A sudden extravagant, impossible idea striking him, he jerked to his feet again and gazed blankly at the vast map of Paris pinned on the whitewashed wall opposite him. The lines and letters swam into a blur. It was preposterous … and yet …
He snatched up his hat and plunged into the corridor. “Citizeness! Citizeness Villemain, could you spare another hour?”
She turned, surprised. “If you wish.”
“I should like you to come with me to confirm—or possibly deny—an implausible observation that’s suddenly struck me.” He shook the hair away from his face and thrust his hands in the pockets of his coat. “I warn you, it’s probably a fool’s journey. And it may be distasteful and distressing to you.”
“If it will serve to find Célie’s murderer—what is it you want me to do?”
“Just come with me, please,” he told her, taking her arm. “I won’t tell you where we’re going, or why, because I’d rather you arrived with no preconceived notions.”
Fantastical conjectures whirled through his thoughts as their fiacre jolted through the streets. He was undoubtedly dreaming, he told himself, the result of too much time and commiseration spent on that damnable pair of murders—yet he could not shake off the sense of inevitability hovering about him.
“Where on earth are we going?” Hélène inquired, as the cab slowed at the corner of Rue Denis and he directed the driver to continue to the Châtelet and along the public passage through the center of the fortress. They arrived a moment later at the small door in the passage, dark and close beneath the overcast sky.
“I’m not surprised you’ve never seen this place,” Aristide said as he climbed out of the cab and offered her a helping hand. “This is a lesser-known, and generally avoided, door to the cellars of the Châtelet. The Basse-Geôle de la Seine. Where most victims of accidental or violent death are taken until their bodies are claimed. I’m about to ask you to look at a corpse. Will that distress you?”
“I’ve seen corpses before.”
“At funerals, I expect, neatly laid out in coffins; not week-old corpses stripped of their clothing, waiting until the state can bury them. There is a considerable difference. Have you a scented handkerchief with you?”
Speechless, she drew a handkerchief from her reticule and clutched it as he escorted her through the heavy door. Bouille, the pop-eyed concierge, met them in the murky vestibule, inquired their business, and with a lugubrious sigh unlocked the grille to the lower chamber. The stench rose up to meet them and Aristide fumbled for his own handkerchief as they descended the steps. Pausing now and then to twitch aside a sheet and glance at a tag tied to a wrist, Bouille led them among the silent forms.
“Where do they all come from?” Hélène whispered, shivering. Their footsteps echoed from the stones. “They can’t all have been murdered?”
Aristide shook his head. “Most are bodies taken from the river. Suicides or accidental drownings. Bouille says the suicide rate has swelled shockingly over the past couple of years.” Life since the Revolution began had grown no easier for the poor, now enduring widespread unemployment, periodic food shortages, and runaway inflation. “Hence the stink,” he added. “No one smells like lily of the valley after a few days in the water.”
Bouille stopped beside one table, squinted at the tag, and waited stolidly by the shrouded shape. “I had better take a look first,” Aristide continued, “in the event it isn’t fit for a woman to see.”
He nodded and Bouille lifted away the sheet. Louis Saint-Ange’s corpse still wore a shirt; no one had claimed even his clothes.
The powder burns and the crust of dried blood around the bullet hole in Saint-Ange’s forehead seemed startlingly dark on the pallid, waxy skin. The flesh had settled on the bones, leaving the face gaunt and skull-like; despite the strip of linen that encircled the head and held the dead man’s jaws closed, the lips were beginning to sag away from the teeth in the macabre grin of decay.
Aristide studied the dead face for a moment. He had not, after all, imagined the resemblance.
“It’s disagreeable,” he said, turning away, “but not unduly distressing. Please look at this man for a few moments.”
Hélène tiptoed forward and gazed at the corpse. Aristide saw her shiver and swallow.
“Is this the man who was found with Célie?”
“Of whom does he remind you?” he asked her, disregarding her question. “Try to imagine him alive. Death has aged him, but try to see him as a good-looking man of my own age. Think back on all the faces you’ve seen of late.”
