In the Shadows of Paris (20 page)

‘I've followed your advice and stopped wearing a cravat. Moreover, as I have yet to ask anything of you, I cannot accept this flat refusal.'

Unnerved, the Armenian began tugging at his beard, as though expecting it to come up with a rejoinder. Finally, he motioned to Kenji to step inside the attic room.

Besides a cracked leather pouffe, a salamander in front of the fireplace, and a few piles of books, the room was filled with masses of newspapers stacked against the walls or spread across the bare floor in layers of varying thickness.

‘Are you intrigued by my furniture? It is most economical and easy to clean. When it becomes too dusty I simply chuck it away and get some more. It costs next to nothing to replace at Rue du Croissant if you are a subscriber. They have loads of the previous days' unsold editions. Other advantages of newspaper are that it keeps you warm in winter and keeps out the heat in summer, and is soft enough to stand in for a mattress and blankets. Excuse me while I get dressed.'

He slipped on his green skullcap and some Oriental slippers then sat cross-legged on the pouffe.

‘I am all ears.'

‘I've brought you a gift.'

‘Please be seated.'

Kenji hesitated before constructing a makeshift chair for himself out of several piles of periodicals. He handed the Armenian a sextodecimo.

‘
The Persian Language,
by Narcisse Perrin,'
⁵⁴
the latter read from the spine, which was decorated with fine cord. ‘There are six volumes missing.'

‘This is the only copy I have. It's an essay on Persian literature, which should be of interest to you.'

‘I have skimmed the work. It is superficial.'

‘It is bound in half-calf,' Kenji insisted. ‘This blue would look striking in any bookcase.'

‘I have none. Look around my room: the works I use are dotted all about me. What is the point of owning books when the Bibliothèque Nationale will lend them to me? Books are made from trees, and enough forests are cut down already without me adding to the destruction. The trees are our friends, our brothers. Just as they lose their leaves, so we lose our hair as soon as we get past a certain age. Our blood, like their sap, no longer flows into our limbs, our skin wrinkles, our roots grow stiff and we become paralysed – wretched, useless stumps. And then we die.'

Chilled by this speech, Kenji lightly touched the strands of hair he had been thinking of dyeing. At a loss for an argument, he made one last attempt.

‘Seeing as it's a gift, you are at liberty to sell it if you don't care for it.'

The Armenian lifted his tunic and scratched his leg, clearly indicating that he was deep in thought.

‘In short, you wish to get round me. What is the meaning of this gift otherwise? What is it you really want?'

‘A title: the name of the manuscript you managed to hide from me when we spoke in the reading room.'

A paternal expression came over Aram Kasangian's face.

‘Since it means so much to you, I could ask a lot more than the price of this simple volume.'

‘That would be unworthy of you.'

The Armenian immediately put on an appearance of uprightness.

‘You have touched a nerve. I am a man of honour. I will tell you what you are so desperate to know.'

He half rose from his pouffe and, bringing his face close to Kenji's, mumbled a title.

‘So, it was
Touty Namèh
, after all,' Kenji said in a solemn voice.

 

‘That really takes the biscuit, Boss!' exclaimed Joseph, without making it clear which of his employers he was addressing.

The Elzévir bookshop was closed for lunch: fried aubergines, which they had wolfed down after Iris had eaten and left for her watercolour class at Djina Kherson's. Kenji was preparing a cup of green tea while Jojo and Victor drank their coffee.

‘It's quite simple,' declared Victor. ‘Either the bookbinder sold the manuscript…'

‘Impossible,' Kenji interjected.

‘…Or it was stolen from the shop after the fire.'

‘Equally impossible – everything was reduced to ashes.'

‘No, it
is
possible!' objected Joseph. ‘Whoever set fire to the shop could have taken it before letting off the firecrackers!'

‘But Pierre Andrésy would have tried to stop him,' declared Victor.

‘Where's the problem? The criminal knocked him out just like he did Edmond Leglantier.'

They went quiet suddenly, aware of Kenji's astonishment.

‘What on earth are you two talking about? Why are you so sure that Pierre Andrésy was murdered? And what does it have to do with this Edmond Leglantier?'

