The Nicolas Le Floch affair

by Jean-FranCois Parot

  ‘No, Monsieur. I had two pairs, one of which was in Rue de Verneuil, where I kept a number of things.’

  ‘And where was that pair?’ asked Sartine.

  ‘They had disappeared from the closet where they were usually kept. Someone clearly wanted to make it seem as though I had come back to see Julie that same evening. Let me remind you that it had been snowing and the ground was muddy. Only Julie and the two servants knew that pair of boots even existed. The autopsy performed on the victim proved that she had been poisoned, and also raised a number of interesting questions. As was her custom, she had eaten nothing solid. So who was that chicken wing for? Obviously, once again it was there to suggest that I had been in the house, that dish being my favourite of those prepared by Julia and Casimir. The practitioners’ suspicions eventually fell on the liquid. Further examination confirmed this supposition. If the chicken had not been poisoned, the liquid was. There too, I was in the firing line, since I often prepared eggnog for Julie. In fact, it was on the subject of eggnog that we had had our very public quarrel earlier that evening.’

  ‘Do you know the nature of the poison?’ asked Monsieur Testard du Lys.

  ‘Alas, no! Fragments of crushed seeds were found, which suggests that a vegetable poison was used. However, another hypothesis emerged, which was that these fragments might have been intended to conceal the existence of another poison, which although powerful may be difficult to detect.’

  ‘And what was the aim of this ploy?’ asked Monsieur Lenoir.

  ‘To put the blame on someone who was familiar with the house and knew that the two slaves had brought spices with them from the West Indies and used them in their cooking. After all, I could easily have had access to those spices. The suspicions were piling up, made even worse by a letter of denunciation from Monsieur Balbastre claiming that I had been in the kitchen on the evening of the tragedy. He couldn’t have known this himself, so he must have been told by Friedrich von Müvala. Monsieur de Sartine then revealed to me the special role Madame de Lastérieux had played as an agent of the police, using her residence as a place to gather information, and even on occasion testing the loyalty of the King’s servants.’

  No one batted an eyelid at this revelation, except Sartine, whose thin lips tensed.

  ‘Balbastre, questioned by Bourdeau, and somewhat driven into a corner, confirmed this and confessed that it was he who had been given the task of bringing Julie and myself together. He was clearly very afraid of someone important, whose name he refused to reveal.’

  Nicolas judged it prudent not to mention the hypothesis that Balbastre belonged to some mysterious Masonic lodge.

  ‘Was it by any chance you who asked Balbastre to do that?’ Lenoir asked Sartine.

  ‘Certainly not,’ replied Sartine curtly. ‘We have no idea whose initiative it was.’

  ‘Meanwhile,’ Nicolas resumed, ‘Monsieur von Müvala had vanished, but before doing so he, too, had found the time to send a letter of denunciation to the Criminal Lieutenant.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Monsieur Testard du Lys, ‘it would have been preferable in every respect if the contents of the letter had been kept from the prime suspect. Then he could have been arrested, taken to a place of justice and duly interrogated, tried and—’

  ‘Sentenced and hanged!’ said Sartine. ‘Fortunately, my dear fellow, the late King judged otherwise, or you would now have a miscarriage of justice and the death of an innocent man on your conscience, and I know how much you care about having a clear conscience. I prevented that happening to protect the reputation of the law and the good of the State.’

  Monsieur Testard du Lys sighed and muttered something under his breath.

  ‘I should add,’ said Nicolas, ‘that this new informant proved to be something of a mystery man. There is no record of his having either entered or left the kingdom. All we knew of him was a remark from Balbastre to the effect that he was interested in botany, and my own observation that he played the pianoforte proficiently. I ask you, gentlemen, to remember these two points. As I said, the man disappeared, and all our efforts to find him proved fruitless. At that point in the investigation, a wise old friend of mine remarked to me that Julie’s murder probably concealed more than one thing. There was a great deal of truth in the observation.’

  Monsieur de Sartine raised his hand. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘Commissioner Le Floch will now go into some detail about a series of events so private and so closely involved with the interests of the throne and of the late monarch that I think it necessary to bind you to the most absolute secrecy regarding what you are about to hear. We are listening, Monsieur Le Floch.’

