The Alchemy of Murder (50 page)

He chuckles. “It’s really quite simple. Pasteur never actually met me in my role as Nurep. I did my work outside the Institut and dealt only face-to-face with a member of his staff. That man fortuitously went off to Egypt and died in an outbreak, leaving a position open for me. He was the only one who actually saw me—and that was with beard and glasses. I took along René because he had never met Nurep. And had Luc Dubois hide behind the disguise I’d created.”

I nod my head as if it’s a fascinating revelation to me when I’d rather scream and jump from the carriage. “The beard and glasses, the hat pulled down over long hair, a disguise all along. I never really saw what you looked like. I just kept focusing on a man with a heavy beard and glasses. Since you’ve known who I am for a long time, why did you keep letting me investigate you?”

“Because you were considerably useful to me. While you’ve been running around antagonizing the police and directing them reluctantly toward a slasher, I’ve been able to put my plan into effect. But, of course now…” he shrugs, “your usefulness has ended.”

I lean slightly toward him. Despite my fear, this is the man who murdered Josephine and took the lives of other women. I really hate him. “You know, you are quite mad. You’re a sick hu—, no I was about to call you a human being, but you are an animal. Worse, you are a wild, crazy, mindless beast from the pit of hell.”

For a moment something most foul and preternatural is exposed in the man’s eyes and he truly scares me, but I don’t move an inch. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of knowing how frightened I am. He takes his hand out of his pocket and a switchblade flicks open.

Oscar grabs me and pulls me back against the seat to protect me. “I might be a man of poor judgment, but I’ll not allow you to hurt a woman, especially this one.”

André dismisses Oscar’s gallant gesture with a wave of his knife. “I’m not going to hurt her … yet. I’ve saved her for another reason.”

He smiles and sits back and I resume breathing, but then he suddenly lunges at me, his face so close I can feel his breath and the sharp, cold metal blade on my neck. “I’m saving you for myself. I want the pleasure of looking into your eyes as I slowly cut you open.”

Both Oscar and I sit frozen.

André leans back as if nothing had transpired, his knife no longer in sight, but I can still feel the cold blade on my throat. He plans to kill me the way he killed Josephine. And all I can do is sit here. And poor Oscar. The man who dazzled gunslingers and rough-and-ready miners in the dust of Leadville, stares at me with his mouth open and empty of brilliant words.

“It’s okay.” Once again, I pat his arm.

Tears well in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Nellie.” He glares at André. “Playing the role of my friend, you did more than trick me. You murdered two people I loved. Luc and Jean-Jacque were angels and you took their lives.”

André raises his eyebrows and shakes his head. “They were fools. Like you, they were café radicals, men who talk revolution but are unwilling to back up their ideals with actions. Jean-Jacque made the mistake of getting too curious about my activities—he spied on me. I ordered Luc to kill him and Luc failed me. Ultimately, I had to take care of both problems.”

I realize that being part of Oscar’s social circles was a perfect choice for André, Roth, Perun, whatever he calls himself. Not only did the group have the same sexual and political orientation as he, but because their personal activities are wrong in the eyes of the law, they tend to congregate and socialize more in secret than other groups of friends. And dear Oscar—I can see the rage building inside him, turning his face as mauve as his shirt. He’s a big man with a gentle soul, but I have no doubt that if Malliot didn’t have a gun on us, Oscar would have gone for André’s throat. I decide to address André, to divert any rash and futile act of bravery on Oscar’s part.

“What do we call you—André, Roth, or Perun?”

He just looks at me smug. I believe he doesn’t care what we call him. He’s in control and that’s all he cares about. I also don’t know how the count’s henchman got involved with the anarchists, but there are only two possible answers—money, or Malliot’s an anarchist himself.

“How could you work with the count when he’s precisely the sort of rich industrialist your anarchist movement hates?”

“I didn’t work with him. I used him—to fund my research, to pay Pasteur’s Institut to permit me access to their work.”

“With your friend here,” I nod at Malliot, “paving the way. You know, that the police are onto you. If you stop at this point—”

He howls with laughter and Malliot joins him. Ugly laughs. He’s pure evil. “You forget, I’m helping them plan my capture. There’s a barge on the river that houses my laboratory. They’re going to have a delightful surprise when they attack it. But, don’t worry … at least they’ll die faster than you two.”

Still using words to beat down my panic, I take a deep breath to control myself and direct my verbal attack at Malliot. “You have no regret, do you, that you took the salary your employer provided and betrayed him?”

“I’m afraid the count is not a long-term employment prospect,” Perun says. “He’ll die with everyone else in the city very soon. But your friend Verne will go even sooner.”

“Verne? You’ve set a trap for him?”

“Of course. One that Verne himself will trigger.”

I raise my eyebrows to Malliot. “Your friend has a habit of disposing of his help once he’s through with them—as he did with Dubois.” I continue looking at Malliot, but direct my remark to Perun. “What about it, Monsieur, do you plan to do away with Monsieur Malliot when you no longer need him?”

“But of course. There will be no one named Malliot in existence when we finish.”

They both get a good laugh at his remark.

Perun sneers at me with contempt. “Malliot and I have sworn to bring about a revolution at any cost. Unlike others, we’re willing to give our lives.”

“A thing is not necessarily true because a man is willing to die for it,” Oscar says.

Perun’s face darkens. “You’re like the boyars who bleed the people of Russia. The sweat of others earns the bread you stuff in your ugly face. When I kill you, I’m going to do it carefully and precisely, twisting the knife in your gut, your groin, on the bottom of your feet, plucking out your eyes, then carving a hole from ear-to-ear.”

66

Jules

“Reduce speed three quarters,” Captain Zédé tells his engineer. “We are coming up to the barge.”

