The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection Read Online Free Page B

legs concluded that they were those of a woman and that the killer had not been very adept in the dismembering. He estimated that the legs had been in the well for about a month. The well was emptied, but no further body parts were found. Next, Macé, like Canler trying to trace Lacenaire, started the tedious work of going through a list of eighty-four females reported missing in the previous six months. Unfortunately, he found none who could be connected to the embroidered stocking.
    Then Dr. Auguste Tardieu took a look at the evidence. A former student of Orfila’s, he was now the foremost forensic physician in France. After a thorough examination, he declared that Macé was wasting his time looking for a woman. “These remains,” he said, “are those of a man advanced in years.… The feet are larger than those of a woman. The dismemberment has been done skillfully by a cleaver or chopper. The cuts were made soon after death. There has been a considerable effusion of blood. I observe also that there is a clearly marked scar on one leg, only recently healed. But without the head it will not be easy to establish the identity, and the murderer appears to have taken good care to conceal that most important piece of evidence.” 28
    This information put Macé on the right track. He was now convinced that the other human parts recently discovered in Paris were part of the same victim whose legs were in the well at Lampon’s. He believed that the murderer must live near the rue Princesse; the man questioned by Ringué must have been frightened into dumping his incriminating burden into the well instead of taking it to the Seine, and he had to have been sufficiently familiar with the area to do so. The concierge of the building where Lampon’s was located, an old woman, told Macé that an outsider could get to the well only if he knew about a small button on the outer door that worked a string latch.
    Macé was still looking for someone who was skilled at sewing. When he asked if any tailor had ever lived in the building, the concierge told him about a Mlle. Dard, a seamstress who had lived there but was now singing at café concerts. She had done piecework for a tailor who visited often. When Macé located Dard, a pretty young woman, she gave him the name of her tailor friend, Pierre Voirbo. He used to live nearby in the rue Mazarine, but very recently he had married and moved away. Her description of him matched that given by Sergeant Ringué and the witness who had seen someone scattering meat into the Seine. Dard suggested that Mme. Bodasse, the aunt of one of Voirbo’s friends, might know where Voirbo was.
    Inspector Macé noted the matching initial B and had Mme. Bodasse brought for questioning. She said she had last seen Voirbo when he had gone to a concert with her nephew, Désiré Bodasse, who lived in the rue Dauphine. That was on December 13, a month earlier, and she hadn’t seen Désiré since, but that did not worry her, for he was eccentric and sometimes disappeared for periods of time. Macé asked her to describe Voirbo. “He was short,” she said, “and generally wore a long overcoat and a tall hat.” 29
    On a hunch, Macé took Mme. Bodasse to the morgue to show her the stocking with the initial B. Shocked, she said it had belonged to her nephew. She herself had sewn the B and the two crosses on the stocking. She identified her nephew’s leg by a scar which had come from a fall on the jagged edge of a bottle. Macé was now sure he knew the name of the victim, and he had a good idea who his killer was.
    Macé went to Bodasse’s apartment at 50, rue Dauphine. No one answered his knock, but the concierge claimed that he had seen light in the room each night. Indeed, after gaining entrance to the rooms, Macé found a candle still flickering, making him think that someone had tried to make it seem as though Bodasse was still living there. There was another notable absence: Mme. Bodasse had told Macé that