Gautier wanted to burst out laughing in admiration. Bloody little bantam cock, he thought, there’s simply no way of repressing him. Cheek, bombast and a thick skin, that’s what one needed to be Director of the Sûreté.
‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ Courtrand said, like a king bestowing the accolade of knighthood, ‘because you should be present when I speak to Madame Hassler.’
‘You’ve sent for her then?’
‘She’s already here, waiting in another room. Just tell my assistant to go and fetch her, will you?’
Gautier relayed this message to the director’s personal assistant who worked in an adjoining office not much larger than a cupboard. Josephine must have been waiting not too far away because after only a few seconds she was ushered into Courtrand’s office. As on the last occasion when Gautier had seen her, she was dressed completely in black, but he noticed that now she was wearing a different veil, a superb piece of Brussels lace which showed enough of her features to provoke admiration rather than sympathy.
Courtrand came straight to the point. He said: ‘Have you by any chance read Figaro this morning, Madame?’
‘Certainly not! I refuse to read a paper that has constantly been defaming me.’
‘Then perhaps, Madame, you should listen while I read this article to you.’
Slowly and precisely he read the whole of Duthrey’s article aloud, determined, it seemed, that she should hear and understand every innuendo. Josephine Hassler had lifted her veil when she sat down and Gautier watched her as Courtrand was reading. A twitching of the lips was the first sign of emotion which she showed and then slowly her face took on a hunted expression. She closed her eyes, either to conceal the fear which showed in them or to help her concentrate as her mind raced wildly, searching for an escape.
‘Well, Madame,’ Courtrand said, putting down the newspaper, ‘And what have you to say to that?’
‘It’s untrue,’ Josephine Hassler whispered and Gautier could see that she was trembling.
‘What is untrue? The story you told us about the night your husband and your mother were murdered?’
‘No, what the newspaper says. They’ve invented the story about Montbeliard to trick me into an admission.’
‘No, Madame. What they say has been checked with police files. The incident at Montbeliard took place exactly as they describe it.’
‘In that case I know nothing about it. Why should I have heard of it? I was only a child at the time.’
‘You must have been all of eighteen.’
‘At that age I never read newspapers. My father believed that we children should be educated in a civilized and cultured way, reading only the best books, learning music, art and deportment He used to tell me that newspapers were full of lies and scandals and totally unfit for young girls of refinement.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Courtrand said with cruel sarcasm. ‘And I suppose your grandparents, the innkeepers, would have been too refined to talk about the affair even though it happened in their street and caused a sensation in the town?’
‘I can only repeat that I heard nothing of it,’ Josephine Hassler said and there was a note of despair in her stubbornness.
‘The examining magistrate will decide whether you are to be believed.’
‘Monsieur Bertin knows I am incapable of lying.’
‘Bertin is no longer responsible for this case,’ Courtrand said brusquely. ‘Because of the articles in the press he has been relieved and Loubet is taking charge.’
‘Is this a conspiracy?’ Josephine Hassler asked. ‘Am I to be hounded not only by the papers and the public but by the police and Ministry of Justice as well?’ She rose to her feet, drawing the threadbare vestiges of her dignity around her. ‘I can see no reason why I must endure your slanders and your questions any longer.’
Courtrand held up one hand. Wait, Madame, until you have heard the rest of what I have to say.’
She sat down again. ‘And what is that?’
‘It concerns the rings which you reported as stolen.’
‘I have explained about the rings.’
‘You told us that you had two sets and that the ones which were stolen were those your husband had given you.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Regrettably we know that statement to be false, Madame. What you did not realize is that every piece of jewelry has a mark by which it can be recognized and all jewellers are required to keep a register of every piece they make and sell. We have checked the records and established that the rings which you took in to be re-shaped were those your husband gave you. Why not admit that there was no duplicate set of rings and that no jewelry was stolen from your house on the night of the murders?’
Gautier thought that Josephine Hassler was going to faint. She turned very pale, shivered and her head slumped forward so that she was staring at her gloved hands. Finally, she said hoarsely: ‘I did have other jewels, presents from a friend, but I had to sell them just as I had to sell the pearls.’
We are not talking of pearls.’
‘You, the authorities, the government, you drove me to it,’ she continued, ignoring Courtrand’s remark.
‘Drove you to what? Murder?’
‘They promised me 500,000 francs. You know that Monsieur Courtrand. But all I received was 100,000. They broke faith with me after imploring me to be silent.’
Courtrand glanced at Gautier uneasily as he said: ‘This is not the time to talk about that other matter, Madame.’
‘Why should I remain silent any longer?’ Josephine Hassler demanded, her voice suddenly shrill with nervous agitation. ‘It was the government who broke their word and so reduced me to selling the pearls. I have expenses, Monsieur, an exclusive salon to maintain, a daughter to marry.’
When the government promised to recompense you for your services to the late president, they did not realize that you were in possession of a necklace which the donor had no right to give you. Otherwise they would not have made you such a generous offer.’ In spite of the way in which Courtrand had phrased his reply, Gautier knew now that the rumour which had swept Paris after the death of the late president must have been true. Josephine Hassler had been his mistress, she had been present when he had died and she had been bribed to keep silent.
