The Curse of the Grand Guignol (3 page)

“Speak for yourself, but I agree
it appeals to the primitive soul of man.”

“Quite – in fact, the more
civilized we become, the more I suspect we cling to our primal
roots in some atavistic way.”

“Have you ever been to a theatre
of horror?”

She shook her head. “The Grand
Guignol opened its doors in 1897. I was married and living in
Melbourne at the time. This is my first trip to Paris for more than
a decade.”

“That reminds me. I meant to ask
when we boarded the train – do you own a house in Paris, by that I
mean, did your late step-aunt own a house in Paris?”

“
Mais oui
, Aunt Zoya
owned a pied-a-terre in the sixth arrondisement on rue Bonaparte,
midway between rue Visconti and rue Jacob. From my aunt I also
inherited a petit chateau in the Loire and a villa in Cap Ferrat –
you must come and stay next year in the spring or summer; perhaps
when we travel to Switzerland to visit Reichenbach Falls.

But to return to the
pied-a-terre – I only visited once when I was a child, about twenty
years ago, yes, I was probably about four or five years of age and
vaguely recall a fierce looking
maître de maison
who crept
about stealthily with a curved dagger strapped to his side and a
cloth wrapped around his head. His intimidating appearance induced
chilling nightmares long after we decamped to sunny Cap Ferrat.

I presume he is still in
residence for I have not heard otherwise. I sent a telegram to the
Paris
novaire
to instruct him to let the
maître de
maison
know to prepare the house for our arrival. I cannot for
the life of me recall his name – it was something starting with M.
Are there any other articles on murder?”

He turned the page. “Just one
more. The body of an old man was fished out of the Seine. The body
was badly decomposed. No one reported a missing person and it is
believed he may have been a rag and bone man. A hand-cart was found
abandoned on the riverbank.”

“
C’est tout
?”

“Yes, that’s it I’m afraid;
nothing macabre in that lot.”

Dr Watson was starting to
suspect the French inspector of sending a telegram to Biarritz in
order to lure the Countess to Paris for the purpose of pressing a
romantic suit. The murders were all run-of-mill stuff; nothing
sinister or even remotely interesting. Nothing that an ordinary
French plod couldn’t solve with his eyes closed. He let his head
fall back on the padded headrest and closed his lids. Oh, well, the
detour might actually work in his favour. They would return to
London earlier than expected and he could get some Christmas
shopping done. He always left it to the last minute and swore last
year to do better than a new apron for Mrs H.

He didn’t hear the Countess
click off the reading light, creep out of his compartment and
return to her own private sleeper.

Startled, the gentleman leapt
back onto the pavement, frightened out of his wits. Shock sent a
rush of blood straight to his head as he fell heavily against a
brick wall at the end of the rue de Brouillard, desperate to calm
himself, slow his breathing, wipe away the last tell-tale speck of
puke clinging to dry lips; fear spinning out of control – of being
followed, being watched, being found out.

“Are you all right,
monsieur?”

“Yes, yes, the cobblestones here
are still wet from that burst of rain we had earlier and, well, I
may have imbibed a touch too much champagne. My wife will kill me.
But how can a hot-blooded Frenchman deny his mistress a flute of
stars and not partake himself!”

The policeman glanced down the
inky-dark alleyway lined with the stinking hovels of rag-grubbers,
suppressed a shudder, then laughed good-naturedly – if only his
pitiful salary ran to champagne and keeping a mistress.

“No stars out tonight. You
should keep to the gas-lit rues. I don’t recommend taking
shortcuts. Would you like me to walk with you?”

“Has there been another
murder?”

“No, no, not tonight,” assured
the policeman trying to sound brave, “but you seem a bit unsteady
on your feet, monsieur.”

“I thank you but I am fine,
almost home, yes, I thank you once again for the kind offer but not
far to go now. It is reassuring to know that the good citizens of
Paris are being protected by the brave guardians of the city. Good
evening to you, officer.”

