Gypsy (3 page)

Ah damn, thought Kohler. The two of them were really at each other's throats and some son of a bitch down at Gestapo Paris-Central had let Herr Max know all about Louis's wife. Had the visitor from the IKPK viewed the films? He must have. Then he would also know that the Hauptmann had been sent to Russia by his uncle, and that he had later died there. Marianne St-Cyr had been coming home with Louis's little son when she had tripped over a wire, a Resistance bomb that had been meant for Louis. Not two months ago and a mistake if ever there was one – he was no collabo but like many, had been forced to work for the Occupier. One would never know how she had felt, repentant or otherwise, least of all poor Louis who had forgiven her
and
the Resistance, and had been trying ever since to get back the films he had never seen, thank God.

Herr Max tossed the woman's papers on to the coffee table, glanced at his wrist-watch and said, ‘The
métro
and the buses. Have them shut down.'

‘They've already stopped. It's 2333. They grind to a halt at 2300. No diamond bearings, I guess,' quipped Kohler to lighten things and get her back her papers.

‘V
ERDAMMT
!
Don't you ever do that again. You and this
Teichfroch
of yours are under my orders. Mine, Kohler. Orders, do you understand?
'

This pond-frog … ‘Okay, I'll call the Chief.'

‘And you will ask him,
ja
? to define for you just what I have said.'

Though the woman, like each of them, had been startled and had leapt at the shrillness of Herr Max, she had somehow calmed herself only to be unsettled again by the whispered exchange that had followed.

Without waiting for her to recover, Engelmann grabbed her by the wrist, hustled her to a chair, and told her to take off her coat, hat and gloves. ‘You won't be needing them. It's warm enough.'

‘
Und in den Zellen, mein Herr
?' she asked defiantly.

Startled, poor Louis took a step forward only to think better of it. Herr Max was only too aware of him and now grinning, since she had betrayed a knowledge of the language she would rather have kept to herself.

‘In the prison cells, Fräulein?' breathed Engelmann softly. ‘But … but what is this you are saying? Have you been in prison before?'

She took a little breath. Her
deutsch
, when it came, was cold and fluent. ‘Never. Now am I to be placed under arrest for assisting the Third Reich? Hans, do something.'

That icy contempt would have to be shattered. ‘He can't, Fräulein,' said Engelmann. ‘He mustn't. You see, your diamond buyer has just realized it would be imprudent. He has,
meine gute Dame
, cast you to the wolves, to me.'

To the Gestapo …

‘That's not true! Nana, these people … One has to be patient. Things take a little time. Questions are only natural. You've nothing to hide.'

Or have you? wondered St-Cyr with a sinking feeling that would not go away.

‘
Und
now we begin it, Fräulein,' sighed Engelmann. ‘You let the Gypsy into these quarters. You either left the lock off or gave him a key. You told him where your lover had written down the combination, and then you went to have your … Was it washed and dried? Please, I must touch it.'

‘
Don't
! I know nothing. I've done nothing.'

Her hair was soft. He let it fall. ‘Then you have nothing to fear.'

‘Herr Max …' began Louis only to see the visitor glowering at him and hear him saying, ‘Please, she is all yours. You first with the questions as agreed, and then myself.'

Once away from them, Kohler took a moment to steady himself.
Verdammtl
Max Engelmann reeked of trouble. The IKPK? and now here it was resurrected and squatting on their doorstep, especially on Louis. Poor Louis.

The Gypsy, ah
merde
. A plague in the late twenties and the thirties but then someone had given him away – betrayal and jail in Oslo, 17 May 1938. Seven years of hard labour on a diet of cold
hardfiskur
,
*
no mayonnaise, and torn chunks of
ruqbraud
,
*
only to turn up as free as a bird in Occupied Paris.

The cable from Heinrich Himmler via Gestapo Mueller in Berlin via Gestapo Boemelburg in Paris had been terse,
MOST URGENT. REPEAT URGENT. IKPK HQ BERLIN REPORTS INTERNATIONAL SAFE-CRACKER GYPSY REPEAT GYPSY HAS REPORTEDLY SURFACED. LAST SEEN TOURS 1030 HOURS 14 JANUARY HEADING FOR PARIS. APPREHEND AT ONCE. HEIL HITLER.

