Bellringer Read online

  Quickly he replaced the photos. Now he felt along the back edge of the suitcase and when he had what he wanted, drew that little cedar box out and held it up by its tie of braided parcel string.

  But instead of opening it, he set it down and, turning his attention to Caroline’s shelf, ran a forefinger quickly over the little bottles with their labels. ‘Borage,’ he said en français. ‘Marshmallow, thyme, and the ground, dried leaves and stems of the Datura stramonium, the thorn apple, though being une Américaine, Mademoiselle Lacy wouldn’t have known it by that name, would she?’

  Ah, merde! ‘She suffered terribly from asthma, Inspector. Night after night she’d be up, wheezing, trying to catch a breath while Madame patted her on the back, as if that would have done her any good! “Steam,” I would hiss at them. “Boil a little water.”’

  ‘And?’

  He had taken the datura bottle from that shelf and pocketed it. ‘Brother Étienne reluctantly prescribed the jimsonweed. We call it that because the settlers who first found it in America lived near Jamestown, Virginia. The name then became a contraction of that. It can, of course, cause terrible highs. Everyone knows of this and has been warned of it by him.’

  He reached for the little white porcelain mortar and pestle Madame had also kept in her suitcase, and brought it up to a nose that was full and robust, his dark brown ox-eyes never once leaving her. He did have a mustache, full and thick and dark brown, but didn’t look so frightening after all, which could only cause her to worry all the more.

  ‘Madame,’ said Nora, ‘would grind a few of the seeds and then add them to the shredded, dried leaves and stems to make a batch of Caroline’s cigarettes. Maybe five at a time. This place. . . the ever-present. . . ’

  ‘Dampness. The walls have mould on them, the windows their hoar frost. Nothing ever really dries, does it? Not with so many of you indoors most of the time. Did smoking those cigarettes help her?’

  ‘A lot. Brother Étienne said that for centuries the Nubians had been using the dried leaves like that to treat asthma. It opens the bronchioles.’

  This herbalist, this bell ringer, was getting more interesting by the moment. ‘And the nettles?’

  ‘The alfalfa seeds, as well. Both are sources of vitamins and minerals, particularly Vitamin A.’

  ‘Did Caroline Lacy also suffer from night blindness?’

  That lack of Vitamin A. ‘It often took her ten minutes to get back her sight when going from a lighted room into darkness.’

  ‘But here the corridor lights, though infrequent and of low wattage, are left on all night?’

  He was on to things already. ‘Unless the Boche turn them off as a punishment or simply to show us who les gros légumes really are.’

  The big vegetables, the big bosses, the Oberbonzen, and of course the Bonzen. ‘Your name, mademoiselle?’

  ‘Nora Arnarson. Well, actually it’s Arnora Arnarsonsdottír, but my grandparents simplified the matter.’

  ‘Icelandic?’

  Few would have known this. ‘On my father’s side. Mom’s French Canadian—a Métis.’

  ‘Half-and-half French Canadian and native North American Indian, but you’re American?’

  ‘As are my parents and grandparents on my father’s side. You can go back three generations in his family, if you like. Gimli, Manitoba, in Canada first, and then Houghton, Michigan.’

  She had a fierce way of saying it, as if to say, Don’t you damn well challenge me or I’ll take my lacrosse stick to you. Her hair was light auburn with streaks of still lighter blond. It was cut short, worn well off the shoulders in a style reminiscent of the ’20s, parted high on the left and feathered back to curl behind the ears, framing a sharpness whose nose and slightly parted lips matched the instant alertness of dark blue eyes. Hermann would have said, Don’t be so hard on her. Even in a heavy turtleneck and cords, she’s a catch.

  ‘I’ll be twenty-six years old next Wednesday, Inspector. I’m not married and don’t even have a fiancé anymore. My life is in suspension, and I have no money, since our government, unlike the British, doesn’t send us any and I’ve none myself, and I happen to think you people who collaborate with the Boche are just as bad as them and a lousy bunch of sons of bitches. You’re both going to lose this war and when you do, we’re going to beat the shit out of you.’

  ‘Ah, bon, we understand each other. It’s always best. Now, please, this cedar box of Madame’s. All the while we’ve been talking, you’ve been giving it hesitant glances.’

