Bertie and the Crime of Passion, page 6
Behind us, everyone except the blind man was escaping up the stairs. If Valentin couldn’t hold a gun without shooting into the ceiling, what would a woman do?
She would cope perfectly well, I was confident—for about two seconds.
Inconveniently, quite a cloud of dust had been raised by the commotion and poor Sarah suddenly erupted into a fit of sneezing. I grabbed the gun, which, through no fault of her own, she was waving about like a conductor’s baton.
Pointing it steadily at Valentin, who had turned deathly pale, I told him, “You can put down your hands, but keep your distance.”
He obeyed, his grotesque features rigid with terror.
I told him, “You have some explaining to do, monsieur.”
It was some time before he succeeded in saying anything, and then it was only to ask, “May I sit down?”
We all sat down except the blind man, who was still pawing the wall. Bernhardt got up to reunite him with his stick and steer him to the stairs. Someone at the top shouted, “Are you all right down there?”
“Everything is under control,” I called back, “and we should appreciate a few minutes’ privacy.”
Valentin said in a rush, “Monsieur, I appeal to you, while you continue to point that thing in my direction, I cannot speak a word. Not a word, not a word.” A nice example of self-contradiction. He was talking nineteen to the dozen. The idol of the Moulin Rouge, the disdainful dancer who set female pulses racing, was reduced to a gibbering wreck.
Satisfied that he was no threat, I lowered the gun and examined it. A fine example of the gunsmith’s art, I concluded. A silver revolver, elaborately chased on the side plate and along the barrel—a gentleman’s gun, beyond question. I have one like it in the gun room at Balmoral, a useful weapon for putting a wounded animal out of its misery. I rested it on the table, out of Valentin’s reach, but sufficient to signal that I was not proposing to shoot him. By now, his fit of hysteria had calmed somewhat. I would have introduced myself and Bernhardt, but it might have sent him into another paroxysm, so I contented myself with saying, “You had better tell us how you acquired the weapon.”
He had gone silent now, his features rigid, producing a strong resemblance to those monstrous statues one sees in illustrations of Easter Island.
I prompted him: “This was at the Moulin Rouge, was it not?”
He managed to nod his head.
“On the night the man was shot there?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve found your voice, then?”
He said, “Are you from the Sûreté? You sound like an Englishman.”
“We are independent investigators. Please go on.”
“Will you respect what I say as confidential?”
“Depend upon it.”
“Then yes, I saw the man shot at the Moulin Rouge. That is to say, I heard the shot.” His hand went to his throat. The scene was obviously vivid in his memory. “It happened right in front of me when I was dancing with La Goulue. A tremendous report, followed immediately by another. Everything stopped and a young man dropped to the floor.”
“Did you see who was behind him?”
“No. I was looking down at the victim. I was very shocked.” His brown eyes studied me intensely, making some kind of appeal. “Paris is a terribly dangerous city. I live in constant fear of being murdered. That’s why I kept the gun.”
“You’re running ahead of your story, monsieur.”
“I’m sorry. After the shooting, the poor fellow was carried to the gentlemen’s dressing room. I believe there was a doctor in attendance, and the Agincourt family. The police arrived and went in. Most of the audience had left the building by that time and so had La Goulue and the other girls. I would have gone with them except that my overcoat was still in the dressing room and I didn’t like to interrupt. I waited some time. The ballroom was empty.”
“Not entirely empty,” said Bernhardt. “You overlooked Toulouse-Lautrec.”
“Don’t we all?” I quipped, but my wit was lost on Valentin. “Pray continue.”
“When I went in, the corpse was lying on a table, covered with a blanket. The family were talking agitatedly. I think the young girl was crying and the father was trying to comfort her.”
“Who else was there?”
“The two policemen. The doctor had left. There was a middle-aged lady talking to the police.”
“The comtesse,” I said.
“And a youth.”
“Tristan, the son. No one else?”
“No one else.”
“Did you speak to any of them?”
“It seemed inappropriate. I raised my hat, picked my overcoat off the hook, and left. Only when I was outside did I put my hand in the pocket and find the gun there.”
“You’re telling us it was in the pocket of your coat?”
“I don’t know how it got there, monsieur and madame. I swear I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you show it to the police immediately?”
“I was afraid.”
“It was your public duty, surely?”
His mouth tightened. “You don’t know our police. They would think I was the prime suspect. Anyone from Les Halles is labeled as a criminal.”
“But you were dancing when the shots were fired,” Bernhardt pointed out. “Hundreds of witnesses must have seen you.”
“If the police find a man in possession of a gun at the scene of a murder, they are not interested in witnesses, madame. They expect a confession, and they usually get it.”
All this was said with an intensity that I found persuasive. However, the story begged two important questions: Why did the murderer deposit the gun in Valentin’s overcoat, and when?
Unless plausible answers could be found, Valentin’s part in the affair could not be dismissed as innocent.
“If you are so fearful of the police, monsieur,” said I, “why did you not dispose of the gun? They might have called on you at any time and found it in your possession.”
