Murder in Montparnasse

by Howard Engel

  “Well, don’t stay up all night.”

  “I’ll be along, Priscilla.” This was the first time I’d heard Waddington use his wife’s proper Christian name. I could see that he saved it for moments like this. Hash got up and left the café without looking back.

  “Shouldn’t you go with her?” I asked. “This is not the safest part of town with Jack around, you know.”

  “Hash’ll be all right. It’s only a couple of blocks.”

  “Well, if you’ll excuse me. I think I’ll see her home, then.”

  “Mike, you are a prize son of a bitch.”

  “These remarks must be judged in relation to their place of origin, Waddington. I don’t think I’m greatly worried.”

  I put some notes and change on the table to cover the drinks that had been ordered but had never arrived and left the café. The night air hit me square in the face. Winter was on its way with a certainty of purpose now. There was no going back to the misty, rather balmy days.

  I caught up to Hash quickly. She had just stopped at the corner waiting for the light to change. I’d called out to her, but she hadn’t turned around. She was holding a handkerchief, and when I caught up to her I could see that her face was moist.

  “Hash, he doesn’t mean any of that. We both know that. He’s just a little excited and just a little tight,” I said.

  “You go on back, Mike. I can see myself home.”

  “Don’t be silly.” I put my arm around her and gave her a hug. “You know he’s crazy about you. He’s just keyed up after the fights. Maybe he was looking for his turn in the ring.”

  “Well, to be frank, Mike, I’m not very content to be his sparring partner when he’s in this mood.”

  “You said he’d been working too hard.”

  “Sometimes three thousand words a day. Rewriting parts of the book. Oh, his writing is going well. It’s in his family life that he’s having trouble. Snick didn’t get out this afternoon as usual because Tatie said he had to see somebody about tonight’s tickets. I was cooped up with Snick all day yesterday because of the rain. It’s getting me down, and I guess it’s getting him down as well.”

  We turned into the rue de Chevreuse, which led to her street, walking without saying anything. When we got to her door, she turned her auburn head, gave me a kiss on the cheek and squeezed my hand.

  “Good night, Mike. Thank you for seeing me home. I can manage from here myself.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Her eyes were shining in the light coming into the carpenter’s yard from the street lights.

  “I hope so, Mike. I really hope so.”

  CHAPTER 16

  You’re a budding chump, Waddington!”

  “Aw, shut up and sit down. If you don’t want to do either, clear off. You’re blocking the view.”

  “Hash loves you, you idiot! How can you be so mean to her?”

  “Because I’m a son of a bitch, that’s why. If I can hurt her in a big way, why not in small ways, too?”

  I sat down. Wad had cleared the table of the assorted drinks that had been ordered and was now drinking a fine à l’eau as though he was in a contest to see who could put his chin on the table first.

  “Everybody’s a son of a bitch sometimes, Wad.”

  “Not me, by God! I’m a heel all the time. No time off for good behaviour. I’m a first-rate bastard. Oh, I’m one swell fellow, I am.”

  “What’s eating you?”

  “Don’t want to talk about it.”

  I knew better than to press him. I waited until the waiter could be flagged down and ordered one of what Wad was drinking. I didn’t say anything until it came.

  “Wad, are you worried about the Spanish book?”

  “Nope. Next question?”

  “Aw, go to hell!”

  “You stick around, kid. I’ve got a big bag of tricks. I’ve got an assortment of knives and short killing-swords for sticking between the shoulder-blades of good friends. The only safe place to be is numbered among the enemy.”

  “Why are you being so hard on yourself, Wad? Why not drink up and go home. Hash’ll still be awake.”

  “It’s too bad about Hash. Too bad.”

  “You are beginning to sound like a sentimental drunk, Wad. It’s not your style. Did something happen tonight I was too thick to see? Come on, how can a guy help if he doesn’t have all the cards?”

  “This is a game you want to stay out of. The casualties are going to be heavy and we aren’t taking prisoners.”

