The Curse of the Grand Guignol (19 page)

She shrugged her slender
shoulders. “Salonnieres are boring. La marquise is boring. She puts
ground up nacre on her face. She mixes it with rouge.”

The tiny cell contained a single
metal bed covered with a thin mattress made of ticking. There was
no bed linen. On the bed was a young woman. She was lying on her
back and her wrists and ankles were bound with leather straps to
the four corners of the bed. Covering her body was a prickly grey
blanket. Her eyes were open but they looked glassy and blank. She
might have been dead but for the fact she was still breathing, her
chest rising and falling shallowly, visible only because of a shaft
of watery light that leaked in through a dirty window the size of a
handkerchief.

“Who is she?” asked the
Countess.

“My sister - Coco.”

“How did she…I mean what’s wrong
with…What happened to her?”

“She fell off the trapeze. That
was two years ago. She was not crippled but she was in a lot of
pain. She started to drink white absinthe and then she began mixing
it with opium. She became wild when she couldn’t have it. Like an
animal. There was no money to pay for more and more opium every
day. She started to sell herself. First in a brothel and then on
the streets. She was badly beaten many times and almost died. The
police brought her here because she was a prostitute. Serge pays
for her treatment.”

“Monsieur Serge Davidov?”

“Yes, he knew us both when we
worked in the circus. When he came and begged me to work in
le
Cirque du Grand Guignol
I agreed as long as he paid for Coco to
be looked after.”

“Why is she restrained?”

Kiki pulled back the blanket to
reveal her sister’s wrists. “She will get splinters of wood or
glass to stab at her wrists. Sometimes I think it might be for the
best to let her die. Is that awful? Am I an awful sister? I feel
bad that she fell instead of me. Shhh, someone’s coming!”

Footsteps came and went. Whoever
was outside, paused and walked on.

Gently, Kiki touched her
sister’s pale forehead and caressed the long stingy hair splayed
out across the thin mattress. “This place is awful but where else
can Coco go? Did you know the Grand Guignol on rue Chaptal did an
act set in an insane asylum not long ago?”

The Countess shook her head.

“A pretty young girl is set upon
by two jealous old crones. They blind her using scissors. Everyone
laughs as blood gushes out of her eyes. Sometimes I dream I am that
girl.”

“Does Monsieur Delgardo know
your sister is here?”

“Yes, but he doesn’t like me to
visit Coco because he knows I have dreams about being that girl and
he worries for me. You must never say you saw me here.” She glanced
nervously at the door and appeared to shudder.

“Are all the prostitutes kept on
this level?”

“Oh, no, it is just the girls
Monsignor Delgardo is looking after. The prostitutes are kept at
the back of the hospital. There are hundreds of them. Hundreds and
hundreds. What are you doing here?”

“I came to give Monsignor
Delgardo a painting for his office. My travelling companion, Dr
Watson, is being given a tour of the hospital by the Monsignor. I
spotted you and wondered what
you
were doing here. An insane
asylum is not normally a place a young woman visits without a
chaperone.”

“I come alone every day. I want
to make sure Coco is…is…comfortable. I should get going. If
Monsignor Delgardo is busy in the hospital with your
companion
he won’t see me.” She kissed her sister on the
forehead then moved quickly to the door, opened it, and checked the
corridor. After a brief pained look back at her sister, she
fled.

Alone in the cell with the
hapless Coco, the Countess checked the girl’s pulse. It was weak.
She struck a lucifer and held it to the girl’s eyes. There was nary
a flicker. Perhaps Kiki would get her wish after all. Her sister
might die at any moment. She wondered what sort of ‘looking after’
Monsignor Delgardo was really doing down here. There was no way
this had anything to do with his research. Coco did not look like a
megalomaniac.

The Countess had a quick glance
in some of the other cells on her way out. The doors had no proper
locks with keys, merely bolts for ease of incarceration. The
inmates were all female and all strapped to their beds. They looked
as emaciated, drugged, and near-dead as Coco.

