Free Bellringer by J. Robert Janes

get a breath and fallen.’
    Yet hadn’t.
    ‘I lit one of her cigarettes,’ managed Becky. ‘I did get her to take a couple of drags. That’s all she really needed. Right away there was a change for the better. She even gave me a weak smile, only to again burst into tears.’
    ‘By then the rest of the floor were out in the corridor, Inspector,’ said Jill, ‘and others, too. Mrs. Parker soon came up and somehow got everyone calmed down, then closed the gate but couldn’t put the lock back on where it should have been.’
    ‘Caroline was upset, that it?’ he asked Becky.
    ‘We all were.’
    ‘But before that, before Mary-Lynn Allan fell?’
    ‘Yes. Then too.’
    ‘And was anyone else on the staircase when you went up it at 0100 hours or thereabouts?’ he asked Nora.
    Herr Kohler wasn’t one to fool with. ‘Inspector, I was so dizzy, I really wouldn’t have known. I was drunk and seeing things. Worms crawling all over me, bats tearing at my hair. I. . . I can’t remember a thing.’
    Yet had remembered enough. ‘And during all of this, where was Madame de Vernon, your other roommate?’
    Thank God, he had finally asked, thought Marni, but one ought to be careful, otherwise he would think she’d been pleased with the question. ‘In bed, where else?’
    ‘Yet Mademoiselle Caroline was having a severe attack?’
    The poor man now looked so helpless, it would be best to tell him, but first her hands would be placed on her thighs and moved to her knees as if wanting him. ‘Madame de Vernon claimed it was all in the girl’s mind and that Caroline need never have the attacks if she would stop being so emotional and just stay calm and tell herself not to gasp for air.’
    The redhead named Marni had lovely green eyes but the offer of the rest, though enjoyable no doubt, had best be ignored for now. ‘Well-liked, was she, this Madame de Vernon?’
    Had he seen right through her? wondered Marni, disappointed by the thought but glad he had finally asked. ‘Hated, more likely. Nothing was ever right. The food, the lack of it, the room, the heat, the cold, the smell, the constant comings and goings in the corridor.’
    ‘Yes, but was the curtain drawn in front of those two beds?’
    ‘Every night.’
    ‘Then she might or might not have been in bed—that it, eh?’
    The others were all holding their breath and intently watching him. ‘Yes. I. . . I guess so.’
    There was even a collective sigh. ‘OK, for now, enjoy your supper. I’d better find my partner.’
    ‘Is he un lèche-cul ?’ asked Jill.
    An arse-licker, a toady. ‘Hardly, but I’ll be sure to tell him to interview each of you, then you’ll know for sure.’
    As with the Chalet des Ânes, the padlock was distinctive and similar: a Harvard long-shackled six-lever, with a twenty-three-centimetre nickel-plated chain that had somehow absented itself by having fallen to the bottom of the elevator shaft.
    ‘Nervous was she, our lock opener?’ asked Kohler. No third-storey eyes were watching, but nearby ears behind closed doors would be straining.
    ‘And opened with its key, Hermann?’ whispered Louis. ‘We would have had no problem picking this, but others might, given the closeness of the nearby rooms and the threat of traffic.’
    ‘We’ll have to ask them but is it yet another example of French frugality? Luxury hotels. . . ’
    ‘ Ah, mon Dieu, why must I continually have to defend the Troisième République ? This lock and the other one are American.’
    And left over from the Great War. ‘But if opened with its key, who the hell is supposed to be keeping an eye on those, and where are they being kept?’
    ‘Perhaps the new Kommandant will be good enough to tell us.’
    ‘Jundt won’t want to ask, since the answer might reflect on Wehrmacht Command stupidity.’
    That, too, was a problem, but Louis wasn’t yet prepared to leave, even though suppertime had run out. Pacing off the distance to Room 3–38, he turned and followed