A real tiger. Ah Gott im Himmel… Kohler set the lantern on top of the van. Clearly Talbotte felt very threatened about the future, the war in Russia perhaps. ‘Start talking then. I’ll stand between the two of you and listen.’
Cigarettes were called for and these made it imperative to sit in the prefet’s Citroen even though the leather would get wet.
A bottle of brandy was found under the front seat, nestled between two machine-pistols with spare clips. ‘Well, what do you know?’ enthused Kohler. ‘Nervous, eh, prefet? Louis, the fucking car’s an arsenal! He must be expecting a little surprise from the Resistance. A road-block!’
He took out two stick grenades and, setting one on the floor at his feet, fiddled with the wrong end of the other. ‘A simple twist, a yank, drop and run. No car, no prefet. An accident,’ he said. ‘Now talk. My partner in the back seat is about done in.’
St-Cyr stared at the back of the prefet’s head. ‘Full details of the robbery,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Everything you have, you lousy son of a bitch. My hand, Hermann. My left hand! Always it is the left side that gets injured!’
Kohler … thought Talbotte. Kohler wasn’t liked by several in Gestapo circles. The Resistance could finish him off easily if word was passed that an exchange could be made and one or two of their people allowed to ‘escape’. No one would care too much.
‘Prefet, you of all people shouldn’t even think of it,’ breathed the Gestapo. ‘You’d only get caught in the middle. Why not cooperate? Hey, we’ll even agree to give you all the credit and half the cash.’
‘The money … the eighteen million? Is it hidden here? It can’t be. Those girls … Ah, you can’t possibly link their disappearances to that robbery.’
Nursing his hand, St-Cyr took it away from his lips long enough to hiss, ‘I think I can!’
‘Then the money’s here?’ demanded Talbotte, wiping blood and rainwater from his lips.
‘No. No, it never left Paris.’
‘Louis, how can you be so …?’
‘So sure, Hermann? Ah, nothing is certain until all the information is in.’
Talbotte told himself he had had enough of this shit! ‘Those two men abandoned the car and made a run for it, idiot! The Gare de l’Est, the Gare de Lyon … who’s to say once they’re gone?’
Louis sat up and leaned forward quickly. ‘Yes, yes, prefet, but has there been any word of their having been seen taking the train? Any train?’
‘Louis, what about the …’
‘The lorries full of furniture? They’re certainly a possibility.’
‘Yet the money isn’t here?’ said Talbotte, wondering what Kohler had been about to ask Louis.
‘No. No, I do not think the money is here,’ said St-Cyr, grateful at having stopped Hermann.
Kohler told himself to let Louis handle things now that the two of them had calmed down. Quite obviously the prefet knew nothing of the forged papers Marie-Claire de Brisson had had made.
‘The girl in that tower?’ demanded Talbotte darkly. ‘What has she to do with the robbery?’
‘Nothing,’ said Louis.
‘Then there is no connection!’ snorted Talbotte, only to regret having used his nose so thoughtlessly.
‘A connection … ah yes, prefet, that is a quite different matter and for this we need to know more about the woman in the street’
‘The one who stood look-out for the robbers?’
‘Yes, that one.’
Talbotte saw Kohler fiddling with the stick grenade. The Bavarian was only bluffing but … ah merde, he had a reputation for doing just such things! ‘She was not so young as thought at first. She was well dressed-that is to say, the overcoat, scarf and hat were of good quality. Not overly expensive, but good. Prewar. Leather gloves also. Dark blue.’
‘Eyeglasses?’ asked St-Cyr.
‘Yes.’
‘Age?’
‘Perhaps fifty, perhaps a little more.’
‘Try sixty?’
‘If you wish.’
‘Now tell us about the hat?’
‘Felt, grey-blue with a feather. The brim not so wide as the hat you have left out in the rain.’
‘My hat? Ah maudit!’
St-Cyr looked out at the rain, then ignored the loss. He’d find the hat later. ‘Before the robbery she was seen watching the one who is now in the tower, prefet. Was she seen following her after the getaway?’
‘Yes, but before this she approached the girl two or three times, always from behind. The woman was very nervous and seemed to have recognized the girl but they didn’t speak. It’s felt she was about to warn the girl of something but … but then couldn’t bring herself to do so.’
‘Good!’ breathed St-Cyr. ‘Then what?’
‘The girl hurried east along the rue Quatre Septembre. The woman hesitated and then followed. They turned south on the rue de Richelieu and went into the Bibliotheque Nationale. Only the woman came out and was seen trying to find where the other one had gone. The woman then went south and entered the garden of the Palais Royal and walked along the west arcade.’
Past the shop of the engravers …‘And her name, prefet? Come, come, let us in on it’
The moment must be savoured. ‘That we do not know. My informants …’
‘Are excellent, prefet. Peguy was most certainly not the only one, nor the best of them.’
‘Peguy … Ah yes, Jean-Louis, that is a little matter you and I will have to settle another time.’
‘Of course.’
‘Louis, I’m going to arm this toy for him. Why not get out and ask him again. Hey, I’ll meet you after the bang.’
St-Cyr got stiffly out of the car to stand in the rain and wait for the prefet to roll down his side window. ‘The name?’ he asked. He would not beg, though everything in him said to.
Talbotte shrugged. ‘Find out and then we will deal with it, eh? Us, Jean-Louis, not you.’
‘Don’t be so miserable. It’s just possible the credit will come to you, so why worry?’
‘Why? Because, mon fin from the Surete, that particular mouchard was not nearly as good as Peguy.’
* * *
Daylight had come, and with it, solid curtains of rain which screened the open ends of the barn, filling the place with their unnerving sound. Louis was grim. Hands jammed into the pockets of an overcoat that was drenched and cold, he watched impatiendy as the flics from Provins emptied the contents of the lorries and stacked the furniture. A harpsichord, a gorgeous but fragile piece, had inadvertently lost a leg and every time the instrument was banged against something, the poor Frog would leap.
One by one the paintings and bits of sculpture were carried out and held before him but he would only nod gruffly, after which they were taken away and stacked.
Kohler went through every drawer and chest but couldn’t find the negatives and prints of the photos that had been taken in the Paris house. Worried that they had been destroyed, he searched all the harder but to no avail, then stood beside Louis sharing a last cigarette.
‘All of the paintings and sculptures Mademoiselle Desthieux told us of are missing, Hermann, the tapestries and carpets also. Either Monsieur Verges senior sold them some time ago to pay for die care of his son, or they were stolen and we will now find them offered for sale at the Jeu de Paume.’
‘Why would he have kept the house in Paris during the twenties and thirties?’
‘To escape the farm and the responsibility. To conduct business, to remember, perhaps, the good times they had once had there. Ah, who knows the reasons behind such things? That house, Hermann, has been in the family for generations.’
‘Angelique Desthieux and Luc Tonnerre must have had the use of it prior to 3 July 1916.’
‘Those photos of her in the buff … yes. Tonnerre must have had a key of his own, and our mannequin was not so saindy as either she or some of her other photographs would suggest.’
‘That key was then used after the Defeat of 1940.’