The Gloppe patisserie looked like a fairytale castle. She began to panic. She would never even dare to go through the door of a place like that!
She breathed deeply.
I don’t want to be frightened. I must do what I have to do, she told herself.
She hung back for a moment, torn between conflicting emotions. She was embarrassed by her own girlish feelings, but nonetheless it was nice to know that men like Kenji Mori existed, and it was nice to have pretended that he could find her attractive.
‘Are you lost? I’m so sorry – there are far too many people here. It’s race day at Longchamp, and the winners and losers are all out in force.’
He was there, smiling, at ease. She looked at him. He wasn’t playing games. He emanated a calm wisdom, which betrayed none of his inner conflicts.
‘I’m so glad you came,’ he said. ‘Take my arm, dear lady.’
* * *
Joseph stood fretting in front of the Hôtel de Belfort. He paced up and down the pavement and kept looking at his watch, as though he suspected that he was being stood up by his sweetheart. He wished that he had eaten more at the Duval café, and he urgently needed to urinate. He would have given anything for a public toilet just there in front of the hotel. At this rate, he was going to die of hunger and cold and, what was worse, wet his trousers. He persevered. Twice, he saw a man with a slight limp go up to the reception and talk to the man behind the desk. Who was he, this limper? The second time, the limper wrote a note, and he seemed to have asked the receptionist to give it to one of the guests, because he rang a little bell and a page-boy came running.
The limper quickly left the hotel, and Joseph stared into a furniture shop window, whistling. He looked at the stranger out of the corner of his eye, and saw him stop a few yards away and feign a passionate interest in a stationer’s window display. Joseph made a mental note: pleasant face, thick head of hair, sideburns, about forty, a handsome man.
Joseph walked nonchalantly back the way he had come and stopped for a moment to glance inside the hotel. He caught sight of a strikingly beautiful young brunette with tanned skin and full lips, standing, hesitating, in the middle of the foyer. She unfolded a piece of paper that she had been clutching in her left hand, read it and quickly looked up. Her expression was fixed, as though she had seen something that frightened her.
Intrigued, Joseph continued his pacing. Was this Sophie Clairsange?
* * *
Sophie Clairsange called to a page-boy standing near the lift.
‘Who left this message?’ she asked him.
‘A man.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘I don’t really know, Madame, it was Monsieur Delort who took it, and Monsieur Delort has gone home.’
‘Where can I contact him?’
‘Monsieur Delort? Oh, he lives out at Argenteuil, Madame.’
Sophie felt her legs giving way beneath her. How did they find me? she thought to herself. She read the note again:
You are in danger. Be careful – you are being watched. If I were you I would move somewhere a good distance away from this hotel. Don’t delay, I beg you. And, above all, do not speak to anybody you don’t know for a little while.
A friend
Who could have written it? Hermance? No, she would have signed her name … ‘A friend’? Which friend? That big fat man sipping a tonic wine in the corner? That skeletal dandy talking poppycock to a little goose who couldn’t stop clucking?
She shut herself in the lift and hurried back to her room on the third floor. Since Loulou’s death, her life had become a nightmare. Who could have left this note? She had been just about to go out, feeling reassured by being in a new place, and now a lead weight had fallen on her and crushed her new-found confidence.
Somebody had wanted to kill her and had got the wrong woman. Who, though?
* * *
Joseph realised that the limper had gone back inside the hotel. He was standing next to the lift, just as the lift door opened and the beautiful young woman emerged, covered up from head to toe and followed by a page-boy weighed down with suitcases. While she was paying her bill, a carriage drew up outside. The page-boy loaded up the suitcases and shouted to the cabby, ‘Hôtel de l’Arrivée!’
The young woman climbed into the carriage.
The limper was leaning over the reception desk. He pushed a few coins under the receptionist’s nose and seemed to be listening carefully to what he was saying. Satisfied with the information, he straightened up, looked around him and then walked calmly towards the revolving doors.
Joseph waited five minutes and then rushed into the foyer waving his watch.
