The Disappearance at Pere-Lachaise by Claude Izner

Author:Claude Izner [Izner, Claude]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Detective
ISBN: 9780312649562
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2010-09-13T22:00:00+00:00

The shops were narrow and too dark for the secondhand dealers to show off the old togs to their best advantage, so they displayed them on boards supported by trestles, or sometimes even out on the pavement of Rue de la Corderie. Père Moscou had just spent some time haggling with a shopkeeper who was selling tattered military uniforms, rusted swords and old clothes he claimed had been worn by the Empress Eugénie, for a badly dented bugle. Pleased that he had driven a hard bargain, Père Moscou stowed the instrument in one of his pockets and went off to Maman Briscot’s bar, which stood beside a shed where you could rent handcarts for five sous an hour.

Inside, the bar was low-ceilinged, very smoky and crammed with tables and benches. At some tables workmen played cards or battled over dominoes, whilst at others poor wretches were catching forty winks. An enormous cast-iron stove breathed its burning fumes over the customers busy tucking into onion soup, the house speciality. Maman Briscot, a well-endowed woman with frizzy grey hair who reigned supreme over this establishment, was circulating with a tray of steaming bowls.

She greeted Père Moscou with a booming, ‘Hello there, Père-Lachaise! Come and sit down next to the fire. Do you want some soup?’

Without giving him the chance to reply, she set a bowl down in front of him. ‘You brought some bread, I hope? You know I don’t provide it here.’

‘I can do without. What I need is a quarter-pint of red wine.’

‘Right away, General.’

After gobbling the wine and the soup, Père Moscou drifted into a light doze and gave a start when the landlady shook him by the shoulder. ‘Come on, Père-Lachaise, time to pay up and move on; everyone else has left.’

‘I need your expert advice, my dear. I have a ring, a family heirloom that I want to flog…’

‘Show me.’

She held the ring up to the light. ‘I like it. Where did you pilfer this from, you old scoundrel?’

‘It was left to me by a deceased relative.’

‘Of course it was. I’ll make you a proposition, something better than money. You can eat here, free, for a month. How about that?’

Victor, watching through the bar window, observed their interminable discussion, by the end of which, one month had become three. Relieved to have tracked down Père Moscou, he hid in the shed. He had to wait half an hour before the old man left the tavern, at precisely the moment Joseph leapt from a cab at the other end of the street.

Unaware that he was being watched, Père Moscou made his way back towards Carreau du Temple, followed at a distance by Victor, who was in turn being tailed by Joseph. In Pavillon Forêt-Noire, neither man noticed the rag merchants who tried to tempt them by calling out, ‘I have a beautiful greatcoat! Look, Monsieur, this would look superb on you!’

Invigorated by his meal, Père Moscou greeted acquaintances as he passed and seemed to be looking for someone. He squeezed his way through a crowd grouped around a hawker and charged at a policeman.

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