They reached the far end of the shop and passed between rows of headless, legless mannequins whose remaining anatomy was flimsily clad.
‘One shouldn’t sneeze in the company of such women,’ offered St-Cyr drily.
‘Nor in the company of these, Louis.’ She parted the curtains and said, ‘Girls, it’s all right. This is only Monsieur Jean-Louis St-Cyr, the famous detective from the Surete.’
They were naked and there were three of them. All trying on the latest things while Muriel, grey-haired and dressed in a severe suit of grey pinstripe with broad lapels, smoked one of her endless cigarettes and hardly lifted an eye to him.
‘They’re a feast, aren’t they, Louis?’ teased Chantal, squeezing his arm. ‘Me, I thought you would like to see them. That one with the dark hair and the splendid breasts is Martine; that one who is very petite like me and so magnificent, is Brigitte, and the last, a favourite for us because she is everything a young girl should be, is Julie. Alas, they are all taken, Louis, but me, I will console you.’
They took tea in the cluttered office. St-Cyr fingered fabrics – silks, taffetas, crushed velvets, satins and laces. He loved to touch them.
In turn, she stroked his hand and let concern well up in her lovely brown eyes that were still so very clear and large, the lashes long. ‘Now tell me about it, eh? Why a German, Louis? Oh for sure he’s handsome, but he will drop her. We both know this.’
He shrugged. ‘That’s not why I came,’ he said lamely. ‘Chantal, I need your help. We’re on a murder case – a boy. It doesn’t make much sense but there’s something about it I don’t like.’
She understood but waited patiently. She refilled his cup but followed Muriel’s ritual of first pouring the milk and then adding the sugar. Two teaspoonfuls. Louis had once been such a handsome man – they’d both agreed about this. He still could be if only he’d …
‘First, there is the perfume,’ he said, ‘and then there is the purse.’
He was lost to her now, the eyes distant as he conjured up the film of the murder. ‘The perfume,’ he said. ‘It has civet as its fixative. That particular tincture has been used to remove certain rough edges, you understand. Me, I think there has been a little too much jasmine – it’s a shade heavy, Chantal. This is something very personal – a woman who knows her own mind and is very positive, isn’t that so? Lavender is involved – that breath of spring, the essence of constant love. A touch of angelica, some vetiverol and bergamot, I think. Yes, I’m certain of it.’
She looked with admiration at this cop who could be so sensitive. Her tiny heart exploded at those words of his.
While concentrating on the perfume, he continually felt the fabrics as a designer would.
That a woman should ever leave such a man! Ah, Mon Dieu, what was the world coming to?
‘The purse,’ said St-Cyr distantly. ‘The scent was on it. There was a small crystal vial as well – twists of cobalt blue glass – candy stripes of it, Chantal. Very, very nice. Very expensive. Something Victorian, I think.’
‘English?’ she asked quietly.
‘Yes … Yes, English. With a silver top in the shape of a crown.’
‘A sceptre?’ she prodded.
‘Yes … Yes, the head of a sceptre.’
‘And the purse, Louis. It struck you, did it not?’
His eyes were moist and sad – wounded. Ah Mon Dieu! ‘Electric, Chantal. Shimmering flashes of bluey-greens – forks of them beneath beads that were pearls.’
At once she was firm. ‘The pearls would spoil the look of the silk. The woman should have asked for sequins or cut-glass beads so as to flash the fire of the silk and match the motions of her body as the dress moved with her. Like Northern Lights, Louis. The aurora borealis.’
‘Flowing, Chantal – rippling across the heavens as she moved,’ mused St-Cyr. ‘It is what I have thought myself.’
‘Is she German or French, this murderess?’
‘Ah! She did not commit the crime, not her. At least, I do not think she did.’
‘But is she French, my friend?’
He nodded – longed for a cigarette but realized Kohler had only loaned him one and that he’d carelessly tossed that away, not thinking to have saved the butt. The big shot on a case.
She obliged and told him to take several. ‘As many as you think will tide you over. Go on. Ah, don’t be shy. The Boches, they bring us plenty.’
The generals, the captains and the lieutenants.
‘What did Marianne buy?’
‘Some lingerie, what else? He picked it out for her. She was very shy about it, Louis. Muriel made her undress – completely, you understand – while I kept the lieutenant busy with little things.’
Was nothing secret any more? ‘So, you can help?’ he asked. ‘The purse first, I think, and then the scent. The one should lead you to the other, and my feet are tired.’
‘How much time do you have?’
‘Two days.’
‘Two …?’ She raised her pencilled eyebrows.
‘The General von Schaumburg has insisted,’ he said, grimacing.
‘My poor Louis, it’s just not your day. Muriel will know what to do. Try to call back this evening or in the morning, but not before eleven thirty, please.’
‘I’ll be out of town by then.’
‘At the scene of the crime?’
‘Yes, at the scene.’
So it was still to be a kind of secret from them. ‘You do not trust us?’ she said – one would have thought her near to tears. ‘It’s always the same.’
‘Fontainebleau and a back road to Barbizon. Three a.m., and a boulder right between the eyes.’
‘A crime of passion?’ she asked, delighted with his confidence.
‘Yes – me, I think so but I am wondering what sort of passion and this, my dear, dear Chantal, I firmly resist telling you.’
At the door she took his hand in hers and brought it to her lips. ‘Take care, my dear detective. Don’t worry so much about your wife. A far more brilliant star will come to shine over you and share your bed. Me, I am certain of this.’
Not until he was out of sight of the shop did he stop to look at the vial of perfume he’d pinched.
As a man to the woman of his dreams, he opened the tiny vial and brought it to his nose. First one nostril and then the other – no need for blotting paper samples. None at all.
Muriel had called it Mirage.
Satisfied, he screwed the silver sceptre back down on its candy stripes of cobalt blue glass and ice-clear crystal.
Then he lit up, gratefully filled his lungs, and started out again.
Now he’d find the maker of the dress to which the purse had belonged, and then he’d find the name of its owner.
Kohler gripped the counter. ‘What the hell do you mean, your boys lost him?’
Glotz continued mining the bulbous, hairy nose before examining the dross with the eye of a scientist. ‘Just that, my fine Bavarian friend. He bought a sack of salted chestnuts.’
Glotz rolled the dross into a ball.
‘So what the fuck have chestnuts to do with things, eh?’ demanded Kohler.
The Bavarian was even picking up the French idiom. Been too long on the beat perhaps. Due for a change. Siberia.
Glotz flicked the cannon-ball away. ‘Look, it’s simple, Hermann. After he left the restaurant on the rue St-Denis, St-Cyr played the man on holiday but paid no attention to the whores. He bought a sack of chestnuts, then went into the National Library to borrow a book. Who knows? He left two of the chestnuts on one of the desks in the central reading room.’
‘You schmucks! You call yourselves the Watchers. Christ Almighty, don’t your boys know that place has seventeen exits that are clean? Louis had his eyes on you all the time.’
Louis … ‘So, what’s he up to that requires such secrecy?’
Kohler silently cursed himself. ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Louis had to have a bit of time off.’
Glotz grinned. He ran pudgy fingers over the plain oak desk that was scarred with scratches and initials. ‘He didn’t go to see his wife,’ he said and smirked. Toying with Kohler had its moments.