In the Shadows of Paris

by Claude Izner

  ‘Cool off with a refreshing coconut ice, ladies and gentlemen!’ shouted a trader, clanging his bell and stooping under the weight of his tinplate barrel.

  ‘In the Russian style, ladies, in the Russian style,’ shrieked the flower seller, pushing her cartload of variegated blooms, the violets the star of the show.

  Edmond Leglantier bought a red carnation, which he put in his buttonhole, brushing aside a man peddling risqué photographs entitled Pauline’s Bath. Sluggish from the sweltering heat of late afternoon, he paused to consider whether to catch the Madeleine–Bastille omnibus or take a glass of quinquina at one of the tables outside the taverns.

  He felt the weight of his briefcase and decided to continue on foot. He needed a clear head for the matter in hand.

  He was greeted at the entrance to the club by a woman of gargantuan proportions nicknamed ‘La belle Circassienne’ although she came from Romorantin. She served the triple function of moneylender, fortune teller and purveyor of young flesh. As was the custom, Edmond Leglantier gave her a one-franc piece in exchange for a meaningful wink and the name of a young soprano singer in need of a benefactor.

  ‘Her name’s Rosalba, a dear plump little thing,’ the ogress whispered.

  Edmond Leglantier declined with a smile.

  The Méridien was an open club and thus allowed entry to both members and non-members alike. Its clientele consisted of artists, men and women of letters, socialites and captains of industry. They went there to lunch, to dine, to write their correspondence, but above all to gamble.

  The main room, with its monumental fireplace, its walls covered in enamel plates – would-be reproductions of Bernard Palissy – and its gilded tables, was lit by five-branched chandeliers. Standing to attention near the hearth, a melancholy-looking fellow responsible for handing out the chips greeted Edmond Leglantier, who replied absentmindedly, ‘Hello, Monsieur Max.’ He surveyed the crowd gathered in one of the side rooms. It was the hour of the green fairy. The absinthe drinkers poured their magic potion drop by drop into a glass, filtering their poison through a sugar cube held in a slotted spoon. Card games were well under way. Excited by the activity around them, punters jostled eagerly for position around the banker. For some people, gambling was a true panacea. They expected the cards to provide enough money to live on. They played safe, weighing up the probabilities and placing bets only when they felt comfortable. They earned their living from gambling. But many others succumbed to the demon that could make or break them in a single hand, although their faces betrayed none of their dreadful anxiety. Only outside did they let their disappointment show.

  This perennial drama was drowned out by snatches of trivial chat or profound observations. A neglected poet vented his spleen.

  ‘Novels and plays are churned out as if by machine. Today’s literary manufacturers cater to all tastes! I despise such publishers!’

  ‘What can I say, my friend, money is more important than art.’

  ‘Guess what he had the cheek to say to the author!’ bawled a gossip columnist. ‘“Monsieur, I’ve read your manuscript; choose your weapon.” Have you seen his new play? It doesn’t stand up at all; it’s completely overblown and then it just fizzles out! Ah! At last! Leglantier!’

  A general murmur greeted the arrival of the man whom fellow club patrons considered as something of a mentor. A score of men in black tailcoats, most of them sporting monocles, immediately gathered round the manager of l’Échiquier. A heterogeneous bunch, they included military men, aristocrats and members of the middle classes, like the gossip columnist and the thwarted poet. Edmond Leglantier was good at smoothing away tensions. His inside knowledge of the latest Paris gossip, the favours he received from a few well-known actresses and the subtle way he had of denigrating his peers made him a leading light who was much in demand. And yet the moment his back was turned, his admirers attacked him viciously.

  ‘My dear fellow, we were just waiting for you in order to begin,’ exclaimed a retired colonel.

  ‘Apologies for the delay. I was so caught up in the renovations at the theatre that I lost all sense of time.’

  ‘And yet there’s a rumour going round that work has been suspended due to lack of funds.’

  ‘“Slander, Monsieur, I’ve seen honest men all but destroyed by it”,11 my dear Colonel de Réauville. Lady Luck will soon be smiling on me and I shall reap the full benefits!’

