Doctor Death (5 page)

Nevertheless, he immediately thereafter sent a message to the préfecture, as his position required.

“Can we bring him to the chapel of his own church?” he asked my father.

“Why not? He might as well lie there as in the morgue at the hospital.”

“Good. Then let us get him home.”

It was not yet possible to maneuver the corpse into a coffin, so Father Abigore lay on his humble stretcher in the public hearse, covered by only a simple shroud.

“May we offer you a ride, Doctor?” asked the Commissioner.

My father consulted his pocket watch. “Yes, please. I can walk from Espérance to the hospital.”

The hearse was no stately funeral coach; there were no upholstered seats or other comforts. Its unadorned, boxy body was lined with lead, partly to make it easier to clean, partly to lessen the smell when it was necessary to transport what the Commissioner prosaically called “late arrivals”—corpses found in the more advanced stages of decay. Of course, the lead lining increased the wagon’s weight considerably, so on this mild March morning
it was pulled across the wet cobblestones by two solid Belgian draft horses. Hooves the size of buckets, muscles that made each mouse-gray rear end about a meter wide. Progress was steady, but not quick. My father might have chosen a faster hansom cab, in which case much would have been different. But he did not.

It happened right by the embankment where the new promenade had just been established in the fall. The spindly linden trees planted at regular intervals along the river were still so young that they needed the support of their wrought-iron stands. At this time of day the wide walkway was empty because no society lady worth her lavender tea had begun even to think about rising from bed, and the working women hurrying across the Arsenal Bridge toward the power looms of the textile factory had neither the time nor the inclination to go for a leisurely stroll.

A dog came running along the riverbank, a very big dog, rough coated and brindled, with pointed ears. Its tongue was lolling out of its mouth, and it was not jogging, it was flat-out racing, heading directly for the hearse and the horses.

“What—?” said the coachman, who sat on the box next to my father and the Commissioner. That was the next-to-last word he spoke in this life. The dog launched itself at the nearside Belgian in a long, rising leap and closed its jaws around the muzzle of the horse. The animal screamed and threw up its head, both horses careened to one side and reared up, jerking the coachman half out of his seat as the heavy wagon teetered and only slowly recovered its equilibrium. The dog could no longer be seen from the wagon, but from the bite marks on the flank and groin of the horse it was later determined that it had continued its attacks from below.

Belgian horses are known for their stoicism, but this was too
much. With an ominous creaking of swingletree and traces, they threw themselves forward. The coachman had let go of the reins with one hand to haul himself back onto the box, but this new and more violent jerk flung him first into the air and then down between the horses and the wagon. One of the Belgians lurched into the other with such force that they both began to slide down the embankment. The wagon hit one of the trees of the promenade with a splintering crash, keeled over onto one side, and was dragged for almost fifty meters by the panicked horses. By then, both my father and the Commissioner had long since been thrown from their seats. The Commissioner rolled down the embankment’s grassy slope and miraculously escaped with minor bruises. Papa was less fortunate. He was briefly caught—fortunately not under the carriage’s heavy lead-lined body but under the box’s somewhat lighter wooden construction. When he attempted to sit up, he noted that both the radius and ulna in his left arm were broken, and a fracture of the tibia was quickly confirmed as well. In other words, he had broken both an arm and a leg.

The coachman had the worst of it. He survived, but one of the Belgian’s enormous iron-shod hooves had connected so violently with his head that he never regained the power of speech. Only one word occasionally escaped his lips, randomly and without any connection to what was being said and done around him.

That one word was “devil.”

Papa flatly refused to be hospitalized at Saint Bernardine’s. He ordered two of the ambulance drivers to see the injured coachman off to the hospital with great speed, then directed the third to set and splint his own fractures, after which he allowed himself to be transported back to Carmelite Street in an ordinary carriage.

