Murder in Montparnasse

by Howard Engel

  “All right, Jean-Paul does have some dealings of the kind you mention.” Arlette continued to examine her nails as she spoke.

  “Do you know either directly or indirectly whether Laure was a regular user of opium or any other drug supplied by Jean-Paul?” I asked.

  “Laure Duclos had a problem. Yes. She was addicted. That’s the only word for it.”

  “Can you tell us how you know this?”

  There was hate in her eyes as she looked up at me. She directed her answer to Zamaron. “Laure and I have smoked a pipe together on several occasions going back five years or so. I don’t do that any more, Monsieur, but she was always telling me when the boys brought in a new supply. Some of it came from the big steamboats docking at Le Havre and Cherbourg.”

  “Thank you, Arlette. So, now we know that she took drugs habitually. Was there any difficulty getting drugs during the last few months?”

  “The supplies have been limited. There have been fewer boats, and the boys in the band have not been carrying as much as usual.”

  “So, you weren’t surprised to see Laure a little more desperate than usual?” I asked.

  “M. Ward, this is no court of law, but please try to let the young lady tell the story herself.” He smiled at Arlette. I think Zamaron was trying to build a sympathetic bridge between himself and Arlette, who was still speaking in a guarded way.

  “What was Laure’s manner when you saw her last?”

  “She was desperate to see Jean-Paul, even though I told her he could do nothing for her. Then she went to see Freddy.”

  The face of Freddy Briggs dropped. His usual amiable smile and knowing ways gave place to confusion. “What’s this? I don’t know what she’s going on about! Honest I don’t!”

  “Freddy, let’s have the minimum of guile. You heard what the Commissioner said. He’s only interested in murder tonight. We all understand that a bartender is often put into a difficult position by his regular customers. People want all sorts of things after hours, under the counter. So, let’s try to be frank.”

  “Damn it, I didn’t want to get mixed up in that stuff, but I’ve had dukes and young milords asking me to get it for them. So, what could I do? It was just part of the job. Not a pleasant part, but it was part of being ‘Freddy on the spot,’ ‘Freddy’ll get it for you.’ ‘Good old Freddy.’”

  “And Laure, did she approach you?” I asked.

  “She did when she was hard up. She was hard up when I saw her last. That was the night she was killed.”

  “Did you sell her anything that night?”

  “I didn’t have nothing to sell or give away. And that’s the truth, so help me.”

  “And there might have been some inconvenience later on once you’d helped her out the first time?”

  “She’d have been at me night and day if I gave in.”

  “Where did you talk to her?”

  He threw his head in the direction of the door near the end of the bar. “Back there. No sense talking to her when she was upset with the shop full of customers, like.”

  “So, if somebody came in looking for her, she’d have been out of sight for several minutes?”

  “That would be about right, sir.”

  “I looked in myself that night. Dr. Tyler was here with Mlle La Motte.”

  “That’s correct, sir. I remember.”

  “M. Ward, you are doing very well. I congratulate you. But where are you going to take us from here?”

  “Monsieur le Commissaire, I wish I knew. We know that Laure was desperate to renew her supply of opium. We know that she tried to blackmail Mr. Waddington on the terrasse of the Dôme.” Waddington gave me a warning look. I closed my mouth so that he might say something. Soon we were all looking at him.

  “In spite of what you might think about Laure and me, she wasn’t blackmailing me about anything that had been between us in the past. Hash has known all about that from the beginning. I’m not keeping any secrets from her.”

  “It would be more useful, Mr. Waddington, if you would tell us what she was holding over you. We are not interested — I speak for myself, naturally — in what she was not threatening you with.”

  “Threatening me with? Hell, I’ve yet to meet a woman who could threaten me! Laure was simply testing me to see if I would go along with a proposition she outlined to me. In the end, I decided I didn’t want to have any part of it.”

  “This had to do with a manuscript of yours that had disappeared some years ago? Isn’t that right, Wad?” I said interrupting.

