The Death of Abbe Didier

by Richard Grindal

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

Two dramatically contrasting episodes face Inspector Gautier in his latest mystery: the death by stabbing of the vicar of the fashionable church of Saint Clothilde in the confessional box; and the theft of the Duchesse de Paiva's diamond necklace during the extravagant fête thrown by Armand de Saules to celebrate the eighteenth birthday of his daughter, Marie-Thérèse. As the inspector investigates Marie-Thérèse's clandestine affair with a somewhat discreditable Italian poet, Daniele Pontana, and her rejection of her parents' choice for a husband, Gautier discovers the two crimes are strangely connected. As is a third, the murder of Pontana's valet Ponzi . . .

Release date: December 14, 2015

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 188

Sample

THE BALL TO celebrate the eighteenth birthday of Marie-Thérèse de Saules, although it fell in July, was the most spectacular event of the
summer season for Paris society. The ‘Grande Saison’ was almost over and in most years by that time many of the ‘gratin’ or upper crust would have shut up their Paris homes
and moved with their wives and children to family châteaux or to a watering place in the Alps or to a fashionable resort like Deauville or Cabourg. This year, however, few had departed for
few were willing to miss the grand fête which the banker, Monsieur Armand de Saules, was staging for his only daughter.

As a setting he had chosen the exclusive Tir aux Pigeons in the Bois de Boulogne. On the lawns of the club a vast marquee had been erected and decorated in a style and with a luxury which few
Paris drawing-rooms could match. For entertainment the entire corps de ballet of the Opéra, accompanied by an orchestra of 140 musicians, would dance on a stage that had been specially
constructed in the lake. For those of the 2,300 guests who might wish to stroll or gossip or flirt in the night air, more than 80,000 Venetian lanterns had been hung in the trees and 15 kilometres
of carpet laid to protect their feet from the dew on the grass. The jets of water from the fountains in the lake had been replaced by hissing flames and as a climax to the evening there would be an
extravagant display of fireworks.

Gautier moved among the groups of people who were standing near the lake, aware that although like every other man there he wore full evening dress, he was not one of them. The knowledge did not
disturb him. At times he wondered whether this was one of the characteristics of a successful policeman, an inner detachment which kept him always apart, allowing him to mix with others and at the
same time watch and observe. At other times he recognized that many of his colleagues in the Sûreté formed close friendships, raised contented families, were accepted in the streets or
quartiers where they lived. Perhaps it was only he who stood apart, whose wife had left him for another man, who had never even remained with one mistress for any length of time.

He was at Marie-Thérèse’s birthday party not as a guest but on duty. The Director of the Sûreté, Courtrand, who had many friends among the wealthy and
influential, had suggested to Monsieur de Saules in a friendly way that it might be prudent to have one of his senior inspectors and a few men at the Tir aux Pigeons that evening. It was true, of
course, that the wave of anarchism when bombs were being placed in the homes of judges and politicians—even a President of the Republic had been assassinated—had long since subsided.
Even so society in Paris had been badly frightened and the fear still lingered. With more than 2,000 people present at the ball including many men of good standing in the administration, one should
not rule out the possibility that some malcontent might be tempted to try a spectacular coup. So Monsieur de Saules had accepted Courtrand’s advice and Gautier, his principal assistant,
Surat, and twenty picked men had been sent to the Tir aux Pigeons; Gautier and Surat in evening dress to mix with the guests, the policemen dressed in silver and blue livery reinforcing the corps
of 170 servants who were staffing the party.

Around him Gautier heard laughter and animated conversation. Mostly it was gossip, some of it witty, much of it malicious, the idle malice of a long season that was ending in ennui and
irritation.

As he was passing a group of women he heard one of them say: ‘Have you heard? The Princesse Balakoff has found a new lover.’

‘I don’t believe it!’ another woman exclaimed.

The Princesse Balakoff, a young and beautiful Russian, had been the centre of a scandal that had shaken Paris not many months previously. One afternoon her elderly, very rich and very jealous
French husband, armed with a pistol, had burst into the bedroom of a discreet hotel de rendezvous where she was entertaining a young and virile lover. He had fired and missed, at which the lover,
trying to escape another shot and forgetting perhaps that they were on the third floor of the hotel and not in his ground floor garçonnière, had jumped out of the window naked and
fallen to his death.

‘She has courage, that one,’ a third woman in the group remarked. ‘Who is this new lover?’

‘The young Duc de Chinon.’

‘Then he would be advised to take jumping lessons.’

As they stopped speaking, the fountains of fire in the lake were extinguished and the lamps in the marquee lowered, a sign that the ballet was about to perform. Gautier, sensing that he would be
conspicuous if he continued strolling among the guests, took up a position by a tree. He was not expecting trouble that evening. The grounds had been carefully searched for hidden bombs before the
guests arrived and at the entrance to the Tir aux Pigeons, invitation cards were being thoroughly scrutinized.

From the back of the dimly lit auditorium in the lake, a single ballerina appeared, circling the stage in a series of fouettés and then moving into the centre. Gradually the lights grew
brighter and the music louder as the corps de ballet appeared on either side of the stage, forming a semi-circle around the principal ballerina as she continued her dance, pirouetting now and
ending in an arabesque penchée.

