PIERRE VOIRBO
The case of Pierre Voirbo, the murderer of Désiré Bodasse, an old
man who had been his friend, is one of the most remarkable of French
crimes. It established the reputation of Macé, the famous detective,
who devoted a book to explaining how he succeeded in tracing the
murderer from the first clue--a pair of human legs--to the last, when,
by a simple experiment, he located the very spot where the murder had
been committed. If Macé had not been an exceedingly clever man Voirbo
must have escaped, for he took every precaution to cover up his tracks,
and was undoubtedly assisted by luck. But the strong arm of the law
triumphed in the end.
Voirbo was by trade a tailor, and by inclination a devotee of pleasure.
He worked when he felt inclined, and if he could borrow or steal he
preferred either as a source of income to the small profits derived
from the making and repairing of clothes. He frequented low-class
cafés, and gambled whenever he could, and, in addition, he had a
pretty taste in wines. Yet for all his laziness and dissipation it was
often remarked that Pierre Voirbo seemed never to be without money. He
neglected his work until customers became few and far between, but he
was never behindhand with his rent, and he could afford to employ an
old woman to keep his rooms tidy.
The time came, however, when Voirbo thought of marriage. The hero
of many conquests, he had not really been attracted by the opposite
sex until he met a good-looking girl with a dowry of fifteen thousand
francs. Then he found the good looks and the dowry irresistible
attractions. He considered himself not wanting in appearance and
ability, though he was actually below the medium height, had black
hair and eyes, and a thin, cruel mouth. Eyes and mouth bore witness
to his dissipation, but the girl evidently was blinded by love, for
she agreed to marry Voirbo. When her parents were told they gave their
consent on the condition that the bridegroom-to-be brought into the
marriage settlements at least ten thousand francs. Voirbo instantly
expressed his ability to provide that amount, and he was thereupon
formally acknowledged to be the girl's fiancé by her parents, who did
not know that, so far from being in possession of ten thousand francs,
the tailor owed many thousands already, and had not a hundred francs
to call his own. Voirbo, however, believed that he would be able to
raise the money. Penury had sharpened his wits and endowed him with
self-confidence.
A vague idea now occurred to him of borrowing the money, exhibiting it
to the girl's parents, and then returning it when he got his hands on
his wife's _dot_. It was a pretty scheme, but its weak point was that,
owing to his reputation, there was no one in the country who would lend
him a franc, and after a little consideration he abandoned the scheme.
But he was determined to have the girl's marriage _dot_ no matter what
the cost. Fifteen thousand francs meant a fortune to him. It would last
a long time, and when it was gone it would be quite easy to desert his
bride, and seek another elsewhere. It was, indeed, a pretty plan he
conceived, though he knew that the first obstacle--raising that sum of
ten thousand francs--would prove the most difficult of all.
Amongst his friends was an old man, Désiré Bodasse, a worker in
tapestry, who had been Voirbo's companion in more than one midnight
spree. Bodasse, however, had never opened his purse to pay. It was
Voirbo who always paid for their food and drink, the spindle-legged
little man, with the dry cough, chuckling to himself as he saw the
young fool throw his money away. Bodasse boasted that for every franc
he spent he saved three, and he naturally despised anyone who spent his
money on others. Voirbo, however, had taken a fancy to Bodasse, and
was very often seen in his society, while everybody marvelled at the
strange partnership between two men who were so dissimilar.
It was to Désiré Bodasse that Voirbo went with the story that he must
raise ten thousand francs at once. The younger man painted a glowing
picture of the wealth of his future wife exaggerating her fifteen
thousand francs until it became a _dot_ four times as great. Bodasse
listened with a thin smile on his thinner face, and when Voirbo's
outburst was over congratulated him sarcastically.
