by Anna Lord
Startled, he threw back his head and laughed uproariously, and totally unconvincingly. “Who told you that?”
“Just answer me – yes or no?”
“Yes! Does it offend you? Does it disturb your feminine sensibilities?”
“You know very well it doesn’t. If it did I wouldn’t ask. I wouldn’t even be speaking to you. Does he return your affection?”
With a sudden jerk, he tossed his cigarette into the canal and scowled melodramatically at the water. “Unrequited love and hope are two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other.”
“You would do anything for him?”
“Yes, but he has never asked me for anything.”
“Would you lie for him?”
“Yes – why are you asking me these questions?”
“Do you think he might be Anonymous?”
Crespigny looked at her as if she had just announced she was the killer. “Anonymous?”
“It’s possible, isn’t it?”
“No it isn’t,” he negated stridently.
“He writes poetry, doesn’t he?”
“Rhyming verse is not a crime. Besides, it’s a far cry from iambic pentameters to naturalistic horror. And he’s never been to the Grand Guignol. He loathes it.”
“How do you know he loathes it? Perhaps he dresses in a black cloak and hires a private booth and watches in secret.”
“I know he loathes it because la marquise goes every single night and she has often remarked that he declines every entreaty to accompany her. She is his employer. Any other lackey would go whether they liked it or not. But not Casimir. He has principles. His family lost their wealth during the Canal Scandal but it did not crush him the way it did so many others. He rose above it.”
She shivered and hunkered down beside him to get out of the wind. It was always colder blowing across the water and she felt its icy tentacles reach inside her clothes.
“Well, it’s interesting that you should mention the Canal Scandal,” she said earnestly. “I am starting to think the murders may be linked to the Panama Affair. The murderer may be avenging himself on those who profited from the corruption. Our murderer is choosing his victims for a certain reason, and the fact they are all elderly and prosperous is significant, though we cannot yet see what connects them. Our murderer is cold-blooded and methodical but also theatrical and creative. It is an unusual combination, n’est-ce pas?”
He shrugged indifferently. “I cannot say. I don’t know any murderers. Perhaps they are all cold-blooded, calculating and creative. You realize there is not a single person in Paris who was not in some way affected by the Panama corruption. Take the Humboldts. They used to be wealthy too. They speak Yiddish. I heard them once when they were down in the cellar and didn’t think anyone was in the cafe. I think they are actually Ashkenazi-Jews. That would explain why they hate Jews so much – we always despise what we hate about ourselves. And Davidov was down to his last sous when la marquise financed his theatrical enterprise. The love of his life left him for one of the corrupt financiers. He never got over it. When he’s drunk you hear him cursing the name Lulu. And Delgardo is Colombian. He once accused the Canal Company of genocide. His countrymen died by the score – tropical disease, mudslides, faulty explosives. The people who perpetrated that should be on Devil’s Island. Instead, they got away with murder. If someone is killing them bon chance I say!”
Tempestuous clouds were banking up and the temperature was dropping. It would soon start to rain. She pushed to her feet and stepped gingerly toward the gang-plank. “By the way, Kiki’s sister died today. You might show her some sympathy.”
“I didn’t know she had a sister.”
“Coco; I believe she had a circus accident a couple of years back and became addicted to absinthe and opium to deal with the pain. She was a patient at Salpetriere. I bumped into Kiki at the hospital and offered to bring her home.”
“She will get sympathy from me but she won’t get any from Davidov. I hope she is still able to do the show tonight or the Russian will be livid and we will all be made to suffer.” Courteously, he offered her his arm. “I’ll walk you up the embankment to your hackney cab. The grass is damp and it’s easy to slip.”
“You said that la marquise goes every night to the theatre? Does she watch the show from back-stage?”
“No, she would only get in the way. Davidov organized for her to have the booth with the best view. It is the one before Delgardo’s.”
“Did your family lose money in the Panama Affair?”
