The Disappearance at Père-Lachaise

by Claude Izner

  Weeping, she went over to Mathilde de Flavignol. A maid carrying a tray of empty glasses walked past Victor and he followed her into the anteroom.

  ‘May I introduce myself? My name is Victor Legris.’

  ‘Honoured, sir. Mine is Sidonie Taillade.’

  She set down her tray and did a little curtsey looking up at him with her round face and retroussé nose.

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘It was just before Madame’s bedtime. Gratien, the valet, handed me a letter which Madame Hubert had just given to him. So naturally I took it to Madame, who said to leave it on the dressing table and to prepare her verbena tea. When I came back she was lying on the carpet stiff as a rod. I thought she was dead! Gratien laid her out on the bed before going to fetch the doctor, who came and examined her and said she’d suffered a hemi something…some funny word for a stroke.’

  ‘What did the letter say?’

  ‘Why sir! I would never take such a liberty…In all my four years of loyal…’

  ‘May I look at it, please?’

  ‘Yes…I don’t see why not.’

  ‘I would be extremely obliged to you, Mademoiselle.’

  Sidonie moved quickly. Never had a gentleman addressed her so politely in order to solicit a favour. She was back in a flash.

  ‘I don’t know whether I’m at liberty to…’

  ‘You are now,’ Victor said, pressing a coin into her hand discreetly.

  Madame Hubert called out to Sidonie, who glanced at Victor with tears of gratitude in her eyes before disappearing again. He took advantage of her absence to take the letter out and slip it in his pocket and when the maid came back he handed her the empty envelope.

  ‘I thought perhaps the letter contained a piece of bad news that might account for Madame de Brix’s attack, but it seems not. You may put it back where it was. One more thing. Have you heard mention of a certain Monsieur Numa Winner?’

  ‘The Englishman who fancies himself as a fakir! Madame should never have taken part in those black magic séances what with her heart condition, but she couldn’t keep away!’

  ‘Do you know where he lives?’

  ‘I went with Madame on several occasions, though I never saw anything as I always waited outside. Number 134, Rue d’Assas.’

  Victor ended the conversation when he saw Raphaëlle de Gouveline and Blanche de Cambrésis approaching.

  ‘Monsieur Legris,’ Raphaëlle called out, ‘I’ve been racking my brains to try and remember the name of that clairvoyant and I’ve got it!’

  ‘The clairvoyant?’

  ‘Yes, Odette’s clairvoyant. You remember, the other day at the bookshop…His name is Zénobie. Do you know how it came back to me? Thanks to the palm tree I just had delivered. An association of ideas you see. Palm tree…Palmyre…Zénobie, queen of Palmyre!’

  ‘In which case she’s a woman.’

  ‘Not necessarily. These people often choose female sobriquets with an Eastern or mythical ring. Zaïda, Cassandra, Sybille, Doniazade…A man, a woman, what difference does it make?’

  ‘And…the address?’

  ‘Odette kept very quiet about it. She only ever mentioned a letter she’d received from this person with some important information about her dead husband.’

  ‘Are you interested in the occult sciences, Monsieur Legris?’ enquired Blanche de Cambrésis.

  ‘Simply curious, my dear Madame.’

  He skirted round the sitting room to avoid taking his leave, only to find Valentine de Salignac, pale and clutching her parasol, waiting for him in the hallway under a gigantic panel by Louise Abbéma.2

  ‘Monsieur Legris, I…I ordered a book from Monsieur Joseph and I haven’t been able to…’

  ‘Joseph isn’t well.’

  ‘Not well! Is it serious?’

  ‘No, no, just a touch of bronchitis. He’ll soon be better. My compliments, Mademoiselle.’

  He bowed, grinning. She watched him walk away, relieved to know the reason Joseph hadn’t been to meet her at the Grands Magasins du Louvre.

  Victor’s amusement was shortlived. In Rue de Babylon he read the letter.

  He who forced entry into the other world

  Will soon plunge into the abyss

  Unless he is silent and buries with him

  Death’s secret mystery.

