The Assassin in the Marais

by Claude Izner

  A stifled cry brought him back to earth. An incredible scene was being played out before him. The thief’s weapon pointed upwards, his raised arm firmly restrained by Kenji. Joseph’s heart was about to explode, and he stood, paralysed. Then the thief made an unexpected move. He stopped resisting and dropped, limp as a rag, before suddenly pulling back and kicking Kenji in the groin. Doubled over with pain, and unable to avoid his assailant, Kenji fell to his knees and was struck on the temple with the butt of the gun. He toppled over, stunned. Joseph heard a click and saw the barrel of the revolver pointed at his employer’s neck. As the thief was about to pull the trigger, a murderous rage took hold of Joseph. He launched himself forwards, feverishly removing his jacket. He threw it over the thief’s head and pulled backwards. The bullet narrowly missed Kenji; the gun fell to the ground.

  The thief struggled fiercely and freed himself. He grabbed Joseph by the throat and kicked his legs out from under him. Joseph found himself spread-eagled on his back with the thief sitting on his chest, making it hard to breathe. When the thief clouted him in the face, Joseph barely felt the pain. He grabbed his attacker’s hair, pulled his head forwards and freed himself. The thief caught him, trapping him against the handrail, and, seizing him by the waist, slowly hoisted him up. Joseph squirmed and wriggled as the man tried to push him over. A hundred and fifty feet below, the square dotted with people, the metallic ribbon of the Canal Saint-Martin, the two fairs and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine danced in Joseph’s vision. He grabbed the thief’s shoulders and pushed with all his might.

  He did not see the man fall. Months later, when the recurring nightmare dragged him again from sleep in a sweat, he would be astonished at having visualised the interminable plunge that ended with the man lying broken at the foot of the column. His descent into hell was always played out in slow motion.

  Kenji regained consciousness, but all he could see was a bluish grey haze.

  ‘Monsieur Mori! Monsieur Mori! You can’t do this to me! Wake up! It’s me, your assistant, Joseph!’

  Kenji’s head was buzzing, but he tried to stand up. A sharp pain made him bend double.

  ‘Thank you, Joseph, I owe my life to you,’ he said feebly, one hand pressed against his abdomen. ‘Help me to stand …’

  ‘Boss, it’s terrible … I … I’ve killed a man! I pushed him, and he fell to his death. I recognised him from his tinted glasses! He’s the bloke who left me Monsieur du Houssoye’s calling card … My God, I’m a murderer!’

  ‘Dear Joseph, don’t worry. It was self defence. What about the goblet?’ breathed Kenji.

  ‘It’s not here. He must have held on to it.’ Joseph looked reproachfully at Kenji. How could he worry about the goblet when Monsieur Legris might be dead?’

  Charles Dorsel’s crushed body, face down on the road, seemed to beg for divine mercy. John Cavendish’s goblet had burst from his coat pocket and smashed to smithereens as it hit the ground. The obsidian face of a cat rolled over to a little girl, who picked it up and stuffed it deep into her pocket, just as her mother starting yelling hysterically that she was to come immediately. It will be my talisman for ever, the little girl promised herself.

  CHAPTER 16

  Wednesday, 20 April

  INSPECTOR Lecacheur looked around the bedroom as if he were merely there to evaluate the décor. He paused at the roll-top desk, caressing the mahogany, lingered in front of the glass-covered prints of Fourier’s phalanstery, then moved on to look at the little painting of Tasha, her breasts bare. Victor, propped up in bed against two pillows, observing the inspector’s pent-up fury, half expected to see him metamorphose into a wild boar that attacked without warning.

  Finally, having swallowed down a handful of lozenges, the inspector came to a halt by the bed. Victor had to stop himself from recoiling and let out a groan as his muscles contracted.

  ‘Are you in pain, Monsieur Legris? I wouldn’t complain if I were you. He who plays with fire gets burnt.’

  ‘You sound like Kenji; making up proverbs is his speciality.’

  ‘And another trick of his is keeping quiet when he’s interrogated. However hard I try, I can get nothing out of him when I ask him what he was doing at the top of the Colonne de Juillet. All he says is that you summoned him there, along with your devoted assistant, who’s also as mute as a clam.’

