Louis Shalako: A Stranger In Paris, Pt. 16. An Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery. Louis Shalako.

"...can you say that again, please...???"

Louis Shalako

It was mid-afternoon at this point. With the help of Alphonse and a city map, they had reconstructed his route as best they could. It turned out the block in question, where their Amazon, as Alphonse insisted on calling their Holmes look-a-like, had disappeared, was the address of a large, modern hotel. It took but a short leap of imagination, a phone book, and then Hubert made the call.

“Yeah, that makes sense. I’m pretty sure it was right along in there somewhere.” Alphonse was comfortably seated, legs crossed, tie loosened and jacket hanging off the back of the chair.

Gilles had noted fresh manila envelopes on the blotter, and he set about opening the first one as Hubert spoke quietly in the far corner.

“What? What?”

“Can you say that again?” And a hand jammed over an ear.

Hubert’s tone and volume were going up…and then up some more.

He listened, and they all sat there, rapt.

“A week! Holy, crap. Well, thank you. I guess—”

He hung up in a kind of disgust.

“Well.” Taking in a deep breath, he tossed his unused pen down on the desk. “Okay. According to them, they have about two hundred Sherlock Holmes staying there at the present time. There are some others that come and go—presumably they’re not all in the same hotel. Also according to them, they have at least eighty Doctor Watsons, a couple of dozen Moriaritys, several femmes fatale, presumably based on the characters, and there is even a smattering of Baker Street Irregulars.”

There was only so high that several sets of eyebrows could go…

Apparently, there was someone there with a couple of really big hounds, on a leash, but hounds never the less.

He spoke in a dry tone—

“The Hounds of the Baskervilles, ah, sir.”

The Hounds of the Baskervilles...

Gilles stared at him, coffee mug halfway to his mouth.

“What…what in the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s a convention, sir. People from all over the world, to hear him tell it. It’s the annual Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Festival. It brings a million francs into the city every year. Er, they give out some sort of French-language literary award. Best mystery, best foreign book, all that sort of thing. A mystery-writing award. So, it’s all writers, publishers—bookstore representatives, all kinds of buyers, collectors, they have all kinds of what they call discussion panels. Hospitality rooms. Wine and cheese bashes. A big banquet on the final evening, and it’s a black-tie, sort of ball thing. Waltzing with the lady friend, sort of thing. Lots of autographs, authors rubbing elbows with the rabble. Oh, tables full of books and magazines for sale, and then of course there are all the fans. Some of whom can be quite intense, as you already know—”

Alphonse cracked up.

“Ha! Ha, ha.” He reddened in the face. “Sorry, sir.”

He chuckled again, more of a giggle, really. It was contagious, Gilles realized…

“Well, don’t that beat all.” Alphonse rose, taking his cup to their little brew-up area. “Well, at least the coffee is good. You boys do pretty well for yourselves up here.”

“Yes. Yes, thank you, Alphonse. I will see you tomorrow.” Gilles would be taking the Metro home tonight, or maybe even just walk it.

It had been dry for a whole day now, and it might be good to get some exercise.

“Anyways, I really am sorry about all that, ah, sir…”

“No. No. Don’t be. Don’t be—at least now we know, eh?”

Alphonse grinned.

“Right. Just one more little mystery, ah, solv-ed.” Coat now on, he gave the room a quick salute.

“Alphonse.”

“Sir?”

“Get that tire fixed. Ah—both of them.”

“Sir.” He hesitated. “Actually, I was thinking all new rubber…”

Maintenon nodded.

“Fine.”

Alphonse took his hat and bolted, and Gilles’s chair tipped back, the feet came up and it was time to read the fucking reports.

***

A quick sniff before coming in...

Langeron poked his head in the door and had a quick sniff before committing.

“Ah. Sir.” Hubert got up to shove a chair into place, still a bit warm from Alphonse, and turned to see if there was coffee in the pot.

“Roger.”

“Gilles.”

He nodded.

Maintenon straightened up. He indicated the documents.

“Toxicology reports. A strong opiate, probably morphine. Taken orally. Possibly in a drink. Possibly shoved down their throats, as far as we know. No other evidence, for example needle-marks or partially-dissolved pills in the, er, innards.” In the gizzard as his old man would have said.

“Okay.”

“Stomach contents. Not exactly starving to death, but nothing extraordinary. What difference does it make, when you have no other clues otherwise.”

“Understood.”

“Notepaper, cheap domestic product, available at ten thousand stationers, and that’s just here in town. Only fingerprints on it are our own. Not a smudge, otherwise.” The actual ink, pretty much the same thing.

Ball-point pens were made in their millions these days.

“As surmised.”

“Yes. We’re going to need one hell of a lot of manpower. I’m glad you stopped in.”

Roger digested this.

“I ran into Alphonse in the hallway. That’s quite the story.”

“Yes. But also, it raises certain flags. I’ve already noted, these killings are bullshit, all the way from A to Z.”

“What do you mean by that, Gilles?”

“A few francs in a pocket. A poker chip. A modus. A profile, at least of three victims.” People returning from the dead.

People who may, or may have not, left town. People who fit the description…a list of names, shoved in his pocket, among other things. And famous fictional detectives, male or female, popping up from time to time.

“Ah. Yes. I see.”

“Virtually none of it really means anything. Then there is the list. We need people to shadow each and every one of our potential victims. Their alleged love interests, even their landladies. And yet, it may come to nothing, in the end. It may be a joke—it may be misdirection.”

“So. All right. How can I help, Gilles.”

“We need a good judge. We need a shit-load of surveillance. We need wire-taps, and a lot of them. We need a break, as much as anything.” Someone, (probably God), would have to sign off on that.

Simply flooding the town with gendarmes, none of whom knew what to expect or what to look for, none of whom knew anything, and could not really be given anything, in the way of real information, was not going to catch their killer.

They needed to get ahead of the curve, and they were still behind. Way behind—

“And now. Handwriting analysis. A confident person. An educated person. The actual style, is indeterminate. If this was written by a German, one might expect certain unconscious variations, bearing in mind the German S, for example. Which I always thought was a B. This is one reason why we look things up…rather than embarrassing ourselves on the stand.” Interestingly, the list had been written with one pen, black ink.

The lines through the first three names had been another pen, blue ink.

“Once again, it’s a kind of bullshit.”

Then there was the whole problem of the presentation. The whole aspect of Sherlock Holmes look-alikes, that one was just plain ludicrous.

Roger sat there, nodding thoughtfully.

***

END