The Green Muse (5 page)

 

A
FTER
I
DEVELOP
ED
the photographs of my poor murdered lady, I hurried to the courtyard, which lay now in complete darkness. I looked toward the door I had remembered and thought of the drops of blood that led toward it. The tenants had been questioned. Of course no one had seen anything. But it was not the blood I was interested in but the object I had captured with my lens. I walked across the courtyard, stepping carefully around where the body had lain, certain even in the darkness of the exact spot. And there, in the direction my lady's pretty face had seemed to look, was something small and rectangular. It proved to be a silver matchbox holder of simple design, with an etched border; the matches inside were damp. But the box, when I slid it out, read “Le Bouchon.” The words formed an arc. There was a picture of a bottle just opened, a spray of liquid and a jaunty cork. A sophisticated name, implying sophisticated ­people seated at fine tables watching finely dressed garçons working stoppers loose from expensive bottles of wine. I recognized the street name, but did not know where it was and stood, a fool in the dark; and suddenly before me was my lady.

No, it was not she. But the hair, pale and full, the lovely figure, the black bolero jacket; no, this woman was older, coarser; she smiled, and there was no pleasure there.

She spoke, and her voice was a rasp.

“You look lost, Monsieur.”

“I am,” I said eagerly. I reached forward to show her the matchbox, the address, but she took my arm and pulled me toward her almost roughly.

“What shall you have this lovely evening?” she asked, too loudly. There must have been a man nearby that she was signaling.

“I ask only that you tell me the way to Le Bouchon,” I said gently.

“I can show you a much better time than the girls at Le Bouchon.”

“No, really, I am not looking for company. I need to speak to someone at Le Bouchon.”

She looked annoyed, but tried to keep sweetness in her coarse voice as she gave me directions; I was grateful to her for that, that she would attempt even the pretense of kindness in a place like this. I found myself giving her a few silver francs for her trouble, and when we said good-­bye, her smile was genuine.

I went there directly from the courtyard and found it to be a rough place featuring showgirls and a rowdy clientele.

“Excuse me,” I said to the first man I saw. “I am looking for the owner of this establishment.” There was smoke in the air, and a strange sweet smell I could not identify. There were women on a raised stage, dancing a routine in a desultory manner. They wore short lace petticoats, corsets, and the sheerest of chemises, but their movements were more mechanical than erotic. It was easy to ignore them except that I felt very sorry for them.

The man surprised me by simply pointing. I had expected a rough remark, a challenge, mockery. But he was drinking milky liquid from an ornate glass; I recognized the paraphernalia of absinthe on the table next to him. I looked to thank him, but he had forgotten me.

M. Desquiers was easy to spot, a big man with big gestures.

I thought I would have to go to some lengths to convince him even to speak to me. But sometimes a nonthreatening aspect can be an asset, especially in my line of work. M. Desquiers was willing to talk, and he had a lot to say. I described my lady and he said, immediately, “Lenore DuPrey. She worked here six nights a week; she held a coveted spot on Saturday nights, late, when the clientele was thoroughly drunk and the tips were good. She was a good employee, a woman who worked hard on her routines As if that really mattered!” M. Desquiers said, apparently unmoved in any way by Lenore's death. “She got more tips than most. Pretty girl. How'd you say she died?”

“I didn't,” I said evenly. I heartily disliked this man. He was exactly what I had expected him to be: finely dressed, oiled and powdered and scented, with a good cigar and gold lighter and no morals whatsoever. And yet I was convinced he had not taken advantage of Lenore, or, indeed, any of the other girls. It was what he did, what he represented, that repulsed me. If I had met him anywhere else I might have taken him for a banker; here I took him for a trader in human flesh, and I was ashamed I had to shake his hand.

I asked about Lenore's whereabouts the night before: Had she been to work?

“She never missed a day, Sir. Never missed a day. And she brought in more tips than the other girls. Pity about Lenore.”

I could have hit his face.

“Did she have any family?” I asked quietly.

“She has a little boy,” he said absently. He was watching the girls with a professional eye, and he seemed displeased. “Excuse me, I have to see to something.”

“Please,” I said, but he was already turning away. “It is all right, Monsieur,” I said easily. “The police will be here later, and they can continue questioning.”

M. Desquiers spun around as though he were a top.

“Anything I can do to assist you, Monsieur . . .” Clearly he had forgotten my name, and had also forgotten, apparently, that I had no authority whatsoever.

