by Judith Rock
“That I agree with wholeheartedly,” Charles said. “What about the day before yesterday, Monday?”
Both servants began to laugh.
“He was here, mon père,” the maid said, with a glance at the manservant. “Very much here!”
“And why?” the manservant broke in gleefully. “Because sometimes madame makes him wait at table as well as cook, so she can gaze at his pretty face—and on that Monday, at dinner, he poured hot cream sauce into her lap! By some terrible mistake, you understand. He spent the rest of the day apologizing and making dainties to soothe her temper and make her love him again.”
Charles gave them each a few coins and he and Damiot took their leave. As they rode away from the house, Charles told Damiot what the cook had said about Tito La Rue.
“I think I need to find this gardener. To eliminate him, if nothing else. And he’s the only other name we have just now. What exactly did the servants say about what Saglio was doing on Friday morning?”
Damiot shifted uncomfortably in his saddle and reached under his cassock to pull at his breeches. “Dear God, it’s sixteen hundred eighty-seven, why hasn’t someone invented a comfortable saddle?” He stood up in his stirrups, twitched his cassock out from under him, and sat again. “They say he was here, up well before daylight, packing food for their mistress to take with her to Paris, and then cooking a five-course dinner for the friends she brought back that afternoon. I think it’s true, because the maidservant said she spends her days running from his unwanted attentions. She’d be glad to help fork him into hell.”
“Well, it seems that he’s not a murderer—at least not lately—but based on what I saw and smelled in the kitchen, he’s a good cook.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Me, too.”
They left the village behind and turned onto the dirt track, back to the Faubourg St. Jacques. Tito La Rue, Charles thought glumly. With a description that could suit half the young men in Paris and a name as common.
“I want to stop at Procope’s before we go back to the college,” Charles said to Damiot. “Maybe the kitchen woman Renée knows more about this Tito than she said before.”
“Then we should turn around and go up the rue Vaugirard to the old St. André gate. Otherwise we’ll have to backtrack when we get to the city, and I’m not riding a step farther than I must.”
Flamme shook the reins as Charles turned him, obviously hoping for another run, but Charles held him to Boeuf’s slow pace. The road was full of traffic now, a steady stream of people and carriages heading from the city to Vaugirard, to celebrate the holiday in its taverns with cheap local wine. Charles heard angry murmurs from a few people who passed them, and ignored more than a few hostile glances, but that was all. They soon left the village’s vineyards and fields behind, riding past country houses and gardens, which gave way to houses and shops built wall next to wall. When they reached what was left of the old city walls and the gate, Charles looked at Damiot, surprised by his silence. Judging from the man’s pinched lips, he was in real pain.
“We’ll have some coffee at Procope’s before we talk to Renée,” Charles said recklessly. “Père Le Picart gave me money, and I’ll tell him that spending some of his coins was the only way to save you from death by horse.”
“Which will be Gospel truth,” Damiot muttered.
They reached Procope’s back courtyard by the narrow lane that ran behind the café. As they were tethering the horses, Renée came out of the kitchen with a basin of apple peelings.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle, and a bonne année to you,” Charles said, and jumped aside as she threw the peelings. Not at him, as he’d first thought, but at the waste pile behind him. Nonetheless, there was no welcome in her expression as she looked from him to Damiot.
“Madame won’t let you into the coffeehouse. The customers are arguing about that song and some are saying Jesuits killed Mademoiselle Martine and her mother and the notary, too. If you go in there, there’ll be a riot. So go away.”
Renée turned back toward the kitchen and tried to close the door on them when they followed her. Charles grabbed the door’s edge and held it open.
“The song is a lie; we have killed no one. But we are trying to find out who did, and we need your help.”
“I have already helped you.”
She struggled for a moment to shut the door, then shrugged and let it go. Inside, the silent cook seemed not to have moved from his stool beside the fire where Charles had last seen him. He glanced at the Jesuits without interest and went on eating a piece of pungent cheese. Two glasses of wine stood on the floor beside him. Reine wasn’t there.
Renée picked up one of the glasses and faced them. “What do you want of me?” Her eyes were as hard as green pebbles.
