The Nicolas Le Floch affair

by Jean-FranCois Parot

  ‘Forgive the modesty of this dessert,’ said Sanson, ‘but—’

  ‘But Monsieur Sanson will warn me in future when we have an important guest …’

  Nicolas was intrigued by the jam. It was clearly made from cherries, but there was another flavour mixed in with it, giving a slightly acidic overall taste.

  ‘What do you call this jam?’

  She nodded her head, pleased to see his surprise. ‘It’s a family secret, but I don’t mind telling you. It’s made from raspberry-flavoured cherries. All you do is take the stones out of the cherries and replace them with raspberries. You also add the juice of squeezed raspberries and cherries, and make sure you divide the stuffed cherries from the cherries with stones. The ones with stones should be pinched in two places with a pin, to stop them bursting and the stones coming out. You cook them with sugar, as usual.’

  ‘I shall preserve the memory of this delicacy, and I promise you, Madame, that I’ll guard the secret jealously.’

  The supper ended and everyone, including the servants and the cook, gathered at the staircase. Madame Sanson made them all kneel and recited the evening prayers in a firm voice. Then she distributed candles, with the usual instructions. Less timid now, the children came and embraced their father’s friend. Nicolas went up to his room. The warmth of this family evening had calmed him. Now tiredness swept over him and he collapsed into the soft bed, which enveloped him so snugly that he immediately drifted into a dreamless sleep.

  Saturday 8 January 1774

  He awoke to a familiar smell and the noise of the curtains being drawn back. On a little table, one of the servants placed a pot of steaming beverage, a cup and a plate of rolls which Nicolas assumed were home-made. Doubtless accustomed to being discreet, the servant did not even look at him. As he was finishing his breakfast, the door opened and a small shape in a white nightdress crept up to him.

  ‘Good morning, Monsieur. I’m Gabriel. I’m five. Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Very well thank you, and good morning to you.’

  ‘I’d like to ask you something … something …’ He hesitated, and Nicolas gave him a smile of encouragement.

  ‘You’re the first friend of my father’s I’ve seen here. Why is that?’

  Nicolas felt quite embarrassed. How could he answer the child? Did the boy know his father’s occupation? It seemed unlikely that Sanson could have concealed the true nature of his work from his children, running the risk that they might discover it by chance later on and be doubly shocked. But Nicolas did not know that for certain. How was he to handle this?

  ‘I think your father is so pleased with his family that it’s the only thing he needs to make him happy. He has friends, but he only sees them in the city.’

  The boy frowned, seemed to think hard about this, then relaxed. His eyes thanked Nicolas. The explanation, weak as it was, had no doubt answered an unformulated question. He left the room without saying a word, just as he had entered. Nicolas washed and dressed. He carefully disguised himself again as the clerk of the court, although he had difficulty in finding enough dust for the finishing touches. While waiting to leave, he leafed through some devotional books he had found in a little cupboard. This house, so peaceful, so distant from the horrors of the world, was nevertheless the home of the public executioner.

  Towards midday, he went downstairs. Sanson had been called away on some dreadful task. His wife greeted Nicolas warmly. She told him how happy her husband had been with his visit, and made him promise to do her the honour of returning another time. She did not seem surprised to see him in his unprepossessing disguise. She was a woman of discretion and duty, and nothing could surprise her.

  Madame Sanson let Nicolas out of the house through a little concealed door into Rue d’Enfer. He walked along the street a little way, then turned round and walked back towards Rue Poissonnière. He wanted to make sure he was not being followed. He had done enough tailing of suspects not to be caught out himself. He soon came to the Hôtel des Menus Plaisirs. He knew that this fine-looking building served as a storehouse for all the machinery, decorations and clothes used in Court celebrations. Visiting it one day, he had been taken aback by the juxtaposition of material left over from a grand ball with the remains of the catafalque from a princely funeral. He did not have to wait long for Bourdeau. While he waited, he was amused by the number of pretty young women coming in and out, some little more than children. A few winked at him impudently as they passed. He had to admit that his curiosity was aroused: his appearance was hardly calculated to stir such interest. Then Bourdeau’s carriage loomed up, a door opened, and he leapt in.

