‘And Madame Hassler?’
‘She’s upstairs in her room with the family doctor. I thought I should wait until you arrived before taking her statement.’
‘Quite right!’ Courtrand nodded approvingly. He was a man who attached great importance to procedure and protocol. ‘But in any case I gather it’s a straightforward case of murder by armed intruders.’
‘Not entirely straightforward, Monsieur le Directeur.’
‘Why did you say that?’
‘Hassler was strangled, but not by the rope around his neck. That was quite clearly placed there after he was dead. Now why should anyone want to do that?’
II
GAUTIER’S ROOM IN the headquarters of the Sûreté like the offices in most French government departments, was dismal. It could not even be said in defence of the room that it was functional and one felt that those who had designed and furnished it had used all their ingenuity to make it as bleak and cheerless as possible, in the belief that policemen should be out catching criminals and not wasting their time in office work. Even the last sunlight of the evening, slanting through the branches of a tree outside, instead of softening the harsh outlines of the drab furniture and the cold walls, only made them seem more gloomy. Sometimes Gautier thought of the room as a mortuary, a repository not of dead bodies but of ancient crimes, forgotten but still festering.
On the desk in front of him lay a copy of the statement which Josephine Hassler had made to Courtrand that morning in his presence. He had compiled it from notes he had taken when Courtrand had questioned Madame Hassler and it had been typewritten by a clerk on one of the cumbersome new machines which the Department had only recently acquired. Then he had taken the finished statement back to Impasse Louvain so that Madame Hassler might sign it. Courtrand, who had gone off just before lunch to resume his interrupted Sunday, would expect to have the statement on his desk next morning for his signature before it was admitted into the dossier which they would now start building up on the case. That was the system and in his more cynical moods Gautier wondered whether it might not be better if the Sûreté were entirely staffed by clerks and scribes.
Preparing the statement had not been easy because Josephine Hassler, although she had kept protesting that she was exhausted and on the verge of a breakdown, had talked volubly, almost endlessly. Courtrand had scarcely needed to put questions to her. Her story of the events of the previous night and of what had led up to them, long and rambling, punctuated with irrelevancies and digressions, left out no fact that could possibly have been of any value to the police. Reading the statement now, Gautier was rather proud of the editing job he had done.
STATEMENT ON OATH
This Sunday, 1 June, we Gustave Courtrand, Commander of the Légion d’Honneur, Director-General of the Sûreté, heard on oath Josephine Hassler who declared:
‘I had been staying in our country home at Bellevue with my daughter, Marguerite, and I came up to Paris yesterday (Saturday), to meet my mother who was coming to spend a few days with us. My husband had been in Paris while we were away as he had two important commissions to finish, but he was going to come down to Bellevue as well over the weekend and stay until Monday at least. My mother arrived at Gare St Lazare at mid-day and we did some shopping during the afternoon, intending to take the train to Bellevue early in the evening. However by the end of the afternoon, my mother seemed very tired and her legs, which had been troubling her for some months, grew more and more painful. So I decided it would be unwise to travel and that we should spend the night in Paris to enable her to rest. We had only one servant in the house as our cook, Françoise, was in Bellevue too, nor had we much food. Remy made us a light meal of pâté and lobster and we dined early at about seven, I think it was. We were all tired, so we decided to go to bed soon after nine. To make my mother as comfortable as possible, I decided she should sleep in my room, which is the largest bedroom, and I slept in my daughter’s tiny bed. I was sleeping soundly when quite suddenly I awoke. I felt something covering my face – later I saw it was a towel – and that frightened me. In a panic I pulled it away and saw that there was a light in the room. Two men and a woman were standing round the bed.
The woman said to me in a threatening voice: “Tell us where your parents keep their money and their jewels.” She was holding a revolver pointed at my temple. I was terrified and began to tremble. She repeated her question about the money and I pointed to the door which led into the boudoir. One of the men came forward and began tying my wrists and ankles to the bed. I noticed that all three of them were wearing long, black robes; long and straight, cut all in one piece and with wide sleeves. They were not unlike the robes that priests wear, but black and made from some heavy, woollen material. One of the men was holding a lantern. The woman held my arm tightly and was still aiming the revolver at my head. “Please don’t kill me,” I begged her.
After binding my ankles and wrists to the bed, the man put a rope round my neck and then stuffed some cottonwool into my mouth. Finally they again covered my face with the towel. I heard the woman ask: “Why are we wasting time?” She was very ugly with black, frizzy hair, a wicked mouth and black circles painted round her eyes. She said “Why don’t we finish her off?” One of the men replied: “No, leave the little one alone.” I realized then that they had mistaken me for my daughter. You see, I was sleeping in her bed. Presently I heard them leaving the room. I couldn’t scream for help because of the gag they had put in my mouth and when I tried to move, the rope around my neck tightened, strangling me. Sheer terror must have made me dizzy because I was certain I was going to die. Then I suppose I fainted and the next thing I knew it was morning. At first when I woke I was still too frightened to move but after a struggle I managed to spit the gag out of my mouth. I heard someone passing in the corridor outside the room and guessing that it must be the manservant, Remy, I called out to him. He came, undid the ropes round my wrists and then went for help. It was not until Monsieur Gide arrived that I learned that both my mother and my husband had been murdered.’
