The Man with the Lead Stomach (23 page)

‘My God! Father Mouillard! Is it really you?'

By what twist of fate did he find himself in the presence of his former master from the Jesuit college in Vannes? He was astonished at the transformation of that lovable man into this wild-eyed and lost-looking figure. And yet it was only a few years since they had last met.

‘Yes, it is I, my son. And I am sorry to meet you in these circumstances. You recognised me but I cannot recognise you. I have lost my sight and I thank God for granting me this grace, which spares me the pain of seeing these wicked times.'

Nicolas understood why his master's features had changed. In the dim candlelight his eyes appeared almost white and his lower jaw trembled constantly.

‘Father, what have you to do with my abduction?'

‘Nicolas, Nicolas, one must go through certain trials to reach the truth. It matters little to me how you come to be here; I have no part in that. Go down on your knees and pray to the Lord.'

He knelt down himself by leaning on the table.

‘Even if I wanted to,' said Nicolas, ‘I could not. I am bound, Father.'

‘Bound? Yes, by the error of your ways. You are determined to ignore the right path, the clear path, the one I taught you and from which you should never have strayed.'

‘Father, please explain to me why I am here and why you have come. Where are we?'

The priest continued to pray and replied only after standing up again.

‘In the Lord's house. In the house of those who are unjustly threatened and persecuted and to whose enemies you lend the support of your office, to your eternal shame.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘The damned of the Court have charged you with the task of investigating so-called crimes. Your role is to level false
accusations
against our company, the Society of Jesus.'

‘I am merely doing my duty and searching for the truth.'

‘You have only one duty: you must obey that inner grace that in all things and all ways abides by God's glory. You have no other rule of conduct than His divine commandments. You must reject all tyrannical power and repudiate the reign of the evil one, be he even crowned.'

‘Am I to conclude from your words that your society is involved in the appalling crimes I am investigating?'

‘What we want from you, what I, poor old man that I am, have been instructed to command you is to give up an investigation that may harm an institution from which you have received everything and to which you owe what is best in you.'

‘I am the King's servant.'

‘The King is no longer lord of his domain if he abandons the holiest of his servants.'

Nicolas realised that it was pointless to argue. The old man's infirmities, and the orders he had received, had obviously so confused his mind that he had lost the even temper that had made him the most respected master at the college in Vannes when Nicolas was a student there. He knew that regretfully he must now lie to Father Mouillard.

‘Father, I have difficulty believing you. But I shall meditate
upon your teaching and reflect on my actions.'

‘My son, that is good and I know you once more. “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” Listen to the word of the Lord; you can never meditate upon it enough. In all things one must not show so much concern for what the world thinks. By seeking to save
ourselves
in the present we damn ourselves for eternity. I bless you.'

Nicolas had never imagined he would have to dupe his old master, but he knew that beyond his venerable person there were other less saintly and more unscrupulous interests that had to be deceived. Father Mouillard fumbled for the candle, which he snuffed out, plunging the room into darkness. Nicolas heard a door open. Someone came up to him and blindfolded him again.

An unknown voice spoke: ‘Has he agreed?'

‘He is going to reflect on it but I think he will do so.'

Nicolas felt sick at heart at the old man's confidence.

The voice went on: ‘In any case, it's just a first warning.'

This sounded like a serious threat. Nicolas was again bundled off into a carriage, which immediately set off at full speed. He had now fully recovered consciousness and tried to calculate the distance travelled by counting the minutes. After an hour the carriage stopped and he was pushed out. They untied his hands and threw him unceremoniously into a ditch full of dead leaves and stagnant water. He heard the carriage drive off. He took off his blindfold. Night had fallen. He tried to free his legs. He managed to do so only after half an hour's struggle, thanks to his penknife that miraculously was still in his jerkin pocket. It was eight o'clock in the evening by his watch, which had also survived unscathed.

He had been well and truly knocked out, then abducted and must have remained unconscious for many hours before coming to. Where he had been held did not really matter. The important thing was that, without making any secret of the fact, the Jesuits or some Jesuits had had him abducted and had used a poor old man to try to influence him and blackmail him into abandoning his investigation into a case that seemed to threaten the King's safety.

What was more, they had not hesitated to use the opportunity of the King's daughter's hunt to carry out an outrageous assault on the person of a magistrate. There had to be serious and significant interests at stake for people to go to such lengths. One way or another, he thought as he followed the dark verge of the path, there was a connection between the Society of Jesus and this case. Whether directly involved in the murders or not, the Society feared the result of the investigation and seemed prepared to do anything to hamper its progress. Some seemed to be relying on his loyalty and gratitude. It was true that he had never added his voice to the almost unanimous chorus of critics of the Society. Because of his gratitude for the education he had received and because of the respect he still felt towards his former masters, his feelings towards it had never changed.

