Bellringer (15 page)

‘What about Jennifer Hamilton?’

‘Is she Jewish—is this what you’re asking?’

‘You know it is, Mademoiselle Faber. Please understand that neither my partner nor I would do anything to see her arrested for such a thing.’

That was a very dangerous thing for him to have said, thought Jill, but under his scrutiny she was now blushing—she knew it, felt it, couldn’t understand it, and said weakly, ‘She couldn’t be a submarine, Inspector. Not living here. Things are far too close for anyone to hide something like that.’

The euphemism of a diver was also used by and for those who walked the streets but had gone into hiding with false papers or none at all. ‘
Ah, bon, merci
. Forget what I’ve asked, all of you. Just understand that if you want to help my partner and me, it would be best to keep it to yourselves. Now I must find this Jennifer Hamilton.’

‘But Nora hasn’t come back,’ objected Becky, distressed by the thought.

It was the Faber woman who quickly said, ‘It’s this way, Inspector. I’ll take you. It. . . it might help.’

‘So that you can keep an eye on things?’

Jill swallowed hard and knew that he had noticed this. ‘Not at all. She and Caroline were more than friends. If I’m there, Jennifer won’t deny it, nor will the others try to protect her.’

‘Otherwise they will, Inspector,’ said Nora, her arms laden with wood. ‘We all do. Each room, each little enclave shrinks unto itself as in even the smallest school of minnows where there is still the thought that safety lies in numbers.’

And detectives are predators? thought St-Cyr, for given the lineups, she had returned far too quickly and had obviously bought the wood from one of the others and had been listening at the door.

‘Perhaps you had best come with us.’

‘Is it necessary?’ She winced.

‘You give me no choice.’

Room 3–54 was little different from Room 3–38, its frost-rimmed windows also facing away from the Parc Thermal. Film posters from home were on the walls to spice things up; photos, too, and maps and pennants: Duke University, North Carolina State, Ohio State, Rhodes College, Sweet Briar, and Massachusetts College of Art.

Clothing was still scattered, yet there was that same utilitarian tidiness if one allowed for the chaos of waking hours with but one exception.

Under the Sweet Briar pennant everything of Mary-Lynn Allan’s, except for the items on the wall, had been packed and set precisely in order on top of the cot. To the far left, the blankets had been perfectly folded and lay under sheets and the pillow. Closed, the suitcase was next in line, then her coats, the summer, that is, and the rain, all neatly folded. Two pairs of shoes and one of rope-soled sandals and two hats came next, and then a gathered few items in a Red Cross box, its top closed and folded in perfectly.

‘It isn’t much, is it?’ he said, for they had all stopped whatever they had been doing and were watching him closely. All five of them. Jill Faber and Nora Arnarson were still standing at his shoulders, one on either side.

‘Who did it, Inspector? Surely you have some idea,’ said the tall, thin brunette with the uncooperative hair who’d been fanning the firebox and silently cursing it. ‘The wood’s wet again,’ she went on. ‘We’ve no kerosene. At home my dad always added a splash. I’m Dotty. . . Dorothy Stevens, Ohio State. That one. That one there.’

The cot next to the door and on his left.

‘
Et vous, mademoiselle?
’

Somehow the fair-haired one beside Dorothy found the will to smile. ‘I’m the week’s soup-and-bread carrier, Jennifer Hamilton. The Massachusetts College of Art. That one.’

The cot in the far left front corner.

‘It’s always cold on the feet being next to the window, but we drew lots and fair’s fair.’

‘And grief, mademoiselle?’

She didn’t hesitate but looked steadily at him.

‘Grief?’ she said and there was music to her Parisian French. ‘Grief is in all of us, Inspector, me especially, but we decided a brave front was what was needed.’

‘Jennifer’s right, Inspector,’ said the little brunette who had been putting her hair into a ponytail. ‘Tears only go so far. We’ve each day to overcome and, like you, need to know who did it and that you’ll find this person quickly before another of us is killed. I’m Lisa. Lisa Banbridge. Duke University. That one.’

The bed that was end to end with Jennifer Hamilton’s, the ages of these three varying from the thirty-six of the one who spoke of the fire as if still at home to the thirty perhaps of the buyer of antiques and paintings to the twenty-two of this last.

‘It’s impossible being locked up like this, Inspector,’ said Lisa. ‘We didn’t do anything.
Zut,
we aren’t killers. How could we be?’

‘And I’m Candice, Inspector. Candice Peters, North Carolina State at Raleigh and a long, long way from home.’

