September 17th 1892: Erik
I heard a door being opened and closed again somewhere at the back of the building and assumed that Marie, whoever she was, had gone to fetch the police. Yet that mattered little to me at the moment. My attention was on the cold piece of metal at my throat. I felt a sharp pain and realised the tip of the blade had just broken my skin.
It was then that I decided I had enough. The butcher had had his moment of power, and I knew better than most people how important that could be. Yet I wouldn't let him hurt me, just for the sake of being friendly. I took a step backwards, and since the counter was between us, he couldn't reach me anymore.
In a futile attempt to get to me again he lunged forwards. I couldn't tell whether he wanted to jump over the counter or push it aside with his weight, but it didn't matter, for his action had neither the one nor the other effect. It was clear that he had never done this before, or he would have known about and avoided the painful consequences. His legs as well as his most private part collided with the solid wood with a sound that made even me wince in sympathy. He gave a yelp of pain. Instinctively his hands moved downwards, and he dropped the knife.
If the man hadn't threatened me with that very knife moments before, I'd have laughed out loud. Yet under the given circumstances I didn't feel like laughing. Even though I had known all the time how to get out of the situation, I was still a little upset. It had been a while since the last time someone had held a knife to my throat.
"Now that we've put the fighting part behind us, could we talk like normal people?" I asked, rummaging in my pockets for a handkerchief. Meanwhile, my left hand was grasping the Punjab Lasso tightly under my cloak. I didn't want to use it, but one could never know. There were still other knives lying around.
Yet apparently the butcher had abandoned all plans to attack me. He was watching the progress of my right hand nervously, as if he expected me to do something much more sinister than trying to cover my wound.
"We don't have to talk," he said, his voice shaking slightly. "I know what you're here to do. Where do you want me to stand?"
I threw him an incredulous glance. He had clearly sounded frightened. I rarely frightened people without doing anything these days. Sure, at the opera I didn't need my Lasso to instill fear in others, but they all knew what I was capable of, even if I didn't threaten them directly. Yet this man didn't know who I was, I was almost certain of it. And why was he talking about where I wanted him to stand?
"It seems that you know the reason for my visit better than I do," I remarked, pulling out the handkerchief. The wound wasn't much bigger than an insect bite, and just one or two drops of blood were oozing out of it. I pressed the piece of cloth onto it for a moment, then put it away again. "So could you tell me, please?"
"You want to shoot me," he replied, in the flat voice of a man speaking his last words.
This answer only made me more confused.
"But I never said anything about shooting you," I muttered. "I don't even have a pistol with me. It's not my weapon of choice, so to speak." I gave him a lopsided smile, yet the pacifying intention was lost on him.
"So you're going to kill me in a different way?" he whispered. "I heard being shot is at least fast…"
I sighed. Why did everybody think I wanted to kill someone today?
"I am not going to kill you in any way," I told him more patiently than I felt. "Did you hear me? I am not going to kill you."
"Really?" the butcher breathed. "Oh, thank you, Lord!" He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his hand and leaned against the wall behind him, seemingly completely exhausted.
"Why did you think I wanted to kill you?" I asked. He looked around in the shop nervously, as if he were afraid someone was hiding in a corner and could overhear us. After a moment's consideration he walked to the door and locked it. Then he came back to me. I noticed that he took his old position behind the counter. Apparently he still didn't trust me very much. Yet at least he was talking to me.
"This morning, before we opened the shop, a man came here, knocking at the door until we let him in," he started. "He said he knew that the de Chagny family had ordered something for today and told us not to bring it to them. Instead, the boy who does our deliveries should take a very special bag to them. The man filled it himself, with the most disgusting intestines he could find among the parts we threw away. Then he accompanied the boy to the door and said that if we warned the de Chagnys or anything else went wrong, he'd send someone to kill me."
"And when I came in and mentioned the incident, you thought your last hour had come," I finished his story, feeling a little guilty that I had caused the butcher to fear for his life. "I can assure you that everything went to that man's despicable plan. The poor cook was nearly frightened to death."
