‘I’ll prove to you instantly that I’m not the guilty one.’ I looked at her questioningly. ‘I can’t believe anybody could have done the deed.’ She shook her head wearily, ‘Do you think that Sarah herself could have put it away somewhere and forgotten?’ I doubted it, I said.
‘I am not telling you that I am no thief. Big sky! I know that I am something of a kleptomaniac.’ Not another one!
‘But you would never steal from Sarah? Is that what you are saying?’ She laughed. ‘Very sure no, Big sky!’ She admitted that she had deviated little bagatelles from her dear friend in the past. More like borrowed and purposely forgetting to return afterwards. Once she saw a hundred franc note on the floor when she was visiting her in rue Duphot, and as she was hard-up, she pocketed it. Sarah was not going to miss that.’ All the time Monique was speaking, she had the most natural comportment. Her face was relaxed, smiling. Her speech was normal, both in its speed and in its clarity. According to Holmes’ monograph, no one tell lies with such ease. The rhythm of delivery in liars tend to be irregular. Some sentences are delivered at a rate of knots whilst others become drawn out, as if reluctantly. Even if the liar has rehearsed to perfection what he was going to say, there is a point when he stumbles over a syllable, ever so slightly and looks away. She looked at me in the eyes, and her pupils were enlarged. So far so good.
‘Yes, Monique, I am listening to you. But tell me, how do I know that since by your own admission you have, to call a spade a spade, stolen from Sarah in the past, that you would not have done it again?’
‘Ask anybody-’ she began. I stopped her rather abruptly.
‘Monique, I am asking you. How can others know for sure.’ She burst out laughing.
‘No, you did not let me finish. I was going to say, ask anybody about my visceral fear of the supernatural. Big sky! I see spirits everywhere. I have nightmares. The sight of a skull makes me shudder. I hate skeletons. I am shit-scared of Death. When my beloved grandmother died, I could not bend over her coffin to have a parting look at the old dear, let alone kiss her cold cheeks. The girls will tell you that once...two or three Marie ago…I think it was Gilberte who offered me five hundred francs if I would but hold the skull in my hands and count to ten. How we laughed. I couldn’t even make myself look at the wretched thing.’ I had no doubt in my mind that she was telling the truth. I would naturally seek confirmation of this from Sarah herself. I seemed to have eliminated three of the six already.
Amélie Bosquet was easy to eliminate. She told me the story of how she had stolen a postcard of an Egyptian pyramid from a girl at school when she was seven. Her mother had found out, and had taken her that same afternoon to the girl’s family, and forced her to confess her theft.
She would have wanted to die when Madame Sarment opened the door to them. When Maman had finished explaining, Eulalie was called. Amélie remembered that she had never liked her much. She prayed that God would cause the earth to open up and swallow her. The victim looked at her intently, and taking a deep breath, she said in a firm voice, ‘But Madame Bosquet, I gave the card to Amélie, she’s my friend.’
‘I may often have to sell my body to make a living,’ she said, ‘but that day I swore that as long as I live, I’d never ever steal, not even a pin. If only as a homage to Eulalie. You see, the poor chérie died of meningitis before she got to...before she got to...’ Amélie was unable to get beyond that, as she was overwhelmed by a sudden flow of tears.
‘Seventeen,’ she managed to say when she was able to speak again. Not the best actress in the world could have put on such a show. Her voice was clear if imbued with emotion. She looked at me in the eyes. Her pupils were huge. Her movements all corresponded to honesty. Not a single one of them showed what Holmes had described as tell-tale signs of deviousness.
Pascale Cottard had eight witnesses. Sarah assured me that all the others as well as Madame Guérard knew that she was out of action, dead to the world. She had foolishly imbibed a high dose of opium that day and had been confined to her bed, unable to participate in the Fête. At no time could she have left her room in the Cinq Parties to go inside the Fortin where the skull was kept on top of the coffin, in a purpose built niche. On Monday morning, Gilberte and Sarah had to help her get dressed and walk her to the boat.
