by Claude Izner
Victor made his escape under the mocking eye of the concierge. ‘That’ll teach him to come poking his nose into other people’s business,’ muttered old Hyacinthe.
As soon as he reached the boulevard, Victor felt as if a weight had been lifted from him. Kenji was right to rail against the clutter of western homes. Too many wall hangings and knick-knacks and too much furniture – and also too many concierges. What was the meaning of that palm decorated with black crêpe, the veiled mirror and the incense? Was Odette really overcome with grief, or had Armand’s death been the pretext for her to launch a new fashion: the grieving widow?
‘A strange fad, that one,’ he said to himself, leaving Rue de la Chausée-d’Antin and crossing Boulevard des Capucines to avoid a street fair. He decided to walk. It would give him a chance to clear his mind of the painful memories awakened by his visit to the apartment.
‘I don’t know any more; I can’t remember where I put that Josephine!’ moaned Père Moscou, charging around the courtyard.
He crashed through the branches of fig trees and honeysuckle tendrils, cats and rabbits scampering out of his way, then bumped into a lamp-post entwined with vegetation struggling upwards to find the light. Cursing, he let himself fall against a section of crumbling wall then, his head in his hands, waited for the pain to abate. ‘My brain has turned to mush! I can’t think straight now that my bivouac has been turned upside down. I know I buried a good lady somewhere in this scrub, but I’m darned if I can find the spot. ‘Where have you hidden them?’ Someone knows about the jewels. Grouchy? I’m going to have to ditch them pronto. But first the moggies.’
He went back to his bedroom, where Madame de Valladier was sitting on the bed, furiously sewing up a quilt that lay on her lap. Paying her as little heed as if she had been part of the furniture, he made for the drawers, still overturned, and gathered up the two cats, which were giving off a fetid odour. Shoving them into a sack, he took his leave.
‘Old camel,’ murmured the concierge. ‘One day he offers me flowers, the next he makes off without even saying goodbye!’
Jean Marcelin ran his business behind Marché des Carmes.3 He was busy brushing a white rabbit skin, which he planned to make into an ermine muff, when he saw Père Moscou approaching, preceded by the smell of gamey meat. The old man threw the two dead cats on to the counter. ‘Skin these for me quickly will you? I’m in a hurry.’
Disgusted, the skinner touched one of the two creatures lightly. ‘These mogs are putrid.’
‘Skip the humbug; you can pickle their skins in vinegar. How much?’
Marcelin turned up his pointed nose, indicating that he was considering the price. ‘Eighty centimes the pair.’
‘Pull the other one – a franc or no deal.’
Marcelin hestitated, about to refuse, but then remembered that he had a sable coat to finish. The black fur could be dyed brown and then it would do nicely. ‘Don’t move, I’ll be back in two minutes.’
‘Cut their heads off, while you’re at it.’
Marcelin took the cats and came back a few moments later holding a parcel wrapped in newspaper and a coin. Père Moscou seized them and bolted without saying goodbye.
He only had to cross Place Maubert and go up Rue des Trois-Portes to reach Ernest Cabirol’s workshop. As soon as he entered the shop he was overcome by a coughing fit. Three cauldrons simmered on an enormous stove, giving off a cloud of noxious steam. A bent old man bounded from one to another like a little imp, stirring their contents with a large wooden spoon. The diverse scraps of meat provided by all the restaurants in the area were in these infernal cauldrons, to which he would add salt and pepper and make the resulting stew into pasties called ‘harlequins’. These he sold for a sou a piece as feed for domestic animals or as nourishment for down-and-outs who couldn’t afford anything better.
‘I’ve brought you a couple of hares,’ said Père Moscou, taking the parcel out of his sack. ‘Oh, mustn’t forget the heads,’ he added, pulling them out of his pocket. ‘What on earth’s this?’
He held up two blood-stained gloves. ‘Well, you could always add these to your soup!’
‘I don’t put filth like that in my soup!’ objected Cabirol indignantly. ‘I want nothing to do with those rags. Besides, there’s a finger missing.’
