Free The Montmartre Investigation by Claude Izner

paused at Boulevard Poissonière after crossing Boulevard Montmartre. Perhaps the crossroads had been baptised ‘Killer’s Crossing’ because a combination of cabmen’s incompetence and pedestrians’ recklessness had led to more fatalities here than at other junctions? In any event, the morbid name had taken on a new significance since the previous evening. Victor noticed a row of cabs lined up by the pavement. The horses were taking advantage of the halt in proceedings to chomp on feed in the nosebags hanging from their halters while the cabmen exchanged vulgar stories.
    â€˜Do you know where the body was found?’ Victor asked one of them.
    â€˜You’re at least the thirtieth person who’s asked me that since this morning. If this continues, I shall have to start charging! You see that paunchy copper standing guard on the corner over there outside the cobbler’s – the one who looks like a dog watching over his bone? Well, it was there. But I can tell you now they’ve cleaned up the whole area; there’s not a trace of acid!’
    Victor moved away to the sound of the cabmen’s guffaws, telling himself that given his own passion for unsolved murders he had no right to sneer at the public’s bloodthirstiness.
    Two huge pintos, their nostrils steaming, struggled to pull the Madeleine-Bastille omnibus up Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. The hammer of hooves, the clatter of wheels and the cries of card-sharps rattled in Victor’s ears. He feigned interest in the window display of an English hat shop, then, moving on a few paces, stopped in front of a Morris Column plastered with posters: brightly coloured advertisements for Papillon bicycles, Soleil washing powder and Mariani wine vied with theatre notices. But the yellow, red, black and white Moulin-Rouge poster eclipsed all the others with its eye-catching simplicity, reminiscent of a Japanese painting, and its exuberant style. It was signed by someone called Hautrec or Lautrec. The profile of a very angular man with a prominent nose and hooked chin wearing a top hat was in monochrome in the foreground, and behind him a blonde woman in a spotted bodice lifted her skirts in a frenzied motion, revealing black-stockinged legs. ‘La Goulue’ it said. In the background were the silhouetted shapes of men and women. Victor was struck by the uncanny similarity between those faceless onlookers and the anonymous passers-by he had watched earlier through the window of the café.
    â€˜What a fine illustration,’ a young man exclaimed, mesmerised by the dancer’s legs.
    Victor moved on. On the raised terrace of the Théâtre du Gymnase, nursemaids in ruched hats rocked perambulators with moleskin hoods containing restless infants. In an instant Victor pictured Tasha coddling a baby, then shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
    You have plenty of time to burden yourself with a family! he thought, as he turned the corner into Boulevard de Strasbourg.
    With its mullioned windows flanked by columns, L’Eldorado was trying to hang on to its Second Empire splendour, the era when the singer Thérésa, who wrote Never Trust a Sapper! was the star attraction. Competition was stiff in this neighbourhood where there was an abundance of café-concerts . Victor studied the poster advertising the programme:
    Â 
Seats:
75 centimes
1 franc
Boxes:
2.50 francs
 
 
Introducing: Messieurs
Kam-Hill
Vanel
Plébins
Mesdames
Bonnaire
Duffay
Holda
    Â 
    NOÉMI GERFLEUR
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    The name certainly was eye-catching, and flowery! Satisfied, he decided to return later that evening.
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    Jojo was leaning on the counter, taking advantage of a quiet moment to fill a page of his notebook with a hasty scrawl. He’d had one of those ideas, those flashes of genius he must put into writing immediately for fear they might be quickly forgotten. He was planning to write a serial entitled Blood and Treason , which began with