J. Janes - Tapestry

These two, they were nothing but trouble, thought Delaroche. ‘The time, Hubert. As close as you can give it.’

‘Nine. Maybe nine ten. Elene and the other girls were hurrying to get back on stage. One of her butterfly wings wouldn’t stay up so I had to help by tightening its wires.’

‘ Ja, ja, mein Lieber . And the stockings?’ persisted Hermann.

‘Kohler, Kohler,’ interjected Delaroche. ‘The girl had other such stockings that were much better. Why should it matter if Hubert, thinking it was long past its useful life, should borrow one? Why not tell us where and how you found her?’

‘I thought you knew.’

‘How could I possibly? Chief Inspector, please inform this colleague of yours that the Agence Vidocq is not, and never has been, engaged in murder.’

‘Was she murdered, Colonel?’ asked Hermann.

‘If not, how then did you come by her wedding ring?’

These two would go at it now if a companionable gesture wasn’t given. ‘Colonel,’ said St-Cyr, ‘just tell us why Agent Quevillon was in the Lido’s dressing room at 2110 hours or thereabouts last Thursday.’

‘Yes, please tell us. It would help, I think.’

Had Kohler been mollified by his partner and if so, why the need if not the contents of that damned desk of Quevillon’s? wondered Delaroche. ‘I had asked Hubert to check if any of them had heard or seen anything that might help us find Lulu. Madame de Brissac-Catherine-Elizabeth-has not long to live but the telephone is there beside her, you understand, and she was constantly using it to call me.’

‘And now you’re going to have to tell her what’s happened,’ breathed Hermann, his patience all but gone.

Delaroche studied the glowing end of his cigar. ‘What did you find in the Parc Monceau? It was there, wasn’t it? You must have found something of Lulu’s-why else your chasing after me to Chez Benedicte’s?’

Bob barked. Bob got all excited and had to be calmed. Louis told them the remains were in the Citroen’s boot and that Elene must have wanted to bury what she could where Lulu’s spirit would be most content and as close to her mistress as possible.

‘You’ll let me have them, won’t you?’ asked Delaroche, ignoring the fiction of an indochinoise superstition-was it really fiction, wondered Kohler, and did Delaroche really feel so duty-bound? Flavien Garnier didn’t seem to give a damn. He simply budgeted his cigarette as if still mired in the trenches and waiting for the tempest of fire to start up all over again.

‘At 2313 hours Thursday, Colonel,’ went on Louis, ‘Elene Artur was forced to telephone the Commissariat of the quartier du Faubourg de Roule to alert them to the killing at the Ecole des Officiers de la Gendamerie Nationale. Hermann and myself didn’t get there until 0511 hours Friday but believe the young man, still unidentified, must have been killed at between 2000 and 2130 hours the previous evening.’

And right when Quevillon was supposed to have been helping Elene with her wings, thought Kohler, but if Garnier considered any of this important, he didn’t let on. Was the expression always so grim? he wondered. A blunt man, made blunter by the blotched bald dome of his head, the greying brown fringe above and behind the ears, the heavy, dark horn-rims with the big lenses and the Hitler soup strainer. Prominent jowls reinforced the grimness, deep creases the rarely parted lips. A man of few words, was that it, eh, or one who simply knew too much and felt it best to say little? ‘She had, we understand, Colonel, first been forced to let the press in on things. Bob, as you know, went straight to that telephone.’

Kohler was definitely the one who had found her. ‘But of course Bob would have. All of those girls use it, as they do that staircase. The scent was old. Maybe she made a telephone call, maybe she didn’t. How could any of us possibly know?’

And stubborn to the last, eh? ‘Your agency was tailing three of the victims Louis and I had to encounter that evening, Colonel. Madame Guillaumet was the first, and voila , what did we later find but that the press had been in to photograph her at the Hotel-Dieu ?’

Ah, merde , Hermann, go easy, said St-Cyr to himself. ‘Colonel, we’re not accusing anyone, merely trying to get at the facts.’ There was a knock. ‘ Ah bon , I’m famished.’

Louis had said it as if relieved.

‘A little wine?’ asked Delaroche. Relieved too, was he? wondered Kohler.

‘If you have it, that would be perfect,’ said St-Cyr, gesturing appreciatively with pipe in hand. Jeannot Raymond had still not returned from escorting Suzette Dunand home. ‘The flat is just along the way,’ the girl had earlier said. Then why the delay? he had to ask himself, but would have to be patient.

The lift began its journey. Suzette knew she should say something, but M. Raymond had spoken privately with the concierge about her and about the trouble she had mentioned. Monsieur Louveau had looked her over as they’d spoken-she knew he had. Even though she had instantly dropped her gaze, she had felt him doing so. A girl in an overcoat and slippers? A secretary who had been slapped hard but one who had also, he would have been told, deliberately misled a Surete just to keep him from this building where she lived and where there had been some terrible trouble-she knew there had.

M. Raymond didn’t say anything of what had happened in the building nor of what Concierge Louveau had told him about herself. Perhaps it was that someone had been taken away. People were being arrested all the time. No restaurant, cafe or bar was safe, no street, but surely not here, not when two of les Allemands lived in the building and all the other tenants must have been given security clearances, herself included?

The lift continued making all the noises that were usual in this quietest of residences. They reached her floor and Suzette watched as he opened the cage, she faintly saying, ‘It is this way.’ Had she not said that very same thing to him out on the street?

He was so silent and when, at last, they did reach her door, it was ajar. M. Quevillon had not pulled it tightly closed. Dieu merci, her handbag was still on the little table under the oval of the Empire mirror whose mahogany gleamed because she had made certain it would.

‘I’m so very lucky,’ she heard herself saying, her back still to him. ‘Never in a thousand years could I ever have afforded a place like this. There are so many beautiful things. A Beauvais tapestry chinoise that is very old, Galle, Lotz and Lalique glass figurines and vases, and others, too, from Czechoslovakia. An absolutely magnificent vitrine has a superb collection of Sevres porcelain.’

Had she said too much? M. Raymond was silently studying her reflection in the mirror, he having closed the door to lean back against it, but had he put the lock on? Had he sensed how uncertain she was, a girl who knew far too much? Was this why his gaze didn’t waver?

‘What else is there?’ he asked, giving her that smile of his, she instantly grinning with relief.

‘Fabulous dolls in one of the Boulle armoires. Jumeau Parisiennes and bebes , Kammer and Reinhardts and those of Armand Marseille. Their party dresses are of velvet, silk and satin, their jewellery so real, it must be.’

She swallowed hard. He didn’t move. ‘Was I not to have touched them?’ she heard herself asking. ‘I know the colonel has said I’m only to use the smallest of the bedrooms and that, from time to time, he would be sending others to stay here, but … but there hasn’t been anyone yet and if I’m to keep the flat clean, I … It does get lonely. One does wonder what’s in a drawer or armoire …’