The tailor ignored the sarcasm, and, after a pause, boldly asked
Bodasse to lend him ten thousand francs. He knew that the old fellow
had that sum and more in the box under his bed, for Bodasse had been
saving for years, and was a rich man, and, Voirbo argued, the time
had come when Bodasse could show that he was not ungrateful for the
entertainment he had enjoyed for years at his expense.
The worker in tapestry, however, was not the man to part with his
money. It was all he lived for; it was all he thought about; and in
a few curt words he gave Voirbo to understand that if his marriage
depended on the success of his application he had better forget all
about it at once. In short, he would not lend him ten francs, much less
ten thousand.
There was no one else to whom he could apply, and Bodasse's refusal
filled Voirbo with dismay, but he had to pretend to be indifferent
after the first shock of disappointment was over, and an hour later
both men appeared to have forgotten the incident when they sat in a
café and drank wine to one another's health. But Voirbo's brain was on
fire. He had regarded the capture of the girl's fifteen thousand francs
as a certainty, and he could not bear to admit to himself that he was
going to lose her fortune after all. Where could he raise ten thousand
francs? Besides his ostensible occupation of tailor he was one of the
numerous agents of the Paris secret police. He had used his official
position in the past to blackmail inoffensive citizens, but he knew
that it would take him more than a year to raise ten thousand francs by
that method.
Bodasse, unconscious of his companion's thoughts, continued to drink at
Voirbo's expense, while the latter was rapidly summing up to himself
the risks he would have to run if he murdered the man sitting opposite
him. He knew all about Bodasse's life--the fellow's miserly habits;
his lack of friends because he had been afraid that if he made many
they might cost him money; his unpopularity in the neighbourhood in
which he lived, and the well-known fact that his greatest wish was to
be left alone. Voirbo recalled, too, that Bodasse was in the habit of
disappearing from human sight for weeks at a time, when he either shut
himself up in his room or went into the country. In the former case he
was wont to provide himself with sufficient food to last out his spell
of seclusion, and if letters came they were pushed under his door so
that he might not be disturbed by having to open it. With murder in
his heart, Voirbo thought over this, and came to the only possible
conclusion--the murder of Désiré Bodasse would be about the easiest
crime to commit and the chances of escape would favour him.
The bottle of wine finished, Voirbo suggested an adjournment to his
rooms, where he had often provided Bodasse with food. The old miser
agreed with alacrity, and shortly afterwards they were in an apartment
at the top of a high house. From outside the murmur of traffic faintly
reached their ears, and from the stairs came occasional voices, but,
for all that, the two men were quite alone, and Bodasse was absolutely
at the mercy of the younger and stronger man.
The temptation was irresistible. Voirbo looked at the small body and
wizened face, the thin, scraggy neck and the lustreless eyes. Life
seemed to be half-way out of his body already, and it would be easy to
let the other half out too. Bodasse was sitting with his back towards
Voirbo, who had risen and was walking irresolutely about the room.
Suddenly the fellow found the courage to put his thoughts into acts.
A heavy flat-iron, such as tailors use, was lying handy. He picked it
up, poised it for a moment, and then brought it down upon the old man's
head with a fearful crash, which sent him in a heap on the floor. There
he finished him by cutting his throat. The first act in the drama was
accomplished.
Until the murder was done Voirbo had not thought of locking the door,
but now he ran to it and turned the key. There were at least a dozen
persons in the building at the time, for it was let out in apartments,
but Voirbo, with extraordinary self-possession, proceeded to make
arrangements for disposing of the body. He could not carry it out as it
was, and, therefore, like many other murderers, he decided to divide it
into several pieces. The head is, of course, the most important part of
the body, because it is the easiest to identify. Get rid of the head
and identification is rendered a hundred times more difficult. Voirbo
gave it his special attention, and he disposed of it by filling the
eyes and mouth with lead and dropping it into the Seine. The rest of
the body was carted away in pieces, but on his second journey he had
a very narrow escape, and disaster would have resulted early on had
he not formed his plans with the utmost thoroughness. He undoubtedly
proved himself efficient in small matters as well as in large, as his
unexpected meeting with the police showed.