  You’ve succeeded, I shall NEVER return.

  Be silent, be silent, BE SILENT!

  Your son.

  ‘Monsieur is not receiving visitors today,’ a prim butler told Victor.

  Victor’s use of Madame de Brix’s name and his insistence on the urgency of the matter gained him entry. He produced his visiting card and was shown to a small sitting room the walls of which were lined with books and paintings. He admired the choice of pastels by Odilon Redon, hand-coloured engravings by William Blake and etchings by Victor Hugo – all with mystical themes. A fleeting glimpse of the complete works of Swift bound in red morocco was enough to make his mouth water, and he was sorry not to have more time to examine the books.

  A tall man with long white hair limped into the room on crutches. He smiled at Victor, who felt he was being weighed up and categorised by his host at a glance.

  ‘You take the rocking chair, I’ll take this armchair,’ said Numa Winner, tapping his left thigh. ‘I’m in plaster from my ankle to my knee. So you’re a bookseller, are you? A noble profession. What will you have to drink?’

  ‘Nothing, thank you.’

  Numa Winner, ignoring the refusal, hobbled over to the bookcase and pulled out two heavy volumes that concealed a bottle and two glasses.

  ‘I hide this from Léon, my butler. He fusses over my liver like an old mother hen. Try it – it’s an excellent cognac, twelve years old. I assume you have come for a consultation. You’ll need to arrange an appointment with my secretary.’

  ‘That is not the reason for my visit. I should like your opinion about a letter that may have caused Madame de Brix’s stroke.’

  ‘Adalberte! When?’

  ‘Yesterday evening.’

  Numa Winner lowered himself carefully into the armchair.

  ‘That’s dreadful, poor Adalberte…A letter you say?’

  Victor stood up and showed him the letter. After he’d read it, Numa handed it back and sat looking pensive.

  ‘Shocking. There’s wickedness at work here.’

  ‘Would you mind taking a look at this too?’ Victor asked, his eyes fixed on the other man.

  He passed him the letter arranging the meeting with Odette at Gloppe’s.

  ‘Zénobie,’ murmured Numa.

  ‘Is the name familiar to you?’

  ‘Well…’ Numa began in a croaky voice he seemed continually about to clear.

  ‘You must know each other in your profession,’ insisted Victor.

  ‘My dear sir, I do not possess a directory of clairvoyants; there are new recruits all the time. Where did these letters come from?’

  ‘Why don’t you read my mind and find out!’

  ‘Come now, Monsieur Legris, I find it hard to believe that you see clairvoyants as wizards with owls perched on their shoulders, a crystal ball or tarot pack in front of them and but one aim in mind – to take their customers’ money. I confess to being as incapable of reading your thoughts as I am of seeing into the future.’

  ‘What a shame; you could have avoided breaking your leg.’

  ‘Even if I could have predicted this silly fall – something of a tautology wouldn’t you say? – I wouldn’t have been able to stop it happening sooner or later. And, anyway, isn’t the unpredictability of life part of its charm? My God, how tedious if we could map out everything we did in advance!’

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘Three weeks ago, as I was stepping out of a carriage. You didn’t answer my question. Who wrote these letters?’

  ‘I have no idea. The one signed Zénobie was sent to a friend of mine, Madame de Valois, who has gone missing. I have no news of her.�
�

  These words appeared to have no immediate effect on Numa, indeed nothing in his manner indicated that he had even heard them. He continued sipping his cognac. Victor studied the impassive expression on his face. Finally Numa spoke:

  ‘Madame de Valois came to see me at Houlgate. It was Madame de Brix who introduced us. Six months later Madame de Brix mentioned to me a medium by the name of Zénobie. She asked my advice and I warned her to be careful. Then she told me that Madame de Valois had been contacted by this Zénobie, this would-be guardian of secrets. Madame de Brix tried in vain to dissuade your friend from giving any credence to the woman’s unlikely stories. Swindles involving the death notices are quite widespread nowadays. In the last few years a veritable rash of mediums and false clairvoyants has sprung up, feeding the credulous with falsehoods and then fleecing them. Wise men, cabbalists, occultists, braggers of every hue abound in all strata of society.’