‘And what good was the necklace, may I ask?’ she continued. ‘Because of the scandal I was never able to wear it.’
‘If you had given it back as you were advised, you would have received the balance of the sum which you had been promised.’ What! A mere 400,000 francs? It’s worth five times as much!’ Courtrand was having difficulty in restraining his temper and he began to shout. ‘You would do better to hold your tongue, Madame. Had you not spoken so freely to the newspapers, had you not made false accusations, had you not lied so often, you would not be in this position.’
‘Attacked by the press, badgered by the police, spat on in the streets, how could my position be worse? Tell me that, Monsieur Courtrand.’
Opening a drawer in his desk, Courtrand took out very slowly and theatrically, a sheet of blue paper. He said in solemn, pompous tones: ‘I have to tell you Madame Josephine Hassler, that it has been decided you are to be indicted. My instructions are that you must be arrested.’
Josephine Hassler looked at him incredulously. ‘Arrested? Are you saying that I’m to be put in prison?’
‘Console yourself Madame, with the thought that in prison you will be safe; safe from the crowds who would like to lynch you and even more important, safe from your own indiscretions.’
‘Never!’ Josephine Hassler leapt to her feet as she shouted: ‘Do you imagine I’m to be put away like any dumb little prostitute, when I cause you trouble? You’ll never silence me! The world will know everything!’
Courtrand stood up to face her. For a small man he could command dignity and authority even when, as now, he was obviously enjoying the scene. ‘You may make your choice, Madame. If you persist in this hysteria I shall have you conv
eyed to an asylum for the criminally deranged.’
For a long minute Josephine Hassler was silent. Then she asked: ‘And the alternative?’
‘St Lazare prison.’
XIII
FROM A SHOP in one of the narrow streets around Montmartre, Gautier bought a bottle of red wine. He realized that not wishing to arrive at anyone’s house empty-handed was a typically bourgeois attitude and one which the bohemians of the Butte would scorn, but even so he had decided he must take something when he went to call on Claudine. This would be a way of showing her that he was coming on a social and not a professional visit He had chosen wine only after much thought – a gift of food might be resented, flowers misconstrued – and the choice of the wine itself had needed careful deliberation for an expensive wine would be ostentation, a vin ordinaire patronizing.
When Claudine opened the door to his knock and he handed her the bottle she said, though not unkindly: ‘Only a policeman would have brought wine. Have you no romance in you? Why not flowers?’
‘Well, I couldn’t share flowers with you, could I?’
‘Then you may drink your share while I begin sketching. You have come to pose for me, haven’t you?’
‘If you insist.’
She arranged her easel near the window where she would get the last of the early evening light and made him sit on a chair at a table carefully placed so that she could draw him in profile. Then setting the wine bottle and a glass on the table in front of him, she took a stick of charcoal and began sketching with swift, easy strokes.
‘How is the Hassler woman?’ she asked as she worked. ‘Has she found any more bearded men?’
‘You must be the only person in Paris who doesn’t know she’s in prison.’
‘As I told you, I don’t read newspapers. Is she going to be tried for the two murders?’
‘Not necessarily. She will be examined by the magistrate in charge of the case and on the basis of his findings it will be decided whether she should be put on trial.’
‘Does that mean you’ve finished working on the case?’
‘My God, no! Far from it! Loubet, the magistrate, is ordering numerous investigations to be made before he will even start examining the Hassler woman. All the enquiries we’ve made so far have to be checked and formal statements taken. We’re looking for more witnesses and for people who can be questioned on the woman’s character and past life; even people who knew her as a girl, neighbours, governesses, schoolfriends are being sought out and asked to testify. Two more inspectors have been assigned to help me on the case and even so we’ve far too much to do. It’s a policeman’s worst nightmare!’
‘How long will the examination take?’
Gautier explained that in complex criminal cases the ‘instruction’ as it was called, could stretch out over several weeks. Throughout this period a member of the Sûreté would have to collect the prisoner from prison each day and escort her to the Palais de Justice. Then, if she were put on trial, Gautier would almost certainly be required to give evidence.
‘This is bound to be a long and tedious business,’ he said. Why, already the official dossier runs into more than 100 pages and we have scarcely begun.’
‘Do I read in the tone of your voice that you think it’ll all be a waste of time?’
‘It could be,’ Gautier said cautiously, not wishing to expose his real views.
‘So you don’t believe that Josephine Hassler is guilty?’
‘I believe that if she is put on trial, she’ll be acquitted.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
‘If you’re asking whether I think she murdered her husband, then the answer is No. On the other hand I refuse to believe the story she has been telling about what happened that night in her house. We might be able to convince a jury that she was lying, but that wouldn’t prove she was guilty of murder.’
‘But it would make her an accomplice, at least?’
‘Yes, I believe so.’
