The Curse of the Grand Guignol (20 page)

When Xenia arrived the Countess
informed her of what she had seen in the lower level of
Salpetriere. She instructed her maid to pay a visit to the asylum
and hospital on the morrow. To feign interest in everything and ask
lots of questions of the nurses and doctors but to avoid the man
called Monsignor Delgardo. She described him as a distinguished,
dark haired, portly man in his fifties, possibly of South American
origin, whom she would instantly recognize because he would be
wearing the long black robe of a Catholic monsignor.

Xenia was to take an abundance
of money to bribe the nurses. She was to ingratiate herself with
whomever she could in order to gain access to the lower level. The
aim was to learn all she could about Monsignor Delgardo’s research
and to discover exactly what he did with the patients on the lower
level. If at any time she felt she was in danger she was to leave
at once.

The Countess and Dr Watson
shared their news with each other over dinner, after which the
doctor lit up his new calabash and settled back in the armchair by
the fire. Before long, thanks to the relaxing benefits of the spicy
Latakia, he was snoring soundly. She didn’t have the heart to wake
him and took Mahmoud to
le Cirque du Grand Guignol
instead.

Nerves on edge from her earlier
visit to Salpetriere, sensationally followed by sordid scenes of
naturalistic horror, and the Countess’s nausea returned. Even
dusky-skinned Mahmoud appeared paler of cheek by curtain’s close.
They had availed themselves of the private booth of Monsignor
Delgardo after first checking to see whether it was occupied.

“No point leaving the booth
vacant if the Monsignor is not coming,” said the Countess somewhat
audaciously, making herself comfortable on the velvet chaise longue
and indicating for her
maître de maison
to do likewise.

The booth was velvet-lined and
sound-proofed. A chaise longue was angled behind a screen not
dissimilar to that inside a confessional. It offered privacy to the
viewer without obstructing the performance on stage. A bolt on the
inside of the door mitigated untimely intrusion.

At the end of the performance
the Countess hoped to bump into the person in booth number one, but
she was too late. The tall figure in the black cloak with the
voluminous hood was slipping through the prohibited door that led
back-stage. She tried to catch up to the mystery figure but this
time the door was securely bolted from the other side. It forced
her and Mahmoud to go back into the theatre and enter via the empty
stage.

Nothing the Countess did
appeared to surprise the
maître de maison
, possibly because
he was accustomed to the antics of her late step-aunt, a woman
driven by an adventurous spirit, impulsive nature and rebellious
streak.

Mahmoud made quite an impression
on all those he encountered. He was intimidating in appearance, a
bit theatrical in his attire, and though he must have been at least
sixty years of age he wore the years well. Most impressed was La
Noire.

The Negress, mistaking Mahmoud
for an Arab sheik, sashayed up to him and purred out an
introduction. She let him know she would be dining at the Moulin
Rouge every night this week. He simply nodded and she took that as
confirmation she would see him there.

Even the temperamental director
showed restraint in the presence of the Sikh with the curved dagger
that was more threatening than his iron eyebrows. He was bawling
out the girl whose job it was to put the dog in its cage when
Mahmoud scooped up the whimpering terrier by the scruff of the neck
and placed it carefully in the dog box. The girl thanked him kindly
and the director went to find someone else to flay.

The Countess told Mahmoud to
find himself somewhere to sit while she distributed the
invitations. Fortunately, people who lived and breathed theatre
enjoyed dressing up and finding costumes at short notice was not a
problem for them, not even when those costumes had to be
symmetrical. No one had attended a Gobolinks party before and they
were happy to accept for the novelty value if nothing else. Plus an
invitation from a genuine Ukrainian countess was not something to
be sneered at.

Davidov thought it might be the
precursor to future beneficence. Raoul regarded it as grist to the
writer’s mill. And La Noire was thrilled to be asked to be a judge
when she discovered Mahmoud would be partnering her. She gave a
squeal of delight and did a shimmy.

