The Murders at Impasse Louvain

by Richard Grindal

  The afternoon was warm and sunny. In the sky above Invalides a balloon was drifting slowly towards the Eiffel Tower and from the basket festooned with bright ribbons which hung suspended beneath it, two people were waving to spectators below. In spite of the rumours that man was about to launch a flying machine heavier than air, ballooning was still a popular craze among Parisians and every day dukes, actresses and other eccentrics were lured up to sail above the roof-tops by a sense of adventure or by a desire for publicity.

  They found Josephine Hassler sitting on the verandah of her house writing a letter, while her daughter sat nearby working on a piece of embroidery. When Gautier and Courtrand were admitted, Meg rose and without saying a word went into the house. The girl looked pale and tense.

  ‘Ah, gentlemen!’ Josephine Hassler said. ‘You’ve come with good news, I hope. Has that scoundrel confessed?’

  ‘The man whom you falsely accused, Madame,’ Courtrand said icily, ‘has been released and is no doubt on his way back here.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘We have a statement from a jeweller in Rue St Honors that the brooch found in your servant’s wallet was in your possession only yesterday.’

  The colour drained slowly from Josephine Hassler’s face except for two triangular patches of rouge above her cheekbones which, vivid against the pallor of her skin, gave her the appearance of an ageing doll. A faint moan came from her lips.

  ‘We must conclude that your mother’s brooch, if indeed it was hers, was not stolen on the night of the murders and that it was you who placed it in Mansard’s wallet.’ Josephine Hassler nodded, so Courtrand went on: ‘And why did you do that may I ask?’

  Instead of replying she began to sob. Although she bent her head, Gautier could see that her eyes remained dry but the sobs, great gasping convulsions, seemed genuine enough. The two men could do nothing but wait until her emotion abated and she was able to compose herself.

  Eventually she said between sobs: ‘How much longer must I endure this? You clearly do not comprehend what I am suffering; I, a girl brought up in kindness, gentleness and refinement. Do you know that when I came home yesterday the crowd outside the house jeered and mocked me? One woman even spat on me.’

  Courtrand asked her patiently: ‘Do you admit that you tried to incriminate an innocent man?’

  ‘I admit putting the brooch in his wallet. Whether he’s innocent or not only time will tell.’

  ‘In the circumstances, Madame, I think it would be better if you were to make a statement under oath.’

  X

  MINISTRY OF JUSTICE

  Crime at No. 8 Impasse Dossier No. 0091

  On this day, Wednesday, 11 June, we Gustave Courtrand, Commander of the Légion d’Honneur, Director General of the Sûreté, have heard on oath Josephine Hassler, who declared:

  ‘It is true that I placed a brooch which I previously reported as having been stolen by those who murdered my husband and my mother, in the wallet of our servant, Remy Mansard, with the intention that this would be taken as evidence of his complicity in the murders. I saw no harm in this. For some time I had been suspicious of Remy, for it did not seem possible to me that he could have been in the house on the night of the murders and yet heard nothing. So many people had told me that the robbers must have had an accomplice in the household and everyone, even the newspapers, hinted that it must have been Remy. I began to believe them and soon I was convinced of his guilt. So I decided that if evidence of his complicity were found in his possession, he would break down and confess. He is, after all, a simple, uneducated creature and by nature timid. That is why I placed the brooch in his wallet.’

  I then asked Madame Hassler why she had reported the brooch as having been stolen on the night of the crime. She stated:

  ‘My mother had been wearing the brooch that evening, so naturally I assumed she would have left it on the table by her bed and that it must therefore have been stolen. However two or three days later I found it in my reticule and I remembered then that the clasp of the brooch had been faulty and as she thought it might fall off and be lost, my mother had given it to me for safekeeping. When I found it I took it to a jeweller to get the clasp repaired, meaning to inform the police when an opportunity arose.’