As he watched, Gautier was aware of a sense of disappointment. Although ballet in France was little more than an appendage to opera, a diversion staged between acts of Gounod and Wagner, whose
work following a hostile reception by the chauvinistic French after the disastrous war had now been accepted, the dancers of the corps de ballet were among the most sought-after women in Paris. For
many of the dancers their art was no more than a shop-window, an opportunity to display their charms to those who could afford them. During intervals in the performances, subscribers to the
Opéra were admitted to the Foyer de Danse, men only of course, where they could meet and talk with the dancers, girls like Julia Subra whom the King of Serbia could not resist, Mathilde
Salle, the mistress of the financier Isaac de Camondo, and Mariquita, supposed to be the daughter of an Italian priest and a rich Roman lady, whom Toulouse-Lautrec painted. Even if Gautier had been
to the Opéra, he could never have penetrated the Foyer de Danse, the entrée to which was jealously guarded. A man had to be a member of one of the three most exclusive clubs in Paris,
the Jockey, the Cercle de la Rue Royale or the Cercle Agricole before he was admitted.

This then was the first time Gautier had seen the dancers perform and he found them, as women, lacking in physical appeal while their dancing, with its formal steps and classic poses, seemed
stilted and unnatural. In their white tutus they looked like moths, flitting unceasingly around a bowl of light that was the stage, suspended against the darkness of the lake and against the night
sky.

Close behind the tree against which he was leaning, two women were talking in low, serious tones. His attention distracted from the ballet, he could not help but hear what they were saying.

One of the two, who had a deep contralto voice with an attractive huskiness, remarked: ‘Chérie, you’re making a mistake, believe me!’

‘Then you consider that I should marry him?’ The other woman’s voice was younger and she seemed to speak with the impatience of youth.

‘Why not?’

‘Because he’s repulsive and almost forty. I’ve no wish to bind myself to him for life.’

‘You don’t understand, Chérie. By marrying you wouldn’t be giving up your freedom but gaining it. In France a woman has no liberty until she is married.’

‘I don’t see it that way. By marrying a girl merely exchanges one tyranny for another. She escapes from a tiresome mother and an inquisitive confessor only to imprison herself with a
male autocrat.’

Gautier understood the note of rebellion in what the younger woman was saying. Over the last few years girls of good family had begun to challenge the conventions of society by which the colours
of their clothes, the books they might read, the houses they might visit and the hours which they must spend each week with their confessors were all laid down by precept. It was not surprising
that they should, because the arrival of the twentieth century had brought a new era for women. Twenty years previously secondary education had been introduced for girls and though it had
scandalized the bourgeoisie at the time it was the beginning of emancipation. Medicine, law, the civil service, one after another these bastions of male prerogative fell and were opened to women. A
society for the Rights of Women was formed and found a platform for its views in several newspapers for women which began to appear at the turn of the century.

‘In spite of what you’re saying now,’ the older woman remarked, ‘you were ready to marry the comte a month ago.’

‘As you well know, things are different now.’

‘Chérie, you are chasing an impossible dream.’

Gautier looked over his shoulder. The two women were walking away, still engrossed in their argument. In the darkness he could only make out that one of them was tall and dark-skinned, the other
petite and very fair. He wondered without real curiosity who they were.

The first of the two ballets that were to be performed that evening was reaching its climax. ‘Climax’ was too strong a word, because the piece was little more than a diversion, a
series of dances held together with a flimsy story of the love of a prince for a captive princess.

As Gautier watched it, he felt a hand laid on his arm. Surat, his assistant, had come up to him without speaking, not wishing to draw attention to himself nor to disturb the entertainment of the
other guests.

‘What is it, Surat?’ Gautier asked quickly. ‘Trouble?’

‘Nothing serious, Patron. We’ve just picked up Emil Sapin.’

‘Sapin? Here?’

‘Yes. As bold as you like, wearing evening dress and carrying an invitation.’

Emil Sapin was one of the most colourful and more successful of the many hundreds of petty criminals in Paris. He was known in the underworld as ‘le lapin’, partly for his skill in
disappearing into some bolt hole whenever he was in trouble and also on account of the many children he had fathered with a legion of women. Picking pockets, burglary on a modest scale and a little
pimping on the side were Sapin’s line of business and he had never aspired to anything as grandiose as anarchism, so Gautier was surprised by Surat’s news.

‘Where have you got him?’ he asked.

‘A couple of men are keeping him out of the way behind the tent which the caterers are using as a kitchen.’

‘You searched him, I suppose?’

‘Yes, and we found this.’

Surat held out a diamond and sapphire necklace. Even in the darkness it looked expensive, one of those creations fashioned by a jeweller in Rue de la Paix for a man who was devoted to his wife
or needed to impress a mistress.

‘Does anyone know about this?’ Gautier asked Surat.

‘No. One of our men spotted Sapin among the guests and we picked him up without any fuss.’

‘Splendid! Then let’s go and see what the fellow has to say for himself.’

