The Montmartre Investigation

by Claude Izner

  ‘It’s reasonable to assume that Molina lived in that area and that he lured the girl there, because she said you could hear wolves howling from his apartment. There’s no way out of it, I’m going to have look at all the streets that begin with “L” in the area. And there are more than one thousand two hundred numbers! That’s not a street; it’s a bad joke…In the name of belts and garters, where’s my street map!’

  He searched through a teetering pile of issues of Magasin Pitoresque, which collapsed on the floor with a crash. This was not what he had intended at all. He stared in stupefaction at the fruits of his efforts, and then got down on all fours to read the title of a full-page heading:

  ÉGLISE SAINT-SEVERIN IN PARIS

  ‘A church! That’s it! THAT’S IT! The chap with the top hat at Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, talking in a cloak-and-dagger manner to Charmansat, who then escaped my clutches at the Roman arenas…right next to the Botanical Gardens. I’ve got it! They’re all in this together! Molina, Charmansat, the man in the top hat: all from the same neighbourhood! Where have I buried my map? I’m sure I left it here somewhere. I use it all the time…’

  ‘My pet, you can come now!’

  ‘Eating, eating, always eating,’ he grumbled, abandoning the search.

  ‘What’s wrong with you; you look like you’re coming down with something,’ remarked his mother, serving him.

  ‘It’s just that I’ve lost my Paris street map.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, he’ll bring it back.’

  ‘He? Who are you talking about? Don’t tell me that you…’

  ‘Lent your map? Yes, I lent it to Madame Ballu’s cousin, you know, Alphonse, the one who’s just come back from Senegal. His officer was dying to show his fiancée all the best parts of Paris but the poor fellow hadn’t a clue what to suggest – terrible for a talented soldier – so Madame called on me to help. Don’t make that face; she wasn’t about to buy one at that price!’

  ‘Maman, I’ve told you a thousand times not to touch my things!’ exploded Joseph.

  ‘I don’t deserve the scaffold, none the less! Go on, eat, otherwise it’ll get cold. They’re not too sticky, are they, the gnocchis? I wanted to make black pudding with mashed potato, but then as I had some semolina…’

  ‘Good, I don’t like black pudding,’ said Joseph with approval, soothed by the appetising smell of the parmesan.

  He was about to take a bite when there was a knock at the door.

  ‘What now?’ groaned Euphrosine. ‘Don’t move, I’ll go.’

  The next thing Joseph knew, Victor was sitting down beside him. Ignoring his protestations, Euphrosine served him a plate of gnocchis. He had already dined with Tasha and the Natanson brothers, but he forced himself to swallow what was on his plate, drank three glasses of water to help it down, politely refused a baked apple and led Joseph off to the study.

  ‘Was your harvest fruitful?’

  ‘Do you know Impasse des Bœufs?’

  ‘Come on, out with it!’

  ‘That’s where he lives, the Charmansat “at uncle”. Here’s what I found out; afterwards you can tell me everything you know…One minute, the walls have ears.’

  Just as he was about to closed the communicating door, Euphrosine said loudly, ‘I labour to prepare them a dish fit for a king! Would it kill them to show their appreciation? Oh, the cross I have to bear!’

  Chapter 11

  Sunday 22 November

  Joseph peered through the window as he heard the clatter of wheels crossing the cobblestones in the courtyard outside. The light of a lantern cast the shadow of a bent figure pushing a pair of barrow handles. It was Euphrosine, bundled up in layers of knitted shawls, setting off to Les Halles to buy her produce. He could get up now.

  Teeth chattering, he groped for his clothes and was soon leaving the house too, an apple stuffed in each pocket. He felt bad about letting his mother go alone. She was beginning to have difficulty hauling her costermonger’s cart, and he could have helped her that morning. But he made up his mind to ignore his conscience and stick to his plan.

  His blood was tingling after an hour of walking through the deserted streets. The city was beginning to stir as he reached Rue Montmartre, where he saw sleepy clerks and shop girls disappearing through the already open doors of the fabric and lingerie stores.