Next on my list, possibly my last suspect, was Gilberte de Poissevain. Clearly if she had stolen the artefact, it was not because she needed money. She was an heiress of the Pereire millions. Gilberte readily admitted to me that she had offered Sarah half a million francs for it once.
‘You see, my late and much lamented Moïse, was a collector of art and literary memorabilia.
He had paid a fortune for the carnets of Lamartine, some croquis of Rodin and many others. The poor cabbage was so disappointed when he failed in his bid to land the manuscript of Les Misérables, losing to an American bidder. Yes, it was my dearest wish to secure Hugo’s skull as a homage to him. Now, Sarah had promised to will it to the Pereire Museum at her death. Why would I steal it?’
‘I’ll tell you why, Gilberte. You like frankness, and you asked. Sarah told me that you are possessed of an endearing weirdness. She said you didn’t have to work as a whore, you never needed money, you only did it because you loved it.’ She laughed and nodded, and proceeded to reveal more weird secrets.
She and Sarah had known each other for ever. They had worked together harmoniously until her wedding. When her husband had died, she had approached Sarah about a delicate matter. You know what a passionate nature I have, Sarah, she had said. Well, you’re not a log of wood, ma chérie, you have needs, so do what everybody else does. Take a lover, take six. She had demurred. Must think of the family’s honour, she had remarked. Half the pleasure a man gets fucking you, is in the boasting about it to his friends. I cannot take risks with the family’s honour.
The Pereire are pillars of the synagogue. I need to do it discreetly. It was then that she declared how she had enjoyed playing the poule when she was young. She was telling Sarah to arrange for her to work at Madame Hortense’s Salon. Anonymously.
‘You are the only other person besides Sarah who is now party to my secret. The others believe that I used to fuck strangers, but not anymore. Sarah said that you are the soul of discretion.
Like all English people. She introduced me to the entremetteuse who runs her établissement in Passy. Jeanne Dupont, said Sarah, winking. Madame Hortense winked back. It is the top bordello in Europe. It only caters for the nobility, French as well as foreign.’
Gilberte would cover her face with a veil. Madame Hortense would then lead her to a back-room which had a two-way mirror. She would take a peek at the clients in the Salon, and make her choice. The gallant would then be told by the Madame that he had won the prize of the day. She had always given satisfaction and, naturally had her own jouissance in the bargain. Madame Hortense never discovered her identity. If she did, Gilberte knew that nowhere a more discreet race existed than that of entremetteuses.
‘The others know that as a budding actress I did what many of us did. I trust them. They are my sister-whores, but no one apart from Sarah knows where and how I take my pleasure now.’ All the signs that I read indicated that what she had told me was the complete unvarnished truth. Still I went on.
‘And how do I know that in spite of all the confidences you’ve made, you did not, for some perverse reason steal the skull. Maybe deep down you bear a resentment to our hostess. Perhaps you wanted to play a trick on her. Or punish her.’
‘Punish her? For what?’
‘For being more famous than you?’ She looked at me, smiled and shook her head.
‘You are an actress and so am I,’ she said. ‘I know when other actresses are putting on an act, and I can tell when they are sincere. I am sure you can too, Irene.’ Of course I can, specially steeped in the knowledge gathered from the small tome of my mentor. I had reached the terminus, but sti
ll was nowhere near my destination.
I had arrived at the conclusion that none of the six suspects was guilty. I could swear to that. Maximilien had been ruled out from the start. First he lived like a hermit and had no material needs. In any case he was not able to negotiate the steps on his wheelchair. Sarah had absolutely forbidden me from questioning Madame Guérard.
‘If Mon P’tit Dame, who I know will not hesitate to put herself between me and the bullet of an assassin, is the thief, then my life would have had no meaning,’ she said dramatically. ‘It would mean that I have never understood a single thing in my born life. I’ve got a coffin handy, just put me in it and bury me instantly. Quand même! Do you understand?’ Being with Sarah Bernhardt, every moment of the day was like playing opposite her on stage.
Sarah and I were seated round the table on the promontory later, when, who should appear but Madame Guérard herself. She sat down uninvited.
