by Judith Rock
Interested in Jouvancy’s opinion, Charles ventured, “Do you think, then, that the church is too severe on actors?”
“In truth, I do! Excommunicating them, as happens too often, only drives them farther away from virtue, yet as we prove regularly in our colleges, the theatre can be an excellent school for virtue. If only actors would use it as that, there is no reason they should be denied the sacraments any more than dancers—and the church certainly does not excommunicate dancers!”
Charles laughed a little cynically. “If it did, it would have to excommunicate half the nobility of France! Not to mention the king.”
“Well, Louis does not dance himself anymore, but yes. Speaking of dancers, who are you going to cast in the musical tragedy?”
“Walter Connor, I think. And Armand Beauclaire, who in spite of his directional difficulty is an excellent dancer.”
“But poor Maître Beauchamps,” Jouvancy said, his lively face a mask of mendacious concern. “Do you want to be answerable for the results if our dear dancing master has, yet again, to teach Beauclaire the difference between right and left?” Pierre Beauchamps, probably the greatest dancing master alive, was dance director of the Paris Opera and also Louis le Grand’s ballet master. And an indispensable thorn in the rhetoric master’s side. “There might well be murder done, maître!”
Murder. Charles winced, seeing in his mind the word scrawled on the college doors—innocent of the slander now after the lay brothers’ long and hardworking night. Unbidden, his mind also showed him Martine, lying dead as he’d last seen her. Jouvancy, oblivious, had risen to hunt along his bookshelf for something. He looked up as someone tapped at the door.
“Come!”
A lay brother stuck his head into the room. “Your pardon, mon père. There’s a Monsieur Germain Morel to see Maître du Luc.” He looked at Charles. “In the anteroom by the main doors.”
Startled, Charles looked at Jouvancy for permission to leave, wondering uneasily what Mlle Isabel Brion’s dancing master could want.
“Yes, yes, very well, go.” The rhetoric master sat down again, leafing through his leather-bound costume book. “We will talk again before all this madness starts.”
“Thank you, mon père.” Charles rose. “Please tell Monsieur Morel I am coming,” he said to the lay brother, who withdrew and clattered down the stairs.
Charles left the chamber quietly and hurried down behind him. Before he reached the anteroom at the bottom of the curving stone staircase, Morel was bowing, words tumbling out of his mouth.
“Forgive me for troubling you, Maître du Luc. But Mademoiselle Brion begged me to come.” Morel was sweating in spite of the cold and seemed hardly able to catch his breath. “Because—” He gulped air. “Monsieur Brion is dead!”
Charles stared in confusion. “Her brother? Or do you mean her father?”
“Monsieur Henri Brion. A sergent of police came to tell Mademoiselle Brion that her father had been found murdered!”
Charles tried to think past his surprise. Lying awake during the night, he’d wondered whether, for some unguessed-at reason, it was Henri Brion, and not his son, who had killed Martine and fled, which would explain why no one had seen him since her death was discovered. But if that was true, why would he be suddenly dead himself? “Who found him, Monsieur Morel? Where?”
“I don’t know who found him. His body was—is—in a ditch very near the rue Perdue. The ditch is behind some old houses near the Place Maubert. Can you go there with me, maître? Isabel—Mademoiselle Brion, I mean—wants you to pray for him. And she says”—color rose in Morel’s face—“she says you will know what to do.”
“I am sure that you will know quite well what to do yourself,” Charles said diplomatically. “But of course I will come.” He gathered his cloak around him and led the way to the postern door, thinking irreverently that it would take a papal bull to keep him away.
When he and Morel reached the Place Maubert, Morel led the way across it and down the small street that ran past the Mynette garden’s side gate.
“This is a back way to Henri Brion’s own house,” Morel said. “I think he must have been on his way home when he was attacked.”
The small street crossed a larger one and became an alley between old timbered houses. At the mouth of the alley stood a huddle of talking, eager-faced women. Servants, most of them looked to be, but the one at the center of the group was a wood seller resting the legs of her heavy carrying frame on the ground. She nodded to Charles. “They said you’d be coming, mon père. It’s down the alley, in the ditch.”
