Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 38, No. 13, Mid-December 1993

To describe Cafe Dancourt as a hole-in-the-wall would conjure too expansive an image. It consisted of one tiny, gloomy room a few steps below street level. The light was feeble, and the tobacco smoke was thick. Sieurac was instantly recognized, and greeted loudly by the waiter and several customers. They were directed to the premier table, although once the three glasses of beer they ordered arrived, there was no longer room for them all to rest their elbows on it.

Sieurac emptied his glass in the time it took Aichele to light the cigarette Mrs. Poll had taken from her handbag. It was just as quickly refilled. The alcohol eased the furrows on Sieurac’s brow and lightened whatever care it was that had kept his mouth so downturned at the edges. He even looked younger than he had appeared at the gallery, and he was most definitely more at home at Café Dancourt.

“And so what brings you to our little faubourg today?” Sieurac asked, to begin the conversation.

“Your exhibit,” Mrs. Poll answered.

“Come now. All the way out here to see the work of a nobody?” Sieurac drained his second glass and wiped his lips with his sleeve. “If that’s so, what was it you liked so much about my paintings?”

“I did not say I liked them,” Mrs. Poll answered.

“That’s right, you didn’t.” Sieurac turned toward the waiter and called for another glass of beer.

“I did rather like some of your work,” Aichele said. But his comment was too hesitant, and betrayed the difference between a personal opinion and a judgment of true quality.

“Which ones?”

“View of Pont Neuf for example.”

“Oh?” Sieurac sounded skeptical. Then, dismissing the whole thing, said, “You’re not drinking. Maybe you’d rather have cognac. If so, you’re out of luck. They water the liquor here.”

“The beer is fine,” Aichele said, observing that he and Mrs. Poll’s glasses were actually almost empty, and that a suitable exit would then present itself. But before he finished the thought, the waiter had refilled them from a large enamel pitcher.

“Have you ever heard of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, of Lyon?” Sieurac suddenly said. He did not wait for an answer. “At my age, he had exhibited in all the best galleries, and now he’s somewhere basking in the sun. And do you know what? The only reason anyone ever looked twice at anything he did was because of all those articles that idiot Guerin wrote about him. And do you know why Guerin wrote what he wrote? Because Puvis de Chavannes was Countess Mategna’s lover, and Guerin thought that if he praised Puvis enough the countess would eventually invite him to her salon. He must have written twenty articles, trying to get her to notice him.”

“Did she?” Mrs. Poll asked.

“Of course not,” Sieurac said, as if she should have known. “But everyone in Paris found out who Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was.”

“The critic M. Boucherot was at your opening,” Aichele volunteered. “Perhaps there will be something said in Le Figaro about you.”

“He was at my first exhibit and never wrote a word. Not even an insult.” Sieurac made a pained smile. “He only comes because an opening provides an audience for his pontifications. Are you hungry? They boil cabbage here. If you’re lucky, you even get a morsel of ham. How about it?”

Before either Aichele or Mrs. Poll could answer, their attention, and the attention of everyone else in the room, was drawn abruptly to the entryway, where a very intoxicated woman made an entrance befitting the stage at the Variates. She swept in at top speed, opened her arms to the room, then dropped them quickly to her sides as her bleary gaze settled upon Marcel Sieurac.

She did not waste a moment of the crowd’s attention. “Good evening, dear husband,” she said loudly.

The features of her face were bulky and prominent. Her eyes were narrow, crowded between her thick brow and high cheekbones, which were reddened to match the startling hue of her lipstick. Her skin was rough, even under its veneer of makeup.

“I take it your opening was such a success that you have come to Café Dancourt to pay one last visit before moving on to more rarefied establishments. Tell me, do we have a new address in Saint-Germain? Should I pack my things? Or will you simply buy me an entire new wardrobe?”

Sieurac glared at the woman, angry but forlorn at the same time. The others took in the spectacle with either surprise or amusement, or both. Then the woman released them, striding unsteadily to the bar and saying in a soft voice, “A drink, please.”

“We were planning on dinner at the Chat Noir,” Mrs. Poll said to Sieurac, bringing his attention back to the table. “You are welcome to join us.”

“The Chat Noir is filled with poseurs and half wits,” he answered bluntly.

“But the shadow-shows are said to be quite imaginative.”

“Shadow-shows? That’s what it has come to. Shadow-shows. I have no desire to go to the Chat Noir and see shadow-shows.”

“Then, it has been a pleasure, monsieur,” Aichele said, standing quickly.