Now sitting at the rickety old table where they felt so much at ease, he was happy to let the conversation between Bourdeau and the innkeeper wash over him.
Their host suggested stewed eels caught in the Seine, and Bourdeau, his fellow countryman, said teasingly, ‘What, you mean one of those monsters that feed off our customers in the Basse-Geôle?’
‘They may have a nibble when there’s nothing more appetising around, but actually, Mr Know-it-all, their preferred diet is beech-mast and whitebeam. What could be healthier?’
‘What about something from the clear waters of the River Vienne and the River Loire? Something that hasn’t been near the butchers’ shops whose blood runs into the river?’
‘But, Pierre, perch and pike, even if they look more attractive, don’t give up their flavour easily …’
‘That may be, but eel is far too heavy on the stomach.’
‘Not the way I make it.’
‘And how is that?’
‘Well, it’s true, the flesh is fatty, gelatinous and viscous so I gut and skin it, season it with spices and grill it for a short time before letting it simmer in wine. This dissolves the parts that are hard to digest and makes the dish lighter. Served with sautéed mushrooms freshly delivered from Chaville, and a bottle of our local wine, which I also use in the sauce, you’ll have nothing to complain about. All I add is some beurre manié, just for a little extra flavour.’
The two friends, deciding to trust their host’s advice, were served an enormous eel in a piping-hot terrine. The morsels of fish were firm but tasty, and for some minutes they concentrated on the food in silence. Then after their initial hunger had been satisfied Nicolas gave Bourdeau a detailed account of his visit to the fountaineer’s workshop.
‘So it appears,’ said Bourdeau, ‘the Comte de Ruissec set out to eliminate an awkward accomplice and ended up falling into a trap.’
‘That would mean that it was the Comte de Ruissec who arranged his son’s murder. I just cannot imagine that, whatever the causes of their disagreement might have been. Have you forgotten the horrible circumstances of the vicomte’s death?’
‘But you couldn’t imagine a brother killing his elder sibling either, though such things have happened since the dawn of time, and there are numerous examples in the legal records.’
Nicolas reflected on the inspector’s remark.
‘By the way, Bourdeau, there was something you wanted to tell me the other evening but the rum had slurred your speech somewhat.’
‘I don’t see …’
‘Yes, you mentioned a face … You repeated the word several times.’
Bourdeau slapped his forehead. ‘My God, I’d completely forgotten. But it’s an important detail. I’d told you that the Minister of Bavaria’s coachman had been found. As I knew you were very busy I thought it was right for me to question him.’
‘It was indeed. So what happened?’
‘He told me a very strange story. When he drove his carriage towards the bank of the Seine at Pont de Sèvres to tend to the foot of one of his horses, he really did see the scene described by the footman: two men plunging someone unconscious into the water, saying that it was one of their friends who was dead drunk. But what the footman had not noticed but which struck our coachman was the drunkard’s face. It still made him shudder, the poor devil. His description exactly matches the description of the Vicomte de Ruissec’s face when he was found. He was still trembling at the memory of those sunken cheeks. He had indeed drunk something – it was lead. And he was certainly dead.’
‘Do you know, that had already occurred to me. The smell of wet clothes, that obtrusive smell, really did come from the river and the stagnant water near its banks. They wanted to dump the body in the river. Weighted down like that it would have sunk straight to the bottom. Enough to satisfy the appetites of the fish you were talking about earlier.’
Bourdeau suddenly pushed away his bowl of eels.
‘I’ve always thought it was suspect,’ he muttered, ‘fishing in big cities.’
‘But,’ Nicolas went on, continuing his train of thought, ‘our fellows were interrupted on the job and one of them, probably the manservant Lambert, worked out the diabolical plan of taking the body back to the Hôtel de Ruissec. He or his accomplice.’
‘The vidame?’ said Bourdeau.
‘Perhaps, but there are other candidates.’
