The Alchemy of Murder (36 page)

“You’re wrong.”

“Excuse me?”

“There is no reason the slasher cannot be a homicidal maniac and an anarchist terrorist. He could be killing women for his perverted pleasure while maintaining his anarchist activities to satisfy his political views.”

I look at Jules long and hard. “Ok … I have to admit that after Chernov told me about Perun, my intuition screamed he’s the slasher. But, when I look at the whole picture, I must say it’s too bizarre, too far-fetched.”

“Maybe not. I have found that when nothing makes complete sense, there’s usually a clever mind behind it. I think it is time we spoke to Doctor Pasteur about Toulouse’s painting. I’ll take you back to your room while I go to the Institut. You’re in no condition to make a trip to Pasteur’s.”

Men. Why do they believe when a woman experiences any kind of traumatic situation they need rest? I’m positive even a man would need rest after what I experienced. Well, this is my hunt and he is not going to pursue it without me. It took every ounce of my strength to stand up and say, “Let’s get a fiacre and be on our way. I’m going with you. And that’s final.”

48

At the Institut, we’re admitted into Pasteur’s private office shortly after requesting to see both Dr. Pasteur and his young assistant, Tomas Roth. The two men join us minutes later. Pasteur looks older and more stressed than the last time I saw him. Jules stares at him with concern.

“Monsieur Doctor,” Jules says, “I’m sorry to intrude on such short notice. Should we come another time?”

“No, no. It’s just that this is a sad occasion.” Pasteur is not only downhearted, but troubled. “One of our young assistants died from an exposure to a microbe, perhaps the Black Fever contagion. The authorities removed his body just hours ago. If it had been anyone but you, Monsieur Verne, they would have been turned away at the door. The entire Institut is concerned about our colleague’s death.”

Jules and I both murmur our condolences.

“I do apologize, but the matter that brings us to you concerns this painting and also deals with life and death.” Jules unwraps it and sits it on the desk.

Both men stare curiously at the painting.

“A café artist,” Jules continues, “painted this at Le Chat Noir several years ago. You appear surprised, Doctor Roth, but we’ve been led to believe that this man is you and that the others are from the Institut.”

“It certainly appears to be me.”

I don’t know if it’s just me, but he seems to be slightly agitated about the picture. I glance at Jules. He’s poker-faced as Tomas continues talking.

“I did work briefly for the Institut a few years ago, before taking on another task. I returned months ago. I do remember the café incident, though I didn’t know we were being painted.” He raises his eyebrows. “I suppose an artist would make a pencil sketch and then paint the rest from memory, since we didn’t sit for him.”

“We’re interested in the identity of this man.” Jules points at the man wearing the red scarf. “Do you gentlemen recognize him?”

“Yes, that’s Doctor Leon Nurep, a Russian chemist that worked here briefly.”

“How is that spelled?” Jules asks.

“N-u-r-e-p.”

“What is this about, Monsieur Verne?” Pasteur asks.

Jules hesitates. “The man may be involved in murder.”

“Murder!” Pasteur is shocked.

Dr. Roth shakes his head, but he doesn’t look anywhere as shocked as Dr. Pasteur. “Perhaps so, perhaps so.”

I’m curious as to his response and ask Dr. Roth, “You’re not surprised at the charge, Doctor?”

“Nurep is both an anarchist and a Russian, which, as everyone knows, is an explosive combination.”

“Do you know where he is?” Jules directs his question to Dr. Roth.

“No, I haven’t seen him in several years. In fact, not since the night we attended Le Chat Noir for dinner. The event was a farewell gathering for him, dinner earlier and then the cabaret antics. Nurep had been associated with us briefly in work we were doing for his employer. We terminated the work when we discovered that the nature of the work had been misrepresented to us.”

“Who was he working for?” I ask.

Rather than answering me, Dr. Roth looks to Pasteur.

Jules speaks directly to Dr. Pasteur. “It is a matter of great importance. You know that I’m a great admirer of your work. I assure you that we have no information that the Institut is in any manner involved in this affair. We’re not seeking scandal, only justice.”

“I believe you because I know you are a patriot of France and would not be involved in a lark,” Dr. Pasteur says to Jules, but gives me a grave look.

I bite my tongue, for I instantly want to defend myself.

“I vouch for Mademoiselle. She’s not only completely trustworthy, but she is the chief foe and investigator of a criminal scheme that bodes the most severe consequences to France.”

I glow in the light of Jules’ praise.

Pasteur sighs. I have the feeling that nothing short of the earth opening and swallowing Paris would draw him from his work. But now he has a death at the Institut and our strange visit that implies the two might be intertwined. The poor man is torn and tired and would probably like nothing better than to go to his lab and bury himself in his experiments.

“He was working for the Comte d’Artigas.”

“
Artigas
.” Jules’ face goes dark as he repeats the name.

I ask, “The munitions manufacturer?”

“Yes,” Roth replies, “I’m certain you know of his reputation even in America.”

“His reputation has indeed reached America. He is a cannon king like Krupp in Germany.”

“A warmonger is what he is. He’d sell poisoned candy to babies if he could profit from it.” Jules does not hide his anger.

Pasteur nods in agreement. “Exactly. He is not a person we would be associated with—ever. He approached me with a project concerning weapons and when I flatly turned him away, he employed Nurep to come to us under false pretenses. Nurep told us he was working on a new type of agricultural fertilizer, a product to help farmers. When I discovered he was working for Artigas, I immediately terminated the relationship. Not that there was much of a relationship, it only lasted a few months. I personally have no recollection of having met Nurep myself. He met with Doctor Roth a few times. They conducted some experiments regarding a chemical compound.”

“What was this compound?” Jules turns to Roth.