‘This really is beyond the pale! Women are all the same – incapable of telling the time! Please be so good as to tell Mademoiselle Clairsange that Maître Pignot’s secretary requires her presence urgently.’
‘Impossible, I’m afraid,’ said the receptionist, shrugging his shoulders.
‘And why, may I ask?’
‘Because she left a few minutes ago. Her husband has been asking for her too. What a waste of a perfectly good room, to leave as soon as you’ve arrived!’
‘Her husband? Where did she go?’
‘To another hotel – one of our competitors.’
* * *
Fortunately there was a urinal on Rue de Strasbourg: Joseph’s torment was over. Feeling much better, he began to keep watch near one of the hotel doorways. He wasn’t surprised to see the limper take up a post in a recess of the foyer. Was he the husband? No, that was ridiculous – why would he be hiding like this? And, in any case, his note had made Sophie Clairsange decide to leave, but she didn’t seem to know who had sent it. Had the limper told her that a young blond man was following her? If that was the case, then the truth was about to be revealed, because the man was heading straight towards him. Joseph was preparing to defend himself when the other man walked right past him and made his way towards Boulevard de Strasbourg.
The walk warmed Joseph up but didn’t alleviate his hunger, which was made worse by the sight of rows of inviting restaurants. He grumbled as he followed in the wake of the man, who found his way unhesitatingly. Who was he? A betrayed lover? A policeman? A hired killer? Loulou’s murderer?
They turned into Rue des Vinaigriers, where it was much darker, away from the lights of Boulevard de Magenta. Joseph’s heart skipped a beat as he saw a sweet shop.
THE BLUE CHINAMAN
Madame Guérin
He slowed his pace. The limper had gone inside a dilapidated building opposite a bistro. Hanging around was becoming a sport in itself. At least the man had the decency to reappear almost immediately. He had swapped his frock coat for a heavy coat with a long collar. He set off towards Boulevard de Magenta. Surely he wasn’t going all the way back …
* * *
‘Yes, he did, Victor, I’m telling you! The limper rushed off to the Hôtel de l’Arrivée as though his life depended on it, and he sat himself down in a chair, once he’d greased the receptionist’s palm. I bet he’s going to sleep there! I gave up in the end,’ Joseph said, in a low voice.
‘That’s very inconvenient. We might lose him now. You’ll have to go back there first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll think of something to say to Kenji if he asks where you are. Is he there?’
‘He isn’t back yet. And what am I supposed to tell your sister?’
‘Invent something.’
‘You know as well as I do that she won’t believe me.’
‘Well, at least she has the tact to pretend that she does. So is it yes or no?’
‘It’s yes.’
Just as Joseph was putting the receiver down as quietly as he could, Iris’s voice made him jump.
‘Were those antiquarian books worth the trek out to Bourg-la-Reine?’
* * *
Victor stared pensively at the telephone and stroked Kochka, who had jumped onto his lap. The word ‘limper’ troubled him. He pushed the cat off his kne
e. She licked herself angrily while he rummaged in his jacket pocket for his notebook. Ah, there it was. He had been right to note it down: Alfred Gamache had mentioned a ‘tall, mysterious chap with a limp’. Was this the man Joseph had been observing?
‘We’re getting warmer,’ he announced to Kochka, who, thinking that he was about to give her some tasty leftovers, ran ahead of him to the kitchen at top speed.
CHAPTER 8
Monday 19 February
Joseph ruminated as he nibbled on a croissant, trying to make it last as long as possible. Why did people say ‘He who sleeps forgets his hunger’? He had slept extremely well, but the breakfast he had eaten with Iris hadn’t filled him up. Was it because of the cold? And, also, what had Victor been thinking of, sending him to brave this Siberian gale on Rue de Strasbourg? Would Kenji be satisfied by the excuse they had invented, an exhibition of art books in Drouot? It was difficult to read his emotions, if indeed he had any. As for Iris, she had complained of a migraine and gone back to bed.
Growing tired of watching the entrance to the Hôtel de l’Arrivée, where, for the moment, there was nobody to be seen except delivery boys, Joseph indulged in an extended reflection on the subject of popular sayings. Most were idiotic – for example, ‘He who loves well, punishes well.’ Neither his father-in-law nor his brother-in-law would be very impressed with a dressing-down from him, no matter how lovingly it was administered.
