The Montmartre Investigation (10 page)

They were accosted by Bibi la Purée,
¹⁷
who offered scraps dredged up from the rubbish and boasted that his shirt had been given him by his comrade Verlaine.

Victor looked at the back of the unknown woman at Lautrec's table, a redhead with her hair piled up under a simple hat with a single rose stitched on it. He would know that neck anywhere. Tasha. She was laughing, pressing the artist's wrist as he drew on a corner of the tablecloth. Eudoxie had followed his gaze and understood what was upsetting him. She smiled at him coarsely and whispered in his ear:

‘He adores carrot-tops; everyone has their preference. For example, unlike most women, I am not interested in blond men. I much prefer dark-haired men; they have a certain something…Do you follow me?'

Blushing, Victor swung round abruptly and studied the contents of his glass.

‘Mademoiselle, may I have the honour of this waltz?' begged a stout, bald man, bowing to Grille d'Égout.

‘I'll dance with you when you've grown some hair, egghead!' she retorted. ‘Honestly!'

‘Messieurs, we must abandon you. It's time for us to prepare for the cancan. Our lace petticoats don't just appear on us as if by magic – twelve yards of insertion and broderie anglaise, can you imagine? Perhaps you would like to lend a hand?' Eudoxie said, batting her eyelashes at Victor. ‘See you later, Louis, at my place.'

Louis Dolbreuse nodded. As soon as the two women had departed, Alcide Bonvoisin leapt from his seat, stammering a vague excuse about an interview with the writer Jean Lorrain.

‘An etheromaniac;
¹⁸
I wish him luck. Right, we're alone now. What do you want to do about your Gaston Molina? Are you still keen to find him?' said Louis Dolbreuse.

‘I'm waiting for the bill.'

‘Leave it; I'll settle it. Look, here's someone who can help you.'

He clicked his fingers at an obsequious man in a dicky and cravat, carrying a tray loaded with tankards.

‘Monsieur Dolbreuse?'

‘Good evening, Bizard, the bill please. This is Monsieur Legris, bookseller. Victor, this is the head waiter of Le Moulin-Rouge. Monsieur Bizard, we would like to catch a fish named Gaston Molina.'

‘That scoundrel, he can go to the devil! It's been a week since he bothered to show his face. I've stopped his wages, he's dismissed.'

‘Where does he live?'

‘As if I should know, or care! He comes, he goes, he gets drunk, sometimes here, sometimes elsewhere.'

‘Thank you, Bizard, keep the change.'

The head waiter pocketed a banknote and went off towards Lautrec's table from where there came gales of laughter.

‘He calls himself an artist; he's nothing but a drunk! That Lautrec should dry out,' growled Dolbreuse. ‘Listen, old chap, I'm a friend of the famous Josette. If it would be helpful, I could intercede for you.'

‘Too kind.'

Victor was in a hurry to escape Tasha and the guffaws of the dauber. Dolbreuse's antipathy to Lautrec created a sort of complicity between them. They dodged in and out of the waltzing couples whirling elegantly around.

‘You won't find such an eclectic group of people anywhere else. You have the Prince de Sagan, the Comte de Rochefoucauld and the Duc Élie de Talleyrand rubbing shoulders with the regulars of Le Mirliton cabaret and the ladies of the night of Place Blanche.'

‘Ladies of the night?'

‘Street walkers, trollops – you'll have to get used to all this, my friend. You have rich brokers chasing after milliners' girls, English and Russians fraternising cheerfully and well-bred ladies propping up the bar. Le Moulin-Rouge is a melting pot; not just a café or a cabaret or a brothel, but all three at once, just as Zidler intended.'

‘And the acme of bad taste!' remarked Victor, as they crossed the area of the hall reserved for the winter
café-concert
.

The audience was roaring with laughter at a stage where, haloed in green light, a little man in a red jacket, his hair standing up like a brush and sporting a handle-bar moustache, was performing. The programme announced him as:

The incongruous sounds emitted by his posterior provoked hilarity amongst the spectators. A suspicious dandy climbed on to the stage to check that there was nothing hidden under the black velvet trousers.

Scandalised, Victor turned away.

