Catherine Delors

by For the King (v5)

  “I am all ears,” he said.

  “Well, Citizen Chief Inspector, Citizen Jourdan looked very worried last night. She kept talking about her daughter Toinette, about what would happen to her at the Prefecture. Her elder daughter, Marie-Luce, tried to comfort her and finally she convinced her to go to bed. After that, Marie-Luce stayed in the other room, along with Bertier and Alain and me. We played cards for a while, all four of us, then we went to sleep, Marie-Luce in Toinette’s bed in the corner of the parlor and the colleagues in chairs there. I slept in the second bed in the bedroom, the one that’s on the other side of that sheet. Saint-Régent’s bed, I guess.”

  “Do you mean that you all went to sleep?”

  Bachelot was fingering the hem of his hat. “Well . . . yes, Citizen Chief Inspector.”

  “Did it ever enter your mind, Bachelot, that I did not leave you there to loll around, or play cards, let alone go to sleep? So anyway, what did happen?”

  “I was awakened around four in the morning when I heard Citizen Jourdan stirring on the other side of the sheet. It was pitch dark, but she was all dressed already. She told me she was going downstairs to get water in the courtyard, because she wanted to do her laundry.”

  Roch cursed. “Her laundry? At four in the morning? I know that you are not married, Bachelot. But perhaps you have a concubine? A maid, at least? How many females of your acquaintance do their laundry by candlelight at four in the morning, in the middle of winter too?”

  Bachelot flushed. “I guess you are right, Citizen Chief Inspector. I didn’t think of it at the time. After Citizen Jourdan was done with her laundry, she went down to the courtyard again to empty her bucket. Then she told me she was going back to bed, and she disappeared behind that bedsheet.”

  “Wait a minute, Bachelot. She slept on the window side of the sheet?”

  “That’s right. I couldn’t see what she was doing. I thought she was undressing and going back to bed. But a minute later, I heard a big noise. I rose right away, Citizen Chief Inspector, but I couldn’t see her. The window, a sash window, if you recall Sir, was open. Her bucket was lying there on its side, like she’d upset it when she’d stepped on it to jump out of the window. There’s no light in the courtyard, so I couldn’t see a thing down there. So I called to Bertier and Alain, and we ran downstairs. We found Citizen Jourdan, sprawled on her stomach, just outside the latrine door.”

  “She was fully dressed?”

  “Yes, Citizen Chief Inspector. She was still breathing, but she couldn’t speak. I had a physician fetched, and she was taken to the Charité Hospital. I came directly from there, Sir. She died before they had time to take her to a bed.”

  “Well, Bachelot, I must congratulate you,” said Roch. He raised three fingers of his right hand. “I leave no less than three Inspectors there, and between all of you jackasses, you cannot even watch one old woman?”

  Roch rose from his chair and walked to Bachelot, who was still standing. “Now do you understand what this means? We have lost a crucial witness, one who could have led us to Saint-Régent. And pray who is going to tell Toinette that she no longer has a mother? I should send you break the news to her yourself.”

  “Maybe she won’t be so surprised, Citizen Chief Inspector. Her sister Marie-Luce told us last night that their mother had already tried to jump off the window two months ago, and that Toinette had caught her by her skirts and pulled her back just in time.”

  “Then that child has more wits about her than you and your distinguished colleagues put together.” Roch paused and looked into Bachelot’s eyes. “You realize what public opinion will make of this? That the police killed Citizen Jourdan to silence her?”

  Bachelot flinched. “I expected better from you,” continued Roch. “When I told you to watch that woman, I meant keep an eye on her at all times, not play cards or go to sleep. Your negligence is unforgivable.” Roch pointed to a chair and handed Bachelot a quill. “Sit down. I want a full report immediately.”

  Bachelot went to work with alacrity, pausing once in a while to reflect, the quill against his lips. Roch, absorbed in his thoughts, barely heard the pen scratching against the paper. Citizen Jourdan had died at a very convenient moment for the Chouans, when she could have revealed much about Saint-Régent, and maybe his accomplices. Roch wondered about Bachelot. Was the man guilty of only gross negligence, or had he, in cold blood, pushed the Jourdan woman to her death?