Charles thanked her, and he and Morel hurried between the houses to a snowy ditch that had perhaps once been a streambed and was ending its life as an illegal neighborhood midden. Two men stood in the ditch with their backs to the path. Charles didn’t know the man in workaday brown, but the one in the plumed hat and long black wig he knew all too well, even from behind.
Giving thanks for the cold for once, because it lessened the ditch’s stench, Charles picked his way down the snowy slope, Morel behind him. Morel arrived at the bottom with his dignity intact, but Charles stepped on something nastily soft under the snow and slid precipitously, saved from falling flat only by a long arm and a lace-cuffed iron grip.
“Bonjour, Maître du Luc. I thought you might be arriving.” A spark of warmth flickered in Nicolas de La Reynie’s dark eyes, and a corner of his mouth turned up beneath the moustache arching like a gray half moon above his lips. La Reynie was not a young man. But he was a commanding presence, tall and strong and powerfully built.
“And I am glad to find you here, mon lieutenant-général,” Charles said. “And not only because you saved my poor bones, if not my dignity.”
He didn’t bother asking why La Reynie had been expecting him. Or why the lieutenant-général of the Paris police had come himself to stand in this noisome ditch. The man knew more than anyone except God about what happened in the city, and probably knew it faster. He would certainly know of Martine Mynette’s murder and no doubt knew quite well that Henri Brion had been her notary. And that the Mynette money would now come to the Society of Jesus. Pressed unwillingly into La Reynie’s service last summer, Charles had quickly learned that nothing was beneath the lieutenant-général’s attention.
The other corner of La Reynie’s mouth lifted. “Dignity? Oh, Jesuits have dignity to spare, I find. Though no more bones than the rest of us. And perhaps, just now, no more money? At least, not yet.”
Charles smiled affably. La Reynie was not the only one who could play verbal games. “Certainly not more money, monsieur, since we take a vow of poverty.”
La Reynie gave him a small ironic bow and presented his sergent , the man in brown breeches and coat, lean and hard bitten. Charles, in turn, presented Morel, who eyed La Reynie warily. The four of them turned their attention to the most recent dead creature to be thrown into the ditch.
Charles crossed himself and the others followed suit. Henri Brion’s frost-glazed dark eyes stared past them at the sky. Charles looked at his dead face, recalling that although he had heard the man’s voice, he had never seen him until now. He was somehow surprised to see how much Brion looked like his daughter, robust and wide-faced, and how little he resembled the small frail Gilles.
“I have heard that our corpse was a notary and had worked for your college,” La Reynie said.
“Yes. And you no doubt also know that he was Mademoiselle Mynette’s notary. And her guardian. I know his family slightly, but I had never met him. How was he killed?” Charles asked.
“Stabbed in the back. To the heart. We found him lying on his face and turned him to have a look at his other side. There’s little blood on the ground around him, because his clothes are good thick cloth and his shirt and coat soaked up most of it.”
Morel flinched. Charles said nothing, again seeing Martine Mynette lying in a sea of red. But that blood was let by a little blade, not the long knife needed to pierce a heart.
La Reynie shook his head. “I see no reason yet to think so. Though I wonder how he ended in this ditch.”
“He must have been on his way home.” Morel swallowed hard. “He lives in the rue Perdue, very near here.”
“Ah.” La Reynie nodded consideringly.
“Do you have any thought about how long he’s been dead?” Charles said. “I know that in cold like this, it’s very hard to tell. But it may help you to know that his family has not seen him since at least Thursday evening.”
“That may help indeed.” La Reynie eyed the body. “And there was snow off and on yesterday and through the night, and snow mostly covered the body when we found it. And that bush screens it. The body wasn’t immediately obvious.”
In silence, they looked down at the dead man. A sense of futility assailed Charles. Brion had been described to him as greedy and unsuccessful at his work. He’d seemed somehow negligible, even in his own household. Unfortunately, he had not seemed negligible to his killer. If he had, murder would not have been necessary. But no human soul was negligible. Charles began the prayers for the dead, and the other men bowed their heads.
