Montmartre Mysteries

by Jean-Pierre Alaux

  “A second Armagnac, Mr. Cooker?” asked the bartender, whom Benjamin had mentored for five years, during his frequent visits to the hotel.

  “I don’t know if I should,” the winemaker replied.

  “If you don’t mind my saying, you seem a bit morose this evening.”

  “Just can’t seem to put the pieces of a puzzle together.”

  “And yet when it comes to blending wine, you have no peer.”

  “Ah, but man is always fallible,” replied Benjamin.

  “Wasn’t it you, Mr. Cooker, who once told me, ‘Life is an enigma, and the solution lies at the bottom of a glass’?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “You did.”

  “In that case, Frédéric, another Armagnac.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  No sooner had the bartender walked off than Virgile walked in, a downcast look on his face.

  “Ah, here you are, Virgile. I was beginning to despair. Obviously, what you need isn’t a watch. It’s Big Ben hung around your neck.”

  Virgile unwrapped his scarf.

  “You won’t believe this, but I just spent nearly an hour in the subway, stuck between the stops Abbesses and Pigalle. Some guy decided to throw himself under the train.”

  “Is this another one of your true lies?”

  “You don’t believe me, boss?”

  “Let’s not talk about it, Virgile. Do you want an Armagnac?”

  “No, I’d rather have grape juice, if you don’t mind. I’m dying of thirst.”

  “It’s true, you do look like you’ve been running.”

  “Imagine, boss, the entire train trapped between two stations until emergency services arrived.”

  “Another poor slob who lost his job or discovered his wife was cheating,” Benjamin said, studying the golden hues of his tulip glass.

  “I don’t know, but from what I heard it was a young guy and it was gross. Blood everywhere.”

  “I don’t need all the details, Virgile.”

  “I guess it’s a slice of Parisian life.”

  “You must admit, we’re much better off in our own part of the world. Gironde is a lot calmer.”

  “I’ll be honest with you, sir. I’m eager to leave. All these hospitals, ambulances, paramedics, and doctors—it’s weighing me down!”

  “I agree,” Benjamin said, sipping his Armagnac and finally giving up on his Dominican. He watched as Virgile gulped his grape juice.

  “Ah,” Virgile said, wiping his purplish mouth with one of the hotel’s fresh linen napkins.

  Benjamin smiled. The way Virgile had downed the juice was quite out of place in this decorous environment, where everything was a harmonious combination of past and present. He couldn’t help being fond of the boy.

  “By tomorrow, you’ll be on your way back to Bordeaux, Virgile. We’ll get the TGV at noon. But before we go, you really must visit Bretonneau Hospital, more precisely, its vineyard. Actually, I think you’d enjoy teaming with your friend Julien to see the restoration through. It’ll be a fun project. Naturally, as far as Mrs. Lacaze is concerned, I’ll be at the helm.”

  “Of course,” Virgile agreed, ordering another glass of grape juice.

  Benjamin noticed that his assistant was staring at him. “Well, what is it, Virgile? Is there a spot of Armagnac on my shirt?”

  “No, not at all, boss. Your shirt is fine. I was just thinking about the accident.

  “Should I order a third glass?”

  “No, I’m not thirsty anymore. Not hungry, either.”

  “In that case, let’s call it a day,” Benjamin said, extricating himself from his club chair.

  11

  The Rue Bouffard, shrouded in a fine mist overnight, was drying out with the rise of the sun. Inveterate night owls, the antiquarians were raising the metal shutters of their shops. This narrow Bordeaux street drew art lovers from all around, and for twenty-five years, Benjamin had been one of them.

  His watercolor tucked under his arm, the winemaker headed straight for his favorite framer’s shop.

  “Ah, a Vuillier. Congratulations!” the man said as he adjusted his glasses. “The last one I saw was a landscape of Andorra. Fortunately, your painting hasn’t suffered any damage. I didn’t see it go up for auction.”

  “It was an inheritance,” Benjamin said, not wanting to go into how he had acquired the painting.

  Benjamin gave his instructions to the old artisan, and after some thoughtful reflection, the two decided on the dimensions of the frame and the color of the mat.

