Around a corner to the north of the square he came upon the faded blue sign he was looking for: rue St Rustique. The oldest street in the village and quite probably the narrowest. The three- and four-storey houses had known better days. Shabby grey façades retained interesting architectural features: elegantly moulded architraves graced doorways, Second Empire wrought-iron grilles added dignity to windows whose shutters stood wide open on to the street. Bourgeois net curtains gave seclusion and an air of mystery to the interiors.
Joe located number 78. The patch of pavement in front of the house and the cobbled road as far as the central gutter were freshly cleaned. Abroom was propped against the wall to the right of the open door, two large pots of daisies stood to attention and an eye-watering waft of eau de javel leapt from the interior and repelled him. Joe read the sign painted in art nouveau letters above the door’s architrave: Concierge.
He froze. There she was, filling the doorway, barring his entrance. Redoubtable. Cerberus? The Cyclops? He reckoned he had about as much chance of getting past her and into the building as he would have had facing up to one of those monstrous guardians. She stood, four-square, bulldog face peering at him over gold half-moon spectacles. She was holding a pile of letters to the light and shuffling through them. Sorting out the residents’ afternoon post, he guessed, and she was not counting on being disturbed. She was dressed like a badly done-up parcel; her clothes were all in shades of brown, shapeless and hanging in layers to her mid-calf. Here the tale of sartorial disaster was taken up by a pair of drooping socks and bulging slippers.
Joe did not often find himself at a loss for words and was angry with himself for hesitating to address her. He regretted now the bunch of roses in his hand. What a twerp he must look.
‘Yes? Who are you?’ Her voice would not have disgraced a sergeant major.
The challenge provoked a military response. He stood at ease in front of her with what he hoped was an air of languid confidence and managed a tight smile. ‘An English gentleman to see Mademoiselle Raissac. I understand she lives here.’ He began to reach into his pocket for his warrant card.
She stopped him with a gesture. ‘She’s not seeing callers today. She’s not well. Come back tomorrow.’ The concierge turned and, as an afterthought, seized her broom as though she thought he might run off with it. She made to go back inside.
‘Police! Wait!’
That claimed her attention. She came towards him. ‘Shh! Keep your voice down! This is a respectable street,’ she hissed at him. ‘Police? Again? She’s given a statement. Can’t you leave her alone?’
‘I will see her here, discreetly, in her own room, for half an hour or I will haul her off to the Quai des Orfèvres for a rather lengthier interview. I’m quite certain neither you nor the young lady would relish the appearance of a panier à salade outside your front door, madame.’ Joe was not at all certain that one of these sinister motorized cells would be deployed at his request for the conveyance of one suspect but the old dragon appeared impressed by the threat.
‘You’d better come in then. . sir. And you can show me your proof of identity.’ Her voice would never be capable of expressing deference but at least it was now verging on the polite. ‘You can wait in my parlour while I go up and see if she’s prepared to see you. Through here.’
She took him to her two-roomed loge on the ground floor off the hallway and offered him a hard-backed chair. The small room which served as both kitchen and living room was sparsely furnished but neat and well polished. A few ornaments twinkled on the mantelpiece above an open fire on which a blackened pot had been left to simmer. Monsieur’s supper no doubt.
She wiped her hands on her pinny and reached for the warrant card he held out to her. Every aspect of it came under her searching eye and finally: ‘Well, it’s good that the flics are taking a serious interest in this tragedy. Bit unusual, isn’t it? Not something we’re used to round here — courtesy visits from the Law with roses in its hand. Have a glass of water while you’re waiting, young man. You look overheated,’ she said, surprising him, and poured a glass from the tap. ‘Don’t pull that face! No need to be fussy! Paris water is good water.’
Joe drank gratefully, puzzled but relieved by her change of attitude. On a whim, he reached into his pocket and took out the bag of coffee beans. ‘For you, madame. I hope you can drink coffee?’