“Anything more you can tell us about Tito La Rue.”
“Why?”
“We have seen Paul Saglio, and—”
Her eyes lit with hope. “Did he ask about me?”
“No,” Charles said ruthlessly.
She looked away and drained her glass.
“Renée, it seems certain that Saglio did not kill Mademoiselle Martine Mynette. But he thinks this Tito may have killed her.”
She made a sound like steam escaping from a pot. “Saglio is a spider. He is an animal. Tito had been gone a month and a half. He would never have come back to the house as long as I was there. He knew I’d make him regret it!”
Charles made a noncommittal sound and watched the cook by the fire pour white wine into a third glass for Damiot, who was eagerly holding out his hand. Renée took her glass to the cook to be refilled.
Charles said, “How long had you worked for Mademoiselle Anne Mynette?”
“About three years.”
“And how long had Tito been there?”
Renée sighed and drank deeply. “Since he was a child, eight years old. It was like this. Thérèse, the cook in the Mynette house, the thief I told you about—she said that Mademoiselle Anne took him from the foundling home to be her servant. It was an act of charity. She gave him a way to earn his living and a better growing-up than he would have had.” She shrugged. “But she soon discovered he was a liar, Thérèse said. Mademoiselle Martine was about four years old then, and she always wore around her neck a little red heart on an embroidered ribbon. And—”
“Mademoiselle Brion told me that this necklace was missing when you undressed Mademoiselle Martine for her coffin.”
“Yes. Mademoiselle Brion was running everywhere, looking for it. I didn’t see how a trinket could matter when my mistress was lying there dead. Well, as I was telling you, when Tito came to the Mynette house as a child and saw Martine’s necklace, he grew very angry. He said it was his and tried to snatch it from her neck! Mademoiselle Anne beat him for it and almost sent him back to the foundling home. But she gave him another chance and he turned out to be a good worker, so she kept him. And finally the little liar stopped saying such foolish things.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“No.”
“Paul Saglio described him as middling tall, dark haired, and well fleshed. Is that right?”
She shrugged. “I suppose so. Yes, that’s—”
She broke off as the liquid-eyed waiter Charles had met when he was there with La Reynie burst into the kitchen. “Madonna says chicken pies,” he yelled at the cook. “She says fruit pies! Cakes and cream, she says, maybe that will quiet them!” He gasped as his eyes fell on Charles and Damiot. “You! No! Go, go,” he hissed, waving his arms at them. “If the signores in the café find you, they will kill you for murdering everyone! Go!”
Beyond the door, a surge of argument rose and chairs scraped across the floor. The counter woman screeched furious reprimands. Then, “Luigi what are you doing? Get out here!” Her voice was coming toward the kitchen. Casting dignity to the winds, Charles and Damiot ran for the courtyard and their horses.
“What a pleasant rest,” Damiot said darkly, as they
rode along the lane toward the Fossés St. Germain. “I hope we can get back to the college without more of that.”
“We’re not going back yet; we’re going to the Foundling Hospital. Where is it?”
“We’re going home.”
“You go home. Where’s the Foundling Hospital?”
“I cannot go back to the college without you; the rector will have my head.”
“Then take us the quickest way to the Foundling Hospital.”
“No. I am your superior. Going there is pointless. This Tito was there years ago; who will remember him? And what good would it do, if they did?”
“The rector is your superior, and he ordered me to find these killers.”
Damiot breathed ominously and silently through pinched nostrils. “There are two Foundling Hospitals. Do you want infants or older children?”
“Older, I think.”
“Then we go across Paris. All the way across Paris. Out the rue St. Antoine to the faubourg. Where I devoutly hope the populace is not starting its year arguing about how much better the world would be without Jesuits.”
