The Devil in Montmartre (6 page)

The office was a study in organized confusion: files, dossiers, reference books, photographs, strewn about in an order known only to the chief. Among the papers littering his desktop stood a gleaming brass telephone, the aforementioned green-shaded lamp, a photograph of Féraud’s late wife in a black-crepe-decorated silver frame, and photographs of the Chief’s four adult children: three married daughters and a son in the military. In addition, there was a cigar box, a copper ashtray with an engraving of the Eiffel Tower, and a curiosity, a guillotine cigar cutter, a gift from the “old boys” on the force in recognition of their chief’s thirty years of public service.

The drab gray-green painted walls were lined with dusty bookshelves and cabinets overflowing with paperwork, curios, and memorabilia. On the wall opposite the chief’s desk hung the Rogue’s Gallery, a grouping of photographic portraits of criminals brought to justice by Féraud, many mounted side by side with photographs of their guillotined heads posed on slabs in the Morgue.

One particular file had just arrived and it occupied the chief that morning. It had, pursuant to his instructions, been marked “Urgent” and rushed to him by special courier. The file contained a police report concerning a female torso discovered in a Montmartre cesspit by a pair of night soil collectors. The sergeant on duty had immediately notified Féraud; that was at five
A.M.
(the time the chief arrived at his office each morning) and this too was according to instructions. Moreover, the police had erected a rope-line barricade and assigned a gendarme to guard the area, preventing the curious from contaminating the scene with their footprints, cigar and cigarette butts, and so forth.

Paris was full of tourists, the closing ceremony of the Universal Exposition was only two weeks away, and the Whitechapel Murders of 1888 were fresh on everyone’s mind. Scotland Yard’s widely publicized failure in that case had placed all detectives and their methods under a dark cloud of popular mistrust. Any hint in the press that Jack the Ripper had crossed the channel could cause panic, not to mention embarrassment to the police and the government. Therefore, as a precautionary measure, a preliminary report of any suspected homicide resembling the Ripper’s
modus operandi
went directly to the Chief Inspector as a matter of the highest priority.

The detailed description of the body disgusted Féraud and, as always, filled him with a sense of outrage. Though he had seen many horrific things in his years on the force, he always wondered what drove people to commit such crimes. Gruesome photographs would be taken at the scene and at the Morgue later that morning, before and after the autopsy. He scratched his short, graying beard.
It could be a prank.
He hoped that was the case, that some medical students or drunken riffraff had gotten hold of a cadaver and dumped it into the cesspit as a hoax. Paris was a world-renowned medical center, after all, and cadavers quite easy to come by.
Stupid bastards
, he muttered. But then, what if it wasn’t a hoax? He could not afford to take chances, to make a mistake that might cost other women their lives. A knock on the door interrupted the chief’s train of thought.
It must be Achille.
“Enter,” he growled.

A tall, slender man of thirty entered the office and stood at attention before his chief. Inspector Achille Lefebvre was a new breed of detective, a graduate of the prestigious École Polytechnique, a fervent advocate for scientific methods of detection. Achille’s pale, clean-shaven face, near-sighted blue eyes aided by a gold-rimmed pince-nez, and stiff, soft-spoken manner made him seem an “odd fish” to the veterans. The old boys had nicknamed him the professor, but after five years on the force Achille had gained their grudging respect, not to mention what mattered most—the confidence of their chief.

The chief smiled at the young man’s soldierly stiffness. “Relax, Achille; take a load off your feet. You’ve got plenty of legwork ahead of you, my boy.” Achille sat in a small armchair on the other side of the desk; Féraud handed over the file. After giving him a minute to scan the report, the chief continued: “You’re going up to Montmartre on the Morgue meat wagon. Take Rousseau and a good photographer. Do you know the neighborhood?”

“Yes, sir, it’s a quiet area near the summit of the hill.”