He gave a sardonic chuckle. “You mean did I kill and mutilate those I hold responsible for the biggest corruption scandal in history. Firstly, I am not a killer. Secondly, I don’t know if the five victims were connected to the scandal. Thirdly, if you find the killer and the victims are connected to the scandal let me shake the killer’s hand. Fourthly, everyone lost money except those who got away with murder.”
When they reached the top of the embankment the Countess spotted a hand-cart loaded with broken furniture. It was not being wheeled by a rag-grubber but it prompted a thought.
“Are there any rag and bone men hereabouts?”
He regarded her oddly through the oblique tilt of his round glasses. “Probably, why?”
“Do you know where I might speak with one of them?”
“Well, I cannot introduce you to any this side of the canal but there is an alleyway in Clignancourt where I believe they congregate.”
“Hop into the cab. On y va.”
Naturally, he wanted to know why she was suddenly interested in rag-grubbers and so she told him her theory about the murderer possibly using a hand-cart to transport the bodies.
They crossed the canal and soon came to grim area lined with dilapidated warehouses where the worst dregs of society washed up in one big stinking stewpot. The stench was horrid and the Countess was forced to breathe through her scented handkerchief.
“Are you sure you want to go on?” asked Crespigny when they entered a sunless alleyway that Haussmann and God had overlooked.
She steeled her nerve and nodded.
“So be it,” he said cavalierly, rattling rusty doors and gates as she dodged puddles of greasy filth until he finally found a gate that was not bolted from the other side. “If you’ve got a few sous make sure to get them out before we get coshed on the head for trespassing. These men are rather protective of their treasure.”
The roof of the warehouse had collapsed years ago but several rotten beams were still intact. Four brick walls defined the space and a hovel made from sheets of tin that served as a shelter leaned against one of them. A large cauldron, full of rags, was bubbling away. More rags, strung up from wires that criss-crossed from beam to beam, flapped in the wind like dirty ghosts that would never come clean. A small mangy mongrel barked ferociously.
“Shut-up Mazarin!” barked a man’s voice even more ferociously, before a back-bent figure emerged from the hovel wielding a spiked stick. “Well, well, what have we here? Visitors, Mazarin!”
“A few questions, good sir,” said Crespigny in his most courteous refrain, warily keeping one eye on the vicious flea-ball, “and we will make it worth your while.”
The dog kept barking until the man gave it a swift kick. “Shut-up, Mazarin!”
Yelping, the dog slinked off to lick his wound in private.
The rag-grubber licked his lips. “Questions?” he prompted greedily, noting the quality of the lady’s garments.
The Countess asked him about his trade. He showed her his hand-cart and his spiked stick and her eyes seemed to widen in wonder, as if he had just showed her the necklace of that Austrian bitch. She paid him the equivalent of a king’s ransom. Tonight, he would have his cake and it too. Cake and bread forever!
The evening of the sixth of December was spent at home. Everyone took turns sitting by Xenia’s bedside. There was the fear of brain damage from lack of oxygen. Fedir did not go to Café Bistro and rarely left
his sister’s side.
The next day the Countess turned her mind to party costumes. Fortunately, her late step-aunt had several masquerade costumes in her wardrobe. Six seamstresses were hired to re-stitch them to make them fit and to add symmetricality as required. Fedir was dispatched to buy necessary accoutrements, plus coloured paper, ink, extra pens, and to send a telegram on behalf of the Countess. She thought a break would do him good.
Dr Watson was going as D’Artagnan, the loyal friend of the Three Musketeers. The Countess was going as Colombina, the mistress of Harlequin. Inspector de Guise was going as Sherlock Holmes, though he didn’t yet know it. Mahmoud was going as himself.
By late afternoon Dr Watson and the Countess decided they also needed a break. They ordered the landau and made their way to Ile Saint-Louis. It was the smaller of the two islands in the Seine. The largest being the Ile de la Cite which boasted the architectural masterpiece called Notre Dame.