The policeman acknowledged the
high praise, doffed his flat-topped black cap then walked on,
thankful that if
had
been a quiet night. The whole of Paris
was on tenterhooks. That string murders which had started at the
beginning of the month did it – four in all so far and they had
been told by the boss to expect more. That was enough to put the
wind up most of the men. There was a rumour going round that the
last murder in the Cimetiere du Calvaire featured a mutilated
corpse. What sort of madman mutilated corpses!

A couple of cats yowled and a
dog barked in the distance. The sounds were muffled by the thick
woolly fog off the Seine. He heard some leaves rustling but it was
only the wind, or so he told himself. He paused at the gate leading
into the park and decided not to enter. It was only the wind
rustling the leaves. His wife had begged him to stay home, noticing
how he jumped at every little sound. It was reassuring to bump into
someone normal, a decent citizen, well, decent enough if you
discounted keeping a mistress! Lucky devil!

What was that? Someone was
sitting outside that squalid little café where the anarchists and
revolutionaries plotted crimes. Café Bistro. Well, the customer
would have a bit of a wait for his
café au lait
! It had just
gone midnight. It would be hours before he got served. Nothing
speedy about the service tonight. He laughed at his own joke –
making a pun out of the fact
bistro
meant fast.

Courage restored, he breathed
easier. He even felt some sympathy for the old drunk on a
freezing-cold night like this. Oh, well, he’d have to move him on
regardless. Better do it before the idiot urinated on the cane
chair or spewed on the table.

Hang on! Weren’t the café owners
supposed to put away the tables and chairs before closing up? Lazy
bastards! Serves them right if the furniture got damaged or
stolen!

Mahmoud stood like a sentry at
the balcony window where melancholy winter light softened the
severity of his stony gaze. Barely a muscle had moved for the last
ten minutes as he stared defiantly down at the street, raking every
passing carriage and charabanc, wondering if the next one would
disgorge the visitors who were about to shatter his intensely
private world.

He rarely gazed out of the
window that gave onto rue Bonaparte, caring nothing for the world
outside, preferring the view that looked inward, that looked
backward, down at the courtyard garden with the linden tree where
he had sometimes sat in the rosy evening with his mistress and
shared a tisane of mint and honey. The tree was leafless now, the
spreading branches denuded, exposing the wrought-iron table and the
cane chairs that in the summertime were shaded and offered privacy
from prying eyes.

Nothing had changed since her
death. All was exactly as it had been the day she left, as if she
might one day return, whirl through the door, plant a coquettish
kiss on his cheek and greet him as if she had never been away; or
only briefly; attending a musical
soiree
or
le grand
bal
– time always seemed to stop when not in her presence. Time
was invented for ordinary men and women, not for the gods and
goddesses who moved among lesser beings on winged feet, fleet of
foot, airy and immortal.

The Ormolu clock on the mantel
ticked but it was an illusion. Time itself was standing still. The
half-finished book was still on her bedside table, the tasselled
bookmark still marking the same page, as if she had just put it
down and intended to return to it later. Balzac. She liked Balzac
but not as much as she liked Victor Hugo or Emile Zola.

The delicate glass bottles were
still lined up on her dressing table among the ivory combs and
silver hair brushes, even the strands of blonde hair were there
still. The stray hair and the scent of the
parfum
made it
seem as if she was still there too. He had removed the vases of
roses and lilacs after the petals started to stain the woodwork;
and the box of half-eaten chocolates when he found a cockroach.

But her wonderful gowns
remained as they were in their mirrored wardrobes, as magical as
the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles. The ball gowns, the dinner
gowns, the evening gowns, the tea gowns – all with matching silk
shoes, silk fans, silk gloves, silk purses – pristine and ready to
wear as if Monsieur Worth had personally delivered them that very
morning.

And the costly jewels. He had
not touched them. The priceless diadems, the ropes of pearls, the
stunning diamond parure, the emerald and ruby rings, but most of
all the amber beads that held a special place in the hearts of
Ukrainians – they continued to slumber safe and sound in their
black velvet beds.