Père Moscou looked more carefully at his find. The thumb of the left hand had been cut off at the first joint. ‘You’re right, Ernest, I hadn’t noticed. Bah! It doesn’t matter; I’ll wash them and make them into mittens.’
Cabirol considered the skinned cats nonchalantly through half-closed eyes. ‘They’re off,’ he concluded. ‘Two sous.’
‘Come on, be generous: three. They’ll add flavour. What are you cooking up today?’
‘Beef with cabbage, offal, calf’s head and sparrow. It’s a dish to revive you – see how it foams! It’ll be on sale tomorrow at Mère Froment’s, on Rue Galande. All right then, three sous.’
Feeling sick, Père Moscou left the master chef’s shop and found himself face-to-face with a schoolboy in uniform. The schoolboy raised his cap in an affable manner and received a grunt in reply.
Gripped by fear and doubt, Père Moscou went to prop up a bar on Rue de la Bûcherie. He made sure that no one was watching before taking another look inside the locket, which was sticky with blood. ‘Someone is after me…ADV, is it you?’
A draught of cold air made him shiver. The door to the street was ajar, but he hadn’t noticed anyone opening it. Looking as if he had just seen a ghost, Père Moscou rose and, without pausing to finish his drink, hurried towards the Seine.
Chapter Four
Victor turned over in bed with a groan and pulled the pillow over his ears. Why did that stupid clot always feel the need to burst into song when he was opening the shop?
Marie Turnerad who coiffed the toffs
At Lenthéric’s Paris barber shop…
Joseph broke into a whistle – a sign that he’d forgotten the rest of the words. The heavy wooden shutters came down with a clatter and the shop assistant, puffed out, fell silent. Victor was just drifting into a delicious slumber when another, more rhythmic refrain began straining towards the high notes.
He leapt out of bed, exasperated, and charged through the apartment, slamming the hallway door that opened on to the spiral staircase. Joseph must have taken the hint because he went quiet.
Wide awake, Victor stood gazing at Tasha, who was in the middle of a dream – one arm stretched out above her head, the other hanging over the side of the bed. He lay down next to her, allowing his hand to stray beneath the sheet. Almost immediately the young woman’s fingers found his and she drew him to her before pushing him away.
‘What would your friend Monsieur Mori say if he could see us?’ she said, lazily running her fingers through her hair.
‘Nothing, for the simple reason that he’s busy doing the same thing in London in the company of a certain Iris.’
‘We have five days left if I’m right. I really must have my apartment back by then, my dearest man. So, you’ll have to deal with this problem between Madame Froufrou and her maid, or else find another position for Denise.’
‘I promise I’ll sort it out later,’ Victor said, his hands and mouth busying themselves again.
Tasha granted him a kiss, then extricated herself, giggling.
‘Not later: now! I’m going to see my editor to show him the illustrations for Pantagruel1 then I’ll be at Bibulus until eight o’clock this evening. Will you come and pick me up? We can have dinner together somewhere.’
Without waiting for him to agree she disappeared into the bathroom, locking the door.
Victor dressed and went downstairs, yawning. He greeted Joseph’s, ‘Morning, boss, did you sleep well?’ with a black look, and walked groggily over to where a couple of old catalogues that Kenji had compiled were lying on a desk. He flicked through them absentmindedly, his thoughts elsewhere. He didn’t know why, but he kept coming back to the morbid décor of O
dette’s bedroom and the sitting-room clock ticking the minutes away in the empty apartment. He closed the catalogues.
‘Joseph, I am going to La Madeleine to value a collection. I shall be back by lunchtime.’
He was in a hurry to leave, eager to question Denise about how her mistress had been occupying her time of late.
*
Victor was breathless when he reached the top of the six flights, which seemed all the steeper because he’d climbed them without stopping. He walked along the dark passageway towards Tasha’s garret, recalling for a split second her former neighbour the Serbian singer Danilo Ducovitch, knocked, and waited.
‘It’s Monsieur Legris!’ he said in a clear voice, his ear pressed to the door.
The girl must have gone out. He tried his own keys in the hope that one would fit. He was about to give up, his irritation mounting, when he realised they were Odette’s keys.
This is too much! And now I’ll have to go and leave them with her wretched concierge.