They found Sapin behind the kitchen tent with two burly policemen. Gautier scarcely recognized the man who, doubtless not wishing to spoil the unaccustomed air of elegance which a tail coat,
gleaming white shirtfront and white tie gave him, had acquired and fitted a neat black wig to conceal his total baldness. Before starting to question him Gautier sent Surat to fetch the host of the
ball, Monsieur de Saules.

Then he said: ‘Where did you get it, Sapin?’

‘The necklace? I found it lying in the grass, Monsieur l’Inspecteur. The lady must have dropped it.’

‘Not the necklace. We’ll know soon enough from whose neck you stole that. Where did you get that invitation?’

‘They are being sold by the score around Pigalle at five sous a time.’

‘Let me see it.’

Sapin handed him a large gilt-edged card elaborately and beautifully engraved. It requested the pleasure of the company of Monsieur Henri de Brissaude at the grand fête to celebrate the
birthday of Mlle Marie-Thérèse de Saules. Gautier examined the card.

‘This is one of the original invitations,’ he told Sapin, ‘not a cheap printed forgery.’

‘I wouldn’t know about that.’

‘Where did you get it?’

‘If you must know, a friend gave it to me.’ Sapin seemed unconcerned at being found out in one lie. ‘I thought I’d come along to see the fun.’

‘And where did your friend procure the card?’

‘A man he knows burgled a house in Neuilly a couple of nights ago. He saw the invitation lying on a table and took it, more for a joke than anything.’

‘In that case, why has Monsieur de Brissaude not reported the theft?’

‘He has left Paris for the summer and locked up his house. That’s why my friend burgled it.’

There was little doubt in Gautier’s mind that the man was lying. Lies flowed from his lips as effortlessly as platitudes from a politician. He would have questioned him some more, but at
that moment Surat returned followed by Monsieur de Saules. The banker was a short, slight man with a neatly trimmed beard, a carefully waxed moustache and well manicured hands which moved around a
great deal, jerkily and restlessly, like sparrows on a roof. He was the third generation of a family of bankers, whose firm had been one of the those who had raised the 5,000 million francs
demanded by Germany after her victory in 1870 and enabled France to pay off the indemnity before time and rid herself of the hated occupying troops. France rewards those who serve her generously
and not only had the father of Monsieur de Saules been made a Commander of the Légion d’Honneur, but his firm had prospered. Now Monsieur de Saules had a flourishing bank, a house in
Faubourg St Germain, a beautiful and talented wife and all the other possessions which most men covet but few achieve.

Gautier had met the banker in Courtrand’s office at the Sûreté a few days previously and found him courteous and kind and evidently, apart from the extravagance of his
daughter’s birthday party, not a man who splashed his wealth around. As a banker, no doubt, he respected money and when he spent it would expect a better return than just the admiration of
his friends or the envy of his enemies. Now, in a few words, Gautier told him how Sapin had been detected and arrested.

‘The scoundrel!’ de Saules exclaimed. ‘And has he stolen anything, do you know?’

‘Only this necklace, Monsieur.’ The banker took the necklace and as he was examining it, Gautier added: ‘Now all we need is to establish who the owner is, return it to her
quietly and that can be the end of the matter.’

‘You have done well, Inspector,’ de Saules said and then he smiled as though enjoying a private joke as he added: ‘As for the necklace, I recognize it. It belongs to the
Duchesse de Paiva.’

Like most people in Paris, Gautier knew the Duchesse de Paiva only by reputation. A former circus rider who had also appeared at the Moulin Rouge, Jeanne Baroche had married a Portuguese
nobleman a few years previously and had been admitted reluctantly to Paris society. Not long afterwards the duc had inadvertently been killed in a duel, defending his wife’s
honour—inadvertently because duels were not supposed to end in anything more serious than a scratch—and his adversary, whose pistol had discharged itself prematurely, had been forced to
leave France. The widowed duchesse had been left with a fine house in Avenue des Champs Elysées and much of her youth remaining, but surprisingly she had ceased to scandalize Paris with her
exploits and amours and lived quietly and, as far as anyone could tell, alone.

‘Take him to the wagon,’ Gautier told the two policemen who were holding Sapin and the thief was led away to a police wagon which had been left standing unobtrusively a short
distance from the Tir aux Pigeons in one of the many copses to be found in the Bois de Boulogne.

‘Unless I am mistaken,’ Monsieur de Saules remarked when the policemen had gone, ‘here is the Duchesse de Paiva herself.’

Two women were approaching. The younger of the two went up to Monsieur de Saules and kissed him on the cheek, saying: ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere, Papa. It has been the
most wonderful party.’

Monsieur de Saules kissed her back, and then held the necklace out to the other woman. ‘You’ve been rather careless, Jeanne, my dear.’

‘My necklace!’ The duchesse gasped, putting her hand up to her throat. ‘Where did you find it?’

The Duchesse de Paiva was dark and must have been in her early thirties. Mademoiselle de Saules had a delicate face which looked as though it had been traced by an artist intent on purity of
line rather than depth of expression. Gautier would not have recognized her rather commonplace voice, but the distinctive huskiness. . .