‘And who do you point to for this accumulation of compliments?’ asked Monsieur Lenoir.
‘It’s still too soon to unmask him. A final verification will be necessary. I promise you, though, that you will not leave this room without knowing his identity. I should add that sending Monsieur Balbastre to that house was a particularly perfidious touch. He was already being blackmailed. How much greater was the threat to him now, when his presence at the scene of a crime could well lead to his being accused of it himself, if necessary.’
‘And those mysterious young men?’
‘You mean the ones who were present in Rue de Verneuil and have never been found again?’
‘Precisely,’ said Monsieur Lenoir.
‘Monsieur du Maine-Giraud’s correspondence with his sister, which we seized, has enlightened us on this matter, leading us to suppose that a life of gambling and debauchery, with the debts that entailed, had made them ripe for blackmail, too, and that they were being used like puppets by men to whom they were bound hand and foot. The city is an abyss in which many innocent young people find it impossible to resist temptation. I ask that Monsieur Balbastre appear again.’
Bourdeau carried a small table and a chair into the centre of the room. On the table he placed a quill, an inkpot, five sticks of green wax and one of red wax, a sheet of paper and a lighted candle. Finally, the pair of boots made their reappearance. Balbastre was just as pitiful as before.
‘Monsieur,’ said Nicolas, ‘please try on this pair of boots.’
His body shaking, the musician did as he was told. They were much too big for him, and he stumbled when he tried to walk in them.
‘All right,’ said Nicolas. ‘Now sit down at this table. You have before you a sheet of music paper. Would you oblige us by filling the first stave with a melody of your own choice, then writing these words: ‘The last wishes of Jean-Philippe Rameau.’ Then fold the paper and seal it with the red wax.’
Monsieur Balbastre obeyed, writing a line of music and the words he had been given. Nicolas ordered the paper to be brought to him and the defendant to be taken out.
‘Talk of the Saint-Victor fair and conjuring tricks!’ said Testard du Lys. ‘What’s the meaning of all this?’
‘I hope you will soon be enlightened, Monsieur. I once again call Monsieur von Müvala.’
Before Müvala entered, Bourdeau took away the stick of red wax. The young man had regained all his arrogance. Nicolas asked him to do the same things as Balbastre, emphasising that he should seal the paper with red wax. In no time at all, the line of music and the words had been written. Just as quickly, Müvala took the stick of green wax, heated it and let the melted wax run on to the paper.
‘But look what he—’ began the Criminal Lieutenant.
‘Monsieur, please!’ Nicolas immediately interrupted.
He thanked Müvala and had him led out. Monsieur Rodollet was then summoned to appear. He sat down behind Nicolas.
‘Gentlemen, it falls to me to throw light on a series of events marked by three murders, several attempts on my life and a desire to appropriate State secrets. This is how I see things. Madame de Lastérieux, an instrument of the secret police, is being watched by the factions who are agitating behind the scenes in expectation that the King’s days are numbered and a new reign is coming. Commissioner Camusot, who is in the pay of the leader of one of these factions, orders Balbastre to arrange for me to meet Julie. They suspect that I am often entrusted with special missions. Balbastre is clearly being blackmailed over some past fault, and such is his terror that he is only too ready to obey. Not only does he introduce me to Madame de Lastérieux, but he is also responsible for Monsieur von Müvala gaining a foothold in her house. Alas for her! We must remember that Camusot has hated me ever since I exposed the abuses with which he had been compromising his career. He is hoping to lay a trap for me, to ruin me in such a way that I will never recover. Madame de Lastérieux means nothing to them. He and his accomplice will use her and then coldly murder her. They take a great number of measures to make sure they succeed, such as the use of the slave Casimir as the innocent tool of their Machiavellian schemes. They take so many of these measures that some of them have the opposite effect from what they hoped.’
Nicolas was pacing the room, his eyes closed and his hands together.