  “No secret there. She showed me a bit of it and asked me what it would be worth to have the whole thing returned to me, no questions asked.” Hash looked at her husband with surprise showing on her face. He had not been keeping her fully informed. From her expression, the tale of the missing manuscript was still a painful one.

  “And?” I said, prompting.

  “And she mentioned a price that was out of the question. It was the kind of money that we haven’t seen for months and months. And she wanted it right away. I thought I might try to sell a picture I’d been buying on installments. But that wasn’t the solution, since I neither owned nor had possession of the picture. We were scrimping to buy it from that Catalan fellow you met at the Dutchman’s.”

  “What did she threaten you with if you didn’t buy the manuscript?”

  “There wasn’t much she could do, Mike. It wasn’t stuff I didn’t want the world to see; I was proud of most of it. It wasn’t pornography, if that’s what you’re driving at.”

  “So, her only move was to threaten to destroy it? Is that what she said?”

  “She said get the money or else. That’s what she meant, all right. I tried to borrow some money from Julie, here, but Laure went missing before I could collect it.” Hash glanced at Julia, who was still watching Wad.

  “Had you arranged to meet Laure the following day?”

  “That’s right. She didn’t show up. Naturally, I never heard from her again.”

  “M. Zamaron,” I said, “there are others in this room who had reason to dislike Laure Duclos. She had something on several of them. Something disreputable, something that they would not want others to find out about. Thus, we are surrounded by people who at the very least were not terribly saddened by news of her death.”

  “But, strangely, it is only about Mr. Waddington that we at the préfecture have been favoured with information, anonymous information.”

  “That’s because some of these people have been trying to put me out of business!” Wad explained about the Spanish book to Zamaron. “Nobody here has read it, but they’d be happy to see it buried at Père Lachaise, along with its author.”

  “I see, so some of your erstwhile friends would not be unhappy to see you charged with the murder of Laure Duclos?”

  “If it would stop publication of the book, sure. But I’ve just explained to these good people how I’ve arranged to stop the book from coming out.”

  “If I may say so, that’s an unusual sacrifice for a writer, Mr. Waddington.”

  “If it will stop them climbing up my back, it’ll be worth it. I don’t like the idea of Hal, here, waiting for me with a gun in his pocket.”

  “Very sensible. I see. And Mr. Leopold, I suggest that you dispose of that weapon in the river when we leave the Dingo tonight. Firearms are taken very seriously in France, I assure you.”

  “All of this talk may be of great interest to you people, but I’m beginning to find a need to get to the last act.” Georgia had not so far been heard from. “Americans are not supposed to be very good at writing second acts, so why not jump to the third? That’ll be much tidier than a French play with God only knows how many acts before the curtain comes down.”

  “I am glad that Mme. O’Donnell is able to discover dramatic structure in these outpourings. You are very flattering, Madame, even if you find the plot less than absorbing. At least it concerns yourself as well as your friends.”

  “Don’t be
silly, Commissioner. How does any of this touch me or my husband?” Georgia looked to Zamaron for an answer. The Commissioner smiled nervously, then he brightened.

  “Was not the deceased a tenant of yours at 14, rue de Tilsitt, Madame?” Zamaron did not seem to be aware of the hornet’s nest he was testing with his foot.

  “Oh!” Georgia sounded genuinely surprised. It was a notion that hadn’t occurred to her. Wilson, who had grown quite white, managed a smile in the direction of the policeman. With it went a silent prayer. Zamaron acknowledged that something had passed between them with a movement of the eye that could never be taken for a wink.

  Georgia laughed nervously. “But Laure was with us for such a short time . . . when we were down south.”

  “She needed a place to stay,” Wilson added. “It was sort of an emergency for her. And as we were going to be away. . .”

  “Nevertheless, Madame et Monsieur, you knew the woman. She was not a stranger. You are, in this, then, in the same vessel as your friends.”

  In order to take the pressure off the O’Donnells, I turned back to Arlette. “Did you see Laure on the night she died?” She was not expecting a question.

  “You mean here?” I nodded. “No, I didn’t see her. I must have been in the WC.”

