The Phantom of Rue Royale

by Jean-FranCois Parot

  ‘Monsieur,’ cried Charles Galaine indignantly, ‘this is an outrage! How can you imagine—’

  ‘I said pretends,’ replied Nicolas. ‘Between appearance and actual fact there’s a difference you seem not to grasp – but I do. As I was saying, he pretends to flirt with his mistress, all the better to conceal something else even less fit for publication. I assume he is involved in a number of adventures. Is he in love with Élodie, the young girl of the house? Is he aware that it would be to his advantage to plead his cause with her? That way he could become part of the family, and ensure his position. Has he had wind of Élodie’s expectations? Anything is possible, and suspicion falls on him, too. In answer to our questions, he persists in claiming that his one concern is to protect a lady’s honour. Does that make sense, coming from someone in danger of being charged with a capital offence and executed in Place de Grève? And yet he refuses to reveal his whereabouts on that same night. With your permission, gentlemen, I’d like to arrange a little confrontation that will, I hope, throw new light on the case.’

  Nicolas called Bourdeau and gave him instructions. The inspector walked up to the youngest of the police officers, asked him to take off his wig and jacket, and positioned him facing the two magistrates. He then asked Jean Galaine and Louis Dorsacq to stand on either side of him.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Nicolas resumed, ‘if you’ll allow me, I’d like to call a witness.’

  The door of the courtroom opened and Old Marie, full of self-importance, admitted a puny, half-bald little man. He was wearing steel-rimmed spectacles, through which he contemplated the solemn assembly with frightened eyes. With his threadbare black ratine coat and overlarge, down-at-heel shoes with no buckles, the man presented a wretched picture.

  ‘Please come closer, Monsieur …?’ said Nicolas.

  ‘Jacques Robillard, Monsieur, at your service.’

  ‘Please tell us your occupation.’

  ‘I’m a second-hand clothes dealer, in Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple.’

  ‘Monsieur Robillard, you told Inspector Bourdeau that early on the morning of thirty-first May 1770, you received as security, for the sum of eighteen livres, five sols and six deniers, a number of garments and objects, some of which are on display in this courtroom. Is that correct?’

  ‘Absolutely, Monsieur, that’s the truth. Two identical outfits with a cloak and a hat, of good quality. I was surprised that the man accepted so little for them. And an apothecary’s bottle. Obviously, I didn’t argue. It was a good deal for me, because people never come back, and you can sell the things later.’

  ‘Now, Monsieur Robillard, do you see these three men with their backs to you? I’m going to ask you to walk in front of them and tell me if you recognise your customer from the other day.’

  Nicolas prayed to heaven that the witness didn’t open his mouth and repeat what he had already told Bourdeau, which was that he had not paid any attention to the customer’s face and so could not give a description. He hoped that some detail would come back to the man. This was a card he had to play, however doubtful it was. But even before Robillard had stepped in front of the three young men, Louis Dorsacq turned and walked up to Nicolas.

  ‘Commissioner,’ he said in a low voice, ‘before this man recognises me, I’d prefer to tell you myself that it was I who pawned those things, to pay a gambling debt.’

  Nicolas had the feeling that this was yet another attempt to pervert the course of justice. ‘You’ve certainly changed your tune! Perhaps you could tell us exactly where you got hold of these odds and ends you pawned, without arguing or haggling, for the wretched sum of eighteen livres. And this confession of yours raises other questions. To whom did you owe this sum?’

  ‘Some gambling friends of mine.’

  ‘Well, that’s very specific! But I insist, where did you find all the things you pawned?’

  It was clear that Dorsacq was trying desperately to come up with a plausible story. Whatever it was would not be enough to deceive Nicolas, who knew the likely provenance of the apothecary’s bottle and at least one of Naganda’s costumes.

  ‘In the servants’ pantry.’

  ‘What do you mean, in the servants’ pantry?’

  ‘Yes, I found them one morning in the servants’ pantry, lying about on the floor …’

  ‘Which morning was this?’

  ‘The morning after the disaster in Place Louis XV. I thought they were being thrown out, so I picked them up. Now I’m sorry I did.’

  ‘What about the apothecary’s bottle?’

  ‘That was on the floor, too.’

  ‘So when you see things belonging to your masters lying on the floor, it seems normal to you to pick them up and walk away with them. A likely story! The court is impressed! What were you doing in the shop so early? You don’t live there.’

  ‘I’d come for the summer stocktaking.’

  Nicolas did not want to reveal the rest of the cards up his sleeve just yet. For the moment, it was enough to let Dorsacq tell one patent lie after another. There was no point in rushing things until he had finished questioning all the suspects, so he did not press home his advantage. He dismissed Robillard, who bowed to all and sundry as he went out. The two young men returned to their places on the bench and the police officer put his jacket and wig back on. After a long, thoughtful silence, the commissioner turned to Naganda.

