Murder On The Rue Cassette (A Serafina Florio Mystery) (9 page)

“That’s precisely what she sees
in him,” Berthe said. “Someone bound hand and foot to the establishment. With
him, she’s breaking the rules. She doesn’t care that she’s broken him. Don’t
you see? Shock, that’s what she wants. And a new lover each month.”

“She’d better watch out. She’s
flirting with ruin.”

Carmela blew a stray curl from
her forehead.

“Did you see his face when he
looked at the paintings?” Victorine asked. “Went around the exhibit in less
than five minutes. It made me sick.”

Berthe Morisot crossed her arms.
“Even worse was the way he regarded her. It was as if he were bound to Elena in
hate. And yet I pitied him, even though he repulsed me.”

“Well, my dear. You don’t know
the half of it. But I will say this in her favor. The frock she wore was a
marvel. I would have asked Elena for the name of her dressmaker if I could
afford to use her.”

There was another lull. Carmela
had to stoke the fires. “I love talk of wardrobes and dresses. Parisian style
is so unique. Do describe her frock.”

“A pale green watered silk. I’d
never seen quite the color. But it was the jacket that was so clever. A darker
green, quilted, gold thread running through it. And the buttons, exquisite with
a tight-fitting waist, riding over the bustle and forming a train. It was meant
to be tight-fitting, but it ill-suited her.”

“I think she wanted it that way.
She wants everyone to know her condition. She flaunts convention,” Victorine
said.

“Now that you mention it, I must
agree,” Berthe said.

Carmela’s ears perked.

Victorine turned to Carmela.
“But enough of this talk. You are a guest in our country and a friend of
Elena.”

“Please, you misunderstand me.
My family is acquainted with hers, that’s all, but we are not friends. Quite
the contrary.”

“Well then.” Victorine moved
closer. “I heard that her latest is in fact the father of the child she carries
and he’s not at all happy about it. It’s the end of the affair, she told a good
friend of mine.”

“Poor man, she’s ruined him.”

Victorine nodded. “Well, she
should make another appearance soon, and it will be interesting to see the
deterioration.”

“Fancies herself a painter,”
Berthe said.

“No!”

They were silent. The subject,
it seemed, was at an end.

“And you, Victorine, what do you
think of the work in this exhibit?”

“Brilliant question. I must say
most of the work here breaks new ground and several of the critics agree.”

“Yes, and for most of the
people, the ordinary Parisians, art is very important,” Berthe Morisot said.
“For a long time they have longed for art that touches their lives, and so they
are in awe of the paintings. And some of the reviewers have been kind to us,
too. Many of them, though, not so kind.”

“Who cares what they write, as
long as they write about the exhibit. Most reviewers talk nonsense anyway, and
the world knows that.”

Tessa returned to the room and
the talk of Elena and reviewers stopped.

“Everything is so fresh, so
alive,” Tessa said.

“The poses are so natural,”
Carmela said. “I feel brand new.”

“And I must be getting back to
my studio,” Victorine said. She took Carmela’s hand. “So nice to meet both of
you and do please come for a visit. No need to send your card. I’m there all
the time. I’d love to show you my work.”

After Victorine left, Berthe
Morisot took them through the rest of the rooms. Although she’d seen all of the
work while the others were talking, Tessa had to stop at each painting again,
enthralled, and Berthe Morisot told them what she knew of each artist. “You see
this sunset?”

They nodded and Tessa stepped
closer, reading the name. “Claude Monet.”

“And over here—the man
there with the straw hat. I must get a straw hat,” Tessa said.

“You must if you want to paint
like us, outside,
en
pleine air
.”

“These paintings are all about
the light, how it changes from moment to moment,” Tessa said, her face
thoughtful, contemplative as she gazed at her favorites.

“One more question if I might,”
Carmela began. “Do you have the Paris address for Elena? We have a message for
her from her father.”

“I might.” Berthe Morisot went
over to the guest book and opened it to the first page. She ran a finger down
the rows of names. It took her a few minutes, but she pointed to Elena’s
signature and an address in the sixteenth arrondissement. “You can hire a cab
or take
la
petite ceinture
. You are familiar with it?”

