The Disappearance at Père-Lachaise

by Claude Izner

  ‘You’re my saviour! I was beginning to despair of tracking down any erotic etchings!’

  Kenji’s expression froze.

  ‘Have I said something wrong? Isn’t carnal love the subject of your etchings?’

  ‘Er…no. The artists I mentioned painted many different themes, but…’

  ‘You mean you have none of that genre? What a bore. I shall never succeed now. You were my last hope!’

  ‘To tell you the truth I do have a few examples that might interest you, only…’

  ‘Only what?’

  ‘I am afraid of offending your modesty. Here in the West, graphic depictions of the intimate act are deemed obscene, an effrontery, whereas in the East eroticism is considered an art, and…’

  ‘I share your point of view, Monsieur Mori. I am not only a journalist, I am a model. I pose naked.’

  If it hadn’t been for her candid manner, Kenji might have thought this was a practical joke designed to unsettle him.

  ‘Is it yes then? I promised to lend Tasha and Monsieur Legris a hand this afternoon. I assume you are going too – it would give us a chance to meet again.’

  ‘I…? Going where?’ he stammered.

  ‘Why, to Tasha’s apartment to help move her canvases here. And afterwards you can devote some of your time to showing me your treasures. Please say you will, Monsieur Mori!’

  ‘Of course. Shall we say…this evening at seven thirty after the…the move. Come in through the main building, my rooms are on the first floor.’

  ‘Oh what a relief! You’re an angel! I must go and change into my climbing gear – it’s no mean feat reaching Tasha’s roost!’

  She blew him a kiss that left him gasping like a fish out of water.

  Hitched to the cart, Victor made his way along Rue Jacob and into Rue des Saints-Pères. Madame Pignot, forced to take the day off because of the carnival, had finally agreed to let him borrow it. He was approaching number 18 when he saw a woman in a large, flowered hat with a veil leave the shop and wave to Kenji in a friendly manner before heading off in the direction of the quay. Victor parked the cart in the main courtyard of the building.

  No sooner had he opened the door than a pungent fragrance tickled his nostrils, causing him to sneeze loudly.

  ‘Have you been using disinfectant?’ he asked Kenji, who was standing, transfixed, beside the counter.

  ‘Do you not like this perfume?’

  ‘Whoever wears it probably wants to remain incognito,’ he said under his breath, his handkerchief pressed to his nose.

  All this toing and froing had made him hungry and he was hoping Germaine had surpassed herself.

  ‘Have you eaten yet?’

  ‘No,’ replied Kenji, with a distant look.

  Some pretty customer’s tickled his fancy, thought Victor, sitting down to duck à l’orange.

  Kenji joined him.

  ‘Have you anything planned for this afternoon? The Duc de Frioul is exhibiting his collection of incunabula,’ he said nonchalantly as he served himself a wing.

  ‘I offered to help Tasha bring her canvases here; it’s too damp in her room.’

  ‘In that case I’ll help you.’

  ‘You!’

  Victor froze, his napkin halfway to his mouth.

  ‘Yes, me! I’m not a complete wreck!’

  When they finally reached Rue des Saints-Pères, they were exhausted. The mild weather, a dream for the carnival, was a nightmare for the two men dragging their heavy load through the streets, hampered by advertising floats and a steady flow of processions.

  ‘Don’t the men make a pretty tableau!’ exclaimed Ninon. ‘If I had your talent I’d paint them and call it Sweet Revenge.’

  ‘You’re too hard on them. They’ve gone to a lot of trouble. Kenji has risen greatly in my esteem.’

  They were walking behind the cart, bareheaded, and dressed in long, colourful chemises that made them look like gypsy women.

  ‘Don’t delude yourself; he’s only here because of me. He thinks I’m a journalist passionate about Oriental art.’

  Tasha burst into peals of laughter.

  ‘Shh! Don’t give me away,’ whispered Ninon as they arrived at the entrance to number 18.

  Madame Ballu stood, hands on hips, and watched disapprovingly as they unloaded the cart.

  ‘Where are you going with all that? Not up my nice stairs I’ve just polished, I hope!’