Nausea threatened to overwhelm
her as she rushed up the stairs and out into broad daylight,
gulping back a huge mouthful of cold winter air that burned her
throat and lungs and made her grateful to be alive and healthy and
sane. Agitated and sickened by what she had seen, she took a quick
turbulent turn around the garden to gather her thoughts and make
sense of them.

Little Marianne was standing by
the sun dial, eyeing her sideways, suspiciously.

The Countess lighted two
cigarettes.

“You know how to keep secrets,
don’t you?” she said as she passed the second cigarette into the
wrinkled old hand.

Little Marianne nodded, and once
again she looked like a demented marionette whose lolling head was
about to fall off.

“I see you found your
gloves.”

“Yes,” she replied, looking
directly into the eyes of Monsignor Delgardo as she handed back the
keys, hoping he would conclude by her forthrightness that she had
nothing to hide. “And I think you’re right about the
butterfly.”

“Butterfly?”

“I now see a butterfly in the
splatter too.”

“I hope you haven’t been waiting
long?” intervened Dr Watson by way of apology for taking longer
than he expected. “There was a lot to see in the hospital. It is
state of the art. The understanding of epilepsy and the study of
the effects of syphilis on the brain is much further advanced than
anything in England.” He offered her his arm. “Shall we allow
Monsignor Delgardo to get on with his important research?”

Smiling charmingly, the Countess
slipped her arm through Dr Watson’s elbow. “By the way, Monsignor
Delgardo, I believe you also have prostitutes here at
Salpetriere.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“We didn’t see any during our
tour.”

“They are housed behind the
hospital. Everything used to be mixed. Patients, lunatics and
prostitutes all in together, but these days we prefer to keep them
separate. Besides, there are so many prostitutes these days, if we
let them go where they want they will soon take over.”

“Why so many?”

“They came in droves after the
Panama Affair. There were so many on the streets the government
didn’t know what to do with them all. Most of them were diseased
and quite wretched. By the way, I’d prefer it if you refrained from
giving cigarettes to the mental patients. They tend to set fire to
their beds.”

Dr Watson waited until they
were in the landau. His voice was disapproving. “Did you give a
lighted cigarette to one of the mental patients?”

“Yes, but I don’t understand how
Monsignor Delgardo knew it was me; there were dozens visitors
walking in the gardens.”

“He probably saw you from one of
the windows. Who did you give it to?”

“Little Marianne.”

“Good grief! The mad crab-woman!
And what was that odd remark about the butterfly?”

“Odd?”

“I recognize the tone of voice
you adopt when you are embellishing. And don’t bother denying
it.”

She had already decided not to
mention to her companion about her visit to the lower level so she
could hardly admit she said it so that Delgardo would think she
went back to his office when in fact she did no such thing. But
there was something else about the way he’d said ‘butterfly’ in the
first place.

“If one is aware that ink blots,
or in this case splatters, indicate a state of mind or a hidden
emotion that can be used to determine thought disorder, then it
stands to reason one would make up something innocent and banal to
appear to having morally appropriate thoughts that are not
disordered. I think he said butterfly because it sounded nice.”

“And you said murderer. Is that
because you wanted to sound un-nice or because you think
he
is our murderer?”

“I don’t know. It just came out.
Maybe the blots or splatters do actually work in some subconscious
way. We drop our guard and blurt out things before thinking.”

“I get the impression you don’t
like him.”

“I like him less now than when I
first met him.”

“Well, you might not like him
but you have to admit if he is the murderer we are back to having
no motive and no one who could help him move the dead bodies.”

“Not unless he roped in some
lunatics. Do you feel like paying another visit to the theatre
tonight? If not, I can go with Mahmoud.”

He expelled a weighty breath.
“I’ll go – it’s not as if I have anything else to do.”

She gave his arm a gentle
squeeze to show her appreciation. “I feel like giving a party.”

“Don’t tell me you plan to
hostess a salonniere after the show tonight?”

“No, I’m thinking of hostessing
a Gobolinks party on the eighth of December. It will have to be
during the day as most of the guests will be busy at night either
performing on stage or committing murder.”

