Gautier thought about what she had told him and then asked her: ‘Can you remember if there was anyone else in the house at the time? Any visitors?’
‘Yes. His wife was entertaining some man; an important man I believe. I remember thinking that if the man outside in the lane was a detective, then he was more likely to be working for the wife of the man downstairs, but I didn’t want to hurt Hassler by saying so.’
Gautier was beginning to realize that Claudine’s determination to prove her independence and her sometimes aggressive sense of humour were only a facade behind which lay qualities of sympathy and kindness. She reminded him in some ways of Monique, a little dressmaker’s assistant who had been his mistress for almost two years. Though she was much less intelligent than Claudine, Monique had liked to think of herself as sophisticated, but often when they were alone, her innocence and credulity had shown through. Almost the only domestic problem which she had caused him was on the night of 31 December 1899, when she had insisted that he had spent the night with her, because she was convinced that the world was going to end with the millenium at midnight. When midnight passed and nothing happened, she had been furious with Gautier.
Dragging himself back from the past he asked Claudine: ‘Did you by any chance see the man who was waiting outside Hassler’s house that day?’
‘Yes, I did. Félix was so anxious that he made me go to the window to look at the fellow. He wanted to know if I thought he looked like a detective, though how I was supposed to know that God knows.’
‘Can you remember what he looked like?’
‘Nondescript really, but he was stylishly dressed for a detective: long belted overcoat, a brown Derby hat and spats.’
‘Would you recognize him if you saw him again?’
‘I well might. He was not far from the house and looked up at Félix and me quite openly. Clearly he wasn’t worried about whether anybody saw him there or not.’
Claudine could remember nothing more about the Hassler household which would have been worth telling Gautier. So they finished their meal and lingered over another bottle of wine. He learned that her mother had been a circus rider at the Nouveau Cirque. Lady riders in the many circuses in Paris were usually beautiful and much admired by clubmen. They could earn as much as 10,000 francs in a year and the famous Nouveau Cirque near Place Vendome was the most chic in Paris. Claudine’s father, she told him, had been the youngest son of a duke and her mother, returning too soon to the circus after her pregnancy, had fallen from her horse and broken her hip so badly that she could never perform again.
‘She got a job selling vegetables in the Halles,’ Claudine added.
‘Surely your father made provision for her?’
‘I like to think that he would have done but the duchess his mother, afraid that he might even marry my mother, packed him off to Africa before I was born. He died out there of dysentery not a long afterwards.’
‘And your mother?’
‘We managed all right. Then two years ago she caught a sudden pneumonia and died.’
They walked back to her apartment together. Claudine had insisted on paying for the dinner. It cost only four francs, wine included, and she told him laughingly that there would still be enough left of the price he had paid for her painting to let her eat for three more days. Gautier could not decide whether she was being serious or not.
‘You’ve helped me,’ he said abruptly, half afraid that his next remark would be misunderstood, yet meaning it. ‘And I’d like to do something for you in return.’
‘If you feel like that you can,’ she replied, surprising him once again.
‘What?’
‘Let me paint you.’
They had reached the house where she lived and stopped outside the door. He laughed. ‘You can’t possibly be serious.’
‘Of course I am. You have an interesting face, craggy and masculine, but interesting. Anyway I can’t afford a professional model.’
He laughed again, still believing she was mocking him. Raising one hand she traced with her finger the line of his face from cheek to chin.
‘It won’t mean many sittings,’ she said persuasively, ‘for I work very fast. Come just whenever you feel like it.’
XII
SURAT’S TRIP TO the region of Beaucourt and Montbeliard was far more productive than he had expected. When he returned to Paris his pessimism had disappeared and he came into Gautier’s office with all his former enthusiasm. First of all he told Gautier what he had found out about the man with whom Josephine Hassler had lunched at the Ritz Hotel.
Colonel Gerard de Clermont it appeared, resided in the Chateau d’Ivry, just over ten kilometres to the south-west of Beaucourt. He was descended from a minor branch of the Clermont-Polignac family, one of France’s oldest and most aristocratic dynasties. His parents, however, had been far from rich and unable to maintain more than a modest household on their country estate at Fontainebleau or in their Paris apartment. Since Gerard was the third of seven sons, it had been decided that he must enter the army and after training at St Cyr, he had been commissioned in the Hussars. In his early 30’s he had left the army, some said he had been forced to resign after a scandal, and shortly afterwards he had married the Comtesse de Balincourt, a widow with three daughters, sixteen years older than de Clermont and the owner through inheritance from her husband of the Chateau d’Ivry.
Herself the daughter of an industrialist from Rouen, Madame de Balincourt had been wealthy in her own right and it had been her money that had paid for the restoration and upkeep of the Chateau d’Ivry. After his marriage to the comtesse, Colonel de Clermont lived the life of a country landowner and about three years previously his wife had died. Since that time two of his stepdaughters had married, leaving the youngest to live at the chateau and keep house for the colonel.
‘What do the locals feel about this colonel?’ Gautier asked Surat.
‘He’s not popular, even though he’s obviously wealthy and lives in style, which must be good for the local tradespeople. But they complain that he’s arrogant and ill-tempered and treats his servants badly, sometimes violently.’