‘In any case this clears up certain points and opens up new possibilities. I’ve had the coachman put in solitary confinement. He’s a prime witness and it’s a shame he didn’t have a better look at the other two rogues but perhaps he was too frightened by the look on the face of the so-called drunkard.’
Nicolas and Bourdeau stayed on talking for some considerable time and got through a good few bottles as they prepared their plan of campaign. By now Nicolas was calm and composed. Though he did not yet have all the cards in his hand he felt confident that he could keep his promise to Monsieur de Saint-Florentin to bring the guilty parties before him by the following week. He needed to wait for the information requested from the provinces, then collate and check it, hope that Monsieur de La Vergne could find the name of the lieutenant who had fallen victim to the Comte de Ruissec – this detail might prove important – and above all close in on the protagonists with his network of spies and informers.
XI
REVELATIONS
‘If Justice has been depicted with a blindfold over her eyes, then Reason needs to be her guide.’
VOLTAIRE
Wednesday 14 November 1761
Since All Saints’ Day the city had been cold and foggy. The Lieutenant General of Police made his entrance into the Great Châtelet with his hands in a warming muff. With the help of old Marie he attempted to extricate himself from his thick fur-lined cloak. He muttered in exasperation at the usher’s clumsiness. Nicolas and Bourdeau observed the scene. The inspector was leaning back against a wall, as if trying to be inconspicuous. Nicolas for his part felt a twinge of emotion at being back in the office where several years earlier he had met Monsieur de Sartine for the first time. The contrast between the ancient medieval walls and the splendour of the furniture never ceased to strike him. This dull, grey morning the room was illuminated by a vast number of candelabra whose flickering gleam added to the radiance of the banked-up fire blazing in the great Gothic fireplace. Monsieur de Sartine was known to be sensitive to the cold, hence the need to warm the high-ceilinged room in which the magistrate appeared only once a week, on Wednesdays, to preside symbolically over the hearing in his nearby courtroom. In fact he usually had someone stand in for him. He leant his elbows on the back of a chair, lifted his coat-tails and warmed himself against the fire. After a moment’s reflection he signalled to Nicolas to begin.
‘Sir, I wanted to speak to you today with Inspector Bourdeau in attendance to offer you the conclusions I have come to concerning the criminal deaths of the three members of the Ruissec family. I have asked your permission for this session to take place in the privacy of your study so as to preserve the secrecy and confidentiality of a case whose ramifications go right to the heart of the monarchy and the State.’
‘I venture to hope, sir,’ said Sartine with a smile, ‘that this degree of secrecy will not extend to concealing the names of the guilty parties.’
‘Rest assured, sir, they will be revealed. I should like to go back to the strange beginnings of this case. From the start intervention from above deflected the course of the investigation. I will not go so far as to say that justice was impeded but it was encouraged to look in a certain direction. From the moment we reached the Hôtel de Ruissec, before we knew anything, suicide was spoken of. Monsieur de Ruissec’s violent reaction towards you, his contempt and reluctance to answer my questions, could admittedly be ascribed to his fear of scandal but I sensed there was something else. Numerous obstacles were put in our path, clues seemed contradictory and various interventions impeded my enquiries.’
Monsieur
de Sartine drummed his fingers on the back of the chair.
‘That is all well and good, Nicolas, but please explain what it was that convinced you from the very beginning that we were dealing with a murder when the room was locked from inside.’
‘There were several clues. The state of the wound gave all the appearances of having been inflicted by a firearm post mortem. Then there were the corpse’s hands. As you know, when someone fires a pistol, especially a heavy cavalry type like the one used in this case, the hand pulling the trigger, and sometimes even the face, is spattered with black powder. However, the Vicomte de Ruissec’s hands were clean and well cared for. In addition there was the terrifying appearance of the face.’
‘Yes, I witnessed that,’ said Sartine, shaking himself as if to dispel a haunting image.