  Nicolas cleared his throat. ‘Advised to distance myself from the scene of the drama, I was entrusted by the late King with a secret mission to London. Madame du Barry, informed somehow of my departure, crossed my path at Chantilly. There followed several attempts both to kill me and to steal the papers I carried as the King’s plenipotentiary. Miraculously, I escaped these attacks. Returning to Paris, I learnt that Madame de Lastérieux had named me in her will as her sole heir. In addition, there was a letter from Julie, posted by her servant Casimir on the night of 6 to 7 January, implying that a reconciliation was possible between us.’

  ‘I must say that letter doesn’t quite fit in,’ said Sartine. ‘If we assume that there was a plot against you, and that somebody was trying to make everyone believe you were jealous, surely the letter would seem to remove any motive for violence, thus proving your innocence.’

  ‘Provided I had received it in time! Of course, Monsieur, your argument is a reasonable one, and I myself have given the matter a great deal of thought. However, there is much doubt as to the authenticity of this document. A master in the art of detecting forgeries will so testify before this court. Now, if this letter is indeed a forgery, then the man or men who were trying to get me condemned may well have hoped that again suspicion would fall on me. After all, who knew Julie de Lastérieux’s handwriting better than me? Who had more examples of it in his possession? There was even a phrase of Molière’s, inserted in such an artificial manner that it could not help but attract attention. If we add that the will, too, is a counterfeit and contravenes the legal rules, then the very falsity of the two documents could just as easily have been used against me.’

  ‘Do you mean,’ asked Lenoir, ‘that both the letter and the will are forgeries designed to throw suspicion on you?’

  ‘That is precisely what I mean. It also appears from Doctor Semacgus’s researches in the Jardin du Roi that a drawer containing a spice from the West Indies known as piment bouc was emptied of its contents by a visitor not long before Julie de Lastérieux’s murder. It so happens that this visitor, Monsieur du Maine-Giraud, lived in Rue Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre in furnished rooms belonging to Monsieur Balbastre, one of the parties to the drama in question. Our discoveries must themselves have been discovered, and this young man was horribly murdered and his death made to look like suicide. There are two suspects to this crime. One, who went in disguised as a Capuchin, left the house in the shape of a young man, the other, who was recognised as Balbastre, went into the house and came out a short time later to take refuge in the private mansion of …’

  Sartine threw him an imperious look which made the expected name die in his mouth.

  ‘… of a highly influential individual. You should also know, gentlemen, that we discovered some bloodstained shoes and a Capuchin’s robe in Monsieur Balbastre’s house. Last but not least, the famous boots belonging to me, which had disappeared from Rue de Verneuil, reappeared miraculously in the bedroom in Rue Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre.’

  The three magistrates looked at each other. They seemed dismayed by the turn Nicolas’s presentation of the facts had taken.

  ‘I was amongst those who had the unfortunate privilege of attending His Majesty the late King in his final illness,’ he went on. ‘Just before his death, he entrusted me with another mission. I was to deliver a box containing
a number of precious stones and a document to Madame du Barry at the convent of Pont-aux-Dames. This object I kept first at Monsieur de Noblecourt’s house in Rue Montmartre, from where, gentlemen, there was an attempt to steal it. It was then that I realised why my keys had been stolen during my journey to England. It explained, on the one hand, the strange message which led us to have the Seine dragged at Pont Royal to find an empty jewel box, and on the other hand, how a stranger was able to enter my apartment in Rue Montmartre. In the first case, they wanted to make it seem as if I had disposed of the keys to Madame de Lastérieux’s house, and in the second, they were trying to misappropriate those things entrusted to me by our dying master.’

  ‘This story of yours, Monsieur,’ said the Criminal Lieutenant, shaking his head, ‘is becoming less and less credible as it goes along.’