The tight lips twitched slightly and she took the bag from him, squinting at the label. ‘From La Bordelaise! I can certainly drink that! Thank you very much.’ She set it down on a dresser beside the polished copper funnel of a coffee-grinder and went to summon her lodger. In the doorway, she turned and spoke to him over her shoulder in her clipped, machine-gun phrases. ‘Francine is a good girl. Never been in trouble with the law. She works every hour God sends. As good as a daughter to me. And she’s still reeling from the shock. You’re to treat her with respect.’
Joe’s saluting arm twitched in automatic response to the tone.
As her slippered feet thudded up the staircase, he eyed the coffee. A sop to Cerberus? It still seemed to work.
A sleepy face peered round the door at him, focused blearily on his card and, after a delay calculatedly long enough to register her protest, she opened the door with a grudging: ‘You’d better come in, I suppose.’
Her room was untidy and, Joe thought at first glimpse, perfectly charming though he would not have relished the task of carrying out a detailed search of the premises. The afternoon sun streamed in through the window illuminating, on the opposite wall, an open armoire densely packed with dresses of all colours and fabrics. They spilled out to hang in bunches on hangers along the picture rail. A treadle sewing machine with a piece of work still clamped across the needle plate stood under the window to catch the light. Against one wall of the single-roomed apartment was a bed, made up and covered with a gold brocade eiderdown. A low table held a row of unwashed coffee cups and one or two baker’s shop wrappers covered in crumbs and patched with grease.
Once he was inside, she rounded on him. ‘Two interviews in as many hours? What’s going on? I’m a witness not a suspect! Couldn’t you leave me alone to get over it? And why are they sending me the handsome inspectors? Is this a new tactic? Are there any more of you lurking round the corner? I’m not in the chorus line, you know! Though you seem to think so — are those for me?’ She seized the roses and went to put them in a jam jar that she filled with water from the wash basin in a corner of the room. ‘Doesn’t it cross your mind that you might be ruining my good name? Arriving here with flowers? Wish I’d got dressed. .’
Francine Raissac was wearing a creased white silk dressing gown embroidered — and rather richly embroidered — with black and red dragons. Her eyes were puffy and last night’s mascara smudgily outlined her dark eyes, giving her the comical air of a cross panda. Joe said as much and she looked at him first in astonishment, then with a flash of amusement. He rushed on while he had this slight advantage. ‘Handsome inspectors, did you say? I thought I was the only stunner they could field. .?’
‘The previous one was better,’ she said, looking closely at him, giving the question her serious attention. Her response told him the light approach was probably the effective one. ‘You’re very nearly handsome. But you’re older and you don’t have a Ronald Coleman moustache.’
‘Ah! I think I recognize my colleague, Inspector Bonnefoye?’ said Joe, trying to keep a tetchy note out of his voice.
‘Jean-Philippe.’ She managed a tease and a confirmation in one word. ‘You mean you didn’t know he was coming here?’ she asked. ‘Doesn’t the right hand know what the left’s getting up to at the Sûreté? Or aren’t you speaking the same language?’
‘We have different roles,’ Joe said, recovering from his surprise. ‘My questions will not be the same as his. He has other fish to fry.’
‘Ah, yes, of course. I understand that.’
‘I am, as you’ve noticed, English. I’m representing the interests of
the gentleman who was taken in as a suspect.’
‘Not the interests of the murdered Englishman, then?’ she asked sharply.
‘His interests also,’ Joe hurried to add. ‘Indeed, I am shortly to meet his widow and conduct her to an identification of the body. An inconvenience to the French authorities and an embarrassment to us that what may prove to be a quarrel between two of my countrymen should be played out on French soil. I am doing what I can to assist the Police Judiciaire and working under the auspices of the British Embassy, of course. Interpol also, of which — ’
‘All right. . all right! You’re a big shot! Got it! Will Your Eminence deign to take a seat?’ She heaved an armful of fabrics off a sofa and Joe lowered himself on to it. ‘Oh. . carry on then! I’m listening. I suppose I should be grateful they’ve not sent old sourpuss. . the Chief Inspector. . um. .’
‘Fourier?’