  Bachelot had belonged to the police for ten years, and his record was unblemished. Yet he had dropped that ladder at the Convent on the day of Carbon’s arrest, as though to raise the alarm. And the fact that the short man’s accomplices had learned so fast of his capture confirmed Roch’s suspicions. Also, come to think of it, how had Gillard, the owner of the Mayenne Inn, understood so quickly that the place had been put under police surveillance? The assassins must have at least one informer within the Prefecture. Roch had suspected the Prefect or Bertrand, men he hated, and who returned the favor, rather than an unremarkable subordinate such as Bachelot. That was what happened when he let personal feelings cloud his judgment.

  Roch told Toinette of her mother’s death. She took the news better than he had feared. She wept, of course, but, as Bachelot had guessed, she did not seem very surprised. She confirmed that her mother had tried to jump off the window two months ago. This, of course, did not mean that the widow had committed suicide the night before.

  Roch went to Piis’s office to have the girl released as soon as arrangements could be made for her to go live with her sister Marie-Luce.

  “So did you learn anything from that Toinette?” asked Piis.

  Roch looked intently at the little man. Certainly Piis, in spite of his aristocratic origins, had been mostly friendly and pleasant. Roch had always considered him harmless, if a bit ridiculous, but Bachelot’s case showed that such implicit trust might not be justified. And Bachelot’s likely guilt did not in the least exonerate Piis. There could be more than one Royalist spy at the Prefecture.

  “Toinette saw Pierrot experiment with gunpowder and wicks,” said Roch. “And her mother knew much more yet.”

  “Knew?” asked Piis.

  “She conveniently died last night. Jumped out of her bedroom window, according to Bachelot, whom I had left there to watch her.”

  Piis seemed genuinely shocked. “Do you think Bachelot . . . I would never have suspected him. What are you going to do?”

  “I am tempted to suspend him immediately to prevent any further damage. He is at the very least guilty of dereliction of duty. And on the morning of Carbon’s arrest, he upset a ladder when we arrived at the Convent, as though to raise the alarm. Yet I am afraid the Prefect will overrule whatever sanctions I take against Bachelot, if only to deprive me of any semblance of authority over my Inspectors.”

  Piis nodded gravely. “Oh, I would go to him and leave the decision to him. He might be more inclined than you think to follow your recommendation. Now that all those Chouans have been arrested, Fouché’s star is shining brighter.”

  “Well, Piis, you may be right. What about you? Any news from Saint-Régent’s other lodgers? What’s their name again? The Guillous?”

  “Yes, the Guillous. Monsieur Pierrot, as they call him, had been their tenant since the beginning of December. They describe him as quiet, sullen, going in and out at all hours. He had very few visitors, all male, including two who seem to have been Short Francis and Limoëlan. According the Guillou woman, on the day of the attack, Saint-Régent left early in the morning and came back very sick after nine at night. Then the man answering to the description of Limoëlan appeared, and went out again in search of a priest. The Guillou woman also had a physician fetched.”

  “What about the rest of the family? Do they all tell the same story?”

  “Yes, at least the ones who were arrested. There is a grown son, a musician, age thirty-five, and a daughter of seventeen. The father was not home. He is a stagecoach driver for the line that goes to Renn
es. He will be questioned as soon as he returns to Paris.”

  Roch frowned. A stagecoach driver, like the Davignon woman’s husband. And both men drove for the same line, the one that went to Rennes, in the middle of Chouan territory. Yet another coincidence, coming upon the heels of the untimely, or too timely, demise of Widow Jourdan. He remembered someone saying that there was no such thing as a coincidence in police work, and now he stumbled upon two of them on the same day.

  Roch felt a great desire to meet the coachmen Guillou and Davignon immediately upon their respective arrivals, without giving them time to reach their homes and discover the absence of their families. Davignon’s flighty wife was still a guest of the coop at the Prefecture. Maybe she was not the only one in the Davignon household who liked Short Francis and his political ideas.

