The Phantom of Rue Royale (27 page)

‘Monsieur Nicolas, I need to tell you something. When I was sweeping up this morning, I found this metal thing, just like the one you picked up. I kept it because I thought you’d be interested.’

He held out a little brass tag identical to the one found in the lock of the attic door in the ambassadors’ mansion.

‘You couldn’t have pleased me more!’ cried Nicolas. He searched in his pocket, pulled out a handful of coins and handed them to the boy, who blushed as he took them. ‘Have you already taken the soft rolls up to Monsieur de Noblecourt?’

‘Not yet. I was just about to, but I was waiting for you to come back.’

‘Will you make me even happier? Add some croissants and brioches to the rolls. Right now, I’d quite happily eat the whole shop, and the baker’s boy with it!’

The boy laughed and ran off. Dawn was bathing the old courtyard in a hazy light. The square of sky turned from
blue-black
to pearl-grey. Birds were chirping and shaking themselves beside a puddle. A new day was replacing the horrors of the night. Would it reveal the truth? Would it allow him to make the connection between the various elements laboriously assembled in the course of the investigation, and confound the guilty? Would some fleeting, irrational vision help him to put the pieces together in a new order and reveal the solution, like dice being shaken in a bag then thrown onto a table? With the discovery of a second brass tag, the scruples Nicolas had had now vanished.
Despite Monsieur de Sartine’s
nihil obstat
and his official absolution, he had not been convinced so far that the act intended to confound Langlumé was not the kind that stays with you as a bitter memory all your life. Providence, that immanent justice, had decided otherwise. The law would punish, not simply an attack on an old man, but also an insult to a magistrate, that is, a representative of the King’s authority.

The Noblecourt household was already bubbling with
excitement
. After agood night’s sleep, the former magistrate had woken at dawn, still slightly bruised from the previous day’s attack, but cheered by the possibility of a respite, authorised by the Faculty, from his usual austere regime. He had ordered his chocolate and was waiting for his soft rolls. When Nicolas entered his bedroom, the old man, dressed in a reddish-purple robe and with his head wrapped in a madras to hide his bandages, was watching impatiently as Marion and Catherine bustled about – Marion with her small steps and Catherine with her long strides – setting the table close to the window that looked out on the street. Yapping and whining, Cyrus rushed to his master’s feet.

‘Ah, my old companion,’ said Noblecourt, half ironically, half moved, ‘you must have been through some terrible adventures with Nicolas! You run off without a second glance, but now you’re happy to be back!’ He turned to Nicolas, and made a theatrical gesture towards his clothes. ‘Don’t I look like a Mamamouchi?
Quid novi
, my good friend? You look tired. Sit down and tell me everything.’

Catherine put down a large tray containing the chocolate, the cups, the rolls, the croissants and brioches, and three pots of jam.

‘I think we must first ask Catherine to prepare a good meal for Cyrus, who didn’t eat well in Rue Saint-Honoré.’

At these words, the dog stirred and ran off on his old paws towards the servants’ pantry.

‘And what’s more, you starved him! But what’s this I see? Croissants and brioches!’

‘It’s for Nicolas, Monsieur,’ Catherine muttered, ‘not for you. Be reasonable. The little rolls are enough.’

‘All right, all right. You can go now.’

Grumpily, he chased her away as if swatting a fly. No sooner was her back turned than his hand closed around a brioche, which he opened and filled with a large spoonful of cherry jam while Nicolas looked on sternly. The commissioner began telling his story. When he fell silent, the former magistrate, having eaten his fill, sat back in his armchair, glanced out at Rue Montmartre, and put his hands together.

‘If anyone other than you had told me this,’ he said, ‘I would never have believed it. Of course, our faith asks us to give credence to a thousand stories from the lives of the saints. Can it be that there exists another side of the coin, a dark mirror image of our own existence? The Church certainly encourages us to believe so, and I’m pleased to learn that the exorcist, this Père Raccard, is evidently a reasonable man and not one of those petty, narrow-minded people who miss the Inquisition and wish they could still burn the poor, deranged victims at the stake. You’ll have to introduce us. I’ll invite the Duc de Richelieu and a few fine minds, and we can debate it over some good bottles of wine. What an evening in prospect!’

