Floats the Dark Shadow Read online

  “He bought mercury,” Michel explained yet again. With mercury one could make mercury fulminate, an essential of dynamite. “Work continues at the Sacré Coeur. It‘s an easy and desirable target.” This anarchist was no benevolent dreamer. The violence and terror of a bombing followed the criminal Ravachol’s footsteps, or Bakunin’s school of revolutionary socialism. Such men saw the perfidy of the rich clearly but seemed blind to the same human flaws in the poor.

  The street was clear now. Michel guided the men around the corner and up the block. Midway, he stopped at a door and drew his revolver. The others followed suit. Looking down, Sorrell grunted, “It’s propped open. You’ve gotten help from the concierge.”

  “Yes.” It was the worried concierge who had tipped off Dancier. Quietly but swiftly, they entered the apartment house and started up the seven flights of stairs to the top. So late, they had hoped for quiet, but noise filtered down the stairwell. A party to celebrate April Fools’ Day. Michel paused on the first landing and looked up, but no one was visible yet. Deep in his gut, anticipation knotted with old anger and older fear. He ignored them all, fixing his attention on taking this anarchist—alive, if possible.

  They reached the penultimate floor undetected. Just ahead, the door to the party stood open. Someone was singing and the smell of cheap wine and cigarettes saturated the air. Cautiously, Michel moved to the doorjamb and glanced inside. A dozen someones were celebrating, playing music and waltzing squashed together. He passed the door without being spotted. The commotion inside was good cover for their raid, but Sorrell paused at the door and gestured officiously for silence.

  Instead of quieting, the party poured into the hall. They penned Michel and his companions into the far corner of the hallway, bellowing, “Flics! Hey flics, what’s up?” Others squawked out, “Poulets!” or “Vaches!”—depending on their preference for chicken cops or cow cops.

  A floor above, the door they wanted opened and a burly, bearded man peered out. Michel saw an uncanny resemblance to Bakunin, but except for that bearish quality, it was not a face he knew from either the present or the past. Relief loosened the knot in his belly.

  The face vanished. The door slammed.

  Brigadier Sorrell broke through the crowd and stormed the last flight of stairs. Michel felt a new knot tighten hard inside him. He shouted a warning as the gendarmes rushed to the top floor. Yanking the last man back to the landing, he yelled again for Sorrell to stop. The Brigadier ignored him and kicked in the door. It was rigged from the inside. The explosion sent the splintered door flying outward. The impact sent Sorrell and the nearest gendarme over the railing into the open stairwell. The gendarme screamed shrilly all the way down. Missing half his head, Sorrell fell silently, dead before he hit bottom. A shattered piece of the door hit the third gendarme in the arm, slicing the artery. Blood and brains splattered the hallway.

  Michel felt a blast of fury in his gut, like a furnace door swinging open. Instantly he closed it inside a wall of ice.

  “Can you do a tourniquet?” he asked the uninjured gendarme, who choked out an affirmative. He let the man tend to his fellow officer. Some of the partygoers, hit by the debris, were screaming and cursing. Useless chaos. “Someone get a doctor.”

  “Oui. Oui. Immédiatement!” Now the flics were their friends. One of the more sober women ran down the stairs.

  Sidestepping the debris, Michel went through the doorway, watching for traps. The window was open. There were no tripwires. Muffled sounds came from the roof. Running, or waiting with a weapon? He ducked his head out, pulled back, waited a heartbeat. No shots from the bomber. Michel climbed out the window, pulled himself up to the window arch, then onto the roof.

  Below, the few streetlamps and windows of the Montmartre nightclubs cast light on the street. Above and ahead, the rooftops caught little but starlight. Michel moved forward cautiously, taking cover at a chimney as his night vision returned. He heard a heavy thud as the bomber jumped to the next roof. There was only one other building before the alley, but its roof line fell away in flat, staggered sections, like a giant’s staircase. The bomber had a long head start, but his running and jumping sounded clumsy.

