In the Shadows of Paris (The Predator Of Batignolles) (5 page)

It was when he reached Boulevard Montmartre that he noticed the fair-haired fellow in the light-coloured suit. He ducked into a urinal, his mind racing like quicksilver, and tried to gather his thoughts by softly chanting:

‘
And slyly when the world is sleeping yet

He smooths out collars for the Easter daisies

And fashions golden buttercups to set

In woodland mazes.’
¹⁰

He had seen the man before. First when he was leaving the theatre and then at the bar in Muller’s brasserie, not far from the table where the fat man had handed over the cigar holders and share certificates. He’d suspected nothing at the time, but now…

If he follows me, I’ll know for sure, he thought.

He walked out of the urinal and made straight for a barber’s shop where the window served as a convenient mirror. The man in the light-coloured suit had disappeared into the crowd.

A frantic wave of anglomania was transforming the neighbourhood into a little corner of London. Every shop was British, from opticians to hatters, not forgetting the tailors and bootmakers who all boasted the words ‘modern’ or ‘select’ in their signs. In contrast, the street vendors who pestered passers-by were unmistakably French.

‘Cool off with a refreshing coconut ice, ladies and gentlemen!’ shouted a trader, clanging his bell and stooping under the weight of his tinplate barrel.

‘In the Russian style, ladies, in the Russian style,’ shrieked the flower seller, pushing her cartload of variegated blooms, the violets the star of the show.

Edmond Leglantier bought a red carnation, which he put in his buttonhole, brushing aside a man peddling risqué photographs entitled Pauline’s Bath. Sluggish from the sweltering heat of late afternoon, he paused to consider whether to catch the Madeleine–Bastille omnibus or take a glass of quinquina at one of the tables outside the taverns.

He felt the weight of his briefcase and decided to continue on foot. He needed a clear head for the matter in hand.

He was greeted at the entrance to the club by a woman of gargantuan proportions nicknamed ‘La belle Circassienne’ although she came from Romorantin. She served the triple function of moneylender, fortune teller and purveyor of young flesh. As was the custom, Edmond Leglantier gave her a one-franc piece in exchange for a meaningful wink and the name of a young soprano singer in need of a benefactor.

‘Her name’s Rosalba, a dear plump little thing,’ the ogress whispered.

Edmond Leglantier declined with a smile.

The Méridien was an open club and thus allowed entry to both members and non-members alike. Its clientele consisted of artists, men and women of letters, socialites and captains of industry. They went there to lunch, to dine, to write their correspondence, but above all to gamble.

The main room, with its monumental fireplace, its walls covered in enamel plates – would-be reproductions of Bernard Palissy – and its gilded tables, was lit by five-branched chandeliers. Standing to attention near the hearth, a melancholy-looking fellow responsible for handing out the chips greeted Edmond Leglantier, who replied absentmindedly, ‘Hello, Monsieur Max.’ He surveyed the crowd gathered in one of the side rooms. It was the hour of the green fairy. The absinthe drinkers poured their magic potion drop by drop into a glass, filtering their poison through a sugar cube held in a slotted spoon. Card games were well under way. Excited by the activity around them, punters jostled eagerly for position around the banker. For some people, gambling was a true panacea. They expected the cards to provide enough money to live on. They played safe, weighing up the probabilities and placing bets only when they felt comfortable. They earned their living from gambling. But many others succumbed to the demon that could make or break them in a single hand, although their faces betrayed none of their dreadful anxiety. Only outside did they let their disappointment show.

This perennial drama was drowned out by snatches of trivial chat or profound observations. A neglected poet vented his spleen.

‘Novels and plays are churned out as if by machine. Today’s literary manufacturers cater to all tastes! I despise such publishers!’

‘What can I say, my friend, money is more important than art.’

‘Guess what he had the cheek to say to the author!’ bawled a gossip columnist. ‘“Monsieur, I’ve read your manuscript; choose your weapon.” Have you seen his new play? It doesn’t stand up at all; it’s completely overblown and then it just fizzles out! Ah! At last! Leglantier!’

