In the Shadows of Paris (The Predator Of Batignolles) (28 page)

‘Three. If Paul Theneuil has gone into hiding, then he’s just as likely to be the puppet master behind this sinister farce. I suggest we go to his house.’

‘Providing we know where he lives.’

‘Joseph, either you need a holiday or you’re not concentrating. Daglan gave us his address: a printing works in Passage des Thermopyles. I’m busy tomorrow – we’ll go on Thursday morning.’

‘Mmm, unless you leave me high and dry again!’

‘Now that my sister’s eating out of your hand again you can pass the reins over to her.’

A plume of smoke enveloped them.

‘And what if Monsieur Mori complains, Boss?’

‘Pretend you have a delivery.’

Joseph gasped and stopped dead in the middle of the pavement.

‘Hell’s bells! We’re a right pair of bumbling detectives! I’m not the only one in need of a holiday.’

‘Why?’

‘We didn’t ask Daglan about Sacrovir.’

Kenji’s expression, while always remaining polite and composed, could sometimes darken in a way that broke a man’s will. Adolphe Esquirol finally cracked.

‘Do you intend to stand there all day long staring at me in silence? What do you want from me, anyway? I’ve told you everything I know!’ he bawled, screwing up his rodent-like features.

‘You omitted one important detail: the address of the man who sold you the lot.’

‘He didn’t give it to me. How many times do I have to tell you?’

‘As many times as you like. I’m in no hurry. Attend to your customers. Business is sacred and must always come first,’ retorted Kenji, examining his nails.

Esquirol glanced uneasily at the two eminent sinologists waiting to be served and hissed furiously, ‘All right, you win. Monsieur Fourastié, Rue Baillet, near the Louvre. Satisfied? Now get out!’

Kenji carefully opened out a map he kept in his pocket.

‘It’s very close…I’ll walk,’ he murmured.

A tune from childhood came into his head and he began singing:

‘Niwa no sanhyô no ki

Naru suzu fukaki…’

A quarter of an hour later, he was knocking at the door of a cobbler’s shop. The shutters were drawn and a sign hanging on the doorknob said
Temporarily closed.

‘Will Monsieur Fourastié be long?’ he asked a pretty young woman at a tobacconist’s shop.

‘That depends on his sciatica. When he gets one of his attacks he goes to stay with his daughter. He’s not young any more, poor fellow.’

‘And where does his daughter live?’

‘Somewhere in Marne.’

‘A lovely part of the world,’ Kenji remarked with a sigh that implied he’d like to explore the region in the company of the opposite sex.

‘That’s all I can tell you, seeing as Père Fourastié and I aren’t married. In fact, I’m not married at all…’

He flashed a charming smile at her. She looked vaguely like Eudoxie. Would the ex-queen of cancan be at Rue Alger at this hour? What if he paid her a surprise visit? He bought a cigar and turned to leave, showing the woman his best profile.

On the second floor of a small building, a curtain was drawn aside. A pair of cross-eyes peered out, fixing at length on the Asian gentleman carrying a cane with a handle in the shape of a horse’s head.

Gustave Corcol felt for a box of matches. The flame of the candle stuck in the neck of a bottle lit up the impossible shambles of the bedroom, and showed the damp patches mottling the walls. He glimpsed a fat naked man reflected in the pane of the open window.

‘Look at me,’ he said.

