Murder On The Rue Cassette (A Serafina Florio Mystery) Read online

  There was a momentary pause.

  “Oh, my, well then she does use her husband. The marriage is childless, you know,” Carmela said, hoping that her remark would keep the conversation going. She’d never forgive Loffredo or her mother for their affair, flaunting it in front of the hungry eyes of Oltramari’s gossips, behaving almost as badly as Elena and at the expense of all her children. If she should run out of favor with the commissioner, she’d never work again.

  “And did you see him, this scholar, the man she was with Thursday evening?” Berthe asked.

  Victorine nodded. “I did, and I don’t know what she sees in him. He makes my skin crawl. Rumor has it he’s the bastard son of a famous abbot, but the Academy will have none of it. They love him.”

  “That’s precisely what she sees in him,” Berthe said. “Someone bound hand and foot to the establishment. With him, she’s breaking the rules. She doesn’t care that she’s broken him. Don’t you see? Shock, that’s what she wants. And a new lover each month.”

  “She’d better watch out. She’s flirting with ruin.”

  Carmela blew a stray curl from her forehead.

  “Did you see his face when he looked at the paintings?” Victorine asked. “Went around the exhibit in less than five minutes. It made me sick.”

  Berthe Morisot crossed her arms. “Even worse was the way he regarded her. It was as if he were bound to Elena in hate. And yet I pitied him, even though he repulsed me.”

  “Well, my dear. You don’t know the half of it. But I will say this in her favor. The frock she wore was a marvel. I would have asked Elena for the name of her dressmaker if I could afford to use her.”

  There was another lull. Carmela had to stoke the fires. “I love talk of wardrobes and dresses. Parisian style is so unique. Do describe her frock.”

  “A pale green watered silk. I’d never seen quite the color. But it was the jacket that was so clever. A darker green, quilted, gold thread running through it. And the buttons, exquisite with a tight-fitting waist, riding over the bustle and forming a train. It was meant to be tight-fitting, but it ill-suited her.”

  “I think she wanted it that way. She wants everyone to know her condition. She flaunts convention,” Victorine said.

  “Now that you mention it, I must agree,” Berthe said.

  Carmela’s ears perked.

  Victorine turned to Carmela. “But enough of this talk. You are a guest in our country and a friend of Elena.”

  “Please, you misunderstand me. My family is acquainted with hers, that’s all, but we are not friends. Quite the contrary.”

  “Well then.” Victorine moved closer. “I heard that her latest is in fact the father of the child she carries and he’s not at all happy about it. It’s the end of the affair, she told a good friend of mine.”

  “Poor man, she’s ruined him.”

  Victorine nodded. “Well, she should make another appearance soon, and it will be interesting to see the deterioration.”

  “Fancies herself a painter,” Berthe said.

  “No!”

  They were silent. The subject, it seemed, was at an end.

  “And you, Victorine, what do you think of the work in this exhibit?”

  “Brilliant question. I must say most of the work here breaks new ground and several of the critics agree.”

  “Yes, and for most of the people, the ordinary Parisians, art is very important,” Berthe Morisot said. “For a long time they have longed for art that touches their lives, and so they are in awe of the paintings. And some of the reviewers have been kind to us, too. Many of them, though, not so kind.”

  “Who cares what they write, as long as they write about the exhibit. Most reviewers talk nonsense anyway, and the world knows that.”

  Tessa returned to the room and the talk of Elena and reviewers stopped.

  “Everything is so fresh, so alive,” Tessa said.

  “The poses are so natural,” Carmela said. “I feel brand new.”

  “And I must be getting back to my studio,” Victorine said. She took Carmela’s hand. “So nice to meet both of you and do please come for a visit. No need to send your card. I’m there all the time. I’d love to show you my work.”

  After Victorine left, Berthe Morisot took them through the rest of the rooms. Although she’d seen all of the work while the others were talking, Tessa had to stop at each painting again, enthralled, and Berthe Morisot told them what she knew of each artist. “You see this sunset?”

