Strangled in Paris: A Victor Legris Mystery (Victor Legris Mysteries)

by Izner, Claude

  His appetite sharpened by the cold, Victor had eaten his fill of fried eggs and potatoes in the Duval café where he had summoned his brother-in-law to a meeting. At a nearby table, a red-faced man with large sideburns was eyeing the anisette cocktail, which the waitress, dressed in a dark merino-wool dress, had just set down in front of him. Joseph burst in, quivering with excitement, and bounced into a cane chair, where he unfolded the illustrated supplement of Le Petit Journal.

  ‘From Scylla to Charybdis!’ he announced, at the top of his voice. ‘Look! Read that!’

  Annoyed at finding himself the centre of attention, Victor took the newspaper impatiently.

  MYSTERIOUS DEATH

  We have just learnt that Monsieur le Baron de La Gournay, member of the Pegasus Society for the protection of horses, owner of several thoroughbreds and co-founder of the esoteric society of the Black Unicorn, died yesterday as a result of injuries sustained when he fell off his horse. According to the doctors who confirmed the death, the blow to the head he received could have been caused by a fast-moving projectile. Was this a deliberate attack? His widow, Madame Clotilde de La Gournay, has refused permission for an autopsy to be carried out. Will the police launch an investigation which might turn out to be extremely complicated?

  The man with the sideburns lit a cigar. As soon as the bitter smell reached Joseph’s nostrils, he covered his nose with a handkerchief. Victor folded up the newspaper.

  ‘If he was killed, then we need to consider the possibility that there is a link between this death and Loulou’s murder, I suppose. Still, it’s rather a tenuous connection. All we have to support our theory is one word: unicorn. Are you feeling ill?’

  ‘Just a b-bit nauseous,’ stuttered Joseph, now enveloped in a cloud of cigar smoke.

  ‘You haven’t had much to eat all day – have a bite now.’

  While Joseph consulted the menu, Victor studied his notebook. Each was confronted with a tricky problem: one torn between sweet and savoury while the other weighed up various hypotheses.

  Joseph called the waitress.

  ‘A quince jelly and a cup of mocha coffee, please.’

  ‘So frugal! Congratulations. I think we’re going to be forced to pay a second visit to the La Gournay residence. We can put it off until tomorrow, though – there are more urgent things to do now.’

  Victor described the morning’s events to Joseph.

  ‘The American friend who was staying in Rue des Vinaigriers is using a French identity as a disguise and calling herself Sophie Clairsange.’

  Through a mouthful of food, Joseph voiced his objections to this.

  ‘That dollar on a chain doesn’t prove anything. I bet we could easily buy one at any old second-hand dealer in Paris. And another thing – if I remember rightly, Pétronille’s comment about the friend just back from America doesn’t necessarily mean that the woman must be an American citizen.’

  ‘Pétronille?’

  ‘Yes, don’t you remember? Rue d’Aboukir, the cheap canteen!’

  ‘Oh yes … but you’re splitting hairs, Joseph. Whichever way we look at it, Madame Guérin is acting suspiciously, you must admit. Here’s what I suggest: you take over the watch outside the Hôtel de Belfort, and follow any lone woman who so much as sets foot outside it, in the hope that it turns out to be this Sophie Clairsange. You’ll need to be very discreet – that goes without saying.’

  ‘As always, Boss, I mean Victor! I’m a master of concealment!’

  ‘And of bragging. I’ve just realised that Martin Lorson’s account of Loulou’s murder is rather ambiguous. He seemed amazed that the murderer should return so quickly to the scene of his crime. But what if there were two men? What if the Baron de La Gournay – and this is far-fetched, but not impossible – strangled Loulou, and then an accomplice came along and finished off the job?’

  ‘We’re clutching at straws now!’

  ‘But, to quote Kenji, “The surest way to reach the light is to journey through darkest night.”’

  ‘Yes, well, I’m like dear Professor Lidenbrock:31 I prefer to light my way with a Ruhmkorff lamp. The more clues I have, the more clearly I can see. What’s the name of the man with the cart, who took Sophie’s things?’