  ‘Monsieur, I find your situation especially puzzling. Like everyone here’ – with a broad gesture, he indicated the Galaines sitting opposite him – ‘you lied to me. I know from experience that there are such things as white lies, lies told in a good cause. Be that as it may, you lied to me. Here you are, the child of a new world, uprooted and transplanted to the shores of an old kingdom, among people who are either curious or hostile – or who can’t really grasp the idea that one can be anything other than Parisian – friendless, with no one to turn to but yourself. And again, here you are, locked up like a criminal, drugged, deceived and – the last straw – someone tries to kill you. How can one not feel the most basic compassion for you in your appalling situation? And yet, you lied. At the point we have reached, I beg you to consider what can still be salvaged. Remember that the only basis for justice is truth. If, as you claim, Élodie’s memory is dear to you, take that last step for her. But, if you persist in your aberration, then you will merely feed every prejudice felt against you, you will increase the burden of suspicion under which you labour and finally, I predict, the inexorable march of the law will crush you. For we know that you, too, have a motive.’

  The Indian made a gesture of denial.

  ‘Let’s think about it for a moment. Élodie was a girl with a reputation for being fickle and thoughtless – in a word, flirtatious – a girl who did not spurn the advances of young men. How could such an attitude not provoke you, you who I suspect loved her? It may indeed be that the victim brought it on herself. We have testimonies. Do my words leave you indifferent, Naganda? That’s up to you. But these elements may indeed explain – I do you the honour of ruling out any thought of financial gain as a motive – why you had violent feelings of jealousy, all the more violent in that you come from a warrior tribe in which, if travellers’ tales are to be believed, such an insult is repaid in blood.’

  ‘In my tribe,’ cried Naganda, lifting his head proudly, ‘we don’t kill young girls!’

  ‘A remark I would welcome, if it were accompanied by the truth which I have been demanding of you for days.’

  ‘Commissioner,’ said Naganda, ‘I’m going to answer as clearly as I can. I put my fate in your hands. You have always shown me the kind of consideration I expected from the subjects of a King I had dreamt about all through my childhood. Ask me your questions.’

  ‘Good.’ Nicolas smiled. ‘You told me you were drugged and unconscious until the afternoon following the crime, in other words from the afternoon of thirtieth May until the afternoon of thirty-first May. Do you confirm that statement?’

  ‘No. I was dr
ugged with a drink served by the cook on the afternoon of the thirtieth. I slept very deeply for several hours. When I woke up, it was dark, I didn’t have my talisman or the necklace on which it hung and my head ached. I was locked in and my clothes were missing. That was the first time I escaped by way of the roof. I wandered in the dark for several hours in the vicinity of the house. People seemed to have gone crazy and no one paid any attention to me. Everyone was shouting and running, and carriages were rushing past. I suspected that something serious had happened. I was especially worried because Élodie was supposed to be going to the festivities, as she’d several times expressed the wish to do, and the baby was due any day. Unable to do anything in the state I was in, I went back to the house. It was only the next day that I escaped for good, because I feared for my life.’

  ‘Very well. In what you say, you admit the ties that bound you to Élodie Galaine, who, according to you, was pregnant with your child. Didn’t you know that she had already given birth?’

  ‘Not at all. For some days they’d been stopping me from seeing her. They said she was ill. I was worried sick just to think of it. So I don’t know anything about the birth. I loved Élodie. We had plighted our troth on the ship bringing us to France. For months, she had been concealing her condition as best she could. Life in that house was becoming unbearable, and we were planning to run away as soon as the baby was born, back to New France. She had pawned her jewellery and the few valuable objects she had from her parents …’

  At last Nicolas understood why he had not found any of the young woman’s personal belongings.

  ‘She had no idea that she was due to inherit a large fortune,’ the Indian resumed, ‘and neither did I. I’m telling you the truth as if I were testifying before the apostle of justice, Monsieur de Voltaire, himself. I don’t know anything else. I performed the rites of my people, so that the spirits should calm Élodie’s soul and confound her murderer. I have spoken.’

  Monsieur de Sartine made a discreet signal to Nicolas to pass over this particular point, which risked taking the proceedings on to the subject of Miette’s possession.

  ‘How did you feel about Élodie’s reputation?’

  ‘It was something we’d decided on together as a way of allaying suspicion. She was acting. She used to practise by reading the plays of Monsieur de Marivaux. We laughed together at the attempts by Jean Galaine and Louis Dorsacq to seduce her. Élodie also scandalised her aunts by making suggestive remarks, which probably confirmed them in what they already thought of her. Behind this screen of pretence, we were – at least, we thought we were – hidden and protected.’

  ‘Is that all? Do you have anything else to tell the court?’

  ‘I want to reveal everything to the man who saved my life!’

  ‘That’s not true; your wound was not fatal.’

  ‘If you hadn’t come upstairs, my life would have drained from me along with my blood.’

  Nicolas glanced at Semacgus, who nodded.

  ‘All right, I’m listening.’

  ‘As the man of stone saved me, I saw Élodie killed by—’

  Monsieur de Sartine intervened again and interrupted the Indian, much to Nicolas’s despair.

  ‘Commissioner, let’s not wander off the point. Please continue.’

  Naganda sat down. Nicolas picked up the apothecary’s bottle and, holding the object between his fingers, he showed it to the suspects and observed their reactions. None of them batted an eyelid.

  ‘Which of you has seen this bottle before?’

