“And now, puppet, since you have someone to look after you, I am going home.” Jane Avril (poster)—Henri Toulouse-Lautrec
, 1893
Twenty-seven
THE CASE OF THE SMOLDERING SHOES
TWO MEN IN BROAD-BRIMMED HATS, ONE TALL, ONE OF AVERAGE HEIGHT, stood at the taxi stand at the east end of the Cimetière du Montparnasse, looking toward the entrance to the Catacombs across the square. One carried a black ship’s signal lantern with a Fresnel lens, which he held by his side as if no one would notice; the taller one had a long canvas quiver slung over his shoulder, from which protruded the wooden legs of an artist’s easel. Both wore long coats. Other than the lantern, they were conspicuous only in that they were standing at a taxi stand, at midday, with no intention of taking a taxi, and the shoes of the taller man were smoldering.
“Hey, your shoes are smoking,” said the cabbie, who leaned against his hack, chewing an unlit cheroot and scowling. He had already asked them three times if they needed a taxi. They didn’t. They were both peeping out from under the brims of their hats, surreptitiously checking on the progress of a little man in a bowler hat who was leading a donkey across the square.
“It is no concern of yours, monsieur,” said the tall man.
“I think he’s going into the Catacombs,” said the shorter one. “This may be it, Henri.”
“Are you two detectives?” asked the cabbie. “Because if you are, you are horrible at it. You should read this Englishman Arthur Conan Doyle to see how it is done. The new one is called The Sign of the Four. His Sherlock Holmes is very clever. Not like you two.”
“The Catacombs?” Henri pulled his pant legs up so that the cuffs hovered above his shoes, showing his gleaming brass ankles. “I’m finally tall and I have to go into the Catacombs, where it will be a disadvantage.”
“Perhaps the Professeur can design a new model powered by irony,” said Lucien, tilting his head so the brim of his hat lifted to reveal his grin. The Loco-ambulators had allowed them to follow the Colorman at a distance for over a week, without revealing Henri’s conspicuous height or limp, but now it seemed the steam stilts were going to become a distinct disadvantage.
“We have a little time.” Lucien set the lantern down and crouched by Henri’s feet. “We need to let him get ahead of us if we’re going to follow him down there. You there, cabbie, help me get his trousers off.”
“Messieurs, this is the wrong neighborhood and the wrong time of day for such a request.”
“Tell him you’re a count, Henri,” said Lucien. “That usually works.”
Five minutes later Toulouse-Lautrec, with his trousers rolled up and his long coat dragging the ground, led the way across the square. They’d given the cabbie five francs to watch the Loco-ambulators and showed him the double-barreled shotgun in the canvas quiver, borrowed from Henri’s uncle, to let him know what would happen to him should he decide to abscond with the steam stilts. He, in turn, charged them two francs for a guaranteed—more or less—complete map of underground Paris.
Toulouse-Lautrec unfolded the map until he had revealed the seventh level below the city, then looked to Lucien. “It follows the streets as if on the surface.”
“Yes, but with fewer cafés, more corpses, and it’s dark, of course.”
“Oh, well then, we’ll just pretend we’re visiting London.”
The city of Paris had installed gaslights for the first few hundred yards of the Catacombs, as well as a man at the entrance who charged twenty-five centimes for the pleasure of looking at the city’s bones.
“That shit is morbid, you know that, no?” said the gatekeeper.
“You’re the gatekeeper of an ossuary,” said Lucien. “You know that, yes?”
“Yes, but I don’t go down there.”
“Give me my change,” said the baker.
“If you see a man with a donkey, tell him I turn the gaslights off at dark and he’ll have to find his own way out. And report to me if he’s doing anything unsavory down there. He goes down there and stays for hours at a time. It’s macabre.”
“You know you charge people money to look at human remains, no?” said Lucien.
“Are you going in or not?”
They went down the marble steps into wide tunnels lined with stacked tibiae, fibulae, femurs, ulnae, radii, and skulls. When they reached the iron gate with the sign that said NO VISITORS BEYOND THIS POINT, Lucien knelt down to light the signal lantern.
“We’re going in there?” asked Henri, staring past the bars to infinite black.
“Yes,” said Lucien.
Henri held the cabbie’s map up to the last gas lamp. “Some of these chambers are massive. Surely the Colorman will see our lantern. If he knows he’s being followed, he’ll never lead us to the paintings.”