  Rue du Croissant was dim and narrow, and invaded by a crowd, mostly of men, lounging on the pavement or leaning on bistro counters. Beer glasses of varying sizes jostled with one another and the cigarette smoke and murmur of conversation evoked a station buffet.

  Revisiting the atmosphere that had permeated his youth stirred Joseph to the depths. He remembered as if it were yesterday being one of those street vendors bundled up in a threadbare frock coat and cap or bowler and listening with half an ear to the rotary presses inside the printing shops, and with the other half to the bragging accounts of a comrade’s amorous exploits. He too had waited for the dailies that provided an irregular income. After paying his two francs for a hundred copies, he would hurry to the kiosks on the outskirts of the city to resell his merchandise at five centimes a piece. He remembered the routes he took through the maze of streets so well he could have walked them blindfolded.

  All of a sudden the vendors, as though alerted by a sixth sense, gathered at one of the entrances. Those reselling to the kiosk owners moved off in silence, their heads sinking into their shoulders under the weight of the bundles they had to deliver. The news vendors scattered, brandishing papers in the air and crying out the headlines:

  ‘La Patrie! Court in session!’

  ‘Le Passe-partout! Special Sunday edition on Noémi Gerfleur murder!’

  ‘Le Petit Parisien! Gruesome death of zoo keeper!’

  Clerk and labourer alike devoured this fodder on their way to work, which was as vital to their nourishment as Euphrosine Pignot’s wares. Bicycles insistently tooting their horns cleared the way for the horse-drawn carts that distributed the manna at the railway stations in bundles tied up with string.

  As the hubbub died down, Joseph spotted a familiar figure loading the previous day’s unsold newspapers on to a cart.

  ‘Marsouin!’ he shouted.

  ‘Pignouf!’ replied the other man.

  This had been their rallying cry in the days when they had walked the city’s streets together. Marcel Bichonnier, a tall, hefty young man with a slight squint, greeted his old companion with open arms. Joseph, afraid he would be smothered, kept him at arm’s length.

  ‘I was hoping I might find you here. Are you working for your father?’

  ‘The old man has gone to join his ancestors, and I’ve taken over the running of the factory. Now it’s “Bichonnier, suppliers of confetti and paper decorations”. And I’ve branched out. We do streamers and penny whistles now, and we’re about to launch a new range of lanterns and paper windmills. And how about you?’

  ‘Oh! I’m still at the bookshop and I’m working on a project, a novel, that’ll set all Paris atremble. But it is early days yet; let’s not count our chickens…Actually, that’s why I came to see you. I need some information. You wouldn’t happen to have any newspapers from 1886?’

  ‘Do you suppose I remember the exact years? Why not the dates too while you’re at it! We keep piles of old papers in the warehouses as well as some loose pages in case we need to stretch the pulp. But they’re not all in order. You’ll be a lucky devil if you find what you’re looking for. You never know, though. Climb aboard, if you don’t mind being shaken about a bit. My mare goes like the clappers so hold on tight! Gee up, Finette! Are you sitting comfortably, Pignouf? You’re about to meet my lady wife.’

  ‘You’re married!’ exclaimed Joseph, not without a hint of envy.

  ‘Have been for two years. And I’ve got a son and heir: little Émile. If you think you’re going to wriggle out of having a slap up meal, you’re mistaken. My Caroline does an excellent leg of roast lamb on a Sunday!’

  As they rode up Rue d
u Sentier, Joseph imagined himself sitting opposite a faceless assassin who stood over a sizzling joint of meat, sharpening his knife.

  Victor, his hands warmed by the fresh croissants, was resisting the temptation to put one in his bag for later, when he looked over at a kiosk and saw the headline on an illustrated supplement of Le Petit Parisien:

  ZOO KEEPER MAULED BY LION

  He bought the paper and devoured the article:

  On Thursday evening, after closing time, one of the keepers at the Botanical Gardens, Basile Popêche, 56, was mauled and fatally injured by a lion in his charge. Basile’s colleagues found him lying in a pool of blood. He was taken to the Hôpital de le Pitié, where he died from his wounds this morning. How did the man come to be locked in the cage…

  That name, Basile Popêche, he knew it from somewhere. He raced back to the studio, where Tasha, dressed in a plain black taffeta blouse and skirt, was setting out cups on the table.