  Shit! ‘Brother Étienne told Madame to keep it safely locked away, which means of course, Inspector, that you have somehow unlocked her suitcase.’

  Her chin was sharp, the throat tight, and again that defiant fierceness had leapt into her eyes.

  ‘Would you be good enough, then, to open the box for me?’ he asked, and she knew that she couldn’t refuse, that to do so would be to confess.

  ‘Listen, you. We all knew of it.’

  ‘But that is not what I asked.’

  Salaud! her look seemed to say. Crossing the room, she undid the string and opened the lid but caught a breath. ‘There. . . there were three of the dried seed capsules lying side by side. They all but filled the box.’

  Wincing at having instantly betrayed herself, she glanced sickeningly from him to the remaining two capsules whose prickly brown casings had opened to expose the flattened, oval- to kidney-shaped seeds that were black to dark brown and each from two to three millimetres in size. Then she looked at him more steadily. ‘Madame. . . ’ she began.

  ‘Kept a key to this suitcase on her at all times, but its spare hidden in the room in case the other was lost or stolen. Did you find it as I did?’

  ‘No! I’d. . . I’d never think of. . . ’

  ‘Mademoiselle Arnarson, please, let’s not waste time. The seeds. . . ’

  ‘And the fruit are the most poisonous parts of the plant and contain from zero point two to zero point four percent hyoscine and hyoscyamine, which means atropine and scopolamine also. Brother Étienne didn’t want to give those capsules to Madame. There were far too many seeds, maybe six hundred in total, maybe as much as twelve hundred, but Madame. . . ’

  ‘Can be very forceful?’

  He was standing so close to her now she could feel the presence of him. ‘Caroline’s family are stateside—in America, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. We’ll win this war because of people like them, not just our boys.’

  ‘Iron and steel.’

  ‘And money, Inspector. Caroline’s family is loaded.’

  ‘Yet their daughter was left behind to end up here.’

  ‘Their youngest daughter, but perhaps you’d best ask Madame why that happened.’

  Even though one of the enemy to her, and tarred with that and the Gestapo’s brush, Hermann would somehow have gotten through her armour. He’d have smiled at her, encouraged those little nuances of male-female jockeying, would have asked of her home, her family, her state of well-being—anything so as to show that he really did empathize and would eventually have broken down that barrier of hatred and caution, but time and patience sometimes didn’t allow for such things, and Hermann was a sucker for any female and could easily become putty in the hands of such a one as this.

  ‘Tell me about the first victim, mademoiselle. Tell me if you think she, too, was murdered.’

  He was pocketing the little box of datura, wasn’t going to leave it in Madame’s suitcase, but had he sensed that she, herself, had been involved in that first tragedy? If so, how could she make him understand? ‘In the beginning, like everyone else but Caroline, I thought it an accident, but now. . . ’

  ‘Since the death of Mademoiselle Lacy.’

  ‘Oui. Inspect—”

  It was Hermann.

  ‘Louis, you’d best leave that and come with me.’

  Wielding brooms, canes, billiard cues, knives, boards—anything they could have laid hand to—they were crammed into the foyer and crowding the corridor that
led to the steps to the cellars, and in a rage. Having rushed the doors en masse, they shrieked, yelled, jeered, and bellowed at the Americans in French and in English. ‘ESPÈCES DE SALOPE! ROULEUSES! VIPÈRES!’ Fucking bitches, sluts, serpents. . . ‘COME UP AND TAKE WHAT WE’RE GOING TO GIVE YOU!’

  As one, wearing hats, scarves, overcoats of every description, the colours faded by the years of use, the ‘delegation’ ceased its racket at a shout from its leader, and collectively turned to look up.

  A ripple of what must be happening ran down into the cellars to silence the Americans.

  ‘Who the hell are you, luv?’ called the woman in English, the throaty yell of it echoing.

  ‘I think she means you, Louis.’

  ‘You’re mistaken, Hermann.’

  ‘But you’re the chief inspector, aren’t you?’

  ‘Sacré nom de nom, Hermann, elle est la plus formidable! Madame,’ St-Cyr called down en français. ‘What seems to be the trouble?’

  In French she answered, ‘Those bitches are trying to put the blame on us. If they want to kill each other, that’s their business, but we had nothing to do with it!’

