In the Shadows of Paris (21 page)

His first aim must be to put Daglan out of action before the police got hold of him.

Inspector Corcol hadn't a cowardly bone in his body. Only recently he'd taken on a band of thugs down by the gasometer in Rue de l'Évangile, an exploit that could have cost him dear. He wasn't afraid of hard work, despite the scant respect it earned him from his superiors. And yet, at that moment when he clutched in his hand the few short paragraphs bearing the leopard's signature, fear clouded his judgement, preventing him from thinking clearly. He would have preferred a bloody fight to this uncertainty in the face of an absurd situation.

He screwed up the cuttings and dropped them in the ashtray. His hands were shaking so much that he had difficulty striking a match. He reassured himself as he watched the paper burn, ‘Once Daglan is dead, nobody will be able to trace anything back to me. How ironic that, if I'd stayed on, the Chief of Police might have congratulated me for ridding society of such scum! An act of bravery! Only in four days time, I'll be far away.'

Gustave Corcol closed his eyes. He imagined his colleagues' faces when they realised that he'd gone. The miserable wretches, if they only knew!

They would never know, sadly, for he'd have liked nothing better than to show them his contempt. Too bad, his triumph would go unnoticed. Everything he'd always aspired to was within reach. The women who made fun of his physique, ignorant bigwigs, self-important bosses – he'd got them all where he wanted them now. Money bought respect, honour, comfort and pleasure. And he had money. It was waiting for him snug and warm in Brussels, a tidy sum: more than two hundred thousand francs, a hundred and eleven years' salary! Why worry now that he was almost home and dry?

‘Only four more days and you'll be gone.'

He pushed back his chair, and slipped on his jacket. He made sure he stepped across the threshold of his hovel right foot first, smiling at his own childish superstition. He knew the fellow's address on the outskirts of Batignolles. He'd find that petty thief and cook his goose.

Sunday 23 July

Frédéric Daglan had spent the morning wandering from stall to stall at Carreau du Temple market. He'd got hold of a greasy old cap, a pair of down-at-heel army boots, some woollen trousers and, after much searching, an army greatcoat.

He tried them on behind the locked door of Mother Chickweed's shed. In less than five minutes he was transformed into a shaky old fossil. The worn uniform was too tight, and the cap so big it fell down over his eyes, but the regular strollers who were used to the familiar appearance of the park keeper wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Brigadier Clément would spend part of Monday snoozing in his hut while Théo kept watch outside, and once the operation was over, his uncle would take up his place again.

Frédéric Daglan slipped out of his rags, then, stripped to the waist and wearing only his drawers, he set to work on the key part of his plan.

Smoking a cigarette, he opened a book at the page indicated by a bookmark and began numbering the lines. When all this was over, he wouldn't return to Rue des Dames or Porte d'Allemagne. He would wait quietly at the lodgings of his latest conquest until things blew over. Nobody would ever think of looking for him there.

Monday 24 July

As usual, Joseph was singing a brisk marching song at the top of his voice as he took down the shutters and opened the shop. This morning's recital was ‘The Goodbye Song'.

‘“From north to south the warrior's trumpet…”' Jojo bellowed, his foot slipping on an envelope on the floor.

He bent down to pick it up.

‘Who put that there? I nearly came a cropper!'

‘Grumbling already? You'll wake Kenji and he'll be in a bad mood,' warned Victor, who had just that moment jumped off his bicycle.

‘Ah, there you are at last, Boss! I've been waiting for you since the evening before last!'

‘I was worn out. I went straight back to the stable.'

‘That's nice, comparing Mademoiselle Tasha to a horse,' muttered Joseph, removing the last shutter.

‘If you're going to be grumpy I'll keep my lips sealed.'

Victor wheeled his bicycle to the back of the shop. Annoyed, Joseph pocketed the letter. Victor reappeared leafing through a novel by J. K. Huysmans and began singing a couplet of his own.

‘Dear Monsieur Gustave, as he drew near, looked straight at me, and said with a leer…'

He stopped and glanced mischievously at his assistant.

‘Come on, Boss, you're dying to tell me what the fellow said.'

‘And you're on tenterhooks. All right, I'll tell you.'

At the end of Victor's account, Joseph picked up his pen and stroked his cheek with it, distractedly.