I then asked Madame Hassler if she knew what time in the night she had been attacked and she declared:
‘It was close to midnight when I awoke and found the robbers in my room. I know that because I heard the clock of the church chiming twelve.’
When I asked Madame Hassler what had been stolen from the house she stated:
They took three rings and 6,000 francs in banknotes which I had placed on the dressing-table in the room. As far as I know they took nothing else, but I have not had time to check if any of my mother’s and husband’s possessions are missing. All our silver was concealed in a hiding place in the dining-room and that has not been touched.’
Finally when I asked Madame Hassler if she knew how the intruders could have got into the house she stated:
‘I have no idea, unless of course they broke in. My husband locked the front door of the house before we went upstairs. The back door was the responsibility of the servants and I suppose Remy must have locked that as usual.’
Gautier put the statement down on the desk in front of him, leant back in his chair and looked at the darkening sky outside. It was not Josephine Hassler’s story, bizarre and improbable though it must seem, that was bothering him. After a few years of service in the police, his capacity for astonishment had dwindled almost completely away.
He was thinking not of the statement nor of Josephine Hassler, but of the Director of the Sûreté. Everyone said that Courtrand’s had been a political appointment and it was true that he possessed few of the qualifications that would be expected in his post. Even so, Gautier had always found him shrewd and tough. His behaviour at Impasse Louvain that morning was for that reason all the more difficult to explain.
He had treated Josephine Hassler with a courtesy and consideration that had bordered on subservience. Gautier had seemed to sense, although Courtrand had addressed her in formal terms throughout, an understanding between him and the woman,
not strong enough to be called intimacy, but an understanding nevertheless. On the other hand he supposed it might merely have been Courtrand’s instinctive response to an attractive woman. In spite of her 40-odd years, Madame Hassler was still beautiful, with an oval face, regular features and dark eyes which she knew how to use to good effect. She had received the two of them in her daughter’s bedroom, wearing a flowered negligee which showed off her throat and shoulders. Once when she had leaned forward, perhaps deliberately, the front of the garment had parted and Gautier had seen quite plainly through the diaphanous nightdress underneath, her breasts, ample but still firm.
When they had left her and were going downstairs from the bedroom, Courtrand had asked him: ‘Well, what is your opinion, Gautier?’
‘Of Madame Hassler’s story?’
‘Yes.’
‘One has to recognize that she has a remarkable imagination.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘No one in their right mind would believe a tale like that, Monsieur.’
Courtrand looked at him sharply. ‘Why not?’
‘Men with beards wearing long black cloaks! Lanterns and pistols! And are we really supposed to believe that they would mistake Madame Hassler for a seventeen-year-old girl, well preserved though she certainly is? If they were robbers why did they leave behind Hassler’s gold watch and wallet containing 8,000 francs which were lying on the table only a few feet from where he lay dead?’
‘Once we have laid our hands on the intruders, no doubt we’ll have the answers to those questions,’ Courtrand said stiffly. ‘With the excellent description that Madame Hassler has given us of them, it should not be too difficult to track them down.’
III
TWO MEN WIDELY different in appearance and temperament worked as assistants to Gautier in the Sûreté. Nordel was in his 30s, clever in a superficial way and ambitious. Surat was one of the old school, not far from retirement, painstaking, physically courageous and completely loyal.
In his office next morning, Gautier gave both men a brief summary of the ‘Affair at Impasse Louvain’, as it was already being called, and let them read the statement made by Josephine Hassler. He did not make the mistake as Courtrand had with him of asking them for their comments.
‘We have to find these people who committed the two murders,’ he told Nordel, ‘and there is not much to go on except their disguises. Long black robes and false beards are not all that common and could, with any luck, be traced. The robes which Madame Hassler described sound to me very much like those which Jewish priests wear, so start checking with every synagogue to see if any have been stolen. On the other hand they could just be costumes. Get some men to help you and visit all theatrical costumiers as well.’
Nordel looked at him incredulously. ‘Are we to believe Madame Hassler’s story?’
‘The director insists that we find these people at all costs,’ Gautier replied, evading the question as best he could.
After Nordel had left the room he gave Surat his instructions. He told him to find out everything he could about Josephine Hassler, her background, her family, her upbringing, how and in what circumstances she had come to marry a man twenty years older than herself, the sort of fees that Félix Hassler commanded as a portrait painter, the style in which they lived. A few enquiries among the tradesmen from whom the cook of the house made her daily purchases would give a fair indication of the household budget. He remembered that in the 15th arrondissement the local police had standing instructions to keep an eye on number 8, Impasse Louvain, as a house frequented by ‘hautes personalties’. Surat was to discover as discreetly as possible, the names of these VIPs and establish whether they were regular visitors at Madame Hassler’s salon.
‘What about that affair at the Elysee Palace?’ Surat asked.
‘No, leave that alone. We had better not go raking around in that particular dung-heap; for the time being anyway.’ Gautier looked at Surat steadily for a moment before adding: ‘And your report must be confidential to me. You and I can decide later how much of it will go into the official dossier.’
