The Assassin in the Marais

by Claude Izner

  No, he pleaded silently. Please not that!

  He overcame his repugnance and separated the flaps of the overcoat. There, that dark stain in the middle of the body’s vest: blood.

  He was bending over the body when he heard a noise, coming from outside, in the courtyard. He listened, but now there was silence. He flinched when the noise began again, then went over to the window.

  A dark-haired woman wrapped in a black cape was approaching the stairs.

  He fell flat on his stomach and scrambled under the bed as fast as he could. An idiotic thought struck him. There must be bugs under here. Frozen against the floor, he could not avoid looking out at Ménager’s body. His teeth were chattering faster than castanets. He must control himself!

  He heard the woman coming up the stairs — no creaking; she’d been up them before. Then a pair of ankle boots stopped by the body. Joseph kept his head down. The boots turned round. This time the stairs did creak. Joseph shot out of his hiding place and hurried over to the window. The woman was dragging the barrel organ.

  Joseph bounded down the stairs and charged out under the porch. The woman, bent over her organ, was hurrying towards Rue de Charonne.

  The emissary stood up. His legs propelled him forwards. He tumbled down the ladder, through the upper floor and out into the courtyard, where he glanced into the lean-to. The barrel organ had disappeared.

  He mounted his bicycle and drove it forwards.

  There they were, walking up Rue de Charonne in single file: the woman with the barrel organ, followed at a short distance by the bookshop assistant.

  CHAPTER 13

  Saturday afternoon, 16 April

  DRESSED in her rabbit-skin coat, Madame Ballu was sitting in her chair beside the entrance to the building, enjoying a well-earned rest in the sun. Euphrosine Pignot appeared, out of breath from carrying a basket filled with apples, which she plonked down on the pavement.

  ‘You’ll do your back in, you poor thing!’

  ‘Don’t I know it? I was going to ask my son to help me, but Monsieur has vanished into thin air.’

  ‘It’s normal at his age. You have to give him his freedom!’

  ‘It’s not as if I’ve been trying to hold him back. He can pack up and leave for all I care,’ grumbled Euphrosine as she massaged the small of her back.

  ‘You don’t mean that. You know you’d miss him. By the way, when is his next serial coming out? I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘He’s not working on it much at the moment. Too busy canoodling with Monsieur Mori’s daughter. They can’t fool me – there’s something going on between those two.’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Yes! Just imagine what a fine old mess it would be if they got up to any mischief. Why I’d have a half-Charentais, half-Japanese grandchild!’

  ‘Are you from La Charente? It’s a lovely part of the world; lots of oysters there.’

  ‘Just La Charente, not La Charente-Maritime — your geography’s hopeless!’

  ‘Well, it’s all the same to me. That’s a nice lot of fruit you have there — it must have cost a pretty penny. I should know. I’ve a hearty appetite and I spend fortunes!’

  ‘Please, help yourself. An old acquaintance at Les Halles gave them to me.’

  Madame Ballu did not wait to be asked twice. She filled her pinny with apples and sat down again, telling Euphrosine as she picked up her basket, ‘I would give you a hand only I’m feeling a little worn out myself. Polishing that brass does my back no good at all.’

  ‘Excuse me, ladies, do you know of a photographer’s studio at this address?’

  Euphrosine and Madame Ballu regarded the woman in the black wool jacket addressing them and shook their heads.

  ‘Not at this address.’

  ‘But I wrote it down, 18 Rue des Saint-Pères!’

  The two women looked at one another.

  ‘Someone has given you false information,’ Madame Ballu declared.

  ‘No. I’m positive this is right. I have a letter addressed to the photographer who lives at number 18.’

  ‘Wait a minute! That could be Monsieur Legris. Isn’t photography his pastime?’ Euphrosine asked Madame Ballu.

  ‘More like his hobby horse,’ muttered the concierge.

  ‘Don’t you mean his hobby? So I wasn’t mistaken. Which floor is he on?’

