Landru's Secret
Page 8
***
At the start of November, Louise Jaume gave in her notice at the dress shop where she worked. Louise explained to her motherly employer, Mme Lhérault, that her wedding would take place immediately after the divorce from Paul Jaume, which was imminent. She and “Monsieur Guillet” would then divide their time between his house in the country, whose precise location Louise did not reveal, and his Paris apartment near the Gare du Nord, whose address she gave Mme Lhérault.
This was not the apartment Landru had shared with Anna Collomb, which he had given up, or the nearby room where he had taken the teenage Andrée Babelay, which he continued to rent. In September, Landru had begun renting a cramped first-floor bedsit at 76 Rue de Rochechouart, several blocks west of the Gare du Nord, which would increasingly become his main Paris base.
He had one last piece of unsettled business with Louise before he moved her out of her apartment on Rue des Lyanes, where she had also given notice. On 19 November he stayed the night there for the first time, noting this landmark in his carnet. He slept with Louise again on the following three nights, all recorded; and then on Saturday, 24 November, finally satisfied, he arrived with a blond-haired youth he called his “apprentice” to remove her furniture. The boy took Louise’s belongings to a commercial storage depot while she and Landru, alias Guillet, proceeded to Rue de Rochechouart, carrying only light luggage.
Next morning, Sunday, 25 November, the nervous Louise kept to her usual habit when she was going on a journey, secreting just over 274 francs in the folds of her dress in case of an emergency. The weather was grey and drizzly as she and Landru walked up the hill to Montmartre to attend morning mass at the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur. Louise prayed for forgiveness, Landru put 15 centimes in the collection box and then they were off, catching the afternoon train to Tacoignières, eight kilometres north of Gambais.
Louise travelled on a one-way ticket, bought for her by Landru. He made her walk with him in the rain, all the way to the villa, where he decided to spend one last night with her.
On Monday, 26 November, he wrote “5.00 pm” beneath the date in his carnet. Next, he wrote “Récuperation Lyanes: 274 francs 60”. Two hours later, he caught the evening train to Paris, using his return ticket.
***
During December, Louise’s former employer Mme Lhérault and her two daughters became increasingly concerned at Louise’s failure to collect her post, which she had arranged to be forwarded from Rue des Lyanes to the dress shop. Two letters in particular looked like they might concern Louise’s divorce petition. Shortly before Christmas, Mme Lhérault’s elder daughter wrote to Louise’s monsieur at 76 Rue de Rochechouart, asking him to tell Louise to come to the shop as soon as possible. She did not receive a reply.
A few days after Christmas, Mme Lhérault’s younger daughter went to Rue de Rochechouart to deliver the two letters. “Monsieur Guillet [Landru] was at home and made me wait a little,” she remembered. “Before opening the door, I heard whispering in the apartment and in the end I was received by him on the landing itself.”
Landru took the correspondence and told his unwelcome visitor that Louise was in the country. He added that she would return to Paris in a few days’ time, when he was sure she would visit her friends at the dress shop. Still uneasy, Mme Lhérault’s daughter left with the firm suspicion that Louise had been hiding in the apartment and that for some reason, her fiancé had made her stay out of sight.
Thoroughly alarmed, the Lhéraults decided to write to Louise directly, inviting her to come to see them. On 3 January 1918, Mme Lhérault’s younger daughter returned to Rue de Rochechouart, where the concierge explained that “Guillet” was not at home and that she knew nothing about a woman called Mme Jaume. The daughter left the letter with the concierge, hoping that it might still reach Louise.
On 8 January, Landru passed by Rue de Rochechouart and collected the letter from the concierge. Now it was his turn to be worried. He dashed off a note to the dress shop, announcing that he would be in Paris next morning and if convenient, would be pleased to call on the Lhéraults at 10.00 am. He arrived on the dot, bringing a box of chocolates, which he said was a New Year’s present for the Lhéraults from Louise. Mme Jaume, Landru continued smoothly, had just sailed for the United States to take up a position as a governess at a girls’ boarding school.
