“Wealthy and prominent parents want their children to marry advantageously, don’t they? It’s nothing to do with love. This Philippe must have been someone whom Montereau wouldn’t have considered as a son-in-law, and I expect Célie knew quite well that her father wouldn’t have approved of him. Of course, it could have been something as simple as lack of fortune. Or it might have been low birth or bad reputation. But I honestly don’t think an unscrupulous man, one who was simply pursuing Célie’s favors or fortune, could have written these letters, or at any rate written them so badly.” She handed them back to him. “I’m sure this man really does believe every word he writes.”
Aristide nodded and penciled a few notes. “I think a portrait is beginning to emerge. He’s young … he writes like a sixteen-year-old schoolboy.”
“Yes. No more than thirty, or twenty-five even.”
“Might be found hovering at the edge of government, if he’s found favor with the Directors as you mentioned before… . He’s sincere, earnest, romantic, probably quite attractive to women—”
“In a graceful, girlish sort of way, I expect,” interrupted Rosalie, “if Célie was anything like me; when I was fifteen, I used to melt at the sight of a pretty youth with curls and long eyelashes.”
“And he’s a poor judge of literary merit, I may add.”
“You may,” she agreed.
“Yet unacceptable to Montereau. Perhaps poor; perhaps lacking in family connections; possibly disreputable. Or there might be some private quarrel between them.” He added a few more notes and turned once more to Rosalie. “Do you think—Forgive me for asking so indelicate a question, but you and I are both adults with knowledge of the world … do you think this young man might have taken advantage of Célie?”
“Are you suggesting that she …” Her voice trailed off as she looked away, staring at the musty curtains. “I see. Well, it happens to the best of us. So she had a secret to conceal.”
“Could this man have been her lover—in a carnal sense, I mean?”
“No,” she said promptly. “No, certainly not. A man who could write this sort of letter, and mean it, will be just as mawkish as the woman who would swoon over it. He’d never touch her except in the marriage bed. That sort wants to believe that all young women, or at least all the young women whom he falls in love with, are blushing virgins.”
“And what if such a man had discovered that his idolized, virtuous beauty was not as virtuous as he had believed?”
“I daresay he might do something terribly theatrical, like … publicly accusing her of immorality.”
“Or murdering her?”
“Yes,” she said after an instant’s thought. “I think such a man might be capable of that.”
CHAPTER 10
Aristide snatched a quick, solitary luncheon of bread and cold meat at a nearby eating-house, buffeted by the clamor of the midday crowd of workmen shoveling down pot-au-feu from thick earthenware dishes. Choosing privacy over the warmth of the hearth, he found a place at the end of a long table, where he could avoid chance jabs from his companions’ elbows and where the gamy reek of boiled mutton and turnips did not hang quite so heavy above him. He thankfully escaped after half an hour and returned to the Butte-des-Moulins section commissariat, where he found Inspector Caillou reporting to Brasseur.
“Number one, Rue de Caumartin, second floor. E.-A.-P. Feydeau de la Beyré, unmarried with two servants, domiciled there since Vendémiaire of Year Three.”
“Feydeau?” said Aristide.
“The fellow Citizeness Villemain told us about,” Brasseur reminded him. “Let’s go. That’s a fashionable quarter; with any luck, he’ll be lounging at home until it’s time to go to a dinner-party or whatnot.”
They arrived at Rue de Caumartin at three o’clock with Dautry, two of their own inspectors, and an inspector from the Place-Vendôme section in tow. Number 1, at the corner of the Boulevard, was an elegant new apartment house, sporting a round corner tower ornamented with rococo trophies and a pair of demure neoclassical statues. One inspector stationed himself at the bottom of the staircase as the rest of the party followed the porter up the stairs.
A nervous manservant gestured them into a small parlor. The room reminded Aristide of Saint-Ange’s apartment, luxuriously and tastefully furnished, though no salacious engravings hung on the walls. After a moment a weedy, blond young man with a pleasant, rather vacant countenance strolled in, knotting the sash of his dressing gown and blinking.
“Chapellier tells me you’re the police. Whatever can you want with me?”
