by Claude Izner
‘It’s not the same thing at all. When I do my painting, I’m not putting my life in danger. I refuse to be worried sick every time you’re late!’
‘I am so glad you care; it proves you love me. Would you pass the sugar, please?’
‘And on top of that, you make fun of me! Very well! It’s no use talking to someone who’s deaf. I’m going to bed!’
He waited until he heard the bedroom door close, then hurried into the office, emptied out the contents of Odette’s Private envelope and skimmed one of the letters.
Cali, 8th October 1889
My dear wife,
I am sending you the portrait of the Madonna we saw together at Lourdes in ’86. It is very dear to me so please take great care of it.
Why had Armand underlined that sentence? He tried to remember what Joseph had said at the tavern: ‘She showed me a painting. She called it The Madonna in Blue. It was the one her mistress wanted to leave in her husband’s funerary chapel, but Denise changed it for the one of the Archangel Saint Michel.’ He read on feverishly.
I want you to hang it up in my bedroom above my desk next to the portrait of the Archangel Saint Michel. […] Send me a telegram as soon as you receive this letter telling me it has arrived safely.
That’s why Armand was so keen on the painting. It’s valuable! I was a little surprised at his sudden show of religious fervour…Denise must have given Odette the Archangel Saint Michel so that she could keep The Madonna in Blue. The very Madonna that some unknown person is trying to find. I can see it all now. He enters Odette’s apartment and searches for it in vain. Denise runs off terrified and he follows her, first here and then to Tasha’s, where he encounters a problem: how to gain entry to the garret? He has an idea: to lure Denise out with all her belongings, which include The Madonna in Blue. To make it more credible, he sends her a letter signed V.L. on Sunday evening (I wonder how he found out about the reference?), arranging to meet her at Pont de Crimée, where he kills her. But why go to such extremes? Did she refuse to hand over the picture? Perhaps she left it behind at Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette? Yes, that must be right. Denise’s killer must have found Tasha’s key before he threw her body in the water. He goes to Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette and ransacks the room. Did he find The Madonna in Blue? I’ll have to go back to Tasha’s to find out…Who is this killer? He must know me because he signed my initials…But do I know him? The old man in the cemetery! The one who claimed to recognise me! I need to question him. I’ll go to the Cour des Comptes.
Chewing on his penholder, he was carried away by his deductions. He had often been tempted to write detective novels and felt strangely as if he were the author of this plot.
I’m losing my grip. I must relax and write all this down.
He opened an unused order book and began to write:
Odette. Is there a connection between her disappearance and the death of her maid?
Bathroom: make-up left behind.
Bedroom: macabre décor, skull, esoteric literature. Why? Why would such a superficial, shallow woman, concerned only with appearances, fall under such an influence? Was she really mourning a husband for whom she felt neither affection nor desire? What had been going on since Armand’s death?
He looked again at her appointments diary. The same name appeared every Monday and Thursday: Zénobie.
Zénobie. Find out who this person is and what role she played in Odette’s life.
Exhausted, he put the papers back in the envelope one by one. As he was folding up Odette’s letter to her husband, his eye lit on a sentence:…met some charming people – in particular the well-known English spiritualist M. Numa Winner…
Where else have I seen or heard that name?…It was Denise, in the Temps Perdu…What had she said? Come on, remember! YES! ‘Madame de Brix took Madame to see a medium…Monsieur Numa…’ There was something else…The book about the table-turning with Victor Hugo, the author’s name was identical…Make a note of it.
See Adalberte de Brix. Find out Numa Winner’s address.
Return to Odette’s apartment: books.
Cour des Comptes: question…Père…Moscou.
He put the light out and sat motionless in his chair, suddenly overwhelmed by the image of Denise’s body lying in the morgue.