‘Any scandals?’
None. He seems to be a man of high moral rectitude and a regular church-goer. On the other hand he pays frequent visits to Paris and the gossips hint that the motive for these is a woman.’ What’s your opinion?’
Surat shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s hard to say. He’s a member of the Cercle Agricole which could be a reason for coming to Paris.’
‘To play cards with his fellow clubmen? Could be, I suppose.’ While I was down there I did a little research at the local newspaper office,’ Surat said, ‘and I found out something which will interest you much more than Colonel de Clermont.’
He took a wallet from the breast-pocket of his jacket and from it produced a newspaper cutting. Before he could hand it to Gautier, they were interrupted as Courtrand burst into the room. Only on rare occasions did the director visit the offices of any of his subordinates and it was usually a sign that he was displeased. Today was no exception.
‘Is it true that you sent Surat down to the village where Madame Hassler was born?’ he asked Gautier angrily.
‘Yes, at least to that region. I wanted him to make enquiries about a man who she has been meeting secretly.’
‘Are you deliberately flouting my authority?’ So great was his rage that Courtrand had difficulty in standing still.
‘Of course not.’
‘I have already made a public declaration that Madame Hassler is not implicated in the murders in any way. What are people going to think if it is known that we are still trying to find evidence that would link her with the crimes? That I am a liar? Or simply that I don’t know what’s going on in my department? It’s intolerable.’
‘I felt we should continue to explore every possibility,’ Gautier said, ‘until we find one piece of real evidence.’
‘Are you stupid?’ Courtrand ranted on, ig
noring what Gautier had said. ‘Do you really believe that a woman like Madame Hassler, educated, cultured, respected, would kill her own mother? You’re as bad as the newspapers!’
‘I’m only saying that her story is impossible to believe.’
‘The decision to believe or not to believe does not rest with you, Gautier. Kindly stop wasting the time and money of my department and confine your investigations to those matters on which I direct you.’
He left the room as noisily as he had entered it. Gautier felt a hot surge of anger as he watched him go. To be rebuked in such tones in front of a subordinate was humiliating enough, but he resented still more the injustice of the rebuke. Courtrand was not an idiot and he must be fully aware that Josephine Hassler’s account of what had happened at Impasse Louvain was flimsy and wholly improbable. The Sûreté, if it were to carry out its duty, must search for evidence that would either confirm her story or destroy it. If Courtrand wished to sweep the whole affair under the carpet, then he should have been honest and told Gautier so.
‘What’s eating the old man?’ Surat asked when the two of them were alone.
‘The press has been having a go at him. They’re hinting that he used to be one of the Hassler woman’s lovers and that’s why he’s trying to cover up for her.’
‘Perhaps you should have shown him this.’
Surat handed Gautier the newspaper clipping he was holding and which he had been going to give him when Courtrand interrupted them. It was a report cut from a regional paper dated more than twenty years previously. Gautier read it through once and then a second time, thoughtfully.
‘No, I think it might be better if we didn’t make this public,’ he said.
Surat looked stunned. ‘Are you saying we should ignore it?’
‘Not at all. What I said was that we shouldn’t make it public. Perhaps someone else could do the job for us—and better. Leave the cutting with me.’
After Surat had left his office, Gautier telephoned Figaro. He was told that Duthrey had not arrived at his desk but was expected at any moment, so he left a message asking the journalist to meet him at the Café Corneille as soon as he could manage it.
The day was warm and sunny, so he walked to the Corneille and arriving there found a table on the pavement outside. Thinking that it was too early in the day for an absinthe or an aperitif, he ordered a glass of Alsatian beer and as he sipped it thought about what Surat had told him that morning. Wealthy, aristocratic, arrogant, fastidious, Colonel de Clermont seemed to him exactly the type of man who would appeal to Josephine Hassler. Gautier would have liked to know more about the colonel, to dig more deeply into their relationship, but to do so would mean defying Courtrand’s instructions. So long as Courtrand was determined to keep the lid tightly down on the Impasse Louvain affair, nothing could be done. He had already decided that Courtrand’s hand must be forced and the lid lifted.
When Duthrey arrived at the café, Gautier did not waste time on civilities. He said to the journalist: ‘You asked me the last time we met to let you know if you could ever do me a favour.’
‘What is it?’
He handed Duthrey the newspaper report that Surat had given him. ‘One of my men came across this in Montbeliard. It’s a clipping from the Voix de L’Est of a story which the paper printed in 1881. You know, of course, that Josephine Hassler was born and brought up not far from Montbeliard. It would be quite helpful if you could use this clipping in your own distinctive way.’
Duthrey read the report through and when he had finished whistled in astonishment. ‘Use it? My God, with this I can lift the roof right off the Ministry of Justice!’
