The Montmartre Investigation: 3rd Victor Legris Mystery. Claude Izner

and a pencil he settled himself in a rickety armchair.

      A chubby face topped with a chignon appeared round the door connecting the study to the rest of the apartment.

      ‘So, you are there, my pet? I thought I heard singing. You might have let me know you were here! Are you going to tuck into some lovely cabbage soup?’

      ‘Not hungry.’

      ‘You’ve got to eat! You’re as white as a sheet and your arms are like lollipop sticks! You’re wearing yourself out; I might have something to say to your bosses. And for heaven’s sake, how many times over could Monsieur Mori have given you scarlet fever? That would have taken the biscuit! He’s better at least?’

      ‘No, yes, I don’t know. I’m writing in case you’re interested …’

      ‘He should have taken my advice. Cupping is what draws the illness out from under the skin or leeches; it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. Writing or not, you’ve five minutes to come through for dinner.’

      She wrinkled her nose and sniffed, looking about suspiciously.

      ‘There’s a strange smell, and it’s not my soup! Is it you, by any chance?’

      ‘Me? What does it smell of?’ asked Jojo, flaring his nostrils.

      Madame Pignot studied her son dispassionately; when had he stopped shaving?

      ‘It smells of goat. Right, five minutes!’ she finished in a threatening tone as she went out.

      Jojo sniffed his jacket. His mother had a keen sense of smell. The shoe! He pulled it from his pocket, took it over to the lamp and let the light play on it, the pearls shimmering. A fairy tale slipper, a Cinderella slipper … ‘The girl who fits this slipper shall be my betrothed …’

      He imagined Valentine slowly removing her corset, her underskirts and her blouse … but his fantasy was ruined by the extremely disagreeable smell emanating from the red silk. What had that bizarre character been telling him? He’d mentioned a sheepfold, a street called ‘croule’ something or other, a dog, goats, lions, a real muddle, but that smell … There was no doubt, it was the smell of goat. And the headed notepaper from the shop – was that just a coincidence? And why had Monsieur Mori run off like that at the sight of the shoe, as if he had had the devil at his heels?

      ‘Say what you like, it’s not normal. I’ll note it all down; it might come in handy …’

      Just as he picked up his notebook, a ferocious voice thundered: ‘My pet! The five minutes are up! Your soup is getting cold!’

       CHAPTER 3

       Friday 13 November

      THE bookshop was still slumbering, bathed in a gloomy half-light. A wisp of steam rose from a cup that had been left beside the bust of Molière. Kenji had spread a green cloth over the centre table and was busily arranging the wicker chairs that Jojo had fetched from the back of the shop. The silence was broken by the occasional rumble of a carriage on Rue des Saints-Pères.

      ‘I can’t see a thing. Turn the lights up, will you, Joseph,’ said Victor, yawning.

      He tottered down the stairs. He should have resisted the urge to go back to bed after returning from Tasha’s at dawn. He felt about as refreshed as a drunk nursing a hangover. He narrowly avoided colliding with Kenji.

      ‘What are you doing here? What about the quarantine?’

      ‘The ship is ready to weigh anchor. Dr Reynaud has given me a clean bill of health.’

      ‘And you have organised a party to celebrate this new freedom?’

      ‘May I remind you that we are receiving the Friends of Old Paris? Monsieur Anatole France said he would be coming. Why are you waving your arms about like that, Joseph?’

      ‘It’s the battleaxe, Boss! I mean … the Comtesse de Salignac.’

      Joseph indicated a haughty woman wrapped in a large, floral cape and wearing a stern expression who was standing outside the shop, waiting for someone to deign to let her in, which Kenji hurriedly did.

      ‘Not a moment too soon. I was beginning to believe you intended leaving me out there to freeze. It would appear you are opening late today. I see you have returned from your travels, Monsieur Mori.’

      ‘Yes, I … How may we be of service, my dear lady?’

      The sound of the telephone ringing took Victor away.

      ‘I want three copies of Georges de Peyrebrune’s latest book, Giselle, which Charpentier and Fasquelle are about to bring out. First editions, if possible.’

      While Kenji went over to his desk, Joseph turned his back on the Comtesse and picked up the newspaper he had bought on his way to work.

      ‘If you had a modicum of manners, young man, you would offer me a seat on one of those numerous chairs. Unless of course they are merely for show,’ said the Comtesse.

      Jojo dropped the newspaper with a start, and it fell open on the floor. Victor, having hung up the receiver, was hurriedly pulling up a chair for the Comtesse. Ignoring his gesture, she extracted a lorgnette from her reticule, bent down and began reading an article out loud:

      ‘Macabre dawn discovery. A young woman was found strangled, her face disfigured by acid, lying at Killer’s Crossing, between Boulevard Montmartre and Boulevard Poissonière. She was wearing …’

      ‘These rags are sickening!’ cried the Comtesse, standing bolt upright. ‘Gore is all that interests them! If it isn’t train crashes and executions, it’s murder! And it is contaminating our literature. This article is as grotesque as the latest novel of Monsieur Huysmans!’

      ‘Are you referring to The Damned?’ Victor asked.

      ‘I am indeed. Monsieur Huysmans might one day regret having written it. Many of his admirers, Monsieur Legris, already regret having read it. Poor France!’

      She exited imperiously before Kenji, who had stood to attention, had a chance to say goodbye.

      ‘Was she referring to Monsieur Anatole?’

      ‘She was lamenting the moral state of the country,’ Victor replied wearily. ‘Would you go and buy me a cigar, Joseph?’

      Jojo grabbed his newspaper, relieved to have an excuse to slip away. Kenji watched him leave and then went upstairs under the pretext of writing a letter. He stood at his desk, fiddling with the corner of his blotter and idly contemplating a very fine ink-on-silk drawing of Mount Fuji by Kanõ Tanyu,10 which he planned to frame. Through his clouded vision, the volcano took on the form of an enormous, snow-capped shoe. What had he done with the shoe that had given him such a fright? He seemed to recall having dropped it in the bookshop, or had he left it in the carriage? He had nearly asked Joseph, but stopped himself just in time, for that would have meant mentioning Iris. The events of the previous evening had been so confused! His panic when he had recognised the shoe Joseph had proffered as one he had bought in London; his frantic race to the Bontemps Boarding School, expecting to learn some tragic piece of news; his dread of revealing his secret to Victor; his relief when Iris came running towards him, overjoyed at his surprise visit, and the explanation she had given for the lost shoe. He had been awake all night rehearsing the conversation he had now resolved to have with Victor, which he had put off for so long.

      He shut himself in the bathroom, and after holding his hands under the hot-water tap for a moment placed them over his face. He looked at a photograph in an ornate frame that stood on a marble shelf above the washbasin: Daphné and Victor, London 1872. A young, dark-haired woman was lovingly embracing a boy of around twelve and staring at the camera with a dreamy expression. Kenji picked up the portrait and pressed it to his lips.

      Joseph walked, reading his newspaper so