He hated his overly wide body, a size bigger than average. Whenever he saw it he thought it looked bloated and grotesque, like a troll. He was confused for a moment. What day was it? What time? The rhythmical ticking of a clock echoed in the sultry night. He turned and looked; it was two thirty. His trip to Rue des Dames had ended in failure. Frédéric Daglan hadn’t been home in over a week. What a lousy joke! Was he losing his touch? Gustave Corcol had never fulfilled his aspirations. He had cultivated bitterness and begun despising everybody around him. Life had thwarted him. When he joined the police force he dreamt of being promoted to chief of police, or even, why not, commissioner of the Sûreté? Twenty years on, he was still languishing in the lower echelons, bundled from station to station at the whim of servants obedient to an administration whose tentacles reached into people’s lives, deciding their fates. The only son of a penpusher at the town hall, he’d avoided conscription by paying someone to take his place. The war, the defeat, the imprisonment of Emperor Napoleon III and the proclamation of the Republic had had no effect on him. He took little interest in politics, considering it preferable to remain on the winning side. The Commune had given him an opportunity to show his zeal. This had not gone unnoticed by his superiors, and he’d climbed a few rungs on the ladder. From police constable on an annual salary of one thousand two hundred francs, he had risen to the rank of sergeant and finally to that of inspector on one thousand eight hundred francs. He had quickly learnt how to sail with the prevailing wind. He was clever at discovering the weaknesses of his superiors and concealing his own from his subordinates. However, his efforts hadn’t promoted him to the post he coveted. The recent appointment of that third-rate scribbler Raoul Pérot to assistant chief of police had crushed his hopes.

To think that he was under the thumb of a man of barely thirty! What made him angry, what disgusted him most was the lack of appreciation of his ability. Not one of his colleagues could hold a candle to him. He was a good
flic
with years of experience. During an interrogation something would click and he’d know when a suspect was guilty. His colleagues were surprised.

‘How did you guess, Corcol? Talk about a fool’s luck!’

They were the fools! Being a good policeman meant paying attention to every detail, however seemingly insignificant, but more importantly it meant trusting one’s instinct. Today, his instinct had betrayed him. He was weary, sick of everything relating to his job. Most of his colleagues were like sheep – they toed the line and waited for a chance to win the respect of their superiors. Others simply obeyed out of fear of punishment. Gustave Corcol despised them all. He’d broken the sacred commandments of the law and the sky hadn’t fallen on his head. What sweet revenge!

His rage ebbed away like the tide, leaving only a twinge of humiliation.

He walked a few paces then lay down. His mind was in turmoil. He tried to put things into perspective. He found himself talking aloud.

‘It’s over. Tomorrow I’ll be free.’

A month before, Gustave Corcol had established close ties with a skilled forger of documents, who was unaware of his true identity. Now he could go and see the Manneken-Pis for himself. Once in Brussels he would become Monsieur Cappel from Gand – a respectable widower and pensioner with no children who lived off private means. There, he would have all the time in the world to dream about the future.

He looked with an admiring eye at the tailored suit hanging over the back of a chair.

‘Tomorrow, tomorrow…Gare du Nord…Monsieur Cappel…’He sank into oblivion.

Gustave Corcol came to, sweating. He was wide awake. He couldn’t understand why his muscles, his limbs, refused to obey him. He imagined he felt a presence nearby. No, it was a trick of the dying candle flame. His pulse gradually slowed and he managed to persuade himself that he’d had one of those particularly vivid nightmares that send you into a panic.

He propped himself up on one elbow.

‘Is anybody there?’

A distant memory from childhood, at once strange and familiar, came back to him suddenly.

He realised how foolish he was being. Who could possibly have entered the front door, which was double locked? A ghost?

He remembered a book of fairy tales which had kept him awake at night for months, a gift from his uncle, a thick red book inhabited by monsters, ogres and dragons, which he felt compelled to open every evening.

He could just make out a shadow; it seemed to glide towards the bed where he lay.

‘Who’s there?’

He tried to hide under the sheets.

‘Speak to me,’ he implored.

The apparition began to sing:

‘And if Lady Luck should smile on me

She will never soothe my heart

I will for ever love the cherry season

And keep its memory in my heart!’

Gustave Corcol’s moans turned into a gurgling sound as the blade sank into his heart.

