Murder On The Rue Cassette (A Serafina Florio Mystery) (16 page)

“Don’t forget the kitten,”
Serafina said.

Rosa sent Serafina a look. “The
presence of the kitten suggests she did not feign her death, as some would have
us believe, but was murdered.”

Serafina looked at Rosa.
“According to Mimette, she expected to be gone for a while.”

“Where is the kitten?” Arcangelo
asked.

“In a good home,” Valois said.
“For now.”

“And now to what we must do,”
Serafina said. “If we put our heads together, we’ll discover who killed the
woman in the Rue Cassette, who attacked me, who are the men who follow us and
why, and I think we will discover who stole the photographs and the plates.”

Valois finished his cake and
tea. He opened his mouth to speak, but Serafina broke in.

“First things first. I’m sorry,
but considerable doubt has been raised about the identity of the dead woman,
and I think it no longer necessary to hold Elena’s husband for questioning. Do
you agree, inspector—especially in light of the new statement by the café
owner?”

There was silence. Serafina
could feel Rosa’s disapproval. She heard traffic outside, a spurt of laughter
from the square below.

Valois narrowed his eyes. “We’ve
charged him with murder. He denies it of course, but has no alibi on the night
Elena was murdered. Of course he claims he was in his room alone, but there is
no one, not even the concierge, who can verify his story.”

“What about Gaston, Elena’s
lover? By admission, he was at the murder scene. Couldn’t he have been the one
the café owner saw with Elena? He, too, fits the description of a tall and
angular man, and he claims that his revolver is missing. Could it be similar to
the one the killer used? And why haven’t you taken him in for questioning?” She
knew about French questioning, brutal and cunning. They were at an impasse
unless she could be more convincing. She looked at Rosa who was frowning at
her.

“Valois and I discussed this,”
Rosa said. “Leave it to us, please.”

“He’s a foreign national. I’m
afraid if we release him, he will flee.”

“We know him personally,”
Carmela said, staring pointedly at Serafina. “He would never murder his wife.”

Serafina could have hugged her
daughter. She knew how much Carmela disliked Loffredo. Instead, she said, “In
addition the count is a medical examiner, used to investigations. I’ve worked
with him in Oltramari and can vouch for his expertise. And don’t forget,” why
hadn’t she thought of this before, “he has intimate knowledge of his wife,
Elena, and will be able to give us details about her person which only he can
identify. If the body is exhumed, he must be present.”

Valois shook his head. “We’re
not ready to request the order of exhumation.”

Rosa looked like an eagle about
to swallow a canary. “I think the Italian ambassador might question why you
don’t release one of his citizens. He is a gentleman in good standing, well
respected in his community, and a count at that. Holding him for over a week on
no evidence but the word of a barkeep who now claims he’s not sure that he saw
him in his café seems flimsy at best. Help us to keep this investigation in
this room, Inspector.”

The color washed from Valois’
cheeks. But to his credit, he smiled and it spread to the rest of his face,
creasing his cheeks and the skin around his eyes. “You’ve given me a great deal
to think about.”

“What would happen if you
released him now? You’d have no suspect in custody. Are you afraid of looking
foolish?”

The color which vanished from
Valois’ face now returned in fury. “If I am to release our only suspect, I must
have more information to feed to the press.”

Valois’ reluctance to act was
maddening, although Serafina understood why. The inspector was caught between
what he should do and what his superiors expected of him. If he released
Loffredo without taking another person into custody, he would look weak, even
more so if he were importuned by the Italian ambassador to release one of its
citizens. And he was hesitant to question Gaston, even though he was a more
likely suspect than Loffredo, because he was a prominent French citizen.

Valois got up and looked out the
window, a sure sign that he was thinking about Serafina’s arguments.

“You make a valid point. I’ll
talk to him. He is a respected scholar, you know.”

There, at least he’d admitted
why they were treating Gaston with such deference.

“Let’s get back to what we must
do, find the man who shot you and take him in for questioning.”

“You mean, find the men who
attacked me. It sounded like there was more than one.”

“And we must find out as much
about the other men, the ones who follow you.”

“You mean, take them in for
questioning?”

He nodded. “Arcangelo and Teo
can help us locate these men; Carmela and Tessa can help with Elena’s apartment.
I’d like them to make a list of all articles of clothing and see if we cannot
find more documents hidden somewhere in her apartment.”