‘Boss, it's time we made a clean breast of it,' said Joseph contritely.

They gave Kenji a brief summary of their investigations, both interrupting each other.

‘That explains the reason for all your absences. I congratulate you on once again being such discreet and devoted sleuths. However, I would have appreciated being kept informed of these developments in view of my friendship with Pierre Andrésy.'

‘But, Boss, we wanted to catch the culprit first!'

‘Don't count on my collaboration. Your last case nearly got us all into deep trouble. I'm not going along with it this time.'

He savoured his tea, avoiding their eyes. Despite his resolution, as he placed his cup in the sink, he muttered, ‘There's another possibility you haven't thought of. Pierre Andrésy might have been alive when the manuscript was stolen, and, not wishing to throw me into a panic, he tried to find it and was murdered.'

Victor slapped his forehead.

‘Of course! Why didn't we think of that?'

Kenji left the kitchen.

‘Joseph, I'm going straight to Chez Fulbert. I must at all costs find the last man to have spoken to the bookbinder.'

‘The famous Gustave…You're not leaving me behind again, are you, Boss?'

‘I'm sorry, I prefer to work alone rather than make a blunder. I promise to give you a detailed account this evening.'

‘He'll see, when I'm his brother-in-law he won't be able to fob me off with a lot of bedtime stories!' howled the abandoned Jojo.

 

The old lady was struggling to hang out her washing on the clothesline, which stretched from one side of the courtyard to the other. Victor propped his bicycle against a wall and finished pegging up her sheets, for which he received a string of thankyous. He discovered that Monsieur Gustave wasn't home from work yet, but that he wouldn't be long.

The errand boy at Chez Fulbert had been unable to give him Monsieur Gustave's exact address, but he was sure that there was a mattress maker's workshop next door on the ground floor. Armed with this information, Victor had wandered around La Chapelle until he'd finally located Rue Jean-Cottin. He now stood watching the carding machine relentlessly chewing up and swallowing the wool and cotton. His life was falling apart, he thought, overcome by a sudden wave of melancholy. Tasha agreeing to marry him had filled him with joy to begin with, but now the prospect was preying on his mind. What if she'd been right when she'd refused to marry him? What if formalising their commitment undermined their love?

Steam engines puffed in the distance. A short, portly fellow in a check bowler was making his way towards Victor, who was instantly on the alert. He fitted Adélaïde Paillet's description of the man who had handed the cake box to Edmond Leglantier. As soon as he entered the courtyard, Victor recognised his face; he'd seen him at the police station with Raoul Pérot and then again briefly at the restaurant where the two men had lunched. Crocol? No, Corcol. Inspector Corcol.

‘Excuse me!' he cried out, drawing level with the man, who swivelled round with cat-like agility.

He, too, recognised Victor – the fellow at Madame Milent's, he thought. Both men feigned indifference.

‘Monsieur Gustave? I believe you were a friend of Pierre Andrésy's?'

‘I still am.'

‘Even though sadly he died in a fire recently.'

‘Yes, the news came as a terrible shock.'

‘I was – am – also a close friend. He mentioned your name.'

‘Really?' Corcol said, frowning.

‘Certainly. He was most insistent: “Dear Gustave, now there's a true friend!” But how rude of me. Allow me to introduce myself, Victor Legris, bookseller. Monsieur Andrésy did all my rebinding. I found your address through Fulbert. I came to you because there is something bothering me and I'd like to get to the bottom of it. Have you seen this?'

He showed him the death notice from
Le Figaro.
Corcol looked at it, his face betraying no sign of emotion.

‘Yes, I've seen it. It puzzled me, too. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that it must be a tribute to his brother who passed away on 25 May last year. Pierre was in a terrible state about it.'

‘What about the cemetery, could it be Saint-Ouen?'

‘Possibly. It's quite near. Ah, fate can be so cruel…'

‘It's strange that the notice should appear on the eve of the fire…almost as if…as if he'd foreseen the tragedy.'

‘Maybe Pierre had left instructions in the event of his own death. His health wasn't good, his heart, he only told his close friends about it.'

Victor ignored the insinuation that Pierre Andrésy hadn't considered him close enough to confide in.