  ‘He’s still in shock.’

  ‘As well he might be! He can count himself lucky that he’s not been charged with homicide. No one forced your loyal right-hand man to administer justice! In the future he had better save his adventurous zeal for those serials he writes for the rags. As for you, I hope that injury will teach you a lesson. It’s a miracle you survived.’

  ‘Allow me to contradict you. It has nothing to do with miracles. The bullet was diverted by the nickel chronometer my father gave me on my seventh birthday to teach me about punctuality. I had stowed the family memento away at the back of the drawer, but I dug it out when I was going through my things: I decided I would be punctual once more!’

  ‘How dare you speak to me with such insolence! That you are all over the front pages with your ridiculous exploits that put several lives including your own at risk and ended with a man’s death, I can just about accept. I can even accept that you reneged on your promise to stop your covert sleuthing, probably complicating a criminal investigation that would otherwise have remained the preserve of the police. But that you should make fun of me, Monsieur Legris: that I cannot accept!’ Inspector Lecacheur thundered, his moustache bristling with indignation.

  ‘I would never dare make fun—’

  ‘That’s enough! Do you know where I have just come from? From 28 Rue Charlot, where your and your assistant’s repeated visits were the talk of the servants! I spoke at length to Madame du Houssoye, but I was none the wiser for it. Her explanations were flimsy to say the least. Unfortunately I can’t prove her duplicity, but instinct tells me that to put all these crimes down to insanity only clarifies part of the imbroglio. The lady, however, is sticking to her story: the assassin was unstable and possessive; he could not stand the maid’s infidelity and after bumping off her lover, shot her before dumping her body in the Seine!’

  ‘The maid … Lucie Robin?’

  ‘Stop acting the innocent! Don’t you think Inspector Pérot remembers you going to the station in the sixth arrondissement at precisely the moment the body of a woman with a ladybird tattoo had been found in the Seine? The woman was identified as Lucie Robin by Madame du Houssouye at the morgue the following day, after I asked her to attend, having heard from Bertille Piot about the maid’s disappearance.’

  ‘Well, the enigma is solved, a sordid crime passionel,’ remarked Victor, regretting his flippancy, which was immediately challenged by the sight of an object the inspector had been keeping hidden behind his back.

  ‘And what do you make of this, eh? We found it near the broken body at the foot of the column. What, in your opinion, is it for? A declaration of eternal love?’

  Feigning surprise, Victor considered the dented tripod the inspector was holding up.

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘Your pretence is getting on my nerves. Do you also maintain that you do not know Fortunat de Vigneules?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I also showed this object to him. His daughter had already assured me she did not recognise it, but he jumped when he saw it and invoked a treasure hidden underground by the Knights Templar. He told you about the treasure. According to him, this was part of a cursed goblet hidden inside an old cabinet by … have a guess.’

  ‘I give up.’

  ‘By the Grand Master of the Knights Templar himself, Jacques de Molay! When I mentioned your name, Monsieur de Vigneules embarked on a confused discourse in which he asserted that you had provided him with “Pharaonic posteriors” – those were his words – in exchange for information about the goblet. Bertille Piot, the cook, confirmed it by telling me that she had taken a letter from her mas
ter to a photographer in Rue des Saints-Pères. Do you deny that you are that photographer?

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘So you also won’t deny having being told of treasure that you set about tracking down?’

  Victor unconsciously imitated Tasha’s tick, nibbling his thumbnail as he made up his mind. Finally he spoke.

  ‘I don’t deny it. It’s the truth.’

  ‘Liar! Rogue! Hypocrite!’ yelled the inspector. ‘I don’t believe in this treasure. Fortunat de Vigneules has a screw loose. It’s true you were looking for something — you, your associate and Joseph — but that something was stolen from you in a break-in! Raoul Pérot reported it to me.’