  Jean Galaine raised his hand, as did Charlotte, the elder sister. Whom should he question first? He had a feeling he knew what Jean Galaine was about to say. He would confess that he had visited the apothecary in Rue Saint-Honoré. Nicolas therefore plumped for Charlotte.

  ‘Mademoiselle, what can you tell us about this?’

  ‘In all honesty, Commissioner, it was my sister, my sister Camille. She’s not in her right mind; she doesn’t sleep well. She takes potions which are prepared for her at the apothecary’s in bottles identical to this one.’

  ‘That’s true, Commissioner,’ Camille cut in. ‘I sleep badly. Orange blossom helps.’

  ‘Didn’t you know that this product can be bought from any grocer? Why go to an apothecary?’

  ‘Habit. And it’s more effective. I fear the grocers adulterate it. For example, one day –’

  Nicolas interrupted her. ‘How long ago did you last buy it?’

  ‘About three weeks, perhaps longer. I give milk to the cat and I take a little spoonful in my cup at the same time … but even so … not every evening.’

  ‘Have you bought any other potions recently?’

  Camille hesitated, and her sister cut in. ‘Of course you did, Camille! You’re really losing your head with all this hullabaloo! Jean went to fetch you a bottle from our neighbour, Master Clerambourg! It tasted so good, you wanted me to have some, too.’

  Camille looked at her sister, at a loss for words. ‘If you say so … I really can’t remember. What difference does it make anyway?’

  Nicolas turned to Jean Galaine. ‘Monsieur, can you confirm this?’

  ‘Of course. At the request of my aunts, I went out to buy a bottle of laudanum.’

  ‘Your aunts, you say? Which one?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How can you not know?’

  ‘The request was passed on to me by the cook and, in fact, when I brought the bottle back, that’s who I gave it to.’

  At last, Nicolas thought, a new piece of first-hand testimony. Marie Chaffoureau, who acted as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, had concealed her role in this business.

  He turned to the cook. ‘What’s the meaning of this, Marie? Why didn’t you mention it before? After all, we spoke for a long time about the bottle. Who asked you to fetch laudanum, which is a dangerous substance?’

  ‘Don’t ask me to betray the trust of my masters,’ muttered the cook.

  ‘Wrong answer, Marie Chaffoureau. Was it Camille or Charlotte?’

  ‘There was a note in the servants’ pantry.’

  ‘And where is this note now?’

  ‘I threw it in the stove. It’s just ashes.’

  They were getting bogged down in all this nitpicking by witnesses who might be guilty, and who were enjoying themselves muddling the workings of the law. Nicolas moved away from the witnesses’ bench and stood for a moment contemplating the two dummies and the exhibits: papers, objects, clothes, the dress, the bodice, the corset. It suddenly occurred to him that Élodie’s shoes had never been found. He noticed that Monsieur de Sartine’s wig was swaying dangerously back and forth, a sign of great irritation in its wearer. He ignored this and looked in turn at each exhibit.

  That was when he saw the light. Yes, that could be the way to the truth, unless, by some absurd coincidence, there were two identical examples of the same thing. The words of someone in this courtroom came back to him, words that left no room for doubt. He knew how he was going to be able to use them. It was a risky move, certainly, but a vital one. Like all last-ditch measures, it would be a kind of gamble. It wouldn’t solve everything, but it would be a great step forward. Nicolas looked up and called Bourdeau, who approached. He whispered in his ear, and the inspector nodded and immediately left the courtroom. While waiting for his return, and to keep the court occupied, Nicolas had to continue questioning the witnesses, circling ever closer to the truth without arousing their suspicions. The Lieutenant General interrupted these reflections.

  ‘Are we going to wait much longer, Commissioner, for you to conclude yet another of these pauses with which you see fit to interrupt the languishing course of this hearing? I’m suspending proceedings for a few minutes. The Criminal Lieutenant and myself wish to speak with you immediately in my office.’

  The two magistrates went out through a door at the far end of the room, from where a small corridor led to Sartine’s office. Nicolas followed them. No sooner had they entere
d than his chief, pacing up and down, addressed him in the cold, intense tone he liked to adopt when he was trying to control his temper.

  ‘It’s not enough, Commissioner, to regale us with these twists and turns that lead nowhere, these bottles, this Indian who rambles on, all the insane nonsense we’ve been hearing. Every one of these suspects is a potential culprit or a potential innocent, but so far, in your presentation of the disparate elements of your investigation, you haven’t shown us the way to a solution. Where are you taking us?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Criminal Lieutenant in support, ‘where are you taking us? I thought you would get to the point more quickly, Monsieur. You disappoint me. These proceedings are taking a very leisurely and roundabout route. I’m sorry now that I gave in to pressure and—’

  ‘Monsieur Testard du Lys is speaking sense,’ Monsieur de Sartine cut in wearily. ‘Either you finish within the next hour, or we send these people back to their cells and institute more normal and perhaps more effective proceedings.’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Nicolas, ‘I am sure I can bring this to a conclusion.’

  Monsieur de Sartine looked at him with a hint of affection. ‘Given your past history, I’m inclined to believe you. Let’s go back.’