The Paris Enigma (6 page)

I
spent the morning writing letters to my parents and to Señora Craig. I preferred not to write to the detective himself out of fear that my letter would be left, unopened and unread, on some desk of the now abandoned Academy. I took several long walks during the day, fighting off the feeling that I was in the wrong place. Craig had sent me to help Arzaky, but the Pole didn't seem to want any help. I waited, anxiously, for the hours to pass so it would be time to go to the hotel and meet The Twelve Detectives, who were actually eleven, and who would soon be ten.

I went out dressed in a brand-new suit, a wide-brimmed hat, and a vicuña poncho that my mother had insisted I bring. Wearing the hat made me very happy: I had owned it for a while already, but in Buenos Aires I couldn't use it, because just wearing a hat like that on your head was enough to be taken for a knave and challenged to a knife duel. Since I had taken some fencing classes, it didn't seem right for me to accept such challenges, and I avoided wearing it so as not to be led into temptation. In Paris the hat had no meaning whatsoever.

As I entered the Numancia Hotel, where the detectives were staying, a tall black man in a blue uniform blocked my way. But all I had to do was say Arzaky's name and he stepped to one side, almost reverently. I thought that there was no greater glory in life than making your own name a secret password capable of changing minds and opening doors. I went down to the parlor with the pleasure that conspirators must feel with the thought of every secret and symbol that proves they are involved in something beyond the trivial.

The detectives were seated in the center of the underground parlor. Around them were the assistants, some in chairs, others standing. They nodded their heads in greeting, and I responded with the typical nervousness of someone who bursts into a meeting and worries that they're too early, or late, or inappropriately dressed.

Arzaky stood up and said, “Before we begin, gentlemen, I would like to remind you that my cases are still empty and awaiting your artifacts. This fair is a celebration of your intelligence, not your indifference.”

“We'll send our brains in formaldehyde,” said a detective whose hands were covered in bright rings with colored stones. From his accent, I guessed that it was Magrelli, the Eye of Rome.

“In my case, I'll send the brain of my assistant Dandavi, who increasingly does my thinking for me,” said Caleb Lawson. Tall, with a big nose, he looked at the world through the smoke of his meerschaum pipe, which was shaped like a question mark. He was identical to the illustrations that accompanied his adventures.

“What could we display?” asked Zagala, the Portuguese detective. “A magnifying glass? Our work is abstraction, logic. We are the only profession with nothing to show, because our most precious instruments are invisible.”

There was a murmur of agreement, until Arzaky's voice rose above it.

“I didn't know I was in a meeting of purists. Magrelli, you have the largest archive of criminal anthropology in Italy, supervised by Cesare Lombroso himself. And that's not to mention the delicate instruments that you use to measure ears, skulls, and noses. Are they
invisible, as Zagala says? And you, Dr. Lawson, you never leave London without your portable microscope. If you only had one I wouldn't ask you to lend it, but I know that you collect them. You even have microscopes that can be seen only with a microscope! And you've been acquiring those optical instruments that let you work in the fog for years.” Arzaky pointed to a tall man, who was winding his watch. “Tobias Hatter, a native of Nuremberg, has given our trade at least forty-seven toys, rumors of which provoke dread in even the worst German criminals. When the killer Maccarius threatened you with a butcher's knife, didn't you let an innocent toy soldier open fire? Wasn't it you who designed a music box whose melody tormented murderers' sleepless nights and forced them to confess? And Sakawa, where is my invisible friend Sakawa…?”

The Japanese detective appeared out of nowhere. He was white-haired, much shorter than his assistant, Okano, and so thin he couldn't have weighed more than a boy.

“Don't you usually contemplate the stones in your Sand Garden, and the Screen of Twelve Figures, to help you think? Aren't your thoughts led by the demons painted on the screen?”

