‘You know, when I first agreed to letting you work alongside me, I was certain that all your efforts would lead us directly to your brother, perhaps simply as somehow complicit in Olympe Fabre’s suicide. Don’t look at me like that. I gave up the idea of a mesmeric pact soon enough.’
‘And in the event …’
‘In the event, I was proved wrong. Though we can’t be altogether certain yet, can we?’ The face he turned on James was inscrutable. ‘Ah, number seventeen.’
A woman with sunken cheeks sat in front of a two-storey house which had lost much of its stucco. She was threading a needle, holding it a good distance in front of her. On her lap lay a pair of worn socks.’
‘Madame.’ The Chief Inspector tipped his hat. ‘We’re from the police.’
She sat bolt upright. ‘Something’s happened to him!’
‘To whom, Madame?’
‘To my husband.’
Looking at her for a moment, James thought she might be Steinlen’s mother. His heart sank.
‘Not unless your husband’s called Steinlen.’
‘Robert. My husband’s nephew. By his first marriage.’ She stood up shakily. ‘What’s Robert done? I told Michel he was a strange one. Always so secretive.’ There was panic in her face.
‘We just wanted to have a look at his room. He’s given us the keys.’ The Chief Inspector dangled them.
‘It’s on the second floor at the back. I’ll come up with you.’
‘No. No, that won’t be necessary.’
‘Has he stolen something?’
‘Only in a manner of speaking. Thank you, Madame. No need for you to worry. We’ll make our way up.’
‘That’s why he always locked the door. Bought his own lock, he did. Installed it himself.’ She shook her head wearily. ‘And all those fine manners. Made us think he was too good for us. He goes to church regularly, mind. Every Sunday when he’s not working. Regular as clockwork.’
‘You carry on with your sewing, Madame. Don’t trouble yourself with us.’ The Chief Inspector was already halfway up the stairs.
Steinlen’s room was a small, dark den. Burlap curtains covered the windows. The light came in through slits at the side. Durand pushed the curtains aside to reveal a space of impeccable tidiness. The sheets on the narrow bed might be greying, but they were tucked in with geometrical precision. Above the bed, hung a cheap crucifix. A small, obviously self-made bookcase, at its foot, contained an assortment of medical texts. What clothes there were hung on hooks behind the door. Beside the bed, an upturned crate with one side removed served as a table. Inside it, hidden by a cloth, lay a small assortment of socks and underclothing and collars, as well as a clean shirt. A small, old kitchen table by the window served as a desk. There were papers on it, neatly ranged, a quill and an inkwell.
While Durand busied himself with the papers, James opened the single drawer. It contained more quills, a magnifying glass and two bound notebooks. He opened one. The writing was tiny and filled the entirety of each page. It was all but unreadable. He tapped Durand’s shoulder and showed him.
‘We’ll take those. And the magnifying glass. We’ll need it. And maybe these papers. Look.’
The unbound sheets held anatomical drawings of great precision. Sheet after sheet depicted brains of varying sizes and convolutions. James suddenly remembered what Steinlen had said to him in the lab on their first meeting. The brain was an undiscovered country, a mysterious region waiting to be charted. Was it this and only this that had propelled Steinlen into his misadventures? A sadness stole over him.
‘He’s got a cupboard in the hall, too.’ The woman’s voice surprised them. She was looking round the room with open curiosity. ‘He pays extra for it. Just a little mind. And he keeps that locked too. If you don’t find what you’re looking for there, then he doesn’t have it.’
They followed her onto the landing. The Chief Inspector tried one key and then another without success.
‘It’s not here,’ he said in consternation. ‘He must have kept it in his pocket.’ He held back a curse.
‘Let’s check that drawer again.’
They looked in the drawer and in every other conceivable place, but there were few hiding places in the small room.
‘We’ll have to force it.’ Durand grimaced. ‘I’m sorry, Madame. We’ll need a crowbar. Or a large knife if you don’t have the first.’
She looked at them sceptically. ‘Maybe we should wait. Michel won’t like the damage.’ She smoothed her skirts with thin, nervous fingers.