  Foolishly Louis held up a hand to intercede. One could have heard a pin drop were it not for the sounds of collective breathing and the smell that arose from the assembled.

  ‘THEY’LL NEVER GROW A GODDAMNED THING IN THEIR GARDENS THIS SUMMER, MISTER!’ shrieked someone in English.

  ‘WE’LL TEAR TH’ FUCKING THINGS UP!’ shouted another.

  ‘WE’LL MAKE THEM EAT THE SHIT THEY’LL SECRETLY SPREAD IN HOPES OF GETTING BIGGER SQUASH AND TATERS THAN OURS!’

  ‘Taters? Ah, merde, what on earth are they?’

  ‘Potatoes, Louis. Last autumn the Americans raided the British vegetable gardens in retaliation for the way they’d been treated. When they first got here, they were billeted with them.’

  A sigh would have to be given. ‘Things didn’t work out to everyone’s satisfaction.’

  ‘Food had to be shared and they had none to contribute since they hadn’t Red Cross parcels of their own. A lot of them also had to double up and sleep on the floors between the beds of their hosts. The drains packed it in because of the traffic. The bathtubs and washbasins were never cleaned. Hand soap was stolen from the Americans, what there was of it. Cigarettes, perfume, costume jewellery, lipsticks too, and cash. . . ’

  ‘The two hotels, being side by side, they are Allies elsewhere but enemies here—is that how it is?’

  ‘Don’t get huffy. The new Kommandant did indicate the British had invited the Americans to a party they’d put on last Christmas.’

  ‘To make amends?’

  ‘Perhaps. Now, deal with it, will you? Mrs. Parker and that one faced off on the stairs and guess who won?’

  ‘That why you’re looking so rattled?’

  ‘They’ve got my gun.’

  ‘Ah, bon, a difficult assignment. If I don’t get it back, I’ll be blamed.’

  ‘And if you do, they’ll be eating out of our hands.’

  2

  The fist that clasped the broom handle was beet-red, the fingers painfully chapped and thick, but on the third, fourth, and fifth digits there were rings, the look of which no soap or margarine would ever free. Bolt cutters would possibly be needed, thought St-Cyr. It was that or determination.

  The little finger wore a ring whose faceted rectangles were of clear-white diamond and dark-green emerald, the design from the early ’20s and Art Deco: Van Cleef & Arpels, no doubt. Then came a canary-yellow diamond of at least sixteen carats, the faceted navette surrounded by brilliants in the style of Boucheron and probably dating from 1915.

  The last was a sapphire cabochon of thirty carats and exquisite colour, with brilliants all around—Cartier, he was certain—the three rings a tidy fortune for such a one as this, to say nothing of the fact that she was in an internment camp where such items were invariably taken from one and an oft-worthless receipt given.

  ‘FERME-LA, MES AMIES!’ the woman shouted to shut up the racket. ‘GIVE US ROOM WHILE I DEAL WITH THIS TURD AND PULL HIS LITTLE CHAIN!’

  The laughter and other disturbances died off as if struck. Shabby, thin, tall, gaunt, dumpy, or not, to a woman they wore hats. Some of these were tiny, like this one’s, which was perched atop hennaed hair whose roots were fiercely black. Uncompromising, the hair was thick, long, and wiry and pulled back into a bush that was tied with a Union Jack. Others, though, wore hats that were large and floppy; others still, tiny pillboxes with bits of forgotten veil, but all used hatpins that were obviously daggers in their own right.

  Surrounded, collectively the looks were contained but in ribald expectation of the fistfight to come.

  Ah, merde, thought St-Cyr, chancing a glance back and upward to Hermann who had remained standing at the third-storey’s railing with Nora Arnarson. Perhaps the girl had gripped the railing out of fear of heights, Hermann having laid a hand firmly on hers.

  ‘Madame. . . ’

  ‘IT’S SIMPLE THEFT, COUILLON! A PHOTO, A POSTCARD, A LITTLE BIT OF GLASS, A PEBBLE, A ROCK CRYSTAL!’

  Must she call him an asshole and let her voice fill the hotel? ‘Madame, un moment, s’il vous plaît. Simple theft?’

  ‘IT IS THEN THAT EVERYTHING BEGAN, FIVE MONTHS SINCE THOSE CHATTES ARRIVED HERE!’

