Candles that had all but vanished from the city since that first winter flickered in the sudden draught as they stepped into the foyer to confront an absent maitre d’.
In the silence that accompanied their entry, a nearby glass of the blanc de blanc was downed in one gulp by a blonde in an emerald-green suit dress and diamonds. Guilt made her lovely eyes moisten, fear caused her lips to quiver. Like every other female in the place, she’d be thinking she could well have been a victim herself. The forty-year-old stud at her side wore the navy blue of a lieutenant in the Abwehr, the counterintelligence service, and didn’t she look like what some had come to hate and call les horizontales?
The place was packed. Several were dressed for an evening at the Opera, though the performance would have ended early for those who needed the metro, and most here would simply stay the night unless they’d a pass allowing them to be out after curfew.
Embarrassed by his continued scrutiny, she finally lowered her gaze. Twenty-two if that, thought Kohler. A gorgeous figure, beautiful lips …
‘The oyster bar is superb, Hermann. Belons, portugaises and marennes. Ah, mon Dieu, the bouillabaisse is magnificent, the filet de sole Drouant a bishop’s sin.’
‘You’ve eaten here?’
‘On my pay? People such as myself only hear about places like this. Monsieur …’
The maitre d’ had arrived to shrill, ‘Inspectors, why are you not keeping the streets safe? A mugging? A slashing? A groping? This homme sadique has ruined the dinners of everyone and has upset the chef and sous-chef, my waiters as well as myself most especially.’
‘Monsieur, just lead us to the victim,’ said Louis. It was a night for sighs.
‘Victims!’ cried Henri-Claude Patout. ‘The hysterics. The splashes of blood on the carpets-how are we to clean them? The oceans of tears and screams? The shameful clutching of a woman’s parties sensibles as the ring is torn from her finger and she has thought the virtue, it would have to be sacrificed or else the throat, it would be slashed? Yes, slashed! Monsieur Morel, he has been unable to defend her from this animal. Struck down, he has fallen into the gutter to ruin the tuxedo and has been robbed. ROBBED, DID YOU HEAR ME, of the wallet, the gold pocket watch of his wife’s father, the silver cigar case …’
‘Calm down, monsieur,’ snapped Louis, stopping him on a staircase whose wrought-iron balustrade curved up from ground-floor ears and eyes to sixteen private dining rooms.
‘WHY SHOULD I BE CALM WHEN YOU PEOPLE DON’T KNOW YOUR DUTY?’
‘They don’t appear to have stopped eating.’
‘THE ATMOSPHERE HAS BEEN PLUNGED, INSPECTOR. PLUNGED!’
‘Louis, let me.’
‘Hermann, a moment please, and then he is all yours to arrest for obstructing justice. Which of the rooms, monsieur? Come, come. Out with it.’
‘The Goncourt’s.’
The Academie Goncourt had held their meetings here since 31 October 1914 to award the country’s most prestigious literary prize. ‘Take care of him, Hermann. Scrutinize the papers of every shy;one. Be sure to take down all the necessary details. One never knows when something useful might turn up. And make damned sure those who are allowed to leave have the necessary Ausweis and are not required to stay cooped up in this doss-house of the elite until five a.m!’
Thank God Louis had got that off his chest.
‘Messieurs … Inspectors …’
‘It’s Chief Inspector St-Cyr and Detective Inspector Kohler of the Gestapo,’ said Louis.
‘It … it is this way, please.’
And so much for not knowing their duty. ‘We’ll leave the papers for the moment,’ said Kohler, plucking at Patout’s sleeve and using his best Gestapo form. ‘Just see that a little something is sent up from the kitchens.’
Not even an eye was batted, thereby revealing that the house was quite used to such.
‘Hermann, we haven’t time. Besides, you know the stomach, accustomed to those little grey pills that keep the Luftwaffe’s night-fighter pilots awake, will not sit well with such richness.’
The Benzedrine, but still the stomach would like to try.
M. Gaston Morel, victim number three, was not happy. Big in every sense below a blood-soaked bandage, he lifted lead grey eyes from an all but drained bottle of the Romanee-Conti, the 1934 and a superb year, to impassively gaze at Louis first and then at this Kripo.
Grizzled cheeks wore the eight days of customary growth that hid the pockmarks of childhood but served also to make him look like a slum landlord after arrears. The starched shirt collar was no longer tight, the black bow tie having been yanked off in disgust.
‘Ah, bon, you’ve at last condescended to show up,’ he grunted. ‘Considering that the assault occurred at eleven fifty-two p.m. yesterday, and that it is now two thirty-five a.m., we should think ourselves lucky, but please don’t bother to claim you were delayed or that the dispatcher fucked up and sent you to the wrong address.’
Compressed, the thin lips were grimly turned down beneath a nose and heavy black eyebrows that, with the stubble, were fierce. Had he been a union buster in the thirties? wondered St-Cyr. ‘Monsieur, mesdames, a few small questions. Nothing difficult, I assure you.’
‘Don’t be an imbecile, Inspector. My wife’s stepsister was very nearly murdered.’
‘And the others?’ asked Louis, indicating the wife who sat next to a female friend who was younger than her by a good fifteen years. A former debutante, a tall, auburn-haired, permed and very carefully made-up, sharp-featured socialite who’d be taut when pressed.
‘They stayed at our table while I accompanied Madame Barrault to my car,’ said Morel.
‘You’ve an Ausweis?’ asked Louis with evident interest.
‘And an SP sticker,’ came the dead flat answer.
The Service-Public sticker that had to be signed and stamped not only by the Kommandant von Gross-Paris but also by the prefet, and wouldn’t you know it, this one was a friend of both!
Before the Defeat there’d been 350,000 private autos in Paris and unbelievable traffic jams and smog. Now there were no more than 4,500 and here was one of their owners.
It wasn’t difficult to see what was running through detective minds, felt Gaston Morel, but he’d have to ignore it. ‘The rear tyres had been punctured but due to the rain, we didn’t see this at first. When we did, I sent my driver to telephone for replacements and that is when this bastard struck. First myself, as I was helping Marie-Leon from the car, and then herself to be thrown up against the wall, the overcoat ripped open, the dress down.’
Isolated from the others, Madame Barrault sat in one of the armchairs at the far end of the table. Huddled in a thin overcoat and cradling a bandaged left forearm and hand, she couldn’t bring herself to look at anyone, felt Kohler, was badly shaken, but terrified of something else as well.
‘See to her, Hermann. I’ll deal with the others.’
‘Leave her,’ grunted Morel. ‘She’s in no state to answer anything. He used a cutthroat to free her handbag and when she refused to give up her wedding ring, slashed her arm and the back of her hand before ripping the ring off and then grabbing her by the crotch for a good feel.’
‘Putain. … That is what he has called me,’ blurted the woman.
Madame Morel, the arch of a well-plucked, heavily shadowed dark black eyebrow sharply cocked, hung on every word as did her companion.
‘Madame Barrault’s husband is a guest of our friends-a prisoner of war,’ offered Morel as a gesture of cooperation. ‘Marie-Leon, I’ll see that your papers are replaced. Please don’t worry. The ration cards and tickets also.’