‘The fire was an accident. How could he possibly have foreseen it?'

‘After sixty we start being on first-name terms with death; we can sense it, we cultivate it.'

‘The notice refers specifically to
his
funeral not his brother's. How long had you known him?'

The courtyard was gradually filling up with children frolicking and playing hide and seek using the old lady's washing. They were joined by housewives discussing the price of vegetables, dogs sniffing the wind, workers and craftsmen released from their labours. Shouts rang out above the general hubbub and an exasperated mother pulled up her youngest and gave him a slap on the backside.

‘Nearly two years. Let's get away from this racket,' grumbled Corcol.

Victor followed him to the end of a passageway next to a blind alley filled with refuse.

‘We used to drink at the same bar,' he resumed. ‘We ended up becoming acquainted and would swap reminiscences. He often visited his brother at Hôpital Lariboisière, where the poor fellow's lungs finally gave out, the result of a bad wound he'd got in 1871.'

‘That's strange. He never mentioned he had a brother,' remarked Victor.

‘Poor Pierre, he was very close to his brother. I did my best to comfort him. It's common among war veterans; war brings us together – it's a real joy! I was at Gravelotte and he was at Reichshoffen. He was shot in the hand by a Prussian sniper.'

‘What was his brother's first name?'

Corcol blinked. ‘How stupid, I can't remember offhand. Age is affecting my brain. I didn't see him for a while after his brother died. Then one day I dropped in at his shop. And I went back there. Occasionally I'd stay and watch him operate the presses. We arranged to meet once a month for lunch. It's distressing imagining him trapped by the flames. It was a terrible blow. What grieves me most is not being able to visit his grave and pay my respects. They assured me at the morgue that there was nothing left of him, or so little…'

‘Did he have a cousin, as the death notice implies?'

‘If he had any relatives, he kept them well hidden. He only mentioned his brother to me. Frankly, this Léopardus is a mystery.'

‘Inspector, do you have any idea what the word Sacrovir might mean?'

‘No. Could it be a new swearword? Delighted to have made your acquaintance, Monsieur Legris. Leave me your card in case I remember the brother's name.'

Victor returned to his bicycle just in time to save it from being dismantled by a group of kids, and rode off in the direction of Rue des Roses. Was Gustave Corcol a brilliant actor or had he been telling the truth? If so why couldn't he remember the name of Pierre Andrésy's brother?

By the time he rode past the artesian well in Place Hébert, Victor was convinced the man was a liar.

 

Gustave Corcol gulped the smoky air greedily. He was worn out after climbing three flights of stairs. He stood there panting, surveying the industrial landscape at his feet, the railway tracks and workshops, the stations linking the Ceinture lines, where engines stood belching out steam. Infuriated, he tore himself away from the window and paced up and down his two-roomed apartment, which years of living alone had transformed into a hovel. The place had a sour smell of stale sweat and grime, and was strewn with dubious-looking garments and greasy plates. Still, Corcol had decided against hiring a cleaning lady for fear she might stick her nose into his shady affairs.

‘And to think things were going smoothly and now this idiot bookseller is threatening to muck everything up!' he bawled at his own reflection in the centre of a dusty mirror.

Did Legris know about the part he'd played? It was unlikely. They'd met because of an unfortunate set of circumstances, that blasted Fulbert had given him his address, that was all! No, there was more, otherwise the fellow wouldn't have been so thick with the Chief of Police's assistant, that wretched Raoul Pérot. He must come up with a counterattack, and quickly.

He took off his jacket and wiped his brow. This situation was about to turn very nasty. He unlocked a desk drawer and took out a file full of press cuttings. They all implicated Daglan. Daglan was the mysterious cousin Léopardus who had murdered Léopold Grandjean, the designer of the Ambrex shares; Daglan was responsible for the fake suicide of the loud-mouthed actor Leglantier and for the disappearance of the printer Paul Theneuil. He had signed his nickname to this string of crimes and embellished it with cryptic messages that were meant to be humorous. For God's sake! Why was he getting so worked up when all of these hideous crimes could be laid at the door of the leopard of Batignolles?