The Montmartre Investigation (25 page)

‘It saved your life.'

Victor laid him out on the bed and placed a pillow under his neck. He had brought him a carafe of water and a glass when Joseph appeared.

‘That drunkard has good reflexes! She knocked Dolbreuse out cold with her bottle. The neighbours are bringing him round and they've gone to fetch the police.'

‘Lock the door. There are a few points that need clearing up.'

‘Do you think he's in any state to talk, Boss?' said Joseph, pointing at Charmansat, who was sipping some water.

‘Are you able to speak?' asked Victor.

The ex-jeweller felt his throat and nodded.

‘Was it you who murdered Élisa, Noémi, Gaston and Basile?'

‘No, as God is my judge,' whispered Charmansat.

His voice was hoarse and his breathing short and laboured. He complained of pains in his neck and jaw.

‘Why did Dolbreuse try to kill you?'

‘Because the doctor and I were about to…'

He drank another sip of water.

‘…eliminate him and make it look like a suicide. We planned to force him to confess to his crimes. He's the murderer.'

‘But he was one step ahead. He turned the tables on you. He tried to hang you, and in the doctor's case he succeeded…'

‘Is Aubertot…?'

Charmansat sat bolt upright, his face white as a sheet. His strangled voice took on a steely tone.

‘The swine!'

‘You hate the man. But who is he? Did he play some part in the affair that ended in a trial on 14 January 1887?'

‘You couldn't know. The newspapers never reported what happened next. The doctor and I lost everything. Everything! His patients stopped coming because he was blamed for not having notified the prefecture about my confinement. And as for me…my fiancée broke off our engagement because I was suspected of having defrauded the insurance company. The fact that I was a victim didn't save me from the vile calumny…'

He closed his eyes and continued to relate his story, punctuated by sighs.

‘After our release, Aubertot and I decided to join forces.'

‘You didn't hate him then.'

‘He was as much a victim as I. And when I realised that I became his ally. We wanted revenge. We wanted to find the Baroness. We pooled the little information we had. The carriage that had taken me to Aubertot's was green – a four-seater with a coat of arms still on the door. I had glimpsed a coach hire number on the back when I got out. The coachman was young and dark-skinned, possibly of Mediterranean origin. Aubertot made a tour of all the depots in and around Lyon. He traced the coach. It had been hired on 14 November 1886 by a man named Carnot, who had left a deposit that was returned to him on 17 November. This Carnot…he gave us a hard time but we finally located him. He was a hospital attendant on Professor Jardin's ward. Only as it turned out…we were too late.'

‘Too late for what?' exclaimed Joseph.

He had been sentenced to five years for insulting and attacking a policeman a week after the jewels went missing. We continued our investigations. Carnot had worked at the hospital by day and played the trumpet in a Lyon nightclub – La Taverne des Jacobins. His lover was a singer, Léontine Fourchon. She vanished shortly before his arrest. We needed to be certain. I went to visit Carnot in prison. We met in the visiting room without exchanging a word. I recognised the Baroness's coachman and accomplice immediately and he recognised me.'

‘Why didn't you go to the police?'

Charmansat laughed out loud, triggering a coughing fit.

‘We reckoned that when the villain was released the first thing he'd do would be to look for Léontine – who we supposed had cheated him too. Who better to lead us to her? We decided to sit and wait. If it hadn't been for the doctor, I don't know how I would have survived. He took me under his wing. We moved to Paris. He procured a post for me at the pawnshop and in the meantime he started a new career under Professor Charcot. He sold Les Asphodèles and opened his practice on Rue Monge. I've been his patient all these years. A few months before Carnot's release from prison the doctor hired a private detective who followed our man to Montmartre. Carnot was definitely an artistic type. He was a poet who recited his work at Le Chat-Noir under the pseudonym…'

‘Louis Dolbreuse,' whispered Joseph, who was taking notes.

