The Montmartre Investigation

by Claude Izner

  He went behind the prison and passed the old quarters of the archers who, in former times, had been housed in identical dwellings. Lost, he found his way into a cemetery, where a watchman pointed him in the right direction. He retraced his steps and finally made it to the Pariset Wing, where Charcot ran his clinic and Londe his photographic laboratory.

  Victor spotted a house doctor examining a set of negatives and approached him. They exchanged opinions about the use of photography in medicine.

  ‘Do you know where I can find Albert Londe?’

  ‘He’s not here today. Are you a doctor?’

  ‘I’m a specialist. And Aubertot…do you know him?’

  ‘Dr Aubertot?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘He runs a course in the lecture hall on Wednesdays, on other days, not Saturday or Sunday, he’s at his clinic in Rue Monge. I’m not sure what number…68? 168?…There’s a brass plate.’

  ‘I’ll find it, thank you.’

  ‘If it would interest you, I can show you part of the hospital.’

  ‘Very kind.’

  Following the doctor, Victor realised that Joseph’s intuition had been sound; Aubertot was on the medical staff. Pleased to have solved one part of the puzzle even if he did not understand its significance in the Molina–Fourchon affair, he paid little attention to his guide’s explanations.

  ‘Those women wandering about took part in a hypnosis session this morning – hypnosis is Charcot’s favoured treatment. Here’s the ward for lunatics who’re calm, mostly cases of senile dementia, with reversion to childhood. The management provides them with more than the bare necessities; their lives are made agreeable. Singing teachers come several times a month to give them lessons to break up the monotony, and they have parties and dances.’

  The doctor crossed a room where forty beds were lined up on either side of a central aisle with a wood stove that took up a great deal of space. Now and then, without interrupting his discourse, he would lean over one of the beds, separated not by curtains but by narrow gaps. Some women were knitting, others were chattering, intrigued by the man in the frock coat who threw them embarrassed glances. Too often for his liking, Victor was forced to stop behind the doctor and look down at some dying wretch, eyes unseeing, reduced to little more than a digestive passage.

  ‘I hope the smell doesn’t bother you? We do air the room regularly but it’s hard to get rid of…Now we’ve come to the ward for the more excitable cases – the megalomaniacs, people suffering from hallucinations, idiots of all ages.’

  Victor was about to make an excuse, but the doctor was already charging through the ward and plunging into the next one.

  ‘Here we have the agitated patients, who struggle and can be violent, in which case the doctors have to resort to restraints: straitjackets – thick linen jackets with very long sleeves that they knot round the patients’ back, to restrain their arms. Would you like to see? Just this morning we were obliged to put one on a patient.’

  Victor was appalled and succeeded in escaping on the pretext of an urgent meeting.

  ‘That will teach me to pretend to be a doctor. If there’s one profession I’m really not cut out for, it’s medicine,’ he said to himself as he fled along the corridors.

  Lost again, he passed through a series of arches and ended up on Rue des Cuisines. Through the half-open gates he could see the enormous red copper cauldrons and saucepans evoking a giants’ banquet. He hurried over to a gate opening on to the Pinel Wing and realised with horror that he was back where he had started: in front of him were the lodgings of the lunatics. He set off again in the other direction and reached the courtyard where he had seen the old ladies sitting limply on benches. Exhausted, he went to sit down. A wrinkled old woman turned towards him.

  ‘Pretty, isn’t it, our Manon well? I remember the well of Three Windmills farm. I had my first kiss there, sitting on the little wall of the well.’

  ‘Madame Bastine, come and have your tisane – it’s getting cold!’ shouted one of the nurses.

  ‘Coming, coming,’ sighed the old lady.

  Victor fished the crumpled note out of his pocket.

  ‘Aubertot, rite cour manon…’ he muttered. ‘I’m here in the Cour Manon! Why on earth is it called that?…Think for heaven’s sake, you’re nearly there…Manon…Manon…Manon Lescaut! Yes! It must relate to the novel by Abbé Prévost…Of course! This is where Manon rests before her deportation to America…Abbé Prévost…A. Prévost.

  He stood up, trembling with excitement.

