J. Janes - Bellringer

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.’