That afternoon, he repressed a cry of triumph upon hearing Inspector Alain’s report. Alain had just spoken to a woman, Citizen Roger, who had rented a shed to a short, squat man on Rue de Paradis, three hundred yards from Lambel’s shop.
Roch decided to go question the witness and inspect the premises himself. Rue de Paradis, Paradise Street, unpaved and flanked by dingy houses, did not quite live up to its name. Number 778 was a six-story building of no better appearance than its neighbors. The bony woman sweeping its doorstep grunted in response to Roch’s greeting. Her broom still in hand, she paused to squint at his Prefecture card, which bore his name, title and an eye, symbol of the police.
“I hear, Citizen Roger,” said Roch, “that you may have information of great importance for us.”
The woman, scowling, resumed her sweeping. “All I know’s that I’m bein’ bothered to no end by people that come askin’ questions that’re none o’ their business.”
“But you might be handsomely repaid for your pains. If what Inspector Alain told me is correct, you may have information on the Rue Nicaise assassins. Perhaps he forgot to mention the 2,000 louis reward for information leading to their arrest.”
Citizen Roger’s eyes narrowed and her expression lightened to a mere frown. “Well, yer man’s a ninny, ’cause he didn’t say nothin’ ’bout no reward.” She snorted. “So yes, a stallholder, a short man rented a shed here. Fat, ugly fellow. Citizen Leblanc, he called hisself.”
“How did you know he was a stallholder?”
“He told me, course! He said he sold sugar an’ dry goods at fairs. He asked ’bout rentin’ that shed, back in the courtyard, to put his horse an’ cart. An’ he kept pesterin’ me till I showed it to him.”
Citizen Roger’s narrative was interrupted by the furious barking of several dogs. She shook her fist in the direction of the racket. “Listen to that! The Vincent woman went out, an’ she left her dogs locked in her room again. D’you want to know what the whore does with her damn dogs?”
“Not at this time, Citizen Roger. I can imagine how busy you are.”
She shrugged. “Ah, you said it! The work I have keepin’ the place halfway clean, with all that filth we have here as tenants!”
“Can I see that shed?”
The woman sighed. She put down her broom and led him across the courtyard. There she reached the depths of her pocket for a key and unlocked the double door to a shed. Roch took a peek inside without entering. The place was large, about ten yards square, and empty. A layer of straw covered the floor. He would ask Inspector Alain to come back with a couple of National Guards to sift through it.
“That short man, Leblanc,” continued Citizen Roger, “he tried the lock several times to see if it worked. Like he couldn’t take my word fer it! An’ then he said he liked the shed, because it’s so large, an’ he’d have room to sleep in it. To tell you the truth, Citizen, I’m none too fond o’ rascals that sleep in sheds. Then he said that he’d take it fer ten days. Ten days? I said. What d ’you think this is, an inn? Ness thin’, I’ll have to come an’ tuck you in bed, maybe. Don’t waste my time no more, I said, go talk to Citizen Ménager.”
“Citizen Ménager is the landlord? So he rented the shed to that man Leblanc?”
“Yes. But not fer ten days, course, jus’ like I’d said. Fer three months. So the short fellow came back that night, with a horse, an’ a cart that was covered with a big gray tarpaulin. But that time he wore a stallholder’s jacket, you know, one o’ those blue ones. An’ an hour later, I saw two other fellows I didn’t know pass by my lodge an’ cross the courtyard. I was wary, course, ’cause the short one hadn’t said nothin’ ’bout no other fellows. I’d thought it was jus’ him an’ his horse, an’ that was plenty, given that one wasn’t prettier’n the other. So I come out o’ my lodge to see what’s happenin’, an’ what d’you think those two rascals do, but come an’ join the short man in here! An’ they closed the door. Like there’s not enough goin’ on ’round here, with the Vincent woman an’ her dogs!”
Citizen Roger shook her head, indignant. “So, I thought to mesself, that’s why the bastard was so keen on the lock! So I ran here, an’ I banged on the door with my fists an’ shoes, an’ I gave’m a piece o’ my mind. They opened the right away, let me tell you. They told me not to shout, that I’d have the whole district in an uproar, that it wasn’t what it looked like. But they didn’t fool me a bit. They still had their breeches on, but they looked mighty worried all the same.”
