Читать книгу Strangled in Paris: 6th Victor Legris Mystery - Claude Izner - Страница 10

A man was loitering outside 18, Rue des Saints-Pères. Dressed in a tightly fitting overcoat and a black velvet beret, rather like a latter-day Van Dyck, he was feigning an interest in the window of the Elzévir bookshop. On the left-hand side, several books about famous criminal cases and how they were solved were on display, with the complete works of Émile Gaboriau taking pride of place. The right-hand side was filled with old books illustrated with engravings, and other more recent ones, many of them English, including The Picture of Dorian Gray, Tess of the D’Urbervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.6

It was a dank, gloomy morning, and a persistent drizzle was making the paving stones damp and treacherous. The streets were deserted. The same could not be said of the bookshop, though, which had been invaded by a quartet of society ladies all decked out in their winter finery. There was an old man with them who had the look of a poet about him: his forehead was marked by fine lines and the corners of his mouth were curled into a sardonic expression, only partly masked by his luxuriant beard.

Maurice Laumier peered in through the window. Kenji Mori, one of the owners, was making a discreet exit up the stairs leading to the flat above the shop, whilst Joseph Pignot, his assistant, was leaning against a fireplace adorned with a bust of Molière, reading a newspaper. There was no sign of the other owner, Victor Legris.

Making his way over to the porch of the adjoining building, Maurice Laumier deliberated for a moment before resigning himself and knocking on the door of the concierge’s room.

‘Be brave,’ he adjured himself. ‘Mustn’t fall at the first hurdle!’

Micheline Ballu abandoned her pile of carrots and turnips. The scandalous corruption of these final years of the century had spawned more than its fair share of eccentrics, and since she and her late husband had begun working as concierges in this neighbourhood full of bookish types and students, nothing surprised her any more. She hardly batted an eyelid at the sight of the damp and dishevelled dandy. By the look of him, he was probably trying to sell her something.

‘O keeper of the gate, goddess of this vestibule, please be so good as to tell me where the venerable Monsieur Legris is currently residing.’

The concierge had been about to rebuff her unwelcome visitor, but to be addressed as a goddess, when secretly she had always thought of herself as having a lot in common with the Queen of Sheba, was music to her ears. How could she resist? She quickly took off her apron and smoothed her hair, before pointing upstairs and murmuring, with a little curtsy that made her arthritic knee twinge, ‘First on the left.’

But when the young whippersnapper bounded off up the stairs without so much as a ‘thank you’, she bellowed after him, ‘They probably won’t let you in, you know! They’re all as lazy as each other, and the apartment’s knee-deep in filth!’

With a face like thunder, she retreated back into her lair.

‘Sheba Ballu! Really, you should be ashamed of yourself – at your age! You’re nothing but a cracked old jug, you silly fool,’ she muttered into her vegetables.

Standing in front of the apartment above the bookshop, Maurice Laumier hesitated for a second time. He was not on the most cordial terms with Victor Legris, and he baulked at the idea of begging for his help. Finally, he rang the doorbell.

An imposing, thickset woman, her hair drawn into a tight bun bristling with pins, appeared at the door armed with a ladle. He recoiled, awestruck, crying, ‘Incomparable Aphrodite, guardian fairy of this castle, might I humbly request an interview with Monsieur Legris on a private matter?’

Euphrosine Pignot frowned, trying to remember where she had seen this young firebrand before. She was sure he was some sort of artist, but his name escaped her.

‘He moved out ages ago. And, anyway, he’ll be in the shop at this time of day.’

Before the visitor had time to protest, she closed the door in his face and went back to the stove.

‘Who is he, anyway, the big beanpole? Not a respectable person, that’s for sure! And what was all that about dying for a cup of tea? I’ve already got enough to do and now they want me to start serving tea? If Monsieur Mori thinks I can turn myself into one of those creatures with ten arms like that horrible Hindu statue on his dressing table, he’s got another think coming! Me, the mother of his son-in-law!’