  ‘Manon Lescaut, Abbé Prévost. Why?’

  He walked aimlessly, trying to order his thoughts. He did not much like the characters in Abbé Prévost’s novel and did not understand the indulgence of readers and men of letters towards the Chevalier des Grieux, who became a swindler and murderer through the love of a woman who sold her body to old men. Manon and the Chevalier did not hesitate to cheat, to fleece people, to lie, while still respecting God, the King, the aristocracy and especially large fortunes. Was Noémi Gerfleur’s personality similar to Manon’s? Had her murderer been meting out ‘justice’? Through jealousy? Greed? Or for vengeance?

  ‘Flush out the motive, you will have part of the solution…So they say…So they say…’

  His throat tightened. The text was clear:

  My love reigns at the Hospital, most infamous of all creatures…

  ‘It’s a quotation from Manon Lescaut! I’m sure of it! The Hospital! Cour Manon, Doctor Aubertot. That makes no sense…Is Dr Aubertot a murderer?…Acid. The bandage round La Gerfleur’s neck. No, that’s ridiculous!…What is this “rite”? The location of the lecture hall where Aubertot teaches?’

  He wrote in his notebook: 68 or 168 Rue Monge.

  ‘I’ll have to wait until Monday to go and see him…Until then I absolutely must compare what I’ve discovered with whatever Joseph gleaned at the pawnshop. How provoking that I had to sign the lease on the hairdresser’s yesterday, otherwise I would be much further ahead! And this morning I had to dash straight to that Rabelais sale at Rue Drouot because Kenji insisted I should attend.’

  According to his watch it was one o’clock; he had promised Tasha he would introduce her to Thadée Natanson, one of the bookshop’s customers, who had just relaunched La Revue Blanche, an avant-garde literary and artistic journal, with his brother Alfred, and moved its offices to Rue des Martyrs.

  ‘I’m going to be late! Hurry, hurry, I’m sick of hurrying! Everything is conspiring against me!’

  The coachman was extremely relieved to be free of the passenger who had made him roar around the capital like one of those useless stinking petrol automobiles, the plaything of the engineers Panhard and Levassor.

  Joseph meanwhile was delighted to have knocked off his three deliveries in double-quick time, having promised the cabby a generous tip if he went as fast as possible, and went to take up his position near the pawnshop. He had decided to wait for the staff to leave, and to follow Charmansat home.

  ‘I must strike while the iron is hot. The Boss will be pleased – at least I hope so – you never know with him…’

  He found himself a suitable doorway.

  ‘“In the midst of darkness, the most lowly watchman glows like a beacon”,’ he quoted from Émile Gaboriau, his favourite author. Jojo resolved to be the beacon that would shine light on the murders of Killer’s Crossing, even if he had to take root on that pavement.

  Had anyone been able to see inside Prosper Charmansat’s mind, they would have encountered a void. The model employee did not burden himself with thoughts as he fulfilled his daily tasks. The interior of the pawnshop cocooned him in a haven of peace. In the belly of that closed universe, out of sight of the world, nothing could reach him, not the wickedness of man, not fear, not loneliness. He was master of a modest domain, where the silent witnesses of so many lives were heaped up waiting to be packaged, and he dreamed of hiding in here for ever. He wrapped, labelled and accounted, drugged by the rout
ine as if it were a narcotic.

  He handled the imposing clock that had brought its owner ten francs and wondered how he was going to wrap it. Each of the objects left required meticulous attention. The valuable items – jewellery, shawls, watches, lace – were packed away in boxes, while the precious stones and pieces of gold were carefully kept in envelopes. Prosper Charmansat had the privilege of sealing the flaps with wax. In pushing the seal into the warm wax he experienced the joy of a breeder branding his livestock. He delegated the stamping of the parcels to a lame boy; another boy he gave the task of folding the valuation dockets in four and attaching them to the strings. The harvest was then consigned to baskets and sent to join the other pawned items in the tunnels beneath the shops, numerous storerooms lined with wooden and latticed metal pigeonholes, a labyrinth three miles long, where mounds of carpets, dishes, clothes and umbrellas had accumulated. It resembled not so much Ali Baba’s cave as a beehive, and as he walked past the cells filled with antique busts, eiderdowns, pillows and thousands of lorgnettes, Prosper Charmansat imagined himself master of the store room of an enormous cargo ship with no home port.

