‘And there’s the question of motive,’ he persisted into Joe’s silence. ‘Motive could be guessed at in most of the cases. Or should I say motives? They were varied but run-of-the-mill.’
‘Financial gain, provocation, revenge, hatred . . .’ Joe started to list them.
‘Yes, yes . . . a bit of everything. And I’m not sure it tells us much in these cases.’
‘Would you like to bring some of them into the daylight again – just as a matter of speculation, of course,’ Joe encouraged.
‘No, I try rather to forget them.’ Moulin stirred uneasily and turned up the fire a notch. ‘Working here, you’d think I’d become – if I wasn’t already – some sort of automaton. I haven’t. I don’t think I could do the job adequately if I had. I feel something for each “customer”, as you call them. And bury a little bit of myself with each one.’ He smiled to see Joe’s eyes flare with concern. ‘Don’t worry! I shall know when to stop.’
Moulin pointed to the row of thrillers. ‘You’re not to think, on the cold winter evenings between post-mortems, I allow my imagination to be fired by these things! Lots of people you might admire enjoy them. Jean Cocteau, René Magritte, Guillaume Apollinaire, Salvador Dali . . . Blaise Cendrars called them “the Aeneid of Modern Times”!’
‘And you can add to your list of playwrights, poets and artists: Sandilands of the Yard,’ said Joe comfortably, sensing that the learned doctor was slightly embarrassed to be caught out in his enthusiasm.
‘Very well – you’re prepared, then? To explore a really outlandish idea?’
Joe nodded.
‘Before we start, I must insist – no notes! This is just a chat between two weary men whose brains are ticking over faster perhaps than they should. Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ said Joe.
‘In 1924, the body of a priest was found. I remember it was the night before All Saints’ Day. Your Hallowe’en, I believe?’
Joe nodded again, saying nothing. He sensed that it would not take much of an interruption to put him off a track he was plainly uncomfortable to be following. The man was a scientist, after all. Rational. Logical. Not given to fervid speculation. Intolerant of ridicule.
‘I wondered later if that was significant. The man was dangling by a noose to the neck on a bell-rope. The rope was the one that hung from the bell tower of the curé’s own church. The tolling started in the early hours of the morning, as the body swayed – in the breeze? It was a windy night . . . Or from a push? We don’t know. The sound went unregarded for an hour or so as the good citizens of the well-to-do faubourg huddled deeper into their goose-feather eiderdowns. They might have decided he’d committed suicide – not unknown in the priesthood – had it not been for his other wounds. His robe had been slashed from neck to hem and was heavily bloodstained down the front. His male member had been cut off. Before death.’
‘Revenge for some kind of abuse committed by the priest?’
Moulin shrugged. ‘I would expect so. No one ever came forward with accusations, let alone evidence. Case closed. Unsolved. The Church, in any case, was glad enough to hush it up.
‘And then, later that same year, a rich industrialist whose name I’m certain would be familiar to you died in bed. Not his own bed, but that of a common prostitute in a picturesquely low quarter of the city. The lady was absent and never surfaced again. The corpse of our louche old money-bags was discovered naked, tied up with scarlet velvet ribbons to the bedpost – hands and feet. He’d died from an overdose of hashish. The gentlemen of the press had been alerted before the police and were instantly on the scene with their flash bulbs. Everyone was horrified. Except for the man’s five sons. They were now to inherit his fortune, clear of any fear of premature depletion by the extravagant young actress whose charms had led him, a month or so previously, to propose marriage.’
Joe gave a wry smile. ‘Next?’
‘Last year. Picture the Eiffel Tower. A favourite jumping-off point for the suicidally minded. The body of a young man falls from a crowded viewing platform to splatter itself all over the concourse below. It happens every month. No one sees anything. No one is aware of any suspicious circumstances. The man’s fiancée, the spoiled daughter of one of our prominent politicians, is aghast. “But why the Eiffel Tower?” she sobs. “The very place where he declared his love and asked me to marry him!” She is distraught. She is inconsolable. But her best friend reveals – spitefully perhaps? – that the boy in question had, in fact, changed his mind since the tryst on the Tower and decided to marry her. The first fiancée was, luckily, far away in Nice on holiday with her family at the time of the death and could not possibly be involved in any dirty work.’