Strangled in Paris: A Victor Legris Mystery (Victor Legris Mysteries)

by Izner, Claude

  ‘I was right. You’ve been fooling around with the tailor’s moggy,’ said Tasha.

  She felt very moved, and twenty minutes later, a second damp ball of fur appeared, this one with stripes. After another quarter of an hour, Kochka made a final effort and the last kitten, a black one, emerged.

  Trembling with emotion, Tasha went to wash her face. When she came back, Kochka was licking her little brood, who had found their way to her teats and were feeding greedily.

  ‘They look as though they’re pressing on the pedal of a sewing machine. They’re going to work you hard!’ Tasha remarked.

  It was as though Kochka had understood this, and was rebelling against such harsh treatment: although still weak, she managed to get up and, seizing the stripy kitten in her mouth, jumped to the ground. She went and stood in front of Victor’s wardrobe.

  ‘Are you sure that’s the home of your dreams? Your daddy isn’t going to be very happy about that,’ Tasha said.

  The cat stayed where she was, unperturbed, while the two other kittens miaowed themselves hoarse.

  ‘All right, I’ll try to talk him round.’

  Leaving Kochka to settle into her new home, Tasha began to search for something to wipe the bed down with. She found an old newspaper that had fallen out of Victor’s coat pocket. She tore out a page, and as she crumpled it up something caught her eye. The word ‘murdered’ was just visible in a fold, which she smoothed out.

  GAÉTAN, THE COUTURIER, MURDERED

  The police have searched his home at 43a, Rue de Courcelles, in the hope of …

  ‘43a, Rue de Courcelles. I’ve heard that address recently. Who said it? André? Euphrosine? Iris?’

  All of a sudden, she remembered: Joseph, that very morning. She’d cornered him just as he was about to go and talk to Victor. The suspicions she had dismissed earlier became certainties. A murder. Perhaps two, if she counted this Loulou that Mimi had mentioned.

  CHAPTER 12

  Thursday 22 February

  Exhausted after his sleepless night, Joseph ran all the way from Châtelet to Rue des Saints-Pères, grumbling as he went. He carried on grumbling when he reached the apartment and encountered his mother, who welcomed him with a lyrical tirade.

  ‘Oh, Monsieur has deigned to come back, has he? Not a moment too soon!’ she barked. ‘Did you sleep tight? I’d be ashamed of myself, if I were you! Like father-in-law, like son-in-law!’

  With an immense effort of self-control, he resisted the urge to bang the door, so as not to wake Iris, and bounded down to the bookshop, eager to avoid Kenji. He opened up the shop without any of his usual care, decided that the dusting would have to wait and rushed down to the little basement stronghold where he stored his private papers.

  He lined up all of his scrapbooks in chronological order starting from 1889, the year of his first investigation, and consulted the one labelled ‘1891’.

  ‘Here it is! I’ve found it! I must be going soft in the head – how could I have forgotten? In November, Victor and I were tied up with other things!’

  He jumped. Somebody was watching him. He spun round, banging his nose on a shelf laden with encyclopedias.

  ‘Is that you, Victor?’

  ‘Yes. What are you up to?’

  ‘You could have warned me! This is going to swell up now. People will take me for a drunkard!’

  ‘Blow your nose and tell me what you’re up to.’

  Joseph felt the blood rise to his cheeks.

  ‘I’ve found the pot of gold. The trial was in 1891, the same year as we carried out the Montmartre Investigation.’

  ‘Which trial?’

  ‘What’s wrong with you? The one that the mad fellow who sells stale bread was talking about. It was an abortion trial, and it caused a big rumpus. All the newspapers, from La Gazette des Tribunaux to Le Père Peinard, wrote pages and pages about it. Some of the crimes went back as far as 1885 or ’86. Most of the women who’d got into trouble and been to see Madame Thomas weren’t rich: servants, seamstresses, workers’ wives, not earning more than one thousand five hundred francs a year. Madame Thomas had her premises in a room she rented from a wine seller in Clichy. She lived with Abélard-Sevrin Floury, a man fifteen years younger than her. He worked as her assistant, and was the one who had to get rid of the “leftovers” after operations. I’ll spare you the detail of all the hearings, which lasted two weeks, and cut to the verdict. It ended with Madame Thomas being sentenced to twelve years’ hard labour. Floury was given ten years. The other forty-five defendants got off. I had a look through their names, and among them I found Louise Fontane, Mireille Lestocart and three Sophies, all working for the same boss: Sophie Dutilleul, Sophie Guillet and … Sophie Clairsange, seamstress.’

