Little Demon in the City of Light: A True Story of Murder and Mesmerism in Belle Epoque Paris (29 page)

One day Eyraud fell ill and lay on the floor of his cage groaning. An examination by the ship’s doctor, Paul d’Hoste, revealed a bladder
affliction, which only got worse. The patient didn’t eat or drink for twenty-four hours; he just lay there moaning in pain. Dr. d’Hoste tried everything—special baths and the application of leeches—but all to no avail. Eyraud grew so weak that Soudais and Gaillarde deemed him no longer a danger to anyone and at no risk of attempting suicide, so they removed the shackles from his wrists and ankles. Freed of his irons, Eyraud lay motionless as though dead, except for the occasional muffled groan.

Gossip floated up from the hold: Something was wrong with Eyraud, although on the upper deck no one knew exactly what. Then one evening, when neither detective showed up in the dining room, a rumor swept through the ship: The prisoner was dead. But that was soon discounted as a new fear took root: Eyraud was faking an illness in order to be free of his shackles—and what if he got loose among the passengers? The imagination ran wild.

But his ailment was real, and it was only by the assiduous care of Dr. d’Hoste that Eyraud gradually recovered. When he finally began eating again, the guards cut his meat and bread into tiny pieces as if for a child. He was a limp specimen of a man, but some women on board imagined him as the romantic outlaw; they were beguiled by the tales of his adventures across America and Mexico. One bold young woman got an apron by bribing a ship worker and, posing as an attendant, carried a jug of hot water to the prisoner. But the sight she came upon shocked and disappointed her.
“He presents a very pitiful spectacle,” the
Herald
explained, “not at all like the dashing, gay Lothario they seem to think him.”

On Saturday, June 22, the northern coast of Spain came into view, and as the
Lafayette
steamed toward Santander, the passengers were alerted that a cholera outbreak had overwhelmed the port. No one was to be allowed off the ship except those staying in Spain. The steamer eased into the wide bay, dropped its passengers, and didn’t linger. Soon it was heading up the coast of France toward Saint-Nazaire.

Now fully recovered, Eyraud was full of brash talk again, asserting he had proof of his innocence, and he would present it in court. He would show that he was not to blame for Gouffé’s murder. On the contrary, the responsibility lay entirely on the tiny shoulders of Gabrielle Bompard.

On the night of June 29, the
Lafayette
approached Saint-Nazaire
and the passengers, braving a chilly wind, collected on deck. When rain cut through the darkness, they bowed their heads but no one ran for cover. At 4:00 a.m. on Monday, June 30, the ship moved into the harbor and announced its arrival with two blasts from a cannon. The
Lafayette
dropped anchor, and a tug called the
Belle-Île
came up alongside ferrying doctors, government officials, and representatives of the steamer company. About a half hour later, the
Lafayette
had passed its cholera inspection.

Soudais and Gaillarde escorted Eyraud onto the tug and sat on either side of him for the brief excursion to shore. The prisoner wore a light jacket, dark blue pants, and his straw hat with a black silk ribbon around it. His beard was trimmed short, and his hands were manacled. On shore he rode with his guards in an open carriage to the train station, where he waited in the police office for the 6:37 a.m. departure for Paris.

Soudais and Gaillarde took comfort in the knowledge that they had reached the last leg of their long mission, and ten hours later, at 4:21 p.m., the train pulled into Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris to a waiting mob. When Eyraud appeared at the door, there was scuffling and shoving on the platform; police were unable to hold back the crowd, and a few aggressive gawkers pushed their way on board. A cry went up:
“Le voilà! Le voilà!”
(There he is!) Arms shot into the air, fingers pointed. A chant broke out:
“À mort! À mort! À mort!”
They wanted him dispatched to his death. Eyraud, pale and weak, was shaken by the commotion; his eyes shot left then right as if fearing what might come next; his legs were ready to collapse under him.

A carriage, protected by a cordon of guards, waited nearby. Standing beside it in triumph was the man who had chased the murderer for nearly a year at serious risk to his career and health: the head of the Sûreté, Marie-François Goron. This case had tested him like no other; it drew on all his sleuthing skills; it forced him to stick by his controversial hunches; and it laid him low for months. But now the killer was within his grasp. Goron and his quarry climbed into the carriage and set off toward the prefecture of police.

