Louis Shalako
Police were conducting inquiries in Montmartre, with
some vague directions from Madame Daniau, and there was every likelihood of
them finding the loft of Monsieur Saulnier.
Eventually, and that was the key—with the rent not being
paid, sooner or later the landlord would come looking, and now, press coverage
was mentioning names. Police are seeking the whereabouts of Monsieur So-and-So,
anyone with information is encouraged to contact police, in person or by
telephone at this number. The same could be said for Jean Cariveau
Uniformed
officers, finding bi-weekly cheque stubs in his desk drawer, had attended the
factory where he worked.
His employer hadn’t seen him in a couple of days. A
good employee, he would be missed.
His locker revealed nothing of interest, and
his fellow employees had been hesitant, although everyone agreed that he had
been a nice, polite young man. For that matter, the apartment had been
unoccupied. The gentleman in question hadn’t simply been keeping quiet up there
and hiding out from his landlady, for whatever reason. Unfortunately, this was
negative evidence.
It didn’t lead to an identification, although now they had a
set of full prints…presumably of the man in question. It didn’t prove a damned
thing, with no possibility of matching to any of their bodies. It didn’t prove
he hadn’t just gotten fed up, chucked everything, and moved to the South Seas
to paint, another Gauguin perhaps, or to study lizards or molluscs. Whatever.
At this point, they could not prove otherwise.
All they had, so far, was speculation.
Hopefully, the banks would cooperate and they would
soon get some financial information on their victims…at this point in the
investigation, they could hardly be compelled. There had been a few other
finger-prints from a few other individuals. There were at least more questions
to be asked, and hopefully, Madame Bernier would be able to shed some light on
that when more junior officers followed up.
One had to assume, taking such interest in her young
tenant, she would have had some idea of who had been coming and going…perhaps
only the maid, perhaps the lady herself—a delicate question to ask, but
Maintenon thought not. There had been at least one or two others, judging by
some solo prints and some other partials, and at this point, they were grasping
at straws when it came to leads.
At this point, they had no real reason to ask her for a set of prints.
There was the question of resemblance between their two victims. The problem there was, the
second victim was five centimetres shorter, a few kilos lighter, and all
indications were that Jean had brown eyes and lighter, almost blond hair. Seven
hundred francs on him. What was that money actually for? There were other resemblances,
although perhaps not physical.
These were more a matter of circumstance—the
influence of the ladies, older women both, the fact that those reported missing
were single males of a certain age and background, and all of this meant
nothing.
It was still all just bullshit.
***
They’d gotten a lucky break. A tip from a landlord,
one who read the papers assiduously, as the man had assured them, led them to
Paul Saulnier’s loft-style apartment. There was no doubt as to the tenant,
there were letters and papers and more than anything, finished and unfinished
musical scores abounded.
Their key fit…it had not fit the door to the lady’s
apartment. This did not necessarily prove that their victim was Saulnier. It
was, however, evidence of some close connection, and the odds were that their victim
would, eventually, prove to be Saulnier.
Maintenon was fishing, poking, prying open reluctant
cupboard doors and yanking on jammed kitchen drawers.
There was a crummy old upright piano, as well as a
classical guitar, a flute and some other obscure instruments, a bit dusty but
otherwise serviceable to a budding composer, seeking inspiration perhaps or
maybe just working out an obscure passage for the horn section…a seven-piece
set of drums, which must have been wonderful for the neighbours.
There was some evidence of meal preparation, although
the washing up had been done…
“A talented man.”
Andre raised an inquiring eyebrow.
“Really?”
Gilles nodded, holding a musical score. Saulnier had
been using commercially-available printed blanks, with the lines and the treble
clef on the left side where it belonged, and a couple of blank lines where the
artist had filled in the title and the name of the composer.
A
Stranger In Paris, by Jean-Paul Saulnier. Maintenon wasn’t
sure that in needed to be
capitalized, but admittedly didn’t know much about music publishing. Or maybe
Saulnier just didn’t know that much about spelling—or accepted writing
style—the rest of it seemed all right, though.
As for the police, they had their own accepted style
book. The ultimate icon of a decadent
society.