Now! Now, would come from
nowhere the two intruders. They would make changes, he was sure.
They would move objects about: the Sevres vase she preferred on the
Boule commode in the entry hall, the Meissen on the marble
mantelpiece, the enamelled Faberge cigarette box that always sat on
the étagère abutting the drinks trolley where the Cointreau sat at
the front, the vodka at the back, the cognac to the right and the
absinthe to the left. Perhaps they would even sell off the
furniture and replace it with something more baroque, more
bourgeois, more bohemian. Heaven forbid!

It would be criminal to make
changes. He did not like change. It unnerved him. He preferred
things as they were, as they always had been, or at least, as they
had been since he first crossed the threshold of Des Ballerines
forty years ago.

The pied-a-terre had started
life as a private school for girls with slender limbs who wished to
train as ballerinas; most ended up in the Pigalle. Still, it was
better than earning a living on the street. It was run by Madame
Blanche before she was struck down with arthritis and became
crippled; thin and frail, hunch-backed, hands like claws, lips
pressed into a thin red line, face pinched with pain, like one of
the grotesques hanging off Notre Dame. She had retired to the south
of France where the weather was kinder to old bones. She sold Des
Ballerines to the Duc d’Otranto for a tidy profit. He gifted it to
his Ukrainian mistress. The girlchild only came once; a strange
little thing with a wise old head on her young shoulders.

Countess Zoya kept Des
Ballerines as a private retreat, a secret bolt-hole away from
prying Parisian eyes, and did her partying elsewhere, staying at
one
hotel particulier
or another with one of her many
aristocratic friends. It suited him not to have crowds through the
place. That’s why he took the job of
maître de maison
.
That’s how he came to be the guardian of the house…what was
that?

A string of carriages, three in
all, cutting a merciless swathe through rue Bonaparte like Napoleon
on his way to war, mowing down that which stood in his way. If it
was war they wanted, it was war they would get. He would not
surrender. This was his last stand. He was a descendent of the
noble rural caste of Jat, a living embodiment of the five K’s:
Kesh, Kirpan, Kara, Kachera, Kanga – uncut hair, sword, bracelet,
cotton undergarment and wooden comb.

He opened the door and the
enemy advanced.

“Bonjour, Mahmoud.” As soon as
the large black door swung back and the Countess took one look at
the intimidating orientalist, she remembered the name. Memory was a
funny thing, like a house full of unfurnished rooms and a dark
cellar, the doors all locked, the key out of sight, and then,
voila
! The key is found, one door opens, and then all the
other doors swing open up one after another in swift succession.
Memories rush out. Thinking is replaced by remembering. The past
becomes the present. Throughout the northward bound train journey,
from Biarritz to Paris, she had strained to remember the name and
then it came just like that. The revelation took her by surprise
and her voice came out sounding shrill and sharp, like a battle
cry.

The fierce Sikh with one hand
on the door knob and the other on his dagger appeared to bristle.
His fingers twitched; his dusky knuckles showed white.

The Countess had the strangest
sensation he was about to strike, but was it she who was the
intended target or was it Dr Watson? Many Sikhs regarded British
born citizens as natural born enemies because of the atrocities
committed during the Anglo-Afghan war. She vaguely recalled her
aunt telling her Mahmoud was a descendent of some fierce caste from
a small tribe in Kabul or Kandahar. She made a mental note to speak
to Dr Watson regarding discretion and his military service in
Afghanistan at the first opportunity.

“
Bienvenue, la
comtesse
.”

Mahmoud had a deep, grainy,
manly voice, as if he had swallowed too much desert dust as a child
and the harshness had permanently affected his vocal chords. It was
not unattractive, though the dry gnarly notes could be a little
disturbing, conjuring images of being buried alive under mountains
of sand, gagging and suffocating in the struggle to breathe. The
thick wiry beard didn’t help. Perhaps that’s why he had intimidated
her all those years ago when she was a mere child. That, plus the
lethal looking dagger strapped to his side. She understood now that
it was a religious symbol.

Sikhs wore a small curved sword
the way Christians wore a cross, except in the case of male Sikhs
it was mandatory. The turban was likewise a mandatory religious
male accoutrement. Where it had once made him seem taller and more
frightening like a mystical Arabian Nights djinn; it now appeared
merely exotic.