As he talked, he was slyly twisting the end off a croissant.

‘Have you asked yourself all the right questions?’ he resumed. ‘Either the girl really was possessed, in which case why? Or else she was sick, as our friend Semacgus originally thought, and if that’s true, what does her “attack” contribute to your
investigation
? In the first case, why would the devil be interested in a poor maidservant? From the point of view of the Church, it must have been because she gave the demon an opportunity to seize her soul. And if such is the case, draw what conclusions you will. This Miette is at the centre of your investigation. In the second case, that of the poor girl being sick, we are drawn to the same conclusions. Did some terrible acts weigh on her conscience, acts for which she was responsible or in which she was complicit, which led her to this state of mental decay? For me, that’s the crux of the whole thing. You must get her to talk.’

Nicolas sighed. ‘Alas, she’s lost her reason and there’s nothing to indicate that she will recover it. You’ve put your finger on the one thing we’re unable to do. Once I’ve accumulated a certain number of facts, I’m obliged, despite everything, to continue my inquiries in different directions and pursue all the suspects. There are still many elements missing, but for the moment suspicion falls on all of them. None of them has an alibi for the time of Élodie’s death. As for the infanticide, if that’s what is, it’s not going to be easy to find out who’s responsible.’

‘And what about that curious native from New France? He seems to be out of the running. After all, they tried to murder him. You’re surely not going to tell me he’s still on the list of suspects?’

‘Oh, yes! His wound proves nothing. It was a very clumsy blow, which barely touched him! Don’t you find that strange?
The attempt on his life may have been genuine, but it proves everything and nothing. It’s possible that an accomplice of his wanted to get rid of him. I’m starting to have my doubts about Naganda’s alibi. He had reasons to want Élodie out of the way, too.’

‘Don’t let yourself get too tangled up. I wouldn’t want my questions to make you even more confused. There are already too many hypotheses in this case. Any crime, as I know from experience, is a complex machine with three or four centres. Don’t rule anything out, but keep things simple, and look at the facts. Who stands to benefit from the crime? What are the usual motives? Passion and financial gain, of course. Dismantle your suspects as you would a watch, and the missing piece will easily be found.’

‘You’re right,’ said Nicolas. ‘The more we talk about a case, the more we confuse it, and the more inextricable it becomes.’

‘That’s it! If you shake the torch of truth too much, it goes out. Look at what you know, and draw up a battle plan. Listen to your intuition. Years of observation have taught me that intuition guides us more than it leads us astray. Let your heart be moved, and only then let your mind reflect.’

The other end of the croissant disappeared into his mouth, and was quickly swallowed. The rest was about to follow when Cyrus, who had come back, seized it, much to his master’s annoyance.

Nicolas burst out laughing. ‘Oh, the rascal! He’s so concerned about his master’s health that he’s prepared to risk your anger. I’m going to do the same and let you rest.’

He stood up, wished Monsieur de Noblecourt a prompt recovery – the former procurator waved his fist at him
threateningly 
by way of farewell – took what remained of the croissants and brioches and went back to his apartment. A few moments later, just as he was about to leave, Bourdeau knocked at the door and put his ruddy, cheerful face inside the room. Nicolas often thought that there was nothing in his deputy’s appearance that really indicated the depth and subtlety of the man. The inspector rarely dropped his guard and preferred to keep his own counsel. There had only been a few rare but precious moments when he had revealed to Nicolas the hidden aspects of his attractive, complex personality.

‘It’s all done,’ he said. ‘Every member of the Galaine family is in solitary confinement. It wasn’t all that easy to find six secure cells.’

‘Do they have special privileges?’

‘Oh, no. That would mean constant comings and goings. They’re in strict solitary, but there shouldn’t be any problems; you’ll be finished well before.’

‘Thank you for your confidence! Our prison system is
intolerable
, and doesn’t help us to get at the truth. The real masters there are the caretaker, the gaolers and their servants, and the counter clerks with whom the prisoners are in daily contact. I’m not talking about the commissioners who go in and out. I’ve put a few thoughts about this down on paper for Monsieur de Sartine. One of these days, I’ll submit them to him. What about Miette and Naganda?

