by Claude Izner
Anna groaned. Why couldn’t she be magically transported back to the Bay of Naples, where she would wake bathed in a pleasant heat! She had to get up, leave the house and trudge through the city streets with her barrel organ in order to scrape a living. There was only one thing for it; she must tear herself from her cocoon and pull on her clothes as quickly as possible. They were cold even though they had been under the mattress all night, and she shivered as she dressed. She lit a handful of wood shavings and threw a couple of pieces of coke into the bottom of the stove — a luxury reserved for breakfast. She cut a slice of stale bread and chewed it slowly to make it last longer. While she waited for the water to boil, she washed her face and brushed her hair energetically, before putting on her head scarf. She was about to pour the hot water into the coffee filter, and was lamenting the fact that this was the last spoonful of precious mocha she had bought at great expense at the roaster’s, when a loud noise made her jump. She crouched down, unblocked the spy hole and peeped into the old man’s lodgings. She could see a tussle going on between Achille Ménager and another person who was holding on to the lapels of his frock coat.
Achille fell to the floor. The figure stepped out of her field of vision. Then there was silence.
All she could hear was the sound of her heart beating frantically. She held her breath and prayed to the Madonna that it would not give her away. Then there came a quiet, continuous scratching noise. Someone was rummaging in the room, while the bric-a-brac merchant lay slumped in a hideous position. Was he merely unconscious? Or was he dead?
She must leave immediately! She lay flat on her belly and, reaching out her arm, inched open the trapdoor. She pulled herself up, gained a foothold on the top rung of the ladder and closed the trapdoor quietly behind her. She slid down, chafing her hands on the sides of the ladder, and stood motionless on the landing.
She remained there for a few moments before making her way down the stairs. Gripping the banister, she stepped over the creaking fifth stair — for if she could hear what went on in Ménager’s lodgings, the reverse must also be true.
Only when she reached the corner of Rue de Nice and Rue de Charonne was she able to breathe easily. Suddenly she was overtaken by a fit of trembling.
The rain had stopped. Beyond the railings of the fence surrounding the wasteland, the chords of a guitar picked out a wild flamenco rhythm.
When he was sleepy, Kenji’s eyes became heavy, giving him a feline air. He was leaning back against his seat, his hands resting on his cane, as he watched a company of mounted Republican Guards outside the barracks on Place Monge.
‘I can’t understand why you didn’t tell me about this little expedition sooner?’ he murmured, leaning over to the window, which he had opened to rid the cab of the smell of tobacco.
Victor exhaled a long plume of smoke from his cigarette. He had established that Clovis Martel would be at Rue Saint-Médard that morning, and it was clear that Kenji was the only one who could identify the goblet. He had telephoned him at ten o’clock the previous evening and, in order to avoid involving Yvette, had made up some cock-and-bull story about a cook at the Du Houssoye residence having told him about a strange goblet she had found in the refuse and given to a junk dealer.
‘I only discovered the man’s whereabouts yesterday,’ he replied, grateful to be telling the truth at last.
‘I must say, your enquiries take place at the oddest hours. If it isn’t last thing at night, it’s first thing in the morning!’
‘You’ve told me enough times that the owl that stays awake catches the field mouse.’
‘Don’t use my proverbs against me,’ protested Kenji, secretly flattered that his adoptive son remembered his sayings. ‘So, you went to the residence of the man who left me his visiting card? You might have told me, since it was me he came to see. How did you find his address? It wasn’t on the card.’
‘Very simple. As I explained to you over the telephone, I asked at the Museum of Natural History.’
‘Did you speak to him?’
‘No. He wasn’t at home, so I grilled the servants instead, which is why I didn’t say anything to you,’ replied Victor, preferring not to mention Antoine de Houssoye’s murder.
The cab driver, keen to avoid going over cobblestones, pulled up near the small Église Saint-Médard, which was flanked by a tiny public garden inhabited by vagabonds and plucky sparrows. As they made their way up the bumpy Rue Mouffetard, overlooked by the Panthéon’s stout dome, they encountered more and more passers-by. Students from the Jesuit schools flirted tirelessly with young servant girls who were out window shopping.