The Lhéraults did not believe him and told him so. As they explained, Louise spoke no English and besides, her divorce had finally been approved – a fact they knew for certain, because they had started opening Louise’s forwarded correspondence. Why, then, would she abandon her fiancé, Monsieur Guillet, for a country where she knew no one?
Landru blustered that Louise had not been able to call on the Lhéraults before her departure because she had been busy obtaining a passport. As for the divorce, she had decided that her religious scruples would not allow it. Their engagement was consequently over. He bid them adieu and darted out of the shop, leaving the Lhéraults to wonder what on earth they could do to rescue Louise from this almost comically incompetent liar; the problem being, that he seemed to have committed no crime.
***
Annette Pascal’s niece Marie-Jeanne had known for some time that “Monsieur Mystère” was trying to get rid of her, all the way back to her family in Toulon. In October, Landru, alias Forest, had reappeared at Annette’s apartment to resume their affair after an interval of five months. He had immediately told Annette that Marie-Jeanne’s continuing presence displeased him. Desperate not to lose him again, Annette had written a placatory letter. He only had to “say the word”, Annette said, and Marie-Jeanne would be on the train home.
At the start of 1918 Annette buckled – or at least, she was keen to give Landru that impression. She wrote him another letter, promising that Marie-Jeanne would leave for Toulon by the end of January provided he married her in February. To be sure he read the letter, Annette despatched Marie-Jeanne to deliver it to Rue de Rochechouart, where Annette had recently spent the night. Annette had forgotten the street number, but Marie-Jeanne managed to find the right door from her aunt’s description of the building.
Marie-Jeanne knew several things as she hovered on the first-floor landing outside the apartment, clutching Annette’s letter. First, Annette was not at all sure that she trusted her fiancé enough to marry him; what Annette wanted was his money. Second, Marie-Jeanne had just discovered that “Lucien Forest” was an imposter, because the concierge downstairs had informed her that his name was “Lucien Guillet”. Lastly, Marie-Jeanne knew Forest/Guillet was at home, because she could see beneath the door that the light was on in the apartment.
Some defensive instinct stopped the normally assertive Marie-Jeanne knocking on the door, perhaps from fear of what else she might learn about this man who no longer seemed funny; in particular, Marie-Jeanne could not rule out the possibility that Forest/Guillet had another girlfriend inside. She slipped Annette’s letter under the door and crept downstairs, before anyone picked it up.
Marie-Jeanne’s discovery about Annette’s fiancé made Annette even more nervous about him. As always, Annette turned for advice to her big sister and “maman” Louise, Marie-Jeanne’s mother:
“Since he was so secretive and not being able to know what he wanted to do with me…we have made him believe that she [Marie-Jeanne] would be going at the end of the month,” Annette wrote to Louise on 14 January. “So today he has come here to check the date when she was leaving and he has insisted on knowing the date, you say that we do not know how to respond, given that this was not our intention. But now he has said that since she was leaving our marriage would take place in February.”
Landru’s decision threw Annette into agonies over what to do about “Grand Marcel”, her middle-aged lover at the front, “Petit Marcel”, her teenage boyfriend who worked on the metro, and “Hayose”, her other lover in the trenches.
In Toulon, Louise Fauchet despaired of Annette and her endless entanglements; in Louise’s mind,
this Forest/Guillet fellow sounded like all the other disastrous men who had passed through Annette’s bed. Louise told Annette to send Marie-Jeanne home by the end of January, leaving Annette to sort out the two Marcels, Hayose, Forest/Guillet and whoever else was currently competing for her affection.
Landru was delighted when he heard this news, even giving Marie-Jeanne a little cash to help pay for her train ticket. He also invited Annette and Marie-Jeanne to a farewell dinner at Rue de Rochechouart on the eve of her departure.
After dinner, Landru got a reminder of why he was so pleased to see the back of Annette’s astute niece. When Annette and Marie-Jeanne offered to do the washing-up, Landru handed them two women’s kitchen aprons.