As someone somewhere must have once said.
The lyrics would appear to be sentimental, perhaps
even haunting—if enough people ever heard it, it might very well have become a
hit. There was no date, and the sheets were cleaner, more dust-free than some
of the stacks on the upper shelves along the back wall of what must have once
been a living room. The actual bedroom was tiny, the kitchen an organized mess, the
bathroom not very clean but still organized for such a small space.
This particular one would appear to be complete, with
a total of four sheets.
“I didn’t know you could read music.”
“Oh, I can read it, I just can’t play it. But this one
looks musical enough. Note the change of key and tempo at the third refrain.
It’s a bit daring, even for modern tastes.” Maintenon hummed a few bars,
nodding appreciatively.
Picking up more sheets, they appeared to be hasty
sketches of set decorations, coloured pencils and watercolour, what looked like
Art Nouveau, backdrops and quite a few sheets of what looked like choreographed
steps for couples, single dancers and the supporting troupe…a complex series of
actions onstage, all laid out on paper.
As if in complete afterthought, down low and hastily
scrawled in pencil, ‘the collective’.
Maintenon wondered what it meant, perhaps some
avant-garde dance group somewhere.
Maybe it was the title of an opera. A thing
like this would take a fair number of people to pull it off. It’s the sort of
thing the writer would have to deal with, if he ever had become a success.
There were a couple of thumps and faint voices from
the other side of the door. A building of great age, he’d been noticing just
how quiet it was, up there on the fifth floor, under the tiles.
No buses, trams
or the Metro up here. The stone and masonry walls, easily a metre thick, had
been thickly plastered over, or framed and panelled and painted and varnished
on the inside.
There was a light rap on the door from the uniformed
constable stationed outside.
Presumably.
“Yes?”
The door opened a few centimetres and a pair of
watery, pale blue eyes regarded them with some air of mischief. Through the
crack, they could see a darker male bulk sort of hovering beside him, only half
of a face as of yet.
“Yes?” Voice lower, Maintenon repeated the question.
“Sorry, sir. Sirs. It’s just that this gentleman
claims he lives here—”
There was a startled gasp—
The face was gone, the door banged shut then slightly
open again. There were grunts and heavy breathing, and hard shoes clunked and
slithered on dusty old boards.
“Argh.”
“Sir.
Sir—”
The door swung wide, and one angry young man, the
officer still clinging to an arm and his belt, stood in the doorway, face red
from exertion and the climbing of all those stairs.
“I say. Who in the hell are you, anyways?”
Andre turned and engaged Maintenon’s eye.
 |
| "Well. That's fucking torn it." |
“Monsieur Paul Saulnier, one must presume.” Well,
that’s torn it, thought Andre.
Especially as Madame Daniau had so very positively
identified the body in the morgue as her
Paul.
Merde.
***
Tall, spare and with a certain lean and hungry look,
Roger Langeron was Prefect of the Paris police. Subordinate to the Minister of
Justice, it was one step below, literally, from cabinet rank.
He’d never let that stop him, or the fact that he had
been a life-long civil servant, with little actual police experience, from
using his so-called hands-on approach. Sooner or later, he was bound to show
up, with plenty of questions and a few ideas of his own. Where other men might
have had a comb, he had a brush. Langeron favoured longish hair, the grey at
the temples carefully corralled by dye elsewhere and by regular and
professional trimming. With a face like that, sooner or later, he’d wind up on
a banknote, as some were fond of saying.
He’d been reading the papers, of course, the silence
in the squad room punctuated only by the ticking of the clock on the wall and
the cooing of the doves on the window ledges. The sound of the gusting wind
foretold another long, cold winter, and just around the corner too. Just then,
the setting sun must have dropped below the lowering clouds, lighting up the
far corners with a garish, hot orange light.
Langeron sighed.
“Unbelievable.”
“Yes, it’s true. We have nothing to hold him on—a
missed identification by the lady, and a day or two absent without explanation,
well. That doesn’t mean much.” The only trouble was, they still had a body or
two on ice and no idea of whom they might have belonged to. “With no basis for
a charge or an arrest, we had no very good right to search him. When we
identified ourselves, he clammed up and asked for a lawyer—why, is a very good
question. Surely he has nothing to fear from some unconnected, anonymous victim
in an alley.”
