The Assassin in the Marais

by Claude Izner

  ‘What … What is it?’ he whispered in a tremulous voice.

  ‘Why, brave knight, it’s Enguerrand the sixth.’

  ‘Er … Don’t you think given the state he’s in it might be a good idea to bury him right away?’ Joseph said, trying not to breathe.

  Fortunat de Vigneules scratched his head, puzzled.

  ‘The thing is … I was going to have him stuffed, like the others.’

  He pointed to the dogs frozen in various poses on the altar.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s too late for that. You’ll be lucky if you can make a mat out of him.’

  ‘Very well, but I insist that my faithful friend remains in the company of his brothers. Onward!’ Fortunat shouted, grabbing a coal shovel that was propped against a wall and handing it to Joseph.

  Exhausted and drenched in sweat from digging the beaten earth, Joseph cursed his boss. Fortunat de Vigneules insisted on giving up his yellow waistcoat to line his faithful companion’s resting place. Once the animal was in the ground, he knelt down with difficulty.

  ‘Farewell, brave hero. I would have immortalised your remains had the scoundrels who are starving me given me the means. Divine intervention was refused, but I was guided to the accursed chalice with the face of a cat – the demonic symbol of the Templars – and prompted to throw it in the rubbish! Deo gratias!

  ‘Who exactly are these Templars?’ Joseph asked, assuming that he was referring to people who lived in the area around the Temple Market.

  ‘An order founded at the time of the first Crusades to protect the holy lands. But these rich, powerful soldier-monks failed in their mission. And they practised witchcraft, which is why our good King Philip the Fair had them burnt at the stake.’

  God help us, Joseph thought, the man is raving!

  ‘And this treasure, was it theirs?’

  ‘Silence, wretched boy! Once I have unearthed it I shall give it to the heirs of Louis XVIII, to assist them in reinstating the monarchy.’

  ‘And this chalice with a cat’s face you threw in the rubbish, it wouldn’t happen to be made from a monkey’s skull?

  ‘Abomination! If you hadn’t given me the picture of the ample posterior of the Goulue woman and heroically interred the mortal remains of my poor Enguerrand, why, young man, I would suspect you of being a spy in the pay of Molay!’

  ‘Nay, my lord, you would be mistaken, for I, too, wish to make certain that the vile object has been destroyed.’

  ‘I saw the rag-and-bone man take it away with my own eyes.’

  ‘A rag-and-bone man? Where does he live? Miles from anywhere, I suppose?’

  ‘I don’t know his name. I’m unfamiliar with the location of his manor. The slattern will tell you that. Fall out! I wish to be alone.’

  Who is this ‘slattern’? One of the domestic staff, no doubt, Joseph muttered to himself as he climbed the stairs.

  When he reached the mezzanine he found himself face to face with the maid who had been carrying the kettle and he asked her if she knew to whom the old man might have been referring. She pulled a face.

  ‘I’m new here. I don’t know all the staff. You’ll have to ask Bertille Piot; she cooks for the ladies and gentlemen above stairs.’

  The plump, fair-haired woman darting between the kitchen and the larder reminded him of Euphrosine, but ten years younger.

  ‘Excuse me, Madame; I am a relative of Monsieur Fortunat …’

  ‘I’ll wager he’s been pinching my ice again!’

  ‘Er … He mentioned a slattern, I mean a servant, who might …’

  ‘I’ll give you slatterns! The old man’s getting worse every day. At this rate he’ll end up in the asylum. I can assure you there are no slatterns working here, only respectable people who know how to behave.’

  ‘Of course, Madame. Perhaps you can help me then. I’m conducting a survey of household refuse collection and it would be a great help if I could speak to the rag-and-bone man who comes here. I did ask the concierge, but …’

  ‘Oh, him! The less he does the more exhausted he becomes. Well, I’ll tell you where to find Monsieur Léonard. He comes here every day, a very meticulous, orderly gentleman. He lives in Cité Doré. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must cook my tripe.’

  When Joseph reached the ground floor, the concierge was engaged in vehemently scolding the porters and he slipped out unnoticed. He had three-quarters of an hour to reach the auction house.

