planning to do a demonstration on opening day.”
We didn’t get to find out what type of demonstration one would do for a crematorium, because a commotion interrupted Samboni. Alarmed, the policemen who had been engrossed in watching Arzaky moved away from us, as if they didn’t want to be associated with the Polish detective or his dark assistant. The newcomer was wearing an oversize plaid overcoat, and sported a gigantic mustache that seemed to precede him, as if to say, “Watch out for the guy behind me.” He looked at the body, took a momentary pleasure in the effect his appearance had caused, and then pulled out a notebook.
“Step aside, Arzaky, from now on I’ll ask the questions.”
For a few seconds it looked as if the two men were going to fight a duel with their pencils. The newcomer was Bazeldin, Paris ’s chief of police. I recognized him from his picture in the newspapers. Since Darbon’s death, he had appeared in
Arzaky stepped back a few paces, distancing himself from the body and Samboni.
“Before interrogating this man”-Bazeldin pointed to Samboni-“I’d like you, Arzaky, to tell me how you found out about this murder.”
“What murder?”
“The body right here.”
“I’m investigating Darbon’s death. I was returning from one of my evening walks when I saw a commotion at the door to the Galerie des Machines. We still don’t know if someone killed this man.”
“Do you think he’s still alive?”
The policemen laughed at their boss’s joke, and they brief ly shook, as if with spasms.
“You’ll have plenty of time to laugh when we’ve found the guilty party. Now go through the pavilions, see if anyone is missing.” Then Bazeldin addressed a plainclothes policeman who never left his side. It was no secret that Bazeldin wanted to be like the detectives in every way, he even had an acolyte. “Rotignac, you guard the body until someone from the morgue comes to pick it up.”
“I want to point something out, Captain,” Arzaky interrupted. “The head seems to be almost detached from the body.”
“You are always giving me false clues, detective. You want to send me off on a wild goose chase. But I am going to conduct this investigation my way, and we’ll see who solves the case first. The fact that Darbon is dead doesn’t automatically make you the Detective of Paris. It’s a responsibility one must earn. In the meantime, consider yourself the Detective of Warsaw, assuming they don’t already have a better one.”
Arzaky moved away from Bazeldin, feigning indignation, and took me aside. While the chief of police continued giving orders, the detective said to me, “I’ll stay here. If I go anywhere, Bazeldin will have me followed and I don’t want to tip him off about my suspicions. You to go the Taxidermists’ Pavilion and ask if they are missing a body.”
“You mean this wasn’t a murder? That the dead man… was already dead?”
“That burned smell is too caustic for an ordinary cremation. You come from a country where they raise sheep, so you should know that in the spinning process they separate a very coarse type of wool called unbonded wool, which is used to stuff cushions and dolls. It’s also used by taxidermists for embalming bodies. I think someone stole an embalmed body and burned it.”
“Why would anyone do that?”
“How should I know? If my job were that easy, anybody would be able to solve crimes, even Paris ’s police chief. Right now the only thing that concerns me is that Bazeldin sees me here. I’ll ask some more questions to keep him occupied.”
As I left the Galerie des Machines I found one of the messengers who worked for the organizing committee. He gave me directions to the Taxidermists’ Pavilion. As I walked there I spied several of The Twelve Detectives who were headed over to see if the news had any relationship to Darbon’s death. I saw Hatter, with Linker by his side. I also saw the two Japanese men, who pretended to be distracted by the machines, but I could tell that they were completely focused as they moved forward with a determined stride. Baldone, almost breathless, followed Magrelli, the Eye of Rome.
At the entrance, Novarius tried to get the Sioux Indian in, but the guards insisted that he had escaped from a tribe of South American Indians who were set up on a piece of land on the other side of the fair, and they wanted him to return. To avoid being followed, I entered other pavilions and exited through side doors. I stopped to see the globe they had just finished putting together, and then I sidetracked toward the Palace of Fine Arts. When I was fairly sure no one had followed me to that point, I continued on to the Taxidermists’ Pavilion. Before I went in I saw a young woman waving to me from a distance. It was Greta, looking at me through binoculars. I waved back, embarrassed at being exposed, and casually entered the pavilion, which was built to look like an Egyptian temple.
2
At the entrance to the temple I was greeted by a stuffed bear, whose open jaws welcomed me to his world of simulated immortality. On glass shelves and large black wood tables nested birds as small as insects and insects as large as birds. A giraffe from Paris ’s zoo, whose death had been announced in the newspaper six months earlier, was still in the wooden box that had been used to transport it, sticking its neck out into the world at last and forever.
A short, stout man passed by me, dressed in a gray coverall. I asked him for the taxidermists and he muttered, between his teeth, the name Dr. Nazar and pointed to a closed door.
I knocked, and without waiting for an answer, opened the door. A doctor in a white coat was writing a letter, with his back to me. Next to him there was an empty gurney.
“Rufus, wait a second, I’ll give you this letter, it’s for the organizing committee…”
I stepped forward.
“I’m not Rufus, doctor. My name is Sigmundo Salvatrio, and…”
He put the pen down and turned to look at me. Nazar had a long beard and eyes reddened by long nights of work.
“I’m busy right now… Perhaps in the future I’ll be taking on apprentices…”
“I don’t want to be an apprentice. I was sent by Detective Arzaky.”
I assumed he would throw me out, but he stood up enthusiastically, as if I had uttered a magic word.
“That’s exactly what I need, a detective! A body has just disappeared. It was our best work and someone took it in the middle of the night.”
“That’s why I’m here,” I said with a smug smile.
Nazar stared at me.
“But how could you know that, when I haven’t reported its disappearance yet?”
“We are aware of everything that goes on at the World’s Fair,” I replied, happy that someone, in the midst of so much confusion, deemed me useful.
“Your accent and your arrogance are familiar to me,” said Dr. Nazar in perfect Spanish. “Are you Argentine? Me too.”
Dr. Nazar came closer as if he were going to hug me, his lab coat stained with chemical products, blood, and other substances I was not interested in coming into close contact with. Frightened, I backed up with the agility of a fencer and extended a tentative hand. The deferred embrace evaporated. Anyone who saw Nazar’s exuberance would have thought that it was extremely rare to find another Argentine in Paris, when really the city was full of us.
“So you’re working in Paris?” I couldn’t avoid Dr. Nazar’s presumptuously giving me a pat on the back.
“Just for a short while. I was sent by Detective Craig, for the first meeting of The Twelve Detectives.”
“I met Craig at a meeting of the Progress Club five years ago. He gave a masterful lecture on the difference between deduction and induction.”
“One of his favorite topics.”
