by Claude Izner
They strolled down Avenue de Clichy past the restaurant Père Lathuile. Victor was staring down at the pavement as if he thought he might find the answer to his questions there. He stopped dead in his tracks; he’d suddenly remembered Kenji’s description of the man who’d sold the lot of Oriental manuscripts to Esquirol. Could it be the same fellow who was at Muller’s brasserie? If so, then perhaps he was the link between Pierre Andrésy and Edmond Leglantier. He shared his reflections with Joseph, who had been wondering whether he was going to take root. They walked back the way they’d come and turned left.
‘Why do I have the feeling you’re not telling me everything, Boss?’
‘You’re imagining things, Joseph.’
‘Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes. You didn’t tell me what Monsieur Mori was up to. I’m the last to know, just a shop assistant, no better than a slave! How are we supposed to make progress if you won’t let me in on anything?’
‘It went clean out of my head.’
‘You’re becoming very forgetful in your old age.’
‘Well, now you know. Monsieur Mori’s investigations ended in failure. This leaves two possibilities: either the manuscript miraculously escaped the flames or…somebody started the fire deliberately in order to steal it.’
‘It was only worth fifteen hundred francs.’
‘Our knowledge of human nature tells us that people will be tempted by less.’
‘It’s absurd. Pierre Andrésy would never have become involved in…No, Boss, you’re talking through your hat!’
Joseph kicked a pebble and sent it flying over the iron bridge which rose above Montmartre cemetery. The boss was right. Even Iris had fallen off her pedestal.
‘It’s still early,’ said Victor. ‘I’m going to Le Passe-partout. I’m sure if I try hard enough I’ll manage to wheedle some information out of them.’
‘But they don’t know anything!’
‘They know the name and description of the person who witnessed Grandjean’s murder.’
‘And what about me? Are you leaving me in the lurch? I suppose I’m to be relegated to Rue des Saints-Pères.’
Joseph looked dolefully at the sombre avenues of the cemetery where two of his favourite authors, Stendhal and Murger, were buried. Life was a trick, love an illusion and his boss’s promises hollow.
‘Come on, Joseph, what’s happened to your usual optimism? You’re not being relegated anywhere! Antonin Clusel is an old friend of mine. Seeing him on my own will save a lot of chitchat. And, anyway, Kenji will object if one of us doesn’t return to the fold.’
‘I’ll volunteer – you go and run rings round that wily fox, Clusel. But don’t forget I’m the one who started this case.’
‘What I regret having forgotten, Joseph, is my bicycle.’
He rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a handful of coins. ‘Here, we’ll split this and take a cab each.’
A constant stream of pedestrians held up the traffic in Passage Jouffroy. By the time he reached the offices of Le Passe-partout in Rue de la Grange-Batelière, Victor felt stifled, as much from impatience as from the heat. His entrance amid the ceaseless animation of the newspaper aroused no comment and he walked straight up to the office of the editor-in-chief. He didn’t even need to knock, simply slipping through the door on the heels of a typographer who had come to ask for advice about the page layout. Antonin Clusel, perching on a corner of a table, circled a few freshly printed lines in pencil while an amply proportioned secretary tapped away on a typewriter. It was only after the typographer had left that Antonin noticed Victor.
‘Just the man I need! Am I right in thinking that you’re a cycling enthusiast? Eulalie, my dear, stop that racket for a moment, would you? Go and find something else to do while we talk.’
She complied grudgingly, and slammed the door.
‘A sweet child, I’ve often thought of marrying her, but in the words of Alfred Capus: “How many couples are not torn apart by marriage!” Help me with this, will you? I’m devising a questionnaire aimed at the man in the street. No doubt you’re aware that since 28 April a tax has been levied on bicycles.’
He read aloud, ‘“Ten francs for every bicycle, plus five centimes per franc, plus another three centimes for the tax collector.” This is something that affects many of our readers. The tax raised on a hundred and eighty thousand bicycles will be one million nine hundred and forty-five thousand seven hundred francs gross a year. As a sportsman, what is your opinion of this?’
