The Paris Enigma by Pablo De Santis Read Free Book Online Page A

obligations,” stated Pontoriero to a journalist in 1895.
    â€œAnd what word is that?”
    â€œEtcetera.”
    It is true that the innovations of 1889 that so dazzled us and promised to turn our cities into dizzyingly vertical landscapes are now old hat. Most of the inventions gathered in the Galerie des Machines (Vaupatrin’s submarine, Grolid’s excavator, the artificial heart invented by Dr. Sprague, who turned out to be a fraud, Mendes’s robot for organizing archives) must be stored in a warehouse somewhere, if they haven’t already been dismantled. Meanwhile, the war had shown itself to be the true world’s fair of all human technology, and the Somme and Verdun trenches the true venues for technology to demonstrate its material and philosophical reach.
    None of these considerations disheartened Pontoriero and Deambrés, who continued their task on the third floor of a building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They had promised to carry on even after their official retirement.
    In the second of the partial catalogues, devoted to dual-function objects or, better put, objects that have an obvious use and a secret one, I was pleased to find a mention of Renato Craig’s cane, made of cherry wood with a handle shaped like a lion’s head. It could become a spyglass, a magnifying glass, and a sword was hidden inside. In addition, it featured compartments for fingerprint powder and small glass boxes to hold evidence found at crime scenes; it could also be used as a firearm, although only on exceptional occasions and at avery short distance, because the bullet came out any which way. Because of its wide range of weaponry, one had to be very careful when using at as a cane; one slip could have fatal consequences.
    I was given the task of bringing the detective’s cane to the parlor of the Numancia Hotel. After meeting with Señora Craig and accepting her request, I was allowed to visit my mentor in the hospital. I remember the smell of bleach and the checkerboard floors, recently mopped and extremely slippery. His room was quite dark because one of the symptoms of Craig’s illness was an aversion to light. It was summer and very hot; Craig had a damp cloth over his face.
    He moved the cloth from over his mouth to speak, but kept his eyes veiled.
    â€œWhen you see Detective Arzaky, remember that he and I are old friends, like brothers; we’ve managed The Twelve Detectives, between the two of us, all these years. The others believe that they have always exercised their right to vote, but it never was a democracy. It was a monarchy, shared by the Pole and me. We made the decisions we had to make, because none of the others thought as much as we did about this profession; sometimes we did these things with heavy hearts, still other times we had to pluck up each other’s courage, to restore one another’s faith in the method. Arzaky is in charge of the exhibition of our craft, in the parlor of the Numancia Hotel; but the discussions between the detectives are going to be more important than the exhibition; and even more important than that will be the words whispered in the hallways, the secret laughter, the gestures between one detective and another, and between detectives and their assistants. Each will bring with him an object representing his concept of investigative work: some will bring complex machines and others a simple magnifying glass. I will send along my cane. Open the closet, take it out.”
    I opened up a white metal wardrobe and carefully removed Craig’s cane. It was incredibly heavy. The detective’s clothes were also hung up inside the wardrobe, and seeing these garmentsempty, without any body inhabiting them, I felt a deep sadness, as if Craig’s illness were there, in the wardrobe, in the way he failed to wear his clothes.
    â€œThat cane was given to me by a furniture and weapons salesman who had a store near Victoria Plaza.