  ‘I hope you didn’t wait too long,’ said the inspector, in a jovial tone.

  ‘Not at all. You’re as accurate as the clock on the Palais de Justice.’

  ‘You seemed puzzled.’

  ‘Yes, I was wondering about all those pretty women going into the building. Some of them were far from shy.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Bourdeau, slapping his thigh. ‘That’s not unusual – it happens every day. All the girls from the Opéra and the theatres, provided they have a protector, have letters of introduction.’

  ‘Of introduction? To visit that establishment? For what purpose?’

  ‘What purpose? Why, the most appealing purpose of all for a woman. It costs as much to repair all the material left over from royal celebrations as it does to buy it new. So it’s left to the greed of these young madams. You should see them! They plunder what ever they find – satin, other fabrics. They just can’t get enough.’

  ‘At the King’s expense!’

  ‘The King’s? At our expense! The leftovers from Court celebrations being thrown away like that should trouble any good citizen concerned about the use his taxes are put to. That’s what happens when the strength of the State lies with the monarch alone. One of these days, another force will prevail, to provide a counterweight to these reprehensible excesses. Not to mention the King himself, who, they say, speculates on the price of grain to line his pocket.’

  Nicolas recognised that vein of caustic criticism to which Bourdeau sometimes gave vent, often with some justification.

  ‘Come now, Pierre, you’re quite wrong. You’re drawing rash conclusions from dubious premises. I can’t let you say that. Can you honestly imagine His Majesty doing something like that? It’s the kind of thing you read in the newspapers and lampoons published in London and The Hague. And what kind of counterweight do you mean? Are you now in favour of the parlements, who’ve so often rebelled against the authority of the King?’

  Bourdeau shook his head, unconvinced. ‘I’m not thinking about the parlements, but about the people. They have no voice, no one to speak for them.’

  The carriage suddenly swerved violently, throwing Nicolas on to the inspector. They heard oaths and cracks of the whip. The coachman’s window opened.

  ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen, it was a delivery boy who was daydreaming as he crossed the street. We almost knocked him over.’

  The carriage set off again. To their right, Nicolas saw a curly-haired young man with an alarmed expression on his face, wearing a tight white apron and carrying in one hand a silver coffee pot and in the other a tray with a bowl and a pyramid of cups he had miraculously saved from disaster. When they reached the Châtelet, Doctor Semacgus, his face tense with annoyance, was waiting for them in the duty office.

  ‘What can you tell me?’ asked Bourdeau. ‘Have you finished your research? Can we close the case?’

  ‘Far from it,’ replied the surgeon. ‘There was indeed poisoning …’

  ‘We already knew that.’

  ‘Yes, but I’ve now established premeditated poisoning. All my observations – and of course I checked everything several times – lead me to this assertion.’

  Nicolas felt a chill descend on him, and he had to sit down on a stool. So, what he had suspected from the start had at last been confirmed.

  ‘And what are your reasons?’ asked Bourde
au.

  ‘Oh, two rats! Or rather, six, because I did the experiment three times, which makes twelve, because I used one group for the liquid and the other for the food. The chicken didn’t produce any result, but the liquid – what a massacre! I tell you, that poison’s more effective than arsenic if you want to get rid of rats. At first the animals seemed confused, then the symptoms started coming thick and fast. Yawning, spasms, abundant sweating, squeals of distress. When they were shown water, they immediately ran to drink it, but as soon as they’d drunk it they rejected it and started crying out in pain. In the end they brought up phlegm tinged with blood. Within a quarter of an hour they were dead.’

  ‘And what kind of poison was it?’

  ‘That’s the problem. I have no idea.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That we still have to identify the corrosive ingredient in the beverage.’

  ‘You know it exists, then.’

  ‘I finally managed to precipitate it. By reducing and drying the traces of humid material, I ended up with some tiny fragments of crushed seeds.’

