The Alchemy of Murder (27 page)

39

“Yes, I’ve heard of the man,” Jules says.

He wrinkles his nose as if thinking about Oscar Wilde is malodorous. The rocking of the carriage sends me brushing against him. His scent is masculine and very appealing. I straighten up.

Jules continues. “A café intellectual, a society wit, a self-appointed arbiter of literature who fancies comedies of manners. His name appears occasionally on the society page. His literary credits always appear vague, some volumes of poetry, I believe.”

“And a couple plays. I’m not sure both were even produced. But he does know people, like this artist we’re going to see.” I wonder what it is about Oscar that has made Jules so disturbed—especially when he’s never met the man. I dare not ask for fear he’ll just bite my head off.

“I can’t believe you talked me into meeting this creature and his artist friend at a house of prostitution. If I’m seen…”

I can’t guarantee he won’t be recognized, so I put a positive reason on why we are going there. “Oscar tells me this man knows more about what happens in Montmartre than the nosiest concierge. He might have knowledge of the slasher.”

“Humph,” he utters.

“I also understand he’s from a noble family, his father’s a count or something.”

“A count? A count’s son lives in a house of prostitution and paints whores? Are you certain that your friend Oscar isn’t a lotus-eater!?”

“A lotus-eater … really…”

Jules just gives me a look like I’ve lost my head. Maybe I have—I mean, for a young woman to travel unaccompanied to a foreign country to stop a mad killer … I must be the one eating lotus!

“In all honesty, I don’t care what he eats, who he is, and who he associates with. All that matters is finding the slasher. If I have to, I’ll use the devil himself to help me.”

Jules takes a long, deep breath and then slowly turns and looks at me with those intense brown eyes of his. Here it comes—how impetuous I am, how I don’t think of the consequences, and I’m such an American woman …

“You’re right … and the devil may prove to be your strongest ally.”

He goes back to staring out his window as if his whole life is passing by. Jules obviously needs time to work on the devil that’s eating away at him. I respect his wish for privacy and turn and look out my window. As the coach travels down a dark street, I can’t help but observe him in the light of the passing gaslights. I try to be discreet by watching him from the corner of my eye.

The more I deal with him, the more I find him complicated, intriguing, and I must admit … a handsome puzzle. I just wish I could put my finger on the name of the demon that sometimes possesses him—slipping past his composure and exposing anger, even rage, beneath his calm exterior. He has the potential for violence—he did tell me he came to Paris to kill a man. Then I had a horrible thought: could my attraction to him be clouding my judgment? Many intelligent women made fools of themselves because they became blinded by love.

“You actually pointed a gun at the man?” Jules stares at me with a mixture of interest … and disbelief.

“Only at his face.”

He shakes his head and shudders. “I guess that can be expected from a woman raised in a country where cultural conflicts are battles between cowboys and Indians.”

“There’s more to America than—”

“Yes, yes, Americans are very inventive; it will be a great country someday, if it ever stops to realize it’s only one part of a big world.”

That’s it, nothing I say will change his mind about Americans so I steer him back to the subject at hand. “Oscar’s important to the investigation. If for no other reason than he can make himself a pest.”

I don’t mention Oscar knows I’m wanted by the police and that I’m an investigative reporter. I swore Oscar to secrecy before we parted this morning. “Mum’s the word,” he assured me. Unfortunately, Oscar has such a love to talk I fear it’s going to be hard for him to keep his word. But life is full of surprises.

“Fine. But we should investigate Wilde before sharing any secrets with him. I have a friend who covers the boulevard cafés for a newspaper. We’ll consult with him about the man.”

“If that makes you feel better. In the meantime, did I tell you that Oscar said the artist is an anarchist? This is good, since I suspect the slasher is one.”

Another huff emerges from Jules. “People like your friend Oscar are café anarchists. They argue radical change over a glass of absinthe, but sleep in their comfortable beds while the poor shiver under Seine bridges. They would take their turn on the guillotine if their distorted political theories actually got implemented.”

He leans back and half shuts his eyes. “Please pardon me. Part of it is old age, the spite of the old against the spirit of youth. It has been eons since I sat in a café and debated social change. And partly it’s anger. I am the best-known author in France, possibly in the entire world. The most prestigious award given to a French author is membership in the Academy. To a writer, it’s the equivalent of being knighted. My membership has always been blocked by people Oscar Wilde personifies—literary butterflies who
ooh
and
aah
over silly comedies of manners, boring stories of the affairs of the upper classes while denigrating my tales of science and adventure that are read all over the world.”

He turns to me, his eyes dark. “If I should pull the sword from my cane and plunge it into your friend’s heart, please understand that my bitterness is not personal.”

“Understood … but Jules, you must know that they are the real losers. Do you realize that you are in the exact situation as Doctor Pasteur?”

“What in heaven are you talking about?”

“Doctor Pasteur is hated by the doctors and banned from working with them and he would give anything to be accepted and more importantly acknowledged by them. You’re not accepted by your peers because you don’t write what they think is high brow. They’re envious and jealous of you because your books are loved all over the world. Ignore them. You’ve already won. So what if you don’t have membership to the Academy. What would it really give you that you don’t already have?”

Still, I understand how much it makes your blood boil when you work hard to prove you’re just as worthy and are still not accepted. At least Jules isn’t patted on the head like a good little girl and then sent off to cover society weddings.

“Mademoiselle Brown, you never cease to amaze me. Thank you for your wise and kind words.”

“You’re welcome.” If I could have puffed up like a peacock, I would have.