Kenji looked anxious, although, contrary to what Victor imagined, his mind was not on the investigation. Joseph’s suspicious behaviour had set him thinking, and instead of going to his tailor the previous day he had dropped off at Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, where Pierre Andrésy ran his book-binding business.
The modest premises were wedged between a four-storey building and a furniture-storage warehouse, and indicated to customers by a sign suspended above a tiny shop window containing a jumble of leather samples. Upon entering, Kenji was surprised by the size of the shop, which was cluttered with large tables, a percussion press and a backing vice. A lingering smell of tanned leather and glue caught in his throat. There were several shelves full of tools: folders made of boxwood and bone, saws for notching, needles, awls, brushes, dividers — all devoted to the creation of works of art.
The master of the house, a spry man of about sixty with blue eyes and a halo of white hair, reigned over this land of paper, whether Dutch, Japanese, laid or woven, duo-decimo or folio. He had received Kenji with an amiability which, coupled with his skill, had earned him the loyalty of the best-known booksellers. He had appeared genuinely surprised when asked about the two precious volumes of La Fontaine entrusted to his care by Victor Legris. ‘No one delivered them here. I have never seen them.’ Faced with his customer’s insistence, he had shaken his head forlornly, distressed that his integrity was being called into question. Kenji had apologised — no doubt his assistant had made a mistake.
By the time he left the shop, his suspicions had reached fever pitch, and he immediately telephoned Mademoiselle Bontemps to find out whether Iris had been to see her that Wednesday morning. Her awkward perplexity had put an end to any lingering doubts he might have had. If Joseph and Iris had lied to him about their whereabouts at the same time on the same day, it was because they had been together.
He had spent a restless night alternating between insomnia and bad dreams as he brooded over his discovery. On top of everything else, Victor had asked to meet him first thing the next morning. And now he was yawning and glowering by turns, depending on whether his tiredness or his anger had the upper hand.
They turned into a street lined with squat houses whose medieval courtyards with their exposed beams were invaded each weekend by rag-and-bone men, who considered it their territory. Carriage doors opened over piles of junk as second-hand dealers came to stock up, creaming off according to their means the best of the rag-and-bone men’s spoils in order to sell them on to private customers.
‘Clothes, rags, scrap for sale!’
Either that or they supplied the master rag-and-bone merchants — the elite of that nocturnal community and the only ones able to turn a profit by selling junk on for reprocessing.
Everything that still had a use was displayed on pieces of cloth spread out on the narrow pavements. It was rare for anything to sell for more than a few sous. Women’s hats lay alongside empty scallop shells or curling tongs. Next to a collection of rusty nails, piles of lingerie, dresses and threadbare coats were keenly contested by shabbily dressed housewives, who hurled themselves at the clothes with such fervour that one might think they hadn’t a stitch to wear and their modesty depended upon snatching what they could from the hands of their rivals. Kenji reflected that he would rather go naked than tussle with these harpies. A lanky individual wearing a rabbit-fur hat
and fur-trimmed coat tried to convince Kenji to buy an array of potions whose properties he claimed were pharmaceutically tried and tested.
‘This one works wonders against toothache. You can say goodbye to suffering! Your gnashers will fairly stand to attention. This one’s particularly good after a night on the tiles and this one here unblocks the pipes better than any douche. This one puts the hair back on your chest and this one …’
Kenji pulled himself away and went to join Victor, who was rummaging through a pile of unfinished novels, from between whose pages an occasional religious image or cutting from an illustrated newspaper slipped out. The vendor, a Martiniquaise wearing a pointed Madras hat, hawked her tat in a throaty voice.
‘First-rate stuff, all of it, from a clearance I did at the palace of a rich man who kicked the bucket. Take it, dear, it’s yours for a third of the price. Keep looking, you’re bound to find something you like!’
‘I’d like to know where Clovis Martel’s stall is,’ Victor said.
