“Four Cassins whose first name begins with H. I’ll start calling around.”
“This morning,” Cox continues without emotion, “I thought for no reason of the title of a song from the Thirties: ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart’. I swear that I had never heard the song, and did not know the words or tune. But I did know that the song was recorded by Ruth Etting in 1931, that the composer’s name was Leo Friedman and that the lyrics were by someone called Beth Slater Whitson.”
“This isn’t really getting us anywhere,” sighs Luyckx, rubbing his eyes behind his Ray-Bans.
“Did Virginia Steiner have AIDS?”
“What?”
Cox calmly repeats his question.
“How did you know that? Yes, she tested positive. But that came under professional secrecy, and what’s more it was kept quiet at the personal request of Dr Verdonck.”
“Don’t ask me how I know. Perhaps because Virginia Rappe suffered from syphilis. A logical deduction, I would say.”
“To be frank, Victor, I haven’t seen much evidence of logic since you started interfering in this case.”
“It was your idea.”
Lannoy shuffles in and sits down dejectedly on the corner of Luyckx’s desk.
“Nothing. A Hector, a Hilde, a Herman and a Helga. But no Henri Cassins.”
“I’m not surprised,” says Cox.
“What do you mean?” asks Luyckx.
“Mr Cox, you’re really beginning to bug me,” interrupts Lannoy.
“Let him finish, Luc.”
“I don’t know anyone personally with that name. As I uttered the name unconsciously, it must logically be the name of a fictitious character, a character from a film.”
“Here we go again!” cries Lannoy. “I’m sorry but I’ve wasted enough time here! I’ve had enough!”
He barges out of the room, slamming the door.
“Don’t take any notice of him. The warm weather always makes him funny. Just try and remember the film in which Henri Cassin appears.”
“Have you heard anything yet about Starr?”
“Nothing in particular. The last time anyone saw her was at a reception on a mailboat in Ostend, the day she disappeared, if I remember correctly.”
“So she wasn’t in Sweden?”
“No, Victor. She went to a reception on board the Seastar II in the late afternoon of the fourteenth of October.”
“Just like Faithfull…” sighs Cox.
“Just like who?”
“That’s another story.”
Luyckx gets up and claps him encouragingly on the shoulder.
“The important thing now is to find out who is hiding behind the name of Henri Cassin.”
“Let me sleep on it.”
“Of course. Call me tomorrow. You really need some rest.”
Instead of returning home, Cox goes like a sleepwalker back to his storehouse on the Nationalestraat, as if it is the only place where he can find the answers to the disturbing questions he has been asking himself since the previous night. There, and there alone, surrounded by the divine objects and souvenirs that he had accumulated over the years, he lived in spiritual kinship with the gods and demigods to whom he had devoted his life. On the way he tries to concentrate on the name Cassin. Why had he uttered that name today of all days? What was the cause? The answer is clearly to be found on the steel racks or at the foot of the hollow elephant that watches in silence over his shades and spectres. Henri Cassin… It sounds so French that it is probably a pseudonym chosen deliberately by the author of the letters. Not an innocent choice, but an important tip – a pawn on the chessboard, an element in the riddle – that he is dishing up to Cox.
Cox closes the door behind him and goes and stands in the middle of the room. He looks around to check whether he can see the name Cassin anywhere, on a poster, an object, a magazine cover or a photo. On the top shelf two swollen crows from Hitchcock’s The Birds are perched, ready to swoop down on him lethally and peck out his eyes.
Discouraged, he goes and sits at his desk in the elephant and tries to order his thoughts. Perhaps Cassin is an unknown French actor or director whose name he heard long ago. But even in his World Encyclopaedia of the Cinema the answer is not to be found. What could have prompted him that morning to come out with the name Cassin? Nothing, apart from Virginia Rappe’s dress. Had he been so shocked by the bloodstains that every other detail escaped him?