  ‘Mimi kept all this to herself.’

  ‘Were the Baron and Gaétan the seducers in the case? Could the girls who were seduced have been taking their revenge?’

  ‘And could one of them have bumped off Louise Fontane?’

  ‘Perhaps she had been trying to blackmail her seducer?’

  ‘Two and a half years later? And what about the mysterious Sophie Clairsange? And the limper? I’m going to have to give Mademoiselle Lestocart a grilling.’

  ‘And what shall I do?’

  ‘As soon as you’ve shut the bookshop this evening, go straight to the Hôtel de l’Arrivée and check that Sophie Clairsange is still there.’

  * * *

  The doorman at the Hôtel de l’Arrivée, who was seven foot tall and three feet wide, said, ‘Good morning, Monsieur,’ somewhere above the crown of Joseph’s bowler hat in the featureless monotone of a mynah bird trained to trot out the same phrase at each turn of the revolving doors.

  Joseph made a beeline for the reception desk.

  ‘Mademoiselle Clairsange is expecting me.’

  ‘She isn’t here, Monsieur. The chambermaid said that her bed had not been slept in.’

  ‘Has she checked out?’

  The man attempted a sympathetic smile.

  ‘Her belongings are still here, and she had paid until the end of next week.’

  ‘So she’s going to come back?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, Monsieur. Guests are free to come and go as they please.’

  The man had been sitting attentively upright, but he now shifted into a more relaxed posture.

  She’s one step ahead of me again! Joseph thought to himself, as he scratched his neck, nonplussed.

  Suddenly, an idea came to him. He asked for an envelope and addressed it ‘For the attention of Madame Sophie Clairsange’, and then went out onto Rue Strasbourg before turning down Boulevard de Magenta and looking around him. He soon spotted a young fop of about fifteen lounging on a bench, cigarette dangling from his suavely sardonic lips as he watched the women go by. Joseph sat down next to him and struck up a conversation. After a few minutes, the artful dodger nodded his head and pocketed a coin and the envelope before sauntering nonchalantly towards Rue des Vinaigriers, with Joseph following at a safe distance.

  Madame Guérin was on watch in the sweet shop. Joseph saw the fop hand her the letter then slip out again. Madame Guérin opened the envelope, which was not addressed to her, and looked in vain for a letter inside. She went quickly to the door and pressed her face up against the glass, and then extinguished the lamp, left the shop and fastened the shutters. Walking hurriedly, she made for the house on the corner of Rue Albouy. A light came on in the entrance hall. After a moment, the light in the first-floor window went out. Joseph saw two figures silhouetted on the blinds of one of the ground-floor windows.

  * * *

  Maurice Laumier left the Bibulus where, as was his habit, he had spent an hour or so propping up the bar with a group of his fellow artists, and made his way back to his home on Rue Girardon. He was surprised not to see a light in the kitchen. He looked in the bedroom and the studio: nobody. Mimi must have gone out for a walk. He lit the fire and settled down to work on the portrait of the writer Georges Ohmet,
which he was due to deliver at the beginning of March.

  Half an hour passed, and then an hour. He began to worry, and went over in his mind all the reasons why Mimi might be late. He couldn’t think of any very convincing ones. It was a quarter past seven in the evening. He became more and more anxious, and went to ask the grocer on Rue Norvins if he had seen her, but he hadn’t. Perhaps she had had an accident. He ran over to the police station. Nothing. Not knowing where to try next, he returned to Rue Girardon, automatically checking the letter box as he went in. There was a sheet of paper inside:

  Goodbye. I’m leaving. You can have your little affairs in peace now. Don’t try to …

  He couldn’t bear to read any more! He threw himself on the bed and sobbed into the pillow – her pillow!

  Somebody was knocking at the door. He jumped up. Mimi!

  Victor Legris stood before him.

  ‘Laumier, what’s happened?’