  As swiftly as the murky light allowed, Michel moved to the edge of the building and dropped to the next roof. If the bomber had a gun, he’d have taken a shot by now. Ahead, Michel heard an ungodly clatter as the bomber hurled junk at the foot of the next wall. There was the crack of breaking crockery, the soft thump of earth, and the rustle and snap of plants as the bomber pillaged a rooftop garden. Crossing to the edge, Michel slid down the wall close to the far end but still landed in the rubble. He kicked aside an overturned bench, then clambered over spilled earth, smashed pots, and broken branches to the next edge. Below him, he glimpsed the bomber’s silhouette above the roof line. The man paused long enough to look back, his face no more than a pale blotch. Then he leaped the three meters down across the alley to the next building.

  Michel holstered his gun then jumped down to the next level. Running hard, he made the leap across the alley but tripped forward, skidding on the slippery lead roofing before he slid to a stop and regained his footing. The bomber was clearer now, thundering across the last roof. At the far end, dimly illuminated by window lights, an ash tree grew up from an enclosed garden, its top branches in reach. In a moment, the bomber would be down it, over the garden wall, and vanished into the alleys of Montmartre. Michel raced forward. Still long meters away, the bomber dove and disappeared from sight.

  Reaching the edge of the building, Michel looked down into the slender, swaying branches. Farther below, barely visible, the dark shape of the bomber shimmied down a central branch toward the trunk. Michel launched himself after, reveling in the brief, intoxicating flight before his hands closed on a sturdy branch two meters below. He locked his grip as it dipped under his weight, scraping his hands against sharp twigs. It swayed again as the bomber plunged downward with a grunt, shaking the entire tree. Michel quickly gauged his position. The building was four tall stories, too high to jump to the ground. His quarry was halfway down, with stronger holds as he descended. Swinging down to the next limb, Michel followed him through a maze of branches that slapped at his eyes and blocked his vision. Through a sudden gap, he saw the bomber dangle from a thick limb close to the bottom.

  Fire burned through the ice inside him. He would not let this killer escape.

  As the bomber dropped to the ground, Michel leapt into the narrow space between two limbs. Branches snapped, raking his face and arms, and then he was clear. Plummeting fast, he landed on the bomber’s back, broad and hard as a sack of grain under thick, rough wool. The sudden impact sent them sprawling in opposite directions. Stunned by the fall, Michel struggled for breath. He glimpsed movement, saw the bomber kneeling. Michel heard the metal snick of a blade as the man snatched a knife from a sheath at his ankle.

  He rolled as the bomber sprang. The blade sliced open his jacket, scoring his upper arm with a hot line of pain. Not his right arm. Michel jumped to a crouch, retreating backward over the uncertain ground. The bomber pursued, the knife slashing viciously. Two feints, then a thrust. Again. Seeing the pattern, Michel stepped in quickly between the feints and seized the bomber’s knife hand between his own. He held on grimly as the man gripped Michel’s slashed arm with his other hand, grinding his palm into the knife wound. Michel shut off the pain, looking directly into his adversary’s eyes. Startled, the bomber stared back, jaw agape. His grip slackened. Michel twisted the man’s wrist sharply. The knife fell. A hard chasse-bas kick to the bomber’s thigh broke his balance. As he pitched back, Michel’s whipping fouetté knocked him onto his back. In an instant Michel had him flipped and pinned. Another instant had the ligote around his prisoner’s wrist—one twist tightened the metal strands and stopped any struggle. Michel jerked him to his feet. The man stank of sausage, sweat, and gunpowder.

  “You are under arrest.”

  “Salaud—je vais te niquer la gueule! Fil
s de pute! Espèce de con.” The man bared his teeth, snarling an unending stream of guttural curses. Bastard, I’m going to fuck up your face. Son of a whore. Cunt brain. “Mes couilles sur ton nez!” My balls on your nose? That was a new one. Michel dragged the bomber to the doorway of the house and knocked, pounded, until the owner came to let him through the house. Outside again, Michel pushed his cursing prisoner up the now crowded street.

  “À bas les flics! À bas les vaches!” The crowd began chanting down with cops as soon as they appeared.

  “Espèce de merde! Va te faire foutre!” The bomber spewed curses. Piece of shit. Go fuck yourself. His accent was Russian, Michel thought, or perhaps from some Balkan state. He walked his prisoner steadily, keeping a sharp hold on the ligote.

  “Vache réactionnaire—va encule les mouches!” The jeering crowd urged him to butt fuck some flies—in cow form. Despite his tension, Michel’s lips twitched a little. It was an insult usually extended to useless politicians. The crowd waved their fists over their heads, pinkie fingers sticking out and wiggling.