With a hamper and a large parcel, both containing portions of the
murdered man's body, he left the house one dark December night, with
the intention of pitching them into the Seine at a spot where there
would be no one to notice him. The hamper and the parcel were heavy,
cumbrous and conspicuous, but Voirbo knew that on such a night there
would be few pedestrians, and any who noticed him would think that he
had been doing his Christmas shopping, and was taking the Christmas
dinner and some presents home to his family. Owing to the weight of his
double burden progress was slow, but Voirbo was not nervous. Nobody
gave him a second glance, and he had the satisfaction of meeting more
than one late shopper carrying big parcels too.
But just as he was congratulating himself on complete success he was
horrified to see two policemen coming straight towards him. His legs
trembled, and for a moment he thought of dropping hamper and parcel and
taking to flight, but before he could make up his mind the two officers
of the law had stopped in front of him, and one was actually resting a
hand on the hamper.
"Who are you, and what's inside your parcels?" said one of the
policemen suspiciously.
There had been numerous robberies in the district lately, and the
police had received special instructions to keep a sharp look out for
midnight marauders. In fact, these two officers were looking for a
burglar or a street robber. They never thought of aiming as high as a
murderer.
With difficulty Voirbo found his voice.
"I--I couldn't get a cab at the station, messieurs," he said, with a
smile, "and so I've been compelled to carry home my purchases. This
parcel contains two hams. You can feel how heavy it is! The hamper--see
the label. It arrived for me by train."
The officers examined the label on the hamper. It apparently had
been addressed at a distant suburb and consigned to Paris. The label
certainly looked genuine enough, and the explanation of hams in the
parcel accounted for its unusual weight.
The policemen consulted in whispers. They had been impressed by
Voirbo's frankness, and eventually they permitted him to pass on. Had
they examined the contents of either hamper or parcel they would have
been able to arrest there and then as cruel a murderer as France has
ever known. It was characteristic of Voirbo's cleverness that he should
have labelled the hamper before emerging into the open with it.
Gradually he got rid of the rest of the body, the last expedition being
to the well of an apartment house close by, where he left the legs of
his victim.
As an agent of the secret police Voirbo was conversant with police
methods, and also had access to their offices. He knew that he would
be one of the first to hear if the authorities had been advised of
either Bodasse's disappearance or the discovery of any portion of his
body. For some days after the crime he frequented the police offices,
and what he saw there convinced him that he could never be brought to
account for his crime. Discovery was impossible, and he was quite safe.
But so thorough was he in his methods that he did not stop at disposing
of the body and robbing his victim. It was necessary to make the
people in the house where Bodasse had lived believe that the old
tapestry worker was still alive, though invisible behind the locked
door. Accordingly, Voirbo, having filled his pockets with Bodasse's
savings--they amounted to about thirty thousand francs, mainly in the
form of Italian bonds payable to bearer--proceeded to impersonate his
victim.
For days and nights after Bodasse was murdered the woman who lived
in the room underneath heard footsteps over her and, well aware that
Désiré Bodasse never received visitors, told her friends that the old
man, though he had not been seen for some days, was hiding in his room
as usual. Whenever letters came for him they were pushed under the
door, and, of course, opened and read by Voirbo. The murderer, however,
would not remain in the room all night, and when darkness fell he left,
having first placed a lighted candle near the window so that anyone who
looked up would say that Bodasse was at home. Each candle burned for
three hours before spluttering feebly out.
Every night for a fortnight the lighted candle was seen and commented
on, and, furthermore, the shadow of a man's head was occasionally seen
across the blind. The neighbours gossipped about him, telling one
another that Monsieur Bodasse was at home. No one expected to see him
in the flesh for weeks, for it was understood that he had given way to
one of his fits of solitude and would resent a call.