‘Other incomprehensible facts added to the confusion. For example, the smell of stagnant water coming from the dead man’s clothes and some fragments of a powdery, coal-like substance that I found stuck to his boots. But it was the evidence found in the room that proved vital. A farewell note had been written, in capitals. The position of the lamp on the desk, the armchair, the quill and inkstand, and even the paper all convinced me that the person who had written those lines was left-handed.’
‘But perhaps the Vicomte de Ruissec really was left-handed. You didn’t know.’
‘Indeed, but what I could see was that the shot from the pistol had struck the base of the neck on the left. It would have been difficult, not to say physically impossible, for a right-handed person to inflict such an injury on himself.’
Monsieur de Sartine fidgeted.
‘I don’t understand. Who is left-handed and who is right-handed?’
‘Let me explain,’ said Nicolas. ‘A right-handed person cannot fire a shot at the base of his head on the left-hand side without extraordinary contortions and at the risk of missing. A little later I happened to discover in the dressing room a mother of pearl and silver-gilt dressing case, carefully placed on the right-hand side. There was further confirmation later: the Vicomte de Ruissec was indeed right-handed. But the question still remained: did the person firing the shot do so without taking this into account or had he cleverly tried to make it look as if the murderer or the person who wanted to make it look like a suicide were left-handed?’
‘Why should anyone want to make it look like a suicide when so many factors argued in favour of a murder?’
‘Perhaps someone was trying to draw attention to the fact that it could not possibly have been suicide. They were trying to send a message; it was a warning.’
‘Commissioner Le Floch is once again leading us into a labyrinth where he alone knows the way through!’ sighed Sartine.
‘There were many other clues. A manservant in stockinged feet who claimed just to have got out of bed but whose cravat was perfectly positioned and knotted, and who gave no sign of emotion at the sight of the body. You witnessed that, sir. He was doing everything, more even than he needed, to substantiate the theory of the vicomte’s suicide. He made great play of his master’s gambling debts and melancholy. After you left I examined the dead man’s library and was intrigued by the titles it contained. The dead man’s hat thrown upside down on to the bed shocked me: you know the superstition …’
From the shadows Bourdeau could be heard expressing his amusement.
‘Questioning Picard, the major-domo, confirmed my doubts. The man could hardly see. He had not seen the vicomte clearly when he returned. He described him as infatuated with a manservant who exerted an evil influence over him. On the other hand, Picard too mentioned that the young man was anxious, depressed and preoccupied by a serious matter. Finally in the garden of the mansion I noticed footprints and a ladder, though I could not immediately see what this all meant.’
‘So you had not at this point solved the mystery of the locked bedroom, had you?’
‘No, sir. The revelation came when Bourdeau and I went on an undercover visit to Grenelle. An unexpected visitor forced me to hide in the wardrobe and I then understood what had really happened. Lambert, the manservant, dressed in his master’s clothes, goes past the half-blind major-domo, up to the first floor, closes the door behind him and opens the window for his accomplice. The two of them bring the vicomte’s body up the ladder and stage the suicide scene. Lambert hides in the wardrobe and reappears when all our attention is focused on the dead body in the semi-darkness. It was a risky game, but worth the candle.’
‘What about the Comte de Ruissec? What was your initial impression of him?’
‘His reaction was not quite what I would have expected. He seemed to come to terms with the idea of an autopsy on his son’s body very quickly, as if he knew full well that it would not take place. Monsieur de Noblecourt later shed some light on the comte’s complex personality. His past, his ostentatious piety, his reputation but also his position at Court with the Dauphin and Madame Adélaïde suggested there was much to learn. He also told me about the vicomte’s younger brother – intended for the priesthood, but leading a profligate life and spending money like water. Going back to our evening visit to Grenelle: as we were about to leave, the major-domo brought me an envelope purporting to come from Madame de Ruissec, asking me to meet her the next day in the Lady Chapel of the Carmelite monastery so that she might “seek my advice”.’
