LITMIR.BIZ

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stop chirping and tweeting if they didn’t have their chickweed. These tiny creatures hanging from the window jambs in cages were a symbol of happiness for the poor. They would always find a sou to buy chickweed even when times were hard.

      By late spring, the herb was getting scarce, its season over, but Mother Chickweed continued to provide plantain spears and fresh millet for the local songbirds.

      Frédéric Daglan gathered up the potato peelings in some old newspaper and was about to take them over to the rabbits when an article at the bottom of the page caught his eye. His face tensed. He checked the date on the newspaper: 22 June 1893.

      MURDER ON RUE CHEVREUL

      A man was stabbed to death yesterday at seven o’clock in the morning, on Rue Chevreul. The victim was an enamellist by the name of Léopold Grandjean. The police are questioning a witness …

      ‘Damn it!’ he cursed under his breath.

       Later that evening

      Paul Theneuil had been waiting outside the premises in the rain for a good quarter of an hour. For him, punctuality was a cardinal virtue, and he loathed wasting his time. He had received the telegram that morning, just after opening time, and had taken several minutes to digest its content. Standing next to the window of his office, he had looked down on the bustling print works below, fingering the blue paper before tearing it up. He hated feeling forced to obey what seemed more like a command than a request. What a nerve – pestering him now after they’d agreed to sever all contact once the transaction was completed!

      Paul Theneuil was not a man to lose himself in conjecture; he left nothing to chance, and once he made a decision he stuck to it. Other than Monsieur Leuze, his book-keeper, none of his staff would ever dare question his orders. Paul Theneuil knew that this time he had a tough opponent on his hands, but he was a past master at playing with loaded dice, and he was not going to let anybody harass him.

      He had left his print works in Petit-Montrouge in the late afternoon in order to arrive at this fellow’s place by seven o’clock, leaving himself plenty of time to pop in and warn Marthe. The thing was not to change his habits under any circumstances. He’d walked up Passage des Thermopyles and into the haberdasher’s. It was empty. He could hear Marthe stirring her pots in the adjoining kitchen.

      ‘Is that you, Paul?’

      ‘I’m just going to meet a client who has ordered some posters. Mmm, that smells delicious! What are you cooking?’

      ‘Jugged hare.’

      Paul Theneuil had taken a swig of Sancerre, changed his jacket and grabbed an umbrella.

      ‘Put a plate aside for me, dear.’

      His ‘dear’ had blown him a kiss and gone on adding white wine to her roux.

      The heavens had decided to open just as Paul Theneuil stepped onto an omnibus. He was a stocky, coarse-looking man of about sixty. His broad face gave the impression of being covered in stubble even when it was clean-shaven. His thin, straight hair was greying at the temples and he wore a pince-nez on his red, bulbous nose. The typesetters and apprentices called him ‘Ugly mug’ behind his back.

      The rain had eased off. The courtyard and the street beyond were empty. Paul Theneuil realised that the man had not specified whether to meet him indoors or out. After that downpour he was most likely inside. All the better, it would make his job easier. He reached for the latch. The door opened onto a stack of empty boxes. Light filtered dimly through the grimy windows. He glanced around the room, taking in its contents: a desk covered in papers, two chairs, shelves lined with files and a workbench running along one wall.

      ‘Hello! Is anybody there?’

      He heard the sound of breathing.

      Something moved to his left.

      Paul Theneuil swung round.

       Wednesday 5 July

      As he left Professor Mortier’s house, Joseph aimed a kick at a dustbin. He was livid. They’d sent him halfway across Paris to deliver a dictionary of Ancient Greek with only sixty centimes in his pocket! Before Iris’s betrayal, he would have been allowed to take a cab, but nowadays Monsieur Mori treated him as though he had fallen from grace. He walked up to the first in a row of omnibuses. A puckish-looking conductor was sitting on the platform puffing on a cigarette while he stared at his shoes.

      ‘Have I time to buy a newspaper?’ Joseph enquired.

      The man spat without letting go of his fag end.

      ‘We’re leaving in two minutes, lad.’

      In his hurry, Joseph bumped into an old man buying a copy of Le Figaro from the news vendor.

      ‘You oaf!’

      Joseph muttered an apology and, his Passe-partout under his arm, ran back to the omnibus, which was just moving off. His only thought was to find a seat, open his newspaper and make the journey in comfort. He knew the route off by heart: the boulevards and then, as they neared the centre, the more fashionable streets.

      ‘Hot, isn’t it?’ a man remarked.

      ‘Dreadful time of year.’

      ‘The newspapers forecast rain.’

      ‘Well, you can’t always believe what you read …’

      Some bored-looking firemen on duty were leaning out of the mezzanine at the Bibliothèque Nationale, watching the traffic below. Through half-open windows, public servants could be seen busily idling. One, however, was sharpening a pencil.

      The clippety-clop of the horses’ hooves echoed as they passed under the archway leading to Cour du Carrousel. Two men alighted.

      Leaden clouds presaged a dull day. A passing dray poked its nose in above the platform. The conductor cried out, ‘Two-legged animals only, my beauty! Room for two more downstairs, numbers seven and eight!’

      Ding a ling a ling.

      With a deafening clatter, the yellow omnibus turned the corner into a wide avenue. At every stop, people clamoured and waved their numbered tickets at the driver. The ‘full’ sign was put up. The conductor, who’d seen it all before, said in a jaded voice, ‘With omnibuses as with books – you never know what you’ll find inside.’

      Then he pulled the cord to alert the driver, who reined in his horses to allow another faster omnibus to overtake.

      ‘It’s going to bucket down!’ the driver called out.

      ‘It’ll make the grass grow!’ the conductor cried back. ‘Louvre, Châtelet, Odéon, room for one more upstairs. Number six!’

      On the pavement, a score of disappointed faces looked up at the sky and decided it was perhaps a good thing there was no room for them on the upper deck. At last number six came forward.

       Ding a ling a ling.

      ‘Get your Figaro, Intransigeant, Petit Journal!’

      A news vendor made a few speedy sales.

      Joseph opened his Passe-partout, handily just as number six, an enormous woman laden with shopping baskets, stepped on board. Nobody offered her their seat.

      ‘It’s no good, Madame,’ the conductor observed. ‘You’ll have to go upstairs. Here, I’ll give you a shove. Heave-ho!’

      Joseph shrank into his corner, feeling deliciously guilty, and skimmed the headlines.

      GUY DE LA BROSSE’S BODY FOUND

      The remains of Guy de la Brosse, founder of our Natural History Museum, have been discovered in an abandoned cellar – formerly the museum’s zoological gallery …

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