  Euphrosine doubted the bookseller would be there, since he’d moved to the ninth arrondissement to be with the woman she discreetly referred to as his ‘flame’. However, if the woman would be good enough to follow her, she’d give her note to his associate, Monsieur Mori. ‘My son’s future father-in-law,’ she mouthed to herself.

  Iris left Yvette’s bedside for a moment and went to open the door for them. She explained that her father wasn’t there but that she’d make sure he received the letter. Euphrosine, who was curious about the visitor for whom she felt an instinctive liking and who reminded her of a younger version of herself, asked permission to offer the woman a cup of coffee. Iris told Euphrosine to consider herself at home and apologised for having to administer to her little patient.

  ‘Have you come far?’ Euphrosine asked the woman.

  ‘I walked all the way from Rue Charlot. Today’s the day I visit my mother. She’s a chair attendant at Les Jardins du Luxembourg. They call her Old Mother Ticket. I said to myself, “Bertille, you can kill two birds with one stone.” ’

  ‘Bertille. That’s a pretty name. Mine’s Euphrosine. I used to have a costermonger’s cart, now I’m a cook.’

  ‘You don’t say! So am I, for the Houssoye household.’

  ‘And how many mouths do you have to feed?’

  Bertille counted on her fingers.

  ‘Six, no five, on account of one of them died. And that’s not including the servants.’

  ‘And there was I feeling sorry for myself … That must be hell!’

  ‘It’s not as bad as it sounds. In fact it’s as easy as pie. I have several strings to my bow: beef casserole, beef bourguignon or at a pinch bubble and squeak! It’s all in the sauce. You must know the expression “It’s the sauce that helps the fish slip down”?’

  ‘Fancy that! And they don’t complain?’

  ‘Not a bit. They come back for more and grow fatter by the day. A nice thick onion sauce gets them all guzzling!’

  ‘At least you can give them meat. The young lady you just met eats only vegetables,’ Euphrosine confided in a whisper.

  ‘Pour a little marrow fat on them and they’ll all be licking their chops,’ Bertille advised, pushing back her coffee cup and standing up despite Euphrosine’s objections.

  You can’t appreciate music on an empty stomach, thought Joseph, his head spinning from listening to the love songs sung by the Italian girl. For he was certain she was Italian.

  ‘Amo … e disperato è l’amor mio’1

  He had followed her all the way from Faubourg Sainte-Marguerite to the Latin quarter. They had gone as far as Place de la Bastille and stopped next to the station, where her barrel organ had droned out its first old refrain, then at three other places along the banks of the Seine near the main bridges, and then finally in front of Notre-Dame, until the Italian girl had spied two gendarmes and fled.

  She had come to a complete halt at number 1, Rue de l’Écolede-Médecine, outside a second-hand clothes shop owned by Père Blancard, otherwise known as Père Monaco, who spoke to her for a few moments and then hung a sign on her organ.

  First rate second-hand clothes

  At Jericho’s Trumpet

  Joseph assumed that the songstress was allowed to leave her instrument there for as long as she liked in exchange for a percentage of her earnings.

  Joseph had been hiding for more than an hour behind a flower stall selling violets for two sous a bunch, alternately hungry and cold. He might have endured these inconveniences with more stoicism had he not been incessantly reliving the scene at Rue de Nice. The idea of death didn’t frighten him so long as it was na
tural, for he believed in God and left it to heaven to look after the souls of the dead. But murder was another kettle of fish altogether! He felt bad about leaving Achille Ménager’s body lying there.

  ‘She’s taking her time. If I hurry, I might just make it.’

  The emissary stood in the shadow of a doorway. Where was that fool of an assistant going off to in such a hurry? A café on the boulevard; a call of nature, no doubt.

  The emissary could have kicked himself. How foolish to have searched the bric-a-brac merchant’s two rooms and forget the lean-to! The organ; the abomination was hidden inside the barrel organ.

  Joseph stood in front of the wooden telephone box fixed to the wall and pressed a button that connected him to the central exchange. He gave the number of the person he wished to call. The connection took a while and in the meantime he examined the machine, which reminded him of a toilet-tissue dispenser. The bell finally rang so loudly it almost burst his eardrums. He picked up the receiver and, pinching his nose between finger and thumb, recited into the mouthpiece the little speech he had prepared for Inspector Pérot.