  He fitted the packaged clock between a parasol and a psalter, stood back to let a porter carrying boxes pass, and headed reluctantly to the cloakroom. He took off the uniform provided by the management – with no pockets, to prevent theft – and put on his own clothes.

  There was already a crowd of employees at the omnibus station. Prosper Charmansat hauled himself up to the top deck, not noticing a blond, slightly hunchbacked young man who followed him.

  At Place Maubert, Joseph jumped off the platform and tried not to lose his prey, who crossed Marché des Carmes and Rue des Écoles to reach Rue de l’École-Polytechnique. At number 22, he turned off into Impasse des Bœufs. Joseph paused, and saw Charmansat stop in front of a woman sitting shelling nuts. They exchanged greetings and Charmansat raised his hat then disappeared into a narrow opening at the foot of the alley. Joseph hurried after him. A little boy appeared, carrying a cup of milk.

  ‘Can you tell me which floor Monsieur Charmansat lives on?’

  ‘Second floor on the left. But be careful, Mère Galipot’s always drunk!’

  Undeterred, Joseph climbed the steps and almost collided with a dishevelled shrew, who gripped his shoulder.

  ‘I’ve got you, boy, where have you hidden the dough?’

  ‘Dough? You can find it at Les Halles,’ retorted Joseph, pulling away sharply.

  He knocked at the floor on the left. No answer. The crone clung to him, regarding him balefully and breathing her killer breath in his face.

  ‘At Les Halles, eh? Which pavilion?’

  ‘With the bread and the cake!’ Joseph cried, and headed back down to the ground floor.

  He reached the bottom just in time to see the little boy with the cup of milk push open a gate at the end of the alley. Intrigued, Joseph followed hard on his heels. To his great surprise, he found himself on the mezzanine of a neighbouring building. He ran downstairs, coming out in another narrow passage with little dark yards off it, leading to Rue de la Montagne-Saint-Geneviève. In the distance, the squat figure of Charmansat loped in the direction of the Panthéon.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, he didn’t waste any time,’ he muttered, struggling not to let him out of his sight.

  Charmansat suddenly disappeared. Joseph thought he had lost him, but, noticing that the door of the Église Saint-Étienne-du-Mont was slightly open, he told himself it would do no harm to check inside.

  He saw Charmansat make the sign of the cross and genuflect, then head for the finely sculpted balustrade separating the choir from the nave and the side chapels. He stood near the pulpit and opened a missal. Joseph hid behind a pillar, hoping that a crisis of faith would not keep him there for long. But then a slim, well-built chap, elegantly turned out and wearing a top hat, approached and tapped Charmansat on the shoulder. Arm in arm, the two men whispered together as they strolled over to the tomb of Sainte Geneviève, where they conferred at length. Joseph passed slowly behind them and bent over the monument, pretending to admire the decorative detail. The slim man moved away, his face remaining bathed in shadow.

  Finally, Charmansat turned away as his companion slipped a coin into the contribution box and lit a candle. Which man should he follow? Joseph opted for the slim chap, whom he knew nothing about, reasoning that he now knew Charmansat’s address.

  The man in the top hat walked rapidly and with much greater ease than Charmansat. After skirting round the Lycée Henri-IV and bearing off up Rue Rollin, he entered the Roman arenas at Rue de Navarre. It was the first time that Joseph had seen the ancient remains and his attention was distracted by the few remaining steps of the crumbling tiers and the partly excavated arena; all the rest was being buried under new constructions, notably the stables and offices of the Omnibus Company.

  ‘When you consider that they dug up a skeleton six foot six tall, you realise that the gladiators were strapping fellows, most likely as a result of hitting each other over the head all the time!’

  He spoke aloud, startling a Sister of Charity, who crossed herself and fled. Joseph suddenly remembered the man in the top hat, but, search as he might, he could see no trace of him.

