by Claude Izner
The growl of thunder came, followed by the first warm drops of rain, which splashed onto the macadam as he turned into Rue des Saints-Pères. He leant against the wall and, with his head back, let the rain fall on his face. A fruit-seller hitched to her cart passed him, hurrying to take shelter under the bookshop awning. Victor saw Joseph looking through the glass door and waited until he was back behind the counter before crossing the road and going in. At the top of the stairs, he felt his pockets: no keys. Had he lost them as he made his escape or left them in Capus’s home? The key ring had his name on it.
He went down again, knowing he would have to go through the bookshop. Joseph was polishing a set of bound books. At the sound of the door chime, he turned with a salesman’s smile on his face, which vanished immediately.
‘What on earth’s happened to you, Boss? Have you been run over by a bus? Your hand’s bleeding.’
‘It’s nothing, just a scratch.’ .
‘You’re very pale, you should go and rest. Come on, I’ll help you upstairs. In any case, this weather’s put paid to any customers.’
Too shaken to protest, Victor let himself be led upstairs. Joseph forced him to lie down and removed his shoes for him.
‘Have a good sleep, Boss, and you’ll feel better. Do you want me to call Dr Reynaud?’
‘No, good heavens, no! Go back and look after the shop.’
‘All right, all right, but don’t complain if that gets infected. Speaking of injuries, have you heard the latest? There’s been a third death at the Expo, a murder like the two others, and the paper —’
‘I know, Joseph, you’ve already told me.’
‘I’ll leave you … He’d be better off finding himself a pretty young girl to kiss instead of finding himself face down on the pavement. And why am I always the one who does all the work around here!’ muttered Joseph, loud enough to be heard.
The door slammed. Victor fell back onto the pillow. The high window let in a dull, leaden light and rain lashed the glass. He shut his eyes, then opened them quickly to escape the vision of the old man lying rigidly with his throat slit. And all the blood, the blood! He felt a dull pain in the pit of his stomach, and fear. Overcome by nausea, he just had time to get to the bathroom. A flash of lightning streaked the sky. Automatically he counted, one, two, three … The thunder shook the walls while a second spasm doubled him over. The heat was unbearable and he staggered to Kenji’s apartment to run himself a cold bath. Sitting on the side of the bath, he watched the water rise.
He had escaped unharmed. No one had seen him other than the children. No one, that was, except the murderer. Who could bear a grudge against old Capus?
He lit the gaslight and undressed. On the shelf above the basin were two framed photographs in pride of place. One was of a small boy nestled against a young woman: ‘Daphne and Victor, London, 1872’, the other was of an Asian man of about thirty, straight and serious in his sombre frock coat.
Without that cat, I would probably be dead … Oh, my keys!
He couldn’t stop looking at Daphne and little Victor. He straightened the frame and stared at Kenji posing for the picture.
For the first time he wondered why Kenji had been so attached to his mother and him, to the point of renouncing his own private life. When Monsieur Legris senior had died, Kenji had assumed the role of head of the family in a very natural sort of way. Had he acted out of self-interest? The question filled Victor with shame and self-disgust. Could he really suspect the man who had raised him, protected him and watched over him day and night during the terrible diphtheria epidemic of 1869 …? No, it was just not possible.
He unwound the piece of soiled curtain from his injured hand. No, it couldn’t be Kenji, he couldn’t stand the sight of blood. His blood phobia went back to his childhood when a number of his relatives who had converted to Christianity had been massacred by order of the army of the Tokugawa. It was a miracle that he had escaped.
Victor turned off the tap, got into the bath and quickly immersed himself. The icy water took his breath away and the vision of Capus’s hand, cold as marble, suddenly appeared before him. He had touched it as he had pulled back the sheet covering the corpse. His mind began to race. How long after death did a body become cold, taking account of the room temperature? Eight, ten hours?
He realised that he was shivering. He got out of the bath. Standing in the middle of the bathroom, he tried to work it out. I arrived at Rue de la Parcheminerie around midday. If my calculation is correct, Capus was butchered as he slept at about three o’clock in the morning.