  “Okay, I’ll mind my own business. But, I’ll say this: you’re a damned fool if you think you can improve on Hash. She’s your perfect match, Wad. You both enjoy the same things and find the same things funny. She’s a peach, any way you look at her.”

  “Yeah. I know all about that. Christ, don’t you think I know all about that?”

  “What are you chaps so glum and serious about?” It was Biz, wearing a man’s trenchcoat over a light dress and shivering. “I say, may I have a swallow of that before I freeze to death?” She took hold of Wad’s glass and drank a third of what was left in it. “Aren’t you going to invite a chap to sit down?”

  “Hello, Biz,” Wad said. “What mischief have you been up to?”

  I said hello myself and pulled up a chair for her. She sat down, still wrapped up in the trenchcoat, more as if it were a blanket than a fitted garment. “George is paying the taxi,” she said, then, looking at Wad, “I haven’t been up to any mischief. You sound like Harold Leopold when you talk like that, Waddington. It doesn’t become you. You used to be so merry all the time.”

  A waiter came over and Biz ordered drinks for herself and George, whom we could see through the window conferring with the driver at the curbside.

  “We’ve been over at the Crillon,” she announced. “There’s an Irishman there who wants to take me to British East with him. He says there’s a fortune to be made out in British East. I told him to come back for me when he’s made it. Now isn’t that telling him? Honestly! Did he think I came with his drink, like a stale canapé? No, I take that back. The canapés at the Crillon are incomparable.”

  “Apart from that, how is the Crillon bar?”

  “Still going around. George the bartender sends his love.”

  George, the bartender’s namesake, came through the door and began looking among the crowded tables for a free chair. When he found one he pulled it up to our table. “Brrr! They could afford to put more peat on to the fire.”

  “A peat fire would be better than nothing, which is what Mme. Select is currently offering her patrons. We are warming the place with our blood. She won’t install a brazier until December. Are you going out to British East as well?”

  “You’re well informed, old chap. Hel-lo there, Mike. No, I think I’m chary of the fires I jump into. I’ve also become an expert on frying pans. Where is that waiter?” George stood up and waved until he had attracted the attention of everyone in the café except the waiter. He sat down dejected. Biz tried to straighten his jacket collar, which he had turned up against the weather when he’d given his coat to her.

  “We were at the fights tonight,” Wad volunteered.

  “How awful! Out near Père Lachaise? I’m going to spend eternity in Père Lachaise and I don’t intend to go there a moment before my time.”

  “Père Lachaise is the best cemetery in town. Only the best people go there.”

  “It’s too, too much the rage, my dear. I’ll make my own fashions thank you very much. Would you know me if I were turned out like a Vogue cover? Would you recognize me in an outfit by Poiret or in a design by Lepape or Benito? I thought you loved me for myself and my old felt hat.”

  “Where is your old felt hat tonight?”

  “I think I left it someplace. Where is that beastly waiter? Does he mean us to die of thirst like some Riff with a dead camel?”

  Eventually the waiter brought the drinks Biz had ordered and we ordered the same again. For a waiter in a good café,
he was of an independent turn of mind, indicating with his raised eyebrows that he might be back and, then again, he might not. Wad gave George an account of the Fournier–Batty fight with the dramatic parts illustrated from a standing position. When Wad began his reenactment of the only knock-out of the evening in one of the preliminary bouts, Biz looked over at me. Her eyes opened as though I had suddenly materialized at the table where there had been nothing before.

  “Hullo, Mike,” she said, leaning her cheek in her hand. “One gets awfully lonely in a crowd, don’t you think?”

  “That’s what they’re for.”

  “I suppose. Anyway, hullo, you.” She looked up at Wad, who was finishing the knock-out punch. “No wonder you don’t need a coat, Waddington, you have built-in warmth. You stay so active it’s a criticism to the rest of us.”

  “I miss the hat.”

  “You must have been off at a shooting party, Waddington, I haven’t seen you since you came to the studio party. You left early enough. Before the police came. That was a night to remember to forget. Of course, you chaps left with the body.”