“It is indeed fortunate that you showed such presence of mind,” said Roch, nodding gravely. He could have remarked that the Revolution had abolished the crime of sodomy, but he thought it wiser not to annoy this witness with niceties. “I am certain, Citizen Roger, that you took a good look at those other two fellows.”
“Fer sure I did! One o’ them was tall, with gold spe’tacles an’ a long face. Fair-skinned an’ pretty-lookin’, with long yellow hair. He was the pussy, I bet.” She shuddered. “Gives me the woollies jus’ to think of it. An’ the third bugger, he had a pointy nose like a rat, an’ his hair braided in cadenettes.”
“So what happened that night?”
“Nothin’ happened, not so long’s I’m the porter here. I told’m that I wouldn’t let more’n one sleep in here. So they all left. Went someplace else to play their damn games, I reckon. The ness day, the short bugger came back by hisself, an’ he asked if I knew someone that’d put iron circles around a barrel. So I asked, What’s that fer? I was wary, min’ you, after the happenin’s o’ the night. He said he jus’ wanted to put sugar in that barrel an’ he’d pay to have the iron circles made. So I told him my husban’d do it fer fifteen francs. An’ later he asked my husban’ to drill two holes into the side o’ the cart. An’ then he asked me fer a funnel. No, I don’t have no funnel, I said. Course I’ve a funnel, but I wouldn’t give it to him. He said ’twas to fill the barrel with sugar, but you never know what a bugger’d do with a funnel, do you? But since he’d given my husban’ a bit o’ money, I gave him some ol’ cup to fill his stupid barrel. An’ be sure to clean it ’fore you return it, I said. But I needn’t tell you how filthy men are. No better’n swine, like I tell my husban’. Damn buggers still worse’n the rest, I guess. So when the short fellow returned the cup, it stank o’ gunpowder, like those fire-works after Bonaparte’s big victories, like they call’m. A fine waste o’ money, that, if you ask me. Keeps honest people up all night with their racket. So I washed the cup mesself, like I haven’t nothin’ better to do. That’s what comes o’ bein’ too obligin’ . . .”
She paused, her jaw suddenly slack. “So that could’ve been the powder they used to blow up Bonaparte? So that’s why you were talkin’ o’ the reward?”
“Indeed, Citizen Roger. And you will receive your share of it once the culprits are caught and punished.” From the corner of his eye Roch saw a lanky man in a brown jacket, with the air of a whipped dog, cross the courtyard and enter the porter’s lodge. Citizen Roger’s husband, by the looks of it. “And then what happened?” asked Roch.
Citizen Roger’s tone was softer now. “The short bugger came back every day. Sometimes the other two also, but I’d told’m to leave the door open whenever there was more’n one in there. There was always one posted like an idiot outside the shed. An’ then, on the 3rd o’ Nivose, aroun’ five in the afternoon, the short fellow came to the lodge to return the key. Rat Face an’ Pussy were with him. Dressed in their blue jackets, all three o’ them. He said they didn’t need the shed no more after all. Imagine that, after payin’ fer three months! An’ they left together with their horse an’ cart. I wasn’t sorry to see that sort o’ gentry go. But when I came back here to make sure they’d locked the door ’fore leavin’, what d’you think I saw?”
Citizen Roger, shaking all over with indignation, pointed at a spot in the straw. Roch waited with bated breath.
“They hadn’t cleaned up after their damn horse, the stinkin’ buggers!”
Roch repressed a groan of disappointment. “And you never saw those men again, Citizen Roger?”
“Never.”
Roch thanked Citizen Roger warmly. He then spoke to her husband, who had nothing of interest to add.
Before leaving the place Roch looked around at the gray walls of the courtyard, pierced by a multitude of narrow windows. Pots of half-frozen cabbages were crowded on the sills. The final preparations for the Rue Nicaise attack had taken place right here, under the porter’s nose, without her suspecting anything other than buggery.
The alleged Leblanc and the man Citizen Roger called Rat Face fit the description Fouché had sent him of the Chouans Carbon and Saint-Régent. There was no longer any doubt that the Rue Nicaise attack was a Royalist plot. And the man with the gold spectacles kept appearing with those two characters. All that remained was the small matter of discovering his identity, and arresting all three assassins. Roch would have the usual Chouan haunts in Paris closely watched.