And with frizzy brown hair still in paper twists, a toothbrush in hand whose disreputable state she suddenly realized and quickly tucked out of sight. Age pushing forty, grief held back admirably, a cool, firm handshake and a ‘Welcome, Inspector. We’re all grateful you and Herr Kohler finally got here. Jen was just telling us that she had encountered him downstairs with Herr Weber.’

‘He’s a lot taller than you,’ said Jennifer. ‘Did he get that scar from fencing?
Ah mon Dieu,
he looks the type. I. . . I was quite shy, I’m afraid. Herr Weber is overwhelming enough.’

‘Inspector, I’m Barbara Caldwell, Rhodes College, Tennessee. I expect you’ll want to know what we’re all doing here. I think we’d like to know that too.’

This one’s age was perhaps thirty-two or thirty-six, and her dark auburn hair fell naturally in waves to shoulders that were bravely squared under scrutiny, but in the dark olive-brown eyes there was doubt, hesitation, all manner of things. Had this Barbara Caldwell tidied Mary-Lynn’s last effects?

‘My bed’s that one,’ she said.

The one on the other side of the door.

‘I’m the week’s wood-getter. That’s why my bed’s not made yet.’

As if one needed to apologize for such a thing. ‘
Ah, bon,
mesdemoiselles, please go about whatever you were doing. Mademoiselle Hamilton, a few questions. Perhaps we could find a corner, the four of us.’

‘
Jill, why have you come?
’ urgently whispered Candice Peters in English.

‘
Nora, what’s happened?
’ whispered another, also in English.

‘
I’m going to have to fess up if he asks, Barb. I can’t avoid it
.’

‘
Ah, merde,
mesdemoiselles, have pity on a poor detective. Repeat to me
en français,
Mademoiselle Arnarson, exactly what was said.’

Did he think her guilty? wondered Nora. Desperately she looked at each of the others, even at Jill, then shrugged and said, ‘It wasn’t anything of consequence.’

‘Yet you all knew, mademoiselle, that of the two of us, only Hermann speaks your language and not very well at that. Your bush telegraph. . . ’

Nora knew she couldn’t help but smile. ‘It’s pretty good, isn’t it?’

‘Please just do as I asked.’

Jill gave her a nod, a comforting hand on a shoulder. Repeating everything, Nora warned herself not to avoid eye contact even for a moment. As with the Boche, so with this
sûreté
. He was standing so close to her anyway it would have been doubly noticed had she lowered her eyes. She could smell the wet wool of his shabby overcoat, the lingering of stale pipe smoke too, and as with so many of the French, that of the anise confections they loved.

‘When Mary-Lynn and I were at the séance, Inspector, only Jennifer and Caroline were here in this room. The others. . . ’

‘Were playing poker,’ said Jill. ‘Me as well, and Marni Huntington. Becky hadn’t been feeling well. Her period again. Every Saturday night a gang of us get together in what used to be the hotel’s two smoking rooms. They’re on the ground floor, near to the main staircase and have a folding partition between them that can be opened to make one big room. We light a fire in the grate, each contributing what she can—snacks, too, if possible, and then. . . then we play. Twenty tables, twenty-five, whatever suits and Five-card Stud, High-Low, Shotgun, Spit in the Ocean, or Cincinnati. Dealer’s choice.’

‘Cigarettes are used instead of chips or money. Well, actually, they
are
the money,’ said Dorothy Stevens, the brunette by the stove. ‘Sometimes one of us will bankroll another. Becky gave me two packs of twenty up front. If I’d won, I would have covered her first and then split the rest fifty-fifty.’

Had the stove-lighter said it to distract him? wondered St-Cyr. ‘Mademoiselle Arnarson, the firewood you went to get. Is it that you paid for it?’

He hadn’t moved. She couldn’t lie, thought Nora, but could she find the will to weakly smile at being caught out? ‘I had to offer four packs and will be bankrupt for weeks and weeks.’

It was Jill Faber who quickly said, ‘Nora really is afraid, Inspector. That’s why she had to listen. What happened to Mary-Lynn Allan could well have been meant to happen to her, or to both of them.’

‘But why, mademoiselle? What had either or both done to warrant being murdered?’

The others didn’t stir. All looked at him as if searching for the answer until he was forced to say, ‘
Ah, bon,
let’s get the times down. This poker session on the night of thirteenth, fourteenth. . . when precisely did it break up?’

He’d find the truth, felt Jill. He had that look and wouldn’t budge until he had. ‘The time? At about two usually.’

But long before that, felt Kohler, Mary-Lynn had fallen and the echo of her scream would have caused them all to run to find out what had happened. ‘Where were you when she fell?’

