“The stairway’s going!” Jules shouts.
I roll onto my feet. We reach the third-floor landing as the stairway collapses behind us. The bomb ignited the fire and flames are roaring out of control by the time we reach the ground floor and stagger outside, choking and coughing.
“He set a bomb, started a fire, and blew himself up,” Lussac tells the Prefect of Police outside. “Like a good anarchist, he intended to take as many of us with him as he could.”
“It wasn’t him,” I announce.
“You got a good look at him?” the Prefect asks.
“I didn’t have to. As I tried to explain to you before, Perun set the bomb and fire to make us believe he’s dead. It’s all too pat.”
“What proof do you have?”
“I’ve investigated this man on two continents. I know his twisted mind. You have to think like him to understand his actions. He’s playing with you, making a fool out of all of you.”
* * *
FOR WHATEVER REASON, I find my popularity with the police is always in question. I barely get the smoke out of my lungs and my breath back when the Prefect orders two policemen to take me back into custody.
“I am truly sorry you are being treated this way,” Jules says to me, but lifts neither hand nor objection to my arrest. His idea of keeping me safe.
My dress is torn in several places. My face is black from smoke and soot. And I am being arrested. To say the least, I’m livid about the lack of appreciation I’ve gotten for all my efforts.
“There is no justice in this world,” I inform Jules as they take me away.
* * *
A POLICE MATRON takes me to a cell that is barely a notch up from a jail cell that I occupied when I had myself arrested in New York as a “thief” to do an exposé on jail conditions. I am still inspecting the cot for bedbugs and other undesirable things when Jules is let in. He seems excited.
“The police are moving fast. They found the location where Perun mixed his deadly concoction.”
“Where?”
He leans forward and whispers, “This must be kept in strict confidence.”
I whisper back, “Who can I tell? The rats in this dungeon?”
Jules clears his throat. Apparently, I’m a woman who doesn’t know her place.
“The poisonous microbe dust is in a barge on the Seine. Perun planned to release the dust into the river as soon as he had enough. He was on the verge of making the release when he killed himself.”
“They found the body?”
“No, it burned up—”
“The police are making an assumption that he’s a common criminal. They don’t realize the man has something you possess in abundance.”
“What?” Jules asks.
“Imagination. He’s posed as a medical doctor, a scientist, and revolutionary. The world’s greatest scientist believed he was a dedicated biochemist, and he fooled France’s cannon king into believing he was a faithful employee. He’s helped kill an emperor and God only knows how many others. No one really knows what he looks like. Now ask yourself, if you were writing this character in a book, would he kill himself? Or would he leave the impression that he was dead to fool the police?”
“Nellie, I’m not the only one in this room who has an overabundance of imagination. But I’m able to keep a rein on my fantasies. You must understand that the best police and military minds of France are dealing with this problem.”
“The same ones who have me locked up?”
“Nellie, the barge was rented by Dubois. The police have been watching the barge and have observed known anarchists come and go, along with the type of supplies and equipment needed to create large quantities of microbes.”
“Did they also see a sign saying that it’s an anarchist hideout?”
He squeezes my hand. “I don’t blame you for being frustrated. You haven’t been treated as you deserve, but that situation is only temporary.”
“What are the police going to do about the barge?”
“With anarchists involved, we suspect it will also be loaded with explosives. That means it can’t be stormed by ordinary means. We’re trying to devise a way to get aboard quickly, so the anarchists have no time to react. Because of that imagination you claim I have, the police are consulting me.”
“The next thing you’re going to tell me is that you plan to attack the barge with a submarine.”
His mouth hangs open. “A submarine?”
“You know, like Twenty Thousand Leagues—”
He draws back as if I had struck him.
“That’s it! There’s a submarine already in the Seine, the one being exhibited by Zédé for the Exposition.”
“What?”
“We can gain entry underwater. I know exactly how it can be done.” He rushes from the cell.
