Floats the Dark Shadow (25 page)

He had spirit—even rage—not far below the surface.

Michel laid the photograph of the winged cross on the top. Charron looked perplexed, “What is the significance of this?”

If he was an actor, he was a good one. “I am searching for someone who can tell me just that.”

Abruptly, Charron reached out and turned over the photos. “Not I—I did not kill this girl.” He paused. “Alicia…I did not kill Alicia.”

Either Charron was innocent, or he had barricaded himself effectively. “One last question. Were all the poets with you today also at the Bazar de la Charité?”

“Yes—everyone waiting in the hall.” He smiled coldly. “So we are all suspect.”

Michel returned the smile. “It would seem so.”

“Is that all?”

“For now.” Michel followed him to the door. Outside, he saw Theo seated. He didn’t like her pallor. “Mlle. Faraday has had a shock. I do not think she should be alone. Perhaps you should take her to your parents, or one of her friends?”

Charron scowled but then went swiftly to Theo’s side. He took her hand, fingers pressed to her wrist above her glove, and tested her pulse. Leaning close, he talked softly to her. Theo shook her head vehemently. Charron spoke more forcefully and helped her to her feet. For a moment, she looked unsteady. Then she drew a long breath. With a quick nod, Michel directed a guard to escort them out the back entrance. There was no need for them to deal with the circus inside the
salle publique
of the morgue.

Casimir Estarlian walked with them as far as the door but made no effort to leave. Etiquette said a member of the
noblesse ancienne
should not be kept waiting, but Michel decided to question the others first. They’d all had the opportunity to see Alicia. They’d all visited the cemetery. But Estarlian had been with Theo in Montmartre the day Denis was taken. The baron looked at Michel expectantly. Michel turned to the other two. Jules was sitting by himself, telling a rosary. Noret regarded him distrustfully. Michel would have preferred not to be a recognizable face to the anarchist, but there was no help for it. “Monsieur Noret?”

“Inspecteur?” Noret examined him as he might a cockroach.

Michel gestured him to the chair and ran through his questions. Noret’s information didn’t differ. He spent most of the interview sneering monosyllables. Finally, he asked, “Do you really think I am the sort of man who slices little children into bits?”

Michel studied him silently for a moment. “I think they would have to be aristocrats’ brats, or progeny of high bourgeoisie, for you to deem them worthy of slaughter.”

Noret’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Why would my politics be of concern to you?”

“I’ve read
Le Revenant
. It was pertinent to my investigation.”

“I assure you, I do not believe children bear the sins of the fathers. And Charron would much prefer crimson ink to bloody wounds.”

“Whoever did this would prefer to give that impression.”

“Could you have caught him if he danced blood-stained through the streets?”

“It would have made our job simpler.”

Noret gave a snort of laughter.

“You went to the cemetery,” Michel reminded him.

“I believe we all went to the cemetery. It is not every day a friend trips over a corpse,” Noret said. “You should not make too much of it, Inspecteur. Poets are impudent—they exploit experience.”

“Nietzsche,” Michel responded. Noret looked startled and Michel thrust deeper. “Do you consider yourself beyond good and evil, Monsieur Noret?”

“I consider art beyond good and evil.”

“And would you consider this art? Michel placed a photo of Alicia in front of him.

Noret started at it stonily, though he looked greenish and his nostrils quivered as if at a noxious odor. “That pushes the boundaries of art past my limit.”

Michel covered the photograph of the corpse with one of the winged cross. Noret stared at it blankly, then retorted, “Art? I should say not. Should it mean something to me?”

“Preferably.”

Noret eyed him distrustfully then looked at the photograph again. “A clumsy cross. Is this murderer some sort of religious maniac?”

“Perhaps.” Michel didn’t think he would discover much more. He asked a few questions about the fire. Noret had spent much, but not all, of that day with Jules Loisel. They had all, briefly, helped Charron tend the victims, and so all had time to snatch Alicia.

He dismissed Noret and summoned the younger man. Loisel was flustered, yet there was something sly and secretive about him that Michel distrusted. Nor did he like the company he kept, dividing his time between anarchists and Satanists. His accent wasn’t Parisian. Michel discovered he was from a small village in Normandy. The local priest had taken an interest in him, and Loisel had entered the seminary to train for the priesthood. It was a common enough story. He was one of those poor young men for whom service to the Catholic Church was more a practical salvation than a spiritual one. But now he was a poet, not a priest, living like a beggar in Paris.

“Why did you leave the seminary?”

“I questioned the teachings. I was unhappy. There was a woman. A crisis of faith…” Loisel bit his lip and relapsed into silence.

“And what can you tell me of this visit to morgue?”

Loisel repeated the same explanation but with a peculiar fervor. He tended to speak either too softly or too loudly. “This was all for the sake of Monsieur Charron.”

“Did you visit the cemetery for Charron’s sake?”

Loisel looked guilty and frightened. It was almost impossible to understand his next whispers. “Curiosity…macabre…perverse. Ashamed.”

“Did you recognize Alicia today?”

Loisel looked at him wild-eyed. “No!”

