The Song Peddler of the Pont Neuf

by Laura Lebow

  The fabric market in the rue de la Poterie was filled with shoppers once again as I entered the middle door of Montigny’s lodgings. I hoped that some of my client’s neighbors were still at home. I didn’t want to come back here this evening.

  I climbed the stairs to the first floor and knocked on the left hand door. After a few moments it was opened by a frazzled young woman clutching a screaming baby.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “I’m a confidential inquirer, investigating the murder that occurred upstairs.”

  She stuck her finger in the baby’s mouth. He eagerly sucked on it, calmed for now. The girl frowned. “A murder? What murder?” she asked.

  “The old man on the third floor. He was killed on Friday night.”

  She gasped. The baby whimpered. She shifted him to her other arm. “I’ve heard of no murder, monsieur,” she said.

  “Did you see anyone in the building last Friday evening—someone who didn’t belong?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. She nodded down at the child. “He was sick that night. I didn’t leave my room. I didn’t hear anything or see anyone. Am I safe here, monsieur? Is there a madman on the loose?”

  “No,” I said. “The old man was entangled with an unsavory character.”

  She pulled her finger out of the baby’s mouth. He howled with indignation.

  “Please, monsieur, I must feed him,” she said.

  “I’m sorry to have bothered you. Thank you for your time.”

  There was no answer after I had knocked and waited a few minutes at the door across the landing, so I went up to the second floor. No one responded to my knock at the door on the left. As I turned to try the door on the right, it flew open.

  “What’s all this banging out here?” An old man with a bulbous nose and a double chin leaned out the door. “Can’t an old man eat his dinner in peace?” He squinted at me with suspicion in his eyes. “What do you want? No one is home over there. They both work at the market—they won’t be back until nightfall. What is it you want with them, anyway?

  “I’m a confidential inquirer, monsieur,” I said. “I’m looking for anyone who may have seen or heard anything strange in the building last Friday evening.”

  “The night the fellow upstairs was killed?”

  “You’ve heard about the murder,” I said.

  “Of course I’ve heard about it,” he grumbled. “Everyone in the building knows. There are no secrets here. Once one of the women who lives here hears a piece of news, everyone knows. They take stools down and sit around out front all weekend long, blathering about everyone else’s business.”

  “Did you know Hubert Montigny, monsieur?” I asked.

  “Yes. Not well, though. He kept to himself. But he was a hard worker, I know that. And very generous. He used to bring me a hunk of cheese now and then.”

  “Did you see or hear anything on Friday night?”

  He shook his head. “No, not a thing. I keep my door closed all the time, so those women won’t snoop. I’m old. I go to bed early. I didn’t see or hear anything. Can I finish my dinner now?”

  I thanked him and moved upstairs to the third floor. There was no answer at the door across from my client’s room, so I proceeded to the next floor and knocked at the door of the room directly above Montigny’s. A young man in the uniform of a porter, his Adam’s apple protruding over his shirt collar, stuck his head out the door.

  “Hubert, yes, of course,” he said in response to my inquiry. “How terrible. He was a nice old man. We used to walk to work together some mornings. I work in the grain hall, so we’d go together as far as the cheese market. Was it a robbery?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “It was murder.”

  His mouth dropped open. “Who would want to kill an old cheese worker?”

  “Did you hear anything strange on Friday night?”

  “Friday—was that when it happened?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know, I did hear something odd. Two men were arguing, yelling very loudly at one another. But I can’t be certain the noise came from downstairs. The walls in this building are so thin, one hears everything. There’s a prostitute who uses the room across the hall sometimes. You can just imagine what I have to listen to when she’s there.”

  “Did you see anyone in the building who didn’t belong?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t think so. Oh, but wait. Friday night, yes.” He stuck a finger in his shirt collar to loosen it. “A little while after I heard the raised voices, I went out. I like to go to the tavern for supper on Friday nights. I had just passed the third floor and was heading down to the second when I heard footsteps on the stairs behind me. When I turned around I saw a man following me down the staircase.”

  A shiver of excitement ran down my spine. “Did you see his face? Could you describe him to me?”

  The young man’s eyes widened. “Do you think he was the murderer? Let me think. He was tall. I didn’t see much of him. I only glanced over my shoulder to see who was behind me. He was wearing a cloak, with the hood up, I think.”

  “Did he say anything to you?” I asked.

  “No. As I told you, he was behind me, about a half a flight.”

  My shoulders sagged.

  “Although, now that I think about it, he did say something. I had reached the vestibule and was pulling open the front door. He had caught up to me by then, and was right behind me, so I held the door open to let him go out first. He mumbled something, a thank you, I suppose.”

  “Can you describe his voice? Was it deep, high? Did he have an accent?”

  “No, I’m sorry. He just mumbled a few words. But I did notice something about him. As he went through the door, he reached out and put his left hand on the jamb. He was wearing a ring.”

  “A ring? What did it look like?”

  “I couldn’t see it very well,” the porter said. “It was dark outside by then and there was only a bit of light from the street lamp. I only saw it briefly. I’m sorry. I can’t describe it to you.”