Nellie’s chance remark about using a submarine sent Jules racing off to the Prefect and Inspector Morant. Accompanied by officers of the law, Jules went to the submarine moored at a quay along the Seine near the entrance to the exposition and had the police commandeer the
Sangsue.
Designed to make underwater repairs to ships, the front of the submersible creates a watertight attachment to the hull at a point where repair is needed. Once attached, workers inside the front of the sub have access to the area of the hull needing repair.

Zédé’s engineer-captain explains the
Sangsue
is equipped with a circular saw capable of cutting a hole big enough for a man to crawl through.

“I know the barge you speak of. It’s wood, rotted, and barely keeps afloat. Once we are attached to its side, this circular saw can create the hole in seconds. Your men can be inside before anyone on the barge realizes what’s happened. And poof! You kill everyone on board.” The captain has a savage glint in his eye as he speaks.

“The attack will be orchestrated from both land and underwater. When the hole is cut, we will raise the periscope to signal we’re entering. At that point the attack from the street will begin as our men attack from inside. If anything goes wrong, we will lower the periscope to warn the gendarmes to stay clear.”

Concern is voiced by the Prefect that the barge might be so damaged in the attack that it sinks, sending deadly microbes into the river water. But it is a risk that must be taken. There are no other options.

*   *   *

W
ITH
J
ULES
, M
ORANT
, three officers, and a three-man crew crowded into the submarine, it’s hot, cramped, and claustrophobic in the
Sangsue
. And dark. Only two lights for the whole length of the craft and neither has more power than that of a single candle.

The air is warm and stuffy and tastes stale to Jules. An officer coughs and Jules puts a handkerchief over his nose and mouth—the man might have the fever.

“Men, steady your self,” the captain yells, “we are about to hit the barge and there will be a jolt.”

There’s a small thump as the craft attaches and the forward bulkhead door is opened. Craning his neck Jules can see the captain with a bull’s-eye lantern, crawling into the nose of the submarine. In next to no time sounds of a saw ripping into wood erupts. Smoke from the saw and sawdust fill the submarine and soon there’s general coughing.

The captain yells “done” and Jules, armed with a revolver, crawls forward with the officers. His lungs fouled by saw smoke and dust, legs aching from the crouching and knees poked bloody by rivets, Nellie’s comment that she calls dangerous activities “adventures” only after she survives them, flashes in his mind.

His turn comes to crawl through the hole in the barge’s hull and into a dark room. Police officers are lined up at a bulkhead door when he gets to his feet. A strange looking contraption is attached to the door.

Jules stares at it in the light of the lantern, realizing the object is something he’s written about.

67

Nellie, Oscar, & Perun

The carriage takes us up the hill to Montmartre. We leave it at an alley too narrow for the coach to traverse. Perun leads, while Malliot is behind us with his trusty gun. Any attempt to escape would result in instant death. When we reach the end of the alley there is a long flight of stairs, followed by another. I’m certain I took some of these same steps on the night Jules and I went to the tavern where an old criminal serves stale beer to anarchists.

At the top of the second set of steps, the two Italian trapeze artists and other conspirators are waiting for us. From what I can ascertain from the talk between Perun and the trapeze girl, Oscar and myself were kidnapped to be used as hostages.

As we leave the stairs and take a footpath, Oscar confides to me in a strained whisper, “Their plan is about to be executed and they will need us only for a short time.”

“That’s a comforting thought.”

Within a short distance we come to an entrance that’s boarded-up. The door easily swings open for Perun and we enter a tunnel lit with lanterns. As we proceed down the tunnel, Perun’s men pick up small wood crates stacked just inside the tunnel and bring them along. From the delicate way the crates are handled, I wonder if they hold the microbe-bomb-mixture Perun has concocted. I debate on whether to whisper my thoughts to Oscar. He looks as devastated as I feel.

“Nellie.” Oscar’s voice is edgy. “Do you realize we have entered an old gypsum mine?” He doesn’t wait for a response from me, he needs to talk, and the words pour out in a gush. “It’s the source of plaster of Paris. You know, of course, that many of the world’s great art works are painted on thin layers of plaster, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel scenes among them. I must say it’s clever on Perun’s part to choose an old gypsum mine not only in terms of concealment, but it has a double meaning: the bodies of thousands of anarchists and other Communards killed during the attack on the Butte were thrown into these abandoned mines. I just hope we don’t join them.”

The girl trapeze artist turns around and pokes a rifle in Oscar’s chest. “Shut your mouth.”

Oscar opens his mouth and then shuts it. I gently pat him on the back and we all continue through what seems like a never-ending, winding tunnel. To make matters worse, the further we go the smaller and smaller the tunnel becomes until even I have to stoop. Poor Oscar is nearly on his knees. Finally we come to another door—this one is made of steel. I would have never dreamed what was on the other side—we’re in the sewers.

I’ve never been inside the sewers and am surprised by the smell. It’s nothing like I thought—not that horrible smell of waste, just a damp, musty smell. I feel like I’ve entered my coffin.

The men stack the crates near a ladder to a manhole.

“Careful,” Perun tells them. “If one of these goes off, we’re all dead and so is all our work.”

Oscar and I exchange looks. The crates are bombs. And considering Perun’s line of work, they’re filled with a deadly concoction. We put kerchiefs to our noses but the others don’t bother to cover their faces—they are fanatics willing to give their lives for their cause.

Perun goes up the ladder and opens the manhole, revealing a large hot air balloon hovering at almost ground level.

I catch Oscar’s eye and nod at the crates and balloon. He nods back. He understands. They are going to drop their ghastly bombs from the sky, high above the city.

*   *   *

P
ERUN
, M
ALLIOT
,
AND
the other men busy themselves doing what they call “arming” the crates and gingerly taking them up a ladder and through the manhole.