He shivered, and wished for a moment that he could swap places with his beloved wife, snuggled under the eiderdown. But she was pregnant, and he certainly didn’t want to suffer that terrible fate. Briefly, he imagined carrying a child inside him, and the ridiculousness of the idea amused him. He moved straight from this vision to one of all the guests of the hotel who were, at this moment, stuffing themselves with food and warming their toes on cast-iron stoves. Was the limper among them? His prolonged presence in the foyer the previous evening seemed to indicate that he didn’t intend to budge until the morning.
While Joseph was preoccupied with these thoughts, a strange character appeared pulling a cart flying the French flag, and came to a halt on the pavement. The man was well past the first bloom of youth, and dressed in an extravagant get-up: dented top hat, threadbare black frock coat, wide blue belt and red shoes. His small eyes and jutting chin made him look a little like a bull terrier. His shoulders were sore from the shafts so he massaged them for a moment before disappearing into the hotel. Joseph followed him and, through the half-open door, clearly heard an angry voice.
‘By heaven! Tell her it’s Bricart, Sylvain Bricart, Uncle Bricart! I lugged her trunk all the way to the Hôtel de Belfort for nothing, and now here I am at the Arrivée, and it’s a good thing she chose a hotel called the Arrival, because this is my terminus! Well, what’s the matter? I’m not dragging Gouffé’s suitcase around with me!34 It’s just full of her things! And now, by God, you can keep the damn thing!’
He came hurtling out of the door again, and began to tug fiercely at the straps securing a tin trunk with copper bands round it. Joseph noticed that on the side of the cart, large orange letters advertised:
STALE BREAD – FRESH TODAY!
‘Do you need a hand?’ he asked.
‘I need at least four hands,’ barked the man. ‘That snotty hotel boy’s a halfwit. I keep telling him that Sophie Clairsange is expecting me, and he says she’s not receiving visitors. Another bumpkin from out in the sticks somewhere!’
They struggled to drag the trunk into the foyer, under the haughty and disapproving gaze of a page-boy in a resplendent uniform.
‘Here it is. Do what you like with it. I wash my hands of the damn thing,’ Sylvain Bricart concluded.
‘I wanted to meet Sophie Clairsange too. She ordered a book from me. The woman is nowhere to be found,’ Joseph improvised, planting himself in front of the cart.
‘Ever since she married a rich American and left California, she hasn’t been the same, it’s true.’
‘She’s married? What’s her married name?’
‘Mat something or other. You don’t pronounce it as it’s spelt – it’s a funny kind of a word. In any case, I deserve a bit more gratitude from her.’
‘Are you close to her?’
Sylvain Bricart spat copiously.
‘Close? Sophie used to sit on my knee when she was still young enough to be sucking her thumb. I was more or less a father to her for years, because her real one had made himself scarce and I wanted to make my sweetheart at the time happy. Then we drifted apart, the little girl and I, but as soon as she got into difficulties I was there quick as a flash to help her. Sorry, but I’ve got to go – a load of bread crusts to collect behind Saint-Jean-Baptiste church. I don’t quite trust the verger. I wouldn’t put it past him to give them all away to the parish poor – what a waste! I’m going to stir my stumps and store them all at Sentier de l’Encheval.’
‘Excuse my prying, but by what miracle is your stale bread fresh today?’
‘It’s just a manner of speaking. Bakers give me their stale bread – brioches, sweet pastries, barley cob loaves, all as hard as rock. Real offensive weapons, if I was so inclined! There’s no way they can sell them. I’ve invented a way, though. I put them back in the oven for a bit, stick them into crates, load them into my cart under a blanket to keep them warm and then I sell them on to the punters as snacks! Adios, amigo!’
With a supreme effort, he lifted up the shafts of the cart.
‘Just one more thing, please! You mentioned difficulties … Did Sophie, er … Clairsange have a brush with the police?’