She locked herself in the kitchen. When she had all her pots bubbling away on the stove and stood over them singing hymns, nobody could cross the threshold of her culinary fortress, even if they were part of the household. The principal victim of this eviction, Kenji Mori, had resorted to making his tea on a small stove in his sitting room. In her new role as head chef for the family, Euphrosine was becoming skilled at slipping meat or fish into the mashed or puréed vegetables that she prepared. Now that she was about to become a grandmother at long last, she watched over her daughter-in-law as keenly as any midwife. She was tormented by the idea that her future descendants would have weak constitutions because Iris Pignot, née Mori, was a vegetarian. Every evening, holed up in her little flat on Rue Visconti where she now lived alone, she racked her brains to come up with nutritious recipes to nourish the baby who was to continue her family line. The child’s Japanese ancestry mattered little to her, and she did not even consider the fact that it might turn out to be a girl. She now had time to sit and think about all these things, because since her son’s marriage she was no longer burdened with looking after the flat above the bookshop or the one at Rue Fontaine, where Victor and Tasha Legris lived. Monsieur Mori had taken on Zulma Tailleroux, a dreamy young woman employed to do the housework, which she did with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop. It had long since become impossible to keep count of the number of vases, glasses and plates that she had smashed. For Kenji Mori, the fact that he had got rid of a tyrannical housekeeper only to replace her with a clumsy girl was endlessly irksome, but he was determined not to let his annoyance show: Euphrosine would be only too delighted to point out that he had nobody but himself to blame. She had seen straight away that this Zulma girl didn’t amount to much, but Monsieur Mori, so high and mighty, and hoodwinked by this little temptress – like all men, only one thing on their minds – had taken her on.

‘A good thing too! If she smashes all his precious things, that’ll teach him a lesson! Just as long as she doesn’t lay a finger on the baby!’ she muttered between hymn verses, hacking away at a slice of calf’s liver.

The terrible vision of a baby suffering at the hands of the new employee appeared before her. Always quick to imagine corruption and deficiency in others, she kept a journal in which she noted down people’s failings. She promised herself that she would add some juicy details to the section on Zulma Tailleroux, as well as describing the ridiculous flatterer in a beret whom she had just seen off.

Despite the shrill tinkle of the bell, no heads turned when Maurice Laumier entered the bookshop. He hid his face inside a copy of Octave Mirbeau’s Tales from the Village, which he had picked up from a pile of new arrivals, so didn’t see the expression of annoyance on Joseph Pignot’s face.

‘Do carry on, Monsieur Pignot!’ cried a woman with a face like a goat.

Joseph continued to read aloud from the newspaper:

‘After an inspection by the magistrate and the head of the municipal laboratories, the Terminus café is once again open for business. For part of the day and the evening, Rue Saint-Lazare was obstructed by a crowd hoping to join the customers already there and hear the witnesses’ testimonies. For our part, it must be admitted that we entered through one door and left immediately by another, more amused by watching the crowd than by being crushed in it. Police Sergeant Poisson, who was shot twice in the chest as he tried to bar the terrorist’s way, received a visit from Lépine, the Chief of Police, who awarded him the Cross of the Légion d’honneur.’

‘That man is a hero – they should put up a statue of him!’ intoned a woman who was wearing a dress of aubergine silk and carrying a fur muffler from which emerged the leads of two miniature dogs, a Schipperke and a Maltese.

‘Did you hear that, Raphaëlle? An attack in the station where I had been just a few hours earlier, with Mademoiselle Helga Becker and my cousin Salomé!’ complained a plump woman.

‘These anarchists don’t even know themselves what they’ll dream up next! It was lucky that this maniac’s device, apparently a pot filled with gunpowder and bullets, collided with a lampshade, which threw it off course so that it landed on some tables. Otherwise, there wouldn’t have just been twenty injured, there would have been deaths!’ cried Blanche de Cambrésis whom, privately, Joseph Pignot referred to as ‘the nanny-goat’.

‘Finish the article, Monsieur Pignot,’ ordered a majestic woman, whose face on one side was twisted into a painful grimace.

Renouncing his anonymity, Maurice Laumier tried to attract Joseph Pignot’s attention, but Joseph cleared his throat and continued.

‘Police Sergeants Bigot and Barbès also deserve to receive a Cross. The libertarian attacked them on Rue de Rome, and they fought with him hand to hand until they eventually succeeded in immobilising him, with the aid of several doughty passers-by. And, dear readers, did I neglect to mention that our rough and ready pyrotechnician appears to be a music lover, who decided to act while the orchestra was playing Martha by Flotow, or some similar minuet? When summoned to state his identity at the police station, this eighteen-year-old upstart, with only the slightest hint of a moustache, declared, “I am X from Peking.7 That is all you need to know.”’

‘What a nerve! I’d have him beheaded without a trial, this little Pekinese! Or else I’d send him to the front line wrapped in dynamite, and he could be a flare for our brave soldiers fighting in the colonies! Sooner or later Madagascar will be ours,’ piped up the old man.