  ‘Then you will be even more surprised, Monsieur, by what happened next,’ replied Nicolas. ‘I was attacked on the road to Meaux, and only owe my life to the foresight of Inspector Bourdeau, who killed my attacker. This turned out to be Cadilhac, a low criminal and the henchman of former Commissioner Camusot. He had a paper in the cuff of his coat with Camusot’s address on it. I’ll pass over Comtesse du Barry’s surprise on discovering that the box was filled with pebbles and a blank sheet of paper. It was the King himself, gentlemen, our new King, who revealed to me the precautionary measure taken by his grandfather. I was a kind of decoy. His Majesty was in possession of the diamonds and the document all the time.’

  ‘And how does all this end?’ said Monsieur Lenoir.

  ‘We needed to track down the person who had tried to get hold of those things. We tricked him into thinking that he had been cheated by his emissary Cadilhac. Thanks to this trick, which involved a meeting arranged at the thermal baths, we were able to arrest three suspects: Commissioner Camusot, Friedrich von Müvala and a young man who has so far obstinately refused to give us his name.’

  ‘Evidence, Monsieur, evidence!’ cried Sartine, leaning towards Nicolas.

  ‘I shall do my best to give you satisfaction. First, you will hear witnesses whose words will confirm my arguments. Then, I shall interrogate the suspects and, with God’s help, try to convince you of their guilt and make them admit their faults and crimes.’

  One by one, Julie’s notary Master Tiphaine, Master Bontemps, senior member of the Company of Notaries, Monsieur Rodollet, public letter-writer, then the Châtelet agents Bourdeau, Rabouine and Tirepot, and finally Doctor Semacgus were introduced and questioned by Nicolas and the three magistrates. Master Tiphaine came out with the same excuses he had given before, but remained silent about the reasons for both his journey to Holland and his second, abortive departure. Master Bontemps, wrapped in a tunic of cat skins despite the heat, destroyed his fellow notary’s reputation in a few scathing words. Monsieur Rodollet expounded his observations on the documents that had been submitted to him – in such detail as to leave the members of the commission in an even greater state of perplexity. Bourdeau gave an account of his investigation, Rabouine and Tirepot described the surveillance and the events following the meeting in the thermal baths. Finally it was the turn of Julia, Casimir’s companion, a small dark form wrapped in shawls. Nicolas walked up to her.

  ‘Julia,’ he said gently, ‘could you repeat for us—’

  Monsieur Testard du Lys interrupted. ‘I consider it unseemly for a black slave to be heard before our commission. Monsieur Le Floch seems to be invoking some kind of technicality, and I cannot be a party to it.’

  The three magistrates began conferring. It seemed to Nicolas that the exchange of views was a lively one: he saw Monsieur de Sartine underline his arguments by hammering with his fist on the table where the commission sat.

  ‘Please continue,’ he said at last to Nicolas. ‘The majority wish to hear this witness.’

  ‘Julia,’ Nicolas resumed, ‘I’d like you to repeat what you told Awa.’

  ‘Casimir was very angry with Madame Julie,’ the young woman said, in a slightly lilting accent. ‘She didn’t keep her promise to free us when we got to France. She changed her mind. He didn’t know which way to turn. He nearly told Monsieur Nicolas, who was so kind to us. Not like Madame, who was hard sometimes.’

  ‘Why didn’t he tell him?’ asked Lenoir.

  ‘He said it was because the two lovebirds were so close, it

  would never work. When the other man, the younger one, started coming to the house—’

  ‘Monsieur von Müvala?’

  ‘Yes. Casimir talked to him about it. One thing led to another, and the gentleman suggested a deal. He was in love with Madame. He wanted a potion that would help him … you know. In return he promised a very large sum of gold, enough to get away. Casimir hesitated for a long time, then decided there was no harm in it. The night Madame died, he prepared eggnog, adding some powder provided by Monsieur von Müvala. That gentleman also asked for a plate of chicken, then told Casimir to say that he had posted a letter from Madame, during the night, without asking any questions. Another man came during the night and threatened him if he didn’t say that he had seen Monsieur Le Floch in the kitchen. We didn’t understand. It was only after we found Madame dead that we started to get worried. Casimir made me promise not to say anything. He said he would never admit he had seen Monsieur Nicolas. I don’t think he did.’

  ‘A man?’ said Nicolas. ‘Another man?’