  “Bouffe ta merde!”

  “Nique ta mère.”

  “Brûle en enfer!”

  Michel guessed that “burn in hell” was meant for the anarchist. Otherwise, the deluge of obscenities was all for him. They both took a share of angry buffeting, but Michel got the bomber back to the apartment house without major incident. He locked his prisoner in the concierge’s broom closet, verified what had happened in his absence, and then arranged for transport. No marching through the streets for this man. Michel wanted him safe inside a Black Maria. The wounded officer was doing all right, pale but stoic as he waited for the ambulance. The corpses had been decently covered.

  He found the unharmed gendarme outside in the street. The shock of survival had pumped his self-importance. In a fit of inspiration, the fool had lied to the crowd, saying the destruction was caused by a gas explosion. Even if it had been the truth, the Montmartrois would rather believe it was a bomber. There was no point in arguing with the growing crowd of merchants, minstrels, artisans, prostitutes, pimps, and poets who were already exaggerating the damage and proclaiming their own theories of the event. A frenetic gaiety born of fear was overcoming the shock. In a few more minutes, the musicians would have them singing ‘La Marseillaise.’ Or, worse than the anthem, they’d begin ‘La Ravachole’, the song created to honor that famous bomber. Either would be more provocative than the curses.

  Coming up the street, Michel saw Saul Balsam, a reporter who managed to present the facts with less florid embellishment than most. Balsam was often refused interviews because he was Jewish. Michel went forward to greet him. Brown eyes blinked at him from behind wire-rimmed spectacles. They perched on a crooked nose broken two years ago during one of the Dreyfus scandal riots. That case had split Paris like an axe. The minority cried that Captain Dreyfus was innocent, nothing but a convenient scapegoat. The majority opinion was that all Jews were traitors at heart, and therefore Dreyfus must be guilty. The majority had prevailed.

  “A fractured gas line, Inspecteur Devaux?” Balsam asked, pencil poised. His lips quirked in a wry smile.

  “No. A bomb.” Michel gave him a quick and accurate account of the raid. “One officer was severely wounded. Two more are dead because of this man.”

  “Two heroes gave their lives to capture the bomber who planned to destroy the Sacré Coeur.” Saul scribbled madly, adjusted his glasses with his pencil, then looked up. “A great success—despite grievous losses.”

  “Yes. It must be counted a success.”

  “After a breathless rooftop chase, Inspecteur Michel Devaux, son of the heroic Brigadier Guillaume Devaux, captured the bomber after….”

  “The police captured—” Michel suggested. The memory of his father’s death turned his guts to lead, though he had long since schooled his face to show no reaction.

  “If you prefer.” Balsam shrugged, jotted a note, paused again. “I will include a reprise of recent anarchist activity. Ravachol was executed for murder five years ago?”

  “Yes,” Michel answered.

  “He sang on his way to the guillotine. It was all that was needed to make him a folk hero—not that I can print that without going to jail myself.”

  Michel ignored that.

  “Emile Henry was executed in ’94 for bombing the Terminus,” Saul went on. “Just after that, President Carnot was assassinated. Stabbed by that Italian anarchist in revenge.”

  “The same year as the bombing of the Café Foyot and the Trial of the Thirty,” Michel affirmed.

  “Ah yes, the flowerpot bomb.” Balsam smiled grimly. “No one died, but people remember it more than the Café Terminus, where twenty were sent to an early grave.”

  “They remember the Foyot because of the trial. The perpetrators ran circles around the lawyers and made a fool of the judge.” Michel heard the rancor in his voice.

  “Can I quote that?” Balsam asked with false innocence.

  “No.”

  Balsam’s smile grew broader. “’94 was a good year for journalists, if no one else. No incidents since then?”

  “Nothing successful. Tonight proves we must always be vigilant.”

  “Always vigilant. Excellent finish.” Balsam nodded his thanks.

  The police van had yet to arrive. “Any news on the Dreyfus case?” Michel was truly curious. He knew Balsam was still investigating. After his conviction, Dreyfus had been humiliated, stripped of rank and honors, his sword broken. His sentence was solitary confinement on Devil’s Island.

  “His brother has hired almost a dozen handwriting experts. All agree that the treasonous note was not in Dreyfus’ handwriting. Clemenceau now thinks Dreyfus innocent, and Zola is intrigued.”

