Doctor Death (23 page)

When I had delivered my boxes to Marot, I mentioned the name scribbled in
Shockheaded Peter
and told him where I had found the newspaper page. The newspaper did not really interest him.

“My wife uses newspapers as shelf paper,” he said. “She must just have failed to remove the old paper and placed the new on top. But the name is interesting. What was Mother Filippa called before she joined the order?”

“Sister Agnes suggested I ask the convent’s previous archivist. She is blind and no longer goes out into the world, but I have met her, and her mind is not weakened.”

“Yet another inaccessible witness?” His mustache stuck out aggressively. “How am I to conduct a murder investigation in this way?”

“It is just a simple question,” I said. “She is not a key witness, after all.”

“No, I don’t suppose she is, especially since she is blind. Fine. Go ask her and come back as quickly as possible with the answer.”

“There is something I should mention,” I said. “I overheard some kind of disagreement between Mother Filippa and a man yesterday. He was not someone I know, or have seen around the convent, but he was shouting at her, and I got the impression that she would rather not tell me why.”

“What did he shout?”

I tried to recall the words as precisely as possible.

“He called her the devil’s servant,” I said. “Not God’s.”

“What did he look like?”

I described him as well as I could—about fifty, dark haired, tall, and stocky, with broad shoulders, somewhat carelessly dressed but still clearly a man of a certain wealth and position—and I told what I could remember about the horse, which unfortunately was only its color.

“Someone must know who he was,” said the inspector. “I will make inquiries. Now, go talk to the blind nun.”

Sister Bernadette was still in bed. The news of the abbess’s death had hit her hard, and she simply did not have the strength or will to get up and face the trials of so cruel a day. Imogene Leblanc sat at her bedside, reading to her from the Book of Psalms.

“ ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul . . .’ ”

She turned the page with her arthritis-knotted hand and continued.

“ ‘He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil . . .’ ”

Her eyes no longer followed the text; she knew it by heart. Sister Bernadette no doubt did as well, but there must have been consolation in the ritual, in the sound of the rustling of the pages, in the companionship of the familiar words.

“Excuse me,” I said.

Imogene looked up. “What do you want, mademoiselle?”

“Inspector Marot has requested that I ask Sister Bernadette a few questions.”

“She is not well.”

“It will not take long . . .”

Sister Bernadette pushed herself up so she sat leaning back against the pillows. Her face was even more lined than it had been when I saw her the first time, and the folds of skin around her blind eyes were swollen and red.

“It is all right, Imogene. Thank you for your concern, but if I can contribute in any way, it will do me good. Have a seat, Mademoiselle Karno.”

She had recognized me without hesitation, and when Imogene remained standing by the door, Sister Bernadette turned her face to her and said quite firmly, “Thank you, Imogene.”

And then the postulant was obligated to leave us alone.

“No one will tell me how she died,” said Sister Bernadette. “Only that she was killed.”

For a moment I imagined what it was like to sit there, helpless and unable to see anything but the pictures in her own mind.

“What do you want to know?” I said. “I am happy to answer if I can.”

She wanted to know everything. Not just the cause of death but all the circumstances, how it had looked, how and when the male wolf had died. She managed to extract from me even the body’s nakedness and the grotesque placement of the wolf, though I would have liked to shield her from that.

At last she sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. I can hardly believe it, and yet I fear . . .”

“What, Sister?”

“They still have not found Emile?”

“No.”

“Is he suspected of the crimes?”

“I don’t know.” But I could imagine that Marot’s thoughts were leaning in that direction.

“Ohhhh . . .” This last utterance was a long, frustrated hiss, perhaps an expression of uncertainty.

“Sister Bernadette, there is something I need to ask you. What was Mother Filippa called before she joined the order?” When she hesitated, I decided to be more direct. “Was her name Louise-Clemente Oblonski?”

She shook her head slowly. “It is not as you might think.”

“What do you mean?”

“When Emile came here seven years ago, he did not have a name. She gave him hers. She always said that even though several hundred people called her mother, he was the only child she would ever have.”

Seven years. 1887.

“I thought he had been here longer.”

“No.”

“But he was not a baby. Why did he not have a name? He must have been ten or so by then.”

“He could not speak.”

“When I asked Mother Filippa, she said there was nothing wrong with his mental faculties.”