‘As Zidler says, “deep in the heart of every man vulgarity hides”,' said Dolbreuse, and laughed. ‘Josette kicks up her heels in the elephant; she dances under the name Sémiramis.'

In spite of the damp evening, the garden was full of people come to get a breath of fresh air. With an air of resignation, donkeys were carrying the beau monde along paths bordered with trees brightly lit by gas and electricity. There were also wooden horses, a shooting range and an outdoor
café-concert
dominated by the massive structure of an elephant brought from the Universal Exhibition of 1889. For twenty sous men could buy themselves a little excitement by watching a pretend Oriental girl perform an erotic dance.

When Victor and Dolbreuse ventured into the elephant, the show had just finished, and the audience was applauding in an effort to get the voluptuous odalisque, draped in a revealing gossamer costume, back on stage. They went to the dressing room behind the miniscule stage where she was removing her make-up.

‘Hello, my darling, I've brought you an admirer.'

‘Not now, I'm beat,' replied the odalisque in a strong regional accent.

‘He just wants to ask you a question or two about Gaston.'

She stared at them, one eye circled with kohl, the other red from having been rubbed clean.

‘Don't talk to me about that cockroach! He filched my money and the silver locket of the Blessed Virgin my father gave me! You're not from the
flics
, are you?' she said to Victor, looking worried. ‘Is he in trouble?'

‘Don't worry, this gentleman is after the same thing as you, he would very much like to speak to Gaston.'

‘Well, I hope Gaston sinks to the bottom of the sea!' screeched Josette, turning her back on them.

‘It's a beautiful thing, love,' sighed Dolbreuse.

‘In case you do manage to run him to earth, I warn you straight away I cleaned up after him. If he wants to get his togs back, he'll have to go to Biffin & Co, and if he's looking for a room, I'm full up. Goodbye!'

*

Discouraged, Victor wandered back inside, forgetting about Dolbreuse, who watched him thoughtfully.

‘It's very annoying. I sympathise with the daughter of your client – disgraced by a wastrel. There's one more place that might possibly give you a clue – the employees' cloakroom.'

They had to go back through the hall. Dolbreuse suddenly stopped. ‘Drat! My hat. One minute, I'll be right back.'

Victor craned his neck and saw Tasha going arm-in-arm with Lautrec to the bar. He wanted to follow them, but at that moment Dolbreuse returned.

‘I have it. Are you coming?'

Dolbreuse pushed open a door to reveal a narrow room with cupboards round the walls. From the one marked ‘Molina' he extracted a crumpled shirt and an open packet of Turkish cigarettes. He stuck one in the corner of his mouth. A piece of paper slipped out of the packet. Without reading it, he held it out to Victor, who deciphered with difficulty a note scribbled on a flier for chocolates from the Compagnie Coloniale:

Charmansat at uncle. Aubertot, rite cour manon, sale pétriaire. Rue L., gf 1211…

‘Does that help?' asked Dolbreuse.

‘Take a look for yourself.'

‘Hmm, might as well be Chinese or a dialect, if it's not Volapük.
¹⁹
Have fun with that! I'm going to watch the quadrille – does that appeal?'

‘You go ahead. I'll follow.'

As soon as Dolbreuse had gone, Victor hurried to leave. Once outside he caught sight of a man elegantly dressed in the English style.

‘Antonin Clusel!'

‘Legris! Victor Legris! My good fellow, it's been an age!'

‘Almost two years. How is
Le Passe-partout
going?'

‘Wonderfully well. We've moved to number 40 Rue de la Grange-Batelière, beside Passage Verdeau. I'll await your visit! Excuse me, must dash. I don't want to miss our Eudoxie's number. She's sensational, Fifi Bas-Rhin – who would have thought it, eh?'

On Boulevard de Clichy the crowd thickened. Carried forward by the throng, Victor turned off the boulevard. The bitter taste in his mouth indicated that his system was objecting to the mixture of alcoholic drinks he had swallowed in that accursed Moulin. His mind was filled with the image of Tasha sitting beside the bespectacled painter, squeezing his wrist and laughing, laughing…What would he say to her when he arrived back at Rue Fontaine? Would he be able to feign indifference? All this for a trifle, for an incoherent note from one Gaston Molina, whom he was not even sure was Élisa Fourchon's suitor. Or perhaps the note had been sent to Gaston by someone else?