Voirbo, confident, triumphant, careless, and revelling in his own
cleverness, went to his prospective father-in-law and told him that he
was now ready to produce the ten thousand francs which he required as
evidence of his position. This promise he carried out, and, the girl's
_dot_ being brought into the common fund, the marriage was fixed to
take place a few days later.
"My rich friend, Père Bodasse, will attend me," he said proudly to
the family into which he was marrying. He spoke, of course, after the
murder of the old man. "He is a bit of a miser, but I expect a handsome
present from him."
They little knew he had already murdered and robbed Bodasse.
The family, impressed by Voirbo's fortune, expressed themselves as most
anxious to make the acquaintance of Monsieur Bodasse, and they were
looking forward to that honour when, on the day of the wedding, Voirbo
told them that Bodasse had meanly run off to the country to avoid
buying him a wedding present.
"He will not get himself a new coat, the old miser!" he added in angry
contempt. "And that is why he is not here. He knows his clothes are too
shabby. I have spent much money on him in the past, but never again."
It was, however, a small incident, and in no way spoilt the happiness
of all concerned. There was a banquet at an hotel, and afterwards the
married couple left for a short honeymoon. They were not to return to
Voirbo's apartments, for he had given them up and had taken a house
elsewhere.
With his wife's fortune he had now over forty thousand francs and
the newly married couple set up housekeeping on an ambitious scale,
because Voirbo declared that he could earn quite a large income from
his trade, so, when the honeymoon finished, realizing that it would be
risky to parade his prosperity, he settled down to work. He had taken
measures to conceal the stolen property, and, secure and confident, he
lived from day to day, expecting that in time Bodasse's disappearance
would lead to an inquiry, but utterly fearless of the consequences
to himself. And all the time his young and pretty girl-wife never
suspected that there was anything wrong.
The third week of that new year--1870--was drawing to a close when
Voirbo heard that the legs he had thrown into the well belonging to the
restaurant in the Rue Princesse had been found. He received the news
calmly, and offered no comment until he was told that Macé, then in
charge of the police department of the quarter where the remains had
been discovered, was commissioned to unravel the mystery. Now Voirbo
knew Macé, and had never had a good opinion of his ability.
"He'll never solve it," he said, with a laugh that reflected his own
satisfaction.
He felt that he was lucky not to have one of the leading detectives
on the case. He feared the proved, tried men who had unravelled the
dark mysteries of the past. But as for Macé, well, he was young and
inexperienced, and Voirbo was prepared to make him a present not
only of the legs, but of the rest of the body, if it could be found.
Nevertheless, curiosity, mingled with some anxiety, induced Voirbo to
pay a visit to Macé's office. He was, of course, able to stroll in
whenever he liked, because he was in the police service himself, and,
naturally, his interest in the mystery of the Rue Princesse excited no
suspicion. There was nothing remarkable about his inquiries. All Paris
was roused by the discovery of the legs, and Voirbo was as anxious as
anyone to hear the latest news.
On the occasion of his first visit he was told the result of the
medical examination, and how he must have grinned in secret when he
was informed that two doctors, experts in the art of identifying human
remains, had given it as their opinion that the legs belonged to a
woman. Their thinness, the size of the feet, and the fact that they
were clothed in stockings, gave rise to this mistake, which caused the
police to spend a long time looking for the body of a woman.
The one clue they had was the letter "B" marked between two crosses.
That was all the detectives had to go upon, and for days the police
inquired if anyone had missed a girl whose Christian or surname began
with B. And Pierre Voirbo continued to laugh at them!
Macé worked day and night on the mystery. During the previous three
months eighty-four women had been reported as missing, and after the
most careful examination into each case the detective selected three as
being most likely to help in the solution of the puzzle. Great was his
amazement to discover all three alive and well!