“Just a few questions,” I said easily; I could be whatever he now thought I was. “Was Lenore DuPrey married?”

He laughed. “None of my girls are married.” Marriage and this sort of work seldom mix.

I shrugged, perhaps looking like a man of the world; I do not know. I could only hope so.

“Did you see her leave last night?”

“As a matter of fact,” he said, taking out a small jade snuff bottle, “I did. She was with M. Lunier. He's a regular here, a fine fellow.” The bottle was beautiful, a rich green veined with white, with intricate silver overlays featuring four climbing jaguars, one on each side of the bottle, which was only a few inches high yet so opulent. I knew it had cost quite a bit of money, and that part of the reason he had brought it out at all was to show me that. He took the pyramid top off the bottle and held it up to smell its contents.

“Tell me about Monsieur Lunier.”

“There's nothing to tell, really. He acts as patron to several of the girls; Lenore is—­was his favorite.”

“Patron?”

M. Desquiers laughed. “Surely I don't have to spell it out for you.”

“Did he live with Mademoiselle DuPrey?”

“Oh, no. Monsieur Lunier is married, and happily at that. Lenore was more important to him than the other girls, but she was still just one of the girls. In fact, you should have seen how they argued! Lenore was foolish enough to think he would leave his wife for her.” M. Desquiers chuckled while wrapping his index finger around the end of his thumb. He gently tapped snuff into the space between the thumbnail and index finger, and as he held his hand us to his nose I heard the gentle
snuff
sound as he tipped the stuff into the front of his nostril; apparently the tobacco is most effective there in its rejuvenating effects. I have heard that some put opium in with the snuff.

He closed his eyes for a moment, inhaling lightly.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “they had such a fight last night! Of course, it was all because of Lenore. She did not have a right to her dreams.”

I was very quiet. I wanted him to keep talking, almost as though I had disappeared. I also wanted to smash his face with my fist, I who rarely angered at all. Lenore had no right to her dreams!

The worst thing was that it was true.

For a moment M. Desquiers was lost to me, and I noticed the girls scattering from the stage like little mice set free from a trap, probably to take their break. There were at least thirty men sitting watching them and drinking.
How could they do that
, I thought,
just sit there watching obscenity, all of a company, without shame? Everyone in the neighborhood must know what this place is, and yet they would walk in, walk out, without embarrassment, time and again.

I waited. Finally M. Desquiers said, “They fought. He slapped her, silly woman, but she would not let him be. They were still fighting when they left. Just like any other night. M. Lunier always took Lenore home.”

“Did they walk, or did he hire a conveyance, or perhaps have a carriage of his own?”

“On pleasant nights they walked. Why pay for a conveyance when the lady lives so close by?”

The men in the audience stared at the stage like empty husks awaiting reanimation. The proprietor was taking himself away with the opium in his snuff; he was not present to me or anyone else at all.

“Thank you,” I said abruptly. I had what I needed, and I had to get out of there. So I turned and walked away, wanting to forget this place myself.

I knew I would send word to Capt. Bezier very early the next morning, but that would not keep Lenore from being exhibited in the Morgue. She was, technically, unidentified, and besides, she would be good for business.

 

I
HAVE BEEN
to this Morgue a dozen times, no, more, and with each visit I am charmed anew. The
salle d'exposition
is large and bright, with an airy feel. The voices of the crowd strike the tall glass windows and ricochet up and around the large dome of the ceiling and become one wordless, anonymous voice that drowns all senses but sight.

But sight is all that is wanted, and the noisy, thick, sweat-­soaked crowd insulates me, and I stare. Earlier this week the two corpses on display were men, one old, one young. Where the manner of death is exotic or peculiarly gruesome, the victim will be shown singly; when the victim is a woman, and young, that will most certainly be the case; when she is beautiful the hall is full for days.

The two male corpses were fresh but uninteresting. The elder had collapsed in the slums. He was extremely old and was exhibited in the rags in which he was found. He was seated at a wooden table––it is always the same table, always the same dreary chairs––with his left arm lying stiff, with a clawed hand and his head at an unnaturally high angle.

“It isn't unnatural if you're dead,” Theo said at the time. I am tired of Theo; I amuse myself by thinking of him at that table.