  ‘What kind of seeds? Can’t you see I’m on tenterhooks?’

  ‘That’s just it. I don’t know. I don’t recognise them at all, even though I’ve travelled in many regions of the world. In some ways, I’m reminded of the plant poisons whose effects I witnessed in the Americas: lianas with poisonous seeds which cause convulsions. I was up until late last night looking through my library, consulting every author I could think of. Even Pouppé-Desportes in his work on the common plants of Santo Domingo doesn’t describe anything similar. I’m off to the Jardin du Roi now to question my colleagues and to look at their collection. As you know, I’m currently putting together a herbarium of exotic plants, so I do know something about the subject. But this business has defeated me.’

  ‘Keep us informed,’ said Bourdeau. ‘But before you go, I’d like to ask you one last question: could this poison have been administered to Madame de Lastérieux by one of her two black servants from the West Indies?’

  Semacgus thought this over for a moment. ‘It’s possible. The flora of those regions is highly diverse and therefore little known. But in that case, they would have had to bring it with them when they travelled to France. To what purpose? It would have had to be a long-premeditated crime, which seems to me quite a rash assumption to make! I must leave you, my dear Bourdeau. By the way, is Nicolas still at Versailles?’ Bourdeau looked at him in amazement.

  ‘Don’t be surprised, I went to Rue Montmartre this morning. He’d sent a message to Monsieur de Noblecourt saying he was at Versailles, staying with his friend La Borde. He must be fishing in the Grand Canal, the lucky fellow!’

  Bourdeau and Nicolas both reacted worriedly to the mention of this mysterious messenger whom neither of them had dispatched.

  Semacgus left without a glance at the clerk, who was stubbornly keeping his head down. Bourdeau waited a few moments for his steps to fade before he turned to Nicolas.

  ‘I’m sorry about what we’ve just heard,’ he said. ‘So, here we are, ready to get down to the job. The real investigation begins here, and I think the first thing we should do is question our two tropical birds. What do you think? Madame de Lastérieux’s servants must surely be our prime suspects. This business with the poisoned seeds could well be their doing. Do you know them well?’

  ‘Fairly well. I’ve been seeing them for the past year at Madame de Lastérieux’s house. They’re good servants. They can speak French, and have always struck me as being docile and discreet.’

  ‘Did Madame de Lastérieux treat them well?’

  Nicolas’s momentary hesitation did not escape Bourdeau.

  ‘I think so … Although Julie could be harsh to them. She was rather influenced, during her stay in Guadeloupe, by the customs of the Creoles, who treat their slaves, for better or worse, like pieces of furniture. I got the impression, from the occasional complaint I overheard, that her two servants were hoping to be freed, but that she obstinately refused. She was very comfortable here, but wouldn’t have tolerated being abandoned by servants she had complete control over and only had to feed and clothe.’

  ‘Would being freed have brought an improvement to their situation?’

  ‘To them, it represented a hope that they might see their country again. Once freed, they couldn’t legally stay in France. They would have been forced to take passage at Le Havre. I’ll have to have another look at the legislation and then talk to you again. For example, our dear Awa, who prepares us such delicious suppers, was freed by Semacgus well before the edict of 1762; that’s why she’s allowed to stay on at his house in La Croix-Nivert.’

  ‘She wouldn’t abandon our friend for anything in the world,’ said Bourdeau, smiling. ‘She’d probably prefer to go back to servitude if that was the only way she could remain here. How old are they?’

  ‘Hard to say,’ replied Nicolas. ‘These natives tend to look young for a long time, then suddenly age. But Casimir can’t be more than twenty-five, and Julia about twenty.’

  ‘Are they married? Can they be?’

  ‘They can, being good Christians, but I’d swear they’ve never said vows before a priest.’

  ‘Do you think them capable of such a terrible crime?’

  This time, Nicolas did not hesitate. ‘I cannot imagine those two dreaming up or even flirting with the idea of such an insane plan to get rid of their mistress. The means used, those mysterious foreign seeds, would have immediately given them away. I should also mention that Julia was recently baptised, and Madame de Lastérieux was her godmother. A relationship like that would make the crime even more unthinkable to these people.’