Meanwhile other parts of the body of Bodasse were picked up, though,
as Macé was searching for a woman, all these parts were not assumed
to belong to the legs. Half a dozen mysteries seemed likely to be
manufactured out of one, when Macé had the good fortune to think of
submitting the legs to another expert. It was only by chance that he
did this, but when Dr. Tardieu unhesitatingly affirmed the legs to be
those of a man the detective realized that he had been working on the
wrong lines altogether.
The fixing of the sex was a most important and valuable matter,
although even now the mystery seemed quite unfathomable. Macé, however,
was determined that the murderer should be brought to justice. He meant
to devote all his time and ability to the task.
His first examination of the cloth in which the legs had been wrapped
before being cast into the well had convinced him that the parcels had
been made up by a tailor. They bore certain marks, and the string used
as well as the cloth confirmed him in this opinion. He started at the
house in the Rue Princesse, making diligent inquiries as to whether a
tailor had ever resided there, but was informed that a tailor had never
been one of the tenants. The detective was not satisfied, and he got
the old woman who acted as concierge to chat to him about the tenants,
past and present.
The woman, glad of an audience, entered into a minute account of the
habits of the scores of men and women she had met in that house. Most
men would have been bored to distraction, and would have ended the
interview abruptly, but Macé listened patiently, only interrupting when
the old woman casually mentioned a girl of the name of Dard, whose
claim on fame was that, although she was now on the variety stage, she
at one time lived in the house as a humble seamstress.
The detective looked up at the mention of the word "seamstress." Here,
then, was somebody who had worked for a tailor. It was but a slight
clue, yet it might be worth something.
The old woman gabbled on.
"She gave me a lot of trouble, monsieur," she said, in a croaking
voice. "Some one was always bringing her work, and their dirty boots
meant that I had to wash down the stairs after them. There was one man,
too, who always carried water from the well upstairs for her. He used
to spill it, making more work for me."
"What was the name of the man?" asked the officer quietly.
The woman did not know; but before he left the Rue Princesse the
detective had established the facts, that Pierre Voirbo was the man's
name, and that he had lived close by, and was a tailor by trade.
All trivial clues, and based on conjecture, but Macé considered
them worth his trouble. He felt that he was getting on, and
when he discovered that Pierre Voirbo had had a friend named
Bodasse--Mademoiselle Dard told him this--who had not been seen for
a long time, he congratulated himself, recalling the initial on the
stocking.
But there yet remained the difficulty of identification. Step by
step he delved into Voirbo's life, and simultaneously set going the
inquiries that ended in the finding of an old lady who was Bodasse's
aunt. She was instantly taken to the Morgue to view the stocking
with the initial on it, and, greatly to the delight of the police,
immediately identified it as belonging to her nephew. She had the best
of reasons for her statement, for she had marked the stockings herself.
It appeared that, as Bodasse suffered from cold legs, he had had the
upper part of a woman's stockings joined to the feet of a man's socks.
This accounted in a measure for the mistake of the doctors who had
certified the human legs to be those of a woman.
The aunt said that she had not seen her nephew for a month, but had
not felt alarmed on this account. She was used to his ways, and she
illustrated them by relating how once when Bodasse had been unwell he
had entered a hospital under a false name so that he might receive care
and attention free of cost to himself.
Madame, however, was of further use, as she was able to describe the
appearance of Bodasse's friend, Pierre Voirbo. She gave information as
to his habits, and Macé quickly had the story of the marriage, the ten
thousand francs, the change of address, and all else of importance that
concerned Voirbo at his finger-ends. There only remained now the task
of proving that Désiré Bodasse had disappeared on a certain date, and
the detective went to the apartment house where Bodasse had lived.
Here he met with a most unexpected rebuff. The concierge actually
informed him that Monsieur Bodasse was at home at that very moment!
The night before she had seen a light in his room, and had noticed
his shadow across the blind. If her word was doubted, she added the
indisputable evidence that that very morning she had seen Bodasse in
the street!
