Friday, May 30, 1941
At the Hotel de Police
Raymond went to the Hotel de Police to learn what the gendarmes knew about the art thefts. When Raymond arrived, there was a flurry of activity, but nothing noteworthy. The uninterested desk sergeant ignored him until he demanded attention. When Raymond asked for information related to the art thefts, the sergeant said that he knew nothing of it. When pressed, the sergeant asked for his name and made a call. After a short, one sided conversation, the sergeant said that Inspector Rosseau would collect him shortly.
About ten minutes later, the inspector, smoking a cigarette and holding a pair of files will appeared in the stairway and examined Raymond from a distance. Upon being spotted, he approached with a gendarme and offered his hand, introducing himself as Inspector Marcel Rosseau of the Robbery Bureau.
He then led Raymond through a pair of doors that had to be opened from the other side and into an interview room. He the opened the thicker file. The sheaf of typewritten pages were on Bordeleau and Routhier stationary.
“I am curious as to what an insurance investigator is doing seeking out the perpetrators of the theft. Isn’t your interest in determining that the policy holder, Mr. Rancourt, is not responsible for the theft? The police are responsible for catching criminals.”
“I don’t care about the criminals, I am seeking the art. I get a percentage of the value of the art if I find and return it.”
“I understand that you have only been in the employ of Bordeleau and Routhier for a short time. In fact, Mr. Bordeleau knows nothing about you. It seems that you have been working directly for Mr. Routhier, and only (Looks at his file) he, Ms. Chasse´, his secretary, and a paralegal, Mr. Brisette, are the only ones aware of your activities.”
“I can’t control who my boss tells about my cases. You understand that I do not work in the upper echelons of the company. My boss pays me to do what he tells me to.”
“I see” (Looks at his file) “The other cases you have worked on have all been pretty routine, but this art theft case is not in the same class as any of those. No simple surveillance or fact checking here.”
“You are correct.”
“You must have been pretty persuasive to have landed such a high-profile case.”
“They must have limited resources on account of the war. I am happy to have gotten the opportunity to work on such a prominent case.”
“And I see that you have aroused the interest of the Germans.” (Looks at his file) “It says here that you had an interview with the Gestapo. That does concern me. One does not often get invited to their offices to have a pleasant chat.”
“First you denigrate my abilities, and when I am successful, you accuse me of doing something wrong.”
“You misunderstand me, monsieur. It is just that not many people get invited to Gestapo headquarters who do not… stay the night, as it were.”
“And then there is the Bruz business. I spoke with Inspector Durenseau in Bruz when they told me that you were here. It seems that you were connected to an incident with civilian firearms.” (Looks at his file) “Something about a companion being attacked by a bull. How did that happen?”
“I was investigating a rumor of the art being hidden there, but clearly all we found was the bull. I will have be more careful in verifying the sources of my information in the future.”
‘Who was the source of this information?”
“Claude Monet on the street outside the Musee de Beaux Artes. He provides me information in exchange for 25 francs.”
(Looks at his file) “And then you had an altercation with a delivery driver and were held overnight in the Bruz lockup. But in the end, Durenseau did not have anything solid to hold you on.”
“That is because I did nothing wrong.”
He closed the file and opened the thin file, which was labeled Rancourt Art Theft. There were only a few handwritten pages as well photographs of the stolen art. He shared the photographs, which were identical to the ones Raymond had.
He did not offer the pages, but he read from them.
“There were only five people with access to the Rancourt penthouse: Rancourt, Adorlee Mousseau, his girlfriend, Adrien Marcheterre, his personal assistant, Louise Godin, the maid, and Hamilton Lambert, the building superintendent.
“Only Ms. Mousseau was home at the time of the theft, but claims to not have seen or heard anything as she was asleep in her room, which happens to be adjacent to the room where the art was on display.
“Rancourt and Marcheterre were seen at the Palais du Commerce during the time of the robbery. Godin was seen at the market at the time of the robbery. Lambert was supervising a plumber on the 3rd floor of the building at the time of the robbery. The plumber’s firm and the tenant have verified his presence for the entire robbery window.”
“Were any deliveries to the building on that day?”
“There is nothing about deliveries in the file.”
“What do you have about butchers who deliver to that area.” The inspector asked why. “I had an encounter with an attacker wielding a butcher knife, and then in Bruz, that altercation was with the driver of a butcher van.”
“Was the first attack was reported?”
“There were no injuries and I didn’t want to cause trouble for French citizens in these trying times.” The inspector seemed to accept that answer reluctantly.
“There have been no sightings of the stolen art in the usual places: fences, shady galleries, known ‘collectors.’ We have not made inquiries with respect to the Germans. What have you learned that could assist in our investigation?”