* * *
Reading Duthrey’s piece in Figaro next morning added enormously to Gautier’s enjoyment of a breakfast already pleasurable for being leisurely and late. It was his turn for a late duty at the Sûreté that day, starting at noon, and although in the normal way when he was working on a major case, he did not bother about the hours he worked, this time he had decided to follow the rules. By doing so he would avoid being at the Sûreté when Duthrey’s story broke and when ministers, prefects and judges began to show their wrath. After so many scandals in recent years – a president’s son-in-law selling decorations, a minister of education having little girls procured for him, the Panama swindle – people in high places had become extremely sensitive to newspaper attacks. Keeping out of the way was not moral cowardice on the part of Gautier, but a modest piece of revenge. Courtrand had been protecting Josephine Hassler; let him be there when the storm broke.
He read through Duthrey’s article again:
THE MURDERS AT IMPASSE LOUVAIN
Who Will Believe Josephine Hassler Now?
Little progress has so far been made by the authorities in solving the riddles which surround the infamous murders at Impasse Louvain. Many of our readers have been wondering why. Was it because that gentle magistrate, Bertin, when examining the beautiful Josephine spent too much time in reminiscing about the cultured evenings he had spent in her salon? Was it perhaps that the chief of the Sûreté, Gustave Courtrand, was so seduced by the charm of Josephine that he preferred basking in the soft glances of her dark eyes to following the trail of the murderers? Could it have been that the two of them actually believed the fantastic story Madame Hassler had told about that fateful night, that they believed in the bearded men and the long cloaks and the lanterns?
When in the past this newspaper has declared that Madame Hassler’s story was unbelievable we have been accused of cynicism. Magistrates, police, even a section of our readers have spoken up in her defence. ‘What she says must be true,’ they cried, ‘for no one could possibly have invented such an unlikely story.’
Today we have another story to tell; a story which took place in the town of Montbeliard more than twenty years ago; a story reported in the local newspaper at the time, which we have verified as true from police records.
One night in April 1878 the peace of Montbeliard was rudely shattered when the door of a house in the centre of the town burst open and a maidservant rushed out into the street shouting for help. Those who went to her assistance found in the house an elderly schoolmaster and his wife bound to their beds by their wrists and ankles, their mouths gagged with cottonwool. When released, the couple said they had been attacked in their beds by intruders, two men with red beards and a monstrously ugly woman, all of them wearing long cloaks and carrying lanterns and pistols. The schoolmaster’s wife declared that her life had been threatened and that she had been forced to tell the robbers where the key to the strongbox in which they kept their savings was hidden.
Despite extensive searches and enquiries, the police were unable to find any trace of the supposed intruders and eventually they abandoned their efforts and the case was closed. It was only years later when the schoolmaster died that his wife came forward and admitted that the whole affair had been deliberately staged by her husband and herself in order to cover up the fact that they had embezzled some school funds with which they had been entrusted.
We scarcely need to remind our readers that Josephine Hassler spent her girlhood at Beaucourt, less than an hour’s journey from Montbeliard. At the time when these events took place she travelled regularly to Montbeliard for lessons in the pianoforte and in dancing. Moreover her maternal grandparents as it happens kept the Red Lion inn which is situated in the same street as the house in which the schoolmaster lived and only a very short distance away.
And today what are we to believe? That Josephine Hassler never heard of this bogus robbery which, in a town as small as Montbeliard must have created a sensation? That she did not hear about the red beards, the long black cloaks, the cottonwool gags? That she was not aware that in spite of all their efforts the police in Montbeliard were unable to prove what really had happened? If we believe this then we may even believe that the events she has described really did happen in Impasse Louvain and that she is just the victim of a coincidence even more bizarre than h
er own story.
We must leave our readers to judge for themselves, since it is too much to expect that Judge Bertin and Director Courtrand would be so ungallant as to question the honesty of such a seductive lady.
Gautier put down the newspaper and finished his croissant. Suzanne was sitting facing him across the table, holding her cup of coffee in both hands, blowing on it gently. Not for the first time he noticed that although she was not quite 30, she was beginning to show signs of impending middle-age. Physically she had scarcely changed, her face had retained its almost childish prettiness and there was none of that fleshiness around her waist and buttocks which in a woman often marks the final departure of youth. It was her gestures and her attitudes, the way she was holding her cup, the way she pulled her dressing-gown tightly around her, which showed that subconsciously she was moving towards the comfort and repose of middle-age.
He remembered Claudine when she sat facing him across another table not so long ago. Eager, combative, ready for any challenge, Claudine was a generation apart from Suzanne. Was this, he thought, the reason why men were unfaithful? A sudden realization not that they had outgrown their wives, but that their wives had grown older than them.
Putting the thought out of his mind, he finished his breakfast and set out for the Sûreté. When he arrived, a messenger was waiting inside the entrance to tell him that Courtrand required his presence urgently. He went up to the director’s office on the first floor, prepared for a major row but also ready to enjoy it, knowing now that right was on his side.
Courtrand was at his desk, signing a pile of reports that represented the work of the previous day on a score of crimes. He kept Gautier waiting until he had finished and then looked up at him calmly.
‘You’ve seen the article in Figaro, I suppose?’
‘Yes.’
‘A pity we had to allow the newspapers to make this important discovery. Surat could have more usefully spent his time in the local newspaper office in Montbeliard, than chasing around after some superannuated colonel.’
The Murders at Impasse Louvain Page 8