“We still need to search for
more of Elena’s friends, especially those in the art world,” Carmela said.
“Tessa and I should go to Café Guerbois. We’ve been told that many painters
gather there, especially on Sundays and Thursdays.”

“And I need to read the
documents we’ve gotten from Elena’s apartment,” Serafina said.

“As for the men who follow you,”
Valois said, “I have a plan, and disguises for my two friends here.”

“And Rosa and I would like to
question Dr. Mélange about his autopsy of the dead woman,” Serafina said. “I’ll
need a letter of introduction.”

* * *

Carmela, Tessa, Rosa, and
Serafina sat in Rosa’s room listening to Carmela as she read Elena’s address
book. It contained more than addresses of her friends, but he book was a
jumble. At best, it was an index into the character and mind of the woman that
Serafina sought to understand. For example, an address would be partially
written, punctuated by two or three quick words meant to indicate the character
of the friend. But like a boomerang, the jots became indications not so much of
the friend as they were of Elena herself and her disjointed mind.

“While Valois works with
Arcangelo and Teo, we’ll split up and talk to as many of her friends as
possible. Since Tessa speaks the language of artists—”

“What do you mean,
speaks
their language?” Rosa asked.
“She
is
an artist. It’s the dream she
was born with. Remember, she was born with a caul covering the tender spot on
her head. She’ll see visions, isn’t that what artists do?”

“They capture the truth of what
things really are so that others may see,” Carmela said.

Serafina had forgotten about the
caul. She took two pieces of the hotel’s stationery, one for Carmela, the other
for herself. Turning to her daughter, she said, “We’ll make two lists. You and
Tessa will interview painters and the like. Go to their studios if possible.
Rosa and I will concentrate on the others.”

Carmela grabbed the book from
Serafina. “You and your lists. But how will we know which ones are artists,
which are not, and where to find them? The book has some addresses, but there’s
no order to it. Most of these scribbles are notes to herself. Some of the
comments I understand, but much of the information is abbreviated, intelligible
only to Elena herself. This page, for instance: ‘Renoir, studio No. 2, B. Mich,
near St. G ...’ and nothing more. Then ‘Mallarmé, Rue de R,’ on the same line
with ‘Tarnier, April 18, La M.’ Or this one, ‘M. Misère, blanch.’ And here,
‘Degas, Rue Canard.’

Tessa told her that she’d
recognized the names, Degas and Renoir as two of the artists whose paintings
were hanging in the show they’d seen two days ago. Carmela picked up her map
and tried to find Rue Canard, but could not. “The word Canard must stand for
something else, Elena’s pet name for a street or a district in Paris. The book
is useless!” She tossed it on the bed.

“I have an idea,” Tessa said. “We
have an invitation to visit Victorine Meurent’s studio. We’ll start there.
Victorine knows Elena. Perhaps she knows the names and addresses of other
artists who also know Elena. Or we can go back to the exhibit on the Boulevard
des Capucines. Perhaps Berthe Morisot will be there, and we can get a list of
Elena’s friends from her.”

Carmela agreed. “Perfect.
Something I should have done on our first visit. She’ll help us, I’m sure.”

Having decided the book was of
no further use, the three retired to their separate rooms.

Serafina, however, was not yet
ready to toss the book aside, telling herself she’d get up early the next
morning and study it some more. After the chambermaid helped her into bed, she
slept for a few hours, but was awakened by singing and laughter, a rowdy party
down the hall or on the floor above or below, most likely. She had to lie flat
on her back, unmoving, and that made sleep impossible. She rose and spent the
next few hours combing through Elena’s book, scrabbling through the pages, trying
to understand the woman’s notes. Her forehead was tight, her vision strained,
and something she’d eaten was playing havoc with her stomach, but still she
looked at the book, then at the wall as if mesmerized. There was something she
was missing, something in the book that disturbed a memory long forgotten, some
words that held the key, she was sure. She dozed.

In an hour or so she awoke and
started reading the address book again from the beginning, opening the pages
slowly, scanning with a finger down the page, stopping at cryptic comments.
Nothing jumped into her mind except bright spots swimming before her eyes.
Maddening, like a door opening a crack but not enough to pass through. Perhaps
it was the chimera created by wishing it were so. Nothing looked familiar. Were
these the hallucinogenic scribbles of a drugged mind? Some of them, perhaps.
Other comments were just humorous asides. But there was something she’d read,
something disturbing, something buried, clawing to break free. She wanted this
case to be over. She wanted Elena to be alive, Loffredo to be released.

