Flustered, the projectionist blurted angrily, ‘Oh come now, monsieur. It’s quite natural for a man to-’
‘It’s Inspector Kohler to you, mon fin. Sure I know that job must have been boring. Night after night the same film. You’d seen it all before, eh, so you had to have a woman in. What’d you get Mademoiselle Bertrand to do? Go down on her knees between your legs while the film rolled on?’
Ah nom de Jesus-Christ, the detective would stop at nothing! Suzie and Jacqueline were fidgeting. Therese was still staring at him-Well stare, you little bitch! Some day I’ll have a knife at your pretty throat and your underpants in my fist, eh? Then we shall see how you beg for it!
Kohler read the bastard’s mind. Hunting among the cigarette butts, he found one with lipstick and lit up. The shortages these days were always trouble. ‘After you were done with her, Mademoiselle Bertrand asked you for the key to the toilets.’
‘You have no proof, Inspector. I know my rights.’
‘Do you? Hey, I thought I told you it was Inspector Kohler? Now don’t forget or you’ll find yourself on a train you’d rather not be on.’
A train to nowhere but the dark and brooding forests of Poland or the Reich.
Blonde, pale and quivering, the usherette Suzie Boudreau blurted, ‘It was my job to unlock the door to the toilets before each performance, Monsieur Martin, but you … you would not let me have the key that night. Always you are bothering us girls. Always you are wanting to get your filthy hands …’
Watching them impassively, Madame Gauthier calmly drew on her cigarette. Herr Weidling hesitated long enough in his interrogation of Artel to demand of his interpreter what had just been said.
The concierge kept to himself like a block of stone.
‘Your filthy hands up their skirts?’ asked Kohler. ‘Hey, were you the one who tied Mademoiselle Aurelle to her bed for a little fun later on?’
One could have heard a pin drop. Frantically the projectionist looked for an out, then hissed, ‘There was no easy way I could have done that, monsieur. I’d have had to go downstairs to the street to come in at the other door!’
‘She was naked, and you could have played around with her all you wanted.’
It was Suzie who, brushing tears away, said bitterly, ‘He has tried to take advantage of each of us, Inspector. First Jacqui because she is so young, then Therese whose husband is away in a prisoner-of-war camp in your country and then myself, but all three of us still.’
‘And if you didn’t yield, he’d bitch to the manager and you’d lose your jobs,’ sighed Kohler. ‘Hey, come to think of it, where is the manager?’
Weidling’s interpreter tried to be helpful. ‘Monsieur Thibault was not at his place of residence. The Gestapo, they … they are now searching for him.’
In brutal German the fire chief from Lubeck, et cetera, et cetera said, ‘Herr Artel has sent that one into hiding, Herr Kohler.’
Artel shot to his feet, demanding legal counsel. Weidling shouted at him to sit down. The interpreter tried to intercede … They’d be at each other’s throats!
Kohler separated the two men, patting Weidling on the shoulder. ‘Look, I know you want to solve this thing and get back home to your duties. If he’s done as you think, I’ll see that he hangs.’
He turned to Artel and translated everything but used the guillotine and the wicker basket instead of hanging. ‘Cooperate, eh? Or else my partner and I will take you down to whichever river you choose and drown you.’
As he went back to his chair, Suzie blurted, ‘We were all under their thumbs, Inspector. Monsieur Thibault, the manager, he … he was just as bad as this one only … only not so …’
‘Sadistic?’ breathed Kohler quietly.
She dropped her eyes and whispered, ‘Yes.’
‘So the washroom was locked and Mademoiselle Claudine went upstairs to get the key from Monsieur Martin?’
The girl nodded. Kohler gave her a moment. ‘Did Mademoiselle Bertrand ask you for that key or did she know who would have it?’
‘She … she has asked me for it, Monsieur the Inspector, and I … I have told her where it was.’
‘And then?’ he asked so gently she felt he might not blame her too much for what had happened.
‘And then Mademoiselle Bertrand, she has come downstairs from the booth and has gone to open the door to the toilets.’
Kohler waited. Now it was as if there were only the two of them. ‘She did not stay long, Inspector. Some others went into the toilets-three, four … I don’t know how many. Men … women …’
The kid was desperate. ‘Who locked them in, Suzie? Was it yourself?’
‘Me? Ah no! No! I could not have done such a thing, monsieur. Their screams …’
He gave her another moment. ‘Look, just tell me the way you remember it.’
Her eyes pleaded with him for understanding. ‘They went into the toilets. The key was in the lock. I went back to my station just inside the curtains across the aisle but when those patrons, they did not return, I went to see if … if everything was all right.’
‘And the key was still in the lock?’
She knew he’d ask it of her. ‘Yes. It’s … it’s not my job to stop such things. Sex in the toilets. I … I know I should have tried the door and … and checked for mischief, monsieur. Mischief! I know I should have taken the key and made certain the door remained unlocked, may God forgive me.’
The poor kid was still blaming herself for everything. ‘What about the woman who came in with Mademoiselle Bertrand? The one who carried the bag woven out of rushes?’
‘She … she was absent from her seat. Me, I have thought she must be in the toilets also, but … but I did not look, monsieur. I did not think to open that door and they … they …’
Kohler laid a hand on her forearm. ‘Was the bag on the seat or still on the floor, or did she take it with her?’
‘It … it was on the seat, so I … I knew she must be coming back. Don’t you see, I knew, Inspector? I could so easily have taken that bag out into the foyer to look for her. An excuse … anything. But I … I did not do so.’
‘Inspector …,’ began Madame Gauthier only to see him hold up a silencing hand. Comforting the girl would have to come later.
‘Two women, Suzie. Did this other one lock the door to the toilets?’
‘Yes. Yes, I think she must have.’
‘Then tell me what she looked like. Try to remember. I know it’s painful. I know you hate yourself for not stopping them and for not unlocking that door, but … hey, you weren’t to blame.’
His voice was so gentle and kind. She sniffed in and wiped her nose with the back of a hand. ‘I only saw her boots and stockings, Inspector. When I show people to their seats, I do not shine my light into their faces. The film was in progress and it was dark up at the back. Too dark. There is the balcony above or … or there was. There was!’
‘Her boots and stockings then?’ he asked, comforting her.
‘Expensive. Black patent leather with full laces up the front and pointed toes. Perhaps well-fitted but perhaps a little too tight. ‘Yes. Yes, this I think. Also, monsieur, that perhaps the boots, their style it is not worn so much any more. Except, of course, these days people will wear anything, isn’t that so?’
La Belle Epoque? he wondered. Madame Ange-Marie Rachline perhaps, in the shoes of the 1890s. ‘And the stockings?’ he asked gently. The kid was doing fine.
‘Black silk and very expensive-lovely and with a very delicate pattern like antique lace. They … they made me envious, monsieur. Me, I have never had the money for such things.’
‘Yes, yes, I quite understand. The woman?’
‘Fairly tall, monsieur. A woman with very nice legs, I think, and a good figure. Not old. Ah no, not that one, but … but perhaps a little older than this … this Mademoiselle Bertrand that … that Monsieur Martin has …’