Murder on the Eiffel Tower

by Claude Izner

  Victor was fanning himself with his hat at the entrance to the Anglo-American bar as he tried to spot his friend Marius Bonnet amongst the mosaic of dark frock coats and light-coloured dresses. Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he turned towards a small plump man of about forty, who was hiding his advancing baldness under a Panama hat worn at an angle.

  ‘I say, Marius, what’s got into you? Why did you choose a place like this to meet? In honour of what? I didn’t understand your message at all.’

  ‘Oh, don’t complain: the world seen from up here seems quite ridiculous and that fortifies the soul. Where’s your business associate?’

  ‘He’s coming. So, tell me, what’s this all about?’

  ‘We’re celebrating the fiftieth issue of my newspaper. The first edition came out on the fourth of May, on the eve of the centenary celebrations of the opening of the Estates General at Versailles. Personally, I’m happy to make do with a three-hundred-metre tower, and I wanted you to join the party.’

  ‘So you’re no longer a reporter for Le Temps?’

  ‘I’ve given up working at Le Temps. A great deal has happened since I last visited your bookshop! Have you forgotten our discussion?’

  ‘I must admit that I didn’t really take your plans seriously.’

  ‘Well, old chap, you’re going to be surprised. And if I have gone ahead, it’s partly because of your business associate.’

  ‘Kenji?’

  ‘Yes, Monsieur Mori really cut me to the quick when he mocked my indecisiveness. So I took the plunge; you see before you the director and editor-in-chief of Le Passe-partout, a daily newspaper with a great future. Besides, I want to make you a very interesting proposition.’

  Victor considered Marius’s chubby face doubtfully. He had met him some years earlier at the house of the painter Meissonier, and had been very taken with the voluble and enthusiastic southerner. Marius was a witty conversationalist, peppered his speech with literary quotations, and charmed both men and women with his apparent candour, but he also had a razor-sharp tongue and never hesitated to voice what others thought wiser to keep to themselves.

  ‘Come, I’m going to introduce you to our team. There are only a few of us. We’re a long way off rivalling the eighty thousand copies sold by Le Figaro but being small doesn’t stop you being great — think of Alexander.’

  They pushed their way through the crowd to a table where two men and two women sat sipping drinks.

  ‘Children, let me introduce Victor Legris, my learned bookseller friend whom I’ve often spoken about. His collaboration will be invaluable to us. Victor, this is Eudoxie Allard, our peerless secretary, accountant, co-ordinator and general factotum.’

  Eudoxie Allard, a languorous, heavy-lidded brunette, looked him up and down and, judging him to be of only limited and strictly professional interest, gave him a noncommittal smile.

  ‘That chap dressed like a dandy is Antonin Clusel. He’s an expert at unearthing information,’ Marius went on. ‘Besides, you’ve already met him; he’s been to your bookshop with me. He’s very persistent: once he’s on the trail of something he never gives up.’

  Victor saw an affable young man with flaxen hair, whose nose bent slightly to the left. Beside him was a large disillusioned-looking fellow with protuberant eyes, who was contemplating his glass.

  ‘To his right, Isidore Gouvier, police deserter. He can gain access to the most secret information. Finally, Mademoiselle Tasha Kherson, a compatriot of Turgenev’s and our illustrator and caricaturist.’

  Victor shook everyone’s hands but only remembered the illustrator’s first name, Tasha, with her red hair pulled back in a chignon under a little hat decorated with marguerites, and her pretty unmade-up face. She looked at him with friendly interest, and a wave of warmth spread through him. He made a real effort to follow what Marius was saying, but was distracted by the slightest movement of the young woman.

  Tasha was surreptitiously watching him. She had a vague feeling that she knew him. He gave the impression of being on the defensive, withdrawn, yet neither his voice nor his manner betrayed any shyness. Where had she seen that profile before?

  ‘Ah, at last, here’s Monsieur Kenji Mori!’ Marius exclaimed. Victor rose from his chair and suddenly Tasha remembered where she had seen him: he reminded her of a subject in a Le Nain painting.

  ‘Over here, Monsieur Mori!’