‘I have a request to make,’ she said solemnly. Then she frowned, pursed her lips and said,
‘No, I demand to be interrogated by Ee-reine.’
‘In this case, either one is guilty or one is not,’ she said enigmatically. ‘I suppose Mademoiselle Adler has established that none of the others was involved.’ I smiled in a noncommittal manner.
‘They were interviewed, and you found them innocent. You wouldn’t be human if you did not entertain the smallest doubt about my innocence, for all the assurance that Madame Sarah gave you. I like clarity too. I am now insisting on being interviewed.’ Sarah thought for a whole minute and then nodded.
‘Since you insist, Mon P’tit Dame,’ she said. Standing up decisively, she walked away leaving us. Madame Guérard and I conversed informally. Not one eye flick was suspect. None of her hand gestures, head turns, body movement showed anything which would have marked her as a woman with something to hide. Her pupils were enlarged. She did not blink. She spoke without hesitation, in the same manner right through. She was one hundred percent peerless. That woman was devoted to Sarah and would rather die than do anything to cause her grief or discomfort. But there was something I couldn’t quite put my fingers on.
‘Madame Guérard, tell me about Maximilien,’ I urged. As Sherlock Holmes said, ‘When all but one possible hypothesis prove untenable, then that one must be the valid one.’
‘Maximilien? Big sky! No, Ee-reine. I can doubt my own innocence. I cannot put my hand in the fire and swear that I did not do it in my sleep. As a teenager, I suffered from somnambulism.’
It was nice to see that the lady was endowed with a sense of humour. ‘But Maximilien, would not in a million years have done anything to cause hurt to his beloved Sarah.’
‘?’
‘That man would walk through a burning forest to save her. He would swim in sharinfested waters. Run barefoot in the snow. I mean if he had his feet. Why do you think he spends everyday of the year here, on his own, with only Ali Gaga for company?’
‘?’
‘He lives for the 3 or 4 weeks that she spends here every year. So he can breathe the same air as her. So he can rest his eyes on her. He pines for the privilege to look at her, serve her. Like a votary his God. He lives for the few pecks on the cheeks that Sarah gives her. Otherwise he endures the loneliness, the harsh winters and winds the rest of the year. Waiting. Waiting. I guess he dreams of her every night. Or he’d like to.’
There was only one thing left to do. Question Maximilien. Sarah tried to discourage me. It would be a waste of time. She would more readily believe that Dreyfus had sold military secrets to the Germans than that dear Maximilien would have stolen anything from her. He is wheel-chair bound. He can’t go up steps in his contraption. And I had better watch it, for if he was upset with me he might arrange for Ali Gaga to bite my leg off. He is completely mad. Had I not discovered that yet? I didn’t think she was joking.
The invalid glared at me when I asked him if we could talk. We were on the beach, side by side. This was not satisfactory. I proposed that we made towards a big flat rock so I could sit down opposite him and study his reactions. A couple of seagulls shrieked over our heads.
‘Why?’
‘Just to ask a few questions about the loss of Sarah’s skull.’
‘You’re wasting your time. I am telling you that I never stole the skull. Full stop.’
Suddenly Holmes’ remark about the only remaining possibility after eliminating all others being necessarily the right one kept knocking at the gate of my mind. This persistent notion translated immediately into images: I saw Maximilien guide his contraption to the steps of the Fortin. There, he freed himself, slid off, and flipped his body until he was standing erect on his two hands. And I saw him skilfully hop from one step to the next until he reached the entrance of the house. I had to make an effort to get back on the rails.
‘I just want to talk,’ I said.
‘I am not m-m-much of a conversationalist.’
‘I am certainly not accusing you of anything,’ I began, making an effort not to add, ‘yet’.
‘I have all I need here. Why would I steal a treasure. What would I do with it?’ I watched his eyes, his hands, his body. Nothing to indicate deceit. He gave a Gallic shrug on top of it. ‘Why would I cause grief to dear Sarah? As if the pauvre chérie doesn’t already have enough on her plate.’ At this point he started manoeuvring his chair towards and away from me menacingly. His back was now turned away from me.