‘I think they ought to put a tax on feet – one sou per toe. Imagine the amount of money that would bring in to the treasury.’
Antonin Clusel stroked his chin.
‘What a pity you refuse to work with me! I need clever men like you. I’ve just hired two new reporters whose copy is as dull as ditch-water. I’m taking the newspaper in a new direction: less debate, more detailed reports and interviews. I want to go back to the last editor’s methods. He inspired readers with features like “A Week with…” during the Universal Exposition of 1889.’
‘I don’t much hold with the present vogue for printing people’s opinion on anything and everything. Ministers, murderers, actors, priests, soldiers. The problem is they’re encouraged to talk about things they know nothing about: the priest rants against the theatre, the actor criticises the army, the murderer applauds amnesties and the minister laments the condition of the worker. It’s impossible to escape the torrent of words: opera, murder, sardine fishing, vaccination, the immortality of the soul, war, corsets; anything goes so long as it fills the daily columns!’
‘What passion, what eloquence! You deserve a glass of curaçao. I’ll pour you one while I have a cigar.’
Antonin Clusel blew out a flawless smoke ring.
‘You’ve summed up perfectly the problem facing today’s press. Events cause people to ask questions. However, if they refuse to act, it’s up to us to shake them out of their lethargy. The people we interview are chosen not because of what they know, but because of how well known they are. The average man or woman, far from sending the Passe-partout journalist packing for asking strange or intrusive questions, opens their door to him and shows him round the house, inviting him to admire their fine curtains and valuable artwork. You see, my friend, people nowadays like to show off. Everybody dreams of being in the papers.’
‘I scoured Le Passe-partout in vain for the name of the witness to Léopold Grandjean’s murder.’
‘Ah! I smell a case! Be careful or you’ll have Inspector Lecacheur on your back. Of course you didn’t find the name; printing it would endanger the witness, and if there’s anything yours truly the Virus detests it’s breaking his word. I have yet to sink so low. However, I will give you a clue: the witness is a woman.’
‘And Grandjean’s address?’
‘You’re insatiable! What are you getting yourself mixed up in this time? I shouldn’t really tell you, but I will because I like you: 29b, Rue des Boulets.’
Victor gulped his curaçao down in one and was preparing to leave when he suddenly changed his mind.
‘Is there any news about Edmond Leglantier’s death? Did he leave a suicide note?’
‘Not as far as I know. You’re a walking encyclopedia of news stories, my friend! His so-called suicide looks suspiciously like murder. Your Leglantier was knocked senseless before the gas fumes got to him. The police have grilled an actor by the name of Jacques Bottelier, but he has an alibi: at the time of the crime he was dressed as Ravaillac waiting with his fellow thespians for Henri IV to arrive. However, it appears that the Duc de Frioul – no less – is heavily implicated. The police are handling him with kid gloves because of his noble lineage. He categorically denies hitting Leglantier over the head and shutting him in with the gas on. As for yours truly the Virus, you’ll quite understand that he refuses to question the honesty of one of his newspaper’s main shareholders…’
Chapter Nine
Friday 21 July
VICT
OR felt a heady sense of elation that morning as he cycled across Paris, despite his remorse at having told lies to the two people dearest to his heart. It was the longest bicycle journey he’d ever undertaken, and he felt invincible. He let nothing stand in his way; he avoided every obstacle as if he were one of those genies in the fairy tales. In fact, there was very little traffic that day and the only hold-up he encountered was a couple of carts blocking the entrance to Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine. The mild night had dispelled the dampness of the past few days, and the air had a spring-like feel. Victor whistled, forcing himself to stop thinking about the fibs he’d told Tasha and Kenji. Tasha thought he was meeting a fellow photographer with an interest in itinerant traders, and Kenji believed he had an appointment with a book collector in the eastern suburbs of the city.
‘“The end justifies the means, O mother of mine, long live the students!”’ he sang. He watched his reflection in the windows as he pedalled past first an upholsterer and then an ironmonger and saw a man in a slim-fitting jacket with trousers clasped by bicycle clips.