“Citizen Feydeau,” Brasseur said, “I’m Commissaire Brasseur of the Butte-des-Moulins section, and behind me is Inspector Normand of your own section. Would you mind giving us your full name, date of birth, place of birth, and condition?”
“Not at all,” said the young man, still puzzled. “Edmé-Antoine-Philippe Feydeau de la Beyré, born—”
Aristide gestured to the mahogany writing-table in the corner of the parlor. “Why don’t you write it all down for him. Otherwise the commissaire’s secretary is sure to spell your name incorrectly.” Dautry shot him an indignant glance.
“What’s all this about?” Feydeau inquired, sitting and lifting the lid from a crystal inkwell.
“It concerns a certain Louis Saint-Ange, of Rue du Hasard—”
“Never heard of him.”
“And a young woman of your acquaintance, Citizeness Montereau.”
“Montereau?” echoed Feydeau, pausing in his writing. “Oh, yes! Charming little thing. See her at the Comédie sometimes, with her friends.”
“We’re looking for her murderer.”
“Good God! Murdered? What’s Paris coming to? I supposed all that sort of unpleasantness was over and done with in ’ninety-four.” He scrawled a few lines, shook sand on the paper, blew on it, and handed it to Brasseur. “There you are, Commissaire. Though what you need me for …” Feydeau’s voice trailed away into silence as the import of his words at last penetrated his understanding. “Oh, dear heavens, you don’t honestly think I—why, I scarcely knew the girl. Ask anyone you like.”
“Citizeness Montereau’s secret lover may have murdered her,” Brasseur said. “One of your forenames is Philippe, like his. Just saying that you scarcely knew her won’t do. Where were you on the afternoon and evening of the tenth of Brumaire?”
“The tenth …” The young man did a rapid calculation on his fingers, with a feeble titter. “Let me see, that would have been four days ago, Monday the thirty-first of October … Monday! Yes, I remember. I spent the evening visiting a friend.” He looked up brightly at Brasseur.
“Your friend’s name and address, please. He’ll confirm your story?”
Feydeau frowned. “Is—is that necessary, Commissaire?”
“Certainly.”
“Well then …” He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Might I have a word in private?”
Aristide followed Brasseur and Feydeau into the adjoining chamber, a snug library where gleaming gold-stamped leather spines shone in glass-fronted bookcases.
“You see,” Feydeau began, and stopped. “It’s a terribly delicate matter.”
“You can trust our discretion if it’s nothing to do with the murder,” Brasseur growled.
“Well then,” Feydeau began again, and paused for a second time. “You said the murderer of that poor child might have been her lover. Er … I was not this secret lover of whom you speak, I assure you.” He paused once again, blushed, coughed, and drew a deep breath. “My … er … tastes … don’t run in the direction of young girls.” Sweeping an arm toward the bookshelves, he smiled sheepishly. “Take a look at my book collection if you doubt me.”
“I see,” Brasseur said, reddening.
“The paper, Brasseur,” Aristide said. “With Feydeau’s name.”
Brasseur thrust it at him. A glance told him Feydeau’s handwriting was nothing like that of the mysterious Philippe. “Forgive this intrusion,
citizen. If you would add your friend’s name and address to this same sheet of paper, we won’t inconvenience you further.”
“You—you won’t have to talk to my friend, will you?” Feydeau inquired, rapidly blinking. “He’s married, you see.”
“Only a discreet word in private, I think. Other evidence confirms your story.”
“Other evidence?”
“Your handwriting, and the color of your hair.”
“Oh,” said the young man. “And you’re sure word of … of my … private life … won’t be made public?”
“Your private activities have been legal since 1791. It’s none of our affair.”
“Oh,” said Feydeau again. “Yes. Very well.” He took a quill from a nearby writing-table and added a few lines. “Do keep it to yourself, won’t you? What did you mean, the color of my hair? Do you mean the man you want is dark?”
“Yes, we believe so.”
“Lucky for me!” Feydeau exclaimed. He scratched his head and scowled fiercely with the effort of thinking. “Don’t go, Commissaire. I’m trying to remember … yes, by God, it was the little Montereau girl. I’m sure of it.”