I shake my head. What have I started?
65
Nellie & Oscar
Early the next morning, Dr. Roth comes to my cell. His face is drawn and I fear the worst for Jules.
“Your friend Oscar has succumbed to the fever. He’s at Pigalle Hospital, clinging to life.”
“Oh, dear God, no.” I’d forgotten all about the Irish poet. The thought of him suffering the horrible symptoms of Black Fever is too much to bear.
“I’ve gotten permission from the Prefect to take you to the hospital. I assured him that you would be on your honor and return here voluntarily after your visit. He agreed after I told him Doctor Pasteur and I would vouch for you.”
“Thank you.”
* * *
ROTH HAS A carriage waiting at the curb for us. As I enter, I gasp.
“Welcome aboard, my dear Nellie.”
“Oscar!”
He laughs with delight as I climb in and take the seat beside him. Once Roth is inside, the carriage gets underway. I give Oscar a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You had me terribly worried.”
He beams with delight. “You didn’t think that I would leave you in the hands of those Huns, did you? We’re taking you to the station for the Le Havre train. I’ve already booked you passage on the boat-train to London. From there, you can book to New York. I shall be your traveling companion, of course. After aiding in your escape, I will be persona non grata in Paris.”
I shake my head in wonderment. “I can’t believe you got me out.”
“Actually, my dear, I am only a common soldier in the endeavor. André is the tactical genius who came up with the plan.” As Oscar speaks, he nods across to Tomas Roth.
“André?”
“Yes! André. My friend I always wanted you to meet.” Oscar rubs his hands together with glee. “Isn’t it wonderful? I always knew André was a superb actor. He played the role of an assistant to Pasteur to get you released. We must get out of French territory before the Prefect discovers our little hoax.”
The man I know as Tomas Roth locks eyes with me.
“André.” The name sticks in my throat. Oscar knows him as André. Pasteur calls him Roth. But add a heavy beard, eyeglasses, and long hair covered by a pulled down box hat and Perun, the man in black, would materialize.
Oscar stares at me as the carriage is coming to a halt. “Why, what’s the matter dear girl, you look pale. Don’t worry, André won’t be arrested, he’s coming with us.”
The door opens. A man with a steel ball for a hand boards. He has a pistol in his other hand.
André grins at us. “I believe you’ve met Monsieur Malliott.”
Oscar stares at me. “Nellie … what—”
“You’re right, Oscar, your friend André is a good actor.” I shake my head. “You must be a great one to have fooled Pasteur.”
André shrugs. “It wasn’t difficult. Pasteur is focused completely on his work—and I complemented his work. I’m a better scientist than anyone at the Institut except Pasteur himself. And I tapped into his one great passion besides science.”
That passion had been obvious from the art in Pasteur’s office. “The
German thing. All that artwork about freeing the territory the Germans took from France.”
André claps. “Very good. Some borrowed credentials from an Alsatian researcher in the captured territory, and the accent I already had as a foreigner speaking French, and Pasteur was more than eager to permit me to work at the institute. But I must give myself credit. Once inside, I impressed him with my skills.” André smiles at Oscar. “You look positively ill. Good Lord, maybe you are coming down with the fever. What do you think, Mademoiselle Bly? Does the situation look terminal to you?”
For once I am speechless and deep down I have to admit—the situation does look terminal.
“Oh, Nellie, the gods have given me almost everything.” Oscar sighs. “I have genius, a distinguished name, high social position. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that being able to detect the deception of a friend is not a talent willed to me from Olympus.”
“It’s all right.” I pat Oscar’s arm. “He fooled a lot of people.” I ask André, “How did you manage to be in the picture as Tomas Roth and as the radical Nurep the café artist Toulouse painted?” I’m talking to keep from panicking. My instinct is to throw myself at the carriage door but the gun in Malliot’s hand dissuades me.
