The Curse of the Grand Guignol Read online

  “The missing hands hint at some sort of medieval retribution,” said the Countess, improvising an opinion rather than asserting it. “It is a common punishment for thieves in Arab countries, usually just the one hand, not both.”

  Of more than moderate intelligence, the inspector noted the change of tone. It encouraged him to elaborate. “Yes, we looked into that angle. Interestingly, the victim was a prosperous glove maker with a glove factory north-east of the city in Bobigny. The connection between the hands and gloves seemed to point to something significant. We questioned all his employees He appeared to be respected, even well-liked. Everyone expressed dismay at his death. He had never married. His closest friends expressed the utmost shock. His financial accounts were scrutinized. He appeared scrupulous in all his dealings. We could not find a single example of mismanagement or dishonesty. He appeared to have not an enemy in the world. In other words, we came to a dead end.”

  “There was nothing to link him to the theatre?” posed the Countess, returning to her first thought, though not as insistently.

  “We didn’t consider a connection to anything theatrical at that stage. As I said, he did not appear to look like a marionette even though he had been strung up. It was only later, after the third murder mirroring the same bizarre manner of death that we noticed how puppet-like the victims appeared. At that stage, meaning after the third murder, we immediately went back and interviewed everyone connected to the three deceased. None of the victims had any link to the theatre apart from attending on occasion an opera or dramatic play.”

  The inspector paused and swallowed hard. “There is just one thing I have omitted to add. Each victim had a luggage tag strung around his or her neck. The first victim had the word ‘mama’ written on his tag.”

  “What did you make of that?” asked the doctor, intrigued.

  “Frankly, we did not know what to make of it. It seemed more of a joke than anything serious. We concluded the murderer was someone with a sick mind, a lunatic with a hatred of his mother perhaps. We made enquiries and found there were plenty of lunatics with a hatred of their mothers but none with an obsession for red lipstick. I had men working day and night going over old files to establish if any criminals had a connection to red lipstick. As you are probably aware, Monsieur Francois Vidocq kept a meticulous system of information cards detailing all sorts of quirks associated with the criminals of France. Alas, no connection came to light. Likewise, the first deceased could not be linked to any madmen or asylums and his mother had been dead for over twenty years. Monsieur Maurice Dupin, the first victim, had led an uneventful - some might say boring - life as an honest businessman and a confirmed bachelor.”

  “And yet he died an eventful death…more coffee, inspector?” invited the Countess.

  “Yes, thank you.” His throat was feeling unnaturally dry and he had only just started.

  “Number two?’ she prompted, filling his demitasse.

  “Victim number two was a week later – November tenth. He was found in the Bois de Vincennes by a man walking his dog in the early hours of the morning. The body had been strung up by the upper arms in the same manner as the first victim, this time to a tree in the park. He had the same red lips and clown cheeks. Around his neck was a luggage tag with the word: ‘papa’. By that, we knew at once it was the work of the same killer.”

  Dr Watson and the Countess exchanged glances; both recalled the newspaper article describing the body of a man found in the Bois de Vincennes, though not the curious manner of his death.

  “You suppressed some vital details from the newspaper,” pressed the doctor, trying not to sound too judgmental.

  “Yes,” admitted the inspector, draining his demitasse in one gulp. “The Director General of the Sûreté Nationale applied pressure. I believe your newspapers sometimes oblige in like manner to avoid public panic and copycat killings?”

  “Yes, yes,” muttered the doctor, realizing now why the murders they had read about all seemed nondescript and run-of-the-mill.

  “Were the hands of the second victim butchered?” furthered the Countess.

  The inspector shook his head. “No, this victim was missing his ears.”

  “You mean they had been sliced off?” she clarified. “Post mortem?”

  “Yes, that’s precisely what I mean.”

  “Well, you definitely have a madman on your hands,” concluded the doctor forthrightly. “Most likely it is someone who has not yet been incarcerated in an asylum but the man will slip up eventually and you will have your lunatic. Do you think he is targeting particular individuals?”