  ‘Open your eyes, Nicolas. You don’t seem aware of the gravity of the situation. I shan’t hide from you the fact that, if those two turn out to be innocent, your position wouldn’t look good to any magistrate who gets hold of the case. In fact, you’d make an ideal culprit. A deceived and rejected lover, they’d say, driven by jealousy to take an extreme course of action. They’d also observe that you knew the customs of the household and were in a position to throw suspicion on the servants. They might even go so far as to insinuate that you were after Madame de Lastérieux’s fortune …’

  ‘Stop it, Pierre. You’re worse than a procurator. I’m not in the dock yet.’

  ‘What I’m trying to say, Nicolas, is that we must be prepared for the worst. Do you know if Julie had made a will?’

  ‘She was still rather young to be thinking about it, though I do vaguely remember her mentioning the matter to me once. Her only relatives, she said, were some distant cousins. She thought it best to leave everything to a number of charities. It was her husband’s sudden death that had given her that idea.’

  ‘Do you know the name of her notary?’

  ‘It shouldn’t be too hard to find out. Someone relatively new to the city, like her, would usually choose the nearest one.’

  ‘If we find out who it is, we’ll have to talk to him. You know from experience how much useful information a will can sometimes contain. But the most urgent thing is to question the servants and the dinner guests. Do you think you can draw up a list?’

  ‘I can tell you how many there were without any problem. But who exactly they were will be more difficult to find out. When I arrived for the first time, late that afternoon, the people there, apart from Julie and the two servants, were Monsieur Balbastre, the organist of Notre Dame, a musician who was playing the pianoforte, and four young men playing whist. All a bit vague, as you see.’

  ‘Monsieur Balbastre may be able to tell us more,’ said Bourdeau. ‘Let’s draw up our plan of campaign. First, question Julia and Casimir, who are at the police station in Rue du Bac. Commissioner Monnaye’s in charge there. Have you ever met him? He’s always seemed to me to have rather a sharp tongue.’

  ‘That’s an understatement. I’ve heard of some very unfriendly remarks about me and some caustic writings in prose and verse about
Monsieur de Sartine. If he’d seen them, it would have made his wig fall off.’

  ‘There’s no time to waste! Adjust your false belly – it’s dangling on the right-hand side – you look all lopsided!’

  The door of the office suddenly burst open, and the Lieutenant General of Police appeared.

  ‘I don’t know if my wig’s likely to fall off,’ he cried. ‘But I’d like to point out that the position of Commissioner Le Floch, who is supposed – note that word, gentlemen – supposed to be recovering from his grief in a cocoon-like retreat within the royal palace, is definitely lopsided, not to say compromised.’

  He came and stood in front of Nicolas.

  ‘Just look at this get-up! What a sight you are! A disguise like that wouldn’t look out of place on the stage. Anyone would be taken in by it. You ought to walk up and down the boulevard or display yourself at Ramponneau’s.2 Your career would take off immediately!’

  Suddenly, his face creased, and he grabbed a stool, sat down, and began gasping with laughter, while the two men looked on – Nicolas anxiously and Inspector Bourdeau quite unruffled.

  Notes – CHAPTER 3

  1. A building in which costumes and sets from Court celebrations were stored.

  2. A fashionable tavern in the outlying district of La Courtille.

  IV

  DARK DEEDS

  Experience began to take the place of age, it had the same effect on us as years.

  ABBÉ PRÉVOST

  Never, thought Nicolas, had Monsieur de Sartine let himself go like this in front of those closest to him. The object of his hilarity must really be worth it. Every time he looked at the stunned expression on Nicolas’s face, not to mention his absurd costume, his laughter started up again, louder than ever, lighting up his face and fleetingly making him look his real age. His usual gravity and composure were cracking like a veneer, revealing a rough sketch of a happy adolescent. But gradually he calmed down, grew serious again and anxiously adjusted his wig.