The Alchemy of Murder (28 page)

That must be the
fille en carte
Detective Lussac mentioned. I eye the painting taking shape on the easel. I don’t consider myself an art critic, but do fancy myself art
educated
. While I have endeavored to help prostitutes because of their sad fall from grace, I find capturing the pathos on canvas repugnant. It’s encouraging their destitute lives by glamorizing their immoral and self-harmful occupation.

Off to the side, leaning against the wall is another painting, one still in progress, a street scene with a street girl kicking her leg high, exposing her lace doing the cancan for a crowd of men. He does capture the moment, but why? Who’d hang a painting of a cancan-dancer in their home?

As the artist turns to greet us, I’m thrown off guard and quickly look back at the model to hide my surprise. He’s not sitting down—he’s actually a very short man
standing up
.

The odd thing about his height is that he’s proportioned normally other than stumps for legs. This is what Oscar meant about the gods giving him a bad turn. His lips, full and dark-bloody red and turned outward, give him a rather hideous, almost clownish, expression to his features. His eyes are intelligent and cynical, both bold and unpitying, as if to say he recognizes the ugliness in himself.

“Still up to your old tricks, Toulouse? Pretending you have an interest in painting ladies of the night so you can sample their wares?”

“Exactly, my friend. But I must hire real models. These brothel girls expect me to pay them as much for sitting for me as they get for lying on their backs. But I ask you, where else can I find such earthy pulchritude?”

We take a seat at a table and I whisper to Jules while Toulouse is thanking the model for her efforts and paying her for the session. “Someone should tell him that he’ll never achieve artistic acclaim painting prostitutes and dancing girls.”

Jules shrugs. “Who knows? This is Montmartre. It wouldn’t surprise me if your friend Wilde and the little man both become famous. A dog can become famous on the Butte if you teach it to bark in harmony.”
*

The woman playing the piano leaves her stool and Jules roams over to examine the fine instrument. She takes a drink of water from a pitcher at our table and asks me, “Do any of you desire company?”

From her look and tone I realize that she is including me in the question and my backbone stiffens. “We’re here on business.”

She gives a saucy grin. “So am I.”

“Are you also one of Monsieur Toulouse’s models?”

She utters a French vulgarism, one that I don’t quite understand, although I recognize there’s reference to the private parts of a man’s lower extremities.

“Only when I’m hungry. These artists have little money and share less with their models, although Toulouse is better than most. Too many are swine who want you to sit for hours for a few sous and fuck you afterward without paying a sou more. At least he pays.”

My face burns and I hide my reaction behind my handkerchief.

She takes out a compact mirror and resets the front strands of her hair with her fingers. “With Toulouse, it is not his money that’s the problem, but his tool. The girls call him Coffee Pot because his cock’s as big as one.”

I continue to bury my face in my handkerchief. She smiles coyly at me and leans over, seductively whispering in my ear. “Come upstairs and I will kiss both sets of your lips.”

“I—I—”

Jules comes over as the woman leaves to find a less reluctant customer. He raises his eyebrows. “Birds of a feather…?”

“Why you—”

“Toulouse has some information for us!” Oscar beams, saving Jules from getting a piece of my mind. “May I present His Excellency Viscount Toulouse-Lautrec, Mademoiselle Nellie Brown and Monsieur Jules Morant.” Oscar makes the introduction with a grand sweep of his hand.

“Please ignore this buffoon,” Toulouse says. “My father took the title away from me after I failed the family on all levels. My height, of course, is the most obvious. Rather hard on my father to have an only son and heir to an ancient noble title whose feet can’t reach the spurs.”

Oscar claps his hands. “Tell them about the slasher.”

“I know nothing of the slasher, but I’ve heard talk about a man who approaches girls with a proposition.”

“What kind of proposition?” I’m excited. We could finally have a real lead.

“A street girl was asked to accompany a man to another place. That’s what is strange about the proposition. The street girls usually take a man to
their
place. A man who can afford a carriage and a place to take a prostitute is unlikely to pick up a streetwalker. Not only can he get a much higher quality girl in a house like this one, it involves much less risk of getting the big pox.”

The big pox he is referring to is syphilis, a raging epidemic everywhere, including Paris, where it’s said one out of every five men has it. So many men carry it home to their wives, Britain’s Lady Cook suggested that men with syphilis be branded so their innocent wives don’t get the loathsome disease.

“Do you know how we can contact this girl?” I ask.

“She’s been missing ever since she accepted the assignation. Her sister was complaining to the woman I spoke to that she hasn’t been seen since she left with the man.”

“Missing…” He’s killed her. “Did she go to the police?”

“Yes, to no avail. Who cares about another street girl? They end up in the Seine or the woman’s prison at Saint-Lazare anyway.”

“How can we contact the sister?”

“She died from the influenza yesterday.”

“Well, what about this woman you spoke to?”

“She knows nothing more. I was curious about the incident because of the London Ripper activities last year and I asked a number of questions. That was all she knew.”

“None of the women have complained about other strange requests, not sexual, but anything that seems odd to them?”

“Not that I’ve heard, but I haven’t been seeking out the stories either.”

“Would you mind asking the others about strange requests, any missing women?”

“The prostitutes I know are mostly house girls, but I can ask them to talk to the street girls they know.”

Never one to be left out of a conversation for too long, Oscar pipes in. “Nellie believes the man committing these atrocious acts might also be an anarchist.”