‘Something's not right. Pierre Andrésy couldn't have been wounded at Reichshoffen, since I happen to know he was nowhere near the battlefields. I remember him telling me as clearly as if it were yesterday. He'd lent me some books by Erckmann-Chatrian:
Madame Thérèse
,
Story of a Conscript in 1813
,
Waterloo
and
Fritz's Friend.
When I gave them back, I asked him about 1870 and he told me: “War is a dirty business. I'm on the side of those who prefer not to take part in that great celebration of nationalism, thank you very much.”'

‘What does that prove?'

‘Hold on. I told him my father was in the National Guard and spent two months freezing to death on the city ramparts.'

‘I know all that, but what about Pierre Andrésy?'

‘There's a connection, because as soon as I asked him whether he'd taken part in the fighting, he told me that he'd refused to serve an emperor. “The Republic at a pinch, but the Man of Sedan,
⁵⁵
never!” he declared. In short, he went to England and sneaked back into France during the siege.'

‘I knew it! Corcol is a bare-faced liar. He had the nerve to refer to Pierre Andrésy's war wound!'

‘The war…The siege of Paris…The Com—Hang on, Boss! I've got it! The inscription on his watch! It must be: “Long live the Commune”!'

Victor gave a whistle of admiration. Joseph feigned humility, but inside he was jumping for joy.

‘That means Pierre Andrésy was almost certainly Sacrovir,' he concluded. ‘In any event, I don't believe that story about his brother dying in Hôpital Lariboisière for one moment. The bookbinder didn't have a wife, or children, or any brothers or sisters – just a cousin in the country.'

‘Congratulations on your brilliant deductive reasoning. My only criticism is that you should have told me all this before. I hadn't a clue you knew anything about his family.'

‘It came out during the course of our conversations. Monsieur Andrésy often confided in me, but it was all jumbled up and I had to piece it together. While I remember, somebody slipped a letter under the door last night.'

While Victor was tearing open the envelope, Kenji, wearing a dark-red dressing gown with white polka dots, leant over the spiral staircase.

‘Is this a bookshop or a drama school? One of you singing, the other declaiming…Has the post come already?' he muttered.

Squeezing up beside Victor, Joseph was reading the text at the same time.

‘God in heaven, Boss, a coded message!'

Kenji came down to join them, unconcerned about appearing in front of potential customers in his dressing gown.

‘Read it aloud,' he ordered.

Victor cleared his throat.

‘Then there's a series of numbers in groups of four: 5815, 0405, 0303, etc. There are loads of them.'

Joseph managed to snatch the piece of paper and quickly ran up his stepladder in order to ponder this mathematical puzzle. With a shrug of his shoulders, Kenji made for the stairs.

‘I hope you have the sense not to walk straight into what is clearly a trap. However, if you should be tempted to do so, I wash my hands of you,' he declared, as he went back upstairs.

A door slammed on the first floor and Victor leapt over to the ladder, eyeing the piece of paper like the fabled fox eyeing the crow's cheese.

‘Do you think you can crack it, Joseph?'

‘Of course! I had a go when I was reading a spy novel set during the War of Secession. The secret services played a crucial role during that campaign, it was fascinating!' he exclaimed. ‘It's dead easy!'

‘Well, since you're the expert why not show me?'

‘I will if you let me get down. Here's how it works. You choose a book and then decide on a page to be used for the coding. Each group of four numbers in the scrambled message corresponds to a letter. The first two numbers refer to the line the letter is in, and the last two to the position of the letter in that line. Are you with me, Boss?'

‘Yes, no, but carry on.'

‘If the number of the line or the position of the letter is less than ten, a zero is placed before the number.'

Joseph scratched his neck.

‘The problem is finding out which book he's using.'

‘Yes, Monsieur the expert, that might be a help,' Victor jibed.

‘In any event, the person in the riddle lived a long time ago because he's referred to in the past tense. Wait a minute, the
annus horribilis
, that's 1870–1871! And why is “Whose fault is this?” written in capital letters?'

‘It could be the title of a book…Can you dig out
The Life and Times of Victor Hugo
by Alfred Barbou
⁵⁶
for me?'

‘I think we sold it.'

The door bell tinkled, and reluctantly Jojo had to stop deciphering the message and attend to a professor in search of essays on the Renaissance. Victor took the opportunity to scour the bookshop from top to bottom. He was almost certain that ‘Whose Fault is This?' appeared in
L'Année Terrible
⁵⁷
by Hugo. He found an old edition, and followed the method advocated by his assistant, but he made a hash of it because the poem was interleaved with a couple of engravings. Finally rid of his scholar, Joseph came to the rescue.

