The Murders at Impasse Louvain

by Richard Grindal

  ‘Have you heard, Gautier?’ asked Courtrand. ‘The robes which the thieves who broke into Madame Hassler’s house were wearing have been traced.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Tell him, Nordel.’

  Although he obviously had no need to, Nordel consulted his notebook as he explained that a firm of theatrical costumiers had six weeks ago rented a consignment of costumes, including six robes to be worn by Jewish Levites, to the Hebrew Theatre in Paris for its production of the play Cain and Abel The play’s run had ended the previous week and when the costumiers had collected the batch of costumes three of the robes had been missing. The wardrobe mistress of the theatre had told the police that only three of the Levites’ robes had actually been used in the production, the remaining three being held in reserve. She also admitted that about ten days previously she had lent these three robes to a friend who had wished to wear them to a fancy-dress ball.

  ‘That could just be coincidence,’ Gautier suggested.

  ‘Ah, there’s more to come,’ Courtrand replied. ‘The man who borrowed the robes is an American painter named York and we have established that his mistress is an artist’s model who in the past has posed for Félix Hassler.’

  Courtrand paused. Then with the air of an actor who had a final dramatic line which he will not deliver until the audience is hushed and expectant, he added slowly: ‘The American, York, has a red beard.’

  V

  GAUTIER SAT NEXT to Josephine Hassler in a closed carriage stationed in Rue Blanche. From where they were waiting, he could see the icing-sugar dome of the great church of Sacre Coeur, built after the last war by the French in a mood of piety and as an act of expiation for the sins which, many people believed, had brought about the country’s defeat by the arrogant, new nation of Germany. He could also see opposite them in Place Blanche, the impresario Ziddler’s enterprise, the Moulin Rouge, with its great replica of a red windmill above the entrance. It was neither the church nor the dance hall, however, which held his attention but Chez Adele, a small, unpretentious café on the corner of a narrow street that ran into Place Blanche. It was at Chez Adele that the American artist York was supposed to lunch every day, very often accompanied by the model Claudine.

  ‘How will we know when they go into the café?’ Josephine Hassler asked. ‘We are too far away here to see.’

  ‘Two of my men in plain clothes are already in the café. When the man York goes in, one of them will come out and signal to me. You and I will then go into Chez Adele by the back entrance and it has been arranged that you will be able to look at this man from the kitchen without his seeing you.’

  In the 24 hours which had elapsed since the loss of the Levites’ robes had been reported, the police had been able to track down the painter, York, without much difficulty. He was living in a studio in Rue Cortot and was well known in Montmartre if for no other reason because, unlike most of the other artists living around him, he received a regular income from his family in the United States and was a soft touch for a drink or a meal or a loan to buy paints. He was also reputed to be a man of monotonously regular habits, frequenting the same bistros every day and lunching always at Chez Adele.

  Madame Hassler had been told by Courtrand to make herself look inconspicuous in a district where a well-dressed woman would soon attract stares and she had put on a long black cloak over her clothes and wore a black toque. As they had driven through Paris towards Montmartre, Gautier found that he was aware of her physical presence next to him. Once or twice as the carriage rattled over the cobblestones or swung round a corner, he felt the pressure of her thigh or her knee against his own. He sensed then why men should find her seductive, particularly middle-aged men, for she combined with an almost animal attraction, an air of simplicity and directness which could easily have been mistaken for innocence.

  After they had been waiting half-an-hour or so, he saw a couple entering Chez Adele and a few minutes later a man in a brown suit and a brown bowler hat, whom he recognized as Nordel came out, walked a few yards along the pavement and held up a folded newspaper. That was the signal for Josephine Hassler and himself to move. Leaving the carriage, they crossed to the other side of the Rue Blanche where they would be less visible to people sitting in Chez Adele and made their way towards the back door of the café.

  The kitchen was small, primitive and far from clean but the smells rising from the pans and casseroles on the stove were not unappetizing. A small, wizened man in a dirty apron, the husband of the formidable Adele, was skinning a rabbit and when he saw Gautier he pointed with his knife towards a curtain of orange beads which separated the kitchen from the main part of the café.