Chapter Six
His legs numb, Père Moscou levered himself painfully to his feet by leaning against the wall, and almost went sprawling into the middle of some dustbins. He had now spent two nights in Rue des Saints-Pères, in a shed in the back yard of one of the buildings. Ever since Barnabé had given him the card left by Victor Legris at the Père-Lachaise the day before yesterday, he hadn’t dared return home for fear of being set on by the man who looked exactly like the one in the locket and who had no doubt killed Josephine and dumped her body in his handcart. He preferred to be the hunter not the hunted, so he was hanging about in the quarter, even though he lacked the courage to actually confront Victor.
His presence had not passed unnoticed. Madame Ballu, the concierge of the building next to the bookshop, was beginning to be alarmed at the sight of the white-haired old man prowling about, enveloped in a frayed greatcoat, his pockets jingling as though he was a branch of the Bank of France.
‘For heaven’s sake, there he is again. He pops up out of nowhere, just when you least expect it, so he must be planning some foul deed. Oh, that really is the limit – he’s going to relieve himself against my lamp-post!’
She charged up the street, seething, bucket in hand.
*
Victor jumped out of bed, alarmed at the noise outside. It sounded as if someone were being slaughtered. He ran over to the window and spotted Madame Ballu brandishing her pail above her head, menacing an old man who was shaking his fist at her. It was the fellow from the cemetery!
Congratulating himself for sleeping practically naked, he threw on his shirt, jacket, trousers and frock coat any old how. Tasha, watching him through her eyelashes, saw him struggle with the buttons on his spats, then cram his hat on sideways, snatch up his cane, and lean over her. She hastily closed her eyes. When she opened them again he was already on the stairs.
He dashed past Madame Ballu who, bristling with indignation, was calling on Madame Pignot to witness the fleeing old man.
‘Can you believe it? I told him not to dirty my pavement and he treated me to a volley of abuse!’
Tasha lifted the curtain just in time to see Victor running towards Quai Malaquais. She tried to console herself with the thought that falling in love with a will-o’-the-wisp kept life from being dull. But she was unhappy and worried: what hornet’s nest was he going to stir up this time?
A raging wind was churning the dark clouds that had built up over the Seine. Père Moscou kept looking over his shoulder. On Quai Malaquais the secondhand booksellers were dragging their handcarts in which they carried their boxes filled with books, and starting to fix them to the parapet. Several times Victor took advantage of these comings and goings to escape the old man’s attention. At Quai Conti, he concealed himself by the corner of the police station and then behind a stationary carriage.
They both set off across Pont Neuf, which was already crowded with throngs of workers hurrying to their offices, housekeepers with shopping baskets over their arms, schoolboys in grey smocks and vendors of frites or roast chestnuts carrying their stoves. Victor hid in the half-moon shadows cast by the stone benches, crouching down and pretending to be picking up his cane to wait, before hurrying to the next one. The equestrian statue of Vert-Galant provided him with cover while the old man shouted at a cyclist who was hurtling across Place Dauphine at high speed.
‘Two-wheeled imbecile!’ he bellowed.
They reached Place des Trois-Marie and then followed the windswept Quai de la Mégisserie. Shop assistants, their collars turned up, were having a last puff of their cigarettes before resigning themselves to taking up their positions behind the counters of the shops of La Belle Jardinière. The vendors of grain and bi
rds and of hunting and fishing equipment were taking down the shutters from the fronts of their shops.
Moving between groups of people, Victor never lost sight of Père Moscou. They passed the Théâtre du Châtelet and were swallowed up in the merry-go-round of vehicles that were a permanent feature encircling the Palmier fountain. Caught up amongst the carts of vegetables on their way to Les Halles, the carriages, the tilburys, and the fire carts drawn by white horses, Victor thought that he had lost the old man. But there he was, a few yards further on, forging a path by hurling insults. They reached the pavement in front of the Opéra-Comique, crossed Avenue Victoria and Square de la Tour Saint-Jacques, where some bourgeois folk were reading their newspapers, and Rue de Rivoli. On arriving at Boulevard de Sébastopol, they turned off right almost immediately into Rue Pernelle.
