The Montmartre Investigation (9 page)

‘Let's see, what did he say her stage name was? PhiPhi?…No…Fifi…Fifi…Fifi Bas-Rhin!'

 

Victor climbed out of the cab and stood still for a moment, mesmerised by the incessant movement of the red sails. Drawn to this flame of variegated colour, a crowd of revellers filled Boulevard de Clichy, where two years previously a Catalan named Joseph Oller and a former butcher, Charles Zidler, had built a sumptuous music hall on Place Blanche, aimed at dethroning the Élysée-Montmartre. It was an instant success, thanks to its principal attraction, the cancan, revived from its heyday in the 1830s. Now the lewd dance, which had been only accessible to habitués of the clubs and dives of Pigalle, was available to the bourgeoisie and aristocracy of Paris.

Beautiful women escorted by men in evening dress, errand girls flanked by lovers, their caps pushed back on their heads; all had come to bask in the glow of the tawdry windmill that ground out nothing but jigs, polkas and waltzes at a time when the real mills on the heights were in their death throes.

Victor paid his two francs. Passing through a lobby decorated with paintings, posters and photographs, he was surprised by the size of the interior; it resembled a station concourse furnished with tables and chairs surrounding a dance floor occupied until the start of the show by couples whirling around to the syncopated music. Charles Zidler, a shrewd innovator, had taken care to provide his clientele with an extravagant experience, a temple of pleasure designed by the illustrator Adolphe Willette. High up on a wooden balcony, supported on pillars ornamented with banners, was an orchestra of forty musicians. The vibrantly coloured décor was starkly lit by gas footlights, chandeliers and electric globes and was reflected in a wall covered with mirrors; the effect was oriental in flavour.

Victor tried to reach the bar, knocking into Englishmen in knickerbockers and tweed deerstalkers, and making way for
demi-mondaines
, genteel in their pallor and their slenderness, and showing off the latest dresses from Worth.

‘Hello, handsome, what will you drink?' asked the waitress, a comely girl with a mane of red hair.

‘Nothing, I'm looking…'

‘Yes, look, look, and when you've found what you need, let me know. Just shout out: “Sarah!”'

He studied two enormous canvases hung behind the bar, evidently by the same artist. One showed a dancer doing the
chahut
before a man with a hooked nose in the midst of a crowd of people. He immediately recognised the man and woman from the poster he had spotted the night before on Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. The second was of a woman on a horse, prancing before a circus audience.

‘You there, you're in love but you can't say so because you're too lily-livered! Suppose I serve you a cocktail?' proposed Sarah, sticking her bosom out. ‘With cassis, would you like that?'

‘All right then. Who's the painter?'

‘A nobleman no bigger than a dwarf, but with a name to make up for it. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, that boozer watering himself at a table over there.'

Victor took a mouthful of his red drink and put his glass down with a grimace.

‘What on earth's in there?'

‘Dry white wine, cassis and a drop of vodka. It was a Rusky, Prince Troubetzkoï, who gave me the recipe.'

‘That man with the beaked nose, who's that?' he asked, pointing to one of the paintings.

‘The man with the big hooter? Where have you been, lovey? Don't you know Valentin le Désossé? I can point him out in the flesh. Let's see, where's he hiding, that demon of the quadrille? Got him – just to the left of La Môme Fromage and La Goulue; the beanpole there, see? I'm assuming you at least recognise the girls?'

He nodded, not wanting to appear like an idiot. So this is what it was like, the famous Moulin-Rouge! There had been strings of articles about it. Unlike Iris, he had never felt the slightest interest in the subject. He disliked large crowds and the lifting of petticoats left him cold. Tasha's gentle curves aroused him more than the black-clad calves of the girls practising in front of the mirrors.

‘I'm looking for a young man called Gaston…'

Sarah guffawed.

‘There are about twenty Gastons round here! Gaston who?'

‘I don't know. And Fifi Bas-Rhin, where is she?'

‘Well, I must say you've an awful lot of questions about our little world. I haven't seen Fifi yet. If I were you, I would wander over to the galleries. She likes to sup from the tankard before she goes on.'

‘Sup from…?'

‘She likes a tipple! Strange creature, that one!'

The orchestra had just launched into a waltz. Buffeted between couples, Victor breathed in the scent of ylang-ylang, or
Cuir de Russie
, mixed with sweat and tobacco. In spite of the enthusiastic brass band and the stamping of feet, he caught snippets of conversation.