*   *   *

“M
ADAME
P
OMPOUR
’
S IS
the best house of pleasure in the area,” Oscar informs us as we stand in front of the establishment. “That’s Toulouse’s opinion and he’s legendary about his knowledge of such things.”

“Is that his first or last name?” I ask.

“Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. His family is of the old nobility, but his father, the Count of Toulouse, severed ties with him because he chooses to paint real-life prostitutes and cancan girls, and the men who gawk at them. He’s still trying to find an audience and appreciation for his work.”

“Unusual subject matters for someone who wants to have his art appreciated,” I note. “I can’t imagine buying a piece of it to display in a drawing room.”

“My dear, every artist must listen to the muse whispering in his ear. You’ll see that Toulouse is an unusual person. His choice to paint the peculiar rather than the mundane is part of his nature. He occasionally lives in a house of pleasure to study the girls. And I suppose in a queer way he identifies with them.”

“He identifies with prostitutes?” Jules asks.

“Not their sex life, but the fact that they’re outcasts. Toulouse was born under an unpropitious star. The gods have not played fair with him personally, but they gave him second sight into his fellow mortals. In his paintings, he portrays the underworld of prostitutes for the brutal, cynical place that it is, rejecting the sentimentality and glamour that so many other artists and people place on it. In showing the crudeness and vulgarity of a brothel, he tells us something about every one of us, as if the brothel is a reflection of all of our lives.”

“Interesting,” I say, but that is not how I feel. This painter sounds like a queer fellow.

Oscar continues, “Toulouse can find out very quickly whether this madman we seek is hanging about houses of prostitution in the Montmartre. The girls trust him and will reveal things to him that they would never reveal to us. Not to mention the danger involved in asking too many questions at one of these establishments. The proprietors, including Madame Pompour, tend to get nasty if there’s any trouble or their affairs are brought to the attention of the police. Naturally, they’re not averse to having a head knocked if they feel the need. Shall we go in?”

Flaming torches are posted at the gate to Madame Pompour’s villa. A big man in a billowing scarlet robe, a white turban, and a scimitar in his fist, greets us with a grin as broad as his blade.

“Welcome, Messieurs, Mademoiselle, to the Garden of Delights where all of your pleasures will be fulfilled.” He bows profusely and mutters some gibberish that we’re to assume is a language of the Orient.

We follow him down a path lined with torches and cross a courtyard filled with exotic jungle flowers and large palm trees. Considering the weather in Paris, one may presume that the vegetation is fake. To the left is a large heart-shaped fountain with white lilies floating in the water. In the center is a statue of a naked man and woman intertwined with each other, all body parts quite vivid.

The entrance is two massive doors with an elaborate Turkish-looking copper
façade
imprinted with a design of men with women in sexual positions I could have never imagined.

“We are entering the Arabian Nights,” Oscar proclaims.

“More like the cave of Ali Baba and the forty thieves,” Jules mutters.

Inside we’re immediately attacked by a pungent sweet scent. Beyond the foyer is a large room dominated by a circular couch of red velvet that has a huge fountain in the center with a marble statue of
Venus de Milo.
Heart-shaped red flowers adorn the water. Five women lounge around the sofa. Two other women are off to the side laughing and appear to be having an enjoyable time drinking with a male guest. The women’s dresses are of different modes of fashion, from harem silks to fancy ball gowns. While the style of the clothing differs, it all exposes an excessive amount of décolletage.

Every woman in the room looks at us, no doubt measuring the girth of the men’s wallets with greater authority than a pickpocket. Their stares at me reveal they’re wondering who—or what—I am.

Sitting across the room cross-legged on the floor near the bar is a turbaned “native” wearing a white loin-cloth, and smoking a water pipe. He gives me a grin. The blank area for his missing two front teeth show black. He waves the mouthpiece of the water pipe like a snake beckoning its next victim.

Opium. The dream maker is legal in most countries. This isn’t a smell unfamiliar to me. I wrote an exposé on an opium den that imports teenage Chinese girls for immoral use by its customers. My editor so feared the tong who ran it that the paper hired George J. Sullivan, the boxing champion, as my bodyguard for a month.

A door behind the bar opens and out steps a large woman mummified in gaudy layers of makeup and wrapped in pink, purple, and green silky harem sheers. This has to be Madame Pompour—a bejeweled and perfumed water buffalo draped in silk.

“Welcome, my friends, to my Garden of Delight.”

Oscar makes brief introductions. “We’re here to see that rascal Toulouse. Is he still demanding the girls pay him with their services for inclusion in his paintings?”

“If they did, it would be the first thing he’d make off of his paintings. Toulouse is in the conservatory, but be quick with your hellos. The early bird gets the best choice of my lovely girls.”

The woman gives me an appraising look as if she wonders what my
profession
is.

A woman from the bar comes by holding onto a man’s arm; she waves to Jules as they head for the upstairs. “So good to see you again, Monsieur.” Jules turns red and mutters, “The woman must be mistaken; I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

I smile. “Of course.”

We follow Oscar into a room dominated by an elegant white grand piano. A young woman is playing a melancholy tune while a man wearing a paint-smudged smock sits before an easel and pigment tray, painting.

His model is a woman draped in a cloth that has fallen off her shoulder, exposing full breasts with very pink nipples. Embarrassed, I try not to look, but I can’t help notice that she’s thickset and has lost her youthful look, not at all what one would imagine to find in a high-class establishment.

“A professional model,” Oscar stage whispers. “Toulouse is showing what the poor girls go through each fortnight when they lift their dresses to have their private parts inspected by a doctor in order to keep their prostitute’s card.”