Three times, on the left wrist-so, a very determined attempt and one she still tried hard to hide. Blood flowing out to stain the scented bathwater while, with eyes fixed on the wounds, she watched her life drain away until …
She had been found, but by whom? Her mother, her father, her friend and employer Denise St. Onge or by someone else, a lover perhaps?
The scars, though not recent, hadn’t been that old. Though he couldn’t be sure of this, he thought perhaps no more than six months or a year at most.
A broken love affair? Girls sometimes killed themselves for the silliest of reasons. ‘But not this one,’ he said and paused.
The traffic flowed around him-pedestrians whose shoulders jostled. Now a well-dressed, middle-aged woman in a hurry, now an old man with a brown, paper-wrapped parcel under one arm. Antiquarian books, the sale rejected, the disappointment and what it meant all too clear. No food.
There were a few gazogene lorries, two of which were parked outside very expensive restaurants, lots of the inevitable velo-taxis filled with German soldiers and officers on leave, staff cars, Gestapo cars … ah, one had only to look at these last to tell them apart from all others.
Had it been the only time Marie-Claire de Brisson had attempted suicide?
She’d been clever and hadn’t run across the street to her father. She’d known the Surete would be watching for just such a thing.
But had she tried to kill herself because of what had gone on in the house of Monsieur Verges? That was the question.
Hermann might have an answer, but Hermann wasn’t with him.
The shop Enchantment was on the east side of the octagon, facing across place Vendome towards the Ritz Hotel where a gigantic swastika hung above two helmeted sentries with bayonets fixed. Requisitioned by the German High Command, the Ritz was a place for generals and other high-ranking officers. Pedestrians were everywhere and, though that joie de vivre could not quite be snuffed out, most kept their heads down and hurried about their business, for then there would be far fewer questions. Ah yes. Always one must look as if one knew exactly where one was going and was about that business and no other.
The Germans like order and efficiency. It hadn’t taken the Resistance long to learn this simple lesson.
The shop was very classy, very chic and upbeat and very expensive and busy as always. A place of lingerie, perfumes, lace and silk, bath oils, creams and soaps, et cetera, and the most beautiful mannequins in the business, all shop-girls too, for Muriel Barteaux chose them not only for the shapes of their bodies and their posture above all else, most certainly, but also for the quickness of their minds.
‘Chantal, it’s good to see you looking so lovely.’
That little bird from yesterday gracefully turned from a customer, a lieutenant with whom she had been discussing the weather-she never served the customers herself, one must not do such a thing-to delicately touch in hesitation the silk chiffon scarf she wore then press a hand to the base of a throat that bore few wrinkles- one did not speak of such things. ‘Jean-Louis …? Is it really you, mon cher detective?’
The eyes were clear and large and of a lovely, warm shade of brown-very sensitive as now.
Gabrielle has informed her of my problem, he said to himself. And taking Chantal’s hand, brought it to his lips. ‘How marvelous you are,’ he said and meant it.
She let him kiss her on both cheeks. Her laughter, though tiny, had a bell-like quality that pleased. Well into her seventies, Chantal Grenier and her lifelong companion had run the shop for over fifty years. As toddlers they had both experienced the Prussians at the gates of Paris in that winter of 1870-71 and, conditioned by such a momentous event, had been wary of Germans and the economy ever since.
He knew they must have a hoard of gold coins stashed away for a rainy day. They had weathered at least three, or was it four, major devaluations of the franc and an equal number of inflations, and all else, very well. They owned the building and had the flat directly above the shop.
The coins would be illegal, of course, but one must not take too seriously the proclamations of the Nazis and those of tax collectors.
Whereas Chantal seldom strayed from the place Vendome and its little world of refinement, Muriel did the buying, the organizing, the tough jobs, though it was to her that fell the job of manufacturing their own perfumes.
‘So,’ she said, on drawing away from an embrace that could have been better had he been more presentable, ‘the wreckage of Provence and Lyon returns to the bosom of Paris but what is this? What have you done with the new hat, coat, suit, shoes, gloves, shirt and tie we provided?’
The others had been ruined on another case. ‘Criminals are no respecters of detective’s garments.’
The pencilled eyebrows were sharply raised. ‘Apparendy not, but you are forgiven. Let us send them to the cleaners at once.’
‘Ah, another time, Chantal.’
That little head was perfectly tossed. ‘There is no time at present?’
‘Ah, no. A matter of great urgency. Is Muriel in?’
‘My Muriel? Is it that you wish to see only her and not myself?’
‘No, no, of course not. But the matter is for the toughest, Chantal. For myself, you understand, I would not wish to bruise a sensitivity I cherish always.’
Ah, he was such a gendeman. Handsome still, if only he would take better care of himself. Wounded in the heart, divorced from the first wife, a widower from the second-it was such a tragedy that business of the bomb that had been meant for him, but for the best.
‘Your lover was in to see us. It was she who told us to expect a little visit from you. How may we be of service? Please, the shop is at your disposal. I have steeled myself to whatever infamy you must reveal to my Muriel.’
The shop went on about its business. Swathed in its cocoon of undergarments and scent, of pastel shades and lace like air, he watched the girls amid the gilded statues of Venus, Diana and Aphrodite deal with plod-minded, shy German officers and their French mistresses. Other women also, as before at Chez Denise, but wealthier and far more sophisticated. Really classy, class-conscious and discriminating. Not the fringe of the fashion trade, but the centre.
‘Let us go into the office, Chantal, but please, my dear, dear friend, if at any time you feel the matter too much, leave us to it. This business I have, it is not pleasant.’
Delicately she touched the back of his hand and fixed him with a gaze that in itself implored understanding. ‘I am of sterner stuff, my dear detective. I was once eighteen myself, Jean-Louis, and once, yes, abducted by two men. Ah,’ she raised both hands to stop him from saying anything, ‘the matter is closed. I mention it only so that you will understand my reasons better.’
‘You are a friend.’ Nothing else needed to be said. Taking her by the arm, he walked that cloud of rose-pink silk and chiffon through the displays past bemedalled, monocled and jackbooted Prussian giants who fingered lace and satin as if they were explosives about to detonate.
Muriel Barteaux was waiting for him in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
Kohler left Madame de Brisson to her house and her own thoughts. Indeed, he didn’t say a thing to her about the daughter’s ‘Letters to Myself’. Moving purposefully, he entered the garden of the Palais Royal and soon found himself among the lindens.
The daughter had had every reason to take revenge on her father and get out of Paris, but had Louis got it all wrong about the Resistance, had she been the one to ask for the forged papers? Had she played look-out in the rue Quatre Septembre for the two men who had held up her father’s bank? Sweet revenge and eighteen millions?