  The winemaker was in the habit of paying upfront, but he often demanded quick service. He knew he could rely on the man, who, it was said, was a serious collector of erotic Japanese prints.

  “It will be ready at noon, Mr. Cooker.”

  Benjamin thought it might be wise to have Virgile pick up the painting. His day was already packed with various matters, including a tasting of Madiran wine samples, phone calls to answer, and preparations for a conference at the wine school in Suze-la-Rousse. Months earlier, when he received the invitation, he was lukewarm about going. But after what happened to Arthur, he was looking forward to the opportunity to spend time in the Côte du Rhône.

  He had asked Elisabeth to accompany him on this excursion. He had been missing her companionship for some time now, as his assignments were taking him farther and farther away from the Médoc. So at dawn the following morning, Elisabeth and he would climb into his Mercedes 280 SL and take off on the highway heading east. They would have lunch at the Hôtel de la Cité in Carcassonne, the medieval fortress city. Then they would get back on the highway and exit at Bollène, where they would seek shelter at the Château de Rochegude, a twelfth-century fortress in the Drôme valley.

  The weekend promised to be an epicurean delight, offering a complete and much-needed change of scenery. The wine shop shooting had affected him more than he cared to admit.

  Elisabeth was looking forward to this getaway as much as he was. “Promise me you won’t let yourself be hijacked by your eminent fraternity brothers,” she had warned him as she nibbled his ear. “I know you. I don’t want to just sit there and look pretty.”

  “I’ll be completely yours,” Benjamin had reassured her with a tender kiss.

  “All I have to do now is believe you.”

  That was one of the things he loved about his beautiful wife. She had learned long ago to accept his shortcomings.

  ~ ~ ~

  A warm sun caressed the ocher stones of the enormous château, which stood next to the little town of Rochegude. Benjamin Cooker was a frequent visitor to these parts. He had taken up residence here when his friend and client Jean-Jacques Dost hired him to blend wines for the Rasteau wine cooperative. Dost was a man from Bordeaux who had sold his soul to Côtes du Rhône wine, and he managed the cellar with the temerity of a maverick.

  Wanting to give Elisabeth a perfect taste of the château—and the area as a whole—he requested a room in the former chapel.

  “It will be good for our souls,” he joked.

  After freshening up, they returned to the main sitting room. “I’d like to go out and explore the grounds a bit,” Elisabeth told her husband. “Why don’t you stay inside? Lately, you’ve been getting chilled too easily.”

  The winemaker nodded and kissed his wife. Watching her go out the door, he took a seat in front of the enormous fireplace. He ordered a Rasteau. The brick-red wine made from grenache grapes almost always had hints of raspberry and candied black currents in its youth. As it aged, it developed aromas of nuts and coffee. There was nothing better with a good cigar. Benjamin chose an Épicure No. 2 from his sharkskin case and guillotined it with relish. Instead of his usual lighter, he used a long cedar match to fire up his Havana.

  He gave the front page of the Figaro a cursory look and then turned to pages two and three. A story about the exorbitant price some unpublished Oscar Wilde poems had fetched at a Christie’s auction caught his eye. He couldn’t help s
miling when he read in the same story that a case of old port believed to be from the wine cellar of Félix Faure, president of France from 1895 to 1899, had been sold to a buyer in Drouot for 12,800 euros. Finally, he lingered on a story about the troubling rise in suicides in the Paris metro. According to the story, the most recent one had paralyzed the Porte de la Chapelle–Mairie d’Issy line for over an hour.

  The identity of the man who threw himself under the train at the Saint-Michel station remains unknown, and the severity of his injuries could make identification difficult. The authorities believe the victim was a young adult, based on the clothes he was wearing. A spokesman for the Paris Transport Authority said upgraded safety measures are under study.

  Elisabeth, wrapped in her coat, joined her husband fifteen minutes later. She had finished exploring the château gardens and terraces, which were lined with ancient statues. In the late-day sun, the shadows of these stone gods stretched all the way to the walls of the feudal castle.

