by Claude Izner
‘No. When he wants to make himself scarce he’ll take French leave, escaping down the apartment stairs. I know that trick. Hey, don’t you leave me too!’
‘I’ll be back. Take care of your customers,’ Kenji said as he went up the steps.
He went along the corridor that separated the two apartments, up to the front door, which opened onto the first landing of the building. Of course, yet again Victor had slammed the door without locking it. He slid the two bolts and entered Victor’s home. The bedroom was unusually untidy. The curtains were half drawn, the bed unmade, clothes scattered all over the room. He noticed a coloured rectangle leaning against the clock in the glass case, an oil-painting of a nude, a young red-headed woman whom he immediately recognised with displeasure. He was about to leave when his eye fell on the desk. The top was open. Next to a basket overflowing with jumbled post, marked ‘Incoming and Outgoing’, he caught sight of a blue envelope resting on a dictionary with: ‘Photos taken on 24 June at the Colonial Exhibition’ written on it. He reached out, lifted the flap, and his sleeve caught a dark object, which crashed to the floor. He bent down and picked up an order book. On the first page he read: ‘Meet J.C. 24-6 Grand Hotel Room 312’ followed by some question marks. He pulled the armchair out and sat down.
It had gone four in the afternoon when Victor knocked on the Nanteuils’ gate. A fat woman with a pallid face came to open it. He recognised Louise Vergne.
‘You again! It’s a disgrace! Digging up a good Christian soul and chopping her up into pieces. When I think that you’re paid for that dirty work, you ought to be ashamed. You’re worse than cannibals!’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Are you sure you belong?’
‘To what?’
‘To the police! Because if you really did, you’d know all about the autopsy!’ She had stepped back to get a better look at him.
‘Oh — that! Of course, the autopsy,’ he said. ‘I thought you were talking about another murder!’
‘Why? Have there been more?’
‘Well … I can’t say anything as an officer in the police service …’
‘During a service? Oh, there’s just no respect for anything any more! Killed in a church!’
‘Er … please don’t repeat any of this. I would like to have a quick word with Mademoiselle Rose.’
‘Some hope. That beanpole handed in her notice, declaring that she wouldn’t stay a moment longer in a house whose dead were dug up to examine their entrails! So then the Nanteuils begged the Le Masson family to lend me to them for a few days, long enough to find another governess, and I said yes. Madame Nanteuil is shut away in her bedroom. She won’t receive anybody.’
‘In that case … might I see her daughter?’
‘Who? You don’t mean Marie-Amélie?’
‘She’s a key witness.’
‘I don’t know. You stop at nothing, do you? Interrogate a young girl, indeed …’
‘I won’t be more than five minutes and you can listen in.’
Louise Vergne hurried off to call Marie-Amélie, who arrived quickly, eating bread and jam, which was also smeared all over her cheeks.
‘I already told you everything the other day.’
‘Yes, except for one detail. You told me that just as your aunt was stung by a bee, somebody fell on her and that it made you laugh.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me from this one,’ Louise Vergne muttered.
‘It’s very important. Take a moment to think. Was it a gentleman or a lady?’
Marie-Amélie frowned. A fly landed on her bread and jam and she shooed it away. ‘Oh, I don’t know … I think it was a gentleman … Yes, it was, it was a gentleman! Can I go now?’
She ran back to the house. Louise Vergne shook her head. ‘I always knew that under that prim exterior, Eugénie led men on!’
Avenue des Peupliers suddenly took on a festive air. If the little girl was telling the truth, if it was a man who had bumped into Patinot, then Tasha was innocent. Victor felt relieved for a brief moment, before he realised that, in that case, Kenji was once again the prime suspect.
No sooner had he entered the bookshop than he felt he had walked straight into a trap. Seated as if in a waiting room, three people looked up at him. From his stool, tying up a parcel of books, Joseph grimaced with an embarrassed smile. At his desk, holding his pen quite still, Kenji straightened his shoulders as a blonde woman, who had been slumped on a huge trunk, leaped to her feet.
‘Odette,’ Victor murmured in consternation.
