The Saint-Florentin Murders

by Jean-FranCois Parot

  She began to weep, but Nicolas noticed that no tears fell.

  ‘Come now,’ he said, ‘you’ve made La Satin and my son very happy. That should weigh heavily in the eyes of the Lord.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about La Satin!’ she retorted through pursed lips. ‘You’ve made her really unhappy. I visited her yesterday in Rue du Bac. You wanted to put her in a shop, as if white lace could wipe out the past … Well, why don’t you let her do as she sees fit? You seem to forget that your son was born in the aristocracy of the lower depths and that, whether you like it or not, he will graze where he has crawled! Oh yes, Marquis …’

  Nicolas bit his lips in order not to reply. Nothing good would come of quarrelling. He knew there was a kernel of truth in the old woman’s criticisms. Better to avoid saying anything he could not retract; that would only make her more stubborn.

  ‘That’s a private matter,’ he said. ‘We can talk about it again when we’ve both cooled down. For the moment, my friend Paulet should not forget that her house enjoys a special leniency from the police and that if she does not want things to change …’

  She gave a forced smile. ‘I knew that was coming … So, if I understand correctly, you have something to ask old Paulet?’

  ‘My dear Paulet, you always understand men who know the right way to speak to you. In the old days, you used to organise parties in certain well-equipped houses, little performances in which you couldn’t tell where fantasy ended and reality began. What about now?’

  ‘They still go on,’ she said, obstinately. ‘But times have changed, and the devotees handle it all themselves.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Her little eyes twinkled, as if hit by a strong light. ‘A young man came here several times and asked me to supply him with young girls for his seraglio and some well-built stallions, as he put it, who could provide … La Paulet doesn’t stoop to things like that.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  ‘Young, the usual buck.’

  ‘If he shows up again let me know.’

  ‘I don’t dip my toes in those waters, my boy. I have my morality. I’ve already told you too much. Alas, everything’s going from bad to worse, girls are flooding in from all over, driving the taste for novelty. The days when we were like a family – that’s all over! This is the age of matchmakers and pimps!’

  ‘As always, La Paulet remains true to her principles,’ concluded Nicolas with a smile. ‘A well-kept house, no gambling, regular girls and the best possible relationship with the police. I bid you farewell.’

  ‘Go on, make fun of your poor friend,’ she grunted. ‘You’ve always brought me trouble.’ She collapsed onto her chaise longue which creaked beneath her weight.

  ‘This is the first time you haven’t offered me any ratafia.’

  As he went out, he heard a curse and the sound of a piece of porcelain smashing against a wall.

  At seven o’clock, Bourdeau and Rabouine joined Nicolas at the Grand Châtelet. They had had the idea of consulting a botanist from the Jardin du Roi to try and establish who had made enquiries about purchasing pineapple seeds. In this way, they had drawn up a list of some fifteen residences, which would all have to be checked the following day. Then they had proceeded to Rue des Canettes. It was here that the man who had made Monsieur de Sartine’s organ of wigs had his workshop. The family were in desperate straits. Driven into a corner, Bourdier had revealed that he was under pressure from an Englishman who was offering him a fantastic fee to go to England and use his skills in a cotton mill, where he would make technical improvements for the benefit of the East India Company. The description of his English contact matched that of Lord Ashbury, alias Francis Sefton. Nicolas reflected for a moment.

  ‘This man is under threat, and so are our interests,’ he said. ‘He will end up yielding to these blandishments from across the Channel. Take the carriages you need and bring him here with his family. I’ll go and see Sartine, he’ll deal with it.’

  Bourdeau sat down and began filling his pipe. ‘It’s already been done,’ he said sardonically. ‘The Bourdier family are waiting for you downstairs.’

  XI

  MANOEUVRES

  And the liberty that follows our places

  stops the mouths of all find-faults.