‘We’ll pay for the damage.’ The Chief Inspector’s temper was running short. ‘Now run along, quickly.’
‘I’m not a girl, Monsieur,’ she muttered, offended. But she left them and came back minutes later with a thick-handled knife. ‘This is the best I can do.’
‘Thank you, Madame. This should do the trick.’
James sensed that his politeness was forced. Like him, the Chief Inspector wasn’t looking forward to what they might find in the closet. James imagined severed limbs, hunks of cadavers.
At last Durand managed to prise the catch open. The door opened on a large pannier, the kind in which market vendors kept their fruits and vegetables. With a shrug, Durand beckoned to James and together they pulled the basket from the closet. The woman stood by, her face eager.
A chequered cloth covered the top of the basket and as the Chief Inspector lifted it aside, James closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he saw Durand bent over the pannier. He was shuffling through something. He stood up to thrust a pile of pamphlets at James. ‘No cadavers. Just these. Lots of them. Too many for any single idiot.’
James looked down at the leaflets.
‘The sacred texts of the Anti-Semitic League. Just what you’ve always wanted to pore over on a summer’s night.’ He stuffed a few into his pockets and gestured to James to help him move the pannier back. Behind it, they now saw a pair of boots, a folded winter coat, and a heavy jacket.
‘He was always running off to their meetings,’ the woman scoffed. ‘Made Michel come with him sometimes. You’d think he had nothing better to do.’
‘Thank you, Madame. You’ve been most helpful.’ Durand reached into his pocket and took out some loose change. ‘This is to get your door fixed with. I don’t imagine your husband’s nephew will be back very soon.’
The Chief Inspector and James sat in a café near the Palais de Justice, drank brandy and scanned Steinlen’s notebooks. They took turns with the magnifying glass.
‘He can’t have much money, the way he fills these pages,’ Durand grumbled.
‘One more thing to hold against the Jews. His parents should have taken him off to visit Arnhem when he was young. It would have taught him not to believe this swill of propaganda. You agree that it’s pigswill, don’t you, Chief Inspector, pages and pages of it?’
‘I guess,’ the Chief Inspector shrugged, ‘most of it. It obviously addled his brain.’
‘And Vaillant didn’t help with his theories. Wandering Jews. Left hemispheres. Hereditary taints. Our biology is becoming dangerous, Chief Inspector. Soon our doctors will be killing off the weak and the lame in the interests of the survival of the fittest. Or whomever they diagnose as weak and lame.’ James shook his head. ‘I almost think one should lock Vaillant up along with Steinlen – as a preventative measure.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. This is a free country. One is allowed one’s ideas. One is allowed to speak them.’
‘But not to act on them. I guess that’s something.’
‘Nor, if the electorate so deems it, to institute them as law. Look at this.’ Durand’s voice grew suddenly triumphant. ‘Here, I’ll read it to you. Right near the end of my notebook. The writing is suddenly bigger just for this one phrase. It obviously excited him. “Her sister’s dead and she’s begging to die. It will be an act of mercy in the cause of science.” We’ve got him, Monsieur Norton. We’ve got him. Garςon, another brandy. We’re celebrati
ng tonight.’
James studied the page. He felt sullied, as if the demented words had risen up to implicate him. So much hatred. So much false power. He was silent. He watched the waiter pour golden liquid into their glasses. They drank.
‘Now all we need to do, Chief Inspector, is find the equivalent entry for Olympe Fabre.’
Durand’s face lost its cheerfulness. ‘And you don’t think we will.’
James shrugged. ‘No, I don’t honestly think we will.’
‘Which leaves us exactly where?’
‘I don’t know, Chief Inspector. I really don’t know.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
The image the mirror gave back of the two brothers had the aura of a tinted photograph taken to mark a family occasion demanding memory. They were posed in tense stillness. Raf stood tall, his features dramatic, dark eyes flashing. James, was a step behind him, cooler, older, pensive in his self-containment. Through the open window, the bells of Saint-Augustin tolled the hour.
Raf gave his tie a final tweak and turned to face James. ‘I can’t altogether believe I heard you say that.’
