From his high vantage point, Corentin noticed the entrance to an artificial grotto where a waterfall gushed down the side of a fern-covered ravine. He ran down the path towards it. The interior was dark and damp, and the grotto, with its stalactites, looked just like a real cavern. A purplish light glinted on the edge of a well covered in lichen and creepers. He waited for his eyes to get used to the darkness. There was a noise to his right. For a fraction of a second, he was aware of a shape looming up beside him and he was just in time to fend off a blow that he barely saw coming. Two strong arms wrapped round him and forced him to stagger backwards. He struggled violently, but as soon as he broke free and turned round to face his attacker, a second blow sent him sprawling against the rough wall of the cave. He fell to the ground. Fingers were closing round his throat. He braced himself and sprang up again, ready to confront his opponent.
* * *
The dastardly Zandini would have laughed in the faces of these sinister-looking bruisers with their carefully groomed sideburns, who formed a protective ring round the prostitutes who plied their trade in front of the Hôtel de Bucarest. Zandini would have drawn his knife as ostentatiously as could be, and casually begun to pick his teeth with it. Joseph, on the other hand, was not feeling at all equal to the situation. He kept on repeating the answer to the mystery to himself, as a sort of comforting incantation, hoping fervently that he would stay alive long enough to find Victor and communicate the solution to him. He touched the weapon which was making his pocket bulge and told himself he would at least put up a good fight.
‘C-could you tell me the way to Rue Burnouf?’ he finally managed to stammer to a girl who looked slightly less threatening than the rest.
‘What do you want to go all the way there for, love? There’s everything you could ever want here! Isn’t he a little sweetheart?’
She stroked his cheek. He turned scarlet and turned away, only to find himself surrounded by more of the intimidating creatures, who clung to him and shot vicious, competitive glances at one another.
‘I’ve always wanted to go with a hunchback. Is it true that it brings good luck?’ one of them squawked, sinking her talons into his shoulder.
‘Put a sock in it, Charlina. You’re so fat there’s no room in your bed for anyone else anyway!’ screeched another.
‘Don’t you listen to them,’ a third advised. ‘They’re just a lot of selfish vultures. They drown themselves in perfume and cover their nasty faces in powder, but when you get them home you realise they’re all rotten on the inside!’
‘You take it too far sometimes, Rincette. You drink so much that a man risks his life just giving you a peck on the cheek. She only has to breathe on a punter and he falls backwards onto the bed! Mind you, it saves her having to actually do any work – she’d fall asleep on the job if she did!’
The conversation was taking a worrying turn: as the women got angrier, they tugged violently at Joseph and he began to think he would be torn apart. Before that could happen, a tall man wearing a red scarf stepped into the fray.
‘Shut up, the lot of you. This mummy’s boy isn’t here to listen to your bickering. Go and fight somewhere else. Monsieur is obviously here to try his hand at winning a few francs.’
He saw off the women, who were still angry but quickly obeyed the heavily built man with his shaved head and defiant expression. Joseph felt that he had been delivered from the frying pan only to step into the fire.
‘Here’s what I suggest, my friend. We’ll have a drink together – I’m sure you won’t object to standing me a glass or two – and we’ll play some cards. Just so we’re all above board – something tells me that you’re a bit of a slippery customer – let me introduce myself: Auguste Balandard, rag and bone man, buccaneer of the canals, and occasional chimney sweep, but only in my free time. And you, Monsieur?’
‘Jo— Joseph Pignot, bookseller.’
‘Well, Jojo, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. Cough up the cash and I’ll get us some red.’
Too polite to refuse, Joseph was already fishing out a coin when the sound of a shrill whistle plunged the street into turmoil.
One word was on everyone’s lips: police! It was as though a candle had been snuffed out: within seconds, the street was empty of its motley inhabitants, as everyone tried to get away before the forces of law and order could do their worst. Whether actually guilty of illegal activities, or just frightened by the very idea of authority, they were all united in a common aim: escape.