He decides to get out the box again and inspect the contents once more. In any case the dress must disappear. Luyckx is right when he says that logic is absent from the investigation, and Cox does not have any logical explanation for the stains. Taking the eighty-year-old, bloodstained dress to the dry-cleaners would simply create even more suspicion and distrust, Cox thinks, and if I light the stove and burn the dress, the neighbours will wonder why smoke is rising from my chimney on such a hot day. The only solution is to take the dress home and dissolve it in a bath of sulphuric acid in the cellar. But I haven’t the faintest idea where to buy sulphuric acid.
As he removes, one by one, the cases of the reels of So Dark the Night, beneath which he has stuffed the incriminating evidence, an image suddenly occurs to him. It is the closing scene of that film: a man has just been gunned down by the police in a country hotel and is dying in a pool of blood in the hallway. He looks for the last time through the window and sees himself as a smiling police inspector arriving at the little hotel and looking inside. His face, twisted with pain, is superimposed on his earlier carefree features, blending with them. Gathering his last strength, he clutches an obscure object and hurls it at the window, shattering the image of his double. With his last breath, he mumbles: “Henri Cassin is no more. I’ve caught him and killed him.”
In his notes for a lecture on ‘Deviant Films Noirs’ that he gave at the High Noon Film Club in 1996, he finds all the facts and a synopsis of the film. He reads everything, word by word, taking his time, safely shut off from the outside world in his elephant, afraid of what he will discover.
The film was produced by Ted Richmond for Columbia and premiered on 10th October 1946. Henri Cassin, an inspector with the French Sûreté in Paris, goes on holiday after working for eleven years without a break. He travels to the godforsaken village of St Margot and stays at the Michaud family’s hotel, where the daughter, Nanette, played by Micheline Cheirel, immediately attracts him despite their difference in age. Madame Michaud, played by Ann Codee, encourages this tender relationship despite the fact that her daughter is already engaged to a young farmer from the area, Léon Achard, played by Paul Marion. She hopes that marriage to a police inspector will give her daughter a better standard of living in Paris. Naturally, Léon does not agree to this and threatens Nanette that if she marries Cassin he will pursue her and never leave her alone. Nanette is moved by her boyfriend and decides to stay with him. Cassin is inconsolable.
Soon afterwards, Nanette’s body is discovered in the river. She has been strangled, just like Léon, whose remains are found in his farmyard. Cassin offers to help the local police in their investigation by making casts of the footprints left by the murderer in the mud. The next morning he receives a letter in which the killer announces a new murder. That same day, Madame Michaud is strangled. Cassin returns to Paris to bring his boss, Commissioner Grande, played by Gregory Gaye, up to date. When he provides a description of the murderer that he has deduced from the footprints, the Sûreté find that the suspect strongly resembles Cassin. He begins to have doubts about himself, and writes down a few sentences to compare them with the messages he has received. There can be no doubt: the two letters were written by one and the same person.
Henri Cassin wants to be arrested. According to the forensic surgeon, he is suffering from a form of acute schizophrenia. He escapes from the police station and returns to St Margot, this time to do away with Nanette’s father, played by Eugene Borden. But the police are one step ahead of him and gun him down in the hallway of the hotel.
&nbs
p; Cox closes the folder and stares blankly through the round opening in the elephant’s belly. Is he, without being aware of it, the author of the two messages? If so, then he must have committed the murders too. However, that is so impossible to accept that he decides to say nothing for now to Luyckx, but wait until his dark friend, growing like a fungus inside him, prompts him again with something that will bring him closer to the truth.
35
Shelley Winters
After Luyckx has still not heard from Cox the next day at two o’clock, he calls him himself. But there is no answer. Two hours later he tries again, without success.
“He’s made a run for it,” says Lannoy. “I warned you.”
“Don’t be so naive, Luc. Why would he?”
“Because he murdered his wife.”
“That was four years ago! Why would he have waited so long?”
“I’ll prove it.”