“Splendid!” said the Countess.
“Wear a costume. It will add to the
joie de vivre
.”

After depositing Mahmoud back
at Des Ballerines the Countess directed the coachman to take her to
the Ile Saint-Louis. At the eleventh hour she had decided to invite
one more guest to her Gobolinks party and she thought it might be
wise to issue the invitation in person under cover of darkness.

This invitee lived on the
topmost floor, under the mansard roof of a five level apartment
that fronted the Seine. There was no elevator. Breathless and
flushed, she knocked on the door. The inspector, looking washed
out, drained, and hung out to dry - just like the line of washing
strung across his kitchen - was surprised to have a midnight
visitor and stunned to see the Countess. He ushered her in before
her reputation was as tattered as his. While he prepared some
coffee on the stove she told him about her Gobolinks party,
explaining about the subconscious mind and its effect on a guilty
conscience.

“Are you sure you want me
there?” he said dubiously.

“Your presence will unnerve the
killer.”

“But I have been totally
discredited. Have you not seen the caricatures? Have you not
glimpsed the effigies littering the Left Bank: the Director General
as a red devil and me as Pierrot, the incompetent servant? I am a
joke! The killer will be laughing behind my back!”

“This killer enjoys theatrics.
This killer will want to play games with you. This killer will want
to outsmart you, to make you look even more of a fool, especially
if there is an audience.”

“Oh, thank you,” he said dryly.
“You forget I am off the case.”

“You are being invited to a
private party,” she reminded. “None of the guests have been charged
or even linked to the murders as yet.”

“So what makes you think the
killer is among them?”

“I don’t know for sure but…” And
so she told him what had transpired so far about the scripts,
anonymous, and the tenuous link between Raoul, Kiki, the Humboldts,
Laszlo, Delgardo, Coco, Davidov, and the three circassiens, Felix,
Hilaire and Vincent. “It could be any combination of them or all of
them in it together.”

Unconvinced, he raked his
fingers through his hair. “I don’t know - I’d like to pin the
murders on the Boldts.”

“I’m more inclined to think the
three circus performers are part of it. I plan to speak to them
tomorrow. I plan to invite myself to a daytime rehearsal. If
nothing else, we will know what naturalistic horror to expect on
the night of the eighth.”

“You think there will be another
murder?”

“I am certain of it.”

Worry etched itself into every
porridge-like feature of his face as he pushed to his feet and
began to pace the tiny garret. “I don’t have a costume.”

“Arrive an hour early and I will
have one ready for you.”

“I’m no good at party
games.”

“This is more of a murder game
and you are good at those.”

“How does a Gobolinks party
go?”

“You create some ink blots on a
piece of paper and then write a poem to go with one of them. And
don’t tell me you are no good at poems.”

“As a matter of fact I am very
good at poems. I won the school poetry prize three years in a row.
Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud are my heroes. That part I can do in
my sleep.”

“Speaking of sleep you look like
you could use some. You don’t want the killer to think they have
got the better of Inspector Didier de Guise. However, before I
leave you to your slumber, might I be so bold as to make a
suggestion?”

She stood and gathered her
winter cloak around her in preparation for leaving. He walked her
to the door. It was only six steps. She paused and looked at him
with a gaze that was disconcertingly direct for a woman, and for a
moment he imagined she might lean forward and kiss him on the
lips.

“May I suggest you visit
le
Cirque du Grand Guignol
on rue Ballu before the party and may I
suggest you go in disguise?”

He shook himself, thanked her
sincerely for the suggestion, and bid her goodnight.

“When this business is over,”
she said in a softer restrain, looking back over her shoulder, “I
have a chateau in the Loire and a villa in Cap Ferrat. You are
welcome to stay at either of them for as long as you like.”

“And if the killer evades
capture?”

“You can stay indefinitely.”

His spontaneous laugh, throaty
and uninhibited, echoed in the tiny stairwell like a thunderbolt
from heaven and it surprised him to realize he could still
laugh.