  The new arrival came over, very much at ease, and bowed while Marius made the introductions once more. When it came to the turn of Eudoxie and Tasha, Kenji Mori doffed his bowler hat and kissed their hands.

  There was a moment’s silence. Marius asked him if he liked champagne. Kenji Mori replied that although the sparkling drink could never compare to sake, he would be delighted to have a glass. Impressed by the virile allure of this polite, refined Asian man, Eudoxie speedily revised her preconceptions of him. The others seemed to be expecting something from Kenji Mori. He had unwittingly upset the equilibrium of the group.

  ‘My friend Victor’s business associate is Japanese,’ announced Marius triumphantly.

  Victor noticed Tasha’s almost imperceptible smile. Their eyes met and she saw his expression change. He finds me attractive, she thought. She would have liked to sketch his face: he has an interesting, sensual mouth …

  Leaning towards Kenji Mori, Eudoxie asked: ‘Have you visited the Japanese Pavilion?’

  ‘I’m not interested in Japanese knick-knacks manufactured in bulk and intended for bazaars,’ he replied without departing from his customary affability.

  ‘Yet there are some beautiful pieces on display,’ said Tasha, ‘especially the prints …’

  ‘In the West, few people who are not experts understand that kind of pictorial art. For them they are nothing more than pretty, exotic images with which to decorate the Henri the Second-style drawing rooms. You clutter your homes with such a profusion of objects that in the end you don’t notice any of them.’

  Tasha protested vehemently. ‘You’re wrong! Why tar everyone with the same brush? I was lucky enough to see the exhibition of Japanese prints organised by the Van Gogh brothers. The Great Wave by Hokusai made a real impression on me.’

  Isidore Gouvier suddenly intervened. ‘Talking about making an impression — up here one might almost be on the bridge of a transatlantic liner,’ he remarked in a sinister tone. ‘All we need is a really good ground swell to topple this red pylon you’ve made me climb.’

  They laughed.

  ‘Don’t criticise Monsieur Eiffel’s Tower. It’s the technical apotheosis of our century,’ declared Kenji Mori. ‘It’s amazing to think its seven thousand tonnes of iron weigh no more heavily on the ground than a ten-metre-high wall.’

  ‘Especially if that wall were as long as the Great Wall of China,’ retorted Tasha.

  There was a silence. Victor studied the pretty redhead. Twenty-two, twenty-three years old at most. She had a self-confidence that was very provocative. He felt his heart quicken, then regain its normal rhythm.

  Antonin Clusel got up, muttering: ‘I’m going to the gallery for a cigarette.’

  Marius cleared his throat. ‘Children, a toast to a prosperous future for Le Passe-partout and our new literary columnist, Victor Legris.’

  ‘Not so fast. You can’t trap me like that. I’ll have to think about it first,’ laughed Victor.

  ‘Boss! It’s an emergency!’

  Everyone turned to look at Antonin Clusel.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s a woman outside. She’s dead.’

  Marius leaped up. ‘To work, children. Tasha, I want sketches, right away. Eudoxie, hurry back to the office — we’ll have to prepare a special edition. Quickly! Isidore, off you go to police headquarters and try to find out the exact cause of death. Antonin, you come with me.’

  He turned to his guests. ‘Monsieur Mori, Victor, I do apologise, but news waits for nobody. Think about my proposition!’ he called before dashing outside.

  Th
e lift operating on the southern pillar had been halted on their floor. Marius Bonnet, Antonin Clusel and Tasha Kherson elbowed their way through the barrage of onlookers and reached the bench where the body of a woman in a red dress lay. She was open-mouthed and her skin was livid. Her dilated pupils were staring at a blue balloon, which floated on the end of a string tied to her wrist. Driven by force of habit, Tasha took a sketchbook out of her bag and quickly did a rough drawing of the scene: the dead woman, her hat, which had fallen on the ground, and the sorrowful and yet inquisitive expressions of the people tightly packed around her.

  ‘Did anyone see anything?’ asked Marius.

  ‘Are you from the police?’

  ‘I’m a journalist.’