‘My duck, you did promise to —’
Kenji didn’t give her enough time to finish.
‘So, how was the sales room? Did you manage to close the deal?’
‘Yes, not without difficulty, that’s why I’m late,’ Victor replied, taking the ball and running with it.
‘My duck, sales room or no sales room, you must take me to the station. I’ve been here for an hour, and I’m going to miss the Houlgate train. You forgot!’
Odette was furiously pacing up and down in front of the trunk, which she kept hitting with the end of her parasol, as she couldn’t take it out on Victor.
‘I haven’t forgotten. The situation is totally under control. We have more than enough time,’ he said in his calmest voice, looking at his watch. ‘Joseph is going to fetch us a cab.’
Only too happy to escape the storm, Jojo left his badly tied parcel and hurried outside.
‘Is there at least somewhere to powder my nose?’ asked Odette with a snort. ‘Your Chinaman didn’t even offer me any refreshment,’ she added, lowering her voice.
‘Yes, on the first floor, to the left, the room at the back.’
Kenji waited for her to grumble her way up the narrow stairs before saying, ‘I have rarely come across a more disagreeable person. She scared off two customers. Make sure she gets on the right train. It would be a pity to deprive the Normandy coast of such a charming visitor …’
‘You don’t like her very much,’ said Victor, holding back a smile.
‘I think it’s mutual. I’m also leaving unexpectedly.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To London for a couple of days. I’m leaving this evening.’
Victor was struck dumb with emotion for several moments.
‘But what do you need to go to London for?’
‘A private affair. You have yours,’ he added, pointing upstairs with his chin, ‘and I have mine.’
‘Nothing serious, I hope.’
‘No, all is well. Why do you ask?’
‘Just a thought … You’ve seemed preoccupied for some time now.’
‘Since you mention it, I’ll tell you what’s worrying me: you are.
‘Me?’
‘You are always out, and Joseph and I can’t do everything. I feel as though this bookshop has ceased to interest you.’
‘Not at all. On the contrary, I’ve had to value a large number of private book collections, as have you. What’s more …’
They moved away from each other. Victor thought they were arguing like an old married couple.
Joseph came in shouting: ‘Madame’s cab is here!’
Odette’s dress rustled on the stairs. The driver loaded the trunk onto his shoulder. Victor wanted to shake Kenji’s hand but he had already returned to his desk and was instructing Joseph: ‘Make that delivery straight away. I’ll close up.’
Hanging on to Victor’s arm, Odette kissed him repeatedly until they had sat down in the cab, where she nestled up to him.
‘Truly, truly, my duck? You really hadn’t forgotten?’
‘Of course not. I’ve been preparing myself for your departure for some days.’
‘You’re not just saying that?’
He dropped a distracted kiss on her forehead, wondering why Kenji was leaving for London so suddenly.
Flattening herself against a porch, Tasha watched the hansom cab move off towards the Seine. She remained
deep in thought for some time after it had gone, then went back up the road towards the Elzévir bookshop. Kenji was quickly closing the wooden shutters. Catching sight of each other through the window, they were both momentarily transfixed.
Assuming a sad expression as he hummed ‘Le Chant du depart’, Victor could see a tearful face hanging out of the door, and read on her lips a last ‘When will you come, my duck?’ her voice drowned out by the noise of the locomotive. Then everything disappeared in a cloud of steam. Normandy was not to be deprived: Odette was on her way to Houlgate.
On the platform, piles of luggage everywhere, he stopped a newspaper vendor to buy a special edition of Le Passe-partout. On the first page was a big headline: ‘CRIME IN A CARRIAGE’.
He read the article as he walked along. When he left Gare Saint-Lazare, the lamps were being lit. He decided to walk to Tasha’s.
A noisy mass of hurrying people filled the station foyer. Porters dressed in the uniform of the Compagnie du Nord were shuttling between the long-distance departures and the line of cabs parked in Place de Douai. Leaning against the wall near the information window, Kenji unfolded the special edition of Le Passe-partout.