‘Over there, next to the two old girls, the twins. You can’t miss him on account of his nose, which you’ll spot a mile off.’
They elbowed their way through the throng, only to find their passage blocked by a crowd gathered at the stall belonging to the two old ladies to whom the Martiniquaise had referred — cross-eyed twin sisters. A short, loutish-looking man in a bright red neckerchief with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth waved a knife at them and spoke with a lisp.
‘They call this a knife! It’s certainly antique. It must date back to the Cro-Magnon era. I barely touched it and the handle hit the deck!’
The onlookers guffawed.
‘If you don’t know how to open a penknife, you should stick to fish knives! We only sell the finest merchandise here,’ one of the sisters retorted.
‘I’ll give you one of my finest if you don’t give me my money back!’ shouted the grubby little man.
‘No chance! Go hang yourself!’ shouted the other twin.
‘And you, carbon copy, you’d better watch it or I’ll knock your block off, you louse!’
Victor and Kenji narrowly avoided the outbreak of hostilities. Once they were out of the fray, the street took on a relaxed air again. Finding Clovis Martel proved easy indeed owing to his protuberant nose, whose purplish hue betrayed a penchant for frequenting taverns.
Tall and thin, with a battered hat on his head and a goatee on his pointed chin, he was following the quarrel with a look of consternation as he chewed on the end of a matchstick. Kenji examined the jumble of objects at his feet: a couple of wood planes, a chamber pot, a narwhal’s tooth, some hairpins, a poor copy of the Mona Lisa, a pair of clod-hoppers with cracks in the leather that were filled with pitch.
‘If those old bats would stop their catfight, I might be able to get started. They’re in a class of their own, those two skinflints. They could suck blood out of a stone, whereas me, I’m honest, I’ve never had any complaints, and if you can’t find anything you want here I’ve a store of other bargains.’
‘Like, for example, the skullcap of a monkey attached to a metal tripod decorated with three jewels and the tiny face of a cat with marbled agates for eyes?’ said Victor.
Clovis Martel looked at him, amazed.
‘We’ve got a right one here! And where am I supposed to have come across such an item? At Christofle’s?1
‘You bought it from the daughter of a man called Léonard Diélette. However, this gentleman is its rightful owner,’ Victor added, pointing to Kenji.
‘Me? I haven’t bought a thing. And I don’t know any Diélette. And besides, since when was free exchange illegal?’
‘Where is the goblet?’ Victor demanded.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, so how should I know where it is? Somewhere in France!’ barked Clovis Martel, affecting an interest in rearranging the items on his stall.
Suddenly, he stood up straight, his beady eyes bulging out of their sockets, his face bright red.
‘Go to the devil! Let me get on with my work. I didn’t come here to twiddle my thumbs, damn it,’ he bawled.
Kenji moved towards him, unfazed.
‘Allow me to explain. This goblet was taken from me in a burglary. Dealing in purloined items is otherwise known as receiving stolen goods and is punishable by law,’ he informed the man calmly.
‘Aha! So that’s where this little sermon is going! Well, I’ve been working here for ten years and no one has ever accused me of receiving stolen goods. Call the flics if you like and we’ll let them sort it out. Did you hear that, Abel?’ he hollered to a wine merchant whose belly was the size of a barrel. ‘As God is my judge, I know my memory isn’t what it used to be, but it’s as sharp as ever where business is concerned. Why, you gentlemen are casting a slur on the whole profession!’
A crowd of people had gathered round and were heartily agreeing with Clovis Martel’s pronouncements.
‘It’s still a free country, after all,’ growled a rag-and-bone man as big as a house.
‘You’re absolutely right. It’s a free country, is it not?’ Clovis Martel echoed the man’s words loudly.
Victor muttered to Kenji under his breath. ‘This fellow is giving us the run around.’
Fuming, Clovis Martel continued to yell at the top of his voice.
‘You two are a right pair of troublemakers! What must I do to convince you? Cut my throat? Or should I throw myself off the top of the Église Saint-Médard?