‘Look at them all at the mirror this evening!'

‘She's a looker, that little one.'

‘If she comes over here, I'll tell her what I think!'

He passed Valentin le Désossé who, impassive and rigid, was dancing with the voluptuous La Goulue. Part-laundress, part-bourgeoise, her red hair with its square-cut fringe was piled on top of her head and she wore a ribbon of watered silk around her neck. Aware that Victor was looking at her curvaceous figure and plunging neckline, she stopped, stared at him, hands on hips, and bellowed:

‘These fops, don't they have birds at home?'

Mortified not so much by the vulgarity of her words as by the harshness of her tone, Victor hurried towards the gallery, desperate to find Eudoxie Allard amidst the forest of penguins in stovepipe hats and courtesans sprouting plumes, among whom the waiters scurried.

‘A bowl of mulled wine!' called a man in a crooked boater flanked by two adoring young girls; Victor recognised him as Alfred Stevens the society painter.

Then he spotted her, tightly laced into a red and white striped dress and weighed down by a hat made all the taller by its giant bows. He made to retreat, suddenly reluctant to suffer her advances. Too late!

‘Look, it's Monsieur Legris! Over here! Come and join us!

She was seated at a table with three drinkers, a swarthy lothario, his sombrero tilted over one ear, an elegant bon-viveur with a long face and a morose expression, and a blond young man sporting a monocle and chewing on a cigar. She made the introductions.

‘Monsieur Legris, an old friend. He's a bookseller. We became friendly at
Le Passe-partout.
¹⁴
Louis Dolbreuse, poet and songwriter, based at the moment at Le Chat-Noir.' She indicated the lothario who smiled, dreamily stroking his goatee beard. ‘And Alphonse Allais, writer and entertainer, he's just published…'

‘Yes, I know, with Ollendorff,
Stories to Make you Laugh: Tales of Le Chat-Noir
. I adored that book,' said Victor to the morose bon-viveur.

‘And this is Alcide Bonvoisin, Paris's future best chronicler, after his friend Aurélian Scholl,'
¹⁵
concluded Eudoxie Allard, tapping the shoulder of the blond young man. ‘Sit there, Monsieur Legris.'

Victor shook everyone's hands and settled himself between Eudoxie and Louis Dolbreuse who was pouring champagne, and offered him a glass.

‘Are you still writing? Alcide, you have a rival here. I forgot to mention that Victor – may I call you Victor? – pens highly regarded articles.'

‘I've stopped. There was too much competition. Now I'm…' Victor began.

‘He has other fish to fry!' exclaimed Eudoxie. ‘You should know that this gentleman has hidden depths – he's a detective in his spare time, and delights in trumping the efforts of the cops at headquarters. He's untangled two knotty crimes already! It's true, Victor, don't be modest!'

‘At Le Moulin, you'll have to make do with inspecting the women for decency, although we do have on site our very own “moral policeman”,' joked Louis Dolbreuse.

‘Speak of the devil,' whispered Alcide Bonvoisin, indicating a chap in a dark suit with a white tie, a steel watch chain across his chest, who was lurking behind a pillar. ‘That strange fellow leads a double life, policeman of the club's moral standards by night, photographer by day.'

‘What a coincidence! My friend is a bookseller, but he's also a photographer,' exclaimed Eudoxie, pressing her knee against Victor's.

‘Aha, a man of many parts,' declared Louis Dolbreuse. ‘And who do we have here today? The bookseller, the photographer or the sleuth?'

‘I'm looking for a fellow named Gaston; I was told he worked here.'

‘There's your answer, Louis; it's the detective we have here tonight,' murmured Alcide Bonvoisin.

‘Gaston? Musician? Stagehand?'

‘No idea.'

‘There's one person who'll know for certain – Grille d'Égout,
¹⁶
she knows everyone. Hey! Lucienne, come and have a bevy!' Eudoxie sang out.

A coquette with sweet sad eyes came towards them languorously. She flopped down with a sigh.

‘Thank you, Fifi, I could do with one. Those would-be toffs run me ragged, the cads, and not one of them bothered to offer me a tipple. They were kowtowing to me last month when I was giving
fin de siècle
dance classes to high-class ladies!'

