The Disappearance at Père-Lachaise

by Claude Izner

  The streets were busy and they were walking quite far apart, a little embarrassed. Denise was intimidated by the erudite young man, whom she would have liked to impress.

  Joseph didn’t know if he should offer the young girl his arm, and felt vaguely guilty that he was being unfaithful to his sweetheart, Valentine de Salignac.

  They arrived in silence at Notre-Dame-de-Lorette Church. Denise crossed herself. Without even glancing at the façade, which he found ugly, Joseph turned into Rue Laffite which led straight to Boulevard des Italiens. He racked his brains for a way to break the ice.

  ‘Lorette sounds pretty, doesn’t it? It’s even become a Christian name. Fifty years ago, many courtesans who lived in this quarter were named for the church, and it became common.’

  Embarrassed by his reference to women of easy virtue, she didn’t reply, so he set about continuing his discourse on semantics until finally she took up the conversational bait that he had offered.

  ‘In Brittany it’s the other way round. We choose everyday names to make surnames. Take mine for example, Le Louarn means The Fox.’

  ‘How long have you lived in Paris?

  ‘I moved here three years ago. I remember it as if it were yesterday. Coming out of Gare Montparnasse, I was bowled over; I had never seen so many people. I almost had to fight to get on to a tram. I had the address of an employment agency on Rue Coquillière behind the Bourse de Commerce, but I nearly got lost several times before finding it. Then I had to wait for two hours in a room full of sad-looking girls sitting on benches. One of them made fun of me – she told me they would never take me on because they only wanted the freshest meat.’

  ‘Meat?’

  ‘That’s what they call the girls looking for positions. I was lucky. When my turn came, the mistress liked me because I was the only one wearing a hat – all the others were bare-headed – and because my dress was clean. I had only ever worked for one person, and then only part-time, an old woman named Quemener who lived in Penhars, on the outskirts of Quimper, who had just died. Her daughter was kind enough to write a letter of recommendation, praising me. So, on that same night, I was employed by Monsieur and Madame de Valois, where I have been ever since.’

  From time to time, Denise interrupted her story to read the names on the corners of the boulevards. She was filled with delight at the sight of theatres, cafés and luxury shops that seemed to possess all the wonders of the universe. What pleasure to taste such freedom! Her animated face, lit by her grey eyes and set off by her ash-blonde hair, was rather attractive. She smiled at Joseph, who had been watching her unobtrusively.

  ‘And what about you, Monsieur Joseph, are you a Parisian?’

  He nodded and, grabbing her hand, dragged her across to the other side of the road.

  ‘We’re not far from Carrefour des Écrasés…Honestly, wouldn’t you have preferred to stay in the country?’ he asked, making a face at the volume of traffic that was dominating Boulevard des Italiens.

  ‘Definitely not! My father used to beat me, and working in the fields is slave labour. Although being a servant isn’t much better. I had to toil from seven in the morning until ten at night, preparing food, brushing clothes, cleaning shoes, polishing brass, ironing…I didn’t have a minute to draw breath. When Monsieur was there it was hard. Every week there was a dinner with many guests and I had to stay until they’d all left, which was sometimes not until two or three in the morning. I would make up for it when I went out to do the shopping; I would take quarter of an hour here, quarter of an hour there, and look in the shop windows. When Monsieur left for Panama in September ’88, my life became easier. And every time Monsieur Legris came to visit Madame, he was kind to me; he would always slip me a coin. That’s why I went to find him.’

  ‘You did the right thing. He’s a splendid boss. I’ve been lucky. I’ve never regretted being his assistant. It’s thanks to Maman that I got the job. And the other boss, Monsieur Kenji Mori, Monsieur Legris’s adoptive father, he’s also splendid. He was born in Japan and he’s very learned. He’s knocked around the Orient and has brought back loads of strange and interesting objects. We’ve arrived! You see, there’s the roller coaster at 26, we can go there one evening, but with empty stomachs!’

