When informed that Nicolas wished to speak to La Paulet, the maidservant gave no sign of surprise and showed him into an anteroom with a polished tile floor and bare walls. A geometrical frieze running along the cornice and an enormous crystal-drop chandelier brightened up a space which was empty except for two seats facing each other, upholstered in grey velvet. She drew aside a curtain of the same material and invited him into a drawing room where, without saying a word, she left him.
The room was spacious, an impression reinforced by the profusion of large mirrors covering the walls. The skirting boards and cornices were encrusted with gilt carvings. Heavy rugs muffled the noise from the street. Ottomans and bergères upholstered in daffodil-yellow, white, pink, blue and green silks created a bright, cheerful and spring-like effect. Those walls without mirrors were hung with grey damask and decorated with framed engravings showing scenes that surprised Nicolas by their explicitness. Opposite the windows, a large grey-velvet curtain concealed a sort of dais. Nicolas, whose natural taste had become increasingly sophisticated, was not taken in by this dazzling decor. He had enough time to observe that this ostentatious display of luxury disguised a reality that was more modest. The mediocre quality of the stained materials, the gilt on the carvings that had merely been painted on and the threadbare state of the rugs might have gone unnoticed to a visitor whose eye was drawn to other scenes, but a detailed examination soon dispelled the illusory splendour of this glossy spectacle.
‘Do you like her? Do you like her? Naughty boy! Naughty boy!’
He turned. On a perch in the window recess, with a raised foot and its head cocked to one side, a feathered creature which he immediately identified as a parrot was gazing at him. Madame de Guénouel, Isabelle’s aunt, possessed one that was always by her side. But it was old, losing its feathers, cantankerous and fond only of its mistress. This one was quite beautiful, the brilliant grey of its body contrasting with the sparkling red of its tail. Its gold-flecked eyes looked inquisitive rather than aggressive. It began to strut solemnly along its bar, warbling and cooing as it went. Nicolas, who in the past had had some unfortunate experiences with other such birds, cautiously offered it the back of his hand in order to give it less scope for a possible attack. Puzzled as to what to do, the bird stopped, ruffled its feathers, then rubbed its beak against the outstretched hand, letting out tiny squeaks of pleasure.
‘I can see that Coco trusts you. That’s a good sign.’
Nicolas turned round in surprise.
‘Coco knows how to choose his friends. I trust him completely. He’s like my very own Lieutenant General. But to what does La Paulet owe the honour of the visit of such a handsome young man?’
Nicolas, though ready for anything, could not have imagined the madam as she appeared before him. Almost monstrous in size, a feature emphasised by her short stature, she was far more corpulent than dear old Catherine, who was already well built. This hulk of fat possessed a puffy face into which her eyes seemed to have been embedded. Beneath a knotted headscarf it was plastered with thick layers of lurid make-up. The body disappeared into a shapeless dress of violet muslin with red stripes. The black stone necklace was more like a belt than an item of jewellery. Stubby fingers burst out of their silk mittens. Lastly, the flowing material allowed occasional glimpses of dropsied feet sticking out of old beaver-fur shoes that were worn out and stretched like slippers. This caricature was brought to life by eyes that constantly darted here and there, when the folds of flesh did not cover them up, and which were as cold as those of a reptile on its guard. The parrot, annoyed at the lack of attention being paid to it, began to utter high-pitched little squawks and to beat its wings furiously.
‘Coco, stop it or I’ll call the watch,’ La Paulet teased.
Nicolas, who had no set plan and who, for once, had not been able to imagine in advance his meeting with La Paulet, saw in a flash a possible way forward. It was risky, but he had no choice. With a charming smile he exclaimed:
‘Madame, you wanted the police. Here we are to serve you.’
The madam’s reaction was beyond anything Nicolas could have hoped for.
