The Paris Enigma

off toward the tall glass heights.

6

There are people who need to be still in order to think, but I work better walking or even running. I knew where I was going, but I didn’t know why. Against the opinion of Craig and the other detectives, I didn’t think an enigma was a painting by Arcimboldo, or an Aladdin’s blackboard, or a sphinx, or a blank page. It was what it had been since my childhood: a jigsaw puzzle. My father would come home with a large box wrapped in blue silk paper. By the window, I tore off the paper, threw the pieces to the ground, and enjoyed that wonderful chaos that was waiting for me to put it in order and to find, in the many shapes, the image. Now I had the big pieces in front of me: Darbon’s body, fallen from the tower; Sorel ’s corpse, first executed by guillotine and then burned; and, the only one that pained me, the Mermaid’s lifeless silhouette. There were other, smaller pieces: the black oil that had initiated Darbon’s plunge from the tower, the witnesses’ statements, the fire, the obscure quotes on the walls of Grialet’s book of a house. I had read Nerval’s verses, which I couldn’t get out of my head, but it was those other words that were important, the ones that said: “The day will come when God will be a meeting between an old man, a decapitated man, and a dove…”

The answer was written on Grialet’s wall, in full view of everyone.

Now I knew for certain that the detectives, spread out through the fair in search of earth or air, were looking in vain: it wasn’t a series of four; it was a series of three. It wasn’t about the four elements, the four roots that the Greeks saw behind everything, but in the Trinity. The old man was Darbon, the decapitated man, Sorel; the dove, Paloma…

I arrived at Grialet’s house breathless. I climbed the marble staircase and was about to knock, when Desmorins, the priest, opened the door. He was also agitated and sweating, as if his path to me had been a symmetrical race.

“You have to stop Arzaky,” he said.

“Where is he?”

“Upstairs. He thinks that Grialet is the killer. I’m going to get the police.”

Before he could leave or I could enter the shot rang out, reverberating off the walls. It sounded more like a pistol than a revolver or carbine. There was something in the sound itself that was irreparable, as if it were a bomb going off. A shot can miss its mark: an explosion always has consequences for someone. I went up the stairs, not as quickly as the scene demanded, nor as slowly as my tiredness called for. As I walked I was escorted by the words on the walls, which I didn’t read.

Arzaky was standing in a room that the morning hadn’t quite made up its mind to illuminate. He held Craig’s cane, still smoking, in his hand. It looked less like a firearm than some powerful mythological figure’s staff. On the f loor, seated, with his back against the writing that filled the wall, was Grialet. The shot had entered his neck and torn his carotid artery. For a few seconds, Grialet held a hand over the wound, which was black with gunpowder, but then, out of weakness or resignation, he gave up. He wanted to say something, but couldn’t. His legs shook two or three times, and then he was still.

Then Arzaky did something unexpected: he crossed himself. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; in the name of the Old Man, the Decapitated Man, and the Dove. He stared at me, as if struggling to remember who I was. Then he said, “Grialet was the murderer. I’ll give the details tonight.”

Arzaky held the cane out to me. At first I didn’t dare touch it. I had brought it as a relic, and now it was a murder weapon. The cane felt hot.

“Put it back in the glass case. Now it can take its rightful place.”

7

Arzaky had promised to state the case that very night, but the detectives and assistants waited in vain for him. At first they thought he had run off again, but I arrived in time to tell them that the chief of police had taken him in for questioning about Grialet’s death. Bazeldin’s long interrogations, which lasted until dawn, were famous. The police chief maintained that the morning’s clarity, after a night filled with conf lict, stimulated confessions. The detectives’ meeting was postponed until seven the next evening.

On May 7 the detectives arrived punctually. No one wanted to miss Arzaky’s explanation. Grimas, the editor of Tra ce s, was also there. The only one missing was Arzaky, who arrived two hours late. He made his way through the detectives and assistants without any greeting or apology. His long beard was f lecked with white and he looked as if he hadn’t eaten in days. He had that mix of energy and weakness that comes with a fever. Around him was a halo of silence and anticipation. The only one who seemed to have no interest in Arzaky was Neska, who stood by the door like a conference attendee who fears he will be bored and can’t quite make up his mind about taking a seat. I could barely contain my nerves, thinking of the words that would be spoken that night; my fingers clenched around the handkerchief I had in my pocket.

The detectives talked about the fair: even though it had just opened, it already seemed dated, countless visitors had worn it out with their footsteps. Arzaky called for silence, but it wasn’t necessary, because everyone had already grown quiet.

“In April of 1888 Renato Craig visited Paris. He stayed at this hotel, as he always did, and we spent our time together taking long walks and talking about crime. It was then that we came up with the idea (I don’t know if he thought of it first or if I did, or if, as I prefer to remember, it came to both of us at once) to gather the Twelve Detectives together for the World’s Fair. We got the committee to invite us. We were thinking of sharing our knowledge, our scientific advances, discussing theory relating to our craft. We wanted to rest, for a month or two, from murders and suspects, from evidence and witnesses. Wouldn’t you like to live in a world without crime?” No one responded. “Of course not! ”

Arzaky’s joke raised only a few smiles. Nobody was in the mood for humor.

“But these days, as the fair grew, filled out, and consolidated itself, we began a rapid process of decomposition. Craig is absent, ill and maligned. Darbon has been murdered and Castelvetia expelled. I cannot restore the harmony we’ve lost, but at least I can solve the mystery that has been keeping us up nights lately. I can say that the deaths of Darbon and the Mermaid and the incineration of Sorel ’s body followed a pattern.”

Something interrupted Arzaky. There was an argument going on in the doorway. Baldone was trying to stop a short, stocky man from resolutely making his way toward Arzaky.

“What is going on over there?” asked Arzaky.

“I am Father Desmorins. You killed my friend Grialet. I want to know why.”

“This is a meeting of The Twelve Detectives. No one outside the order can be present,” interjected Caleb Lawson.

The priest was adamant, but Baldone started to drag him out of the room. All Okano had to do was press two fingers on his right collarbone and the cleric gave in. “I’ll be waiting for you outside, Arzaky! ” he managed to shout. “The street will be your confessional! ”

“Let him stay in the room,” said Arzaky to Baldone and Okano. “Have him sit and not say a word. If he opens his mouth, even once, send him packing.”

The priest sat down near the door. Behind him was Arthur Neska. Arzaky continued.

“My work has merely been a continuation of the investigation Darbon began and which led to his death. The World’s Fair authorities assigned him to make inquiries regarding threats to the tower’s builders. They were small attacks of minor consequence, and the clues led Darbon to the caves where Paris ’s occultists hide. The old detective encountered various sects fighting among themselves: clandestine churches, necromantists, Martinists, Rosicrucians. But his suspicions centered on a group that shared an interest in music and literature. They didn’t have an official name, but Darbon called them the crypto-Catholics. This group had decided that it made no sense to continue seeing the Church of Rome as an adversary, because the only true enemy was positivism. The crypto- Catholics consider themselves heirs to the secret teachings of Christ.