‘So the doctor also assumed the identity of Navarre, a man with literary interests, and got to know Carnot. From then on we never let him out of our sight. One of us was constantly on his tail. That's how we discovered that his revenge included killing Léontine's daughter, Élisa. He paid Gaston Molina, a ruffian he had met in prison, to seduce the girl and deliver her to him. He killed the two of them and then unmasked Léontine, who was masquerading in her faded finery as Noémi Gerfleur. He strangled her.'

‘And also killed Basile Popêche, a troublesome witness…But you stood by and did nothing to prevent these murders. And you dare to swear your innocence before God!' cried Joseph.

‘You considered yourselves cunning, but Dolbreuse outwitted you,' added Victor. ‘He murdered his former lover and her daughter according to a well-thought-out plan intended to throw suspicion on to you and Aubertot. He outwitted me too…'

‘He outwitted all of us, Boss!'

There was a loud knock at the door. Charmansat opened his watery eyes with a look of profound weariness.

‘The doctor is dead. He won't be able to look after me any more. What will become of me? Is there no justice?' he snivelled to Victor, his expression lifeless.

Sunday 6 December

Joseph sat at his packing-case desk, staring at the bundle of manuscript pages. Euphrosine was pottering about in the kitchen; he could make out her every movement. She was rinsing the dishes, removing an iron ring from the cooker to put the coffee pot on it, talking to herself: ‘If only money grew on trees!' She went heavily over to the stone sink to empty the greasy water into it, dragging her leg and then letting herself sink on to a stool, groaning: ‘What will become of us if I can't work any more! Oh, the cross I have to bear!'

Since he had finished dinner, Joseph had not been able to write a single word. He imagined his mother, head resting on her chest, eyes closed, pale; at the end of her tether. He had to act. He must. He was going to become someone; he wanted it so much! And he had also boasted about it to Monsieur Legris, to Valentine, and to Marcel Bichonnier.

‘How I bragged! Mademoiselle Iris is right: people who talk don't act; their life dissipates in words and they persuade themselves that reeling off words is an achievement in itself. I've put it off for too long. I'm going to take myself in hand and launch in.'

He was already imagining the day on which he bought a newspaper and saw his work published:

 

THE STRANGE AFFAIR AT COLUMBINES

By Joseph Pignot

 

What a beautiful dream! He would go tomorrow to
Le Passe-partout
and submit his serial. And if
Le Passe-partout
turned him down, he would plead his cause with all the Parisian papers. Whatever it took, he must succeed in getting it published. Who knows, perhaps one day his name would figure alongside those of Xavier de Maistre, Washington Irving and Tolstoy in guides to popular literature.

Oh, yes. His mother would no longer be a slave to her cart.

He took up his pen, and threw himself feverishly into his work. Without pausing to search for the perfect phrase, racing to finish his prologue so that the dream could become reality, he dashed off:

Feeling pleased with the word ‘frizzled' that he had found by rifling through the dictionary, Joseph smiled at the photograph of his father.

‘You're right, Papa, “nothing succeeds like success”.'
³²

Wednesday 16 December

Bundled in a cape with military-style trimming, Inspector Lecacheur strode purposefully into the bookshop and removed his fur toque. He had to wait for several customers to pay for their purchases before Victor greeted him. Iris was helping Joseph untangle himself from the string used to tie up parcels of gilt-edged books to be offered as gifts. Meanwhile Kenji was moving among the shelves, anxious to satisfy a bespectacled lady whose son was keen on adventure novels. He glanced furtively at the newcomer and saw a resemblance to Jules Verne's Michel Strogoff; this provoked in him a sudden flutter of emotion at the memory of Eudoxie Allard's gentle curves as she lay naked on a white bearskin rug. The spirited Fifi Bas-Rhin, last heard of in the royal suite of the Hôtel Continental in the arms of a Muscovite prince, owner of an estate near Nijni-Novgorod! Her farewell present had pride of place beside the telephone, a wonderful typewriter, the Lambert, an extremely original invention, that Eudoxie had shown him how to use during unforgettable evenings during which instruction led seamlessly to practical demonstration:

‘It's all done by touch, my dear Kenji, but that should present no problems for you. You merely have to touch the character plate and it oscillates gently, producing the impression…“No revolving parts but still it writes.” Isn't that absolutely true?'