  Those cunts? ‘Ah, bon, je comprends. When the Americans arrived, the thefts began, and from petty theft things developed into an accident, and from there to murder—is that how it was?’

  ‘Oui.’

  The once navy-blue overcoat, still with all of its buttons after the years of internment, had a sable collar that would be pleasantly warm but definitely didn’t belong with the original coat, and though the eyes were small and of a dark grey-blue, they were swift and hard behind octagonal gold-rimmed specs that must have belonged to someone else. ‘Your name, madame? The face, the figure, the stature. . . Was it in Honfleur that we encountered each other? La rue du Dauphine, perhaps, or was it Le Havre and along le quai Videcoq?’

  The docks, in any case.

  The grin was huge, the teeth tobacco- and tea-stained, and broken or absent; the woman as tall and big across the shoulders as Hermann, who was probably congratulating himself on the little problem he had managed to dump on his partner.

  ‘This Occupation, madame,’ said St-Cyr. ‘This war. People come into contact in the strangest places only to lose contact while others come back unexpectedly.’

  I had better drop the voice, she thought. ‘Listen my cow that moos, I’ve never seen you before.’

  And gangster slang for police, but one must be cheerful and sing out, ‘Ah, the dialect, that’s it. One hears so many in my line of work, one automatically tries to place them. Les Halles, madame? The rue des Lombardes? The house at number twenty-seven. I’ll have the date in a moment.’

  The belly of Paris, the central market, and an unlicenced house. ‘Couillon, ferme-la!’

  ‘Of course, but one good turn deserves another.’

  And wouldn’t you know it! ‘Qu’ est-ce vous désirez, Monsieur l’inspecteur? The love of the chase, the hunt, the young and beautiful or the more mature?’

  ‘Our overboots and my partner’s gun, and not without every last one of its cartridges, which I will have already counted.’

  He was definitely a shitty bastard. ‘Marguerite, hand over the gun, Hortense, give back the overboots. There’ll be another time.’

  Was Hermann pleased? wondered St-Cyr. He didn’t smile, still stood with that hand of his clamped over that of Nora Arnarson of Room 3–38. They were talking. The girl looked as though trapped. . .

  ‘You’re afraid of them,’ confided Kohler to the girl.

  Nora winced. ‘Please let me go, Inspector.’

  ‘Not until you tell me. That woman down there mentioned stealing little things of no earthly value and you immediately began to tremble. I’d like to know why.’

  ‘You don’t understand, do you? You can’t. But you’re
letting them all see me with you. They’ll think I’ve told you things and ratted on them. They’ll wait. They’ll find a moment when I’m not watching out for just such a thing.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘They’ll shove me.’

  Louis had the gun and the boots and was quietly asking the woman down there something. . .

  ‘Your name, madame,’ said St-Cyr, ‘so as to clear up that little problem and remove the necessity of my asking one of the others.’

  The shit! ‘Léa Monnier.’

  ‘I knew it! Your husband was at Verdun, a corporal and terribly wounded, but one of the lucky.’

  Ah, mon Dieu, what was this, sympathy from a sûreté? ‘He never came back. I had to leave his medals at home when the cows rounded me up and gave me a lift in the salad shaker.’

  The Black Maria, but one had best shrug and gesture at the helplessness of turning fate aside. ‘So many didn’t survive, did they, but I seem to recall that neither shell nor bullet, bayonet, poisoned gas, or illness got him, yet he left you with a bronze.’

  The medal for five children that was pinned high on the left breast of her coat! ‘The youngest turned seventeen in November, so the green beans, having decided that they’d better, had to let her go home, since she wasn’t eighteen.’

  The Wehrmacht wore grey-green, thus earning that epithet, but concern had best be shown. ‘Home, and without the benefit of a mother’s guidance? The salauds! It makes no sense, does it, when you could have made a fortune with all those boys on leave and wanting company?’

  ‘Don’t try to pound the bread dough too much, Inspector. Tell me what else you want and I’ll see to it.’

  She would never back off, not this one. ‘Peace for now and the right to talk to those among you who might be able, if you were to persuade them, of course, to shed a little light on the investigation. A couple of cigarettes, too, if you can spare them so that all present will see that we have parted on the best of terms.’