‘Inspector, I must close up now. Grand-mere, she will worry. Always it’s the same with her, you understand. She watches the clock, poor thing, and worries especially now with … with all of these terrible attacks.’
A lie, of course, but had he believed her? He gave no indication, hadn’t been standing anywhere near her desk, had been sitting-yes, sitting patiently by the door-and said, ‘Ah, bon, mademoiselle. It’s best my partner and I come back in the morning.’
‘Sunday … It will be Sunday, Inspector. The agence will be closed.’
‘Ah! I’ve completely lost track of the days. Always the work, never the rest. Monday, then.’
Throwing on that overcoat, he took that fedora of his from her desk and said, ‘Aprez vous, mademoiselle.’
‘I … I must switch off the lights, then put the lock on.’
‘Of course.’
As she did so, he didn’t take that gaze of his from her, but held the door, then watched as she pushed the little button in and let her go first, he pulling the door tightly closed behind them and testing it to make certain it was, indeed, locked.
‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘You needn’t worry.’
No one was taking any notice of them. No one! Not M. Raymond and not M. Garnier … ‘Merci,’ she heard herself saying.
‘I’ll just walk you to the entrance of the metro. That way I’ll not worry either.’
Ah, merde! ‘There … there’s no need, Inspector. The flat’s just along the way.’
They reached the avenue, which was now in total darkness. The glow from occasional cigarettes was as if that from fireflies in the night and not yet a moon. ‘Bonne nuit, mademoiselle.’
And never trust a police officer, said St-Cyr silently as he gave her time to lose herself in the crowd. That pin tumbler, mortised lock of the colonel’s, with its bevelled bolt and dead bolt above, allows you to ‘put the lock on’ the former but not the latter, which needs its key. Delaroche must always come by to put the dead bolt on, but with the other there are two little buttons mounted on the lock face just below the bolts. Pushing in the one as you did, activates the bevelled bolt, pushing in the other as I did, deactivates it.
The colonel, like any detective prive worth his salt, felt Kohler, had a table exactly where it should have been. Right at the back, tucked into a corner in full view of the coat check and entrance and with the whole club spread before him, including its tobacco-fogged horizon.
Bob sat on two of the chairs nearest to that master of his and watched the girls from this distance. He didn’t bark, seemed oblivious to the brassy racket from the orchestra and that from the crowd, was mesmerized apparently by the lights and the action.
Wehrmacht boys were everywhere, several with their petites amies. BOFs, too, and other black marketeers and collabos. Maybe a ratio of eight from home to two of the French, the club filling up fast and no different than any other in this regard.
‘Bob has impressive control, Colonel. You’ve trained him superbly.’
Just what was Kohler after and where the hell was that partner of his? wondered Delaroche, though he’d have to smile and affably say, ‘You’ve no idea how good Bob is for business. Prospective clients, especially the women, take one look at him and are not only reassured but convinced. The younger they are, the harder they fall-isn’t that right, mon vieux?’
Bob agreed. Husbands would fool around; wives would demand answers, or vice versa. ‘A fortune, that it, Colonel?’
‘Hardly. A good living, though. Surely you must have thought of going into business for yourself?’ Delaroche turned to a waitress. ‘Angele, ma belle, would you be so good as to bring Herr Kohler a little something from Munich? The Spaten Dunkel. It’s fresh in today, Kohler.’
‘Et pour vous, mon cher colonel?’ brown eyes asked.
‘The usual.’
‘Un double de Byrrh. Is that not correct?’
Jesus, merde alors, those bedroom eyes of hers would have melted butter.
‘Bob, give Angele her little gift. Now don’t be stingy.’
A five-hundred-franc bill was gently teased from a bankroll that would have impressed even the wealthiest, the girl taking it between her teeth, too, as she set her tray down to mother Bob, modestly tidy her halter straps and tuck the bill between her breasts.
‘It pays to keep them happy, Kohler. You’ve no idea the things girls like that can tell you.’
Cigarettes were offered and why not accept a couple? A light too.
Kohler blew smoke towards the ceiling and sat back to enjoy the show as if a regular without a care in the world but surely Boemelburg had let him know the Gestapo and the SS employed the agence from time to time and had been very satisfied with the results?
Oberg must have told the agency to work with Sonja Remer and to tail Giselle, thought Kohler, but had they found her, or had this one simply vented his rage in the passage de l’Hirondelle because they hadn’t? ‘Tell me about Lulu, Colonel.’
There was still no sign of St-Cyr. ‘Catherine-Elizabeth de Brisac is an old and much valued friend. Her husband, Paul, and I were at Gallipoli. The Corps expeditionnaire d’Orient. Kum Kale on the Asian shore, April twenty-fifth, 1915, a diversion that, though the only successful venture of that whole campaign, fooled no one. We then withdrew and went to assist the Australians and New Zealanders on the Peninsula. Brave boys, all of them, but a debacle. An absolute cockup. The damned British High Command let us down as they then did in 1940. One simply can’t trust the bastards. Pigheaded, incompetent, arrogant and dishonest. Undermanned and under-supplied, the Turks were savage, Mustapha Kemal Pasha absolutely brilliant. Paul de Brisac didn’t come home. I caught him as he fell.’
Their drinks came. ‘Salut,’ said Delaroche, raising his glass. ‘Byrrh had become our national aperitif even before that other war, Kohler, but do you know why?’
‘The colonies. The malaria and a need for quinine to be sweetened, else it wouldn’t be taken. Hence a dry, vermouth-style drink that caught on. Let’s cut the crap and the old soldier bit, Colonel. Elene Artur kidnapped Lulu.’
‘Such things happen all the time these days, don’t they? Leave one’s pet off the lead for a moment, or let the cat out, and voila, it has vanished into the oven or the stew pot of another.’
‘Or the soup pot, given her indochinoise background and that of her mother, Colonel, but didn’t you realize Elene had taken her?’
Kohler had yet to mention the judge. ‘I didn’t. I did know of the trouble Lulu had been causing. Bob wasn’t the only dog to have suffered defending that girl and certainly Lulu could have benefitted a great deal from further training. Spoiled, oh la, la, but … Ah! what is one to do when asked by a friend of long standing who is in great distress? I immediately offered help. The Agence Vidocq was, as I have already stated, working on it.’
‘But not too hard. Elene must have kept Lulu alive until very recently. Maybe a guilty conscience, maybe she sincerely felt the dog was desperately needed by its owner.’
‘We haven’t charged Madame de Brissac a sou, nor will we. I had kept Bob away from the girls because of the fight he’d had down there with Lulu. Damn it, Kohler, Lulu had challenged Elene and had bitten the girl twice at least. Bob simply leaped in to defend her as he would have done for any of them.’
A real ladies’ dog but at other times, at least some of them, Elene, must have got on quite well with Lulu. ‘Now what are you going to tell Madame de Brissac?’