  “You were right to stay inside. It’s bitter out there,” Elisabeth said, warming herself by the hearth. “I love this old fortress, Benjamin. It reminds me of the early days of our marriage, when we used to visit those wealthy whiskey distillers in the Scottish highlands. Oh, how they loved to hunt.”

  “I suppose Bacchus is our daily reminder of those days.”

  “Yes, along with all the hair he leaves on our rugs. The older our Irish Setter gets, the more he sheds.”

  Benjamin called the hotel server and ordered a white martini for his wife.

  “Thank you, darling. That will warm me up right away.”

  “Also, please reserve a table for two this evening.”

  “I won’t hear of it,” someone called out. “You will be my guests tonight.”

  Benjamin looked to his right, trying to find the source of the voice, which seemed to be coming from a suit of armor standing guard at the front entrance. Almost immediately, the man stepped away from the armor, and Benjamin recognized Jean-Jacques Dost, the director of the Rasteau wine cooperative.

  “Unless you’re planning a romantic dinner for two,” Dost said with the good manners he’d inherited from Bordeaux aristocracy.

  “To be perfectly honest, Jean-Jacques, we had planned a candlelight dinner, but for tomorrow evening,” the winemaker shamelessly lied. He could feel his wife’s reproachful look.

  “Well, finally, I have the pleasure of making the acquaintance of the famous Mrs. Cooker. Your husband has been trying to keep you from me since we first met. Now I know why.”

  The charmer hadn’t changed a bit. After a short conversation, they agreed to meet at nine o’clock. As it turned out, dinner was a delightful affair, full of Rasteau and Gigondas wine and punctuated with anecdotes. There was also talk of the following day’s conference, which would bring together a number of European wine luminaries. Inevitably, during the cheese course, Benjamin brought up Arthur Solacroup’s name.

  “Solacroup, Solacroup… The name rings a bell,” Dost said, running his large hand through his graying hair. “Oh yes, now I know. He worked for us in the wine warehouse. But we didn’t call him by his name. We just called him the legionnaire. He was a quiet type, but hardworking and clever. At the time, he was shacking up with the daughter of one of our co-op members. If I remember, her name was Julia Séguret. At first, old Séguret wasn’t crazy about him. But he warmed up to the guy after he got into wine.”

  “The father warmed up to him after he began to drink?” Elisabeth asked.

  “Yes, but don’t get the wrong idea,” Dost said. “The legionnaire wasn’t a drunk. He developed a real interest in wine. He had an incredible nose and taste buds that wouldn’t quit. He began going to all the tastings in the area, and then Julia and he started scouring the producers. They took it very seriously, buying here and there. But one day, the guy disappeared, leaving Julia in the lurch. Old Séguret never forgave him, because by this time he was treating him like a son-in-law. I never did find out what became of him.”

  “Le Chai de la Vigne-Rhône is what happened to him,” Benjamin said.

  “I know that shop. The owner’s one of the region’s best merchants in Paris. He sells a lot of Rasteau, that one. Believe me.”

  “Well, that’s him,” Benjamin said.

  “The legionnaire? You don’t say.”

  “It’s Solacroup himself,” Benjamin confirmed, pouring himself another glass of Château du Trignon, whose aromatic power could not trump the surprise of the cooperative’s director.

  “I’m speechless. When he started at the wine cellar, I hired him as a gaffet.”

  “A what?” Elizabeth asked.

  “As a handyman. He was smart, and he had a solid build. I intended to watch him, and if he worked out, I’d put him in the warehouse, which I wound up doing. Hey, I think his eyes were two different colors. I’d never seen anything like that before.”

  “And the famous Julia?” Benjamin asked. “What became of her?”

  “Oh, little Julia. I heard she fell apart when he left. But she didn’t waste any time finding someone else. She hooked up with a kid who was several years younger than she was, a student from Valréas. Apparently she was hot to start a family, and he didn’t mind. Actually, he benefited from the marriage. She helped him get started in the wine business. He’s a pretty good winemaker now. His name is…”

  “Huguenard,” Benjamin jumped in. His discovery wasn’t keeping him from enjoying the spicy Gigondas, with its delicate notes of cocoa and licorice in the finish.

