“The little train that runs around Paris?”
“ C’est ca, exactement. Get off at Station de Passy and walk away from the Bois de Boulogne on the Rue de Passy. She has an apartment on the top two floors of a large building on the Place de Passy. Her father owns the property, she told me. Buy tickets on the train. Children ride free.”
While Carmela stood at the table holding the guest book, she noticed the name underneath Elena’s. Etienne Gaston. “Is this Elena’s latest lover?” she asked.
Berthe Morisot studied the signature and nodded. “That’s the one. What she sees in him… He’s tall enough, handsome, I suppose, if you like his type.”
“His type?”
“Full of himself, my dear. Don’t tell me you’ve never-”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Carmela copied down his address.
Chapter 11: Alphonse Valois
Alphonse Valois lived in the sixth arrondissement on a side street near the fashionable Luxembourg Gardens. It was a hike to and from his office on the Ile de la Cite, but whenever the weather allowed, he walked to work. The twice-daily exercise stretched his legs and his mind, and he loved it. Not, however, this evening. That Sicilian sleuth had spoiled everything.
He crossed the Pont Saint-Michel and strode down the Boul’Mich keeping his eyes fixed on the ground, realizing too late that he’d passed the fountain. So he stood, indecisive, straightening his lapels, staring at the string of plane trees, and letting the crowds of students shove around him until he caught himself. He ran back to the Place Saint-Michel and touched his chapeau melon to the archangel. After patting the dragon’s foot for good measure, he expanded his chest and continued on his way.
Closer to home, he watched an argument between two neighborhood boys whom he’d seen often enough playing in the street together. He had half a mind to break up the fight, but it seemed harmless enough. After all, young boys had arguments. He smiled, glad for the respite from dark thoughts.
Once the investigation had seemed so simple, the murder of a questionable woman whose body was found on the Rue Cassette. Now, because of the Florio woman, the case was like a toothache, intrusive and persistent. He longed to be done with it, to be home within his own four walls where nothing disturbed. He needed a good meal, a restful evening, a gentle talk with his wife about this and that-her garden, the price of veal, the news of the neighborhood, and his son’s day at school.
Life had returned to normal after the war and the bloody days of the Commune. In fact, Parisians seemed to enjoy life even more because of the twin tragedies. He moved on, walking more swiftly down the Rue de Vaugirard toward home.
Looking back on it, he realized part of him had known there’d be complications the moment he’d seen the victim. He should have taken greater care. Her disheveled hair, her painted face, and the ring of dirt around her neck told one story. Her papers told another. According to the Italian passport he’d found in her reticule, she was a Sicilian countess. But he knew the aristocracy were a penurious lot in Sicily. That might explain the woman’s slovenly appearance, or perhaps she’d had a taste for the bizarre.
They’d found her before first light. It was difficult to see so he’d walked to the corner and examined the documents underneath the nearest gaslight. He rubbed his fingers together, remembering the feel of the rough paper. According to the date on the photo, it had been taken some ten years earlier, not a good likeness at all, but half the dead woman’s face had been blown away by the blast. And of course there was a difference between a person’s looks in life and in death. He knew from bitter experience that death stripped away expression.
The mystery of her identity puzzled him during the initial hours of his investigation, along with how and why she died and who could have killed her. Why was the countess in France? She’d been here for quite some time, according to the passport. Perhaps she was a kept woman. Perhaps a gentleman with dubious tastes had paid for her passage and now was tired of her.
He’d gone over and over his initial involvement, his early suppositions, breaking his first movements into simple steps, the loud knock on his door waking him from sleep. He’d walked to the scene with the sergent de ville who’d found her, asking him the basic questions of who, what, when, assuring himself that the body hadn’t been moved, waiting patiently while the photographer took his photos, taking his time with the scene, examining her garments, searching the ground for traces left by her killer, looking for imprints next to the victim, scraps of paper, clumps of hair, a fingernail, anything that did not belong. He made sure he could describe what he’d seen, closing his eyes and imaging the exact position of the body in the street relative to the curb, the placement of the hands, the face, the torso, the feet, writing down his impressions in great detail. He made sure the photographer had recorded the face and body from every angle before he released the dead woman to the morgue.
“Hey you, watch where you’re going? Some kind of peasant? Could have been killed!”
He stepped back from the curb, and tipped his hat to the carter, shouting, “Grateful to you, kind sir,” and continued on, his ears pounding. He felt the rush of blood to his face. Wiping his forehead, he walked more slowly until his heartbeat returned to normal and he could appreciate the moment. He focused on the present by looking around and observing details-the vegetables and fruit displayed in front of the epicerie, the order and care with which they were arranged, the cleanliness of the storefront’s glass. The grocer, Monsieur Dupre stood at his window, a white apron tied around his belly. Valois bowed to him and to the cart vendor at the corner who gave him a toothless grin and held out a bunch of violets. “For your beautiful wife, Monsieur l’Inspecteur.”
He gave the woman a few coins and waved to the driver of a passing carriage, noting the size and color of the horse, the condition of the wheels, the harness and tack. He made a mental note of everything he saw, the debris by the side of the road, the birds in the trees, taking into account anything unusual, fingerprints on the glass of a neighborhood cafe, the rustle of its net curtains. When he arrived at his front gate, he’d quiz himself on what he remembered, the way he did when he was young and carefree and so eager to practice detection.
Good work, Valois. Yes, he’d calmed his spirits and exercised his mental faculties after his meeting today with the prefect and that Sicilian investigator and her friend. Arrogant females who barely spoke two words of proper French. What could they know of his business? Why did they have the audacity to question him? Perhaps not the fat one, no, she’d been polite. She’d had a kind face and spoke passable French, but the one who called herself an investigator, such cheek, and clothed in a style five years past its prime. Francoise would have hidden her smile, but she’d have been amused.
Yes, of course, this was the way to peace for him, an exercise he enjoyed, a stretching of limbs and mind. It was the way to solve cases. Concentrate on the present for the present contains the evidence, physical, incontrovertible. The killer leaves his traces. Few of us see what really goes on around us, but Valois was one of the few. Look at the color they’re painting that door, for instance. Two workers, industrious, not stopping to chat. Such a deep blue, like the color of Francoise’s eyes, and so many coats of varnish. He hadn’t seen it this morning when he’d passed. It lifted the neighborhood. He looked up at the sky and observed the clouds, counted the chimneys on each of the buildings, noted with pride the cream-colored facade of each building. Haussmann was a genius. He wondered what Francoise would say when he told her about Madame Florio.