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

Actually he didn’t give it to me: I bought it for one coin. I had done a favor for the man; I had recovered an old Bible that was stolen from him. I didn’t want to accept any payment so he brought me this cane and told me: ‘There is a sword hidden inside. I want you to have it, but I can’t give it to you. If one gives a blade as a gift, the fate of the former owner is passed on to the recipient. And who wants someone else’s fate? Give me the smallest coin you have.’ And I gave him a ten-cent coin. Since then, this cane and I have been constant companions.”
    I carefully leaned the heavy stick against a chair.
    â€œYou will be responsible for bringing Arzaky something else as well. I want you to tell him about My Final Case. Only him.”
    â€œThe Case of the Cobra Bite?”
    On that occasion, Craig had proved that the cobra was completely innocent: a woman had killed her husband with a distillation of curare, and then pretended that it had been one of the snakes that her husband raised.
    â€œDon’t be an idiot. My Final Case. The case that has no other name but that one: the final case. Give him all the details. The real version. He’ll be able to understand it.”
    I thought about Kalidán’s body, naked, hanging by his feet. It had been motionless, covered in a cloud of flies, but in my imagination it swayed slightly.
    â€œI can’t tell that story. Ask me for anything but that.”
    â€œDo you want me to go to church and confess? Do you think detectives stoop to talking to priests? Repentance doesn’t exist for us, nor does reconciliation or forgiveness. We are philosophers of action, and we judge ourselves only by our actions. Do what I tell you. Tell the Pole the whole truth. That is my message for Viktor Arzaky.”

2
    I t was the first time I had ever left my country, the first time I had been on a boat. And yet the real voyage had begun the moment I entered the Academy and I left behind my world (my house, my father’s shoe shop). From then on everything was foreign to me. Paris was just a continuation of Craig’s house, and more than once I awoke in the hotel room with the feeling that I had fallen asleep in one of the Academy’s freezing cold rooms.
    Following my mentor’s instructions, I took a room at the Nécart Hotel. I knew that was where the other assistants would be staying. While Madame Nécart wrote my name into a thick accounting register, I tried to guess which of the gentlemen smoking in the reception room were my colleagues. They must be the ones who are most discreet, most observant, and capable of collaborating on an investigation without getting in the way. Shadows.
    I was accustomed to the large rooms and open spaces of Buenos Aires, so the Parisian salon seemed to belong in a dollhouse. It was one of those rooms that we visit in dreams, where several different places from our waking life converge into a single dream-space: the faux Persian rug, the paintings with mythological motifs, the shaky end table, the fake Chinese desk, everything was incongruent, theatrical. On the stage one must create the impression of life with amotley conglomeration of furniture, saturated with details, but in the real world empty spaces are needed to allow a little breathing room.
    I had barely started unpacking when there was a knock at my door. When I opened it I saw a Neapolitan with an exaggerated mustache who brought his heels together with a military click.
    â€œI’m Mario Baldone, assistant to Magrelli, the Eye of Rome.”
    I offered him my hand, which he shook vigorously.
    â€œI know every single case your detective has solved. I particularly remember the one that began with a nun floating in the river. She had a letter fastened to her cap with a gold pin.”
    â€œThe Case of the Tarot Cards. I had the great honor of assisting Magrelli with that. It was one of his loveliest cases. There was so much