He rattled the door handle in frustration and the door opened.
Not locked – after all that!
He stood there, flabbergasted. The entire contents of the room had been dislodged as though in preparation for a removal. Picture frames were piled on chairs. The mattress and pillows were lying on the floor. The sheets and covers had been torn off and were hanging from an easel propping up a canvas of a nude male, which he recognised immediately as himself – thank God it was a three-quarter profile, so no one else would! The bookcase in the recess stared back at him vacantly, and its contents, strewn over the bed base, reminded him of an impatient heir whose ageing aunt had died, and who had brought her books to the shop bundled up in green sacking. The table looked out of place pushed under the skylight, and its usual clutter lay in a pile on the floor. The dresser doors hung open and the chipped crockery sat on the ground gathering dust. Two trunkfuls of clothes had disgorged their contents on to the ceramic stove.
Victor stepped over a puddle and entered the tiny room which served as both kitchen and bathroom. A cluster of pots that usually resided on a shelf formed a circle around three stacked buckets.
Although nothing appeared to have been damaged, the fact remained that the room had been systematically ransacked and the rain had flooded the floor. He felt his anger rising. This was what happened when you trusted strangers! His first intuition on entering Odette’s apartment had been right: Denise was a thief. He looked around in vain for her bundle. So she’d run off. It remained to be seen what she’d taken with her. A canvas perhaps? Tasha’s paintings weren’t worth anything yet and a dealer wouldn’t give five francs for them. She possessed nothing of value, no jewellery, no ornaments. What about her clothes? The lace gloves she had brought from Russia…Perhaps the Breton girl had been content just to add a few pieces of clothing to her trousseau. He felt disheartened, incapable of making a decision. Should he tell Tasha? No, she’d be furious and blame him. Reluctantly, he began to put the furniture back in its place. After half an hour of tidying – an activity he was unaccustomed to – he peered, exhausted, into the cracked mirror hanging on a piece of wire next to the recess, and had difficulty believing that the feverish face he saw in it was his. He smoothed his hair and glanced once more around the over-tidy garret. You’d be able to find a needle in here now, but Tasha wouldn’t be able to find anything. She’d be livid. All of a sudden he had misgivings. Granted, Denise had abandoned the nest, but what if someone else had ransacked the room after she’d left?
He rushed down the stairs and, crossing the courtyard, knocked at the concierges’ lodge. Monsieur Ladoucette, dragging his leg, opened the door. He lifted his grey cloth cap from his frizzy white head and waved a crumpled newspaper as if he were trying to shake the crumbs from it.
‘A very good day to you, Monsieur Legris. ’Scuse my excitement, sir, but it isn’t every day you get to see your own name printed in the newspaper. It’s me in here! You see, yesterday evening I was out walking my dog, Choupette, on Rue des Martyrs, when a waitress from Bouillon Duval…’
‘I wanted to know whether anyone went up to Mademoiselle Kherson’s yesterday or this morn–’
‘Yes! Don’t move, I’m coming!’ a voice screeched from the back of the lodge.
Monsieur Ladoucette continued his monologue, oblivious to the interruption.
‘…emptied a bucket of slimy water right under her feet. Just then, a big fellow with a beard, who was coming the other way…’
A small weasel-faced woman appeared next to Monsieur Ladoucette and greeted Victor with a nod.
‘Ah! The old rheumatics. Ever so bad. Always flare up when the weather turns cold. Yes, someone came yesterday evening while I was peeling the potatoes. With a telegraph. Wanted to know where Mademoiselle Tasha lived, so I told him the sixth.’
‘…slipped up on the pavement right under my nose. Mad with rage he was. Rushed at the waitress with a knife. And Choupette…’
‘Pipe down will you! You’re getting on Monsieur Legris’s nerves!’ his wife bellowed in his ear. ‘You mustn’t mind him. Battle of Sedan. Cannons going off. Deaf as a post,’ she said to Victor.
‘He wants to know about Mademoiselle Kherson!’ she bawled in her husband’s ear again.
‘That reminds me. Mademoiselle Becker told us Mademoiselle Kherson’s putting up your shop assistant’s cousin. Will she be staying long? I have to know because of the letters and so forth,’ the concierge asked Victor.