‘The Indian’s at the Hôtel-Dieu. But I had to make a fuss. The sick are four to a bed there, passing their vermin to each other. I had to leave a few
écus
to get Naganda a truly horrible room. I left a police officer with him. It’s all going to cost money …’

He waved a paper.

‘Make out a memorandum, and I’ll sign it. You know how pernickety the Duvals, those harpies on Monsieur de Sartine’s staff, are about these things, father and son both.’

‘Paperwork will be the death of France!’

‘And Miette?’

‘Impossible to get her into the Hôtel-Dieu, and Charenton and Bicêtre are much too far. I had her taken to the convent of the Lazarists in Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis, with precise
instructions
. That’ll be expensive, too – there’s a nun looking after her.’

‘It’s only temporary. At least I hope so. We’re nearly at the end of the investigation.’

‘I have some other important things to tell you, but you jumped down my throat back there in Rue Saint-Honoré.’

‘The urgency of the moment, my dear fellow! I did notice you wanted to speak to me, and now I’m all ears.’

‘Rabouine did as he was told when he got back from Versailles. I took the note you put with your instructions and went to see Robillard, the second-hand clothes dealer in Rue du
Faubourg-du
-Temple. The vilest, seediest dump you can imagine. All the unwanted clothes from all the rented lodgings in Paris end up there. I had to shake him up a bit, but he finally showed me the items that corresponded to the note. A strange batch of things, which I’m sure will interest you.’

‘I’m listening – don’t keep me waiting.’

‘You’ll see it was worth the wait,’ said Bourdeau with a laugh.‘He showed me two dark cloaks, two hats and two white papier mâché masks. Oh, I was forgetting, an apothecary’s glass bottle as well. This odd collection had been brought in to him in great
haste early on the morning of the thirty-first of May. In other words, the morning after the disaster in Place Louis XV.’

‘And who brought it to him?’

‘A young man.’

‘Nothing more precise than that?’

‘No. You seem disappointed.’

‘Not at all. But it does complicate things. Did you manage to get any kind of description?’

‘Nothing specific. The interior’s dark, there’s not much light in the morning and Robillard didn’t see anything. And, anyway, people tend to be discreet in that line of work. It’s not much of a step from a second-hand clothes dealer to a fence. Plus, it all happened very quickly. What was surprising to him was that this was a better class of customer than he was used to dealing with, and that the clothes he brought in were of good quality, but he didn’t even haggle over the price, even though they were worth a lot more than he was offered.’

‘So it was a man …’ said Nicolas, pensively. ‘Well, why not? Or else a woman disguised as a man. Anything’s possible.’

‘I’m really sorry,’ said Bourdeau, ‘not to have more enlightening news for you.’

‘Not at all, Pierre, it’s not your fault. The suspect I had in mind doesn’t quite fit the facts any more, that’s all. We mustn’t forget to have that bottle examined. It must have had something in it. Semacgus should be able to help us with that. As for the other pieces of evidence, make sure they’re kept locked in our duty office at the Châtelet. Anything else?’

‘Coming out of the Deux Castors last night, I bumped into Monsieur Nicolas, who was watching the house.’

‘Monsieur Nicolas? Since when do you call me Monsieur Nicolas?’

‘No, not you, of course. You know who I mean, the printer and writer, the one who’s always defying the censors.’

‘Ah! Restif, Restif de la Bretonne! The vice division have long had their eyes on him. He’s a licentious rogue, totally insatiable.’

‘You know he can’t refuse us anything, and has been a very useful informant at times. We turn a blind eye to a lot of things … I asked him what he was doing there, and he seemed embarrassed. He pointed at the shop, laughed and ran off. I didn’t have time to chase after him, I had a whole caravan of carriages to see on their way, after all. But I’m convinced there’s something going on. I suspect he’s having an affair with a woman in the Galaine house.’

‘Given the man’s reputation, that does indeed seem likely. Pierre, get me his address. Unless I’m mistaken, he lives
somewhere
not far from Rue de Bievre. We can nab him at home during the day; he only goes out at night. Is that all?’

‘Oh, no! I consulted Galaine’s notary. He also shut up like a clam. But these pen-pushers always wilt under pressure!’

‘Inspector,’ said Nicolas in a dignified tone, ‘you forget
yourself
. Don’t you know you’re talking to a former notary’s clerk?’