Doctor Death Read online

  “Yes,” said my father. “Some have been quite deep, others more superficial.”

  “An animal?”

  My father shook his head. “I do not think so. A dog, for example, would leave a much more elongated configuration, with deeper penetrations from the canines. I think these are of human origin.”

  The Commissioner was not a man whose face mirrored his soul; he nonetheless raised one eyebrow.

  “Are you telling me she was bitten, multiple times and over an extended period of time, by a human being?”

  “Yes. That is what I have to conclude.”

  “Is this relevant to the cause of death?”

  “Not directly. The lesions have all healed. But human bites can of course carry infection just as animal bites can, so an indirect connection cannot be ruled out.”

  I looked at the scars. Some were faded pale white lines now, others more garishly mauve and purple. Breasts, stomach, thighs. Not arms, shoulders, or neck. Only areas that would normally be hidden by her clothing. There was an unsettling intimacy and calculation to the damage.

  “Is this something that has occurred voluntarily or . . . ?” The Commissioner did not finish his sentence.

  “That is difficult to determine. But I can say this much—the pain must have been considerable.”

  The scars in no way solved the riddle of Cecile’s death. They just raised more questions. Nevertheless, while I dressed her corpse, with some difficulty because rigor mortis had not yet dissipated, my father had no choice but to write out a death certificate that stated that her death was natural. Cecile Montaine had taken ill. She had died from her illness. And with that the case was officially closed.

  On the day of Cecile Montaine’s burial, the thaw set in. Heavy gray snow fell in sodden clumps from the branches of the elm trees along the wall facing Hope Avenue, and the paths were a slippery mess of slush on top of old crusts of dark ice. It was not just for show that the ladies clutched at the supporting arms of the gentlemen of the party—button boots, even with a sensible heel, were not suitable footwear under these circumstances. The sky was leaden, and showers of drizzling cold rain swept across the churchyard at regular intervals.

  “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable . . .” Father Abigore did his best, but the words sounded hollow when one gazed down at the rain-filled hole into which Cecile’s coffin had just been lowered. He sneezed violently and had to blow his nose into a big black-bordered handkerchief before he could continue.

  Madame Montaine’s moans came in surges, like the labor pains of an animal, and she seemed utterly oblivious of her son’s meek attempts to console her. Every sob unleashed a chain reaction around the grave, especially from the four black-clad friends from Cecile’s convent school. The largest of them, a pale blond girl whose black robe had originally been tailored to another, more slender figure, cried shrilly, on the edge of hysteria. One of the accompanying teachers placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder, but that only made it worse.

  Cecile’s seven-year-old little sister was standing a bit closer to the grave, her eyes shiny with fright, her mouth half open; the bouquet she had been given to hold hung limply down her side like a bundle of herbs. No one seemed to notice her shocked stillness, nor did anyone think to calm or comfort her; they were all so caught up in their own sorrow or in the mother’s more voluble grief.

  Papa, the Commissioner, and I stood some twenty paces away from the mourners, a space that was meant to signal respect for the feelings of the bereaved, but I feared it looked merely as if we wished to distance ourselves. However, once the graveside ceremony had been completed, Cecile’s father, Adrian Montaine, approached. The rain dripping from the brim of his black chapeau made the fur collar on his long coat look like a drowned animal. His graying whiskers drooped around his broad jaw, burdened by moisture, and even in his eyebrows there were drops of icy rain.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, nodding briefly. “Mademoiselle.”

  He could not continue. His entire body leaned forward in search of an answer, but he could not pose the question.

  “My condolences,” said the Commissioner and held out his hand. “I am so sorry for your loss.”

  My father mumbled a similar sentiment. I know he meant it, but on so cruel a day it sounded as hollow as the priest’s words of resurrection. Dead was dead. Cecile’s body was degrading into basic elements. Physical processes were at work in it, but they were no longer life processes. The coffin suddenly appeared to be a futile barrier that prevented the juices from seeping away, merely prolonging the time it would take before the bare, white bones could rest quietly in the ground.

