The Devil in Montmartre (26 page)

“At our final meeting, which was a few days before her disappearance, she said she had met someone she believed could help with her hysterical fits. But I’m afraid she didn’t elaborate, and my sensitivity precluded me from pressing her for details.”

Achille’s eyes narrowed; his mind focused on his primary suspect. “Do you believe the individual who was ‘helping’ Mlle Ménard could have been a doctor specializing in the treatment of female hysteria?”

Marcia frowned; she stared at him for a moment before replying: “Are you referring to Sir Henry Collingwood?”

Arthur’s eyes darted furtively from Marcia to Achille, but he remained silent.

Achille responded cautiously but forthrightly. “Not necessarily, Mademoiselle, but to my knowledge he is the only physician practicing in that field who had made acquaintance with Mlle Ménard.”

Arthur instinctively held Marcia’s hand as though she needed reassurance and support, but she remained cool and composed. “Inspector, you are of course aware that I’m presently under Sir Henry’s care. You may also know that he is pursuing an intimacy with one of my dearest friends, Mlle Endicott.”

Arthur broke in: “Inspector Lefebvre, you assured me that these ladies were in no immediate danger or at least that there was no present need for concern.”

Achille nodded. “That is correct, M. Wolcott. At present, I have insufficient evidence to accuse anyone in this matter, but so far everything points to a doctor who had access to the victim, Mlle Ménard. You and Mlle Brownlow have provided me with useful information, for which I’m grateful. I have another appointment today, and some work to do at headquarters, after which I expect to be closer to solving the case. If I may ask, what are your plans for the next few days? Do you intend to remain in Paris?”

Arthur glanced at Marcia; she nodded as a sign, a tacit agreement that he could speak for her. “I have some business to conclude within the next two days, after which I intend to accompany Mlle Brownlow to England.”

“Very well, Monsieur. And do either of you know Mlle Endicott’s intentions?”

Marcia replied, “Betsy plans to stay for the closing ceremonies, and I assume she’ll attend them with Sir Henry. Afterward, they’ll both depart for London.”Marcia’s eyes widened with apprehension; she coughed into her handkerchief.

Arthur placed a hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right, my dear?”

Marcia nodded and took a sip of wine before continuing. She looked directly at Achille. “Of course, Inspector, if you suspect Sir Henry—”

“Mlle Brownlow,” he broke in, “I have asked M. Wolcott to give his word of honor not to discuss this matter with anyone, and now I must ask the same of you. You may of course be concerned for your safety and that of your friend. Please be assured if I discover any further evidence against Sir Henry, I will see to it that you and Mlle Endicott are notified at once. Moreover, I’m going to request that Sir Henry be placed under surveillance, which will afford you and your friend additional protection. But I most urgently request that you not speak of this to Mlle Endicott or anyone else.”

“You have my word on that, Inspector,” she answered firmly.

Achille smiled, and he noticed more evidence of worry in Arthur’s expression than in Marcia’s. “Thank you, Mademoiselle. Now, I know you and M. Wolcott have other things to do, so I won’t detain you any longer. I appreciate your cooperation and please, if either of you have any further questions or concerns, contact me immediately.”

They parted amicably, but on the way back to the hotel Arthur muttered, “Don’t worry my dear. The French are always jumping to conclusions. I’ll be deuced if Sir Henry’s a murderer. After all, he’s a member of my club.”

Marcia smiled faintly. She knew the seemingly fatuous comment was Arthur’s way of putting her at ease. “I hope you’re right. At any rate, we both know Betsy’s quite capable of defending herself.”

Arthur nodded. “Ah, yes; her concealed pistols. I’ve heard she’s a regular Annie Oakley.”

Marcia recalled several demonstrations of Betsy’s marksmanship. “Yes, thank goodness she is,” she replied. Then she turned and tried to divert her attention away from Betsy by watching the multi-hued falling leaves floating gently in the breeze.