  “Seems like weeks ago. What have you been up to?”

  “Not much. Under the weather. I’ve got a beastly chest and it hobbles me at awkward moments. It’s like a spoiled child.”

  “But you’re better now?”

  “Thriving!”

  “Wad, old fellow, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” George said. “Haven’t been tight enough to ask before. May not be tight enough yet. It’s about that trip to Spain, actually.”

  “Oh, shove it along, George!”

  “No, this is important. I want you to hear me out. All of you.”

  But a sudden cry of “Waddington, you old son of a gun!” coming from the front door of the café put a quick end to George’s attempt at a serious talk. The source of the exclamation was a compact, tidy little man with wild blond hair and a pink face. “Damn it all, Jay, you haven’t moved a muscle since I saw you last! Are you paying rent to Madame Select or what?”

  “Don! You old son of a gun!”

  Don moved through the tables easily and exchanged a bear hug with Wad, who nearly lifted the shorter man off his feet. Biz and George seemed equally happy to see the newcomer. Don shook George’s hand warmly and kissed Biz on each cheek, as though this was a joke of long standing between them.

  “Sit down, Donald! Oh, how we’ve missed you in the Quarter!”

  “How was Berlin, Don? Not like fishing in Spain, I’ll warrant.”

  Although he was a bantam of a man, he appeared to be a dynamo, slapping backs and making answers to all the questions he was asked at once. He quickly turned his energy to attracting the waiter, who actually came and then returned with drinks.

  “Donald, you’ve been sorely missed. Sit down, damn it! When did you get back to town?”

  “How was Berlin, Don? We’ve missed you, old chap!”

  Donald Gracie Hughes, an old friend of Wad’s from his days in journalism and a veteran of the, by now, nearly legendary Spanish trip that summer, tested my right hand in his as I was introduced to him. He was another literary man, I found out later, who wrote clever pieces for American magazines and now scenarios for German moving pictures. When he talked with Wad and the others, the conversation glittered with private jokes that went back to Spain and the mad happenings during the fiesta. The glitter was obscured for me, though I insisted, through growing annoyance, that they shouldn’t explain things for my benefit.

  “How was Berlin, Don?”

  “Cold and in a ferment,” he said. The others laughed. “New wine had been poured into old bottles. Or the other way around. They’ve got a German director after me to write English titles for his epics. Things like: ‘And then the mercy for which she begged, he would not requite her.’”

  “Why not ‘vouchsafe’?” Wad asked. “They might go for ‘vouchsafe.’”

  “Not ready for it. They aren’t paying me enough for ‘vouchsafe.’”

  “You should go into films, Waddington. I can see you have the gift for it,” I said.

  “You could make a big success in pictures. Look at June Mathis.”

  “Look at Chaplin.”

  “Look at me,” Don added. “You know, I’ve been looking for you all over town. I should have come here to begin with.” Don slapped George on the back, as though he had just joined the party. “How are you, George? Still undischarged?”

  “Oh, it’s moved along from there, old man. In the eyes of the law I’m rather naughty. My keeper threatens to cut me off and I’ve been borrowing money all over town.”

  “His keeper not only threatens, she keeps her word.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t tie money to good behaviour. It never works. I’m living testimony, by God.”

  “Say, why don’t we move this party to the Dingo. This place is getting crowded. Time to cross the boulevard.”

  “Agreed!” said Biz, finishing her drink and wrapping herself in George’s coat again. “I hope we can gather a few women on the way. I feel a little conspicuous with you chaps, as if I was the only pickled onion in a jar of olives.”

  On the way across the boulevard, Biz caught Wad by one arm and me by the other. We waited for a number 91 tram to move along towards Port-Royal and skirted the leading edge of the Dôme as we headed up the rue Delambre. We went into the Dingo and let our eyes accustom themselves to the darkness that hung about everywhere except behind the bar.

  “Oh bother!” Biz had seen Harold Leopold sitting at the bar. “Should we leave?”

  “Damn his Hebrew eyes,” George said. “He doesn’t own the bar.”