  ‘Tea or coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘Mm,’ he mumbled, frantically leafing through the notebook he had found at the bottom of a bag stuffed with his belongings.

  There it was! In his handwriting, dated Friday 13 November:

  Basile Popêche, lion house at Botanical Gardens, Grégoire Mercier’s cousin.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ he cried.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Er…nothing, I’ve just remembered I have to be at the bookshop.’

  ‘On a Sunday?’

  ‘Yes. It completely slipped my mind. The Comtesse de Salignac is supposed to come by the shop and pick up a book today. She didn’t say what time, but I don’t want to upset her by not being there.’

  What was he concealing from her? Was it something to do with that girl he was putting up? The siren from England who had seduced Kenji? Had she put her claws into Victor too? Tasha was not naturally jealous, but she felt wounded; how could he run off like that using such a flimsy excuse? They had planned to open a celebratory bottle of Champagne in the hairdressing salon, and now he was leaving!

  ‘You haven’t answered my question, so you’ll have to make do with tea. I didn’t know the Comtesse had such a hold over you,’ she said coldly as she filled the kettle.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling, tea would be lovely.’

  She relaxed. She had no desire to become like him, suspicious and jealous if she excluded him from her plans for half an hour. In any case, she did not think there was another woman. No, his sudden departure had something to do with what was written in his notebook. Dolbreuse’s hints at Le Chat-Noir and later at her studio had aroused her suspicions, and now she was convinced: Victor was working on another case. But what was it? Could it be connected to the spate of grisly murders that were splattered all over the headlines at the moment? Or was it something completely innocuous? Of course, he wouldn’t put her in the picture until it was all over, regardless of whether she was worrying sick and tearing her hair out at the thought of him being in danger! She was on the point of questioning him, but he was eating his croissant with such gusto and looking at her so sweetly and innocently that she realised she would need to use all her guile if she were to get anything out of him.

  ‘What a shame. It’s so rare that we’re both free at the same time…’

  ‘It’ll only take up part of the morning!’

  ‘That’s not what you said. You said that the battleaxe…’

  ‘Oh no! Not you as well as Jojo! Kenji is there, so if she doesn’t show up this morning I’ll ask him to deal with her this afternoon.’

  ‘Admit it. You’re scared she’ll have a fit if her darling bookseller isn’t there.’

  ‘To hell with the battle…I mean with Madame de Salignac! I prefer your company a hundred times.’

  ‘And I prefer yours a thousand times, so I win!’

  As soon as Joseph set eyes on Caroline Bichonnier, a brunette with a turned up nose, he felt as if he had known her all his life. She welcomed him as a friend, told him how often she had listened to Marcel’s tales of their youthful antics, then obliged him to go into ecstasies over a bundle of bedclothes with the bald head of a chubby sleeping baby protruding from it.

  According to Madame Bichonnier, their location on Rue de Chaligny between Hôpital Sainte-Antoine and the Reuilly fire station was heaven-sent: if there were a fire, they’d have doctors on one side and the fire brigade on the other.

  Notwithstanding how kindly disposed Joseph felt towards Marcel’s wife, he declined a tour of the house, which abutted the factory and its adjoining warehouses. But he could not wriggle out of being shown the property’s luxury feature – a modern sanitation system, and the vats filled with a colourless magma, the smell of which made him nauseous.

  ‘Plug your nose if you find it too overpowering. It’s the chlorine; it makes me feel sick too! We use it to bleach the pulp, then we mix in the colours – green, yellow, red – and make cheap and cheerful decorations for parties. I go on at Marcel about branching out, making masks and hats for Mardi Gras and carnival. But he’s like a bear with a sore head at the moment; he’s got all the Christmas orders to do. I’d appreciate it if you could work on him for me.’

  Joseph promised he would champion the masks, and in return received a double helping of lamb and spinach and a large slice of mocha cake, which he had difficulty finishing.

  At last he and Marcel took their leave of Caroline, who said she had to see to the baby, and went to have coffee with three of the factory workers, whose job was to sort the newspapers for shredding.