  There was one problem: the stagecoaches from Rennes arrived in the town of Saint-Denis, north of Paris, outside the jurisdiction of the Prefecture. Actually, since the Revolution, Saint-Denis had been renamed Franciade, but everyone had now returned to the old appellation. In any case, regardless of the place’s name, pursuing the investigation there would be breaking the law, and there was no need to call the attention of Piis, or anyone else, to such trifles.

  “So the Guillou woman had a physician fetched to treat Saint-Régent on the night of the attack?” asked Roch in a detached tone.

  “A medical student, in fact. A Basile Collin. Doesn’t seem to know much, but he was arrested anyway. He provided his services, without reporting it, to a patient wounded in a suspicious manner.”

  “And Limoëlan?”

  “Still unaccounted for, I am afraid. His landlord, the pastry shop owner, doesn’t know where he went.”

  “How did he meet Limoëlan?”

  “Through a family of second or third cousins of Limoëlan, by the name of Lavieuville.”

  “Were they questioned?”

  “Oh, yes. And two wooden crates full of rifles, pistols, knives, sabers and the like were found in Madame de Lavieuville’s dressing closet. She would only say that Limoëlan’s valet, a man by the name of Francis, had brought them. She never opened them, of course. And she has no idea of Limoëlan’s whereabouts either. A pity, she says, because the children loved to play with him.”

  Piis suddenly hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Ah, yes, I was forgetting all about it! We also found Limoëlan’s mother. She lives quietly in Versailles with her four unmarried daughters. She says she has not had any contacts with her son Joseph since August, because she disapproves of what she calls his fanatical pursuits. She even says the government should have him, and all the Chouan leaders, jailed for a good two years after the Pacification, to teach them to rebel against the proper authorities and make sure they don’t cause any more trouble.”

  “She says that? Of her own son? Do you believe her?”

  “When she was arrested, she had just returned from Paris, where she and her daughters had attended one of the First Consul’s military reviews. She makes a point of doing so several times a month. Certainly no woman widowed by the guillotine ever expressed more patriotic feelings.”

  “What? Her husband, Limoëlan’s father, was guillotined?”

  “Oh, yes. In 1793. Sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal for Royalist conspiracy. But Madame de Limoëlan did not fail to mention that she personally knows the Minister of Police. She says he thinks highly of her and her loyalty to the government.”

  “Fouché?” This was becoming more and more incredible. “Limoëlan’s mother is acquainted with Fouché?” He immediately thought of Old Miquel’s guess. Fouché had indeed been aware of Limoëlan’s identity from the beginning, and yet he had chosen not to share this crucial piece of information with Roch.

  “Apparently,” added Piis, “Madame de Limoëlan asked a common acquaintance, General Hédouville, to intervene with the Minister to have her son’s name removed from the list of the émigrés. Fouché agreed to receive her on several occasions over the past few months. But she says she discontinued her efforts on behalf of Limoëlan once she understood that he continued to associate with unrepentant Chouans. Her house is being searched by the Police Commissioner for Versailles as we speak, and she has been brought to Paris for further questioning.”

  Roch arched his eyebrow. “By the Prefect, I suppose?”

  “Yes, by the Prefect. I know what you think, but frankly I would be surprised if she had much more to tell us.”

  On the contrary, Madame de Limoëlan probably had fascinating things to reveal, in particular about this friendship of hers with Fouché, but Roch chose not to share this thought with his colleague.

  “The pastry shop owner, however,” continued Piis, “had much to say. He did remember those cousins, the Lavieuvilles, mentioning an aunt of Limoëlan, one Mademoiselle de Cicé.”

  “The name sounds familiar.” Roch frowned. “Ci-devant aristocrats like you, are they not? A Cicé used to be one of Louis XVI’s Ministers before the Revolution. And I think I remember that when I was a child the Bishop of Rodez, in my country, used to be a Monseigneur de Cicé.”

  “Oh, yes, these are Mademoiselle de Cicé’s brothers. An ancient and powerful family. The brothers emigrated years ago. They live in England now.”

  “At least we now have a lead for Limoëlan. But we seem to have lost all track of Saint-Régent.”

  “Indeed,” sighed Piis.

  This was the time Roch usually dreaded, when inconvenient police matters were fully discussed and out of the way. Piis’s hand would travel to his pocket and produce a sheet of paper. Yet it did not move. Roch, to his own surprise, was mildly disappointed.