‘Where they go wrong is in not really knowing Julie’s habits. That plate of food in the bedroom – something she would never have tolerated – is one of their mistakes. So is the closed window. And there are others. But all that trying on of boots which so intrigued the Criminal Lieutenant proves that, besides myself, only Commissioner Camusot could have worn them and left footprints in Rue de Verneuil on the evening of 6 January. Which also proves that Monsieur von Müvala was not alone in the house that night. What then of that surprising remark by the person in question – I’m sure it won’t have escaped you – about what Julie was wearing? I persist in thinking that no true connection, other than the coquetry of a woman trying to make her lover jealous, existed between her and her killer. Yes, her killer. He saw her dead, in her nightdress. How else could he have known what she was wearing? She would not have received him half dressed. That is the first point we have established.’
‘And the second?’ asked Sartine.
‘Müvala falls into the trap I laid about Julie’s perfume and ties himself up in knots. The third point is that we know he had Monsieur du Maine-Giraud steal some seeds of piment bouc from the Jardin du Roi in order to conceal the use of a strong poison, the nature of which is still unknown. The fourth point: my attacker in Picardy steals my keys, again with the intention of getting me into trouble. The box thrown in the Seine, so easily recovered by dragging the river, doubtless contained the key to Madame de Lastérieux’s house. The keys to my lodgings in Rue Montmartre are used to get into Monsieur de Noblecourt’s house in order to search through my things for the box entrusted to me by the late King.’
‘It is rumoured,’ said Monsieur Lenoir, ‘that there were other attempts on your life during your journey to London.’
‘There was a price on my head, according to our English friends in Whitehall. Two factions were pursuing me, Monsieur. For a long time I thought that an indiscretion by Madame du Barry had set this pack on my trail. In fact, we now know that the day the King, in the presence of Monsieur de Sartine, entrusted me with my English mission, one of his domestic servants was hiding in the former wig room, listening to the conversation. It was the same person who overheard the King giving me that box and asking me to take it to Madame du Barry. He was hiding in a room off the recess in the King’s bedchamber. That servant’s identity is now known to us. He was one of the King’s pages, and he was supplying information to the two rival factions, who were both, for opposing reasons, interested in the result of my mission to London, as well as in the document which the late King wanted me to give to Madame du Barry. The connection between these secret political intrigues and the initial murder is clear. One of the factions tries to kill me on the road to Meaux in order to obtain a document which would prevent Monsieur de Choiseul returning to office. Then this same faction, through the intermediary of Camusot and Müvala, does everything it can to recover the document, which has supposedly been stolen by Cadilhac – who in fact is already dead and buried.’
‘Commissioner,’ said Lenoir, ‘we are following you with great attention. But why did these people go to such absurd lengths to implicate you?’
‘I was coming to that,’ replied Nicolas. ‘The hatred I inspire in these two culprits is so strong that they will do anything to make me look guilty. Hence all these excessive tricks, the forged letters, the fake will, even the box thrown in the Seine. That can only be explained if their hatred for me has its roots a long way back in the past, a past I thought had been forgotten.’
‘That’s all well and good. But so far you’ve presented nothing but suspicions, certainly serious ones which seem to hang together. Where is the evidence,
though? You’re impugning the honour of a young man and a former police commissioner, but it’s your word against theirs.’
‘Please be patient a little longer, Monsieur. May I remind you that this case has lasted five months and that everything has been done to make it unusually complicated. I’d like to call Monsieur Rodollet.’
The public letter-writer got to his feet. He did not seem unduly impressed by such a formidable audience.
‘Monsieur Rodollet, this morning you confirmed to us that a number of documents were forgeries. Here are two sheets of paper with music on a stave and a written phrase. You once told me that the forger might have been a musician or someone accustomed to copying music. Which of these copies could have come from the hand of the guilty party? I again give you the originals of Julie’s handwriting to facilitate your judgement.’
He handed him the papers written and sealed by Balbastre and Müvala.
Monsieur Rodollet approached the window and held the two sheets and the originals up to the light. The examination took so long that Monsieur de Sartine was nervously adjusting his wig and Monsieur Lenoir was drawing little hanged men in pencil, arranging them in rows of five, by the time Monsieur Rodollet walked back to Nicolas and handed him the sheet with the green seal.