‘Hell! Camusot is in a great hurry for his little monthly gift. He’s early, but he thought he might be forgiven if he sent you here, and I certainly haven’t lost out. The strapping fellow that usually comes, that devil of a Mauval, has a look that chills my blood, and it takes a lot to frighten me! He’s got such a wicked tongue that I have to do my best not to get into an argument with him. When he comes he takes over the place, plays around with the girls, drinks my wine and disturbs the customers. However sweet-natured I may be, I must really like the police if I put up with that predatory pimp.’
She gave him a leering look that reminded him of old Émilie’s in the cab taking them to Montfaucon.
‘I know what we owe you, Madame. And the police reciprocate.’
‘Yes, yes. I’d like to see the evidence of it. You have to make a living somehow and nothing’s ideal. I do favours, I report back, I give warnings and I lend a hand. And I get protection in return. It’s a very fair deal for me – I make a profit and so do you. A bit pricey, though!’
‘My superiors have a high opinion of you. Do you know any other commissioners, Madame?’
The question was far too pointed and the feint unsubtle. To allay La Paulet’s suspicions he was relying on his innocent appearance and his ability to charm. She stared at him for a moment without answering, but the young man’s face simply bore a look of naïve ingenuousness and she fell for it.
‘Old friends, we are all old friends: Cadot, Thérion, that blasted Camusot and that scoundrel of a Lardin. What a character he is!’
‘Is he one of your customers, too?’
‘Mine? That’s very polite of you, but I’ve been put out to pasture, even if on occasion … No, Lardin’s a gambler, you should know, you’re part of Camusot’s set-up.’
‘Indeed, but how did all this come about? I only know the general facts not the details, and you’re so kind …’
‘I’m happy to tell you the whole story – you young people need to learn about things – but before I do so, do me the honour of sitting down. I tire very quickly when I’m standing. It’s bad for my complexion.’
Nicolas wondered what her complexion had to do with it; her natural colour could not have shown through the plastered-on layer of white that covered her face very often. Paulet settled back in a wide bergère that she filled completely, and invited him to sit down near her on an ottoman. With one hand she pulled towards her a small hardwood drinks cabinet that stood on a pedestal table and opened it up. Several carafes of liqueurs appeared, with their sets of small glasses.
‘It’s a long story. I’m building up my strength and you’re going to keep me company like a proper gentleman. I’ve got some ratafia that comes straight from Île Saint-Louis. A planter friend of mine gets me some every year. Come on, it won’t kill you and it tastes very good.’
She filled two glasses and handed him one of them.
‘Madame, I’m overwhelmed by your kindness.’
‘My dear boy, with manners like yours, you’ll get far – or you’ll get nowhere. But let’s get back to the point. Lardin is a special case. He was the joker in the pack, you might say. But he wasn’t up to it, despite all the Berryers and the Sartines. They wanted him to clean up a business that he was already up to his neck in. When Berryer gave him the task of investigating our little arrangements, Camusot took fright. But I, being La Paulet, kept a cool head. Lardin was a really heavy gambler. He played and lost, that was the rule. But in faro, his favourite game, the banker is just an out-and-out rogue and the punter a fool who everyone agrees not to make fun of. You can always change the rules or at least influence someone’s luck … So the further his investigation advanced, the more unlucky he was at cards. Wham!’
She drank her glass and helped herself to another.
‘Wham?’
‘Yes, my faro croupier had bee
n pandering to him for a long time. He didn’t know when to stop, and he was betting more and more heavily. One day he tried to break the bank. Break it like I’d never seen it done before, I swear to you. A fatal move.’
‘Fatal?’
‘The amount was so big that he couldn’t recover. He was ruined and he had to pay up, whatever the costs. I set Camusot on his trail. At least one person was happy! In this business we both go halves, well, two for him and one for me.’
‘But will he be able to pay? You say he’s ruined?’
‘He’ll find the money somewhere and pay up, or else …’
Nicolas preferred not to dwell on the threat these words contained.
‘But, heavens, why did he need to bet so much?’
‘Come on, a handsome big body like yours needs another drink.’
She poured him another full glass and filled up her own.