Deep creases appeared under Valentin’s eyes and for a moment I thought he would burst into tears. “You don’t believe a word I’ve said.”
“On the contrary,” I told him with a trace of impatience, “I am doing my damnedest to find the rational explanation for your behavior.”
“But I have told you. Les Halles is a jungle. Savages roam the streets in gangs. Through no fault of my own, I have a conspicuous appearance. To some of these brutes, my face is an incitement to violence. Returning late at night from dance halls, I have been set upon and assaulted three times. I go in constant fear of my life. Is it so surprising that when a gun is put into my pocket I should think twice about keeping it for protection?”
My thoughts returned to the bullying we had witnessed in the rue Coquillière in broad daylight and it wasn’t difficult to put myself into Valentin’s shoes walking home sometime in the small hours, fearful of what might be lurking in every doorway. I wouldn’t care to attempt it without arming myself. Yes, the opportunity to carry a gun might outweigh the dangers of being found in possession of a murder weapon.
I picked up the revolver again and examined it closely to confirm something I had noted before without fully absorbing its importance. The implications, I now realized, were devastating.
“What is it?” Bernhardt asked.
I didn’t respond. Instead, I asked Valentin, “Have the police questioned you about the murder?”
He rolled his eyes upward. “They keep coming back to the Moulin Rouge. I was questioned last Monday by the chef de la Sûreté himself. He simply asked me what I saw when the shots were fired. Nothing was said about what happened to the gun. I didn’t lie to him, monsieur. It wasn’t mentioned.”
“Then with luck, you won’t hear from him again,” said I, a statement so morally irresponsible that I drew a gasp from Bernhardt, who had the grace to stay silent after that. “I suggest, monsieur, that you take some lessons in pugilism, because I can’t allow you to keep the revolver.”
“May I go?” he asked, relief flooding across the furrowed face.
“Let us all go,” I said. “The air in this cellar can’t be improving our health.”
In the rue des Innocents, the lamplighter was busy. We watched Valentin’s spindly figure scuffle into the dusk and then we made our way in the opposite direction as far as the rue Saint-Denis, where with some relief I succeeded in hailing a cab.
“Bertie, what are you going to do with the gun?” Bernhardt asked anxiously when we were aboard.
“It’s safe with me,” I assured her.
“It ought to be taken to the police. I think we should have escorted Valentin to the police, whatever he said. You can’t allow sympathy for the man to outweigh civic duty. The revolver is vital evidence.”
Her pious tone needled me somewhat. “I’m aware of that, Sarah, and I, of all people, don’t need lectures on civic duty. I think you may form another opinion if you examine the weapon.” I took it from my pocket and handed it to her.
She turned it over in her hands. “Is there some doubt that this is the gun used in the murder?”
“No doubt, so far as I’m aware,” I said. “But if you will look closely at the chasing on the side plate above the trigger, you may understand why we are not at this minute speaking to the chef de la Sûreté.”
She held it close to her eyes and waited for the carriage to pass a streetlamp. “Well, I see some kind of emblem engraved in the silver. Is that what you mean? A shield with something written under it in Latin. I don’t read Latin, Bertie.”
“Look above the shield, at the crest.”
“The letter A surrounded by these curly bits, do you mean?”
“That is precisely what I mean, Sarah. You are looking at the coat of arms of the Agincourt family. Unless I am very mistaken, the weapon that killed Maurice Letissier was from their private armory.”
CHAPTER 5
That evening, I dined with Sarah Bernhardt at Magny’s, where the cuisine has never failed to please. You will recall that the Agincourt family dined at this highly regarded restaurant on the night of the murder, so our visit was mainly investigative in character. Smile at the “mainly” if you wish, but who would deny that Sarah and I had earned a decent dinner after risking life and limb in Les Halles? Besides, there was much to discuss and my brain works best over a toothsome meal.
My companion was ravishingly dressed in another of Monsieur Worth’s creations, sky blue damask lavishly trimmed with embroidered lace and pearls. As usual, she wore white gloves to her armpits, for she is terribly conscious how thin her arms are. At her breast was a magnificent brooch with the letters LN worked in diamonds. Without too blatantly staring at this area of the lady’s anatomy, I spent an interesting time trying to decipher the significance.
“Who is he?” I asked eventually. “A lover?”
Smiling, she gave an evasive answer. “This brooch? I’ve had it more than twenty years.”
“Yes, but whose initials are they?”
The emperor’s.
I blinked. “You and Louis Napoleon . . .”
“My reward for a command performance, Bertie.” Now her eyes mocked me wickedly, inviting me to decide whether the gift had been earned on the boards or in bed. I knew she’d had scores of lovers, but until that moment I had confidently assumed none of them outranked me.
Slightly piqued, I said, “Personally, I think messages in jewelry should be more discreet. My engagement present to Alix was a ring with six stones—a beryl, an emerald, a ruby, a topaz, a jacinth, and a second emerald.”
