J. Janes - Sandman

He wiped his face, felt blood and torn skin. He tried to calm the creature but it was frantic.

‘That’s far enough.’

Ah Gott im Himmel , the bastard had the muzzle of a Luger-was it a Luger? — jammed against the right side of his head.

‘Don’t move,’ said Debauve.

‘Of course not.’

‘Tell the other one to call out to you.’

‘Where’s the child?’

‘ Do it! ’

The bird didn’t like being held. ‘Louis … Louis, if you’re still here, he’s got me.’

‘ Louder! ’

‘LOUIS, THE SON OF A BITCH HAS ME!’

Swiftly Kohler pivoted, ducked and thrust the thing into the bastard’s face. There was a flash of fire, a bang so loud his ears rang. Debauve fell back. He fired again and again, screamed once, twice, and fired once more. Ah no …

The birds flew madly about. Their sounds filled the air. On the rush of their wings there was a sigh, a ‘ Pater noster qui es in caelis …’

‘ Sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum: fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra ,’ breathed Louis, releasing Debauve’s gun hand, the priest’s accidental coup de grâce . ‘Are you all right, mon vieux? ’

‘ Ja … Ja , I’m okay. Ah nom de Jésus-Christ , Louis, tell me the kid is alive.’

They opened every firebox door, and in the soft, soft light, the birds of colour flew about, casting their shadows and emitting their noises.

She was lying between cages, lying just as her little friend had. The padded overcoat had been torn open. Her arms had been flung back. One white woollen kneesock had lost its elastic and was badly in need of mending and a wash. Her seal skin boots were turned in a little at the toes. Her legs were slackly spread.

Debauve had made the killing look as if Céline had done it.

‘Louis …’

‘Leave this. Go outside if you have to.’

‘ No! ’

It was a cry. Hermann tried to get past him.

She stirred. Her eyelids fluttered.

‘Alive, I think,’ said Louis. And then …

‘Is it over? He … he smothered me. I.… I couldn’t breath.’

‘It is not quite over. There are still one or two small details best kept for another time.’

‘The lion, Louis.’

‘Yes, yes, the lion.’

The Tarot cards were down, the Ace of Swords was last. The hand that laid it on the gilded Louis XIV table paused to smooth it out and touch the upraised sword whose point was encircled by a golden crown.

‘A tragedy,’ sighed St-Cyr. ‘A toy giraffe …’

He put it on the table in front of the Ace of Swords. ‘A murder so different from the others.’

‘I didn’t tell Julien to do it. I didn’t! ’ swore Madame Vernet, colouring quickly and clenching her fists only to release them when others noticed.

They were gathered in the grand salon of the villa. The afternoon’s rare sunshine melted yesterday’s rare snow. Soon there would be freezing rain. ‘You did, madame. You saw in your niece’s search for the Sandman a way of getting rid of her. But the girls used those same bits and pieces to trap you.’

‘Bernadette, admit you’re guilty. Be brave. Distinguish yourself.’

‘Antoine, don’t be a fool. I’m pregnant, yes? There isn’t a court in the country that will send me to the guillotine until the child cries and the cord is cut. You have months of me yet. Please think of the scandal.’

Vernet was not happy. General von Schaumburg sat bolt upright on the edge of his chair, a monocle clamped fiercely to his right eye.

Kohler pitied them. For all his visits of inspection to the Wehrmacht’s brothels, Old Shatter Hand was a prude. Infidelity ranked very high among his most despised sins.

‘You said to Monsieur Julien that he must kill me, madame. I heard you,’ said the child earnestly. ‘You were in the folly together. I … I was up on the balcony making plans to escape and live the life of a brigand. You … you were standing right below me in the dark. Pompom was peeing against a table leg.’

‘ When? ’

Startled, the child flinched. ‘In the third week of December. On a Sunday night. Uncle … Uncle, he was away on business in Clermont-Ferrand, I think.’ She pointed at Vernet. ‘Your … your lover Julien didn’t want to kill me, but you … you made him say he would. You slapped his face. You said-’

‘I did no such thing! This is-’

‘ Bernadette , let the child finish. Is it not enough to have killed her little friend and Liline? What more do you want?’

‘Tears …? You who are so cruel, are shedding tears, Antoine? Hah! Drink them, then. You will get nothing from me.’

The child could not look up. ‘You … you said his name would appear on the lists of those to be sent to Germany to work, madame,’ she whispered. ‘You said he probably wouldn’t come back and that … that only you could see that this did not happen.’

At a nod from Louis, Rébé was brought in to stand in leg irons and handcuffs, ashamed, afraid and in tears himself. ‘A former bicycle thief, a gigolo, General,’ said Kohler softly.

‘Boy, state the truth, then take your choice of the bullet or the rope.’

Rébé’s knees buckled under him. Dragged up, held up, he wept and managed to blurt, ‘ She made me do it. She made sure the other one got it, too! ’

‘Take him out. Let him make his choice. He may have a priest if he wishes,’ grunted von Schaumburg. ‘Just don’t waste time with him. The Santé will do.’

Old Shatter Hand was grim. St-Cyr studied the quartz crystal the child had had in her coat pockets. It was one of those ‘diamonds’ of the curious stone and mineral trade, a dipyramidal crystal perhaps two centimetres by one and a half, six-sided and pointed at both ends but grown awkwardly and full of internal fractures that caught the light and sparkled. ‘General, what madame says of our courts is only too true. There is always a penchant to excuse a betrayed wife or husband on the grounds of insanity due to jealousy. In such cases-’

‘There is only one solution. She waits her time. One cannot blame the child within her.’

‘Then let it be born in the Reich, General,’ urged Vernet. ‘Attend to her there after its birth.’

The bastard …

‘Ah no … NO!’ shouted the woman. ‘You cannot do that to me. You can’t! This house is rightfully mine, do you hear? Mine! ’

Again the crystal was searched. ‘Madame,’ said Louis sadly, ‘you knew your niece had discovered who the Sandman was, yet you did not speak out. Instead, you plotted her death and used that information to blackmail Violette Belanger and her pimp into helping you with Liline. The sum of two hundred and seventy-five thousand francs changed hands. I have it here.’

One by one the bundles of notes were arranged on the table. Then he took out the envelope that had been left at the solicitor’s for Vernet. ‘Mademoiselle Chambert’s underpants, General. A last touch Madame Vernet could not resist presenting to her husband.’

When she spat in Vernet’s face and stamped a foot, she was led away. ‘She’ll be on the evening train to Berlin. That is all I can promise,’ said von Schaumburg gruffly. ‘These things are never easy, and once out of my jurisdiction, her fate falls into the hands of others.’

She could well become the toast of Berlin, thought Kohler ruefully, and, taking the little roulette wheel, pushed in the plunger and let the ball bounce and land where it would.

At another nod from Louis, the General found a letter and, handing it to Vernet, said simply, ‘Sign it. Refuse to do so and you will join your wife on that train.’