A Crime of Fashion (21 page)

“Why so many?”

“Because Salatin de Buismont was a bit of a shady character. By the time he had this house built he was one of the wealthiest men in France – he even loaned money to foreign governments – but there are no clear traces of how he gained his fortune. And apparently, he also had a rather complicated private life. His diaries are full of escapades – including, if he's to be believed, a long affair with the king's wife…”

“No wonder he needed to move around the entire house without being seen.”

“Exactly. But there are two things that really interest me about this map.”

“And they are?”

“Firstly, that according to the records at the
Bibliothèque Nationale
, about a year ago a Mr le Néanar asked to see this plan. And the second thing is this,” he said, pointing to a minuscule circle on the basement level of the house.

“What is it?”

“Well, if it is what I think it is, then you're looking at my clue.”

He unfolded another large sheet of paper and laid it on top of the floor plan.

He was right beside me, our arms touching. “This one looks old too,” I said quickly.

“That's because it is.”

Carefully he turned it so that it faced me. I couldn't really make sense of it. It was a map with double lines that obviously delineated paths or roads of some sort. But where was this place, and where did the lines lead?

“Is this the river?” I asked, pointing to a thick wavy line that divided the map in two horizontally. “And this map is dotted with the same circle that you just showed me on the house plan.” I peered closer, excited now. I didn't yet know what it all meant but something was connecting.

“Yes, that's the Seine and, yes again, that's the same circle that we saw on the floor plan.”

“Do they signify the same thing?”

“I hope so…”

“And that is?”

“An entrance to the catacombs.” He took a breath. “Every circle on this map,” he continued, “represents a direct entrance to the labyrinth of underground tunnels collectively known as the Catacombs of Paris.”

“Catacombs? Isn't that where dead bodies are buried?”

He nodded.

“I didn't know that Paris had catacombs…”

“And I'd forgotten them until this morning, when you said ‘secret passages' just as I was standing in your aunt's sitting room looking at the river. There used to be a public entrance to the catacombs there – I went one weekend with my father, a long time ago. But that entrance was closed a few years ago. I think the entrance is now in the 14th
arrondissement
.”

He stopped to point to a spot in the middle of the Left Bank on the catacombs map. “If you look here, this circle – see how it's off the tunnel route – seems as if it could correspond to where the La Lune mansion is. And if that's true…if it matches with the circle on the house plan…”

“It means we've found a way on and off the property—”

“That connects directly with the secret passages in the house.”

“But why would the house have direct access to the catacombs?”

“Well, the catacombs were created at the end of the eighteenth century, which means the house predates them by nearly one hundred and twenty years. Now, as we know, Salatin de Buismont asked Le Vau to design the house with a complex passageway system – but it was Salatin's
grandson
who had the entrance to the catacombs excavated.”

“Why?”

“Because, according to my research—”

“You shouldn't believe everything you read on Wikipedia,” I said.

Sebastian rolled his eyes. “I,
mademoiselle
, have sources in high places. This information comes directly from the
Bibliothèque Nationale
. Anyway, as I was saying, de Buismont the grandson was a clergyman – a very high-ranking one and, as such, he was involved in the removal of the human bones from the old city cemetery at les Halles to the newly excavated catacombs.”

“Yuck! Why did they have to move the old bones?”

“I believe it was a case of overcrowding. It got to the point where there wasn't enough room to properly bury them – the bodies, I mean.”

“Gross!”

“Yeah, well, all those exposed rotting bodies were becoming something of a health risk – hence the need for the catacombs: lots of space and all underground. Anyway, apparently, clergyman de Buismont often accompanied the black-veiled wagonloads of bones during their midnight procession through the city – the wagons were always accompanied by priests who sang a burial service – and it was he who blessed the catacombs when they opened. Now, like his grandfather, he had a complicated private life – even more so because he was a clergyman. And because he had ambitious plans for himself, there was only one thing to do about his private life…”

“Hide it.”

“Exactly. And what better way than with a secret entrance into the catacombs? So he had an entrance built, linking his house to them directly. And that,” he continued in a whisper, “is what I'd like to go and check out now.”

I was speechless. History and high fashion on an underground collision course – literally. If these maps and plans were right, then the how and where of this mystery were well on their way to being solved.

“Wait a minute… You said the mysterious Mr le Néanar had checked out the floor plan of the house. But what about it?”

Sebastian nodded. “I asked my friend if he could look up Mr le Néanar in the sign-in record books for the maps of the catacombs, going as far back as possible. His name was listed – from about eight years ago.”

“Wow. Eight years. So this guy has known about the secret passageways and catacomb entrances for a long time.”

“It seems so.”

“Do you think he's been using them?”

Sebastian shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I don't think he's been looking this stuff up just for research.”

We sat in silence, the fountain gurgling gently beside us, until after few moments I suddenly sat up. “CAT!”

“Where?”

“No, no. Not that kind. I mean Claude's CAT. The C-A-T from his agenda for Saturday, remember? I bet it refers to the catacombs!”

“You might be right. But if so…it means he knows about the secret passages too. And, if he did go into the catacombs on Saturday night…”

“It was either because he'd kidnapped his own sister…”

“Or, like you,” he teased, “maybe he was just following a hunch and hoping to find the perpetrator of the crime.”

“Hmm…maybe.” I glanced at my watch. My mum would be arriving tomorrow morning. And Belle had been missing for five days, Darius for three. I didn't have time to waste. “Shouldn't we get going?” I asked Sebastian, but he was already packing up. Two minutes later, we were back on his scooter, heading towards the river.

The humid stillness of the park was quickly forgotten: by the river, the air was fresh and brisk. Sebastian parked and locked his scooter. Then we walked quickly along the quayside until we turned down a staircase that led to the cobblestoned bank of the Seine.