Also, how would he know what it was about?
Theoretically, he didn’t—
“You didn’t search him…for what, exactly?”
“How about a door key?” It came out harsher than
Gilles meant.
Appearances aside, Langeron was anything but a fool.
“Hmn.” Brushing a speck of lint from his trousers,
Roger nodded. “Ah. He shows up at the loft, just when the police are there—and
one has to assume coincidence. One
has to assume, that he still has a
key.”
And almost any idiot could have two keys. Almost any
rental agreement would specify at least a couple of keys…right? One could get a
key cut for twenty centimes, and no questions asked, at any one of a thousand
places. And that was just in town—assuming one wanted to be careful about it.
One had to assume that he wasn’t somewhere in the
neighbourhood, nursing a cold coffee in some sidewalk bistro, and watching for
the flics to arrive. Which they must
do in some due course—assuming any kind of foresight, any kind of a plot—
Hmn.
Any kind of assumption was a bad thing, as stated
clearly in the manual. Yet the key was clearly significant, assuming it didn’t
belong in the dead man’s pocket to begin with.
But what if it did?
That opened up another whole line of inquiry, all of it requiring manpower.
As Gilles had said, it was still all just bullshit—
So far, anyways.
Even Langeron could see that, as the cold dead eyes of
a salamander momentarily took in Andre, and Hubert kept his head down, taking
whatever notes he could.
Andre spoke.
“What’s sort of interesting, is that he was wearing a
ring.”
“A what? Oh, a ring. Huh.”
Saulnier, at least, had a ring. At the time. At the
only time of direct observation.
“Yes—exactly.” Maintenon shook his head. “It’s one of
those things, either it means everything, or it means nothing. And yet, if we
are to have any hope whatsoever, of solving these crimes…it will almost
inevitably be something. One, single, tiny, little thing, that gives it away.”
It would be the first thread. Pull on that, and whole
damned sweater would unravel. Yet, at this point, Gilles just couldn’t see
where to begin.
Langeron chewed on that for a moment.
 |
| Langeron had a brush where others might have a comb. |
“And what about our second victim?”
“Merde.
It’s the same thing again. A young man, absent from his workplace for a day or
two. A few days at best. He had the weekend off, right. Then he doesn’t show up
for a couple of days. It does not seem to be a money problem. They were not in
trouble, they were not known to the police. Not known to be gamblers, or to
frequent the race-track. No known love interests, other than the landlady, so
to speak. So far, the second gentleman hasn’t turned up. As for an
identification, Madame Bernier could not or possibly would not, say. Of course, she was hysterical. She is also the
product of generations of sexual repression of the regular sort. And once
again, the body has few if any unique marks, scars, tattoos, birthmarks. This
is not evidence. It tells us nothing as to motive, if any, nor does it give any
hint as to the identity of the killer.”
Then there was the poker chip in the pocket of victim
number two. If he wasn’t a gambler, didn’t work in any such establishment, what
was it doing there?
“Well. We need to tell the press something—”
That was his problem and Maintenon thought otherwise.
He would tell them nothing at all, if he thought he could get away with it.
“Tell them we are pursuing all possible leads.”
Langeron snorted, and gave his head a distinct shake.
He grinned, and in his case it was sincere.
Some real humour there. It quickly faded. He rubbed
his polished cheeks for a moment, completely unconsciously.
“All right, Gilles.” He sighed, deeply.
He could only push so hard, and Maintenon was probably
the best man for the job.
If anyone could catch such a lunatic, it would be
Gilles.
“That was a pretty good speech the other day, or so I
hear.” He’d been out of town, oddly enough—
“Thank you. Thank you very much.” The truth was, the
speech hadn’t been very good.
Langeron probably knew that too.
For some reason, Maintenon just wasn’t built for
making speeches. It wasn’t his métier.
END
Louis has all kinds of books and
stories on Google Play. Many of them are free.
Images. The internet, mostly Public Domain.
Thank you for reading.
