J. Janes - Tapestry

Pungent on the air came the scent of talcum powder and cigarette smoke, eau de Javel and chlorine, too, for didn’t the Lido have a bathing pool up there? Of course it did, with nymphs en costume d’Eve who swung back and forth on swings above the audience before throwing their arms straight out or up to take the plunge.

Perfume, the cheap and the expensive, was on the air with body odours of all kinds, those of clogged drains, too, and of blocks of limestone, for these last made up the cellar walls. Garlic, Louis would have said. Onions, mon vieux, and the vin d’ordinaire, the rouge, n’est-ce pas ? The sulphur of freshly struck matches as cigarettes are lit and quick drags taken.

‘Bob!’ shouted one. ‘ Ah, mon Dieu, mon petit brave , you’ve come back to see us again.’

‘No more worries, eh, Bob?’ shouted another. ‘No more thoughts of Lulu?’

Bob didn’t bark. Bob didn’t wag his tail. Bob waited.

‘Come to Martine,’ urged one with open arms, bare breasts, bare everything. ‘Colonel, let him come. You know how he likes to see us. You’ve been keeping him away too long.’

A smile was given, not a grin, for a man like Delaroche never grinned. Bob’s lead was unclipped but still he stayed until the colonel softly said, ‘All right. Go and say hello.’

Still he didn’t bark or bay. Nose to the floor, he went into the lights, to mirrors upon mirrors and gowns and scattered or unscattered female underthings and lots and lots of loving.

Bob said hello to every one of the thirty or more that were crowded into the two long rooms. He didn’t play favourites. They laughed, whistled, clapped, called, cuddled, told each other not to be greedy and urged him to come to them, competing totally for his affection.

He didn’t run and knock the children over. He was careful. The baby, nestled in its bassinet and asleep after a quick snack, was given but the gentlest touch of his muzzle, not even a lick; the four-year-old who had constantly sucked her thumb, had to pull it out to timidly pet and then hug him dearly. A hero.

But then, puzzled, he looked around for someone else and couldn’t understand why they weren’t also present. He started to hunt, and no amount of the colonel’s calling him back, not even a muted curse, could stop him. He went out into the foyer at the base of that staircase. He sniffed at two or three of the steps, went right up them and came back. Satisfied, he hurried along the dimly lit corridor that led, probably, to one of the club’s many storage rooms, only to stop when he reached the wall telephone. Standing, he got a whiff of that too, then headed right back and into the dressing rooms to look about and try to decide what was still missing.

Under the chintz skirt of one of the dressing tables-bare knees had to be quickly swung aside-he worried over something, gave a throaty growl, angry at first, the hindquarters up and tail ready.

‘Lulu’s b …’ said one, only to stop herself as Bob dragged it out, worried at it with a paw, then laid it at his master’s feet.

An India rubber bone. Well chewed by the look and a constant comfort, but no comfort at all? wondered Kohler. Delaroche had thought it best to distract this Kripo with female flesh and keep him from going to the agence but was now thinking better of it.

Back Bob went for more, and when he had that item, he dragged it out by its handle and the one who had swung her legs aside blurted, ‘Elene’s case.’

No one moved. Not Bob, not any of the girls.

‘Where is she, Colonel?’ asked another. ‘What’s happened to her?’

Merde, something would have to be said, thought Delaroche. ‘We’re working on it.’

‘That makes two of us, Colonel.’

‘Kohler, we’ll discuss it later.’

‘Of course, but I’m glad to know the agence is involved.’

All thirty-two or -six of them stopped whatever they’d been doing. They waited for answers. They damned well wanted them. ‘Well?’ said a forty-year-old with the stretch marks big babies invariably leave for one to hide.

Bob nudged the fitted case, pushing it across the cracked linoleum until it rested not at the colonel’s feet, but at those of this Kripo. Sorrowfully he looked up and waited, too, for an answer. A missing dog and a missing showgirl.

That answer was not long in coming. It couldn’t be, if only partially given. Reaching into a jacket pocket, Kohler took out the girl’s wedding ring- Ach , he’d wrapped it in a pair of white pongee step-ins he must have taken from the judge’s flat, but had no memory of having done or even of where, precisely, among those rooms he’d found them, but … ‘This is it, eh, Bob?’ he heard himself asking, heard the collective gasp, saw lips part, despair enter the gazes of some, tears those of others.

‘Elene’s,’ said one. ‘I knew she was for it. I had a feeling.’

‘Kohler, where the hell did you find that?’ hissed Delaroche.

‘Maybe Bob had best tell us, Colonel, or is it that you already know?’

Not a feather moved. Cigarette smoke trailed.

‘Would I even be asking if I did?’ asked Delaroche.

‘Lulu’s gone and Bob’s no longer worried about her, Colonel,’ said one to break the impasse.

‘They had a fight. Bob’s ear was badly torn,’ said another.

They looked at each other, these girls, and nodded at one of their number.

‘Elene took her, Colonel,’ said the forty-year-old den mother. ‘We knew Madame de Brisac had hired you to find Lulu. We weren’t going to tell you but now … now that Elene hasn’t come to work, we’d best, since that one has her ring.’

‘Lulu was causing Elene lots and lots of trouble,’ said another. ‘Madame Rouget would insist on bringing that damned dog of her friend’s down here to see us.’

‘And do the same when we were up onstage.’

‘Now wait a minute,’ said Kohler. ‘Was Madame Rouget asked to do this by Madame de Brisac?’

The girls threw glances at one another. ‘It’s possible,’ said one, ‘but not likely.’

‘It wasn’t Elene’s fault, Inspector. You are a cop, aren’t you?’

‘I am.’

‘I thought so.’

‘I did too.’ ‘So did I …’ ‘Et moi aussi,’ came the chorus. ‘One can always tell with those.’

Heads were nodded.

‘Lulu wasn’t a regular like Bob, Inspector. Oh for sure, she was friendly enough but she hated Monsieur le Juge who had savagely kicked her in the park last October.’

‘The Parc Monceau?’

‘How is it that you know this, please?’ asked the den mother suspiciously.

‘Never mind, but why did Elene Artur ask to meet the judge there? That’s not the usual sort of place for a girl like that, is it?’

They all shrugged. Some looked away, others stared right back at him. Pregnant, wasn’t she? he wanted to ask but didn’t need to and had best not since the colonel was taking a decided interest in things. ‘Continue.’

‘ Ah, bon , since you ask it of me. Lulu could be very friendly with Elene, too, you understand, but hated Monsieur le Juge, and when Lulu smelled him on the girl after those two had been together during the cinq a sept or even earlier in the day, she just went crazy even though the judge was no longer present.’

‘Angry,’ said one.

‘A real hothead,’ yet another.

‘Would bite and bark and sometimes even tear at Elene’s coat or dress when she came in.’

‘Irish terriers are good with most people but can be …’

‘Bitchy,’ said another, ‘especially with big dogs like Bob who was only trying to defend Elene from attack.’