When the prayers were finished, there was a moment of sober quiet and then the sergent folded his arms over his chest and said, as though continuing an argument Charles had interrupted, “I still say the beggars would have found him yesterday, if he’d been here.” Seeing Charles’s questioning look, he explained, “Beggars search the ditches for anything usable. They would have had that cloak and everything else off him and he’d be mother naked.”
Charles frowned. “They’d search even a midden like this?”
The sergent’s eyes widened in disbelief at the naive question. “Beggars would search your chamber pot and lick your empty plate, mon père, if they thought there might be anything they could sell.”
Charles took the rebuke to his naiveté in silence, wondering why he’d asked such a stupid question when he’d seen firsthand the half-ruined part of the old Louvre palace, which destitute Parisians had made into a warren of fetid living quarters.
La Reynie nodded toward the muddy path. “The woman with the load of wood there met a beggar, a woman called Reine, coming out of the alley this morning with a good beaver hat. Reine told her she’d found it on a dead man in the ditch and named him as Henri Brion.”
“Could she have killed him?” Charles said.
“No. The sergent just told you beggars scour all the ditches. But Reine told the other woman that she didn’t go on her rounds yesterday because she wasn’t well. And Reine’s scavenging places aren’t often bothered by other beggars. After Reine found the body, the woman selling wood sent one of her friends to the police post and the sergent came. And he sent for me.” Police posts, called barrières, were scattered across the city and were usually the fastest way of appealing to the law.
The sergent said, “We both know old Reine. She begs outside coffeehouses, and says she often saw this Henri Brion at Procope’s.”
“But she didn’t see him there or at any of the other coffeehouses on Friday,” La Reynie added. “Which is another reason why I think he was already dead and lying here yesterday.”
“Messieurs! A small word!” A canvas-aproned man came slithering into the ditch, pulling a sullen, white-faced boy of thirteen or so after him. “This parsnip-brained apprentice of mine has something to tell you that may be about your body here.”
La Reynie scrutinized them both. “And who are you, monsieur?”
“I am Michel Bernard, mon lieutenant-général. Oh, yes, I know you, all Paris knows you. I am a carpenter.” Raising a work-hardened hand in a fingerless glove, the man pointed at an old house backing on the ditch. “We’re working on that house there. My wife just inherited it and she wants to rent it out for good money.” He rubbed his hands together and blew on his exposed fingers. “I’ll start after the Epiphany, I told her, but no, I must start now, why should we lose money, she says, so here I am freezing my”—he suddenly registered Charles’s presence—“my immortal soul off while she sits by the fire at home. But you may be sure that body’s been there awhile.”
“And why is that?”
“Go on, tell him!” The carpenter pulled his apprentice forward. “I’ve been leaving him in the house at night to keep out the beggars while it’s empty.” He poked the boy hard in the ribs. “Talk!”
“I heard people running,” the boy mumbled, staring wide-eyed at the body. “On Friday morning before light. I heard one of them yell out.” He shut his mouth, and his lips trembled.
His master prodded him again. “Well, go on! Tell the rest.”
“Then, when I came down here to piss after I got up—Friday morning, I mean—he—it—was here. But I was afraid to say anything. I thought if I did, you’d think I killed him. I didn’t, I don’t know him, I never saw him before, as the bon Dieu sees me!”
Everyone gazed speculatively at the boy. Tears began to trickle down his cheeks and he fell on his knees in the snow.
“I swear it, messieurs!”
La Reynie sighed. “Unfortunately, I believe you. But the next time you find a body, for God’s sake tell someone if you don’t want to be suspected. Where can I find you both if I need you again?” he asked the carpenter.
“My workshop’s at the sign of the Magdalene, rue Clopin, mon lieutenant-général.”
