The Curse of the Grand Guignol (2 page)

“This is interesting.” A
high-pitched feminine note hinted at arousal. “It’s from Inspector
de Guise.”

“Who?”

“The inspector from the Sûreté
Nationale who met our ship when we first docked in Biarritz,” she
reminded.

Dr Watson winced inwardly at the
memory, though he had more than a grudging respect for the
equivalent of Scotland Yard-across-the-Channel and men such as the
French inspector who would have worked as tirelessly as the
unimaginative Lestrade, calling criminals to account and forfeiting
the routine comfort of hearth and home for little pay and no glory.
Unlike most of his countrymen, the doctor was familiar with the
name Vidocq, the Frenchman responsible for the Sûreté Nationale;
setting it up in 1811, long before Scotland Yard was ever dreamt
of.

A career criminal, Francois
Vidocq beat criminals at their own game, having been one of them,
by employing disguises, subterfuge, duplicity, and boldly venturing
into the darkest pockets of Paris where the regular police feared
to tread. He introduced the use of plaster casts for footprints,
invented forger-proof paper, invisible ink, and other notable
firsts. But it was his meticulous record-keeping that truly set him
apart and helped him match crimes to criminals without even setting
foot outside his own door. In 1833 he became the world’s first
consulting detective, yes, even beating the inimitable Sherlock
Holmes to the covetous title.

Dr Watson signalled for her to
continue.

“I shall paraphrase in English,”
she said. “The gist is this: A series of macabre murders have
tested the limits of the French police for the past month. The
latest murder had a Slavic touch to it and Inspector de Guise
immediately thought of me – how sweet! He was hoping that if we
were passing through Paris on our way back to London we might spare
him a few days.”

“Is that it?”

“I admit it’s short on detail.”
She folded the telegram into quarters, slipped it into her
embroidered reticule and snapped it shut, painfully aware of how
exhausted her sleuthing counterpart was looking. His six and forty
years were starting to show. Age generally treated men blessed with
gentle charm kindly. Boyish dimensions simply rounded themselves
out, plumping out any wrinkles. Jowly chops and baggy chins made
them look like lovable Labradors rather than curmudgeonly British
bulldogs. But there were touches of grey at his temples and lately
he had started to stoop, especially after he had been sitting for a
length of time.

She didn’t have the heart to
even begin trying to convince him to detour to Paris, especially at
the start of winter. The city of love was enchanting in the spring
and summer, pleasant enough in the autumn, but in winter every
boulevard turned into the rue morgue and every park morphed into an
ossified garden of skeletal trees and lifeless heroes. A week of
bracing sea air in Biarritz followed by a short ferry ride to
Southampton would see him safely home to the warm bosom of Mother
England, refreshed and ready to enjoy the Yuletide season.

“I shall telegraph that we have
made alternative arrangements for travelling to London and will not
be passing through Paris.”

“I think we should go.”

She almost fell off her perch.
“What did you say?”

“I said we should go.”

She studied his face for
gawkiness – the wry lip, the glint in the eye. “Are you
serious?”

From the moment he’d stepped
over the threshold of the Hotel du Palais – not more than ten
minutes ago - he’d spent the time silently observing the so-called
Spiritualists of the world wafting to and fro like a
self-congratulating carnival of crooks, an unashamed parade of
death-eaters, who preyed on the sad and gullible – and he should
know since he had once been one of them; a lost and lonely soul
after the sudden so-called death of Sherlock and then his dear
Mary.

Snippets of conversations had
floated across the vast foyer and reached his ears – electricity
versus ectoplasm, astronomy versus astrology, the science of the
séance. It was enough to send him barking mad. A few days in this
Mardi Gras of madness, mingling with crystal ball gazers, tarot
card readers, necromancers and assorted loonies and he would commit
a macabre murder of his own.

“I have never been more serious
in my life.” He pushed abruptly to his feet, marched to the
reception desk and dinged the bell sharply. “There has been a
change of plans,” he addressed with blunt force. “Cancel our rooms
and send our luggage to the train station. Book two private
sleepers first class and two sleepers in second class for the first
available train going to Paris,
toute de suite
, er,
s’il
vous plait
.” He then turned to the Countess. “Telegraph the
French inspector to expect us tomorrow.” He whirled back to the
stunned concierge. “I do not care if the train is going via
Constantinople or St Petersburg as long as it is going tonight –
vous comprenez
? Oh, and have a copy of as many French
newspapers as you can find for this past month delivered to my
private compartment as soon as you have booked it.”