‘But I did, Raf. We’ve come to a dead end. We’ve followed all the possible leads, uncovered a mass of foul doings in the process, but none of them lead to Olympe’s murderer. You can see that yourself. Steinlen did for Judith and two other patients at the Salpêtrière, and yes, he rifled Olympe’s grave, but he didn’t kill her. Marcel Caro is responsible for a great many crimes but we have no evidence to tie him to Olympe’s death, and less motive. So we have to conclude that unless she was killed by a random passer-by who has disappeared once more into the labyrinth of the city, she chose her end herself.’
‘There’s Bernfeld. You allowed yourself to grow soft on him and let him off the hook.’ Raf reached for his whisky glass.
‘If you’d interviewed him yourself, you’d see. Go and talk to him, if you like. As for me …’ James shrugged. ‘What I never managed to tell you, because I thought it would distress you is that Olympe was clothed at the time she plunged into the waters. The boatman decided to profit from her corpse and stole the garments. She was wearing a frock coat, trousers …’ He watched Raf’s face closely. ‘I didn’t tell you because I thought it would distress you even more. You … you cherish a particular image of her.’
Raf’s laugh was abrupt. It contained nothing of humour. He turned to look out the window so that James could no longer see his face. He said nothing.
‘On top of that, when Marguerite examined her daybook, she discovered that Olympe had almost certainly been to see a doctor some ten days before her disappearance. So more likely than not, she suspected her pregnancy. That might have been what tipped her over the edge. Maybe she feared that you’d reject her.’
‘I’d offered to marry her, Jim.’
‘Who knows what goes through women’s minds.’
Raf’s low-voiced reply held a gritty determination. ‘Well, I’m not giving up, even if you and the Chief Inspector call it a day.’
‘I had hardly expected otherwise.’ James grinned, despite himself. ‘I guess it’s as good a way of mourning as any. And it saves you from having to come home …’
‘Don’t be daft, Jim. I wouldn’t be coming home in any case. I’ve got to see this whole matter of Dreyfus through. His ship will be landing soon. And then there’ll be the tribunal. I wish you’d stay, too. You’ve been … well, you’ve been a good brother.’
They looked at each other in silence. This time James broke it. ‘Careful, I’ve got rather used to being here and I may just change my mind. There’s a certain attraction to the easy morality of this town. You might just end up having me round for longer than you like.’
‘I’ll risk it, Jim,’ Raf smiled. ‘I’ll risk it.’
In that smile, in that openess to risk, James once again felt Raf’s teeming energy. Despite everything that had happened, despite the pain, his brother glowed with life. It was probably Raf’s very capacity for living life to the brim which he had always envied in him. Perhaps, now, some of that had rubbed off on him. Yes, it felt like his brother’s gift to him. Something in Raf, something in these last weeks, had shown him that life in all its passion and complexity and absurdity was valuable.
‘We’d better get over to Ellie’s, Raf. It’s her big night.’
The apartment was filled with the heavy scent of flowers. Every available surface sprouted elaborate bouquets. There were roses and ranunculus and giant peonies as vivid as faces. Either Harriet or Ellie herself had determined that Ellie’s goodbye to Paris should have its appropriate requiem.
The salon was already lively with voices. Violette, in a lace-trimmed apron, proffered canapés. A sleek young man, who had evidently been hired in for the evening, served drinks with a café waiter’s panache.
Regal in creamy silk, her hair piled high, her face flushed, Ellie presided, apparently quite in control. Beside her sat Marguerite and Dr Ponsard, looking like nothing so much as a genial farmer hosting a family dinner. His presence surprised James, as did that of the painter Max Henry. He had gone no further than imagining Charlotte and Mrs Elliott and of course, the ever-present Harriet, who was in a tête-à-tête with the painter now. They made an odd couple, he so sultry and Mediterranean in aspect, she taller, straight-backed, her gaze clear and direct and so unmistakably American.
‘Raf, Jim, at last,’ Ellie called out to them. ‘I was beginning to think we had lost you to … well what was it, politics? Detective work?’ She didn’t give them a chance to answer. ‘You know, Dr Ponsard,’ she switched to French, ‘my brothers are half in love with death. It’s such a vast and shady region to roam around in that they’ve quite given up the living for it. But you, of all people, must understand that.’