He tried not to laugh. This
business was serious. But he couldn’t help himself.

When they arrived at rue
Bonaparte he decided to question the coachman.

Yes, the coachman was certain
someone had been being followed them from the Hotel de Merimont the
night of the salonniere, what’s more, he though it again yesterday
when they went to the Canal Saint-Martin. And yes, he thought the
man following them in a hansom cab had an unusually dark face. In
fact, if he didn’t know better he’d have said the man was wearing a
black mask like Claude Duval the highwayman, except they didn’t
have highwaymen anymore and men didn’t go about wearing black
masks. And he swore on his mother’s grave he hadn’t even been
drinking.

The Countess went immediately to
her aunt’s study and set about writing out invitations to her
Gobolinks party. It was not the sort of party that required a large
number of guests. Five at most, plus herself and Dr Watson. That
made seven. More than enough and besides, the pied-a-terre did not
lend itself to large gatherings.

She addressed the envelopes to
the Marquise de Merimont, Monsieur Casimir Radzival, Monsignor
Jorges Delgardo, Monsieur Serge Davidov and Monsieur Raoul
Crespigny. Tonight, when handing out the invitations, she would let
it be known that declining was not an option.

The party required judges. She
fleetingly considered Laszlo and Salvador, but then she thought
Mahmoud and La Noire would be the better choice.

Fedir had not yet returned from
Café Bistro and she began to grow concerned for him. She was about
to ask Dr Watson to return to the café when Mahmoud let her know
her manservant had been out all day and had only just returned. She
pretended to be highly incensed and asked for her manservant to be
sent up to her at once.

Fedir reported that he had
collected the marionettes and had rented a small room in a nearby
lodging house on rue Figaro where he had deposited the trunk. He
questioned the landlady about rag and bone men, making it seem as
if he might be interested in pursuing such a line of work. She
informed him that rag and bone men were highly regulated in France,
as were most things. The French were fond of rules and
regulations.

Rag and bone men could only work
at night, between dusk and dawn. They were only allowed to use one
hand cart and could not use a horse to pull their cart, lest the
slumber of the good citizens of France be disturbed. They had to
use a stick to sort through the piles of rubbish to avoid being
bitten by rats and contracting rabies or bubonic plague. Rags had
to be washed and dried before being sold on. Bones could not be
stored longer than one week.

A lot of the rag-grubbers used
to have drying houses along the river where they could wash their
rags and hang them out to dry but the embankments were being
constantly redeveloped. Rue de Lilas and rue de Brouillard were
popular haunts for rag and bone men in the quarter of
Montmartre.

He had visited rue de Lilas and
rue de Brouillard to see for himself. Most of the rag and bone men
were still sleeping but he found one who was awake and had time to
talk. Since the introduction of the garbage bin in 1884 by a man
called Poubelle there was less business for rag-grubbers and
competition was now fierce. Everyone guarded their patch zealously.
Newcomers trying to muscle in were severely beaten and sent
packing.

The Countess thanked Fedir and
asked him to appear sullen upon his return to the kitchen, as if he
had just been given a stern reprimand. When he reached the door she
recalled the threatening incident in the café.

“If things are unsafe,” she
said, “I would prefer you not to return to Café Bistro. The
Humboldts have a reputation for violence and there may be trouble
on the streets.”

Fedir assured her he was in no
danger. Kiki was a shameless flirt, the sort of girl who enjoyed
seeing men fight over her. He had no intention of allowing her to
bait him. Yes, the Humboldts all had short fuses but after Kaspar
threatened to string him up the other two brothers took pity and
invited him down to the cellar to see their printing press. That’s
the reason he was so late coming back to rue Bonaparte tonight.
They were running off new pamphlets daily now instead of weekly and
he had stayed to help out. Tomorrow’s pamphlet would be unsparing
in its condemnation of Inspector de Guise.

“Send in Xenia,” instructed the
Countess, fearing the worst for the reputation of the French
inspector who was being scapegoated in this terrible business. A
more honest, thorough, intelligent and hard-working servant of
France could not be found anywhere in Paris.