  SHAKESPEARE

  A cohort of three carriages set off, with Nicolas in the first. In the middle carriage, the panic-stricken engineer hugged his wife and four children to him. When they got to Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, they found that the minister had not yet returned from Versailles. But his return was imminent, as the royal family were getting ready to move to their hunting quarters in Fontainebleau. Nicolas thought of going to Monsieur Lenoir’s house, which was nearby, but just as he was about to make up his mind to do so, a carriage arrived, and Sartine got out. He took him into his study and immediately began mechanically playing his organ of wigs; a magnificent specimen, full of curls and knots, appeared in all its dazzling blondness.

  ‘It comes from Vienna, from the person who supplies Prince Kaunitz, who’s a great connoisseur like me!’ He was lovingly stroking the wig. ‘The Abbé Georgel, Prince Louis’s secretary, sent it to me. But tell me what’s going on in my courtyard. Quid novi in your investigation? As always, corpses have been piling up, and your usual acolytes are getting ready to poke about inside them. Or am I mistaken?’

  ‘Have you ever been mistaken, Monseigneur? First of all, your organ maker seems to me a very honest man although, reduced as he is to poverty, he has almost been persuaded with false pretexts and tempting offers to go to England.’

  The minister dropped his wig, which spread over the desk like a sea creature stretching its tentacles. ‘Don’t tell me the British secret services have had their hands on him!’

  ‘Indeed they have. And again it’s the work of Lord Ashbury, alias Francis Sefton. To avoid such a thing happening, I’ve made the first move – or, rather, Bourdeau has – by immediately moving our man and his family. I’ve promised Bourdier that we’ll make sure nothing happens to him and that he will be taken to a residence of the State where his work will be protected.’

  ‘Excellent. So that was the screaming, moaning cohort that greeted me in my courtyard, was it? Let them stay here tonight. I’ll give the necessary instructions for them to be taken somewhere safe tomorrow. And what of your investigation?’

  ‘Everything seems to point to the Duc de La Vrillière, but I’ve yet to be convinced that he’s guilty. There are still elements I can’t explain, but I have the feeling I’m slowly getting closer to the truth. By the way, there are now three corpses, and I haven’t given up hope—’

  ‘Of finding even more?’ Sartine said, his cold face lighting up in a smile. ‘I wish my successor luck … How are you getting on with him?’

  ‘Our last audience went well, with no acrimony.’

  After reassuring the Bourdiers about their fate and receiving their thanks and blessings, he went back to Rue Montmartre, where Catherine changed his dressing and served him some soup. He dipped croutons into it and washed it down with wine, then climbed on a stool to cut several thick slices from a ham on the mantelpiece, which he devoured greedily. Fresh nuts and apples rounded off this rustic snack. Later, as he was about to fall asleep, exhausted, three faces came into his mind, that of his son, that of La Satin, and finally that of Aimée d’Arranet.

  Sunday 9 October 1774

  Nicolas was woken by the distant trilling of a flute. Monsieur de Noblecourt was practising, which suggested that he was feeling fit and was in a good mood. Immediately Nicolas had dressed and had his breakfast, he joined him. The sight that greeted him would have delighted a painter skilled at capturing intimate domestic interiors. The morning light enveloped the old magistrate in a golden halo as, marking time with his foot, he played a countrydance tune with his usual mastery. Cyrus and Mouchette sat shoulder to shoulder, watching him attentively. Nicolas, motionless, was carried away by the tranquillity of the
moment and waited for the piece to end before he showed himself.

  ‘What a pleasure it is to see you recovered,’ he said.

  Noblecourt sank into his favourite armchair. ‘You, on the other hand, seem to have been collecting wounds and bumps.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Nicolas, ‘I’m used to being under fire. When I was ten, a guest of my father’s nearly killed me after mistaking me for a hare! Bullets are in the habit of grazing me.’

  ‘Don’t try to laugh it off, your friends live on their nerves when you’re far from them. But tell me about your latest adventures. It’ll cheer me up and give me a rest from all this trilling. You can’t imagine how difficult it is, when there are two trills in succession, to avoid playing them both in the same way!’