“You wouldn't realize when a thing is unnatural, dear boy,” Leonard said to Theo. “You haven't the faculty for it.”

The second man was more interesting. Not more than twenty-­two or -­three, my own age. He sat cattycorner to the old reprobate, who had an eye, even in death, that chilled mine. The young man had died from a bullet wound to the chest; his clothing had been changed. The corpses are as often as possible displayed wearing the clothing in which they died; at times they are shown draped merely in a sheet. This is particularly true if the subject is a woman of dubious employment, the curators being conscious of the possibilities of corruption, especially for the women and girls in the audience, in showing these corpses attired, as it were, for work.

I do not know why it was that day I chose to speak to her. I did not know her name. Did I say she was pretty? Even Theo had noticed her.

“A girl who looks like that,” he said, “does not have to come here for her entertainment.”

Leonard's jaundiced eye had found her: “She is too pretty to be a murderess, else I would think she came so often to see if one of her victims had shown up here. But that face is too sweet––there's no sin on it.”

Then what about us? I think to myself as at last the queue reaches the huge doors, the vaulted windows that have the aspect of a church. We are here as often as she, and what do our faces show?

Whether the
plat du jour
that Thursday had the face of a gentleman or a degenerate I couldn't say. I was not concerned with the corpses. In the queue ahead of me was breathing, beautiful flesh and blood, and it was her face I studied. Her hat was fresh with silk roses, her cheeks flushed. When the intensity of my gaze drew her eye, I did not let it go.

“Are you here for moral instruction,” I asked, “as is that family opposite?”

“Sir, do I know you?”

“I think you might.”

“Perhaps,” she conceded.

“I assure you I have no dishonorable intent. I am a student of law––”

“Not of death? You are here often.”

My heart moved: I was real to her, then, I had been in her mind.

“I come to see the living, not the dead,” I said, and she said, “That is a lie.”

I was taken aback.

“You are right,” I said. “I can see the living anywhere. It is their behavior in the presence of the dead that interests me.”

She breathed a soft impatient sigh. “I am not much interested in the living, myself.”

“Then why do you come here?”

She did not answer right away; she stood looking at the grotesque in front of us.

“I believe,” she said finally, “that I come here to remind myself––to convince myself––that I am alive.”

I laughed at that. “A charming joke,” I said, “from one that of all here present is most alive!”

She turned on me, she stung.

“You asked me a question, and I answered it. That was foolish of me. I left myself open to you, sir. I will not make the same mistake again.”

I grabbed her arm.

“Sir, we are in a public place. I shall call the guards.”

“Please.” I had to make her look at me. “I do not mean to offend.” If I did not make her look at me I would not be responsible for my actions. “I would not hurt you.”

When she looked at me her face was unchanged.

“I will accept your apology on one condition.”

“Anything.” There was something fundamental in her eye––I did not recognize it.

“That you not touch me again.”

“Of course,” I said. “Have an orange peel.”

She burst out laughing. I was ridiculous; I would like to think I did it on purpose, to make her laugh. She actually took one.

“Is that why really are you here so often, to instruct yourself in the behavior of the living in the face of death? And do not tell me it is your friends who force you to come,” she said, smiling at the corner of her mouth. “They look like odd company for a man like you.” Light fell from the high, arched windows in an arc across her face. “You come several times a week. Have you no more serious occupation?”

“What could be more serious than this?” I asked, throwing my arm to include it all: the crowd, the dead, and especially her.

“Do you ever think that one day you might recognize one of the dead here?”

“And who is it,” I said softly, “that you think you might recognize?”

“It is who I am behind that glass. You and I.

We will all look that way one day.” She was dispassionate; she was only talking. “I come here to learn to recognize myself. Because perhaps I really will be behind that glass one day.”

She frightened me. I did understand.

“Will you meet me for dinner?”

She stepped back.

“You understand nothing,” she said without contempt, and stepped into a sudden vacancy ahead of us on the queue. And looked again, without any horror, at the
plat du jour
.

I wanted to kiss her. I was seized by violent emotions; I stepped forward, but my hand on her arm was too urgent.

“You will let go of me,” she said. It was not a question. “You promised me, sir.”

Of course I did let go, with apologies. Leonard had seen us from across the room. Theo had.

“Please,” I said softly.

“No. And that is final.”

And she stepped away from me, following the crowd with complete composure. For her I no longer existed.