The Eloquence of Blood cdl-2

by Judith Rock

  “Continue,” Le Picart said noncommittally.

  “Well, now my father has written to me because he is worried that news that has just reached him about Monsieur Brion may somehow touch us-because of the Mynette property, you understand. Are you with me, Maitre du Luc?”

  “Barely.”

  He leaned almost gleefully toward Charles. “What has come to light is a scheme for smuggling silver through customs. It was just uncovered at the port in Brest. This scheme has been traced to Paris, and rumor has it that our Monsieur Henri Brion is its creator.”

  Le Picart lifted his hand slightly to pause Damiot. “What you do not know, Pere Damiot, is that Henri Brion left Procope’s coffeehouse on Thursday evening with a goldsmith named Bizeul and another man. Those who saw him go say he didn’t go willingly. And this morning Henri Brion was found dead.”

  “No!” Damiot looked incredulously from the rector to Charles. “Is this certain?”

  Charles nodded. “I saw his body.”

  “Well, I can easily imagine,” Damiot said, hastily crossing himself, “that Brion’s investors may have been tempted to kill him over losing so much money because this smuggling scheme has failed. But I know Monsieur Bizeul and I cannot imagine he would do murder.”

  “Why not?” the rector said sharply.

  “Many reasons, mon pere. My father has known Monsieur Bizeul longer than I have been alive. And Monsieur Bizeul is a senior member of our bourgeois Congregation of the Sainte Vierge. As both my father’s son and the priest in charge of that Congregation, I have had many dealings with Bizeul. If he is not as upright and devout as I have supposed, I am badly deceived.” His face changed suddenly. “Though it is true that he recently dowered his last daughter very generously. Overgenerously, some said. Oh, dear.”

  “Go back a little,” Charles said. “What is the role of investors in this scheme?”

  “Ma foi! Do you understand nothing about money?”

  “I’m noble, remember? We never understand anything about money. That’s why we don’t have any.”

  A snort of laughter escaped Le Picart.

  Damiot rolled his eyes. “You’re only minor nobility. Listen. Notaries are the middlemen in French investment schemes. We, unlike the English, have not seen fit to have a national bank, so notaries like Monsieur Brion bring together those who have money and those who need it. A notary has to know not only where money is, but who wants it and who will pay for it. And that includes things that can be turned into money, one way and another. Especially things like silver.”

  “Which brings us to the details of Henri Brion’s scheme,” Le Picart said.

  Damiot’s eyes were brimming with laughter. “So let me set the scene. The silver might not have been discovered, you know, Maitre du Luc, except for the drunk. And the handcart, of course.”

  Deadpan, Charles said back, “Ah, yes, it always is a drunk, isn’t it? The handcart, though, figures less often.” And waited to see how much of a comic script Damiot was going to make up right there in the rector’s office.

  The rector shifted warningly in his chair.

  “Yes, well,” Damiot said quickly, “it seems a drunk dock workman ran the wheel of his cart into the end of a barrel lying on its side on the dock. The barrel was one of fifty full of chocolate from Mexico. The barrel’s bottom split and chocolate seeds-beans, whatever you call them-spilled out. As the drunk tried to push them back in, he felt something hard in the barrel and pulled it out. It was a pretty little bar of silver, thickly wrapped in wool. All fifty barrels turned out to be salted with these small silver bars.”

  “But wouldn’t the weight of the silver in the barrel give the whole thing away?” Charles said, frowning.

  “That’s why the bars were so small. And there weren’t many of them, maybe a half dozen to each barrel. But a fifty-barrel shipment of chocolate would net you enough silver-on which you’d paid only the customs charge for chocolate-to make it worthwhile.”

  “Reprehensible. I’m shocked.” Charles tried to stifle his grin. He might be from the south, but he was enough of a Frenchman to enjoy a story of tax evasion. “Henri Brion thought of this? That surprises me, after all I’ve heard of him.”

  “My father says the customs people think he did. And that now Monsieur Henri Brion’s investors are out a great deal of money.”