  On Boulevard des Capucines there were booths from which the enticing odour of aniseed and melted sugar wafted. A crowd of people flowed slowly past the showmen who were promoting extravaganzas, wrestling matches and wild animal fights.

  ‘Wild animals, my eye – a moth-eaten panther or a mangy lion more like. Come on, I’m sure we can find something better,’ said Joseph to Denise, who was open-mouthed at the sight of the beautiful dresses the passers-by were wearing.

  A barrel-organ started playing ‘Les Pioupious d’Auvergne’. This lively air seemed to bring the wooden horses of the merry-go-round they were sitting on to life, and they burst out laughing.

  Her head spinning, Denise found herself in the middle of a deafening brass band. She wanted to listen to it but Joseph had already moved on.

  ‘What would you say to a visit to Madame Topaz?’

  Dressed in a brilliant costume, the colour of the sun, and wearing a turban adorned with feathers, a large bony woman was inviting people to venture inside her caravan to have their fortune told.

  ‘Shall we go in?’ suggested Joseph.

  Her face suddenly dark, Denise obstinately refused.

  ‘Why not? She can’t be very frightening – look at her!’

  ‘I’m not sure if Monsieur Legris told you…but Madame disappeared while we were at the Père-Lachaise cemetery. That’s why I ran away: I thought that the spirits were angry with me. Before, I didn’t believe in that sort of thing. But when I went into Monsieur’s funerary chapel, I felt a presence. And later, in the apartment…an evil force. It all comes from that woman Madame went to, that clairvoyant. She cast the evil eye on us, I’m sure of it,’ she finished, moving away from Madame Topaz.

  ‘A clairvoyant? Does she really predict the future? Give me her address; I’m interested! I’d like to know if I’m going to become a bookseller or a writer, and whether, with my help, Maman will find financial security.’

  ‘I don’t remember the address, it was a beautiful building near a panorama. There were…naked women on each side of the door, statues. We went up to the second floor…I’ll never set foot in that house again – it’s worse than visiting the devil!’ she cried.

  ‘All right, don’t worry about Madame Topaz. I’m going to try to hit the jackpot; I’m a crackshot with an air rifle.’

  He made his way over to a shooting gallery where you could win plaster figurines or fake jewellery if you hit the target six times in a row. Spurred on by his desire to please Denise, he succeeded every time. Gloomily, the stallholder handed over a brown boar on a yellow plinth, but Joseph went over to the tray where the necklaces and earrings were displayed.

  ‘Could I have one of these instead?’ He pointed to a bracelet decorated with a charm.

  ‘You need twenty-four points for that,’ said the stallholder.

  ‘And if I give you this?’

  Joseph held out a twenty-sou piece that he kept in his trouser pocket for emergencies. His mother would not be happy, but he would think of something to tell her.

  Denise’s smile when he put the bracelet round her wrist was ample reward. She studied the charm, a little golden dog with a pointed nose and eyes of red stone.

  ‘It looks like a fox…’

  ‘That’s why I chose it.’

  ‘Roll up, roll up, ladies and gentlemen! Come and see the re-enactment of the most frightening murders of all time! The shocking crime committed by Pranzini, who killed Claudine-Marie Regnault alias Régine de Montille, her chambermaid and her little daughter in Rue Montaigne. The unsolved assassination of Dante Caicedonni, stabbed to death in his hotel room on Boulevard Saint-Michel, his murderer is still at large! The town of Millery’s famous bloody trunk, in which the decomposing body of Gouffé,2 the po
rter was found. Don’t delay, come in! Five sous, two if you’re a soldier. But sensitive souls beware!’

  Stopping in front of a man in a striped shirt who was hollering into a megaphone while brandishing a knife dipped in red, Joseph murmured, ‘Good God!’ and turned to Denise. She stared at him, as white as a sheet.

  ‘Would you mind very much if I went to see? It’s just that I have to take notes for my writing.’

  ‘Of course, I understand,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I’ll wait for you over there.’

  She went towards the wooden horses whilst Joseph disappeared under the awning.