  “He seems to be sitting like anyone else,” I said, defending my tennis partner as well as I could.

  “Isn’t that Hal Leopold?” Don yelled, going up to the bar. “Hey, Leopold, shall we run with the bulls in the morning?”

  Hal turned and smiled at the sight of Don. His smile faded, though, when the rest of the party moved forward. He shook hands with Don. “Hello, you people. I was wondering when you’d appear.” He moved to the last stool and cleared the way for the rest of us. Wad was first to go up to him. Soon they were talking about the fight, while Hal watched Biz light her cigarette from George’s unsteadily held match.

  “Waddington’s going to re-fight the entire card, I’ll bet,” said George.

  “Watch him,” I suggested. “He gets better.”

  Freddy, the barman, knew most of the party and began making conversation while he poured the drinks. The others knew him well; I’d seen him at work only a few times. He was trying to add me up through the company I was travelling in. I didn’t much like it.

  When I began listening to what Don was saying, he interrupted his flow to include me. “As a Canadian,” he said, “you will appreciate this.”

  “Don’s a yell of fun, Mike. Wait until you know him better.”

  “We’re getting up capital for a great tourist enterprise,” he went on. “It will make the Eiffel Tower look sick. It will rob the Alps of all but passing interest.”

  “You’d better tell me about it.”

  “Don’t let George say he’ll invest.”

  “She’s right, there. I get carried away.”

  “The scheme is to put a gigantic fourteen-carat inlay into the cavity in the Percé Rock off Gaspé in Quebec. What do you think?”

  “Quebec will be in a ferment,” said George.

  “Quebec? Canada, you mean! It’s a capital idea, chaps. If we get in early, we should make a killing.”

  “For you fellows, because of all we’ve been through in the streets of Pamplona, I’m going to offer a special rate.”

  “Good!”

  “Once it’s known, the investment houses of the world will be in a ferment.” By now Wad and Hal were listening with interest, and the scheme was explained again.

  “Fourteen-carat? I should go for eighteen,” Wad said.

  “I don’t see where your profit’s going to
come from. You can see Percé Rock from just about everywhere on that coast. You won’t be able to control access,” Leopold pointed out.

  “Damn it, he’s right!” Don said.

  “Leopold, you are a spoil-sport.”

  “Put your money away. We’ll have to think of something else.”

  “Oh, you are a wet blanket, Hal.”

  “Am I? I thought I was getting into the game. You know, taking it seriously the way you were. I’ve been to Gaspé and —”

  “Oh, do let’s shut up about it!” Biz said, with her hands over her ears. Freddy poured her another fine. She was looking at me again when I glanced in her direction. I let her look. It was nice to be looked at by Biz. It reminded me how long I’d been away from home, and the face of Laure Duclos flitted behind my eyes. When I smiled back at Biz, she broke off her attention and turned to Wad.

  “We saw your friend Julia Lowry and her sister at the Crillon. I meant to tell you,” she said brightly, “but I forgot.” Wad nodded then moved closer to hear more. “I don’t think I quite like her, you know.”

  “Why?”

  “She isn’t one of the chaps.”

  “Is she too chic for you?”

  “Listen to the man! George, knock Waddington down for me! The cheek!” George got up and Biz made him sit down again.

  “Well, what is it about her?” He was looking a little hurt but was smiling broadly, the way he did when he was upset.

  “The sweet creature is chic enough for ten women. She has all the assurance of an Oxford don and all the vacuity of a boy sent down in his first term. She behaves as though she had studied deportment in a book published in Alabama or Arkansas or wherever she came from. She goes on and on about the moral value of the Mona Lisa. Can you imagine? She’d never heard of Picasso when I met her first. The next time she was spouting his biography and waving a tiny sketch he’d done for her on a paper tablecloth. Honestly!”

  “Not jealous?”

  “Waddington, I may not be Lady Diana Manners playing the Virgin in The Miracle, but I do have some background. I didn’t step nimbly out of the gumbo next to the cotton gin in my charming silk court shoes.”