The Châtelet Apprentice (17 page)

‘He was lying on his stomach when I found him,' said Bourdeau, ‘and we took him away in that position. It was only in the Basse-Geôle that he was turned over, several hours later.'

‘That confirms what I've said. We have before us the coming together of two phenomena: a congestion of the lungs due to suffocation and the usual changes to a corpse according to the position of the body. To conclude I would say that this corpse is that of a man who was first drugged and suffocated face down and kept in that position for some considerable time – for more than half an hour in any case – and then clumsily stabbed with a lancet. This last wound was not mortal and, given the cadaverous state of the body by that time, did not result in any loss of blood.'

Nicolas was stunned.

‘Monsieur,' he exclaimed, ‘I am full of admiration and I thank you for your help. However, I must on behalf of Monsieur de Sartine remind you that this matter requires the utmost secrecy. I believe it will be necessary to open up the body to confirm our
presumptions, but what good are our doctors in the Châtelet? Yesterday's unfortunate experience, which was also my first, convinced me that anything out of the ordinary is beyond them. Would you be so kind as to take charge of the operation?'

‘I'm not a doctor,' Sanson replied, ‘but with the help of my nephew who is finishing his medical studies I could take on the task.'

‘Do you guarantee his discretion?'

‘As my own, and upon my life.'

After thanking Sanson at length, Nicolas and the inspector left him alone with Descart's body and went off towards the part of the Châtelet that housed the cells. Nicolas, who was deep in thought, stopped suddenly and, taking Bourdeau by the arm, prevented him from going any further.

‘I don't wish to question Semacgus now, Bourdeau. As you now realise, he could equally be the agent or the victim of this sinister
mise en scène
. I need more evidence before I can form an opinion about his case. I need to work things out on the ground and go back to Vaugirard, the scene of the crime. I have the impression that you lacked the time yesterday to go through the house in detail and collect evidence.'

‘I freely admit that,' said Bourdeau, ‘but I wasn't struck by anything unusual. I hope you don't expect me to let you go down there on your own. Now you really will have to be on your guard …'

‘My dear Bourdeau, don't doubt that I shall be. It's important that you stay with Semacgus. Anything may happen here. As I've no intention of putting him in one of those filthy holes in which his security would be guaranteed only at the cost of his health, I want you to guard him until I question him. However,
there is something you can do to help me. Find me a lamp or a dark-lantern. It will soon be night time and I don't want to be wandering around in the dark. Find me a carriage, too.'

While Bourdeau went off to carry out these instructions, Nicolas returned to the duty office. He opened a cupboard full of assorted outfits, wigs and hats. All these items would have been a boon to a second-hand clothes seller; there was enough to dress all the beggars and thieves in Paris. Nicolas chose from this dusty collection, into which all his colleagues delved when some tricky case required them to pass unnoticed in the Paris underworld. Bourdeau reappeared, bring-ing with him a small dark-lantern. With a shy smile he also handed Nicolas a little pistol, a powder flask and a bag of bullets.

‘You know how to use it. It only fires one shot, but it's discreet because of its size and it can save your life. It's one of a set of two given to me as a present by a gunsmith in Rue des Lombards. I once did him a favour … Please accept it as a gift, and promise that you will use it without hesitation.'

Nicolas shook Bourdeau's hand. He was touched by the fondness shown him by his deputy, who for all his rustic ways was loyal to a fault. He placed the pistol in his coat pocket and, carrying a bundle of clothes, went out of the Châtelet and climbed into the cab that was waiting for him under the archway. He had the feeling of being watched but he could not make out where a look-out might be standing, and he ordered the coachman to drive at full speed to the church of Saint-Eustache.

When the carriage arrived at the church he stopped it outside the main door, jumped out and went inside. He knew the place well as he had often heard Mass there. He loved the immense nave and the roar of the organ resounding under the vaulted
roof. He slid the enormous bolt to lock the door. During the week the side entrances were shut and, even if they had been open, the time it would have taken for his potential pursuer to get there still left Nicolas ample opportunity to carry out his plan to the full.

