The Poellenberg Inheritance (21 page)

‘Please,' she repeated. ‘Sit down and let us both be reasonable. We won't gain anything by losing our tempers.'

Fisher didn't move. ‘I'm not losing mine,' he said. ‘And you haven't answered my question.'

‘Why should I answer it?' She rounded on him bitterly. ‘Who are you to pry into my family and try to confront me!'

‘You've just told me, once removed from the criminal classes. What are you afraid of – blackmail? You needn't be. But I want the truth or I don't go on with the case. There happens to be an innocent person involved apart from you.'

‘I see.' The Princess stood up; she seemed taller than Fisher remembered. ‘Very well. Come away from the door and I will tell you what you want to know. How did you find out about my son's marriage?'

‘There was a report in a Swiss newspaper in 1943. The Prince was said to have got married secretly in Paris, during a trip over here. I had my office check it out and they discovered a similar report in a local French paper. He was married in a small village about twenty-eight kilometres from Paris, wasn't he?'

‘Yes.' She spat the word out. ‘But how did you find out? – There are no records.'

‘I know that,' Fisher said. ‘My operator spoke to the Mayor of the village, and he remembered the Prince simply because there- was such a fuss about it afterwards, and his records were removed and returned with the entry taken out. So he couldn't tell us anything about the marriage except confirm that it took place, because he officiated.'

She made a gesture with her hand. ‘You must be very stupid if you can't guess,' she said. ‘She was a Jewess. Heinrich was completely irresponsible; he was always unreliable. My fool of a mother-in-law took a fancy to him and insisted on having him travel with her. And that is when he married this girl, while he was staying in Paris with his grandmother.'

She moved across the room and took a handkerchief out of her handbag. ‘You can imagine what that would have meant to us, in the middle of the war. It was hushed up, we separated them and brought him home, but we failed to keep the secret. Bronsart discovered it, and you can understand now why he was able to take the Poellenberg Salt.'

‘In return for his silence?'

‘Precisely. And you can appreciate why I am determined to get it back!'

‘What happened to your daughter-in-law?'

She seemed to wince at the title. ‘I have no idea. She was just an adventuress who had her schemes frustrated. She disappeared after we took Heinrich home.'

‘It can't have been very easy being Jewish at that time.'

‘It was before the German persecution of the Jews in France,' the Princess said. ‘That came later. I expect she had escaped by then. Most of them did. It doesn't concern me now.'

‘I see,' Fisher said. ‘Thank you for telling me.'

‘If this becomes generally known,' she said quietly, ‘I shall make it a personal issue between you and me, Mr. Fisher. And believe me, neither you nor your detective agency would win.'

‘I can believe it,' he said. ‘Don't worry, nobody will know your son married a Jewish girl and you dragged him home to Germany and left her to fend for herself.'

‘If we hadn't,' the Princess said. ‘If that had come to Hitler's notice, my son would have been sent to a concentration camp. And we could have lost our factories. We did what had to be done because of the circumstances at the time. You may disapprove but you have no right. You were not there, and you can't judge. I had to protect my son.'

‘I can see that,' Fisher said. ‘I'll keep you in close touch with everything that happens. And I'd be obliged if you'd get your son Prince Philip off my back. I don't want any more calls from him telling me to lay off.'

‘You will go on working for me?' she demanded. ‘You will get the Salt back?'

‘I said I would,' Fisher answered. ‘And even though I'm only a common Englishman and pretty near being a crook on your reckoning, I always keep my word. Good morning to you.'

When the door closed, she stood looking at it for a moment. Then she went to the telephone and asked for her son Philip's suite. Her right foot tapped an impatient rhythm while she waited.

‘Philip? I've just seen Fisher.'

‘What did he say?' The voice sounded anxious through the receiver.

‘He wanted to know the truth,' the Princess said. ‘You fool, you only aroused his curiosity by trying to go behind my back! This isn't your affair and I forbid you to interfere!'

‘I'm sorry,' her son said. ‘I thought it was for the best, Mother. What did you tell him?'

‘He had found out about the marriage. I confirmed it. That was all.'

‘And he was satisfied with that?'

‘Yes. Please God he won't look any further.'