‘What if we just use an anthology? We have a standard edition. Yes! I've found it!
Here
: “Whose Fault is This?” Grab something to write on.'

Victor reached for an old order book.

‘The poem has fifty-nine lines, Boss. You said 5815. The first two digits give me line 58:
And you would destroy all this.
Are you with me?'

Joseph was thoroughly enjoying playing the role of teacher to Monsieur Legris's humble pupil.

‘The next number is fifteen, isn't it, Boss?'

‘Fifteen.'

‘Fifteen, fifteen…Only the letters count – no apostrophes or other punctuation. The first letter is
t.
Next?'

‘Next we have 0405. Oh, this is a fine kettle of fish!'

‘Be patient!
Yet what a curious crime!
Fourth line. The fifth letter is
h.
'

An hour later, they were poring over the following sentence:

The leopard is innocent.

‘The madman chose this poem intentionally.'

‘Of course he did, Boss. Victor Legris, Victor Hugo. He lived at Faubourg Saint-Jacques, had two brothers, one called Abel and the other Eugène, who died insane.'

‘I'm more interested in the verses. Listen. The author of the message jumps from line 8 to line 54, but this is what the poem says if it's read in the correct order:

‘I don't see what you're getting at, Boss!'

‘How did Pierre Andrésy die?'

‘He was burnt alive.'

‘What did his shop contain?'

‘Books. Ah! Then the text confirms our suspicions! Arson!'

‘And the person who, according to the messages printed in the newspapers, is implicated in this and all the other murders is trying to convince us of his innocence and wants to meet us.'

‘Provided he really is the author of this letter.'

‘The only way we can find out, Joseph, is by keeping the appointment tomorrow.'

‘The two of us this time, Boss?'

Victor tore the page out of the order book and folded it in four.

‘The two of us, I promise.'

‘Blast, Boss!'

‘What now?'

‘It doesn't work. Remember what Mariette Trinquet said. She was eleven or twelve at the time and Sacrovir was in his twenties.'

‘So?'

‘Do the sums. What year is it now?'

‘It's 1893. And?'

‘Think about it, Boss, the 1870–71 war, the siege of Paris, the Commune…'

‘Heavens, Joseph! It was twenty-two years ago…Twenty-two plus twenty is forty-two, and Pierre Andrésy was nearly sixty, then Sacrovir…'

‘If it wasn't Monsieur Andrésy, who was it?'

H
IDING
in an empty shed, Frédéric Daglan had waited until the middle of the night for Inspector Corcol to leave. His surveillance had been all the more unpleasant because he was dressed as a woman and in order to look the part had squeezed into a corset. He wondered how the fair sex could bear to have their bodies compressed into such armour day in day out. He'd studied his figure with a critical eye in Mother Chickweed's pier glass and seen the attractive image of a slender seductress with an ample bosom, whose moustache was hidden under a fine white linen scarf. And so when Corcol had gone and he knocked at the door of 108, Rue des Dames, he was delighted when the concierge held his candle aloft, stared at him through his window and said, ‘Fine time of night to be going up to Monsieur Daglan's! You shameless hussy!'

He bounded up the stairs of the old town house divided into flats, and shut himself in his first-floor apartment on the left, frantic to get out of his tart's clothes. He took a deep breath then lay down on the settee, which he used as a bed. Three hours later he awoke with a start feeling refreshed; he was used to making do with brief snatches of sleep. He felt thirsty, but the water in the jug was stale and so he wet his face with it and took a swig of claret instead.

The room was lined with books and magazines, most of them devoted to the libertarian cause. Works by Mikhail Bakunin,
⁵⁸
Élisée Reclus
⁵⁹
and Jean Grave
⁶⁰
had pride of place. In addition, Frédéric Daglan was the proud owner of ninety-one editions of
L'Endehors
, published between February 1891 and May 1893, for he was a great admirer of its founding editor, Zo d'Axa,
⁶¹
who described himself as an anarchist beyond anarchy. The furnishings were completed by two chairs, an oil lamp on a pedestal table and a military trunk, from which he now removed the locks and unfolded a gold-buttoned uniform.

Half an hour later, a park keeper, his face lined with age, a battered old army cap over his snow-white hair, slipped out of a window and onto the roof of the lodge at the front of the building. He leapt cat-like into the street, and after a few paces assumed the stumbling gait of an old man.