“The little train that runs
around Paris?”

“
C’est ça, exactement
. Get off at Station de Passy and walk away from the Bois de
Boulogne on the Rue de Passy. She has an apartment on the top two floors of a
large building on the Place de Passy. Her father owns the property, she told
me. Buy tickets on the train. Children ride free.”

While Carmela stood at the table
holding the guest book, she noticed the name underneath Elena’s. Étienne
Gaston. “Is this Elena’s latest lover?” she asked.

Berthe Morisot studied the
signature and nodded. “That’s the one. What she sees in him ... He’s tall
enough, handsome, I suppose, if you like his type.”

“His type?”

“Full of himself, my dear. Don’t
tell me you’ve never—”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Carmela copied down his address.

Chapter
11: Alphonse Valois

Alphonse Valois lived in the sixth
arrondissement on a side street near the fashionable Luxembourg Gardens. It was
a hike to and from his office on the Île de la Cité, but whenever the weather
allowed, he walked to work. The twice-daily exercise stretched his legs and his
mind, and he loved it. Not, however, this evening. That Sicilian sleuth had
spoiled everything.

He crossed the Pont Saint-Michel
and strode down the Boul’Mich keeping his eyes fixed on the ground, realizing
too late that he’d passed the fountain. So he stood, indecisive, straightening
his lapels, staring at the string of plane trees, and letting the crowds of
students shove around him until he caught himself. He ran back to the Place
Saint-Michel and touched his
chapeau
melon
to the
archangel. After patting the dragon’s foot for good measure, he expanded his
chest and continued on his way.

Closer to home, he watched an
argument between two neighborhood boys whom he’d seen often enough playing in
the street together. He had half a mind to break up the fight, but it seemed
harmless enough. After all, young boys had arguments. He smiled, glad for the
respite from dark thoughts.

Once the investigation had
seemed so simple, the murder of a questionable woman whose body was found on
the Rue Cassette. Now, because of the Florio woman, the case was like a
toothache, intrusive and persistent. He longed to be done with it, to be home
within his own four walls where nothing disturbed. He needed a good meal, a
restful evening, a gentle talk with his wife about this and that—her
garden, the price of veal, the news of the neighborhood, and his son’s day at
school.

Life had returned to normal
after the war and the bloody days of the Commune. In fact, Parisians seemed to
enjoy life even more because of the twin tragedies. He moved on, walking more
swiftly down the Rue de Vaugirard toward home.

Looking back on it, he realized
part of him had known there’d be complications the moment he’d seen the victim.
He should have taken greater care. Her disheveled hair, her painted face, and
the ring of dirt around her neck told one story. Her papers told another.
According to the Italian passport he’d found in her reticule, she was a
Sicilian countess. But he knew the aristocracy were a penurious lot in Sicily.
That might explain the woman’s slovenly appearance, or perhaps she’d had a
taste for the bizarre.

They’d found her before first
light. It was difficult to see so he’d walked to the corner and examined the
documents underneath the nearest gaslight. He rubbed his fingers together,
remembering the feel of the rough paper. According to the date on the photo, it
had been taken some ten years earlier, not a good likeness at all, but half the
dead woman’s face had been blown away by the blast. And of course there was a
difference between a person’s looks in life and in death. He knew from bitter
experience that death stripped away expression.

The mystery of her identity
puzzled him during the initial hours of his investigation, along with how and
why she died and who could have killed her. Why was the countess in France?
She’d been here for quite some time, according to the passport. Perhaps she was
a kept woman. Perhaps a gentleman with dubious tastes had paid for her passage
and now was tired of her.

He’d gone over and over his
initial involvement, his early suppositions, breaking his first movements into
simple steps, the loud knock on his door waking him from sleep. He’d walked to
the scene with the
sergent
de ville
who’d
found her, asking him the basic questions of who, what, when, assuring himself
that the body hadn’t been moved, waiting patiently while the photographer took
his photos, taking his time with the scene, examining her garments, searching
the ground for traces left by her killer, looking for imprints next to the
victim, scraps of paper, clumps of hair, a fingernail, anything that did not
belong. He made sure he could describe what he’d seen, closing his eyes and
imaging the exact position of the body in the street relative to the curb, the
placement of the hands, the face, the torso, the feet, writing down his
impressions in great detail. He made sure the photographer had recorded the
face and body from every angle before he released the dead woman to the morgue.