‘You are hiding something from me, Maximilien.’ I shouted after him. On hearing this, he angrily caused his chair to spin round, rushed towards me, and growled at me. I shuddered with apprehension, but drew comfort from the fact that he was stuck to his contraption.
‘I am sure of your innocence. You obviously are unable to go up the steps,’ I began. He laughed mirthlessly.
‘You think so? If I had a reason to do it, I would find the means,’ he said defiantly. So there was a basis to my conjecture. He looked at me in the eye, and said, ‘But I have not done it yet.’
‘What I want to ask is, did you perhaps see anything?’ He slid his hands on the hand-rims and edged more closely towards me, then he spat on the ground.
‘Maximilien, tell me about yourself,’ I urged. He looks at me with clear hostility.
‘I don’t like talking about myself.’
‘Yes, I know. You used to be an actor once, weren’t you?’ A Gallic shrug.
‘What happened? Why did you give it up?’ Another glare.
‘This,’ he said, pointing at his non-existent legs with his chin.
‘What happened, Maximilien.’
‘Got hit by a t-train, didn’t I?’ His every single move, the way he turned his head first, then his body, his eye flick, the size of his pupils, the hardly perceptible stammer, indicated that he was not telling the truth. He did not get hit by a train. But the evidence of his amputation was there to see.
‘Maximilien, it was no accident, was it?’ If I was within his grasp he might have flung himself at my throat. His whole body began to shake. His eyes became bloodshot instantly.
‘Maximilien, you threw yourself under that train.’ He opened his mouth and his eyes wide. The picture he presented was comical. Perhaps tragicomical.
‘You are a witch, Miss Adler. How did you find out? Not a living soul knows this.’
‘I don’t need to tell anybody.’
‘If you tell her, if you tell anybody, I’ll destroy you. D’you hear?’ I thought the threat was risible, and could not stop myself smiling. This made the man see red.
‘You think this is a hollow threat? I swear that if you do, I’ll come after you, wherever you may be hiding, I’ll swim the channel if I have to, and when I find you, I’ll strangle you with my bare hands.’ I nodded to humour him.
‘Why? Why did you do that? Why did you try to kill yourself?’ He calmed down. He looked at me straight in the
eyes and one tear drop escaped from one of them. Just one.
‘I understood that she could never love me. For years I lied to myself. If only she guessed the magnitude of my love for her, she’d be bound to reciprocate one-tenth of it. I needed no more.
When she married that worthless Damala, the truth dawned upon me. My life had lost its meaning. I didn’t choose to fall in love with her. Cupid aims its arrows wantonly. I had no control. I just knew that I couldn’t go on living without her.’
‘Does she know that you loved her?’ He screamed a heart-rending Non! ‘I told you. She must never know. At the same time a huge wave crashed on the beach and failed to drown this cri de coeur. When he calmed down, he spoke softly, as if he was appealing to a dear friend.
‘Miss Adler, swear to me that you will never tell her.’ I took hold of his hand, looked into his eyes and nodded.
‘I trust you. Don’t betray me. So hear me out. I will tell you about Maurice.’
‘Her son?’ He nodded.
‘That boy has the most wonderful mother in the world. She has done everything a mother can do for her child. As you know, she herself had an unhappy childhood. Her mother never loved her. She openly declared that she only loved her sister Jeanne. Sarah swore that she would be the best mother in the world to that boy. And how does he repay her? He throws in his lot with the anti- Dreyfusards. Sarah may have converted, but he knows that she is proud of her Jewish ancestry. Her devotion to the Dreyfus cause is total.’ I didn’t see where this was going.
‘She appointed him director of her theatre when he was only eighteen. He made a hash of things. She was always there to bale him out. And what does he do? He breaks with her. Mind you he has the gall to send word to her that he is destitute. Whatever she sends him, he gambles away.
The Adventures of Irene Adler : The Irene Adler Trilogy Page 5