Such concern deserved an answer. ‘Look, I know you mean well, but sometimes you can sound like a mother hen.’
‘Perhaps, but me, I’m not laying the eggs, am I? I’m just along for the clean-up.’
‘I’ll be sure not to let you forget it.’
The speaker gave the surprise of surprises, a gruff and throaty female voice of the streets and backwaters, the two halves of the driveway’s gate automatically opening, the Citroen advancing only to be locked in.
‘Messieurs … Inspectors, I am Aurore Decour. My youngest daughter, Bijou, and myself do the kitchen here, the beds, the tidying and laundry.’
There couldn’t be just the two of them, felt Kohler. Under light from the foyer, she had the face and expression only time and experience could give: round, watchful and empty of all feeling, the knitted cardigan of rescued wool from unravelled cast-offs, the hips wide, hands big and apron that of a cook who was often too busy to think of anything else.
‘What is it you wish?’
And so much for the sight of the Purdey, its extra cartridges and Louis. ‘Giselle and Oona.’
‘The mademoiselles, ah oui, oui, mais certainement. Captain Oster, he has said that I am to take you right up, while the other one, he is to wait in the kitchens for me to make him some cocoa.’
‘Divide and conquer, Hermann. Avoid any trouble since the other guests will have retired for the night.’
‘Is Oster a Haupsturmfuhrer, madame?’
An SS, but had this one with the terrible scar from left eye to chin realized he was being watched by the captain and the others? ‘Me, I always address him as captain. It’s easier since I never went to school and the tongue finds it difficult to twist itself around such words.’
It was good that Louis had heard that. ‘But they’ve all gone to bed, have they?’
Would he finally believe her if she said it again? ‘Oui. I can wake them if you wish.’
That gaze of hers now found the toes of the felt slippers she must have been given when that last daughter of hers had been born. ‘I’ll just leave this and my pistol with my partner, shall I?’
‘That would, I think, be very wise, and in turn, if he is as understanding, why he could leave all such weapons on the foyer’s table. No one will touch them, since everyone else is in their respective rooms.’
Sleep and sleep, and even such a big word as that second-to-last one. ‘Who else is here?’
‘A Romanian countess, or so she constantly claims, who speaks many languages including that one and has the passports to prove it; a Portugese seller of wolframite, the principal ore mineral of tungsten, n’est-ce pas, but who has yet to produce the promised shipment; and an Argentine seller of beef and diesel fuel to the submarines of the German leader but one who speaks English fluently and apparently knows nothing of gauchos.’
Liebe Zeit, and she’d never been to school! ‘A full house, eh?’
Why did he need to know such a thing unless still wondering if those who guarded the house had really retired and were not watching with their weapons at the ready? ‘Oui, now perhaps if the questions, they are finished, I could …’
‘Bring them down. Just Oona and Giselle.’
This one slept with both, though never at the same time, or so she had overheard the captain saying to the others. ‘Me, I am to take you to them, Inspector, but must ask that you first remove the shoes, the same for the one who is with you.’
‘Louis …’
‘Hermann, do it. Though there aren’t any dogs unless they are highly obedient, the security here is still far too tight for us to do anything but what Madame Decour has kindly said.’
But a little look around might still be useful, felt St-Cyr. The living room was truly magnificent. Built in the early 1930s, when labour was desperately cheap and money scarce except for a few, it was spaciously welcoming yet now probably seldom if ever used. A high, floor-to-ceiling doorway, a gleaming parquet floor and soft beige walls funnelled the vision beyond soft brown, leather-covered art deco armchairs, coffee table and woven rug to an adjacent room replete with desk and Venetian chandelier circa the late 1920s, that entrance being flanked by two stunning paintings: a seated Modigliani nude to the left and a Kandinsky improvisation to the right. More ‘degenerate’ art for sure, and certainly the property of the former owner.
A grand piano nestled in that corner, paradise palms in the other and all but hiding an oil on canvas by August Macke who, with Franz Marc, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, had founded the Blaue Reiter, the Blue Horsemen group. A Rhinelander whose paintings Hitler would, no doubt, joyously burn, Macke’s were gorgeous to look at, for his use of light, when broken into its fundamental parts, transcended material objects. Here a tall, slender and obviously very interested woman in a wide-brimmed, feathered chapeau, black fur-collared, powder-blue overcoat, her cream-coloured dress coming well below the coat to hide her shoes, gazed raptly into a lighted shop window after hours. But what sort of a shop-was it not all such windows, all such rooms as these two, the shading and shapes suggesting things beyond their evident reality, a merging of the natural and human worlds? Drawn more and more deeply into the painting, the viewer was encouraged by Macke to look beyond the usual and deeply into the abstract for what it could tell us about life and all that was around us.
‘Hey, you.’
‘Me? But of course, the cocoa. I’ll wait in the kitchen as Madame Decour has suggested.’
‘Ah bon, this one has seen the wisdom of behaving himself, Maurice. Let’s hope Kohler is as sensible.’
Very quickly Kohler began to feel that this had to be the longest staircase ever, for how were he and Louis to get Oona and Giselle out of a place like this, to say nothing of themselves? As prisons go, it was beautiful, fantastic, warm, comfortable, superb in every way but one.
Life-size, there were two art deco, white marble nudes on the first-storey landing, madame laying a restraining hand on him while she paused to catch a breath. The sculpture in the far left corner was standing with legs together, arms at the sides and palms turned toward him as if in welcome and just like Oona would after she’d dropped her nightgown. But the sculpture in that other far corner was not on her hands and knees as Giselle sometimes wanted almost desperately, but flat on her back, knees up and wide as usual, her invitation not only determined but anticipating every moment to come.
Bevelled wall-mirrors flung these two reminders at him and at themselves, madame having finally lifted tired brown eyes to study his every reaction. ‘Like those, Inspector, your ladies are very interesting, but to see them, we must climb yet another flight of these stairs, and me, I must unfortunately take my time.’
She even crossed herself. ‘Apart from the Captain Oster, your youngest daughter and yourself, how many others look after this place?’
Had he thoughts he should not have? ‘There are three others. One does errands, chauffeuring and the marketing when I give him the lists. Another handles the maintenance-the furnace, the boiler, plumbing and radiators-and the last who also helps that one, does the garden.’
There would at least be one revolver among those three, an old Lebel probably, and that SD would have his regulation Walther PPK with seven-rounds in its magazine.
‘Please, you are not to worry, Inspector. Gestapo Boemelburg himself has telephoned, you understand. Mademoiselle le Roy and Madame van der Lynn are to be allowed to share a room and to take their meals and walks in the garden together. Also, clothing is to be brought from where they were living and whatever other items they request.’