by Anna Lord
“Same today – tall and broad of shoulder.”
They were rattling past the Musée du Louvre, heading toward the Tuileries. She appeared to be gazing idly at the contemporary frontispieces of the city but the careful tone belied the careless eye.
“Where did you disappear to with Monsieur Radzival?”
“We went to check out the corpse on the quai. Fortunately, it didn’t look like a marionette. It was a badly bruised, painfully thin, young woman called Lulu; most likely a wretched streetwalker who met a violent end thanks to an ungrateful customer. I was fleetingly concerned it might be victim number six but the next murder probably won’t occur until the eighth of December. That gives us five more days.”
“Yes, time is of the essence. Where did you go after you looked at the body? I didn’t see you on either bank.”
“I thought you might require some time alone with the playwright so I pretended to be interested in the Hospital Saint-Louis. Monsieur Radzival offered to act as a guide.”
“What opinion did you form of him?”
“Well, he’s highly intelligent. He seems to know a lot about a lot. I’m not surprised he spends most of his time in a library. I found him very easy to talk to; a font of knowledge.”
“What sorts of things did you talk about?”
“Oh, just about everything. He recounted the history of the Hospital Saint-Louis and then we talked about Salpetriere. The book he gave Monsignor Delgardo last night was a transcript of the lectures delivered by Dr Charcot, the doctor who revolutionized the ways in which maladies and madness were treated. I wouldn’t mind paying the Salpetriere a visit while I’m in Paris.”
“We can go tomorrow,” she suggested.
“We?”
“Everything is grist to the mill for a consulting detective.”
Never a truer word said. Sherlock was living proof of that. “Since you put it that way, I wouldn’t mind paying a visit to the gallery that was staging the exhibition in the memory of corpse number three.”
“Galerie soixante-six.”
“Yes, Gallery sixty-six,” he paraphrased, no longer astounded at her instant recall – it reminded him of Sherlock most of all, that, and the way she steepled her fingers. She’d been steepling them since they left Hotel de Merimont. It told him she was thinking deeply about something that had happened since this morning, something she was keeping to herself. “It was somewhere in the Marais, wasn’t it?”
She turned suddenly to look at him and beamed one of her benign smiles. “Place de Puces. I didn’t realize you were interested in ‘daubings’?”
He smiled back; the quip was playful rather than facetious. “My taste runs to the English school and no further. Constable. Stubbs. Landseer. Gainsborough. But last night while I was trying my best not to mingle, I overheard two men discussing the latest murder. They knew where it had taken place and that the victim had been mutilated. They immediately rushed off to Café Bistro to find out more. I followed them out to the stairwell and noted they were part of that group known as the Splattereurs. That’s when I bumped into you.”
“Hmm, grist to the mill. We can detour there right now. It cannot be far from here.”
She banged on the roof of the landau with her umbrella and stuck her head out of the window when the carriage stopped. “Place de Puces,” she directed. “Vite! Vite!”
The coachman cracked the whip and did an about face.
“By the way,” the doctor said, handing her his pocket handkerchief, “why were we going to Montmartre? And please don’t tell me we were going to investigate the cemetery for clues, not in this downpour.”
She used his handkerchief to mop raindrops off her face then refolded it according to the existing creases and handed it back. “We were going to visit the little church next door to the Cimetiere du Calvaire. We can still go after the gallery. Churches are never locked. I want to speak to the priest. He might be able to recall something from the night of the fourth murder.”
Dr Watson and the Countess stepped blithely through the door of Galerie soixante-six and stopped dead. It wasn’t just the surreal sight that confronted them head on, but the assault on their sense of expectation.
Marionettes were dangling from the ceiling, strung up on wires, hundreds of them - Italian, Indian, African and Oriental. There were jesters and clowns, happy and sad; there were devils, black and red, horned and hooded; witches and wizards, white and black; kings and queens, knights and damsels, princes and princesses, ogres, giants, dwarfs, and fantastic characters that were an amalgamation of all of the above.
