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

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       Read the next Victor Legris Mystery

      Praise for Murder on the Eiffel Tower:

      ‘Isabel Reid’s seamless translation captures the novel’s many period charms’ The Independent

      ‘… a clock-beating thriller … entertaining views of 19th century Paris’ Financial Times

      ‘A fascinating book, full of the atmosphere of late nineteenth century France, … crossing between conventional lifestyles and that of the bohemian artists who inhabit the Left Bank … Worth reading. The storyline is strong and intriguing. Victor Legris makes an interesting hero’ Monsters and Critics

      ‘… a charming and amusing whirl around a time of rapid social and intellectual change’ Morning Star

      ‘The plot is exciting and the whole story raced away nicely. This was an enjoyable introduction to this author. I look forward to the next saga in Victor’s life’ www.crimesquad.com

      THE

      PÈRE-LACHAISE

      MYSTERY

      CLAUDE IZNER

      Translated by Lorenza Garcia and Isabel Reid

      To all the usual people!

      And to our dear Invisible Ones

      ‘Are you still there? You are undoubtedly dead, but from where I am, you can speak to the dead.’

      Victor Hugo

      ‘We are all ghosts …’

      Élisabeth d’Autriche

      CONTENTS

      Title Page

      Dedication

      Epigraph

      Plan of the Père-Lachaise Cemetery

      Plan of Victor Legris’s Paris

      The Père-Lachaise Mystery

      Appendix

      Notes

      About the Author

      ALSO BY CLAUDE IZNER:

      Copyright

       THE PÈRE-LACHAISE CEMETERY

       VICTOR LEGRIS’S PARIS

       PROLOGUE

       Cauca province, Columbia. November 1889

      They had finally reached Las Juntas after a difficult descent through forests dripping with humidity. A bearded man led the way. Behind him were two Indian bearers, carrying a fourth man in a hammock slung between two poles that rested on their shoulders. They were about half a mile outside the village on a stony path bordered with flowering lavender. The twenty or so shacks surrounded by meagre plantations of maize and tobacco stood out against the charred foothills of the Andes Cordillera. Down below, the restless waters of the river Dagua rolled towards the Pacific Ocean.

      The path they had been following ended in front of the grandly named Hacienda del Dagua, an abandoned house dating back to the time when Las Juntas had been a lively centre of commerce between Cali and Buenaventura. All that remained of it now was rubble overgrown with weeds. Only one bedroom, its roof caved in, was still standing.

      The bearers placed the improvised stretcher on some straw-filled crates and left hurriedly, muttering the words, ‘Duendes, duendes.’ The bearded man pulled a face. Under normal circumstances a haunted house would have aroused his curiosity, but for three days now nothing had gone as planned, and he felt a growing indifference to the world around him. He watched the Indians leave, removed his haversack and looked around the room.

      A mass of cobwebs hung like a thick veil over a jumble of broken carriage wheels, metal cogs, the remains of a telegraph machine and dozens of empty bottles. The man picked up a yellow, worm-eaten volume – the pages almost turned to dust: Stances à la Malibran by Alfred de Musset. He laughed to himself. Musset, here of all places! How absurd! He dropped the book and bent over the body lying across the straw-filled crates. The dying man was about the same height as him, but of heavier build. His unbuttoned shirt revealed his chest bathed in sweat, each intake of breath rattling as though it were his last. Red froth bubbled from his mouth. The bullet had hit him in the back, piercing his lung. He’s not long for this world, thought the bearded man, surprised at how detached he felt.

      He opened the haversack and spread its contents on the compacted earth: a wallet, a couple of cartridges, some underclothes, a knife, some ordnance survey maps. An envelope was sticking out of the wallet, addressed to ‘M. Armand de Valois, Geologist with the Inter-Oceanic Company, c/o Señora Caicedo, Hotel Rosalie, Cali, Colombia’. He opened the letter and read it out in a low voice:

       29th July 1889

       My dearest Armand,

      How are you, my duck? Your letter was waiting for me yesterday on my return from Paris. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay at Houlgate. My friend Adalberte de Brix (President Brix’s widow, you remember) was renting a villa close to mine. We went on a few pleasant walks together and played lawn tennis, badminton and croquet and met some charming people – in particular the well-known English spiritualist M. Numa Winner. Just imagine, he predicted both M. de Lesseps’s bankruptcy and the cessation of work on the canal as far back as two years ago! I visited him at his house several times in the company of Adalberte. Since her son Alberic was taken in his prime, she has developed a boundless passion for séances and has consulted several mediums, with no real success, until she encountered M. Numa Winner. And now, my darling, can you imagine, she has spoken to young Alberic through him. I should never have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes. It was astonishing! Young Alberic implored his mother to stop mourning his departure and said that he was happy where he was, and cried out ‘Free! Free at last!’ What a comfort, don’t you agree? I asked M. Numa some questions of my own, and he assured me that your troubles will soon be over and that you will enjoy a well-earned rest. You see, my duck, your little wife is thinking of you. Did I tell you that your bookseller M. Legris, from Rue des Saints-Pères, was involved in a series of sordid murders at the Universal Exposition? Raphaëlle de Gouveline told me that he was seen about with a Russian émigrée, a loose woman who poses nude as an artist’s model. Nothing would surprise me about that man; he doesn’t wear a top hat and has a Chinese servant. I shall end here as I have a fitting with Mme Maud, on Rue du Louvre. It’s a wonderful dress; the cut is quite … But hush, now, it’s going to be a surprise. Your little wife wishes to look pretty for your return. Write to me soon. I send you a thousand heliotrope-scented kisses.

       Your Odette

      The sky was clouding over. The man put the letter back in the envelope and replaced it in the wallet, which he slipped into the dying man’s pocket. As he did so, something darted through the air above him, then disappeared. He lit a candle