The Cavalier of the Apocalypse

by Susanne Alleyn

8

  "Stolen!" Sophie and Aristide exclaimed in the same instant. The man nodded, still gazing skeptically at Aristide.

  "About an hour ago, when Monsieur Daude here and the man who performs the menial work were both out eating their dinners, three men entered, overpowered Monsieur Bouille, and absconded with the corpse."

  "I returned twenty minutes ago," Daude interrupted, "and found poor Bouille bound, gagged, and blindfolded in the cellar. Resurrectionists, no doubt!"

  "No doubt," the police official echoed him. "Meanwhile, Monsieur?Ravel, obviously there is no further need for your presence."

  "No, monsieur."

  "But I-" Sophie began. Aristide whispered "Let's go" in her ear and hastily escorted her back to the public passage, where Brasseur was waiting with the maid.

  "Brasseur," Aristide said, "you won't believe what's happened-"

  "The body's been stolen!" Sophie interrupted him.

  "The body's?been?stolen," Brasseur repeated, after a moment of stunned silence. "Death of the devil!"

  Aristide nodded. "Some men overpowered the concierge and made off with it, about an hour ago. A police inspector is with them still. He and the other concierge are saying it was resurrectionists."

  "What is going on here?" Sophie demanded. "What on earth is a resurrectionist?"

  "It's argot for a body snatcher, mademoiselle," said Brasseur. "They dig up fresh corpses from the churchyards to sell to anatomists, or sometimes medical students do it on their own."

  "It's illegal to dissect any corpse except that of an executed criminal," Aristide said, with a glance at Brasseur for confirmation, "and there aren't nearly enough of those to go around to all the professors of medicine who need them for their lectures, so the resurrectionists step in and make a profit out of it." He paused, hoping she would not turn faint or queasy upon hearing of such a disagreeable subject, but she merely grimaced and said nothing.

  "Occasionally they even save a life," he continued, recalling an anecdote he had heard on good authority from a physician acquaintance. "A few years ago, some students dug up a girl who'd been buried the day before; on the way back to their laboratory, they discovered she was alive, revived her, and brought her back to her family."

  "Gracious!" she exclaimed, wide-eyed.

  "Well, that's neither here nor there," Brasseur growled. "Damnation! I suppose it's just possible," he continued, after a moment's gloomy silence, "that some resurrectionist heard about a fresh corpse at the morgue that hadn't been rotting in the river for a week, and took advantage of the fact."

  Sophie grimaced again, but seemed remarkably undistressed. "That's a horrid thought, but surely it's not the only explanation? Are body snatchers usually so bold, monsieur?"

  "I've never heard of them tying up someone and stealing a body from the morgue in broad daylight," he admitted. "Why take the risk, right here at the Ch?telet, where it's swarming with magistrates and guardsmen?"

  Aristide nodded. "I should think it would be much safer and easier to bribe the guard or the sexton and creep into a churchyard in the middle of the night, just as the murderer did. Those mass graves must be brimming with fresh corpses."

  "But why else would anyone steal my brother's body? And if it's not he, then where is my brother?"

  "I'm afraid we don't know any more than you do, mademoiselle," Brasseur said. "But you shouldn't become alarmed quite yet-"

  "You don't know my brother, monsieur. Lambert is a very good, respectable man, and the best of brothers, but he's utterly dull and domestic, and quite predictable."

  "Madame Saint-Landry told us he had been behaving oddly of late," Aristide said. "Might this disappearance of his be-"

  "But he never goes out without telling us when he'll return," she insisted. "To disappear for two days, without a word-it's completely unlike him. Please-don't dismiss this. It should be a police matter."

  Brasseur thought it over for a moment and at last nodded. "All right, mademoiselle, I'll try to return when I can, to interview the household further. That's the best we can do today, I'm afraid." He hailed her a fiacre from the square beyond. "Or perhaps I'll send Monsieur Ravel, shall I?" he added, as Aristide handed her into the cab.

  "That would be most satisfactory, monsieur," she said primly, though Aristide thought he caught a hint of a blush and a quickly hidden smile.

  "Want to hear what the ghouls have to say?" Brasseur added, to Aristide, as the cab rolled away and he turned toward the door to the Basse-Ge?le. Aristide followed him, curiosity overcoming his reluctance at visiting the morgue yet again.

  Bouille, he of the grotesquely comic, melancholy visage, was sprawled on a chair in the antechamber when they entered. Daude fussily poured out a glass of brandy while the other inspector stood stolidly to one side.

  "I hear you've had an unexpected bit of trouble," Brasseur said blandly as he approached. Bouille's eyelids flickered.

  "Never in all my days! I was manhandled, monsieur, seized bodily by three men, and tied up!" He seized the glass that his colleague handed him and gulped it down.

  "Can you describe these men?"

  "I've already questioned Monsieur Bouille," the inspector said. Brasseur glanced at him.