  The van came up the street, and as Michel had feared, the crowd spontaneously took up ‘La Ravachole’—protesting on principle.

  There are corrupt politicians,

  There are flabby financiers,

  And always there are cops—

  But for all these villains,

  There is dynamite!

  Hurrah the blast!

  Hurrah the blast!

  There is dynamite!

  Hurrah the blast

  Of the explosion!

  The singing grew louder as the van drew up to the bombed building, the horses snorting and stomping. If Michel didn’t leave now, the crowd could escalate into a mob. He bade Balsam good night, then fetched his prisoner.

  “Mort aux vaches!” Michel tensed as the death threat went up, but he got the bomber locked inside the cage with nothing worse than a few kicks. He climbed in beside the driver. The man instantly cracked the whip to clear a pathway then took the steep but quick descent down the rue Lepic. Michel looked down the Boulevard de Clichy to the Moulin Rouge. Beneath the red windmill the slumming rich mingled with the working classes, all oblivious to the craziness a few streets beyond. Class warfare was put aside in the pursuit of pleasure. Pimps rubbed shoulders with politicians. Diamond necklaces and luxurious peau de soie gleamed beside cheap paste and tattered cotton lace. Society ladies did their best to dress like courtesans and courtesans like society ladies.

  “Aristo-rats!” The bomber howled as if he could see the crowd. The renewed noise and the glimpse of bright lights would identify their location. The man’s violent hatred pointed up the foolishness of Michel’s musings.

  He loved the fierce hearts of the French but hated the chaos they wrought in their wars for power over each other. Chaos was not liberty, whatever pretty theories the anarchists dreamed up. Class hatred was a virulent plague in France. The Commune’s attempt to create a people’s state had been brutally crushed by government troops, and now, in the Third Republic, the high bourgeoisie ruled by wealth, reviling but envying the haughty aristocrats. Both feared the angry working class while continuing to exploit them mercilessly.

  The van clattered on through quieter neighborhoods to the sumptuous area surrounding L’Opéra Garnier where late n
ight cafés were filled with chattering clientele in evening dress. A few more minutes and they reached the Seine, its dark water shimmering under the arc lamps. The Black Maria crossed the bridge to the Palais de Justice and rattled under the archway to the courtyard of the Dépôt. Most prisoners were kept here just two or three days before being formally charged and transferred to a holding prison. Particularly dangerous or politically conspicuous prisoners might remain in the Dépôt’s cells indefinitely. Michel presumed this anarchist bomber would be one of them. He climbed down from the seat and unlocked the door to take his furious prisoner out of the cage.

  “Vive la révolution!” the bomber trumpeted as his feet hit the cobblestones.

  Those were Ravachol’s last words—cried out, the legend went, by his decapitated head.

  Chapter Six

  The star on the skyline, the lighthouse on the pier

  The cup of fine crystal

  Which over my shoulder I tossed nonchalantly

  All brimming with wine

  ~ Jean Moréas

  SILENCE lingered like an indrawn breath, then applause rose in the Crypt de la Passion.

  Still feeling dazed by the whispered song, Theo joined in the clapping. When the sound faded, Paul gave her a ghoulish grin and settled back in his chair—bored again or needing to appear so. Averill smiled, amused at their impromptu duet. It was well after midnight and Theo bit the inside of her lip to stifle a yawn. She hated looking gauche.

  The musicians quickly put away their instruments and came to join their guests. Casimir entrusted his instrument to another violinist, then strolled toward them. Theo offered her hand and he clasped her fingers, lifting them to his lips. The aristocratic flair of his gestures never failed to delight and amuse her. Releasing her hand, the baron nodded to Paul then gave Averill the charming, lop-sided smile that made him look closer to twenty than thirty. She seldom had an impulse to paint Casimir. He was almost too polished to be interesting—the gleaming curl of his hair, the impeccable suits, the ironic arch of an eyebrow. A complete work of art in himself. But sometimes she wanted to capture his golden smile, radiant as sunshine. Theo knew the boyish appeal could be intentionally disarming. The baron had a dangerous side. He had fought duels. Not the usual theatrical Parisian duels of smoke and gesture, but ones in which he’d wounded, even crippled, his opponent.