‘Madagascar?’ said the plump woman. ‘You share the beliefs of Colonel Réauville then?’

‘I am rarely wrong in my predictions, my dear Madame de Flavignol. I have contacts in government. Madagascar will adopt French culture very easily as soon as we have conquered it.’

‘Indochina will also become French before long, no matter how rebellious, Chinese and anti-Western it is at the moment, provided we can root out their yellow culture by substituting French for their Annamite dialects, which are an inferior sort of chatter. Those are the terms used by Monsieur Gabriel Bonvalot, the famous explorer,’ declaimed the woman with the twisted face.

‘I see, Madame Brix, that you too are keen to see the expansion of our culture,’ replied the old man approvingly.

‘Certainly. Following my stroke and my marriage to Colonel Réauville, I decided to start an artistic salon in my home in Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I organise dinners there, which the members of the Dupleix Committee8 often attend. They are experts in these matters. As my fourth husband never ceases to remind us, “The Celestial Empire and its satellite states have no real language – so let us give them one!”’

‘Bravo! Where there is effort, success will follow.’

Exhausted by the conversation of the battle-axes – the name he gave to the windbags who surrounded him – and by the persistence of Maurice Laumier who, the previous year, had tried to seduce Iris, Joseph sought to conceal himself behind his newspaper. He noticed an advertisement at the bottom of the page.

Modern! Unprecedented!

Ever in search of the most exciting serials for our readers, Le Passe-partout is proud to be the first to publish the second work by Monsieur Joseph Pignot, Thule’s Golden Chalice. The first instalment appears next month and those who enjoyed The Strange Affair at Colombines (published as a novel by Charpentier & Fasquelle) will love the gothic adventures of the intrepid Frida von Glockenspiel and her dog Éleuthère, on the trail of the evil amber. It is a story that will enchant our male readers just as it will delight the ladies and our younger readers.

Taken aback, Joseph folded the newspaper, set it down next to the bust of Molière, and scratched his head, muttering, ‘Those swine! I’ve been waiting for a reply since October. They could have warned me! We haven’t even discussed the contract. All they gave me was two hundred francs – that’s nothing! Next time, I’ll demand a thousand francs! Although Clusel won’t like it, that’s for sure. I’d go down to eight hundred francs, but that would be my last offer, otherwise…’

He rubbed his hands.

‘Soon, fame, acclaim and the whole caboodle! What a bunch of rotters … They’ve delayed publishing my masterpiece to keep that scribbler Pelletier-Vidal happy! His style’s terrible and his plots are totally insipid. They only like him because he knows Paul Bourget!’

Maurice Laumier was approaching the fireplace when a new arrival, with a hat bristling with feathers and a mouth like a parrot’s beak, pushed him out of the way and bore down on Joseph.

‘Olympe, what a surprise!’ twittered the battle-axes.

‘Monsieur Pignot, be so kind as to fetch me Sophie’s Misfortunes by Madame la Comtesse de Ségur née Rostopchine. I want to read it to my niece Valentine’s twin sons, Hector and Achille.’

‘I think that must be down in the basement.’

‘Then don’t dilly-dally, young man! Run and fetch it!’

‘But who’ll look after the shop?’

‘Do you doubt our integrity?’ exclaimed Olympe de Salignac.

Casting a conspiratorial glance in Joseph’s direction, Raphaëlle de Gouveline, the woman with the dogs, thought it judicious to intervene.

‘Such a charming story, and such wholesome reading! Who could not delight in the chapter where Sophie, anxious to cure her doll of a terrible migraine, decides that she must bathe her feet in hot water? But the doll is made of wax and Sophie’s doll becomes a cripple! It was so moving – didn’t it make you cry?’

‘My dear, are you sure that such a thing happens?’

‘Positively, Olympe. And then there is the famous part about the goldfish, where the unfortunate creatures are beheaded alive by the little innocent Sophie! I still tremble at the memory.’

‘Hmm. I think I shall buy them some tin soldiers instead. Yes, that’s an excellent way to teach them a sense of duty and patriotism. Will you come with me, ladies?’ she proposed, without taking leave of Joseph.

With a rustle of skirts and a draught of cold air, they all left, including the old man, who followed Madame de Réauville-Brix like a little dog.

Maurice Laumier and Joseph were left facing one another like two duellists about to set upon each other, but they had to content themselves with verbal jousting.

‘Good Lord, it’s the Rubens of the boozer himself.’