She remembered the envelopes
she’d found in Elena’s ladies’ parlor. Two were addressed to her in the Rue des
Juifs, another to her at an address in Arles. Would she have gone there to hide?
For how long? How could Elena believe she wouldn’t be discovered? Then she
remembered that if her father hadn’t asked that her death be investigated, the
ruse would never have been discovered. Despite what Gaston claimed, could Elena
in fact be the dead woman on the Rue Cassette? She pushed the thought away. And
the most puzzling question of all,
why
would Elena want to disappear.

“You’re doing your wizard thing
again,” Rosa said. A few minutes earlier she’d returned with her maid to check
up on Serafina. She sat on the bed while Gesuzza washed and dressed Serafina’s
shoulder. “You’re far away and in some bygone century. Thinking of Loffredo?”

“There’s something we forgot to
consider,” Serafina said.

“Let me guess, you’re building a
case again.”

“Who inherits Elena’s estate?”

The madam narrowed her eyes. “I
take back everything I’ve said about you and business.”

“I remember some time ago during
the case in Bagheria, remember?”

“Of course I remember. It’s
where Umbrello and I met. Quite a delicious affair, that.”

“You’re off the subject. No, I
meant that it was during our time in Bagheria that Elena found out about
Loffredo. She threatened to change her will and cut off his allowance,
remember? Loffredo laughed, but she may have done just that. How can we find
out? We’d need to know who profits by her death.”

They were silent a while.
Serafina may have dozed, but was awakened by a sharp noise in the street below.
Paris became even more alive at night.

“Leave it to me,” Rosa said.

“And while you’re at it, check
her account activity. Can you manage it?”

“What account activity?” Rosa
asked.

“Her bank account, of course.”
The perfect job for the madam.

Chapter
19: A View of Paris

Dr. Mélange was a slight man
with long fingers and a thin mustache. He took their note of introduction with
a slight incline of the head, reading it over several times. His office was in
the morgue facing the back of Notre Dame. Serafina and Rosa arrived early,
before the crowds that formed later in the day. They were seated in front of
him waiting for him to finish reading over his notes.

Serafina wondered why she found
the room so close. Perhaps because she was defying the orders of her doctor to
stay flat on her back for a week. She could wait no longer and asked her
question. “Was the woman murdered in the Rue Cassette with child?”

He shrugged. “Yes.”

“I told you,” Rosa said. “Thank
you doctor, we won’t waste any more of your time.”

Serafina felt her pulse quicken.
She looked at Rosa expecting the madam to gloat. Instead, her face was
inscrutable.

The doctor finished his thought.
“No longer with child. But at one time she had given birth or at least had
expected a child, perhaps many times, but she was not with child at the time of
her death. She was wracked with lesions caused by venereal disease, a condition
common among prostitutes. I’m afraid she would have died in a few months if she
hadn’t been murdered. She was a prostitute who should have been imprisoned for
defying the health laws. You were her friends?”

“No. And you told this to the
inspector?”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t
asked. I was asked to determine the cause of death and if the deceased had
committed suicide, but why would I include the fact that she was not pregnant?”

“Because her condition may have
had something to do with her death. For example, her husband finds she is not
with child, the reason he married her, so he shoots her.”

“Far fetched. I respect the
privacy of the dead and don’t mention their condition unless I am asked
specifically by an investigator, such as yourself, if the woman was with child.
As a matter of course, we examine the whole body including all the organs.”

* * *

On the way back to the hotel,
Serafina said, “I knew it. The dead woman was not with child. Then she could
not have been who she claimed to be.”

“She didn’t claim to be anyone.
She was dead,” Rosa reminded her.

“You know what I mean. The
reticule she carried was stolen. It belonged to Elena. The papers inside
identified her as Elena. Sophie de Masson identified the dead woman as her
niece, that’s what I meant. Must I spell it out?”

“What have you found out about
her will?” Serafina asked.

“Give me time. It’s not easy,
although it should be public knowledge. Elena is dead, after all.” The madam
shot Serafina a triumphant glance. “Oh, really?”