“You’re just jealous because he’s finding the answers to the questions you’ve been asking for years.”
“Nonsense. Your nice professor has been screwing us around and that’s starting to bug me.”
“He was totally knackered yesterday and I know why. I’m sure he’s just at home out for the count.”
“Want a bet?”
Cox is standing outside his door chatting to Mrs Kountché when the Opel Vectra appears round the corner. Luyckx and Lannoy get out, and Mrs Kountché says:
“Those two don’t leave you alone.”
“Well, Victor,” says Luyckx, “what about our agreement?”
“What agreement?”
“You were going to call me.”
“If I found anything.”
“And you’ve found nothing,” says Lannoy with a broad grin.
“Nothing worth bothering you about.”
“Professor Cox has spent another night in the elephant.”
Cox glares at her and says: “May I introduce my neighbour, Mrs Kountché?”
“We already met four years ago,” says Luyckx.
“The day of Shelley’s accident. And Mrs Kountché was talking about an elephant then too,” says Lannoy. “I’ve never forgotten.”
“And I still don’t know where he keeps it. Mr Cox has promised to take me along next week, but he’s been promising me that for years. Isn’t that right, Mr Cox?”
“A promise is a promise,” replies Cox curtly.
“Shall we go in?” asks Lannoy.
While Cox is fetching some drinks, Luyckx and Lannoy ferret around the living room. They are not looking for anything in particular, but you never know. Lannoy notices how Mrs Kountché is keeping an eye on everything from her balcony and draws the curtains.
“Why are you doing that?”
“That neighbour is much too nosey.”
“We don’t have anything to hide.”
“We don’t, no.”
Lannoy finds an envelope with an unfranked stamp on the desk and puts it in his pocket.
“What’s that?” asks Luyckx.
“The cheque for his car insurance, I think.”
“What do you need that for?”
“For the stamp, Fons, the stamp.”
“When did you start collecting stamps?”
“Goodness, it’s dark in here,” says Cox as he comes back into the room.
“Tell me, Cox, what exactly does your neighbour mean with all this talk about an elephant?”
“It’s just an innocent joke between us. She always wants to know everything. And when I don’t feel like telling her where I’ve been, I say that I’m coming from the elephant. It’s been going on for years.”
“Why did she say that you’d spent the night in the elephant, and not on it or with it?”
“Perhaps she thinks it’s a café, for all I know.”
“And what is it really? A big fat girl on the Verversrui?”
“Good God, no!”
“Victor never visits whores,” says Luyckx, “it’s not his style. Right, Victor?”
“It’s just code for ‘none of your business’,” continues Cox, as if he has not heard Luyckx’s remark.
“And how did you settle on that… code word?”
“Perhaps because it sounded African.”
“You think elephant sounds African?”
“Come on, Luc,” interrupts Luyckx again, “that’s enough harping on about the bleeding elephant. Let Victor tell us instead what else he’s found out about Henri Cassin.”
“As I said, nothing special.”
“Mr Cox has been too busy, I imagine,” says Lannoy.
“Where have you been all this time, Cox? And please don’t tell me it was ‘in the elephant’.”
“Are we working together on this or we going back to the way things were before? But anyway, I spent the whole night by myself – yes, by myself – wandering through the empty streets trying to think. Everyone has his own methods.”
“Another irrefutable alibi!”
“Alibi for what? Has Cassin struck again?”
Luyckx cannot understand what has got into Lannoy to make him needle Cox in this way. Luyckx, who feels a growing sympathy for the muddled, helpless professor, is almost sorry for him, and says: “I think we should let Victor get some rest. We know he’s safe at home and that’s the only thing that counts.”
“Sorry, Fons, I’m not yet through,” says Lannoy, settling back into the sofa. “I have my methods, and I’ve been quite busy for the last few days. I admit, Mr Cox, that I only have a supporting role in this film, but as you know, insignificant characters can suddenly turn dangerous. In fact, all I’ve done is apply your system. I’ve had another thorough look at your declaration of the ninth of June 1998, when you came to report the disappearance of your wife. Can you remember what you replied to the question what you had been doing on the night of Saturday the sixth of June?”