In a loud silence, they rode across the river and turned east. In spite of the cold, holidaymakers strolled along the rue St. Antoine in their best clothes. The bourgeoises wore sober black and gray and brown, but their inferiors were bright against the snow in reds and yellows and greens rarely seen on workdays. Fastrolling carriages flashed by. Street peddlers bellowed the virtues of their hot coffee, chocolate, small pies and cakes, and smiled under a rain of small coins. Charles wanted to buy something to eat, but Damiot curtly refused and Charles decided not to argue. Most people ignored them, though as they rode past a snowball fight, a few angrily flung snowballs came their way; harmlessly, however, since the throwers’ holiday drinking was influencing their aim.
Just past St. Catherine’s well, at the Jesuit church of St. Louis, Charles put out a warning hand to Damiot and drew Flamme to a sudden halt. The beggar Marin, hatless but wearing his green almsgiving coat, already torn and dirty, was sitting on the church steps and holding out an insistent hand to passersby.
“Give alms, for love of the Sacre Coeur! Give alms for the Sacred Heart, have luck all year,” he chanted, scowling blackly at anyone who ignored him. “Refuse, you’ll have a year of tears! Give alms for love of the Sacre Coeur.”
Charles saw that tears were running down Marin’s face. The people who dropped coins into his hand kept a tight eye on his massive walking stick, careful not to come too close. His long, tangled white hair and beard made him look like a prophet, and he seemed not only at the end of his patience, but nearly as distraught as when Charles and Mme LeClerc had seen him following the mules on the rue St. Jacques.
“Blessed Sacred Heart,” he mourned, his voice rising in a wailing lament. “God and all the saints forgive me, blessed Claire, forgive me . . .” He began to beat his chest. “Sacred Heart, see my tears—” The words trailed off into keening and he rocked himself from side to side.
Charles got down from his horse. Leading Flamme, he went as close to Marin as he dared. “Marin, softly, hush, it’s all right. God forgives you.” He put a hand gently on the beggar’s shoulder. “Claire forgives you, the Sacred Heart forgives you.”
The old man’s eyes flew open and he pulled away. His tears stopped and he stared wordlessly up at Charles, his eyes full of fear.
“What is it, Marin? You know I won’t hurt you.” Marin’s eyes darted from Charles to the street. “Where is Jean, Marin? Is he here to take care of you?” There was no answer. Charles looked in vain for the beggar’s keeper and then took money from the purse the rector had given him and put coins into Marin’s gnarled hand. “For your supper and Jean’s, too. Come now, get up, you can’t stay here. You may not remember Christmas Eve, but if the Professed House rector sees you here, he’ll surely remember and give you to the archers.”
Charles was pulling Marin to his feet when the old man froze, staring past him. Then the beggar lurched upright, ducked away from Charles, and fled. Turning to see what had frightened him, Charles saw Lieutenant-Général La Reynie, imposing in a black-brown cloak and a wide beaver hat with a white plume, coming toward him. Behind him marched a solid phalanx of a dozen or more men in thick brown coats and breeches, with pistols in their belts.
Père Damiot, his back to the approaching police, said impatiently, “If we have to go to the Foundling House, let’s go and get it over.” Even the stolid Boeuf was shaking his reins, wanting to be gone.
Charles raised his eyebrows. “Turn around, mon père,” he said quietly, “and you’ll see why we can’t leave just yet.”
Damiot turned. “Oh, dear.” He shifted miserably in his saddle.
“Mon lieutenant-général, a good New Year to you,” Charles said courteously, as though they were in a salon and there were not a small army at La Reynie’s back.
“And to you, Maître du Luc.” La Reynie looked at Damiot.
“Monsieur La Reynie, may I present Père Thomas Damiot?”
La Reynie bowed slightly and Damiot acknowledged him.
“Damiot?” La Reynie studied the priest’s face. “Your father is head of the Six Corps. A merchant goldsmith, I believe.”
Damiot nodded. “I see that you know everything about the city you keep, Monsieur La Reynie.”
La Reynie looked at Charles. “Unhappily, not everything.” He said something to the officer standing just behind him and then to Charles, “A small word, maître.”
Warning Damiot with a look to stay where he was, Charles led Flamme after La Reynie, a little way along the street and out of earshot of the other police.
“What has happened, Monsieur La Reynie?” he said, when the lieutenant-général stopped. “I doubt this is how you normally spend your New Year’s Day.”