He chuckles. “It’s really quite simple. Pasteur never actually met me in my role as Nurep. I did my work outside the Institut and dealt only face-to-face with a member of his staff. That man fortuitously went off to Egypt and died in an outbreak, leaving a position open for me. He was the only one who actually saw me—and that was with beard and glasses. I took along René because he had never met Nurep. And had Luc Dubois hide behind the disguise I’d created.”
I nod my head as if it’s a fascinating revelation to me when I’d rather scream and jump from the carriage. “The beard and glasses, the hat pulled down over long hair, a disguise all along. I never really saw what you looked like. I just kept focusing on a man with a heavy beard and glasses. Since you’ve known who I am for a long time, why did you keep letting me investigate you?”
“Because you were considerably useful to me. While you’ve been running around antagonizing the police and directing them reluctantly toward a slasher, I’ve been able to put my plan into effect. But, of course now…” he shrugs, “your usefulness has ended.”
I lean slightly toward him. Despite my fear, this is the man who murdered Josephine and took the lives of other women. I really hate him. “You know, you are quite mad. You’re a sick hu—, no I was about to call you a human being, but you are an animal. Worse, you are a wild, crazy, mindless beast from the pit of hell.”
For a moment something most foul and preternatural is exposed in the man’s eyes and he truly scares me, but I don’t move an inch. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of knowing how frightened I am. He takes his hand out of his pocket and a switchblade flicks open.
Oscar grabs me and pulls me back against the seat to protect me. “I might be a man of poor judgment, but I’ll not allow you to hurt a woman, especially this one.”
André dismisses Oscar’s gallant gesture with a wave of his knife. “I’m not going to hurt her … yet. I’ve saved her for another reason.”
He smiles and sits back and I resume breathing, but then he suddenly lunges at me, his face so close I can feel his breath and the sharp, cold metal blade on my neck. “I’m saving you for myself. I want the pleasure of looking into your eyes as I slowly cut you open.”
Both Oscar and I sit frozen.
André leans back as if nothing had transpired, his knife no longer in sight, but I can still feel the cold blade on my throat. He plans to kill me the way he killed Josephine. And all I can do is sit here. And poor Oscar. The man who dazzled gunslingers and rough-and-ready miners in the dust of Leadville, stares at me with his mouth open and empty of brilliant words.
“It’s okay.” Once again, I pat his arm.
Tears well in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Nellie.” He glares at André. “Playing the role of my friend, you did more than trick me. You murdered two people I loved. Luc and Jean-Jacque were angels and you took their lives.”
André raises his eyebrows and shakes his head. “They were fools. Like you, they were café radicals, men who talk revolution but are unwilling to back up their ideals with actions. Jean-Jacque made the mistake of getting too curious about my activities—he spied on me. I ordered Luc to kill him and Luc failed me. Ultimately, I had to take care of both problems.”
I realize that being part of Oscar’s social circles was a perfect choice for André, Roth, Perun, whatever he calls himself. Not only did the group have the same sexual and political orientation as he, but because their personal activities are wrong in the eyes of the law, they tend to congregate and socialize more in secret than other groups of friends. And dear Oscar—I can see the rage building inside him, turning his face as mauve as his shirt. He’s a big man with a gentle soul, but I have no doubt that if Malliot didn’t have a gun on us, Oscar would have gone for André’s throat. I decide to address André, to divert any rash and futile act of bravery on Oscar’s part.
“What do we call you—André, Roth, or Perun?”
He just looks at me smug. I believe he doesn’t care what we call him. He’s in control and that’s all he cares about. I also don’t know how the count’s henchman got involved with the anarchists, but there are only two possible answers—money, or Malliot’s an anarchist himself.
“How could you work with the count when he’s precisely the sort of rich industrialist your anarchist movement hates?”
“I didn’t work with him. I used him—to fund my research, to pay Pasteur’s Institut to permit me access to their work.”