‘Oh no, no, Mademoiselle. I find quite enough mysteries on this side of the divide to occupy me.’ The doctor rose to shake James by the hand. James introduced him to Raf and went round the room to greet each of the guests in turn.
When he had reached Harriet and Max Henry, Ellie’s voice hailed him back. ‘I don’t know if I mentioned it, Jim, but the great Max Henry did a portrait of me. It was Olympe’s idea, of course.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ Ellie’s laugh cascaded. ‘It was months and months back, even before Raf met her, I think. And he painted me as a riding mistress, complete with whip. Well the face is mine, in any case. Imagine it, Jim. No, no, you can see it. I shall make you a present of it.’
‘It was an inspiration, Monsieur. Your sister impressed me as so strong, powerful.’ Henry fumbled. ‘Like Diana, the huntress. Or an Englishwoman,’ he finished lamely, unable to prevent himself from glancing at Ellie’s wheelchair.
‘She is that, too.’ Harriet consoled. ‘Hello, James. It’s a lovely evening. Would you like to see the picture now? I can take you to it. It’s in Ellie’s bedroom.’
‘No, no, later will do.’
‘I’d like to see it too,’ Charlotte was suddenly beside them. ‘Mother refused to allow me to have a portrait done. She said it was a vanity for women and should be allowed only for men. We’re so happy to have Elinor sailing with us, Mr Norton. It was Mother who convinced her, you know. She said she would be utterly desolate were I to abandon her for so very long. It would quite kill her.’
‘Your mother is a woman of great feeling,’ Harriet murmured.
James wasn’t sure if he had caught an irony in her voice. He looked at her again, but her expression was serene.
‘Elinor wants us to go through, I think. Shall we? And she wants both you and Raf next to her. She’s missed both of you.’ A slight frown creased her forehead. ‘She told me the other day that childhood had been the happiest time of her life.’
James lowered his voice. ‘Has she been taking quantities of her latest medication?’
‘Only in moderation today. I kept it from her. She’s been quite well, really. A little melancholy, but that’s only to be expected. I’m so glad Dr Ponsard was able to co
me. His presence is calming.’
Raf was wheeling Ellie into the dining room. The table had been lavishly set. The guests took their places as Ellie indicated. Marguerite was at the far end with Dr Ponsard and Max Henry at either side. Mrs Elliott sat between Harriet and Raf, while James had Charlotte for a neighbour. Between them, there was an empty chair, though a place had been set. He wondered who the late arrival would be.
‘Don’t you think, James,’ Ellie whispered as he sat down, ‘that Charlotte’s charm tonight lies in her having disguised herself as a corpse.’
‘Hush, Ellie.’ He grinned despite himself.
‘It’s quite becoming, really.’ She clicked her knife against her glass and the voices fell away. ‘I’d like to thank you all for coming,’ she began in English ‘and to raise a toast to all of you, my dear brothers, my dear friends. And to Olympe, the sweetest absent one.’
Raf’s sharp intake of breath was audible around the table.
Ellie paid him no heed and half emptied her glass.
‘And we drink to you, Elinor,’ Marguerite rose to the situation. ‘Paris shall miss you. I shall miss you.’
‘Why thank you, Marguerite. Coming from you that is a true compliment. I shall clasp it to my bosom like a shield throughout the journey ahead. It shall fortify me.’ Ellie’s smile arched across her thin face. ‘It was you who introduced me to that darling girl and watched over our friendship. For that, I shall always be grateful.’
James watched his sister with something like dread. He wanted to deflect her from her chosen topic. She was turning the evening into a wake. Raf’s face had grown contorted. Harriet was holding her glass as if at any moment she might crush it between her fingers. It came to him, too late, that the empty chair beside him awaited Banquo’s or rather Olympe’s ghost. He pushed it back a fraction and plunged in to try and save the conversation. ‘We must invite Madame de Landois to visit us in Boston, Ellie. She might find it interesting.’
Paris Requiem Page 45