  I might perhaps with a little effort believe that Cecile was with God. But the idea that her body would one day rise from the grave, living and eternally whole—this was more than my rational mind would allow me to accept.

  Cecile’s father did not look as if he had found any consolation in the ritual. His eyes were swollen, and the furrows on his face looked like wounds.

  “I . . . ,” he began and stumbled. He suddenly grabbed my father’s arm. “I have to know . . . why.”

  My father cleared his throat.

  “As far as we have been able to determine, your daughter died of respiratory failure.”

  Monsieur Montaine shook his head—not in denial but because the answer was so clearly inadequate.

  “She was healthy,” he said. “Then she disappeared. And when she came back to us, she was dead. Tell me how this could happen, Doctor Karno. Tell me that!”

  Father Abigore had bid farewell to the rest of the bereaved. Madame Montaine stumbled away from the grave, supported by her son and an uncle. The four convent girls also left the graveyard as a group, accompanied by their two teachers. Through the wrought-iron fence, I caught a glimpse of a waiting coach, a black chaise with a hastily put up hood and a broad-shouldered man in the coachman’s seat.

  The priest came over, with his handkerchief still clutched in one hand and his prayer book in the other.

  “Adrian,” he said, “you have to go home now. Your wife needs your support, and so does your son.”

  “I cannot leave her,” said Adrian Montaine. “Not yet, Father.”

  “You must,” said Abigore with a sudden and sharp authority in his voice. “Go home and turn to your life and your loved ones. Cecile is safe with the Lord.”

  Cecile’s father remained where he was, his mouth slack and open, his breathing troubled. His gaze wandered from my father to the priest and back again. Then he suddenly spun around in an awkward wobbling turn as if he were ill or intoxicated. With no word of farewell, he stalked away from us, past the grave and on toward the gate through which his living family had disappeared a few moments earlier.

  “The poor man,” said the priest. “He was here all of yesterday afternoon, watching them dig the grave. It was as if he needed to make sure they did it properly. Young Adrian Junior told me that he had not been home to sleep, just to change his clothes.”

  Abigore looked somewhat fatigued himself. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and seemed to water on their own. He dabbed at them with his handkerchief, snuffled, and sneezed again.

  “My apologies,” he said automatically. “I am afraid I am coming down with a cold. It is this horrific weather. Let us go inside. May I offer you a cup of tea?”

  “No, thank you. We had better get home,” said my father. “We just wanted to show our respect.”

  “Naturally. Perhaps another time?” He raised his prayer book as a gesture of parting. There was perhaps a degree of relief beneath the courteously offered invitation.

  “He seems to be a good priest,” said the Commissioner as we watched the stooped figure head to his residence with a not entirely dignified haste.

  “At least he managed to get the father to go home,” said Papa. “Those poor people. I suppose they are unlikely to receive an explanation for the girl’s disappearance?”

  “Not with our help
, at least,” said the Commissioner. “A natural death does not require further investigation.”

  My father shook his head. “Those poor people,” he repeated. “But there you are. Nothing more we can do. Let us go home. Will you join us, Mr. Commissioner?”

  “Delighted, dear friend. Delighted.”

  I noticed them just as we were about to leave. A scatter of tiny droplets of blood in the sunken snow. They were already losing their shape and becoming paler and fuzzier at the edges as they seeped into the collapsing crystals of the snow.

  “Look,” I said.

  My father looked down at the crimson spots.

  “Blood,” he said. “Where did that come from?”

  “It must be either from Monsieur Montaine or Father Abigore,” I said. “It is fresh.”

  “Is it of any significance?” asked the Commissioner.

  My father frowned. “Probably not,” he said. “There is so little of it. A small scratch, perhaps?”

  The gravedigger and his assistant were filling the hole that was Cecile’s grave. The hiss of the spades and the wet, hollow thuds of snow and dirt hitting the coffin lid followed us all the way out into the avenue.