  ‘Hello? Is this the police station? I want to speak to Inspector Pérot … He’s not there? I have an urgent message. There’s a corpse at number 4 Rue de Nice, in the Popincourt quarter.’

  He hung up, paid for the call, slugged back a glass of grenadine and rushed back to Rue de l’École-de-Médecine.

  Thank goodness, she’s still there. It looks like she’s made a tidy little sum. Am I mistaken or is she finally going … Hurrah!

  His suffering, alas, was not over. He was obliged to follow the Italian girl as far as the dark narrow Rue Saint-Severin, where he watched from a distance while she made several purchases. The smell of food wafted out from a shop with a brown façade. He walked over to it, licking his lips at the sight of the hefty casserole dishes from which the customers were serving themselves. He leant against a lamp-post, keeping his eye on the Italian girl. She stepped back out on to the pavement, set down a package on her barrel organ, bought a penny loaf then went into a café and emerged with a bottle of wine and a bag of coal. Then she crossed Place Saint-Michel, its cafés filled with students out on the town and street girls on the lookout for customers. She darted between the carriages and omnibuses surrounded by crowds of commuters waving their numbered tickets in the air, and paused near the dragon fountain, where she placed the goods she had bought inside her barrel organ and headed towards Place Saint-André-des-Arts.

  At the beginning of the street bearing the same name, she darted into the doorway of a ramshackle building.

  Joseph hesitated. Should he follow the girl and accost her? Under what pretext? Should he wait or should he return to Rue des Saints-Pères? Given that if he died of starvation it would mean an end to the case, he plumped for the latter option.

  Rid at last of the interfering assistant, the emissary slipped into the house. His breath quickened; the organ was at the foot of the stairs. He opened the cover, ready to seize the abomination. Nothing but pipes!

  Footsteps … Voices upstairs. He must leave without his trophy!

  Stirred by the thought that not only had Anna come back, but that she had spent hours singing in the streets in order to bring him food, Mathurin Ferrant unlocked a store cupboard and placed the organ inside it before hurrying upstairs. The potatoes were already cooking on top of the squat red stove and creating an agreeable fug.

  ‘Unwrap the chops, cut some bread and uncork the wine. There’s still a little paraffin left. I’ll buy some more tomorrow.’

  ‘You are an absolute angel, a princess. Ouch!’ Mathurin had forgotten the sloping ceiling and banged his head.

  ‘Sit down and eat,’ she ordered, handing him a plate.

  For a moment the air was filled only with the sound of the stove and their chewing. After they had finished eating and wiped their plates clean, they looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  ‘Heavens! I hadn’t realised how hungry I was. For days now I’ve been tightening my belt, telling myself that man proposes, God disposes. You’re my lucky star, Anna. And a star that’s fading fast by the looks of it,’ he cried as he saw her eyelids begin to droop. ‘Come on, time for bed!’

  He turned round for as long as it took her to undress and slide under the blanket. She laid her head on the pillow and was surprised by the sudden unbidden memory of Luigi kissing her forehead before blowing out the candle.

  ‘Goodnight,’ said Mathurin softly, his limbs spilling over the sofa he had settled down upon.

  Bathed in the moonlight streaming in through the skylight, Achille Ménager’s goblet sat in the middle of the table, giving off menacing vibrations. However tightly Anna shut her eyes she could still see its orange glow. She was gripped by a sudden panic.

  ‘Mathurin, are you asleep?’

  ‘Hm … Yes.’

  ‘Would you mind coming and lying next to me? I’m cold.’

  ‘Are you … sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He tried his best to avoid touching her, but couldn’t help it. Not knowing where to put his arm, he finally raised it above his head.

  Reassured, she began to tell him what was weighing on her mind: the death of her father, her awful life with the pig, his murder, which she had witnessed, the theft of the goblet.

