The Devil in Montmartre: A Mystery in Fin de Siècle Paris

by Gary Inbinder

  “The mugs nearly doubled over with laughter. The meaner-looking of the pair whipped out a large knife and waved it menacingly. ‘Sister, yer a card. I think I’ll carve a heart on yer pretty little ass, somethin’ to remember me by.’

  “I was trembling, perspiring, and felt as though I were about to faint. In a moment, I would have dropped to my knees and begged for mercy. Still cool, Betsy said, ‘Since you put it that way, I suppose I have no choice but to pay you.’ The bully-boy grinned. ‘Now yer actin’ wise, sister.’

  “The rest happened so quickly, but I recall every detail as if time had slowed somehow. Betsy opened her purse as if to pull out a wallet. Instead, she drew the Smith & Wesson and shot the knife-wielding thug directly between the eyes. He keeled over onto the boardwalk like a poleaxed ox in a slaughterhouse. The other man stood frozen, stiff as a cigar store Indian. Betsy aimed and pulled the trigger; he joined his companion, face down in a pool of blood.”

  “How absolutely ripping!” Lady Agatha interjected.

  Marcia nodded. “I was shaking; I felt my gorge rise. Doubling over, I vomited down my dress. Having heard the shots, a murmuring crowd streamed out of the saloon to see what had happened. I heard Betsy mutter, ‘Calm yourself. Don’t let them see you’re afraid.’ The crowd milled round the bodies. Betsy, smoking revolver in hand, shouted above the commotion to a burly bouncer: ‘Will you please call a policeman? We shall wait right here until he arrives.’ We didn’t have to wait long. The cop on the beat had been at the bar all the while, partaking of free beer and sandwiches.

  “Of course, it was self-defense, no charges were filed, and Betsy became something of a heroine in the local press. She was even commended by the mayor for her bravery and skill with a pistol.”

  Lady Agatha’s face flushed with excitement, her breast heaved and she breathed heavily. Presently she sputtered, “What a fabulous story. And I had no idea what a remarkable girl she was. How I wish I’d been there. At any rate, it seems Betsy should have nothing to fear from that rotter, Sir Henry.”

  Marcia stared pensively for a moment before answering: “I certainly hope that’s the case, Aggie.” Then she poured more tea and buttered another muffin, adding a large dollop of refreshing raspberry jam.

  Based upon Achille’s evidence, and with the backing of Chiefs Féraud and Bertillon, the juge d’instruction, Magistrate Leblanc, issued a warrant for Jojo’s arrest and an order for his investigative detention in La Conciergerie. The infamous prison adjacent to the Palais de Justice, formerly referred to as the “antechamber to the guillotine,” had been rebuilt during the Second Empire. Following the reconstruction, the mostly modern structure had retained the forbidding aspect of a medieval fortress along with its grim reputation. Deep in the bowels of that dreaded prison, its slate towers looming over the banks of the Seine as a warning to all criminals, Joseph Rossini, aka Jojo the Clown, sat despondently on a hard, narrow wooden bench in a dank cell. He stared at the stone walls and iron bars like an animal in the slaughterhouse pen. But unlike a dumb beast Jojo had a guilty conscience, and that sharp human knowledge of guilt tormented him with images of swift justice and harsh retribution.

  Jojo rested his elbows on his knees, closed his eyes, and covered his face with his hands. Why did I do it? I was making good money at the circus. I was popular, a featured act. The answer of course was gold, and he hadn’t been paid for the last job, the one that had got him caught. It isn’t fair. Jojo recalled a life of neglect and cruelty. He blamed his deformity for his misfortunes, and he had taken out his resentment on those weaker than himself, most particularly the young girls who had worked the streets for him. But now all his pent up rage and bitterness against an unjust world was turned on his employer. Why should I take the fall? I didn’t harm the girl. I was nothing but an errand boy, and an ill-used one at that.

  Thumping boots echoing down the arched corridor, the clicking of a key turning the lock, the sliding of a bolt and the creak of a heavy iron door swinging on its hinges interrupted Jojo’s ruminations. “C’mon Jojo, my lad” barked the guard, “it’s time for a friendly chat with the Magistrate.”