  ‘You can see from there, Monsieur.’

  Gautier led Madame Hassler across the kitchen to a point where they could see through the bead curtain. The interior of the café was small and gloomy, with less than a dozen tables, but it was crowded. About half of the clientele were working people, artisans, carters and girls who spent their evenings in the Moulin Rouge or the Elysee Montmartre trying to contrive chance encounters with men, while the other half were either artists or people with artistic pretensions.

  Gautier recognized York from a photograph which he had been shown at Sûreté headquarters earlier that morning. The American was slight, with a thin, consumptive face. His hair, which he wore long and his straggly beard were of a sandy colour which, at a stretch of the imagination might have been described as red. He was wearing a dark-green corduroy suit and a pair of handsome cowboy boots. At a time when most of the artists in Montmartre wore clogs or tennis shoes and when Picasso’s mistress Fernande Olivier was forced to stay in his studio for several weeks since she could not afford to buy a pair of shoes, it was the boots more than anything which marked York out for what he was, a rich American amateur.

  The girl with him, whom Gautier took to be the model, Claudine Verdurin, wore a long strawberry-coloured dress, gathered loosely at the waist, and sandals. Her dark-brown hair was tied in an untidy knot above the back of her neck with a black-velvet ribbon and her face, although not beautiful, had a certain insolent charm. Looking at her, Gautier could almost imagine that one of the urchin children of Montmartre whom Poulbot painted so expressively had suddenly blossomed into maturity.

  ‘That’s the man,’ Gautier told Josephine Hassler. ‘The one sitting at the table in the far corner with a girl. Look at him carefully and tell me if you recognize him.’

  ‘He certainly looks very like one of the men who broke into my bedroom.’

  ‘Take your time, Madame. If you are not absolutely certain, say so.’

  Josephine hesitated and then said: ‘Yes, it is the same man. I’m sure of it. And that girl. She’s the one who was with the men and wanted to kill me.’

  ‘But you said that woman was ugly and had black, frizzy hair.’

  ‘She must have been wearing a wig. That’s the same woman, I’ll swear on it.’

  ‘Right. The two of them must not see you, so will you please be kind enough to stay here, Madame, and in a few minutes one of my men will drive you to your home.’

  Gautier passed through the bead curtain into the restaurant. Although the café’s only toilet was at the back and anyone wishing to use it would have to return through the kitchen, three or four of the clients looked sharply at him as he came into the room. A certain class of Parisian, he sometimes believed, had the gift of being able to smell a policeman. As he drew near to the American, the sound of conversation fell noticeably.

  ‘Are you Monsieur Edward York?’

  ‘Yes. That’s me.’

  ‘Inspector Gautier of the Sûreté. We wish to ask you a few questions. Would you be so kind as to come with me.’

  ‘Can’t you ask them here?’

  Gautier nodded in the direction of the other people in the café. ‘I think you would prefer it if we discussed the matter elsewhere.’ The American began to look truculent. ‘Say, what is this? Am I being arrested?’

/>   ‘I hope that will not be necessary, Monsieur.’

  ‘I insist that the United States Consul be informed. You have no right to treat an American citizen in this way!’

  ‘At this stage we only wish to ask you some questions. Should it be decided to detain you, then of course your Consul will be told.’

  ‘You had better go with him, Eddie,’ the girl said resignedly. ‘Nobody ever wins arguing with the flics.’

  ‘Are you Claudine Verdurin?’ Gautier asked her.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then I’d like you to come as well, Mademoiselle.’

  ‘Now look here!’ York began to protest but the girl laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘That’s all right. I have no objection to coming with you. But must we come immediately? We’re only halfway through a good meal.’

  Gautier pulled a chair up to the table and sat down with them. ‘I don’t mind waiting, Mademoiselle.’