‘There’s no need to be bothering Monsieur Legris about that, Aristide. The girl’s gone. Found a position,’ his wife told him.
‘What time did she leave the building?’ Victor asked, feeling a headache coming on.
‘This morning. About seven o’clock, when I was emptying the rubbish bins. Why? Didn’t she leave Mademoiselle Tasha’s key under the mat like she said she would?’
‘Yes, indeed, under the mat,’ Victor replied hastily.
‘I’m glad to hear it. We’re the ones responsible for everyone who comes through here, you know.’
‘Did she tell you where she was going?’
‘Of course she did; we had a nice little chat. She’s a bit lost all alone here in Paris, poor creature. When you’re in service, there’s not a lot of time for promenading. She wanted to know how to get to Pont de Crimée. Said she had an appointment at an employment agency there. As far as I could gather, her last mistress was no picnic. I said she should take the omnibus, since Pont de Crimée isn’t exactly next door. “Oh, I think I’ll walk,” she says, “I’ll see a bit of the city. I’ve got time, they’re not expecting me until midday.” If you ask me, she was in no hurry to start her new job.’
Victor turned to leave, but Monsieur Ladoucette held him back.
‘So Choupette jumped up and bit him hard on the backside and he let go of his knife. “Stinking mad dog!” he cries. “Pavement biter!” I snap back at him. And just then…’
‘Aristide!’ Madame Ladoucette cried reprovingly. ‘Go and shell the peas! By the way, Monsieur Legris, would it be too much to ask if you could bring me the beginning of the Xavier de Montépin?2 The fifth volume ends so beautifully: “I have suffered, but now I am in paradise. God is good!” But I still want to know what happens to the little bread delivery girl in the first four!’
‘Yes, I promise. I must go upstairs again; I’ve left something behind.’
Like Monsieur Ladoucette’s dog, Victor felt angry enough to bite someone and it took him six flights of stairs to calm down. He checked under the door mat as soon as he reached the top. No key. He was puzzled. Why would Denise have spun such a tale, worthy of Xavier de Montépin himself? He couldn’t help admiring the way she had inveigled him with her story at the Temps Perdu last Saturday. ‘She’s a good little actress. She ought to try joining the Comédie-Française instead of wasting her time playing the part of the faithful servant!’ How was he to go about unravelling this mess? He must begin at the beginning. He would go to Père-Lachaise. What
better way of making the gatekeeper talk than setting his camera up amidst the tombstones? The light was good. He would spend a peaceful afternoon surrounded by greenery and then go and leave Odette’s key with Hyacinthe. But first of all he must collect his equipment from Rue des Saints-Pères. Once again his appetite for solving puzzles was awakened, and life suddenly had a spice to it that excited him.
Joseph was spending his lunch break perched on his library steps scanning the morning papers for news items.
‘Have there been any sales?’ Victor enquired, depositing his hat on Molière’s head.
‘A Crébillon fils3 illustrated by Moreau le Jeune. A gentleman of independent means bought it, pretending he was only interested in the morocco binding. And three copies of The Beast in Man,’ Joseph mumbled. ‘There was a telephone call for Monsieur Mori and I took the liberty of telling the caller he was absent but that you might go and have a look.’
‘At what?’
‘An inheritance, on Avenue Ternes, the complete works of Bossuet in ten volumes, and an incomplete Saint-Simon. I wrote down the address just in case; it’s on the desk. Oh! Listen to this, boss…’
With his nose pressed to the newspaper, he read out:
Early on Thursday morning at St Nazaire, a macabre discovery was made under somewhat strange circumstances. Foreman Aimable Boudier, upon descending into the hold of a ship whose cargo of grain had just been unloaded, was shocked and horrified to come across a man’s body in an advanced state of putrefaction. A few hairs were still sticking to the skull, but the face was unrecognisable. Monsieur Pinot of the Harbour Police contacted the head of the Paris Police who arrived promptly at the scene.
‘Monsieur Goron is going to have his work cut out for him, considering he hasn’t even bothered to arrest the main suspect in the Gouffé affair. What do you think, boss?’