They were silent as they fought
the crowds gawping at the bodies displayed in the front glass of the morgue,
one of the more ghoulish recreations of some Parisians. The driver helped them
into the carriage and they headed for the hotel, swaying with the clopping of
the horse. Serafina’s mood matched the grayness of the sky. She tried to tighten
her cape. “I’m freezing.” She glanced at Rosa and added, “But the hat is
keeping my feet warm.”

The madam said nothing.

“I knew it. The woman was not
with child.” Serafina’s shoulder ached.

“You said that. Proves nothing,”
Rosa said. “Not yet. All we know is this: Elena’s friends
said
that she was pregnant. You know
she bent the truth to suit her whim. Whatever she did, whatever she said was
for attention. She longed for it. Sad, really, when you think of it. Bizarre. I
believe at times Elena is mad. Perhaps she felt she was no longer in the
limelight, so she told her friends that she was with child in order to gain
their attention. Anything to provoke a shocking response and an exciting way to
explain a gain in girth. And the woman was what, at least forty?”

“Not quite. She’s my age.”

The madam gave her a wicked
glare. “Dream on. How old were you when the twins were born twenty-two years
ago?”

Serafina looked at a seagull
flying low over the Seine. The morning traffic was thick and they were stopped
near the Pont Neuf. “You’re right. We must find confirmation. If we could prove
that Elena was with child on April 16, then perhaps we wouldn’t have to request
exhumation, and think of it, Sophie de Masson can sit forever with the body
buried in the family crypt, penniless.”

“Why don’t we find Elena? If
she’s not lounging about in her coffin, then she must be somewhere,” Rosa said.

There was silence for a moment
until the madam with that mind of hers said, “I’ll tell you why we don’t search
for Elena, because you’re not convinced that Elena lives.”

As they approached the hotel,
Serafina wondered how much Sophie had to gain by deliberately identifying an
unknown corpse as the body of her niece. Or was it an honest mistake and Sophie
was in fact losing her eyesight? As she turned the key to her door, she glanced
at the two policemen guarding her room and went to her desk. She picked up
Elena’s address book and sat in the chair, reading and looking up to stare at
the wall and think. Perhaps doze.

* * *

“Are you mad? Why travel again
to the place where you were shot?”

“I need to sit and think.”

“Do that in your room.” Rosa
looked at her as if she were wild. Perhaps she was. But there was something in
the address book, something she was reading and re-reading and still missing
because she hadn’t yet fathomed the mind of Elena. The best way to do that was
to sit in the woman’s apartment, breathe the air she’d once breathed, touch her
desk, her chair. After all, they weren’t friends, not really, and she needed to
get to know Elena in order to ferret out the cryptic notes in her address book.
It wouldn’t take long, she explained to Rosa.

This time they took
le
petite ceinture
. It was a much faster way to the sixteenth arrondissement
during the day because they avoided traffic.

More important, Serafina saw the
people of Paris, listened to them speak in low tones to one another, the words
nasal and clipped yet somehow sonorous, especially because she didn’t
understand the sense and could therefore concentrate on the sound.

The French loved to talk. Most
of the women on the train wore aprons and long cotton dresses, the men, thick
corduroy trousers, many with long faces, tired. Maybe they were going home,
having worked most of the night and much of the morning as well. Women carried
baguettes, clutched in hands cracked and blistering and from harsh soap,
callused from work. They were women who worked as laundresses, the sleeves of
their blouses rolled up, exposing powerful arms. Serafina remembered what the
young
sergent de
ville
had said
about the calluses on the dead woman’s hands. The men wore berets on their
head, leather aprons over their
bleu
de travail
, and
their handlebar mustaches were neatly trimmed. Some had linen kerchiefs rolled
and tied around their necks. Their eyes were bloodshot from drink, their hands
thick and bruised from work.

They got off at Station de
Passy, a quieter section of the city new to Rosa. Serafina marveled at the rows
of apartment buildings interspersed with large homes, the noise muffled by the
great trees of the Bois de Boulogne. When they arrived at Elena’s apartment,
Serafina was struck by two men wearing
bleu de travail
who pruned the shrubbery near the entrance. They shoveled
clippings into a wheelbarrow, their pace slow, pausing to look around, saying a
few words to each other, then gazing out at the scene, cigarette butts dangling
from their lips.

She smiled. “Do you recognize
anyone?” she asked Rosa.

“What are you talking about?”

“The two workers in blue uniforms.
Look familiar?”