  Without replying, they picked up a canvas each and crossed the courtyard in single file. Ninon opened the hallway door, but it slipped out of her grasp and slammed shut on her hand. Kenji and Victor rushed over.

  ‘Did you hurt yourself?’

  Ninon, unflustered, had not lost her composure; she seemed insensitive to pain.

  ‘It’s nothing. My glove cushioned the impact. I expect I’ll come out of it with little more than a bruise.’

  ‘You must run your finger under the cold tap immediately. Come with me,’ said Kenji.

  He asked her to follow him to the bathroom.

  ‘Let me have a look.’

  ‘What zeal, my dear man! I should inform you that although I may pose in my birthday suit I never undress in front of a man. Wait for me outside. What a splendid bathtub! It must be heavenly to relax in after exerting oneself!’

  She shut the door firmly, leaving Kenji standing in the doorway confused and frustrated.

  Victor and Tasha propped the armfuls of frames they had carried up against the wall in the dining room.

  ‘Your friend has clearly had an effect on Kenji. I’ve rarely seen him so solicitous with a woman. Let’s hope she doesn’t eat him alive.’

  ‘He’s big enough to defend himself.’

  She looked around the room at the furniture piled to one side to make way for the deluge of canvases, then examined the nude of Victor with a critical eye.

  ‘I’d like to do another one with more light in it. Will you pose for me again?’

  ‘I will if you stop recriminating every time I do anything for you,’ he said, sliding the canvas under the sideboard.

  ‘Why are you hiding it? Are you ashamed?’

  ‘I don’t want my anatomy on show for all the world to see.’

  ‘Mine is on permanent exhibition,’ she retorted, pointing to a small picture on the wall.

  ‘Yes, but it’s so much prettier.’

  ‘Hypocrite!’

  She fell silent as Ninon and Kenji came in. After they’d finished emptying the cart they went to the kitchen to drink lemonade.

  ‘What would you all say to a bite to eat? I’ll take you to Foyot’s,’ Kenji suggested.

  ‘Today! But it’ll be packed with the carnival on,’ Tasha protested. ‘You all go without me. I must get back to the Soleil d’Or.’

  ‘I promised Madame Pignot I’d return her cart as soon as we’d finished. I’ll look in on Joseph at the same time, and then I have some letters to write.’

  ‘What about you, Mademoiselle Ninon?’

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Monsieur Mori. I have just enough time to stop off at home and change before a very important meeting at seven thirty.’

  ‘Get your Passe-partout! Latest! St Nazaire corpse identified!’ a paperboy barked at the top of his voice.

  Victor stationed the cart next to the curb and signalled to the boy. He leant against a lamp-post reading the article.

  Corpse Identified

  St. Nazaire corpse identified. The body appears to be that of a Monsieur Lewis Ives, an American citizen who, as the ticket found in his wallet indicates, boarded the ocean liner La-Fayette, which regularly makes the crossing between France and Central America, on 26th November 1889. In the wake of inquiries made at the appropriate consular authority it has been confirmed that before becoming a prospector Monsieur Ives was employed as a foreman at the inter-oceanic canal works in Panama. Monsieur Ives’s last place of residence was Cali, Colombia, care of Señora Caicedo, owner of the Hotel Rosalie. It is regrettable…

  V
ictor couldn’t believe his eyes. He reread the passage several times. The significance of his discovery made him dizzy. The Hotel Rosalie again: Armand’s address and the one on the headed paper he’d found at the apartment of the mysterious Turners…

  Oblivious to the Javanese, Pusses in Boots, Pierrots and Colombines that were flooding the streets, he stood, trying to recall another news item Joseph had mentioned to him recently.

  Joseph awoke in a sweat. His senses dulled by the fever and the sachet of cérébrine, he was only half aware of the distant hubbub of the city. A troupe passed by his window chanting a popular song.

  He wanted to ask his mother for a glass of water, but remembered she’d gone to borrow some mustard powder from Madame Ballu.

  Then he saw the intruder.

  All he could make out in the gloomy light filtering through the thick curtain was a hazy, slow-moving shadow, wearing a hood and cloak that gave it a ghostly appearance.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he asked in a muffled voice.