Putting down the stick of charcoal, Claudine wiped her hands on a piece of rag, found another glass and came over to the table to fill it with wine. While she drank, she stood leaning on the sill of the open window. The only view it offered was one of a narrow back yard, piled high with discarded furniture and beyond that a sea of chimneys. She glanced out briefly and then turned to look at Gautier.
‘If it won’t offend your professional integrity,’ she said with no more than a trace of sarcasm, ‘tell me who you think killed those people at Impasse Louvain.’
‘At this moment I have no idea. Josephine Hassler knows of course, but she’ll never tell us. She’s stubborn as well as cunning, that one. Personally I wonder whether blackmail may not be at the bottom of it.’
‘Blackmail? How?’
‘Again I really don’t know, but the Hassler woman was in the classic position to be either blackmailed or blackmailer. For a start there was this business about the death of the late president. For how long and how deeply had he compromised himself with her? She makes some vague claim to having important papers. Was he idiot enough to let her get her hands on State papers? At a much lower level, how much did her husband know about her adulteries? He might well even have been in league with her in some extortion racket. Or again might not some servant or hotel porter have been blackmailing her? She’s not the kind of woman who would take very kindly to the humiliation of a divorce scandal.’
‘Adultery, divorce, blackmail!’ Claudine exclaimed scornfully. ‘They all spring from society’s ridiculous attitude to marriage.’
‘Don’t say you’re opposed to marriage.’
‘Not at all; only to the one-sided marriages we have in France today. A man can have as many mistresses as he likes or spend every night in a brothel, but if a woman steps out of line only once, she’s branded as an adulteress and dragged into the divorce courts. What is worse is that under the law she has no rights.’
Gautier laughed. ‘You’re a feminist! I suppose you belong to the Society for the rights of Women?’
‘I do indeed. Why should there be one law for men and another for women. Tell me that. After all you’re a policeman.’
‘We enforce the law, we don’t make it.’
Claudine made a disparaging noise, put her empty glass down on the table and returned to the easel. Soon she was sketching again, but that did not stop her giving Gautier a short lecture on a subject that obviously stirred her indignation, the inequality of the sexes. She reminded him of the old French saying that there were only two occupations for a woman, wife or cocotte, and that those women who did work as sempstresses or making hats or artificial flowers were scandalously underpaid, earning on the average between ten and twenty centimes an hour. She reminded him too that a husband had a right to half of any money which his wife might earn.
Gautier had heard all the arguments before, for as a young policeman he had more than once been on duty at public meetings when militant feminists like Louise Michel, the ‘Red Virgin’, had demanded equal rights for women. He did not mind the lecture because he enjoyed watching the animation in Claudine’s face and hearing the indignation in her voice.
‘All what you say may well be true,’ he said when she had finished, ‘but at least under criminal law men and women get the same treatment.’
‘Rubbish! A man who beats up another man is arrested; if he thrashes a woman, you look the other way.’
‘No, I won’t accept that.’
‘I can give you an example. A girl named Mimi who lives in the same building as Eddie York, is a hostess in some establishment in Rue des Moulins.’
‘Did you say a hostess? Those places in Rue des Moulins are nothing more than high-class brothels.’
‘Well, whatever she does, not long ago she was brutally assaulted by some man in the place who went berserk. She finished up in hospital with two broken ribs, a fractured cheekbone and internal injuries. If another man hadn’t intervened she would have been killed. And yet the man who at
tacked her wasn’t arrested.’
‘Were the police called?’
‘Yes, but they did nothing.’
‘Perhaps the girl wouldn’t make a complaint. Those places are not keen on getting involved with the flics in any way. It’s bad for their business.’
‘If that’s true it’s a scandal!’
Gautier decided it would be tactful to change the subject. ‘By the way,’ he remarked, ‘how is your friend York?’
‘He has left Paris and gone to live in St Tropez.’
‘Did we frighten him away?’
‘Possibly. Eddie’s the type who turns pale even when he sees a policeman. But the real attraction in St Tropez is a boyfriend, this Spanish painter, I forget his name. Eddie’s a pede, you know.’
‘A homosexual? I thought you and he—’
‘You were wrong.’ She interrupted him firmly. ‘It’s just like the police to jump to conclusions. I used to pose for Eddie, that’s all.’
‘Have some more wine,’ Gautier said placatingly, ‘At least we can make sure that this bottle is divided equally between the sexes.’
He poured out the wine, took her glass over to her and stood watching as she worked on her sketch, smudging along the lines she had made with the charcoal with one finger to give a shading effect. Although the drawing was a fair likeness, no one could possibly have described it as great art. Gautier decided charitably that Claudine was probably experimenting, trying for an effect for which her technique was not yet sufficiently proficient.
‘This is only to get the feel of your face and its bone structure,’ she explained as though she had read his thoughts. ‘I’ll need to do two or three more of these and then I’ll start work in oils. That will be something quite different, not so much a portrait as a study.’ She looked at the sketch and then at Gautier’s face critically. ‘I might even try my hand at cubism. That might work well with those flat rectangular planes of your face.’
The Murders at Impasse Louvain Page 9
