by Anna Lord
Shimmying up the drain pipe was child’s play. The little wrought iron balconies provided convenient staging posts. The architectural pediments could have been designed specifically for acrobats. Balancing on the edge of a roof four stories above the ground caused no alarm to a saltimbanque accustomed to heights.
Without difficulty, she had scaled the high walls and the tiled roof and dropped down soundlessly into the courtyard garden on the other side to scan for an open window. There was a French door, wide open, curtains wafting in the breeze, two stories up. More child’s play.
“What are you doing here?” she said, straightening her skirt and smoothing back her hair now that she had recovered from the terrible shock.
“I live here. What are you doing here?”
Kiki was a born actress. She had been playing a role of one sort or another for most of her life. She went straight into acting mode. “The Countess sent me.”
“Countess Volodymyrovna?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What for?”
“She’s in danger. She needs you to come right away.”
“Come where?”
“The theatre on rue Ballu.”
Torn between his duty to his mistress and his duty to his sister, he began shaking his head. “I cannot leave Xenia.”
“Xenia?”
“My sister?”
Oh, so that was the situation. She understood better. She had already noted that he was dressed differently, not in the shabby garments of the oppressed worker , the heavy coat and grubby boots he had worn to Café Bistro, and not in the formal vestments of la marquise’s servants, but not a gentleman either, not like Davidov or even the raffish Crespigny. If his sister was the Countess’s maid it was highly likely he was her manservant. Clothes were costumes too. She understood that better than anyone.
“There is no time to lose,” she said urgently.
Agitated, confused, he glanced back at the French window and his brow creased. “I don’t understand.”
But she understood perfectly. “I knocked on the door and no one answered.”
“I didn’t hear anyone knocking.” He wasn’t questioning her so much as questioning himself. Why didn’t he hear the door? Worry for his sister had made him dull. His hearing was dull. His thinking was dull. He secured the French window.
Her brain was not at all dull. “I didn’t want to disturb the Arab?”
“Arab?”
“The one with the dagger.”
“Mahmoud.”
“Yes, him.”
“Is he the danger? Is that why the Countess sent you?”
She nodded quickly. “You must go to the theatre at once. I can sit with your sister.”
“This way,” he said gratefully, leading her up the last flight of stairs and into a small room where a single candle burned on the window sill and a woman with a thick golden plait lay sleeping peacefully in a box bed. “If she wakes,” he began, but she cut him off.
“Don’t worry. I will know what to do. You must hurry. The Countess needs you.”
She heard him thumping rapidly down the stairs, taking them by twos, and removed the vial from her pocket. A few more minutes. She would give him time to hail a passing hansom. There was no rush. She had waited years to get rid of Coco. Darling Coco! How everyone adored Coco! It was so easy to loosen the string on the trapeze when no one was looking, and even easier to cast Laszlo as the guilty party, especially when he blamed himself. Giving her sister white absinthe mixed with opium was easy too. Here, have some more to ease the pain. Poor darling!
It should have been Kiki et Coco! Not the other way around. Coco was never as pretty, never ethereal, not like a butterfly.
And then that stupid woman had walked into the cell just as she was tipping a bit of laudanum down Coco’s throat to finally put an end to it. She couldn’t go to America if Coco was still alive. What sort of sister would she be if she left Coco in France? No, she had to end it.
That stupid woman knew at once what she was up to but she didn’t say so directly. People are so stupid. Especially the stupid ones. But how was she to know that the stupid woman was the maid of the Countess? She had to get rid of her. Fast. She pretended to be making a cup of tea for Monsignor Delgardo in the kitchen the doctors used and convinced Little Marianne to give it to the stupid woman when she was having a slice of bread for her lunch in the garden. But she didn’t have enough laudanum left for the job. Still, it would have been enough if the Countess hadn’t turned up...