  ‘By what miracle?’

  Edmond Leglantier spread out his twenty-five share certificates on the green baize.

  ‘Thanks to these beauties. It’s a pity I’m short of funds otherwise I’d have bought more. They’re about to soar – I’d swear to it.’

  ‘Ambrex? Never heard of it,’ remarked the gossip columnist.

  ‘Ah, that’s because the company isn’t listed on the stock market yet, but next month…Expect a coup de théâtre – rest assured this investment will revive my finances. Your health, gentlemen,’ he concluded, waving one of the shares in the air.

  Colonel de Réauville muttered, ‘Ambrex, Ambrex, dashed funny name!’

  ‘Come on, Leglantier, stop beating about the bush. Tell us the whole story. What is this Ambrex?’ demanded an art dealer from Rue Laffitte.

  ‘There’s no mystery. Look,’ said Edmond Leglantier, holding up a cigar holder. ‘What do you suppose this is made of?’

  ‘Amber.’

  ‘Wrong. It’s a perfect imitation, an invention that will revolutionise the jewellery industry.’

  ‘Come on, Leglantier, we’ve all seen imitation amber before, it’s just yellow glass!’ exclaimed Colonel de Réauville.

  ‘This isn’t glass.’

  ‘Gum lacquer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tortoiseshell?’

  ‘No, no! I assure you it’s an original formula. Believe me, I’d never have put money on this company if I wasn’t convinced of its success.’

  He slipped the cigar holder into his pocket, pretended to hesitate then reopened his briefcase.

  ‘Here, a gift for the future audience of Heart Pierced by an Arrow. Help yourselves, and be sure to bring your wives, daughters and mistresses to Théâtre de l’Échiquier!’

  Every man examined the cigar holders, going into raptures about their quality. The transparency, the colour, even the tiny insects trapped in the resin looked uncannily like Baltic amber.

  ‘I can’t tell the difference,’ muttered the gossip columnist.

  ‘The patent has just been registered,’ added Edmond Leglantier.

  ‘Are you in partnership with the inventor?’

  ‘He’s an acquaintance from my youth, who invited me in on the deal.’

  ‘Really…Well, I for one am interested,’ replied the art dealer.

  ‘We’re all interested,’ seconded a tall fellow with the handlebar moustache, close-cropped hair and florid complexion of a hussar.

  ‘My dear Coudray, this is a limited offer only. My “acquaintance” wants to start off slowly. As Racine wrote in Les Plaideurs, Act I, Scene 1: “He who will travel far…”’

  ‘All right, chi va piano va sano, we know the expression. Count me in anyway,’ Coudray went on. ‘I want fifty of these shares.’

  ‘And I’ll have seventy!’ said a man with a monocle.

  ‘I want fifty, too.’

  ‘Count me in! I’ll buy thirty.’

  ‘Don’t forget me! Forty!’

  Edmond Leglantier began to chuckle.

  ‘Calm down, gentlemen, calm down; we’re not on the trading floor now. I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything. I’ll have to make sure there are enough to go round…’

  He opened a jotter and began taking down the orders.

  ‘Two hundred and forty shares…Gentlemen, it’s your lucky day. I think I’m in a position to give you what you want. As long as the shares remain unlisted, I’m the intermediary, but we’ll need to act quickly. Meet me back here at seven o’clock this evening…Oh, and no promissory notes, cash onl
y.’

  Edmond Leglantier left. His performance had been such a resounding success that he allowed himself to pat La Circassienne’s behind on his way back out onto the Boulevard.

  ‘Fiddle dee dee! The simpletons! It’s in the bag. Let’s see, two hundred and forty times five hundred is a hundred and twenty thousand…sixty thousand for me! And if I manage to wheedle at least another hundred thousand francs out of that old codger the Duc de Frioul tonight, I’ll be in clover!’

  A bare-headed young laundress smiled at him.

  He doffed his hat and called out, ‘Mademoiselle, you are utterly delightful!’

  He straightened up. The fair-haired man in the light-coloured suit was leaning against a lamppost. He kept looking at his watch as though waiting for a romantic tryst. Had he been spying on him ever since he arrived at the club?