Disturbing, jarring, chaotic, there was Mr Punch with his sugarloaf hat, and Judy with her mob-cap. There was every version of Pulchinello since the comedia dell’arte started in the year dot. There was Tatterdemalion, Truffa, and Pierrot, some with diamonds, some with triangles, some with moons and stars and suns on their clothes, tasselled and ruffed, belted and cuffed.
Weird and wonderful, was Pantalone the pants man, Bagatino the juggler, Cucurucu the trickster brother of tricky Harlequin, Colombina the cockteaser, and Dante’s Alichino, the Devil who had invaded every circle of hell since paradise was lost.
“Art should always shock.”
The voice that addressed them sounded like a high-pitched squawk. It took a moment to realize the man was not gargling quicksilver, but speaking through a swazzle, a sort of kazoo for the mouth, essential to Mr Punch. Without it the puppet was not really Punch at all but a poor imitation.
Stunned by the sight of so many dangling puppets, they lacked the wherewithal to speak. Their brains were spinning out of control. What did it mean? Did it mean anything? Was it art? Was it truth? Or was it a monstrous joke? Parody? Mockery? Insanity? A celebration of life? Or the celebration of death?
The man removed the swazzle from his mouth and his voice sounded strangely human. “Art is nothing if it does not make you catch your breath.”
The Countess found her voice before the doctor did. The fact the man addressing them was the one with the absurd handlebar moustache only added to the doctor’s consternation.
“Your exposition is celebrating the life and death of Madame Hertzinger, n’est-ce pas?”
“Yes,” replied the man with an exaggerated sigh, “a great lady, a patroness of the arts, one who was not afraid of the New.” He pronounced the last as if it should have a capital N.
“I believe she fell from her balcony?” The Countess feigned ignorance as she whirled elegantly past the artist and began to inspect the works of art. The exercise actually helped the blood return to her dizzily spinning head.
The artist followed in her wake like a flâneur on the Champs Elysses trailing after a beautiful woman, twirling his magnificent moustache out of habit. “I have depicted the death scene here in this painting.” He led her to a large canvas where some pink, orange and purple splotches had been flicked ad hoc onto a blank canvas. “You can see the agony she suffered as she lay there on the pavement.”
“Indeed,” said the Countess in a level tone. “The aesthetic agony is striking.”
Dr Watson looked at the price tag; his voice came back to him in one outraged breath. “The only agony is that ridiculous sum!”
“I will take it,” said the Countess, ignoring her companion.
“A discerning choice, madame,” praised the moustachioed one, with an obsequious bow. “I will deliver it personally if you will be so good as to supply your name and address.”
“Countess Volodymyrovna, Des Ballerines, rue Bonaparte.”
He rushed away to write it down before his memory failed him.
“Is that one of the men from last night?” she said, sotto voce.
“Yes – have you gone mad? That work is rubbish! It isn’t worth a bean!”
“No, but a private conversation with the artist is worth something.”
“Not that much!”
The artist returned moments later with a rectangle of card attached to some string. The card had
the word SOLD written on it. Proudly, he hung it over a corner of the canvas and a buzz immediately bestirred the sleepy little gallery.
“Perhaps I can interest you in another canvas,” he said hopefully, jealously guarding his rich patroness from his fellow Splattereurs. Together, they circumambulated the gallery admiring the other works of art, leaving the doctor to light up a cigarette and nurse his outrage in private. After a few calming breaths he began looking for an ashtray when someone approached him with a pewter dish and caught the finger of ash just before it fell.
“I remember you from last night.” It was the red-headed artist with the fiery red beard. “You were at the Hotel de Merimont.”
“Yes,” admitted the doctor, feigning vague recollection. “I don’t believe we were introduced but I recognize your smock and beret. What did you think of the harpist?”
“I wasn’t really listening, to tell the truth. Those sorts of posh soirees leave me cold. Can I interest you in a painting?”
“I’m afraid modern art is not for me. If you have anything from the English school I might take a look.”
