And did this last need to be mentioned? wondered Kohler, only to hear Louis patently ignore the fact and ask, ‘Time of entry?’
The torch went out to give it a rest. ‘Inspectors, you must understand that I didn’t make my rounds here until forty-five minutes past midnight. Immediately I have called in.’
‘As you should have,’ said Louis. ‘Give us a span, if you think it appropriate, but narrow it as much as is prudent.’
And if that wasn’t polite and deferential, what was?
‘From twenty minutes past midnight to thirty. Normally I would have been here between those times, but heard a disturbance in the passage des Panoramas and have retraced the steps for another look.’
More up-market, though older, that passage was right across the boulevard Montmartre at number 11. ‘Why didn’t the alarm go off here?’ asked Kohler.
Pumped torchlight momentarily touched the flic’s heavy black-rimmed spectacles before swinging aft and aloft to reveal the brass of an ancient clapper pan that was just above the inside of the door and would have awakened the dead had its fist-sized hammer been allowed to continue and not been silenced by a wad of rat-grey clay.
‘Which reeks of the sewers, Hermann,’ muttered the Surete, having beaten his partner to it while under cover of darkness. ‘Put in place as entry was gained.’
‘The alarm known about?’ quipped Kohler.
‘You’re learning. That’s good. Being with me helps.’
The safe, ancient and of cast iron, was hidden behind a faded curtain that had dutifully fallen into place even though the door was wide open. One of its little legs was missing, a half-brick having been substituted years ago.
The obvious had best be given but it wouldn’t hurt to use Louis’s rank. ‘Two medium raps with the sledge, Chief Inspector,’ said Kohler deferentially. ‘One to knock the dial off and the other with the chisel to punch in the spindle and tumblers.’
Good for Hermann. Together they’d unsettle this flic. ‘But … but, Herr Hauptmann Detektiv Aufsichtsbeamter of the Gestapo’s Kripo, the contents can’t have been touched beyond a desired item or two? Three thick wads of old francs kept in the faint hope of their amnesty? Folios and envelopes too precious to leave out after hours, the owner’s private collection as well? A half a baguette made from white flour, at least three hundred grams of Camembert, which, like the flour, can only be obtained on the marche noir?’
The black market.
‘An open tin of Portuguese sardines and a quarter litre of milk, these items to be shared with …’ Louis paused. ‘The cat, where is it?’
‘Gone to where all such cats must go when released by a sudden noise and an open door,’ said Belanger.
A poet! but horn-rims must be feeling confident. ‘Milk,’ grumbled Kohler, ‘when mothers haven’t been able to find it since the winter of 1940-41.’ But had used postage stamps been bartered to provision this one’s larder? Absolutely! Even among the Wehr shy;macht’s grey-green-uniformed soldier boys, its “Green Beans,” there were avid stamp collectors and guess who were the black market’s biggest dealers?
Taking hold of the hand that held the light, he lowered it a trifle before reaching deeply into the safe. ‘Saucisson de Lyon fume,’ he said appreciatively. ‘Homemade, Louis, and hung for at least ten days in the chimney.’
Now, of course, such a practice could only be done late at night, prolonging the finishing time and keeping the news from neighbours, but possessing smoked sausage was illegal in any case. ‘Agent Belanger, have you notified the owner?’ asked St-Cyr pleasantly enough.
‘My orders were to await yourselves, Chief Inspector.’
‘The prefet is being considerate, Hermann.’
The chief of police and an archenemy. Merde, were they in for another dose of Talbotte’s ‘consideration’?
‘The owner, M. Picard, has lived in the Hotel Ronceray for years, Inspectors. If it is your wish, I’ll ask the concierge to awaken him.’
Such politeness from a flic had to have its reasons and Louis knew it too but said, ‘Let him sleep. He’s going to need it. Stay here and seal this off and we’ll come back when there’s no need for the electric lights we could have used. Ah, I almost forgot. Your pocketknife.’
Taken aback as to why such a lengthy trust should suddenly have befallen him, Belanger dragged out the knife. ‘Inspectors …’
Ignoring him, Louis scraped a bit of clay from the dial and put it into a handkerchief. ‘Rags, Hermann, were used to muffle the sound. Rags still heavy with their mud.’
‘And from that same sewer as was used on the clapper, Chief?’ Horn-rims was now panicking at being ignored but as if on cue to save him, the bold clanging of a call box started up. Again and again, it shrilled.
‘Answer it,’ said St-Cyr with a sigh. ‘It’s all right. You can leave us. I have a torch whose batteries I was budgeting.’
Now only the sound of ice hitting the roof of the Jouffroy came to them. ‘The driving will be a bugger, Louis.’
‘Especially with the absence of road salt. Wasn’t it all requisitioned and sent to the Reich?’
‘It’s not my fault.’
‘Our flic is hiding something.’
‘The sausage,’ retorted Kohler. ‘He cut off a thick slice and ate it. You would have smelled it on his breath if you hadn’t been so busy playing detective.’
‘The Camembert on that breath was overly ripe and there were breadcrumbs glued to the knees of his trousers, Inspector, but if you had really been alert, you would have noticed the instant of panic that greeted my telling him to stay.’
‘He lifted a little something else from the safe,’ said Kohler.
‘The bank notes were left untouched,’ mused the oracle.
‘But our safe-cracker passed up …’
‘The paper twists of gold louis our M. Picard would most certainly have set aside.’
‘And not declared as they should have been?’ quipped Kohler. These days everything more than one hundred thousand francs in value had to be registered, if one was fool enough.
‘We’ll treat the matter with discretion, Hermann, since our flic has realized we might well be aware of the absence.’
‘But was he left that little something to silence him?’ asked Kohler blandly.
‘Ah, bon, mon vieux, you really are learning. It’s a great comfort to me, of course, for Paris has much to teach a former Munich and Berlin detective, though with such a slow learner, I tell myself patience is required. We can leave him entirely in charge. Indeed, I doubt there will even be another mouthful of sausage taken when we come back for that closer look, and I think we will find the proof of what is missing has been returned and no one will be the wiser for its little absence.’
‘Inspectors … Inspectors,’ bleated Belanger from out of the ink. ‘Someone at headquarters has made an unpardonable mistake. You were not to have been assigned to this robbery and are to hurry to the Restaurant Drouant. Another sex attack has been made.’
‘Not assigned to this, Louis? Another rape?’
‘Are we to only cover those?’
There was no other traffic but why, please, only the rapes? Murder, blackmail, robbery, arson and fraud were their specialties.
The Drouant, at the corner of the rue Saint-Augustin and the rue Gaillon, had opened in 1880 and become famous for its seafood. Though it hurt to have to admit it, Louis had to say, ‘The clientele is largely French and most definitely Parisian.’
There’d be several of the ‘friends’ of those, felt Kohler, but only the bourgeoisie aisee, the really well-off, and the nouveaux riches everyone else was bitching about, could afford such a place: the BOFs, the beurre, oeufs et fromage (butter, eggs and cheese) boys of the black market and other collabos, bankers, businessmen, those of inherited wealth and those who had made it, if only recently.