‘I’ll eat my hat if that isn’t the Dumas of the down-and-outs! How fares your lady love, by the way?’

‘Sorry to shatter your dreams, but Iris has become Madame Pignot.’

‘Paris is heaving with unattached muses. Pass on my condolences to your wife.’

‘Why should I do that?’

‘She has traded in her precious liberty in return for the austerity of matrimonial life. So sorry to have disturbed you.’

‘You certainly have disturbed me! So clear off!’

‘With pleasure – as soon as I’ve seen Monsieur Legris. On an urgent matter.’

‘Then I can finally get rid of you – my brother-in-law is at his apartment on Rue Fontaine.’

‘You’re his brother-in-law and yet you’re still a shop assistant? They’re taking you for a ride!’

‘I absolutely forbid you to—’

‘Farewell, happy husband!’ trilled Maurice Laumier, lifting his beret. ‘And tell your better half that I’m ready to sketch her in profile or full face, dressed or in the altogether, whenever she chooses!’

Joseph looked around for something to throw at the bounder’s head, but he suddenly found himself alone.

His anger evaporated and he felt crushed by a mass of black thoughts. He was no good, either as a bookseller or a writer. Iris’s love for him was just a delusion, and their newborn would be a hunchback. What was the point?

‘My pet, I’ve made your favourite food for this evening. You need to feed yourself up,’ called his mother. ‘I’ve hidden it away at the back of the cupboard – all you have to do is heat it up.’

The prospect of a carnivorous feast restored his faith in the future.

‘Hooray! A rare steak with fried potatoes!’

*

Tasha nibbled at her thumbnail, unable to choose between two paintings: one a nude of a seated man viewed from behind, and the other a Parisian cityscape at dusk. She was tempted to seek advice from Victor, who was over in their apartment at the far side of the courtyard, developing his photographs. She resisted.

‘The cityscape’s definitely better.’

Shortly after their wedding, which had taken place in a registry office in the autumn of 1893, with no witnesses except their close family, they had worked out a strategy that allowed both of them to pursue their own activities independently. They devoted the mornings to their respective passions: books and photography; painting and illustration. Whenever their busy schedules allowed, they had lunch together in their apartment in Rue Fontaine, where they had employed a former butler, André Bognol, to cook and clean for them. This efficient man had liberated them from the indiscreet Euphrosine Pignot.

When they hadn’t had time to see each other at all during the day, they dined together in the evening. Tasha often returned home late, however; either because she was held up in town by meetings with other artists, or because she had stayed longer than planned at her mother’s house, where she still gave lessons in watercolour painting. Tasha sometimes had a prick of conscience about this, because although Victor denied it she feared that he felt neglected by her. She therefore made sure that her Sundays were devoted to him, frolicking in bed, strolling along the banks of the Seine or travelling to the outskirts of the city for a breath of fresh air.

Having previously dreaded the thought of being married, she now had to admit that she had not sacrificed any of her independence. Victor was more attentive than ever, and their desire for one another was far from diminishing.

‘Managing married life is like tending to a stove: too much air and the flames get out of control, not enough and it fills up with smoke,’ Kenji always said. Nevertheless, she feared that their perfectly regulated life might give rise to the pernicious boredom of a straight and narrow path.

For goodness’ sake, have a bit of faith in your beloved, she urged herself. He hates obeying the rules and doesn’t give a damn about wagging tongues. Carpe diem!

She dismissed these worries from her mind. Now was not the time for procrastination. Thadée Natanson, the driving force behind La Revue Blanche,9 to which she had recently begun contributing, had agreed, following a recommendation by Edouard Jean Vuillard,10 to display twenty of her paintings in Rue Laffitte at the end of the month.

‘Twenty, you understand? Show us your very best paintings!’

She had to get her selection right, and to choose from among her successive periods Parisian skylines, masculine and feminine nudes, funfairs and recreations of antique scenes.

She placed two pictures, one of a family of acrobats and another of a lion-tamer, side by side. Did the lion look a little bit like a large stuffed cat? There was a loud mewing as if to confirm her suspicions. Kochka, the tabby cat rescued by Joseph from the street the year before, waved her tail in the air, eager to go out.

‘You’re right, kitty, the acrobats win hands down.’

She opened the door of the studio to let her out and, when the cat had crossed the courtyard, she picked up a lace glove and ran her fingers over its delicate material, fighting back the temptation to go and embrace Victor.

