Free Sandman by J. Robert Janes

funeral—yes, yes, of course, but burial where? In the ancien Cimetière de Neuilly?’
    Vernet threw him a startled, questioning look. ‘Burial wherever her parents choose. It’s customary.’
    He was still visibly shaken by the mistake in identity, but even as they looked at each other, St-Cyr could see the mask begin to descend.
    â€˜And what about your niece, monsieur? Is there anything you can tell us?’
    Caution entered. ‘Only that you had best find her before it is too late. I need not remind you, Inspector, that police bungling cannot possibly sit well with the Kommandant von Gross-Paris.’
    â€˜Then let us pay Mademoiselle Chambert and her lover a little visit. Perhaps it is that she can clear the matter up.’
    â€˜Liline …? Ah! yes. Yes, of course. I had forgotten. The flat is in Montpamasse, on the rue d’Assas. Number eighty-four. The fifth floor, apartment two, facing the street. We will have to awaken the concierge, but fortunately that one is a light sleeper.’
    Good, nodded St-Cyr inwardly. Your response is just as I have suspected. It is not only your chauffeur who knows of the address. The death here has rattled you.
    A cube of sponge, a tangled white thread, a hope, a prayer, a silk chemise no student with a part-time job could ever have purchased. Not at any time and certainly not on the black market.
    Kohler let the dried cube of self-preservation dangle from its braided umbilical cord. He saw himself in the mirrors starkly juxtaposed with the plaster head of the seer and the torso, grey on white and white on gold, the single candle he had lighted in contravention of the black-out regulations fluttering in some sudden draught.
    When he found the address, it was on a folded scrap of paper tucked into the toe of a brown leather pump—memorized, since people could not walk around with such things in their pockets for fear of arrest.
    â€˜Forty-seven quai du Président Paul Doumer, room thirteen, Sunday at two p.m.,’ he breathed, and in that one breath was all of a detective’s dismay, a hope, a prayer of its own.
    â€˜Inspector, what is the meaning of this? Surely my husband gave permission for no such thing?’
    Madame Vernet stood framed in the doorway and he saw her in the girl’s mirrors, tall and statuesque, her dark brown hair a thick mop of curls, the image of her impinging on and overlapping the others, his own included.
    Spaghetti straps held the full-length nightdress up. Laces criss-crossed the chest, leaving gaps between and glimpses of lots of cleavage. The scratches had been treated with iodine. ‘Madame, we have five murders and the disappearance of this one. Was Mademoiselle Chambert pregnant?’
    â€˜Pardon? Surely you’re not …’
    â€˜Look, I’ll put it to you straight. Did she go to see a maker of little angels?’
    â€˜An abortionist …? But … but why? Liline gave us no cause to think such a thing. She was distressed. Yes, of course. She and Nénette were very close about things but we … we just thought it was this … this business of the Sandman and that she was worried about Nénette taking it far too seriously.’
    â€˜Then why an assignation in a room in a flea-bitten tenement across the river in Courbevoie? Why something within easy walking distance of the Jardin d’Acclimatation? She was supposed to be with your niece, having tea. Your chauffeur had dropped them off after their climb up into the belfries of the Notre-Dame.’
    â€˜Exercise … Ah merde , I … Ah no, no, you must be mistaken.’
    â€˜Exercise before an abortion, eh?’
    Damn him! ‘Liline is too pure. A virgin. A sculptress—these things are her own. She studies and perfects. But a man, a lover … Please don’t be so foolish. The boy she has been seeing will not have slept with her. This I can assure you.’
    â€˜Good. Then what about