  Ecce homo,12 thought Edmond Leglantier.

  It occurred to him to approach the stranger, but he decided against it. He resisted a momentary urge to flee, and instead sat down at a table outside a café. He conjured up the face of the man who had hired him. Edmond Leglantier had sensed that beneath the easy-going exterior he was someone of formidable character and devilish intelligence: setting up a fraud of such complexity required total control of the situation. Was he having Leglantier tailed to make sure he didn’t try to swindle him? Edmond Leglantier shuddered. With a man like that he’d be well advised to play straight.

  His shadow paced up and down, looking as though he were carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  ‘They’d boo him off stage,’ Edmond Leglantier said to himself. ‘Well, that’s enough of that!’

  Having ordered nothing, he walked back home, making sure he kept to the side streets. He forced himself not to turn round.

  ‘Remember Lot’s wife!’

  When he reached the entrance to his building, he peered carefully about him, but his shadow was nowhere in sight.

  Chapter Three

  Tuesday 4 July

  FRÉDÉRIC Daglan was peeling potatoes. The weather was mild and he felt safe in the middle of the overgrown garden with its riot of viburnum, bindweed and elderberry bushes threatening to invade the vegetable patch. Mother Chickweed lived at the foot of the fortifications, which had been built in order to protect Paris but had failed dismally to do so.13

  Two weeks earlier, when Frédéric Daglan had come to her, she had asked no questions. Anchise had sent him and that was recommendation enough; he could stay here and sleep in the shed, preparing the meals when she was out.

  Mother Chickweed was about forty years old and fiercely independent. She had left her drunkard husband and found a way of making a living all year round.

  She trudged the streets with her basket of wild grass flecked with white flowers, crying out, ‘Chickweed for your songbirds!’

  The concierges, housewives and people working from home looked out for her every day. For the songbirds would soon stop chirping and tweeting if they didn’t have their chickweed. These tiny creatures hanging from the window jambs in cages were a symbol of happiness for the poor. They would always find a sou to buy chickweed even when times were hard.

  By late spring, the herb was getting scarce, its season over, but Mother Chickweed continued to provide plantain spears and fresh millet for the local songbirds.

  Frédéric Daglan gathered up the potato peelings in some old newspaper and was about to take them over to the rabbits when an article at the bottom of the page caught his eye. His face tensed. He checked the date on the newspaper: 22 June 1893.

  Murder on Rue Chevreul

  A man was stabbed to death yesterday at seven o’clock in the morning, on Rue Chevreul. The victim was an enamellist by the name of Léopold Grandjean. The police are questioning a witness…

  ‘Damn it!’ he cursed under his breath.

  Later that evening

  Paul Theneuil had been waiting outside the premises in the rain for a good quarter of an hour. For him, punctuality was a cardinal virtue, and he loathed wasting his time. He had received the telegram that morning, just after opening time, and had taken several minutes to digest its content. Standing next to the window of his office, he had looked down on the bustling print works below, fingering the blue paper before tearing it up. He hated feeling forced to obey what seemed more like a command than a request. What a nerve – pestering him now after they’d agreed to sever all contact once the transaction was completed!

  Paul Theneuil was not a man to lose himself in conjecture; he left nothing to chance, and once he made a decision he stuck to it. Other than Monsieur Leuze, his book-keeper, none of his staff would ever dare question his orders. Paul Theneuil knew that this time he had a tough opponent on his hands, but he was a past master at playing with loaded dice, and he was not going to let anybody harass him.

  He had left his print works in Petit-Montrouge in the late afternoon in order to arrive at this fellow’s place by seven o’clock, leaving himself plenty of time to pop in and warn Marthe. The thing was not to change his habits under any circumstances. He’d walked up Passage des Thermopyles and into the haberdasher’s. It was empty. He could hear Marthe stirring her pots in the adjoining kitchen.

  ‘Is that you, Paul?’

  ‘I’m just going to meet a client who has ordered some posters. Mmm, that smells delicious! What are you cooking?’

  ‘Jugged hare.’

