The Murders at Impasse Louvain

by Richard Grindal

  This evening he had timed his arrival at the Café Corneille well, for the man he had been hoping to see could not himself have been there very long since he was still alone at a table. Pierre Duthrey was a journalist on the staff of Figaro and a man whose knowledge and judgement Gautier had come to respect. They had done each other small favours more than once in the past and had built up a mutual trust almost strong enough to be called an understanding.

  Gautier joined Duthrey at his table, ordered a café and a brandy and they exchanged the courtesies which come so readily to Frenchmen, each enquiring after the other’s state of health and then after the other’s wife and family.

  Then Gautier asked: ‘What is the press thinking about the affair at Impasse Louvain?’

  ‘Most of us are just sitting waiting for something to happen.’

  ‘And what do you imagine might happen?’

  Duthrey frowned, as though he were trying to crystallize his own ideas. ‘The newspapers are divided about that. Some, like Figaro, believe that Madame Hassler’s story is so preposterous that no sane person can be expected to believe it and that quite soon the real truth will explode. But there’s another school of thought which maintains that no one could possibly have invented such a bizarre and improbable tale and that therefore it must be true. They believe that soon the police will track down and arrest the criminals.’

  ‘What is your personal view?’

  ‘That politics are mixed up in this. Madame Hassler has powerful friends. You will know of course that the Juge d’Instruction in the case, Bertin, used to frequent her salon and they also say that your chief, Courtrand, is unusually well disposed towards her. Le Matin, a paper which always supported the late president, is sparing no effort to present Madame Hassler in the most favourable light. Given all these circumstances, I fear we may never be allowed to know the truth.’

  Gautier made no comment. Through loyalty to his superiors he did not wish to say anything that might suggest that Duthrey’s analysis of the situation was very like his own. He was saved from having to discuss the matter any further, for the time being at least, by the timely arrival of other friends who came to join them at their table. The murders at Impasse Louvain had not yet caught the attention of the public as one might have expected, mainly because all Paris was still talking of another sensation. The Due de Limoges, head of one of France’s leading families and more nobly born than much of Europe’s royalty, had only a few days previously obtained a legal separation from his American wife on the grounds of her lesbian relationship with a well-known actress.

  One of the regulars at the Café Corneille who had just joined Gautier and Duthrey, was a young lawyer and for the next twenty minutes he kept them entertained with scabrous and highly improbable stories of the legal proceedings. The evening was passing pleasantly enough until the arrival of another journalist, Charles Cros of Le Matin. Small, cocky and abrasive, Cros was a man whom Gautier both disliked and distrusted. Unlike Duthrey, the man from Le Matin was always ready to take advantage of a friendship or to betray a confidence if it would lead him to a headline.

  ‘So my paper was right?’ He asked Gautier with belligerent cheerfulness as soon as he had sat down at the table.

  ‘In what respect?’

  ‘All along we have maintained that Josephine Hassler did not murder her husband, in spite of the accusations that some newspapers were only too ready to level at her.’

  ‘Are you saying that her innocence has been established?’ Duthrey asked him.

  ‘Hasn’t your pal the inspector told you? She has identified two of the people who robbed and attacked her and the disguises which they used that night have been found.’

  ‘Is this true?’ Duthrey asked Gautier.

  ‘I cannot comment on a matter which is under judicial examination.’

  Cros laughed delightedly, emptied his glass of absinthe and banged it on the table to catch the attention of the waiter. ‘Better and better! If the police are still keeping this under wraps then Le Matin will have an exclusive story. Come, my friends, won’t all of you take a glass of wine with me to celebrate? You’ll read the full story tomorrow.’

  Half-an-hour later Gautier and Duthrey were alone again, this time walking away from the Café Corneille where Cros was still noisily inviting all around him to join in celebrating his scoop. They went towards the corner of the boulevard where a line of fiacres stood waiting, for Duthrey intended to return to the offices of Figaro.