Like most of the Sûreté, Louis had heard of the Gypsy, but why bring in Engelmann, why put them
under
that bastard's orders when he couldn't even speak French and couldn't know the city or the country for that matter, or did he? And why, please, had he deliberately insulted Louis with that crap about unfaithful wives?

Was someone playing with them? Were their loyalties being ‘investigated' again? Louis was a patriot; himself a conscientious doubter and objector of Nazi infallibility, brutality and all else. Everyone knew both Louis and himself were kept on by Boemelburg simply because they produced results. One hundred percent.

In an age of officially sanctioned crime, they were virtually the only honest cops left to fight common crime. But as sure as that God of Louis's had made safes to crack, there was an IKPK card-index file with the Gypsy's profile for the SS in Berlin to peruse at their leisure. Were they using the Gypsy? Was it all a sham?

Deeply troubled by the thought, Kohler went along the corridor, round a corner and up a small flight of stairs until he had what he wanted.

She was sitting in her little cupboard, waiting patiently to clean up the dust. She had her shoes and black stockings off, and was soaking her bunions and corns in a basin of salt water to which she had added a small handful of rose petals – red ones, ah yes.

‘God, they're a bugger, aren't they?' he said of the shoes these days. ‘Mine are killing me.' And from a tattered pocket, he rescued a forgotten cigarette and broke it in half.

Lighting them, he handed her one and said congenially, ‘Hey, don't worry, eh? No one will see us, and if I have to, I'll tell them it's business.'

Business
? She swallowed and began to do up the belt and buttons she had released to give a tired waist a little room.

‘The robbery,' he said. She ducked her eyes away and cringed – knew he had seen the rose petals, knew he'd noticed the two tickets she had found for the Opéra, the magazines and the newspapers, all in German he would know only too well she could not understand.

‘The pictures,' she managed. ‘I look at them.'

‘That's what the Propaganda Staffel count on, but like I said, don't worry. I simply want to ask you a few small questions. Nothing difficult.'

Her bunions were swollen, the corns aflame. The toenails had been painted but some time ago. The uniform, a dress of thin black cotton with a starched white lace cap and an apron, needed attention. The shoes had been made of ersatz leather and cardboard, their soles of softwood.

At the age of sixty-seven, life had been unkind. Bony in places, sagging in others, she had been a girl of the streets and brothels until married to the night shift at the Ritz and to cleaning up after others.

‘So, the robbery,' he said again and she didn't know whether to fear him or to be beguiled, for he was formidable with that slash down his face and the other one across his brow, but there was laughter in his faded blue eyes and it was not unkind, or was it?

‘I saw nothing. I heard nothing. I was occupied in another part of the hotel.'

‘Don't be stubborn. The rose petals came from room 13. It's the Opéra tickets that worry me.'

‘They're no good now. The performance will be …'

‘Your name? Papers … Papers,
bitte
, eh?' He snapped his fingers just like Engelmann had done and hated himself for doing so but it was no time for her to be stubborn.

‘Mademoiselle Georgette Bernard,' he breathed, scanning the ID photo and glancing at the guilt-ridden, swimming brown eyes.

Self-consciously she touched a curl and then her cap. ‘Monsieur …'

‘It's Inspector and hey, I really do want us to cooperate.'

‘I found the tickets on the carpet in the corridor outside room 13.'

‘When?'

‘Sometime after … after the Generalmajor had left to play with the birds.'

‘And the rose petals?'

‘A rose with its stem had fallen and was lying between the tickets. I …'

Had the Gypsy a sense of humour? Had the bastard left them in the hall as some sort of calling card or a reminder for Nana Thélème? ‘Now start by telling me if that's your master key up there on the hook, then why is there another hanging from your belt?'

Things would not go well. ‘That is Mariette's key. She's the day-girl. When she leaves at six, she changes out of her uniform and hangs it up, the key also.'

‘Good. And when you come on to change and get your key, do you leave the door to this cupboard locked?'