‘Here you are, Commissioner. The person who wrote this is undoubtedly the person responsible for the forgeries. The details, the hand movements, it’s all quite unmistakable.’
‘Thank you, Monsieur,’ said Nicolas. ‘You may go.’
He turned to the magistrates.
‘Remember the testimony of Madame de Lastérieux’s maid, Julia. Casimir was drawn into the scheme and forced to state that he had posted a letter. Now this letter – a forgery, as we know – was not written and sealed in Rue de Verneuil. Madame de Lastérieux only kept sticks of green wax, green having been her favourite colour. Somewhere else, I don’t know where, it was sealed with red wax and thrown in a post box in the Rue de Verneuil area. And this is what our handwriting expert – this Monsieur Rodollet, whose knowledge and insight are recognised at the Palais de Justice – tells us: here is the sheet of music paper written by the forger, the one who forged the letter and the will.’
He waved the paper above his head.
‘Written by a man who copies music and plays the pianoforte, one of Madame de Lastérieux’s killers: Monsieur von Müvala.’
‘It is not uncommon for there to be errors in the field of handwriting,’ said Lenoir. ‘You should be careful not to commit yourself overmuch and—’
‘I’m sorry to interrupt you,’ replied Nicolas, ‘but please let me finish my demonstration. Why am I so sure that these forgeries are from the hand of the supposed killer? My belief is based on something else. You all heard me ask Monsieur von Müvala to seal the paper with red wax, and you all saw him pick up the green without any hesitation. Why? Why didn’t he notice that he didn’t have any red wax? He immediately grabbed the wrong colour, just as, on two occasions, forging a supposed letter from Julie addressed to me, and drawing up a will making me Madame de Lastérieux’s sole heir, he used red wax, the most common colour, the one which comes most naturally to hand. The very colour that Julie de Lastérieux would never have used. It was a serious mistake, if the intention of both these documents was to implicate an innocent man beyond a shadow of a doubt. How could such a clever man make such an obvious mistake? The solution, gentlemen, came to me in the course of a conversation I had with Doctor Semacgus, the navy surgeon. I was talking to him about this question of colour, when he remembered a discussion he had had in Madras with some Eastern doctors. Both the ancient Persians and the Arab physicians discovered that a particular defect of the eye prevents some people from distinguishing the colour green from the colour red or related colours.1 I believe that Monsieur von Müvala is one of those people.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Monsieur de Sartine. ‘It’s certainly an ingenious argument. However, while it is obvious that Camusot hates you because of the past, how do you explain that this young man should have pursued you like that, to the point of murdering Madame de Lastérieux in order to compromise you, unless he was simply a mindless tool in the hands of the former commissioner?’
Nicolas smiled. ‘Gentlemen, I am now in a position to reveal to you the essential point on which my demonstration rests and which authenticates my conclusions. During my long wait at the baths, I started playing a game from my childhood, the game of anagrams. How blind I had been, and for so long! Müvala … the foreignness of the name deceived us. All we had to do was change the position of one letter, just one, move the final a to before the u and it gave us MAUVAL. Obvious, isn’t it? So obvious that it never occurred to us. The reason for Monsieur von Müvala’s hatred of me is that he is the younger brother of Mauval, a hired killer working for the brilliant and influential Commissioner Camusot, head of the Gaming Division, whom I was responsible for removing from office fourteen years ago. This Mauval I killed in self-defence in the drawing room of the Dauphin Couronné, where he had been sent by Camusot to kill me. The supposed Müvala was born in Montbard, in Burgundy.’
He took a piece of paper from his pocket.
‘Here is a copy of the parish register where his birth is recorded. He had the audacity, a few moments ago, to mention the name of his native town. It must have come into his mind spontaneously. He was born in 1751, and lost his parents at a young age. After their death, his brother became his guardian. Then, when his brother died, Camusot took care of him, gave him a respectable education, but inculcated in him the one overriding idea that one day he would avenge his brother, so unjustly killed by a certain Commissioner Le Floch.’
‘Why didn’t he simply kill you or challenge you to a duel?’ asked Lenoir.