When we reached the bottom he stopped and quickly scanned the bank – it was deserted. We walked along for about a hundred metres until we were standing directly underneath the Pont de la Concorde. Sebastian turned to an iron door set into the base of the bridge. It was painted black and looked as if it hadn't been used in years. Long rust stains ran from its top edge down to the ground – even its bolts were rusty. It reminded me of Erik's underground world in the Phantom of the Opera.

“Is this the entrance we're looking for?” I asked Sebastian.

“Uh-huh.”

“How do we get in?”

He smiled at me as he reached into one of his jacket pockets. “With this.” He pulled out a large, black, iron key and showed it to me before sliding it into the lock. “It's a master key.”

“Where did you get that?”

I didn't get an answer because at that moment the key clicked into place and turned, surprisingly easily. The door swung open with an unexpected speed. We nearly fell in.

Sebastian quietly shut the door behind us. We were engulfed in total darkness. I heard him rustling in his rucksack and a moment later the bright beam of his torch lit the ground. “Here, take this,” he said, as he handed me a torch, a box of matches, a thick ball of string, and a small compass. “Unwind the string behind you. I'll do the same – that way we'll know if we're going round in circles and, if we get separated, we might have a chance of finding each other. The La Lune mansion is lying south-east from us. If you get lost and want to get back to this entrance, head north-west. Got it?”

I nodded.

“Good. Let's go and find out if this idea works as well in real life as it does on paper.” Then he turned to me and smiled. “Holmes?” He was holding his hand out. I placed my hand in his and followed him in.

While I can highly recommend the Eiffel Tower as a destination for the entire family, I'm not sure a visit to the catacombs is to everyone's taste. Although, having said that, they're definitely…interesting.

The door we went through led immediately to a slippery stone staircase that took us down for quite some way. At its base, three tunnels met. Sebastian led us down the one which, according to his map and compass, would lead us to the La Lune mansion – not that the tunnels travelled in straight lines. We knew we'd have to keep our wits about us. There are apparently lots of stories of people breaking into the catacombs just for the fun of it, only to end up getting lost and dying. There are so many tunnels covering so much ground that without a way of tracing someone it is nearly impossible to find them – even if you know where they started out from. Apparently, most die of thirst… With that encouraging thought in mind, I quietly followed Sebastian and concentrated on not losing him.

We were only about a kilometre from the La Lune mansion. If we moved quickly and managed not to get lost, we'd need about half an hour to get there. The air was heavy and thick, stale with age; it felt as if it stuck to my lungs as I breathed it in (a bit like my mum's home-made hummus). I was trying to breathe as calmly as I could, but the narrow passages and damp darkness made me feel claustrophobic. As I was concentrating on breathing – one in, one out, two in, two out – I suddenly slammed into Sebastian's back. “What—”

“Shhh…look…”

Following his torch's beam, I nearly screamed as it alighted on a skeleton.

“Do you think he died here?” I asked.

“I have no idea. Maybe…”

“Are we going to see many of them?”

“I'm afraid this one is the first of many…” he said, taking out his map. “You see this, here where it's marked
the Crypt of St. Geoffroi
? Well, I've heard that the skeletons of his followers
line the walls and ceiling
.”

I really didn't know what to say to that.

We carried on silently for some time. It was rough, slow going through the tunnels. Most of the passages – in fact, all of them in the area we were covering – hadn't been used in a very long time. I kept slipping on the slimy stone surfaces and the constant crunching underfoot did nothing to up the comfort level. “What do you suppose all the crunching could be?” I finally asked Sebastian.

“Oh, that? Here, I'll show you,” he said as he stopped.

A second later and I wished I'd never asked. Trust me: on occasion, ignorance is bliss. Sebastian moved the beam of his torch, turning around so that it shone on the wall between us. Then in one slow movement he lowered it to the ground. To my amazement the floor was a moving, heaving sea of black. Back and forth, left and right, the slick viscous liquid rolled in gentle waves around our feet.

But after a few moments I realized that it wasn't some thick liquid after all; it was too noisy for that. Besides, it was
dry
. As we stood quietly looking down, a hard metallic sound, something akin to banging cutlery – only muted – emanated up from the ground. I stared down more carefully and, to my utter disgust, it slowly dawned on me that it was definitely not liquid swirling around my feet: quite simply, the tunnel floor was thick with cockroaches. Large, black, cockroaches, their hard shells shining in the light.

AHHHHHHHH!

Sebastian quickly clamped his hand over my mouth and told me to shush, in case someone heard us. I promptly bit him. As he stood shaking his hand, I tried to calm myself down as much as possible.

“
Mon Dieu
, you bite hard! Haven't you ever seen a cockroach before?” he asked.

“Of course I have – BUT I'VE NEVER WALKED THROUGH A RIVER OF THEM!”

“Trust me – you have them in London, too.”

“Thanks, but knowing that doesn't make this any easier!”

“I think it'll get better once we're further along.”

“How do you know? Maybe they get larger the further we go.”

“Ah…actually, I believe the higher we climb, the less of them there are.”

“Great. So you knew about this and didn't even tell me!”

“If I had, would you have come?”

He had a point. At that moment I could feel the cockroaches beginning to crawl up my trousers. “Uh, Sebastian, do you think we could do some running? Like, now?” They were going up his trousers now, too.

“Trust me, I don't like them any more than you. Let's get out of here!”

We ran like I've never run before – at least it seemed like that, although it was so dark and slippery that I don't know how fast we were actually going. The horrible crunching underfoot gradually diminished, but we didn't let up speed or stop until we no longer heard it at all. As my breathing returned to normal, I looked around and realized that we were no longer in a tunnel, but rather in quite a large chamber.