Bellringer Read online

  Bellringer

  J. Robert Janes

  A MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM BOOK

  This is for Gracia so that calm will remain in house,

  since I am happiest when working.

  It is in the shadow of dreams that we park reality, forgetting for the moment that life goes on.

  Author’s Note

  Bellringer is a work of fiction in which actual places and times are used but altered as appropriate. As with the other St-Cyr/Kohler novels, the names of real persons appear for historical authenticity, though all are deceased and the story makes of them what it demands. I do not condone what happened during these times; I abhor it. But during the Occupation of France the everyday common crimes of murder, arson, and the like continued to be committed, and I merely ask by whom and how they were solved.

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  1

  To Vittel’s Parc Thermal there was but irony. Landscaped vistas of field, forest, and distant hillslope stretched to and beyond band shell, pavilion, and storybook chalet through the gathering ground fog of evening, offering nothing but a constant reminder of freedom denied. Shrouded in barbed wire, the two luxury hotels near its entrance—one of five storeys, the other of four—rose in a multitude of makeshift rusty stovepipes protruding this way and that from every window and trailing woodsmoke into the frost-hazed air.

  It was 1522 hours Berlin Time, 20 February, 1943, a Saturday, and things were far from good, St-Cyr felt. The Kommandant who had summoned them from Paris with such urgency hadn’t bothered to stick around or leave a note or word of advice, his replacement being most notable for his own absence. True, they had been expected six days ago—another derailment by the Résistance, who were still learning their lessons and fortunately hadn’t put the whole train off the rails—but they were starting out here with virtually no information.

  ‘Gott im Himmel, Louis, what the hell have we been saddled with this time?’ said Kohler. ‘Something no one wants, eh? A nothing town in a nothing place!’

  That could not go unchallenged. ‘An international resort. A spa, Hermann. The former playground of kings, queens, and tsars, the bourgeoisie aisée, especially.’

  Almost due south of Nancy, due west of Colmar, and tucked away in a forgotten corner of southernmost Lorraine, the Parc Thermal faced the rounded summits of the Vosges to the east, and was well out of sight and mind for most.

  ‘Ein Internierungslager, Dummkopf,’ retorted Kohler. ‘Der Führer, who is always right, must have thought it a marvelous joke.’

  An internment camp for foreign nationals. . . ‘Whose population, unless I am very mistaken, Hermann, is presently crowding those very windows to watch every move we make.’

  The hotels in question were perhaps three hundred metres from them, across a Siberia of hard-trampled snow to which the day’s thin sheath of ice had come.

  ‘Nine hundred and ninety-one Americans, Louis, who failed to leave when the Führer thought to declare war on America on 11 December, 1941, yet neglected to lock them up until September of ’42.’

  ‘In the Hôtel Vittel-Palace, the four-storeyed one to the right and a little more distant from us,’ said St-Cyr.

  ‘And sixteen hundred and seventy-eight British in the Grand and locked up since September of 1940. Two Louis XIII, Renaissance-style henhouses side by side and packed solidly with women, most of whom have been starved for male company for years. They’ll tear us apart and you know it. What are we supposed to do, question each of them?’

  Vittel’s population alone was less than 3,500, but Hermann often tended to jump to conclusions.

  ‘Or let them watch us work, Inspector?’ suggested St-Cyr.

  And take note of their reactions. . . Kohler knew this was what his partner had implied. ‘You or me?’ he asked, turning his back on the hotels.

  ‘Me, I think,’ came the usual reply. Louis was always better at it. After nearly two and a half years of working together, one simply knew.

  The signboard, in place since the day the camp had been established, gave notice in heavy black type: ACHTUNG: BETRETEN VERBOTEN. DÉFENCE D’ENTRER. ENTRY FORBIDDEN!

  Built in 1923, the stable, Le Chalet des nes, had once held the half-dozen donkeys that the children of the wealthy would have ridden, but since the Defeat and Occupation of June 1940, the building had been empty. Suitably Alsatian and near enough to that new border of the Reich, its darkly timbered, white-plastered walls and solid oaken door made it look like a little place in a little forest of its own. There were even windowboxes with hearts cut into them.