“What English school?”
“Constable, Landseer, Stubbs, Gainsborough.”
“Never heard of it. What drew you here today?”
Dr Watson indicated the Countess with a nod of his head. “My travelling companion is mad about modern art, yes, quite mad,” he repeated with emphasis.
“Is she rich?”
“Very.”
“Perhaps you could introduce me.”
“Perhaps if I knew your name.”
“Laszlo.”
“Unfortunately for you, Laszlo, it appears your moustachioed friend has claimed her for himself. You will need to sort it out with him. Whose idea was it to display the marionettes?”
The red-haired artist glared darkly at his copain. “Salvador. He’s full of crazy ideas. He says the marionettes are our way of paying homage to our patroness, Madame Hertzinger. She was tied to a balcony railing before she fell to her death. Dangling over the edge, you see.”
“I see, yes, homage. Who tied her to the railing?”
“Who else but a madman!”
Dr Watson hadn’t really been expecting a cogent answer but it was worth a try. “Where did Salvador get so many marionettes? Did he make them himself?”
“Ha! Not Salvador! There’s a puppet shop around the corner. It’s closing down. The old man who owns it is not long for this world. Everything is going cheap. You can pick up a marionette for a song. Just turn left into the allée des Bouffons. Are you sure I cannot interest you in a painting?”
“Quite sure. Oh, my companion is signalling to me. Perhaps we will meet again at the Hotel de Merimont.” He sincerely hoped not.
Dr Watson offered his arm to the Countess and together they strolled out of the gallery and turned left into buffoon alley.
Chapter 8 - Little Mary
Monsieur Grimaldi was coughing up blood into a spittoon when the little bell above the door gave a tinkle. Quickly, he wiped away the red spittle using his frayed sleeve. Years ago such behaviour would have appalled him but he was past caring. He was worn out with the worry of dying alone and in pain. His wife had died five years back – a chancre in the stomach. One day she stopped eating and just wasted away. He blamed the Panama Affair. His son had drowned at sea at the age of nine, swept off the rocks by a rogue wave in the Bay of Naples. His daughter had died in childbirth. She had been eighteen. His son-in-law remarried six months later and moved to Provence. There was no one left.
The puppets had solaced him. They were like family. He talked to them at night after he closed the shop and extinguished the gaslight. But now they were going too. That crazy artist took all the good ones. Robbed him blind! But what could he do? He couldn’t be bothered bartering any more. What for? A few more francs? And who would he leave it to?
There were just a few of the old puppets left now. Old like him. No one wanted them. They had sat on the top shelf covered in dust for twenty years. Yesterday he climbed on a chair and brought them down and dusted them off. How miserable they looked. He almost cried.
“Monsieur Grimaldi is my name, may I be of service?” He was dismayed to have any customers come through the door let alone such respectable looking ones. A young lady, impeccably groomed in a costume tailleur of marine blue velveteen trimmed with white fox fur, and a mature gentleman in a brown wool coat of good quality.
“I am interested in purchasing a marionette,” said the lady unblinkingly, gazing at the empty shelves.
“Of course, of course, but, alas, as you can see most my stock has gone. I am closing down. After twenty years in the business I will close my doors for good. I have only a few old puppets left.”
He coughed to clear his throat and ran a melancholy eye over the line of tawdry wooden puppets lying forlornly on the counter like dead babies lined up for mass burial after the Black Death. He’d seen a line of dead babies in Treviso once. They died not from plague, of course, but whooping cough. Every babe in the village was taken, none were spared. It was a sad time for the mothers.
The lady ran a critical eye over the meagre display and picked up one of the oldest puppets. “Tell me about this one.”
“Ah, now, that one is interesting. She was my first. She started me in the business. I found her in a marketplace in Aleppo a very long time ago. She is called Little Mary.”
“Little Mary?”
“The first puppets ever created were all made in the likeness of the Virgin. They were all called Little Mary. That’s how marionettes got their name, meaning little Marys.”
