nervous,
agitated, threatening?”
“No, no, he seemed a decent
sort.”
“How was his voice?”
“His voice?”
“Educated? Uneducated? Foreign?
Did he have an accent?”
The young policeman scratched
his head and bit his lip. “Educated; no accent.”
“A Frenchman?”
“Yes, no, I cannot say.”
“Think, Pascal. It is
important.”
A moment of heavy silence
ensued. “I don’t think French was his mother-tongue.”
“Take your time, Pascal, why do
you think that?”
The young brow puckered under
the weight of pensive responsibility. “He did not have an accent,
not like the Jews and Ruskis and Germans coming here ahead of the
Paris Fair, but there was something about the way he rolled his R’s
or maybe it was because he’d had too much champagne and was
slurring his words a little or maybe he was from the countryside.
My wife’s cousin is from Alsace and he has a different way with
some of his sounds.”
The inspector back-tracked.
“You did not think his manner nervous or threatening?”
The policeman shook his head
firmly. “He seemed light-hearted.”
“Not worried or defensive?”
“Not unless you count him being
worried about what his wife might say when he got home after
midnight. Oh, and he may have been worried about there being
another murder.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He asked me straight out?”
“He asked you straight out if
there had been another murder?”
“Yes, that’s why I know he
cannot be the killer. If he had committed the crime he would not
need to ask. He was relieved when I told him no and he praised the
police for keeping the city safe. He was a decent sort. My wife is
over-imaginative. She may have just imagined she saw a bloody hand
print. She imagines the rag and bone man is Napoleon. I humour her
because she lost a babe last year - stillborn. She urged me to come
here and I promised I would but I fear I have wasted your time,
inspector.”
“Not at all, Pascal. If you saw
this man again would you recognize him?”
Pascal bit his lip. “I’m not
sure. It was foggy.”
Chapter 4 - The Theatre
Paris was the new Babylon. At
the cusp of the fin de siècle it was like all European cities
ushering in a New World Order, but more decadently, colourfully and
outrageously than most. It was setting itself up early as the new
crossroad of civilization, and thanks to the soon-to-be Paris Fair
it was clearly the place where people from different walks of life
rubbed shoulders for the first time in a long time, where hordes of
foreign labourers toiled alongside French ouvriers, where filthy
rich revolutionaries rubbed up against dirt poor French
aristocrats, where classically educated men-of-letters denounced
the stuffy institutions that had made them world famous, where
bohemian artists challenged the old school guard and sold their
paintings to a hungry public direct from the pavements, and where
from inside the thousands of cafes that had sprung up in the city
intellectuals mingled with illiterates and found them not so
ignorant after all.
Throughout Paris, theatrical
entrepreneurs were turning traditional entertainment on its head
and staging circuses not in hippodromes or under big-tops but
inside ordinary buildings topped with extraordinary red windmills,
featuring not clowns and performing dogs but dancehall belles who
performed scandalous dances.
Traditional theatres which once
staged classical Greek plays and Italian operettas now accommodated
peepshows and magic lantern shows. One theatre was screening the
astonishing moving images or cinématographes of the Lumière
brothers. The shock of the new was everywhere. Theatre-goers
fainted with fear, took fright and vomited, attended in droves and
applauded as never before.
And in all this shocking newness
nothing was more shocking than the theatre of naturalistic horror
known as Le Grand Guignol. It took tales of human madness, added a
liberal dose of rampant violence, spiced it up with lashings
agitated, threatening?”
“No, no, he seemed a decent
sort.”
“How was his voice?”
“His voice?”
“Educated? Uneducated? Foreign?
Did he have an accent?”
The young policeman scratched
his head and bit his lip. “Educated; no accent.”
“A Frenchman?”
“Yes, no, I cannot say.”
“Think, Pascal. It is
important.”
A moment of heavy silence
ensued. “I don’t think French was his mother-tongue.”
“Take your time, Pascal, why do
you think that?”
The young brow puckered under
the weight of pensive responsibility. “He did not have an accent,
not like the Jews and Ruskis and Germans coming here ahead of the
Paris Fair, but there was something about the way he rolled his R’s
or maybe it was because he’d had too much champagne and was
slurring his words a little or maybe he was from the countryside.
My wife’s cousin is from Alsace and he has a different way with
some of his sounds.”
The inspector back-tracked.
“You did not think his manner nervous or threatening?”
The policeman shook his head
firmly. “He seemed light-hearted.”
“Not worried or defensive?”
“Not unless you count him being
worried about what his wife might say when he got home after
midnight. Oh, and he may have been worried about there being
another murder.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He asked me straight out?”
“He asked you straight out if
there had been another murder?”
“Yes, that’s why I know he
cannot be the killer. If he had committed the crime he would not
need to ask. He was relieved when I told him no and he praised the
police for keeping the city safe. He was a decent sort. My wife is
over-imaginative. She may have just imagined she saw a bloody hand
print. She imagines the rag and bone man is Napoleon. I humour her
because she lost a babe last year - stillborn. She urged me to come
here and I promised I would but I fear I have wasted your time,
inspector.”
“Not at all, Pascal. If you saw
this man again would you recognize him?”
Pascal bit his lip. “I’m not
sure. It was foggy.”
Chapter 4 - The Theatre
Paris was the new Babylon. At
the cusp of the fin de siècle it was like all European cities
ushering in a New World Order, but more decadently, colourfully and
outrageously than most. It was setting itself up early as the new
crossroad of civilization, and thanks to the soon-to-be Paris Fair
it was clearly the place where people from different walks of life
rubbed shoulders for the first time in a long time, where hordes of
foreign labourers toiled alongside French ouvriers, where filthy
rich revolutionaries rubbed up against dirt poor French
aristocrats, where classically educated men-of-letters denounced
the stuffy institutions that had made them world famous, where
bohemian artists challenged the old school guard and sold their
paintings to a hungry public direct from the pavements, and where
from inside the thousands of cafes that had sprung up in the city
intellectuals mingled with illiterates and found them not so
ignorant after all.
Throughout Paris, theatrical
entrepreneurs were turning traditional entertainment on its head
and staging circuses not in hippodromes or under big-tops but
inside ordinary buildings topped with extraordinary red windmills,
featuring not clowns and performing dogs but dancehall belles who
performed scandalous dances.
Traditional theatres which once
staged classical Greek plays and Italian operettas now accommodated
peepshows and magic lantern shows. One theatre was screening the
astonishing moving images or cinématographes of the Lumière
brothers. The shock of the new was everywhere. Theatre-goers
fainted with fear, took fright and vomited, attended in droves and
applauded as never before.
And in all this shocking newness
nothing was more shocking than the theatre of naturalistic horror
known as Le Grand Guignol. It took tales of human madness, added a
liberal dose of rampant violence, spiced it up with lashings
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