He knew perfectly well that the Society was under threat. On 2 August the King had made it publicly known that he would not pronounce on their fate for another year. However, there had been a series of damning judgements against the Jesuits in cases of bankruptcy. In the Paris Parlement, Abbé Chauvelin had painted a terrifying picture of the Society, depicting it as a hydra with the Old World and the New in its grip. He claimed that its
existence in the kingdom was based only on the principle of tolerance and was not an absolute right. By the end of November the French bishops were due to submit their recommendation to the King. They were said to be divided on what position to assume. All this justified and explained why the Jesuits feared a scandal in which they might be implicated and which could have a decisive effect on both public opinion, already deeply hostile to the Society, and on the King's final pronouncement.

Nicolas eventually reached a small village. He knocked on the door of a cottage and asked an astonished-looking peasant where he was. In fact his wanderings had not taken him very far from Versailles: he was just between Satory and the royal town. He enquired whether it would be possible to find a carriage to take him back to the palace. After much discussion, dithering and confabulation, which strained his patience, it was arranged for him to be taken back to the palace by a fat farmer who owned a cart. One hour later he was on the Place d'Armes.

Having followed his instructions to come and collect him on Monday evening, his coachman was there with Gaspard, who was asleep on the box of the carriage. Worried by the rumours of his disappearance, the royal page had come to wait for him to take him back to La Borde's rooms, as it was difficult to gain access to the palace after the doors and ‘the Louvre' had been closed. Nicolas simply said that he had fallen from his horse and had got lost in the forest.

He went up to La Borde's rooms to wash and to clean the ugly bump on the back of his head. He left a message of thanks for his
friend, in which he gave a concise account of the day's events and their consequences. Gaspard accompanied him back to his carriage. They were firm friends by the time they left each other, the young man offering to do him a thousand favours whenever he came back to Versailles.

The return journey to Paris was a dreary one. Nicolas was in pain from his injury and very sad that Father Mouillard had been used so wickedly in his declining years to exert pressure on his former pupil. The lasting memory he would have of that day was not the conversation with the King's daughter, nor his first hunt with the Court, but the distressing picture of the old man.

When he arrived at Rue Montmartre very late that evening, the house was in turmoil. Marion, Catherine and Poitevin were in the pantry waiting for news. Monsieur de Noblecourt was pacing about in his rooms. When they saw Nicolas they all shouted out at once. The procurator, alerted by his dog, hurried downstairs as fast as his old legs would carry him. This welcome and the anxious questions with which they bombarded him soon restored Nicolas's spirits, and he was immediately forgiven as soon as they learnt what he was prepared to tell them of his adventures at Court. He reserved for Monsieur de Noblecourt's ears the one incredible detail.  

Nicolas woke early. His stiff, aching body was painful proof of the treatment he had received the previous day. The throbbing pain from the bump on his neck was excruciating. He
remembered
similar mornings in his youth, the day after a game of
soule
. This violent sport in which players were constantly exchanging blows usually ended in an epic brawl and then a hearty feast, washed down with sharp cider and apple brandy, at which everyone became friends again.

Washing and dressing was a long and painful process. He walked slowly down to the pantry where Catherine saw his sorry state. She assessed the damage and decided to take him in hand. For many years she had been a canteen-keeper and seen her fair share of battles, marches, brawls, soldiers on the spree, strained muscles, wounds and bumps. This experience had taught her a number of practical remedies and a knowledge of poultices, which added to what she had learnt from her peasant childhood in Alsace.

She rummaged around in the depths of a cupboard and took out a carefully sealed earthenware jug. It was, she claimed, an
all-powerful
remedy that she kept in store for special occasions: a concoction of herbs in plum brandy. A ‘witch’ from the area of Turckheim, who happened to be her aunt, had bequeathed her a few jugs of it. She guaranteed its miraculous effect.

Ignoring his protests, she made Nicolas undress, chiding him for being so shy in front of an old woman who’d seen all this before, and worse, when she was with the army. She then rubbed him down vigorously with her magic potion until his skin felt hot. The warming, stimulating effect of this rough and ready application seemed to relax his muscles. To complete her treatment she poured him a small glass of the liquid: initially it made his throat burn but as soon as this wore off he felt its benefits. A feeling of warmth welled up inside him, which extended and speeded up the lotion’s effect.

Now, according to Catherine, he must get under the bedclothes and sleep until he was completely rested. Nicolas scolded her for not giving him the remedy on his return the previous evening. She replied that muscles need to stiffen before they can be loosened properly and that yesterday, so soon after his misadventure, he would not have been able to work off the pain as he had this morning. Catherine treated herself to a small glass in anticipation of ailments to come, then carefully put the jug back in its hiding place. The rest of the household was still asleep, exhausted from the waiting and dramatic events of the previous night.