  Sir Henry and Betsy exited the auberge and proceeded down a gravel path winding through the acacias until they reached a gateway that opened onto a narrow cobblestoned street. Betsy wore a gray traveling coat, a jaunty little veiled black hat and scarf, and she carried an umbrella. The air had a singular freshness to it, a crisp autumnal bite and unmistakable fragrance that betokened rain. A bracing breeze stirred, scattering un-raked leaves, rattling semi-nude branches, and fluttering her scarf and the black-ribbon furbelow on her coat. Sir Henry was elegantly turned out in a Savile Row suit and bowler hat. He took her arm possessively as he escorted her through town in the direction of the old bridge.

  As they passed by bright yellow- and white-walled shops and stalls, many of the townspeople took a moment from their occupation to admire the handsome couple; but they didn’t gape or let the visitors’ presence overly distract them; they were used to well-heeled tourists down from Paris for a day or two’s sightseeing.

  They stepped onto the arched bridge and crossed halfway before stopping to admire the view. Betsy removed her gloves and touched the rough, cold masonry as if by doing so she could connect with the place and experience centuries of history in a moment. We have nothing like this in America, she thought. She glanced up through her veil at a cobalt sky filled with immense white clouds shaded gray round the edges. The diffused autumn light shimmered over steep spires, towers, and slanted slate roofs. Beneath the ancient walls and stone embankments the burnished silver river flowed, reflecting the town’s image on its smooth, barely rippling surface as it lazily meandered toward the Seine.

  “A lovely subject for a painting,” she remarked.

  His eyes scanned the scene and he spoke while concentrating on some undefined object in the distance. “Indeed yes, and artists have come here for years. We’re not far from Barbizon, you know. I imagine the place as Corot would have painted it; earth tones under a cobalt sky, all visualized through a glimmering coat of amber varnish. But the Impressionists have a different way of expressing it.”

  Betsy smiled and eyed him provocatively. “I’d like to see how you’d paint it, Henry.”

  “Oh me,” he replied with a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m just an amateur. Painting’s not my pigeon.”

  “Yes, not like Marcia. She’s a genius. Next to her I’ve always felt so—so ordinary.”

  He turned to gaze directly into her eyes and took her by the hand. “Nonsense my dear; you’re an extraordinary woman. I’ve known that since the first day we met.”

  Her veiled eyes were questioning, challenging. “What’s so extraordinary about me, aside from the fact that I’m immensely rich?”

  “You underestimate yourself. You’re a distinguished collector. Without the support of people like you, the creative arts would wither and die.”

  “Perhaps you’re right. After all, we wealthy Americans must be good for something.” She paused a moment to study his expression, as if searching for some telltale reaction. Seeing nothing but his familiar amiable smile she pursued: “Henry, we’ve known each other for scarcely a fortnight. We’ve become intimate, and . . . ,” she paused and lowered her voice to a whisper, “. . . there’s that other business.”

  He winced in response to her reference to “other business” but said nothing.

  She stared at him searchingly for a moment before continuing: “Yet I know so little about you. For instance, where do you come from? Why did you choose to become a surgeon instead of an artist?”

  There was just a wrinkled hint of a frown around his lips and his eyes. “I was born in Abingdon in Oxfordshire, not far from the University. It’s fine country for farming and raising fat, wooly sheep. Our market town is ancient; in many respects it resembles this place. We have a medieval church and abbey, and an old stone bridge like this one, spanning the Thames.

  “As for surgery,
it wasn’t all a matter of choice, my dear. My mother loved the arts; she taught me and encouraged me, but she died when I was very young. Father was a physician, and he tended to make my choices for me.”

  Betsy could tell from his facial expression and tone of voice that he was reticent, yet curiosity moved her to press further. “Would you mind telling me more? I’d like very much to know about your mother.”

  He stared at her; he had never discussed the subject with anyone, not even under duress. Packed off to school by his father shortly after his mother’s death, he had suffered the abuse of a brutal prefect who fagged him endlessly: “Collingwood, fetch water! Collingwood, black my boots! Collingwood, polish my silver!” The prefect used the slightest provocation, the merest failure in an assigned task, as pretext for a merciless caning. “Take down your trousers, Collingwood, bend over the back of that chair and prepare for six of the best.” Every beating was followed by an admonition: “There’s something about you I don’t like. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I shall surely beat it out of you before the end of term.”