She frowned. Aristide watched her. The clammy, pervasive smell of sour flesh and rancid blood was becoming easier to bear.
Abruptly she turned to him, eyes wide in surprise.
“Théodore?”
“Yes,” Aristide said, “I thought so, too.”
CHAPTER 11
“But what can this mean?” said Hélène, after they had retreated to the public passage and she had drawn several deep, grateful breaths of fresh air.
“I can think of one explanation immediately,” Aristide said, “but it scarcely seems credible.”
“Was that the man who was found with Célie? I understand he was some sort of distant relative. It might be merely a family resemblance.”
Aristide shook his head. “No. Montereau told me Saint-Ange was a relative of his first wife. His second wife was Théodore’s mother, so there ought to be no resemblance. Unless it’s another sort of family resemblance… .”
“If Célie’s mother had had a liaison with … no. I knew her. I simply cannot believe it.”
“I did say it scarcely seemed credible.”
“But what can this have to do with Célie’s murder?”
“I’ve no idea. It’s something we must take into account, though. It may mean nothing; it may mean everything.” Aristide turned to her, unsmiling. “I hardly need to ask you to keep this intelligence to yourself.”
“But what about—”
“Montereau? What earthly use could there be in afflicting him further, by telling him his son may not be his son? Don’t awaken a sleeping cat.”
Hélène smiled at the old proverb and nodded. They rode silently through the heavy mist to Rue du Bac.
Aristide returned on foot to the Right Bank, hoping the cool November air would cleanse the clinging fetor of the Basse-Geôle from his clothes. Brasseur was eating his midday dinner at his desk when Aristide returned. “Join me?” Brasseur said. “This caterer is generous with his portions.”
Aristide took a deep appreciative sniff of the steam rising from the dish of chicken fricassee and roast potatoes as Brasseur spooned some onto a second plate. “One should eat to live, and not live to eat, according to Molière; but I don’t mind if I do.”
“So where did you go haring off to with the Villemain woman? The secretaries were most intrigued.”
“Ah. Now there’s a tale. I took her to the Basse-Geôle.”
“Eh?” said Brasseur, pausing with a gravy-soaked morsel of bread halfway to his mouth.
“I wanted to see if she, too, perceived the strong resemblance between the late Louis Saint-Ange and our young friend Théodore Montereau.” Aristide poured half a glass of wine for himself, adding: “You might shut your mouth before you catch a few flies.”
“But didn’t Montereau say—no, curse it, he told us Saint-Ange was related to his first wife—saints above, d’you think his wife had been playing in the muck with that young scoundrel, and passed the boy off as Montereau’s?”
Aristide shook his head. “Citizeness Villemain couldn’t imagine such a thing, and neither can I. In all honesty,” he added, between mouthfuls, “I’d sooner expect it of Célie, rather than her mother. She must have been just the sort of sentimental, credulous girl that a bounder like Saint-Ange—good God.”
They stared at each other over the cooling dish of chicken.
“What became of the child, we asked ourselves. The answer was right before us. The old
lady told me that Célie adored the boy, far more than an elder sister might be expected to.”
Brasseur smacked his palm down on the tabletop, setting the dishes to rattling. “The Villemain woman said Montereau was away in Russia during Célie’s so-called illness. He never knew a thing.”
“If her husband was away for a good long time, all Madame Montereau had to do was pin a pillow under her gown for a few months … perhaps her maid was in on it, too. You couldn’t carry it off now, not with the little wisps women are wearing these days, but you could have done anything under the sort of gowns they were wearing in ’eighty-nine or ’ninety.”
“Who’s to say Montereau doesn’t know everything?” Brasseur suggested. “Say you’re a middle-aged nobleman with a nice tidy fortune, and a pretty daughter, but no son. You desperately want an heir, but there’s no sign of any more children. Then what should happen but your daughter confesses she’s been indiscreet and is in the family way. Mightn’t you seize the chance to provide yourself with an heir, and preserve your daughter’s reputation, all at the same time?”