  ‘And naturally you belong to a different category.’

  Numa smiled.

  ‘Precisely. No incense, no incantations, no dim lighting. I have no time for charlatans who take advantage of the gullibility of people in distress. Being a medium is a gift one is born with and should not be exploited for gain.’

  ‘And how do you make a living?’

  ‘I run a scientific review, The Scientific News, based in London. I am also a member of the counterpart to your Académie des Sciences. You see, Monsieur Legris, good mediums are as rare as great artists, and they fall into two categories: the physical and the psychological. I belong to the latter. I work by clairaudience, which means I have the gift of hearing disembodied voices inaudible to the ordinary ear. I interpret messages and convey them through my own voice.’

  ‘Madame de Brix told me that her deceased son spoke to her through you. Forgive me for saying so, but I find it impossible to believe in such nonsense.’

  ‘Most people deny things that defy their senses, or what is known as their “common sense”. Shall I tell you why I agreed to speak to you? The instant I stepped into this room I sensed you were not alone. There was a couple with you. I caught a brief glimpse of him – a rare occurrence for me – an elderly, balding man with hunched shoulders. He is offering his arm to a younger woman holding a spray of what looks like…it looks like laurel.’

  Numa had gone silent, his stare fixed. Victor leant forward, fascinated in spite of himself.

  ‘What significance, if any, does…’

  ‘Cut the thread.’ Numa spoke clearly, in a voice that had lost all trace of hoarseness.

  Victor jumped.

  ‘His death has freed us, you and me. My love. I have found him. You’ll understand. You must…follow your instinct. You can be reborn if you break the chain. Harmony. Soon…Soon…’

  Numa relaxed, and cracked his joints. He looked drained of all vitality.

  ‘They’ve gone.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not taken in.’

  ‘The facts are plain and yet you doubt them. I have no interest in trying to convince you, Monsieur Legris. Indeed I would gain nothing from it. There is no rational explanation for spiritual phenomena. As regards the reason for your visit, I have only one piece of advice: tread carefully; this is a dangerous game.’

  He lifted his glass to his lips and closed his eyes, a sign that the interview was over.

  Victor walked back up Avenue de l’Observatoire where strings of cyclists were vying with the omnibuses. When he reached the Bullier music hall, a word Numa had uttered during his trance came back to him in a flash. ‘Laurel.’ He felt a rush of blood to his head. He tried to recall the part about Apollo’s lovers in the Greek myths; the God was on the point of embracing a nymph he’d been pursuing with his attentions when she changed into a laurel bush. Her name was Daphne. Like my mother, he thought.

  He continued to stroll, deeply troubled. Had he been in the presence of a true medium?

  He bumped into an old lady who was feeding the sparrows and turned round. And Uncle Émile? How could Numa have known he was bald and relished the word ‘harmony’? No! I refuse to believe it.

  He hailed a cabman who was dropping off his fare on Rue de Chartreux.

  ‘I want to make a tour of the panoramas.’3

  ‘All the panoramas?’ the cabman inquired, sensing he was on to a good thing.

  ‘All of them.’

  A building with caryatids on it shouldn’t be too hard to find, he thought to himself as he sat down on the worn seat.

  The cabman, a big fellow with a face like a bull, preferred to begin with the most strenuous part of the journey, on account of his old mare. And so he took his fare to the top of Rue Lepic in Montmartre where, behind the scaffolding of the Sacré-Coeur under construction, was the Jerusalem panorama, on the corner of Rue Chevalier-de-la-Barre and Rue Lamarck. Victor looked around him at the allotments and rickety houses – all devoid of architectural adornments.

  ‘On to the next!’ he called out to the cabman, who was intrigued by this peculiar sightseer.

  ‘I suggest you visit the Centenary Panorama.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Jardin des Tuileries.’

  ‘No. Are there any others close by?’

  ‘I should say so!’