‘Marni and me, we. . .
Merde,
I hate to use the term, Inspector, but we had lucked out at around twelve fifteen and were back in our own room by twelve thirty, I guess. Becky couldn’t sleep. Caroline. . . Caroline had come back to the room but was having. . . ’

‘A moment, please. Caroline Lacy?’

This, too, couldn’t be avoided, Jennifer told herself. There simply wasn’t a way out. Jill and Nora had come with him to make sure she told him. ‘Caroline was here with me, Inspector, until about midnight. Her chest was bothering her. The poor thing could hardly breathe. She went home to beg Madame de Vernon to forgive her and let her have one of her cigarettes. Madame could well have denied her. Caroline was terrified the woman might hide them or put them somewhere else other than usual just for spite. I said I’d come with her, but. . . but she said that would only make things worse.’

Even though gasping for air. ‘So by then Jill, Marni, and Becky were also in Room 3–38, you alone here in 3–54. That leaves. . . ’

He had turned to face her and Nora knew exactly what he was going to ask.

‘That hour and a half, Mademoiselle Arnarson, from the time you left Madame Chevreul’s séance in the Hôtel Grand until you and Mary-Lynn Allan started to climb the stairs in this wing of the Vittel-Palace at close on 0100 hours?’

How could she avoid telling him the truth without being absolutely sure each of the others would back her up? wondered Nora. ‘The apricots we get in our parcels have a yeast on them. I. . . I’ve a still in the cellars which I use from time to time if the Senegalese will let me have enough wood and we share up. Everyone contributes, but I’m the one who looks after it. We had only a half a jug left, which I’d hidden at the back of the room, but I’d told everyone we were out until another batch was ready. I have to do that; otherwise the Senegalese will make their demands.’

‘The blacks, Nora,’ said one of the others, but which one he couldn’t tell.

‘And you and Mary-Lynn sampled it?’ asked St-Cyr.

‘She needed something. She
believed
Madame Chevreul had really made contact with her dad. Never have I seen a person so happy. I. . . I thought the
eau-de-vie
a little off, but its flavour was a bit strong anyway. Mary-Lynn said I was crazy, that it was perfect. “Let’s get drunk,” she said.’

‘Then you really were drunk when you climbed those stairs.’

‘
Oui
. That’s. . . that’s what made me dump the rest after what happened. This morning, actually. First thing before any of the others were up, not even the lousy cooks that boil that soup while their officers dole out the bread.’

‘Caroline thought she was the intended victim, Inspector,’ said Jennifer, still from across the room, for no one had yet moved.

It was Candice Peters of the frizzy brown hair who said, ‘We all agreed that Jen and Caroline needed a little privacy. Girl with girl was OK by us. Life here is lonely enough. So what if they held each other? It did no harm and made them happy.’

‘Caroline blossomed,’ said Barbara Caldwell, the one who had graduated from Rhodes College. ‘Living here has taught us all a lot, Inspector. We know it’s illegal and that whatever church one goes to would consider it evil, but it
does
happen here.
Ah, mon Dieu,
at any time of the day or night you can come upon a couple or hear them. Jennifer and Caroline weren’t alone in that.
Bien sûr,
Madame de Vernon hated the thought. She demanded that Caroline break it off with Jen, was fiercely jealous, and if you ask me, violently possessive. Some women
can
be like that, can’t they?’

‘We. . . we didn’t think she’d do anything other than object,’ said Jennifer, ‘but. . . but now I’m not so sure, Inspector. Am I to be next?’

Merde,
thought St-Cyr. The room was crowded enough, himself the lone male, they all watching his every move like a herd of wildebeest who would form a circle round the defenceless as the jackals prepare to rush in.

‘Madame Chevreul. . . ’ he began.

‘
Ah, oui,
’ said Jennifer, brushing her fair hair back off her brow. ‘Caroline and I had been to see her time and again, trying to get permission to become sitters at one of her sessions. At. . . at last we had succeeded only to then. . . Forgive me, I can’t say it. I’m sorry.’

Where, really, wondered St-Cyr, did this one sit in things since there had been no mention yet of Caroline Lacy’s having been emotionally upset and in tears
before
she had returned to her own room on the night Mary-Lynn Allan had fallen?
Bien sûr
this buyer of antiques, Old Masters, and other paintings for her family’s business in Boston seemed independent of mind, exuding strength and forthrightness in the face of grief, but she had been the lover of one of the victims and a roommate of the other, and was now suggesting that she, too, might be in danger. Had it all been a performance? ‘And were you to have attended last evening’s séance as well?’