Kochka lumbered through the cat flap with some difficulty. As soon as she got into the apartment, she made a beeline for the kitchen. Cloistered in his dark room, Victor heard a vigorous scratching sound and guessed that, having relieved herself, the cat was now noisily expressing her satisfaction. Leaning over a zinc tank, his face illuminated by a paraffin lamp with a red cover, he rinsed the prints, put them to one side to dry and emerged from his ivory tower.

Apart from his laboratory, the apartment consisted of a kitchen, a bathroom and a huge bedroom where he had managed to find space for his roll-top desk and a large chest of drawers, after moving out of the apartment in Rue des Saints-Pères. Several Constable water-colours hung on the walls, as well as two portraits by Gainsborough and some pen sketches by Fourier, the social visionary. A red chalk drawing of his mother, set in an oval frame, hung next to a small nude of Tasha and a portrait of Kenji. Although Victor had been left with no choice but to get rid of his large dining table and six chairs, he had kept his glass-fronted bookshelves. He pulled out a slim volume, settled himself comfortably on the bed and began to leaf through Verlaine’s Fêtes Galantes, in search of his favourite poem:

Les hauts talons luttaient avec les longues jupes,

En sorte que, selon le terrain et le vent,

Parfois luisaient des bas de jambes, trop souvent

Interceptés! – et que nous aimions ce jeu de dupes.11

A gently sensual feeling of wellbeing crept over him, and he was sinking into a pleasant daze when he was brought back to reality by Kochka. She had jumped into his lap and begun to massage his legs with her paws and outstretched claws. Victor cried out in pain.

‘Stop that, you horrible creature!’ he grumbled, but he had a soft spot for the cat, and didn’t try to move her.

He inspected her stomach cautiously, wondering when she would have her kittens. Tasha thought it wouldn’t be long now. What were they going to do with a litter of kittens? Would they have to fall on the mercy of Raoul Pérot at the La Chapelle police station, guardian angel of abandoned dogs and tortoises?

An image formed in Victor’s mind: Tasha pregnant. Iris’s stomach was looking so round now that he suspected his sister and Joseph of having disobeyed Kenji’s orders and consummated their union early, with a blithe disregard for the blessing of the curate of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Although Victor and Tasha had long since stopped taking any precautions of their own, Tasha remained as slim as ever. He was relieved: the idea of becoming a father didn’t fill him with enthusiasm.

‘Can we really change the way we feel?’ he asked Kochka, who was curled up and purring contentedly.

At thirty-four, he was getting on a bit. Although he was managing to curb his possessive feelings towards Tasha, surely the arrival of a child would bring them all back? Naturally, he never said a word when she talked to him about this exhibition coming up with La Revue Blanche. On the contrary, he encouraged her, which made her happy but did not stop him worrying about it – what a hypocrite he must be! All those men flocking around her and undressing her with their eyes. The knowledge that three of his photographs would be displayed alongside her paintings did nothing to ease his qualms.

The fact that he constantly had to lie to Kenji was another weight on Victor’s mind. He was behaving like a schoolboy inventing any old story to explain why he was missing school.

‘Dourak!12 Face up to him! Admit that you’re fed up with the deadly dull routine in the bookshop and that you want to spend all your time on your photography!’

Somebody was at the door. Three loud knocks sent Kochka scuttling under the bed.

‘It’s open!’ shouted Victor.

A tall bearded man in a velvet beret leant nonchalantly against the doorframe. It was a full minute before Victor could collect himself enough to say, ‘Tasha’s not here.’

‘That suits me – this is a confidential matter, Legris. Sorry to interrupt your siesta. I’ve been running around all morning. May I?’

Without waiting for permission, he flopped down on the bed next to Victor. The two men considered one another coldly, and as Victor made as if to get up Maurice Laumier gave him a coarse smile.

‘You’re right, Legris, better get up. Tasha could come in at any minute and find us here together. What would she think, the poor innocent girl?’

Nerves jangling, Victor leapt up, straightened his clothes and lit a cigarette, despite his promise only to smoke outside.

‘Calm down,’ said Laumier, pointing to an armchair.

As Victor insisted on remaining standing, Laumier rose too, and began to inspect a series of photographs propped up on the dressing table.

‘Well, well, are you getting a social conscience? You surprise me! I had no idea that you were so fascinated by the seamy side of our modern Babylon. I thought you preferred more edifying subject matter.’

‘And you, Laumier, still churning out your pictures of dingy darkness?’