  What he was doing was right outside the rules, he knew that, and he knew that Courtrand would be outraged if he were to hear of it, for Courtrand believed that all his men should always and unquestioningly follow the rule book. Gautier also knew that on occasions one gained more by being flexible and there were times when he deliberately bent the rules just to prove to himself that Courtrand was wrong.

  ‘A reasonable policeman!’ Claudine exclaimed. We must look after this rare specimen, Eddie. Give him some wine.’

  The thin edge of sarcasm in her tone suggested that she was challenging Gautier but he did not take offence. Instead he accepted the glass of vin ordinaire which York poured out for him and as he sipped it, watched the two people he was supposed to be arresting finish their meal. The American was clearly ill-at-ease, frightened no doubt by this unexpected confrontation with the police, but Claudine appeared relaxed and chatted freely as she ate. In manner, if not in appearance, she was very unlike most of the artists’ models who were to be met in and around Place Blanche, where there existed an unofficial market for models and where a painter could find a model for almost any subject from the Infant Moses to Our Lady of Mercy. The female models whom Gautier knew were for the most part good-natured, unintelligent girls who had chosen the profession through vanity and laziness or in some cases for the opportunities that it provided for casual sex. Claudine Verdurin, on the other hand, seemed free of affectation, direct and determined.

  ‘What’s all this about, anyway?’ York asked Gautier, encouraged by the policeman’s informal manner.

  ‘The Juge d’Instruction will tell you that.’

  ‘Juge d’Instruction!’ Claudine exclaimed. ‘Then it’s a criminal matter?’

  ‘Can’t you give us an indication of what he is going to ask us?’

  Gautier decided that as he had already cut across protocol once, a little further trespassing could do no harm. He told them: ‘All I will say is this. We’re interested in the robes which you, Monsieur, borrowed from the Hebrew Theatre and why you haven’t returned them.’

  Claudine looked at him incredulously and then began to laugh.

  VI

  MINISTRY OF JUSTICE

  Account of interrogation by the Juge d’Instruction

  Crime at No. 8, Impasse Louvain Dossier No. 0008

  On Wednesday, 4 June, before us, Bertin, appeared Edward York and Claudine Verdurin, both of Montmartre in the City of Paris and were examined as follows:

  Question: It has been established and is the subject of sworn statements by others that you, York, took possession six weeks ago of three Jewish ecclesiastical robes, the property of Roland Fils, costumiers, when they were on hire to the Hebrew Theatre in Paris. Do you York deny this assertion?

  York: No. I admit that I did borrow the robes.

  Question: And for what purpose may I ask?

  York: Some friends of mine and I were going to a masquerade ball. We had the idea that we might dress ourselves to represent some biblical theme. One suggestion that we might go as Abraham and Isaac. Another idea was Christ scourging the money-lenders.

  Question: Did you use the costumes for this purpose?

  York: In the end we only used one of them. My other friends decided not to go to the ball at all so Mademoiselle Verdurin and I went dressed as Joseph and Mary.

  Question: And you Mademoiselle Verdurin, do you confirm that this was the purpose for which you borrowed the costumes and that you accompanied Monsieur York to this ball?

  Verdurin: The answer is ‘Yes’ to both questions.

  Question: If, as you say, you borrowed the robes, why did you not return them? And where are they now?

  York: I guess I just never got round to it. As far as I know the robes are still lying around somewhere in my studio.

  Question: That can be established in due course. For the present I have a question for Mademoiselle Verdurin. Is it true that you knew the painter Félix Hassler?

  Verdurin: I don’t believe so.

  Question: His widow claims – and this is substantiated by his account books – that you acted as model for Hassler just eighteen months ago. Are you denying this?

  Verdurin: Not at all. It is quite possible. I work for a good many artists and I certainly do not remember them all. Where is his studio?

  Question: At Number 8 Impasse Louvain, just off rue de Vaugirard. Do you still deny sitting for him?

  Verdurin: No, I do remember the house and also the man. A little fellow with a very German head who looked more like a bourgeois shopkeeper than a painter. I think I did a couple of days for him when one of his regular models was sick.