Dawn was lighting up the façades of the houses. The neighbourhood had changed beyond all recognition. It was no longer every Parisian tradesman's dream to retire there and live off his savings. You could still see those dubious characters lounging about in cafés from dawn till dusk, their fat bellies splayed out in front of newspapers such as
Le Constitutionnel
or
La Patrie
, or playing dominoes with others like them, the enemies of progress, freedom, socialism and Victor Hugo!

The developers, attracted by the cheap land, had gradually pulled down the modest dwellings with their kitchen gardens to make way for blocks of flats. Another breed of people had invaded the sleepy provincial haven that was still protected from the demands of the toll office. Paris had spilt over into this neighbourhood, too, invading its quiet streets with noise and pollution.

Frédéric Daglan almost preferred the potbellied pensioners he'd once reviled. He despised the new breed even more – the civil servants with their briefcases bulging with files, the shop girls and book-keepers flocking like sheep into the city centre, filling the cafés and bakeries at dawn. He had always refused to sell his labour to the employers, and he despised these wage slaves.

But he was careful not to let his contempt show, and people took him for a sophisticated chap. As for the park keeper he had become this Tuesday morning, he trotted along the pavement, head nodding slightly, watching the city come alive and respecting the order of things. In Rue Darcet, he politely greeted a washerwoman, and on the Boulevard he smiled at a tailor who was airing out his shop.

His back to Montmartre, where the basilica was still under construction and framed by scaffolding, he caught the omnibus that was turning onto Rue des Batignolles and would drop him opposite the public garden where, as arranged with Brigadier Clément, he would be on duty until evening. He had the whole morning to get into character before facing the bookseller whom he was certain would keep the appointment. But would the bookseller be willing to believe him? That was another matter.

 

‘That Alphonse Allais
⁶²
is too amusing! His jokes have me in stitches. Impossible to have the hump with him around, if you'll pardon the pun, Monsieur Pignot, and you see we're really in the same business, so I absolutely must get hold of a copy of
The Regimental Umbrella
recently published by Ollendorf.'

‘We haven't received any copies yet,' Joseph replied coldly. ‘Try again next week.'

Kenji noticed that his assistant was busy with Monsieur Chaudrey from the dispensing chemist on Rue Jacob, and muttered some garbled explanation before hurrying out of the shop.

There goes the boss dressed up to the nines. He must be in love, deduced Jojo, whose reignited passion had made him a little more indulgent. However, he didn't realise the full implications of Kenji's sudden departure until the pharmacist left and Victor appeared to inform him that they couldn't both go to Batignolles. Joseph felt the ground tremble beneath his feet.

‘All right, you don't have to spell it out, I'm the mug who has to stay behind!'

‘Why don't we toss a coin? Tails I win, heads you lose,' Victor suggested.

That old trick, he must take me for an idiot, Joseph thought, and retorted, ‘Did you know that in London blind people are able to see in the fog…?'

‘Do I take it that means yes? Here goes, then.'

He tossed a coin into the air and slapped it down on his wrist.

‘Tails. I win. Sorry, you watch the shop.'

‘Very clever, Boss.'

Victor put up no defence; he had already left.

‘I should have guessed last night when he gave me his word. False promises!'

Joseph leant on the counter and gazed mournfully at the notebook containing his ideas for his new novel. He hadn't the energy to get down to any work, and anyway he was stuck on the epilogue. Should he hurl Frida von Glockenspiel into the arms of the cruel but virile Otto von Munk after they dug up the famous chalice, or give her a more passionate future with Sublieutenant Wilkinson – a kindly protector of widows and orphans? He buried the unfinished work under a pile of newspapers and quoted one of Kenji's favourite proverbs: ‘Lucky is the mole who can only see as far as its nose.'

A figure swathed in cream organdie and lace danced around him.

‘How do you like my Empress Eugénie bodice and my printed straw hat? They're all the rage this year!'

‘You look ravishing,' whispered Joseph, catching hold of Iris as she twirled, and drawing her close to him for a moment.

She struggled free, laughing.

‘You're no longer afraid someone will walk in on us?'

‘On the contrary, I'm proud of you – I want everybody to admire you. For instance the battle-axe, I mean, Madame de Flavignol, she'll be here any minute with her friends Madame de Gouveline and Madame de Cambrésis to pick up some books. I'd love to slip off and leave you four to discuss the latest fashions and advise each other on the best shops.'

‘You think I don't know what you're all up to? Where are you going? To snoop around Rue Monsieur-le-Prince?'

‘I'm going to watch over your brother.'