Throngs of workers spewed forth from every building, their knapsacks slung over their shoulders. Housewives were hanging their washing out to dry and children were making their way to school. The stench of tanned leather wafted through Rue des Boulets. Victor was looking at the house numbers as he rattled across the moss-covered paving stones, when his bicycle slipped and began to weave dangerously. He managed to regain control and smiled at a little girl tying a piece of rag round a puppy’s neck. But then his front wheel hit a piece of broken pavement and his bicycle tipped forward. His hands flew from the handlebars, his feet from the pedals and his backside from the saddle. He sailed through the air and landed with a thud. He lay sprawled in the gutter, winded. He’d sustained a few grazes but no broken bones. Kneeling beside his machine, he weighed up the damage. The chain was still on and the handlebars weren’t bent.
‘A lively steed!’ a man’s voice cried out. ‘Needs taming, perhaps?’
‘He’s calmed down. He does get a little skittish sometimes,’ Victor replied.
‘You’re bleeding,’ the man said. ‘Come inside and stretch out on the tiles. They’re cool; it’ll calm you.’
‘I’m all right, really,’ mumbled Victor, pressing his handkerchief to his nose.
Victor followed the man in grey overalls into his workshop.
‘Fulgence,’ he shouted, ‘go and park this gentleman’s bicycle, and keep an eye on it.’
The boy sitting in front of the tall machine with cogwheels that was winding up a roll of wallpaper didn’t need to be told twice.
‘A glass of hooch, that’ll lift your spirits,’ said the man in the overalls. ‘Mine, too, for that matter – I’m parched. Bottoms up!’
‘I apologise for the disturbance.’
‘Oh, it breaks the monotony. We’re slaves to work! If we take Monday off it’s because we’ve worked all day Sunday. My name’s Père Fortin.’
‘I was on my way to Monsieur Grandjean’s – I placed an order with him before he was…’
Victor had scarcely uttered the enamellist’s name when Père Fortin wiped his moist whiskers and launched into a detailed diatribe.
‘Grandjean, I was always bumping into him. It’s only natural when you work in the same trade and you live in the same neighbourhood. He worked in Passage Gonnet, about two minutes from Rue des Boulets. His sons, Polyte and Constant, thirteen and fifteen, are friends of my son Évariste. I can’t understand why anyone would want to kill Léopold – he was a generous soul and liked by everybody. You should have seen the turn-out at his funeral! He was buried at Père-Lachaise; we had a whip-round for the wreaths and the blonde negress supplied the flowers.’
He leant towards Victor and confided, ‘She found the body, she even saw the killer – from a distance, mind you, she couldn’t describe him. More’s the pity. A rotter like that should be skinned alive. Ever since, the poor girl’s been scared the murderer will find her, which wouldn’t be difficult.’
‘Why?’
‘She sells flowers. She can’t afford to lie low until things die down. Mind you, the newspapers behaved decently; they didn’t publish her description or her name and her address, which is almost the same as mine – I’m number 12 and she lives at 29b.’
‘She’s a negress and she’s blonde?’
‘Well, not exactly, more coffee-coloured with lightish hair – a pretty girl, if a bit wild. I don’t suppose life’s been very kind to her.’
Victor thanked him before leaving on foot, wheeling his bicycle.
An iron gate at 29b led into a courtyard overgrown with weeds where a few hens pecked. The building resembled an army barracks with its forbidding wall and tiny shutterless windows. A woman with a double chin was walking towards him, carrying a basket. She opened the gate and glanced suspiciously at Victor, who doffed his hat.
‘Excuse me, Madame, is this where the flower girl they call the blonde negress lives?’
‘Josette? Yes, she has the flat above ours. She gives herself airs because she found a body and it was in the newspapers. As if she didn’t get enough attention! She’s a brazen hussy if ever there was one. My Marcel has a docile nature, but even his eyes pop out on stalks whenever he sees her. It makes you sick, a half-white creature like that.’
Having vented her malice, the woman gathered up her basket.
‘Where does she sell her flowers?’
‘How should I know? On the streets or at the flower markets – girls like her are right little streetwalkers!’