  Young Henry stoically endured the senior boy’s bullying until an incident occurred that might have changed the course of his life. Early on a winter morning Henry sat on a wooden bench in the corridor outside the prefect’s study. Dawn peeped through a frost covered windowpane. There, in half-darkness, he performed one of his routine chores, polishing his tormentor’s boots. Lonely and miserable, aching hands chilled to the bone, he paused for an instant, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a miniature portrait of his mother. The miniature had been painted as a memento of his mother’s eighteenth birthday, just prior to her wedding. Henry sighed, his warm breath forming a small, vaporous cloud in the unheated hallway. “Dearest, I miss you so. Why did you leave me?”

  “Shirking again, Collingwood? We shall have to brisk you up.” The prefect emerged suddenly from his lair, gleefully grinning at the prospect of administering yet another beating to his chosen victim. “What have we here?” The bully snatched the portrait from Henry’s open hand and examined it with an odious leer. “Oh my, she’s a pretty one, ain’t she? Is she your sweetheart, boy?”

  Henry fought back tears. “No sir,” he replied in a voice choked with emotion, “she’s my mother. Please give it back to me.”

  The prefect laughed. “Your mother, indeed? So now I’ve discovered your secret. ‘Idle hands are the Devil’s playground.’ You’ve been avoiding useful work to indulge in incestuous fantasies. I shall flog you twice as hard for that, you filthy little beast.”

  Henry exploded with pent up rage. The prefect was almost a foot taller and outweighed the younger boy by more than three stone, yet he was completely unprepared for what happened next. Henry leapt from the bench and, in a blur of violent motion, uncoiled like an overly taut spring. Releasing all the force of his small body, he slammed a fist into his tormentor’s groin. The prefect screamed, grabbed his crotch, and crumpled to his knees. But Henry did not stop there. He launched a second hard right aimed at the senior boy’s face that broke his nose with an audible crack.

  The prefect writhed in agony on the floorboards, choking and gagging on his own blood. Henry sprang on top of him and continued his furious pummeling until several boys came and pulled him off. Had they not arrived promptly he might have killed the older boy, or at least have done him irreparable harm. As it was, the prefect spent a week in hospital, and Henry was permanently expelled from school. According to the headmaster, the boy was mentally and emotionally unstable. But Henry’s father was determined to get his only son into Oxford. He hired a tutor and, away from the society of other boys, young Henry proved himself an apt pupil. By the time he was ready for university, he was also better prepared to socialize with his peers.

  “Henry, are you all right? You’ve been staring at me for the longest time.” Betsy had watched his blank face with amazement, as he appeared to have gone into a trance.

  He shook his head and flushed with embarrassment, realizing that he had drifted off. He gazed into the eyes of the woman to whom he felt inextricably bound by fate, passion, and a secret that could destroy him, and perhaps her as well. “I’m sorry, my dear. I fear my mother’s a subject I—I never discuss with anyone. The memory’s too painful.” He paused a moment before adding: “But then, with you it’s different. Here, let me show you something.” He reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew a gold watch. Opening the case to a miniature portrait, he handed the watch to Betsy. “That was she at the time of her eighteenth birthday.”

  Betsy studied the young woman’s portrait for a minute before returning the watch. “She was very beautiful. I’m sorry, darling. You must miss her awfully.”

  He nodded sadly as he tucked the watch back into his pocket. Then, with a faint smile: “Yes, but now I’ve found someone to fill that void in my heart.” His words were spontaneous, and their sincerity surprised him even as he spoke. He continued without waiting for her reply. “She suffered, most particularly in her final year; my father and his colleagues could do little or nothing for her. Since it was my fate to become a doctor, I decided that I would devote my practice to women, to use the latest methods of medical science to preserve their health and alleviate their suffering.”

  She smiled in response. The story of his mother had touched her deeply. But she was skeptical by nature, and did not altogether trust him. Without comment, she turned to gaze at the river, listening to its rippling as it flowed beneath the arches and round ancient piers.