  ‘Soon all the fiacres will be driven off the streets by these accursed motor cars,’ Duthrey was saying. ‘There was a nasty accident in the Champs Elysees this morning when a horse pulling a fiacre took fright at a passing motor car and bolted. A woman passenger in the fiacre was thrown out right under the wheels of a passing calèche.’

  ‘The motor omnibus will be the one to kill off the fiacres. Some idiot is already designing one.’

  ‘Has anyone stopped to think what that would mean for horses and horse breeders? Why, the Omnibus Company of Paris alone has nearly 20,000 horses in service.’

  ‘Figaro should start a campaign against the motor omnibus.’

  ‘That’s scarcely likely. Our director is crazy about combustion engines. He has already bought one of the new Dion automobiles.’

  ‘Then why don’t we sell the idea to Cros?’ Gautier used this device to turn the conversation round to Cros, because he knew Duthrey would be too tactful to do so. ‘After defending Madame Hassler, Le Matin can fight a battle for the horse.’

  Duthrey allowed a few moments to pass before he accepted the opening. ‘I wonder where he got that story which he was just crowing about.’

  ‘Not from us or the Ministry of Justice, so it could only have come from Madame Hassler herself.’

  ‘Then it’s true?’

  ‘I’m not a journalist,’ Gautier said, choosing his words deliberately, ‘but if I were, my report in tomorrow’s paper would read something like this: “Certain newspapers in Paris are today carrying a story to the effect that two of the criminals who broke into the house of Félix Hassler in Impasse Louvain last Saturday night and left him dead, as well as his mother-in-law, have been positively identified by his widow. We understand from a most reliable source that this is not the case. Two people were in fact questioned by the authorities yesterday evening, but they were able to satisfy the examining magistrate that they had played no part in the crime and they were not detained.” ’

  Duthrey pulled a notebook from his pocket and jotted down the essentials of what Gautier had told him. He laughed as he stepped into the first fiacre in the line. ‘Let me know when I can do you a favour, Jean-Paul.’

  * * *

  Dressed entirely in black and with her face hidden behind a heavy black veil, Josephine Hassler came into Gautier’s office looking like an actor playing Death in a medieval allegorical play. When she lifted the veil, however, it was to reveal not the pallor of death but a face flushed with indignation and eyes alight with anger.

  ‘I insist on seeing the director,’ she told Gautier imperiously. ‘Monsieur Courtrand will not be here for half-an-hour or more, Madame,’ Gautier replied.

  ‘It’s monstrous! Insufferable! Will you police never take any action? How long do we have to wait before you find the assassins of my husband and my dear mother?’

  ‘We are doing everything we can, Madame.’

  ‘You think so?’ Her words were hard and bright, with the cutting edge of diamonds. ‘Then let me tell you this, Inspector. I have friends who will see to it that you do much more, that you begin to pursue this case with energy and zeal instead of sitting indolently in your offices. People high above you, Monsieur; attorneys, judges, ministers even, will hear of how you are failing in your duty. Why should I have to endure the sneers and suspicions of the world while the real criminals remain at large and you idle your time away?’

  As she stormed on, Gautier watched her. She was right when she said that little progress had been mad
e in the case by the Sûreté. It was equally true that the press had been growing increasingly cynical about the affair at Impasse Louvain and more than one newspaper had declared openly that Josephine Hassler’s story was not to be believed and that she herself must be implicated in the crime. Even so, Gautier found himself wondering whether her show of indignation was genuine or whether her visit to the Sûreté that morning was another carefully-staged performance, designed to convince the police of her innocence.

  During the last day or so he had thought a good deal about the case and about what tactics the police should follow. So far they had been following routine procedure, checking possible leads and any facts which might corroborate Josephine Hassler’s account of what had happened at her house that evening. Now in his own mind, he was planning a new strategy, one based on the assumption that her whole story had been a string of lies. He had started to re-read everything in the dossier of the case, his notes, her statements, the reports of his subordinates and of the laboratories to see what evidence he could find which would incriminate her.