“He wears black clothes and a red anarchist scarf,” I explain.

The painter nods. “Like the followers and admirers of Louise Michel.”

“Yes, when I saw her speaking yesterday she was wearing all black, except for a red scarf. I realize it must be her trademark, but why is that?”

“She began wearing black after the murder of a young journalist, Victor Noir,” Jules explains. “Noir was sent by another journalist to deliver a challenge to a duel to Prince Pierre-Napoléon, a cousin of Napoléon III. The prince shot him. After the prince was found not guilty by a court of inquiry, Louise wore black to the funeral and has done so ever since.”
*

“So the slasher must be a follower of the Red Virgin?” I ask him.

“Not necessarily. Thousands have adopted the fashion.”

“If you want to ask the Red Virgin about any suspicious anarchists,” Toulouse says, “you’ll need to ask Aristide where she’s hiding.”

“Who’s Aristide?”

“The owner of Le Mirliton, a café. It’s up the street, on Bou’ Rochechouart.”

I stand up. “We must talk with this gentleman immediately.”

“But of course!” Toulouse agrees. “I am thirsty and need a green fairy to help me find my soul.”

40

Jules and I follow Oscar and the painter. As we come up the street, they disappear into a doorway at 84 Boulevard Rochechouart. The establishment appears closed, but a man dressed as refined as a ragpicker eyes us contemptuously when we approach the door.

“You are perhaps on the wrong street, Monsieur, Madame. Possibly you are looking for a La Roquerre café.”

The reference is to an area known for its criminals. I look to Jules, expecting to see that famous temper of his flare, but his features are unreadable.

“We wish to enter,” Jules says in a flat tone.

“Enter?” He gestures disrespectfully at me. “You, and this … person? We shall see.” He beats heavily upon the door with his fist and a large judas door opens. A villainous face glares out. “What’d you want!”

“These two ask to enter.”

“And?”

The ragpicker shrugs. “They appear harmless.” He glances at us. “Perhaps a little stupid.”

The sound of a large bolt being shoved back comes from the other side and the door swings open.

A better dressed man, but just as vile in temperament, greets us. His dress and carriage is odd and flamboyant at the same time. He is not tall, but has powerful, dominating features and piercing black eyes. Long, straight, black hair falls from under a floppy purple velvet hat that has a romantic flair to it, the sort of hat one might expect Lord Byron to have worn when he fought in the Greek revolution. His hunting jacket has metal buttons. Black velvet pants billow around his boots. But his most interesting item of clothing is the blood-red scarf of revolutionaries—his is wrapped around his neck and falls down his back in cape-like fashion. Like Jules, he’s clean shaven.

“Welcome to Mont
merde
, Monsieur, Madame. How many children of the poor did you crush under your carriage wheels on your way here?”

I realize the creature had just welcomed us to a mountain of … excrement and he’s being facetiously rude, but I still don’t like it and have to bite my tongue.

“We’re with Toulouse,” Jules says matter-of-factly.

“Toulouse? You mean that pig of a count who paints dirty pictures of poor prostitutes while he lives off the francs his family has stolen from the poor for five hundred years?”

“That very person.”

“Then come in, see your friend before he loses his head in the next revolution!”

The salon is dark and crowded. Haze from cigarettes, cigars, and pipes have assembled among the dust and cobwebs in the heavy beams of the ceiling. It’s a wonder anyone can breathe in the place.

Black wrought-iron gas lanterns cast pale and gloomy light upon the time-stained, brown shade of the walls and floor. Paintings and sketches hug the walls. I recognize the hand of Toulouse in two paintings I pass.

Everywhere, on the walls, overhead beams, fireplace mantle, are odds and ends of the queerest sort—snarling grotesque heads, leering gargoyles, twisted figures of man and beast, Turkish swords and other strange bric-a-brac. The place had been decorated by a drunken satyr. Surprisingly, the tables are plain bare wood, not at all cleverly finished, and the seating mostly hard benches.

The host, if that is what he is, marches us to Toulouse’s table. A piano player springs into life and the crowd sings.

“Sit!” the host commands, slamming his walking stick on the table.

Toulouse grabs his drink and greets us with a friendly smile. He and Jules immediately huddle in conversation while I examine my surroundings. I hear the name “Aristide” called by a patron and the unpleasant man who seated us responds. So, this is the man we came to talk with—a strange name for a strange man. Abruptly, Aristide leaps upon a table and points his stick in our direction.

“Did you see what entered?!” He proceeds to bang the table with his stick. “
Quiet!
Quiet, you swine!”

When the noise subsides, he again points at our table. “Did you see what kind of fish just entered?” He didn’t wait for his trained minions to answer. “A sturgeon. A big, old sturgeon, full of bourgeois pomp.”

Jules and Toulouse are deep in conversation, totally oblivious to what is going on. I tap Jules’ arm. “He called you a bourgeois sturgeon.”

“Yes, fine.”

This Aristide creature then points directly at me. “And look, look my friends at what swims behind him. A little minnow.
Un fleu du feu
, young enough to be his daughter. I take my hat off to the man. He may be beardless on his chin, but he obviously has plenty of
beard
where it counts.”

The audience roars and my face grows hot.
Oh, if I was in New York with a couple of my buddy boys from the Bowery detail
 … I know the whole thing is a joke, that people pay to come to this cabaret to be insulted by this crude man, but I personally don’t like to be the butt of jokes by a bully.