“The Gestapo wanted to screen me before meeting a senior German officer, who was concerned that he had been identified as a person of interest. I was allowed to meet with him, where he asserted that he and his personnel had had no part in the theft. He mentioned that he wanted the criminals found. Raymond paused. “I do not think that the officer is a suspect.”
“What is the name of this officer?”
“Gottfried von Laue.”
“What did you find in Bruz?
“Nothing. I had been played as a fool.”
Rosseau gave Raymond him his card and asked Raymond to keep him informed. Raymond accepted the card, pledged to do so, and was escorted out of the Hotel de Police.
After leaving the police, Raymond went to Rancourt’s neighborhood to seek out information about deliveries to the area. He observed the deliveries being made that evening. Most were made using pedal-driven carts. When the vendors emerged from making their deliveries, Raymond offered them 10 francs for information about food delivery vendors in the area. He acquired the name of several local butchers, all within the neighborhood. Their delivery people were mostly teenagers. None of them seemed suspicious.
At the Garage
Having found very little along these lines, Raymond made his way to the abandoned garage. There he found Francis and the butcher van, but there was sign of Laurent or the explosives. Francis told him that Norris had been arrested at the second checkpoint and detained by the Germans. Francis had not heard from Laurent or Norris since they left.
In the Building Next to Maelys’ Apartment
Laurent and Antoinette found their way across the rooftops to the empty upper floor of the building next to the one containing Maelys apartment. They had the explosives and the suitcase radio with them. Antoinette decoded the message instructing the team to investigate the Ollivier factory.
Looking around, Laurent saw through the spaces in the floor that there were mattresses on the floor in the room below. And there were people laying on them, most of whom were unconscious. Some were civilians, some were in German uniforms. Some of them seemed familiar to Laurent, but he could not place them. Laurent listened at the door, and hearing nothing, looked into the hallway beyond. He saw nothing there.
A few hours later, Laurent heard some of the civilians talking.
“The smoke seems to protect against the effects.”
“But why do we have to smoke it in this shithole?”
“The environment has something to do with the effect. It didn’t work in the lab, but it seems to work here.”
“So we must send our troops to opium dens?” At which point they both passed out.
Laurent and Antoinette were also starting to feel the effects of the smoke rising through the floor. He repeated the conversation for Antoinette and realized that several of the people were seen outside the Ollivier laboratory building.
Laurent went to check the stability of the door and caught it as it fell toward him. He leaned it to the side of the doorway. Just then, Antoinette caught sight of a large rat that ran into the room across the hall. Laurent peeked into the hallway and saw another rat down the hall, with Kalb’s face. He jumped back startled. Antoinette too a look and saw a large rat staring back at her.
There was cry from the room across the hall. Laurent put the door back in place and wedged some debris to keep it in place. Antoinette checked the floor below through the gaps and noticed that no one had been stirred. Laurent opened the door and peaked out. The rat had advanced to the doorway and leapt at him, biting his abdomen. Laurent tried to grab it, but missed. Rat lost its grip on him. Laurent tried to hit it, but it was too quick.
At that point, an old vagrant appeared from the room across the hall and stabbed the rat repeatedly with a large knife. Once killed the man backed his way into the room from which he had come with the rat impaled on the knife. “It’s mine,” he said with a snarl.
Once the man disappeared into the room, Laurent went back into their room and Antoinette tended to his wound. Once he was cleaned up, they looked outside and saw no one in the alley behind the houses. Antoinette was intrigued by what effects the smoke countered. She suggested that they needed to talk to the factory workers, but not in the opium den.
Laurent suggested going back to Maelys’ apartment. Antoinette was reluctant. If Maelys had been arrested, it would be suspicious for her to be seen there. But if all was quiet, they would be OK. There were no signs of surveillance in the alley, but they could not see the street from their vantage. Antoinette suggested looking out the front window.
Laurent covered her while Antoinette made her way along the wall to the front of the building. They did not see the vagrant in the room. Looking out the window, they saw no signs that the house was being watched.
As they made to leave, the vagrant appeared in their way. Laurent told him that they were leaving, and the vagrant let them pass. In the hallway, they spotted more rats, but these has rat faces. Laurent told the vagrant about them.
They made their way out the window and climbed back up onto the lower roof. Antoinette slipped and started to fall off the roof, but Laurent grabbed her left arm before she went over the edge. Laurent caught movement from a window in the house across the alley. Laurent lifted Antoinette, and she crawled onto the top floor roof, but he lost balance and fell off the lower roof and broke his left arm.
Antoinette skillfully climbed down to the ground, where she splinted his arm and helped him down the alley. Just before they reached the street, a German army truck sped by and rounded the corner, stopping in front of the house. They ducked into the shadows until it passed and made their way in the direction from which it had come.
They found a church a few blocks away and hid in a darkened corner of the churchyard between a large tree and a mausoleum until morning.