  Nicolas launched himself into the details of his stay at Versailles and the progress of his investigation. His old friend became quite troubled and pensive.

  ‘Have you thought carefully about the implications of this attempt on your life? If we disregard the fact that it is similar to those to which you were subjected at the beginning of this year – since those responsible have already been banished – we must conclude that your attacker, or rather your would-be assassin, is determined to prevent you from pursuing your investigations. Who are you threatening? What interests are jeopardised by your actions? Wisdom and logic would suggest that this mysterious Englishman is lurking in the shadows, as is common for people of his ilk, not showing himself in public …’

  ‘All the same …’

  ‘I foresee your objection: you recognised him in the great gallery despite his disguise. If he is determined to thwart you, it must be because your actions have touched on a sensitive area where your interests conflict. Since you are investigating a series of murders in which suspicion seems gradually to be pointing to one of the King’s ministers, that means, if you follow my reasoning, that the Englishman in question could well be in league with the killers. Your skills as a detective are threatening his mission, which seems to me, infirm of mind and body as I am, to be targeting a great man. Consider this: Monsieur de Saint-Florentin would hardly have called you in to investigate a murder committed by himself – did I say murder? I mean murders – and then try to get rid of you! It doesn’t make any sense. There is something else behind this inexplicable sequence of events.’

  He sank further into a kind of trance-like meditation.

  ‘You attract double-dealing, my dear Nicolas. In the fourteen years you’ve dealt with special investigations, you have been waging an endless struggle against shadows. Self-interest, revenge, ambition, lust and hatred have, like ghosts, dragged you into the forest of crime, and the dead seem to you like the two-faced god of ancient times.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ said Nicolas, ‘you remind me of a certain Micmac who used to question the spirits by playing on his drum! With you, it’s the flute. You are the Delphic oracle of Rue Montmartre!’

  ‘You may mock! At my age, I have a licence to indulge certain whims, and if I choose to be erratic …’

  ‘No one would ever dream of denying you that right.’

  ‘I’d like to see him try! For now, the oracle is hungry. Let them bring me my soup and almond biscuits.’

  Their attention was suddenly attracted by a song about the Duc de La Vrillière being bawled by a singer in the street, which rose to them through the open window.

  Minister with no talent that anyone can see,

  Man more debased than a minister can be,

  We want you to go, we want you to fall,

  Out the window with you for the good of all.

  ‘The rhyme is poor but the content is poisonous,’ said Noblecourt. ‘The man is not liked – as if a minister could ever be liked. Will you come with me to High Mass at Saint-Eustache?’

  ‘With pleasure, if the music and the food have dispelled the warden’s annoyance with those who claim to usurp the privileges of the consecrated bread. And if you don’t fear the presence beside you of a man who for some time has been a target for evildoers!’

  ‘I would be dying in noble company, Marquis …’

  To go the short distance from the house to the church, Nicolas would have preferred to use the cul-de-sac, which led to a side entrance, but Noblecourt wished to make a grander entrance through the front door. There, a large number of parishioners rushed forward to assure the former procurator of their friendship. He doffed his hat to the plaque bearing the epitaph of General Chevert, which had recently been placed there, and proceeded to the pews reserved for the churchwardens, surrounded by a flattering, respectful murmur. Nicolas took his seat a few paces back, near a pillar on which hung a notice from the priest of Saint-Eustache informing his flock of the parish’s funeral charges. He noted the size of the sums demanded, doubtless a reflection of the fact that this was a wealthy district. Prices were listed for everything: the digging of the grave, the decoration of the master altar, the choir, the confessor, the white gloves, and the coffin which had to be bought from the parish workshop and not from an outside carpenter. There was a disparity here in the way death was dealt with that gave Nicolas food for thought.