  "Good afternoon to you, too, Marchand. If you don't mind, I'll ask my own questions, seeing as it's my corpse that's disappeared. Make yourself useful, if you would, and station yourself outside so we're not interrupted."

  Marchand shot him a sour glance but did as he was requested. "Marchand would think it was a resurrectionist," Brasseur muttered, when he had gone. "The man has no imagination at all." He turned back to Bouille. "Well, what about it? You're not hurt, are you?"

  "No?I confess they did no more than handle me roughly. But-"

  "How much did you see? Can you describe them?"

  "Monsieur Brasseur, I never pay much attention to the living; they're not my business. A little more brandy, if you please," he added faintly to Daude.

  "Come, surely you can remember something about them. How many?"

  "Three men," said Bouille, his outraged expression further distorting his clown's face. "Two were young, early thirties perhaps. The third man was older. One of them came in alone, and said he'd come to look for a groom who might have had an accident at the water's edge; and then they grabbed me, all three of them, when I turned my back to unlock the grille. They blindfolded me and forced me down to the cellar and tied me to a chair."

  "Can you describe these men?"

  Bouille had another swallow of brandy, thought for a moment, and at last reluctantly divulged that the man he had seen had clearly been a gentleman, well-bred and well-spoken. The color of his hair? Brown, carelessly dressed, without powder.

  "I did notice his clothes," Bouille said suddenly. "In our line of work, you notice that. A corpse is a corpse, but you have to take detailed notes on the clothes and effects, and we rarely see anything near as fine here."

  Aristide could well believe him; the great majority of the corpses that arrived at the morgue would have been those of laborers and paupers.

  "This gentleman wore a good silk suit," Bouille continued, "plain but excellent quality, with the redingote in solid deep blue and an admirable waistcoat. Patterned silk?let me see?white and?tawny gold. Yes, that's it. Blue coat and patterned silk waistcoat, beneath a gray wool overcoat. It's not often," he added, with a mournful smile, "that we here have the opportunity to set eyes on such outstanding examples of the tailor's art, especially twice in one day."

  "Twice?" Aristide said. "Why, were the others who attacked you also well-dressed?"

  Bouille shook his head. "No, I scarcely saw them, though I recall the second man was more plainly dressed, like a clerk. And the third man was quite ordinary-looking, though his clothes were passable. But a gentleman arrived in the morning-"

  "I remember the gentleman who came in earlier," Daude interrupted, "on a separate errand. I was on duty here at the desk; he came in at about ten o'clock. Quite fashionably clad. H
e was looking for his valet and feared the man-who evidently had an unfortunate weakness for gambling and bad company-might have fallen afoul of some villain."

  "I showed him the only two males who fit the description," Bouille agreed, "but he said that neither was the man he sought, and took his leave. The second gentleman, with the others, the ones who attacked me, they arrived later, at about half past one."

  Aristide glanced at Brasseur, thoroughly puzzled. Surely, he thought, among so many other peculiar occurrences, the two visits must be related.

  "Monsieur Bouille," he said, struck with a sudden idea, "when you assisted the first man, do you remember which corpses you showed him?"

  "Ah, let me see?I showed him the body of a male who had drowned in the river four days previously, but he said it wasn't the man. Then he asked me if I had no others that could possibly fit the description. I told him that my only other male of the right age had been dressed like a gentleman, not a lackey, but he explained that he himself frequently gave his valet his castoff clothing, some of it still quite new, so the fellow might be clad above his station. So I showed him the new one, the cut throat, but he said that that wasn't his man either, and left, and I saw no more of him."

  "So you showed him our mysterious murder victim, did you?" Brasseur said. "And three hours later that particular body disappears. That's very interesting."

  "He came in looking for one particular man," Aristide said. "And perhaps he found him, but he didn't wish anyone to know that."

  "He wasn't accommodating enough," Brasseur said to Daude, "to give you his name?"

  "No, monsieur. They're only required to give us their names and addresses if they identify and claim a corpse."

  "And later, three other men steal the corpse?well! It's a pretty problem we have here, isn't it?" He looked at his watch and thrust it back into his pocket, with a gloomy glance at the outer door. "Half past three?I have to be off, Ravel. We inspectors who concentrate on criminal activity have a meeting most days at four, and, unfortunately, Marchand-who you may have guessed doesn't like me much-is one of them, and he'd love to see me turn up late. Why don't you go back to the Saint-Landrys and interview them, learn what you can about the man and the household?"

  "If you wish," Aristide said, unable to quite suppress a smile, and wondering what police officials normally asked the relatives of presumed victims.

  "Leave the waistcoat-oh, by the way. Here." Brasseur extracted a card from his pocket-book and thrust it at Aristide, together with a handful of copper coins. "Cab fare for the next few days. And show this card to anyone who demands to know who the devil you are. You're not quite on the books yet as a police agent, but it'll do. Go on, then-I'm sure Mademoiselle Saint-Landry is looking forward to your visit!"

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