  The inspector nodded. “Yes, the victims were all prosperous elderly citizens, people of good standing. It would have been far easier to target vagrants or streetwalkers. The panic would still have been significant, as with your Jack the Ripper. And yet the killer pursued those from respectable backgrounds. The choice of elderly victims is baffling. How does he choose who to target? Does he lure them to the chosen place of death? Or does he stalk them and then brazenly take his chance? Or does he strike randomly and opportunistically?”

  “You thoroughly checked the background of the second victim?” pursued the Countess.

  “Yes, Monsieur Louis LeBrun was an art dealer. He lived in an hotel particulier overlooking the park. He was married with three adult sons. The sons work in banking, respectively in Bruges, Cologne and Geneva. My men thoroughly checked the backgrounds and everyone came out with a clean slate. The wife is an American heiress. No financial skeletons in her closet either.”

  “Did you check the backgrounds of the other guests in the hotel?” asked the doctor.

  The inspector looked baffled.

  The Countess came to the rescue. “An hotel particulier is a Parisian mansion, similar to Devonshire House, Montague House, Northumberland House, etcetera, in London, the sort of thing a landed aristocrat retains in the city. There are some magnificent ones in the Marais. The Hotel de Sully and Hotel Carnavalet are quite palatial.” She turned back to the inspector. “Was Monsieur LeBrun a man of letters?”

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “The ears being sliced off - it made me wonder if there might be a link to libellous articles. It was a common punishment meted out to writers in England in days gone by. I am thinking specifically of Prynne who had both ears cut off and the letters SL branded on his forehead after being convicted of Scandalous Libel.”

  The inspector rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I see.”

  “What about the third murder?” prompted the doctor; who was now as curious about the murders as his female companion was.

  “The third victim was a woman, the only female so far. Madame Amelie Hertzinger.”

  The name immediately rang a bell in the doctor’s belfry. “We read about her death in the newspaper. She fell from her balcony.”

  “Oh, yes,” remembered the Countess. “She was an ardent patroness of bohemian artists and her death spawned a new movement – the Splattereurs.”

  “Yes, quite,” responded the inspector dryly, “but she did not exactly fall. She had been tied to the balcony railings, her wrists bound using ribbons not string, her torso and legs dangling over the side, once again strung up like a marionette. The ribbons, however, were not as strong as the string and when they gave way she fell onto the pavement. Her body was discovered by the char who arrived at dawn to set the fires. Madame Hertzinger lived alone apart from a cook and a parlourmaid who have bedrooms at the rear of the sous-sol.”

  “Was she alive when she fell?” asked the Countess. “Did she scream for help?”

  “Yes and no, she was alive but her mouth was gagged using one of her own silk scarves. Her face was quite a mess when we found her but it was clear her lips had been smeared with lipstick and her cheeks dotted the same. Her hair had been hacked off.”

  “Her name sounds Jewish,” observed the Countess.

  “Yes, she was married to a Jew but she was not a Jewess by birth and she had been
widowed three years.”

  “The shearing of the hair suggests a deliberate act of humiliation,” she continued.

  “Yes,” agreed the inspector. “I am aware it is a form of humiliation inflicted specifically on women. The killer hacked off the hair while the victim was still alive. He may have used the same hatchet that he used for the hands of victim number one. Her scalp showed signs of horrific damage that could not have resulted from the fall.”

  “The hair was not found at the scene?” pursued the doctor distastefully.

  The inspector shook his head. “No, same as for the hands and ears – none were to be found. We think the killer may view these items as treasures or keepsakes to remind him of each individual victim and each particular murder.”

  “What did the luggage label say for Madame Hertzinger?” posed the Countess, nodding in agreement that the killer was collecting trophies.

  “Baba.”

  “Ah, now we get to the Slavic link,” she reasoned. “Baba is short for babusia – meaning grandmother, or perhaps babushka, meaning handkerchief. It was after the third murder that you thought there might be a Slavic connection?”