‘My poor Victor, when it comes to painting, you’re behind the times! Don’t you know what Renoir says to all those clever-clogs who are throwing their tubes of black paint into the Seine? “Black is one of the most important colours. Perhaps the most important.” Mind you, it’s in his name …’

‘I couldn’t agree with him more, hence my penchant for the darker side of Parisian life.’

‘Well, now I come to think of it, grey is in your name, so no surprises there! Oh, come on, you have to admire my little word play,’ said Laumier teasingly.

‘Spit it out, for goodness’ sake! What do you want?’ Victor barked.

‘So calm! So in control of the situation! I’m overcome with admiration—’

‘Out with it!’

‘Oh, now you’re really scaring me. It’s a somewhat delicate matter that I rather regret having to bring to you. If Mireille Lestocart hadn’t forced me to take these measures, I’d never—’

‘Mireille Lestocart?’

‘You must remember, Legris – two years ago, Rue Girardon, you got an eyeful. The well-endowed brunette. Mimi, in fact! My model, my muse, my little sweetheart. Ah, woman, the artist’s saviour!’

Maurice Laumier assumed an expression of beatific ecstasy.

‘And what does this Mimi want from me?’

‘She wants your brains, my good man. She loves to read about your daring and perilous investigations. You have become her alpha and her omega. Luckily, I’m not a jealous man. By the way, have you got anything to drink?’

‘Just water. Are you going to tell me why you’re here or not?’ fumed Victor.

Laumier settled himself comfortably in the armchair.

‘I shall be brief. Her cousin Louise Fontane, more commonly known as Loulou, hasn’t been seen now for about three weeks. She’s left her job, her home likewise, and not a day goes by when Mimi doesn’t nag me: “Go and see Monsieur Legris! Beg him to do something! He’ll find her, I know he will!” In a word, she’s driving me mad, and I’ve surrendered. You can name your price, within reason … Don’t look at me like that! Our materialist society works on the basis that each man has his price. I am simply asking what yours is. I wouldn’t dream of taking up your precious time without offering you a modest sum in return.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘You do work as a private detective, don’t you?’

There was a clatter of footsteps and Tasha burst in.

‘Darling, I know I promised not to disturb you, but I couldn’t resist—’

She stopped short at the sight of Laumier.

‘Good morrow, my charming fellow artist. Have you any idea of the rumours that are flying around Montmartre? It’s a scandal! People are actually suggesting that the superb and talented Tasha Kherson has got hitched to a bookish type who prides himself on solving crimes. She has confused love with the illusion of security and now she’s trapped; she’s done for! I denied it all, naturally.’

‘How did you hear we were married?’

‘Bibulus on Rue Tholozé is a veritable den of gossip. The owner, Firmin, is in cahoots with the deputy mayor of the ninth, and he spends all his time playing billiards at the Chien Qui Tête. Anyhow, my dear, anybody could have read the banns outside the mayor’s office. You could at least have invited me to raise a glass of champagne with you. I would have brought some confetti.’

Looking very pleased with himself, Laumier examined his fingernails.

‘I bet you’ve been going around telling everyone!’

‘I, speak ill of friends? Never! You wound me.’

‘Did you come all the way here just to tell me that? What do you want?’

‘You, darling girl.’

Tasha could smell smoke in the air, even though Victor had stealthily stubbed out his cigarette and hidden it behind a pile of books. She eyed them suspiciously. What were they plotting, these two, who were usually at daggers drawn?

‘Darling, when you have a minute, could you possibly come and give me some advice?’ she asked Victor.

She left, followed by Kochka, who had just emerged from under the bed.

‘You’re a lucky fellow, Legris. She’s got some character to her, your little woman. Ah, true love! A cure for solitude or a ball and chain?’

‘No, no and no!’

‘That doesn’t answer my question, Legris.’

‘No to Mademoiselle Lestocart’s request.’

‘Mimi, just Mimi. She’ll be awfully disappointed and will make my life a perfect misery.’

‘Why do you stay with her, if you despise the married state so much?’

‘Out of habit. For me it’s a cure for solitude and a ball and chain, but as soon as it doesn’t suit me any more, it’ll be goodbye Mimi, adios, ene maitia,13 I’m off to Spain and I’ll send you a pair of castanets. Won’t you think again, Legris? If I dig deep into my pockets, I can dredge up twenty francs to offer you – I’ve just sold a painting.’

‘Money isn’t the problem.’

‘You’re lucky. I never have enough of it. Well, I’m going to take my leave. Until we next run into each other, Legris. And for goodness’ sake, try to smile – life’s a tremendous joke, you know.’