  They nodded and Tessa stepped closer, reading the name. “Claude Monet.”

  “And over here—the man there with the straw hat. I must get a straw hat,” Tessa said.

  “You must if you want to paint like us, outside, en pleine air.”

  “These paintings are all about the light, how it changes from moment to moment,” Tessa said, her face thoughtful, contemplative as she gazed at her favorites.

  “One more question if I might,” Carmela began. “Do you have the Paris address for Elena? We have a message for her from her father.”

  “I might.” Berthe Morisot went over to the guest book and opened it to the first page. She ran a finger down the rows of names. It took her a few minutes, but she pointed to Elena’s signature and an address in the sixteenth arrondissement. “You can hire a cab or take la petite ceinture. You are familiar with it?”

  “The little train that runs around Paris?”

  “C’est ça, exactement. Get off at Station de Passy and walk away from the Bois de Boulogne on the Rue de Passy. She has an apartment on the top two floors of a large building on the Place de Passy. Her father owns the property, she told me. Buy tickets on the train. Children ride free.”

  While Carmela stood at the table holding the guest book, she noticed the name underneath Elena’s. Étienne Gaston. “Is this Elena’s latest lover?” she asked.

  Berthe Morisot studied the signature and nodded. “That’s the one. What she sees in him ... He’s tall enough, handsome, I suppose, if you like his type.”

  “His type?”

  “Full of himself, my dear. Don’t tell me you’ve never—”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  Carmela copied down his address.

  Chapter 11: Alphonse Valois

  Alphonse Valois lived in the sixth arrondissement on a side street near the fashionable Luxembourg Gardens. It was a hike to and from his office on the Île de la Cité, but whenever the weather allowed, he walked to work. The twice-daily exercise stretched his legs and his mind, and he loved it. Not, however, this evening. That Sicilian sleuth had spoiled everything.

  He crossed the Pont Saint-Michel and strode down the Boul’Mich keeping his eyes fixed on the ground, realizing too late that he’d passed the fountain. So he stood, indecisive, straightening his lapels, staring at the string of plane trees, and letting the crowds of students shove around him until he caught himself. He ran back to the Place Saint-Michel and touched his chapeau melon to the archangel. After patting the dragon’s foot for good measure, he expanded his chest and continued on his way.

  Closer to home, he watched an argument between two neighborhood boys whom he’d seen often enough playing in the street together. He had half a mind to break up the fight, but it seemed harmless enough. After all, young boys had arguments. He smiled, glad for the respite from dark thoughts.

  Once the investigation had seemed so simple, the murder of a questionable woman whose body was found on the Rue Cassette. Now, because of the Florio woman, the case was like a toothache, intrusive and persistent. He longed to be done with it, to be home within his own four walls where nothing disturbed. He needed a good meal, a restful evening, a gentle talk with his wife about this and that—her garden, the price of veal, the news of the neighborhood, and his son’s day at school.

  Life had returned to normal after the war and the bloody days of the Commune. In fact, Parisians seemed to enjoy life even more because of the twin tragedies. He moved on, walking more swiftly down the
Rue de Vaugirard toward home.

  Looking back on it, he realized part of him had known there’d be complications the moment he’d seen the victim. He should have taken greater care. Her disheveled hair, her painted face, and the ring of dirt around her neck told one story. Her papers told another. According to the Italian passport he’d found in her reticule, she was a Sicilian countess. But he knew the aristocracy were a penurious lot in Sicily. That might explain the woman’s slovenly appearance, or perhaps she’d had a taste for the bizarre.

  They’d found her before first light. It was difficult to see so he’d walked to the corner and examined the documents underneath the nearest gaslight. He rubbed his fingers together, remembering the feel of the rough paper. According to the date on the photo, it had been taken some ten years earlier, not a good likeness at all, but half the dead woman’s face had been blown away by the blast. And of course there was a difference between a person’s looks in life and in death. He knew from bitter experience that death stripped away expression.