Surat left the room looking pleased. He was not too old or too cynical to find pleasure in knowing that he was being specially trusted. Probably he also realized that Nordel would not have been given the same assignment.
Gautier took a copy of Madame Hassler’s statement down to the director’s office and left it with the director’s personal assistant. Courtrand worked gentleman’s hours and was seldom at his desk before ten.
Outside the morning sun had put a sheen on the waters of the Seine and the sky was clear, but the air was soft and moist, suggesting rain later in the day. The driver of a fiacre which stood waiting on the opposite side of the street, was shouting jovially to a bouquiniste who had just opened up his second-hand book stall on the quay overlooking the river. A coupé drawn by two fine white horses passed at a brisk pace, heading westward. Gautier caught a glimpse of a florid man in evening dress slumped against the cushions inside, his face frozen in the vacuous grimace of drunken sleep; a clubman, no doubt, returning home after a night of debauchery.
Enjoying the exercise, Gautier walked along by the river, crossed to the Left Bank by Pont St Michel and boarded an omnibus in Boulevard St Germain, testing his agility by climbing the precarious stairs that led to the upper deck as the horses moved off at a trot. Drivers of omnibuses, he had noticed, seemed to take a perverse delight in endangering the lives not only of their passengers but of any pedestrians who might be rash enough to step anywhere near the path of the flying hooves and cumbersome wheels.
A small crowd had already assembled outside the front gate of number 8, Impasse Louvain. Most were inquisitive spectators but among them half-a-dozen journalists had been trying to persuade the policeman at the gate to let them pass.
One of the journalists, recognizing Gautier, called out: What about it, Inspector? Can’t we get in to interview Madame Hassler?’
‘I’ll ask her if she’ll see you.’
He made his way round to the back door of the house and found it open. In the kitchen the manservant, Mansard, was seated at a table, smoking a cigar and turning over the pages of a newspaper. His face wore a frown of concentration as he read aloud, spelling out the words. When he saw Gautier come in, he flushed and tried to hide the cigar.
‘That’s all right,’ Gautier remarked. ‘We don’t mind if you take cigars from journalists or even a few francs, just so long as you don’t start making up any fancy tales for them to print.’
‘No, Sir, of course I wouldn’t.’
‘In the meantime I have a question or two for you to answer. For a start what time did you go to bed on Saturday night?’
‘At about half-past-nine. After the master and mistress and Madame Pinock had gone upstairs, I finished cleaning up and then went to my room.’
‘And you heard nothing at all during the night?’
‘Nothing, Sir. But then my room and the cook’s are in the attic and there’s the master’s studio between us and the first floor where the family sleeps. Also I am a very heavy sleeper.’
‘But you’re sure Monsieur and Madame Hassler and the old lady were already in their rooms when you went up.’
‘Oh, yes. You see, on my way to bed I took them the grog.’
‘Grog?’
‘The mistress decided that they would all take a grog before going to sleep. So I took up a tray with glasses, a jug of hot water, the rum and a bowl of sugar.’
‘Did the Hasslers often drink grog at night?’
‘Very seldom. The master would sometimes take one, but Madame Hassler always said she hated the smell of rum. That night was the first time I ever heard her ask for a grog.’
‘And where did you take the tray?’
‘To mademoiselle’s bedroom. The mistress was to sleep there, you see. She told me she would mix the grog and take it into the others.’
‘I see. And did you bring the tray and the glasses downstairs
yesterday morning?’
‘No, Sir. With so much happening and the shock of finding the master and the old lady dead, I forgot. Then after you and the other policemen arrived, I was told not to touch anything in the rooms where the bodies were found or in the boudoir.’
As he questioned Mansard, Gautier was watching him. The manservant seemed ill-at-ease, more so than timidity or a country youth’s fear of the police would explain. From time to time he looked at Gautier, quick anxious glances which suggested that he might be holding back some information.
‘What did you tell the journalists?’ Gautier asked him suddenly. ‘Tell them, Monsieur? I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Come on, let’s have it! It will all be in the papers tomorrow and you can expect trouble if we find out you’ve been concealing information.’
Mansard hesitated. ‘I know nothing about the murders.’
‘Did you lock the back door last night before you went to bed?’
‘Yes, Monsieur.’
‘But the neighbour Gide says he found it open.’
‘Then someone else must have opened it.’
mo?’
Again Mansard hesitated before he said sullenly: ‘I don’t know, but I do know someone came to the house after I came upstairs.’
‘Then you did hear something?’
‘No, but when I went to my room I read for a time. Madame Hassler doesn’t like it, because she doesn’t want to waste candles.’ He paused for a moment and then, as though to justify his disobedience said petulantly: ‘Mean old goat! Anyway, when eventually I blew out the candle I got out of bed to pull back the curtains and let in the moonlight. That was when I saw him.’
‘Who? The man who came to the house?’
‘No. The man who was standing in the lane outside. He’s always there waiting every time a certain person comes to the house and stays there until the caller leaves. Must be a servant I suppose, or perhaps a bodyguard.’
The Murders at Impasse Louvain Page 2