First stop was the chief’s office, where Eyraud was put through a series of formalities—papers had to be filled out. Dazed and fatigued, the prisoner took off his straw hat and held it submissively in his hands. Sweat beaded on his bald head.

By 5:10 p.m., he was in a cell at the Dépôt where, like Gabrielle, he would stay while the judge and detectives did their investigation. Soudais and Gaillarde basked briefly in the glow of a job well done and then were dismissed to the comfort of their homes. Eyraud lost his chattiness. He was sullen and silent and refused food. He had the night to ponder his fate before his first interrogation in the morning.

Michel Eyraud had a rough night. For a man who loved his freedom, who was happiest gallivanting across the open spaces of Mexico, here he was back in Paris locked up in a stone cell, his future looking bleak. Adding to his woes, his bladder attacked him again, the pain striking at five in the morning and rousing him from a fitful sleep. The Dépôt physician, Dr. Jules Voisin, came to his aid; he learned of the bout the patient had suffered during the voyage; he listened to Eyraud’s heart and, noticing the bullet wound in his side, heard the tale of his gun battle with Mexican bandits. The doctor prescribed a cup of bouillon and, over Eyraud’s loud protests, prohibited him from drinking wine.

Dr. Voisin also looked after Gabrielle while she was at the Dépôt and had hypnotized her repeatedly to explore her memory of the crime. But none of his findings filtered out to the public: Voisin was adamant about the confidentiality of the sessions; they would inform the state’s investigators and no one else.

Later in the morning, Goron took Eyraud to Alphonse Bertillon’s police anthropological service, where the murderer was photographed and measured. The details of his work-up—the size of his head; the length of his fingers, forearms, and feet; the width and depth of his ears and nose; the thickness of his nostrils; the gradations of his eyes through every zone of the iris—were jotted down carefully on a registration card and filed with his photo in the catalogue of the criminal class.

By three thirty in the afternoon, Eyraud found himself in an interrogation room surrounded by Judge Dopffer, Chief Goron, and Sûreté agents Wahlen and Houlier. Weakened by his illness and months on the run, Eyraud had little fight left. After forty minutes of grilling, he was a broken man:
“Je suis cuit.”
(I am cooked.) He
confessed that he had murdered Gouffé but made sure to implicate Gabrielle: He had not acted alone; the girl played her part.

Describe the murder, Dopffer demanded.

Gouffé was hanged, Eyraud said, suggesting Gabrielle’s active role.

Not entirely true, Dopffer countered. There was evidence that the victim was strangled.

Eyraud dismissed the accusation, as though it were an insult to him personally, and his mood darkened. For a man who bantered easily, his words suddenly stalled. He claimed he was too exhausted to speak, he needed time to think things over. He shut down so completely that the investigators ended the interrogation. Judge Dopffer gave him a couple of days to regain his health and gather his thoughts. Whatever his defense, Eyraud realized his past was closing in on him. He had put it just right: He was cooked.

Back in his cell, he brightened, slipping into his comfortable role as raconteur, and he regaled his guards with his globe-trotting adventures. He was an expansive storyteller, taking his time, rolling out the drama scene by scene, and lingering over his sexual escapades. So many mistresses, the guards lost count! If it weren’t for the cell’s stone walls, they might have imagined they were enjoying an aperitif in a boulevard café.

Eyraud maintained his bonhomie even as blood appeared in his urine and his appetite vanished. One morning he sang a Portuguese song for his guards, then translated the verses for them.
“Whatever one says, there is nothing sinister in his manner or in his language,”
Le Matin
wrote. “His joviality and his large laugh brought joy to his guards and his continuous pleasantries allowed the agents to pass many hours without boredom.”

By his next interrogation Eyraud had spruced up his appearance. Gone were the shabby overcoat and straw hat. Although his wife and daughter were in no mood to visit him, they sent along a new wardrobe and, when he came before the investigators, he appeared in a magnificent black overcoat with a velour collar and on his head was a chestnut-brown bowler. When Gaillarde complimented him on his new look, Eyraud implored him to send his thanks to his wife and daughter. But, the prisoner added, please tell them not to visit: He couldn’t bear the shame.