Reinvigorated, his stoop had
straightened itself out and his roundly compassed chin was tilted
north. He looked totally reborn as he threw down some largesse and
offered his arm to the Countess. “Shall we adjourn to the
L’Orangerie for afternoon tea?”

“You order for both of us,” she
said quickly, before he had a change of heart, unable to fathom
what had triggered such
esprit de vivre,
overlooking the
fact he had employed an extra ‘the’ redundantly. “I’ll send that
telegram and join you presently.”

Giddy with the brutality of it
all, the rag-grubber clipped a greasy cobble, lost his footing,
teetered as if drunk, tried not to gag, failed miserably and
vomited into the gutter. His stomach muscles somersaulted at the
nauseating stench of his own sick, his insides contracted violently
before ricocheting dramatically, snapping back into place after the
wretched heave. He felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut by a
horse. Winded, he waited for the spasms to stop before moving on
with his rickety cart. He couldn’t risk it toppling over. He
couldn’t risk losing his load.

Nightmarish yellow gaslight,
blurred by a filthy fog, hissed sporadically. He caught his
jaundiced reflection in a dirty cafe window and gave himself a
fright. He looked like a grotesque parody of a vertiginous
gargoyle, like one of the scare-mongering guardians of Notre Dame
replete with bulging eyes, distended body, elongated limbs and
spewing gorge-hole. A monster spawned from the dark-side of
medieval imagination, designed to terrify the illiterate, to
convert them to the Catholic faith. See! The devil is outside. Come
inside. Step over the holy portal. Here, you will feel safe in the
golden glow of God’s love.

Reaching out into the yellow
light, he caught hold of a lamp-post to stop his hands shaking with
spontaneous deliriums, unwittingly smearing a bloody handprint on
the grooves in the metal. His legs felt wobbly. His knees felt as
if they might buckle. He waited for the jambs to strengthen. He
waited for his head to stop spinning. He waited for the world to
re-right itself…we are the sum of our sorrows.

The obliging concierge located
Dr Watson and the Countess in the conservatory of the Hotel du
Palais and the news he had to impart was as welcome as the winter
light pouring through the glass roof. He had managed to secure two
private sleepers and two places in second class on a train leaving
for Paris within the hour. Their tickets were awaiting them at the
station and the newspapers that had been requested were awaiting
them in the doctor’s compartment.

The rag and bone man turned a
corner and paused to plunge his hands into a horse trough that he
knew would be there. The water was covered with a thin crust of
ice. The cold gave him a jolt like a lightning bolt. It felt as if
an ice-pick had been thrust into the back of his head. He steeled
himself and plunged again, careful not to make too much of a
splash, rubbing hard, harder than he needed to. In the morning the
water would be stained red but he would be long gone. He would be
back in the land of the living – appalled, aggrieved, indignant,
adding his self-righteous voice to the good citizens of France,
calling for action, demanding protection, denouncing the
incompetent Paris police, his cries drowning out his cri de
coeur…we are the sum of our sorrows.

Newspaper excerpts for the
month prior:

The body of a prosperous
Parisian art dealer was discovered in the Bois de Vincennes in the
early hours of the morning. He had been stabbed by a sharp
instrument before being robbed. He leaves behind a wife and three
sons.

A Russian émigré living in the
Marais was beaten to death with a rolling pin wielded by his Breton
wife. Several neighbours heard loud screams but refused to
intervene for the man was a drunkard, prone to fits of violence,
and they feared for their lives. The wife confessed to the crime
and was immediately charged with murder. Seven children were taken
to the nearest orphanage; one infant and a three month old baby
will join their mother in prison.

A Malay sailor on shore leave
from the opium clipper
Indochine
was knocked over by a horse
and cart outside the Gare du Nord. His face was unrecognizable and
every bone in his body was crushed.