“Hey you, watch where you’re
going? Some kind of peasant? Could have been killed!”

He stepped back from the curb,
and tipped his hat to the carter, shouting, “Grateful to you, kind sir,” and
continued on, his ears pounding. He felt the rush of blood to his face. Wiping
his forehead, he walked more slowly until his heartbeat returned to normal and
he could appreciate the moment. He focused on the present by looking around and
observing details—the vegetables and fruit displayed in front of the
épicerie
, the order and care with which
they were arranged, the cleanliness of the storefront’s glass. The grocer,
Monsieur Dupré stood at his window, a white apron tied around his belly. Valois
bowed to him and to the cart vendor at the corner who gave him a toothless grin
and held out a bunch of violets. “For your beautiful wife, Monsieur l’Inspecteur.”

He gave the woman a few coins
and waved to the driver of a passing carriage, noting the size and color of the
horse, the condition of the wheels, the harness and tack. He made a mental note
of everything he saw, the debris by the side of the road, the birds in the
trees, taking into account anything unusual, fingerprints on the glass of a
neighborhood café, the rustle of its net curtains. When he arrived at his front
gate, he’d quiz himself on what he remembered, the way he did when he was young
and carefree and so eager to practice detection.

Good work, Valois. Yes, he’d
calmed his spirits and exercised his mental faculties after his meeting today
with the prefect and that Sicilian investigator and her friend. Arrogant
females who barely spoke two words of proper French. What could they know of
his business? Why did they have the audacity to question him? Perhaps not the
fat one, no, she’d been polite. She’d had a kind face and spoke passable
French, but the one who called herself an investigator, such cheek, and clothed
in a style five years past its prime. Françoise would have hidden her smile,
but she’d have been amused.

Yes, of course, this was the way
to peace for him, an exercise he enjoyed, a stretching of limbs and mind. It
was the way to solve cases. Concentrate on the present for the present contains
the evidence, physical, incontrovertible. The killer leaves his traces. Few of
us see what really goes on around us, but Valois was one of the few. Look at
the color they’re painting that door, for instance. Two workers, industrious,
not stopping to chat. Such a deep blue, like the color of Françoise’s eyes, and
so many coats of varnish. He hadn’t seen it this morning when he’d passed. It
lifted the neighborhood. He looked up at the sky and observed the clouds,
counted the chimneys on each of the buildings, noted with pride the
cream-colored façade of each building. Haussmann was a genius. He wondered what
Françoise would say when he told her about Madame Florio.

The victim first entered Paris
on Thursday, February 7, 1867 according to the official entry stamp. So she’d
been in his city over seven years, long before the Franco Prussian War. No exit
stamps; she’d remained in Paris during the Siege and the Commune, unless she
fled to the country like the rest of her lot.

Why was he dredging up these
details now? He was halfway home and must get the dead countess off his mind.
Her pocketbook contained several large bills and some coins, over six-hundred
francs, an enormous amount for a woman of any class to be carrying in Paris. In
her purse were a small photograph of a man about thirty-five or forty, the
approximate age of the victim, and a carte de visite of an older gentleman, an
uncle or father, or rich lover. Both the photo and the cdv bore the stamp of a
studio in Oltramari, Sicily. When questioned, her husband had been polite. It
figured: he was the one with the title. He’d been attired like a nobleman, and
his French was impressive. Valois hated to detain him, but he had to have
someone to question and the café owner was immediate in his identification of
the man as her frequent companion.

“Hello,
Monsieur l’Inspecteur
! Valois, isn’t it? My
neighbor?”

“Oh, so sorry. Forgive me,
Madame Hugo, I didn’t see you. And your little dog.”

