Bellringer Read Online Free PDF

and a few of family members, above the other beds there were the brightly coloured, large-lettered pennants college students would madly wave at football matches: ‘Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Louis. Michigan Tech at Houghton, Michigan, the U of Wisconsin at Madison, and. . . ’
    ‘St. Olaf College, in Northfield, Minnesota.’
    A map of America had pins to locate both college and home. There were photos, too, of pet dogs, of fishing expeditions with father, grandfather, and brothers; of a fiancé, too, in uniform; a sister, an aunt and uncle. Candy floss and candy apples at a fair.
    ‘Louis, why the hell did they have to stick around and get caught up in this lousy Occupation?’
    ‘Perhaps they’ll tell us, but since each went to a university that was reasonably close to those of the others, is it that they met here quite by accident and sorted themselves out that way?’
    A common bond. ‘Except for Madame Whatever-Her-Name-Is and our victim, Caroline Lacy.’
    ‘Who might, quite possibly, have been foisted upon them.’
    ‘They didn’t get along—is this what you’re saying?’
    ‘Madame’s sympathies are obviously not those of the others.’
    That photo of Maréchal Pétain. Loyalty, then, even now when increasingly the country was turning against the Victor of Verdun; Pierre Laval, the premier, being in charge anyway.
    ‘Each has a little library, Louis. Detective novels, romances, historical fiction. . . and most probably borrowed from the camp’s or hotel’s communal library.’
    ‘But textbooks in mineralogy, geology, biology, and zoology? Our moccasin maker values them.’
    ‘Houghton. . . is there a school of mines at Michigan Tech?’
    ‘Or one of trapping.’
    ‘I still say it’s a tidy room,’ muttered Hermann.
    ‘And are there not degrees of tidiness? This is a utilitarian tidiness given of necessity. It is not that of our killer, who, unless I am very mistaken, is compulsive.’
    The Americans were down in the cellars and there were a lot of them, Louis having stayed upstairs. Under the dim light from parsimoniously spaced forty-watt bulbs, the corridor was standing-room only and must have run the full length of the hotel. Others strained to look over or past still others, and not a one of them moved or made a sound.
    Kohler was transfixed by the hush, the stillness, the watchfulness of the middle-aged, the young, the old, the tall, the short, the faces round, thin, angular, the hair straight, curled, waved, cut short, worn long, with and without colourful ribbons, some even in abandoned masses of curls like Shirley Temple in Curly Top . Others like Garbo in Grand Hotel, and wasn’t that a coincidence; others still, like Mae West in Klondike Annie or Ginger Rogers in A Fine Romance ; and still others in the many, many hairstyles of America’s Sweetheart, Mary Pickford.
    Curiosity was everywhere, interest evident, anxiety rampant, the fear that there was a killer among them, but also the hope that there wasn’t.
    ‘ Inspektor, mein Name ist Mrs. Eleanor Parker, and I have been chosen to speak with you. If you like, I am house mother to them, though such a title was never sought nor has it ever been abused. From time to time a spokesperson is required to take matters to the Kommandant.’
    They hadn’t chosen the oldest or the youngest, nor the most attractive or sophisticated. Instead, they had picked a real ramrod fluent in Deutsch and complete with heavy black horn-rimmed specs and a look that would defy the Führer himself.
    ‘And now?’ asked Kohler.
    That was better, thought Eleanor. ‘I think you will find that some ground rules had best be established. This unfortunate incident. . . ’
    ‘There were two of them.’
    Ach, a Bavarian, and wasn’t it typical of them! ‘Please have the courtesy not to interrupt me. This unfortunate incident has made everyone nervous. That, in itself, is understandable, but clearly there is no cause in house for such alarm.