  ‘Père Théophile, you wouldn’t happen to know where my friend here might find newspapers from 1886?’ Marcel enquired of a burly fellow who, despite his greying hair, still looked as strong as an ox.

  ‘Well, if there are any, they’ll be in the second warehouse, but he’ll have to dig deep. Your father stored the rejects there – the newspapers he picked up for a song because they were badly paginated or damaged. There should be some left over, but I can’t guarantee it,’ he added, turning to Joseph. ‘He passed away in ’87, so if I were you I’d take a ladder and start on the tops of the piles. With any luck you’ll find what you’re looking for first off. Otherwise you might find it a strain on your back.’

  Jojo refrained from answering that his back was already aching from the weight of his full belly.

  His heart sank when he saw the towering wall of paper that made his collection look like an anthill. But when he considered what was at stake, and how a successful outcome to the case would not only provide inspiration for his novel but cause Iris to fall into his arms, he stepped on to the bottom rung of the rickety old ladder.

  He was in his shirtsleeves and, despite the cold, sweating copiously after three hours of unstinting effort. He attacked another stack of papers, which he had painstakingly excavated from the wall. Amongst them were odd copies of L’Illustration, Le Petit Journal, Le Monde Illusté, Le Gaulois, Le Siècle, Le Figaro and twenty other publications. Faced with this sea of words, that was powerless to change people’s destinies, he began to think that Iris might be right. By what twist of fate had Monsieur Bichonnier senior failed to buy a single newspaper from November 1886, when all the other months in that year were present and correct? Then he spotted a colour illustration of a woman in a dark coat, her face hidden under a veiled hat, clutching a set of jewels in her gloved hand. She was standing beside the counter in a jeweller’s shop – the name of which was printed backwards on the window – looking at a chubby man who was showing her a case containing a diamond necklace. Underneath the picture was the caption:

  STILL NO CLUE AS TO THE WHEREABOUTS OF THE BARONESS OF SAINT-MESLIN

  And further down:

  What has become of Prosper Charmansat? Where are the jewels?

  His heart pounding, Joseph checked the date on the colour supplement of Le Petit Journal: 20 November 1886. He opened it.

  The story behind the picture. For four days now the whereabouts of…

  He read through the brie
f article carefully, overjoyed at having found the key to the mystery. Turning to the back page for the continuation, he discovered to his horror that it wasn’t there. Cursing his luck, he glanced up the wall of paper. It would take him at least a year to find it, like looking for a needle in a haystack! It was a task worthy of Hercules!

  ‘It’s too bad! This will have to do. We should be happy – at least now we know the name of the murderer and his motive for the killings!’

  ‘Come back here, you ninnies!’

  Grégoire Mercier was charging down the street after his panic-stricken goats. Berlaud, who had been keeping a close watch over them, had nevertheless failed to notice a brigand attempting to snatch Pervenche. While the goatherd was busy threatening the thief with his steel-tipped cane, his animals had taken flight.

  He finally caught up with them at the entrance to Rue des Reculettes, where the excited neighbours gathered round and fired him with questions. Berlaud took advantage of the diversion and slunk into the building, though not without his master noticing.

  ‘If that old bandit’s eyesight goes the same way as his sense of smell, my business will go to the dogs!’ he complained to Mère Guédon. ‘I’ll end up a beggar in a hospital bed, surrounded by drudges and idlers!’

  ‘Don’t be such a pessimist. There’s a gentleman over there who wants to talk to you,’ she said, pointing at Victor who was leaning up against a fence.

  Grégoire Mercier whistled for his dog, who re-emerged, head bowed.

  ‘Good day to you, Monsieur Leblanc.’

  ‘It’s Legris, actually.’

  ‘Oh! What a to-do! I should have stayed on the farm in the Beauce, growing oats and wheat. Only the big city lights lured me away, didn’t they? When you’re young you dream of having money in your pocket, so you pack your bag and learn another trade and the years go by and those bright lights end up burning your wings…My dog is fast becoming a worthless old scavenger and in a few years I’ll be put out to pasture…When I’m finished you city-folk won’t feed me or my animals!’