Crime Without Passion

by Richard Grindal

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

An aristocratic young woman, Denise de Richemont, has murdered an important journalist, Jaques Le Tellier. She is acquitted by a sympathetic jury when she confesses it to be a crime of passion - revenge for the journalist's indiscreet revelation of his mistress' sordid family secrets. But the real reason why Mademoiselle de Richemont killed Le Tellier is far more sinister, and Inspector Gautier pursues the case from the haute monde of fashionable Paris to the seething and dangerous slums, determined to solve the mystery behind the murder.

Release date: December 14, 2015

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 210

Sample

‘IN OUR BELOVED France, gentlemen of the court, gentlemen of the jury, justice has never had her eyes blindfolded.’

Although Maître Bonnard had been speaking for not more than twenty minutes, an unbelievably short time for a defence counsel in a murder trial, one sensed that he was approaching the end
of his closing speech. Expectantly the audience in the Great Assize court, the jury, the distinguished guests seated behind the three judges in their red robes and the public opposite them waited
for his peroration.

‘Justice sees all, justice understands all. Even now, gentlemen of the jury, she is looking through your eyes at the prisoner before you. What does she see? A young woman who has done
wrong, who has killed, who has confessed. But she sees also a young woman who was shamefully wronged, who was exploited, who was betrayed. Mademoiselle Denise de Richemont was seduced,
calculatingly and cynically, by a man for his ignoble ends. You have heard how, when he had won her innocent love and her confidence, he tricked her into trusting him with a secret. You have heard
how immediately he published what she had told him in his newspaper, embellishing it with sordid details contrived by his own imagination, creating a sensation for the vulgar to enjoy. It did not
matter to him that by so doing he destroyed the reputation and the career of the young woman’s father, a man who had served France well. Indeed, you may think that this was his intention from
the very outset, the object of his fiendish plan. You have heard how Mademoiselle de Richemont, distraught with anger and shame, went to see him. What could she do? Had she been a man she might
have challenged him to a duel and so at least satisfied her honour. But, gentlemen of the jury, duelling is against the law; however, had she killed him at dawn in the Bois de Boulogne with a
rapier or a pistol, would she now be on trial for her life? I think you may doubt it, as I do. We have an unwritten law in France which allows a man to protect his honour. But women cannot fight
duels. Even if they wished to, society would forbid it. So what did Mademoiselle de Richemont do? Bewildered, provoked past endurance, unable in her confusion to balance right against wrong, she
satisfied her honour and revenged her father in the only way a woman could. She shot the scoundrel dead.’

Maître Bonnard paused, took off his pince-nez and wiped them with a silk handkerchief in a way that suggested he needed time to master his own emotions. It was pure theatre, but he would
never have become France’s most successful and most highly-paid criminal lawyer without an understanding of the power of drama. He had only a few more words left to say and he wished them to
have a profound and decisive effect on the jury.

‘In the eyes of the law,’ he continued slowly, ‘Mademoiselle de Richemont has committed a crime. That cannot be denied. But it is not the law, gentlemen of the jury, that you
have been brought here to administer today, but justice. And in our beloved France justice has always had a special compassion for Mademoiselle de Richemont’s crime; the crime of a woman
whose innocence, whose happiness, whose very life has been callously destroyed by a man; a crime of passion.’

Inspector Gautier, who had guessed what the advocate was about to say, watched the faces of the jury as Maître Bonnard spoke. They were twelve men, honest and well-intentioned no doubt,
mostly artisans, shopkeepers and minor civil servants. Only three of them, who had given their occupations as ‘proprietor’ could possibly have claimed to be men of substance. Throughout
the trial they had appeared ill-at-ease, as though uncertain of what was expected of them, their sense of duty in conflict with their sympathy for the prisoner in front of them. When Maître
Bonnard spoke the words ‘crime passionel’ one could see the relief in their faces. Gautier sensed that the advocate had given them a way out of their dilemma.

When Bonnard had sat down, the Presiding Judge put to the jury the question they were required to answer. At one time judges used to give a ‘résumé’ or summing-up
before the jury retired but the procedure had been changed and now the Presiding Judge simply told the jury that they must decide whether on the date in question the prisoner had murdered Jacques
Le Tellier.