He sought refuge in a dark corner of a side chapel, emptied his pockets, shed what he was wearing and slipped into another set of clothes, over which he put a threadbare greatcoat. He was unrecognisable thanks to an ancient wig, dark glasses and a Regency hat. He checked his disguise in a small pocket mirror. To complete the picture he smeared his face with smoke-black from a taper-stick. Holding on to the pistol hidden in his pocket he drew back the heavy bolt, risking everything. Mauval stood before him. Once more Nicolas was struck by the coldness of the man's expression despite the exertion of the chase. He took the initiative, saying in a quavering voice:

‘What a strange idea to bolt the door! Please help me to open it, Monsieur. That rogue who just came in rudely bumped into me.'

Mauval pushed him aside unceremoniously and rushed down the nave. The cab had waited for Nicolas, and it immediately headed off towards the Seine.

D
ARKNESS WAS
falling by the time Nicolas arrived in Vaugirard. He would have liked to have kept the carriage to be sure of getting back to Paris but the coachman, despite the offer of a substantial sum, refused
point-blank
to wait for him. He claimed he was not in the habit of hanging about late at night, especially when there was snow in the offing. Nicolas paid the fare and left it at that. He was alone in the deserted lane.

By now it was pitch dark and there were howling gusts of wind. Deafened by the noise, he felt vulnerable again, and yet he had well and truly thrown off his pursuer. For some time he remained motionless in the shadows, alert to the least sign of danger. He became increasingly uneasy. He had never liked the dark and as a child, when Joséphine sent him out after nightfall to fetch logs from the bottom of the garden, he would sing hymns at the top of his voice. He would carry out his task as fast as the weight of his load allowed.

Another memory came back to him. One day his godfather, the Marquis de Ranreuil, had told him how he had panicked
when crossing the trenches under enemy fire at the siege of Philipsbourg. Under the hail of bullets whistling around them, his commander, the Duke of Berwick, had shouted to him: ‘Chin up, Monsieur, and just pretend!' Fear, the marquis had explained, was often simply a sign of the terror of being afraid. You had to go beyond it, and in the heat of battle it would disappear as if by magic.

Despite the painful memories it evoked, the image of Isabelle's father had a positive effect on Nicolas. After several attempts with the tinder-box he managed to light the little
dark-lantern
, although its flame flickered hesitantly in its fragile receptacle.

He opened the gate and went into the garden. So it was back to the beginning, and only two days after Descart's and Semacgus's violent argument in this same place. The return of the frost had made the ground hard and preserved the disorderly traces of footprints. Nicolas imagined the comings and goings of Bourdeau and the men of the watch, the removal of the body, the stretcher and the cart rattling along the badly surfaced road. He stopped halfway to the house, which was even more
sinister-looking
than he remembered. The pale glimmer of the lantern played faintly upon the dark façade with its casement windows still shut. Nicolas had always been responsive to the hidden mystery of stone, to its ability to instil in him feelings of attraction or repulsion. Did he owe this aspect of his character to his Celtic ancestry, or to the experiences of his youth?

A particularly strong gust of wind brought him back to reality. He started, as if rudely awoken from a dream. The tiring day and the dull throbbing pain of his injuries, which seemed to beat in time with his heart, made him want to get through this
task as quickly as possible, but he knew he needed to be extremely thorough. He had not wanted to offend Bourdeau but his job of the previous evening had been botched and carried out in a rather perfunctory way. He hoped that, as they had gone around, the officers and guards had not disturbed the scene where the drama had taken place, destroying valuable clues for ever.

Nicolas checked that the sealing wafers had not been broken and opened the door. He took one step forward and found himself back on the landing from which the staircase led down into the main room. For the moment all he could see were the spot where Descart had been found and the bronze handrail. Beyond was darkness, out of range of the dim beam of his lamp.

The strangeness of the residence struck him even more than it had on his first visit. It did not have a cellar and the room in which Descart saw his patients had its foundations in the basement, which explained the high position of the windows. It had more in common with a crypt than a house.

He examined the landing carefully but noted nothing unusual. Next he went to the right-hand staircase, scrutinising each step. He did the same on the other side, then walked down into the room. First he looked for the candelabra on the chimney-piece and lit them. The large ivory Christ with its arms closed suddenly emerged from the gloom.