“Thank you. You may go. Both of you.” La Reynie dismissed them. When they had clambered out of the ditch, the boy still crying and his master berating him, La Reynie turned to Charles and the sergent. “Well. If the apprentice is telling the truth, we have good reason to think that Monsieur Brion was killed before dawn on Friday morning and has lain here ever since. A popular time for murder in this quartier, it seems. Your Mademoiselle Martine Mynette and her notary, both murdered on the same day.”
Charles said, “You think the two are related?”
“A child would think they are related.” La Reynie walked over to Morel, who was still staring disconsolately at Henri Brion’s body. “May I ask why you are here, monsieur?” he said pleasantly.
Startled, the dancing master tore his eyes from the body and bowed. Graceful, Charles noted, even in a midden beside a corpse.
“As Maître du Luc told you, I am a friend of—of the Brion family. One of your men came to tell Mademoiselle Brion of her father’s death, and she sent me to find out what happened.”
La Reynie nodded slowly. “And you brought our friend Maître du Luc. Mademoiselle Brion is fortunate in her champions. I had understood that she also has a brother. Perhaps I am misinformed?”
“Her brother was not at home, mon lieutenant-général.”
“And where is he?” La Reynie and the sergent exchanged a look.
Warned by the new quality in their attention, Morel’s eyes went to Charles in silent appeal.
“You will probably find Monsieur Gilles Brion at the Capuchin monastery across the river,” Charles said. “He hopes to be a monk.”
“And cannot be interrupted at his prayers even for his father’s death? A devout young man,” La Reynie murmured, making it clear that he would have that whole story from someone and soon. His gaze settled on Charles. “What do you know about this, Maître du Luc? You did not come here only to pray.”
“No,” Charles agreed, returning the gaze. “I came to find out about Monsieur Brion’s death. As I told you, I was already wondering where he was, since no one seems to have seen him since Thursday evening.” Charles sorted rapidly through what he wanted and did not want to say. “Monsieur La Reynie, you said you knew that Henri Brion was Martine Mynette’s guardian. You may not know that she was adopted. Her adoptive mother died a week or so before Christmas and the donation entre vifs, drawn up some years ago by Henri Brion to ensure that the girl would get the mother’s considerable property, has been lost. There is no other family to inherit.”
L
a Reynie smiled. “But there are Jesuits.”
Charles let that pass. “Monsieur Brion claimed to be searching for the original of the adopted girl’s donation at the Châtelet, where he long ago registered the document. But it seems he was not.”
“Was not?” La Reynie echoed.
Morel was frowning angrily at both of them.
“A clerk there told me that Monsieur Henri Brion has not been seen at the Châtelet recently.”
La Reynie studied Charles. “What else?”
“Nothing,” Morel said, before Charles could answer.
“No?” The lieutenant-général smiled genially at Morel. “I see. Since you are Mademoiselle Brion’s representative, monsieur, will you go and tell her that after we have taken her father to the Châtelet and examined him for other wounds or anything else his body might tell us about his death, I will have him brought to his house?”
“I—she—” Morel chewed his lip. “Monsieur, this Mademoiselle Mynette of whom you have been speaking was Mademoiselle Brion’s dearest friend and she is grieving terribly for her. It is too much to expect her to see her father’s body, after what has been done to him!”
Charles put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “It will be a shock to her, yes. But do you not think that, even so, she will want to do the last offices for her father?”
“But wasn’t he a member of one of your confraternities? Couldn’t they see to him?”
“His uncle, Monsieur Callot, is a member of the Congregation of the Sainte Vierge, but Monsieur Brion was not. Forgive me, Monsieur Morel, but I wonder if you are not thinking too little of Mademoiselle Brion’s courage. That is an easy mistake to make with women. I have known Mademoiselle Brion a very short time, but I suspect she has more than enough courage—and love—for this new ordeal.”
Reluctantly, Morel nodded. “Yes, she has courage. And she loved her father. In spite of his faults.”
La Reynie said kindly, “Monsieur, please do me the favor of going now and telling her to expect her father’s body this afternoon. I will see that he is conveyed to her with all respect. She will be grateful for your coming now with my message, because she will have preparations to make.”