CRIME IN A CARRIAGE ANOTHER VICTIM FOR THE KILLER BEES
A collector who was well-known to art dealers, Monsieur Constantin Ostrovski, dies in a hansom cab a few hundred metres from the Eiffel Tower.
The article recalled that two other people had died in the previous week in similar circumstances. The police refused to make any statements. The testimony of the driver who had discovered the body followed.
Kenji read no further. He picked up his bag and put his paper in it. A steward wearing a striped cap with the word ‘Interpreter’ on it in gold letters offered his services. Kenji refused, then reconsidered and murmured a few words to him as he handed him a tip. The man went off, and reappeared shortly after with a piece of paper. Kenji put it in his pocket and looked at the clock: a quarter past ten. He made his way to the telegraph office and composed a message.
UNFORESEEN DELAY. WILL COME NEXT WEEK. LOVE, KENJI. MISS IRIS ABBOTT CARE OF MRS DAWSON, 18 CHARING CROSS ROAD, LONDON.
He handed his form to the employee, saying it was ‘urgent’, then paid, left the station and walked back up Boulevard Denain to the Hotel du Chemin de Fer du Nord.
At reception he presented the piece of paper given to him by the interpreter. ‘I have a reservation,’ he said.
The concierge, a small woman with a weaselly face, accosted Victor from the doorway of her lodge. ‘Hey, where are you going at this time of night? I’m responsible for everyone that comes and goes here!’
He leaped up the stairs, taking them two at a time. On the landing of the sixth floor he looked down into the stairwell. All the floors were smothered in darkness, right up to the empty corridor.
She was there, on the other side of the wall, fourth door along on the right. He listened: silence. But he thought he had heard the sound of bare feet running across the wooden floor. He waited, his heart full of hope. She was going to unbolt the door, he would force her to face him, to say yes or no to him … but maybe she was busy enjoying herself with someone else? He was overcome by a wave of jealousy that left him breathless outside the door. I’d do better to leave rather than lose my temper. She’s not back yet, that’s what it is. This thought calmed him. He banged the edge of the basin and groaned. A door opened. A ray of light.
‘Monsieur Legris? Is it you? I thought …’
The woman was real, all right, and just here, so close … The basin, feebly illuminated by the skylight, seemed to fade away along with the walls. She was wearing a nightshirt with a high collar, which showed off her figure. He hesitated, then stammered: ‘Tasha … I was worried … You left the café so suddenly earlier on. You’re … you’re not sick, are you?’
‘Just tired. I’m working fourteen hours a day.’
‘You’ll catch cold.’
‘It’s extremely hot!’
‘The tiled floor …’
With eyes lowered to the floor, he stared at her ankles. He suddenly moved forward, trying to take her by the shoulder. She jumped back.
‘No!’ she whispered.
He froze. Could she doubt how hard he was trying to resist the urge to touch her? She moved in front of the oil lamp on the table. For just a moment he clearly saw all the curves of her body through the light fabric.
‘You’re the one that’s sick!’ she cried, withdrawing further into the room.
He moved nearer to her, close enough to smell her scent. ‘You knew him! You told me you did,’ he murmured.
‘Who?’
‘The man who was found dead in a cab, Ostrovski.’
She looked worried.
‘I came across him a number of times, so what? You know him as well. You were going to meet him at Volpini’s yesterday evening!’
‘Just came across him? Are you sure?’
‘How dare you?’
He put a finger under her chin, forcing her to look up.
‘When did you come across him for the last time?’
She jerked her head free. ‘A couple of days ago I went to deliver a work that he had commissioned from me. Sketches of Redskins. Why these questions? Are you a police informer?’
‘His death was suspicious. Sooner or later the police will want to know the nature of your relationship with him. Were you at Les Batignolles station the day that Buffalo Bill arrived?’
Disconcerted, she crossed her arms.
‘What’s that got to do with anything? Do you think there’s a connection between that business and what’s happened at the Expo? Is this why you were talking about it at the café?’
‘Were you at Les Batignolles?’
‘Yes, Marius sent me there for the newspaper.’
