The Alchemy of Murder (31 page)

Across the street from the Galette, men are loitering about. Our clothes get us hard, sullen stares. Jules expertly maneuvers me to his left arm, keeping his right arm free if he needs to swing his walking stick.

“This was one of the last stands of the Commune defenders,” Jules tells me. He gestures at the neighborhood. “Even the police are not enthused about straying here. They occasionally raid it for suspects in political crimes, and when they do, they come in force. Don’t look, but off to our right there is a man in the second floor of a building across from the mill.”

“Why don’t you want me to look?”

“We don’t want him to think we’re spying him out.”

As we get closer to the building, damage inflicted by the battles fought between the government troops and Commune soldiers almost two decades ago is still visible. The entire left wall is gone, leaving a pile of rubble; the back wall fronting the cliff side of the hill, is also rubble. The other two walls are standing, but pockmarks are evidence that a blaze of small-arms fire left its imprint.

A dim gaslight, not bright or friendly, flickers at the top of a stone stairway leading down to a basement café. A crudely painted sign is attached to a post at the top of the stairs. No name is inscribed, only the image of a bloody knife.

I’m glad Jules is with me. It was foolish of me to think I could come here alone.

Two men are sitting at the top of the stairs playing a dice game. Each has a bottle of wine beside him and one has a cigarette dangling from his lips. They make room for us to pass, but insolently. At the bottom of the steps another surly looking devil is sitting on a stool next to the door and smoking a cigarette. He says nothing as Jules opens the door and holds it for me, but his look is contemptuous.

The café is as unfriendly inside as it is out. A layer of grey tobacco haze hangs in the air and the place reeks of cheap beer—a smell not totally unfamiliar. My stepfather wore it quite often. There are a dozen tables and several times that many men. None are university types or even the working class of the Galette. Frankly, they are common criminals to my eye, with perhaps an alcoholic poet or two thrown in.

Only three or four women are in the room and I find them especially interesting. The world is full of tough men, but these women—they’re a rare breed of
hard women
. It takes me a moment to place them in the scheme of how I categorize things in my mind, and when I do I am surprised by the conclusion. Soldiers. This is how I think of these women even though all of them are too old for any army. They remind me of the withered hags seen in paintings of the French Revolution, women shouting for blood when victims of the Terror were paraded through the streets.

I wonder if we have not come to the wrong place. Then I see Montmartre’s legend at the back of the room, at a table with three men. There is no mistaking the Red Virgin—her sharp, narrow features, high forehead, and raven hair give her an American Indian look, despite her pale skin. She is wearing her trademark black clothes and red scarf.

I start for her table, but Jules takes my arm and directs me to another table.

“There is a certain protocol in approaching revolutionaries who are wanted by the police,” he whispers.

Jules writes a note on a piece of foolscap and signals for a waiter.

An ancient creature that looks like he belongs on a pirate’s boat hobbles over to us on a leg and a stump. There is no question that this is Legay. And Salis was correct—the scars on his face improved his looks. His neck bears the scar of a collar or rope.

“For Mademoiselle Michel.”

As he reaches for the note and coin, another scar is exposed on his wrist. After the man hobbles away, Jules says, “The wrist scar is from being shackled to an oar. He spent time on a prison galley in his early years for theft, murder, and revolutionary activities, no doubt.”

“That seems to sum up all the clientele in this place. What did you say in your note?”

“That we wish to speak to her about the death of innocent women. And I identified myself and my companion as Nellie Brown.”

“You signed it Jules Verne?”

“We came up to this den of anarchists murders in the dead of the night. It would be unproductive to risk getting our throats cut because Louise Michel is unwilling to talk to strangers.”

“You’ve met her?”

“No, but I have a rather unusual connection to her.”

“And that is what?”

Slurred exclamations come from the table to our right as an old derelict lifts his head for a moment to mutter something before collapsing back down on the table. My mother would describe his condition as pickled.

Jules nods at him. “The gentleman who appears to have just crawled from the gutter is Paul Verlaine, the poet laureate of France’s bohemians. He’s a drunk and a derelict, but both attributes merely enhance his standing with the rest of the degenerates of the arts. He has never been the same since he shot his lover.”

“A younger poet I believe … Arthur Rimbaud.”

“Yes…” Jules looks at me completely surprised.

I continue. “What is so sad is just a few years ago he was instrumental in publishing Rimbaud’s
Illuminations
, but here he sits alone and completely wasted. His wife wants nothing to do with him and he has little if no contact with his son, George. I heard one tale that the bullet struck his wrist, and another that it went into his derrière. Verlaine served a two-year sentence at Mons. The Belgians are less tolerant about shooting one’s lover than you are … the French, I mean.”

“Mademoiselle Brown—”

“I know … you are amazed at my wealth of knowledge, but what I don’t know and I would like to know—”

I’m unable to finish my question to Jules about his connection to the Red Virgin because the old murderer, revolutionary, or whatever the waiter is, taps Jules on the shoulder and jerks his thumb toward the table where Louise sits.

Jules and I rise and make our way, in the haze, back to her table. The men at the table strike me as the type who should be doing time on a prison galley, if such things still exit.

“
Bonsoir
, Mademoiselle, Messieurs.” Jules bows.

“It’s a great honor to meet you,” I tell the Red Virgin truthfully.

No one says a word as we take seats, not even a response to our greetings. Since formality is obviously not needed, or wanted, I plow right in, speaking directly to Louise Michel.

“I’m an American. My sister was murdered by a maniac in New York. I have followed the madman’s trail to Paris. I need your help in finding him so he can be brought to justice.”

