In the Shadows of Paris (The Predator Of Batignolles) (20 page)

‘Please try not to raise your voice above a whisper, Monsieur!’

Kenji gave up. He went back to his seat and spent the next hour devising strategies to glimpse the famous manuscript. He dropped his pencil under the Armenian’s chair, asked to borrow a rubber, sat sideways on his seat in an attempt to force him to rearrange the wall of folios shielding the coveted treasure. To no avail – his neighbour never lowered his guard.

As the minutes ticked by, Kenji resigned himself to following each arduous step of Stanley’s journey in search of Dr Livingstone, whilst dreaming of Eudoxie’s charms. As six o’clock approached, he leant towards the Armenian, who had begun gathering up his folios, and stood on tiptoe in a last attempt to see over the stack of books. But in a sleight of hand worthy of a conjuror, Aram Kasangian had already spirited the manuscript away under an encyclopedia. Refusing Kenji’s offer of help, he triumphantly carried his hoard of books over to the main desk.

Kenji stared at him, screwing up his eyes, and, with a cat-like expression on his face, vowed silently, I’ll get the better of you yet.

‘I hate those great big statues with their arms sticking up in the air!’ Joseph said, pointing to the monument glorifying General Moncey’s heroic stand.
⁴⁹
For his part, Victor was busy studying an enormous poster depicting an Arab standing with his camel opposite a chap in colonial dress who was admiring an Oriental carpet. On the side of the same building, a shop sign inspired by Chéret featured a woman swathed in lace, her foot perched boldly on a tombstone inscribed in letters of fire:

TO DIE FOR

The New Fashion Store

Adélaïde Paillet’s shop, although unpretentious, nevertheless boasted a foyer lit by a glass cupola, and an open fretwork staircase leading up to the first floor. The manageress oversaw two sales girls on the ground floor, which was devoted to lingerie and the latest Paris fashions. An affable male assistant was in charge of accessories on the first floor, catering to ladies wishing to liven up their outfits with a velvet flower, a feather boa or – the height of luxury – a fox fur or sable stole.

Madame Paillet’s professional sycophancy changed to marmoreal coldness as soon as Victor explained the reason for their visit.

‘We’re from
Le Passe-partout
. We’ve been assigned to write a portrait of the manager of l’Échiquier, who recently took his own life. I believe he was a friend of yours.’

‘I can see that discretion is a thing of the past. Please have the decency not to discuss my private life in front of my customers.’

None of the young ladies busy fingering the various fabrics appeared to have overheard. One of the sales girls was measuring a length of silk against a yardstick attached to a copper rod descending from the ceiling. The other whispered, ‘Monsieur Edmond killed himself! That’s not possible, Madame!’

‘It is both possible and true, Camille. Monsieur Myon telephoned me last night to give me the news.’

‘Oh, Madame, how awful for you! I’m so sorry.’

‘Thank you, Camille. Now go and help poor Lise – I know those infuriating customers who make you unravel twenty yards of surah only to end up buying half a yard of cotton.’

‘You are remarkably self-possessed for somebody who is in mourning,’ commented Victor.

Adélaïde Paillet looked askance at him, trying to detect any hint of irony in his voice. Having decided that he was sincere, she dabbed her brown eyes and patted her bun ruefully.

‘Displays of grief won’t bring Edmond back. Since Monsieur Paillet was taken from me by an inflammation of the lungs. I belong to the ranks of the widowed. I’ve made my own way in life. Edmond was attentive, but alas that was all. He was a miser and a skinflint who only wanted me for the pleasures of the flesh. Do you know what he had the nerve to give me two months ago? A complimentary ticket for a seat in the tenth row of Les Folies-Belleville. Can you imagine my embarrassment surrounded by a lot of flashy foreigners and oglers of half-naked flesh! When I think that he was about to pull off a deal that would have given him the means to finish renovating his theatre. Apparently he’d achieved the impossible! I was hoping he’d pay me back the money he owed me before we parted for good. I can kiss that goodbye now!’

‘Did he ever mention Léopold Grandjean or Pierre Andrésy?’