CHAPTER SIX

‘She's dead,' the young woman said. The child was balanced on her hip, greedily sucking its fingers; she stared at Fisher with hostility, holding the door half shut.

‘I'm sorry. When did it happen?'

‘The day after you came here,' the woman said. ‘The excitement was too much for her; she went on raving after you left – I blessed you and your lady friend, I can tell you! Then she just went to pieces, the next afternoon she had a heart attack and that was the end of it. Thank God!' She rolled her eyes upwards. ‘I ought to thank you – I thought she'd live for ever, the old cow …'

‘Then perhaps you could help me?' Fisher was desperate to keep the door open; one hand was in his coat pocket holding a wad of notes. The woman looked at him, suspicion closing her face against him.

‘Help with what? Not that old wartime stuff again?'

‘Your brother-in-law Jacquot, the one who was shot by the Germans …' he said. ‘I want to know about him.'

‘There's nothing I can tell you.' She shrugged, dislodging the baby's fist from its mouth. ‘Christ, monsieur, my husband was six years old when it happened. I wasn't even born! The old cow told you all there was to know. He got himself caught like a fool, meddling with what wasn't his business, I daresay, and the Germans did for him. Always talking about him, she was, raving on and on. She drove me crazy; thank God she's gone. Old cow.'

Fisher brought his hand out of his pocket without anything in it. He gave the young Madame Brevet a look of disgust.

‘I expect your mother-in-law's glad too,' he said. ‘Living with you can't have been much fun for her.' He turned and walked away; she was shouting abuse after him. At the end of the shabby street he said out loud to himself, ‘Hell's teeth, now what?'

The only source of personal information about Jacquot was gone; he had been full of hope when he left the hotel to see Madame Brevet that morning.

He was ready to exercise patience, to spend hours with the old lady if necessary, until he could dredge up something about her son which might make sense of the General's inclusion of his name. Now hope was gone. The door which appeared to be opening had slammed shut; added to which his partner Dunston had phoned early that morning to say that he had to make a trip to France on another case and intended stopping over in Paris. Fisher liked Dunston, but he didn't want him intruding at that moment, booming on about the Von Hessels, putting his foot in it about Paula. Most of all he didn't want Dunston meeting her, eyeing her up and down and making his bar-room jokes to Fisher afterwards. Now he had another reason for resenting Dunston's visit. He had come to a complete dead end. He had pinned his hopes upon the old lady; the senile have a happy facility for the past, whereas the present confuses them. He had memories of an old aunt in a dreary home near Brighton, who could talk with amazing clarity about the first world war but didn't know which day of the week it was. He thought of the vixen-faced daughter-in-law, and swore. Jacquot was as clear in his mother's mind as if he had met his brutal death on the day before. She could have answered questions, Fisher was certain of that. But he had come too late. With her death there was nobody left to ask about Jacquot. He searched through his pockets for the cigarettes; there was only one left in his packet, and when he tried to light it, he found a split in the paper. He swore again and threw it away. He saw a tobacconist's on the other side of the road, and crossed over.

Three children were playing a game with coloured chalks on the pavement; they were hopping from foot to foot among the chalked-out squares, calling to each other and laughing. Fisher sidestepped them and went inside the shop.

It was dark and the air was stale; there was a woman inside, counting out money, and a man waited behind the counter. He wore a soiled shirt, collarless and open at the neck, showing thick black hairs like creeper at the base of his throat; his moustache was bushy and stained yellow at the ends. He looked up at Fisher as his customer handed her coins across the counter.

‘Monsieur?'

‘Forty Gauloises.' Fisher found his money; the man scooped up the coins with a horny workman's hand; instead of turning away he peered at Fisher for a moment.

‘Excuse me,' he said, ‘but you are a friend of Madame Brevet?' He spoke hurriedly, as if he had been waiting to get it out since Fisher came into the shop. The question took him unawares.

‘Which Madame Brevet?'

The man jabbed with his thumb out of the window.

‘Not that bitch. The old lady; I heard the other one shouting after you. I saw you standing at the front door. She wouldn't let you in, eh?'

‘No,' Fisher said. ‘I came to see her mother-in-law. She told me she was dead. I was sorry to hear about it.'