17
The short afternoon was drawing to a close. It was getting colder now. Roch put on his gloves and turned up the collar of his coat. When he crossed the Pont-au-Change, the Bridge of the Money Changers, a thin layer of fog covered the river. At his feet, a puddle of what seemed like urine had frozen into yellow ice. Frost gave a silvery sheen to the bare trees on the embankment. The air was very still, and wisps of smoke, barely visible against the white sky, rose straight from the chimneys on the Isle of the Cité.
At the Prefecture, a guard stopped Roch. “A youn’ lady’s been waiting for you for over an hour, Citizen Chief Inspector. She asked for you by name, and she said it was very important. So I took her to the little room downstairs.”
Roch’s first thought was of Blanche. But no, it could not be. Blanche would never compromise herself by coming to the Prefecture, even in an emergency. Instead she would have discreetly sent a messenger.
Roch frowned. “A lady? What sort of lady?”
“She wouldn’t say her name, Citizen Chief Inspector.” The guard smiled and winked. “But she talked like she knew you personally, if you catch my meaning. So I didn’t press the point.”
“What is she like?”
“Oh, real pretty, with gray eyes and blond hair, sort of red almost.”
Roch felt a rush of anger. How dared Alexandrine disturb him now, when she must know how busy he was? He thought he guessed the purpose of her visit.
In the course of the previous spring, Vidalenc had run into trouble for trading in adulterated wine. Indeed the beverage the old man supplied to the Armies of the Republic and to the taverns of Paris, including the Mighty Barrel, had little to do with wine, apart from its color and a distant similarity in tartness. His warehouse on Bernard Embankment, the wine port of Paris, had been searched by the police, and the composition of the liquid had been uncovered. It consisted of a decoction of various woods, in which carrots and turnips had been left to macerate. Purplish food coloring was added for good measure. The remains of a cat, wonderfully preserved, fur, whiskers and all, had even been found at the bottom of one barrel.
Vidalenc, when confronted with the evidence, had stared blankly and retreated into an idiotic silence. Not a shadow of a ledger was found within his warehouse. One of his clerks explained that the old man barely spoke any French, and could neither read nor write. It was all true, though Vidalenc understood French perfectly well when it suited him. Roch also suspected him of keeping very accurate accounts in his head.
Old Miquel had beseeched Roch to help his longtime friend. Roch had refused at first, but the old man had reminded him that Vidalenc had lent him the money to send Roch to school, and also to purchase the Mighty Barrel, without any security but Old Miquel’s word.
So Roch had yielded to his father’s entreaties. He had gone to his colleague Bouchesèche, Chief of the Food Supply and Safety Division, and, his face the same color as Vidalenc’s fraudulent beverage, asked that the case be allowed to slip into oblivion. Bouchesèche had agreed. True, Roch was deemed Fouché’s protégé, and Fouché had been all powerful then. Vidalenc had escaped with a stern warning that, should he ever be caught again, his name would be erased from the list of Army suppliers.
Now, thought Roch, the old rascal was up to the same tricks. He was again in trouble, and he had sent his daughter to the Prefecture in hopes of having the charges dismissed a second time. Well, he would be disappointed. Under no circumstances would Roch go again through the humiliation of applying to Bouchesèche on Vidalenc’s behalf. It might be useless anyway, perhaps dangerous, now that Roch’s position at the Prefecture had become so unsteady. He would send Alexandrine on her way with a firm admonition never to approach him again with such a plea.
Roch walked to the waiting room. The door, painted a grayish green, bore marks of grimy fingerprints around the handle. It was ajar. The young woman was indeed Alexandrine. Her back was turned, but he recognized the tall, upright figure, the reddish blonde curls on her nape, beneath the black silk bonnet. She was wearing a gown made of remnants of blue and white fabric stitched together at odd angles. She had been dressed like a fine lady on the 3rd of Nivose, on account of Christmas, but now she wore her ordinary clothes. Yet this dress showed her figure to advantage. Roch was almost certain that she had sewn it herself, and that, for a reason he could not understand, made him all the more unhappy to see her.
“Good afternoon, Alexandrine,” he said in the Roman language as he pushed the door open. “What is it? I have not much time now.”
Alexandrine turned around at the sound of his voice. Her eyes were red and swollen. That was unlike her. He had never seen her cry before, except on the day her mother had died, and she had been a child then.