  Question: And did you not remember all this when you heard of his death?

  Verdurin: Is he dead?

  Question: Come, Mademoiselle, surely you’re not pretending that you have not heard of Félix Hassler’s murder? All the newspapers are full of the Impasse Louvain affair.

  Verdurin: Why should I read the newspapers? They are of no interest to me. We’re not great readers of newspapers up on the Butte.

  Question: And you, Monsieur York, have you not heard of the murder?

  York: Wasn’t that the double murder? An artist and an old lady, his mother-in-law?

  Question: Madame Hassler, widow of the dead man, has identified you Monsieur and you Mademoiselle, as two of the people who broke into her house to steal money and documents and who, in the course of the robbery, killed her husband and mother, threatened her life and left her gagged and bound. Do you admit this?

  York: Us? Robbery and murder? Is this woman crazy?

  Verdurin: Certainly we deny these accusations. Categorically and in every detail.

  Question: We shall see as to that. It is the belief of the police that when you modelled for the dead man, you discovered that he had money and his wife jewels and valuable papers. Having learnt the geography of the house, you thought it would be easy to rob it, having first disguised yourselves; you, York, and another man in the Jewish robes, and you, Verdurin, with a wig and paint. It may be that you had already stolen a key to the house or you may have had an accomplice among the servants. What is your answer to that?

  York: It’s crazy! Absolutely crazy!

  Verdurin: And are we permitted to know when this robbery and these murders took place?

  Question: On the night of Saturday last, the thirty-first of May at midnight. Can you account for your movements on that day?

  Verdurin: I can. I was in London.

  Question: For what purpose ?

  Verdurin: Not long ago I posed for an English artist, Sir Frank Knowles, while he was in Paris. He was not able to finish the painting here and paid my expenses to go over to London so he could complete it. I crossed over on the channel steamer last Wednesday and returned only on Monday morning.

  Question: And is there anyone who can confirm this?

  Verdurin: Sir Frank himself or the hotel in which I stayed, the Museum Court Hotel in Bloomsbury.

  York: I was not in Paris either! I spent the weekend in the Midi at St Tropez.
A friend of mine, the Spanish artist, Pablo Munoz, has rented a cottage there for the summer. I stayed with him from Friday to Monday.

  Question: This too will have to be confirmed. If you will give us your friend’s address we will telegraph the local police and send them round to make enquiries.

  The two who had been questioned then wrote down the names and addresses of the people whom they claimed could corroborate their stories.

  Read and signed by:

  Verdurin

  York

  Bertin

  VII

  NOT LONG AFTER the interrogation of York and Claudine Verdurin had been concluded, Gautier strolled from his office down to the Café Corneille in Boulevard St Germain. Like most of the better known cafés in Paris, the Corneille had its own particular clientele, a group of habitués who used the place as a kind of unofficial club. In the case of the Corneille, the habitues were mainly writers and lawyers, with a sprinkling of more discerning and more acceptable journalists.

  Although he had never really understood why, Gautier had found himself also accepted in the group. Some of his colleagues in the Sûreté had hinted that a policeman who mixed with the intelligentsia must have ideas above his station. He ignored the hints because he had discovered quite by chance that the Prefect of Police, who was, after all, head of the whole police organization, approved. Some months previously he had met the prefect, Lépic, in the Café Corneille.

  ‘It’s Inspector Gautier, isn’t it?’ Lépic had recognized him and later when they were alone for a moment he had added: ‘I’m pleased to notice that you are evidently at home and well liked in this excellent café, Inspector. We in the police must learn to be integrated in society and not a force apart.’

  Gautier suspected that Lépic, whom everyone recognized as an unusually shrewd and able man, was also well aware that cafés rather than fashionable drawing-rooms were the real centres of political thought in France and, in some cases, of subversive ideas. It was not for nothing that the government, in times of unrest or discontent, sent spies and agents to mingle with people in the cafés of Paris.