‘Don't be sorry.' The shopkeeper leaned over the counter; garlic and sour wine sighed over Fisher. ‘It was a mercy that she died. For ten years she lived in that house with that vixen, nag, nag, nag at her all the time. Always calling her dirty names, never a kind word. It broke our hearts, monsieur, to see the poor woman go to pieces as she did. Just for the want of a little kindness in her old age. And what a woman she used to be!'

‘Oh?' Fisher had been about to turn and go. He wasn't in the mood for a back-street gossip. ‘You knew her well?'

‘She lived in this street all her life,' the man said. ‘We went through the war together, her family and mine. One never forgets something like that.'

‘No.' Fisher came and leaned against the counter; he took out the Gauloises and offered one. ‘No, I'm sure you don't. Then you must have known her son, too.'

‘I'm glad to meet you,' Dunston said. He shook hands with Paula. Fisher hadn't been pleased to see Dunston; he didn't listen to Dunston's alleged reason for being in the city, which was a fictitious client with a business problem. He had tried very hard to avoid Dunston meeting Paula, but Dunston refused to be put off. He was genial and thick skinned, and finally he won. They met in the lounge of their hotel, and immediately he gave Fisher credit for good taste. The girl was certainly attractive. He appraised her quickly. Good figure, nice legs, pretty face with marvellous eyes. He shook hands with her and smiled, showing his bright white teeth. Pity it had to be her. But still. He took them both to the bar of the Tour de France for a drink, and set out to get as much information as he could. He thought Fisher looked hung up over something; probably she hadn't gone to bed with him yet. He kept watching her. Dunston didn't like it. He had never seen Fisher behave like this with anyone before. He was deeply hooked by this one. Which might prove to be a bloody nuisance. He hadn't reckoned on having to fool Fisher, but now this factor couldn't be ignored. The bloody fool was mad about her. And she, so cool and gentle, with her upper-class manners and her elegant clothes – how did she feel towards him? Dunston made small talk about the city and the weather for the first half an hour, and watched them very closely. He couldn't decide about her. He couldn't be sure how she felt about Fisher or how closely she was involved. And this could be important. If he were going to set something up for her, she had to be alone, and he had to be sure that she would walk into his situation without suddenly referring to anyone else. He decided to play it along and see what happened.

‘Now tell me.' He leaned forward towards her. ‘How do you feel about finding this treasure, Mrs. Stanley?'

‘Not very enthusiastic,' Paula said. ‘I've said all along to Eric, that if we do find it, and I do have a legal claim, I don't intend to keep it. The original owners can have it back.'

‘That's very noble of you,' he said. ‘Mind you, you might change your mind when you actually saw it! I don't think I'd give it up in a hurry!' He laughed and looked across at Fisher.

‘And what do you do all day, while our boy here is out playing Sherlock Holmes?'

‘She comes with me,' Fisher interjected. He wouldn't have put it past Dunston to try and make a date. He found the steady grin and the flickering eyes up and down Paula so offensive that he could hardly keep his temper. He had never imagined he could dislike Dunston. Now he could have taken him by the collar and told him to keep his dirty looks to himself.

‘Does she? Everywhere?'

‘No, of course not,' Paula said. ‘I do quite a lot of sight-seeing, and I'm afraid I shop. Paris is a terrible place for spending money.'

‘And that reminds me,' Dunston said. ‘I must look round for something nice for Betty. That's my wife – maybe you'd come along with me one day and help me choose a dress – I've got her size.'

‘I'd be delighted,' Paula said.

‘How long do you expect to be here?' Fisher asked. He didn't want Paula going shopping with him; he didn't want her going anywhere with anyone. He caught himself up with surprise. His latent jealousy had surfaced until he was sullen and suspicious when they were apart.

The fact that they were lovers had not improved the relationship for Fisher; it had transformed his uncertainty about her into an obsession. The more he made love to her and she responded, the more he wanted her to relinquish the search for her father, and the deeper his resentment when she showed no sign of doing so. He should have filled the vacuum in her life; he couldn't accept that there was any need for the fantasy of a neglected child, if she were really in love with him. He looked across at her, talking to Dunston whom he had expected her to find objectionable, and was irritated that she was smiling. Why the hell should he ask her to go shopping for a present for his dreary wife …?