  ‘Mimi’s left me.’

  ‘Where could she have gone?’

  ‘Well, she can’t have gone to her cousin Loulou, because she’s dead. Except for her … there is a friend of hers who poses for Lautrec.’

  ‘Where does this friend live?’

  ‘10, Rue Saint-Vincent, third floor on the left.’

  ‘I’ll bring Mimi back, don’t you worry. Just try to be a little more understanding and stop the Casanova act.’

  ‘She’s imagining things. Since we’ve lived together I’ve never once—’

  ‘What about my sister, Iris?’

  ‘Oh, that was just a bit of fun.’

  * * *

  Victor made his way through a maze of tortuous alleys overhung with branches growing above fences and walls that were daubed with declarations of love and obscene graffiti. Lines of washing hung above disintegrating stairways and untended gardens. A few housewives wrapped up in coats and scarves, and the odd longhaired, baggy-trousered artist, were to be seen picking their way through the muddy streets. There was a sprinkling of snow on the roofs of the tumbledown houses, some of which had been converted into bars and whose windows threw pale, flickering lights onto the streets. The lantern at number 10, a hotel, looked like the dim light next to a sick bed. Victor climbed to the third floor and knocked. A girl in a dressing gown opened the door and went straight back to stirring a stew in a room hardly bigger than a pantry, furnished with wooden crates.

  ‘Mimi? You’ll find her at Adèle’s, at 4, Rue des Saules.’

  Halfway up the hill whose summit was crowned by the intricate scaffolding around the Sacré-Cœur, Victor found the place once known as the Auberge des Assassins,43 now called À ma Campagne. It was a small building with a tiled roof, and in front there was a terrace with an acacia tree. Victor examined the sign painted directly on the wall, which was the work of the painter André Gill and depicted a rabbit jumping out of a cooking pot, a bottle of wine clutched in its paw. The animal had given the cabaret its nickname of the Lapin à Gill or, as it was jokingly called, the Lapin Agile. Adèle worked as a dancer at the Élysée-Montmartre music hall and was the companion of the chansonnier Jules Jouy.44 She had converted the Lapin Agile into a popular cabaret, where she served excellent food and regaled the customers with old French songs in her harsh, haunting voice.

  Victor entered the bar, which adjoined an enormous room full of polished tables, benches and empty barrels. A large fire was burning in one corner. Some local shopkeepers, a few poets and several bareheaded girls were sitting around playing manille and drinking glasses of grog. Soon, in an atmosphere full of camaraderie, they would be joined by locals from La Chapelle and La Goutte d’Or, and everybody would start singing the choruses of Adèle’s well-loved songs in unison.

  Victor sat down opposite Mimi, who was huddled in a chair next to the fire.

  ‘M’sieu Legris! How did you find me?’

  ‘Laumier told me I’d—’

  ‘Did he ask you to come?’

  ‘No. I’m investigating the murder of your cousin, don’t forget. I’ve got the distinct feeling that you haven’t told me everything. If you want me to solve this case, you’re going to have to help me.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘At the trial of Madame Thomas, in 1891, you—’

  ‘What has that got to do with anything?’

  ‘A name or a tiny detail could prove to be a vital clue in the hunt for Louise’s killer. Please, don’t be shy. You can confide in me and I won’t repeat a word of it to anybody. Did you used to know Richard Gaétan?’

  ‘Yes. What a nasty piece of work. He’d take advantage of the women who worked for him, especially the young, innocent ones, and then they’d be out on their ear! I know from experience. I used to work for him and a friend of Loulou’s nearly died there. And, yes, I visited Madame Thomas too. Are you happy now? She was arrested after one of her patients died, and she denounced us all. I had no choice: the cupboard was bare and there was no way I could bring up a child. And, anyway, unmarried mothers don’t have an easy time of it!’

  ‘Did you work for him at Rue de la Paix?’

  ‘Loulou and I started out as errand girls at Larive, a dressmaker’s near La Madeleine. We delivered the finished creations. We’d spend all our time rushing from one side of Paris to the other, always on foot. We spent our first pay packet on a hat – a silly extravagance, but we’d never had anything pretty of our own. When men saw us in our hats, they’d turn round, and try to talk to us.’