  ‘Yes, in a big cloak and boots.’

  ‘Would you recognise him?’

  ‘No, I didn’t see him. I just heard his voice. It was an old man’s voice.’

  ‘Monsieur Balbastre?’

  ‘No, his voice is very shrill.’

  ‘Do you have anything else to add?’

  ‘You can find the money hidden in our room, under the tapestry.’

  ‘May it please the commission,’ declared Nicolas, ‘tubes of louis were discovered, still wrapped in strips of paper from the Comptroller General’s office.’

  He gave a signal, and two officers emerged from the corner of the room, approached the magistrates’ table and placed four heavy tubes of gold coins on it. Monsieur Testard du Lys, who, as Sartine put it, always thought after speaking instead of before, looked at them and exclaimed, ‘In your opinion, what does it mean that these louis are still wrapped in strips of paper from the Comptroller General’s office?’

  Sartine was staring at Nicolas.

  ‘Monsieur, I enquired of the cashiers from that office. Gold coins are usually supplied to the great ministerial departments wrapped in that way.’

  ‘And what do you deduce from that?’

  ‘Nothing. I merely make the observation that, unless it came straight from that office, the money given to Casimir by this unknown man must have come from a ministerial department.’

  Julia was shown out and Balbastre was called. Nicolas found him unrecognisable. All traces of the powdered, would-be dandy had vanished. Sloppily dressed, bare-headed and unshaven, his face grey, the organist was the very image of wretchedness, like someone whose life had suddenly been thrown off course.

  ‘Monsieur Balbastre,’ Nicolas said, ‘are you prepared to reveal to us in complete honesty all you know about the murder of Madame de Lastérieux and its consequences, and about the murder of Monsieur du Maine-Giraud, who was your lodger? I call your attention to the fact that your statement will be heard by three magistrates who have been appointed by the King to pronounce on this matter.’

  Balbastre turned a distraught face to the members of the commission. ‘I have no idea why I’m here,’ he stammered. ‘Allow me to express my surprise that a person suspected of an odious crime should be the one given the task of questioning me before you. I protest … I am the organist of Notre Dame, a composer, a well-known virtuoso, harpsichord tutor to—’

  Sartine raised his hand. ‘I command you, Monsieur, to avoid mentioning illustrious names, which have no place before this commission. Monsieur Le Floch has been cleared of all charges, by order of H
is Majesty. He is conducting this case, and I would be grateful to you if you could reply as candidly as possible to the questions which are put to you.’

  ‘What did you do,’ asked Nicolas, ‘after you left Madame de Lastérieux’s house on the evening of 6 January?’

  Balbastre, still crushed, refused to answer any questions, including those concerning his presence in Rue Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre at the time of Monsieur du Maine-Giraud’s simulated suicide. One again, Nicolas sensed that the musician was haunted by the threat hanging over him. Would they ever know what exactly Balbastre was afraid of?

  ‘I ask that the suspect be held for the moment,’ he said. ‘I haven’t quite finished with him yet. One last formality will be necessary. Let Commissioner Camusot be brought in.’

  The man who appeared was quite unlike the man with whom Nicolas had crossed paths at the beginning of his police career. They had never confronted one another directly, but he knew that Camusot had tried several times to have him killed by his henchman Mauval. Once tall, he was now stooped, his sparse, yellowish hair revealing the bald patch on top of his skull. His deeply lined face was impassive. Nicolas knew this was going to be difficult. There was no direct charge against the former commissioner. An address in a killer’s pocket, an encounter in Notre Dame, his frequent visits to the d’Aiguillon mansion: these were not crimes. It would be impossible to confound Camusot simply through questions and answers. He would have to use another stratagem, one to which he had given a great deal of thought.

  ‘Monsieur,’ said Nicolas, ‘I know you only too well, and have known you for too long, to think for a moment that you might tell me the truth, so I’m certainly not counting on that.’

  Camusot raised his head. ‘Well, it would be difficult for an innocent man to respond to such an insolent introduction,’ he replied. ‘Nevertheless, I am enough of a prophet to predict that you and those controlling you will soon be ruing the day you arrested me so unjustly.’