A smile flickered across Kenji’s face.
‘Hey, you, Chinaman, you’ll be laughing on the other side of your mug in a minute. Now hop it, both of you. I’m tired of looking at you. I mean to say, they give a fellow a hard time and then they laugh at him!’
‘I’d forget it if I were you,’ said the Martiniquaise, who had wandered over. ‘You could float a battleship on the amount of wine he’s put away. We’re not all like him, but don’t go to the police; it wouldn’t be right. What is it you’re looking for?’
‘A stolen item.’
‘You can say what you like about Clovis, but he’s no thief.’
‘He might have sold it on in good faith,’ Victor suggested. ‘Do you know who his regular buyers are?’
‘Let me think. If it’s a valuable object, he could have sold it to his friend.’
‘What friend? Is he here?’
‘Oh no, he’s one of the elite. He has a proper shop on a proper street.’
‘Which street?’
‘Maman Doudou squeal?’ she snorted, eyeing the wallet Kenji had just fished out of his pocket.
‘Please, Madame, make an effort.’
‘I am getting very forgetful, especially first thing in the morning,’ the woman murmured, hurriedly stuffing a banknote down the front of her dress. ‘He has a shop, and the same name as that Greek warrior, the bravest of the brave, the one who died on account of his heel being exposed. I read it in one of my books, though it makes no sense to me. Achille Ménager isn’t the sort to pick a fight. The shop’s in Rue de Nice, near Rue de Charonne, funny how it suddenly came back to me. I can’t remember the number, but there’s only one …’
‘You should eat more fish, Madame; it does wonders for the memory,’ Kenji said.
The furore had died down by the time they retraced their steps. The twin sisters were fussing over an antique dealer in search of a real treasure; the man in the fur hat was sitting slumped in a broken armchair, enticing passers-by with phials containing the real, the one and only, elixir of youth.
‘No more grey hair or wrinkles, Monsieur. A snip at five sous!’
Kenji stopped to listen. Victor was incredulous.
‘You don’t mean to say you’re taken in by this rot?’
‘Why not, I was taken in by yours, wasn’t I? Speaking of which, isn’t Diélette the surname of the little girl you asked Iris to look after?’
Amused by the look of surprise on Victor’s face, he added, ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to go b
ack to the beginning of the story you told me over the telephone, and try not to leave anything out this time … You don’t look quite yourself, Victor, I think a dose of red meat might help you regain your composure. There’s nothing like a good steak to put the spring back in one’s step. I’ll treat you to lunch at Foyot’s. Let’s stop off at Rue des Saints-Pères first and tell Joseph, and then we’ll go and have a little chat with Achille Ménager.’
The emissary had lost all notion of time.
‘I have failed. I am unworthy of your trust, Lord.’
He had turned Achille Ménager’s lodgings and garret upside down, so far without success. One thing worried him: the woman’s underwear. To whom did it belong? Wading through that pile of worthless bric-a-brac in the shop would be a Herculean task. How would he ever manage to pick through that heap of filthy junk? Why, an army of porters with tongs would have given up long ago.
Nothing. Still nothing. Had the rag-and-bone man with the big nose at the Marché Saint-Médard been lying? No. A banknote and some lurid threats had been enough to loosen the man’s tongue.
‘Rue de Nice. Achille Ménager. He gave me money for old rope. That thing’s a fake.’
But now Achille Ménager had gone to meet his maker and he would provide no more information. Killing him had been a mistake.
The emissary sent a row of mustard pots flying.
‘You fool. You’ve been duped!’
There was a rap at the door and a man’s voice called out. ‘Monsieur Ménager, are you there?’
The emissary flattened himself against the wall beside the grimy shop window.
‘It’s closed,’ a second voice said. ‘No point hanging about if he’s not here. We’ll try again later.’
The emissary leant forwards cautiously and peered through one of the panes covered in cobwebs.
He made out two figures.
He stepped back quickly. He thought he recognised them … Yes! It was them all right. But who had given them this address? The fellow with the big nose?