As soon as the judges had left the court, and the jury had been led away to start their deliberations, almost all of the many lawyers who had been watching the trial from a special enclosure left
as well. They had come to see how the case was conducted and the arguments that were put forward and were not interested in the drama of hearing the verdict announced. Some of public spectators
went out of the court to stroll and gossip outside the Palais de Justice in the pale autumn sunshine.

Gautier stayed seated. As the trial had been short, he felt certain that the jury’s verdict would not be long in coming. He himself had played no part in the proceedings, given no
evidence. His presence was a necessary formality because it had been he who had arrested Denise de Richemont and when, unexpectedly, the trial had been brought forward by several days he had been
taken off another investigation so that he could attend.

He remembered the day, not so long ago it seemed, when he had been called from Sûreté headquarters to the editorial offices of the newspaper La Parole in Rue
Réaumur. There he had found Mademoiselle de Richemont, silent and white-faced, sitting outside the office of the editor, Jacques Le Tellier. Members of the newspaper’s staff had told
him how, on arriving at the building a short time earlier, she had walked into Le Tellier’s office, pulled a revolver from the muff she was wearing and shot him four times in the head and
heart. She had not spoken then, nor given a word of explanation since, but had sat down calmly to wait for the police to arrive.

Gautier had not been aware then that she was the younger daughter of the Duc de Richemont, at that time French ambassador in Rome. Only when she had appeared before a juge d’instruction,
later that day, had she explained her reasons for shooting Le Tellier.

She had met the newspaper editor, she had told the examining magistrate, a few weeks previously. Fascinated by his intellect and his charm, she had soon fallen in love with him and become his
mistress, meeting him in his garçonnière in Rue Lamartine. While they had made love, he had questioned her, casually she had thought, about her home and her family. Trusting him and
longing to unburden herself of a secret which had long distressed and shamed her, she had told him that her father was a pederast and, when he had expressed disbelief, she had shown him passionate
letters which the duc had exchanged with a young English boy while he was ambassador at the Court of St. James and which she had found hidden in their Paris home.

To her horror the story, along with the letters, had been published only two days later in La Parole. The scandal which had followed had forced the government to recall the duc from
Rome, his career had been destroyed, his reputation ruined and he was no longer received in French society.

‘So what could I do except shoot the villain?’ Mademoiselle de Richemont had asked the juge d’instruction. ‘You must agree he deserved to die.’

As he waited for the jury to return, Gautier looked around the court. Every seat in the public enclosure, and of those reserved for people of importance, had been occupied
since the trial began, for it had caused an international sensation. Not only had the Duc de Richemont come of an old and illustrious aristocratic family, but as an ambassador he had been received
in many of the most exclusive homes of London and Rome and St. Petersburg. Now his daughter was on trial for murder and titillating stories of his past had been published in the world’s
newspapers. The fact that the victim of the murder had himself been an editor of a well-known paper added piquancy to the affair and guaranteed that it would be voraciously reported in the
world’s press.

The ambassadors of several foreign powers were among the spectators but the British Ambassador was not one of them. Instead the First Secretary from his Britannic Majesty’s embassy had
been sent to the trial. He had been listening anxiously, one supposed, in case anything might be said that could damage the reputation of his country and endanger the fragile relationship between
England and France. By no means everyone in France had welcomed the Entente Cordiale and there might well be those who would suggest that the Duc de Richemont had been tempted into pederasty by the
corrupt atmosphere of English society. Memories of the scandal caused by the trial of Oscar Wilde still lingered and the position of the British Ambassador was not made any easier by the thinly
disguised homosexual inclinations of one of his elderly attachés. Mockingly the French had christened the man ‘La Tante Cordiale’.

Although there was a good sprinkling of women in the public seats, Gautier could see only two in the reserved enclosure at the opposite end of the court. Both were heavily veiled and he wondered
whether one of them might be the widow of the murdered man and the other the mother of the prisoner. Not surprisingly, in view of the scandal which the story in La Parole had provoked, the
duc was not in court. One person whom Gautier recognized, and was surprised to see there, was Paul Valanis, a wealthy Greek businessman, who represented the British armaments firm of Lydon-Walters
and Company Limited in France and lived in a vast house on Avenue du Bois. He had met and antagonized Valanis not long previously when investigating the murder of an art dealer. The Greek was a
philanderer, a man of dubious background and even more dubious business interests, but Gautier had not supposed that watching the murder trial of a relatively unimportant and unattractive young
woman would be one of them.

