The Hanged Man (35 page)

“It's no joke, Lefebvre,” Rousseau snorted. “I've the best chance of identifying him, but without a disguise he'd recognize me on the spot.”

“I'm sorry, old man,” Achille said, and smirked, “but you do look elegant in that outfit. Perhaps the railway will take you on when you retire from the force.”

Rousseau shook his head with a frown. “Enough clowning, Achille. I know it helps when we're all on edge, but he could show up at any minute, armed and desperate. Have your men closed off all his escape routes?”

“He'll be blocked if he tries to go through the station or to cross over to the hotel. His only way out is through the rail yard.”

“What good would that do him?” Rousseau asked.

“I haven't a clue,” Achille replied. “Maybe he could climb the Pont de l'Europe?”

“How the hell would he do that?” Rousseau growled.

“Damned if I know.”

“Then we'll be up against a trapped rat; there's nothing worse. God help us if he grabs a hostage.” Rousseau looked up the platform. “Where is the bastard? The Le Havre train's on schedule; it must be nearing the Batignolles tunnel.” His eyes darted around the milling throng. After a moment, he grabbed Achille's arm and whispered in his ear, “Keep quiet, and look over there.”

Rousseau nudged Achille in the direction of a man entering the platform with a Gladstone bag in his left hand. He was a young man wearing a nondescript brown suit and a slouch hat with the brim pulled down low over his forehead.

“Do you see him?” Rousseau hissed. “That's Rossignol.”

Achille tapped Legros's arm and then signaled his men with a hand to his bowler's brim. A squad of plainclothes detectives and gendarmes began closing in on the subject. As soon as the man stopped, the police halted and waited for another signal from Achille.

“He's mine, Lefebvre,” Rousseau snapped and began moving toward de Gournay.

Achille grabbed the inspector's coat sleeve. “Don't be a fool. Let's take him as we planned.”

Rousseau shook him off. “It's my affair!”

The blast of the signalman's horn echoed through the train shed, the express train arriving on time. “Damn him,” Achille muttered. He turned to Legros. “Follow me.”

The express chugged into the platform bay, enveloped in a cloud of steam. The crowd stirred as the train screeched to a halt. Rousseau approached the suspect rapidly; he was more than two meters ahead of Achille and Legros. A great arm extended; a strong hand gripped the suspect's shoulder.

“You're under arrest, de Gournay!” Rousseau bellowed.

In an instant, de Gournay spun around, whipped out a British Bulldog, and aimed. Rousseau swatted at the pistol, knocking it out of de Gournay's hand and deflecting the shot, but not before the Bulldog barked. A .44 caliber ball slammed into Rousseau's shoulder. Rousseau staggered from the impact and lost his grip on the prisoner. De Gournay turned and fled up the platform, shoving aside screaming passengers and swinging his heavy Gladstone bag to clear the way.

Achille and Legros ran to Rousseau, with the plainclothes detectives close behind. Three officers continued pursuing de Gournay while Achille and Legros stopped to aid their fallen comrade.

Rousseau grasped his bleeding shoulder and swore. When Achille tried to help him, he exclaimed, “Damn it, Achille, I'm all right. Get after him!”

Without a moment's hesitation, Achille dashed up the platform, his strong rower's legs soon outpacing the other pursuing officers. He fixed his eyes on his quarry, running several meters ahead.

“Stop!
Sûreté!
” he cried, but only once to save his breath. As he neared the end of the train shed, his lungs and muscles ached, and he regretted his coffee-and-cigarette diet. When he reached the vast excavation through which trains entered and exited the station, a gust caught his bowler and blew it onto the tracks.

De Gournay ran on past startled switchmen and signalmen, into the brightly lit expanse of the rail yard. Far above, the light on the signal tower flashed red as a flaming star. As he gained on the fugitive, Achille wondered,
Where is he going? What's in the bag?