I let her puzzle over this for a while before explaining that the initial letters of the gems spelled my name. “But of course,” I was quick to add, “I could not duplicate the gift for another lady, however intimate a companion she might become.”
“That would be unforgivable,” she agreed, then added coquettishly, “but you would think of some other keepsake for such a lady, if one existed. You have a fertile imagination, Bertie.”
“A fertile imagination, but poor credit with Monsieur Cartier, I’m afraid,” said I, not entirely untruthfully. “These days, a monogrammed handkerchief is the very best keepsake I can run to.”
She laughed, not believing a word of it. After all, we were dining at one of the finest restaurants in Paris. Who would believe that the Prince of Wales was so underfunded by his own nation that he was obliged to borrow from his foreign friends? Who would believe that he was prey to moneylenders touting for trade who virtually laid siege to the Hotel Bristol?
Over some delicious Ostend oysters garnished with anchovies and radishes, I returned to the vexing question of the murder of Letissier. “We can’t duck it, Sarah. That revolver belonged to the Agincourt family.”
“Can we be certain?”
“There is no question, my dear. In my youth, I was given an excellent grounding in heraldry and it is quite a passion of mine. I can recognize a coat of arms, be it English or French.”
She said she didn’t doubt me, but she felt it right to point out that it was Valentin le Désossé, and not one of the Agincourts, who had been caught with the gun in his possession.
I said, “That is immaterial, in my opinion. Valentin’s coat happened to be hanging in the dressing room and the murderer slipped the revolver into the pocket.”
“For what reason?”
“In case the police decided to conduct a search.”
She set down her knife and fork and sat back in her chair to meditate on the matter. She had scarcely touched her oysters, but then her appetite is birdlike.
“If you’re not going to finish those . . .” said I.
“Please do.” She pushed her plate toward me. “Bertie, let us be clear about this. You are suggesting, are you not, that one of the Agincourt family must have fired the fatal shot?”
“That is the obvious conclusion,” I concurred.
“Meaning Jules or his wife, Juliette.”
“Or the daughter, Rosine.”
“Or the son . . . what was his name?”
“Tristan, a mere lad of eighteen.”
“Young males on the threshold of manhood can be very antisocial, Bertie.”
“Insufferable. I’ve had two of my own,” I reminded her while I helped myself to oysters from her plate.
“Then you don’t need telling how disorderly the male of the species can be at that age.”
I gave her a sharp look to satisfy myself that the remark was innocent. No one is more stern a critic of my two sons than I, but I won’t hear them maligned by anyone else. I took a sip of Chablis. “I must have met Tristan when he was a small child, but I’ve no idea how he turned out.”
“Nor I,” said Sarah.
“It’s a queer fellow who shoots his sister’s fiancé in the back.”
She said, “It’s just as queer when the girl’s parents do the deed.”
“Or the girl herself.”
A twitch of the mouth, the tiniest movement, told me that Bernhardt, too, had her suspicions about Rosine. “She faced a lifetime tied to this man.”
“She’d agreed to marry him.”
“Do we know that, Bertie?”
I gazed at her in mystification.
She explained, “The father’s choice of a son-in-law doesn’t always coincide with his daughter’s.”
“Sarah, do you know something? Is there a lover?”
“Intuition, pure intuition.”
I told her candidly, “We should be dealing in facts, not fancies.”
“All right. Do you know for a fact that Rosine loved Maurice Letissier?”
“Come, come, Sarah,” I chided her. “People of rank don’t marry for love. They do it to produce sons.” As I spoke, I was all too aware how difficult this would be to convey to Bernhardt, the love child of a courtesan. Poor Sarah had loved many men and married only one, a Greek, on a whim of passion, and he had been utterly unsuitable, addicted to morphine, which had killed him at forty-two. How could a woman of her romantic nature and experience understand the fine discrimination that goes into the uniting of two young people of family? “In society, you marry the girl your parents invite to sit next to you at dinner. Love is what happens with someone else, preferably after you have produced an heir.”
She said, “You can’t legislate for love, Bertie. It can happen at any time.”
“I know that only too well, my dear.”
“Didn’t you have lovers before you married?”
“I was not without experience,” I said guardedly, “but I am a male. Young ladies of Rosine’s class are entirely ignorant of such matters, and rightly so.”
“In England, possibly,” said Bernhardt with disdain. “You are in France now.”
The task was hopeless. She didn’t understand a word I was saying, and anyway, we were interrupted by the first violin from the quintet. He was at liberty among the tables, playing at people with a view to francs, so I finished the oysters to a rendering of some mournful chanson. I paid him and pushed the plate aside. “The only certainty is that we are faced with a domestic murder. Another visit to Montroger is essential.”
The fish course I had chosen was salmon trout with whitebait. Before I could intervene, she sent hers back and asked for a smaller portion.
I told her, “I could have helped you with that.”
She said, “Bertie, shouldn’t we take that gun to the police?”
“Keep your voice down,” said I.
“It may be important to their investigation.”
I told her confidentially, “This may be a case the Sûreté should not be encouraged to pursue. Jules d’Agincourt is an old friend.”