“You doubt correctly. My spies told me last evening, and again this morning, that trouble is likely here at St. Louis. At your college and your novice house, too. I have put armed men at each place, nearly all the daytime men I have. At dark, the night patrol will replace them.” La Reynie’s head whipped around as shouts and loud laughter erupted from across the street. He watched a gesticulating knot of men in knee-length mantles, their broad hats askew as they argued. “Drunks.” La Reynie sighed. “But it’s drunks who generally start the trouble. Which they’ll go on doing, until someone is charged with these murders.” His gaze swept the length of the street. “Until someone confesses,” he said flatly, refusing to meet Charles’s eyes.
Charles’s stomach turned over. La Reynie was talking about Gilles Brion. The Châtelet was notorious for its ways of making people “confess.”
“I still have not found Monsieur Bizeul’s friend Cantel. I did find three more investors in the smuggling scheme,” La Reynie went on. “Two proved beyond doubt that they were elsewhere during the time when Brion must have been killed.” La Reynie smiled sourly. “The third, on the other hand, has no proof. But he doesn’t need any. He’s seventy and frail, with only one foot. He lost the other forty years ago as one of Condé’s men in the Fronde revolution.” He stopped to watch his own men walking up and down the street in pairs, missing nothing, staying always within earshot of their fellows. “I can keep things quiet a while longer with shows of force in the street. And arrests, too, if it comes to it, though arrests may only stir the fires.” He shook his head. “But the weather is growing colder, there’s more and more sickness about, especially among the workers in the St. Victor quartier, prices are rising again—and we haven’t even begun the worst of the winter! People are ready to take their fears out on whatever comes to hand.”
“And Jesuits have come to hand.”
The lieutenant-général’s eyes held Charles’s. “And therefore, I have to produce the Mynette girl’s killer and Henri Brion’s. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Charles said, colder inside than out, “that you have Gilles Brion in the Châtelet and will use him if you must.”
La Reynie tw
itched his cloak angrily aside, as though his smoldering anger were heating him. “I will not ‘use’ him! I have never, to my knowledge, executed the wrong man and I never want to. But Brion seems more than likely as his father’s killer, if not the girl’s. And he had plenty of reason for her murder, as you well know.” La Reynie sighed heavily. “There are other reasons for haste. On the thirtieth day of this month, the king is coming to a reception and dinner with the city worthies at the Hôtel de Ville. Do you know how rarely the king comes to Paris? He hates Paris. But you wouldn’t know that, you’re a foreigner. I cannot let him come into a city on the edge of riots.” In Paris, a foreigner was anyone not from Paris.
“I may be a foreigner from darkest Languedoc,” Charles said dryly, “but I can count. We have nearly all of January to find the killer.”
“No. The king already knows of the unrest here. Have you forgotten that his confessor, Père La Chaise, is one of your own? I have been told that the king wants this affair concluded, and quickly. He is furious that his own confessor’s order is being accused of murdering for gain. And furious at the thought of riots. I tell you, he hates unrest in Paris more than the pope hates the devil!” The lieutenant-général’s head whipped around again, as a roar of laughter rose by St. Catherine’s well. Someone’s hat, blown off in a gust of east wind, was rolling away down the street, chased by three skinny dogs.
La Reynie rubbed his tired face and turned back to Charles. “Do you have anything for me? Anything at all?”
With a pang of sympathy for the man’s obvious exhaustion, Charles gave up arguing.
“Nothing you will like. Paul Saglio, the servant Martine Mynette dismissed for being too forward, is innocent. We talked to him and his fellow servants in Vaugirard this morning, and it seems certain that he was there when she was killed. But I learned more about the Mynettes’ ex-gardener, Tito La Rue, the one Renée told us about, who was turned out in November for trying to get into Martine’s bedchamber. It seems that, from a child, he claimed Martine’s missing necklace as his own—God knows why. It seems unlikely that he’d come back and kill her over such a tiny thing. And I cannot imagine any reason for him to kill the notary. But since the necklace is missing, he ought to be questioned.”