  ‘Second name Bricart, first name Sylvain, otherwise known as the Millionaire.’

  ‘Why the Millionaire?’

  ‘I have no idea. My interview with the maid drove me mad. It seems that he and Madame Guérin are more than just friends.’

  ‘Do you know where Lorson is holed up?’

  Victor nodded as he paid the bill.

  ‘It’s best if I telephone you at the bookshop this evening. I hope Iris doesn’t suspect anything. She’s incapable of holding her tongue.’

  ‘Poor thing, all she thinks about at the moment is the baby,’ Joseph replied, relieved to be outside and to fill his lungs with the smell of horse manure and the dusty streets.

  * * *

  Djina Kherson arranged the flowers that a courier had delivered to her in a vase. The flowers seemed to have been chosen according to a code that she wasn’t completely au fait with. The white roses meant ‘I am worthy of you’, she had recently read in an English book on the subject. A sprig of fern, didn’t that mean ‘fascination’? Red carnations … ‘love’! And, as for the meaning of the lilies, she would have to check.

  The blend of colours was irresistible. She opened the card that had come with the flowers.

  Chateaubriand said that ‘the flower in its divine language is the daughter of the morning, the charm of spring nestled against winter’s breast, the source of all nectars’. I shall never have a poet’s gift for expression, but I hope I can still make pleasant conversation. Would you come to tea with me at five o’clock this afternoon, at Gloppe’s, on the Champs-Élysées? I shall be waiting there for you.

  Yours devotedly, Kenji Mori

  This missive piqued her curiosity: to refuse would be ridiculous, and she would always regret it if she did. Although her divorce from Pinkus had not been finalised, the fact that he had gone to live in New York and intended to stay there had long since put an end to any vestige of their life together. A simple meeting like this was perfectly innocent and in no way implied infidelity to her distant husband, the father of her children and a friend for whom she still had a great deal of affection. How sad it was that a marriage could fade away like that! She and Pinkus had rarely quarrelled, but their views on many important matters were radically different. As the years went by, politics had gradually alienated them from one another. Although they were both horrified by the criminal violence of the anti-Semitic activities of the tsarist government, Pinkus worshipped revolutionary ideals, while she simply wanted to find a place of exile where she could live safely and with dignity. Following Tasha’s lead, she believed that she had found that place in France, and she only regretted that Ruhléa, her younger daughter, who was married to a doctor called Milos Tábor, had decided to go and live in Krakow.

  Despite their differences, perhaps she and Pinkus would have managed to stay together if they had not had a more private problem to contend with. Devastating as it was to accept the reality of her feelings, she nonetheless had to face the fact that as an intimate relationship, their life as a couple was a failure. Once she had come to this realisation, she had told Pinkus, without beating around the bush, that they must separate.

  She stood musing in the workshop, which had been left in a state of joyous disorder by the students she took for watercolour classes. Pinkus had left his little Hester Street hovel and rented an apartment in Manhattan. His business was doing so well that he would occasionally send her postal orders to ease her financial situation. She was grateful to him. She still couldn’t understand how it was possible to get rich by selling kinetoscopes. Her son-in-law, Victor, had explained to her that the famous Thomas Edison had invented a machine which showed moving images. In Djina’s eyes, these big rectangular boxes were an obscene form of amusement fit only for fair
s and arcades. You put a coin into a slot and looked into two little holes fitted with an eyepiece. When you turned a handle, you could see miniature versions of cock fights, boxing cats, wrestling dogs and dances from the Samoan Islands … but usually you just saw hussies taking off their clothes in front of some shameless man. Luckily, the film reel ended before the final revelation. Why had Pinkus given in to the attraction of such pornography?

  She went back to her room and put the latest letter covered in American stamps away in a box. There was an ocean between her and her phantom husband. She was free to meet Monsieur Mori.

  ‘I’d better make myself pretty.’

  She looked at herself in the mirror, and ran her fingers through her auburn hair, which was now streaked with grey.