‘It serves you right, poor imbecile! The only thing you've discovered is that Tasha associates with libertines.'

 

The steam from the coffee pot was like a finger raised to impose silence. Bundled up in a shawl, Tasha nibbled bread and butter between yawns. Victor tried to cure the effects of his sleepless night with coffee. He regretted having feigned sleep when she had come home, shortly after him. Had he unburdened himself to her, he would not now have so much trouble meeting her eye.

As he prepared his preamble, including a subtle allusion to the quadrille at Le Moulin-Rouge and to Eudoxie Allard's second career (‘It's an amazing progression, isn't it? Did you know about it?') Tasha baffled him by exclaiming:

‘
Ia nié mogou!
'

He jumped.

‘Pardon?'

‘I can't! I'll never be able to! Never, never, never!'

‘Be able to what?'

‘To paint as well as him!'

‘Him? Who?'

‘An artist I saw yesterday. I've already mentioned him to you, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.'

So she admitted it! He put his cup down, his hand trembling.

‘Your meeting was with him?'

‘Yes, at Le Moulin-Rouge. The
Gil Blas
has commissioned me to do a series of caricatures: “Personalities from Parisian nightlife”.'

‘But I thought…You said…'

‘Don't leave your mouth hanging open; you look like a carp!'

‘I thought you'd stopped working for that paper. Your book illustrations pay you enough to live off! And, Tasha, I pay the rent, you sold a picture…'

‘My passion is more expensive than photography. Frames, paints…It's so sweet of you to take on this studio. But as for that wretched canvas bought by Boussod & Valadon, that wasn't enough to cover my expenses! Besides I like keeping up my contacts in the press. It's stimulating, don't you agree?'

Victor did not know how to respond. It had been difficult to convince her to accept his financial support. Their communal life – parallel would perhaps be a better description – rested on a fragile equilibrium. Tasha had declined his offers of marriage, claiming that marriage changed an independent woman into a minor with a guardian. And she intended to pursue her career in her own way. What arguments could he use to persuade her?

‘Be careful of that little runt. Apparently he's keen on redheads.'

It was her turn to be stunned.

‘Where did you hear that?'

‘I have my sources,' he retorted drily.

She hid her face in her shawl, her shoulders shaking. Was she crying? But when she sat up, he saw she was laughing.

‘Oh, Victor, you're so funny! “I have my sources.” Anyone would think you were Inspector Lecacheur!'

She was hiccupping with laughter. Outraged to be compared to that plodding policeman, he leapt from his chair and attempted to grab her shawl. She deftly slipped out of his reach.

‘Stop it, sorry! I just couldn't help it, I…'

She let out another hoot, then succeeded in controlling herself.

‘It's true, Henri likes girls with red hair, and he has made advances to me; in spite of his deformity he is not without charm. But even if he were Adonis himself he would stand no chance with me. You are my only love. Did your sources tell you that?'

 

Why bother to pretend he was interested in the last works of Armand Charpentier and Abel Hermant? Victor just could not focus on them. Joseph swept several orders up from the counter. He tried to concentrate, but it was impossible; his mind kept wandering back to Rue Fontaine. He was surprised to feel such fulfilment; it was as if his very existence had been given new meaning by those words, ‘You are my only love.' A long embrace had followed Tasha's announcement. Reassured, he had relaxed and had almost revealed that he had also been at Le Moulin-Rouge. It was as well he had held back; everything would have been ruined had he told her. There was no point in betraying his fascination with the new investigation; she hated it when he involved himself in mysteries. And when she had wondered aloud about the new tenant of the hairdresser, he had whistled softly.

He was to meet her at seven o'clock at the studio and accompany her to Le Chat-Noir, where she wanted to sketch a young writer.

‘Boss, I've finished the window, only prim little stories. “
It was so beautiful, but so sad, the Fire Brigade Captain wept into his helmet
,”' mimicked Jojo. I'll close up the storeroom.'

Furnished with his apple and his notebook, he settled down to skim through the dailies.