Nicolas first noticed footprints that had left dirty black stains on the tiled floor and then, looking up, he saw before him a scene of desolation. The room had been totally destroyed. The large table that Descart used as a desk had been cleared of the papers and the objects covering it, and they were now strewn across the floor. An overturned inkwell had spilt out a pool of black ink,
into which someone had trodden. The straw-bottomed chairs were intact, but three upholstered armchairs had been ripped open, disgorging their stuffing and horsehair. Specimen jars and books had been swept off the shelves by some angry hand that had then systematically smashed the glass and ripped off the bindings. Medical instruments lay everywhere. The cupboards had received similar treatment.

Nicolas continued his investigations. To the right of the fireplace a door opened onto a corridor leading to a kitchen, a dining room, a small drawing room and a laundry. Another staircase led up to the first floor. This strange layout meant that the back of the house was once again at ground level. All the rooms were in the same state of systematic destruction and Nicolas couldn't help treading on broken items.

He began with the first floor. Everywhere he came across the same spectacle: mattresses slashed open, clothes and bed linen lying strewn across the floor, broken ornaments and furniture forced open. Nicolas noticed that valuable watches and other expensive items had been left untouched by the wreakers of all this damage. And yet they had been searching for something. On the floor he even found a small velvet purse full of
louis d'or
. Any possible hiding place had been scoured, stripped and smashed. Even the paintings had been turned round. What could they have been hunting for in such a brutal fashion?

Some black marks attracted Nicolas's attention and he set off to follow them. They were evident everywhere and led him to the staircase. It was quite obvious from the identical footmarks going up and down that the stranger who had overturned and broken the inkwell had then gone to the upper floors. He followed the ones that went down, stopping to retrace his steps
when the pattern became unclear and confusing and shining his lantern in order to examine them more clearly. He even jotted them down in pencil on a small card. In this way he was able to reconstruct down to the smallest detail the movements of the intruder, who seemed to have acted alone.

Nicolas had now recovered his composure and was able to concentrate all his efforts on the search. The last place he entered was the laundry, a closet piled high with discarded items and he was struck by a blast of freezing cold air. An old stool had been placed up against the wall, beneath an open window. The matting of the stool was marked with inkstains. There were still some marks left on the cob wall, which had been scraped in several places. After turning the house upside down the intruder had escaped through this window.

Nicolas shuddered as he realised the significance of this observation. If the man had fled through here it was because the doors were closed and sealed. This meant that the intruder was still in the house when Semacgus had discovered the body and that he had decided to hide in order to search the house later, without fear of being disturbed. So the person concerned must have been Descart's murderer.

Nicolas remembered that Semacgus had told Inspector Bourdeau that he had arrived half an hour before the time arranged for his meeting; he had perhaps disrupted the murderer's plans. In any case this hypothesis seemed to clear Semacgus. However, there was still plenty left to explain, starting with the ransacking of the house, which could not be attributed to Semacgus unless he had had an accomplice. Bourdeau had noticed nothing and when he had closed the doors the house had been intact.

So anything was still possible and the number of conceivable scenarios grew with each new theory. What could someone have been looking for that was so precious that they took no notice of jewellery and silver?

Nicolas looked at the window thoughtfully. He climbed onto the stool and measured the opening with a piece of string. He carefully noted the position of items in the room, put seals on all the windows and then, certain of having forgotten nothing, snuffed out the candles, closed the door and resealed it.

Once outside he walked around the house to the laundry window, which was about a yard above the ground. Nicolas knelt down on the frozen earth. There were hollow imprints in the ice and these marks were much clearer than those found in the house. He sketched down the impression they had made and examined them with a puzzled look. The footprints went across part of the garden amongst the pear trees and up to the boundary wall. It was not difficult to climb up the wall.

Nicholas fastened the lantern to his coat and propped himself upon a protruding stone from which he was able to examine the top of the wall. He was hoping to find traces of blood, proving that the intruder had injured himself on the pieces of broken glass set into the mortar covering. There were none. Nicolas did however pick up a button with a fragment of material attached to it, and he carefully tucked it into his pocket.