Aristide nodded. He meditated a moment, tapping his fork on the table. “Perhaps. It could be done in the strictest secrecy. I wonder …”
“And if Montereau had a secret to keep, mightn’t he have had a motive—no, that’s no good. We know where he was that afternoon and evening, dining with three friends at Méot’s. I asked Méot myself, and he swore up and down that Montereau had been there for hours on décadi.”
A puffing messenger boy rapped on the door, shuffled in, and dropped a folded note on Brasseur’s desk. “We’ll return to this shortly,” Brasseur said, and unfolded the note. With a grunt he thrust it at Aristide. “From Montereau.”
#
Citizen Commissaire:
You ask me about my former secretary. His name was Philippe Aubry and I employed him from February of 1789 to January of 1791. His family was ancient and respected, though penurious.
I dismissed him from my service when I learned he had killed a distant kinsman of mine in a duel several years previously, when he was only seventeen years old. The unhappy affair, I understand, was conducted in an honorable manner and no prosecution resulted from it (the hapless young man’s family, for the sake of his posthumous reputation, chose not to press criminal charges against Aubry). I could not and cannot, however, overlook the fact that Aubry was responsible for the death of one of my relatives, that the affair was most scandalous in all respects, and that dueling is illegal; and that therefore I was sadly deceived in Aubry’s character.
I believe he became entangled in politics after leaving my employ, and was attached to the Rolandist party until the unfortunate Jacobin coup of June 2, 1793. I know nothing more of him.
#
“Philippe Aubry,” Aristide repeated.
“You think this is the fellow?”
“Citizeness Clément said he was one of the Brissotins’ hangers-on. If he’s as sentimental and pompous as his letters, it’s likely he agreed with every bloated word that dropped from old Minister Roland’s mouth. I think this is Célie’s admirer, certainly.”
“Well, Philippe Aubry, whoever and wherever you are: Are you a murderer?” Brasseur scrawled a brief letter and shouted for his secretary.
“Dautry, consult our section registers for any trace of this Aubry. If you have no luck, I want copies of this letter sent as soon as possible to the commissaires of the following sections …” Rising, he frowned at the map of Paris pinned on the wall. “Tuileries, Place-Vendôme, Champs-Élysées, Unité, Mucius-Scevola, Ouest, Théâtre-Français, Fontaine-de-Grenelle … that should do for a start.”
“The more genteel sections?” Aristide said, glancing over Brasseur’s shoulder. He returned to his chair and leaned back, tapping his fingers on the arm. “Brasseur … I think our friend François might be adept at flirting with chambermaids.”
Brasseur chuckled. François, they had agreed long ago, was one of the cleverest spies in Paris.
“I think we might send him along to Rue de l’Université to work his way into the Montereau kitchens,” Aristide continued, scribbling a brief note and sealing it, “and learn a few trivial facts about the family. The sort of thing any lackey might gossip about over a cup of hot chocolate or a glass of the master’s brandy. I do feel an itch to satisfy this abominable curiosity of mine.”
#
He had a reply from François before the day was out. Continuing on foot from the Panthéon, for his cab driver refused to go farther after dusk into the congestion, dirt, and stink of the faubourg Marcel, Aristide followed the tortuous, ill-lit back streets to Rue Geneviève and continued down the hill toward Rue de l’Arbalète, as his friend’s note directed him. He paused, hoping he had not lost his way in the tangle of alleys and passageways, just as a sturdy figure shouldered itself through the shabby pedestrians and clapped a hand on his shoulder.
François did have another name, but he was unaccountably reluctant to divulge it. Nor had Aristide ever discovered exactly how old François was. He suspected the young man was little more than twenty, though he possessed the sharp wits and audacity, as well as the powerful build, of a man ten years his senior.