Fedir and Xenia left early for
Salpetriere. They did not join the household servants for breakfast
and Mahmoud did not see them leave. Their plan was to have a walk
around the grounds together and then embark on separate tours.
Fedir would then go to Café Bistro to help with the printing of
more seditious pamphlets while Xenia would ingratiate herself with
a member of staff or even Little Marianne, whom the Countess had
described in detail.

Visitors came and went all day
and it was easy to lose oneself in the crowd. A visit to the
prostitutes was also planned. One of them might even be acquainted
with Monsignor Delgardo.

“He is Colombian,” said Dr
Watson.

“How do you know?” challenged
the Countess.

“He told me.”

“You didn’t mention it to
me.”

“You didn’t mention it to me
that you wanted to know.”

And so went the breakfast
conversation that morning - Dr Watson snappy that she had gone to
the theatre with Mahmoud and later paid a visit to the French
inspector. At midnight! On her own! And she snappy that she was
being forced to defend herself.

“What are your plans for today?”
he put to her brusquely, as if he intended to play no part in
them.

“This morning I intend to
deliver invitations to la marquise and her librarian. I need to do
it personally because I cannot risk them having time to think it
over and possibly declining. Everyone else is coming. I have asked
La Noire and Mahmoud to act as judges.”

He didn’t know which of those
two names annoyed him most. “Why them?”

She aimed a glance over her
shoulder at the door. “Shh, lower your voice. La Noire is part of
the troupe and yet we hardly know anything about her. As for
Mahmoud, he is here on the spot and we don’t need any extra guests.
Besides, what is wrong with Mahmoud?”

“He is…He is…He is a
servant!”

“He is a
maître de
maison,
” she corrected with asperity, “and I strongly suspect
he was the lover of my late step-aunt.”

“So? According to you she had
dozens of lovers.”

“None as devoted as Mahmoud. He
has kept everything just as she left it. In forty years he has
altered nothing. I consider him more of a step-uncle than a
servant. Put it down to my Ukrainian up-bringing but the word
kym
denotes a member of a family who is not blood kin.”

“You are allowing emotion to
blur your judgement yet again.”

“How so?”

He went to the door to check no
one was lurking in the hall before continuing.

“He could be mentally unstable,
friendless in a foreign land, cooped up in this house on his own
for forty years waiting for his lover to return briefly to his arms
before flitting off again. You say devoted, I say unbalanced. Has
it occurred to you he could be the one following us?”

She gasped. He took advantage of
the sharp intake of breath.

“He is tall and broad of
shoulder. He is dark-skinned. At night his face may give the
appearance of a black mask. Or he may don a black mask to disguise
himself. He knows our movements. It is possible he keeps a carriage
in a nearby mews.”

“You are not about to suggest he
is the killer?”

“What’s so far-fetched about
that?”

“Motive,” she shot back, having
harnessed the fullness of her breath for a come-back.

He had already given the matter
some thought. In fact, he had been thinking about it ever since he
first spied that shadowy figure standing in the arch of the gate of
the Hotel de Merimont. “What if we are dealing with a
crime
passionelle
? What if the respectable elderly gentlemen happened
to be your step-aunt’s previous lovers? What if Madame Hertzinger
had been a jealous rival who thwarted your aunt in some way? What
if it has nothing to do with the theatre at all?”

His theory jolted her. And
though she was inclined to scoff at the suggestion, she could not
dismiss it or even discredit it. Had she been chasing
puppet-shadows because she got it in her head the murders were
theatrical and therefore linked to the theatre? Was the joke on
her!

It was true they had not yet
found a connection between the five victims. What tenuous thread
connected them? There was no possibility the victims were chosen at
random. They were too much alike – elderly, respectable, affluent.
They simply had to share some link, some secret, some event from
their past.

“Dr Watson not with you?”
remarked the mature aristocrat as the Countess was shown into the
lavish bed chamber where la marquise was enjoying breakfast in her
lit-a-la-polonaise.