“I am afraid, Monsieur, that even though I am not well disposed toward the gentlemen for their falsehoods, I will not disclose their secrets.”

Dr. Pasteur noted assent to his assistant’s position.

“Doctor Nurep, was he a strange one? By that, I mean, did he have any queer sort of ideas—besides his politics? Perhaps in regard to the way he, uh, thought of women?”

Pasteur looks at me quite puzzled, but Dr. Roth answers my question as if I asked what time of day it is—very matter of fact.

“If he did, it was not disclosed to us. Nor was his politics. We wouldn’t associate with a radical. I only worked with him briefly in a laboratory environment and didn’t socialize with him except that one night at Le Chat Noir. Dr. Pasteur suggested we at least give him a farewell dinner when he was forbidden to work further at the Institut. That was the first time he wore the red scarf of a revolutionary in our presence. At first we thought he was simply being amusing. As you know, most revolutions are café table talk. But Nurep became very verbose about his political beliefs that night. I can assure you we cut the evening short.”

“What did he say?”

“I really don’t remember. Something about how the wealthy want to keep the people poor and the only way to stop this abuse of power was to get rid of these people—take their wealth and distribute it evenly among everyone. We were quite surprised.”

“Oh…” It’s not what I wanted to hear, it’s too generic, so I decide to take a chance and probe further. “Did he ever mention the Society of the Pale Horse?”

“No. As I said, we didn’t encourage his radical conversation and cut the evening short.”

“Can you tell me what sort of man he was to work with?”

“I found him competent in the laboratory. Quite a brilliant researcher as a matter of fact. Not as up to date on techniques and literature in the field as one would expect, but I suspect that innovations are slow to reach Russia.”

“How was his French?”

Roth smiles. “Much better than yours and mine, Mademoiselle. He would not be taken for a Parisian, but like many educated Russians, he speaks official French better and with no more accent than provincials.”

“What is your accent, if I may ask?” Jules asks.

“Alsatian.”

“I am lucky to have obtained Doctor Roth as my assistant,” Doctor Pasteur speaks up. “He was offered a position by Koch in Berlin, but his Alsatian soul is French, not Prussian.”

“When was the last time you saw Nurep?” I ask.

Roth raises his hands in a frustrated gesture. “Mademoiselle, as I have told you—that night at Le Chat Noir.”

“Did anyone else at the Institut work with him? Someone who might know something more about him?”

“Only me.”

“And the other man in the painting.” Pasteur corrects Roth. A shadow passes across his face. “But he will not be able to help you. He’s René Grousset, the young man who died of fever. He was a student helper then, not a full-time employee.”

Silence lay heavy in the air. As always I am the one to break the silence. “What was Nurep’s field of work?”

“Explosives.” The response came from Jules. “A chemical weapon, if I know Artigas. The devil is trying to devise some weapon of horror to make war even more terrible than it already is. He counts lives in terms of how many francs he can make exterminating them.”

Pasteur and Roth confirm Jules’ theory by the expressions on their faces.

I am surprised at Jules’ tone. There is anger in his voice. Not the wrath one expresses against abstract injustices, but anger that is personal—and violent.

49

We left Toulouse’s painting for safekeeping at the Institut because Jules called his newspaper friend and arranged for us to meet him at a café before meeting Oscar at the Procope.

“Aurélien Scholl is an old friend,” Jules says as a fiacre takes us to the Café de la Paix across from the Opera. “He’s one of those rare newspapermen whose sword is mightier than his pen. As is his dueling pistol. He periodically fights duels to defend his articles, and being something of a café lover, a duel to defend his life against a jealous husband is occasionally necessary.”

I change the subject because a more important issue has been gnawing away at my brain.

“I didn’t find the conversation with Pasteur and Roth very satisfying. Don’t you find it odd that a member of the Institut who had dealings with this man Nurep is dead of the fever? I mean, how convenient can that be? And Roth … he puzzles me. Something’s not right. I feel it, and it’s eating away at me. I didn’t like him refusing to tell us what Nurep and his boss were concocting. Didn’t you find the whole conversation a bit … I don’t know … off?”

“I’m not quite sure what you mean by
off
, but it definitely wasn’t satisfying. I do agree that Roth seemed a little bit vague about Nurep, but maybe he knew there was nothing really to tell. In regard to Artigas, I believe Roth is just like Pasteur—projects are confidential. Pasteur was obviously both stressed and reluctant to provide further information about his employee’s death.” Jules pauses and meets my eye. “But, at least we were able to confirm that this Nurep is the same man the czarist agent sought.”

“We were? Just because, Perun and Nurep are both Russians—Oh my goodness—
It’s the same name, spelled backward.
”

“Yes. Your czarist agent was correct, the anarchist Perun is in Paris. But whether he is your slasher remains to be seen.”

Another issue weighs heavly on my brain as we get close to the café—that of revealing to Jules’ newspaper friend my slasher information. If he broke the story, I’d be out cold after all my work.

“I’m a little wary of telling the slasher story to the newspaper reporter. If something ended up prematurely in the news, the slasher would probably leave the city and carry his ghastly crimes elsewhere.” Brilliant. Even I amaze myself sometimes. “And for the first time, I feel like I am getting close to catching him, really close and nothing is going to get in my way or…” I almost say, “take my story.”

“Don’t worry, this slasher business is not the type of story he’d be interested in. Still, you’re probably right, we shouldn’t bring it up. I won’t lie to him, but perhaps we can tell him part of the truth. You shouldn’t have difficulty with that.”

He goes on, cutting off my rebuttal before it slips off my tongue.

“We’ll tell him that you’re chasing a murder suspect, a violent anarchist who set off a bomb in America that killed your sister. And that we suspect the man, a Russian, who has worked for Artigas in the past, is here in Paris. Is that vague enough for you?”