  Joseph frowned. His investigations might well prove more prolonged and arduous than he had anticipated. Annoyed with himself, he went back towards Impasse des Bœufs, where he found the woman still clamped to her seat shelling nuts like an automaton. When he went up to her and coughed politely she looked up; she had a moustache and reminded him of a scraggy goat.

  ‘Excuse me, Madame, could you tell me the name of the bearded, slightly tubby man who lives in this building? I ask because he looks rather like the photo of my Uncle Alfred in our sitting room, taken ten years ago. He went off to Venezuela and no one knows what became of him…’

  ‘Oh, yes, Monsieur Charmansat,’ replied the woman who was so toothless that every other syllable was garbled. ‘Prosper, that means happy in Latin, but that doesn’t fit because he’s had so many troubles, that man. He never smiles, but then you don’t choose your Christian name. It’s a shame, I would have been happy to have escaped my name, Angelique, since there’s nothing angelic about me. But he’s nice all the same, Monsieur Charmansat, very pleasant, a compatriot of mine; he’s from Lyon. I’m also from the Rhône region, from Crémieu. I bet you’ve never set foot in Crémieu.’

  To stop the flow of words, Joseph agreed that this was so, and repeated with exaggerated interest: ‘Lyon?’

  ‘Yes, a town, whereas Crémieu…I’m not surprised you have avoided it; it’s a right hole. Monsieur Charmansat moved in here six years ago, I came in ’88. It was my grandson who wanted to come up to Paris to find work on the building site of the Exposition. He’s a slater and he brought me to run his household. He’s not married, my grandson, on account of his wooden leg, after the accident. So he’s your uncle, Monsieur Charmansat?’

  ‘No, no, I must be mistaken, they do look alike but apparently we all have a double. My uncle’s from Arras, but Lyon, I’ve heard about it – people say it’s the home of good cuisine, known for its quenelles…’

  Although he detested fish balls, he smacked his lips, hoping the woman would divulge some important detail about Charmansat’s past.

  An hour later, stuffed with tales of the Rhône region, he arrived back on Rue Visconti, having learned nothing about Charmansat, who had not returned home.

  Euphrosine had shut herself in the kitchen and was preparing gnocchi with parmesan. Joseph took advantage of this to record what he had learned that day in his notebook.

  ‘Lyon, Lyon, that’s the nub of the affair; I must at all costs manage to find out what happened in ’86…Monsieur Gouvier would be able to help me in three shakes of a lamb’s tail…Yes, but that would arouse his suspicions and I might find myself with Inspector Lecacheur on my back. Not to mention Monsieur Legris. I’ll have to find out on my own; I’m going to impress the Boss with my skill.�
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  He did not like to admit to himself that he was hoping also to impress Iris. Disconsolately, he contemplated the heaps of newspapers stacked against the wall. Inspiration struck.

  ‘Marcel! Marcel Bichonnier! The fun we used to have selling newspapers! And the games of hide and seek in his father’s factory! If he’s still working at Rue du Croissant, he won’t refuse me help. I’ll go and find him tomorrow at the crack of dawn. For now, I’ll have to concentrate on the best approach to take. I need to start with Rue L. gf 1211 mentioned in Molina’s note.’

  He went into the study and pushed back the stacks of paper, Prussian sapper helmets and cartridge shells covering his packing case-desk, exhuming two apple cores and a two centime piece as he did so.

  ‘I’m totally baffled,’ he murmured, leaning over his notes. ‘I must take stock. Let’s think…It’s this gf in that interminable Rue L. that’s thrown me. Number one thousand two hundred and eleven – it’s not possible! And gf…gf…what’s that mean? It means I’ve been an ignoramus, that’s what it means – gf, ground floor of course! So, ground floor, 1211 Rue L. If only I could narrow it down to one quarter. Think. The slipper was dug up by the goatherd’s dog at the Botanical Gardens…Are there wolves at the Botanical Gardens? Yes, triple ignoramus, there are wolves and lions as well. I’ll have to look in my Paris street map; I think I’m on the right track!’

  He was sure he was close to a revelation, something was about to become clear, but what? It was impossible to guess. He searched feverishly through the debris on his trunk.