“You were preoccupied, dear sir.
Well, of course, the weight of all Paris is on your shoulders. You, a principal
inspector and me, a poor little old woman, not worth your time. No, indeed.”

Not so little, that one. She
looked like a stuffed goose newly arrived from Brittany. He doffed his hat and
made his apologies again, complimented her on the rosiness of her complexion,
and bent to pet the animal, cursing himself for dreaming again. He touched his
hat to the old witch and continued on his way.

At first the death of the
mysterious woman in the Rue Cassette had seemed like a suicide, the pistol, a
double-barreled Derringer recently used, common enough, found in her left hand.
“We get them often in this neighborhood, you’d be surprised,” the
sergent de ville
told him. Valois himself
believed at first that the wound had been self-inflicted, the gun would have
fit easily in the bag she carried. But the autopsy proved otherwise.

At approximately six in the
morning on Thursday, April 16, the coroner on duty performed his examination.
Unheard of so soon after the murder, but done quickly at the request of the
family, milliners of high standing in the city. After all, she was a countess
and a foreigner. Best to get her off his plate. There’d be more special handling
of the case, delicate because of the nationality of the victim, and the sooner
he had his facts, the better. So he’d prevailed upon the good doctor to make
haste. “Much obliged, dear man, you see, the deceased, is foreign royalty.” Dr.
Mélange issued his report that afternoon, concluding that the victim sustained
a fatal wound to the left side of her head. The bullet, deflected by bone and
skin and blood, exited into the oral cavity where it lodged in the left side of
the tongue. The doctor had extracted the metal and held it in his hand, showing
it to Valois. Time of death was fixed at between one and three that morning,
according to the state of
rigor
described by the policeman when he found the body and the
contents of the victim’s stomach.

But an examination of bone spurs
in the deceased’s fingers indicated that she had been right-handed. The pistol
had been placed by the killer or his accomplice in the victim’s left hand in
order to feign suicide. In short, Elena Loffredo had been murdered. Of that, Dr.
Mélange was certain. And most probably murdered by someone she knew, although
it was not inconceivable that an unknown assailant could have surprised her.
Because of the short barrel, the gunman had to have been standing close to the
countess.

They’d canvassed the area. Two
witnesses said they’d seen a man answering Loffredo’s description bending over
the body. It could not have been easier. This was a crime of passion committed
by a cuckolded husband. And so Valois had relaxed, forgotten the discrepancies
that bothered him initially, and arrested the husband. All that remained was
identification of the body by a close relative or friend. Madame de Masson, the
countess’s aunt, had obliged, fussing and complaining during what was for her a
distasteful ordeal. The woman made clear her antipathy for her niece, saying
Elena’s wanton ways had long ago predicted her abrupt and violent demise. She’d
taken one look at the face and declared the body to be that of her niece.

He stroked his mustache and
continued down the street, now a few blocks from home, hoping Françoise would
be pleased to see him arrive early for once. He was a dedicated servant of
France, a principal inspector in the largest prefecture of all, rising up
through the ranks of his colleagues these past fifteen years by diligence and
thoroughness. Cleverness, too. He was assigned to the left bank in the busiest
city in France, the most important city in Europe, and working for the most
innovative branch of detection the world had ever known,
La Sûreté Nationale
.

But the arrival of the Sicilian
detective, or sleuth, or whatever she called herself, only spelled trouble for
his career, and he was not about to help her. Not now, at any rate. He knew his
concern with the case was not acceptable behavior. Worse, his preoccupation
with the Sicilian matter might be blinding him to the truth, although he
doubted it, and yet he could not help himself. He was in its thrall, and he
feared it might ruin him, especially if there was no quick confession by the
husband. He would have issue orders for a more intense form of interrogation.

Valois opened his gate, loosened
his cravat, and stepped inside. The Valois family lived in one of the few
private homes in the area untouched by Haussmann’s design, a stone house with an
attached lot that his wife had made into one of the most beautiful gardens in
the arrondissement. He made his way to the back where he knew he’d find
Françoise. Sure enough, she was weeding a bed of spring flowers next to the old
apple tree his father had planted.