  “Not immediately, no, but when we seemed to get nowhere with the usual lines of investigation we began to look for less obvious clues. There was a gap of one week between the first and second murders, and then a further week before the third murder. It gave us time to go over things. I sent the telegram not knowing if there would be another murder, not even sure how you could help. I was just hoping that if you were passing through Paris you might take a look and spot something we had overlooked. After the fourth murder the Slavic connection seemed more feasible. The luggage label for the fourth said: ‘tato’.”

  “Tato?” repeated the doctor quizzically.

  The inspector indicated for the Countess to explain.

  “It is derived from the word Tartar, meaning Mongol. When the Mongols led by Genghis Khan conquered the Asian steppe they continued across the Ukrainian steppe on their way to Europe but crashed straight into Kyiv. By the time they were finished there was nothing left of the once might city or the famous Golden Gate. The Russian princelings in the north, in an effort to save themselves, did a deal with the Mongols and agreed to extract taxes from their own defeated people which they then passed on to the Mongols. The surviving population was thus enslaved and in time came to regard their conquerors as they would their fathers, in other words, as men who had complete control over their lives. Tartar became tato, meaning father. The word Tartary, Greek for the darkest pit of hell, also has links to the time of the Mongol conquest.” The Countess turned to the inspector. “The third death prompted you to send a telegram to Biarritz?”

  “Yes, the third murder with the word ‘baba’ occurred on the seventeenth of November. It implied a Slavic link but I had no time to follow it up, then after that nasty business with the clairvoyants in Biarritz was cleared up so promptly I returned to Paris and suddenly remembered you were Ukrainian. I sent the telegram in the hope you might shed some light on the string of murders. The fourth death with the word ‘tato’ occurred on the twenty-fourth and confirmed, for me at least, that there must be a Slavic link. I am grateful you can spare me some time.”

  “Tell us about the fourth murder,” said the Countess.

  “The body of a man was discovered in the Cimetiere du Calvaire – the smallest cemetery in Paris. It is situated in Montmartre and adjoins the old church of Saint Pierre de Montmartre. The corpse had the wrists tied with string which were attached to a wooden crossbar flung loosely over the headstone. The body was splayed out on a tomb. The man had been stabbed with the same round spike as victim number one and two, but not three. His eyes were missing, gouged out. My men searched everywhere. The eyeballs were nowhere to be found. But the luggage tag was also missing. It was found a short time later draped around the neck of a stone archangel not more than ten feet from the corpse. It was as if the killer was playing a game with us. He knew we would be expecting a luggage tag. He wanted us to find it but he wanted to toy with us first.”

  “Four murders in the space of one month,” said the doctor as he stood up to stoke the fire. “Let’s hope it is the last. The Ripper stopped suddenly. It happens sometimes.”

  No one said anything while a Faberge cigarette box was passed around. The inspector opted to sample an aromatic Egyptian cigarette rather than his usual cheap brand.

  “I’m afraid the murderer will not stop at four. There has already been a fifth.”

  “Oh, yes,” reasoned the Countess as Dr Watson passed her a lighted gasper and the penny dropped. “It has just gone one week.”

  “Yes,” confirmed the inspector, inhaling the pungent Egyptian cigarette.

  “What did the tag for number five say?” asked the doctor, re-taking his seat.

  “Didi.”

  “A Slavic endearment for grandfather,” supplied the Countess when her companion looked to her to elaborate. “The killer seems to be saying the murders are connected to members of a family, not necessarily his family, but something to do with family nonetheless: mama, papa, baba, tato, didi. Did the fifth corpse have red lipstick smeared on the lips and cheeks, inspector?”

  “Yes.”

  “Five murders in five weeks,” mused the doctor grimly.