  “Because the investors financed the shipment,” Charles said, finally understanding.

  “Habes,” Damiot said, classroom Latin for “you have it.” “And though what they would have paid Henri Brion for being allowed into the potential profit was far less than they would normally pay for silver, it was still too much to simply lose.”

  “Not to mention facing prosecution for smuggling,” Le Picart said. “A substantial enough motive for murder, if Brion refused to give them their money back. Or if they feared he would try to lighten his own penalty by giving up their names to the authorities.”

  So much, Charles thought, for his certainty that there was only one killer. “Does your father say if Monsieur La Reynie knows about this?”

  Shaking his head, Damiot started to say something, but the rector, whose thoughts were going in other directions, forestalled him.

  “Could this scheme of Henri Brion’s have given him-Brion, I mean-a reason to kill Martine Mynette? Could he have stolen money from her and used it to promote this smuggling? While her mother was ill, perhaps?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible. But it isn’t clear yet which of them died first.”

  Damiot was looking from Charles to the rector and frowning. “The police are keeping us so well informed?”

  Le Picart said, “For our own protection, we are following their efforts regarding both murders. You know that people are accusing us of involvement in Martine Mynette’s murder. People are going to say the same about Monsieur Brion’s murder, too, until the real killer is found. Have you not heard the song already in the streets? I heard it yesterday.”

  Damiot shook his head. “I have not been out the last few days.”

  “I have a copy,” Charles said, suddenly remembering. He brought out the broadsheet and handed it to Le Picart. “Still only the one verse, thank all the saints. A beggar was reading it to his confreres, but when he saw me, he dropped it and ran.”

  Le Picart glanced at the sheet and passed it to Damiot.

  Damiot read it and grimaced. “Not bad. Though I could do better,” He said it lightly, but his dark eyes were worried as he handed the paper back. “I wonder,” he said slowly, “whether my father could help us.”

  The rector studied him. “How?”

  “He knows all the rich merchants in the city. If Monsieur Brion found his investors by trawling The Six Corps, my father could probably find out whom he caught besides Monsieur Bizeul. Assuming he did catch Monsieur Bizeul, of course.”

  “Yes, write to him,” Le Picart said. “Ask if he knows who the investors are. Casually, as though you are only curious.” He smiled slightly. “As though you are indulging in a little worldly gossip. I feel sure you could do that convincingly.”

  “I can only try, mon pere,” Damiot said modestly.

  “Mon pere,” Charles said to Le Picart, “Martine Mynette’s funeral is on Monday morning, at Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet. Mademoiselle Isabel Brion has asked me to attend. It would be a good way to listen to what’s being said on the Place. It’s possible that someone in another house heard or saw whoever came to the Mynette house just before Martine was killed.”

  The rector pursed his lips and shook his head. “I think your presence at the funeral would be too incendiary. Go, but wait outside for Mademoiselle Brion. When she comes out of the church, offer to escort her to her house. You can watch and listen as people leave the church and as you walk. I will tell the senior priest at Saint-Nicolas that you will be there-he is well disposed toward us and can speak a word from the pulpit to calm difficulties. And Maitre du Luc, I want you to write a note to Lieutenant-General
La Reynie about Henri Brion’s silver scheme, on the chance that the news has not yet reached him. You do not need to show it to me, but have someone take it right away.”

  Damiot’s eyebrows rose at Charles’s familiarity with the head of the police, but he asked no questions. “And I will write a message to my father as you ask, mon pere,” he said, “before I immerse myself again in preparations for Monday’s classes.” He sighed. “Though I could recite the venerable Nouveaux Principes grammar textbook in my sleep.”

  “Unfortunately, the goal is for your students to be able to recite it in their sleep,” Le Picart said, laughing. “You are excused, mon pere. And you, too, maitre. You must also have preparations to make. And so do I. I am still putting the final touches on our New Year’s Day celebration of King Louis’s recovery from his recent surgery.”