‘You'll make yourself ill if you don't eat more than that,' remarked Victor, suddenly solicitous.

‘Don't fret, I fill up in the evening, and not just on any old thing; my mother makes sure of that. But don't let me keep you from your Crayfish à la Bordelaise…if Monsieur Mori leaves you some…What do you think of
Blood and Betrayal
? It's the title of my novel.

‘Very catchy. So you're abandoning…
Love and Blood
?'

‘Yes, too sentimental. I'm teeming with ideas for the book; I'm going to use lots of unconnected news items and fashion them into a mystery that'll keep everyone guessing.'

‘That seems a rather random approach,' murmured Victor.

‘Exactly, a plot woven out of episodes. I just have to put the finishing touches to the key to the mystery. My point of departure is inspired by the murder at Killer's Crossing. I'm calling her Red Cinderella. I'll graft on to it some of the cases I've been keeping warm all these years. It's amazing the number of bizarre things that happen in Paris; you just have to keep your eyes peeled. Look, today for example I've unearthed this gem:

‘Victor! Your lunch is getting cold!' shouted Kenji, his mouth full.

‘Coming.'

Joseph wearily closed his notebook.

‘I'm wasting my breath. Grub, that's all people think about!'

He bit violently into his apple.

 

The concierge at L'Eldorado wore a lugubrious expression, but a generous tip perked him up.

‘She lives beside the Théâtre des Variétés, number 1 Passage des Panoramas. You can walk there – it's very near.'

‘I know. Which floor?'

‘Second, I think.'

Victor was beginning to be quite familiar with the road between Boulevard de Strasbourg and Boulevard Montmartre. He noticed, not without apprehension, that Noémi Gerfleur lived near Killer's Crossing. He slipped into the alley, where bookshops beloved of bibliophiles sat side by side with perfumeries and confectionery shops. He lingered in front of a fan-maker, wondering whether an imitation eighteenth-century fan might tempt Tasha and if going to see Noémi Gerfleur was really necessary. The most important thing was that Élisa was with her mother, safe and sound. But how could he be certain without asking?

As he started up the stairs, a man in an alpaca overcoat, his hat crammed down on his forehead, murmured an apology and pushed past him, striding up the steps to the upper floors two by two.

Victor rang the bell. Eyes cast down, nose streaming, apron filthy, the maid who answered was rather unprepossessing.

‘I would like to speak to Madame Gerfleur.'

‘She's not here.'

‘Will she be back soon?'

‘Not likely. When she goes to her milliner it takes her all day; with all the frills and baubles she orders for her ridiculous hats, they wouldn't look out of place at a carnival.'

‘I'm sorry, a carnival?'

The maid wet her finger and stooped to collect a stray crumb from the carpet.

‘Oh yes,' she said, straightening up. ‘Fruit, flowers, feathers – the works.'

‘Perhaps her daughter will be able to see me?'

‘Her daughter?'

‘Yes. Mademoiselle Gerfleur. Or Fourchon, Élisa.'

She stared at him a moment, then relaxed and sniffed.

‘What are you talking about? She doesn't have a daughter.'

‘Are you certain about that?'

‘She doesn't tell me everything, so, no, I'm not certain. What I know is that officially Madame Gerfleur is single. Leave me your card and I'll pass it on to her.'

She smiled conspiratorially and the door closed softly.

‘I'll come back later,' said Victor.

The man in alpaca who had passed Victor on the stairs leant over the third-floor banister and watched him go back down. Deep in his pocket, his right hand caressed the handle of a knife. It comforted him to keep this memento with him, and he had not been parted from it for years. Would he use it again? Even if he did not, how soothing to feel its bulk weighing down his coat, like a loyal soldier ready to second him! A trusted companion in the absence of a real friend. So Noémi was not there. That upset his plan, but no matter, he would just have to rearrange their charming rendezvous. After so many years, he could certainly wait another few hours. He was amused at the maid's reply: ‘She doesn't have a daughter!' That was not quite correct; there should be a qualification to the denial: ‘She doesn't have a daughter any more!'

 

Victor hailed a cab on Boulevard Montmartre, in a state of uncertainty.

When he reached Rue Fontaine, he spied the deformed painter on the other side of the road. Had he just left Tasha? She was painting, naked beneath her paint-stained smock.