  Madame Hassler was then told that the jeweller, Heuze, had stated that she had taken the brooch in and asked him to re-shape it and re-set the stones. She replied:

  ‘Then he must have misunderstood me. It was the three rings that I wanted to have re-made. I took the rings to him at the same time, you know.’

  When Madame Hassler was asked if these were not the three rings which she had also reported as stolen, she stated:

  ‘No. They were similar, almost identical in fact, but not the same rings. You must understand that I owned these two sets of almost identical rings and I came to them in this way. A good friend of mine, a very important and influential person incidentally, wished to give me a present of jewels. I had been able to help and advise him in his business affairs and he merely wanted to show his gratitude. Imagine my difficulty! I could not of course be seen openly wearing jewels given to me by another man, for that would have been humiliating for my poor husband. So I had the idea of arranging for a set of rings to be made at the expense of my friend, that were as nearly as possible identical to those I already possessed. Thus I had two sets; one of rather ordinary rings which my husband had given me and the other mounted with extremely fine and valuable stones, the present of my friend. If anyone ever asked me why I had these two sets, I simply told them that one set of rings were just paste, made up as a precaution in case the originals should be stolen, which as you know is often done by women with good jewelry.’

  I then asked Madame Hassler which of the two sets of rings had been stolen and why she had taken the remaining set to the jeweller and she replied:

  ‘Fortunately the thieves took the less valuable rings and in fact I had the others locked away in a safe place. I decided that rather than risk anyone finding out the truth about the remaining rings, I would have them re-set in a different form and that when my daughter married I would give them to her as a wedding present.’

  Madame Hassler was then asked if she wished to confirm her earlier statement that other pieces of jewelry had been stolen from her home on the night of the murders. She stated:

  ‘Certainly. Do you imagine that I am in the habit of telling falsehoods? Three pieces of jewelry were taken from a drawer in my boudoir and your inspector has a description of them. I can understand why you are questioning me in this way. That rogue of a jeweller must have told you that I have been selling him my pearls and you are wondering what else I may have sold. The truth is that I have been short of money. Life is expensive in Paris and I have a salon to keep up, where many of the most prominent people in the city are to be found. That is the reason why I have had to sell the pearls which are my most valuable and my most precious jewels. And you, Monsieur Courtrand, know who is to blame for this state of affairs.’

  At this point I reminded Madame Hassler that our enquiries were concerned only with the jewelry which she had reported as having been stolen and which might have been the motive for the break in at her house which had led to the murders. I asked her if there were anything more she wished to say on the matter of this jewelry and she stated:

  ‘Nothing. All I can say is that I am truly sorry that I accused Remy Mansard who, it now appears, must be innocent. But you must remember, Monsieur Courtrand, and I wish this to be recorded for inclusion in the dossier of the case, that I have been suffering from an unbelievable strain, physical as well as mental. My doctor has been in attendance on me night and day and he is even now making me take ether and other drugs. You in the police have added to my suffering by your constant questioning and by your attitude of suspicion and hostility. In the circumstances it is not surprising that at times I may not be fully aware of what I am doing nor responsible for these actions.

  Stateme
nt recorded and signed by:

  Josephine Hassler

  Gustave Courtrand

  Jean-Paul Gautier

  XI

  RUE D’ORCHAMPT WAS a narrow street slanting upwards across the south side of the Butte in Montmartre. To reach it Gautier had to climb up from Place Blanche and cross Place Ravignan, a small cobbled square with a few trees and a couple of benches, on one of which a man in workman’s overalls, who smelt strongly of wine, lay sleeping. It was in this square and on one of the benches, Gautier recalled, that during a particularly severe winter not long previously, an artist lurching home drunk one night from one of the many bistros in the neighbourhood, had stopped to rest, fallen asleep and been found the following morning dead from exposure.