Victor slowed down. He saw the old fellow disappear into a shop whose sign announced: Secondhand Silver and Jewellery. He hid behind a wagon left by the side of the gutter in order to watch what was going on inside.
He saw Père Moscou extract a locket from his pocket, open it with difficulty to remove a photograph and then hold it out to the shopkeeper, whose face was obscured by a pillar. Two coins were put into his open hand, and he hurriedly stowed them in the pocket of his greatcoat. He left the shop so quickly that Victor leapt back, banging his head on a hand cart. In spite of the pain, he had the presence of mind to duck. After a moment’s reflection, the old man set off again. Victor wondered what to do. Should he follow him? Tired and cold as he was, he decided not to follow. He could always find Père Moscou at the Cour des Comptes. He went over to the shop window. In the midst of a jumble of watches, spoons, silver cups and snuff boxes, some wedding rings threaded on a rod and brooches displayed on velvet cushions shone like so many stars. As Victor watched, the shopkeeper added to these treasures a coral necklace, a mother of pearl pencil box, some yellow diamanté earrings and a locket in the shape of a heart. Not without nostalgia, Victor remembered having given a similar locket to Odette at the start of their relationship, when he was in the grip of his passion for her. He had taken her to a well-known jeweller on Place Vendôme, and while she was looking at the jewels he had prayed that she would choose something reasonable. Luckily, instead of a ring or a bracelet, she had chosen a locket and chain and had insisted on having it engraved with the words: To O. from V. ‘I’ll put your photograph in it, my duck. That way, you’ll always be with me.’ He had asked: ‘What if your husband wants to see what’s inside it?’ She had burst out laughing. ‘Armand? No danger of that. We’ve had separate bedrooms for years.’ He had pretended to believe her, since it suited him that way.
He was about to leave, but on the spur of the moment decided to push open the door of the shop. He had never given Tasha a present, other than some illustrated books. The pencil box, with its iridescent shimmer, would be perfect for her pencils and charcoals. The shopkeeper, a tall, gaunt man whose eyes, behind their thick lenses, were reminiscent of a fish, handed him the pencil box. Examining it up close, Victor discovered that it had a slight nick.
‘What a pity,’ he murmured.
He caught sight of two ivory combs.
‘How much are they?’
‘Twenty-five francs. Shall I wrap them for you?’
Victor paid, took the package and hesitated. Would Tasha accept a locket from him? ‘She could slip my portrait into it,’ he thought, amused.
‘I’m interested in that locket, the one in the shape of a heart.’
The shopkeeper hastened to put it on the counter. Victor turned it over to look at the clasp.
‘It’s silver, you know.’
Victor opened the locket. Where you would normally put either a photo or a lock of hair, he read, engraved in small letters:
To O. from V.
His heart raced. He broke out in a sweat and felt weak. The contents of the shop seemed to be submerged in a sort of fog, like the fragments of a dream.
‘Don’t you like it, Monsieur?’
The voice seemed to come from a long way off. Odette! She was dead. He staggered sideways.
‘Monsieur,’ repeated the voice.
No, it was absurd. Odette must have sold the locket. But she couldn’t have, she was so attached to it. Then she must have lost it, yes, that must be it, she’d lost it. His panic abated gradually and his breathing found its normal rhythm. Forms and colours came back to life.
The myopic beanpole was staring at him. Embarrassed at having lost his composure, Victor forced himself to smile.
‘Yes, yes…It’s very beautiful,’ he managed to say in a strangled voice. ‘Was it the old man with the white hair who sold it to you? I have to know, it’s important.’
The solicitude of the shopkeeper vanished in an instant. He snatched up a packet of labels. ‘Are you from the police?’
‘No, not at all, I’m just asking…’
‘In that case, I’m not obliged to answer you. I respect the privacy of my clients. Do you want it or not?’
‘Allow me to insist; it’s a matter of some importance. You probably have a ledger which you note all your purchases in. If I could take a quick look…’
‘Monsieur, my papers are all in order. If you have any doubts, you may register a complaint.’