‘Waiter, a beer with a little less head,' shrieked Alphonse Allais, suddenly shaking off his torpor. ‘Where is Jane Avril?'

Grille d'Égout smiled, revealing the two widely spaced incisors that had provided her nickname.

‘This gentleman, Victor to his friends, wants to pin down a certain Gaston, who works here,' explained Eudoxie.

‘Gaston?…Hang on, Arsène! Not Alsatian beer I hope?' shouted Grille d'Égout at the waiter who had brought her a tankard. ‘Because I refuse to drink a drop of that stuff until Alsace and Lorraine are returned to the mother country! Gaston you say? Josette's Gaston maybe? Gaston Molina? If it's him, he's done a bunk, even though Josette's a firecracker, a volcano who'll erupt when he shows his face again.'

‘Gaston Molina, is that him, Victor?' Eudoxie asked, increasing the pressure on his knee.

‘Possibly,' he muttered.

‘Well, he's a waiter, a serving boy. What do you want with him?'

‘One of my clients asked me to contact him discreetly; he seduced his daughter. My client wants to sort things out.'

‘Well, that's a fine mess! And how does he think he's going to “sort things out”? By extracting payment for the girl's virtue? Gaston's in dry dock; completely broke! As for making an honest woman of her, your client can whistle for it. That urchin's a philanderer; he's got a girl in every dive.'

Pleased with this tirade, Grille d'Égout tossed off the rest of her beer while Alphonse Allais pushed back his chair roughly and ran after a slim, graceful woman with red hair and a black hat.

‘Poor Alphonse, she drives him wild.'

‘Who is she?' asked Victor.

‘Jane Avril. La Goulue says Avril has legs like curtain rods but she kicks them in rhythm, and she's right. She was committed when she was a kid, yes, my dear; under the care of Professor Charcot, and they say that's where she learnt to swing her hips. It's true! Apparently to entertain the inmates they'd get in dance teachers and organise parties and balls. Balls for the loonies, I ask you! Jane Avril gives us the cold shoulder; she dances alone. What do they see in her? She's nothing but skin and bone! They call her “Honey” I would call her “Sonny”. Take a squint at the painter dwarf – he's smitten!'

Grille d'Égout tilted her head towards a table separated from theirs by a pillar. A strange-looking fellow with a nasal voice was holding court to three men and a woman. It was as if his body had been screwed on to two short legs moulded into checked trousers. Victor could only see his profile; he had to wait until he turned round to see his features: a massive head with a bowler hat perched on top, pince-nez on a prominent nose, a black beard framing sensual lips like a wound. His eyes blazed with intelligence and sensitivity. He was roughly Victor's age, thirty.

‘Is that him, Toulouse-Lautrec?'

‘That's him. “The Little Jewel”, as he likes to be known. An arrant drunkard, he tipples as much as he paints, drinks like a fish. See the cane hanging on the back of his chair? He calls it “my helpmate”. Inside the handle there's a minuscule flask of cognac. When the pint-sized fellow isn't here seducing the cancan girls, he hangs out at the brothels!'

Louis Dolbreuse said all this in a detached, almost neutral tone, but it was obvious he was having difficulty concealing his aversion to the painter. Alcide Bonvoisin sat up indignantly.

‘That man is a genius! A genius, do you hear? Have you looked closely at his poster for Le Moulin-Rouge? The first one by Jules Chéret was a success, but his!…There is more talent in that poster than in many a fashionable painting. In a few strokes Lautrec captures the spirit of the dance; he exposes the primitive instincts that we all have. That work, in the Japanese style, took weeks of labour. And his canvases…I tell you, he's going to be famous!'

‘He should avoid putting La Goulue in the middle of his daubs!' murmured Grille d'Égout. ‘She shows off the heart embroidered on the back of her drawers; I'm convinced that that Louise…'

‘Who are the others?' interrupted Victor.

‘The bearded four-eyes is a composer with a caustic sense of humour who lives in Rue Cortot, Erik Satie; we rub shoulders with him at Le Chat-Noir. The iron wire bent in two is Lautrec's cousin, another aristocrat, Gabriel Tapié de Celeyran. The bloke opposite in the battered hat, that's Henry Somm, a cartoonist and engraver whose song is often heard at Le Chat-Noir: “A staircase with no steps is not a staircase at all.” The woman…the woman…I don't recall who she is,' finished Louis Dolbreuse.