  In the days following the funeral, spring crept hesitantly across Varbourg. The snow had melted completely, and hailstorms and bursts of brilliant sunlight alternated in confusing shifts. The daffodils that had poked their delicate green shoots up through the dirt looked as if they regretted it. One hardly knew whether to wear a straw hat or a winter cape. It was on just such a wet and fickle spring evening, six days after Cecile Montaine’s burial, that Louis Mercier nearly made his life’s greatest heist.

  Louis Charles Napoleon Mercier was named after two kings and an emperor. His mother always told him, “Louis, stand up straight. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You are named after two kings and an emperor!” But Louis had long ago learned that this argument had no effect on the other children in his street or on Monsieur Le Baton at the factory. And certainly not on Grandmother Mercier, who took care of him.

  His mother did not come home very often. Only on an occasional Sunday afternoon, and for Christmas and Easter and such. In the past he believed her when she said it was to celebrate the Lord’s holidays with him and Grandma, but now he knew that husbands stayed home with their wives on those days, which meant that there wasn’t much money to be made.

  Louis was not quite as proud of his mother as he had once been. But he still waited for her every Sunday on Place des Patriotes. And when he saw her get off the streetcar and straighten her skirts a bit before searching the square for him . . . in those moments, he still felt all warm inside. She was so beautiful, even when she was tired and her features a little too sharp, even on the days when it rained and the careful lines of kohl became fuzzy at the edges and made her eyes startlingly large and carnival-like.

  On the street he had gradually learned to size people up. He knew who was likely to tip him if he carried a bag or held an umbrella and who would just chase him away. He also knew who would be a good mark for Mouche and his gang, and sometimes got half a sou for pointing out a potential victim, even though he still hadn’t dared to stick a hand in any pocket that wasn’t his own. This hard-won ability was also why he knew that his mother was not the elegant lady he had once thought she was. He could not prevent his assessing gaze from noticing the cheap quality of the fabric of her dress, the worn, crooked heels of her boots, the grayish tint to the gloves that had been washed too many times with poor-quality soap. He saw as well that her makeup could no longer completely hide the age sneaking up on her. He could not help seeing it, though he would have preferred not to.

  That Sunday she did not come.

  He had waited until long past noon to be absolutely sure. But when the 3:10 had come and gone without letting her off at the Invalides monument, he had to face the fact that he had waited in vain.

  Anger and misery roiled within him. He felt a pressure building up that he did not know what to do with. He was hungry and had not eaten since breakfast, but still he could not make himself go home to Grandma, could not stand to hear her say, “So, she did not come? She probably had better things to do.” Or, “Yes, she is always so busy, your mother. So very, very busy,” as she did on all the Sundays when his mother did not come, always in the same bitter, accusing tone. She could never take the money Maman gave her without sour insinuations about where it came from, and yet her gall was even blacker when it did not appear.

  In the park behind the monument, he found a half-eaten winter apple that someone had dropped or thrown away. He brushed the gravel off and ate it. The shops along Third Boulevard were closed, so there were no errands he could run. Too bad—he was good at that. He could stand up straight and look people frankly in the eye with a polite “Yes, monsieur” or “No, madame” so that they occasionally said, “You look like an honest boy” and felt confident that he would not just disappear with the money.

  At last he headed in the direction of Espérance. Day-old bread and frequently also soup were distributed every Sunday behind the church, but still he did not go there very often. There was something about the way they looked at you, those old harpies from the charity. Their mixture of pity and self-satisfaction was hard to take. I was named after two kings and an emperor, he thought as he tried not to hang his head. No one is entitled to look down on me!

  He could also have gone home. Sure, he could. If he had been willing to listen to Grandmother Mercier’s snide remarks about his mother, in order to get a piece of bread with lard and salt and a small mug of beer. It was only when his mother was there that Sunday dinner was something special. And today, the menu would probably include a smack on the head because he was so late. It made the charity aunties’ condescending self-satisfaction look almost bearable.

  “Boy! Yes, you!”