‘The story goes back a long way. Lardin and I are old chums. Ten years ago after his first wife died he felt very lonely. He got into the habit of coming to the Dauphin Couronné. My establishment wel-comes the best people. I have courtiers who come here in carriages without their blazons or coats of arms, with unliveried footmen. The house is frequented by the richest clientele. Well stocked as I am, I always kept some new little tart, a dainty morsel, aside for Lardin. You can’t imagine the trouble I take to satisfy respectable people! He dined, played a quiet game, then went upstairs with one or other of my girls.’
‘Without paying?’
‘That was one of our customs. The secret of success is having friends in high places. One evening there was a theatrical performance …’
‘A theatrical performance?’
‘Yes, sweetie, don’t put on that bemused look. You see that curtain, it opens onto a stage where we put on special little productions that are, well … quite spicy. You don’t seem very au fait!’
‘I’m drinking in your every word, Madame.’
‘Drink what’s in your glass instead. Some wealthy connoisseurs enjoy seeing live performances of suggestive, saucy little plays. These productions stimulate the most dulled senses. It turns into – are you following me, for heaven’s sake, with that dewy-eyed look of yours? – outright debauchery. In short, scenes that would have given even the Duc de Gesvres an erection.1 One evening there was such an assortment of people that Lardin found himself matched up with a sweet little thing he found irresistible. He had already got through half a dozen bottles of champagne. He fell madly in love with her on the spot. To let him have such a gem on the cheap would have been an insult to God or to the devil, as you prefer. On my advice the girl toyed with his feelings, made him pine and languish. He was withering away. The crafty fellow begged me to act as go-between. Men are like that. I got a tidy sum out of it and we pretended it was payment for petty debts. He married her and his life became hell. She had as many lovers as Paris has parish churches. The bitch is greedy, voracious and coquettish, and she loves fine clothes, her own comfort and good food.’
‘But,’ said Nicolas, ‘she’s from a good family, isn’t she? She has a relative who’s a wealthy man, from what people say.’
La Paulet’s eyes widened and she stared at him coldly. She moistened her lips.
‘Sweetie, you seem to know more about all this than I do …’
Nicolas felt a cold sweat come over him.
‘Commissioner Camusot told me that a cousin of hers was a doctor …’
The mention of the commissioner seemed to reassure her.
‘What Camusot told you was right. The parents of this Lardin woman died of smallpox when she was only fourteen. Her cousin Descart, the doctor, got hold of the family fortune and apprenticed the girl to a milliner. The inevitable happened: she was ready and willing and gave herself to the first person who came along. That’s how she ended up with me, having burnt the candle at both ends, to say the least. Kind soul that I am, I welcomed her with open arms and set her up in society.’
She made a show of wiping away an improbable tear and emptied her glass with the emotion of it all.
‘She must really hate this hard-hearted relative, mustn’t she?’ Nicolas ventured.
‘When you get to know women better, sweetie, you’ll discover that they don’t always behave as you’d expect. Apparently she’s on the most intimate terms with him. She knows what she’s doing, and I have a feeling that one day she’ll get her family fortune back, one way or another. Knowing her as I do, I think she’s capable of avenging herself even more cruelly, especially as the devil in question, who’s another customer of my establishment, isn’t worth the rope needed to hang him. A dirty old man, a puffed-up bigot who needs to be served chocolate with amber and cantharides2 before he can perform. A skinflint who’ll argue down to the last penny, someone for whom you have to provide secret, carefully arranged assignations with play-acting and masks, someone who requires nothing less than the choicest morsels, even if he’s not up to doing them credit …’
‘As bad as that?’
‘Worse. Would you believe it, he came last Friday and managed to get into an argument with that blackguard Lardin. They left me with a fine old mess!’
‘Was it wise for a man so concerned about his reputation, from what you say, to come here of an evening during Carnival?’
‘But that’s just it, sweetie. Of an evening during Carnival it’s quite normal to wear masks and no one should have recognised him. I don’t know how all this happened. Anyway, the oddest thing about it is that … No, that’s enough about that waster. Let’s get down to our business instead.’