  ‘Inspector, although Kenji was upset to have had his French Pâtissier and The Book of Manners by the much esteemed Baronne Staffe stolen, I swear to you that …’

  ‘I forbid you to swear! I am closing in on you. I’m certain that if this murky affair has tickled your fancy, it’s because, in some way or another, you are personally linked to it. And once again I meet a wall of silence when I talk to your entourage. Their lips are sealed, and that includes your associate’s daughter and your girlfriend. Even that obsequious cousin of Madame du Houssoye won’t say a word without first asking her permission!’

  Inspector Lecacheur stowed the tripod in one of the pockets of his braided hussar’s jacket. He wore the philosophical resignation of one who knows he’s beaten. But Victor was not fooled and anticipated a counter-attack. He managed to keep calm when, suddenly bending over him, the inspector shouted, ‘Achille Ménager!’

  ‘A relative of yours?’ Victor enquired, without batting an eye.

  ‘A bric-a-brac merchant on Rue de Nice in the eleventh arrondissement. An anonymous telephone call was made to Raoul Pérot — him again, although it’s not his area of jurisdiction – informing him that Ménager had been slain by a bullet just like the other two victims whose deaths I was investigating. The man’s apartment had been ransacked from top to bottom, and his shop had also been scoured. Since he possessed only worthless baubles, what could the intruder have been after?’

  ‘I can’t imagine, Inspector. Has he been apprehended?’

  ‘We’ve arrested a young Neapolitan girl, an organ player who was the victim’s tenant and who left her lodgings suddenly and moved into the Latin quarter where she was easily picked up. Unfortunately for us, at least a dozen students and other Bohemian types were dancing the sardana around this Anna Marcelli on the day of the crime …’

  ‘Not the sardana, Inspector, you mean the saltarelle.’

  ‘Don’t interrupt, for crying out loud! When I mentioned you to the Italian girl, she became flustered. But of course she gave nothing away. Damnable girl — she’s concealing something! Do you by any chance use a potion to cast a spell on women?’

  ‘Nothing more than my natural charm.’

  The inspector wagged a threatening finger.

  ‘I will get to the bottom of all this, you hear? And then you’ll have an uncomfortable quarter of an hour!’

  He jammed on his fur toque, headed for the door, thought better of it and returned to look Victor up and down.

  ‘Are you in a lot of pain?’

  ‘No, only when I laugh.’

  ‘In that case I hope you have cause to split your sides.’

  ‘You’re very kind, Inspector. By the way, are you still after a first edition of Manon Lescaut?’

  The inspector softened. ‘Why, do you have one for me?’

  ‘Not as far as I know, but I’ll find out.’

  The door slammed. Victor closed his eyes. The trial of strength had exhausted him. He weighed up what the inspector had said. He hadn’t mentioned two of the murders — Lady Stone’s and Léonard Diélette’s. So Bertille Piot had not mentioned Joseph’s interest in Cité Doré. The puzzle was still incomplete, because neither he nor the police had yet discovered the significance of the goblet. Only one person could perhaps provide the missing pieces: Gabrielle du Houssoye. Through a series of painful contortions, Victor had managed to sit up, throw back the covers and swivel his legs round when the door opened softly.

  ‘I knew that would happen. No sooner has that policeman been here than you are ready to rush out in spite of Dr Reynaud’s strict instructions.’

  Victor let himself sink back on to the pillows again.

  ‘I wasn’t going to do that. I just needed to move around a bit. I’m stiffening up.’

  She adjusted the covers; her hand reached out to touch his cheek. She was torn between tenderness and rage.

  ‘You could have been killed! Why do you behave like that? Do I mean so little to you that you would put yourself in danger without considering my feelings?’

  She had never spoken to him in such a stern voice. He suppressed the emotion aroused by her words and replied as calmly as he could.

  ‘You are deluding yourself. I am not really that important to you. If I died, you would soon get over me. No doubt I am going to disappoint you, but … I read this.’

  He spoke composedly, his eyes fixed on the folded piece of paper in his hand.

  ‘My God! The letter.’

  She was terrified. What must he have thought?

  ‘Victor, you’re going mad,’ she murmured.

  ‘No, my darling, I’m just seeing things the way they are. You spend your time with many artists, some of whom have been very important to you. It’s normal that you would have retained your links with them … Hans, for example.’

