‘Monsieur, what is it you desire?’ came a hesitant voice, young, so young, a boy often perhaps.
Ah merde, the children, of course! ‘A word with your mother, but please do not be alarmed. The vestibule, eh? Permit me to step inside a moment. This weather … I feel as if I’ve just crossed the Mer de Glace without decent boots or brandy.’
Uncertain of what to do, the boy waited, forcing him to add, ‘Please tell her Monsieur Jean-Louis St-Cyr is here from Paris.’
The attempt to hide his true identity and cushion the shock failed. ‘You’re a detective,’ bristled the boy. ‘Did you think we would not recognize such a one? You’ve come about the fires.’
‘And about the murders of Mademoiselle Claudine and her mother,’ said a girl sadly. ‘Do not deny it, Monsieur the Chief Inspector of the Surete Nationale whose specialty is murder. The prefet himself has been here and has informed maman of the details.’
‘The prefet … Yes, yes.’ Ah damn it, the young … so tender of age. Had they relatives to take them in if necessary? Tour mother?’ he reminded them.
‘She didn’t do it!’ shrilled the boy, trying to shut the door in his face. ‘Our mother only tried to help Mademoiselle Claudine!’
‘Yes, yes, I understand,’ he said, pushing firmly on the door. ‘Could you …? Would you please tell her I’m here.’
‘She’s busy!’ hissed the girl fiercely. ‘She has important work to finish and must not be disturbed!’
‘A German lady,’ piped the boy, still shoving manfully on the door. ‘A dress for the concert.’
His foot was slipping! ‘Now listen, eh? Lives are in danger. Time is very short. Take me to her at once!’
He heaved on the door and reluctantly they gave up but now, in the light, he found himself subjected to such a hurtful scrutiny, it was unsettling. The boy was the image of the mother; the girl, taller and two years older, bore only touches of her. ‘Our mother isn’t here,’ confessed the girl. ‘Mademoiselle Charlebois …’
‘Our aunt,’ said the boy.
‘She’s not our aunt, Rene. She’s only a … We only call her that because …’
St-Cyr let his shoulders relax a little. He took off his hat and heaved a sigh. ‘Then Mademoiselle Charlebois came to see your mother as I suspected. Where have they gone? Come, come, it’s important.’
‘Our mother wouldn’t let her stay here with us,’ confessed the boy. ‘They argued. Aunt Martine, she … she has shed the fountain of tears, monsieur, and cried to God for mercy.’
‘She tried to kill me. She was distraught,’ said St-Cyr sadly. ‘I think she did something she need never have done and, fearing the worst, then attempted to take her own life and that of myself so as to protect her brother.’
‘Uncle Henri?’ asked the boy, startled.
The detective nodded gravely. He said that he did not yet understand everything, but felt a great mistake had been made. ‘Where did they go?’ he asked and one could see how weary he was both in the body and the spirit. ‘To the shop of Mademoiselle Charlebois’s brother?’ he said and then, urging, ‘Come, come, I must have answers.’
‘We don’t know,’ said the girl, ‘but could you not use the telephone, Inspector?’
The telephone … Would Hermann have gone to the shop? Suddenly it all seemed so futile, this chasing around without adequate transport. It was as if the prefet and Gestapo Lyon wanted the Salamander to succeed! ‘If I telephone, I will only warn them,’ he said. There was a chair in the vestibule, and though it was chilly here by the door, he slumped into it. ‘Christmas,’ he said. ‘This is how a detective must spend his holiday, my little friends. Don’t ever forget it; don’t ever consider the life. Now, please, don’t push a man who is exhausted. Tell me what they said to each other. They argued. Mademoiselle Charlebois said things your mother would not have wanted you to hear, is that not correct?’
Their silence told him this was so. ‘Mademoiselle Charlebois has always come to your mother for help when she felt there was trouble with …’
The detective waited for them both to say it. He was searching them with the eyes of a priest …
Paulette Rachline swallowed with difficulty and dropped her gaze to the floor. ‘When … when there was trouble between her and her brother, Inspector. Yes, that is so. You are correct’
‘What sort of trouble?’ he asked, but one could hardly hear him, his voice was so gentle. ‘The fires,’ he said, softly again. ‘Lubeck, Heidelberg and finally Koln. Now the cinema of the Beautiful Celluloid.’
‘But not the tenement?’ asked the girl, suddenly looking up at him with the clarity of truth betrayed.
‘No, not the tenement,’ he said, ‘but then … ah then perhaps it is yet too early to say.’
They were quiet for a moment. They knew there were things they should tell him but knew also they must not do so.
‘Tell me about the dress,’ he said, catching them off guard. Suspicion rose in the girl’s expression, doubt more slowly in the boy’s.
‘The dress …?’ said the girl. ‘It’s upstairs in mother’s work room, Inspector.’
‘Good. Take me to it.’
Frugal snippings of fabric littered the floor along with tiny bits of thread, lace and elastic and the trimmings from paper patterns. There was a sewing machine, a lamp over the work table-remnant bolts of cloth to the ceiling on shelves. Dressmaker’s dummies-a half-finished blouse, being made over from another-several pairs of lady’s bloomers, slips, suit jackets, skirts, dresses, overcoats and boxes of buttons and spools of thread, a measuring tape … The work was everywhere and so much, he had to wonder how Ange-Marie Rachline could possibly have found the time, then realized she must have delegated virtually everything at La Belle Epoque to her sous-maitresse, thus hiding the truth from her children and others.
The dress was magnificent and when told again that the owner was a German lady, a Madame Weidling, he thought he understood what was planned.
‘Our mother didn’t want to do the alterations, Inspector,’ said the boy, plucking at the fabric. ‘Uncle Henri, he …’
‘He, what? Come, come, young man. To protect your mother is admirable, but to deny an officer of the police information vital to a case is to reject all that society has struggled through the centuries to accomplish. Like your mother and Mademoiselle Charlebois, they also argued, is that not correct?’
It was. ‘Mother … mother already has far too much work, Monsieur the Inspector,’ said the girl, ‘She cannot simply set aside everything else, even for a German lady.’
‘She … she has said it was unwise, monsieur.’
‘Very dangerous?’
‘Very stupid-foolish. That …’
‘Rene, shut your mouth! We must let maman tell him. It is not up to us!’
‘But it is, because in your hands rests the fate of the city,’ said St-Cyr. ‘With this weather, the waterlines may freeze. Once a major fire gets out of hand, it spreads from roof to roof until it cannot be stopped and the wind is drawn in so that the sparks and the flames rush up, up and up to silence the screams of all those who are trapped within.’
They shuddered. The girl said bleakly, ‘Uncle Henri has told maman he will dismiss her if she doesn’t do exactly as he says, Inspector. And … and that we … we will be thrown out of our house.’
‘Had they argued like this before?’
‘Yes. Yes, often-well, not so often, but yes, it was not the first time.’
‘Think back. On the night of the cinema fire, did your mother go there with Mademoiselle Claudine Bertrand?’
‘Mademoiselle Claudine had a bad chest,’ said the boy. ‘When she came to our door that night, maman was upset with her for being out in such terrible weather.’
‘She took her home,’ said the girl.