‘But as usual your witnesses perished. First the son, then the mother, leaving only the father!’
‘That’s nothing to do with me, sir. The undoubted murder of Madame de Ruissec proved that someone involved was left-handed, either genuinely or by pretence. The doctor who made the preliminary examination, in the presence of Monsieur de Beurquigny, one of your commissioners, confirmed that. As you know I decided to keep this new crime quiet because it could quite easily be passed off as an accident. Today, sir, I would like you to hear the evidence of a man who no longer has any reason to remain silent. He’s a decent fellow, a former soldier. I gave him my word that he would not be prosecuted. All he is guilty of is a silence that could be interpreted as loyalty to his masters. Bourdeau, bring in Picard.’
Bourdeau opened the door of the Lieutenant General’s office and motioned to the usher who invited the old man to enter. He seemed to have aged even more and was leaning on a stick. Nicolas made him sit down.
‘Monsieur Picard, you are a soldier and an honest man. Are you prepared to repeat here what you have already told me in confidence?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘On the evening in question did anyone else enter the Hôtel de Ruissec before the vicomte returned?’
‘Yes, indeed, sir, and I hid this from you. Monsieur Gilles, I mean Monsieur le Vidame, came while his parents were accompanying Madame to the opera. He had arranged to see his mother and went up to wait for her in her rooms.’
‘So she would have found him there when she got back home, would she not? When the comte accompanied his wife to her rooms did he see his younger son?’
‘No, sir. The comte did not go upstairs and, in any case, Monsieur Gilles had instructed me not to tell the general he was there. In my opinion he would have been hiding in case his father did go upstairs.’
‘Did the comtesse join him immediately?’
‘Not to my knowledge, sir. When we reached the first floor to break open the door she passed out, so I believe, and she returned to her rooms only much later.’
‘Could anyone have heard the conversation between mother and son?’
‘Definitely, sir. There are many double doors and the back of Madame’s rooms gives on to a corridor that leads to the servants’ quarters.’
‘Why did you conceal from us that the vidame was in the house?’
‘I did not consider it important and he had asked me to be discreet. He was afraid of his father.’
After Picard had been shown out, Monsieur de Sartine began his habitual pacing, before stopping in front of Nicolas.
‘Where does that get us? You do not know what was said
between mother and son.’
‘You are quite wrong, sir. We know everything. Bourdeau will explain how. It is always possible to discover something if you investigate thoroughly. All that’s needed is to search and listen.’
The inspector emerged from the shadows. He seemed caught between the satisfaction of playing his role and the embarrassment of being brought to the fore.
‘Sir, Commissioner Le Floch can tell you that we carried out a very detailed assessment of what everyone was doing that evening in Grenelle. Neither Picard, the major-domo, nor Lambert, the vicomte’s manservant, could physically have been near enough the comtesse’s rooms to know what was said. On the other hand, I did learn that someone had heard the conversation.’
‘A deus ex machina!’ exclaimed Monsieur de Sartine.
‘Simpler than that, sir, the comtesse’s chambermaid was in the adjacent boudoir when the conversation began. She did not really understand what was happening. The exchanges were virulent. The comtesse accused the vidame of having killed his brother.’
‘Why did she make such an accusation?’
‘Apparently she thought the vidame was jealous of his elder brother and that in addition they were rivals in love. The comtesse did not believe her son had committed suicide. There was a terrible argument. The vidame eventually managed to convince his mother he was innocent by referring to a plot involving his father and elder brother. He begged his mother to intervene and convinced her to speak to the police. It was at this point that she wrote a note to the commissioner.’
‘Is the chambermaid implicated in any way?’
‘No, except that, courted by Lambert, she was in the habit of repeating to him in all innocence the secrets of her masters’ conversations and probably related word for word the incomprehensible exchange that she had overheard between mother and son.’
The Man with the Lead Stomach Page 25