  The mystery of her identity puzzled him during the initial hours of his investigation, along with how and why she died and who could have killed her. Why was the countess in France? She’d been here for quite some time, according to the passport. Perhaps she was a kept woman. Perhaps a gentleman with dubious tastes had paid for her passage and now was tired of her.

  He’d gone over and over his initial involvement, his early suppositions, breaking his first movements into simple steps, the loud knock on his door waking him from sleep. He’d walked to the scene with the sergent de ville who’d found her, asking him the basic questions of who, what, when, assuring himself that the body hadn’t been moved, waiting patiently while the photographer took his photos, taking his time with the scene, examining her garments, searching the ground for traces left by her killer, looking for imprints next to the victim, scraps of paper, clumps of hair, a fingernail, anything that did not belong. He made sure he could describe what he’d seen, closing his eyes and imaging the exact position of the body in the street relative to the curb, the placement of the hands, the face, the torso, the feet, writing down his impressions in great detail. He made sure the photographer had recorded the face and body from every angle before he released the dead woman to the morgue.

  “Hey you, watch where you’re going? Some kind of peasant? Could have been killed!”

  He stepped back from the curb, and tipped his hat to the carter, shouting, “Grateful to you, kind sir,” and continued on, his ears pounding. He felt the rush of blood to his face. Wiping his forehead, he walked more slowly until his heartbeat returned to normal and he could appreciate the moment. He focused on the present by looking around and observing details—the vegetables and fruit displayed in front of the épicerie, the order and care with which they were arranged, the cleanliness of the storefront’s glass. The grocer, Monsieur Dupré stood at his window, a white apron tied around his belly. Valois bowed to him and to the cart vendor at the corner who gave him a toothless grin and held out a bunch of violets. “For your beautiful wife, Monsieur l’Inspecteur.”

  He gave the woman a few coins and waved to the driver of a passing carriage, noting the size and color of the horse, the condition of the wheels, the harness and tack. He made a mental note of everything he saw, the debris by the side of the road, the birds in the trees, taking into account anything unusual, fingerprints on the glass of a neighborhood café, the rustle of its net curtains. When he arrived at his front gate, he’d quiz himself on what he remembered, the way he did when he was young and carefree and so eager to practice detection.

  Good work, Valois. Yes, he’d calmed his spirits and exercised his mental faculties after his meeting today with the prefect and that Sicilian investigator and her friend. Arrogant females who barely spoke two words of proper French. What could they know of his business? Why did they have the audacity to question him? Perhaps not the fat one, no, she’d been polite. She’d had a kind face and spoke passable French, but the one who called herself an investigator, such cheek, and clothed in a style five years past its prime. Françoise would have hidden her smile, but she’d have been amused.

  Yes, of course, this was the way to peace for him, an exercise he enjoyed, a stretching of limbs and mind. It was the way to solve cases. Concentrate on the present for the present contains the evidence, physical, incontrovertible. The killer leaves his traces. Few of us see what really goes on around us, but Valois was one of the few. Look at the color they’re painting that door, for instance. Two workers, industrious, not stopping to chat. Such a deep blue, like the color of Françoise’s eyes, and so many coats of varnish. He hadn’t seen it this morning when he’d passed. It lifted the neighborhood. He looked up at the sky and observed the clouds, counted the chimneys on each of the buildings, noted with pride the cream-colored façade of each building. Haussmann was a genius. He wondered what Françoise would say when he told her about Madame Florio.

  The victim first entered Paris on Thursday, February 7, 1867 according to the official entry stamp. So she’d been in his city over seven years, long before the Franco Prussian War. No exit stamps; she’d remained in Paris during the Siege and the Commune, unless she fled to the country like the rest of her lot.

