‘To those who like him, and to those who don’t,’ confessed the sister. ‘Paul, you mustn’t think Albert stupid. He’s really very intelligent, just a little awkward perhaps, but in his own way he’s himself. That is more than one can say for a lot of the others in this town, Inspector.’
Again the sister realized she had said too much. ‘Who did the birds?’ Kohler asked, indicating the stuffed one.
‘I did,’ she quickly admitted. ‘I had such plans when a child, didn’t I, Paul? But as you can see, my talent was sadly lacking. Celine loved birds — live ones. They were free to fly, she used to say when thinking of Annette and building dreams for when the two of them would be together again. She wanted me to give her one of the tail feathers from each of those. Paul wanted her to take the birds and be done with my memory of them, but she wouldn’t do that and … and never brought the matter up again.’
‘A quail,’ muttered Herr Kohler, flipping back through his notebook. ‘A male hen harrier …’
‘A merlin, a peacock … Celine was going to try to write to her daughter using a tail feather from each. That way her words would appear as though they’d flown to Annette and every time the girl visited the zoo at the Jardin des Plantes, she’d think of her mother. Your coffee is getting cold, Inspector. Don’t you like it?’
‘Can’t you see you’ve prattled on so hard he’s been too busy?’
‘Paul, please. I want to help.’
‘Then why not tell him where Celine would have got the tail feathers! Go on, idiot. Can’t you see that’s what he’s fishing for and he’ll soon find out anyway?’
Ach! had the sister been trying to avoid doing so?
‘Herr Abetz, your ambassador in Paris, keeps a chateau nearby, Inspector,’ said Blanche. ‘Its … its custodian and former owner tends the birds he once collected.’
There, she said sadly to herself, now he’s writing that down too. A chateau, his expression grim at the thought of Herr Abetz being even remotely connected to the killings. In a way she felt sorry for Herr Kohler, sorry for herself and Paul too, of course.
A mist of fear and anxiety was in the detective’s eyes when he looked up at her to ask, ‘Just how the hell did Madame Dupuis get to visit our Otto’s birds?’
Paul should have kept quiet. ‘The parties,’ she said not daring to look at Herr Kohler. ‘The dances and nights of games and … and other things.’
‘And your brother and you, Mademoiselle Varollier? Did the two of you also attend these evenings out?’
These orgies, was this what Herr Kohler thought? To deny it would be foolish; to admit it, suicidal. Why did Paul have to force the issue? To get everything out in the open and over with in spite of what might happen to them? To get back at her, his sister, his twin?
‘Occasionally, Inspector, but … but not in some time. Wasn’t it well before Christmas when we were last there, Paul?’ she asked acidly. ‘My brother to deal the cards or tend the roulette wheel, myself to translate when necessary.’
Speaks Deutsch fluently — was this what Herr Kohler now scribbled? wondered Blanche, but when he looked across the table at her, it was to ask, ‘Who else was there?’
Had Paul wanted this to come out too? ‘Celine and … and others.’
‘Lucie Trudel? That is her portable gramophone on the bureau next to your brother’s chair, isn’t it? When was the last time you saw her? You first, Monsieur Varollier, then you, Mademoiselle Blanche.’
Ah Sainte Mere! Herr Kohler had led them into believing he hadn’t noticed the record on its turntable, hadn’t thought it important. He had laid a little souriciere for them.
A mousetrap.
The blood-and vomit-stained sock that had been crammed into Lucie Trudel’s mouth and then taken from it had been thrown behind her killer or killers and had landed under her bed.
Lying flat on the floor, St-Cyr reached for it with the tweezers. He’d have to bag it but bags were in too short a supply even for murder investigations and Stores were obstinate. ‘A leaflet, then,’ he grunted. ‘Two perhaps, and tightly folded over. Idiot, the ink will run. Everything these days is made not to last!’
The sock had been hand-knitted in four-ply white wool with a cable pattern above the ankle. He was certain it matched the other one he’d found. It, and this other one, had been mended not once but twice by the look of them. Both were definitely from the thirties, from when she’d have been eighteen or nineteen. Treasured because Maman or Grand-mere had knitted them. Used and mended until they unravelled during the Occupation to be used elsewhere.
‘You came from a good home, didn’t you,’ he said, looking across the room at her. ‘But they wouldn’t have thought well of your returning with child and unmarried. Was that why the indecision, or did someone really interrupt your early-morning walk from the Hall des Sources and demand the location of that key?’
She couldn’t answer, couldn’t speak, yet he felt she would have liked to have said, Papa was very ill. They had trouble enough at home.
‘Was he dying?’ he asked gently. The leaflets in the inner pocket of his overcoat had been dropped by the RAF on a night-bombing raid over the U-boat pens at Lorient on the Breton coast. ‘Target missed and town hit,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘My partner and I were lucky not to have left the living. I seldom empty these pockets,’ he apologized. ‘We were there at the beginning of January. A dollmaker, a U-boat captain who wanted to revive his grandfather’s business of making beautiful dolls, the Royal Kaestners. Another difficult murder investigation. We always seem to get them. Well?’ he asked suddenly.
Dying, she seemed to say of her father. I was torn between murdering my unborn child and returning home for a last visit perhaps, and … and the funeral.
‘And the interruption?’
The location of the key to the Hall, but why, she seemed to insist, would he, she or they have needed to ask me when so many others knew Albert?
‘A warning then. Was that it, eh, or did your killer simply follow you back to this hotel?’
Two black leather thongs, each about a half-metre in length, were neatly coiled among the things in her Paris suitcase, and he had to ask himself, Had the riding crop also been packed? Had that been why her killer or killers had fitted it into her hand after they’d killed her?
Deschambeault had shed no tears, had expressed anger, yes, but not really remorse and regret at her killing. More a concern for himself, a curiosity and a thinly disguised sense of relief.
‘Did you beat him during sex? Was he of that nature or did he beat you? Please forgive me for asking, mademoiselle, but it’s necessary. Pain does, with some, increase pleasure; with others it’s essential.’
She wouldn’t have answered, would have ducked her eyes in shame, or would she? Accustomed to coming across all manner of perversions, he filed the thought away and again took to examining the contents of her bed.
The rats had all been caught in traps but not the usual, he felt.
There were, in so far as he could see, no broken backs or broken necks and legs, nor was there any sign of the froth that poison often brought. Instead of this last, or a spring-loaded trap whose bar would snap down when the bait was taken, a wire snare had been used.
‘Coroner Laloux will confirm this,’ he said. ‘Rats are very intelligent and not easily tricked. Each family quickly becomes aware of the consequences of poisoned bait and avoids it like the plague. Those spring-loaded traps are often of no use either. Bacon, cheese, bread soaked in wine or soup — whatever I used, even securely tying the bait to its little pan with thread, they would leave the trap set sans its little reward and the thread still perfectly in place. Wire cage traps, though expensive, are better. Of course I shot some, but with this bunch I think snares were used. The bait put in a difficult and out of the way place, the rat curious, then growing a little bolder until jerking frantically.