  ‘A bit of Hansel and Gretel, Louis.’

  ‘Freud, or was it Krafft-Ebing, maintained that fable had deep sexual undertones.’

  ‘Jung. . . I’m sure it was him. Girls with girls, eh? But hard to gain access without being seen. Those trees might help, but the circular track beneath that snow and ice makes the view far too clear from far too many angles. Two thousand, six hundred and sixty-nine pairs of eyes out having a stroll just to catch a bit of fresh air and have a peek at what was happening.’

  ‘Or find a bit of kindling, Hermann.’

  Kohler jabbed a forefinger at the padlock, a curiosity in itself. ‘How many of them saw this thing being opened, not picked, not out here in full view?’

  It was a good question. ‘But was the stable then entered by one, or by two, and if the latter, was the former expecting that person?’

  ‘Or surprised by her or by someone else?’

  The victim was fully clothed and lying flat on her back in the middle of the three stalls to their left. Light entering the diamond-shaped panes of the windows behind them gave a languidness to the settling dust. Long-dried dung and mouldy straw were strewn about. A froth of blood and oedematous fluid had erupted from the mouth. The eyes, perhaps a girl’s most treasured feature, were hazel but were staring unfeelingly up at a painted ceiling where swans, fairies, and wood nymphs frolicked.

  Still in rigor mortis, one hand clutched at a wounded chest, though this had not been a last impulse. ‘First she slumped to her knees, Hermann, her back still being against that far wall.’

  ‘And only then was she tidied, that hand being placed where it now is?’

  ‘Be so good as to examine the weapon.’

  ‘Ach, I’m really all right.’

  ‘Of course, but I believe our killer wiped it clean. At least five of those tines must have. . . ’

  ‘The lungs, the heart. . . ’

  ‘The diaphragm, too, but especially the pericardium.’

  The sac around the heart would rapidly have filled with blood as that thing had been yanked from her. ‘Anger, then, Louis. Hatred, jealousy, rage in any case.’

  ‘Impulse, Inspector? Let’s not forget that, since the chalet has been locked and placed out of bounds.’

  ‘And the killer couldn’t have known of the pitchfork. Silenced, then, Louis. Told to shut up or else.’

  ‘Perhaps, but then, Ah, merde alors, mon vieux, is it not too early to say?’

  Of hardened steel, the tines, each five centimetres apart and a good thirty long, were curved in a gentle arc whose maximum depth was the same as the spacing and ended in exceedingly sharp points.

  There were six of these and, as Louis had noted, each had been tidily wiped clean before the hayfork had been leaned upright against the wall behind the victim. Fingerprints would be out of the question. In this weather, gloves or mittens were mandatory—even spare socks in lieu of either—but did it really matter? There was never time to dust for fingerprints. Always it was blitzkrieg, blitzkrieg.

  The handle, long and o
f oak, had been polished smooth by years of use, but irony of ironies, ‘The metal’s been stamped “Made in Austria,” Louis. Exported to America well before that other war, then brought back but branded “US First Army” on the handle.’

  General Pershing and the 1914–18 war. An American, then, killed with an American-owned Austrian hayfork. Kept busy, Hermann seemed to have conquered his little problem. ‘There’s something else, mon ami. Our victim has at least three dozen of the Host in this coat pocket. God has been most generous and has given her a snack.’

  And hadn’t that telephone call to Kommandant von Gross-Paris to urgently summon them here mentioned a ringer of bells? But that had been six days ago, of course, and by the look of this one. . .

  Ah, bon, Hermann had finally realized. ‘She hasn’t been dead that long, has she, Chief?’ said Kohler lamely. ‘Even if we allow for the degrees of frost to defer and lengthen rigor while retarding putrefaction.’

  ‘Relax. You’re learning. Being with me has been good for you, but I’m going to have to take her temperature. Let’s concentrate.’

  ‘Before we find out who the original victim was and where that one’s being kept?’

  ‘Patience, Inspector. Patience. Sometimes it’s necessary.’