  “Yes,” intoned the inspector. “The fifth victim was discovered just last night. The first murder occurred on the third day of November, the second murder on the tenth, the third was on the seventeenth, the fourth on the twenty-fourth and now, one week later exactly, we have the fifth murder. It occurred last night; the first day of December. It appears the killer is following a methodical pattern. I fear that he is also becoming accustomed to killing, perhaps even enjoying himself.”

  “Mmm,” agreed the doctor dourly, “you could say he is finding his stride.”

  “Tell us more about the fourth victim,” pressed the Countess, backtracking.

  “Dr Eugene Mueller, born in Lichtenstein, was like the others – elderly, prosperous, respectable, a doctor of philosophy, not medicine. He had written several books on the history of the Crusades and was recognized as a scholar among those who understood such things. We have no idea why he might have been visiting the little cemetery in the middle of the night or even what he might have been doing in Montmartre on that particular night. He lived in an affluent quarter near the Jardin du Luxembourg. He appeared to have no family or friends in Montmartre. He was not working on a new book and none of the graves in the Cimetiere du Calvaire have anything to do with the Crusades. It just makes no sense that he would be found there, dead, mutilated, his eyes gouged out.”

  “He was a father?”

  “You make reference to the word ‘tato’. As it happens, yes, he was, but his only child lives in Boston with her husband. The deceased was estranged from his daughter, and she will not be returning to Paris for the funeral, such is the antipathy between father and daughter. The estrangement was caused by the daughter’s decision to marry against her father’s wishes. He did not approve of the American husband. But that disapproval was nearly thirty years ago. It is not something recent. Father and daughter have not spoken for thirty years. He has had no contact whatsoever with his grandchildren either. We did not delve any further into the family background because it did not seem relevant and our time was quickly diverted to the fifth murder.”

  Dr Watson made a sympathetic tut-tut noise. “You must be run off your feet?”

  The inspector nodded with weary resignation. “I pray the fifth may be the last but I did the same after the fourth. I fear we are in for more. The killer, as you observed earlier, doctor, appears to have hit his stride.”

  “Tell us about the fifth,” said the Countess. “The victim was once again a man?”

  “Yes, Captain Stanislaw Lodz. He has a distinguished military record. Upon retirement he inherited a large and prosperous vineyard in Alsace. He did not travel often to Paris and we do not know why he made this last
trip to the city. He married late in life and enjoyed a quiet life on his estate with his young wife and three children. A thorough check revealed a man of good character. The location of the corpse was of interest.”

  The Countess’s arching eyebrows urged him to elaborate. “How so, inspector?”

  “The corpse had been propped as if sitting at a table outside the Café Bistro. It is a dubious establishment near the Moulin Rouge, owned by a trio of German brothers well-known to police as political agitators. They publish pamphlets urging the overthrow of the government, the judiciary, the police and so forth. The café is frequented by others of their ilk: disgruntled rabble rousers, anarchists, social misfits, penniless artists and scribblers that no one reads.

  The patrolman who discovered the corpse reported that the body was still quite warm. He had possibly just missed the killer by the briefest margin. The victim had once again been spiked through the heart by something sharp and lethal. The police surgeon discovered that the tongue had been cut out post mortem. There was red lipstick on the mouth and cheeks. The tag was around the neck.

  I returned to the café this morning to interview the three German brothers but they have an intense dislike of authority and were defensive and uncooperative. They claim to have been in the cellar of the café for most of the night and thus did not hear anything unusual. I am reluctant to believe anything they say but I have to admit I do not think they would murder an elderly man and pose his body outside their own café. It is quite likely someone is either trying to frame them for the murder, or more likely, it was simply a convenient place to prop the corpse.

  Most café owners take their furniture in before they close up for the night. The Humboldts, for that is their surname, do not bother. The killer may have been aware of this and made use of it. What an elderly respectable man would be doing in the Pigalle at that time of night is the question. Was he lured to the spot by someone he knew? Was he merely passing by? I am open to any theories. If you have any ideas please feel free to air them.”