  Claudine Verdurin’s name was written above a door on the second floor of number 4 Rue d’Orchampt. She took a long time to answer Gautier’s knock and when she did open the door she was holding a bunch of dirty paint-brushes. Her hands were stained with paint and so was the old linen smock she was wearing.

  ‘My policeman friend!’ she exclaimed when she saw who the caller was. ‘Don’t tell me that I’m to be accused of another crime! The stabbing of that ponce whom they found dead not far from the Moulin Rouge last night, perhaps?’

  Gautier grinned at the sarcasm. ‘No. This time I’ve come to ask you for your help.’

  ‘You must be demented! No one around here helps the police. Didn’t you know that this is Montmartre, my friend: the home of thieves, pimps, prostitutes and artists?’ She smiled unexpectedly. ‘But still, you treated Eddie and me like human beings the other day, so I’ll do the same for you. Come on in.’

  She stepped aside to let him into the apartment. It consisted only of a single room and not a large one at that, sparsely furnished with a bed, a table, two chairs and an old tin trunk which had been partly covered with cushions. Several unframed canvasses hung on the walls and a newly-finished painting stood on an easel by the window. In one corner of the room there was an old-fashioned iron stove.

  ‘I was cleaning my brushes,’ Claudine explained and after drying the brushes in her hand with a piece of rag, she placed them in an empty jamjar.

  ‘So you’re an artist,’ Gautier said, walking over towards the easel and looking at her painting.

  ‘Let us say that I play at it, like one or two other women around here. But we don’t get much encouragement.’

  Gautier studied the painting which was a conventional study of a vase of flowers, executed with good draughtsmanship, although some might say that the colours were unnaturally vivid. He told Claudine: ‘It’s good.’

  ‘Would you like to buy it?’

  Her directness caught him off his guard. ‘Policemen aren’t supposed to buy paintings.’

  ‘They do around here. So do landladies, shopkeepers, government clerks. In some bistros the owner will even take a picture in payment for a meal.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like much of a deal for the artist. The canvas, the paint and all that labour for a two-franc meal?’

  ‘It is when the artist hasn’t eaten for a week.’ Claudine picked up the flower painting and held it out at arm’s length, looking at it critically. ‘But this will cost you rather more, since I’m not exactly starving. Shall we say ten francs?’

  ‘Right, I’ll take it.’ Even as he spoke, Gautier wondered at the impulse which had driven him to make this senseless gesture. It could only be a gesture, for the painting did not particularly attract him.

  ‘You’ve made a good choice, Monsieur,’ Claudine mocked him gently. ‘The painting is wonderfully suited to a policeman’s home. What would your family say if you took home one of these?’

  She pointed towards the canvases on the walls. They were paintings in half-a-dozen different styles, all of them modem and plainly experimental; a group of people gathered around an infant’s cot all drawn in the flat two-dimensional outlines of primitive art; a woman in a ballet dress whose limbs and face were no more than a series of rectangular planes; a landscape in flaming reds and blues. Gautier was neither shocked nor surprised, for he had heard about the new breed of artists in Montmartre, their contempt for convention and their search for new art forms.

  ‘Interesting. But I’ll think I’ll stick to my first choice.’ He found a ten-franc piece in his pocket and handed it to Claudine.

  ‘Excellent. And now that I’m in funds, I’ll take you out to dinner.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that.’

  ‘No, but I feel like it. Come on, we’ll go to the Lapin.’

  Gautier did not argue. He sensed that Claudine herself might not have eaten too recently and that the money he had just given her might be all she possessed. Many other girls would probably have scrounged a meal from him, but by selling him a painting she both got the meal and kept her independence. For a reason that he could not identify, he felt flattered.

  Leaving the apartment, they walked up the hill and through the Place du Tertre. It was early evening and most of the bistros were already full. As daylight faded, artists abandoned their studios and went in search of company, preferring to spend what money they had on drink rather than on oil lamps which would give them light to go on working. Later the night would liven up with singing inside the cabarets and outside a few drunks yelling or swearing or fighting.