Inspector de Guise was at home, which was fortunate for they had tramped up four flights of stairs to knock on his door. They brought wine and provisions, fearing the inspector might not be looking after himself as well as he should. He lit a paraffin lamp which soon warmed the gloomy garret and they set about discussing all that had recently transpired and what it might mean in relation to the murders.
After much conjecture, the thing they concentrated on was the next murder. If the Countess was right and it was act three, there would be no hushing up a dismembered corpse strung up from the famous red mill. All hell would break loose in the city. The Director General of the Sûreté National would be apoplectic. But how, they asked themselves, would the murderer achieve such a feat? The Moulin Rouge was open all night. There were hundreds of patrons coming and going through its doors and hundreds more milling about on the street outside. Our trio couldn’t see how the murderer would ever get away with it.
“Perhaps it will be the other act,” suggested the inspector. “What did it involve?”
“It was a beheading,” said Dr Watson blandly, surprised at how quickly his brain had accepted horror as the norm.
“Well, that is a mutilation too,” noted the inspector.
“The head is then thrown through a window,” added the doctor, making it sound like something that happened every day.
“What about the stage-setting? Will that give us a clue?”
“The backdrop was the river. There were peniches moored along the bank.”
The inspector straightened up. “Peniche? That’s an unusual word for an Englishman to use. Most Englishmen would say: houseboat.”
“Oh, righto, that’s because Mademoiselle Kiki lives on a peniche with Raoul Crespigny. We paid them a visit the other day. The three actors live on the next peniche along. It was Monsieur Radzival who used the word. I hadn’t heard it before. I shall probably call houseboats peniches from now on and irritate all my English friends.”
The Countess sat forward, frowning at her un-manicured fingernails, wondering who actually painted the backdrops; she had really let herself go recently. “No, no, no, it won’t be the beheading. The killer keeps the body parts as souvenirs. He does not throw them through windows. It will be the dismembering. It may not be at the Moulin Rouge. Are there any other windmills in the city, inspector?”
“Yes, I can think of several dozen. Montmartre is still rustic. Windmills are scattered on the hillside among the vineyards and vegetable gardens. And there are novelty ones too. Miniature ones near the Moulin Rouge where tourists like to have their photographs taken. And some are placed outside cafes and bars for decoration. And many brothels have them by their front doors. The cheap prostitutes like to associate themselves with the courtesans of the red mill. There are some in parks and even cemeteries. People put them on their crypts and mausoleums instead of angels and urns.”
“Well, that is your answer, gentlemen. The murderer will have already chosen his windmill and there is nothing we can do but wait and see.”
“Perhaps extra patrolmen might scare the killer off?” suggested Dr Watson, ever the optimist. “Can some of these windmills have police standing by?”
“There are not enough police in Paris for such a task and if I go to the Director General and tell him I think a man will be dismembered and strung up on a windmill he will take out his gun and shoot me and then have me arrested for disturbing the peace.”
The Countess believed making light of a serious situation indicated the brain was still functioning at its peak but she wasn’t sure if the Frenchman believed it. “Have you paid a visit to le Cirque du Grand Guignol, inspector?”
“Not yet. I will go tonight. Today I prepared myself a disguise. I am going as a bohemian artist. I have a smock, a beret and a bad wig. The disguise may yet become a mainstay. By the end of the week my career in the Sûreté will be finished and I may be forced to earn a living as a Splattereur.”
On the way home Dr Watson asked the coachman to detour to the tobacco shop in the Marais. He was hoping a batch of Latakia had come in from Syria as promised. He wanted to take some back to England. It was while he was settling his bill that he realized how Monsieur Grimaldi knew the Countess lived on rue Bonaparte. He had left a forwarding address and the marionette man must have come into the tobacco shop at some stage, chatted, and obtained it from the tobacconist.
“Nothing sinister in it at all,” he explained later to the Countess.
Xenia was showing little sign of improvement. They took turns spooning water into her in the hope of flushing out her kidneys. She was unable to recognize anyone around her but she seemed to respond to loud noises and Dr Watson took that as a positive sign.