  Stretched out on the rumpled sheets, Eudoxie Allard studied Kenji’s lean, muscular body. He was dressing swiftly but calmly.

  ‘What are you doing today?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’m meeting somebody at the auction house. I won’t have lunch – you have sated my appetite.’

  She laughed even though she felt terribly disappointed. She knew he cared for her. He never treated her like a woman of easy virtue. He was respectful, attentive and showered her with gifts. And yet after they had achieved the peak of pleasure, he became distant and withdrawn.

  She propped herself up on one elbow without bothering to cover her nudity.

  ‘Stay,’ she murmured.

  Her desire for Kenji was intense, and when he had gone the memory of him was powerful enough to make all other men pale into insignificance.

  He sighed softly and stared at the flowered wallpaper as though searching deep inside himself to dredge up a reply.

  ‘I already explained to you, Eudoxie. I’ve been a bachelor most of my life and at my age it’s too late to change. This is who I am.’

  He spoke in a gentle voice, hoping to impress upon her that she was in no way responsible for this aspect of his character, that she shouldn’t feel hurt or disappointed.

  ‘Are all your compatriots as cold as you?’

  ‘I’m not cold. And as for the Japanese, I cannot vouch for their feelings. I left my country a very long time ago!’

  ‘And yet you abide by their superstitions. You don’t like the number four and you made me turn my bed round because it was pointing north.’

  ‘One should never sit a woman opposite a doorway.’

  ‘Oh, you and your pretend sayings!’ she cried, throwing a pillow at him.

  He dodged it, laughing.

  ‘That one’s true.’

  He drew her towards him.

  ‘Try to enjoy the moment, my dear. Let’s be silent. There’s never a problem when we’re silent.’

  She pressed herself to his chest. She was prepared to accept this puzzling side to Kenji, which seemed to insist upon uncertainty. What he did and how he lived his life should not matter, since he always came back to her. She knew him well enough now to know that he needed to feel he was in charge.

  ‘Have you ever been in love, Kenji?’

  He looked at her. She wanted him to love her, but since the death of Daphné, love was a language he no longer spoke.

  She moved away and studied him through half-closed eyes.

  ‘Our relationship is very pleasurable, Eudoxie. Don’t let’s spoil it.’

  ‘Forgive me for prying.’

  ‘You weren’t to know. I don’t want to stir up the past, so let’s avoid the subject. I’ll see you soon, my darling.’

  Colonel de Réauville twirled his whiskers in a gesture of profound satisfaction. Although he only ever read the financial columns of the newspaper and the odd article in La Revue Illustrée, the fifteenth-century manuscript he had just acquired would be the pride and joy of his library. He would be able to show it off to the guests who came for coffee, for his new wife had taken it into her head to host an artists’ salon at their town house on Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. Paul Déroulède, the founder of the League of Patriots, was one of their guests, as was Édouard Drumont, and the Comtesse de Martel, who wrote charming society novels, along with a group of well-known painters and caricaturists. He thanked Kenji Mori warmly for having snapped up the manuscript from under the noses of the other booksellers and collectors.

  I could set up shop with the money he paid
for that trifle, Joseph thought as he watched the collectors clustered round the entrance. He recognised the chubby pouting face of the dandy, Boni de Pont-Joubert, and just behind him a heavily built young woman with a pointed nose.

  ‘Goodness me! It’s Valentine!’

  He felt a sudden stirring of the erotic feelings that the Countess de Salignac’s niece had once aroused in him, but to his relief they subsided almost as quickly. Valentine’s marriage to that rakish member of the aristocracy had allowed Joseph to fall for a woman who attracted him in other ways. In any event, he felt liberated by the knowledge that Madame de Pont-Joubert was already pregnant.

  Joseph followed Kenji and the colonel past sale room number 16, which was reserved for the auction of books that had failed to sell in bookshops. He decided to come back one Friday and study the means by which certain auctioneers managed to raise the reserve on second-rate lots, a practice known as re-evaluation, which would be useful to him in his future career as an author-bookseller.

