He glanced at his watch, leaned out the window, and pitched his half-smoked, half-chewed cigar into the gutter. Lautrec was coming up the sidewalk. Achille signaled his men and exited the cab. He approached the artist, flashed his credentials, and introduced himself: “Monsieur de Toulouse-Lautrec, I am Inspector Achille Lefebvre of the Sûreté. If you please, I’d like you to accompany me to headquarters where you may be of assistance in an important investigation. I apologize for the inconvenience, and I promise not to detain you any longer than is necessary.”
Lautrec looked up at Achille’s slate-colored chin and black nostrils; the bright sunshine made him squint and he shaded his eyes with a hand. “Inconvenience, you say? It’s a damned liberty, accosting me this way. Have you a warrant for my arrest? If so, please state the charge.”
Achille smiled and spoke calmly. “No charge and no warrant, at present, Monsieur. However, if you insist, I can obtain one. But I do have some property that belongs to you, a gold cigarette case.”
Lautrec raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh, you’ve found my cigarette case? It’s quite valuable. I’ve been searching for it for days. But why couldn’t the police notify me rather than approach me in such melodramatic fashion?”
Achille noticed Lautrec’s response; his attitude and tone of voice in expressing his primary concern for lost property reinforced Achille’s belief in the artist’s innocence. “The cigarette case was discovered at a crime scene, and is being held in evidence. If you’ll kindly accompany me, I’ll explain the matter on the way to headquarters. My cab is waiting up the street.”
“All right, Inspector, if you insist. Lead on, and I’ll follow.”
Lautrec accepted Achille’s “invitation” to wait at headquarters while the detectives searched his studio and apartment. Achille detailed a promising young man, Inspector Legros, to head up the search. Legros was one of the “new men,” a recent polytechnic graduate skilled in Bertillon’s methods. Achille left Rousseau to his specialty, working the dragnet with the aid of his network of snoops and snitches. But there was something else to Achille’s thinking besides assigning the man best suited to a specific job; in his opinion Rousseau seemed much too eager to have access to the artist’s premises where he might make a brilliant “discovery” that established Lautrec’s guilt, QED. It wasn’t that Achille didn’t trust his partner; he just preferred not to lead him into temptation.
To gain Lautrec’s confidence and kill time, Achille took the artist on a Cook’s tour of the Palais de Justice before returning to his office for questioning. Achille and Lautrec sat facing one another across the desk. He offered the artist a cigarette, which he declined, preferring to smoke his own brand.
Lautrec struck a match, took a few puffs, leaned back and observed Achille with a shrewd smile. “Thank you, Inspector, for that delightful excursion through the bowels of our justice system. I found it most edifying, like the popular tour of our sewers and catacombs, or a charming day at the Morgue. Now I am in your debt and completely at your mercy. You may commence with the thumb-screw and rack.”
Achille laughed. “You are a wit, Monsieur, but a poor public servant is hardly a worthy target for your rapier thrusts. At any rate, my men are very efficient.” He glanced at the wall clock. “They should finish their work presently, so you needn’t be bored much longer.” He opened a drawer, retrieved an evidence bag and a pair of gloves, and carefully displayed the cigarette case on his desk. “Can you identify this object? But please be so good as not to touch it.”
Lautrec leaned forward and examined the cigarette case. “That’s mine all right. But why do you handle it so gingerly, and with gloves?”
Achille returned the case to the bag, put it back in the drawer, and removed his gloves. “I’m preserving the fingerprints. It’s a new technique, an experiment in forensic science.”
“Oh, that interests me, Inspector. It appears you’re very progressive and well-educated—for a policeman. Now I just happen to be a good Cartesian.”
Achille smiled broadly; he saw an opening. “A good Cartesian, you say? Is that why you enjoy observing surgical operations?”
“That’s a clever comment, Inspector. I thought you were going to refer to Cartesian rationalism, his a priori reasoning, and forget the empirical side, such as his dissection of animals to discover how they work. Break things down to their simplest components. After all, we must use some induction to set up our hypotheses before we proceed to our deductions.
“Yes, I do enjoy watching people being cut up. Surgery is like my art. I probe for the truth; I apply scientific method, dicing things down and then reassembling them on paper and canvas.
“I study facial expressions, gestures, physical attributes, and the underlying anatomical structure, physiology, and psychology to get an impression of character types; I can draw on this bank of knowledge to relate the individual subject of a portrait to a known category.”
Achille looked Lautrec directly in the eye before pursuing: “I see, Monsieur. Do you apply your method to your intimate relationships?”
Lautrec winced; he clearly found the question offensive. He took a last puff, and then vigorously stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray. “I’m not sure I follow your meaning, Inspector,” he muttered. “Unless you’re referring to a syllogism based on the major premise, all whores fuck for money.”
Achille remained calm but firm, like a physician sounding his patient. “Tell me about Virginie Ménard. First, I’d like to know when, where, and how you met her.”
Lautrec paused a moment to regain his composure before answering. “I met her about one year ago, at the Atelier Cormon. She was modeling, and she interested me. I’d already heard of her from a friend, Vincent Van Gogh. At the time, she lived near him and his brother Theo, on the Rue Lepic. He got her to pose a couple of times.”
“Excuse me, Monsieur. Do you know where I can find Vincent Van Gogh?”
“Yes Inspector; he’s locked up in the asylum at St. Rémy. He hasn’t been in Paris for more than a year.”
“I see; please continue.”
“Well, there isn’t much to tell. Our relationship began professionally and developed into something more. But it ended in argument and recrimination. That was about a month ago.”
“What was the ultimate cause of the break up?”
Lautrec laughed sardonically. He held out his hands in a mocking gesture. “Clap me in manacles and convey me to the dungeon. I’ll admit my guilt, Inspector. I was a jealous lover.”
Achille ignored the sarcasm. “Of whom were you jealous, Monsieur? Can you give me a name, or names?”
Lautrec shook his head. “That’s the devil of it; she never told me, no matter how hard I tried to pry it out of her. Instead she made up excuses for her long absences, prevarications that wouldn’t have fooled a simple child. She insulted my intelligence.”
Achille noted that the relationship had left wounds that had not yet healed. “A moment ago, you said she ‘interested’ you. Could you be specific?”
Lautrec sighed deeply. “You’ve probably heard that she was a great beauty. Well, I don’t require beauty in a model or a lover—or rather a sexual partner. What really interests me is the facial expression, in a model that is. I don’t copulate with the face.
“In Virginie’s case, she could convey a sense of suffering, sadness, and even madness; at other times she could express joy and unbridled ecstasy. And it all seemed natural; not like what you see on stage or in sentimental art. I’ll admit she fascinated me. But living with her was difficult. She was plagued by nightmares, demons from her childhood that drove her to hysterics. I wanted her and hated the idea of sharing her with anyone. On the other hand, living with her could be hell, and I felt relieved when she left me.”