He caught sight of the painting of Tasha on the wall, which was his own work.

‘At least admit I have some talent! And the model really is very alluring!’

As soon as he was alone, Victor opened the window and, with trembling hands, lit a second cigarette.

Maurice Laumier crossed the little garden with its withering roses at top speed, and the stray cats which made their home there bolted as he passed. He reached his ground-floor apartment and turned the key in the lock. Mimi had vanished, and he decided to make the most of the time to add a few final touches to the portrait of the writer Georges Ohmet, which he had promised to deliver at the end of the month, and which was vital to the health of his finances. He hummed to himself as he concentrated on the tricky details of a curled moustache. The stove was burning, proof that the curvaceous brunette, already the subject of about fifteen of his paintings, would shortly return. And before long she did return, carrying a pot of soup and a four-day-old newspaper swiped from the fruit seller on Rue Norvins.

‘Did you speak to him?’ she asked, with a tremor in her voice.

Maurice Laumier wiped his hands on his sweater and poured the soup into a pan which he placed on the stove.

‘He says no.’

‘Even if we pay him?’

‘Especially if we pay him. It would be an insult to his honour. In any case, it’s better that way. Until they finally show me the colour of their money for this painting, we’re going to be living on the proverbial shoestring.’

Not listening to him, Mimi was crumpling the pages of the newspaper into little balls, to keep the fire in the stove going. Suddenly, she froze and pointed to a paragraph on one of the pages.

‘It’s her, I’m sure of it! Oh, how awful!’f

‘What’s the matter, my poppet?’ asked Laumier, as he filled two bowls with soup.

‘They’ve found a girl strangled near the La Villette abattoirs. Her body’s in the morgue. We’ve got to go there!’ she squealed, shaking her lover by the shoulder and making him choke on his soup.

‘But it’s miles away! Mimi, think about it, little bits of skirt like Loulou are ten a penny in this city – why should this particular one be her, exactly?’

‘I can just feel it. And it’s the first time she’s disappeared like that for so long. Ever since I came up to Paris, we’ve seen each other at least once a fortnight. We grew up together; we were like sisters!’

‘It’s true that “sister souls will find each other out if only they wait for one another”. Beautiful, isn’t it, my poppet? But I didn’t write it – Théophile Gautier did. Calm down and turn that tawdry rag into fuel.’

Mimi stamped her foot, seized one of his brushes, rubbed it on the paint palette, circled the article in red, folded the page into a small square and wrapped a shawl round her neck, over her warm woollen cape.

‘That’s so typical of you, that is!’ she burst out. ‘“Little bits of skirt like Loulou are ten a penny in this city.” Own up! As soon as my back’s turned, you’re carrying out a close inspection of some of those little bits of skirt, and still I stick with you! Nine times out of ten, the girls who prance around in this studio haven’t got a stitch on them by the time you actually start painting them!’

‘Come, come, these are big words for a little woman! How do you expect us to live if I don’t earn us a few pennies? Would you rather be on the … well, anyway, you know what I mean.’

‘Oh, I see! And I’m supposed to get down on my knees and thank you because you let me share your bed? The arrangement seems to suit you, as far as I can tell!’ she cried, gesturing at the portraits of her that filled the studio.

‘Yes, my poppet, you took your clothes off too, like any self-respecting artist’s model.’

‘You don’t love me. You’re a brute!’ she wailed, her voice choked with a sob.

Then she rushed out of the apartment.

‘Damn it! What about the soup? What’s wrong with people? The trials of love … Where are you going, you little idiot?’

‘Idiot yourself! To the morgue.’

He jammed his beret onto his head, pulled on his coat and rushed after Mimi, who had made off towards Rue Girardon.

‘Off to the morgue, off to the morgue, what a lovely little stroll!’ he grumbled, hurrying to catch up with her.

The weather was getting steadily worse and snowflakes now fluttered in the cold wind, covering the streetlamps. Victor had stayed later than usual at the Elzévir bookshop, and was now trudging home, cursing himself for being so stupid. Why hadn’t he thought up some lie that would have saved him from tearing himself away from the cosy warmth of his apartment? He carried out his duties as a partner in the business more and more unwillingly, even though he tended to offload many of them onto Joseph, who was more than happy to oblige.

He almost collided with a couple who had emerged from a porchway. One of them grasped his arm.

‘Monsieur Legris, I’m begging you, please help!’ cried the woman.