Later Nicolas would look back on this moment as his real initiation into the police. In the space of a few minutes he had in fact crossed the dividing line between an honest person with firmly fixed and clearly defined ideas of the truth and a hard-bitten policeman who must never lose sight of the ultimate aim of his investigation. This difficult art entails disowning others, being calculating and … setting one’s scruples aside. He now understood that to make real progress along the difficult path he had chosen, he had to sacrifice everything that until then he had believed to be fine and noble. He was horrified by the realisation of what these choices meant.
He was thinking so quickly that he was not fully aware of how he wrestled with his conscience. Afterwards he never managed to retrieve his train of thought or trace the spark that had set it off. An inner yet unfamiliar voice whispered to him, telling him what he had to do. He surrendered to his impulse, leant towards La Paulet and, grasping both her hands, said to her in a sarcastic voice:
‘The oddest thing indeed, Madame, is that you know perfectly well that this meeting was not accidental, and that if Descart was there it was because he had been invited.’
Presumably in response to Nicolas’s change of tone, the parrot began to squawk, while La Paulet became agitated and attempted unsuccessfully to free herself from his iron-like grip on her arms. She tossed her head and opened her scarlet mouth as if she were unable to breathe. A fragment of white fell onto her dress and dissolved into a light cloud. In her surprise and anger, her mask had cracked and was breaking into pieces.
‘Filthy little beast. Let me go, you’re hurting me! Why are you grubbing around like this? You’re sneakier than the police informers! It’s Descart who told you this, isn’t it? I’m going to get him for this.’
‘No, it’s Lardin,’ Nicolas pitched in, waiting for her reaction. She looked at him in utter amazement.
‘It’s not possible.’
‘And why not?’
‘Er … I don’t know.’
‘Well I know something,’ Nicolas let rip, ‘which is that La Paulet is worried to death, that La Paulet, thinking she was talking to one of Commissioner Camusot’s henchmen, got the wrong man and blurted out a lot of significant and detailed information, enough to have the Dauphin Couronné closed down, have good old La Paulet arrested, taken to the Châtelet, where she’d be interrogated by the executioner, found guilty and, broken in
body and mind, sentenced to life imprisonment at the Hôpital Général or the Grande Force. All her humming and hawing will be of no use and her protectors will disappear in a flash when they hear of her arrest. In a word, Madame, you were unfortunate enough to mistake me for someone else.’
‘But who on earth are you then?’
‘I’ve been sent by Monsieur de Sartine, the Lieutenant General of Police, Madame.’
Seeing La Paulet in a state of collapse, Nicolas realised that he had hooked his fish and that it might be advisable to let it dangle a little on the end of his line. He recalled a rocky inlet at the mouth of the Vilaine, between Camoël and Arzal, where he used to go with lads of his own age to fish for salmon as they went upstream. La Paulet was caught – now he had to make her spit it all out.
‘What do you want from me, Monsieur?’
‘Come, come, I’m not as bad as all that. You gave me a very warm welcome and your kindness has not fallen on stony ground. But we need to be serious. If you want me to sort things out for you, you must make sure you’re on the right side, without any shilly-shallying. That means being on the side of the strongest, the side which gives the best guarantees. In your situation that’s not an offer to be sniffed at.’
The fish began to wriggle again and tried a diversionary tactic.
‘I can’t help you at all. I’m just the poor, innocent victim of evil men. I’ve obeyed the police. Settle your scores between yourselves.’
‘I shall put that matter to one side and come back to it later. What I want to know is why and how Descart came to be here on Friday evening.’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Was he in the habit of turning up unexpectedly?’
‘I suppose so.’
The fish was gaining ground; now it had more room to swim around in, and it was thinking of snapping the line. It was time to make it feel the hook once again. He took out his guardian’s watch, which had just struck eleven o’clock.
‘I’m giving you exactly three minutes to tell me, in the clearest and most accurate manner, the circumstances of Dr Descart’s visit here on Friday evening. When that time is up I’m carting you off to the Châtelet.’
The Châtelet Apprentice Page 11