“François. Look here, I have a very discreet job for you—”
“All business, aren’t you. Come on, let’s have a drink first.” He slapped Aristide on the back and led him to a nearby wine shop, all but deserted in the twilight. “What’ll you have?”
“Despite your invitation, I suspect I’ll be the one to pay for our wine; so you’d better be content with something straight from the cask.” Aristide pointed François to the far end of one of the trestle tables, avoiding the handful of roughly dressed men, evidently regulars, who clustered about the meager fire, smoking and playing cards. After ordering a jug of cheap red wine from the scowling counterman who slouched toward them, he glanced dubiously through the smoky gloom at the carter who snored, head cradled on his arms, at the other end of the table.
“He’s not doing any eavesdropping,” François said with a grin. He sidled along the length of the bench, daintily picked a pack of cards from the sleeping man’s coat, and returned to Aristide. “I’ve been polishing my talents since I saw you last.”
“At picking pockets?”
“Huh. This fellow wouldn’t wake up unless you lit a fire under his rump. No, I meant my talents at card playing. Care for a game?”
“Certainly not,” Aristide said, amused. “I imagine you’d have me plucked like a chicken in half an hour.”
“So, about this job.” François shuffled the cards and fanned them. “I don’t suppose it requires card playing? Here, take one.”
Aristide chose a card at random. “I fear not.”
“Too bad.” François took it back, shuffled vigorously, and cut the pack. “That your card? Liberty of worship, otherwise known as the queen of wands?”
“Of course it is. And you’ve plainly become accomplished at slipping cards into your sleeve.” As François took possession of the wine jug, Aristide absently began to lay the cards out on the scarred, wine-stained table. “But I need a pair of eyes, not a cardsharp. What would you say to spending a few days idling in the company of servants in a wealthy household?”
“Pretty girls?” said François, tossing back a glass and pouring himself another.
“A few,” Aristide admitted, thinking back to the domestics whom they had questioned at the Hôtel de Montereau. “But for heaven’s sake control yourself. How are you to ask questions of everyone if you’re in bed over the stable with the kitchenmaid?”
“Eh, I see your point. Well, it’ll be a sad temptation, but I suppose I can steel myself against it. So what am I asking while I flirt with the girls?”
“The address is the Hôtel de Montereau on Rue de l’Université. Some may still call it the Hôtel de Soyecourt; the master is the ex-Comte de Soyecourt. I want to know some unimportant little facts about the family, facts any chambermaid could tell you
if she’s inclined to gossip: for example, if a distant relative, a fellow of unsavory reputation named Saint-Ange, was a frequent visitor, oh, six or seven years ago. And whether or not the late lady of the house kept the same lady’s maid all during her pregnancy—not the last pregnancy, mind you, not the one that killed her, but when she was pregnant with the boy, Théodore, who is now six years old.”
François scribbled a few words on a dirty scrap of paper and nodded. “Lady’s maid. Easy. Any chambermaid’ll be ready to gossip about the other servants, or why somebody else got sacked. What else?”
“And I want to know where the boy was born.”
“Funny questions you have. What’s all this leading to?”
“It may be connected to the death of a young woman, the daughter of the house. She was twenty-two years old; whatever foolish errors she may have committed, she didn’t deserve to die. Help me find her murderer.”
#
When François had left him, Aristide sat in the wine shop for a half hour more, gazing at the pyramid of oaken casks at the far end of the common room. This grimy tavern, sure to become noisy with local chatter as the evening regulars drifted in, was no place to sit and think, nor yet to spend a leisurely, solitary hour or two. He did not yet want to return to his own lodgings; Clotilde, his landlady, a handsome widow not far past forty, tended to clumsily pursue bachelors. She had taken a special interest in him ever since he had made the mistake, three years before, in a rare impetuous moment, of sharing her bed for a single night. Though he liked her well enough, he knew she would be there as usual in her parlor, like an amiable spider lurking in its web, with a coquettish smile and a bottle and a cozy fire, and he was not in the mood for feminine companionship.
Game of Patience Page 11