‘Do you imagine he confided his secrets to me? He took me for mussels and
frites
on a Sunday then back to his place, where all I got was a sore back from his lumpy mattress. I don’t want to know about his schemes. We agreed to break off our relationship last month. It’s the 20th today, isn’t it? That makes it an anniversary. Hurrah for freedom! You can see yourselves out, gentlemen.’

She left them standing there, and went over to serve an old crone in raptures over an artistic window display featuring a light-blue dress, a scarf twisted round a chair and a few parasols.

‘This one in cerise satin with the matching forget-me-not tassels is the height of fashion and perfect for the seaside, Madame.’

‘Perfect for scaring off the seagulls, more like,’ muttered Joseph.

‘Come along, we’re wasting our time here,’ Victor announced.

A woman dragging a tearful child by the arm bumped into them. Joseph noticed a tuft of fur sticking out of the boy’s jacket and gestured to Camille, who ran into the street after them. She returned a moment later, flushed, holding a muff.

‘Just look at that!’

‘What is it?’ asked Joseph.

‘Siberian grey squirrel. Madame, thanks to this gentleman here, I nabbed a thief who was using a kid as a decoy,’ she explained to the manageress. ‘She got away, but I managed to recover the merchandise.’

The customers and the two shop girls broke into loud chatter.

‘It’s a disgrace using kids like that! They hide the stolen items on them, pinch them until they cry, then scarper,’ Camille explained.

‘Not to mention the ones who work in pairs, where one sends you up a ladder to fetch a bolt of cloth while the other nicks half the shop,’ Lise went on.

‘And that trick of dropping a fine piece of lace on the floor and hiding it in their shoe,’ added Camille.

‘Where will it end!’ Adélaïde Paillet exploded. ‘The government, the middlemen and the public are ruining us and unfair competition will finish us off for good. How can we compete with stores like the Palais du Travailleur
⁵⁰
which covers six thousand square yards and sells everything from the latest fashions to hire-purchase furniture and even milk at sixty centimes a litre? Gentlemen, I’m hugely indebted to you.’

She asked the two men to follow her up to the first floor where she scolded the sales assistant for his inattention before leading them into a changing room.

‘There are one or two things I didn’t tell you. But you’ve done me a favour and fair’s fair. Just don’t mention my name. I’ve enough worries as it is.’

‘We give you our word,’ Victor promised.

‘Every other Sunday Edmond would come to my place. About a month ago, on 18 June, I told him I’d break off our relationship if he didn’t pay me back the ten thousand francs he owed me. He swore on his life – ill-fatedly as it turned out – that he’d have the money for me the following Thursday. He was a very good actor and a little bird told me not to trust him. So I decided to follow him. He didn’t go very far – just to Muller’s brasserie, at 60, Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre. I watched him through the window. He walked up to a man who handed him a cake box. He didn’t open it and the man left. Another of his shady deals! I thought to myself. The following Thursday he handed me five thousand francs in cash and promised to give me the rest in shares. Naturally I refused. That is all, gentlemen.’

‘What were the shares in?’

‘Ambrex.’

‘Can you describe the man he met at Muller’s?’

‘A nondescript fellow of about fifty, poorly dressed, wearing a terrible checked bowler, below average height, with a slight potbelly, the sort of person you wouldn’t look twice at in the street.’

‘You’re very observant, Madame.’

‘I have to be in my line of work.’

When they descended, the old crone had given in to the temptation of the cerise parasol and was feverishly fingering a bathing cap trimmed with little bows.

They strolled down Avenue de Clichy past the restaurant Père Lathuile. Victor was staring down at the pavement as if he thought he might find the answer to his questions there. He stopped dead in his tracks; he’d suddenly remembered Kenji’s description of the man who’d sold the lot of Oriental manuscripts to Esquirol. Could it be the same fellow who was at Muller’s brasserie? If so, then perhaps he was the link between Pierre Andrésy and Edmond Leglantier. He shared his reflections with Joseph, who had been wondering whether he was going to take root. They walked back the way they’d come and turned left.

‘Why do I have the feeling you’re not telling me everything, Boss?’

‘You’re imagining things, Joseph.’

‘Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes. You didn’t tell me what Monsieur Mori was up to. I’m the last to know, just a shop assistant, no better than a slave! How are we supposed to make progress if you won’t let me in on anything?’

‘It went clean out of my head.’

‘You’re becoming very forgetful in your old age.’