  ‘Warm me up,’ she whispered.

  Mathurin slowly lowered his arm. She trembled as she felt his hand touch her shoulder. She pressed her body against his and held him in a warm embrace. The bed began to rock.

  ‘We’re going to capsize,’ he whispered.

  She placed her finger on his lips.

  There should be a statue raised in memory of the inventor of the frite, Joseph thought to himself, overjoyed to be eating something at last.

  He dipped merrily into his paper cone as he walked alongside a row of coaches on Boulevard de Clichy.

  The lamplighter had just passed along Rue Fontaine. Joseph stopped beneath a gas lamp and, after wiping his greasy fingers, succumbed to the temptation that had been gnawing away at him since Iris had entrusted him with the letter left by some woman, a cook at Rue Charlot.

  I have a right to know. We’re a team after all.

  He opened the envelope.

  Monsieur Photographer,

  Come at once, I have some important information to give you. I reckon that it’s worth at least five or six comely posteriors like the one you already honoured me with.

  Your servant,

  Baron Fortunat de Vigneules

  Joseph whistled.

  ‘He must have been a right old rogue in his youth!’

  He stuffed the letter back in the envelope and hurried to Victor’s house. He regretted having to go there after such a tiring day, but felt obliged to pass on the message, especially since Monsieur Mori had gone out. He pictured Iris in her beautiful Japanese gown, and the tender kisses they had exchanged. No doubt she would take advantage of her father’s absence to type out the prologue to Thule’s Golden Chalice on his precious Lambert.

  Victor had changed into a blue shirt with starched collar and cuffs, and a pair of tapered wool trousers. He was about to don a patterned velvet waistcoat when Joseph knocked at the door.

  ‘You look very dapper, Boss! I haven’t seen you in a bow tie for a long time.’

  ‘I don’t imagine you came here to admire my outfit. Did you manage to find Ménager? What has become of the goblet?’

  ‘I did, Boss, but I drew a blank: no sign of the goblet anywhere and the bric-a-brac merchant’s apartment looked like the hippodrome2 after a steeplechase. And on top of which …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The fellow’s dead — a bullet in the chest. I made an anonymous call to Inspector Pérot — I couldn’t leave the blighter lying there.’

  ‘You did the right thing,’ Victor muttered. ‘Are you all right? Do you feel better now? I’m awfully sorry, Joseph. Would you like a pick-me-up?’

  ‘No thanks, Boss. There’s a
nother thing. A girl came while I was at Ménager’s. She panicked when she saw the body and ran off with her barrel organ, which she pushed around the whole blooming day. She sings Neapolitan songs, so she has to be Italian. I’ve got them on the brain. I followed her to where she lives at number 3 Rue Saint-André-des-Arts. There’s no way of knowing whether she was involved in the murder.’

  ‘Good work, Joseph, a real Sherlock Holmes. Do you think she might have the goblet?’

  ‘Who knows? One of us has to go there first thing and keep an eye on her. Oh, I almost forgot!’

  Joseph handed him Fortunat’s letter.

  ‘I should warn you, Boss, I opened it,’ he said in a defiant voice.

  Victor cast an eye over the missive and scratched his head.

  ‘We must divvy up the tasks. How would you like to pay a little visit to our bawdy old gent?’

  ‘Again? He’s got a screw loose, that fellow. He gives me the willies — him and those stuffed pooches!’

  ‘Well, if you’re scared, I’ll go.’

  ‘Scared, me? After all I’ve been through!’

  ‘In that case you go. I’ll leave his gift at the bookshop for you to pick up and you give it to him in exchange for the information. And while you’re there try to find out whether anyone in the family is a crack shot or has been to Great Britain recently. In the meantime I’ll go and stand guard on Rue Saint-André-des-Arts and you can take over from me at lunchtime. Agreed?’

  ‘At your service, Boss — that’s what I call good organisation. I’d better be off home now or Maman will give me an earful.’

  Victor had reached a decision, and yet he felt nervous. Tasha would be here soon! Was he going to be able to tell her what was on his mind? And how would she react?