“No. He was intelligent enough. But how will someone who has grown up without human contact receive the gift of language?”

Suddenly I saw the newspaper in my mind’s eye. Not the article, though it was, naturally enough, what I had first focused on . . . but the advertisements at the bottom of the page. Among the ads for hair tonic and variety shows, there had been one for a traveling menagerie, which in addition to showing “deadly lions and tigers directly from Africa” boasted a true curiosity: “The Wild Boy from Bois Boulet. Half beast, half human. He speaks with wolves, and they do not harm him!”

“The Wild Boy,” I said.

“Yes. That is what they called him. But he was no more wild than you and I, just abandoned, and later caught and abused and exhibited like an animal.”

“He already had his . . . handicap back then?”

“Are you referring to his priapism? Oh, yes. That was a part of the attraction. And since he was terrified most of the time, it was presumably the high point of every performance.”

“And now you are wondering if he has killed Mother Filippa?”

“No. No, I cannot believe that. He worshipped her.”

“But?”

“No, it is just that . . . if you damage a child that badly, that early, and for so long . . . He is not
guilty
, don’t you see—no matter what he may have done.”

The hunt for Emile Oblonski officially commenced a few hours later. They hunted him as one would hunt a wild animal—with horns and horses, beaters, dogs, and riflemen on foot. Throughout the day one could hear the distant shouts, the baying of the bloodhounds, and now and then the sharp report of a hunting rifle.

“Oh no, oh no. May God prevent them from shooting each other,” said Sister Agnes, who had arrived together with Sister Marie-Claire and six other nuns to escort Mother Filippa on the short trip from the hospital to the convent’s chapel.

“Amen,” said the Commissioner with particular emphasis. “I am not sure that it is wise to allow so many amateurs to participate. But, on the other hand, the professional effort to find Oblonski has admittedly failed miserably up to this point.”

Perhaps I had been infected with a hint of the protectiveness
that Mother Filippa had felt, because my concern was not so much for the hunters as for the one they hunted.

“I hope they do not kill him,” I said quietly. “They are so angry and so . . . self-righteous.”

The Commissioner loosened his collar with an index finger. His night had been interrupted twice; before Mother Filippa, by a kitchen maid who had chosen to fill her apron pockets with rocks and throw herself into the river from the Arsenal Bridge, presumably because she was five months pregnant and could no longer hide her condition from her master. The lack of sleep was evident in the Commissioner’s bloodshot eyes and the increased heaviness in his movements.

“Inspector Marot has made sure that every group has a responsible leader with either police or military experience,” he said. “Men who can maintain discipline. Do not worry, dear Madeleine, we will catch him alive.”

But I knew him too well. He was far from serene himself.

Mother Filippa’s body was now dressed in the habit she had worn most of her adult life. The crucifix from her cell lay on her chest, and there were no outward signs of the incisions my father had performed during the autopsy. Even her face looked less disfigured—we had pulled the skin over the injury and closed the long wound with tiny, almost invisible stitches.

Four nuns carried her, while two others walked in front, and the two last, Marie-Claire and Agnes, made up the procession’s rear guard.

“Salve Regina,” they sang while they walked, not especially beautifully or loudly, but with great sincerity. “Mater misericordiae.” And when they reached the wrought-iron gate to the closed part of the convent, they were met by a gray host of Bernardine sisters, who added their voices to the old antiphon, so that the notes gained strength and fullness and carried the abbess home.

It was at that very moment that we heard a series of shots from the woods behind the field, and several hunting horns blew the signal “Hunt Over.” They had found Emile Oblonski.

He lay curled up on the bed of the wagon on which they had transported him. His face was swollen and discolored, and it later turned out that his chest, abdominal cavity, and especially the genital region were bloated with blood and damaged by numerous kicks and blows. He was mercifully unconscious.

“Maintain discipline?” said my father in an unusually sharp tone. “If this is discipline, I would hate to see the result of anarchy.”

“He is alive,” said Inspector Marot. “And the use of force is necessary when a suspect resists arrest.”

I did not say anything, but my jaw hurt from remaining silent.

“He must not be moved any farther,” said my father with his teeth similarly clenched. “God knows what kind of internal bleeding he has suffered, and whether he will survive the night. Besides, we will need to isolate him until we know whether he is infected. If he is, we will have to examine all those who have been in close contact with him during the arrest.”