  “Exactly—Huguenard,” said Dost.

  “Can you describe this Huguenard? What does he look like?”

  “You sure ask a lot of questions, Benjamin. I’m not in the habit of giving men the eye, but now that you mention it, he looks a bit like the Legionnaire: shaved head, in a T-shirt no matter how hot or cold it is, a diamond stud in one ear. You’ve seen the type.”

  Benjamin shrugged. “Yes, I have. Jean-Jacques, how is his wine?”

  “I’ve congratulated him on it before. In fact, his reputation has gone to his head. He just quit the Gaillarde wine cooperative to set out on his own.”

  “You can’t really blame him for that,” Benjamin said, helping himself to a spoonful of flourless warm chocolate cake from his wife’s plate.

  “You understand, my dear friend, that the loss of a talented co-op member doesn’t exactly thrill me.”

  “You are absolved,” Benjamin said, wiping the dark chocolate off his mouth.

  “But tell me, Benjamin, why all these questions? What remarkable or serious thing has this Arthur Solacroup done to pique your curiosity so much?”

  It was then that Elisabeth Cooker and the director of the Rasteau wine cooperative learned Arthur’s sad fate. The winemaker told the tale, maintaining the suspense the whole way through. He wasn’t able to end the story, but for the first time, he sensed that the pieces were, in fact, coming together. He and Karim were the only ones to have seen the attacker. And he didn’t doubt that he would soon put a face on the man.

  12

  Benjamin Cooker had to park his convertible alongside the trees on the outskirts of the village. The usually quiet community of Richerenches was gripped in a frenzy. The area all around the church was clogged with people and cars.

  Shrewd farmers, their noses dripping in the cold, had gathered under the clock tower. Their faces were weathered, and black filth was embedded under their fingernails. They were wearing hunting jackets and muddy pants. And their shopping bags were full of rare and pungent merchandise, which they were selling with silent nods and knowing looks.

  On this not-so-usual Saturday, the first truffle market of the year was taking place. The commodity was as scarce as ever. Whether the summers were too dry or too rainy, the refrain was the same every winter. Truffles were always singular and expensive.

  Elisabeth had preferred to sleep late rather than stroll in this profusion of intoxicating odors. Nonetheless, she had asked Benjamin to bring
back “two lumps of black diamond, as clean as possible.” How could he refuse? Elisabeth worked magic in the kitchen, and imagining how she’d transform these gems had him salivating already. Maybe he’d ask for duck breasts with shaved truffles, or perhaps some sea scallops topped with paper-thin black slices of the tuber melanosporum.

  The assignment, however, wouldn’t be an easy one. The demand was far greater than the supply, and merchants, some of them from distant cities, invariably snatched up the best ones.

  As the winemaker threaded his way through the crowd, he felt a bit out of place, even though he had witnessed a similar spectacle at the Lalbanque truffle market in the Lot region. He liked to visit it with his friend Jean-Luc Bernard, the head of the cooperative wine cellar in Parnac.

  After a few minutes, he spotted Pierre-Jean Pebeyre, a Cahors truffle trader from whom he occasionally made purchases for the holidays.

  Benjamin exchanged a few friendly words with the affable epicurean at whose home he had once eaten a memorable omelet with more truffle shavings than eggs. But the truffle expert had not traveled all the way from Quercy to Provence just to see the sights.

  “You must excuse me, Benjamin,” he said, cutting the conversation short. “I have some business to tend to. I need to make my truffle purchases before they’re all picked through.”

  Benjamin was vexed. He was hoping for advice regarding Elisabeth’s request, but the man had already hurried off into the crowd.

  He approached a woman in a headscarf who looked too kind to be mischievous. She opened her bag. Four very black and pristine diamonds were nestled in white cloth.

  Benjamin asked if he could sniff one, and the woman reluctantly agreed. The winemaker passed the firm black mushroom under his nose, taking in the familiar aroma. Certain tannic wines that he loved to drink with game had the same scent.

  “They’re very fresh. I picked them yesterday,” the woman said.

  “How much?” Benjamin ventured.