Back on Rue Montmartre Nicolas sensed something unusual. He put it down to his physical state and to his nervousness following the assault and abduction of the previous day. He decided to keep to his usual precautions and discreetly went down Impasse Saint-Eustache.

Once inside the church he hurried into a gloomy chapel and hid himself in the corner of an altar. He heard footsteps and saw a man in grey, who was obviously following him and who, having lost sight of him, was walking rapidly towards the main door. Nicolas was able to escape the same way he had come in and jumped into a sedan chair waiting for custom. So the hunt was continuing: he was now no longer the hunter but the game.

When he reached the Châtelet, Bourdeau, who knew from the coachman some of what had happened at Versailles, informed him that Sartine had been detained by the King after his weekly audience and that he would not be returning to Paris until after High Mass on All Saints’ Day, the day after next.

‘That certainly does not help matters,’ said Nicolas. ‘Though I have to go back to Versailles in any case.’

He gave an account of his audience with Monsieur de Saint-Florentin and how he had been given
carte blanche
to continue his investigation. He described the strange Mademoiselle de Sauveté and the violent end to his invitation from Madame Adélaïde, but he made no mention of the incident in Saint-Eustache, so as not to worry the inspector unduly.

‘I do respect your feelings as a former pupil of the good fathers,’ said Bourdeau, ‘but these people really are a menace. I agree with Abbé Chauvelin. These priests take orders only from their general. They are bound together by their vow of
obedience. But I don’t think they have much of a future. What you describe sounds like the death throes of a wounded animal. Do you know what people are singing? Loyola was lame and Abbé Chauvelin is a hunchback. The whole of Paris is humming this song.’

He began to sing it himself in a deep voice:

Nicolas gave a sad smile. ‘I’m not following you down that path, Bourdeau. You know my sense of loyalty towards my teachers. But I think there are bad shepherds and I bear a
particular
grudge against those who dragged Father Mouillard into this reckless adventure.’

‘In any case it proves how well organised they are. Did they bring him from Vannes at the drop of a hat, just to debate with you?’

‘He’s not from Brittany. He must be living out his last years in one of the Society’s houses.’

‘But notice how well informed they were. I can’t imagine Sartine, La Borde or Madame had a hand in this ambush.’

‘Of course not. But, Bourdeau, tell me what you found out at the service in the church of the Theatines.’

‘It was a fine ceremony, all very dignified. There were not many family members present and even fewer friends. The Comte de Ruissec was prostrate with grief. Apart from how distressed he looked, three other things struck me. First, as you
know, the vicomte’s betrothed, Mademoiselle de Sauveté, was absent. As I don’t know her, I made sure I found out about her. Secondly, the vidame was there, a very charming young man and very definitely left-handed! We knew that but I was able to check it when he sprinkled holy water on the coffins. But that’s not all: Lambert, the manservant, is also left-handed … The aspergillum again. Thirdly and lastly, the family kept the vidame out of things. He did not go with the Comte de Ruissec to his mother and his brother’s final resting-place. Isn’t that surprising for a young cleric, albeit a libertine?’

‘We’ve talked about him for far too long. I really must go and question him.’

‘You’re right. And we now know something useful about him. After the service was over, I followed him. He went back to his home on Rue de l’Hirondelle, a small street that runs between the Place du Pont-Saint-Michel and Rue Gilles-Coeur. He came back out quite quickly and do you know where he led me?’

‘Oh, Bourdeau, I’m too tired for guessing games.’

‘To the corner between the boulevards and Rue de Richelieu, where Mademoiselle Bichelière lives. He only stayed there a moment, two or three minutes, no longer. He got back into a cab and dashed away. I passed myself off as a tradesman and after paying my due to an ape-faced woman on the door, I found out from the maid that her mistress was not at home but at the theatre.’

‘At the theatre, so early in the morning. That’s very strange …’

‘I questioned the creature and she confirmed the young man with clerical bands often came to hear the pretty actress’s
“confession”. She told me that with a horrible grin full of innuendo that could not be misunderstood.’

‘This is vitally important, Bourdeau. So the vidame knows his brother’s mistress very well. We shall see what he has to say about all this. Perhaps he’ll be more inclined to speak to us than his father. From now on we must draw up our plans, work out and verify all these people’s movements and cross-check our findings. In the end we’ll discover the weak spot. We already have two left-handed men involved in this case. We can almost state as certain that Lambert was in the wardrobe and that he took part in the murder, as well as in transporting his master’s body. He’s an accomplice in the suicide cover-up. We are missing a second culprit. There’s no reason why it might not be the vidame.’

‘How shall we proceed, Nicolas? I’m not happy to leave you on your own from now on.’

Nicolas finally decided it would be wiser to tell the truth.

