‘And the Sandman?’ asked von Schaumburg.
‘A toy giraffe and then a toy baby elephant were stolen from the crèche of Sister Céline, the sister of Violette Belanger, one of the prostitutes at the house on the rue Chabanais.’
‘And Debauville’s pigeon?’
‘Yes, General. Sister Céline visits regularly, always pleading with her young sister to renounce the life. This the girl refuses to do and makes a mockery of the nun and the schoolgirls of the convent.’
‘Those visits are usually on the days the nuns help out with the soup kitchens.’
‘Two of the murders were near such kitchens.’
‘There are threads and threads to this thing,’ interjected Kohler apologetically.
‘Then just see that you keep the shuttles going,’ grunted von Schaumburg. Nuns, priests … ‘Is the child safe for the time being?’
Louis reached for the coffee. ‘This we really do not know, General, but if Debauville has her as a hostage, will an all-out search not cause her death?’
‘Is he the Sandman?’
‘This, too, we really do not know.’
‘He wears a black overcoat, Louis. There were threads of coarse black wool caught under Andrée Noireau’s fingernails.’
‘But not under those of the other victims. General, though there are blood-group difficulties with those other murders, this last one was still quite different.’
‘It was not a random killing, General. The child knew she would be followed. She and her little friend cooked up a plan to prove it. Nénette did not believe Andrée would be harmed.’
‘She thought that once the assailant discovered his mistake, he would let Andrée alone.’
‘What are you saying, St-Cyr?’
‘Only that the killing may have been made to look like the work of the Sandman.’
‘By whom?’
It would be best not to say too much until certain. ‘General, we have a child, an heiress, who wished to run away from the home she loved and who then began to track and record the Sandman’s killings. She insisted she knew who he was but would reveal this to no one but the préfet, in person and in private. This request was refused by her uncle. Either she does know who it was and the Sandman set out to silence her and made a mistake, or it was not him at all and she was being followed by someone else, but this person she must have known at least a little.’
‘Two villains?’
‘Yes.’
A brush with the truth or mere speculation? wondered von Schaumburg, turning to gaze raptly into the fire and add another chair leg. ‘A black cloak,’ he mused. ‘I did see something. That is why I was here early. It was a nun. I’m certain of it and that, gentlemen, is why I did not connect the two events.’
‘A nun?’
‘The child was running towards the cage of doves-yes, they are doves, Kohler. I don’t think she could see very well.’
‘She didn’t have her glasses,’ prompted Louis. ‘The other one was wearing them.’
‘She went behind the cage and out of sight and that is when I saw the nun some distance behind her. The sisters of the cloth do not come to this place. Everyone knows of the “doves of peace” and their revulsion at the shooting of them for sport. Now that I think on it, she was striding angrily towards the cage and must then have entered it. I took no more notice and, indeed, let the matter pass from me.’
‘The stables,’ breathed Kohler. ‘Could this “nun” have come from them?’
‘How exactly did she “stride”, General? Angrily, yes, but …?’
The stables … a man wearing the cloak of a nun … Was it possible? wondered von Schaumburg, cursing age and what it did to the reflexes and the eyes. ‘Stride? Entirely like a man-quickly, determinedly and with no time to lose. Please see that he is apprehended before nightfall. I’ve an agitated citizenry on my hands, a press who are fomenting trouble by crying out for blood, and a préfet who is pestering my ears and demanding a thorough enquiry into your handling of this matter. If Berlin hears any more from him through the SS of the avenue Foch, you will be on your own and without the protection you now enjoy. I do hope I have made myself clear.’
Ah merde, the SS of the avenue Foch …
Kohler grabbed two croissants and stuffed them into his pockets. One never knew when they’d eat again.
The doves were everywhere and fluttering madly above them as Gilbert Amirault, the custodian, ruefully waited for the detectives to tell him what they were after. Both played their torches on the floor between the nesting boxes where Andrée Noireau had once lain.
‘Manure,’ said the one called Kohler at last, towering formidably above the cone of his torch beam, his ragged, scarred cheeks unshaven. ‘There was horse manure on the floor, Louis. Boot-scrapings. I know there was.’
‘Of course there was, but you’ve terrified him,’ cautioned the Sûreté, and, taking the custodian aside, said, ‘Monsieur, please try to remember. The assailant may have come from the direction of the stables. We really do not know yet exactly where the girls went before setting out this way. They may have thought the one who was following them had suddenly lost them. It is at least one and a half kilometres from the Jardin d’Acclimatation as the crow flies, but not a straight traverse for others. Those girls would have crossed the route de Neuilly and would most probably have taken one of the riding trails.’
A crumpled ten-franc note was straightened and pressed into the custodian’s hand to help things along. ‘They would have been seen by others. Once on the riding trail, their steps would eventually have brought them to the riding circle behind the stables. But did they lose the one who had been following them, and did he then come at them from the riding stables wearing the heavy black cloak of a nun or something so similar it gave that impression?’
‘This I … I cannot say, Inspector. I saw only a dark blur, nothing else. My back was usually to the path that leads from here to the stables. Perhaps the General …’
‘He has seen such a thing. I wanted only confirmation and now must ask for your silence in the matter.’
Later they sat in the car, sharing a cigarette and trying to get warm as they studied the map of the Bois. Two thoroughfares formed a broad X. To the north of its intersection, and in the V of its arms, lay the whole of the Jardin; directly to the south was the riding circle, which surrounded a horseshoe-shaped pond beside which were the dressage grounds and jumps onto which the stables backed. Three riding trails merged tangentially with the circle. To the south, cutting through the woods near the clay-pigeon shoot, a trail came out to cross the route de Madrid. This trail then left the circle half-way round and turned off to the north to pass through another woods and finally behind the Jardin before turning southwards to the circle to merge with its western side. It was all neat and tidy and splendidly laid out for maximum pleasure and variety, quiet rides through the woods alternating with the more open ones. Just to the west of the Jardin, the riding trail passed the buildings that housed the equestrian society of Paris.
‘Is he a stablehand, Louis?’
‘We’d best check.’
‘Let me. I won’t be long.’
Hermann strode off into the darkness. Frost from their breath had formed on the inside of the windshield and St-Cyr scraped at this to clear it and opened his side window a crack. The child would freeze to death in this weather without her overcoat of insulating leaves and sealskin boots and mittens. What had been going on in that house to drive her out? ‘No one is going to murder you,’ the chef had said in the folly last night, and just before this, ‘Your aunt has still not returned from the hairdresser’s and another visit to that clairvoyant of hers. It’s safe … Your uncle stays in Rouen.’