The witness was undeniably respectable, and Macé had to accept her
word, and, now that Bodasse was not the victim, he had to pursue his
investigations elsewhere; but before he left he deposited a letter with
the concierge to be handed over to the old miser when he returned.
But Macé never forgot Pierre Voirbo. The man might be innocent, but
there was suspicion enough to justify his being kept in sight. Even if
Bodasse was not the man whose legs they had found in the well, it was
just possible that Voirbo had got rid of the miser for the sake of his
savings. For that reason he was shadowed, and, when, after a long wait
and no sign of Bodasse's return, the police determined to break into
his room they discovered that whoever had inhabited it recently it had
not been the tenant, for a robbery had taken place.
The mystery became complicated, and yet simpler. Who was the mysterious
person who had walked about Bodasse's room, and who had come every
night to light the candle? The bed had not been slept in for weeks. It
was, therefore, obvious that the thief had not remained there all night.
Macé had one answer only, and that was Pierre Voirbo. The fellow had
a very bad record, and his association with the secret police did not
earn for him any prestige in the eyes of the law. He was a dissipated
loafer, ready to betray friend and foe alike, and Macé was well aware
that Voirbo was quite equal to murdering Bodasse for much less than ten
thousand francs.
Yet the detective hesitated and it was only after tracing Italian
securities belonging to the murdered man to Voirbo's possession that
Macé decided to arrest him. Time had been lost in investigating certain
clues suggested by Voirbo himself, but there could be little doubt now
that they had been merely blinds to distract suspicion from himself.
Voirbo must have realized that his position was growing worse every
day. He had begun by affecting to despise Macé, but by now he knew that
the young officer had proved himself to be a past-master in the art of
detection.
By a coincidence the very morning appointed by Macé for Voirbo's arrest
saw the suspected man walk into the detective's office, apparently
quite unconscious of his fate. He had come, as usual, to offer his
opinion on the great mystery, and to accuse more innocent men. Macé
kept him waiting for half an hour, and when he eventually turned to
speak to him Voirbo dropped a card from his pocket-book. Macé picked
it up for him, and as he did so saw at a single glance that Voirbo had
booked a passage on a ship leaving France, and had given a false name.
Ten minutes later Voirbo was under arrest. He swore that he was
innocent, and reviled Macé horribly. But the detective was unmoved,
although there was much to be accomplished before legal proof was
forthcoming.
A visit was paid to Voirbo's wife, an innocent girl, whose heart was
broken when she learned the truth. She produced the box where her and
her husband's marriage _dots_ were kept. Macé opened it, and showed
that it was empty. He had robbed his wife as well as Bodasse.
The officer, however, was determined to find the securities Voirbo had
stolen from Bodasse's room, and he began a thorough search. When he
reached the cellar he found two casks of wine. A strict examination of
these revealed a piece of black string tied to a bung above the head of
one of the casks. Macé drew it out, and at the end found a thin metal
cylinder, neatly soldered. Inside were the missing securities.
Another experiment remained. Voirbo was taken by the police to the room
where it was suspected the crime had been committed. Here Macé had him
forcibly seated in a chair, and in his presence the detective tested
the slope of the floor by pouring water on it. The water instantly
dribbled towards the bed, finally settling in a particular spot. The
boards were taken up, and congealed blood found.
Macé had argued that during the murder of Bodasse much blood had been
spilt, and that some of it must have sunk between the boards at a point
where the slope had brought it to a standstill. Voirbo had washed the
top of the boards, but had forgotten to wash underneath.
This simple experiment had such an effect upon Voirbo that he instantly
confessed to the crime, telling everything without reservation. He did
not, however, go to the guillotine, for before his trial, and after one
abortive attempt to escape, he cut his throat in prison. The knife with
which he took his own life was smuggled into the gaol concealed in a
loaf, and although Macé strove valiantly to discover the person who had
sent it to Voirbo he never succeeded.