‘I didn’t tell you that I was followed this morning. My old trick in Saint-Eustache worked wonders, but I’m going to have to be even more watchful. However, this is too large a task for us to stay together all the time. But I might resort to one of my disguises to mislead our enemies. For the time being I would like you to find out all you can about La Bichelière, Lambert, Truche and La Sauveté. What are their backgrounds? For heaven’s sake, we are the best police force in Europe! If need be, write to the intendants instructing them to reply by return. I want answers by the end of the week, so that we can know everything about them.’

‘I forgot to tell you that the Minister of Bavaria’s coachman has been arrested.’

‘I shall have to see him. Monsieur de Sartine is bound to ask about him again, as soon as the plenipotentiary next shows himself. I didn’t say a word about my suspicions. This is a chance to verify them.’

‘Where are you going to begin?’

‘I’m sorry to leave you with all this paperwork but we can’t avoid the detail if the case is to succeed. As for me I’m going to get changed and hurry off to question one of our jeweller friends on Pont au Change about the ring pledged by Truche de La Chaux. Then I’ll try to pin down the vidame. Don’t forget we’re having supper at Semacgus’s this evening, in Vaugirard. I’ll spend the night there and leave early tomorrow morning for Versailles to investigate Madame Adélaïde’s household.’

A few moments later an elderly, portly bourgeois leaning on a stick and carrying a leather bag stepped out of the Châtelet and climbed into a carriage. Nicolas had spoken to old Marie for several minutes without the usher recognising him. Reassured by this test, he was driven to a shop on Pont au Change belonging to the jeweller Koegler, to whom the Lieutenant General of Police often turned in cases involving stolen jewels. He was welcomed with the enthusiasm reserved at such places for wealthy customers.

In a faint voice he requested the master craftsman kindly examine an item that he wished to acquire but whose provenance might, he also feared, be dubious. He added that a friend of his had given him this address as a place where the workmanship and the hallmarks would be properly checked.

Suitably flattered, the jeweller adjusted his magnifying glass and examined the fleur-de-lis ring that Nicolas had confiscated at the Dauphin Couronné. The examination was slow and meticulous. Monsieur Koegler shook his head. His advice was not to buy the item and even to inform the police. The ring was extremely old and carefully made. The gems were remarkable for their water and for their size but – and here the man lowered his voice – there was every reason to believe from various observations, which he kept to himself, that the item belonged to the Crown Jewels and that it had been stolen from a person of royal blood. There was only one thing to do: to rid oneself of it by handing it in as soon as possible to the appropriate authorities, on pain of being accused of possessing stolen goods, which in this particular case would be tantamount to the crime of lese-majesty. Nicolas took his leave, assuring the jeweller that he would follow his advice and that he was going to hand over this compromising item to the right person.

Although the Vidame de Ruissec’s home was not very far from Pont au Change, Nicolas ordered his
coachman
to take him first to the Comédie-Italienne. He did, however, suggest a few detours, in order to check that he was not being followed. He made the coachman drive into a blind alley and wait a moment. Feeling reassured, he gave the order to carry on. He closed the curtains in the cab and quickly changed his appearance: he spat out the tow lining the inside of his mouth, removed his false white eyebrows, wiped off the ceruse covering his face, took off the wadding that gave him an artificial paunch and pulled off the bourgeois wig to reveal his own hair. He took a firm grip of the apparently harmless stick whose hollowed-out interior contained a well-tempered sword.

At the Comédie-Italienne the washers and scrubbers were still at their morning work, toiling away with bucketfuls of water. Above this tide stood the tall silhouette of old Pelven, who in his time had swabbed many a deck on the vessels he had served on. His craggy face lit up when he saw Nicolas. He immediately wanted to drag him off to celebrate their reunion with a few glasses of his favourite beverage or even by sharing his repast, whose pleasant smell was already wafting through the corridors of the theatre.

Short of time and mindful of the effects of his last foray into sailors’ cuisine, Nicolas succeeded in politely declining the
invitation
without the doorkeeper taking undue offence. He enquired as to what brought Nicolas there, and immediately answered his questions.

No, of course, La Bichelière had not set foot in the theatre all day Saturday, nor indeed since. She was really going too far and the exasperated director never stopped complaining, threatening to increase the fines for her repeated absences. The actress’s punctuality often left a lot to be desired and her frequent failure to turn up had disrupted the performances and resulted in the use of understudies who were often under-prepared and less popular with the public. Had it not been for her charms and how they attracted the swells, she would have been only a strake
1
away from being thrown out on to the street, which was where she belonged. That would be her just reward for idling around to no purpose.

In answer to another question, Pelven assured Nicolas that a young cleric had turned up on Saturday afternoon asking for the
pretty miss. Annoyed at being told she was not there, he had become so insistent and so unpleasant that Pelven had slammed the grille in his face. The old salt added that the welcome given the young man had been all the chillier because he had made no attempt to mollify the doorman’s surly temper by greasing his palm.