  “Could you tell me anything at all about it?” I pleaded.

  “Well, it was large, I’m sure of that. It was the largest ring I’ve ever seen.”

  • •

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The corner of the rue Montmartre and the rue du Croissant was a strange location for the office of the police inspector in charge of regulating prostitution in Paris. The neighborhood was a comfortable area full of the neat homes of merchants and wealthy artisans, with easy access to the fresh air of the boulevards. But some of the city’s police inspectors choose to set up their offices in their homes, instead of in the Châtelet or the police headquarters in the rue des Capucines, so it was to a fashionable house with a neat façade that I came on Tuesday morning.

  I’d spent another hour in the rue de la Poterie yesterday afternoon, trying to find anyone who had seen or heard anything the night that Montigny had been killed. I’d climbed up and down the two additional staircases in his building and had met many of his fellow tenants: a middle-aged woman who had eyed me flirtatiously and seemed ready to invite me in and reveal every detail about everyone who lived in the street, except, of course, Hubert Montigny, whom she had never heard of; a thin, dark artist who had scowled at me for interrupting his work and curtly told me he paid no attention to the comings and goings of people in the building; and a stout, friendly night soil collector who had wished he could help me but unfortunately had been off on his rounds when the murder had occurred. I’d returned to my lodgings frustrated, with only the young porter’s possible sighting of Duval’s large ring to show for my efforts.

  This morning I wanted to interview the inspector for prostitution’s clerk. I was curious to learn about the circumstances in which my sister’s friend Juliette had come to be among a group of young women at the party at the Hôtel d’Estrées Sunday night.

  The office, which was on the ground floor of the house, consisted of only two rooms— one,
its door closed, the private domain of the inspector; the other an anteroom where a homely, cross-eyed clerk sat on a high stool behind a counter, laboriously writing notes into a large ledger. I introduced myself as an employee of the police and asked him how often young girls from the provinces, apprenticed to mistresses here in the city, ended up as prostitutes.

  “More often than you would think,” he said, laying down his pen. “A lot of the immigrants don’t want to do honest work. They come to the city with big dreams—that they will live in a fancy mansion and wear satins, silks, and furs. I assume you are asking about a particular young lady. What trade was she in?”

  “She was apprenticed to a seamstress,” I said.

  “Ah, she was lucky, then,” he said. “It’s very difficult for girls who weren’t born in Paris to get those positions. Mistresses are more likely to take on the daughters of friends, or their own relatives. And of course, the apprentice must be able to pay the mistress for the apprenticeship.”

  I nodded.

  “It’s possible this girl was very talented, so the mistress took her on. Don’t take me the wrong way, though. It’s not just the provincials who end up in trouble. Even Parisian girls often find they don’t enjoy the work. They don’t want to spend long hours hunched over sewing, or they might not like the mistress. Some of them run away. Many steal from the mistress and leave.”

  “Yes, this girl’s mistress accused her of stealing,” I said.

  “After they leave the workshops, they don’t have anyplace to go. No one will hire them without a reference from the previous mistress. It doesn’t take long before they start selling their bodies in order to buy bread. Most of them become streetwalkers—maybe working the alleys near the Palais Royal, or if they are very unlucky, down by the river, where their clients are workmen and porters. Those girls don’t last very long. A pimp will move in, demand a cut of their earnings, and beat them if they refuse. A lot of girls catch diseases and die. Many just freeze or starve to death.”

  I shuddered. “That hasn’t happened to the girl I’m interested in. I saw her at a mansion down in Saint-Germain, going into a party with some other prostitutes.”

  He whistled softly. “Oh, she is a lucky one. She probably caught the eye of one of the madams who run the successful brothels. They are the ones that supply girls for rich men’s parties.” He scratched behind his ear. “Have you ever been to one of those fancy brothels?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Me neither,” he said, a bit sadly. “I can’t afford it. The girls that work in them are treated very well. They live in the brothel and either entertain clients there or are sent out to private homes or parties. The madam takes good care of her investment. The girls are fed well and are given nice clothing. And their health is looked after. If one catches the Italian disease she’ll be sent down to Vaugirard. There’s a hospital there that specializes in curing that. How old is this girl, do you know?”

  “Fourteen, I believe.”

  He shook his head. “No, she must be older than fourteen. It’s against the law for madams to hire girls under age fifteen. Although I expect that a lot of girls lie about their age, and the madams look the other way. There’s a large market here in Paris for girls who look very young and innocent.”

  That described Juliette perfectly, I thought.

  “Do you have any other questions?” the clerk asked.

  “No. I thank you for your time,” I said.

  “No trouble at all,” he said. “I enjoy talking about my work. Usually I just sit here alone all day, doing what I’m doing now, transferring reports from the Watch into these logbooks. I don’t see anyone except my boss and the occasional boy delivering reports.” He grinned. “But I’ve been popular lately. You’re the second person in two weeks who has come to learn what I know about the business.”

  “Who was the other?” I asked.

  “Another police inspector, if you can believe it. But he wasn’t interested in hearing what I had to say, like you are. He only wanted to look through the surveillance logs.”