Victor was considerably less elated on the return journey than the outward one. He felt slightly sick as he recalled the fat woman’s words; was it an effect of the heat or the alcohol, or were the dealers in English furniture and the makers of Renaissance dressers and demi-Louis XV wardrobes sneering at him from their shop doorways as he walked past?
I just hope Iris, Tasha or Kenji are never on the receiving end of such bile, he said to himself as he reached Place de la Bastille.
By an unlucky twist of fate, one of the customers when he arrived at the Elzévir bookshop was that overgrown nanny-goat Blanche de Cambrésis, who always had something unpleasant to say on the subject of foreigners. This time, however, she had other matters on her mind and was busy running down her friend Olympe de Salignac for the exclusive benefit of Kenji, trapped behind his desk.
‘What a perfect coward! When she heard that Valentine’s uncle by marriage was mixed up in a murder, she shut herself away at Rue Barbet-de-Jouy, with that poor Adalberte whose health is so frail and whose husband, incidentally, is no better than the Duc de Frioul! Réauville may be an ex-colonel, but he’s no less of a ninny. He also cleaned himself out in order to buy those Ambrex shares! Adalberte will have a fit. You wouldn’t catch me making such a risky investment. I’ve put some of my money in Russian bonds – at least you can rely on them!’
Taking advantage of the situation, Victor whisked Joseph out from under a customer’s nose and gave him a brief summary of the information he’d gleaned. The Hachette guidebook showed them where the flower markets were: two of them were at La Cité and La République on Wednesdays and Saturdays. There was a third flower market at La Madeleine on Tuesdays and Fridays.
‘You’ll have to dash over to La Madeleine as soon as you’ve had lunch,’ concluded Victor, before going to Kenji’s aid.
Joseph hurried off to La Madeleine. On the pavements outside the church, the flower sellers stood under their tarpaulins serving elegant customers or their servants. Tea roses, white gardenias, variegated carnations and brightly coloured gladioli were arranged next to simple daisies and pots of sweet peas. The shimmering colours filled him with joy as he sniffed the air, trying to identify the different perfumes that had mingled into a single heavenly scent. A gardener’s daughter wearing a dress with braid trimmings gaily pointed out the blonde negress’s stall to Joseph, whom she tried without success to interest in a beautifully composed bouquet.
&
nbsp; When she glimpsed the young man striding towards her, still attractive despite his slight hunchback, Josette Fatou was filled with a sense of foreboding that was quickly justified by his blunt declaration.
‘Mademoiselle Fatou, my name is Joseph Pignot, novelist and bookseller. I was hoping that since you were a witness to a murder you might be able to help me reconstruct…’
Josette’s shrieks were already drawing a crowd before he had time to finish his sentence. A plump woman wearing a mantilla hurried to her aid, spurring on the little brown dog trotting along at her feet.
‘Bite him, Sultan, bite!’
The animal merely lay on the ground and yapped at Joseph.
‘What’s all the fuss about, Josette?’ her neighbour called out.
‘This man is making indecent proposals.’
‘Shame on you! Libertine, lecher!’
Joseph took the insult with the composure of a hero in a Dumas novel: hands on hips, resigned yet proud, he was the image of a victim defying adversity.
‘Silence that wild beast, Madame, I am withdrawing.’
A constable was coming over, and Joseph thought it best to beat a retreat.
Alone once more, Josette managed to control her fear, but she could not stop her hands from shaking. The man’s face still haunted her. She relived the fear she’d felt when she regained consciousness, stretched out on her bed, a cold compress on her forehead. Had it been a nightmare or had she really felt a hand caressing her breasts while she was still semi-conscious? She couldn’t be sure, though her blouse was half open. The stranger had apologised for giving her a fright, he’d had no business entering her bedroom. If he’d dared to importune her it was because she was the only one who could help him – that is if she agreed to describe the man who’d stabbed Léopold Grandjean. She had cowered, convinced that he was enjoying her terror and that he would beat her, violate her, kill her even. But instead he had sat down beside her and gently handed her another compress. Then she’d told him falteringly that she could only remember two things about the murderer: his hair was grey and he liked music, because when he’d stabbed the enamellist he’d started singing a song.