  The service was beginning, and Nicolas let himself be carried away by the litany, following it with simple devotion. He looked up into the upper reaches of the building. From where he was, he could see Colbert’s black marble tomb behind the choir. The officiating priest mounted the pulpit for his sermon, which today was on the theme of charity. ‘“Who does not know that all property originally belonged to all men in common, that nature itself knew nothing of property or division and that it first left each of us in possession of the whole universe?”’1 Nicolas thought of Bourdeau, who would no doubt have approved this introduction. He could not make up his mind whether the inspector’s increasingly frequent outbursts were part of his very nature, a consequence of his personal history, or whether, with the passing of the years, it was developing into a more active desire to overthrow the traditions of society and of a power structure which he nevertheless continued to serve without demur.

  He had just decided to abandon these reflections, which were leading nowhere, when he heard sounds of creaking and shaking. The door of the central porch suddenly opened with a strident creak, and an angry ox ran into the nave and began overturning everything it found in its path, its bellowing joining the chanting of the service. Chairs and worshippers were thrown to the ground, barricades were raised as protection from the creature’s horns. For a good half-hour, Nicolas strove to organise a response. It turned out that the beast had not been properly killed and had escaped from a butcher’s stall. The butcher’s colleagues in the guild were sent for and eventually got the animal under control. The injured were evacuated and the service resumed.2 It was not, however, destined to pass without further incident. A man in black clothes and boots came walking down the aisle, clearly looking for someone. Some of the worshippers cursed this noisy intrusion. The Swiss Guard raised his halberd and brought it down on the flagstones. Nicolas recognised the tall, raw-boned figure as Rabouine. Getting to his feet, he made a sign for the spy to follow him.

  ‘What was the meaning of that catastrophic entrance?’

  ‘I had no choice. Bourdeau sent me to fetch you from Rue Montmartre, where Poitevin told me you were here. The thing is, they’ve found an abandoned cab near the summer pleasure gardens. In it is the body of a young man, and all the indications are that it might be Jean Missery’s brother-in-law.’

  ‘The elder Duchamplan?’

  ‘No, the younger one, Eudes. Everything’s been taken to the Châtelet, where the inspector is waiting for you. I came in a carriage to take you there. It’s waiting in the cul-de-sac.’

  Nicolas went to tell Monsieur de Noblecourt. He explained the situation, and advised him not to wait for him to come back.

  Outside the entrance to the Grand Châtelet, a noisy, restless crowd were trying to break through the cordon of French Guards and men of the watch surrounding the cab. The little messeng
er boy was trying without much success to control the horse, which was neighing in panic, startled by the movements of the crowd. Nicolas jumped down, followed by Rabouine, and approached. From the outside of the cab, nothing was visible; a dark film seemed to cover the windows, which were broken in places.

  ‘Curious,’ said Nicolas.

  ‘Open, and you’ll understand,’ said Rabouine, with a fixed expression on his face.

  He followed his spy’s suggestion. More than most people, he had had to confront some unspeakable scenes in his time, but few as horrifying as this. The whole of the inside of the cab was covered in dried blood. On the seat, arms outstretched, was the body of a man with his face completely shot away. The floor was covered in a blackish liquid, and a large-bore cavalry pistol lay at the man’s feet.

  Rabouine, seeing what his chief was looking at, nodded and said, ‘Suicide, at first sight.’

  Nicolas slowly closed the door again. The horse was still neighing softly, stamping the ground with its forelegs, shivers rippling through its coat like waves, eyes wide with fright. He approached it and whispered in its ear, then boldly massaged its gums. The animal moved its head slowly up and down and gradually calmed down.

  ‘You’re good with horses,’ said Rabouine admiringly.

  Nicolas was thinking hard. ‘We have to get all this out of the public gaze as soon as possible, or we’ll be in trouble. I want the courtyard of the prison cleared so that we can take the cab in there. We’ll unharness the horse, and the body can be taken into the Basse-Geôle. It’ll have to be cleaned.’