A general murmur greeted the arrival of the man whom fellow club patrons considered as something of a mentor. A score of men in black tailcoats, most of them sporting monocles, immediately gathered round the manager of l’Échiquier. A heterogeneous bunch, they included military men, aristocrats and members of the middle classes, like the gossip columnist and the thwarted poet. Edmond Leglantier was good at smoothing away tensions. His inside knowledge of the latest Paris gossip, the favours he received from a few well-known actresses and the subtle way he had of denigrating his peers made him a leading light who was much in demand. And yet the moment his back was turned, his admirers attacked him viciously.

‘My dear fellow, we were just waiting for you in order to begin,’ exclaimed a retired colonel.

‘Apologies for the delay. I was so caught up in the renovations at the theatre that I lost all sense of time.’

‘And yet there’s a rumour going round that work has been suspended due to lack of funds.’

‘“Slander, Monsieur, I’ve seen honest men all but destroyed by it”,
¹¹
my dear Colonel de Réauville. Lady Luck will soon be smiling on me and I shall reap the full benefits!’

‘By what miracle?’

Edmond Leglantier spread out his twenty-five share certificates on the green baize.

‘Thanks to these beauties. It’s a pity I’m short of funds otherwise I’d have bought more. They’re about to soar – I’d swear to it.’

‘Ambrex? Never heard of it,’ remarked the gossip columnist.

‘Ah, that’s because the company isn’t listed on the stock market yet, but next month…Expect a
coup de théâtre
– rest assured this investment will revive my finances. Your health, gentlemen,’ he concluded, waving one of the shares in the air.

Colonel de Réauville muttered, ‘Ambrex, Ambrex, dashed funny name!’

‘Come on, Leglantier, stop beating about the bush. Tell us the whole story. What is this Ambrex?’ demanded an art dealer from Rue Laffitte.

‘There’s no mystery. Look,’ said Edmond Leglantier, holding up a cigar holder. ‘What do you suppose this is made of?’

‘Amber.’

‘Wrong. It’s a perfect imitation, an invention that will revolutionise the jewellery industry.’

‘Come on, Leglantier, we’ve all seen imitation amber before, it’s just yellow glass!’ exclaimed Colonel de Réauville.

‘This isn’t glass.’

‘Gum lacquer?’

‘No.’

‘Tortoiseshell?’

‘No, no! I assure you it’s an original formula. Believe me, I’d never have put money on this company if I wasn’t convinced of its success.’

He slipped the cigar holder into his pocket, pretended to hesitate then reopened his briefcase.

‘Here, a gift for the future audience of
Heart Pierced by an Arrow
. Help yourselves, and be sure to bring your wives, daughters and mistresses to Théâtre de l’Échiquier!’

Every man examined the cigar holders, going into raptures about their quality. The transparency, the colour, even the tiny insects trapped in the resin looked uncannily like Baltic amber.

‘I can’t tell the difference,’ muttered the gossip columnist.

‘The patent has just been registered,’ added Edmond Leglantier.

‘Are you in partnership with the inventor?’

‘He’s an acquaintance from my youth, who invited me in on the deal.’

‘Really…Well, I for one am interested,’ replied the art dealer.

‘We’re
all
interested,’ seconded a tall fellow with the handlebar moustache, close-cropped hair and florid complexion of a hussar.

‘My dear Coudray, this is a limited offer only. My “acquaintance” wants to start off slowly. As Racine wrote in
Les Plaideurs
, Act I, Scene 1: “He who will travel far…”’

‘All right,
chi va piano va sano,
we know the expression. Count me in anyway,’ Coudray went on. ‘I want fifty of these shares.’

‘And I’ll have seventy!’ said a man with a monocle.

‘I want fifty, too.’

‘Count me in! I’ll buy thirty.’

‘Don’t forget me! Forty!’

Edmond Leglantier began to chuckle.

‘Calm down, gentlemen, calm down; we’re not on the trading floor now. I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything. I’ll have to make sure there are enough to go round…’

He opened a jotter and began taking down the orders.

‘Two hundred and forty shares…Gentlemen, it’s your lucky day. I think I’m in a position to give you what you want. As long as the shares remain unlisted, I’m the intermediary, but we’ll need to act quickly. Meet me back here at seven o’clock this evening…Oh, and no promissory notes, cash only.’