‘He would probably have done so in the end. But the obsession instilled in him by Camusot was to destroy me and see me go to the gallows for a major crime. Poisoning, for instance. It so happened that our paths crossed at Madame de Lastérieux’s.’
‘Was she his mistress?’ asked Testard du Lys. ‘The report of the autopsy would seem—’
‘We will never know. I owe it to the memory of a woman who was dear to me to banish the thought from my mind. In conclusion, gentlemen, Camusot and young Mauval killed Madame de Lastérieux, then Casimir and finally Monsieur du Maine-Giraud, whose indiscretions they feared.’
‘Bringing the culprits back in again seems unnecessary,’ said Sartine.
The three magistrates conferred for a moment in low voices.
‘The Criminal Lieutenant and the Councillor of State wish for a last appearance,’ Monsieur de Sartine announced, in a weary tone.
Camusot and Müvala were brought in.
‘Camusot,’ said Sartine, ‘we are convinced of your responsibility, as well as that of Monsieur von Müvala, in the deaths of Madame de Lastérieux, the slave Casimir and Monsieur du Maine-Giraud. You will therefore be handed over to the criminal chamber and subjected to torture. As for you …’ – he turned to Müvala – ‘… the younger brother of Mauval, as Commissioner Le Floch has proved to us, you will answer for your crimes and suffer the same fate as your brother once the law has taken its course.’
Nicolas would long remember the young man’s terrifying reaction. It was as if his brother’s face had reappeared – that half-angel, half-devil face – reawakening in Nicolas the nightmares of a dead past. Insults spewed from the man’s mouth as if from the mouth of hell, promising the judges eternal damnation. He screamed so loudly that even Camusot looked scared. He described Madame de Lastérieux’s death agony with a wealth of horrific details, and cursed Nicolas until the commissioner had to put his hands over his ears to stop hearing this litany of hate. If any doubt had still existed, young Mauval’s reaction would have dismissed it. The two culprits were bundled out of the room, leaving all those present in a state of shock. At that moment, a man entered, dressed in black riding clothes, and handed Monsieur de Sartine a large letter with the seal of France. Sartine opene
d it, read it, and looked up, pale and displeased.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘this letter informs me that the Duc d’Aiguillon has resigned. It also orders me to suspend all further legal proceedings against Commissioner Camusot and Monsieur von Müvala and banish them from the kingdom forthwith. Monsieur Balbastre is to be freed. The order is signed by the Duc de La Vrillière, in the name of the King.’
‘Monsieur—’ Nicolas protested.
‘That’s enough!’ Sartine cut him off. ‘As defenders of the law and magistrates of the King, we have no choice but to bow to this decision, however painful.’
Monsieur Lenoir and Monsieur Testard du Lys withdrew immediately, bowing formally to Nicolas. Monsieur de Sartine walked up to him and put his hand on his shoulder, an unheard-of gesture coming from him.
‘You’ve read Montesquieu, Nicolas. There’s a sentence of his running through my mind: “But it was thought prudent to cease the pursuit, for they ran the risk of finding a great enemy whose enmity had to be concealed, in order not to make it irreconcilable.” You have handled this case with real authority and have nothing with which to reproach yourself. We are the pillars of a State which some are trying to weaken. This affair is yet more evidence of that. As for the culprits … Stay on your guard: one day you will meet that villain again.’
Notes – CHAPTER 13
1. Colour blindness was scientifically demonstrated by the English doctor and physicist Dalton a few years later, in 1791.
EPILOGUE
Must scruples still undo us in the end?
But here comes Atalide, now all will mend.
RACINE
Wednesday 24 August 1774
Nicolas was summoned to the Hôtel de Gramont early in the morning. The place was unusually busy. Servants were going up and down the stairs, carrying heavy wicker trunks. The courtyard was filled with overloaded carriages. Someone seemed to be moving house. He was admitted to Monsieur de Sartine’s office, and found his chief supervising the packing of his beloved wigs into boxes of fine leather. When he saw Nicolas, he stopped.
The Nicolas Le Floch affair Page 36