“Would you care to tell us about it?” Brasseur said when Feydeau said nothing more.
“Oh! Yes. Merely something I saw at the opera not too long ago. The girl and her friend, what’s her name …”
“Citizeness Villemain?”
“Yes, that’s the one … they were there, you see, with the friend’s husband, and during the interval I saw the little Montereau in the corridor, outside the boxes. Most people had gone in again for the final act. She was with a young fellow whom I didn’t know, and they were standing close together, behind a column, and he was kissing her hand. Very, very tenderly, if you know what I mean.”
“And the young man was dark-haired?” said Aristide.
“Didn’t I say that? Yes, he had dark hair. Tied back with a ribbon, not hanging in dogs’ ears the way some fellows are wearing it.”
“How old?”
“Old? Oh … twenty-five? Twenty-eight? He was terribly good-looking. I couldn’t help noticing that.”
“And when was this?”
Feydeau shrugged. “I don’t recall the date. Six or eight weeks ago, more or less.”
“Perhaps you remember the opera you were attending?”
“Oh, no, they all sound alike. I don’t care much for music, you know, but one must have a box all the same.”
“Thank you, citizen,” Brasseur said. “Looks as if our errand wasn’t wasted after all.”
#
Brasseur and Aristide spent an hour at the commissariat setting the statements, notes, and evidence regarding the murders of Célie Montereau and Louis Saint-Ange into order. At length, as the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece struck seven, Brasseur thrust the entire heap of papers into a cardboard folder, pushed it aside, and fetched a bottle of red wine and two glasses from a cabinet.
“So,” said Brasseur, after pouring a second glass for himself, “here we are where we started. Imagine that young idiot murdering anyone. So much for the Villemain woman’s guesses.”
“We’re not back where we started,” said Aristide, taking a pack of cards from a drawer. “Feydeau’s evidence confirms Grangier’s. A young man, handsome, dark-haired. Citizeness Villemain was only incorrect about the individual.”
“But how do we find him?”
“Feydeau said he saw him at the opera house.”
Brasseur grinned. “Right. So our young man is prosperous enough to go to the opera, and probably to sit in a box somewhere near to the Villemains’, in the first or second circle, which doesn’t come cheap. Unless he’d been a guest in somebody else’s box?”
“Well, though Feydeau may be an amiable nitwit,” Aristide said, swiftly laying down the cards, “the one thing he would have noticed and remembered would be if the young man in question had been shabbily dressed; he’d have remarked upon that. Chances are the young man is at least comfortable. That narrows the field considerably.”
Brasseur nodded. “Yes. I suppose another visit to Montereau is in order?”
“I’d recommend it. It’s time he knew about Célie’s love letters. The man you want may have been under Montereau’s nose all the time.” Aristide looked over the cards, frowned, and pushed them together into a heap.
“You weren’t done,” said Brasseur, who was accustomed to his frequent rounds of patience.
“Sometimes you can see, halfway through, that the game can’t be won.” He shuffled the cards, thrust them back into their drawer, and rose. “I’m going to get some dinner. Care to join me?”
“No, I’d better be off. Didier’s is on duty tonight and Marie’ll make me sleep on the landing if I miss supper again. Good night, then.”
#
15 Brumaire (November 5)
Aristide went alone the next afternoon to the great house on Rue de l’Université, where Montereau received him in his private study, his complexion sickly with grief and fatigue. As Aristide summarized their investigations, Montereau frequently glanced at the portrait of Célie that hung on the opposite wall, black crepe draped about it. Though suspecting that Montereau had scarcely heard what he was saying, Aristide concluded with the description he had assembled from Feydeau’s statement and Rosalie Clément’s suggestions.
“A young man,” he concluded, “between twenty-five and thirty, dark-haired and good-looking, probably well-off, and with an ardent, emotional, romantic temperament. A man who is idealistic and sentimental, at least where love and women are concerned.” He handed Montereau one of the letters. Montereau read it through, speechless.