  ‘Anyone would think you were about to fly off on a broomstick! All these wrinkles, this sagging neck … Somebody must have given that charming man a love potion, and he’s forgotten what you really look like. You’re mad! At your age…’

  Djina washed her face, put on some make-up and chose a simple watered taffeta dress with peacock-blue and rose-pink stripes, which would go with her only coat. The wrists of the dress were so worn that she had hidden them under some lace frills. She put on a tulle hat decorated with primroses, and suddenly she remembered: lilies represented purity. Such irony! And she was a respectable woman with a family! Was he making fun of her? She looked again at her reflection, all decked out from head to toe, ready to run after a man with whom she had only ever exchanged a few banal words and some highly charged glances! She was filled with shame, but still unable to entirely overcome her excitement, feeling like a girl about to accept the advances of her first suitor. So many years of battling on alone, of dreaming, of stifling her dreams … Resolutely, she turned her back on the mirror.

  * * *

  The cab journey had seemed to last for ever and, judging by the size of the buildings occupying numbers 110 and 112, Rue de Flandre, finding Martin Lorson was going to be a little like searching for a needle in a haystack. This time, Victor had not had to lie to Tasha about where he was going because she had been invited to lunch by the Natansons, so it was with a clear conscience that he could devote himself to his favourite hobby. Today he could work without remorse, taking his time. A huge sign above him read:

  ÉRARD

  Makers of the Finest

  PIANOS AND HARPS

  Founded in Paris in 1780 by the Érard Brothers32

  This was where matters became more complicated. Where should he start? In the grand piano workshops and the buildings where the piano actions were constructed, or in the upright piano factory, or in one of the warehouses?

  As he stood indecisively on the threshold of a huge courtyard surrounded by several four- and five-storey buildings, he examined the drying sheds, which were full of planks, strips of wood and veneer facings made of exotic and European woods. He waylaid an adolescent boy struggling under the weight of a huge block of sycamore.

  ‘Where is Monsieur Jaquemin, please?’

  ‘Down the boozer, I should think!’ cried the apprentice, making off in the opposite direction.

  An older worker came up to Victor.

  ‘He’s a stupid boy, and insolent too, but you must excuse him – there are more than five hundred of us working here. Still, I can give you the information you need: Jaquemin works on the grand pianos. Are you a concert pianist?’

  ‘Yes, I am. I’m looking for an instrument that’s as finely tuned as … as a racing bike.’

  ‘An apt comparison, Monsieur. Our pianos are marvels of precision. You won’t regret the expense.’

  Victor resigned himself to searching the whole factory. At least here the air wasn’t heavy with the odour of carcasses or cigar smoke. He wandered from room to room, past work benches and wooden frames, enjoying the smell of sawdust all around him. Amongst all this febrile activity, nobody objected to his presence. He left the rooms where the outer casings of the pianos were built and climbed the stairs to where the soundboards and brackets at the very heart of the pianos, were made. When he asked after Jaquemin, no one seemed to be able to help. He went back down to the ground floor, where craftsmen were covering bare wooden frames with veneers of maple, mahogany, thuja and rosewood. Jaquemin was nowhere to be seen.

  Sweating now, and out of breath, Victor walked past still more rooms where piano actions, sound boards and strings were put together with painstaking care. He would never have dreamt that so many different operations went into the creation of one of these huge instruments, from which some virtuoso would one day coax magical sounds. Out of interest, he stopped to watch seven or eight men at work varnishing about fifteen instruments. He admired a particularly rare creation, a baby grand sculpted by Charpentier and painted by Besnard. A workman remarked matter-of-factly that the instrument had taken two years to complete and that a rich foreigner had purchased it for the modest sum of thirty thousand francs. Victor whistled and once again asked after Jaquemin.

  ‘He’s at the showroom, right at the other end of the factory. Just follow the noise!’

  When Victor pushed open the showroom door, he was greeted by a cacophony of scales. He remembered how, as a child, he would perch on the revolving stool in front of the hated keyboard where his father, who had never been to a concert in his life, tried in vain to teach him the basics of musical theory. Every time he pressed a key, he would imagine that he was decapitating an invisible enemy. Now, he pitied the young girls who were testing the accuracy of freshly tuned pianos. This din was a far cry from Schumann’s Arabesque!