“What is the matter, Alexandrine?” he asked more gently.
“I am sorry to disturb you, Roch, but I had to tell you right away. It is about your father.”
Roch grasped both of her elbows. “What about Father? Speak!”
“He was arrested this morning.”
Roch swore. “Arrested?” Now he hated Alexandrine with a passion. “It’s about your father’s wine again, I bet. Damn the old scoundrel!”
“No, Roch, please listen to me. It can’t have anything to do with that wine business. Your father was taken to the Temple.”
Roch let go of Alexandrine. He felt as though he had been hit in the stomach. Only political opponents were imprisoned there. Old Miquel must have been arrested because of his past Jacobin sympathies.
Roch bit his lip. “Thank you for coming here, Alexandrine. I am sorry to have been so rude to you. I do apologize, but I need to be alone now.”
She opened her mouth, seemed to hesitate, then walked to the door and closed it gently behind her. Once she was gone, he collapsed in a chair, his face in his hands.
18
Roch cursed himself. All he had worried about had been his own troubles, and he had not given a thought to Old Miquel’s danger. How could he have been caught off guard, after the stormy meeting in the Prefect’s office? That coward, now that he believed Fouché powerless, felt free to attack the Minister through Roch, and Roch through his father. And this was only a preparatory, tentative move. Sobry was right: if the Minister fell, Roch would be dismissed, maybe even arrested.
Both his father and he would rot indefinitely in jail, like the unfortunate painter Topino-Lebrun and his supposed accomplices in the Conspiracy of Daggers. Roch had easily dismissed Mulard’s concern over Topino, and offered bland comfort and vague assurances. Now he understood how it felt to be uncertain of the fate that awaited a loved one.
Roch was pacing the little waiting room. He paused and rested his forehead on the cold window pane. He stared at the spot, down in the courtyard, where the carcass of the little mare had rested under its oilcloth cover. It was easy to guess whence the decision to arrest his father came. Bertrand, the Chief of the High Police Division, must have a hand in it. He had acted out of personal malice, or on the orders of
Dubois, or both. In any event, Bertrand must have consulted the Prefect before taking such a measure against the father of a colleague of equal rank. Or perhaps the idea came from the Prefect himself.
That meant that only one man could order the release of Old Miquel. It was Fouché, Dubois’s superior. And Fouché, whatever Dubois believed or hoped, was still the Minister of Police. He could overrule the Prefect’s decisions and order Old Miquel’s release.
Roch ran down the stairs. He left the Prefecture and crossed the river in the direction of the Left Bank, where the Ministry was located. Roch’s father hated Fouché, whom he called The Traitor. Of course, in Old Miquel’s eyes, many deserved that epithet, but none more than the Minister. At the height of the Revolution, Fouché, the defrocked monk, had organized shameful masquerades where jackasses, covered with priestly vestments, with prayer books tied to their tails, were made to drink from chalices.
But there was much worse. He had been sent by Robespierre, the Jacobin leader, to Lyon to quell the Royalist insurrection there. Under Fouché’s direction, thousands of opponents had been gathered by the side of vast open graves and shot by firing squads, or, when more expeditious means were required, by cannons that simply aimed at the helpless human mass. All without trial. Robespierre, once informed, had been horrified and immediately recalled Fouché.
And Fouché understood the precariousness of his own situation. He had joined those conspiring to overthrow Robespierre. While the memory of the atrocities in Lyon was still fresh, Fouché disappeared from the public eye, until at last the shades of his past faded away. Then he had been appointed Minister of Police. As such, he had not hindered Bonaparte’s coup, nor had he been dismissed afterwards.
Roch, hurrying along the Malaquais Embankment, was looking straight ahead. Certainly, to Old Miquel, Fouché was the worst of men: cruel to those who fell into his power, servile to his superiors and ready to betray everyone, high or low, in the pursuit of self-interest. Yet to Roch, he was a providential patron. Fouché had noticed Roch, who had languished as a lowly clerk at Ministry for a few years, and had entrusted him with a few missions that required discretion, loyalty and wits. Roch, who made no mystery of his ambitions, had given full satisfaction. Within months, he had been appointed a Police Inspector, then, when Bonaparte created the Prefecture, Chief Inspector. Roch could never have hoped for such swift promotion but for Fouché’s patronage.
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