  “What’s the matter, Piis? The well of your inspiration has run dry? This must mean that congratulations are in order. You bedded your beloved at last?”

  The corners of the little man’s mouth fell. “Alas. To tell you the truth, she is never at home anymore when I call. At first, I imagined that these were only the coquettish ways of an elegant lady, that she wanted to pique my passion by avoiding me for a while. But now, Miquel, I am beginning to worry. It has been almost a month since we met. She invited me to her box at the Opera on the night of the Rue Nicaise attack, and I went in hopes of seeing her, but she did not even attend. And since . . .”

  “Yes, Sobry told me that you witnessed Bonaparte’s outburst against the Jacobins at the Opera. But I didn’t know that you were waiting for that Photis of yours.”

  “Well, I didn’t tell Sobry about that. I only open my heart to you.”

  “And to whoever reads your sonnets. What can I say, my poor Piis? These things do happen to the best of us. If this can be of any comfort, my own romance is over. Beyond any hope of reconciliation. Perhaps I should take to writing poetry myself.”

  45

  Roch gave no more thought to literary endeavors that day. He sent Bachelot’s report to the Prefect, along with his own recommendation that the Inspector be immediately suspended. He received no direct response, but instead instructions to perform a search of the lodgings of Mademoiselle de Cicé, Limoëlan’s aunt.

  Roch did not know whether to be grateful for this assignment. If Fouché had wanted Limoëlan arrested, he would have been more forthcoming with Roch. Why was the Minister protecting the assassin? On the other hand, that aunt of Limoëlan’s might lead him to Saint-Régent, and that was undoubtedly the key to Old Miquel’s fate.

  Mademoiselle de Cicé lived at Numbers 11 and 874 Rue Cassette. This strange address was that of a single building, though a vast one, but logic had little to do with Paris street numbers. The house might have been the mansion of a great lord before the Revolution, but now it was divided into many lodgings. The peeling paint of the shutters and the tattered curtains behind the windows told of the indignities of genteel poverty. Vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas, thought Roch. He wondered why he was remembering more and more of his Latin these days. Perhaps those years spent wearing out the seat of his breeches on the benche
s of Veau’s Academy had not been a complete waste of his time and Old Miquel’s money.

  Roch asked the porter about the lodgings of Mademoiselle de Cicé, as Piis had called her. She lived in an entresol overlooking the courtyard. Roch posted one Inspector at the carriage door that served as a street entrance to the house. Then, followed by two other men, he went to the courtyard and climbed down the half-flight of stone stairs with a rusty banister that led to the entrance to Citizen Cicé’s lodgings.

  A gaunt woman, clad in a black dress reminiscent of a nun’s habit, her brown hair pulled back in a tight bun, opened the door herself. Before the Revolution, she must have been a rich lady, with a small army of servants in attendance. Now she was an old maid living alone in a couple of dark, dingy rooms.

  “Citizen Cicé?” asked Roch.

  The woman inclined her head. He pulled his Prefecture card.

  “Police. We have a warrant to search your lodgings.”

  She stepped aside to let the men pass. “Pray enter, Sir.”

  “I would like to avoid forcing your locks and damaging your furniture.” Indeed, against the mildewed wallpaper, most of the pieces he saw were quite fine, in the ornate style that had been fashionable before the Revolution. “Please unlock everything for us, Citizen Cicé.”

  The woman pulled a ring full of keys from her pocket and obeyed in silence.

  Everywhere were discovered hoards of religious medals made of tin or brass, and reams of letters. Copper, silver and gold coins were scattered in boxes, drawers, purses of all materials and sizes, in envelopes, some with names scribbled on them.

  Roch pointed to a secretary desk, decorated with a lattice marqueterie pattern and gilded cherubs. “Is there a hidden compartment in this thing?” There always was at least one.

  “You did not ask about any secret compartments, Sir.”

  Her tone was icily polite. Roch knew what she felt. He even understood her, to a point. To her he was a barbarian, the product of a Revolution that she hated, that had decapitated her King, ruined her family and sent her brothers to exile.