  In the semi-darkness of candle-light, podiums were arranged in a circle. The scenes were mimed by street entertainers and narrated by showmen, and watched by an audience hungry for sensation. Joseph chose the Gouffé case.

  ‘…month of August ’89 at Millery, near Lyon, the inhabitants were disturbed by a nauseating odour that was emanating from thick bramble bushes. Finally the local constable discovered a hessian sack in the shrubbery. Show us the sack!’

  A person dressed in black held the sack up for the audience.

  ‘When he split it open with his knife, he found the half-decomposed head of a man. Show the audience the head!’

  The same person took a bloody head from the sack, arousing shrieks of horror.

  ‘Scarcely had the autopsy been completed, when a farmer collecting snails on the banks of the Rhône came upon a strange trunk broken into several pieces. Here it is!’

  He pointed to a trunk, which the man in black started to open. The mime that followed was about the Caicedonni affair, a case which interested Joseph. In front of him, a young woman in a pink dress was sitting next to a curly-haired man who had his arm slung round her waist.

  ‘Marie Turnerad was only sixteen when she became Dante Caicedonni’s mistress, in 1878!’ declaimed another showman.

  He began to sing, accompanied by a fiddle:

  Oh listen to this tale of woe

  Of a poor lass wrongly accused,

  Of the murder of her treacherous beau

  For her trust he had sadly abused.

  This Romeo who trod the boards

  Played only villains never lords.

  He beguiled the little barber’s maid,

  Swearing their love would never fade.

  The chorus:

  Marie Turnerad who coiffed the toffs

  At Lenthéric’s Paris barber shop

  Fell for an artiste, blond and cunning

  Who stole her heart and spent her money.

  Second verse!

  But Joseph didn’t wait to hear the rest of the edifying little ditty and went back into the fresh air, humming. He joined Denise who, with her hands over her ears, was watching a saxhorn player. Wanting to make up for having abandoned her, he bought her a marshmallow. When they left the fair, the boulevard seemed rather quiet.

  ‘Marie Turnerad, who coiffed the toffs…’ hummed Joseph, then interrupted himself with a groan.

  ‘Now I’ll have that dreadful tune stuck in my head for two months. Whenever I hear a song or read a text, they imprint themselves here,’ he said indicating his forehead. ‘The memory fairy was leaning over my cradle, which makes me very useful in the bookshop. Perhaps I get it from my father who was a secondhand bookseller. He died of a chill three years after I was born. My mother inherited his stock, so I was brought up surrounded by old papers.’

  Denise thought he’d been lucky. She wished her father had disappeared when she was little. That idea led to another.

  ‘Apparently yellow fever transforms you into a living skeleton…’

  ‘What made you say that?’ exclaimed Joseph.

  ‘Because I was thinking of Monsieur,’ she replied, without adding that she feared the ghost of someone who had fallen victim to that terrible illness. ‘The day Madame received the telegram she almost fainted. Yet he cheated on her, he even made a pass at me. And it’s not as if he had any money – she held the purse strings.’

  ‘People say that love is blind!’ replied Joseph, who didn’t like Odette enough to feel any sympathy for her predicament. ‘It’s very sad, but there have been thousands of deaths in Columbia because of that canal. Frankly they might as well not have dug it for all the good it’s done: so many people have been ruined by it, when there were already quite enough who were hard-up.’

  ‘Hard-up?’

  ‘Poor. Maman, she was also poor when she sold frites. As a costermonger, she earns a bit more, but she would never have bought shares in a canal, or, if she had, she would have chosen a French canal; I don’t know, maybe the Canal de l’Ourcq. Are you hungry?’

  She nodded.

  ‘We’re going to take the bus. Maman has made us calves’ foot with frites.’

  The carriage had to wait for an omnibus to go past before stopping opposite a handsome building at number 24 Boulevard Haussmann. Victor got out and, while the concierge was deep in conversation with a chambermaid a little way up the street, he slipped stealthily through the open carriage gate. He went up to the fifth floor. When there was no answer to the door bell, he knocked, then automatically turned the door handle. Surprised to find it unlocked, he called out, ‘Odette, are you there? It’s me, Victor.’