She crossed herself and silently said a small prayer. ‘The door is never locked. I …. I am away from here for some time – the carpets, you understand. The mirrors, the endless dusting – I can see that you appreciate my absences and that, the back, it was often turned and I could not possibly have known always that … that Mariette's key had remained constantly in its place.'

‘And would anyone else have known of this?'

‘The Mademoiselle Thélème? Ah no. No, Monsieur l'inspecteur. It's impossible. That one comes only by the lift. Never the stairs and certainly not the ones you have climbed, since they are only for the staff and the notice forbids entry to all others.'

She was really doing well. ‘When did the Generalmajor leave to play badminton?'

‘At about ten minutes before eight. Always when he is in Paris and not out for dinner, he does so. Always after the little birds, he has the shower bath and then takes to the pool, and then … well, whatever suits him. Who am I to say?'

Ah now … ‘Pardon?' he asked.

She tossed her head. ‘Mademoiselle Thélème always comes by the side entrance, the one that is on the rue Cambon and reached by way of the garden-restaurant. After he's done with her, she leaves by the same route, sometimes happy and light of step, sometimes wounded. Who's to say what makes the heart beat faster than at other times. An hour or two – Mariette is the one you should talk to. She has to clean up and make the bed in the morning. That is not my duty.'

‘Okay, so the Generalmajor went out at about eight this evening. Your back was turned and the day-girl's master key was up there on the wall. Did you see anyone in the halls, anyone who was not of the usual?'

‘I saw many. They come and go. Most wear the uniform and I must continue working and duck the eyes away so that they will not notice me. Several carry the attaché cases. All are very important, and some do take their women with them to their rooms. Yes, I have seen such things. Others live here with them. It's allowed.'

‘But number 13 is at the end of the corridor and therefore a little out of the way. Was there anything else?
Think
. Please try to remember. It's important.'

In dismay, she sadly shook her head but her deceitful toes were playing with each other in the swimming pool of their basin. ‘Okay,' he breathed, and taking out a thin roll of banknotes, unsnapped the elastic band and gave her 200 francs.

‘A night's wages,' she sighed pityingly. ‘You do not tip?'

500 more were found. ‘There was a captain, a general – they are all the same to me, you understand. Oh
mais certainement
, he was fair-haired and blue-eyed but a Dutchman, I think. The Dutch are even more conceited and arrogant than
les Allemands
. He carried himself well. A man of forty years. Tall, handsome, very sure of himself and quick of step. Ah! to pass unnoticed, it is only necessary to let others see you living normally.'

The song of their times.

‘The scars on the face like yourself, though not so terrible. Three of them – both cheeks and the nose. The chin, it was sharp; the lips, those of a teenaged boy like the one I once knew. The eyes with laughter, yes, but also the gaze that constantly searches, the heart most especially.'

‘But … but you just said you were not to look at the guests?'

‘Ah! this I could not help since the mirror I was polishing faced him and I could not stop him from pausing to straighten his tie. He was very smartly dressed, wore the pistol in its holster and had the Iron Cross at his throat. The attaché case … ah, now. Could there have been explosives in it, Inspector?
L'eau de vie de nitroglycérine
? He has set the case very delicately on the table before straightening his tie and looking at me.'

‘At about what time?'

‘I cannot tell you. The watch, it is in for repairs.'

‘The
mont-de-piété
?'

The pawnshop. ‘Yes.'

He sighed as another 500 francs were found. ‘That's to get your watch back.'

The Boches were such fools! ‘At 8.15 he has gone along the corridor towards room 13. I have had to dust the spare suite that is always kept for the Reichsmarschall Goering, even though that one has a villa in Paris. My back, it was turned for some time.'

‘At 8.15.'

‘Yes. And then, Inspector, at 8.47 he has taken the lift. This I have also seen.'

Verdammt
, and so much for her not having had a watch!

‘Henri will tell you what I have just said, but to grease the elevator operator's memory you will need much more. 2000 at least.'

A bargain, then. He was half-way down the narrow staircase when she hesitantly called after him. ‘Monsieur, has Mademoiselle Thélème been detained? It … it is only that she could not possibly be involved. You see, she has a little boy who is the light of her life. She would do nothing to endanger him. A mother's love is beyond all loves. This I know though the heart, it has been broken now for more than forty years.'