  The grey, silk-lined woollen overcoat was stylish, having a broad, sensible collar and two prewar pockets with generous flaps, all unheard of attributes if made these days since they, and a lot of other such things, had become illegal. The style was not American, though, but British.

  ‘From Barclay’s at 18–20 Avenue de l’Opéra, Hermann, but in ’39 or before.’

  And since then, the shop’s Paris signboard would have been torn down and replaced with something more suitable. ‘The scarf is Hermès.’ Louis had left that for him to find, but accidentally fingers had touched cold, soft, opaque, and waxy skin. . .

  ‘L’Heure Bleue, Hermann,’ came the urgent interruption. ‘This little box is from Guerlain—the silver sprays of an Art-Deco fountain as its logo, n’est-ce pas? The bottle’s from Baccarat and long empty, since it was made as a presentation for the close of the 1925 Exposition.’

  ‘But she can’t be any more than twenty, can she?’

  ‘Are you really all right? I ask simply because. . . ’

  ‘Jésus, merde alors, I’m fine. It’s just that the young ones. . . ’

  Hermann swiftly turned away to do the unforgivable for a fifty-five-year-old former captain in the artillery and a Detektivinspektor der Kriminalpolizei. Once, twice, three times he emptied himself of what one could only guess, for they’d eaten so little since leaving Paris, the memory of a last meal was still with them. Well, with one half of the partnership.

  ‘Ach, I thought I was over it.’

  A hand went out to steady him. ‘You are! It was only a momentary lapse. You do that pocket. Let’s see what we can find, since her papers seem to be missing.’

  Relieved to be busy, Kohler slid a hand quickly in, only to yank it out with a ‘Verdammte nettles! The dried leaves, stems, and roots, tied with twine of the same.’

  ‘Urtica dioica. It’s curious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Since she couldn’t have gathered them at this time of year in a place like this.’

  Very quickly, though, two Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bars were found and then a small, white cardboard box of Cracker Jack Nut Candy Popcorn and a packet of Wrigley’s Spearmint chewing gum—six sticks in all and still tightly wrapped.

  ‘Beechnut oil,’ said St-Cyr, of a little amber-coloured bar of soap. ‘Definitely not the National.’

  Which was of grey slaked lime, ground horse chestnuts, sand, and wood ashes, and cast into cubes heavier than a brick but no bigger than a die, and one for every month of the year, not that a lot of the French bothered too much with bathing, but a bar of Lifebuoy Soap was retrieved from the pocket the sûreté was avidly mining, and then a rain of shiny, yellowish-brown seeds.

  ‘Alfalfa,’ said Kohler, glad to be of help.

  There was a sigh. ‘Sprouts if sown indoors, Hermann. A much needed source of vitamins and minerals, but also a hopeful abortifacient.’

  SCHEISSE, must Louis mention it at a time like this?

  Hermann’s stomach rumbled but a paisley sewing pouch was quickly found. He set it aside with everything else in a tidy row beside a tidy victim. They were working now as they should, thought St-Cyr. Two detectives, one from each side of this lousy war and Occupation, the first, it must be admitted, a chief inspector of the Sûreté Nationale; the second of a lower rank but from the Gestapo, since all such had been placed under that roof whether they liked it or not, and of course the Germans always had to be the overseers since the French had to be kept out of trouble and working hard for them, but then, too, this one just happened to have had the good sense to have learned a proper language as a prisoner of war in that other war—the one the Germans had lost.

  Kohler found an oval seashell, maybe three centimetres long by two in width—a porcellaneous, creamy white-to-yellow thing with a row of coarse teeth on each side of its top-to-bottom aperture: something the victim had found or been given and had probably kept for the memories it would have brought.

  A sachet of herbs smelled of lavender. A small cough syrup bottle held honey, but when one of those yellow cloth stars with a J on it was retrieved, he knew he couldn’t help but swallow hard. ‘Louis. . . ’

  It dangled from capable fingers, bringing its own memories of Hermann’s Oona, the woman he had rescued from just such things and still lived with when in Paris. Well, one of the women. There were two of them.

