well, only that this one was stooped in haste and wore the heavy black habit and cowl of a monk.’
And there it is, thought Kohler wryly, that clot of black wool Peretti found in the victim’s hair, only to hear Louis asking what she, herself, had worn.
‘Why, my overcoat, of course,’ she hazarded.
‘Inspector …’
‘Colonel, please be patient. Hermann, perhaps Mademoiselle Marie-Madeleine would show it to you.’
They waited in silence, the three of them. Frau von Mahler took to staring at her hands only to suddenly reach for the bowl of fabric remnants and to …
She’s lost and desperately afraid, said St-Cyr to himself, silently asking, What did you do, madame, when you found that girl alone and on her knees in the Chambre du cerf? Did you …
‘Louis, the overcoat’s dark blue and trimmed with lambskin.’
‘Ah bon!’ he said and sighed but didn’t look up. Briefly the Colonel’s wife glanced at him, then darted her gaze back to the remnants. ‘I … I didn’t go into the Saint John’s Tower,’ she confessed. ‘I went on through the Consistory and up the far staircase — the one that also leads down into Benedict the Twelfth’s Cloisters. Because I had seen someone else in the Palais, I felt it best to … to warn Mireille if possible and to … to be as close to her as possible.’
‘Then you were near the Latrines Tower and in the upper kitchen,’ said Louis warily.
‘Yes. Her … her overcoat and things were lying neatly on one of the stone ledges. Her torch was there on top of everything but … but when I switched it on, it … it didn’t work. The … the bulb had been removed. I thought of the girl I’d met — had she done this? I wondered. I searched a little. I did what I could, you understand, but by then Mireille was being told what to sing. Each of the judges was to set her a task. Simondi was the first. “Orazio Vecchi’s L’Amfiparnaso,” he said. “The first seven lines from the fourth, eleventh and thirteenth of the madrigals in this comedia harmonica.”’
‘But he told us she was only required to sing the simplest of passages!’ blurted Louis.
‘Ah non, they were very difficult but she sang them beautifully. Right from the heart and in defiance of the three of them and what they stood for. Her voice had such clarity and joy. It filled the hall, and I knew then that she sang not only for herself but for that first Mireille and for Dédou too.’
Kohler glanced at his wrist-watch and silently cursed the time. ‘The audition, Louis …’
‘A moment, mon vieux. We’re almost there.’
‘She didn’t break down, if that’s what you’re thinking, Inspector,’ said Frau von Mahler. ‘She was told what to sing by Renaud and then by Bishop Rivaille and she did so with that same defiant clarity. But … but then they gave her their decision. Struck silent by this, she faced them and … and cried out, “I know what really happened to Adrienne and I can prove it.” ‘
Ah merde, thought Kohler.
‘And they said nothing further?’ demanded Louis.
‘They waited for her to continue and she … she told them that if they didn’t agree to the demands of the maquis for sanctuary and food and warm clothing, she … she would go to my husband and … and tell him they had drowned the girl.’
The little fool, thought Kohler sadly. Brave but naive and willing to set everything else aside in order to help the cause. Dédou and his friends must’ve been in really bad shape.
‘And then?’ asked Louis, using his Sûreté voice.
‘Then?’ she shot back at him. ‘They turned their backs on her as one and left the hall, left her all alone — I couldn’t go to her after hearing that, could I? I … I was paralysed with shock and fear. She … she put out the candles one by one with the snuffer the bishop had placed on the floor beside his chair. And only when it was dark did I hear her weeping. It … it was then that I called out to her — I had to, don’t you understand? “Madame,” she cried. “Madame, you must leave here at once! There are others in the hall.” Others I couldn’t see at first. My torch was blinkered.’
‘How many?’ asked Louis sadly.
‘Three, maybe four. I couldn’t be sure because all of them wore those same black cassocks with their hoods pulled up and my light touched only bits of them until … until knocked from my hand.’
Verdammt! The singers. Spaggiari, Rochon and Genèvieve, Norman Galiteau as well. ‘Louis … Louis, we have to leave.’
‘I’ll come with you, Inspectors. I must. For her sake as well as for my own.’
‘As will I,’ said Marie-Madeleine.
It was von Mahler who swore under his breath and said, ‘Ingrid, you mustn’t. If Berlin were to find out, Gestapo Mueller would see that I was shot for insubordination or sent to the Russian Front.’
No truer statement had been made, thought Kohler ruefully. Mueller would have the Führer screaming with outrage and von Mahler had known this only too well. ‘He’s right. Why chance it?’
She would face right up to Herr Kohler, would tell him how it was. ‘Because I must. Because even though, at the end, she had turned against the Reich, that girl meant a lot to me.’
‘Liebchen, I’m asking,’ entreated von Mahler only to hear her say, ‘And I’m telling you, Kurt.’
He gave a sigh. ‘Then you leave me no other choice but to join you and defy Berlin.’ He unbuttoned his tunic and removed it. ‘A sweater …’ he said. ‘Give me a moment.’
‘Colonel, might I suggest you ask your wife to take along her pistol?’ said Louis. ‘Just in case. And you your own. Hermann, can we all fit into the Renault? They’ll have men watching for it. If you pull right up to the entrance staircase, and we stay close together, they may think there are fewer of us.’
‘And Nino, Louis. I’m not leaving her behind. Not tonight.’
Alone, the blue-blinkered beam of von Mahler’s torch sought out the floor plans of the Palais that hung in the former guardroom, now the ticket office. It came to rest on each of the ten, massive stone towers that formed the square corners between which had been built the long and vaulted reception halls and chapels, with subordinate rooms.
‘Each tower has four or five levels,’ he said, not liking the look of things. ‘Access within each is by narrow staircases that were built into the walls. Since it was a fortress first, a treasury second and a palace and administrative centre lastly, all of the upper levels of the towers were and still remain sealed off for defensive purposes, except for those same narrow staircases.’