“These are quite interesting, M. Lautrec. I can learn a great deal about the subject from your sketches.” Achille occupied a chair in Toulouse-Lautrec’s studio. The artist had opened a portfolio, displaying several drawings of Virginie. He spread them out carefully on a long, narrow table near the center of the room. This area was bright and warm with sunshine flowing in through a large skylight.

The artist contemplated the policeman from a shadowy corner, his arms folded and his back resting on a shelf stacked with plaster casts. He reached into a vest pocket and pulled out his watch. “Delphine should be here shortly. Would you care for a drink?”

Achille looked up from a pastel he was admiring. “No thank you, Monsieur.”

Lautrec walked to a cabinet near the table and retrieved a bottle. “Well, I’m sure you won’t mind if I indulge. Let me know if you change your mind.” He pulled up a chair next to Achille, uncorked the bottle, filled a glass with brandy, and continued silently observing.

After a few minutes, Achille returned the drawings to the portfolio. “I feel as though I’m getting to know Mlle Ménard. That’s often important in my work, to understand the victim as well as the criminal.”

Lautrec took a drink before asking, “Why is that, Inspector?”

Achille was about to answer when they were interrupted by a knock on the door. “That must be Delphine,” Lautrec said. He got up from the table, walked to the entrance, opened the door and greeted her. Then he turned to Achille: “Inspector Lefebvre, this is Mademoiselle Lacroix.”

Achille rose and made a slight bow. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mademoiselle.”

She nodded curtly and stared at him with wide brown eyes. Delphine was not timid, but the streets had taught her to fear the police. To her way of thinking, Achille’s customary politeness seemed like a ploy; it did not put her at ease. Nevertheless, after a moment of anxious silence, she replied, “Call me Delphine; everyone does.”

Achille smiled. He offered her a chair. “Please be seated, Delphine.” As she approached, he noticed her stiffness and hesitancy. He’d seen the same look and gait in prisoners on their way to interrogation. That gave him an idea. “M. Lautrec and I were about to have a drink. Will you join us?”

She sat and glanced up at him furtively. “Yes, thanks.”

Lautrec produced two more glasses and poured for all three. Then he took a seat next to Delphine.

Achille retrieved a packet of cigarettes from his breast pocket and offered her one. She accepted gratefully and held his hand to steady the match. After a few minutes of smoking, drinking, and small talk he decided things had loosened up enough to venture a question: “So Delphine, I understand you have some important information about Joseph Rossini. Will you please give me the details?”

She drained her glass and held it out to Lautrec for a refill. Then: “Yes, Inspector. Papa Le Boudin is having Jojo shadowed.”

“Excuse me, Delphine,” Achille broke in, “Who is Papa Le Boudin?”

She stared at him incredulously. “Why, everybody knows Le Boudin. He’s the King of the
chiffoniers
. Old clothes, pots and pans, scrap, junk, you name it. He’s the biggest dealer in Paris.”

“Pardon my ignorance, Delphine. I’d like to meet him some day. Anyway, please continue.”

For an instant, she eyed Achille suspiciously. He seemed on the level, although a bit green. Delphine remembered what Le Boudin had told her about going to Lefebvre; she had no alternative but to trust him. “All right, then. Le Boudin put two of his men, Moïse and Nathan Gunzberg, on Jojo’s tail. They shadowed him up to an old, abandoned mill on top of the Butte, near Sacré-Coeur. Jojo met some guy up there about three in the morning yesterday, and again this morning at the same time. Nathan followed the guy back downhill to the boulevard, but he lost him. The guy wears a disguise; Nathan can’t give a good description of him.

“Jojo and his pal pass notes to each other. Jojo gets his messages at the Circus Fernando and the guy picks up his at a tobacconist on the Boulevard de Clichy near the corner of the Rue Lepic. You can bet they’re up to no good. As for the cop watching Jojo. . . ” She caught herself on the verge of saying something disparaging about the police.

“Please go on, Delphine.”