"Oh no!" he exclaimed. "She's such a nice lady. I'm so sorry… I would have never done something like that, but the man had a pistol. It was big and shiny."
"And how did he look like except for the pistol?" I wanted to know. If it had been the same young man the beggar had seen, this was my chance to get a better description.
"Well, he was an elderly man," the butcher replied, his face screwed up in concentration. "He must have been as old as you are." I snorted, not used to being called ´elderly´. "He had grey hair and was rather short for a man. That's all I remember."
"Did he say anything about who had sent him or why he wanted to do that?" I asked, although I knew that question was little more than grasping at straws. It wasn't very likely that the man had given reasons for his actions. People who carried pistols rarely saw the need to do so.
"No," the butcher answered, shaking his head. "He just said it was something personal between him and the de Chagnys. Does this help you?"
I thought about it for a moment.
"He really mentioned the complete family?" I muttered. "Not just the Comte or his wife?"
"The whole family," he assured me. "I still remember it because I found it peculiar. From what I hear – and I hear a lot – they're a very nice family. I can't imagine them having enemies or – "
In this moment the door leading to the back part of the building burst open and a woman came in. Her dark hair had probably once been tied in a bun, but now strands of it were hanging onto her shoulders.
"I couldn't find a policeman in the street," she called, even before she entered the room. "And I didn't want to be gone too long. Are you still having him under control?" It was only then that she noticed we were just standing there, talking, without any kind of weapon drawn. "What has happened?" she asked warily.
"Everything is all right," he told her. "This man has nothing to do with all that. He won't kill me."
The woman's eyes widened, and a smile spread across her face. She ran over to the butcher and flung her arms around him.
"Oh, thank you, thank you," she whispered, probably to no one in particular. She kissed him on the mouth and the cheeks and any other part of his face.
I glanced to the side, pretending to be very interested in the different kinds of knives lying on a table. I wasn't too comfortable with watching those two people kissing. It only made memories of the kiss Christine and I shared before I had left wallow up inside me. I suppressed them. There was no time for such things now.
After a while the outburst of emotions seemed to be over, and they let go of each other.
"I hope you excuse our behaviour, Monsieur," the butcher said with a sheepish grin. "Marie can be a little emotional at times. Oh… that's Marie, my wife, by the way. And this gentleman had some questions about the incident of this morning because… why did you have those questions?"
"I'm a friend of the family," I replied simply.
"Have you told him about the man then, Gilles?" Marie asked her husband. "About the grey hair and the scar?"
"A scar?" I repeated, unable to hide my excitement. There were many elderly men with grey hair, but not many of them had scars.
Marie nodded eagerly.
"Yes, he had a scar on his right hand. It went all over the back of it, as if someone had cut him with a kife a long time ago. I could see it clearly while he was brandishing the pistol."
"Was there anything else? About the way he was dressed, for instance?" I wanted to know. Now that I was getting some good answers, I could also think of more questions. I'd have never asked the butcher about clothing, for I knew men scarcely paid attention to such things.
"He was dressed like a poor man," she replied. "Not like a beggar – just like a man who doesn't have enough money to buy new clothes and wash them very often. I'm sure he doesn't have a wife who cares for him." She brushed a little dust off her husband's shoulder.
"I see," I said slowly, taking in all the different pieces of information and putting them at the back of my mind to look at them later. "If you remember anything else, send a message to the de Chagny estate. Goodbye and thank you for your help."
I had already turned to leave when the woman held me back and handed me a bag.
"What's in there?" I asked suspiciously.
"It's just the meat that the cook of the de Chagnys ordered," she explained. "I don't want to be responsible for her having to cook vegetables only."
Quickly I looked into the bag. It contained nothing but meat. Breathing a sigh of relief I thanked Marie again and bid farewell to both of them. I hadn't solved the mystery yet, but I had at least come a little closer.