After about half an hour a bell was rung in the court to indicate that the jury would be returning. This could mean that they had already reached a verdict or that they only wished to seek the
guidance of the judges on a point of law. Those spectators who had gone outside began scrambling back hastily as the three judges, led by the President, filed in and took their seats. Mademoiselle
de Richemont was left waiting in the ante-chamber outside with her guards, for it was not the practice in French trials for a prisoner to be in court when the verdict was announced. Presently the
jury was ushered in and when the Presiding Judge asked the foreman if they had reached a verdict, he replied that they had. Solemnly and rather self-consciously the man announced, using the formula
which protocol demanded, that ‘before God and before men’ they found the prisoner not guilty of unlawful killing.

The verdict did not surprise Gautier nor did the scene that it provoked, for he could recall other trials when the defence of a ‘crime passionel’ divided the sympathies of the
spectators. As soon as the foreman of the jury had made his announcement, many people in the public enclosure leapt to their feet and began to cheer. At once there was a reaction of disapproval and
a counterdemonstration. Other spectators, women mostly, began to hiss and catcall and shout abuse at Mademoiselle de Richemont as she was brought by two municipal guards into court to have the
verdict read out to her.

‘It’s a scandal! Why should she go free?’

‘Disgusting! Is this justice?’

‘To the guillotine with the whore!’

A crowd of more than a thousand had gathered outside the Palais de Justice and as soon as news of the verdict reached them, they began applauding or hissing as well. Gautier walked over to the
dock where the prisoner was being congratulated by Maître Bonnard and his assistants.

‘We must find a way of smuggling Mademoiselle de Richemont out by a back way to avoid the crowds,’ he told the municipal guards.

‘That won’t be easy, Inspector,’ one of the men replied. ‘Some of those rascals outside know of all the exits at the back and the newspaper reporters of course will have
men posted there already.’

‘There is no need to try and hide me,’ Mademoiselle de Richemont said. ‘I am not afraid to face the crowd.’

‘But Mademoiselle,’ Maître Bonnard exclaimed, ‘You will have to fight a way through. We cannot guarantee your safety.’

‘I prefer to face the people. I have nothing of which to be ashamed.’

The young woman was completely composed. One might have expected that after the ordeal of a spectacular public trial and facing the possibility of imprisonment or even the guillotine, she would
have shown some emotion, but she appeared to have accepted the acquittal almost as her right. Her face, in spite of its pallor and her long, thin nose might have been, if not attractive, then at
least pleasant enough had she smiled more often and used her best feature, her dark deep-set eyes, to more effect. Instead her expression was cold and reserved with a hint of disdain.

Leaving the dock, the lawyers, the two guards and Gautier formed a ring around her as best they could and moved towards the doors of the court. Inside the building they were able without too
much difficulty to force a way through the spectators who had left their seats and were standing about in the well of the court, but as soon as Mademoiselle de Richemont emerged outside, people
surged forward towards them. There the crowd seemed more hostile than those who had been at the trial, perhaps because they had not heard the defence counsel’s speech. Many shook their fists
at the woman who was being freed and some who were close enough spat on her and would have struck her but for the protective cordon of policemen and lawyers.

The scene reminded Gautier of an occasion not many years previously when Emile Zola had been on trial for defamation after publishing a newspaper article with the headline
‘J’accuse’, in which he had accused government ministers and the army of conspiring to prevent the innocence of Captain Dreyfus being proved. When Zola had left the court each
day, he had been surrounded by a hostile crowd whose hatred and anti-semitism had been stirred up by his words. As a young policeman, sent to help control the crowds, he had sensed that the
mob’s anger had been balanced on a fine edge of hysteria and violence. He had been frightened then and was far from comfortable now as he and his companions edged their way out of the
court.

More police arrived, summoned hastily from Sûreté headquarters which were only a short distance away. With their help the lawyers and their client were taken slowly through the
struggling mass of people and down the steps to where an automobile stood waiting. A chauffeur in leggings and a driving coat stood ready by the door of the automobile which, Gautier noticed, was a
new Panhard et Levassor with gleaming headlamps of an unusual design.