Not wishing to risk injury by attempting to climb the wall, he went through the gate and locked it. In the lane the same imprints appeared and then petered out amongst ruts made by carts. The biting cold took Nicolas by surprise. He was alone, without any means of transport and holding a lantern that threatened to go out. He checked the time by his watch: it was
seven o'clock. He decided to go to Semacgus's house to question Catherine. It was also a good excuse to see the cook again, as he was very fond of her. Moreover, in addition to the horse that pulled his stolen carriage, Semacgus also owned a saddle horse and Nicolas intended to borrow it to get back to Paris.

Suddenly a faint whistling caught his attention. At first he thought it was just the effect of the wind in the trees but the sound came again and a barely audible voice spoke:

‘Don't be afraid, Monsieur Nicolas. It's me, Rabouine, one of Bourdeau's men. I'm behind the bush, in a small tool shed. Don't turn round. Pretend you're adjusting your boot. The inspector sent me here yesterday evening. What a night! I haven't moved since. Fortunately I had a bottle of spirits and some bread. I'm good at planning this sort of expedition. The main thing is to stay put. You never know.'

Nicolas was annoyed with himself for suspecting Bourdeau of negligence. On the contrary he had made judicious arrangements that might prove useful. He should not have taken at face value the inspector's lack of insistence in coming with him. His deputy was not the sort of man who would leave him to face the threat of danger on his own. He knew that Rabouine would come to Nicholas's help if need be.

‘Pleased to see you, but how did you recognise me?'

‘To start with I mistook you for someone else, you know, a stranger. Your disguise is very good. But when I saw you come out and replace the seals I thought to myself, “That's our Nicolas.” You couldn't help me up, could you? My fingers are
numb, I've got frostbite and I've run out of food. It looks as if it could be a hard night.'

‘You can go home. I hope your time on watch has at least been useful.'

‘I think it was. Last night about an hour after the inspector and the men of the watch had left, a stranger appeared on the top of the boundary wall of the garden, in fact right where you were just now …'

‘Can you describe him to me?'

‘To tell the truth I didn't see much. He seemed both heavy and light.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘There was something that didn't quite fit. The man seemed heavily built but I could have sworn he was very agile. He wore a mask and was dressed in dark clothes. He was walking carefully.'

‘Carefully?'

‘As if he was choosing where to step. It surprised me because the ground wasn't yet frozen.'

‘Didn't you follow him?'

‘Monsieur Bourdeau had ordered me not to move under any circumstances and I didn't think it right to disobey.'

Nicolas managed to hide his disappointment.

‘You've done well. You can go now. Nothing's going to happen here this evening. But do me a favour: find me a carriage and send it round to Dr Semacgus's, near the Croix-Nivert. It's the only respectable house in the area, surrounded by hovels. The coachman can't miss it.'

He handed him a few coins.

‘This is for you. You've done a good job. I'll tell Bourdeau.'

‘The inspector has already paid me, Monsieur Nicolas. But I won't say no to the tip. I don't want to offend you. It's a pleasure working for you.'

Nicolas started to walk along the icy lane. The uneven ground was full of bumps and frozen puddles that made him stumble and slip. Several times he almost twisted an ankle and once he fell. In his current state it would have been the last straw if he had hurt himself. Fortunately he soon reached the surgeon's house. It consisted of a series of low buildings that formed a U-shape around a courtyard enclosed by a high wall.

He pushed open the main door without difficulty. It was never locked, since the master of the house claimed that ‘the door of a medical man should always be open to those in distress'. The kitchen, in the corner where the outbuildings joined the house proper, was dimly lit by a flickering light.

Nicolas approached the glazed door, opened it slightly without making a noise and came upon a mysterious scene. Near the tall chimney-piece with its roaring fire crouched Catherine. She was holding Awa, who was half-naked with her head tilted back, and seemed to be singing a lullaby to her new friend. Awa was groaning faintly, her skin glistening with sweat, and sometimes she arched her back and writhed, uttering inaudible words. Her whole body then bent and started to shudder to such an extent that Catherine had great difficulty supporting her.