  ‘Hans! What’s he got to do with us?’

  ‘As I’ve said before, you are free to act as you like. I’ve changed and, even if it is hard for me to admit, I am aware that I have no right to … Tasha, are you all right?’

  As he had been carefully expressing himself, weighing up every word, she had smiled then laughed. Now the laughter was more like sobbing.

  ‘You’ve changed! That’s a joke,’ she exclaimed between two hiccups. ‘Your jealousy knows no bounds! At first I was proud to inspire that incessant worry; I told myself it was proof that you loved me. Now after two years of living together …’

  ‘Living in parallel,’ he corrected

  ‘It’s the same thing! I’m upset that you still don’t trust me.’

  ‘And I’m upset about this letter,’ he replied.

  She went over to him and pulled out an old leather wallet from under her shawl. She took out a photograph and showed it to him. A dark, svelte man of about fifty with a handlebar moustache and a bowler hat stared intensely from the picture. She turned the photograph over and Victor saw a few lines scribbled in pencil.

  Tsu dir, mayn zis-lebn, tsit dokh mayn harts.1

  I’m sending you a picture of me in Berlin in my bourgeois

  get-up. I will soon send you more detailed news.

  Your loving father, Pinkus.

  Victor gulped. He recognised the writing from the letter.

  ‘It’s true. I did lie to you,’ Tasha admitted, putting the photograph back in the wallet. ‘There was no exhibition in Barbizon. My father had made me promise not to tell anyone where he was, even you. The Tsarist police are looking for him and he is suspicious of everyone.’

  ‘Tasha, I am so sorry; forgive my stupidity. I should have had faith in you.’

  She shrugged her shoulders and nibbled her thumbnail for a moment.

  ‘It’s in your nature not to have faith. But you’re going to have to stop living in fear of losing me or you will drive me away.’

  ‘Darling, I swear to you it’s finished. From now on I …’ he began, reaching out to her.

  She silenced him with a gesture.

  ‘Hang on, because now your faith in me is really going to be tested. Victor, I am leaving.’

  ‘Tasha, no!’ he cried.

  ‘My mother, Djina, is in Berlin. She’s ill. She had been living with my Aunt Hannah but the poor woman has just died. My sister Ruhléa is married in Krakow and my father is going to America. Djina is all alone. I’m going t
o look after her. I don’t know how long I will need to stay before we both come back here. I’ll … I’ll need you.’

  He twisted round and managed to take her by the hand. He kissed her passionately. ‘I’ve been an idiot. How do you say that in Russian, a dourak? You can have anything you want; I’ll pay for the journey, for your stay in Berlin, for your mother’s lodgings in Paris, and for your father’s ticket to America. I only ask one thing: that you return to me.’

  They embraced again and didn’t notice the door opening. Someone coughed.

  ‘I hate to interrupt such passion, but it’s time to go back to the hotel,’ said a grave voice.

  Tasha pulled away from Victor, blushing. The two men stared at each other. Pinkus was exactly like the bourgeois in the photograph, but now he wore a cap, a tunic and velvet trousers.

  ‘So it’s you who’s turned my daughter’s head! You have an irritating propensity to stir up trouble, and you attract the police like a dog attracts fleas, so it’s better if I take my leave.’

  ‘Tasha told me you want to go to the United States. I would be happy to contribute to the cost of your passage.’

  Pinkus exchanged a look with his daughter, who reddened slightly. ‘I see. That way you will be rid of me more quickly.’

  ‘Father, for the love of God, stop behaving like a child! In this life if you don’t ask you will never get what you want.’

  ‘The heavens are deaf to what happens on this earth. I don’t want anything from anyone. I have always managed on my own. You are trying to bribe me to win me over.’

  Victor managed to get out of bed. His chest hurt, but he found a way of expressing himself clearly. ‘This conversation is ridiculous,’ he said. ‘It’s time I took things in hand. So not another word; I’m going to make the decisions. I’m not trying to win you over. It’s quite simple. I love Tasha and you are her father. That should be enough.’