Jules sinks down a little in his chair, as if he is cringing from my speech. Louise and her male companions all stare at me as if I climbed out of one of Jules’ moon rockets. Louise starts to say something and stops as her attention is directed behind me.

To my surprise it’s the trapeze act from the circus, the handsome and daring brother and sister team that mesmerized Dr. Dubois. They’re dressed in street clothes—the young man in a well-cut Italian suit of dark linen and silk, and the girl in a forest green dress with yellow trim. The only jewelry the girl wears is a black pendant in the shape of a horse, not a typical horse but one with a rough and ancient look, carved perhaps from ebony or some other dark stone. It’s quite striking.

Like us, they don’t fit in this place.

Greetings are exchanged and a look passes between Louise and the newcomers, a look that I interpret as a signal they’re not to sit at our table—at least not now, not while we are here. They move on. Interesting. Dubois had shown an interest in the two and they have a connection to the city’s most notorious anarchist.

“Why are you telling me this?” the Red Virgin asks me.

“I believe the killer’s an anarchist.”

The man on Louise’s right attacks me. “The only way to bring justice to the people is to destroy the governments and businesses that oppress them. The only way to destroy them is to kill them! If your sister was killed by an anarchist, it was for the good of all.”

He’s a brute with a mean countenance. He purposely glares, daring me to oppose him. I’ve encountered bullies like him before. They love to see women squirm. My father taught me a trick. Look back at them square in the eye—
just one eye
. This way their stare will not unnerve you. I do not falter when I answer him.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t be so generous about death if it was your own life.” I then turn to Louise. “My sister wasn’t killed for political reasons. The killer is a maniac who preys on women, a vicious animal who butchers women for his own demented cravings.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Do you expect to find your killer here? No doubt there are a few killers among us,” she smiles and looks to the man on her right who had lashed out at me, “but they go after bigger game than women.”

The men laugh. I’m tempted to stand up and give them all a piece of my mind, but I’ll get nowhere except thrown out, so I control myself and continue.

“The man I seek murders the poorest and most defenseless women, social outcasts who have no protection from the law. He rips the life from prostitutes with a knife.” I’m certain that the reference to attacks on the dredges of society will appeal to her sense of justice.

“You still haven’t told us why you have come to this café and approach me with your story. This is a political café, not an institute for the criminally insane.”

“I told you the murderer is an anarchist—
a Montmartre anarchist
.”

I might as well have called the pope a debaucher at a convention of Catholics. The two men at the table stiffen and frown darkly and Louise raises an eyebrow. I have definitely hit a nerve and hurry to get the rest of my story out.

“The man may have been involved in Chicago’s Haymarket bombing. When I encountered him in New York he was pretending to be a doctor and used his position to murder prostitutes at a madhouse. I tracked him to London where he killed more prostitutes and now to Paris where he’s continuing his dirty tricks. If we don’t stop him he will continue the slaughter, moving from city to city to keep the police off guard.”

“You seek help from us to turn a comrade over to the police?” The speaker is the man on Louise’s left. He looks as mean spirited as the other man. “We’re not police spies.” He then spits on the floor.

“The man’s a murderer, not of kings and politicians, but of helpless women. Women you are fighting to free,” I retort.

“Whores? What’s a few less whores if the yoke of capitalism and tyranny is thrown off?”

Once again, the men laugh and to my surprise so does Louise. That’s it! My blood rises and I stand up. I feel Jules cautioning hand on my arm, but I’m too angry to obey.

“I’m not here to talk politics, but humanity. Something I thought,” I look directly into Louise’s eye, “
you
would understand. Obviously I’m wrong.”

“Why do you believe this man is an anarchist?” Louise asks me.

“He wears the red scarf and black clothes you’ve made famous.”

“There are hundreds of thousands of followers of anarchy in France, millions around the world. You say he’s not even French. Why would you think we could help?”

“I heard you talk at Place Blanche. I know you are admired everywhere. You may not know the man yourself, but you can put the word out to others that—”

“Didn’t you hear us, woman!”

The big man on her right gets to his feet snarling, knocking his chair over backward. Jules tenses beside me.

“You’re trying to make us police spies! Get out of here or you’ll end up on a meat hook!”

Jules springs to his feet. “That’s a foul thing to say to a lady. Apologize or I’ll—”

“Please, please, sit down, François, Mademoiselle Brown, you too Monsieur Verne.”

When we are all back in our seats, Louise gives Verne an amused look. “Have you stolen any more of my ideas, Monsieur Verne?”

“I’m afraid, Mademoiselle, that I haven’t come across any more of your ideas to steal. All the worse for my writing, since
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
is one of my most popular works.”

“I’m afraid you and your spirited friend have made an unprofitable trip all the way up here. While I don’t condone the death of innocent people, my friend is correct when he says we’re not police spies. We have no interest in your problem. Though I’m sorry you lost a sister,” she says to me.

I stand up again. “I’m sure that will console the family of the next innocent woman who’s murdered by this fiend. I’m sorry to bother you. When I was a factory girl, a pamphlet with one of your speeches fell into my hands and changed my life. It’s too bad the woman who wrote those words doesn’t live up to her own legend.”

I was out the front door before Jules caught up with me.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”

“It’s all right.”

Never have I felt so deflated. Louise Michel is a person I have admired and tried to emulate. And now, for the moment, all that came crashing down. I was hit with a harsh reality of life—when you put a person on a pedestal, you will be disappointed. It’s the nature of the beast. I just had a dose of reality and right now it stinks.