‘Loulou is dead – murdered. We’ve just been at the morgue. It was a horrible sight,’ the man gabbled. ‘Mimi is terribly upset, and I’m not much better … Do us a favour, Legris, buy us a drink. My shoes are letting the rain in – I’ll catch my death of cold.’

In the yellow gaslight, Maurice Laumier’s face wore an unusually serious expression. Victor could tell that he was really shaken and, under a fresh flurry of snow, he led them to a bar on Rue de Douai.

They settled themselves at a table near the fire, and waited until the waiter had finished pouring three glasses of red wine before they began to talk. Victor recognised the famous Mimi by her statuesque figure, principal source of so much of Laumier’s artistic inspiration. She sat twisting a handkerchief between her fingers and every so often used it to wipe her eyes. She managed to pull herself together and, between two sobs, said, ‘I’ve got a silver brooch that my old grandma left me. I’ll pawn it, and give you as much money as you want.’

‘Mimi, you’re embarrassing Monsieur Legris,’ whispered Laumier.

‘I don’t care if it’ll make him say yes! You will say yes, won’t you, Monsieur Legris?’

Victor stared down at his glass uncomfortably.

‘It’s completely incomprehensible,’ said Laumier. ‘She was more or less broke, was our Loulou, and yet they told us that she was wearing a dress that would have cost a fortune. And there’s another thing – her hair’s dyed black.’

Victor looked up, admitting defeat. It was impossible to resist Mimi’s red eyes, her trembling lips, her stricken face. If Tasha had been there, she might have felt a stab of jealousy.

‘What colour was it before?’ he asked.

‘Pure Venetian blonde, a real Botticelli! They found a velvet mask near her body. The whole thing has an air of mystery about it that you should find impossible to resist, Legris.’

‘Do you take me for some kind of sadist? There’s nothing irresistible about a woman’s murder,’ Victor retorted sharply.

‘You’re right there, Monsieur Legris, it’s atrocious. This brute is completely oblivious to other people’s feelings!’

‘That’s a bit much, my poppet. I felt very nauseous just now.’

‘You certainly did, but not because of all the dead bodies. It was the smell of the formaldehyde that gave you a nasty turn, but as for me, as soon as I saw poor Loulou stretched out on the cold stone, with her neck all purple … My God!’

She burst into tears again and buried her contorted face in her shawl. Victor stretched out a sympathetic hand to her and she grasped it feverishly.

‘Thank you, thank you! At least you have a heart, Monsieur Legris!’

‘I’ve got one too!’ muttered Laumier.

He kissed Mimi’s forehead and she snuggled up to him.

‘Have you told the police about this?’

‘The police! Are you mad, Legris?’ cried Laumier. ‘We took great care not to let on at the morgue that we recognised her. The police! That would get us into all sorts of trouble. I’m as clean as you like, nothing to hide, but Mimi … Before we got together, she used to trade on her charms, and the police have a file on her. Well then, is it yes or no?’

‘Very well, Mademoiselle, I’ll look into it,’ replied Victor, disengaging his hand. ‘I’ll need your friend’s address, wherever she used to … ply her trade.’

He coughed discreetly and rummaged in his pocket for a pencil.

‘Oh, she earned an honest living working for a clothing manufacturer at 68, Rue d’Aboukir. She rented a room in Rue des Chaufourniers, number 8, two minutes away from the coach station.’

‘Where was her body found?’

‘In front of the La Villette rotunda. It says so here.’

She handed him the page torn from the newspaper, an issue of L’Intransigeant dated 10 February. Victor quickly read the paragraph outlined in red.

‘I’ll hold on to this.’

‘Will you help us then?’

‘I’ll do what I can.’

‘How much will it cost?’

‘Keep your grandmother’s brooch, Mademoiselle Mireille. Laumier is an old acquaintance. We met in ’89, at the exhibition at Café Volpini, and after all, if you can’t help out a friend, what can you do, eh, Maurice?’ replied Victor, as he paid the bill.

‘You’re a true gentleman, you really are!’ gushed Mimi, her eyes shining.

Laumier pushed back his chair and offered her his arm.

‘It’s jolly good of you, Legris. If I can do anything in return …’

‘You can, actually. Tasha must hear nothing about this business, so keep your trap shut.’

‘I shall be as silent as the grave, dear Victor.’

They were now back on Rue de Douai, where a ragged-looking man was struggling to shovel away the snow that had piled up on the pavement.

‘I’ll let you know what happens,’ said Victor, touching his hat. ‘It has been a pleasure, Mademoiselle Mireille.’