‘I must be hallucinating. I thought I just saw Lautrec.'

‘You've just missed him; he was here two minutes ago. He's our neighbour, he moved into number 21 in April. I'm just going to change quickly.'

Was she mocking him? Did she not realise that he was upset at her having received the painter here, and in that get-up?

He could not resist the impulse to unveil the canvas she was working on. What he saw only increased his anxiety: a dishevelled cancan dancer whirling her petticoats to reveal black stockings. It imitated Lautrec's style without having any of the life of his paintings; it was static, soulless. Why had she chosen such a subject? She was coming back! He just had time to put the cover back over.

‘Do you like this?'

She was wearing her best hat, and had put on a Russian blouse with sleeves gathered in at the wrists, and a black skirt. She was wearing the lapis lazuli necklace he had given her for her birthday and embroidered gloves belonging to her mother. She was un-corseted and her curves were shown to best advantage.

‘You look ravishing.'

Calm again, he kissed her neck lightly as he helped her into her coat.

 

They were only five minutes from Rue Victor-Massé and the former studio of the Belgian painter Alfred Stevens, which had since 1885 had housed Le Chat-Noir cabaret. Victor admired the façade. A massive terracotta cat backed by a glowing sun concealed the second floor window. Two enormous lanterns illuminated a wooden sign on which he could make out the first and last words of text marked in yellow letters:

Ladies and Gentlemen! […] Enter the modern world!

They went up a short flight of stairs and bumped into a man in Swiss national costume with halberd and silver-topped cane, who led them along a corridor to a hallway ending in further steps.

‘Thank you, Bel-Ami,' said Tasha.

Once they were alone they took a turn around the ground floor, the François-Villon room, and the guard room, which was a superbly decorated tavern. A stained-glass window by Willette representing the worship of Mammon reflected the flaming fire in the hearth of the grandiose fireplace. A real life black cat was asleep, perched at the top of a potted palm.

They climbed a large oak staircase. Tasha indicated a closed door.

‘That's where the editorial meetings take place.'

‘Do you often attend them?'

‘I have sold some drawings to the journal; their print run can be as many as twenty thousand copies. But I never got on with Willette and now I don't care, since he's fallen out with the club's owners.'

They went on up to the heart of the cabaret. About a dozen spectators were already seated. An athletic-looking man, with red hair and beard, wearing a collarless waisted frock coat welcomed them in a booming voice:

‘Good evening! Welcome aboard the pleasure train. Make yourselves at home!'

Victor paid. A waiter in academic garb led them to their seats.

‘Who is that yelling buffoon?'

‘Rodolphe Salis. Unkindly know as “The Red Donkey”. A genial smooth-talker – you either love him or loathe him.'

‘Which is it with you?'

‘I don't want to make you jealous, so I'll just say I admire him. He created this cabaret, and he makes sure the cabaret artists get their due.'

Victor had imagined finding billiard tables and card or domino players, not this bourgeois interior dominated by a piano, near which a blonde woman stood, smiling – Madame Salis. The small amount of space left by the pictures, drawings and engravings on the walls was filled with earthenware trinkets and copper bric-a-brac, creating a medieval ambiance. Above an enormous composition by Willette entitled
Parce Domine
were depictions of many Pierrots and Colombines escaped from the cabarets of Montmartre.

The room was filling up with men in tailcoats, gently mocked by Salis who called out in a raucous voice:

‘Goodness me, we've got a conventional bunch in tonight! Welcome, admiral. Excuse me, I mistook you for one of those dreadful politicians.'

He scoffed at the parliamentarians with the air of a naughty child. Although that was nothing, according to Tasha, compared with the coarse insults beloved of Bruant at Le Mirliton cabaret.

‘Mesdames, Messieurs,' he declared, ‘this evening we have the great pleasure of welcoming our esteemed friend Louis Dolbreuse, in honour of whom the nymphs of the hill have adorned themselves with crowns! He is going to regale you with his poems!'

Even though he knew that Dolbreuse performed at Le Chat-Noir, Victor had not expected to see him again so soon. The lothario, in his sombrero, took his place at the piano.