The Japanese detective bowed his head as an apology and said, “I like the empty cases: they say more about us than all the instruments we could fill them with. But I know that won't sit well with all the curious souls who come to visit our little exhibition. I devoted many hours of thought to what I should put in the space allotted to me, but I still haven't decided. I don't want to come across as eccentric. I'd prefer to show something more…”

“I know. You, from the East, want to show something Western; Lawson, who works with science, would be satisfied with something stripped of all scientific rigor; Tobias Hatter doesn't want to be taken for a toy maker and instead gives me nothing. You're all hiding your secrets and I'm stuck with empty cases.”

I edged close to Baldone and, whispering, asked him to identify the detectives. Many I knew from the magazines I read in Buenos
Aires, which compiled their exploits with hagiographic devotion. But seeing them in person wasn't the same as looking at the ink drawings that illustrated
The Key to Crime
and
Suspicion
. The artists usually emphasized one feature or expression yet, in the parlor, each face said many things at once.

Up until now they had all been speaking in a playful, slightly exaggerated tone, but now a serious, impatient voice was heard.

“Sirs, you may be on vacation, but this is my city and I still have to work just like any other day.”

The man who had spoken was about sixty years old, with white hair and beard. While all the others had some exotic touch to their attire, as if they wanted to be recognized as exceptional beings, this veteran detective was indistinguishable from any other Parisian gentleman.

“That's Louis Darbon,” said Baldone into my ear. “Arzaky and Darbon have both claimed the title of Detective of Paris. But since Arzaky is Polish, he faces a lot of resistance. Some time ago, Arzaky proposed they each take one side of the Seine, but Darbon refused.”

“We understand your situation, and your shock at our appetite for leisure, and we'll forgive your early departure, Mr. Darbon,” said Arzaky with a smile.

Darbon approached Arzaky defiantly. They were almost the same height.

“Before leaving I want to express my displeasure at the way things are being handled. What are all these meetings that you insist on having? Should we bow down before methodology? Are we priests of a new cult? A sect? No, we are detectives and we have to show results.”

“Results aren't everything, Mr. Darbon. There is a beauty in the enigma that sometimes makes us forget the result…. Also we need a bit of leisure, after-dinner chats. We are professionals, but there is no detective that isn't also a bit of a dilettante. We are travelers, driven by the winds of coincidence and distraction to the locked room that hides the crime.”

“Travelers? I'm no traveler, no foreigner, God help me. But I am in a hurry, and I am not going to argue with you of all people, Arzaky, over principles or countries of origin.”

Louis Darbon made a general gesture of farewell. Arthur Neska, his assistant, moved to follow him, but Darbon made a spirited gesture that told him to stay.

“Darbon is leaving, but he wants to find out every word Arzaky says,” said Baldone into my ear.

A gentleman dressed in a white suit with bright blue details, more appropriate to a theatrical costume than to a detective's work clothing, came forward. He clapped with reprehensible affectation; behind me I heard the acolytes' stifled laughter. I gestured to Baldone, silently asking him who it was.

“That's Andres Castelvetia.”

“The Dutchman?”

“Yes, Magrelli tried to block his acceptance as a full member, but it didn't work.”

Arzaky gave Castelvetia the floor.

“If you'll allow me, gentlemen, I'll be the first to talk about enigmas. And I will do so, if you'll forgive me, with a metaphor.”

“Go ahead,” said Arzaky. “Free us from our obsession with invisible clues, cigarette butts, and train schedules. And don't be embarrassed: during the day we worship syllogisms, but the night belongs to the metaphor.”

T
hus spoke Castelvetia:

“There is an oft-used image that best defines our work: the jigsaw puzzle. It's a cliché, but what is more like our investigations than the patient search for a hidden picture? We put the pieces together one by one, searching for the images or shapes that remind us of other images and shapes. Just when it seems that we are lost, we find the right piece, giving us a fleeting glimpse of the complete image. Who didn't do jigsaw puzzles as a child? Who doesn't feel now, while searching in alleys, beneath the moonlight or the green halo of the streetlights, that we are continuing our childhood games? With a board that has grown more complicated and has expanded to fill entire cities.