With the trial looming, though still months away, the public prosecutor, Jules Quesnay de Beaurepaire, ordered that journalists be kept at a distance from the accused. Strict measures were taken. When Eyraud was transferred from his cell to a carriage, the courtyards were evacuated and doorways shut off. An enraged press fought back.
“Permit us to remark,”
Le Matin
reminded the keepers of justice, “that it’s thanks to the immense publicity that journalists gave this case that the Havana police captured the murderer of Gouffé.”

At his interrogation Eyraud tried to save his own neck and shift responsibility onto Gabrielle. Although he claimed he neither hated her nor sought to destroy her, his testimony showed otherwise. He asserted that he would not sacrifice himself for Gabrielle. She caused him too much anguish, for she abandoned him and denounced him to the police.
“If we had been captured together, I would have taken all the responsibility and I would have saved her,” he told investigators. But because she deceived him, he added, “I will not clear her. I will tell the truth about the role she played before, during and after the crime, and if she must take the fall, too bad, she will take the fall.”

It was Gabrielle, he said, who proposed the crime, Gabrielle who insisted on robbing Gouffé, Gabrielle who was in control of the planning and execution of the murder. She had a strange hold over him. In her presence, if investigators were to believe him, this brutal, dominating tyrant was as weak as a lamb. He was so in love with her, he could deny her nothing.
“It is said that I terrorized her, that I hypnotized her,” Eyraud declared. “On the contrary, it was she who drove me like a lapdog.”

She willingly undertook her part in the murder, Eyraud charged. She had no qualms about placing the red silk sash over Gouffé’s head: She instigated his hanging. She was as callous as an animal, he said, a vicious woman who was untroubled by spending a night alone with the cadaver. When Eyraud returned the morning after the killing, having slept in his own bed at home beside his wife, he asked Gabrielle if she was afraid during the night.

“Moi?”
the young woman replied. “Why would you think I’d be afraid? He’s slammed shut in there.” Then laughing hysterically, she kicked the trunk. “Look inside,” she ordered Eyraud, kicking it again. “See if he turned over!”

Eyraud denied he was ever able to control Gabrielle through hypnosis. He’d read the newspapers: He was surprised by the charges that she acted as his hypnotized automaton. Yes, he’d tried to hypnotize her, but no, he’d never succeeded. Once, when he tried to put her to sleep in a London pub, she slapped his face.
“The newspapers say that I hypnotized this girl, that I had suggested the crime to her and that she acted unconsciously!” he cried. “What lunacy!”

Michel Eyraud and Gabrielle Bompard were now at war, and neither backed down on the critical question of who put the silk sash over Gouffé’s neck. That action demonstrated murderous intent. To place a noose over a man’s head left no doubt you wanted the man dead. Gabrielle maintained that she never completed the action, that she had the
cordelière
in her hands, and had raised it over Gouffé’s head, but then froze—she could not carry out the final step. In her telling, Eyraud sensed her hesitation, came out of hiding, grabbed the noose, and dropped it over Gouffé’s head. Then he’d yanked down hard on the rope that was connected to the
cordelière
, and the act of murder had begun.

But as savagely as she disputed him, Gabrielle was deeply shaken by Eyraud’s return. His presence shoved her to the edge of hysterics. His assertions sent her mind reeling. She proposed the crime? It was her idea to rob Gouffé, to murder him? She raged against Eyraud. How could he say such things?

The suspects’ contradictory testimony muddied the investigation. Building a reliable scenario of the murder became all but impossible. Who was lying? Who was telling the truth? Investigators needed to break through the defendants’ stubbornness and get at the facts. Goron believed the stalemate called for dramatic action. Only the two suspects knew what took place in that apartment on rue Tronson du Coudray. Why not bring them together, let them confront each other in that very same room? What better place to shake loose the answers than the crime scene itself!

“She detested him, he hated her,” Goron observed.
“It was necessary to put the two lovers face-to-face. That was the only way to discover the truth amid their lies.”

The rooms had been vacant for months. One tenant, a well-known acrobat named Leona Dare, had moved in unaware of the apartment’s history and, as soon as she made the shocking discovery, she vanished. The last occupant, reputed to be a woman of questionable morals, hoped the notoriety of the site would enhance her business. Whether men came to her out of morbid curiosity or for all the usual urges was impossible to know, but she didn’t stay long either.