“With your friend here,” I nod at Malliot, “paving the way. You know, that the police are onto you. If you stop at this point—”
He howls with laughter and Malliot joins him. Ugly laughs. He’s pure evil. “You forget, I’m helping them plan my capture. There’s a barge on the river that houses my laboratory. They’re going to have a delightful surprise when they attack it. But, don’t worry … at least they’ll die faster than you two.”
Still using words to beat down my panic, I take a deep breath to control myself and direct my verbal attack at Malliot. “You have no regret, do you, that you took the salary your employer provided and betrayed him?”
“I’m afraid the count is not a long-term employment prospect,” Perun says. “He’ll die with everyone else in the city very soon. But your friend Verne will go even sooner.”
“Verne? You’ve set a trap for him?”
“Of course. One that Verne himself will trigger.”
I raise my eyebrows to Malliot. “Your friend has a habit of disposing of his help once he’s through with them—as he did with Dubois.” I continue looking at Malliot, but direct my remark to Perun. “What about it, Monsieur, do you plan to do away with Monsieur Malliot when you no longer need him?”
“But of course. There will be no one named Malliot in existence when we finish.”
They both get a good laugh at his remark.
Perun sneers at me with contempt. “Malliot and I have sworn to bring about a revolution at any cost. Unlike others, we’re willing to give our lives.”
“A thing is not necessarily true because a man is willing to die for it,” Oscar says.
Perun’s face darkens. “You’re like the boyars who bleed the people of Russia. The sweat of others earns the bread you stuff in your ugly face. When I kill you, I’m going to do it carefully and precisely, twisting the knife in your gut, your groin, on the bottom of your feet, plucking out your eyes, then carving a hole from ear-to-ear.”
66
Jules
“Reduce speed three quarters,” Captain Zédé tells his engineer. “We are coming up to the barge.”
Nellie’s chance remark about using a submarine sent Jules racing off to the Prefect and Inspector Morant. Accompanied by officers of the law, Jules went to the submarine moored at a quay along the Seine near
the entrance to the exposition and had the police commandeer the Sangsue. Designed to make underwater repairs to ships, the front of the submersible creates a watertight attachment to the hull at a point where repair is needed. Once attached, workers inside the front of the sub have access to the area of the hull needing repair.
Zédé’s engineer-captain explains the Sangsue is equipped with a circular saw capable of cutting a hole big enough for a man to crawl through.
“I know the barge you speak of. It’s wood, rotted, and barely keeps afloat. Once we are attached to its side, this circular saw can create the hole in seconds. Your men can be inside before anyone on the barge realizes what’s happened. And poof! You kill everyone on board.” The captain has a savage glint in his eye as he speaks.
“The attack will be orchestrated from both land and underwater. When the hole is cut, we will raise the periscope to signal we’re entering. At that point the attack from the street will begin as our men attack from inside. If anything goes wrong, we will lower the periscope to warn the gendarmes to stay clear.”
Concern is voiced by the Prefect that the barge might be so damaged in the attack that it sinks, sending deadly microbes into the river water. But it is a risk that must be taken. There are no other options.
* * *
WITH JULES, MORANT, three officers, and a three-man crew crowded into the submarine, it’s hot, cramped, and claustrophobic in the Sangsue. And dark. Only two lights for the whole length of the craft and neither has more power than that of a single candle.
The air is warm and stuffy and tastes stale to Jules. An officer coughs and Jules puts a handkerchief over his nose and mouth—the man might have the fever.
“Men, steady your self,” the captain yells, “we are about to hit the barge and there will be a jolt.”
There’s a small thump as the craft attaches and the forward bulkhead door is opened. Craning his neck Jules can see the captain with a bull’s-eye lantern, crawling into the nose of the submarine. In next to no time sounds of a saw ripping into wood erupts. Smoke from the saw and sawdust fill the submarine and soon there’s general coughing.
The Alchemy of Murder Page 35