  My ears perked. “What surveillance logs?”

  “Oh, I thought you knew, seeing that you are with the police yourself.” He gestured to the ledger on the counter. “We send members of the Watch around the city every week to talk to the madams, to the landlords of the tenements where a lot of the girls live, and to the girls who work on the street corners. We keep a register of every prostitute in the city—her name, where she lives, where she works. Of course, we’re not really interested in the common girls. It’s the courtesans and the ones who work in the expensive brothels that we want to know about. Their clients are aristocrats, wealthy merchants, and even members of the government. Some of the girls are even paid by my boss to spy for us. A man will tell a pretty girl anything she wants to know when he already has his breeches halfway down, and it never hurts for the lieutenant of police to have material to blackmail these gentlemen, if he needs to.”

  “The inspector who looked through the logbook—do you remember his name?” I asked.

  “No. I don’t think he ever said. But he was fairly new to the job, he did tell me that. He’s in charge of publishing. I got that much out of him.”

  “What was he looking for in the logbook, could you tell?” I asked, trying to keep the excitement from my voice.

  He hesitated and looked at me, a sly look in his eye. “Oh, I don’t think I should say,” he said. “As you know, police information is confidential.”

  I pulled out a few coins and a plug of tobacco and put them on the open ledger. He looked at them, then gathered them and stuffed them in his pocket. He leaned over and lowered his voice. “It was a woman,” he said. “He was flipping through the pages, muttering a woman’s name. ‘Where are you?’ he asked, over and over.”

  “Do you happen to remember the name?” I asked.

  “Let me think. Jeanne. No, not Jeanne. Jeannette? No, that’s not it either.” He furrowed his brow in concentration. “Oh, yes, I remember now. It was Geneviève. That’s right! Geneviève, like the saint.”

  “Did he explain why he was looking for her?” I asked.

  “No. I tried to find out, but he wouldn’t say. He told me he thought he had seen someone he had known several years ago, and he wanted to find her. I didn’t pursue it. I’m just a clerk. It’s not my place to question a police inspector.”

  “Could I have a look in the logs?” I asked.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You’re interested in him? Don’t be stupid.” He wagged a finger at me. “He’s a police inspector. Prowling around him will only get you trouble.”

  “No, it’s not about him at all,” I lied. “I think I might know the same woman.” I pulled out another plug of tobacco and put it on the counter.

  “Well, all right. You’ve been so generous. I don’t suppose it would hurt,” he said. He climbed off the stool and went to a shelf in the back of the room, where he took down a large book. He brought it over to a small table in the corner. “Come here,” he said. “You can look at it while I work. This is from the last few months. It’s the one he looked through.”

  I sat on a stool and opened the book. The pages were filled with names and addresses. A few of the entries had brief notes scribbled underneath. The clerk’s handwriting was cramped and messy, with many names scratched out and rewritten, blots of ink, and hastily corrected misspellings of names and streets. I pulled a scrap of paper and a pencil out of my cloak pocket and noted every address that corresponded to a prostitute with the first name of Geneviève. About ten pages in, I found Juliette’s name and current address, which I copied onto my notes.

  I turned the pages, squinting to read the small handwriting. Over at the counter, the clerk scratched more information and mistakes into the latest ledger. Forty minutes later, when I reached the last page in the book, I had compiled a list of eight women named Geneviève. I closed the volume, stood and stretched, put my notes into my pocket, and carried the logbook back
to the shelf. After I replaced it in its space, I thanked the clerk and hurried out the door.

  While I ate a hasty dinner at a tavern four blocks down the rue Montmartre, I drew a rough map of the city and, with the help of the workmen sharing my long table, was able to mark the location of all of the addresses I had noted from the logbook.

  I began my search for Duval’s Geneviève right around the corner from the tavern, at an expensive townhouse in the Place des Victoires. The haughty steward who answered the door informed me that Mademoiselle Geneviève Bélanger no longer resided at the address. A few blocks to the east, behind the Church of Saint-Eustache, there was no answer when I knocked on the door of a room on the fourth floor of a rundown rooming house, which the prostitution logbook had told me was occupied by a Geneviève Godine.

  In the rue du Coq, next to the Oratoire, an overly-painted madam whose large breasts threatened escape from her lace-trimmed gown complained to me that one of her girls, Geneviève Perrin, had left Paris a month ago to return to her family in Gisors. She had been homesick and so had done what she wanted, giving no thought to the loss of income the madam, who had provided her with so much—a comfortable, warm home; food in her belly; and a steady income—would suffer from her departure.

  A girl about Aimée’s age, with a look weary and cynical beyond her years, answered the door in a rundown street near the quai between the Pont Notre-Dame and the Pont au Change, admitted that she was Geneviève Fontaine, but denied any acquaintance with a man named Marc-Étienne Duval.

  I crossed the Île de la Cité and turned up the quai des Augustins. While I was in the neighborhood I wanted to talk to Simon Janaret again, to try to convince him to tell me where he obtained the illegal pamphlets he provided to the bookseller in the Palais Royal. The bouquiniste was in the same spot across from the entrance to the convent church. He scowled as I approached.