Féraud nodded. “Yes, it
was
quiet and I want to keep it that way. I’ve already given a release to the newspapers: Body of unknown female discovered in Montmartre. And that’s all they’ll get until we make a positive identification. Give them any more and the reporters and morbid curiosity-seekers will be swarming Montmartre hill like flies on a turd. Anyway, let’s hope this is all a stupid prank, but for now we’ll proceed as though it’s a homicide. To begin, we know from the report that the night soil collectors had last pumped the cesspool the morning of the 13th. So the body must have been dumped between then and this morning’s collection.

“Start gathering evidence and question the residents at that address. We’re a long way from going to the
juge d’instruction
for a warrant. There’s a gendarme guarding the scene and they’ve set up a barricade. You’ve worked with Rousseau before; he’s a good man and you both know the drill. When you’ve got what you want, you and the photographer can take the body to the Morgue on the meat wagon. Rousseau will stay in Montmartre to interview the neighbors.

“I’ll contact Bertillon. He owes me a favor or two, and I’m going to ask him to supervise the autopsy and work directly with you. Telephone the Morgue from the Montmartre station to confirm the appointment. When you’ve finished at the Morgue you may go home, but I want you and Rousseau in my office with a written report first thing tomorrow morning. Any questions?”

Achille had no questions; as his chief had said, he knew the drill. And he was well aware of the urgency of the situation with the Universal Exposition ongoing and the fear whipped up by lurid newspaper accounts of Jack the Ripper. His wife and mother-in-law would ask, “Will Féraud permit you to eat and sleep?” But of course, the question was rhetorical. As the old boys said, your hours at the Sûreté were from midnight to midnight.

When he arrived at the police barricade Achille was relieved to find things quiet and orderly. He was greeted by Sergeant Rodin, a beefy man with a long, drooping red moustache, a gruff voice, and a gimlet eye. “There it is, Inspector.” Rodin pointed to a large lump on the pavement, covered by a white cloth splotched with ochre-colored stains, next to the cesspit. According to the report, the torso was found wrapped in the cloth. “No fuss, so far, but the landlady is upset.”

Achille made a quick mental note of the stains on the cloth:
Could be paint—or blood.
Then: “Does she know the cause of the stoppage?”

Rodin grinned and shook his head. “No, she doesn’t. The only ones who know about the stiff are me, my men, the night soil collectors, and the person, or persons, who dumped it.”

“That gives us a little time, I suppose, but sooner or later the press will get nosy, especially after we start questioning people. And there’s a damned dirty job ahead. Where are the sewer cleaners? We need them to pump and rake out the sludge. Then the muck must be searched for evidence.”

Rodin grimaced and checked his watch. “They should be here soon, Inspector.”

Achille glanced up. The gray clouds looked threatening; he and his crew would need to work fast. Rain could wash away clues. It had rained intermittently the past few days. God only knew what had already been lost. He continued with urgency. “Who lives here besides the landlady?”

“She’s the only one on the premises. The upper story is rented by a painter, Monsieur de Toulouse-Lautrec. He uses it as his studio.”

Achille raised his eyebrows. “Toulouse-Lautrec. Is he related to the Count?”

Rodin chuckled. “He’s the son and heir, Inspector. An odd fellow; if you saw him once you’d never forget him. He’s a sawed-off cripple, no more than 150 centimeters in his shoes, and he hobbles along with the aid of a tiny cane. Monsieur’s legs are stunted, but he has the body, arms, and hands of a normal man with better than average strength. He looks like a circus ape dressed in swell’s clothing. Black hair, thick black beard, dark brown eyes, and he peers through a pince-nez sort of like yours, Monsieur. Speaks like a toff, which is to say like the son of a count. Oh, and he’s got big ears, a bulbous nose, and thick, purplish lips. No mistaking him in a crowd.”

Achille commended the Sergeant for his
portrait parlé
. Then: “Does the gentleman live hereabouts?”