  ‘And that’s when—’

  ‘We were stupid enough to give in to the husband of a customer, a saucy devil with a posh name. Not together, mind! It was his wife who gave us Madame Thomas’s address.’

  ‘What was this promiscuous gentleman’s name?’

  Mimi’s cheeks turned bright red.

  ‘I don’t like to tell you, because the Baronne was good to us. She got us jobs as seamstresses at Le Couturier des Élégantes.’

  ‘Was her name Madame Clotilde de La Gournay, by any chance?’

  ‘Are you clairvoyant or something?’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about all this?’

  ‘It’s nothing to boast about. There were lots of us: poor women, workers, seamstresses, embroiderers, housekeepers. All of them had a hard life, I can tell you! And some of them were richer, had never even worked, but they didn’t have it easy either. And all because they’d wanted their little moment of happiness. And then of course there are the ones who actually have the babies – they suffer too. We paid the price, but it wasn’t all our fault: what about the lovers, and the husbands? They were just as guilty as we were. They got us pregnant and they were usually the ones who told us we should get rid of the result! Yes, I went to Madame Thomas, and I didn’t die. Or at least, only a little bit.’

  Mimi’s cheeks were wet. She realised that she was crying and wiped away her tears furiously.

  Victor tried to say something to comfort her, but was tongue-tied.

  ‘How long did you stay working for Gaétan?’

  ‘I lasted a year and then I found a job cleaning silk hats with lead salts. The girls who worked there didn’t last long. They’d all fall ill and be dismissed. The boss could have avoided killing them if he’d replaced the lead salts with zinc salts, but it would’ve eaten into his profits, so he didn’t. When I realised what I was heading for, I got out of there sharpish and got a job as a model instead. I could earn just as much doing that as I did from sewing. Then I met Maurice, and he asked me to pose for him. He didn’t have a penny, but I did it anyway. And then, eventually, we got together – it’s funny looking back on it now. Oh, it wasn’t exactly a life of luxury, but I wasn’t complaining. He was nice, Maurice. He did his best, even though he did run after women all the time. He’s a man, and men … But I’ve had enough of that now. I want to be respectable.’

  ‘Did you ever know a young woman called Sophie?’

  ‘Loulou had a good friend she’d grown up with. They used to play together when they were girl
s. I think she was called Sophie.’

  ‘Sophie Dutilleul, Clairsange or Guillet?’

  ‘Clairsange, that was it, Sophie Clairsange. I remember her – she was pretty. She used to work for Gaétan too, and she was the one who nearly died there.’

  ‘Why?’ Victor asked.

  ‘It was because of the overtime. Oh, yes, overtime. We’re all exhausted. More than ten hours on the trot, bent over our sewing, without a minute’s rest. We never stop sewing, and we can hardly breathe and our eyes sting because of the gas lamps. It’s winter and the heating doesn’t work properly and all we can think about is getting outside and being free. You can’t imagine how much suffering goes into making rich people’s clothes! Half past seven comes, and at last we’re free! We’ve already got our hats on when they announce: “Mesdames, overtime!” We’ve got a quarter of an hour to bolt down some food, eating it in the workshop, not even in the canteen. They send someone out to buy bread and meat, and then they take it off our salaries. We eat as quickly as we can and then we slave until past midnight. At one o’clock in the morning, how are we supposed to get back to Montmartre, Batignolles, Levallois, or wherever it is we live? There aren’t any more omnibuses, and a cab would be far too expensive, so we walk all the way back in the dark. Once, I asked a policeman to walk me home. He said that respectable women didn’t wander the streets at that time of night.’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question – why did Sophie Clairsange nearly die?’

  ‘Because of the overtime! One evening, a work inspector turned up. Sophie was still underage – she shouldn’t have been there. So what do they do? They lock her in a wardrobe. The inspector was an old dragon, and she had a row with the forewoman, and while they were at it we all slipped out. We forgot about Sophie, locked up in the wardrobe. The forewoman only remembered hours later. She told a pack of lies to the doctor, who said he didn’t think he was going to be able to revive her. The boss called Sophie up to his office and—’

  ‘Richard Gaétan?’

  ‘The very same. We never knew what happened, but I think we can guess.’

  ‘Guess at what?’