While he dried himself, he noticed the shelf where the photos stood, very white under the crude gaslight and, by a strange association of thought, that shiny shelf made him think of a bistro table. He envisaged the sunny pavement tables of Le Jean Nicot. I mentioned Méring’s death. What had he told them? That the friend of the rag-picker, who’d been with him when he died, had sworn that his death was deliberate poisoning, not from a bee-sting. I was not supposed to know that detail … Tasha! No! Surely not her, we spent the night together!
He looked up. Gazing out impassively from his frame, Kenji seemed to be studying him. An accomplice! She pretended to be ill and alerted an accomplice!
He pressed his lips together to rid himself of the bitter taste in his mouth. Something was still eluding him. The killer could not have foreseen that he was going to come so why was he still at the scene of the crime more than eight hours after committing the murder?
The letter! Capus’s letter. Someone had found out about it at the newspaper after the mail was distributed. Tasha. The early bird catches the worm. Damn her! The murderer returned there to wait for me. He dashed off to his bedroom.
The storm had calmed down, and golden streaks pierced the clouds. Victor pulled the envelope out of his wallet.
M. Victor Legris
Journalist at Le Passe-partout
Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs
No stamp. No seal. The letter had been dropped off at the newspaper. Crumpling the envelope with his tense fingers, he fell onto the bed, where his tiredness and emotional state got the better of him and he sank into sleep. He had a dream.
He was flying pleasantly over a long steel snake. Gradually he came down to earth in the middle of a hothouse where children were dancing round in a circle chanting:
‘Figaro me voici
Figaro me voilà
Figaro-ci, Figaro-là.’
He went up to them. As soon as they saw him, they broke up their circle and ran towards him, surrounding him. Confronted by their curiously misshapen faces, he gave a cry of horror: their bleeding throats were slit from ear to ear. Suddenly he sank into a tunnel peopled by anatomical models. He was clutching a shopping list given to him by Germaine. A bodice, he must buy a bodice for Odette, but he had forgotten her size. He bumped into a woman wearing a turban who greeted him with a ‘Hello, my duck!’ and offered him a slice of pineapple, which he raised to his mouth. But his hand began to bleed so he plunged it into a glass jar in which hundreds of droning particles were buzzing — bees. They escaped and then crashed into a poster of the Redskins running after a train. Leaning out of the carriage door of one of the coaches, a large tortoiseshell cat was waving the shopping list, shouting incoherent syllables which seemed to say: ‘Glory to Boris!’ Suddenly the ground seemed to rise up. Turning on his heel, he ran until he was out of breath, convinced that he would never escape. He started violently and fell out of bed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Afternoon, Thursday 30 June
VICTOR no longer knew his name or where he was. Why was he naked? His vision slowly cleared, but it took him a few minutes to decide that the Gainsborough on the wall in front of him was leaning down very slightly to the right. ‘This is my room. What the hell am I doing on the floor?’
He went into the bathroom, splashed his face and, leaning on the basin, tried his hardest to recall what had happened. Searching for a clue, he tried to unpick his fragmen
ted dream: children, slit throats, wax figures, a turbaned woman, bees, Redskins, a train, a cat. Some words came to him: Figaro me voici … Hello, my duck … Glory to Boris! In Russian … the cat had spoken in Russian! And … the list, Figaro, that was the important thing in all this. The list from Le Figaro de la Tour! Was Danilo Ducovitch amongst the signatories on 22 June?
He rushed to Kenji’s apartment but, finding nothing in the drawers, went into the bedroom, to the recess. He banged his little toe against the raised floor, making his eyes mist up. Hopping around on one foot, he tripped and fell onto the mat, which slid off the bed base. One of the slats was dislodged, revealing a cavity beneath. He kneeled down and, reaching in, removed several items: a package wrapped in patterned material, a metal box, two big envelopes and the copy of Le Figaro de la Tour. As he unfolded it he saw that the note about J.C. had been ripped off. In agitation, he looked through the list.