His face was drawn and pale. I am deliberately avoiding the term “pale as a corpse” because there
is
a difference, but worryingly pale, all the same, and glistening with the perspiration brought on by severe pain. The hansom cab driver literally had to carry him up the stairs to the salon. Fortunately, the driver Papa had hired was quite a big man.

“What happened?” I asked, between clenched teeth.

My father did not answer. He was busy groaning. The coachman had to explain about “the accident with the carriage,” and it was not until later when the Commissioner came to check on the patient that I got the whole story.

“The beast must have been crazed,” he said of the dog that had attacked them. “It must have been rabid. Healthy dogs do not behave that way.”

“Did they catch it?” asked my father. “Has it been put down? Can we examine it?”

“No,” said the Commissioner. “It disappeared. We have three riflemen patrolling the area, and we have distributed leaflets. But so far no one has seen it.”

“Get ahold of Pasteur’s vaccine,” said my father. “Make sure you get plenty. It is a cruel disease.”

The Commissioner nodded. “We have sent word to the Institute in Paris,” he said. He sat on the edge of the plush-covered mahogany armchair that he preferred. He had not relinquished his hat but sat turning it in his hands, seemingly undecided whether to stay or go.

“May we offer you some refreshment?” I asked, because I wanted him to stay. It was easier to extract details from him than from my father. “Cognac? Coffee? A glass of wine?” I knew better than to offer him tea.

“I probably should be getting on . . . ,” he said.

“Presumably the search for the dog is not within your jurisdiction?” I asked.

“No, but the . . .” He interrupted himself. “No, I have to go. I will come back later.”

“What is it?” asked my father, who like me had noted the Commissioner’s unease. “Is it the coachman? Is he dead?”

“No,” said the Commissioner. “They say he will probably live.”

“What, then?”

The Commissioner got up abruptly. “I have no wish to tire you,” he said.

“And you do not. You are, however, making me very impatient, and that is not good for my health. What has happened?”

The Commissioner shook his head. “It is Father Abigore. Or rather his earthly remains. They have disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yes. Someone used the confusion after the accident to abscond with the body. We have not yet been able to determine who or how, to say nothing of why.”

My father blinked a few times, a sign that his thoughts were racing in close succession through his head.

“There must be something,” he said. And repeated it, loudly and with frustration: “There must be something!”

“What do you mean?”

“From the murderer’s perspective. Can’t you see that? We found the body too soon. It was not supposed to have been discovered until Paris. And now he has taken care of that by abducting the dead priest. And that means . . .” He attempted to sit up but found it difficult. “It means that there must be something about that corpse. Something I missed!”

His eyes were glistening and his breathing was labored. He had taken some laudanum drops for the pain and was not used
to their effect. Even though he could appear delicate, with his naturally slender body and his slightly stooped posture, he was seldom sick and apparently was not harmed by physical exertion or the long hours he habitually worked. He took his own good health for granted and did not accept the helplessness of being a patient with good grace.

“Papa,” I said. “Please be careful. Lie down.”

“That corpse must be found,” he said, pointing at the Commissioner with his good hand. “And as soon as you find it, you must inform me. Without delay. Do you understand?”

He would never have spoken to the Commissioner in this peremptory manner if he had been himself. I think the Commissioner understood that. He placed a calming hand on my father’s bony shoulder.

“My dear friend,” he said. “Of course. Now lie down and await events. I am on the case.”

Out in the hall I helped the Commissioner into his coat and handed him his cane and gloves.

“Sweet Madeleine,” he said. “Take care of him. He is not well.”

I almost began to cry. I had not cried when the coachman arrived carrying Papa nor when I understood how badly he was injured. But now the tears burned behind my eyelashes, and I had to bow my head to hide them.

“I shall,” I said, and wished right then, in a moment of weakness, that there was someone to take care of me.

Perhaps now is the time to mention my mother. We might as well get it over with. She died when I was ten years old, of cholera. There. I have said it, and we do not need to discuss it any further.