  A tall man in overalls, with a shock of messy hair and an unruly beard, was listening attentively to all of these soloists.

  ‘Monsieur Jaquemin?’ bellowed Victor.

  The man pointed to himself and then to a nearby office.

  ‘I’m sure to end up as deaf as a post with all this racket. What can I do for you?’

  ‘A friend has asked me to contact Martin Lorson.’

  Jaquemin’s face darkened.

  ‘You’ll find him near the entrance. He’s made a lair for himself inside one of the warehouses where we stock wood. Don’t let on, though. If anyone knew I was looking after him, I’d be in trouble. I felt sorry for him, so I was really far too charitable. We carved our names on the same desks at school. Poor bloke’s in a sticky situation now.’

  Finding himself back where he had started, Victor threaded his way from one warehouse to another, and eventually heard the sound of a tipsy voice singing out of tune.

  ‘Dear friends, embrace the bottle, forswear the carafe…’

  A shadow wider than it was tall was jigging about behind a thin, windowless partition, by the light of a paraffin lamp. Victor walked around a wall built of sacks and planks of wood. Martin Lorson was keeping a careful eye on a sausage sizzling over a brazier and nursing a litre of rum, from which he occasionally took a swig. A particularly large gulp preceded the conclusion of his song:

  ‘And you shall become more learned in geography with each quaff!’33

  Victor’s appearance cut short this alcoholic ode.

  ‘Who’s there? Jaquemin?’ Martin Lorson barked.

  ‘Legris, the bookseller. We talked at the abattoirs.’

  ‘The detective bookseller?… Are you soft in the head, rolling up in broad daylight? When are you bloody well going to leave me in peace?’

  ‘I’ve brought you some cigarettes.’

  Mollified, Martin Lorson took the pan off the brazier and balanced it on a board, before pocketing the cigarettes.

  ‘I won’t keep you long. There’s just one detail of your story that I can’t stop thinking about. You said that the murderer ran away, and then came back straight away – and you found that incomprehensible.’

  Martin Lorson burped sonorously.

  ‘Are you too drunk to think about this?’

  ‘No, ’sall right. If I was tiddly, I wouldn’t be able to string a sentence together.’

  ‘Th
ink: could there have been a second man?’

  Martin Lorson warmed his hands over the coals.

  ‘It’s funny you should stumble on that idea just today. I’ve been going over and over it in my mind, until my head spins. Now, I’m convinced: the one rascal was actually two rascals.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s not just the alcohol that makes you so certain?’

  ‘No, no. Their hats! They were different. The one who strangled the girl was wearing a felt hat. The other one was wearing a cap.’

  ‘The assassin would have had time to change his hat.’

  ‘Why, though? He had no idea I was there and, even if he did know, do you think he’d be stupid enough to come back for more?’

  ‘People crack under pressure…, they do stupid things.’

  ‘Well, you know best, it would seem…’ Martin Lorson sniggered. ‘Seeing as you thought it was so important to come and sniff me out here, you must think my opinion’s worth something, even if I am just a poor old drunk. Trust my instinct then! Let’s shake hands and say goodbye! If you keep coming here, you’ll jinx me.’

  Victor withdrew, satisfied that Lorson had confirmed his intuition. He looked back and had a momentary vision of the drunken form metamorphosing into a string of Russian dolls inside the giant silhouette.

  * * *

  Djina alighted from the omnibus. Somebody bumped into her and she apologised. The city seemed to accost her from all sides. A sea of carriages flowed down the Champs-Élysées from the Arc de Triomphe, a tumultuous spectacle reminiscent of an army returning from war.

  The street around her began to spin, and she leant against a tree for support. She absolutely must escape from this crowd and get back to the safety of her apartment. She caught sight of her reflection in a jeweller’s shop window and thought herself ugly. A stream of elegant people walked past her: carefully made-up women, and men, both young and old, with confident, indifferent expressions. ‘Nobody knows who you are,’ they all seemed to be saying to her. ‘Nobody knows anything of your desires, or of what you have endured. You don’t belong here.’ She was ashamed of her clothes, ashamed of having lived so many years without becoming more worldly and experienced.