‘A fine bunch! You, Victor and my father smelling of lavender water a mile off! Men…! Well, run along, since Victor's safety is at stake. It's lucky I'm here to look after the shop.'

Scarcely had she uttered the words before Joseph was pelting towards Boulevard Saint-Germain to catch the Odéon–Clichy–Batignolles omnibus.

As he walked past the tiny covered market at Batignolles, Victor mused over the sad fate of Hippolyte Bayard
⁶³
who had photographed it forty years earlier. He paused as he remembered the self-portrait of the artist, which he'd seen at the French Society of Photography. In it, Hippolyte Bayard depicted himself as a drowned man slumped in an armchair, with a caption below, written in 1840:

Victor continued on his way. Life could be so cruel. Would anybody remember the lowly civil servant from the Treasury, a lover of art and the first person to successfully print positive photographs directly onto paper, whose discovery was attributed to Daguerre?

A crowd drew his attention away from his reflections. He slipped through to the front of the circle of onlookers. A strongman in hose was haranguing the spectators.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. You are about to witness an unparalleled display of strength. Your humble servant, the Parisian Rock, will lift half a hundredweight as easily as if it were a set of juggling balls.'

Victor was amused by how credulous people were. The strongman lined up six or seven weights at his feet then picked out the middle one, which weighed no more than ten or twelve pounds. He lifted it confidently above his head before stretching his arms out straight. Then, to prove that there was no cheating involved, he invited the onlookers to pick up one of the other weights, which really were heavy. Coins fell thick and fast onto his mat.

Fraud really is the mother of wealth and fame, Victor reflected as he walked away.

A sudden downpour cooled the air. Victor took shelter in Église Sainte-Marie behind a crescent of tall houses. He sat down near a confessional and heard murmurings from within. A woman nearby counted the stitches on her knitting needles while another was praying. He closed his eyes and was transported back to Rome where he'd spent two weeks in the summer of 1887 and where, fleeing from the insufferable heat, he'd studied the paintings and frescoes in every sanctuary along the way. The heat and the paintings had become fused in his memory. A vision of Tasha half naked in front of her easel came unbidden to his mind. The loud clickety-click of knitting needles shattered the image and forced him to leave the church.

The rain had stopped. The air smelt of wet road and damp grass. At the entrance to the public garden a puny-looking lad was tinkling a bell.

‘Tuppence for a stick of mint rock!' he chanted to the mothers and their children, eager to begin skipping and digging in the grit.

Victor walked straight towards the artificial rock, down a narrow pathway beside a waterfall and into a sandy walkway leading to a miniature lake. He glanced around. Would the leopard suddenly appear? Or did he want Victor to find him?

The sun had come out and a crowd of ladies had hurriedly occupied the benches and chairs. Under the distracted gaze of nannies in ribboned hats, children played with balls or hoops or jumped about from the sheer joy of being alive. Their squeals of delight drowned out the sound of women eagerly gossiping about their neighbours' bad behaviour or habits. Besides an old park keeper maintaining a discreet watch over this little corner of the world, there were no men in sight.

Victor strolled by the lake pretending to look at the ducks, aware that his presence was causing a stir amongst the old ladies parked in the sun. One dropped her glasses, another turned down the corner of a page in her book. The advance of the nonchalant stranger broke the all-powerful spell of boredom.

He walked back the way he'd come, hoping to find a secluded spot. He paused under a tree and lit a cigarette. A rustle made him jump.

‘Don't look round, Monsieur Legris. You didn't hang about, did you? Go to the top of the grotto; I'll follow you.'

He obeyed without trying to catch a glimpse of the man.

When he reached the meeting place, all he found was a nanny in a printed cotton dress. She was gesturing to a child standing next to the railings separating the park from the tracks, which converged towards Saint-Lazare station. As soon as she saw Victor, she blushed and scurried away. When the coast was clear, the park keeper appeared, twirling his moustache.

‘You're punctual. I'm grateful for that,' he said in a youthful voice.

Victor, taken aback, quickly composed himself.

‘I wasn't expecting such an elaborate disguise.'

‘Well, it suits my purpose perfectly. Who would ever suspect a humble representative of the law?'

‘Will you please explain why you sent me a coded message?'

‘Let's just say I have a fondness for numbers. I wanted to test you. Did you decipher it?'

‘
The leopard is innocent.
Now prove it to me.'

‘Bravo, you've a good nose and plenty of pluck. But you occasionally get involved in dangerous cases.'