I returned to the hotel disheartened, with the feeling that Arzaky didn’t trust me and was only using me for minor tasks. He had kept the fact that he knew Grialet from me and he hadn’t told me anything about his plans for the investigation. I locked myself in my room to catch up on my correspondence. Even though I addressed it “Dear Mother and Father,” I couldn’t help thinking that I was really addressing only my mother, as she was the one who took a real interest in my letters. I told her about everything around me but I altered it, trying to restore the original patina, the glow of things seen for the first time, to this world that had begun to tarnish.
After dining in a seedy bar, whose weak light was in cahoots with the chef ’s dark arts, I went to the hotel drawing room to see if I could find Benito or Baldone. Only the Sioux warrior was there, seated in an armchair and rigidly gazing out into space. I greeted him with a nod of the head.
Tamayak took out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. I had heard that some tribes smoked hallucinogenic herbs, and a scandal in Madame Nécart’s drawing room was the last thing I needed. It would have been the final straw that made Arzaky send me back to my father’s shoe shop. Maybe Tamayak noticed that I was looking at his cigarettes suspiciously, because he said, “Don’t be afraid, they’re from Martinique. I bought them right here in the hotel.”
I was surprised that the Sioux spoke French, and I boldly told him so.
“Four years ago Jack Novarius began studying French so he could join The Twelve Detectives. Knowing French is a prerequisite to anyone aspiring to be a full member. It’s not required for assistants but he made me learn as well so he would have someone to practice with. And how’s it going with Arzaky? Becoming the acolyte to the Detective of Paris should make you proud, but you just seem unhappy.”
“I’m not a real assistant. I’m sure he has a plan, but he’s keeping quiet about it. He doesn’t trust me.”
“But his silence is good. When I started working with Novarius, for the Pinkerton agency, he almost never spoke to me. Once in a while I would make some comment, but he always held his words for the final surprise.”
“He never disclosed anything about the investigation?”
“Not a thing. Our first case took place in a circus, in the Midwest. They had killed the Human Cannonball right in the middle of a performance. The acrobat had commenced his usual routine, greeting the audience, showing his helmet, and asking, ‘Is it shiny? Is it shiny?’ And then he stuck himself into the cannon. But instead of shooting out and landing a few paces farther on, he blew straight through the circus tent and disappeared into the night.
“The cause of death was clear. The cannon had two mechanisms: an explosive charge to make noise, and a spring, which was the real force that propelled the Human Cannonball. The killer had filled it with gunpowder, turning it into a real cannon.
“Jack showed me a lamp he always carried with him, which gave off blue light that allowed him to detect fake bills. With this lamp, he told me, he would catch the killer. Gunpowder, explained Jack, remained under the fingernails of anyone who touched it for ten days. Washing your hands was no use, said Jack. The only way to get rid of the powder was to burn it. He asked me to repeat the explanation to anyone who wanted to listen.
“Jack announced that the following night he would perform his great experiment, making all those who worked with the circus show their hands under the light. At nine o’clock, after the show, we gathered everyone in the arena and we stayed there in the dark, lit only by the blue lamp. No one’s hands shone and the detective apologized with a heavy heart. The circus artists, one by one, left the tent. The last one, a trapeze artist named Rodgers, I’ll never forget his crazy smile, had burns all over his hands, and the police officer stationed outside the tent arrested him immediately.
“Later we found out the details of the case: Rodgers’s wife, who worked as a horseback rider, had been planning to run off with the Human Cannonball. Rodgers found out and increased the cannon’s charge to get the Cannonball out of his marriage and his life. Mrs. Rodgers confessed to Novarius that when they were in bed, in the dark, he had asked her to look at his hands under the moonlight. And he asked her, ‘Are they shiny? Are they shiny?’”
“Then Novarius tricked you too.”
“Yes, but my own faith in the trick had been essential to its coming off successfully. If I had been suspicious, if I had employed my cunning, I might have given away his plan. That’s why I’m telling you, my dear Salvatrio, that while you’re here, feeling ignored and neglected, you may actually be the key piece of Arzaky’s secret plan. It could ensure your own success as an acolyte as well.”
As if Tamayak’s words were a premonition, the next morning I was awakened by Madame Nécart banging on my door.