  ‘I was there!’ shouted a pleasant-looking woman. ‘What terrible luck — to pay forty sous just to end up dead! It’s expensive, Monsieur, two francs to get to the first floor of this Tower, which is scarcely higher than the top of Notre-Dame. When you add the price of entry to the Exposition, that makes a hundred sous, a day’s work, just to end up like this …’

  ‘Your name?’ Marius was equipped with a notebook.

  ‘Simone Langlois, seamstress. I noticed that lady as I went by. She looked as if she was suffering; I get vertigo too. I thought it couldn’t be that serious, and in any case she had her children with her.’

  ‘Her children?’

  ‘Yes, the two boys and the girl, over there. The youngest had given her his balloon. I went into the souvenir shop, just to have a look. It’s lovely but expensive.’

  ‘Is that them?’ Marius indicated three children huddled together.

  Simone Langlois nodded. ‘When I came out again, the woman was asleep. Her little girl was shaking her and whining: “Let’s go now, I’m hungry, I want a toffee apple.” The woman’s head was flopping from side to side …’

  The seamstress punctuated her speech with theatrical gestures, clearly excited to be the centre of attention.

  ‘I went up to her, in case she was really ill. I hardly touched her and she keeled over like a rag doll. I think I actually screamed. Some gentlemen ran over and picked her up. When I saw her face I thought I would faint.’

  Antonin Clusel had crouched down to the children’s level. The little girl was quietly whimpering.

  ‘I want Mama … Mama!’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Avenue des Peupliers, in Auteuil … She was stung by a bee.’

  ‘A bee? Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure. She went, “Ow!”, and said, “I’ve been stung by a bee.”’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Marie-Amélie de Nanteuil. I want to go home.’

  ‘Are they your brother and sister?’ Antonin asked the older of the two boys.

  ‘Yes, Monsieur.’

  ‘We’re going to notify your father.’

  ‘No, he works at the Ministry; it’s Mama you should tell.’

  Antonin looked at the body in bewilderment. Marius came to the rescue.

  ‘So that lady’s not your mother? Is she your governess?’

  ‘She’s our Aunt Eugénie, she lives with us.’

  ‘Eugénie de Nanteuil?’

  ‘Eugénie Patinot, she’s … she was my mother’s sister,’ mumbled Gontran, whose eyes were filling with tears.

  ‘Out of the way, please! Let’s have some space!’

  There was a ripple of movement and exclamations. A police inspector followed by two stretcher-bearers squeezed through the crowd.

  ‘I’ve got their address, Boss,’ murmured Antonin, who had just questioned Hector.

  ‘Jump in a cab and go and find out what you can from the family, the servants, even the dog! I want to know everything about the victim, her past, where she spent her time, the colour of her skirts. I want enough copy for an article as long as your arm! This time Le Matin will not have the scoop on a story! Let’s go!’

  Leaning on the terrace of the Anglo-American bar, Victor and Kenji watched as, down below, the stretcher-bearers removed the body of a woman in red.

  ‘I fear we’ll have to walk down,’ remarked Kenji, startling Victor who, pressed against the guardrail, was totally absorbed in his contemplation of the impertinent Russian redhead as she argued with Marius Bonnet.

  ‘Come on, let’s go while there aren’t too many people on the stairs,’ he added impatiently. ‘I’m not disappointed that the meeting was cut short; that illustrator has no manners and your journalist friend is a charlatan. Are you really going to write a literary column for him?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ replied Victor distractedly. ‘Do you mind if I stay here a moment?’

  ‘On the Tower? Have you been seduced by the architecture?’

  ‘No, no, at the Exposition. There’s a photographic section in the Palace of Liberal Arts and I’d like to see the newest camera models.’

  They passed the French restaurant and started down the stairs. In front of them, a father was teaching his offspring about the method of climbing the Tower extolled by Gustave Eiffel.

  ‘Slowly, children, with your hands on the rail. That’s right. Now swing your body from side to side, take your time.’

  ‘Excuse us, excuse us,’ said Kenji, adding under his breath to Victor: ‘Some people are quite mad! They go up on their knees, or on stilts, or backwards.’