“But you saw her the day of the fire.”

“No!”

“Wasn’t she pointed out to you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember!” Loisel looked ready to bolt, so Michel tried a different approach, asking how he had joined the Revenants. Relieved, Loisel spoke quickly, “I take odd jobs. Once I made a delivery to Monsieur Noret’s office. I knew his writing. I showed him poems I thought worthy. He told me he would publish them. He befriended me.”

“The poems in
Le Revenant
?” Loisel had a long and strangely salacious epic about Mary Magdalene and the dead body of Christ. In another, a nightmarish Eve performed tricks with a snake that a brothel keeper would envy. Perhaps Loisel should go to work for Leo Taxil.

“Yes.” He sat up straighter, pride and defiance glittering in his eyes. “There were just two in the first issue, but I will have my own section in the second.”

“May I see them?” Michel asked.

Loisel gaped. A policeman was probably one step above a demon in his hierarchy. But he closed his mouth, swallowed, and refused politely. “I have shown them only to Monsieur Noret. He has made invaluable suggestions. I am still reworking them. They must be perfect.”

“Perfection is difficult to achieve,” Michel said.

Loisel’s jaw set stubbornly. “What else is worth the struggle, the torment?”

“Can you tell me the themes?”

“Death. God. The Devil. Lust. Love. Time. Beauty. What every poet writes about.”

Michel nodded, though Noret’s list would have differed. He had reread the first issue of
Le Revenant
, and poems by these poets in other literary magazines. Noret’s were often violent, especially the ones in the more political publications. Loisel had talent but little restraint. The baron’s were polished and elegant, revealing little emotion but hinting at hidden depths. Charron’s were brilliant but too carefully controlled, as if he feared to unleash his emotions. Most were morbid. Loisel, Charron, and Estarlian all presented death seductively. Charron and Estarlian both had poems about Salomé, full of blood imagery. Yet, Paris was hardly lacking in poets who explored the dark realms of the psyche.

But Michel had seen this failed priest in other company. “Monsieur Loisel, you know a man who calls himself Vipèrine.”

Loisel went very pale. “That…that…can have no relevance,” he stammered.

“You came with him to view the bodies after the fire, and this is your second visit to the morgue. You were here with him this morning.”

The poet shook his head mutely, then licked his lips. “Death is one of the great themes. The death of a child is the ultimate tragedy.”

“And the murder of a child is an even greater one?” Loisel was speechless again, so Michel asked, “This Vipèrine is a diabolist, is he not?”

“Do you believe such things?” Loisel whispered.

“Don’t you? Or did belief die with your crisis of faith?”

“I cannot say.” He shook his head. Michel maintained a dubious silence until Loisel swallowed hard and said, somewhat louder, “If one believes in God, one must learn the snares of the Devil.”

Michel thought that most snares were quite obvious. He laid the photograph of the cross with the wings down in front of Jules. The poet looked frightened, but asked, “What is it?”

“This version of the cross has no significance for you?” Michel pushed it closer.

Loisel shoved back the chair and stood. “Truly, I know nothing. I have seen nothing.”

Michel was tempted to badger him, but it was only frustration. Better to leave some questions to pursue later. “You can go.”

Watching Loisel sidle out of the room, Michel reminded himself to remain detached. He must not want Vipèrine to be guilty, or Charron—any of them. Unless he studied the evidence dispassionately, he might overlook something. There was no guarantee that the killer had returned to the cemetery or the morgue. The Revenants had. Charron’s father had. But so had a multitude of bartenders, cab drivers, milliners, tourists, and prostitutes—with and without their customers.

Michel invited Estarlian in. The baron answered his questions with icy politeness. The Revenants
had heard of Alicia from Theo or from each other. They were all at the fire—with two thousand other people. Estarlian said Noret had encouraged them to come to the morgue, but it was to support Charron. “Instead, it was Theo who needed us, so it was a wise decision. Don’t you agree, Inspecteur?”

“You did not only come to the morgue, Monsieur le Baron. You went, alone, to the cemetery and visited the tombstone.”

“Why should I not? My closest friend had a horrifying experience. I went to see where it happened. To comprehend and to commiserate.” Beneath the cold politesse, Estarlian simmered with anger. If he was lying, he did it superbly.

“What did you feel when he told you what he had discovered?”

“What would you expect me to feel? Shock. Horror. Disgust!” He paused for a moment, visibly seething, then stood. “Really, Inspecteur, this is ridiculous. I do not know what you expect to learn from us. We are not the sort of people who create obscene public spectacles.”

“No? Poets are exempt?”

“The
Revenants are exempt. I cannot speak for other groups. We have no Ubu Roi chanting obscenities like a crazed nutcracker.” He gave a slight laugh. “Well, perhaps Noret, on occasion.”

Ubu Roi
was a play which had created a scandal earlier in the year. The first word that the bizarre Ubu spoke was ‘
merde
.’ That single bit of scatology set off a riot in the theatre. With the taboo broken, Michel presumed it would soon become a commonplace vulgarity.

“Please sit down again,” Michel said quietly. “There is another case about which I must ask you—unrelated to this.”