Two blasts of a horn signaled an approaching train. In the near distance, on the other side of the Pont de l'Europe, an express roared out of the tunnel at forty miles per hour. Men rushed to throw switches; the light on the tower turned green. De Gournay jumped off the platform and sprinted across three lines of double track. A signalman shouted a warning.

Achille kept running toward the switching hut at the end of the platform.
Crazy bastard! He'll never make it.
He bent over next to a signalman, gasping for air as the train rushed by.

Achille caught his breath and straightened up, and turned toward the signalman. “I'm Lefebvre of the
Sûreté
. That man's a fugitive. Did he make it?”

The man pointed toward a concrete abutment on the other side of the sunken roadway. “Look over there, Monsieur.”

De Gournay was standing on the abutment. He had opened the bag and set it down on the pavement. He pulled out a rope attached to a grappling hook, swung the hook around, and cast it toward the bridge's iron latticework guardrail. It bounced off the railing.

Achille grabbed his revolver. “Is it safe to cross?”

“Yes, Monsieur, if you're quick about it!”

Achille leapt off the platform and ran over the tracks, just as Legros and the three pursuing officers reached the switching hut.

The grappling hook took hold on the second try. De Gournay was climbing the masonry pier as Achille mounted the abutment.

“Give it up, de Gournay!” he cried. “I'll shoot!”

De Gournay ignored the warning; he was within reach of the girders. Achille fired a shot above the fugitive's head that ricocheted off the pier. De Gournay kept climbing. Achille's second shot ripped into de Gournay's lower back, near the spine. He screamed, dangled by one hand for a moment, and then fell backwards onto the concrete three meters below.

Smoking revolver in hand, Achille walked to his quarry and stared down into the fading eyes. De Gournay gazed up at the inspector. A tear streamed down his pale cheek; blood foamed and bubbled on quivering lips.

“Was it worth it?” Achille murmured.

Legros and the detectives ran to him. “Should we call for an ambulance?” Legros asked.

“Yes, for Inspector Rousseau,” Achille replied. “As for this one, he's meat for the Morgue.”

De Gournay heard these words, and nothing more.

Rousseau occupied a ward bed at the Hôtel-Dieu, the recently rebuilt hospital located conveniently near both police headquarters and the Morgue. Curtains surrounded the cramped bed, providing a modicum of privacy, though the flimsy partitions could not screen out the occasional cries and groans of the other patients.

Achille sat on a crude wooden chair crammed between the bed and a table upon which rested a glass and pitcher, a spoon, two brown medicine bottles, and the morning newspaper.

“Are the sisters taking good care of you?” Achille inquired of Rousseau.

The inspector grimaced. “The nuns are like prison guards—cold, ugly, and efficient. They feed me swill three times a day and empty the chamber pot when the crap comes out the other end.”

Achille smiled. “According to the surgeon, you won't be here much longer. The wound's clean and you're healing well.”

Rousseau shifted about and scratched at his dressing. “It itches like the devil,” he grumbled. “They say that's a good sign. Anyway, I'm like the great Napoleon. ‘The bullet that will kill me is not yet cast.'”

Achille contemplated his former partner with mixed feelings. He questioned Rousseau's methods, especially the brutal treatment of prisoners. In addition, Rousseau's rash departure from Achille's plan to arrest de Gournay could have resulted in tragedy. On the other hand, Achille admired Rousseau's bravery and tenacity. And, as Chief Féraud indicated, the two inspectors would have to continue working together for the common good.

“I'll never question your motives or actions at the railway station,” he said. “You disarmed a dangerous criminal and took a bullet in defense of the public and your brother officers. That's what I put in my report.”

“That's generous of you, Achille, and well-spoken—as befits a chief of detectives. Your promotion is certain. Féraud and I go back many years. We've remained close, and he still confides in me. He's already recommended you to succeed him. Féraud has a nice pension along with his Officers' Cross. He's retiring to the country to live like a gentleman. I can see him resting beneath a willow tree on the bank of a stream, his fishing rod tucked under an arm and a jug of wine at his side, snoring away while crafty trout snatch the bait off his hook. You'll take his place in Paris, reeling in the murderers and crooks.”