‘That’s all ancient history now. It was a trial, and a lot of dirty linen got washed in public, some of it more dirty than the rest. Sponges, candles, ergot, a whole lot of things. Now I’ve really got to make tracks. I need to catch the children coming out of school and I haven’t got long…’
As he moved off, he bellowed, ‘That’s my best earner in winter!’
‘Married! Mat something or other, ergot, whatever on earth that might be,’ Joseph murmured. ‘Might as well add yeast and wheat flour, while we’re at it. All his tall tales have ended up driving him dotty. If he’s the Millionaire, I’m the King of Prussia!’
* * *
A flurry of fine hail was bombarding the La Villette roundabout. His fingers numb with cold, Alfred Gamache was trying, with fumbling determination, to peel the hot chestnuts he had just bought from an Arab whose nearby stall wafted enticing smells. His bayonet was leaning against the wall, its point securing a leaflet vaunting the attractions of the new revue at the Folies-Belleville, called V’la l’funi qui grimpe.35 He had promised Pauline that he would go and applaud her as she pranced about in her scanty costume and flesh-coloured tights.
He popped a golden chestnut into his mouth and chewed ecstatically, the flavour bringing back a flood of memories from his childhood, when his mother, a manicurist, would buy him a bag of roasted nuts on cold winter Sundays. He would try to make her eat some, but she always said that she wasn’t hungry, even though she was as skinny as a rake.
A quiet cough interrupted his reverie.
‘Hello – do you remember me? My wife is an artist, she works for the—’
‘Le Passe-partout, I remember. I got hold of a copy: nothing, nix! Something tells me you were lying,’ the customs man said, through a mouthful of chestnuts.
‘I assure you I wasn’t. I’ve been wondering about the man with a limp that you mentioned the other day.’
‘I mentioned a man with a limp, did I? Well, I never. I read somewhere that when the weather gets really cold like this, it can cause all sorts of hallucinations, just like in the tropics. You should see a doctor.’
While Gamache stuffed himself, Victor carefully folded up a banknote and slipped it into a crack in the wall of the rotunda. Alfred Gamache feigned indifference.
‘Who are you?’
‘I work for the tall policeman in the hussar’s jacket who’s always sucking on lozenges to hide the
smell of tobacco.’
‘Good grief, you’re a policeman!’
‘Did you mention the man with the limp to Inspector Lecacheur?’
‘Even presuming that this limping bloke does exist, I’d have had trouble telling your boss about him.’
Victor lit a cigarette and exhaled a cloud of bluish smoke into the customs man’s face.
‘Why?’
‘Because there’s a chronological order to things; first the cause, then the effect. Example: suppose a man is visited by an apparition in human form. There’s no way that man would be able to tell a flic about it if the flic questions the man before the apparition’s even appeared. Who knows, I may well have had a daydream about a man with a bit of a limp, and he may well have asked me if I saw anything on the night of the murder. It’s also possible that I said to him, “Listen here, mate, I wasn’t playing gooseberry” … I may just have dreamt all that after my encounter with your inspector.’
‘And what did this apparition look like?’
‘Brown hair, side-whiskers, no moustache or beard.’
‘And what was he wearing?’
‘You’ve got me there. Something about the apparition told me I should be careful. What if it’s a flic or a journalist trying to catch you out? I thought to myself. So I was on my guard, and didn’t size him up too carefully. It’s funny, the things you find growing on the walls around here,’ he remarked, pocketing Victor’s banknote.
‘I didn’t notice a thing. Must have been a trick of the light.’
‘That must have been it. Do you want a chestnut?’
* * *
A stack of papers fluttered on the desk. Kenji just managed to catch them before they blew away, and he sneezed as the icy blast from the street whipped past him.
‘Close the door!’ he shouted.
Fräulein Becker and her bicycle had just burst into the shop, and were now blocking the exit of two other customers. The impasse would have gone on for ever if Euphrosine had not intervened. With one decisive hand, she pushed the betrousered woman and her steed firmly out of the way, and with the other, she shooed the two bibliophiles out of the door.
Strangled in Paris: A Victor Legris Mystery (Victor Legris Mysteries) Page 14