  The Lapin Agile was in Rue des Saules on the far side of the Butte. Facing it was a small vineyard, a relic of the days when the whole hillside was covered in vines and not far away lay the Maquis, an area almost overgrown with scrawny trees, shrubs and weeds and dotted with shacks in which lived ragmen, pedlars, and more than a few cut-throats. Originally the building had been a shooting lodge, constructed by Henry IV and conveniently placed by the home of one of his mistresses. When it was converted into a cabaret, the artist Andre Gill, asked to paint a sign for it, had produced one showing a rabbit escaping from a casserole, so it became the Lapin A Gill, soon corrupted to the Lapin Agile.

  When they were seated at a table outside the cabaret, with a litre of red wine between them, waiting for the meal they had ordered, Claudine said: Haven’t you forgotten something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The reason why you came to see me this evening.’

  He smiled because it was true. ‘That’s the effect you have on a man.’

  She pulled a face. ‘I shall take that for a compliment; a policeman’s compliment.’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about Félix Hassler. You modelled for him didn’t you?’

  ‘Only for a very short time and that was long ago. What do you want to know?’

  ‘Anything. Everything. As you’ve probably guessed we’re making no progress in this case at all. We’ve questioned everyone who might in any way be connected with it. We’ve got a dossier full of statements. Everyone has plenty to say. The Hassler woman has told us enough about herself to fill a book, but she has never mentioned her husband. If we knew what sort of man he was, it might give us an idea of why anyone might wish to kill him.’

  Claudine thought about this for a time, eating the terrine which they had ordered and which had now been served. Watching her, Gautier was struck by the delicacy of her features. Although her face, as he had noticed before, had the look of a cheeky urchin, its contours, the cheekbones, the nose, mouth and chin had the fine lines that most people would regard as a sign of aristocratic birth. She was wearing the same shapeless dress that she had worn when he last saw her and her hair hung to her shoulders in a way which suggested that she took little interest in her appearance. Gautier found himself wondering what she would look like dressed in the high fashion of the day, with a high-waisted dress, a hat, long gloves and jewelry. She might easily be beautiful.

  ‘In a way I felt sorry for Félix Hassler,’ she said finally, ‘He used to be a painter of stained-glass windows, you know, and I believe he would have been happier if he had stuck to that. Painting portraits is one of the most exacting branches of art and to be frank, he didn’t
have the talent for it. When I sat for him he used to talk about the old days and how when he worked in those damp, chilly cathedrals he used to wear under his smock to keep him warm, a long knitted cardigan right down to his knees. He enjoyed the practical side of his work, climbing up scaffolding, taking measurements, talking to workmen. On the other hand he never appeared to take much pride in the portraits he had painted. I suspect that his wife used her influence to get him commissions.’

  ‘Influence is not exactly the right word. She used to sleep with rich men and they paid her in portraits.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me. You know that he painted a portrait of the late president?’

  ‘So I understand.’

  When I asked Félix about it and what sort of man the president was, he said very little. Poor Félix!’ Claudine shook her head and tore a piece from the bread beside her plate as though the memory of the painter’s humiliation irritated her. ‘Men! She treated him like that and yet he was content to be completely dependent on her.’

  ‘Perhaps he had a mistress.’

  ‘Not a chance. When I first went to sit for him, he made advances in a timid kind of way. He wasn’t really interested in me and I’m sure he only did it because he knew artists are supposed to make a pass at their models.’

  ‘Could he have been jealous of his wife, do you think?’

  ‘Possibly, but he would never have made a scene about her behaviour or been violent to her, if that’s what you’re thinking. He was rather droll about his wife in a pathetic kind of way. Once when I was sitting for him, he saw a man hanging around in the lane outside their house and grew quite agitated. Apparently he had seen the man there before. What worried him, would you believe it, was that his wife might see the man and think he was having her watched by detectives.’