“She looks antique.”
“More than antique - fifteenth century.”
“What is this one with the patches on his costume?”
“He is called Clown.”
She picked up the patchwork puppet. “Clown is his name?”
“Yes, it is from the seventeenth century. He is not funny. He is a brute.”
“He has a rabbit’s tail on his cap.”
“Tail of the hare,” he corrected. “It is the sign of the coward.”
She replaced it and moved along the counter. “This Harlequin carries a stick?”
“It is called a batte or slapstick; also it is a wand.”
“Magic wand?”
“Yes, magic.”
“Harlequin is a magician?”
“Magician, yes, comic fool, perpetual lover, clever servant, romantic hero…he is whatever you want him to be. He has changed over time. See here, this one has the chequered costume, he is agile and handsome, but this earlier one, he is less handsome, his costume was made of discordant shapes, you see a triangle, a square, a diamond, a heart, a rhombus, it is tricky to the eye. Watch as I make the string-pulling.”
“He dances nimbly in your hands!”
Monsieur Grimaldi acknowledged the praise with a slight bow of his head and a brittle smile. “The busy costume, it adds to the mischief-making. A good sudrahara or neurospastos – sinew puller - can work wonders.”
“You said sinew, not string, as if they are human?”
“To me, they are human.”
Dr Watson interrupted the colloquy with a discrete cough. “I’ll be in the tobacco shop next door if you need me.” The bell above the door gave a tinkle as he exited.
The Countess inched along and picked up another of the marionettes. “Do all Harlequin’s wear a black mask?”
“Sometimes red, sometimes black, they are devils. You know the story?”
Curious to learn more, she shook her head. “Not really, tell me.”
The Italian string-puller paused to cough into his handkerchief then picked up two marionettes, a hooded monk and a black-masked harlequin with a crescent moon hat like an up-turned boat. It was called a bicorn and had been made famous by Napoleon. Deftly, he animated the two puppets as he recounted the story.
“Long ago, a monk was being chased by masked demons, emissaries of Satan. It was their job to se
nd the souls of the damned to hell. This is from the chronicle of Vitalis. This is not the story of the struggle of good and evil. It is the story of two evils.”
“It sounds like a pre-curser to the Passion Play?”
“And the commedia dell’arte.”
“Harlequin is a form of Arlequin or Alichino, is it not?”
He was surprised she had made the connection. “Dante’s Devil, yes. In the Germanic he was Erlkonig. To the English he was Herla cyning, the Erlking. In the chronicle of the monk by Vitalis, the demons were the familia herlequin or familia herlethingi. The leader was herlequin or hellequin. Today, he makes us a laugh. Are you interested to buy?”
“Yes, I will take them all except for Little Mary. She belongs here with you. My manservant will pay you tomorrow when he comes to collect them. Au revoir, Monsieur Grimaldi.”
Dr Watson was waiting for the Countess in the allée des Bouffons.
“I bought myself a pipe. I know it goes against the grain of medical understanding and everything I have been brought up to believe about pneumatic health but I think cigarettes might be the death of me. You should try cutting back too, especially in public. It’s not done.”
“Smoking will soon be the epitome of sophistication, mon ami. Next century no woman will be caught dead sans cigarette. It will be like a soiree minus music, an orchestra without strings, a night sky devoid of stars…”
“Yes, yes, well, my chest is starting to feel tight again, the way it did when I had bronchitis, and I’m always out of breath, especially after a cigarette. I only have to go up a flight of stairs and I’m panting, and if I’m smoking at the same time it is worse.”
“I thought your cough improved after we landed in Biarritz?”
“It did, briefly, but now the weather is turning and, well, I really felt it when I was walking with Monsieur Radzival earlier today. I got the impression he felt sorry for me and slowed his stride – his legs are much longer than they look. I was struggling to keep up. When we stopped at the top of the embankment and I suffered a coughing fit I actually checked my handkerchief to make sure I wasn’t coughing up blood.”