Joseph was not sorry to be free of his chimney sweep, who jumped over a fence in his eagerness to avoid a run-in with the police. In his relief at being spared the humiliation of being cheated out of his money, Joseph stood brandishing his pistol with the air of a privateer who has single-handedly seen off a band of pirates. A voice behind him said, with heavy irony, ‘Be careful, Monsieur Pignot. Those things are tricky to handle. As long as you’ve remembered to load it, of course!’
Inspector Lecacheur smoothed the frogging on the lapels of his hussar’s jacket pensively. All around, his men were fighting hand to hand with pimps armed with clubs and sticks. Windows smashed, and stools and chairs flew through the air. Policemen hanging on grimly to crooks and prostitutes slipped in piles of rubbish. A dog bared its teeth and an old lady shook her stick above her white hair and shouted, ‘The army! We need the army!’
Inspector Lecacheur’s impassivity commanded respect.
‘So, Monsieur Pignot, what’s all this about? Things must be rather serious for Monsieur Mori to have demanded my immediate assistance. Apparently, you and Monsieur Legris are in mortal danger. Where is Monsieur Legris, by the way?’
Joseph had put the gun back in his pocket and he affected a sudden deafness, casually smoothing down a stray lock of blond hair.
‘Do you have a speech problem, Monsieur Pignot?’
A little girl with periwinkle-blue eyes slipped between two brawling groups and stopped in front of the inspector. Swinging her one-legged doll in one hand, she announced at the top of her voice, ‘I know where the men went.’
* * *
Victor felt as though his heart were about to explode. He bemoaned the loss of his bicycle and had a vision of himself dropping dead of a heart attack. What sort of funeral would they give him? Who would mourn him? Tasha, certainly, Kenji, Joseph, Iris … Who else?
When he got within sight of the grotto, his legs were almost numb but he was still alive. Through the mist which seemed to be floating in front of his eyes, he could make out two figures. One had his foot on the other’s chest and was pinning him to the ground. With a supreme effort, Victor threw himself into the mêlée. His arm flailed in thin air, and he received a swift upper cut right on his jaw. He seized his assailant’s hair and pulled hard. The man staggered and just had time to deliver one more swinging blow before falling backwards and sitting down hard. He stayed there on the ground, lips swollen, one eye half closed and his shirt in tatters.
‘Unmasked at last!’ Victor cried.
Father Boniface picked himself up. His expression changed immediately, but, beneath his angry grimace, Victor saw a flicker of irony.
‘Who would have thought it, Monsieur Legris? Oh, your nose is bleeding. I must have hit you a little too hard.’
He pointed to the figure hunched up on the ground. ‘Don’t worry. He’s just a bit stunned – he’ll get over it. He only got what he deserved. After all, he’s been getting under my feet ever since the beginning. The funny thing is, I don’t even know his name.’
‘Perhaps it’s Lambert – that’s what it says on his cart. So, you’re the shepherd, the future King David?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘“And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it…”’
‘“And smote the Philistine in his forehead…” Congratulations, Monsieur Legris, the Old Testament is obviously familiar territory to you.’
‘My father was extremely strict in the matter of his son’s religious educat
ion.’
‘How long have you suspected me?’
‘Not long at all. I just met a gang of boys throwing stones at pigeons. You’re a true commander of soldiers.’
‘I can’t claim all the credit. I grew up in the countryside.’
Without his surplice, he seemed younger and more debonair.
‘I loved Loulou dearly. She was my protégée. I knew that she and Sophie were playing with fire, but I never imagined…’
Father Boniface’s voice was calm and neutral. He was as impassive as a statue.
‘There’s something about you that isn’t quite right,’ Victor said. ‘Something that doesn’t ring true. I can sense it.’
‘I should have suspected that I couldn’t get the better of you on that count. You’re an expert in human nature, Monsieur Legris, and you’re dying to know what my motive was, aren’t you?’
Father Boniface’s smile was broad, but there was a calculating look in his eyes.