Edmond Leglantier left. His performance had been such a resounding success that he allowed himself to pat La Circassienne’s behind on his way back out onto the Boulevard.

‘Fiddle dee dee! The simpletons! It’s in the bag. Let’s see, two hundred and forty times five hundred is a hundred and twenty thousand…sixty thousand for me! And if I manage to wheedle at least another hundred thousand francs out of that old codger the Duc de Frioul tonight, I’ll be in clover!’

A bare-headed young laundress smiled at him.

He doffed his hat and called out, ‘Mademoiselle, you are utterly delightful!’

He straightened up. The fair-haired man in the light-coloured suit was leaning against a lamppost. He kept looking at his watch as though waiting for a romantic tryst. Had he been spying on him ever since he arrived at the club?

Ecce homo,
¹²
thought Edmond Leglantier.

It occurred to him to approach the stranger, but he decided against it. He resisted a momentary urge to flee, and instead sat down at a table outside a café. He conjured up the face of the man who had hired him. Edmond Leglantier had sensed that beneath the easy-going exterior he was someone of formidable character and devilish intelligence: setting up a fraud of such complexity required total control of the situation. Was he having Leglantier tailed to make sure he didn’t try to swindle him? Edmond Leglantier shuddered. With a man like that he’d be well advised to play straight.

His shadow paced up and down, looking as though he were carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

‘They’d boo him off stage,’ Edmond Leglantier said to himself. ‘Well, that’s enough of that!’

Having ordered nothing, he walked back home, making sure he kept to the side streets. He forced himself not to turn round.

‘Remember Lot’s wife!’

When he reached the entrance to his building, he peered carefully about him, but his shadow was nowhere in sight.

Chapter Three

Tuesday 4 July

F
RÉDÉRIC
Daglan was peeling potatoes. The weather was mild and he felt safe in the middle of the overgrown garden with its riot of viburnum, bindweed and elderberry bushes threatening to invade the vegetable patch. Mother Chickweed lived at the foot of the fortifications, which had been built in order to protect Paris but had failed dismally to do so.
¹³

Two weeks earlier, when Frédéric Daglan had come to her, she had asked no questions. Anchise had sent him and that was recommendation enough; he could stay here and sleep in the shed, preparing the meals when she was out.

Mother Chickweed was about forty years old and fiercely independent. She had left her drunkard husband and found a way of making a living all year round.

She trudged the streets with her basket of wild grass flecked with white flowers, crying out, ‘Chickweed for your songbirds!’

The concierges, housewives and people working from home looked out for her every day. For the songbirds would soon stop chirping and tweeting if they didn’t have their chickweed. These tiny creatures hanging from the window jambs in cages were a symbol of happiness for the poor. They would always find a sou to buy chickweed even when times were hard.

By late spring, the herb was getting scarce, its season over, but Mother Chickweed continued to provide plantain spears and fresh millet for the local songbirds.

Frédéric Daglan gathered up the potato peelings in some old newspaper and was about to take them over to the rabbits when an article at the bottom of the page caught his eye. His face tensed. He checked the date on the newspaper: 22 June 1893.

Murder on Rue Chevreul

A man was stabbed to death yesterday at seven o’clock in the morning, on Rue Chevreul. The victim was an enamellist by the name of Léopold Grandjean. The police are questioning a witness…

‘Damn it!’ he cursed under his breath.

Later that evening

Paul Theneuil had been waiting outside the premises in the rain for a good quarter of an hour. For him, punctuality was a cardinal virtue, and he loathed wasting his time. He had received the telegram that morning, just after opening time, and had taken several minutes to digest its content. Standing next to the window of his office, he had looked down on the bustling print works below, fingering the blue paper before tearing it up. He hated feeling forced to obey what seemed more like a command than a request. What a nerve – pestering him now after they’d agreed to sever all contact once the transaction was completed!

Paul Theneuil was not a man to lose himself in conjecture; he left nothing to chance, and once he made a decision he stuck to it. Other than Monsieur Leuze, his book-keeper, none of his staff would ever dare question his orders. Paul Theneuil knew that this time he had a tough opponent on his hands, but he was a past master at playing with loaded dice, and he was not going to let anybody harass him.