As she was about to step into the automobile, Denise de Richemont turned towards Gautier and said calmly, ‘I thank you for your courtesy, Monsieur, not only today but throughout my arrest
and trial. When the time comes I will see that it gets proper recognition.’

CROSSING THE SEINE by Pont St. Michel, Gautier strolled through the Quartier Latin. That afternoon he would report back at
Sûreté headquarters but for the time being he was in no hurry and in no mood to return to duty. Was this a sign, he wondered, that he was growing old, losing that sharp curiosity, that
readiness to meet a challenge which made him enjoy his work. He smiled at the thought. Still the youngest inspector in the Sûreté, he was in service at least ten years junior to most
of his colleagues.

It may have been the end of the trial he had been watching that had provoked the slight sense of disillusionment which he felt. He was not a vengeful man and never expected nor wished that the
law should impose its maximum penalty on all those who broke it, but he could not help believing that Denise de Richemont had not deserved to be acquitted. He recalled her icy calm as she had sat
waiting for the police after shooting Le Tellier and her composure throughout the trial. In spite of what her defence counsel had said, there had been a curious lack of passion in her crime.

As he turned into Boulevard St. Germain, he heard music and singing. On the far side of the boulevard a group of street musicians was performing: a young woman singing to the accompaniment of a
viola, a guitar and a trombone. A small crowd, mostly of students, had gathered to listen and applaud. Gautier recognised the singer as Emilie Pinot, a chanteuse who performed in
café-concerts on the Left Bank as well as in the streets and was a great favourite of the students in the quartier, partly because of her cheerful, healthy appearance—more of a comrade
than a ‘petite amie’ one critic had described her—and partly because of the political venom in her songs. La Pinot was an unbridled opponent of the government which she attacked
wittily and often scabrously in her songs. For generations the Quartier Latin, with its population of intellectuals, poets and students, had been the focal point of unrest in Paris. In recent
months dissatisfaction with what many saw as the mediocrity and cowardice of the President, Emile Loubet, and his ministers had found expression in demonstrations and occasional outbreaks of
violence on the Left Bank. Now Loubet had gone, having finished his term of office, and his successor Fallières had inherited his unpopularity.

The many cafés in the quartier, where men gathered to talk and to argue, were the breeding grounds for discontent: the Café François Premier, where the poet Verlaine had
found a brief refuge from his squalid, alcoholic existence; La Vachette, which had been favoured by another poet, Mallarmé, now also dead; Les Deux Magots, La Brasserie Lipp and the
Café de l’Avenir. The café which Gautier frequented and for which he was heading that morning, had a much less radical clientèle. Lawyers, judges and deputies with an
occasional journalist, made up the majority of the Café Corneille’s regular patrons and Gautier was secretly proud of the fact that he was accepted by these professional men as a
companion and by one or two of them as a friend.

When he arrived at the café that morning his oldest friend Duthrey, a journalist from Figaro, was already at their usual table with an elderly lawyer and the deputy for
Val-de-Marne. The deputy had brought a friend with him, an Italian politician who was visiting Paris. As soon as Gautier joined them, knowing that he had come from the Palais de Justice, they began
talking about the trial of Denise de Richemont. Rumour, which travelled faster in Paris than any man on foot, had already told them of the verdict.

‘How was the verdict received?’ Duthrey asked Gautier.

‘By the prisoner? With astonishing equanimity. She showed no emotion whatsoever.’

‘By the public, I meant.’

‘They appeared divided. The majority of spectators in the court applauded, but outside Mademoiselle de Richemont had to face hostility and insults.’

‘A verdict like that would not be possible in any other civilized country in the world,’ the lawyer remarked.

‘That is true,’ the deputy agreed, ‘and the reason is that we French have an innate sense of chivalry, a desire to protect defenceless women.’

‘Chivalry? It has nothing to do with chivalry,’ the lawyer replied. ‘We have allowed ourselves to become obsessed with sex. Crime of passion, indeed! A young woman of good
family gives herself wantonly to a married man, becomes his mistress and then when she shoots the poor devil we are asked to forgive her, as though the pursuit of sex is a vindication of any
behaviour however criminal.’

‘Aren’t you being a little hard on the girl?’ Duthrey asked.

‘Certainly not! This deification of sex is destroying our country’s morals. In your newspaper the other day, your editor boasted that Paris had. . .