  As they reached ground level, policemen were pushing aside onlookers in order to clear a way for the stretcher-bearers, who were coming out of the lift. Victor could just discern fingers sticking out from under a sheet thrown over the body.

  ‘I’m going back to the bookshop,’ said Kenji. ‘I don’t like to leave Joseph to his own devices for too long. Do you know what his nickname for the Comtesse de Salignac is? The battle-axe! One of our most important customers!’

  ‘The one who swears by Zénaïde Fleuriot?’

  They crossed the French garden, which was laid out around the base of the Tower, interspersed with waterfalls and copses. Victor glanced up. What looked like an inverted exclamation mark was drifting towards the Machinery Hall: it was the blue balloon.

  ‘Kenji, wait, have you forgotten?’

  ‘Forgotten what?’

  ‘The date — it’s the twenty-second of June. Here you are, this is for you.’

  With an air of mystery he held out a little parcel. Surprised, Kenji untied the golden string, to find, wrapped in tissue paper, a fob-watch.

  ‘My mother gave it to me,’ Victor went on. ‘It belonged to my father and now it’s yours. Happy birthday.’

  ‘I was hoping you would forget about my birthday,’ said Kenji, laughing. ‘I’m fifty, you know!’

  He turned away, looking at the watch, unable to speak. Finally he whispered, ‘Thank you.’

  He slipped the watch into his waistcoat and hurried off, not noticing that a piece of paper had fallen out of his pocket.

  ‘I say, Kenji, you’ve dropped …’

  But he was long gone. Victor smiled. It was typical of Kenji. Whenever he felt moved, he preferred to make an exit. Victor bent down to pick up the small-format newspaper printed over four pages.

  LE FIGARO

  UNIVERSAL EXPOSITION 1889 SPECIAL EDITION PRINTED ON THE EIFFEL TOWER

  This edition has been presented to Monsieur Kenji Mori as a souvenir of his visit to the Figaro Pavilion on the second platform of the Eiffel Tower 115.73 metres above the Champ-de-Mars.

  Paris, 22 June 1889

  Victor couldn’t help smiling. So that’s why Kenji had been late arriving at the Anglo-American bar. He carefully put away the newspaper, which he would leave discreetly at Kenji’s; there was no need for him to know that Victor had uncovered his little secret.

  He turned off towards the Central American Pavilion, and skirted around the exotic plantations of Bolivia and Chile. A thin Englishwoman, a member of the Temperance Union, gripped his arm and demanded he buy one of her brochures condemning alcohol as the poison of heretics. He had barely extricated himself from
this when a sandwich man gave him a handbill, announcing ‘the big parade of Colonel Cody, the celebrated Buffalo Bill’. Irritated by all these useless bits of paper, he crossed the sumptuous foyer of the Palace of Liberal Arts and immersed himself in the labyrinth of halls, looking for George Eastman’s famous camera.

  ‘You press the button and Kodak does the rest, what a clever advertisement,’ he was muttering to himself as he came down the stairs, when he suddenly found himself in a chamber of horrors, packed with scalpels, lancets, trocars, forceps, and acoustic wigs. Quick, find the exit. He hurried past, head down to avoid the graphic illustrations of the dangers of morphine addiction. When he saw a way out, he headed straight for it, only to end up surrounded by anatomical mouldings of frightening precision. He rushed towards the central rotunda, then suddenly stopped, having just spotted the Russian illustrator from Le Passe-partout, clutching a sketchbook in her lace-gloved hand. His pulse quickened. How vivacious she looked in her pearl-grey skirt and fitted jacket! He felt this slight woman wanted to gobble up life whilst capturing it with her pencil.

  ‘I’m lost,’ he admitted to her.

  ‘So am I. I was hoping to see the model of the great temple at Ava dedicated to Buddha and I found myself in the prosthetics section instead. Have you seen it?’ she laughed.

  ‘What? Buddha?’

  ‘No, the two-headed foetus! Let’s get out of here!’

  ‘Ice cream! Ice cream! Lovely vanilla ice cream!’

  ‘Can I buy you one?’ he asked her. ‘To calm our nerves.’