  Henry moved closer to her. He put his arm round her waist and stared silently into the distance. We’re adrift in a sea of lies, he thought. But at that moment he was certain of one thing; he would propose marriage to Betsy Endicott; the only question was where and when.

  The loudly ticking wall clock produced the only audible sound in Magistrate Leblanc’s office. Light streamed through tall windows opening onto the courtyard of the Palais de Justice. The Magistrate, a stout, gray, grandfatherly man in his sixties, with antennae-like brows and mutton-chop side-whiskers spreading beneath his temples down to the jaw line, sat hunched over a great mahogany desk stacked high with documents, photographs, and files. Above and behind him on gray painted walls hung the symbols of the Republic, the Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité motto beneath a profile of Marianne surrounded by the tricolor. The wall also displayed a portrait of President Carnot on its otherwise bare surface.

  The Magistrate’s brow furrowed and his thin lips pursed as he examined Gilles’s photographs of Virginie Ménard’s head, taken that morning at the crime scene and the Morgue. Tugging his whiskers nervously, he concentrated on the odd insignia tattooed on the decomposing forehead, a Masonic compass and square superimposed over a Star of David. “What sort of monster could have done this?” he muttered under his breath, though loudly enough to be heard clearly by the officers assembled before him. As his slightly trembling left hand held the photographs up for closer scrutiny, his right descended from his whiskers to the large Masonic symbol dangling from his gold watch chain.

  The Magistrate set down the pictures. His sharp blue eyes darted behind his spectacles, looking from one stiff, silent officer to the next: Chiefs Féraud and Bertillon, Inspectors Lefebvre, Rousseau, and Duroc, the hapless detective detailed to shadow Jojo the Clown. The questioning eyes finally came to rest on Achille. “I commend you, Inspector Lefebvre, for your skill in marshalling evidence in this case. You are also to be commended for bringing in the Gunzberg brothers as witnesses. Their testimony backed by your forensic evidence will prove invaluable at trial.” He paused a moment before admonishing: “But in future I trust you’ll inform your chief and me before permitting untrained boys to traipse around Paris playing detective.”

  “Yes, Monsieur Magistrate,” Achille replied respectfully.

  Leblanc then turned to Rousseau’s man, Duroc. “As for you, M. Duroc, I hope you improve your powers of observation prior to undertaking another such assignment.”

  Dur
oc glanced at Rousseau and was met with a scowl. He did not dare look at Chief Féraud. Hanging his head like a whipped schoolboy, he answered, “Yes, Monsieur Magistrate.”

  The juge d’instruction grunted an acknowledgement and then shuffled through his papers, focusing on Sir Henry Collingwood’s letter and a document recently obtained by warrant from the editor of L’Antisémite. “M. Bertillon, in your opinion as one of our leading graphologists, were these two documents written by the same person?”

  “I’ve made a careful analysis of the handwriting on both documents, M. Leblanc, and I’m convinced the authors are one in the same.”

  “That’s good enough for me, M. Bertillon.” Then to Achille: “I find your fingerprint evidence compelling, Inspector. However, it remains a novel concept, untested at trial, and by itself would be insufficient to send the case to the prosecutor. Fortunately, I believe you’ve uncovered sufficient evidence aside from the fingerprints to support your theory of the case.

  “Moreover, I agree with your conclusions concerning the tattoo on the victim’s forehead and The Devil in Montmartre. They are fabrications intended to confuse the public, confound the police, and frame an innocent boy. The perpetrator committed an atrocious crime. First he tried to fix blame on M. de Toulouse-Lautrec. Thanks to your excellent detective work, the initial ruse failed. The perpetrator then resorted to another deception. In doing so, he relied upon a common human weakness, a tendency to ignore facts when they conflict with our deeply rooted prejudices or preconceived notions.

  “But in this instance the perpetrator has condemned himself. By attempting a second diversion he has provided us with additional evidence that will convict him and send him to the guillotine. Following the trail of persuasive facts, and discounting the diversions, I conclude the perpetrator is Sir Henry Collingwood and Joseph Rossini is his accomplice.”