It 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 a motley 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.
“I’m Mario Baldone, assistant to Magrelli, the Eye of Rome.”
I offered him my hand, which he shook vigorously.
“I 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.”
“The 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 symmetry, such balance in those crimes…They were clear, elegant, without so much as one extra drop of blood. The killer was Dr. Benardi, the director of San Giorgio Hospital; every so often he still writes to Magrelli from prison.”
“Would you like to come in?”
“No, I just wanted to invite you to the meeting tonight. A few of us have already arrived.”
“Are we meeting here in the hotel?”
“In the drawing room, at seven.”
I continued to unpack with the feeling that I was taking apart my old life, and that those elements—the brand-new clothes my mother had insisted I buy, Craig’s cane, my notebook, with every page blank—were the pieces with which I would construct a new reality.
I lay down for a nap but because of my exhaustion from the trip—I was never able to sleep a whole night through on board the ship—I didn’t wake up until seven thirty. I went downstairs with my head still cloudy from sleep. Seven of the assistants were gathered in the drawing room. Baldone didn’t seem at all disturbed by my lateness and introduced me to everyone. The first was Fritz Linker, assistant to Tobias Hatter, the detective from Berlin, who offered me an enormous soft hand: he was a dull-looking giant and his lederhosen only accentuated the impression of stupidity coming from his watery eyes. However, I knew very well that his obvious questions, his insistence on discussing the weather, and his idiotic jokes (which drove Hatter crazy) were merely a charade.
Benito, the only black assistant, worked for Zagala, the Portuguese detective, famous for solving mysteries on the high seas. His most celebrated case was the disappearance of the entire crew of the Colossus. The case had dominated newspapers for months. Benito’s skill with locks was renowned and it was said that he used his talents not only in search of the truth but also to earn some extra money, since Zagala had a reputation for being cheap.
Seated in one of the four green armchairs, without talking to anyone, was an Indian who seemed to be concentrating intensely on the spiderweb stretching over one corner of the room. It was Tamayak, whose ancestors were Sioux, the assistant to Jack Novarius, an American who, in his youth, had worked for the Pinkerton Agency. Later he founded his own office. Tamayak wore a fringed suede jacket; his long black hair was pulled back tightly. The jacket was eye-catching, but I was surprised he wasn’t wearing a feathered headdress, or carrying a tomahawk or a peace pipe or any of the other accoutrements Indians usually have in magazine illustrations. The other detectives often criticized Novarius because he preferred to use his fists over reason, but among his many triumphs, he had caught the so-called “Baltimore Strangler,” who had killed seven women between 1882 and 1885. Tamayak had been essential to solving that case, although his account of it, filled with metaphors that only Sioux-speakers could understand, had spoiled the story.
“This is Manuel Araujo, from Seville,” said Baldone, as a short man with a toothy smile came toward us.
“Failed matador and assistant to the detective from Toledo, Fermín Rojo, whose exploits far surpass those of the other eleven detectives,” said Araujo, and he began to recall an episode when the Neapolitan interrupted him.
“Surely the Argentine is familiar with them,” said Baldone. And it was true; I also knew that Araujo exaggerated the detective’s adventures to the point that he had damaged his reputation, casting doubt even on proven facts. The accounts of some of his adventures, which I had read in The Key to Crime, were suspicious to say the least. In The Case of the Golden Hen, Rojo had gone down inside a volcano; in The Ash Circle, he had fought a giant octopus in the Saragossa aquarium. But the most seasoned followers of the Spanish detective said that Rojo allowed his assistant to embellish the tales of his investigations beyond the credible in order to keep the true stories secret.
Sunk into an armchair and looking like he was about to fall asleep was Garganus, the assistant to the Greek detective Madorakis, who stuck out a weary hand to me. I knew that Madorakis had come up against Arzaky on some theoretical aspects of their profession. Craig had told me a bit about their rivalry:
“Every detective is either Platonic or Aristotelian. But we’re not always what we believe ourselves to be. Madorakis thinks he’s Platonic, but he’s Aristotelian; Arzaky thinks he’s Aristotelian, but he’s a hopeless Platonic.”
At the time I hadn’t understood my teacher’s words. I knew that Arzaky’s other rival—his true rival, because his competition with the Greek didn’t go beyond intellectual folly—was Louis Darbon, with whom he vied for control of Paris. Darbon had always considered Arzaky a foreigner who had no right to practice the trade in his city. Arthur Neska, his assistant, was dressed entirely in black and stood in a corner, looking as if he was about to leave. As the days passed I came to understand that he was always like that: in doorways, on staircases, never seated or settled or absorbed in conversation. He was slim and had a youthful air about him, and thin feminine lips that seemed to convey displeasure toward everything and everyone. When I approached him in greeting he didn’t move to shake my hand until the very last second.
Since my childhood, I had followed the adventures of some of these men in The Key to Crime, as well as in other magazines like The Red Mark and Suspicion; and now I was actually shaking their hands. Even though they were assistants and not detectives, to me they were legendary characters who lived in another world, another time, and yet here we were, in the same room, surrounded by the same cloud of cigarette smoke.