  Charles groaned inwardly, having forgotten about the celebration since he wasn’t directly involved. Having a long list of grievances against the constantly lauded Louis XIV, he wondered if staying on the heels of the police could be made into an excuse for absenting himself.

  But Damiot said enthusiastically, “I would be only too glad to write a little something for the occasion, mon pere. Such a delicate assignment, considering the kind of surgery…”

  Charles choked back laughter. The surgery had been for an anal fistula, and what Damiot could make of that did not bear thinking about, at least not in the rector’s presence.

  Le Picart smiled blandly. “I think we will not trouble you, Pere Damiot. Just write the message to your father.”

  Damiot acquiesced gracefully, and he and Charles bowed themselves out of the office.

  When they were far enough away, Damiot said gleefully, “Too bad, that livret would have been my masterwork!”

  “That livret would have been your ticket to life as an over-age apprentice to some crabbed goldsmith,” Charles said through smothered laughter.

  “Yes, not worth it, after all my efforts to avoid that very thing. Ah, well, back to work. First the note to my father and then the wretched Nouveaux Principes again.” Humming under his breath, Damiot loped upstairs to his study.

  Charles went into an alcove off the big reception salon, where writing materials were kept. Assembling paper and a quill, he quickly wrote his note to La Reynie and found a lay brother to take it to the lieutenant-general at the goldsmith Bizeul’s house, or if La Reynie was no longer there, on to the Chatelet.

  That done, Charles decided to go to the stage in the salle des actes, over the refectory. The Christmas farce, private and very quickly put together, had used no scenery. The February performance would have scenery, though not the elaborate stage machinery of the summer show, and taking time now to begin considering what would be needed would save time later. He went out the back door of the main building into the Cour d’honneur. Snow was falling again. And with it, somehow, the cold weight of loss and death settled on him. He went heavy-footed into the silent refectory building and up the elaborately curved staircase. In the empty salle des actes, he stopped at one of the long, small-paned windows and stared bleakly out at the snow, hating its cold, dead white and the wet black and gray that were all the color left to the miserable world. A sudden flurry of swirling black and the sound of laughter nearly made him jump, as seven or eight half-grown boys in their long scholars’ gowns burst from the student court into the Cour d’honneur. They stood with their faces lifted, catching flakes on their tongues. Then they grabbed hands and began whirling in a circle, black gowns flying, a spinning, laughing hieroglyph on the white page of the courtyard. Eased somehow, Charles murmured his thanks for the small visitation of joy and walked on toward the bare stage.

  Chapter 12

  ST. ROGER’S DAY, MONDAY, DECEMBER 30

  After a Sunday spent coping with returning boarding students in the rhetoric and grammar classes, and futile waiting for a reply from Lieutenant-General La Reynie about the goldsmith Bizeul and Henri Brion’s silver smuggling, Charles was glad for the arrival of Monday. Though it also brought Martine Mynette’s funeral and found him standing in the midmorning cold outside Saint-Nicolas du Chardonnet, waiting for the funeral Mass to end. Pere Le Picart had sent word to the priest at Saint-Nicolas that Charles would be waiting to escort Isabel Brion to her house after the Mass.

  Charles stood like a mournful black sentinel beside the church doors. Pere Jouvancy’s weather prophet had proved all too accurate. The last two nights’ snowfall had made the city a pattern of thick white on the grays and blacks of walls and streets and trees, and the opaque sky threatened more snow. Charles watched a milling group of paupers gathering, waiting to follow Mlle Mynette’s coffin. He suspected that Isabel’s great-uncle Callot had hired these customary mourners, giving them their cheap black garments, candles, and a few coins to attend Martine’s coffin to its burial.

  As the hired mourners talked among themselves, Charles heard them murmuring Martine Mynette’s name. He asked a woman near him if she’d known Mlle Mynette, and a score of voices rose. Of course, they said, Mlle Mynette had never forgotten them. She’d sent food and necessities to anyone in trouble, especially orphans, and women in childbed.

