The Père-Lachaise Mystery: 2nd Victor Legris Mystery. Claude Izner

bas-relief. After looking around to make sure she was alone, she placed the key in the lock of the fine wrought-iron gate. The hinges creaked as it opened. She entered and descended the two steps that led to an altar at the back of the chapel. She placed her package between two candelabra and proceeded to light the candles. She looked up at a stained-glass window depicting the Virgin Mary, and crossed herself before kneeling on a prayer stool. The candles illuminated the stucco plaques with their gilded names and dates:

Antoine Auguste de Valois Division General High-ranking officer of the Legion of Honour 1786–1882		Anne Angélique Courtin de Valois 1796–1812
Eugénie Suzanne Louise His Wife 1801–1881		Pierre Casimir Alphonse de Valois Notary 1812–1871
Armand Honoré Casimir de Valois Geologist 1854–1889

      Straightening up, Odette read out in a low voice the words inscribed on a marble tablet:

       Lord, he was so good and kind!

       We loved him so tenderly!

       You have given him eternal rest

       In the bosom of a strange land.

       We are stricken by your justice.

       Let us pray for him and live in a way

       That will reunite us with him in heaven.

      She placed her hands together and, raising her voice, began to recite the Lord’s Prayer. Then she stood up and, unwrapping the package, cried out excitedly:

      ‘Armand, it is I, Odette, your Odette! I am here, I have brought what you asked for in the hope you might forgive the past. Give me a sign, my duck. Come to me, come, I beg you!’

      The only reply was the sound of rain splashing on stone. She sighed and knelt down again. The shadow of a tree, resembling a Hindu goddess with many arms, danced between the candelabra. Her eyes glued to it, the woman moved her lips silently. She stared in wonder, hypnotised by the dancing shape that grew and grew, until it reached the stained-glass window. She wanted to cry out but could only find the strength to whisper, ‘At last!’

      Denise was wandering, lost, in the Jewish part of the cemetery. She walked past the tombs of the tragedienne Rachel, and Baron James de Rothschild, without noticing them. She was afraid of bumping into the old drunkard again, and had only one desire: to find Tenon’s tomb.

      Finally she got her bearings. There in front of her stood the memorial cenotaph to André Chenier, built by his brother Marie-Joseph. She read one of the epitaphs, finding it beautiful: ‘Death cannot destroy that which is immortal.’

      Musing over the words in an attempt to forget how dark it was becoming, she turned right. She had no watch, but her inner clock told her it was time to go to the meeting place. When she arrived, there was no one there. She stood for a while, shivering with fright and cold. Her shawl was soaked through by the fine rain. Finally, she could wait no longer. She ran back up the avenue. She remembered from a previous brief visit with her mistress that the chapel dedicated to the de Valois family was a little further up, a few yards from the tomb of the astronomer Jean-Baptiste Delambre. She cried out as she ran:

      ‘Come back, Madame, I beg you! Saint Corentin, Saint Gildas, Holy Mother of God, protect me!’

      At last she could see the funerary chapel where a faint light was glowing. Looking anxiously around, she began to walk cautiously towards it. All of a sudden, a shadow darted out of a bush, chased by another. She recoiled in terror. Two cats.

      ‘Madame … Madame. Are you there?’

      It was raining more heavily now and she couldn’t see. She slipped, grabbing hold of the open gate to stop herself from falling. The chapel was empty. One of the two candles, burnt half down, dimly lit the altar where a lifeless object, resembling a sleeping animal, lay. In spite of her terror, she leaned closer and recognised the puce-coloured silk scarf her mistress had used to wrap the package she had brought with her. She was about to pick it up when something struck her wrist. A stone bounced on to the altar.

      She turned round. There was no one there. She rushed out into the avenue. It was empty. Scared out of her wits, she ran as fast as her legs would take her towards the Rue de Repos exit with only one thought in her head: to alert the gatekeeper.

      She had scarcely left when a man’s figure emerged from a corner of the chapel by the gates through which she had just hurried. A gloved hand gathered up the puce scarf, seized the flat, rectangular object lying between the candelabra, and slipped them swiftly into a shoulder bag slung over a dark frock coat.

      The man walked round the funerary monument to a grove of flowering elder trees. He took off his gloves, placed them on a tombstone and crouched down. He seized the ankles of a woman dressed in full mourning who lay senseless on the ground and dragged her over to a handcart that leant against a crypt. Catching his breath, he straightened up and began to remove a tarpaulin from the cart, which contained a strange assortment of objects: chisels, a parasol, a cabman’s frock coat, two dead cats, a woman’s ankle boot, a battered top hat, a fragment of tombstone, some scattered white lilies, the hood of a perambulator and sundry other items. The man tipped out the bric-à-brac and raised the handles of the cart to make it easier to slide the body in from the front. He had to struggle to lay the woman’s inert body out on the cart, then he concealed it under the frock coat and the perambulator hood, piled the parasol, top hat, flowers and cats on top, higgledy-piggledy, and covered everything with the tarpaulin.

      Only then did he look around him. And satisfied that there was nothing but bushes and statues, he picked up his cane and slipped away.

      Sitting at a table cluttered with papers, Denise was dabbing at her eyes, unable to regain her composure. The gatekeeper, a small, lean man with a large moustache in cap and uniform, was doing his best to calm her by patting her on the shoulder. If he’d been more daring, he’d have put his arm round her.

      ‘You must have missed each other, or maybe she took the other exit, on Boulevard de Ménilmontant. A lot of people do that around closing time. They’re afraid they’ll get locked in and rush out in a panic, forgetting there’s this exit. That must be the explanation. Don’t you think I’d have seen her going past otherwise?’

      ‘But what if … something’s happened to her?’ Denise sniffled.

      ‘Now, my dear, whatever could have happened to her? Surely you don’t think the good Lord took her straight up to heaven? Or a ghost spirited her away? You’re young all right, but not young enough to swallow that nonsense!’

      Denise smiled weakly.

      ‘That’s more like it!’ said the gatekeeper, in an approving voice, squeezing her shoulder lustily. ‘It’s a shame to spoil that pretty face of yours with tears.’

      Denise blew her nose.

      ‘The best thing for you to do is go straight home. I’ll wager your mistress is there already making you a drink of hot milk.’

      Denise felt her pocket to check she had the spare key to the apartment. Like the man said, Madame probably was at home. Even so, she persisted.

      ‘I told the cabman to wait for us on Rue de Repos.’

      The gatekeeper frowned.

      ‘I went out to smoke