  The quiet but authoritative call came from a tall, broad-shouldered man who stood leaning against the churchyard fence, under one of the tall elm trees. Next to him, on a leash, sat a big rough-coated dog. Louis looked at it with a certain caution—he had occasionally found that some people thought it was entertaining to set their dogs on street children, in earnest or “for a bit of sport.” In fact, he was looking more at the dog than at the man, which was probably a mistake.

  “Can you tell time?”

  “Yes, m’sieur.” Louis stood up straight but still looked more at the dog than the man. It had pulled back its upper lip so that you could see its gums. He had a feeling it did not like children.

  “Are you a man of your word?”

  The gentleman’s hat was pushed down onto his forehead, and a gray silk scarf hid most of his lower face so you could really see only his eyes.

  “Yes, m’sieur!”

  “Very well. Then I have a proposition for you.” The gentleman held out two coins. One was a twenty-five centime, which was a considerable amount of money. But the other . . .

  “What kind of proposition, m’sieur?” said Louis, who could not stop looking at the other coin. A round shiny franc. A whole franc!

  “When the clock up there”—the gentleman pointed at the Espérance church bell tower—“when it reaches eleven fifteen, then you must knock on the green door over there and deliver this message.”

  “To the priest? But . . . that’s so late, m’sieur. Perhaps he will have gone to bed by then.”

  “Then you will have to keep knocking until he gets up. Not a moment before, is that clear?”

  “Eleven fifteen, yes, m’sieur.”

  “Here is the first part of your payment.” It was the twenty-five centimes, of course. “You will get the other half when we meet here again—but that will not be until one in the morning. Can you manage that? Or do you have a mother who does not want you to be out that late?”

  Grandma would carry on, scold, and maybe hit him if he did not come home before she went to bed. But it wouldn’t be the first time he had stayed out all night, and there was a whole franc at stake.
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  “No problem, m’sieur. You can trust me.”

  “I am counting on that. Adieu, my friend.”

  He spent the twenty-five centimes on a paper cone filled with roasted potatoes and garlic sausage ends, a specialty you could buy from Dreischer & Son on Rue Marronier. Ordinarily he would not have used all the money at once like that, but there was more to come. When the church tower clock struck the first toll of the quarter hour, he knocked on the door to the priest’s residence behind Espérance with the note held tightly in his left hand. It took a little while for anyone to answer, and it was not the priest himself but his housekeeper, who eventually came to the door with her hair poking out in disarray from beneath her cap and a big black shawl around her shoulders.

  “What do you want?” she asked in an unfriendly tone, blinking her narrowed eyes.

  “A message, madame. For the priest. I was to say it was important.”

  The last part he came up with himself, but it had to be important when someone would pay that much money to have the message delivered.

  She took it and shut the door in his face, with only a quickly mumbled “Thank you.” Just as well that someone else was paying him for his trouble!

  He sat down with his back against the church wall, in the shelter of a large bush that provided a bit of protection from the wind as well as partly hiding him from curious passersby. A little later he saw the priest emerge, mount a bicycle, and drive away, with some hollow coughs and an irritated exclamation when one pedal slipped beneath his foot.

  Louis smiled. Now all he had to do was wait for his big reward. It had been a good day after all.

  Early the next morning, Arturo Udinese received a shock that gave him indigestion. “Shocking, shocking,” he repeated several times to his wife while he calmed his nerves with a cognac.

  Mr. Udinese was the proprietor of a modest but popular brasserie just off July the 14th Boulevard, not far from the Varbourg East railway station. His customers consisted primarily of regulars, a builder or two, a few accountants, an occasional civil servant, and three or four retired officers from the nearby Veterans’ Home—all solid people who appreciated good food at reasonable prices. Mr. Udinese was therefore in the habit of buying his ingredients as cheaply as possible, which was the reason he got up this morning a bit after five, while darkness still hung heavily over the town, and made his way to the rail yard behind the station, where he was met by a track worker known to most people simply as the Shovel. The two men walked together across the tracks to a train that had arrived from Stuttgart a bit after nine the previous evening. In the course of the evening, it had been emptied and loaded and was now ready to depart for Paris at six fifteen.