“Why have you got these?” Marie-Jeanne enquired. “I thought you were a bachelor.”
Landru looked at her and realised his mistake.
“You are too curious,” he ticked her off half-jokingly.
***
A couple of days later, Annette wrote to “Grand Marcel” to announce that she was marrying another man.
“He was not happy,” Annette told Louise in her next letter. “He implored me not to make a decision before seeing him. I wrote back to him that given the danger there is in Paris, I am leaving Paris to put myself somewhere safe, for I have to tell you that every day he is writing to me very anxious to hear if anything has happened to me and in these letters he is always making beautiful promises but you understand that time is short and one can’t live on promises.”
German bombs, not men, had just crashed into Annette’s little world. On 30 January, German “Gotha” bomber planes killed 49 civilians in Paris and the surrounding suburbs, the start of a week of terrifying air raids.
“We passed a terrible night,” Annette wrote frantically to Louise on 3 February, “and how many times can I repeat that I am so happy that Marie-Jeanne has left, for we tremble every night before going to bed.”
The “we” referred to Landru, whom she was seeing every day, now that Marie-Jeanne had gone. “He is more and more kind, yesterday evening he was here, as ever, he has seen this letter and asks me to send you his greetings and he is going to write to you one of these days.”
Landru’s non-existent factory north of Paris had just been bombed, he lied to Annette, shortly before he went down with a fictitious dose of flu.
He sent her a cursory sick note; Annette wrote straight back. “Why, petit ami, if you are so ill, as you tell me, why haven’t you asked me to be with you, not to know where you are or how you are suffering, not even to let me come and see you?” she implored:
All of this makes me suppose that I can’t have your confidence, for reasons of which I am unaware and which you are afraid to let me know. Believe me, I am currently living in a state of uncertainty which is making me ill and is breaking my heart. The feelings which you seem to show me and all your fine projects which you only let me glimpse make me doubt your sincerity.
***
Fernande Segret, the 24-year-old shop girl and would-be cabaret artist, was the cause of Landru’s “flu”. For several months Landru had been trying to juggle Fernande, who had started to spend the odd night at Rue de Rochechouart, with Annette, now all alone at Villa Stendhal with only her cat Minette for company. Increasingly, he preferred to spend time with Fernande, who was younger and less inquisitive than Annette.
Sometime in February, Landru asked Fernande’s widowed mother for permission to marry her beautiful daughter. Mme Segret, who was only a theatre usher, warned Landru when giving her consent that Fernande would bring no dowry. No matter, Landru said grandly: he had large sums invested in various highly successful manufacturing and automobile businesses, and other promising ventures in Brazil. It was agreed that the wedding would take place by Easter 1918.
Landru now made a mistake by inviting Fernande and her mother down to Gambais for the day. Mme Segret took one look at the villa’s lack of furniture and damp, mouldy walls and began to have second thoughts about her prospective son-in-law. She rather doubted he was even half as rich as he claimed and in this regard, could not help commenting on his rusty little oven, better suited to a peasant than a man of substance.
“Don’t worry,” Landru said cheerily, chucking some old meat and vegetable scraps into the base of the oven. “Everything burns in here.”
As if to prove his point, the oven was soon ablaze, providing some welcome warmth.
***
The dreaded Gothas returned to Paris on the night of 9 March, killing seven civilians. In the morning, Annette scribbled an urgent note to “Lucien”, complaining that he had abandoned her just when she needed his protection from the bombs. He did not reply. Several days later, another air raid killed dozens more Parisians, directly from the bombs or indirectly as they were crushed to death in the stampedes to reach the safety of underground metro stations.
Fernande’s mother was in fear for her life, to the point where she was even willing to endure the bleakness of the Villa Tric, if that meant being out of range of the Gothas. Mme Segret asked Fernande to approach “Lucien” to see if she could stay at the villa while the raids continued. Landru regretted that he could not oblige his future mother-in-law. Mme Segret would find the property most “inconvenient”, he told Fernande, given the need to hunt far and wide for fuel to light the oven.