‘That’s the one!’ She rolled her eyes. ‘He interviewed me at the theatre. Looks and talks as though he’s sucking an acid drop.’
‘You take, I detect,’ he said with a grin, pulling a straight pin from under him, ‘more than an amateur interest in couture?’
‘I’m sure you’re not here to count my dresses and check their provenance.’ She sounded slightly on her guard. ‘I’ll tell you straight, Mr Detective, that every last frock you can see has been acquired legally. Working in a theatre, they’re easy to pick up, if you know the right people. Did you know there’s a whole workshop underneath in the basement, sewing away day and night? I go down there sometimes and chat to the girls. They’re always pleased enough to hear news from the world above! The show clothes aren’t much use to me, of course — all ostrich feathers, tulle and lamé — but the girls pass on the occasional remnant that I can use.
‘The stars are my best source. Now — Josephine! She’s incredibly generous and if you know just when to show your face — as I do — she’ll shower you with stuff she doesn’t want or gowns she’s only worn once. We’re much the same size and sometimes she asks me to model a gown for her to help her make up her mind.’
So that accounted for the head-hugging hairdo with the over-sized curl slicked on to her forehead. Francine had a dark complexion for a Frenchwoman, Josephine had a light skin for a black American. The two girls met somewhere in the middle. But the conscious attempt to mirror the looks of the star was more than just flattery. Josephine must have found it useful to see herself from a distance in this bright young woman. And the thought came to him: ‘Probably enjoys her company, too.’
‘You get on well with the star?’
‘Yes, I like her. We French do like and admire her. It’s the Americans — her own countrymen — and the English who give her a rough time. Her dancing is too scandalous for some and she’s black. There are those — and some are influential people — who’d like to see her closed down and put on the next liner home. Not the French. We don’t care at all about her colour. And her morals. .’ Francine shrugged. ‘Well, that’s up to her, isn’t it? She’s entertaining and stylish and we love her for it.’
‘I expect she suffers professional jealousy — one so successful at such a young age? What’s the name of the Queen of Paris Music Hall? She must be feeling a bit miffed!’
‘Mistinguett? Yes, she’s a rival but she’s big-hearted, you know. Reaching the end of her career. . she must be in her fifties, though she still has the best legs in Paris. She can afford to rise above it. But there are two younger stars, French, both, at the Casino de Paris and the Moulin Rouge, who hate Josephine’s guts. She’s rather stolen their thunder. Either one might have hoped to inherit Mistinguett’s ostrich feather crown as meneuse de revue. And one of them has a very wealthy protector. A banker. You’d know his name. He sends his Rolls Royce to the stage door for his little mouse every night.’
‘Does Josephine mind? All this antipathy?’
‘Too busy enjoying herself. I’d say she doesn’t give a damn! In fact,’ she added dubiously, a sly, slanting question in her eyes, ‘those close to her think she doesn’t care enough. For public opinion or her own safety.’
Joe seized on the word: ‘Safety?’ he murmured.
‘Everyone thought when she had her accident last year — ’
‘Accident?’
‘Not actually. It could have been nasty. . In one of her acts, she’s lowered in a flowery globe down over the orchestra pit. A breathtaking bit of theatre! Luckily she’d decided to rehearse in the damn contraption before the actual performance.’ Francine shuddered. ‘She was on her way down from the roof in this thing when one of the cables jammed. That’s what they said. A mechanic was sacked afterwards and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. The globe suddenly tilted over and swung wide open. She ought to have been thrown out into the pit. But she’s a strong girl with fast reactions. She jumped for one of the metal struts and hung on like a trapeze artist until someone could get up into the roof and haul her up again.’
‘Good Lord! What would have happened if she’d fallen?’
‘She’d have been dead. Or so badly injured she’d never have walked again.’
‘Dangerous place, the theatre.’
And a breeding ground for all kinds of overheated nonsense, he reckoned. Scandal, exaggeration, petty jealousies. He was allowing his own tolerance of gossip to put him off track and guided Francine Raissac back on to the subject he wanted to pursue. ‘These clothes the generous Miss Baker gives you — where do they come from?’