  He took a few steps along the corridor. The apartment was dark and smelt stuffy. He drew back the sitting-room curtains. He glanced around and saw that the room was in disarray, but he couldn’t tell if that was because someone had recently broken in. A net curtain topped with delicate lace obscured the windows, making it hard to see. Victor remembered that Odette often used to say, ‘The light ruins my complexion.’ On the mantelpiece a huge clock was ticking ponderously, surrounded by a forest of golden candelabra, bronze sculptures and plants. A coat and a veiled hat lay on a wing chair. A baby grand piano draped in a velvet cover nestled in a corner, bearing a host of knick-knacks and vases filled with dying flowers. Musical scores were strewn across the floor. Had Odette, who played the piano rather badly, been overcome by a sudden musical tantrum? Victor also noticed that the cushions of the two sofas in the room were rumpled and that, in the dining room leading off the sitting room, one of the many chairs round the Henri II table was lying crookedly against the wall.

  Going into the bedroom, he was taken aback by the macabre décor. The bed was made up to look funereal. That very bed, on which Odette had so many times offered herself to him and which back then had been a sea of liberty-print flowers, now resembled a coffin. Everything seemed in order except for one detail. A framed photograph lay face down beneath a mahogany table laden with candles and incense sticks. He picked it up. Under the broken glass, Armand de Valois stood erect, with a vaguely bored expression, in dress coat and top hat.

  Just to ease his conscience, he resolved to look through the rest of the apartment. Apart from a general air of disorder, suggesting a hasty departure, he could see nothing out of the ordinary. He would willingly have searched each room more thoroughly, but had no valid reason to justify such an indiscretion. After all, Odette was free to do as she pleased. If she had bolted, that was her business, unless Denise had invented her disappearance in order to commit a robbery and get away with it. He had some idea where Odette’s valuables were kept, so perhaps he should check them over? But then he told himself that had the little Bretonne been guilty of theft, she would hardly have come looking for his help. ‘And yet…suppose she’s a compulsive liar and there’s a hidden meaning to this scenario…No, she doesn’t have the wit to fabricate…Come on, Victor! Can’t you just admit that Odette has slipped away with someone? Surely you can’t be jealous of her as well?’

  He was about to close the sitting-room curtains when he noticed something glinting in the sunlight. It was Odette’s key-ring. He knew that Odette was scatterbrained but not to the point of leaving without her keys. He pocketed them so that he could lock up, telling himself that he would return them to Denise. He could feel a strange excitement mounting, similar to that he had experi
enced last summer when he had embarked on his first investigation. But this time, he reassured himself, it would all be much easier to resolve than the mystery of the Universal Exposition.

  He went downstairs again and knocked on the concierge’s door.

  ‘I’m coming, I’m coming! What do you want? Oh, it’s you…’

  The concierge regarded him coldly. He seemed to have forgotten the tips that Victor had showered him with when he visited his mistress.

  ‘Did Madame de Valois notify you that she was going to be away? We had a rendezvous this evening; I’m a little concerned…’

  ‘No need to make a fuss just because a lady stood you up.’

  ‘It was a business meeting,’ retorted Victor drily.

  ‘All I can tell you is that the night before last she came back at an ungodly hour. These people, they do as they please and think nothing of asking to be let in even if it’s the middle of the night, and afterwards there’s no hope of my getting back to sleep…’

  ‘Are you certain it was Madame de Valois? It could have been another resident.’

  ‘Absolutely certain. She gave her name and also used mine, Hyacinthe. I’m not mistaken.’

  ‘But her maid insists that she has not been home since Friday afternoon…’

  ‘Her maid? Denise? She’s a whining good-for-nothing and as thick as two short planks. She’s always complaining. Don’t get me started about Bretons! It wouldn’t be the first time that she’s come up with some cock-and-bull story just to get herself noticed.’