  Paul Theneuil had taken a swig of Sancerre, changed his jacket and grabbed an umbrella.

  ‘Put a plate aside for me, dear.’

  His ‘dear’ had blown him a kiss and gone on adding white wine to her roux.

  The heavens had decided to open just as Paul Theneuil stepped onto an omnibus. He was a stocky, coarse-looking man of about sixty. His broad face gave the impression of being covered in stubble even when it was clean-shaven. His thin, straight hair was greying at the temples and he wore a pince-nez on his red, bulbous nose. The typesetters and apprentices called him ‘Ugly mug’ behind his back.

  The rain had eased off. The courtyard and the street beyond were empty. Paul Theneuil realised that the man had not specified whether to meet him indoors or out. After that downpour he was most likely inside. All the better, it would make his job easier. He reached for the latch. The door opened onto a stack of empty boxes. Light filtered dimly through the grimy windows. He glanced around the room, taking in its contents: a desk covered in papers, two chairs, shelves lined with files and a workbench running along one wall.

  ‘Hello! Is anybody there?’

  He heard the sound of breathing.

  Something moved to his left.

  Paul Theneuil swung round.

  Wednesday 5 July

  As he left Professor Mortier’s house, Joseph aimed a kick at a dustbin. He was livid. They’d sent him halfway across Paris to deliver a dictionary of Ancient Greek with only sixty centimes in his pocket! Before Iris’s betrayal, he would have been allowed to take a cab, but nowadays Monsieur Mori treated him as though he had fallen from grace. He walked up to the first in a row of omnibuses. A puckish-looking conductor was sitting on the platform puffing on a cigarette while he stared at his shoes.

  ‘Have I time to buy a newspaper?’ Joseph enquired.

  The man spat without letting go of his fag end.

  ‘We’re leaving in two minutes, lad.’

  In his hurry, Joseph bumped into an old man buying a copy of Le Figaro from the news vendor.

  ‘You oaf!’

  Joseph muttered an apology and, his Passe-partout under his arm, ran back to the omnibus, which was just moving off. His only thought was to find a seat, open his newspaper and make the journey in comfort. He knew the route off by heart: the boulevards and then, as they neared the centre, the more fashionable streets.

  ‘Hot, isn’t it?’ a man remarked.

  ‘Dreadful time of year.’

  ‘The newspapers forecast rain.’

  ‘Well, you can’t always believe what you read…’
>
  Some bored-looking firemen on duty were leaning out of the mezzanine at the Bibliothèque Nationale, watching the traffic below. Through half-open windows, public servants could be seen busily idling. One, however, was sharpening a pencil.

  The clippety-clop of the horses’ hooves echoed as they passed under the archway leading to Cour du Carrousel. Two men alighted.

  Leaden clouds presaged a dull day. A passing dray poked its nose in above the platform. The conductor cried out, ‘Two-legged animals only, my beauty! Room for two more downstairs, numbers seven and eight!’

  Ding a ling a ling.

  With a deafening clatter, the yellow omnibus turned the corner into a wide avenue. At every stop, people clamoured and waved their numbered tickets at the driver. The ‘full’ sign was put up. The conductor, who’d seen it all before, said in a jaded voice, ‘With omnibuses as with books – you never know what you’ll find inside.’

  Then he pulled the cord to alert the driver, who reined in his horses to allow another faster omnibus to overtake.

  ‘It’s going to bucket down!’ the driver called out.

  ‘It’ll make the grass grow!’ the conductor cried back. ‘Louvre, Châtelet, Odéon, room for one more upstairs. Number six!’

  On the pavement, a score of disappointed faces looked up at the sky and decided it was perhaps a good thing there was no room for them on the upper deck. At last number six came forward.

  Ding a ling a ling.

  ‘Get your Figaro, Intransigeant, Petit Journal!’

  A news vendor made a few speedy sales.

  Joseph opened his Passe-partout, handily just as number six, an enormous woman laden with shopping baskets, stepped on board. Nobody offered her their seat.

  ‘It’s no good, Madame,’ the conductor observed. ‘You’ll have to go upstairs. Here, I’ll give you a shove. Heave-ho!’