  A heavy shower of rain lashed the pavement. A queue of hansom cabs and carriages was blocking Rue Drouot. They climbed into the one belonging to the colonel.

  ‘This problem of traffic jams has to be solved. I don’t see why we can’t travel by pneumatic tube here in Paris while we’re waiting for the underground they’ve been promising us for the last twenty years,’ Kenji remarked.

  ‘Surely, my dear man, you don’t mean the ones used to send telegrams!’

  ‘Indeed I do. I’m a man of the future. I read somewhere recently that a company in Hamburg plans to link up with Richen by using the system to ferry passengers at a rate of two kilometres per minute – and why not?’

  ‘Well, you’ll forgive me if I stick to my horses,’ the Colonel replied brusquely.

  He set the manuscript down beside him and began wiping his hands carefully. ‘Progress or no, these auction rooms full of filthy clutter are a haven for germs. The best thing would be to disinfect the places and everything in them. The same goes for the whole city, which is becoming like a barnyard with the influx of all these foreigners. Look, there’s even one here!’ he bawled, his face twisted with hatred.

  Out on the pavement, a child of Italian origin, about eight years old, wearing a battered felt hat embroidered with a bouquet of woollen flowers was running in the rain from one passer-by to another.

  ‘Twenty sous for this lovely figurine, Monsieur … Cheap at the price, Monsieur … Go on; you can have it for fifteen.’

  Joseph turned a deep scarlet, and shot a glance at Kenji, who appeared unruffled. The gesture did not escape the colonel’s notice.

  ‘Naturally, I was not referring to you, my dear Monsieur Mori. You have nothing in common with these people, who come here to rob us of our daily bread.’

  ‘We must put ourselves in their position,’ Kenji replied calmly. ‘Man cannot live on caviar alone.’

  The carriage wheels ran into the gutter, splashing the legs of the young child, who continued to cry out.

  ‘Please, Monsieur, twenty sous for this lovely figurine. I’ve got Madonnas and Napoleons too. Look, Monsieur, it’s a work of art. Buy it, Monsieur, two for thirty sous … Please!’

  CHAPTER 7

  Wednesday evening, 13 April

  THE emissary had been waiting for an age at the end of the deserted street, a few yards from a café. Through the steamed up windows he made out the forms of the people leaning against the bar and when a woman opened the door, a blast of animated conversation could be heard, immediately muffled as the door closed. The emissary flattened himself against the wall as the woman muttered, gesticulating wildly. She stood in the middle of the road as if trying to spot him, then burst into raucous laughter and headed in the direction of Gare des Marchandises. The regular passage of the puffing trains stained the pale sky. The emissary resumed his surveillance until a man staggered out on to the pavement and took the same route as the woman. The emissary fell in behind him. The sombre mass of a gasworks loomed up in front of them like the drawing of a fortress by Victor Hugo. The emissary took a gulping breath, managed to steady his breathing and approached the man.

  ‘Léonard Diélette?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Yesterday you took something from Rue Charlot that had been thrown away by mistake.’

  ‘I know that. This morning I told Yvette to go and give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure! Of course I’m sure! Don’t make out that I’m a liar! We folks are honest, you know. Just because we pick up the cast-offs of the bourgeoisie doesn’t mean we don’t have morals! I’m an honest pauper. Why, just last year I received an award from the Society for the Encouragement of Good Deeds for returning a banknote I found in a jacket someone had thrown away. It’s true. If you don’t believe me, come home with me to the Dumathrat quarter and you’ll see my certificate.’

  ‘Who’s Yvette?’

  ‘My kid. I said to her, that thing must be worth a few bob. Go and drop it off with the owners before you go to work. Honestly, I ask you! All these questions …’

  ‘How old is Yvette?’

  ‘Eleven.’

  ‘And you trust her?

  ‘With my life. She’s a chip off the old block.’

  ‘How did you know who to return the thing to?’

  ‘Because of the newspaper it was bundled in – Nineteenth Century. Only the people at 28 Rue Charlot read that paper. And I should know, because for three years now the cook has been wrapping up scraps of grub for me in that rag.’

