Barbara Cleverly - Folly Du Jour

Moulin pointed to the row of thrillers. ‘You’re not to think, on the cold winter evenings between post-mortems, I allow my imagination to be fired by these things! Lots of people you might admire enjoy them. Jean Cocteau, René Magritte, Guillaume Apollinaire, Salvador Dali. . Blaise Cendrars called them “the Aeneid of Modern Times”!’

‘And you can add to your list of playwrights, poets and artists: Sandilands of the Yard,’ said Joe comfortably, sensing that the learned doctor was slightly embarrassed to be caught out in his enthusiasm.

‘Very well — you’re prepared, then? To explore a really outlandish idea?’

Joe nodded.

‘Before we start, I must insist — no notes! This is just a chat between two weary men whose brains are ticking over faster perhaps than they should. Agreed?’

‘Agreed,’ said Joe.

‘In 1924, the body of a priest was found. I remember it was the night before All Saints’ Day. Your Hallowe’en, I believe?’

Joe nodded again, saying nothing. He sensed that it would not take much of an interruption to put him off a track he was plainly uncomfortable to be following. The man was a scientist, after all. Rational. Logical. Not given to fervid speculation. Intolerant of ridicule.

‘I wondered later if that was significant. The man was dangling by a noose to the neck on a bell-rope. The rope was the one that hung from the bell tower of the curé’s own church. The tolling started in the early hours of the morning, as the body swayed — in the breeze? It was a windy night. . Or from a push? We don’t know. The sound went unregarded for an hour or so as the good citizens of the well-to-do faubourg huddled deeper into their goose-feather eiderdowns. They might have decided he’d committed suicide — not unknown in the priesthood — had it not been for his other wounds. His robe had been slashed from neck to hem and was heavily bloodstained down the front. His male member had been cut off. Before death.’

‘Revenge for some kind of abuse committed by the priest?’

Moulin shrugged. ‘I would expect so. No one ever came forward with accusations, let alone evidence. Case closed. Unsolved. The Church, in any case, was glad enough to hush it up.

‘And then, later that same year, a rich industrialist whose name I’m certain would be familiar to you died in bed. Not his own bed, but that of a common prostitute in a picturesquely low quarter of the city. The lady was absent and never surfaced again. The corpse of our louche old money-bags was discovered naked, tied up with scarlet velvet ribbons to the bedpost — hands and feet. He’d died from an overdose of hashish. The gentlemen of the press had been alerted before the police and were instantly on the scene with their flash bulbs. Everyone was horrified. Except for the man’s five sons. They were now to inherit his fortune, clear of any fear of premature depletion by the extravagant young actress whose charms had led him, a month or so previously, to propose marriage.’

Joe gave a wry smile. ‘Next?’

‘Last year. Picture the Eiffel Tower. A favourite jumping-off point for the suicidally minded. The body of a young man falls from a crowded viewing platform to splatter itself all over the concourse below. It happens every month. No one sees anything. No one is aware of any suspicious circumstances. The man’s fiancée, the spoiled daughter of one of our prominent politicians, is aghast. “But why the Eiffel Tower?” she sobs. “The very place where he declared his love and asked me to marry him!” She is distraught. She is inconsolable. But her best friend reveals — spitefully perhaps? — that the boy in question had, in fact, changed his mind since the tryst on the Tower and decided to marry her. The first fiancée was, luckily, far away in Nice on holiday with her family at the time of the death and could not possibly be involved in any dirty work.’

‘This is a mixed bunch of motives, I’m hearing,’ said Joe.

‘And here’s one for the connoisseur! I’ve saved the best for last. But, for me, it was the first in the sequence, I suppose. Though it wasn’t for some weeks that I realized I’d had a pretty strange experience. In 1923. Newly appointed to the Institut and rather overawed by the big city, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect — except that everything would be faster, more exciting than I was used to in Normandy. I got a phone call from upstairs telling me to grab my bag, jump into a police car and get over to the Louvre. To the Egyptian rooms on the ground floor. Pandemonium when I got there! And something very odd going on. An American couple alone in one of the galleries had come across a pool of blood at the foot of one of the mummy cases. You know — those great big ornate coffin things. . weigh a ton. .’

‘I know them.’

‘When I got there — ten minutes after receiving the call — the body hadn’t even been discovered. It didn’t strike me as strange until later, mesmerized as I was by the quality of the communications in the city: phone, telegraph, police cars standing at the ready outside. . “So this is the modern pace!” I thought. “Must keep up!” And there was a lot of activity to distract me at the museum. A whole chorus of academics — curators, Egyptologists, students — had assembled to see what was going on. Newsmen weren’t far behind!

‘Luckily, a British official of some sort who happened to be leaving a meeting was collared by the distraught American who’d just avoided putting his foot in something very nasty and this Briton, using the several languages he spoke, backed up by — shall we say — a certain natural authority. .’ Moulin paused and grinned apologetically at Joe.

‘Arrogance, you can say if you wish,’ suggested Joe easily. ‘We learn it on school playing fields — or charging enemy machine-gun nests armed with a swagger-stick and shouting: “Follow me, lads!” But I can imagine what you’re going to say and — I’d have done the same, I’m afraid.’

‘Well, the Englishman took charge. Jack Pollock, his name was, and thank goodness he was there.’

Joe had reached automatically for his notebook but, remembering his promise, he relaxed.

‘He calmed everyone down and sent for all the right people. A policeman was on the spot to see fair play, I remember.’

‘And you found a body in the case? Dripping blood on to the floor? Not very well hidden?’

‘No. I think it was meant to be found. And the finding was timed. . orchestrated, you might say.’

‘Who was in the box?’

‘Two bodies. Below: the rightful occupant, a High Priest of some sort, and on top: an alien presence. A professor of Egyptology. Stabbed. Messily. The killer knew enough about knife work to ensure that the body drained itself of blood. Weapon? A type of butcher’s knife, I wrote in my report. Something capable of stabbing and ripping open. A pig farmer could advise perhaps? It was never found. But we did find, in the throat, and sucked right down into the breathing passages of the deceased, wads of linen bindings. Ancient linen. Taken from the body of some other mummy. He’d been forced to swallow the stuff.’

‘Deeply unpleasant!’ Joe could not contain his revulsion.

‘That wasn’t the worst. I say, you won’t arrest me if I make a confession, will you, Sandilands?’

‘Good Lord! Depends what you’re confessing. If you want to tell me you’re the Mastermind behind all this, I’ll have you in cuffs at once!’

Moulin smiled, got to his feet and went to take a small box from a shelf. ‘I’m going to show you something I stole. From an evidence file. It comes from the scene of the crime.’

He handed the box to Joe who raised his brows in alarm on catching sight of the contents.