  ‘It’s been removed from someone’s overcoat. The needle holes. . . ’

  ‘Are clear enough, but why keep it, Louis?’

  Since doing so could but bring its terrible punishment. ‘Are there Jewish citizens in this camp?’ said St-Cyr.

  ‘Ach, why ask me? Ask yourself. Though the Wehrmacht run the camp, Vichy suggested its being set up here and gave their OK, didn’t they?’

  The government of Maréchal Pétain, in the town of Vichy and another international spa, one they’d left not so very long ago, that investigation settled.

  ‘But was that star crammed into her pocket in haste?’ Or carefully hidden?

  ‘Crammed.’

  ‘Then perhaps she was given it during an argument, or after death.’

  And this murder was now looking more and more challenging.

  ‘There was also this,’ said St-Cyr. A thin, white pasteboard card held its little message in a script of blue-black ink whose many flourishes held no pauses. ‘It’s in English, Hermann, a language I unfortunately have little knowledge of.’

  ‘And what memories I have of it,’ said Kohler, ‘are just about as rusty as those stovepipes.’

  In the mid-1930s, Hermann had been sent to London on a police course and had earnestly worked at the language so as to enjoy himself and make the best of it instead of spying for the Reich.

  Bit by bit it came out: ‘You have been chosen and are cordially invited to attend. Please bring what you have.’

  ‘That Shield of David?’ asked St-Cyr.

  ‘Then tell me why the party-throwers would want it?’

  ‘Assuming that the invitation was to such a gathering.’

  As always, there were no easy answers. Seed packets gave carrots, peas, lettuces, and even pumpkins, each with an artist’s rendition of the same. ‘And all sent from home in Red Cross parcels, Hermann, but was she intending to sell them?’

  A much-worn packet of Craven A cigarettes held a logo: a faded black cat on a red background. Tobacco being in such short supply, Kohler thought they’d best try one. ‘It’ll help us think,’ he said, but when he had one of the hand-rolled fags between his lips, he had to spit it out. ‘Thorn apple!’

  ‘Angel’s trumpet. Datura stramonium.’

  ‘Was she accustomed to getting high on it only to be thrown into an agony, eh, whose sole memory would be just that?’

  ‘The
dried leaves are sometimes smoked to treat asthma. . . ’

  ‘If so, then she’s one dead herbal.’

  ‘Who couldn’t have become one without a little help,’ muttered St-Cyr.

  ‘Our bell ringer? There was also this.’

  Hermann was very good at finding such things. Having carefully felt the underside of the coat collar, he’d come up with a hidden pocket. The note, written in a far different hand, was in French first and then in German: ‘Please tell the Kommandant that was no accident. I saw it happen and know who did it. Miss Caroline Lacy, Room 3–38 Vittel-Palace.’

  But by signing it, had she then signed her own death warrant?

  ‘At least now we know who she was,’ said St-Cyr.

  ‘And have a motive. She must have been about to meet one of the guards. Two chocolate bars, the chewing gum if necessary, then the bar of Lifebuoy Soap as a last resort. Such a big payoff implies considerable risk.’

  ‘Only someone got to her.’

  ‘And left that star.’

  ‘Perhaps, but then. . . ’

  A fist was clenched. ‘Verdammt, that’s how it happened. Don’t keep hedging!’

  ‘Take the easy route, Hermann?’

  ‘It might help—have you ever thought of that?’

  ‘And have you, Inspector, paused to even consider why that note was written in two languages?’

  Ah sacré nom de nom! ‘The français can’t have been for one of the guards, can it? Do they have French doctors in the camp?’

  ‘Or Tirailleurs sénégalais, Hermann? The ones we caught a glimpse of. Former skirmishers from a defeated army who are now here as prisoners of war doing the bidding of their masters, namely the heavy work.’

  Again Kohler asked what they were dealing with.

  ‘The usual. Now go and find our acting Kommandant but please don’t enlighten him about that note and the invitation. Let him find out when necessary.’

  ‘And our first victim?’ To whom the note must have referred.

  ‘We’ll get to her soon enough.’