  With a tight throat, Charles blessed them. Then people began to come out of the church, and the paupers drifted toward the door at the side of the church to meet Martine Mynette’s coffin. Charles stepped back, close to the wall, to watch unnoticed for Isabel.

  She was quick to emerge, followed by her awkward manservant. She saw Charles before he could speak and pushed her black veil back. Her eyes were red with weeping, her warm coloring turned almost sallow.

  “The priest told Uncle Callot that you would be here to see me home. Uncle Callot and my brother are going on to the burial. And Monsieur Morel, too.” A faint blush warmed her skin as she named the dancing master. “I felt that I could not go. I should, but-” She lifted her small gloved hands and let them fall.

  “You bear a heavy burden of grief, mademoiselle, no need to try yourself harder.” Charles offered her his arm to help her down the steps slippery with patches of ice. “Please allow me to say how very sorry I am about your father’s death. Especially coming in the way it did, and so soon after the death of your friend.”

  She nodded silently, pulling her veil down over her face, and took delicate hold of his proffered arm. “To tell you the truth, maitre, I feel Martine’s death even more than my father’s. Which I know is very wrong of me.”

  “Mademoiselle Mynette shared much with you. Fathers do not often do that,” Charles said, as they reached the bottom of the stairs and set off toward the rue Perdue, followed closely by the servant.

  Ruefully, she shook her head. “Poor Papa, always busy with a new scheme for growing rich.”

  “Yes?” Charles was watching her closely now, wondering if she knew about the silver.

  She tried to laugh. “In truth, more money would be welcome in our house. Papa spent too much money on things like our clothes. But he often spent nothing where he should have spent something. You see how our servants are dressed.” She sighed. “He was kind to me, though,” she went on, “and he tried to be kind to Martine. I wish he hadn’t been trying to make her live with us, though. She hated that.”

  As they walked, a few people scowled at Charles and one called insults from a distance. Mlle Brion seemed not to hear, but Charles memorized the hostile faces and made sure no one came too close. When a passing couple slipped and fell briefly against him, he was poised to defend Mlle Brion and himself before he registered the couple’s apologies. He caught himself just in time, joined in the little flurry of politeness, and everyone walked on. This kind of overquick reaction to threat, even when there was none, had plagued him since the army. It was sometimes useful, but more often embarrassing.

  They arrived without further incident at the Sign of Three Ducks, and Mlle Brion crossed the threshold with a sigh of relief.

  “Please bring wine to the little salon, Bon,” she said to the servant
, as he followed them in and shut the door. Pushing her veil back again, she turned to Charles. “My father’s coffin is in the large salon. My maid is there, too; someone is always with him. If you will sit with me in the little room across the landing, maitre, I have something to tell you.”

  “With pleasure, mademoiselle.” Charles stood aside and then followed her up the stairs.

  The door of the salon where the Brions had received him before was open, and he saw that the room had been turned into a mourning chamber. The shutters were closed and the walls hung with black. In the center of the room, candles burned around the open coffin resting on trestles. The maid sat in a chair against the wall, rubbing at her eyes as though she’d been roused from dozing.

  “Will you come in with me, maitre?” Mlle Brion asked hesitantly.

  Charles bowed his acquiescence and they went to stand beside the coffin. Isabel rested her hand on her father’s chest and bowed her head. Helped to greater feeling for the dead man by his resemblance to his daughter, Charles prayed for him and then gazed at his still face. Where did you go from Procope’s? he asked silently. Did one of your unhappy investors come at you with the knife? Or did you die looking into the face of your even more unhappy son?

  Isabel Brion stirred and sighed, and Charles made the sign of the cross over the coffin. They went out onto the landing, where the manservant had just arrived, balancing two glasses on a tray.

  “There’s only the local wine left,” he said, thrusting the tray at Mlle Brion as if he expected her to take it.

  She frowned repressively at him. “No need to describe the wine, Bon, what I asked for will do very well. Take it in, please, and put it on the little table.” She rolled her eyes at Charles and dropped her voice. “He is only seventeen and very raw, but he means well. He was all we could afford when our old Albin left us.”