‘Hermance Guérin asked for my advice. She had committed the indiscretion of reading parts of Sophie Clairsange’s diary while the girl was ill, and she was worried. It seemed to me to be nothing more than a girlish joke, a just revenge on those who had wronged her. I couldn’t warn Sophie of the dangers without betraying Hermance’s confidence, and I certainly never foresaw the fatal turn that events were about to take.’
‘You know Madame Guérin! You told me you had no idea who she was!’
‘I needed a little more time so that Thomassin could be caught in the middle of his final somersault! Hermance Guérin is a friend of mine. We got to know one another during the trial, in 1891, and she asked me to come and look after Sophie. I am a doctor, after all. Not a properly qualified one, I admit, but anybody can learn how to apply a poultice. It’s your fault, Monsieur Legris: none of this would have happened if you hadn’t told me about Loulou’s death. You set the whole thing in motion. As I had no idea which of those three scoundrels had committed the cowardly crime, I murdered them all in order to protect Sophie. La Gournay was the only one I made a mess of, but even though he didn’t die straight away he did eventually shuffle off his mortal coil.’
‘And you, a man of God – to have come to this!’
‘We are all God’s creatures, Monsieur Legris. You are an intelligent man but you rely too much on appearances. It’s so easy to pull the wool over most people’s eyes simply by wearing a certain kind of clothes.’
‘You’re not a priest!’
‘Have you any children, Monsieur Legris?’
‘No … that is, not yet.’
‘One day, perhaps you’ll understand that a father’s love may lead him to commit all sorts of crimes. I’m not usually given to quotation, but I am rather fond of Lactantius, “the Cicero of Christianity”, as he is sometimes called. Do you know what he wrote, more than one thousand five hundred years ago? “Some men, though only a small number, began to stake a claim to all that was most necessary to humanity … they placed themselves above all others and set themselves apart by their clothing and their weapons.”’
Father Boniface stood absolutely still, leaning forward slightly. There was something triumphant in his expression.
‘I “set myself apart” in order to survive. War tore me away from my woman and my daughter, and a dark chasm opened up between us. My sole aim during my years of exile was to see them again. I leave morality and the Litany to those who lay down the law in the false name of justice.’
While they had been talking in whispers at the entrance to the grotto, Corentin Jourdan had recovered his senses. He stayed where he was for a few moments, before stretching slowly and, with his back still bent, making his way to the darkest corner of the grotto.
‘Why was the message you left in the Baron’s room signed “Louise”?’
‘You’re certainly meticulous, Monsieur Legris. I followed Sophie’s plan to the letter, and I knew that she intended to ruin these distinguished gentlemen’s collections under the pseudonym of “Angelica”, but I couldn’t guess whom she had intended to visit first, so I signed the name “Louise”, in order to cover my tracks.’
‘And how did you manage to get into the Baron’s house on Rue de Varenne?’
‘That was easy. I told them I was the parish curate’s cousin, and that I had come to give the Baron the last rites. It was he himself who told me where he kept the key to his secret chamber.’
‘I suppose you did the same at Richard Gaétan’s house?’
‘No, I couldn’t get in there – the police were already on the scene.’
‘And what about Thomassin’s house?’
‘That was risky, and it took me a little time. I wedged the servants’ door of his apartment open, and just as I was running away our friend here … Where’s he gone?’
They turned round. The grotto was empty.
‘He can’t be far,’ Father Boniface said.
‘If you’re talking about me, look no further!’
Surrounded by a cohort of police officers, Inspector Lecacheur was eyeing them coldly. Half hidden behind the inspector’s stout frame stood Joseph, his face lit up by a triumphant smile.
‘I cracked it, when you telephoned me, Boss … Victor! Medical student + Velpeau + trepanning = Father Boniface! A nice formula, don’t you think? And Father Boniface is Sophie’s fa—’
Victor silenced him with a menacing glance. The inspector gave them a pitying look.
‘Messieurs, it’s time we all went down to the police station for a little chat,’ he said, popping a handful of lozenges into his mouth as he did so.
Father Boniface, in handcuffs now, climbed into a police van.