It was exactly as they feared. A body was strung up like a marionette, dangling from the wooden sail of the half-finished windmill, the weight of it forcing the sail to tilt drunkenly away from its pin. Scaffolding had provided a platform to work from. The murderer had chosen his sixth setting with the well-practised eye of a true master, though it was difficult to appreciate the finer points of the artistry from ground level without the aid of daylight.
The night sky was swirling with swift-moving clouds and shifting stars, a tipsy blur of dusky blues speckled with flecks of gold. The depressing light cast the corpse in bluish hues, cold and distant, as far-seeming as a dead planet hanging in space. The wind was stronger coming off the Seine. It picked up middens of soil and whipped up eddies of dust that whirled around their feet as they dodged piles of tools and shallow pools of mud.
Inspector de Guise scaled the scaffolding to take a closer look. There was the same red lipstick smeared clumsily across the lips and the same comedic rouging of the cheeks.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. He recognized the victim and it gave him a sharp shock. He caught back a gasp. It was Père Denys from the little church in Montmartre that adjoined the Cimetiere du Calvaire. The priest was not wearing his black robe. It wasn’t until he looked closer that he recognized the face. Père Denys was wearing long-johns and it was clear he had been crudely dismembered.
A night-watchman came around the corner. He was carrying a heavy truncheon, wielding it as if he meant to use it. “Hoy! Climb down! You can’t go up there!”
“I’m a policeman,” called the inspector. “There’s dead body up here. I’m checking it.”
The night-watchman looked up at the dangling grotesquerie but remained rightly skeptical. “How do I know you’re a policeman? You could be the killer!”
The Countess stepped out of the shelter of the windmill where she had been huddling to stay warm. “He’s with me,” she said. “I am Countess Volodymyrovna and the man on the scaffolding is Inspector de Guise. You need to run for help.”
“I’m not running anywhere. Not till I am satisfied you aren’t the killers.”
“Do I look like a killer?” she challenged.
“You might still be,” he responded dubiously, checking the quality of her garments as the inspector clambered down to join them.
“It’s Père Denys,” he said, and she gasped.
“Who?” said the night-watchman - a man who did not appreciate being left out of the loop, treated as if he didn’t exist by two trespassers who had no right to ignore him.
“Never mind,” said the inspector peremptorily before adopting an air of authority. “You need to summon help. This is the sixth victim of the Marionette Murderer. How many night-watchmen are here with you on this site?”
“Six this side of the river and ten the other side.”
“Do you have a whistle?”
“Yes.”
“Then for God’s sake use it.”
Fedir was sprinting toward rue Visconti when he passed a landau going in the opposite direction. The Z crest on the door looked familiar but it wasn’t until the carriage pulled up suddenly and a voice called out, “Where are you going?” that he stopped dead.
It was Dr Watson. Seated beside him was the wily Sikh.
There was nothing for it but to speak up. “The theatre - the Countess needs help.”
“She sent us here. Xenia is in danger. Kiki is insane.”
“What! I just left Xenia
with Kiki!”
“Jump in. There’s no time to lose.”
The landau delivered them to rue Bonaparte in what seemed a mere heartbeat. Mahmoud raced ahead to unlock the door. Driven by panic, the three men sprinted up the stairs. Spurred on by the fear that he might arrive too late to save his sister, Fedir overtook the Sikh at the first turning. Dr Watson, panting heavily, followed closely in their wake.
Xenia was lying on the bed, seemingly asleep. The candle on the window sill had been moved to the bedside table. It had almost burnt itself out. On the floor was an empty vial. The dormer window was wide open and a cold draught was blowing through the room. There was no sign of Kiki.
Fedir took one look at his sister and castigated himself in the fiercest tones. “I should not have left her! My fault! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”
Mahmoud poked his head out the window. Darkness made it impossible to see very far. “She must have escaped this way. She probably heard us coming.” He closed the window.