Bottom of the first column:
… Madeleine Lesourd, Chartres. Kenji Mori, Paris. Sigmund Pollock, Vienna, Austria. Marcel Forbin, lieutenant of the second cuirassiers. Rosalie Bouton, laundress, Aubervilliers. Madame de Nanteuil, Paris. Marie-Amélie de Nanteuil, Paris. Hector de Nanteuil, Paris. Gontran de Nanteuil, Paris. John Cavendish, New York, USA.
Second column:
Constantin Ostrovski, art collector, Paris. B. Godunov, Slovenia. Guillermo de Castro, student from Alicante. Tancrède Pendarus, priest from Bordeaux. Charline Crosse of Les Folies-Bergère.
He looked back. B. Godunov … B. Godunov … . Glory and long life to Tsar Boris … It was Danilo Ducovitch. The pieces of the puzzle were starting to fall into place. He was the one following me this morning …
Dropping everything, Victor quickly dressed and left via the external staircase.
Admiring yet again the wide perspective of Rue de Tournon, Kenji slowed down outside Restaurant Foyot, and took a moment to spot the parliamentarians sitting around a leg of lamb. A short way further on he came to his friend Maxence de Kermarec’s shop. He was an antiques dealer who specialised in ancient string instruments.
In the shop, which was decorated in Louis XV white and gold wood panelling, there was a very good selection of virginals, spinets and harpsichords, most of them with painted cases. On tables inlaid with marquetry were displays of classical guitars, student violins, bows, balalaikas and mandolins. A harp with a sculpted frame stood guard next to a dresser full of Sèvres porcelain depicting lutes and violas being played.
The owner, a tall, thin man with a neatly trimmed beard and dressed in a strange dark red velvet outfit that made him look like a devil, was eating a sandwich as he paced up and down. Seeing Kenji enter, he raced forward with outstretched hand.
‘At last a friendly face — how few I’ve seen during this hot summer!’ He pushed Kenji into an armchair. ‘Do sit down, Monsieur Mori. Would you like tea. Or coffee?’
‘Tea, please.’
Whilst the dealer disappeared into the back room, Kenji smoothed out his Passe-partout and laid it conspicuously on a pedestal table. The devil was soon back with a silver tray on which stood a steaming cup of clear liquid.
‘Pure jasmine. Now tell me your news.’
‘Have you seen this? It’s very worrying,’ Kenji remarked, pointing to the newspaper.
The antiques dealer glanced at the main headline and smoothed his beard thoughtfully.
‘Yes, I did read that. How insignificant we are in the scheme of things: one little bee and that’s it. Did you have a chance to sell him the Utamaros?’
Kenji nodded.
‘I knew he would like them. He won’t have enjoyed them for long, though, poor fellow. I’ve just bought up the Duc de Frioul’s collection: a marvellous pianoforte, a François-Xavier Tourte bow, a Thomas Hancock spinet. I took the opportunity of snapping up his book collection, mostly seventeenth and eighteenth century. I think you’ll find it a real treat.’ He gobbled up the last piece of his sandwich.
‘Shame,’ he said with his mouth full, ‘I’ve lost a good customer. Did I tell you I’d persuaded him to invest in violins?’
‘Yes, you did, when I last saw you.’
‘These collectors, they are funny people, all the same. Here was a man who knew nothing at all about music! Let me show you what he was planning to buy if he had not been called to more urgent matters beyond the grave.’
He opened a small padded case and, with the utmost care, took out a violin.
‘A Guarnerius. Isn’t it magnificent? Do you know what according to some gives it its unique sound? It’s a kind of mould that absorbs moisture, making the wood drier and lighter. Funny to think that its beauty and value depends on a fungus. Our friend had advanced me a large sum, which I shall have to return to his heirs, if he has any. He was expecting a large sum back at the end of the week. Your tea’s getting cold.’
Kenji forced himself to drain the cup: he liked only darjeeling.
‘He was short of money?’ he asked.