  ‘The problem is, it wasn’t returned.’

  ‘Oh, now that’s going too far! We’re honest and upright, how many times do I have to tell you? We have our dignity, we poor people. I live by the sweat of my brow, I do! Perhaps you should ask your servants. But don’t pick a fight with me over it or I’ll get angry.’

  By this time they were above the railway tracks.

  ‘Did she come home, your daughter?’

  ‘At this hour she should be in bed asleep.’

  ‘We’ll go and see, shall we?’ said the emissary, putting his hand in his pocket.

  ‘I’m not sure I want to, you …’

  ‘Oh, but you do want to, dear fellow. Come on, let’s go, otherwise … You see this little toy. All I need to do is pull the trigger and there goes Léonard!’

  ‘You’re sick!’

  Léonard stared, incredulous and open-mouthed, at the weapon pointed at him. His back struck the railing surrounding the station platforms.

  ‘OK, OK, we can go. No problem.’

  The emissary shook his head.

  ‘You are the problem.’

  The emissary launched himself forwards and the gun slipped from his grasp. His gloved hands shoved the rag-and-bone man violently in the chest.

  Léonard Diélette, panic in his eyes, his hair in disarray, toppled over the railings. Tumbling backwards, he rolled all the way down the hill to the railway line at the bottom.

  His piercing cry was drowned by the whistling of a locomotive. The emissary turned, and a spindly shadow disappeared round the corner of the gasworks.

  A sooty sky hung over the wasteland dotted with hovels just outside the Barrière des Deux-Moulins.1 Joseph, exhausted and on edge after his afternoon wasted in the company of that old military buffoon Réauville, stopped for a moment. He had not been able to persuade a cabby to take him to the rag-and-bone man’s village, so he had walked from Gare d’Orléans.2 Faced with the cluster of shacks shrouded in fog, he felt reluctant to venture into what looked like a very rough area.

  ‘Shall I or shan’t I? It looks worse than the jungle of Montmartre. I shan’t go in.’

  As he retraced his route, he remembered Iris’s whispered words on his return from Avenue Foch: ‘Be careful.’ How did she know about his secret mission? Had Monsieur Legris confided in her? Or was she referring to the conversation he was supposed to have with her father, but was avoiding. Still feeling unce
rtain, he took the bull by the horns and plunged into the Cité Doré.

  This pompous appellation did not refer to hidden riches invisible to the naked eye. It was simply the name of a previous occupant of the land, Monsieur Doré, a chemist who had decided to divide his property into little plots furnished with rudimentary buildings, in order to supplement his monthly income.

  The houses, initially rented by workmen, had slowly fallen into disrepair, and rag-and-bone men, attracted by the low rent and the little parcels of adjoining land, had moved in. They were soon followed by groups of down-and-outs who had built huts made of planks, tarpaulins and tin plate rusted by the rain. This collection of rickety mansions had five avenues and two squares. It was the kingdom of detritus.

  Had he arrived in daylight, Joseph might have enjoyed the bucolic flavour of the little courtyards overrun with convolvulus and clematis. And he would have appreciated the calm of the quarter, where fights were rare. But in the dusk, barely alleviated by the faltering gas lamps, he advanced cautiously.

  Through doors left open to let the smoke escape, he made out large families sitting on the ground around cooking pots of scraps. There were not many men. Most of them were already doing their rounds, their baskets on their backs, a lantern in one hand and a gaff in the other. On the packed earth floors, next to piles of rubbish to be sorted, bundles of hay served as mattresses.

  Joseph approached a silhouette outlined against the yellow square of a window. A man was puffing on a pipe, removing it regularly from his mouth to spit.

  ‘Good evening, I’m looking for Léonard Diélette.’

  ‘Can’t help you; I only arrived yesterday. Hang on, I’ll ask my brother.’

  The shack was one of the more luxurious dwellings. It was furnished with a table, chairs, a lamp and two sprung mattresses, and housed a couple and four little boys who were enjoying a pot of stew.

  ‘Raymond, does the name Diélette mean anything to you?’