  “But she was here for quite a few minutes talking to Freddy?”

  “Yes, but he says in the back room.”

  “But you didn’t see her come in or leave? Isn’t that odd?”

  “Perhaps I was in the WC for some time.”

  “For other than the usual reasons?”

  Arlette paused before answering. “I may have been smoking one of my funny cigarettes. I don’t remember.”

  “Something you picked up at Le Trou dans le Mur, I expect. So you missed both her going out and her coming in.” I was suddenly sounding quite biblical to myself. “Did you see her, Dr. Tyler? Laure, I mean.”

  “I may have, Mike. I’d been celebrating a modest win at the races. Auteuil had been pretty good to me, thanks to a tip I got from Harold Stearns, a Harvard man of my acquaintance. I was pretty potted. Ask Freddy.”

  We all looked to Freddy, who was only too happy to help out now the subject of drugs had been dropped.

  “You were rather jolly as I remember, sir. You were having trouble making your umbrella stand up when you crooked it over the table, sir. It kept falling on the floor.”

  “Sorry. It’s all gone,” he said, waving his open hand around his head. “Thanks anyway, Freddy.”

  “Was Anson a little drunk, Arlette?”

  “He seemed just a little gris to me, but what kind of judge am I about that night? I had my own celebration. But at least until you went out for cigarettes, you were a perfect gentleman. Afterwards, qui sait?”

  “That’s right, sir. You didn’t want the brands I had back of the bar. I remember you trying to muster your dignity as you said you didn’t use any of the packets I had. You weren’t half stiff when you went out in a huff!” Freddy’s cheeks were getting quite rosy as he recalled the event. “Remember, Miss? He went through the tables so straight and tall with the umbrella, Miss, tipping his hat down over his eyes? It was like a turn on the music halls. Like watching ‘Little Tich’ at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, where I first saw Mr. Burdock, must be twenty years ago.”

  “What’s Burdock got to do with this?” Wad asked, and not without reason. Zamaron shrugged and looked at me. I returned an English-Canadian’s version of the Gallic gesture. It was a moment for Freddy to collect the empty glasses and bring fresh drinks. For a moment, I thought that Arlette had brought out one of her “funny cigarettes,” but there was no trace of hashish in the air after Tolstoi leaned over to light it. I found my own case and offered its contents to O’Donnell and his wife, who were sitting nearby. Suddenly it occurred to me. What a ridiculous place to hold an interrogation. We were under no compulsion to sit here. We were not under arrest. Still, we were held by that same base desire that makes us read half the night just to see how a cheap mystery novel works out at the end. It was human nature at work. There was nothing that anyone could do about that. Just now, waiting for my drink, it felt like the pause in a baseball game at Maple Leaf Stadium before the last, crucial innings. When the drinks arrived, they were very welcome.

  CHAPTER 27

  It was a few minutes later; the women, and then the men, had visited the WC and Zamaron was looking at me to continue this possibly fatuous exercise. The Commissioner may have been looking for a dramatic mistral, but I feared that a mild breeze was all I could muster. And, of course, he had never heard of a chinook.

  “If I may,” I said at last, “I’d like to go back a few years, back indeed to 1922. At that time, many of the people here in this room were already here. Wilson and Georgia were still in the States, as was Julia. I was on the other side as well. But Freddy was here, working as an assistant barman at Le Trou dans le Mur with Arlette’s brother, Jean-Paul La Motte, and doing favours for special customers. Hash and Wad were here. He was working for a Canadian paper then, the Toronto Star, where we both still have mutual friends. He’d also been working hard at his writing, encouraged by Sherwood Anderson, Bob McAlmon and Gertrude Stein. He’d written some short stories, a few stark, dramatic sketches based on his Eastern travels and the war, and possibly the fragment of a novel. (When he was in Toronto, he boasted that he was writing one about his boss, Harry Hindmarsh, who married the publisher’s daughter. He was going to call it The Son-in-Law. But we don’t know about that, do we Wad?) The Star wanted Wad to cover the Lausanne peace conference, which began in late November of that year. The Waddingtons planned to turn it into a working pre-Christmas holiday before finding a place in Switzerland to ski and eat well. Only it didn’t work out like that, did it, Wad?”