“I remember the murder of Lucía Railor, a dancer with the national theater of Amsterdam: she was hanged in her dressing room with a prop rope. Prop revolvers don't fire, but prop ropes hang someone just as well as the real thing. It was one of the few locked-room cases that we've had in Amsterdam. The dressing room was locked from inside, the key was in the door. The dancer was found with the rope around her neck and her body was blocking the door. Since no one else could have entered the room, the police supposed that Lucía had hanged herself using the hook where she usually hung her coat; the weight of the body had eventually undone the rope. It was an unusual
suicide, but in that period just forming a hypothesis, as mistaken as it might be, was a big step forward for the Amsterdam police. I asked myself the same question as always: if she was killed, how could the murderer have escaped? For days I scoured the room, as if it were an island and I the only inhabitant. I crawled along the floor…”

“In that white suit?” asked a snide voice I wasn't able to identify.

Castelvetia ignored the comment and continued.

“First I attended to the small things, then to the imperceptible ones, and finally to those that couldn't even be found with a magnifying glass. I put the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle: remnants of tulips on the soles of the shoes Lucía wore in the performance, bits of thin glass, loose threads from a cotton rope, a book of poems, in French, by Victor Hugo that Lucía kept in a drawer. And the position of her body, by the door.”

Castelvetia paused, allowing the room to fall silent. I'm sure that each one of the detectives already had a hypothesis about the case, but they chose to keep quiet, out of courtesy. The only sound was the scratching pencil of a man who looked as if he had slept in his clothes. He was overdressed not only for the room's temperature but for the entire city's as well.

“Who's that guy taking notes?” I asked Baldone. “Castelvetia's acolyte?”

“No, that's Grimas, the editor-in-chief of
Traces
. He is going to publish a synopsis of our talks in his magazine. At least, until the fighting starts.”

At Craig's house I had seen an old copy of
Traces
. It was a lushly produced publication, printed on heavy paper, but I still preferred
The Key to Crime
, with its yellowing pages, crowded typography, and the ink drawings that had made such an impression on me as a child. I still remember the staring eyes of a hanged man, a trunk with a hand coming out of it, a woman's head in a hatbox…

“And how did the final picture emerge?” asked Caleb Lawson.

“I'll be brief, and go piece by piece. The bouquet of tulips: the
killer, who was her ex-lover, the actor Roddelbach, used to bring her flowers. The trampled tulips showed that Lucía had decided to break up with him. The little pieces of glass: Roddelbach knocked the dancer out with ether, but the bottle broke and he wasn't able to pick up all the pieces. The threads of cord: after rendering her unconscious, Roddelbach put a rope around her neck and passed the other end of the rope over the door. The thin cord allowed the door to close easily. Once he was out of the room, he pulled on the cord, hanging the actress. The friction against the door and the frame made some threads come off. Roddelbach had used a very small dose of ether so that the woman would wake up when she felt the pain of the noose tightening around her neck. And that's how he did it.”

“I don't see what the French book had to do with it.”

“The book led me to investigate the dancer's true nationality. Lucía had passed herself off as Dutch to get the job, but she was French, and Roddelbach knew it. He figured that in her state of confusion she would try to open the door, as she would have in her home country: counterclockwise. But the old locks still used in Holland have a reverse mechanism. In trying to open the door, Lucía closed it. It was her final act. Roddelbach was so convinced of his plot's success that he didn't even bother to make up an alibi. It was almost as if he wanted to be caught. He thought, as so many murderers do, that the effectiveness of his plan guaranteed that his crime would go unpunished. Yet I have observed that it is often the impulsive crimes, committed in the heat of the moment, that are the most difficult to solve. Roddelbach's arrogance was the final piece of the puzzle.”

Castelvetia bowed his head like an actor after a performance and returned to his seat.

“A statement can be true or false, but a metaphor isn't subject to such verdicts. Which is why I will say that your metaphor is, if not false, at least inadequate,” said Arzaky. “In a jigsaw puzzle the image appears slowly: when the last piece is in place, we've already known for a while what the picture is. You give the impression of a gradual
method, when actually the truth often comes to detectives like a revelation.”