  There was no reply from the shadow, which continued moving in the direction of the bed where he lay, petrified.

  ‘Say something,’ he implored.

  Scared out of his wits, Joseph watched the pale, silent figure gliding inexorably towards him. It was Père Moscou coming to get him! Imagining death’s gnarled fingers already closing round his throat he struggled to extricate himself from the sheets, kicked off the eiderdowns and ended up prostrate on the floor.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Whatever’s the matter, pet?’

  Euphrosine Pignot rushed to his side.

  ‘Has…has he gone?’

  ‘Has who gone?’

  ‘The ghost!’

  ‘There’s no one here, pet; you were having a nightmare. It’s the fever. Now get back into bed and I’ll make you a nice mustard poultice.’

  He was about to object when there was a knock at the door. He slid back underneath the eiderdowns.

  ‘How’s the patient? Where is he?’

  ‘I’m here, boss. Please, tell her not to make me a–’

  ‘You keep an eye on him, Monsieur Legris,’ his mother called out from the kitchen. ‘I went in there just now and found him lying on the floor!’

  ‘Joseph, quick, show me your press cuttings about the St Nazaire corpse – it’s very important!’

  ‘Why? It has no bearing on our case.’

  ‘Don’t argue!’

  ‘That’s a bit rich! The other day you sent me packing. There’s no knowing with you…All right, all right.’

  He retrieved his notebook from under the pillow. Victor leafed through it and slumped on to a chair. Without saying a word, he pointed to the evening edition of Le Passe-partout.

  ‘Oh! How nice of you. I asked Maman to buy it for me, but she forgot.’

  ‘Look at this,’ Victor told him.

  Joseph read the article.

  ‘So, his name was Lewis Ives, was it? A cracking mystery; I’ll use it in my book – I mean it would make a good story. Inspector Lecacheur came up trumps in the end, didn’t he, boss?’

  Victor tried to remain unruffled, and took his time before replying calmly: ‘The St Nazaire corpse isn’t Lewis Ives, it’s Armand de Valois.’

  Joseph gasped.

  ‘Armand de Valois? But that’s impossible – he died of yellow fever in Panama, and…Crikey! ADV: Armand de Valois! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? But how can you be so sure, boss?’

  ‘A minor detail put me on the trail. Now listen carefully: “The man was approximately five feet nine inches tall and aged between thirty-five and forty-five. He had dark-brown hair and a beard. His right femur being somewhat shorter than his left would have given him, when alive, a slight limp…”’

  ‘I don’t get it boss.’

  ‘Armand de Valois walked with a limp.’

  ‘No! Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive. Madame de Valois nicknamed him “old hop along”. But the disability was almost undetectable, except to the keenest eye.’

  Excited by this revelation, Joseph sat up in bed.

  ‘If the St Nazaire corpse really is Armand, then whoever killed Denise and Père Moscou wants to make it look as though he’s still alive.’

  ‘It’s possible, but why?’

  ‘To pin the crimes on him, of course!’

  ‘Nonsense! Why go to all that trouble? Armand de Valois is officially dead and buried in Colombia. That’s what everyone believes.’

  ‘I’m trying to think…How about this for a theory: A.D.V. is alive and well. He has assumed the identity of some other poor fellow with a limp, that Lewis Ives for instance, so that he can be free to perpetrate his crimes. Who’d suspect someone who is dead?’

  ‘But he wrote his initials on Père Moscou’s wall. Only a complete idiot would do such a thing! No, it’s too involved.’

  Victor stood up and paced around the room, his hands behind his back.

  ‘We’re looking at it from the wrong angle,’ Joseph said. ‘The long and the short of it is all we have are theories. And theories don’t prove anything.’

  ‘Not so fast. There’s something else. I’d have told you sooner only you weren’t well enough. Thanks to you I found the building where the clairvoyant lived, near a panorama at the Bastille. There, I established that Armand de Valois and Lewis Ives lodged at the same hotel in Cali, and that they were both connected to this clairvoyant. Denise was right.’

  Joseph tapped the paper, chanting: ‘I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!’

  He stopped dead and put his finger on a sentence in the newspaper that had caught his eye. Just then, Madame Pignot came in carrying a steaming tray.