She stared at her hands, her fear returning like a sharp shaft of light cutting through the amiable fog of brandy, cigarettes, and Achille’s good manners. Finally, and without looking up she replied, “Well, Inspector, he just hangs around doing—nothing.”

“I see. Thank you for your honesty. Now, is there anything else you want to tell me about Jojo and this man he meets?”

She shook her head. “The Gunzberg boys are still on the lookout, that’s all.”

Achille took a moment to digest her information. If the fingerprints on the letter matched one of the sets of prints he’d obtained at the crime scene, he could assume the man Jojo met at the mill was his suspected partner in crime, Sir Henry. A matching set of Jojo’s prints could complete the connection. He would test the letter in Bertillon’s laboratory later that afternoon. He decided to change the subject to Virginie. “Delphine, I’d like to ask you a few questions about Mlle Ménard. According to your initial statement to the police, you said that as far as you knew she did not feel threatened by any particular individual. Do you know if she was being
helped
by someone?”

Her brow knitted and she eyed him curiously. “What do you mean by ‘helped’?”

“I’ve heard that Mlle Ménard was a troubled young woman and that she’d found someone who was assisting her with her troubles, a doctor perhaps. If that were indeed the case, I believe she would have said something to you. After all, you were quite close to her, weren’t you?”

She glared at Lautrec, as if he were the source of the information. He responded with a shrug. He was itching for charcoal and paper so he could record the expression on Delphine’s face, which he found most interesting. But to have done so would have been
outré
; instead he scratched his itch with another drink.

Delphine ignored the artist and replied to Achille. “We were very close, Inspector. Virginie was troubled, that’s true. We all are, I suppose. But perhaps her troubles were worse than most. You see, Virginie was full of hate, but all she ever wanted was love. She hated those who had hurt her, and she hated herself for hating. This is hard to explain, but I think when people hate themselves as she did, they feel that no one can love them. So when the wrong person comes along they’re—oh, I can’t find the right word—”

“Vulnerable?” offered Lautrec.

She glanced at him and then looked back at Achille. “Maybe that’s the word I was looking for. I don’t know, Inspector. I’m an uneducated woman.”

“I believe vulnerable is the right word, Delphine. The unscrupulous among us mark such people; they take advantage of their vulnerability. And sometimes the victims love their tormentors no matter how badly they are abused. Can you please tell me more? Who hurt her? What was the source of her troubles?”

Delphine looked down and silently nodded her head in agreement. She recalled how she had fallen for Jojo and the way he had mistreated her when she was barely fourteen. After a moment, Delphine related the story Virginie had told her about her childhood in Rouen.

“Virginie came to Paris at the age of eighteen. She was kept by a rich silk merchant who died last year. He left her a little money, but she supported herself by modeling and dancing at the Moulin. She took the merchant’s name, Ménard, as her stage name. She was an orphan, raised in Rouen by Monsieur Mercier, her father’s eldest brother, and his wife. The Merciers were butchers and
charcutiers
. They had no children of their own and agreed to care for Virginie with the understanding that she would help around the house and shop and learn the trade.

“Virginie was immediately put to work. At first she was grateful for the food, clothing, and shelter her aunt and uncle provided. But memories of that childhood in Rouen haunted her, especially a nightmare of the Merciers slaughtering and butchering her pet pig.

“When she was a girl she avoided the slaughterhouse, an outbuilding behind the shop that was connected to the pigpen by a gated chute. On certain days Uncle Mercier would select a pig, open the gate, and drive it toward the shed with slaps and prods to its backside.

“Feeding the pigs was one of Virginie’s chores, and she didn’t mind it. She liked the animals and named them; there was fat Alphonse, greedy Gaston, and her favorite, little Buttercup. ‘You’re such a pretty little piggy,’ she would say as she patted Buttercup’s snout. The bigger, stronger pigs were always pushing Buttercup away from the feeding trough but Virginie saw to it that her friend always got her share.

“One morning, Virginie had begun her daily work as usual by sweeping out the store. Her aunt came up and tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Put down your broom and come with me. This morning you’ll learn an important part of our trade.’