  “I don’t know where you’re going with all this, Michaeleen, but, yes, you’re right. Hash was sick with a hell of a cold, so I had to go on by myself. The plan was for Hash to join me as soon as Anson got her feeling well enough to travel.”

  “Ah, yes. I was forgetting. You had met Dr. Tyler here in Paris. You told me it was a house call, didn’t you, Anson?”

  “That’s right, Mike. It was nothing special. A bad cold, just as Wad describes it.”

  “But by the time Wad was in Lausanne, you were more than just the family doctor, isn’t that right?”

  “Well, I’d treated them both on several occasions. Both Wad and I had been in the war. Sure, we became friends. Wad is a hell of a fellow, as you know, and everybody loves Hash.”

  “Were you ever in love with Hash, Anson?”

  “That’s a damned funny question! As I said, everybody was a little in love with Hash. She’s one damned fine woman. But we were all friends, the three of us. I would never have done anything to spoil that.”

  “And, of course, in those days you were writing, weren’t you?”

  “Sure. I was working away at a couple of stories. Waddington took an interest. We talked a good deal about writing and what we’d been reading in those days.”

  “Were you ever jealous of Wad’s success as a writer?”

  “What success? He worked damn hard for his Toronto Star money. He had to make a deal to sell the same stuff to two Hearst agencies before he sent it, rewritten, to the star.”

  “Didn’t the Star pay for ‘exclusive services,’ Wad?”

  “A man has to make a living, kid. You’ll come to understand that.”

  “So you were counting on the ice-bound Canadians not reading the Hearst papers. And back in Paris, Anson was applying his healing arts to making Hash well enough to travel. Can you pick up the story there, Hash?”

  “Oh dear, I’d just as soon listen, or rather not listen to this story. It was the most painful time in my life. I’d hate to go through it again.” Hash was looking uncomfortable. It was partly because she never did say very much and partly because, except for Georgia and Arlette, the women had been silent.

  “In the interests of getting to the
bottom of what happened once and for all, Hash, would you help us?”

  “Well, as everybody knows by now, I was sick in bed with a cold. Anson had given me a few things, but I was still feeling weak, and it was getting closer and closer to Christmas and the break in the conference. I know Tatie — I mean Jason — wanted to get away into the mountains, so, as soon as I was feeling better, a little better, I started to get ready to go. Anson came over with a prescription and helped me pack. I was as weak as a kitten.”

  “That was when you packed up Wad’s manuscripts?”

  “Yes, I put the stories and the carbons in separate manilla envelopes, and I put in the rough drafts, too. I just cleaned out the drawer that he kept his things in and put them into a small suitcase.”

  “You saw her do this, Anson?”

  “I saw her packing, yes. I didn’t particularly note the packing of the suitcase with Wad’s work in it.”

  “And so you took the suitcases downstairs, with Anson’s help — I’m guessing here — and put everything into a taxi?”

  “That’s right. Anson came along to see me off. He helped me find a porter and then went on in the taxi. I got the porter to put everything in my compartment and then went out to see that the trunk with our winter things went into the baggage car. When I got back, the suitcase was missing. The one with the papers in it, I mean.” Hash was crying again as she retold the story of this episode. Wad looked as though he still felt the knife turn in his chest, the way he had when she’d first told him, when he met her train, one terrible night later.

  “Is there any point in putting her through this?”

  “I’m sorry, Wad. I think it might be important. You’ll see in a minute.”

  “Tatie thinks I went out to buy a magazine or a sandwich from the buffet, but it was the trunk I was watching. It was, Tatie. I know you don’t believe me.” Wad looked as if he were going to say something to her but then thought better of it. I remembered what he had said to me about breaking a gun before going over a fence: the loss of the manuscripts was like a hunting accident to Wad. A gun going off that wasn’t supposed to be loaded.