After they had gone, a little girl with periwinkle-blue eyes remained standing in front of the cave, rocking a one-legged doll in her arms.
‘There were three men, though…’
CHAPTER 15
Thursday 1 March
‘I need a cognac,’ Victor declared.
‘I think I’ll settle for your favourite tipple. A vermouth cassis, please, with rather more cassis than vermouth,’ Joseph ordered prudently as they sat in the Temps Perdu.
For the third time since they had left the police station, Victor quizzed his brother-in-law about the version of events he had given to Inspector Lecacheur.
‘But I keep telling you, my story tallies perfectly with yours!’ said Joseph. ‘Have some faith in me – I’ve learnt my lesson, and in record time!’
‘Did you mention Loulou?’
‘Yes, but I pretended not to know anything about her. Let’s just hope that Mireille Lestocart and the customs man … that Ganache, don’t let the cat out of the bag.’
‘Gamache, not Ganache. Mimi is terrified of the police, and Alfred Gamache is too afraid of losing his job to tell them anything. As for Martin Lorson, he’s disappeared off the face of the earth. Did you take all the blame then?’
Joseph raised his glass with a melodramatically self-pitying expression.
‘I sacrificed myself. I told Lecacheur that I was so keen to find material for my new novel that I dragged you into this mess despite your objections. I said I noticed a story in the newspaper about the murder of a young woman near the La Villette tollgate, but that, try as we might, we couldn’t find out who the woman was. It was then that I got interested in the Baron de La Gournay, who’d been knocked off his horse in the park … All down to my little habit of collecting newspaper cuttings, of course!’
‘So you told him that you did a little bit of investigating by yourself, into occultism and the Black Unicorn,’ Victor added, sipping his cognac.
‘Exactly. But going to the unfortunate Baron’s funeral didn’t make the story surrounding his death any clearer – far from it! Next, my taste for murders led me to Richard Gaétan. A journalist contact of mine let me know, even before the police were aware of it, that Gaétan had fallen off his perch, or, more likely, that someone had pushed him off.’
‘I assume that you categorically denie
d having visited Gaétan’s place on Rue de Courcelles?’
‘Naturally. However, I did explain that once we had discovered that this Gaétan was completely devoid of any talent and that it was his friend, the Great Absalon, who designed his creations, I suggested that you should go and talk to this famous acrobat at the Winter Circus. There, you witnessed the tragic event when Thomassin took his final tumble.’
‘And I ran after his assassin, this Father Boniface, who led me to Fort Monjol, where I telephoned you for assistance. I think that all fits together – my version seems to tie in with yours.’
‘He didn’t half give me a talking to, Inspector Lecacheur!’
‘Me too, but it was thanks to us that he got his man. We make a good pair of liars, Joseph.’
‘Yes, well, telling the truth can get you into all sorts of trouble – prison, for example. But what if Sylvain Bricart or Hermance Guérin blow our cover?’
‘Bricart is far too clever for that – he won’t want to jeopardise his chances of retiring to the country. As for the widow, she will protect her daughter, and Sophie knows that the best way of doing that is to keep a low profile.’
‘And the limper?’
‘He remains a complete mystery to me. He must be one of Sophie’s former lovers. She certainly beats us hands down when it comes to being mysterious!’
‘And don’t forget Baronne Clotilde, what about her?’
‘I haven’t forgotten her,’ Victor replied. ‘She refused permission for an autopsy to be carried out on her husband. She hasn’t the slightest interest in what actually happened to him. It seems clear that all she wants is to spend the rest of her days with her son and her needles, relying on her husband’s family to settle her debts.’
‘So we’ve tied up all the loose ends! Still, it’s a stroke of luck for Father Boniface that we’ve kept our mouths shut about him!’
‘Yes, but the same goes for us: he hasn’t said a thing about our role in this whole affair.’
‘But we did conceal the fact that he also murdered the Baron de La Gournay!’
‘What would be the use of adding yet another crime to Father Boniface’s record? I understand his motives.’
Strangled in Paris: A Victor Legris Mystery (Victor Legris Mysteries) Page 27