“I was at home watching a film.”
“And can you remember which film?”
Cox thinks for a moment, shakes his head, and looks at Luyckx as if imploring for help.
“The Big Knife by Robert Aldrich, on a German channel. It’s there in black and white in the report.”
“It could…”
“No, Mr Cox, no it could not. I’ve been through the schedules of every channel and that particular film was not on anywhere.”
“I probably mixed up two films because of the German.”
“But The Big Knife does mean something to you?”
“Of course! Aldrich was inspired by a play by Clifford Odets and asked James Poe to write the screenplay. The film came out in November 1955.”
“That doesn’t interest me at all. What I want to hear from you is the plot. Listen to this, Fons, you’re going to enjoy it.”
Cox shuts his eyes to reach as clearly as possible into the deepest layers of his memory. He starts to speak like an automaton, barely audible. With a monotonous, soft voice, a little absent, like Wylie Watson, Mr Memory in Hitchcock’s The Thirty-Nine Steps from the year 1935.
“One common feature of films noirs is that the characters are themselves part of the world of film. These pictures allowed the writers and directors to denounce the dark side of Hollywood, while continuing to benefit from the system. The Big Knife is one such film, just like the textbook example of Sunset Boulevard. It is the story of Charlie Castle, a former Broadway actor played by Jack Palance, who refuses to renew his contract with Hoff International Pictures, because the roles they are offering do not interest him. As a result Charlie is seriously depressed. He drinks too much, which threatens his marriage with Marion, played by Ida Lupino. Charlie asks his agent, Nat Danziger, played by Everett Sloane, to inform Stanley Hoff, played by Rod Steiger. Stanley lets Charlie know through his assistant Smiley Coy, played by Wendell Corey, that he does not appreciate his star’s attitude but is willing to offer him more money if he will reconsider. Charlie refuses again, drinks even more than before, and seeks solace in the arms of Connie Bliss, the wife of a
colleague, played by Jean Hagen. His wife is in despair and walks out on him. Stanley reminds Charlie that years ago, when he was drunk behind the wheel, he killed a pedestrian. If Charlie does not renew his contract, he will not hesitate to leak his secret to the press. Charlie has no choice and agrees. All the same, he informs Smiley Coy that he is worried about a young starlet, Dixie Evans, played by Shelley Winters…”
“Stop!” cries Lannoy in triumph. “What did you say? Shelley played the role of Dixie? What do you think, Fons, sounds familiar, right?”
“Carry on, Victor,” says Luyckx calmly.
“She had witnessed the accident. Coy reassures Charlie and tells him that he will take care of the matter. He gets Dixie to drink until she’s no longer able to stand straight, then pushes her under a car…”
“I think we’ve heard enough,” says Lannoy.
“Don’t you want to hear the end?” asks Cox.
“I do,” says Luyckx.
“Charlie finally commits suicide by slitting his wrists.”
“Mr Cox, I think you didn’t watch the film that night. I think you were with your wife on the Nassau Bridge.”
“You must admit, Victor, that this is more than a coincidence,” says Luyckx. “Shelley’s nickname was Dixie and she was blind drunk when she was run over…”
“That just proves that it was not an accident, as I have been insisting for years, and that she too was murdered by Cassin.”
“My question remains why you referred specifically to that film.”
“Because you’re mistaken when you say it wasn’t broadcast that night,” says Cox with a sigh.
“And how come that you never saw the resemblance between a film that you obviously know by heart and the death of your wife?”
“Sometime entire sections of my memory disappear, and then resurface in the tiniest detail without explanation. Sometimes I think that Cassin is reading my thoughts and prompting me to say things.”
“For instance?”
“His name, for instance.”
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