  ‘Our task has been made more difficult by you yourself, Madame,’ he said coldly.

  ‘What on earth can you possibly mean?’

  ‘The accusations which you made against the American York and the girl Verdurin wasted a great deal of the department’s time.’

  ‘I only said I thought they were the people who had broken into our house.’

  ‘We are as anxious as you are to discover who murdered your husband, Madame. And there is one way in which you can help us.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘The best chance of tracking down thieves in a case of robbery is by finding the missing property and that is not as difficult as you might imagine. There are only a limited number of ways in which a thief can dispose of stolen property and in cases where the robbery was accompanied by murder, it becomes even more difficult. Those who make a living out of handling stolen goods never like becoming involved in murder. It would help us if we had a detailed description of the jewelry which was stolen from you, so we knew exactly what to search for.’

  Josephine Hassler’s hesitation was only momentary. She looked at Gautier and he wondered whether she suspected that he might be trying to trap her into a lie. ‘You already have a description of the pieces which were taken from my boudoir.’

  ‘Yes, but what about the rest? Your rings and your mother’s jewelry?’

  She responded by describing each piece of jewelry and Gautier wrote down the descriptions. One of her three rings, she said, had been gold set with diamonds and sapphires, the second an eternity ring and the third a large solitaire emerald set in a claw mounting. Her mother’s wedding ring had her name and the date of the marriage inscribed on the inside of the gold band while the brooch was an oval shape set with pearls.

  ‘Counting the three pieces missing from your boudoir, that makes eight items altogether?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Right. We’ll have the list copied and send policemen round with it to every jeweller in Paris whom we know to be engaged in dubious business.’

  ‘I hope you are successful, Inspector.’ Josephine Hassler’s wrath appeared to have abated by this time and her tone was much friendlier as she went on: ‘No one can possibly understand how my daughter and I are suffering and will continue to suffer until those who did this dreadful thing are caught.’

  ‘So your daughter is back in Paris, then?’

  ‘Yes, the poor darling. And it is mainly for her sake that I want this affair brought to a speedy conclusion. You know she is to be married?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know.’

  ‘Yes, to a wonderful young man of very good family. And they have agreed not to see each other until this vile business is over and our family’s name has been cleared.’

  ‘That seems unduly harsh.’

  ‘Not at all. It’s a question of principle, one might say of honour. We can’t allow the young man’s family to be embarrassed by the scandal and by the newspaper publicity. So think of my poor darling Meg, Inspector, and of the price she is having to pay. Think of her unhappiness even if you cannot think of mine.’

  She treated Gautier to a persuasive, almost imploring smile. It was as though she had been probing for his most vulnerable points and, deciding he was not a man to be bullied, was now trying out her weapons of feminine appeal. She was one of those women, Gautier decided, who had developed the art of giving a man the impression that she lived alone in a delicious, secret world which he, and only he, was being invited to share.

  Soon, he felt, she would have been asking for promises, but before she reached the point of exploiting his chivalry, a policeman came into the room with a message. The director had arrived in his office and would be only too delighted to see Madame Hassler.

  After she had left his room, Gautier sent for Surat and told him: ‘I want that woman followed when she leaves the Sûreté, but not by any of us. Do you know of anyone who could do it discreetly?’

  ‘I have just the man. He’s always to be found at the café around the corner and I’ve used him before. He’ll do anything for five francs.’

  ‘I should hope so. That’s twice what many people earn in a day. You’ll need to give him money for fiacres as well, because Josephine Hassler is not the type to travel in anything so vulgar as an omnibus. Hurry along and fix it up. She may not be with the director more than half-an-hour or so.’