“Speaking of revelations, I had forgotten you're a Catholic,” answered Castelvetia.

“I'm Polish, and everything that goes along with it.” Arzaky pointed at Magrelli, who raised his hand to speak, like a schoolboy.

“I agree with Arzaky: the revelation of an enigma is not a slow progression, although the path to it requires patience. I hate Milan and the Milanese, but there is a painter from that city named Giuseppe Arcimboldo, an underappreciated genius, whose paintings haunt me. Arcimboldo would paint a disorganized mound of different fruits, or monstrous flowers, or sea creatures. And within those decaying fruits, poisonous, carnivorous flowers, or fish, octopi, and crabs, we discover a human face. For a moment we see the objects, and then suddenly the face emerging: the nose, the eyes, the gaze; and then, in the next moment we see only flowers or fruit. His paintings hang in Prague in the emperor's cabinet of wonders. I had to look into it because of a murder I'd rather not remember. They look like the work of a magician interested in optical illusions and in the fine line between magnetism and repulsion. That is how the enigma is for us; not a progressive journey, but a leap, a complete change of perspective; we gather details until we see that they trace a hidden figure.”

Magrelli stood up. Baldone, proud of his detective, nudged me with his elbow, as if to say “here comes the good part.”

“Eight years ago, a series of painting thefts shocked Venice. The important families kept very valuable paintings in their homes, but the thief had consistently chosen minor works that hung in peripheral rooms, rarely used hallways, or servants' bedrooms, works that were easy to steal. When the thefts continued unabated, I was called in. The owners of the paintings were not as upset about the value of the stolen works as they were about the thief's persistence. I consider myself an expert in fine art, but nevertheless, no matter how many times I read the list of stolen works, I couldn't understand the
thief's motives. A seascape by an unknown British painter; St. Mark's Basilica painted by some duke's uncle, whose intentions were better than his results; the portrait of a bishop whom no one remembered anymore; some goats grazing at dusk…(it's always dusk in bad paintings). I tried to imagine those works and discover something in them, but I wasn't making any progress. I couldn't solve the case until the paintings became invisible to me.”

“They already were invisible—they'd been stolen,” interjected Caleb Lawson.

Magrelli looked at him with annoyance.

“But I had filled my head with descriptions of them and they were hanging in the gallery of my mind. So just as I was able to make myself see them, I stopped seeing them. Renato Craig called this the detective's blindness, the ability to stop seeing the obvious in order to discover what lies behind it. I stopping paying attention to the descriptions of the paintings and I focused on the frames. Again and again they were ornate moldings, the gold worked with bitumen to make it look aged. All the paintings had been framed by Egidio Vicci, whose work hardly varied. I'll spare you the details: I soon discovered that Vicci was none other than Cornelio Valgrave, famous forger and art thief. Valgrave had stolen the Tabbia collection ten years earlier: a fatal flaw led the police to suspect him. Since he knew that sooner or later they would find him, Valgrave decided to place the stolen pieces behind the bad paintings that arrived in his workshop. Behind the bishop's face, or the goats, or the Venetian basilica, there was a Giorgione, or a Veronese, or a Titian. When the police had him cornered, the thief turned himself in without revealing where the paintings were hidden. The police searched his house and his friends' and family's houses, but they never found anything. When Valgrave got out of prison he hired a band of thieves to recover the booty. I would never have discovered it if I hadn't reversed my perspective. We always have to do this in order to solve an enigma, remembering Arcimboldo's repulsive paintings.”

There was a low murmuring, I don't know if it was approval or confusion. By this point, the assistants who surrounded me were bored, and anxiously awaiting the moment they could go back to their hotel. In my mind I tried to match the assistants with their detectives: Anders Castelvetia's wasn't there, and never had been; Benito had taken advantage of a moment's distraction to disappear; the German, Linker, stood his ground; Baldone, in spite of the devotion that he had shown for his mentor, had chosen an isolated armchair in which to fall asleep.