“I know of no one among our present acquaintance who fits your description. No one who could have written this. The young men of our acquaintance are steadier, shall we say; more practical, or mundane, than that. That is to say, I believe young Joubert-Saint-Hilaire once fought a duel over a girl, but everyone knew it began as a drunken brawl in a brothel.” He shook his head. “I wish I could help you.”
#
16 Brumaire (November 6)
“A lady’s waiting for Citizen Brasseur, in his office,” an inspector told Aristide when he arrived at the commissariat late the next morning, shaking away raindrops from his hat. “She wouldn’t reveal her errand.”
“A lady?” Aristide echoed him, raising an eyebrow.
“And a message. Perhaps you’d make sure he reads it.”
Brasseur returned at that moment from resolving a noisy dispute between two street peddlers and impatiently unfolded the letter. “Hmph. Saint-Ange’s corpse is still at the Basse-Geôle… . ‘The remains and effects continue unclaimed although the commissaire has given authorization for the deceased’s next of kin to take away the body… . In another twenty-four hours it will be necessary to send away the body for burial for reasons of public health… .’ What the devil do I care about some corpse? I wish those two ghouls wouldn’t harass me with this nonsense.”
Still clutching the letter in one hand, he strode away to his office. Following him, Aristide discovered a veiled woman in black waiting in an armchair. She rose as they approached, and lifted her veil.
“Citizeness Villemain,” Brasseur said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Especially so soon after Célie’s funeral,” Aristide added. “I hope it wasn’t too distressing for you. How may we assist you?”
“I think perhaps I can be of some service to you, citizens. The young man you spoke of—the one who may have done this … this dreadful thing—I told you I knew of no one except for Citizen Feydeau.”
Brasseur shook his head. “We questioned Feydeau. He’s not the man.”
“It did seem rather improbable. But I’ve been trying to remember everything I knew about Célie when we were girls. And I did recall one thing: when we were both home from the abbey, just before I was married, we used to sigh over her father’s private secretary. He was young, about twenty-one, and remarkably handsom
e. Being girls of fifteen and seventeen, we adored him.”
Aristide thought back to his errand of the day before and recalled a fleeting glimpse of a man in a black wig copying letters at a desk in the library, a man who could not have been described as either young or handsome. “I saw no such man at Montereau’s house.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. Célie’s father dismissed him. We learned, much later, that he’d been dismissed because he had been mixed up in a scandal a few years before. He’d killed a man in a duel, and Célie’s father doesn’t approve of dueling.”
“I see,” Aristide said. “He must have been still in his teens at the time of the duel, which certainly indicates a passionate temperament… . You think this could be a man with whom Célie would have fallen in love?”
Hélène Villemain smiled apologetically. “The age is right. He would be about twenty-eight or twenty-nine now. His surname was Aubry. He was of good family, I recall, but very poor.”
“Well, perhaps Montereau can tell me more about this man.” Brasseur hastily wrote a note, sealed it, and sent Dautry to find a messenger. “Did he have dark hair?”
Hélène blinked. “How did you know? Dark hair, and great dark eyes. We liked to think he was a poet, because he looked as a poet should have looked. He was so handsome; we both imagined ourselves head over heels in love with him.” She blushed, ducking her head. “What a ninny I was.”
“Not at all,” Aristide said with a brief smile. “By the way, I understand you were kind to young Théodore during the funeral procession.”
“Did he tell you that? I felt sorry for the poor child. Funerals are such a dreary business.”
Hélène left them as Brasseur turned his attention once more to the letter from the Basse-Geôle. “I don’t see any reason why Saint-Ange’s body shouldn’t be released for burial. Do you?”
Aristide dropped into the nearest chair. “Montereau doesn’t seem to care. If he chooses to disregard the remote kinship …”
The word “kinship” seemed to echo in his mind like the clang of a bell. He scowled, trying to grasp an elusive thought. Something he had just said, something dropped casually in conversation with Hélène and Brasseur. Something about … funerals … and Saint-Ange. Saint-Ange’s dead face flashed before him, cadaverous but undeniably handsome. Something … someone … who reminded him of Saint-Ange?
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