Carnival by J. Robert Janes Page A

wings and been turned upside down. There was a cater­pillar … The Super Car Monte Carlo was still recognizable, biplanes, too, as were the Ferris wheel, the shooting galleries and the shies where one would throw a ball or coconut as hard and accurately as one could.
    â€˜The Sitzkrieg ,’ muttered Rasche. The sit-down war.
    â€˜The drôle de guerre ,’ said Louis. The phoney war.
    Kohler knew both were stating the reason for the carnival’s having been within less than ten kilometres of the Maginot Line and the front. From September ’39, after the fall of Poland, until 9 April 1940 and the invasion of Denmark and Norway, men had languished on both sides. Then suddenly all such travel had been banned and the carnival had had to stay.
    â€˜Colonel, please go over for us exactly how and where your secretary was found and by whom,’ said St-Cyr.
    â€˜Then tell us why you chose to show us the second victim first,’ said Kohler.
    These two, must they always suspect the worst? wondered Rasche. It was getting late. They would need the lanterns. ‘I found her, and I cut her down.’
    The truth at last. ‘Where, Colonel?’ asked St-Cyr.
    â€˜The House of Mirrors.’
    Which must surely all have been broken but such evasiveness had best be stopped. ‘That school notebook of Victoria Bödicker’s, Colonel. At lunch you wouldn’t let me take it from beneath your hand. Frau Lutze noticed this as she did everything else.’
    â€˜All right, all right. Yvonne really did feel I ought to see it, that I might well need further background on the girl. Victoria, as you know, was one of the Fräulein Schrijen’s Winterhilfswerk Committee. Renée and I … ’
    â€˜Your secretary, Colonel?’
    â€˜Yes! We would stop by here of a late afternoon in summer. She was fascinated by the place and loved to wander about in there. I … Why, I was indulgent. Staff relations, call it what you will. Mein Gott , the girl was like a daughter to me. A few minutes, an hour at most. When one is constantly in demand, one seeks relaxation as best one can.’
    â€˜That notebook, Colonel. It’s evidence.’
    â€˜The buttons too, are they?’ asked Rasche.
    But not those two that were found in the victim’s pockets, was that it, eh? wondered St-Cyr. ‘Colonel, you deliberately left those items on your desk so that we would find them. Why did you do so, if you did not intend to let us examine them further?’
    â€˜I had merely been getting a few things together to remind me of each of the men I’d allowed to help the committee. One was the firm’s fabric designer and test weaver, another a machinist and carver. Both are very capable. The carved buttons are for a waistcoat I’m having made.’
    â€˜Then please hand those items over, the papier-mâché ball also.’
    Reluctantly Rasche opened his briefcase and handed them over. ‘Now if you two don’t mind, we had best have a look at her. Kohler, there’s a screwdriver in that side pocket. Be so good as to bring it and fetch the lanterns from the boot.’
    Smoke rose from the chimneys of the farmhouse where the guard was billeted. Of buff-coloured stucco and weathered half-timbering, the house had been built in the late 1880s, the lichen-encrusted, reddish-brown and spatulate tiles of its mansard roof catching the last of the sunlight. Dogs barked and Hermann, who had always loved and been at ease with such, no matter how difficult, hesitated. ‘Behind the Ferris wheel,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Two guards, two Alsatians, each of them looking our way.’
    â€˜ Danke . They’re on the lead,’ he sighed.
    â€˜Why the fright?’ asked St-Cyr.
    â€˜ Ach , after the 1918 Armistice had been signed and everyone was just waiting to be released, I used to go under the wire and would be back well before dawn Appell . Though one of the guards