The Countess wanted to confront Monsignor Delgardo and accuse him of attempting to murder her maid but the doctor warned her against acting rashly.
“There are street vendors everywhere, wandering in and out of the grounds, selling foodstuffs and even wine. Anyone could have administered some poison to her food or drink. And don’t forget the place is an insane asylum, full of lunatics, many who appear quite normal, many roaming free with God-knows-what on their mind. These modern methods are all well and good but the supervision was woefully inadequate.”
The Countess’s loathing for Delgardo increased in proportion to the blame she attached to herself; the guilt she harboured; the personal responsibility that weighed on her conscience. She was the one who had sent Xenia to Salpetriere. If anyone should be held to account it was she. Organising the forthcoming party helped take her mind off her self-flagellation.
The seamstresses had finished the costumes. A pastry cook, sous chef, and extra servants had been hired, including two footmen and three maids who had experience at waiting at table. The dining room and salon had been readied with flowers and scented candles. Coloured paper – a different colour for each guest - ink and pens had been set out on individual trays to avoid any mix ups. And prizes had been organized.
An enamelled gold and silver cigarette box in the style of Faberge for best poem.
A jet tie pin for best costume.
An iridium, gold-tipped, dip pen for best ink blot.
A linen handkerchief for booby prize, presumably to cry into.
Chapter 15 - Gobolinks
Inspector de Guise arrived one hour early as arranged. The check wool coat with Inverness cape hung a bit loosely and the deerstalker hat was a tight fit, but at least he was a real detective.
“Isn’t Mr Holmes normally portrayed with a pipe?” said the inspector.
Dr Watson generously offered his recent purchase. “Here, take this. Sherlock never smoked a calabash but it looks the part, and don’t forget those two magnifying glasses. They will add authenticity.”
“D’Artagnan sits well you well on you, doctor,” remarked the other. “But where is your musket and sword?”
“Well, they would have played havoc with the symmetricality. I would have needed two of each, and I was afraid of damaging the chair every time I sat down. Damned nuisance things. I
don’t know how men managed it back then.”
The costume of Colombina - meaning little dove - was a dramatic mix of commedia dell’ arte and Venetian Carnevale. The flouncy skirt was made from triangles of brightly coloured silk sewn together in random patterns, the waist nipped with a flirtatious red sash and the bodice provocatively low-cut. It came with an intriguing black and gold Venetian style mask. The Countess had her up-pinned chestnut hair gathered using an assortment of jewelled gew-gaws. A pair of lavish drop-earrings finished it off.
Looking regal, The Marquise de Merimont and Monsieur Radzival arrived together. She was dressed as Marie Antoinette and he came as Louis XVI. Her flamboyant finery and exquisite jewels were sumptuous to behold. His costume belonged to the late Marquis de Merimont and had undergone extensive alterations since yesterday. The librarian was substantially taller and significantly leaner than the original wearer. The white wig and frilly lace cravat were deft touches but the piece de resistance was definitely the white stockings and tight breeches.
Monsieur Crespigny arrived next. He could hardly take his eyes off the breeches. He came dressed as Shakespeare because it was the first costume he found and it fit like a glove. He found it in an old chest at the back of the theatre. He even found a gold hoop earring to mimic the sixteenth century fashion favoured by Englishmen at that time but had to remove it when everyone pointed out he needed two. Fortunately he had two quills and was able to display them in matching pockets.
Monsignor Delgardo came shortly after the playwright. The Eminence Rouge was in scarlet robes and looked the epitome of religious absolutism. He sported a red skull cap and a gold signet ring on every finger. Cardinal Richelieu would have eaten his heart out.
La Noire sashayed in on the arm of Monsieur Davidov. She was Cleopatra with heavy eye make-up, an asp hair ornament and a substantial amount of Nubian flesh on display despite the fact she was nowhere near the Equator.