‘Well, now you know. Monsieur Mori’s investigations ended in failure. This leaves two possibilities: either the manuscript miraculously escaped the flames or…somebody started the fire deliberately in order to steal it.’

‘It was only worth fifteen hundred francs.’

‘Our knowledge of human nature tells us that people will be tempted by less.’

‘It’s absurd. Pierre Andrésy would never have become involved in…No, Boss, you’re talking through your hat!’

Joseph kicked a pebble and sent it flying over the iron bridge which rose above Montmartre cemetery. The boss was right. Even Iris had fallen off her pedestal.

‘It’s still early,’ said Victor. ‘I’m going to
Le Passe-partout.
I’m sure if I try hard enough I’ll manage to wheedle some information out of them.’

‘But they don’t know anything!’

‘They know the name and description of the person who witnessed Grandjean’s murder.’

‘And what about me? Are you leaving me in the lurch? I suppose I’m to be relegated to Rue des Saints-Pères.’

Joseph looked dolefully at the sombre avenues of the cemetery where two of his favourite authors, Stendhal and Murger, were buried. Life was a trick, love an illusion and his boss’s promises hollow.

‘Come on, Joseph, what’s happened to your usual optimism? You’re not being relegated anywhere! Antonin Clusel is an old friend of mine. Seeing him on my own will save a lot of chitchat. And, anyway, Kenji will object if one of us doesn’t return to the fold.’

‘I’ll volunteer – you go and run rings round that wily fox, Clusel. But don’t forget I’m the one who started this case.’

‘What I regret having forgotten, Joseph, is my bicycle.’

He rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a handful of coins. ‘Here, we’ll split this and take a cab each.’

A constant stream of pedestrians held up the traffic in Passage Jouffroy. By the time he reached the offices of
Le Passe-partout
in Rue de la Grange-Batelière, Victor felt stifled, as much from impatience as from the heat. His entrance amid the ceaseless animation of the newspaper aroused no comment and he walked straight up to the office of the editor-in-chief. He didn’t even need to knock, simply slipping through the door on the heels of a typographer who had come to ask for advice about the page layout. Antonin Clusel, perching on a corner of a table, circled a few freshly printed lines in pencil while an amply proportioned secretary tapped away on a typewriter. It was only after the typographer had left that Antonin noticed Victor.

‘Just the man I need! Am I right in thinking that you’re a cycling enthusiast? Eulalie, my dear, stop that racket for a moment, would you? Go and find something else to do while we talk.’

She complied grudgingly, and slammed the door.

‘A sweet child, I’ve often thought of marrying her, but in the words of Alfred Capus: “How many couples are not torn apart by marriage!” Help me with this, will you? I’m devising a questionnaire aimed at the man in the street. No doubt you’re aware that since 28 April a tax has been levied on bicycles.’

He read aloud, ‘“Ten francs for every bicycle, plus five centimes per franc, plus another three centimes for the tax collector.” This is something that affects many of our readers. The tax raised on a hundred and eighty thousand bicycles will be one million nine hundred and forty-five thousand seven hundred francs gross a year. As a sportsman, what is your opinion of this?’

‘I think they ought to put a tax on feet – one sou per toe. Imagine the amount of money that would bring in to the treasury.’

Antonin Clusel stroked his chin.

‘What a pity you refuse to work with me! I need clever men like you. I’ve just hired two new reporters whose copy is as dull as ditch-water. I’m taking the newspaper in a new direction: less debate, more detailed reports and interviews. I want to go back to the last editor’s methods. He inspired readers with features like “A Week with…” during the Universal Exposition of 1889.’

‘I don’t much hold with the present vogue for printing people’s opinion on anything and everything. Ministers, murderers, actors, priests, soldiers. The problem is they’re encouraged to talk about things they know nothing about: the priest rants against the theatre, the actor criticises the army, the murderer applauds amnesties and the minister laments the condition of the worker. It’s impossible to escape the torrent of words: opera, murder, sardine fishing, vaccination, the immortality of the soul, war, corsets; anything goes so long as it fills the daily columns!’

‘What passion, what eloquence! You deserve a glass of curaçao. I’ll pour you one while I have a cigar.’

Antonin Clusel blew out a flawless smoke ring.