Folly Du Jour

‘Now I know you won’t want to hear me say this,’ Bo

‘As we’re on the spot – Fourier. Let’s start with him, shall we?’

‘I’d prefer it. I have to report back on the fracas in the boulevard just now. He’ll be waiting to see me. Seems to be taking more of an interest. He grudgingly gave me ten blokes to mount the raid, after all! Feel up to the stairs, then, do you?’

Police headquarters was busy. Fourier, they were told, was busy but he had asked to see them as soon as they arrived. The Chief Inspector appeared not to have left his desk or changed his clothes since Joe had last seen him on the morning after the murder. A closer look, however, revealed a different pattern of coffee stains on his shirt front.

Juggling papers and cards, the Chief Inspector demonstrated his busy-ness and asked them to take a seat. The enquiry, he informed them, was progressing. His sergeant dashed in with a sheet of foolscap. Fourier was instantly absorbed by what he read there and, taking out his pen, made a few alterations and additions to the text.

‘The copy,’ he a

He began to read out the salient points. ‘Now then . . . Brigandage in Bohemia. Here we go. Guaranteed to get them going, a reference to brigandage . . . Officers working under the direction of Commissaire Casimir Fourier . . . dramatic shootout . . . three gangsters dead . . . no bystanders hurt . . . police squad remain on the alert and ensuring public safety in this erstwhile peaceable quartier . . . Well? What are you thinking?’

‘Can’t argue with the facts, sir,’ said Bo

‘Had you thought, Fourier, you might insert something on the lines of: The peace of Mount Parnassus was shattered last night when . . .’

‘Good. Good.’ He scratched in the insertion. ‘Now. Next. Take a look at this line-up, will you? You requested it, I believe. Anything there you like the look of?’

He passed them a hand of six Bertillon identity cards. They shuffled ugly face after ugly face complete with cranial measurements and descriptions of distinguishing features. Three had accompanying fingerprint records stuck along the bottom of the card. All the men were aged between twenty and forty and all had a scar on the right jaw.

They spotted him at the same moment.

‘That’s him!’ said Joe.

‘Gotcha!’ said Bo

He handed one of the cards to Fourier. ‘Everything we need to know about our knifeman. Vincent Viviani. You’ll find, sir, he’s known in his milieu as Vévé. Ex-Zouave. Scar as reported by Miss Watkins. He works for the outfit who run, or have been ru

Fourier exchanged a glance with Joe. It trembled on the edge of enthusiasm.

‘Though, of course, we need to take the man into custody in order to make a comparison,’ Bo

‘You’re telling me you haven’t got him yet? I would expect him to be standing in manacles outside the door by now,’ grumbled Fourier.

‘We’ve been busy tracking down, not this underling, vicious killer though he be, but the mastermind who has set the whole organization in operation,’ said Joe. ‘Bo

Bo

‘And now I’m to understand that, though you have an identity for the killer, he’s beyond our reach? Another bloody diplomat! Buggers! Corral the lot in their embassies and you’d reduce the crime in the city by half! I sometimes think they send their rogues and scallywags over to us to get rid of them. Now what the hell do we do? Can’t touch him. He can sit in there as long as he likes, drinking tea. And when he’s ready, he can jump in the back of an embassy car, pull a rug over his head and scuttle off back where he came from on the next plane.’

His eyes narrowed in cu

‘You’re suggesting I enter the Embassy, slap his face with my glove, and call him out? “The Bois de Boulogne at dawn, Pollock! Your choice of weapon,”’ Joe drawled. ‘Oh, very well. It’s a plan, I suppose. Just leave it to me, old man.’

As they made their way over the courtyard to pick up a taxi Bo

‘Of course not!’ said Joe. ‘But, all the same, I’d rather Fourier left it to me. Not that he has much of a choice. You know how slow these negotiations with embassies can be. It was crudely put but Fourier was right. There’d be representations, accusations, rebuttals, counter-accusations . . . oh, a mountain of work for the eager young tail-waggers they employ over there. And it would all end exactly as he forecast. Pollock would disappear in the night and the French would retaliate by blackballing the English entrant in the Gold Cup race at Longchamp. Or even worse – withdrawing the loan of their string orchestra. We’ve got to sort this out ourselves. And we’ll take advice from the best-placed source.’

‘Sir George?’ said Bo

Sir George and Amélie Bo

After a shrewd look at their expressions, George put his cards down and said quietly: ‘Would this be a good time to have a drink of wine or do you have to maintain a clear head for the rest of the evening?’

‘Both,’ said Joe. ‘So – one glass would be most welcome, Madame Bo

She brought a bottle and four glasses and a dish of olives and settled down with them in the salon.

‘Maman, if you don’t mind . . . we have some disturbing things to reveal . . . ‘ Bo

‘I don’t mind. So, go on then – disturb us.’

‘Sir,’ Joe began, ‘I have now met and interviewed your cousin at the Embassy. He is well and sends his warmest regards and hopes to see you when this is all over and you come out of hiding. Though whether such a reunion will ever take place now remains to be seen . . .’

Sir George listened calmly to the account, occasionally shooting a question to Joe or Bo

‘So that’s why she was there, at the theatre,’ said Madame Bo

Confidences, it seemed to Joe, had been exchanged over culinary activities at the kitchen table.

‘But where is she now? You let her go like that, unescorted, friendless, into the night? She must be feeling very uneasy at large in the city with two men pursuing her. I’d have taken my chances with you and Jean-Philippe,’ Amélie Bo