Kenji had literally fallen in love with the Lambert, and no one was allowed to touch its eighty-four keys. It was the height of modernity: all you had to do was change the plate and the Lambert typed in different languages: it was polyglot and had a leather case. Kenji sighed with satisfaction and showed the bespectacled lady the large in-quarto volume of
The Robinsons of Guiana
by Louis Boussenard.

‘I see you are very busy, because of Christmas I suppose,' observed the inspector, smoothing his dark moustache. ‘Can I offer you a lozenge?'

‘No thank you,' replied Victor. ‘So you succeeded in giving up tobacco?'

‘Yes, for several months, but now I'm addicted to the astringent flavour of the lozenges; unfortunately one dependence has been replaced by another…Have you managed to get hold of an original edition of
Manon Lescaut
?'

‘Not yet sadly!'

‘But, dear chap, you are a specialist on Abbé Prévost, are you not?…The Salpêtrière holds no more secrets for you than Le Moulin-Rouge, Killer's Crossing or the environs of the River Bièvre, all places you have been over with a fine-tooth comb…Can we go and discuss this somewhere more private?'

Reluctantly, Victor led him into the back office, where the inspector looked attentively at Kenji's collections. He sensed that the bookseller was nervous and took pleasure in fuelling his discomfort. Shaking his box of lozenges like a rattle, he leant against the cabinet and stared at Victor.

‘Although this is not an official visit, and our conversation can not be admitted into the file on Élisa and Léontine Fourchon, don't think that I am taken in. I can't prove your involvement in this business, but everywhere the case leads me – the boarding school at Saint-Mandé, or Grégoire Mercier's house, to name but two places – I come up against your shadow. When they arrested Louis Dolbreuse and Prosper Charmansat, whom should my colleagues stumble upon? Upon you, Monsieur Legris. And don't think either that I am persuaded for one moment by the confused explanations of your assistant Joseph, who, let's just say, has a vivid imagination. He dared to make out that although he knew Prosper through the pawnshop, you and he were walking past his home by chance when you were alerted by shouting! If I decide yet again not to call you as a witness at this trial, it's only because I am grateful that you saved Charmansat's life and put a stop to the murders perpetrated by Dolbreuse. So I will keep quiet about Dolbreuse's explanation that he misled you, setting you off on a false trail by means of a note that he wrote himself and placed with Gaston Molina's belongings under cover of fetching a forgotten hat at Le Moulin-Rouge. The literary extracts left beside Noémi Gerfleur's body were intended to perform the same purpose for the police. Had you not put a stop to him, Dolbreuse would have sent a confession to the press, in Charmansat's name, revealing that Aubertot and he were the culprits and that after killing the doctor Prosper preferred to take his own life rather than face justice…You see there's not much that I don't know, in spite of the fact that several people, including the headmistress of the Bontemps Boarding School, the goatherd and our ex-jeweller, seem to be hit by temporary amnesia whenever your name is mentioned.'

The inspector felt the need to suck on some more lozenges. Victor, a little red in the face, said nothing and seemed fascinated by the state of his fingernails.

‘I have come to disturb you because I am missing a piece of evidence that I suspect you of holding. You see, I already have the necessary proof to convict Louis Dolbreuse, or rather Louis Carnot, Léontine Fourchon's lover and Madame de Saint-Meslin's coachman, who was so in love with her that he couldn't forgive her for trampling over his feelings to avoid sharing the spoils of their larceny. That's right, Monsieur Legris; all these crimes had only one motive, betrayed love: when you see what these feelings can lead to you can understand why I prefer celibacy. But returning to the case in point, even though I hold many trump cards, I just can't help wanting more. So, without you having to say a single word, I would ask you, if you are indeed in possession of it, as I think you are, to place by the door of this room the second shoe belonging to Élisa – or rather to Iris Mori…oh yes, I am well-informed, the stutterings of Grégoire Mercier, the simpering of Corymbe Bontemps were no match for the temptations of the jingling stuff, which never fails to deliver up information. I shall therefore now lose myself in reading
Journal des Voyages
and when I have recovered the shoe I shall leave your bookshop without any fuss…'