“As you said, you and the chief go back a long way. I suppose you know him better than anyone on the force.”

“We've known each other twenty-five years, and more. He was my sergeant when I was a green kid fresh off the street. He taught me everything I know. We're nothing but old bones now, like the dinosaurs. You and Legros are the future. For what it's worth, I think Legros is a damn good man. I credit you for bringing him along.”

“The prefect and Féraud consider the case closed,” Achille said, changing the subject. “We were lucky with the bomb; Professor Martin defused it just in time. The prosecutor has charged Moreau and Wroblewski with the murders of Kadyshev and Boguslavsky. The
juge
is certain they'll both get the guillotine. Renard will testify against them and receive a light sentence.

“The government is suppressing the facts surrounding the attempted assassination and bombing, as the minister was here incognito. Officially, de Gournay died while resisting arrest as an accomplice to the murders.

“The Russians are pleased—as is our government. And the public is satisfied as well. People in high places will profit from the shared explosives formula and the improved relations that could lead to a Franco-Russian alliance. But I'm damned if I know why de Gournay acted as he did. Who paid him to take such a risk, and how much?

“I saw de Gournay on a slab at the Morgue. The poor devil had no penis. That's why he hid himself from Delphine. Imagine having to live as a man with something like that.” Achille shook his head and sighed. “Perhaps Rossignol is one of those great mysteries we weren't meant to solve.”

Rousseau rolled his eyes in the direction of the newspaper resting on the bedside table. “Have you read the latest edition of
Les Amis de la Vérité?”

“No, I have not.”

“You should, my friend. They're piping the tune and all the others are joining the dance. I read paragraph after paragraph about M. Lefebvre, France's greatest detective. I get two lines. I know them by heart: ‘Inspector Rousseau received a wound in the line of duty. His doctors say he is making rapid progress toward a complete recovery.'

“I understand you and Adele will dine with the prefect when you return from Trouville. Monsieur and Madame Junot are sure to be there. Be careful, Achille. You may find the salons of the rich and powerful more treacherous than the back alleys of Montmartre.”

Achille stared at his hands. After a moment, he looked up and said, “Orlovsky wants a meeting at my earliest convenience.”

Rousseau screwed up his face in disgust. “Watch out for Orlovsky. He's a serpent. The Okhrana likes to divert attention from their crimes by pointing fingers at convenient scapegoats. This time it was the anarchists; tomorrow it might be the Marxists, or the Tsar's favorite villains, the Jews. Orlovsky's already scheming with the anti-Semitic journalists here in Paris.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

The partition curtain stirred and then drew back, revealing a nun bearing a steaming bowl of broth on a tray. Achille rose from his chair and respectfully removed his hat.

Rousseau grinned sarcastically. “Ah, here comes Sister Clare with my afternoon dose of rat poison.”

The nun pointedly ignored Rousseau. She placed the tray on the table and then turned to Achille with a smile. “We're honored by your presence, M. Lefebvre. All France is grateful for your service.”

Achille flushed crimson. “Thank you, sister,” he murmured.

Rousseau laughed until his wound ached.

12

Laws are spider webs through which the big
flies pass and the little ones get caught.

—Honoré de Balzac

TROUVILLE

F
aites vos jeux, mesdames et messieurs!”

The starter made his familiar call for bets. Adele ventured two francs on Number 4, the handsome tin jockey in green silks. She received her ticket and dropped two francs into the betting cup. The
Salle des Petits Jeux
filled with a clamor of players gathered around the tables, the most vociferous action emanating from the crowd surrounding the
Petits-Chevaux
track. Men and women reached out with their one- and two-franc bets; little boys and girls jumped up and down and tugged at their parents' sleeves, begging them to place a wager on their favorite ponies.