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Authors: Claude Izner
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November
âSulphuric acid is a formidable substance, crucial to the advance of science and industry, without which chemistry as we know it would not exist. It is also a terrible means of vengeance, and the chosen method of cowards. Why it was used on the woman whose unidentified corpse was found strangled at the crossroads remains a mystery. Was this a crime of passion? As usual Inspector Lecacheurâs investigation is advancing slowly but surely. Yet there are questions that still need asking. What, for example, was an abandoned cab doing close to where the body was found lying on the road?â
Jojo stopped reading aloud from the article in Le Passe-partout to speculate as to the identity of the author.
âI wonder which journalist uses the pseudonym âThe Virusâ. Could it be Monsieur Isidore Gouvier?â
Victor was only half listening. He was busy ticking off from a catalogue the books he intended buying at auction. At the same time an inner voice was telling him that Ãlisa was sure to be at her motherâs house, although there was no way of verifying this. Just then his cab arrived.
Victor walked out of the auction room after the sale of the library of Hilaire de Kermarec, cousin to the well-known antiques dealer of Rue de Tournon, carrying a parcel under one arm. He passed through the first floor, reserved for the more valuable items, and crossed the ground floor reserved for deceased estates and the auction of shop stock. The courtyard was filled with an assortment of objects. He wandered among the piles of artisansâ tools and the battered possessions of impoverished labourers, over which dealers from Temple Market and scrap merchants from Rue de Lappe were haggling: cheap chests of drawers, twenty-sou lots of crockery, men and womenâs clothing, sheets, eiderdowns, blankets, pillows and old bric-a-brac, the pitiful sight of which moved Victor.
He paused when he reached Rue Drouet. If he walked fast, it would take him between fifteen and twenty minutes to get to Boulevard de Strasbourg. That would give him time for a quick snack. Should he ring Kenji from a telephone box and tell him he had bought the Montaigne?
âNo! Let him stew! Itâll serve him right for keeping his gorgeous goddaughter locked away at the edge of the Bois de Vincennes and giving me sulky looks for the past two days!â
Victor let himself be swept along by the tide of bank clerks and insurance-company employees surging down Rue Provence and Rue Grange-Batelière, until he reached a cheap eating house on the outskirts of Montmartre. Inside, amid the coming and going of diners that created a continual breeze, he sat at a marble-topped table strewn with grains of sugar and breadcrumbs that were quickly swept to the floor by the flick of a waiterâs cloth. A grease-stained menu offered him a set meal for one franc twenty-five, and he bolted down veal Marengo, followed by camembert and prunes, barely touching the sharp table wine. He took his coffee at a bar where the owner stood filling row upon row of cups from the spout of a copper kettle. Crowds of people filed past outside the steamy windows.
How many of the shadowy figures drifting about this city are potential criminals? Victor wondered.
He paused before the narrow offices of Le Figaro , not far from the town hall of the ninth arrondissement, and walked in. He wandered through the dispatch room where portraits of famous people, the daily Bourse prices, important political events and gory news items were on view. He had no difficulty finding a reconstruction of the drama next to an image of General Boulanger, prone on his mistressâs grave after committing suicide.
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VILE MURDER AT CROSSROADS
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A group of onlookers had gathered round a very lifelike drawing of the disfigured woman, and was discussing the affair in an extremely distasteful way, putting Victor in mind of the spectators at the morgue. He left in a hurry.
He
âSulphuric acid is a formidable substance, crucial to the advance of science and industry, without which chemistry as we know it would not exist. It is also a terrible means of vengeance, and the chosen method of cowards. Why it was used on the woman whose unidentified corpse was found strangled at the crossroads remains a mystery. Was this a crime of passion? As usual Inspector Lecacheurâs investigation is advancing slowly but surely. Yet there are questions that still need asking. What, for example, was an abandoned cab doing close to where the body was found lying on the road?â
Jojo stopped reading aloud from the article in Le Passe-partout to speculate as to the identity of the author.
âI wonder which journalist uses the pseudonym âThe Virusâ. Could it be Monsieur Isidore Gouvier?â
Victor was only half listening. He was busy ticking off from a catalogue the books he intended buying at auction. At the same time an inner voice was telling him that Ãlisa was sure to be at her motherâs house, although there was no way of verifying this. Just then his cab arrived.
Victor walked out of the auction room after the sale of the library of Hilaire de Kermarec, cousin to the well-known antiques dealer of Rue de Tournon, carrying a parcel under one arm. He passed through the first floor, reserved for the more valuable items, and crossed the ground floor reserved for deceased estates and the auction of shop stock. The courtyard was filled with an assortment of objects. He wandered among the piles of artisansâ tools and the battered possessions of impoverished labourers, over which dealers from Temple Market and scrap merchants from Rue de Lappe were haggling: cheap chests of drawers, twenty-sou lots of crockery, men and womenâs clothing, sheets, eiderdowns, blankets, pillows and old bric-a-brac, the pitiful sight of which moved Victor.
He paused when he reached Rue Drouet. If he walked fast, it would take him between fifteen and twenty minutes to get to Boulevard de Strasbourg. That would give him time for a quick snack. Should he ring Kenji from a telephone box and tell him he had bought the Montaigne?
âNo! Let him stew! Itâll serve him right for keeping his gorgeous goddaughter locked away at the edge of the Bois de Vincennes and giving me sulky looks for the past two days!â
Victor let himself be swept along by the tide of bank clerks and insurance-company employees surging down Rue Provence and Rue Grange-Batelière, until he reached a cheap eating house on the outskirts of Montmartre. Inside, amid the coming and going of diners that created a continual breeze, he sat at a marble-topped table strewn with grains of sugar and breadcrumbs that were quickly swept to the floor by the flick of a waiterâs cloth. A grease-stained menu offered him a set meal for one franc twenty-five, and he bolted down veal Marengo, followed by camembert and prunes, barely touching the sharp table wine. He took his coffee at a bar where the owner stood filling row upon row of cups from the spout of a copper kettle. Crowds of people filed past outside the steamy windows.
How many of the shadowy figures drifting about this city are potential criminals? Victor wondered.
He paused before the narrow offices of Le Figaro , not far from the town hall of the ninth arrondissement, and walked in. He wandered through the dispatch room where portraits of famous people, the daily Bourse prices, important political events and gory news items were on view. He had no difficulty finding a reconstruction of the drama next to an image of General Boulanger, prone on his mistressâs grave after committing suicide.
Â
VILE MURDER AT CROSSROADS
Â
A group of onlookers had gathered round a very lifelike drawing of the disfigured woman, and was discussing the affair in an extremely distasteful way, putting Victor in mind of the spectators at the morgue. He left in a hurry.
He
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