The Sergeant rubbed his chin. “Not
too
far, Monsieur. He rents an apartment on the Rue Pierre-Fontaine in the 9th
arrondissement
, near one of his hangouts, the Moulin Rouge. He goes there to drink and draw pictures, and you can find him doing the same in the cabarets,
bal musettes
,
maisons close
, and
boîtes
. He’s a well-known figure in Montmartre and Pigalle. And there’s more. Like most of these fellows, he likes to have a little sport with his models. No doubt, he pays well. And there’re rumors about shouting matches and violence between Monsieur and his
lorettes
.”

“Thank you, sergeant.” Achille asked Rodin to give Lautrec’s name and address to Rousseau for his list; he was definitely a person of interest.

“I hope we don’t have the Ripper on our hands. It would be awful if the butchering bastard turned out to be a stunted French aristocrat,” Rodin quipped with a sly wink.

Achille winced in response to his friend’s gallows humor. Then he left the sergeant and walked toward the cesspit and the corpse, where Gilles, the photographer, had set up his camera. Gilles was a dapper young man, blue-eyed and fair-haired with a neat little waxed moustache. Dressed unseasonably in a white suit with a straw boater set at a jaunty angle on his handsome head, he looked more like a
flâneur
at Le Touquet than a crime scene photographer, but that appearance was deceiving. Gilles was one of the best in his profession.

“Hey Inspector, I’ve already got several photographs of the scene. Is there anything else you want before I pack up my equipment?”

“Yes, there is.” Achille pulled a magnifying glass out of his jacket pocket and crouched beside the stained cloth covering the torso. He focused on the ochre stains; as he suspected, they were handprints. What’s more, the fingerprints were distinguishable, especially the thumb and forefinger of a right hand.

The prints intrigued Achille. Bertillon had not incorporated fingerprints in his identification method and neither Scotland Yard nor any other eminent criminal investigation division had a system for using them. Moreover, he was unaware of fingerprints having ever been admitted into evidence in a criminal case. But he had read a recently published paper by the English anthropologist Sir Francis Galton which made a persuasive argument for the unique individuality of prints and set forth a method for categorizing them that could prove useful in criminal cases. Achille lowered his glass, turned and looked up at Gilles. “Can you get a sharp image of the fingerprints?”

Gilles shook his head. “That’d be awfully tricky out here. I might do better back at headquarters with a change of lenses, faster plates, filters, and flash powder.”

“Very well, please do that.” Achille got up and circled the manhole cover. Something half-hidden by the cover caught his eye. Crouching, he spotted a cigarette butt smoked almost out of existence. “Gilles,” he cried, “Have you been smoking?”

“Of course not, Inspector; I know better than that.”

Achille lifted the butt with tweezers. He sniffed and eyed it carefully. “No, this was smoked some time ago. If it was the gendarme there’ll be hell to pay. Where’s Rodin?”

“Over there, by the meat wagon, talking to Rousseau and the Morgue attendant.”

Achille whistled to get the sergeant’s attention and then gestured for him to come over. “Hey Rodin, look at this cigarette butt. Have any of your men smoked around the barricade?”

“No Inspector, they’re under strict orders not to.”

“Do you think one of the night soil collectors could have dropped it?”

Rodin shook his head. “No, that’s a gentleman’s smoke. The ladies like them too.”

Achille smiled at the sergeant. “That’s very perceptive, Rodin. Have you ever thought of coming to work for us?”

The sergeant smiled broadly. “That’s kind of you Monsieur, but I’m quite happy where I am.”

“Well, that’s our loss, I guess.” Achille had learned that it paid to be friendly with the gendarmerie. They did their duty, but they would go the extra mile for an Inspector they liked. “Could you please ask Inspector Rousseau to come over here?” Rodin went to fetch Achille’s partner.

Achille dropped the cigarette butt in an evidence bag. He made a final inspection of the area. As he walked the perimeter of the barricade, he noticed a small pile of dung near the curb. It was not fresh and he had noticed it before, but now he suddenly realized he had missed something. One of the droppings had been flattened, or squashed. He knelt down, and almost stuck his nose in it.