‘Unless Ostrovski did.’
‘You go too far!’
Pretending not to hear, he closed the door. Was she playacting? Too forceful in her responses, but without enough conviction.
‘The rag-and-bone man — were you present at his death?’
‘No. I saw him fall; I thought he was having a turn. I had time to sketch something before the police arrived. There was a crush, so I left. I don’t enjoy morbid spectacles!’
Pale with fury, she was defying him. Suddenly, she understood.
‘My God, you think I did it! Are you about to accuse me of killing all those people? But Gouvier told you, the rag-and-bone man was sick, with a heart condition. Who put these ideas in your head? Clusel?’
‘I didn’t need him,’ Victor muttered, turning away to stop himself from being won over. ‘I thought it over. You were on the Tower the day that Eugénie Patinot died.’
‘Does that make me guilty? Lots of people were there: the newspaper team, your Japanese friend, you yourself … Do you think I’d really be able to cause someone harm? Have you no regard for me at all?’
‘On the contrary! I have a lot of … respect for you. I am simply trying to protect you.’
‘From whom? From what?’
‘You knew Ostrovski. And then … I saw you on the Esplanade des Invalides a few moments before Cavendish died.’
‘You were spying on me!’
‘It was by chance, I assure you.’
How could he confess to her that on that day he had been hoping to meet her at the Colonial Exhibition?
‘Go away. I’m tired.’
‘That expensive perfume that I saw here the day before yesterday — did Ostrovski give it to you?’
‘And if he had, how would that concern you? I am free, I associate with whom I wish!’ she shouted as she tried to get to the door.
Leaning on the handle, he barred her way. She sighed.
‘That bottle is just a sample. Last year I drew some labels for a perfumier. Now go. I never want to see you again.’
She quickly wiped her eyes, which were brimming with tears. He imprisoned her fist and raised it to his lips.
‘Tasha, please �
� forgive me,’ he said between kisses. ‘I wanted to be sure … all this is so complicated …’
She made a feeble effort to extricate herself.
‘Complicated, that’s what you are,’ she said in a choked voice.
He drew her to him, buried his face in her hair and breathed her scent in deeply. When his lips touched her, she resisted but did not turn away. He kissed her on her forehead, her nose, her neck and felt her let herself go. Blood was throbbing in his ears, he tightened his grip, his fingers went all down her arching back. Her cheeks suddenly aflame, she moved away from him, stood on tiptoes and, looking at him intently, slipped his frock coat off his shoulders.
She guided his hands to her hips. He embraced her passionately before carrying her to the bed. Lying next to her, he undid her nightshirt, tore off the collar, crumpling the lace. She raised herself up to look at him in the flickering light of the lamp and tried to undo the buttons on his shirt front. She was breathing faster now.
‘Come,’ she whispered.
He kissed her throat, caressed her breasts, descended towards the warmth of her thighs. Their naked bodies joined together in sensual harmony. Her movements were in rhythm with his. He fought against the desire to go too quickly.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Morning, Thursday 30 June
KENJI limbered up with some stretches. He missed not being able to take a bath. The room, with its flowery wallpaper and mass-produced furniture, was clean, but lacking in comfort. He stared into the mirror, almost hoping to find the answer to his worries, but he could see nothing except a man’s face with drawn features. He had been kept awake most of the night by an oversoft bed, the noise from Rue Denain, along with the comings and goings in the hotel, and used the time to try to make sense of everything he had learnt. Now he was trying to reach an objective decision on what course he should follow. He pushed the table up to the window, picked up a file and took out three negatives that he had appropriated from Victor’s apartment the day before. He adjusted his glasses and examined the photos, minutely examining every detail. Putting the photographs down, he began pacing the room, whilst weighing the pros and cons. He didn’t have much to go on, just an impression. He poured himself a cup of tea and reread the article in Le Passe-partout that related the circumstances of Ostrovski’s death. Yes, he had a hunch. It was starting to take shape in his imagination. Once he had made his decision, he put on his jacket. Better to act without absolute certainty than to carry on plagued by doubt.