Rosa smiled. “One’s pulling his
sleeve, the other licking his lips, both hardly working—how could I not
recognize them?”

They rang the bell.

Instead of the concierge reading
Le Figaro
, a policeman sat at the desk
polishing the visor of his kepi.

“Inspector Valois is expecting
us.”

He nodded and pointed to the
elevator down the hall. “Eighth floor,
mesdames
.”

“Liar,” Rosa said, under her
breath as they ascended in the slow, creaky lift. “The stairs would have been
faster. If we fall and die, it’s all your fault.”

Serafina was surprised to find
so many men in the apartment. Several detectives were assigned to each room,
some lifting the carpets, some with magnifying glasses, others carefully
putting what they’d found in small envelopes and marking them. The French
investigators were impressive, she had to admit it.

“Carmela and Tessa went to talk
to artists at the exhibit,” Valois told them after greeting them.

Serafina explained why she was
here. Any room would do for her purposes, so she sat in a chair in the
glassed-in sun room at the back of the apartment. It faced the center of Paris.
At first Serafina was enthralled with the view until she settled into a
meditative arrangement with herself, unmoving.

Rosa sat for a while, and then
became bored. She decided to help the inspector in whatever way she could, but
found he was occupied in a corner of the ladies’ parlor talking in low tones to
one of his men. Drifting through the kitchen, she opened each drawer, uncertain
as to why she did, other than for something to do. As she opened a cupboard
full of cut glass, she saw what looked like a pile of notes rolled and stuffed
into a small vase in the rear. After spreading the papers out on the table she
read one, shook her head, scooped them up, and stashed them in her pocket. She
went through all the other drawers, climbing the ladder to root through the
high cabinets, but found nothing else of interest.

Slowly she made her way back to
the sun room where Serafina sat. She hadn’t moved, so Rosa sat down opposite
her, instinctively opting for the most comfortable chair in the room. She put
her head back and dozed, waiting for Serafina to finish. When Rosa opened her
eyes, the wizard had disappeared.

* * *

Valois was still busy, most of
his men huddled around the blood stain Serafina had created on the Aubusson
carpet, so she made her way to the main foyer and up a winding staircase to the
second floor, a glass conservatory and ballroom. It was enormous. Elena must
have the exclusive use of the building’s roof. It had a breathtaking view of
Paris. She doubted she’d find much of anything up there other than all of Paris
spread out before her, but she wanted Rosa to see it, so she went back
downstairs and saw Valois talking to a photographer.

When she ascended with Rosa, the
madam was enthralled. They looked to the east and saw the Île de la Cité like a
magnificent boat riding the Seine with the statue of Henri IV at its bow, the
ruins of the Hôtel de Ville on the far bank of the river, the traffic on the
bridges, the boulevards, the streets. She saw the Jardin des Tuileries and the
destroyed remnants of the Palais des Tuileries, their hotel and the Place du
Palais Royal, the Place Vendôme, the glittering streets in the first
arrondissement where the wealthy from all over the world did their shopping.
Her eyes moved across the river to the Palais du Luxembourg and its sweet
gardens where she could spend a month, the impressive dome of the Pantheon,
even the tiny Rue Cassette which ten days ago held the mystery she hoped to
unravel.

Rosa pointed to the esplanade
and chapel of Saint-Louis-des-Invalides and Mansard’s dome glistening in the
sun. “And there’s the Champ de Mars and the military academy.”

Serafina said nothing.

“And winding through it all, the
Seine, mistress of the city, the barges floating on it like black swans,” Rosa
said.

Serafina looked at the scene,
the light unique to Paris. The world seem silvery. “I must agree with you,” she
said, “Paris is a beauty.”

“Too poetic by half,” the madam
said. But her face betrayed her enchantment. “Could you live here?” she asked.

Serafina nodded. “The people
still have what we’ve lost.”

To the west stood La Muette, its
delightful park a pale green, and behind it, the deep green mantle of the Bois
de Boulogne, dark and foreboding. “You can’t see it, but beyond the Bois is
Longchamp. Remember Ricci telling us we should go?”

“If we have time, we must. His
description of the sound of hooves on grass made me shiver,” Rosa said.

“We’ll have time.” Serafina
looked at her friend.

“You know what happened already,
don’t you,” Rosa said.

“Not completely.”

“What does that mean? Is that a
yes or a no?”