‘Not at all! He was a money-lender. He financed some businesses on the quiet — his name never appearing anywhere. The sort of business I told you about last week. It was a game of hide-and-seek, and he loved that, even if he sometimes got his fingers burned, which was rarely, mind you, as he was such a formidable adversary. “My dear Maxence,” he would say, “he who has not risked anything, has not lived. I’m like a puppetmaster. I pull the strings behind the scenes. But woe betide whoever tangles the threads, because I’ll always go for a clean break rather than undo the knots.” Between you and me, Monsieur Mori, do you really believe these stories about killer bees?’
‘One can never be sure of what’s true.’
‘I can see your oriental wisdom in that comment. Oh well, never mind about the Guarnerius,’ said the dealer as he put away the violin. ‘I’ll always find takers for that sort of item. Would you like to see the books?’
‘I have to meet someone, but I shall come back. Tell me, what did he tell you exactly about this latest enterprise?’
It was barely four o’clock and yet Victor could not hear any sounds of activity. Abandoned at the end of the typesetting workshop, the Linotype machine looked like a watchful animal, with all its teeth bared.
He went back down the alley. Two men, sitting on the kerb, were playing dice.
‘Isn’t there anyone in the offices of Le Passe partout?’
‘I think Madamoiselle Eudoxie is on the first floor.’
He climbed the stairs, stopping on the landing by the sofa, which was covered in a mass of paper. Eudoxie had not heard him come up. Sitting very upright at her desk, she was typing with the speed of a virtuoso pianist whilst also crunching peanuts. Her fingers flew from one key to the next, as the shuttle rotated. Eudoxie pulled out the typed page and put it down to her right, ate another peanut, inserted a blank page and carried on as quickly as if she were working at a sewing machine.
Victor knocked on the half-open door. Eudoxie quickly hid the packet of peanuts.
‘Oh, it’s you! Have you been here long?’
‘I was just admiring you. What dexterity!’
She chuckled and patted her hair.
‘Would you like to try? It’s the Hammond model, it’s on display at the Expo.’
‘Er, no, I think I’d be too clumsy.’
‘You don’t need to have a qualification. You just need to put your fingers in the right place. I’d love to show you my method.’
‘That’s very kind of you but …’
‘Your hands look perfect to me. They’re long, sensitive and skilful,’ she remarked, adjusting her bodice.
He cleared his throat, and nervously patted the cigarette case in his pocket.
‘Where are the others?’
‘You couldn’t have come at a better time. Everyone is out and about. Gouvier is camping on the doorstep of police headquarters. Marius has gone to the doctor.’
‘Is he unwell?’
‘Just a little peaky, recently. Antonin won’t be back until si
x. Tasha’s gone to the Expo, but we’ll make do without her, won’t we?’
She had got up and crossed the floor. He took the envelope out of his wallet.
‘I need some information — perhaps you can help me.’
‘Whatever you want.’
‘It’s about a letter. A messenger gave it to the assistant in my shop this morning at about eight. I assume Le Passe-partout was forwarding it to me.’
She took him by the arm.
‘Come through a minute, won’t you, Monsieur Legris. The light’s much better here.’ With an enigmatic Mona Lisa smile playing on her lips she led him towards the desk. ‘Let’s see. I hope it wasn’t anything unwelcome,’ she said, squeezing his arm tighter.
Victor felt as if he was being trapped by a serpent. He gently extricated himself.
‘No. Just a few cross words from a reader who didn’t like my column. Did you send it to me?’
‘Oh, Monsieur Legris, it would never occur to me to insult a man of your worth!’
‘No, I didn’t mean that. I wanted to know if it had passed through your hands.’
‘If it had, I would have delivered it to you personally.’
‘Maybe one of the team here —’
‘You’re joking! The post is my responsibility. I’m always here first in the morning and begin by going through it. Are you sure you don’t want me to show you how to use the typewriter? It would be useful for you in the bookshop. In New York there’s not a single business left that sends handwritten letters …’
Whilst she went on extolling the virtues of the Hammond machine, Victor was trying to marshal his thoughts. If the letter had been taken straight to the bookshop, then it could not have been written by Capus. I made sure not to tell him my real profession or my address.