Dr Watson, wheezing asthmatically, checked for vital signs. The lids were droopy and the eyes glassy. The pulse was weak. “Get my medical bag,” he directed at the Sikh. It’s in my room.” He picked up the vial and smelled it. “No trace of almonds. It’s not arsenic. Thank heaven for that.” He ran his finger around the lip of the vial and licked it. “Absinthe mostly, maybe a trace of laudanum, I don’t think it’s life-threatening. I can give her an emetic to make her vomit.” He ran to get the chamber pot.
Fedir came to his senses and remembered the French doors on the landing. He noticed they were wide open, yet he remembered securing the latch. He crashed into Mahmoud as he flew down the stairs.
Fedir stepped onto the small wrought iron balcony. He could see a petite shadow-dancer in the bruising moonlight. The insane little acrobat was balancing on top of the garden wall like a tight-rope walker in a circus. Despite the darkness she was moving with surprising speed toward the house that backed onto them. If she shimmied up the drainpipe and climbed over the roof she could escape into the street that ran parallel to rue Bonaparte. He would never see her again. He would never have the pleasure of wringing her pretty little neck.
Without further ado, he leapt from the balcony, grabbed hold of an overhanging branch from the linden tree and worked his way monkey-like swiftly down to the ground. There was a ladder leaning against the wall where Mahmoud had been pruning back some braches that were starting to tap on the windows. He snatched up the ladder and dragged it over to the other wall to head her off.
Kiki spotted him and changed direction. She whirled on her toes like a ballerina and headed back to the pied-a-terre. It was cat and mouse game. He shifted the ladder to an adjacent wall but she was several paces ahead of him and had already caught hold of some trailing ivy. She was using it to scramble up to the roof. She was a featherweight and the ivy supported her light frame. He was too heavy. If he went the same way the ivy would give way and he would fall to his death on the stones below.
Mahmoud appeared on the balcony, glowering darkly. “This way,” he beckoned, watching as the lithe little trapeze artist caught hold of a pediment and somersaulted onto an upper ledge. “There are some attic stairs that lead to the roof.”
Fedir hesitated a moment. He didn’t trust the Sikh. But then he looked back at the acrobat and knew he couldn’t let her get away. He positioned the ladder up to the balcony and climbed back up to where he had started. Mahmoud led him to what he thought was a cupboard. It turned out to be a tight set of stairs that corkscrewed steeply upwards.
“She stole Zoya’s jewellery. That’s why she was still here when we got back. She could have been on the other side of Paris by now.”
Fedir realized that was why the Sikh was glowering. He was the appointed guardian of the house. He had guarded those jewels for what must have been a lifetime. The way he said ‘Zoya’s jewellery’ made it sound as if he believed his mistress was still alive, as if she actually cared her jewels had been stolen, and then he understood with a sharp jolt that he would say the same thing. He would care about his mistress’s jewels being stolen whether she was alive or dead. He had more in common with the Sikh than he realized.
Kiki reached the top of the roof and paused to catch her breath. She thought her pursuer had given up and was startled to see not one but two men emerge from a little door that opened onto a flat section of roof near a stack of chimneys. The Ukrainian and the Sikh were both after her now. But she was agile and they were not. The airy roof of the world was her world. She could cartwheel the length of the grey zinc rooftop of Paris as surely as could cartwheel the greasy zinc countertop of Café Bistro.
She took flight as lightly as a bird on the wing, laughing carelessly when the two men followed in hot pursuit. Her feet hardly touched the ground as she flew from one roof to another, swooping past dormer windows that jutted out here and there, flying fearlessly over the gaps that made them pause and take measure. Her dream was within reach, she could see it clearly now. It had shape and form and substance. Glittering. Dazzling. Lux. Her pockets were bulging and she would be rich in America. The land of dreams. Her dream!