  The Champs-Élysées alone boasted three panoramas, and the cabman applauded Victor’s decision to skip the rather sorry affair on the hill as it would give him more time for the Battle of Reichshoffen, on Rue de Berri.

  ‘No caryatids,’ Victor observed.

  ‘He’s a funny bird,’ grumbled the cabman, cracking his whip.

  But neither the diorama depicting the 1870 siege of Paris, situated opposite the Cirque d’Été, nor the brand new construction next door to it, built by Charles Garnier to house the panorama of Jerusalem in the time of Herod, found favour with his fare.

  ‘Well, there’s only one more I can think of!’ the cabman called out, ‘and that’s the Bastille.’

  ‘I only hope it’s the right one,’ Victor said to himself, feeling discouraged.

  After a rather long ride they arrived at the Colonne de Juillet and continued down Boulevard de la Contrescarpe, flanked by warehouses, which ended near the Seine at Place Mazas. In the middle of this islet planted with trees stood the panorama of Paris in 1789.

  Victor decided to get out and have a stroll around the neighbourhood, and he paid his fare, supplementing it with a substantial tip.

  ‘There was I thinking you were funny in the head, sir, but you picked the right one! The paintings are spectacular and the storming of the Bastille feels so lifelike it’s as if you were there! You can even hear birds singing. But the star attraction is the torture chamber. It’s only wax figures, but there’s plenty to feast your eyes on – beheadings, water torture, burnings, the rack, garrotting, the whole kit and caboodle! Gee up Zéphyrine!’

  Feeling slightly sick, Victor strolled out along Avenue Ledru-Rollin past some naked façades and a paving-stone warehouse. He retraced his steps and turned into Boulevard Diderot. He had scarcely walked a few yards when a cornice buttressed by a pair of busty torsos almost caused him to cry out ‘Victory.’

  Once more he had to use his imagination to hoodwink a concierge. ‘I shall compile an anthology of tall stories,’ he promised himself.

  ‘The Comtesse de Salignac has asked me to deliver a message to the tenant on the second floor.’

  ‘You’re too late. Monsieur and Madame Turner have gone.’

  Victor’s heart started pounding. Turner was the name jotted down next to Zénobie in Odette’s diary!

  ‘When did they leave?’

  ‘Yesterday morning.’

  ‘When will they be back?’

  ‘They won’t. They gave their notice.’

  ‘Perhaps they left a forwarding address? This is a delicate matter. I’ve been asked to ascertain their whereabouts, discreetly. Madame, the Contesse, lent them a large sum of m
oney, and she wishes to avoid a scandal.’

  ‘Sorry. That’s all I can tell you. The Turners were an odd couple, very stiff and starchy. They moved here in December. Very few belongings and no servants – which didn’t stop them leaving the apartment clean as a whistle. They received no letters or visits – apart from a woman dressed in mourning who came once or twice a week. They left in a great hurry – a family matter, the woman told me. Her husband went on ahead the evening before. She paid up until June without any fuss – well, it’s only fair; we’re already in March. The apartment is for rent. You must have seen the sign on the second-floor balcony.’

  ‘Could you describe the Turners to me?’

  ‘He used a stick and limped, but without really limping.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, he had a very slight limp, hardly noticeable, only I’ve got a good eye.’

  ‘Did you ever speak to him?’

  ‘Only to say good morning and good evening. I couldn’t have seen him more than five or six times in all. It was mostly her I saw.’

  ‘Was he short, tall, fair, dark?’

  ‘He wore his hat pulled down over his face, so I can’t say if he was fair or dark…’

  ‘What about the woman?’

  ‘A pretty blonde, with a slim waist and a nice frontage…’

  ‘I’d like to visit the apartment; I happen to have an aunt who is looking for a place to rent.’

  He ferreted around in all four rooms, opening the windows to look at the view, frowning at the wallpaper and criticising the kitchen; in short doing everything he could to irritate the concierge, and when he sensed the man was about to have a fit, he asked him to go back downstairs and leave him alone in the apartment so that he might get the feel of the place and make his decision.