  Surat left and Gautier made out a list of all the jewelry which Josephine Hassler had claimed had been stolen from her house with an exact description of each piece. He sent the list to be copied with instructions that a copy should be circulated to the police commissariat in every arrondissement, while at the same time three men should start making a tour of every disreputable jeweller in the city to see whether any of the pieces had already been sold.

  He had scarcely completed these arrangements and was about to resume his study of the dossier of the case when another messenger arrived from Courtrand.

  ‘The director wants this statement circulated to all daily newspapers,’ he told Gautier, holding out a sheet of paper.

  The statement read:

  The Director of the Sûreté wishes it to be known that the rumours now circulating to the effect that Madame Josephine Hassler was implicated in the murder of her husband and her mother are entirely without foundation. The police have ample evidence to show that the murders were committed by intruders who broke into the Hasslers’ house to rob them and they are confident that the criminals will be apprehended in the very near future.

  Signed: Courtrand.

  When the messenger had left and he was alone, Gautier put his hands over his eyes in despair and exclaimed: ‘Mother of God! The man’s gone off his head!’

  VIII

  NEXT MORNING SURAT came into Gautier’s office with the report of the agent whom he had hired to follow Josephine Hassler. After leaving the Sûreté, she had apparently gone to a couturier in Rue St Honoré where she had spent almost two hours. From there she had walked to the Ritz Hotel, stopping at two or three shops on the way. Surat’s man had not thought of making a note of the names of these shops – he was not after all trained in police work – but one of them had been a jewellers, he was sure of that. When she reached the Rue Cambon entrance of the Ritz, he had wisely made no attempt to follow her into the hotel, realizing that he would never have got past the doorman. Instead he had made a few enquiries in a nearby café to which the chambermaids and waiters from the Ritz often slipped out for a drink. From there he had learned that the lady in the black veil had been shown up to a private apartment where she had lunched with a certain Colonel de Clermont. She had spent almost three hours in the Ritz and on leaving had been driven in a fiacre straight home.

  ‘Interesting!’ Gautier commented when Surat had delivered the report. ‘And have you been able to find out anything about this colonel?’

  ‘Only that he stays fairly frequently at the R
itz and has a home in the country, the Chateau d’Ivry.’

  ‘Nothing more?’

  ‘The Chateau d’Ivry is situated not far from Beaucourt, the village where Madame Hassler was born.’

  ‘Even more interesting! This colonel must be a very special friend of the Hassler woman if only a few days after her husband is murdered she is indiscreet enough to go and lunch with him and unchaperoned at that. We must get to know more about him.’

  ‘How, patron?’

  ‘Go down to the Chateau d’Ivry and make enquiries, but tactfully. At this stage it will be better if our colonel doesn’t know that we’re interested in him. And while you’re there go to Beaucourt as well. The local gossips may know of a connection between the Hassler woman and the colonel. Perhaps they were lovers when she was young. Find out whatever you can.’

  ‘Well, I hope I have more luck there than we’ve had in Paris so far.’

  The tone of this last remark, a compound of pessimism and cynicism, was quite out of character for Surat, and Gautier recognized in his subordinate’s mood a reflection of his own. Everyone in the Sûreté who had been working on the Impasse Louvain case was beginning to be infected by the same feeling. No one liked the case. No progress was being made, every attempt to trace the criminals had ended abortively, the search for the stolen jewelry had proved fruitless. Policemen were beginning to suspect that they were working on a dead case, one which they were not expected nor even required to solve. So they went through the motions of working on it, but without enthusiasm and without conviction. What made matters worse was that the press were now openly saying that there was a conspiracy to conceal the truth and that people in high places were being protected.

  For some days now Gautier had thought it was his duty to speak to the Director on the subject. Cynicism led to a loss of morale which, although it might not affect the outcome of the Impasse Louvain case, would be damaging to future efficiency. Courtrand appeared totally unaware of the sense of malaise in the department and remained urbane, pompous and confident; so confident that Gautier found himself wondering whether his own judgement might be at fault and had said nothing.