‘Gifts. They arrive at the theatre in boxes for her to try. If she doesn’t like something, she’ll tell me to take it away. I found her knee deep in Paul Poiret samples the other day. Wonderful things! She’d just had an almighty quarrel with him and was throwing the whole lot away. Before she’d even tried them on!’ The girl was filling the space between them with irrelevant chatter, taking her time to get his measure, he guessed. And, unconsciously, going in exactly the direction he’d planned to lead her.
‘Does she have a preferred designer?’
‘Hard to say. I doubt if she can tell one style from another. She hates turning up for fittings so they take a chance on what she’ll like and send her lots of their designs, hoping she’ll be seen about town wearing them. . I think Madame Vionnet suits her best and Schiaparelli. . her bias cut is very flattering. . Lanvin. . of course. .’
‘And your outlet for these dazzling couture items?’ he asked. ‘I’m assuming you don’t acquire them simply to decorate your room.’
‘I send them on to my mother. She has a little business in Lyon. We started it together when my father died. Location de costumes — but not your usual rag and bone enterprise. We’re building up a well-heeled client list — plenty of money about down there. Industry’s booming and it’s a very long way from Paris. Everyone wants a Paris model for her soirée!’ She indicated her sewing machine. ‘I can undertake adjustments here at source if I have a client’s measurements. Then the lady’s box is delivered and she tells her friends it’s straight from Paris — just a little confection she’s had specially run up for the Mayor’s Ball or whatever the event. . And the label — should her friend happen to catch a glimpse of it — has a good deal to say about the success of her husband’s enterprise. And her taste, of course. We rent out things by the day, the week. A surprising number we sell.’
‘I’m talking to someone with a keen eye for fashion then? Someone acquainted with the work of the top designers of Paris?’ he said, raising an admiring eyebrow.
‘I’m sure you didn’t come here to talk fashion,’ she said doubtfully, ‘but — yes — you could say that. I could have been a mannequin if I’d been three inches taller. If I’d been five inches taller I could have been a dancer. But I’m not really interested in “could have been”. I’m a going-to-be,’ she said with emphasis. ‘Successful. Rich. I haven’t found my niche quite yet. But I will.’ And, angrily: ‘It won’t, of course, be in the professions or politics or any of the areas men reserve for themselves. We can’t
vote. . we can’t even buy contraceptives,’ she added, deliberately to embarrass him.
‘But some girls have the knack of attracting money and don’t hesitate to flaunt it. . Does it annoy you — in the course of your work — to be seen in rusty black uniform dresses when the clientele are peacocking about in haute couture?’
‘No. Why would it? The black makes me faceless, invisible. The work is badly paid — no more than a starvation wage — but the tips are good. Men are so used to being greeted by old harridans with scarlet claws whining for their petit bénéfice, they are rather more generous to me than they ought to be. Sometimes, I flirt with the older ones,’ she said with a challenge in her look. ‘And, before you ask — no, I don’t take it any further. But they toy with the illusion that it might develop into an extra item on the programme and tip accordingly. No man wants to be perceived as a tight-wad.’
‘A five franc tip?’ he reminded her.
The eyes rolled again. ‘I pitied that girl!’
‘Ah yes. Now tell me. . the dress she was wearing. .’
She put her hand over her mouth and stared at him over it. ‘Ah! So you really did come here to talk fashion! Well, I talked myself into that, didn’t I?’
‘You did rather,’ he agreed. ‘So, come on! Expert that you are — I think we’ve established that much — tell me all. You divulged almost nothing to the Chief Inspector. What was it now. .? Under twenty-five and fair? Oh, yes? Bit sketchy, I thought. Huh! Your poor old ten franc tip with his rheumy old eyes gave a fuller description of the disappearing blonde from thirty yards away! A seam by seam account of her gown! And he wouldn’t know his Poiret from his Poincaré. . I want to know everything about her appearance and — perhaps more importantly — why you chose to pull the wool over Inspector Acid Drop’s eyes.’
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