Madame Hertzinger fell from the
third floor balcony of her apartment in the Marais
.
Her
salon was a popular meeting place for bohemian artists. She died
instantly. The splatter of blood on the pavement was pronounced
spectaculaire
and has already spawned a new art movement
whose adherents have been dubbed The Splattereurs. An exhibition of
their daubings will be held at the Galerie soixante-six on the
Place de Puces in the Marais, commencing the first day of December
and continuing until Lent.

Five workmen were killed when
the ditch they were digging for the foundations of the north gate
of the Paris Fair collapsed, burying them alive. A memorial service
will be held at the eglise Saint-Sulpice, next Sunday.

“Nothing macabre in that lot,”
declared the Countess, folding the newspaper in half and tossing it
on top of the pile before gazing out of the window and realizing
that the shift from light to dark had happened without her
noticing.

“How many newspapers have we
scanned so far?” quizzed Dr Watson, suppressing the third yawn in a
row before pulling down the shade. “Eight? Nine? Ten? I suspect the
word ‘macabre’ must have a different meaning in French.”

“There’s one newspaper left. You
read. My throat is hoarse.”

“My French is not on a par with
yours.”

“This isn’t a reading
competition. Marks will not be deducted for missed liaisons.”

Reluctantly, he coughed to clear
his throat which suddenly felt hoarse in sympathy with hers. “Here
goes: The battered body of a prominent French citizen was found at
the base of the steps of Scare Coeur. It appeared he may have trod
on dog excrement, lost his footing, and tumbled to his death.
Parisians of all classes are incensed at the senselessness of such
a disgraceful death. Several men-of-letters have petitioned for
amendments to the city’s by-laws: All dogs should be kept on
leashes and dog-walkers imprisoned for one week for not cleaning up
after their four-legged charges. The name of the deceased has been
suppressed to spare his family name being dragged into the
matter.”

“That one sounds a little
bizarre,” she said hopefully.

“Mmm, but not what you might
call macabre.”

“True, pray continue.”

The rag-picker’s prayers were
answered when he slipped into the narrow rue de Brouillard where
phantoms conspired to cloak him mist; colluding with Night to veil
him in layers of murky pigments. Like a grey ghost in the aptly
named Street of Fog he slipped quickly between the shafts of sooty
light like a man careful to avoid slipping between the cracks,
moving rapidly between pockets of cold, dead, black shadows,
blacker than his heart, avoiding the pitfalls of unforgiving,
dirty, yellow, hissing light before disappearing into a dingy hovel
like a rat down a drain…we are the sum of our sorrows.

Dr Watson drew breath. “The
body of an unidentified woman was found in an alleyway a short
distance from the Theatre of the Grand Guignol on rue Chaptal. Her
cloak was from the House of Worth – a purple beaded evening mantle
with contrasting mauve silk lining - suggesting a woman of means
and social rank. She may have been attending the latest
horreur
and was accosted on her way home. The Director
General of the Sûreté Nationale warned women to avoid walking alone
in the Pigalle.”

“The article didn’t say how she
died.”

“Mmm, what do you think it means
by ‘the latest
horreur
’?”

“I imagine it is a reference to
the Grand Guignol – a theatre that stages graphic performances
depicting acts of naturalistic horror.”

“Oh, yes, there was a full-page
advertisement in one of the newspapers – vile, immoral, shocking,
lurid, violent images masquerading as entertainment. Theatricals
aimed at perverts, degenerates and lowlifes.”

“Before you condemn it
completely think back to Shakespeare and Webster. The Grand Guignol
is merely restaging Jacobean drama in a more modern form.
Shakespeare and Webster made their name staging vivid horror. Have
you ever seen Titus Andronicus or The Duchess of Malfi? They were
wildly popular in their time. In fact, the scenes of lurid
brutality are considered brilliant theatre to this day. By the way,
the Christian church does a rather lurid version of naturalistic
horror every Easter with the Crucifixion – lots of torture, gore,
brutality and bloody death – and how it draws the crowds! Yet it is
not only church-goers who are drawn to such horror, and certainly
it is not limited to perverts, degenerates and lowlifes. Perhaps it
says something about the dark nature of humanity that we continue
to be attracted to lurid spectacle despite being on the cusp of the
twentieth century.”