The tongue was bitten – frozen into silence. Ah Mon Dieu, these mountain people!
With a sigh, St-Cyr said, ‘Why not show me where the one from Bayonne is staying?’
The note of sadness was all too clear in the Chief Inspector’s voice, the loss perhaps of wife and child, of so many things like valour, dignity and truth – yes, yes, this one was the seeker of truth above all else. One could tell by the way he breathed. Merde! What was one to do in such a situation?
‘The cottage, it … it is in the little valley below our house and farm, monsieur. That one, he has said he will be waiting for you there.’
‘Then why has he come up to the village on a night like this?’
It was a cry, a plea to God for sanity. ‘He … he did not say, monsieur. That one, he says very little and only what he thinks we need to hear.’
‘How did you find the victim?’
‘Dead from the arrow.’
‘And you saw nothing else?’
Like an eel, the boy twisted away and St-Cyr had to let him go. There was no sense in crying out for him to come back. Indeed, it would be most unwise to make any more noise.
At a sound – a step? – a shape! – he stiffened.
‘Louis … Louis, what the hell are you doing hanging around like some terrified tourist wanting a girl when there’s work to do?’
The shape was the same, the size too – even the way Hermann stood out against the night sky between the roofs. It was uncanny, the similarity.
Trembling, St-Cyr put the Lebel away but realized in that instant he could well have killed Hermann.
He tried to make light of it. ‘Come, come, my old one, there is nothing more we can do here until dawn. We will retreat to the body. We will await the first light to see what it brings.’
‘Piss off with the poetry, Louis. You were about to put a bullet in me and I want to know why.’
‘Then please, my friend, tell me where your lantern is, eh?’
‘Oh, that? I had to drop it in someone’s well.’
2
The wind leaned steadily on the hearse and whistled through the edges of the tightly closed windows and doors. Though it was cold inside, there was room for them both to stretch out.
A two-casket job? wondered Kohler. Did the hearse have some special meaning for them after all? ‘Louis, you’d better let me have the truth, eh? And as soon as you can, you’re going to wash those trousers.’
‘Chantal will be very disappointed in me for ruining the new clothes she and Muriel so thoughtfully provided for their little detective.’
Kohler caught the note of longing. The ‘girls’ were friends of Louis’s in Paris; their lingerie shop, Enchantment, was on the Place Vendome. ‘Well, at least you’re back in your beloved Provence. Maybe now we can find that farm you’re always going on about. Real estate ought to be pretty cheap these days.’
‘Cheap? Ah yes, Hermann. At bargain prices, but first, the man from Bayonne.’
Louis fell into such a silence, Kohler thought the Frog had drifted off, but no, he, too, was staring up at the stars through parted curtains.
‘The mont-de-piete, Hermann, the Credit Municipal. My government’s way of providing social security for the wealthy and all but those who have absolutely nothing and do not matter since they cannot pay taxes.’
Kohler wondered if it was going to be another diatribe. Again there was silence, and then, sadly, ‘It all began with a pawnshop, Hermann, with my aunt, as we prefer to call them. And me, I wish I knew why Madame Buemondi had such a ticket in her hand and why the old grandmother asked first if we had come from the asylum in Chamonix as promised. Why Chamonix, Hermann? Why not somewhere else?’
The Frog was really upset. ‘Maybe she’d always wanted to go skiing?’ snorted Kohler quietly.
‘A murder, Hermann, but not the suicide that was claimed. Ah no, my old one. A murder in a villa outside Chamonix!’
‘Stavisky, the swindler? Late 1933, Louis – no, no, now wait – 9 January 1934. A revolver shot at zero range.’
The whole of the civilized world had heard of it. Alexandre Serge Stavisky – so many had been involved, the government had been shaken to its core and France’s Civil War of 1934 to 1937 had been ushered in with riots, looting and killing. Stavisky’s ‘suicide’ hadn’t been the only death. The repercussions of the scandal had become a tide which had rippled on and on.
‘It seems so long ago,’ sighed St-Cyr, ‘but was only yesterday. Everyone knew he was a crook – we’d tracked him before as had others – and yet … and yet, Hermann, history was allowed to repeat itself.’
‘Still bitter about it, eh?’
‘That and so much else, but for the moment let the wounds of the past pass as farts in the night.’
‘I didn’t fart.’
‘Then what the hell is that smell in here?’
‘Besides yourself? Embalming fluid, I think,’ said Kohler, knowing it would be reminder enough.
‘Through friends in high places, Stavisky managed to have an associate named as director of the Credit Municipal in Bayonne. It was a master stroke, Hermann. A location far from Paris, one tucked away in a corner few cared much about and with a colony of wealthy Spanish refugees just waiting to be plucked. Stavisky first left a substantial deposit of jewellery as security and thus received a loan of several hundred thousand francs. All seemed well, and the mayor of Bayonne and his municipal council thought they could rest easy. Indeed, the Credit Municipal looked as if bound to flourish.’
‘Then came the swindle,’ sighed Kohler, still staring up at the stars. ‘Each mont-de-piete is allowed to issue bonds based on the total value of the articles that have been pawned with it, but one can easily inflate this. So he floated bonds to the tune of more than half a billion francs, Louis. Securities that were readily sold or accepted as collateral for other loans or as deposits by both businessmen and government alike but were absolutely worthless.’
‘The very pillars of society, my old one. Bankers, lawyers, industrialists, cardinals and politicians but lots of little old ladies too, and with those you do not mess. Not in France. When the scandal broke on 23 December 1933, the circus began. Stavisky had more than forty registered companies all built on thin air but the magistrate’s warrant from Bayonne did not reach us in Paris until the 28th. Immediately a notice went out to all border crossings, to every Criminal Investigation squad in the country and to all members of the IKPK, the International Police Commission.’
‘Of which Boemelburg was a member. It’s a small world, Louis.’
‘Yes, Walter was notified by me, of course, although Pharand tried to stick his nose in it. Every man who could be spared was put on the case. No holiday, no anything. Stavisky had to be brought in immediately and made not only to pay for his crimes, but to sing like a canary. We had reports of sightings from all over the country. Le Havre, Cannes, Saint-Tropez, the Spanish border, et cetera, et cetera. Then on the 30th word came in, a lucky break. A Parisian woman who had been taking the mountain air at Servoz in the Haute-Savoie. Would she rent her chalet to a friend of her neighbour? Ah yes indeed, but on her return to Paris, she lost one of her suitcases.’
Trust Louis to throw in an example of fate’s taking a hand in things! ‘As luck would have it, someone found the luggage who knew of the neighbour’s friend?’ offered Kohler impatiently.
‘Ah no, not quite. As you well know, among our many duties, the Surete are responsible for policing the railways. The woman’s father just happened to be a friend of our Divisional Chief, so of course, it was to him that the father went for help in locating the luggage but not until 5 January was it found.’