Chapter Twelve

Thursday 27 July

T
HE
only thing moving beneath the chestnut trees on Square de Montrouge was a herd of donkeys trotting towards the Luxembourg Gardens. Then came deserted streets with their whitewashed façades, where the cry of a glazier or a knife-sharpener brought an occasional face to the windows.

Halfway down Passage Thermopyles, Victor and Joseph hurried through a hall at the end of which stood Paul Theneuil’s printing works. A young apprentice of about twelve, preceded by a ginger cat, was blocking their way.

‘About time! Have you brought us some copy?’ he demanded rudely.

‘Is Monsieur Theneuil here?’

‘The boss? He’s done a vanishing act!’ the apprentice announced, sniggering.

‘Move aside, kid, you’re in the way.’

The boy crouched down and, shooting Joseph a murderous look, picked up the tomcat by the scruff of its neck.

In contrast to the silence outside, the workshop was a hive of activity. Victor and Joseph walked towards one of the typesetters, who was standing beside his typecase mounted on a stand. From time to time he glanced at a manuscript before picking characters out of little compartments and placing them on a composing stick he held in his left hand. Furious at having been sent packing, the apprentice hurled the cat at their feet. The animal leapt up onto a typecase, sending the letters flying, before landing nimbly on a marble tabletop where the layout man had arranged his formes. There was a general outcry, while the boy beat a retreat, shouting, ‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me!’

‘I’ll give you what for, Agénor! You’ve wrecked my layout!’

‘He dipped his paws in my ink!’

‘Throw that alley cat in the cooking pot!’

‘That wretched Agénor! He’s the master printer’s son, and he takes advantage of it to drive us all crazy. The latest victim of one of his pranks was Père Flamand, our oldest proofreader. On account of a well-earned slap, Agénor nailed his slippers to the floor so securely that when the poor old fellow tried to move he fell flat on his face,’ explained the typesetter.

‘Forgive me, but where is Monsieur Theneuil?’ Victor enquired.

‘That’s what we’d all like to know. He’s never decamped for this long before. We’re beginning to miss him.’

‘Does he often go away?’

The worker exchanged a knowing look with another typesetter.

‘Let’s just say that he strays from the conjugal nest from time to time, when the urge takes him. Everybody knows why, including his wife, but seeing as he always comes quietly back to the fold after two or three days, she indulges him. This time, though, he’s been gone three weeks, and he sent a letter which makes the claptrap in your average
fin-de-siècle
novel look like child’s play.’

‘This letter, was it addressed to his wife?’

‘No, to his book-keeper, Monsieur Leuze, the lanky fellow with the glasses and the peaked cap sitting over there at the back.’

‘By the way, have you printed any share certificates recently?’

‘We don’t do that sort of thing here. We only cater to men of letters and historians.’

Monsieur Leuze pushed his spectacles to the end of his nose and peered over the top of them at the visitors. When Victor informed him that they were journalists, he replied gruffly that he’d already spoken to the gentlemen of the press.

‘We’re writing a feature about mysterious occurrences, and we’d like to include the message Monsieur Theneuil sent you,’ Joseph improvised.

‘It was typewritten and unsigned. There’s nothing to prove that Monsieur Theneuil wrote it,’ muttered Monsieur Leuze, handing them a piece of paper on which was written:

Remember, Paul. The leopard, light as amber, says: ‘Merry month of May, oh when will you return?’

‘Yes, why would Paul Theneuil tell himself to remember something?’ Victor mumbled.

‘That’s what I said when Madame Theneuil called the police a week after what we’d been assuming was another amorous adventure,’ agreed the book-keeper, neatly folding the piece of paper. ‘If Monsieur Paul had meant to inform us of a lengthy absence why this enjoinder to recall the passing of the seasons? It’s completely idiotic.’

‘What did the police make of it?’

‘They think it may be a hoax, an elopement or a kidnapping. In short, they can’t do anything. We’ll have to wait and see.’

‘Didn’t the word
leopard
arouse their interest?’