  ‘It’s ready, pet! A lovely mustard poultice; it’ll do you the world of good!’

  ‘Crikey, Maman, you made me lose my train of thought! What do you want? Oh no, not again! Help, boss!’ he shrieked in a falsetto.

  ‘Forgive me for saying so, Madame Pignot, but I doubt very much this is the appropriate treatment.’

  ‘On the contrary, Monsieur Legris, it works wonders for a fever. With all due respect, you know nothing about such things. Lift up your shirt, you!’

  Joseph obeyed, emitting squealing noises that became loud bellows as the burning hot poultice came into contact with his skin.

  ‘You keep still. You’re just like your father! He’s always been a cry baby has my poor pet,’ Madame Pignot observed. ‘Well, I must get on. I’ve got to stack my baskets. I’ve an early start tomorrow…Oh, my poor aching back!’

  ‘I will help you,’ said Victor, throwing Joseph a conniving glance.

  As soon as they were out of sight, Joseph peeled off the poultice and hid it under the pillow. He felt so relieved that he began to hum, blissfully: Marie Turnerad coiffed the toffs…Suddenly he broke off, his mind awash with images of his walk with Denise on Boulevard des Capucines, and the train of thought his mother had interrupted came racing back. Where had he heard or seen that name before, perhaps printed in a newspaper? Memories of the fair flashed through his mind, and the showman’s cry: ‘Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and see for yourselves, the re-enactment of…’ He felt the blood pounding in his cheeks.

  ‘Blimey! I’ve got it!’ he yelled.

  ‘What’s going on? Are you all right, my pet?’

  Alarmed, Madame Pignot rushed in, closely followed by Victor. Joseph just had time to dive under the eiderdowns.

  ‘It’s nothing, Maman. I’m in pain. Ouch it burns! It really hurts!…There, are you satisfied? Now go away, will you, please. I need to talk to the boss about work.’

  Madame Pignot went out, muttering to herself. ‘It’s not going to kill you…and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’

  ‘Boss, at the back of one of the shelves in the study there’s a stack of newspapers classified by year. Bring me the pile for 1879!’

  Not knowing where this would lead, Victor did as Joseph asked. He stood in the doorway to the study for a moment to accustom his eyes to t
he dim light seeping in from the skylight.

  Pressed up against the wall, near the door to the courtyard, the intruder followed Victor’s progress, watching his every move from behind the slits of the hood and trembling with each step he took. A hand slowly reached out for a pair of gloves lying between two spiked helmets. Just as it was about to seize them, Victor tripped over a pile of books and losing his balance grabbed on to the back of a chair. The hand stopped in mid-air, gripping one of the gloves as the other fell to the floor.

  ‘Would you like a candle, Monsieur Legris?’ Joseph called out.

  ‘No, I’m almost there.’

  The intruder slipped out into the courtyard a few seconds before Victor stepped over the glove without seeing it and reached the shelves.

  *

  Crouched scrabbling through the strewn papers on his bed like a dog digging for a bone, Joseph finally found the headline he was searching for:

  CAICEDONNI AFFAIR. MARIE TURNERAD CLEARED

  ‘That’s the one! I wasn’t imagining things! I don’t know where it’ll lead, but I know I’m on to something!’

  ‘Are you going to explain yourself?’

  Joseph put his thumb over the last three letters of the name CAICEDONNI.

  What does that say, boss?’

  ‘Caicedo…Well, I’ll be damned!’

  Victor snatched the newspaper,

  ‘Caicedonni…Caicedo…Turnerad…Turner,’ he mumbled.

  He stood up suddenly and strode out through the door, leaving Joseph squatting on the bed, staring after him.

  Victor crossed the interconnecting courtyards at the far end of which stood the editorial offices of Le Passe-partout – a decrepit two-storey building with an adjoining print works and engraving workshop. He crossed the typesetting room where a man was manipulating the linotype. He inhaled the smell of ink and dust with pleasure. The noise was deafening. A chubby man with bulging eyes, his bowler hat tipped back on his head and sucking on the stub of an unlit cigar, was supervising the typesetter as he closed the foundry proof. Victor tapped his shoulder.