  Why was he dredging up these details now? He was halfway home and must get the dead countess off his mind. Her pocketbook contained several large bills and some coins, over six-hundred francs, an enormous amount for a woman of any class to be carrying in Paris. In her purse were a small photograph of a man about thirty-five or forty, the approximate age of the victim, and a carte de visite of an older gentleman, an uncle or father, or rich lover. Both the photo and the cdv bore the stamp of a studio in Oltramari, Sicily. When questioned, her husband had been polite. It figured: he was the one with the title. He’d been attired like a nobleman, and his French was impressive. Valois hated to detain him, but he had to have someone to question and the café owner was immediate in his identification of the man as her frequent companion.

  “Hello, Monsieur l’Inspecteur! Valois, isn’t it? My neighbor?”

  “Oh, so sorry. Forgive me, Madame Hugo, I didn’t see you. And your little dog.”

  “You were preoccupied, dear sir. Well, of course, the weight of all Paris is on your shoulders. You, a principal inspector and me, a poor little old woman, not worth your time. No, indeed.”

  Not so little, that one. She looked like a stuffed goose newly arrived from Brittany. He doffed his hat and made his apologies again, complimented her on the rosiness of her complexion, and bent to pet the animal, cursing himself for dreaming again. He touched his hat to the old witch and continued on his way.

  At first the death of the mysterious woman in the Rue Cassette had seemed like a suicide, the pistol, a double-barreled Derringer recently used, common enough, found in her left hand. “We get them often in this neighborhood, you’d be surprised,” the sergent de ville told him. Valois himself believed at first that the wound had been self-inflicted, the gun would have fit easily in the bag she carried. But the autopsy proved otherwise.

  At approximately six in the morning on Thursday, April 16, the coroner on duty performed his examination. Unheard of so soon after the murder, but done quickly at the request of the family, milliners of high standing in the city. After all, she was a countess and a foreigner. Best to get her off his plate. There’d be more special handling of the case, delicate because of the nationality of the victim, and the sooner he had his facts, the better. So he’d prevailed upon the good doctor to make haste. “Much obliged, dear man, you see, the deceased, is foreign royalty.” Dr. Mélange issued his report that afternoon, concluding that the victim sustained a fatal wound to the left side of her head. The bullet, deflected by bone and skin and blood, exited into the oral cavity where it lodged in the left side of the tongue. The doctor had extracted the metal and held it in his hand, showing it to Valois. Time of death was fixed at between one and three that morning, according to the state of rigor descri
bed by the policeman when he found the body and the contents of the victim’s stomach.

  But an examination of bone spurs in the deceased’s fingers indicated that she had been right-handed. The pistol had been placed by the killer or his accomplice in the victim’s left hand in order to feign suicide. In short, Elena Loffredo had been murdered. Of that, Dr. Mélange was certain. And most probably murdered by someone she knew, although it was not inconceivable that an unknown assailant could have surprised her. Because of the short barrel, the gunman had to have been standing close to the countess.

  They’d canvassed the area. Two witnesses said they’d seen a man answering Loffredo’s description bending over the body. It could not have been easier. This was a crime of passion committed by a cuckolded husband. And so Valois had relaxed, forgotten the discrepancies that bothered him initially, and arrested the husband. All that remained was identification of the body by a close relative or friend. Madame de Masson, the countess’s aunt, had obliged, fussing and complaining during what was for her a distasteful ordeal. The woman made clear her antipathy for her niece, saying Elena’s wanton ways had long ago predicted her abrupt and violent demise. She’d taken one look at the face and declared the body to be that of her niece.

  He stroked his mustache and continued down the street, now a few blocks from home, hoping Françoise would be pleased to see him arrive early for once. He was a dedicated servant of France, a principal inspector in the largest prefecture of all, rising up through the ranks of his colleagues these past fifteen years by diligence and thoroughness. Cleverness, too. He was assigned to the left bank in the busiest city in France, the most important city in Europe, and working for the most innovative branch of detection the world had ever known, La Sûreté Nationale.