Ah! was he a glacier? ‘Please, that is best settled with the victim before us.’
‘And your partner?’ asked Vernet, still unruffled and giving the tiniest glance at Hermann.
One must be affable. ‘Detective-Inspector Kohler will question the staff, with your permission. Nothing formal. There is the absence of Mademoiselle Chambert, you understand. We are concerned that …’
Still there was no sign of anything, not even the flash of a more quizzical smile as between men who know of such things as Vernet was now about to impart.
‘The girl had taken a lover, Inspector. A fellow student. She often stayed out beyond the curfew, and for her sake as well as ours, I had advised her to remain where she was. It’s normal, I understand, for people to do such things.’
Even the clubs and bars would close and lock their doors, keeping the patrons in until the curfew ended at 5.00 a.m. It was that or have them risk arrest with all its consequences.
‘A lover,’ said Kohler. The cap and wound badges in that kid’s pockets, eh? ‘Can you put a name to him?’
‘Alas, I considered the matter private.’
‘But she was the last to see the child alive, monsieur,’ urged Louis. ‘Surely you must realize how important it is for us to talk to her?’
General von Schaumburg had said nothing of these two detectives, nor had Gestapo Boemelburg. Had their silence been a warning in itself? wondered Vernet, and decided that it must have been. ‘My chauffeur will have the address and perhaps the name. Deloitte occasionally dropped the girl off on the way.’
‘I’ll ask him, then, shall I?’ shot Kohler.
‘Yes, of course, Inspector. Now if you will excuse me a moment, I will get my hat and coat.’
‘Ah, monsieur,’ interjected Louis, ‘could I ask that your driver take us to the morgue? Monsieur Deloitte can then fill me in on the way while Detective-Inspector Kohler talks to the rest of the staff.’
‘Very well, if that is what you wish, but I must caution your assistant to limit his activities to the kitchens.’
‘Sein Assistent …?’ blustered Kohler. ‘Ah Gott im Himmel, mein Herr, Gestapo Mueller ist mein Vetter!’ This was not true, of course.
‘Herr Mueller’s cousin or not,’ said Vernet in unruffled French, ‘you will confine yourself to the kitchens and leave the bedrooms of Mademoiselle Chambert and my niece alone until such time as the Kommandant von Gross-Paris decides a search warrant is necessary.’
Verdammt …!
‘Inspectors, my only wish is for you to find the killer swiftly, but because of my position, I must insist all formalities be observed.’
Left to himself, Kohler pointed a stiffened forefinger at the housekeeper to rivet her into silence, and went up the stairs like a rocket to open the first door on his right and catch a breath. Ah nom de Jésus-Christ, what was this? A flea market? A sorcerer’s enchantment?
Softly he closed the door behind him. The room was spacious but seemingly cluttered. It had been done in white, with white lace throws on the bed, but there was gold, too. Gold in gilt-framed mirrors and mirrored trumeaux that threw the winter’s-night light from the windows back and forth, laying detail upon detail until the whole was repetition of shape and form and it took the breath away.
‘Ah merde,’ he said. ‘This can’t be the child’s room. It must be Liline Chambert’s.’
Not a thing was out of place. All had been set exactly where it should be to ensure the total effect. Tall, branching, Gothic wrought-iron standards held candles on either side of a fireplace whose mantelpiece had been removed, though the curved supports remained and now held matching bronze sculptures with single candles in them. Roosters perhaps-very modern in any case, and with their beaks turned back to peck at their tails and one leg lifted straight overhead like ballet dancers.
Ivory candelabra were draped with beads of clear crystal. A sculptress’s three-legged stand held the curly-bearded, curly-headed grey plaster bust of an ancient seer who impassively looked on so that one saw his head from four or five angles and these views were superimposed on and mingled with those of a Greek torso, beautifully hung, the waist, the hips, the genitals complete, the candles, too, and the white, white of old lace and of chair and bed.
There wasn’t a sound. The staff downstairs would all be listening for him, yet he had not taken another step.
Draped across a beautifully carved walnut blanket box at the foot of the bed, there was a fine white woollen, short-sleeved dress, very Greek-looking, very stylish yet simple. Borders at the neck, hem and sleeves were of bands of grey-blue perhaps-the light wasn’t very good. A mid-calf-length thing, he thought, making no noise at all crossing the floor. It was not the sort of dress to wear in the dead of winter, not when most places these days weren’t heated.
Right below the neckline, caught in the light from the windows, there was a cheap brass curtain ring. Nothing else. Just that.
He paused. He picked the ring up and asked himself, Was she about to go off for a little tryst? Young couples did that sometimes, though there weren’t too many young Frenchmen around these days. They took the curtain rings and wore them, fooling no one, least of all the patron of some hide-away auberge in the countryside.
A photograph showed a haunting image of her in a moment of reflection, holding a teacup in both hands. The dark hair was worn loose, down over the front of the right shoulder of the dress, the wide-brimmed hat made the look in her eyes so very tragic.
A kid of eighteen or so. Nice … really nice-looking. Had she lighted the candles before getting into bed to sit watching their reflections and those of the torso and the head? Did she play games in here, was that it, and was Nénette Vernet now with her? Just what the hell had the three of them been up to, the two girls and this one?
Try as he might, he could not help but feel uneasy.
As the chauffeur drove through the darkness and the softly falling snow, St-Cyr sat in silence. All down the Champs-Élysées, and then along the rue de Rivoli, there didn’t appear to be another soul. The city’s streets revealed only blue-washed pinpricks of light from isolated lamp standards that seemed to cry out, See what you have done to me, messieurs. Ended freedom, instilled deceit and fear, made cheats and liars out of honest citizens.
Those who did not have some petty fiddle were desperate. With ten degrees of frost there was no coal except in those places the Germans and their friends occupied. Having even one roomer from among the Occupier guaranteed an element of supply but engendered suspicion, jealousy and hatred from one’s neighbours if they didn’t have the same or better.
In a land of officially-sanctioned favouritism, denunciations were rife. But slowly an opposition was growing from within. Brother now hated brother, children now told tales on their parents, and not to the Occupier, to the Resistance. The bloodbath of retribution was gathering day by day. When it came, it would be terrible.
They had arrived at Place Mazas. ‘The morgue is over there,’ he said gruffly to the chauffeur. ‘Near the river so that the drains can easily take the blood and things.’
‘Inspector, are you attempting to unsettle me further?’ asked Vernet who, having insisted upon it, had ridden alone in the back seat while he, a Chief Inspector of the Sûreté, had been told to sit up front.
‘Monsieur, I am merely commenting on the practicality of our city fathers. The old morgue on the Île de la Cité was also close to the river. Corpses are always hosed down and often opened.’
‘Surely my niece does not require an autopsy and an ice-cold douche?’
Ah, damn you, St-Cyr could hear him saying. ‘That is for the coroner to decide, monsieur. I have asked for Belligueux. He’s very reliable, exceedingly thorough, and always does exactly what he feels is needed, since he cannot possibly be bribed.’