Landru was temporarily tired of Fernande and her irritating mother. In mid-March, two days after rebuffing Mme Segret’s request, he sent a message to Annette.
“As he is afraid of the Gothas, like everybody he wants to flee Paris,” Annette reported to her “maman” Louise. “He has suggested that I should leave with him for Haute-Marne, near Dijon. We are still living through terrifying hours…if you knew the terror that we have known and the shaking and tremors all around me, you speak of fear and we have rushed down to the cellar for we did not know what it was.”
Just as abruptly, Landru cancelled his proposed flight to Haute-Marne, informing Annette that he still needed to put his affairs in order. Annette and her beloved cat Minette were left to cower every night with the other residents in the cellar at Villa Stendhal.
At 7.20 am on Saturday, 23 March, Annette heard two tremendous explosions reverberating from the Place de la République, less than a mile away. It took French military intelligence several hours to establish that the shells now raining down all over Paris were being fired from a monstrous German artillery cannon 120 kilometres north-east of the city. By nightfall, 16 civilians had been killed at random.
Annette could bear it no more. “You must know the state in which I find myself, no rest, nothing to eat, everything is shut, burrowed down in the cellars,” she wrote next day to Louise. “If this continues I will die of hunger, don’t worry, I’ll keep you updated about everything.” Mercifully, she was writing from Rue de Rochechouart, where dear “Lucien” was finally letting her stay.
Landru had a fresh plan to put to Annette. The two of them could stay at his rural villa to get away from the bombs and shells. He then made an odd condition: Annette would need to make an initial inspection of the house before moving in properly. Annette accepted, keeping her misgivings from Landru. She confessed in her next letter to Louise how she, a city girl, really felt about moving to the country with her unpredictable fiancé.
“I am so unhappy, crying that I cannot embrace you as I would like to,” she wrote. “Above all, don’t think worse of me, for I would be even unhappier.”
On Tuesday, 26 March, she and Landru took the train to Houdan, both travelling on return tickets. At the villa, Annette saw the barren little kitchen with its gimcrack oven, the rough cot beds, the picture of the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the peeling wallpaper, and the shed with its pile of dead leaves. She returned to Paris on the evening of 27 March, almost certainly alone, Landru having decided to stay on in Gambais. When she got back to Villa Stendhal, shortly before midnight, “she looked sad and worn out, like someone who had been ill,” her concierge recalled.
“Everything is beautiful, more than beautiful,” Annette lied, hoping to reassure her sister. “It’s truly a palace, I could scarcely believe my eyes,” everything was in “luxurious, modern taste”. After dashing off her letter, Annette scooped up Minette and went straight down to the cellar to shelter from the Gothas.
“Quick two words in haste to calm you on the terrible night we have just passed,” she scribbled to Louise a few hours later. “Ma chère maman, it’s horrible what they did last night, one still doesn’t know the details, but it’s terrible what we have experienced I am dying of fear today.”
On Good Friday, 29 March, the German field gun scored a direct hit on a church in the central Marais district, killing 88 worshippers attending Easter Mass. That weekend, tens of thousands of Parisians fled the city, just as Landru headed back to Paris from his unexplained business in Gambais, with a special gift for Annette.
“For Easter he gave me a beautiful gold watch that belonged to his mother,” Annette told Louise. “Little by little he will give me all of his mother’s jewellery, he is truly kind, every day, more and more, and he gives me all the money I need.”
Finally, Annette felt able to banish all her doubts regarding “Lucien” and his grim villa; he, and it, would have to do, until she could think of a better option.
On Wednesday, 3 April, he arrived at Villa Stendhal with his silent, blond “apprentice” to clear Annette’s apartment for storage, prior to the transfer of her belongings to Gambais. When they were gone, Annette gave Louise a quick update. “Lucien asked me to send you his best wishes, for he has said that he would like to make your acquaintance soon,” Annette wrote. Meanwhile, “he sends a lovely kiss to Marie-Jeanne.”