‘No, no, I’m not going to do that. I’ll buy it from you. How much?’
‘Thirty francs and it’s worth every penny!’ the shopkeeper shot back.
Victor took out his wallet, counted out forty francs and stared unblinkingly into the fish eyes until they looked down.
‘Oh, all right,’ murmured the shopkeeper, pocketing the notes, ‘It’s just that I don’t want any trouble. Yes, it was the old chap who sold it to me, but, I assure you, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen him.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ said Victor, leaving.
The street seemed threatening all of a sudden. How could a simple bauble have become in the space of a few short minutes such a source of anguish? Had the old fellow broken into Odette’s apartment? Was he a thief…or worse? He pictured a withered old hand wrenching the chain from the neck of a corpse. My photo was in the locket – that’s how he recognised me at Père-Lachaise! A cold wave of anger engulfed him. He was determined to nab the wretch. Furious, he strode away.
If Odette had sold her locket, wouldn’t she have taken care to remove my photo first? Not necessarily, she’s so absentminded…Or…the clasp was undone…Perhaps there was nothing inside it when the old fellow picked up the locket. No, no that doesn’t fit with him bolting when he bumped into me at the cemetery.
He was so absorbed in his internal monologue that he did not try to avoid the crowds pouring in from the faubourgs, shopping for clothes, hats or porcelain. In his mind he was constructing various scenarios. He was annoyed with himself for having paid so little attention to Denise’s story, and distraught that his negligence had made the situation worse by allowing Odette’s disappearance to go unremarked. Tasha was right; he would have to inform the police.
Père Moscou clutched the five-franc coins tightly. Two paltry little coins, it was chicken feed for such a beautiful piece. But even though he knew he’d been swindled, he was relieved to be rid of the locket. He fished Victor’s photo out of the bottom of his pocket, tore it up and scattered the confetti in the gutter of Rue Saint-Martin, opposite the Saint-Merri Church. ‘No need to keep his ugly mug; it’s engraved on my mind!’
The crumbling old buildings were crammed together to form a dark tunnel in which there was a succession of wine merchants, and displays of coffee, dried fruit and boiled sweets. As he penetrated further into the network of narrow medieval alleys, the noise from the main arteries of the city began to fade. On Rue Taillepain, crumbling walls, propped up with staves, were pierced by dusty windows behind which scrap-iron and rags were heaped. The lodging houses of Rue Brisemiche, where he had lived before taking up residence at the Cour des Comptes, had not yet extinguished their lamps. Lodgings Starting At 40 Centi
mes the Night, one franc for a room, declared the signs. He remembered how he’d had to make himself scarce at dawn when the owner had violently pulled the cord slipped under his and his fellow dossers’ heads and did not regret no longer living there. He waved a greeting to his old pal Bibi la Purée,1 but he pretended not to see Moscou, having become more snobbish since he had started associating with the poets of the Latin Quarter. Barely glancing at Rue de Venise to his left, where in a clutter of haphazardly parked wagons the travelling florists had come to fill their carts with violets and mimosa, Moscou hurried towards Rue Rambuteau.
What about the ring? What am I going to do with that? Bah, I’ll sell it to another fence, to confuse the trail. I had my head screwed on when I set up camp in Rue des Saints-Pères. The cut-throat in the locket, who is surely one and the same as that cursed A.D.V. who messed up my bivouac, couldn’t track me down because I was where he least expected to find me, right under his nose!
The pavements of Rue Rambuteau were clogged with costermongers’ carts where fruits and vegetables were heaped around copper-plated scales. Voluble women, plump and chubby-cheeked in clogs and aprons, with their fan of paper bags to hand, were hawking their wares, competing to see who could bawl the loudest:
‘Fresh and sweet! Buy my Seville oranges! Hey, you there, old man, taste my oranges – you’ll be in heaven!’
‘He’d rather have my radishes. Try my radishes – you’ll go straight to paradise!’
‘Look at him – he’s a misery! Eat my carrots – they’ll make you happy!