A few minutes later, Inspector Lecacheur addressed an amiable greeting to everyone in the bookshop and went back out to brave the biting cold. The right pocket of his cape, now curiously misshapen, would long remain impregnated with the smell of goat. Victor let out a sigh and hurried over to help Kenji, who was teetering under a pile of books by Jules Verne and Alexandre Dumas.

 

Joseph clutched
Le Passe-partout
, not daring to open it, although the temptation was overwhelming. He resisted. Supposing it was not there? The weather was becoming bitter. He sheltered under the awning of the packaging shop opposite the bookshop, and watched Inspector Lecacheur leave. Slowly, he unfolded the daily, lingering over the page layout. Suddenly his hands trembled. It was so unbelievable that he remained rooted to the spot, his lips moving as he read:

‘Papa, Papa, do you see this? That's your son's name there!' murmured Joseph in a quavering voice.

 

Kenji took a step back and contemplated the picture he had just hung in the alcove of his bedroom:
The Rooftops of Paris at Dawn
. He had kept it for more than eighteen months in his solid oak chest, so that he could put off telling Tasha and Victor that he had bought it at her exhibition at Le Soleil D'Or. What had he been worried about? That Victor would misunderstand his intentions and be jealous? That Tasha would imagine…No, the time for all that had passed. He would never again let the fear of what people might say dictate his conduct – that way of doing things had already cost him too much suffering and difficulty. From now on, he would live his life without pretence. He experienced a moment of absolute happiness as he took in the jumble of roofs and gutters lit by a yellow light. How beautifully she had rendered it all! How good it was to be able to drink it in, to see the sun rise over the city, to dream of all that a new day promised! And what joy to finally be free of the burden of the secrets that had been gnawing away at him! Iris and Victor knew the truth, and there had been neither tears nor recrimination. Each time he looked at the picture, he would experience the same gratitude at the way life had turned out. He was proud to think that soon everyone would know Iris was his daughter.

Joseph also knew the truth, but it was not Kenji who had told him. Iris had jumped the gun during one of the English lessons she gave Joseph in the back office. Her pupil had been so surprised that he had finally succeeded in pronouncing ‘father' correctly, which linguistic prowess had been rewarded by an unforgettable kiss on the cheek.

 

How many times had Joseph dreamed of nonchalantly tossing the newspaper containing his published serial on to the counter and mentioning casually to Victor as he climbed his ladder:

‘Take a look at page four. I think you'll find a piece by someone you know quite well.'

But the scene so often replayed in his mind now had a different protagonist, because all his thoughts were taken over by a charming young girl.

Taking advantage of having to sort a range of dead stock, he led Iris down to the basement and without a word held out the copy of
Le Passe-partout
to her. She scanned the page, flabbergasted, then said in a husky voice: ‘It's your name. It's you!'

‘I hope you don't mind that I have found a publisher?'

‘Of course not, it's brilliant, Joseph!'

‘Yes, it's a bit easier to read when it's printed,' he said as if that was the only thing that mattered to him.

‘When did you write it?'

‘In my spare time – during lunchtime, at night, after work. It was child's play – I wrote about the things I had experienced and then added a bit of imagination…You don't have to read it, of course! I know you're not very fond of literature.'

‘Oh, but I…Yes, I am, you're mistaken!'

‘I wanted you to be the first to know, because now I don't have to worry about my future. Writing pays well, you know.'

‘Won't we see each other any more? Are you going to leave?'

‘No, I have a future now, but I can't only live by my pen. I need other work as well until…And I still have to master English.'

‘So you're staying – I'm so happy! Do you know what? I could type your next manuscript on Father's typewriter. Without him knowing, obviously.'