Blithely, she did a cartwheel and something fell out of her pocket. It clunked onto the grey zinc and slid slowly into the guttering. Twisting awkwardly mid-air, she fell sideways and rolled down, down, down…
Fedir leapt and caught her sleeve. He tried to hang on but the flimsy fabric was tearing. He could feel it giving way. He reached with his other arm to grab hold of her arm but he went too far and went over the edge. Desperately, he caught hold of the guttering with his free arm while the fabric in his other hand continued to give way, bit by bit, stitch by stitch, the two of them dangling over the side, flailing helplessly in the inky darkness, the soot and the smoke, and the swirling fog.
The stitching gave way and she fell silently to the ground the same way Coco did. She didn’t scream. She saw Coco as she fell. Coco knew who had loosened the string. Coco didn’t scream either.
The guttering was giving way now. Fedir could hear it heaving under the weight of him, straining, bit by bit.
Mahmoud loosened his sacred headdress and tossed one end of it over the side. The material was strong, taut, it was made from one long strip of fabric and had no stitching “Hang onto this,” he said. “I’ll pull you up.”
And he did. Afterwards, he quietly retrieved Zoya’s jewels from the guttering while Fedir gazed up at his lucky stars. The two men looked at each other; they didn’t speak.
Some deeds transcended words.
Chapter 19 - The Marionette Murders
“What are you doing here, de Guise?” The voice of the Director General was sharp, gruff and imperious. “You were relieved of your duties. You were told to keep your head down and not cause any more embarrassment to the Sûreté. That ridiculous disguise will not fool anyone!”
Inspector de Guise flushed crimson and gave thanks for the darkness; he forgot he was still wearing the Sherlock Holmes costume.
Thick fog drifting off the Seine added to the unreality of the Trocadero scene. He felt as if he had entered a smoke-stained mezzotint that had been hanging for centuries above a fireplace in a north facing room that was never aired. The biting cold was another matter. It made him aware he was very much alive and pitifully mortal.
The Countess was cold too. He could see her trembling as she hugged her arms around herself to ward off the nithering wind off the river. He had tried to convince her to take the hackney cab and go home to bed, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She wanted to inspect the body of Père Denys the moment it was lifted down. The fact it was the cleric connected to Sainte Pierre de Montmartre seemed to excite her and he was keen to discover the reason but events had taken on a life of their own after the night-watchman blew his whistle. His curiosity would have to remain unsettled for the time being.
The Director General was warmly dressed. He had rushed away from a formal dinner at the Louvre in honour of the Russian ambassador, but at least he had
had the time to put on his winter coat, scarf, gloves and hat. He had issued a diktat to all in his department: to be informed the moment a fresh Marionette Murder was discovered. He did not wish to wake up one morning and read about it in Le Libre Parole.
“Who found the body?” he barked at no one in particular, avidly watching the men combing the construction site in the dark, lanterns piercing the fog, searching in vain for clues that the murderer would not have left behind.
Everything they needed to know would be attached to the body. That was what the Countess was excitedly waiting for.
“I did,” said Inspector de Guise.
“You again!” The Director General wheeled round. “Are you still here, de Guise?”
“Yes, sir”
“How did you know?”
“How did I know the body would be here, sir?”
“Yes, yes, of course. How did you know? Here! Of all places!” He gestured wildly, dramatically. “The windmill!”
The inspector tried to stop his teeth from chattering by tightening his jaw. He was worried about sounding cowardly instead of just cold. “I was at the theatre on rue Ballu when one of my men, I mean one of your men, sir, spotted what he thought was the murderer in the crowd. Pascal Leveret believes he accidentally bumped into the murderer in Montmartre during the fifth murder. Tonight, he happened to be at the theatre and alerted me at once. The suspect took a cab to the Trocadero. I gave chase and discovered the body.”
Inspector de Guise had been deliberately vague. He did not really believe the suspect he had pursued to the Trocadero and the killer was one and the same. They were linked, of course, but he did not believe Crespigny was the man Pascal had spotted in the foyer.
Witnesses had said they’d seen him coming out of the alley and though witnesses tended to be notoriously unreliable, they couldn’t all be blind.