Mario Baldone raised his voice so he could be heard over the murmuring.
“Dear sirs, I would like to welcome Sigmundo Salvatrio, from the Argentine Republic, who has come on behalf of the founder of The Twelve Detectives: Renato Craig.”
Everyone applauded upon hearing Craig’s name, and it was gratifying for me to see how respected my mentor was. Stammering in French, I explained that I was inexperienced, and that only a series of unfortunate coincidences had brought me there. My modesty made a good impression among those around me: in that moment I saw a tall Japanese man at the back of the room, who wore some sort of blue silk shirt with bright yellow details: it was Okano, the assistant to Sakawa, the detective from Tokyo. Okano looked to be one of the youngest—he must have been about thirty years old—but it has always been hard for me to guess the age of people from the Orient. They always seem younger or older than they actually are, as if even their features speak an exotic foreign tongue.
Problems always bring us around and keep us alert, but when everything’s going well, as on that night, we forget about possible dangers. They served me cognac, and since I’m not used to drinking, I overdid it somewhat. Modesty began to seem insipid and I thought it was time to highlight a few of my virtues. I left out the fact that I was a cobbler’s son, but I did mention my skill with footprints.
“Those are qualities of a detective, not an assistant,” said Linker. I looked at his too-pale eyes, and I recognized, luckily not aloud, that his imitation of a dullard was perfect.
But he wasn’t the only one who was bothered by what I had said.
“Where did you learn these skills?” asked Arthur Neska, Louis Darbon’s assistant, from a doorway, as always.
I should have kept my mouth shut, but alcohol loosens the tongue and firmly ties up the mind.
“In the Academy,” I said, “Detective Craig taught us all types of investigative methods, including the principles of anthropological physiognomy.”
“But is it an academy for assistants, or for detectives?” asked the German.
“I don’t know, Craig never said. Perhaps he was hoping to train such good assistants that they could become detectives themselves someday.”
I had never in my life heard such a deep silence as the one that followed my words; the effect of the alcohol wore off abruptly, as if their reaction was a splash of cold water. How could I explain to them that it was the cognac, not me? How could I tell them that I was from Argentina and geographically doomed to talk more than I should? The Japanese assistant, who up until that moment had been watching everything as if he couldn’t understand a word, left so distressed that I thought he had gone to find his sword, so he could stab me, or stab himself, I wasn’t sure. Linker looked me in the eyes and said, “You’re new and so we’ll forgive your lack of information, but remember this as surely as you remember that fire burns: no acolyte has ever become a detective.”
I wasn’t going to open my mouth, not even to apologize, out of fear that even my apology would be inadequate. But then Benito, the black Brazilian, recalled, “Yet they always said that Magrelli, the Eye of Rome, started out as an assistant…”
It was clear that he had brought up an old matter that everyone was familiar with—familiar but unmentionable—because as soon as Benito opened his mouth Baldone went straight for his neck, as if Benito had insulted his mentor. He took out a sailor’s knife with a curved blade, and brandished it in the air, searching for the black man’s neck. The German and the Spaniard managed to hold him back.
Baldone had given up on French—the detectives’ international language—and was swearing in a Neapolitan dialect. Benito backed up slowly toward the exit, without turning his back on the Italian, afraid that he’d escape the others’ hold and attack him again. When he was out of sight, Baldone calmed down.
“Maledetto Benedetto.”
Linker, the German, said, almost into my ear, “That is an old, unfounded rumor. There are rumors about all the detectives, but we never repeat them.”
Baldone regained his momentum, asserting, “Of course we shouldn’t repeat them! There have always been rumors, but we never believed them! I’ve heard gossip about every one of the detectives: that this one is a morphine addict, that one learned everything he knows in prison, the other one isn’t interested in women at all! But I would cut out my own tongue before spreading them!”
Some of the arrows had hit their mark because now Neska and Araujo and even Garganus leaped on the Italian as if they were going to rip off his mustache. Baldone was brandishing his knife again, moving it from one side to the other, in such an exaggerated way that for a moment I feared he was going to end up hurting himself. A statue of the goddess Minerva that decorated a corner of the room received an unintentional thrust of his blade. Everyone was worked up, except for Tamayak.
Just then a calming voice was heard. It was deep and wise, but at the same time a bit slow. It could just as easily make you fall asleep as get your attention. It was Dandavi, Caleb Lawson’s Hindu assistant. In the midst of the argument we hadn’t noticed his arrival, in spite of the fact that his clothes were hard to miss. He wore a yellow shirt and turban, with a gold chain around his neck. He looked at all of us as though he could read what was written in our hearts. He spoke for a long time, his words sketching vast generalizations. I only remember the last thing he said:
“There is nothing wrong with a detective having been an assistant. We are all assistants. And who among us has never dreamed of becoming a detective?”
Those words sank the men into a state of confused melancholy. Baldone, seeing that the others had abandoned their bellicose stances, put away his knife. The tips of his mustache, usually smoothly waxed, now drooped toward the floor. Some men went back to their armchairs, to their drinks, to the conversation they had abandoned; others decided to go off to bed. I was glad to know that they weren’t so different from me: we all dreamed of the same things.