The Saint-Florentin Murders Page 13

  Amid the hustle and bustle of the street stalls, he hailed a cab. He wanted to get back to Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin as soon as possible. Confined in the worn velvet of the narrow interior, he sank into a kind of dreamy somnolence which could have been more comfortable. His head half raised, he made out the tops of houses, the balconies, the barred windows, the corbels, and the pompous or grimacing figures decorating the facades of the buildings. When he walked, he mainly observed faces, but, ever since his arrival in Paris, he had realised the danger of admiring the tops of houses: anyone who indulged in this perilous distraction might find himself in trouble when, in a thunderous din, a carriage, cab or wagon suddenly loomed up, leaving him no chance of salvation other than to flatten himself against the wall, his face turned sideways, or to leap through the doorway of a shop.

  When he got to police headquarters, he went straight to the offices. Through pursed lips, the first clerk he approached explained that it was necessary to distinguish between living animals and slaughtered meat and that, in consequence, the trade and control of livestock should not be confused with the business of butchery. In short, the person he was looking for did not work with Monsieur Lenoir, due to shortage of space, and he would have to ask for him elsewhere. After much equivocation, he was informed that he would have to go and see Monsieur Poisson in Rue Saint-Marc. Nicolas decided that he would get a horse from the stables of the Lieutenant General of Police, as he had been doing regularly for fourteen years. A groom who was new to the place arrogantly refused him one, and Nicolas, patient as he was and as little inclined to play the marquis, had to restrain himself from shaking the fellow. Champing at the bit, he was forced to go to another employee and request a signed paper. This man detained him for a long time, asking him a thousand trifling questions before agreeing to his demand. Once in the saddle, he regretted that he had not kept the cab. The horse, which was not of his choice, turned out to be restive and rattled several times, either by abruptly pulling up short and then kicking in all directions, or by going as close to the wall as possible at the risk of crushing its rider’s leg.

  In Rue Saint-Marc, a new discovery awaited him: Monsieur Poisson dealt with wine, fruit and vegetables, while butchery and livestock were the province of Monsieur Imbert, who could be found in Rue Richelieu. That was not far, and he proceeded there immediately. Unfortunately, it appeared that this Monsieur Imbert was indeed involved with meat, and also cattle, but only those that had passed through the city gates and were already the property of the butchers. Therefore he would have to glean the information he sought by addressing himself to Monsieur Collart du Tilleul in Rue de la Soudière, near the market of Saints-Innocents. Nicolas sped to his new destination, tempting his mount with a heap of cabbage.

  He had to force open the door of his new interlocutor, who had claimed not to be available. Nicolas entered angrily, regretting that he did not have a riding crop with which to lash his boots. The panic-stricken clerk took shelter behind an unstable pile of official paperwork over the top of which only his trembling black skullcap appeared. His master assured Nicolas that Monsieur Longères, on Place Popincourt, both because of his age and the esteem and trust of his colleagues, appeared to be the primary authority among the cattle farmers in the viscounty and generality of Paris, and the man best able to answer questions from the authorities. Nicolas thanked Monsieur Collart du Tilleul curtly and ordered him to have the restive horse taken back to police headquarters. Exasperated by his mount’s capriciousness, he had decided to continue his journey outside Paris by other means. He had to go all the way back to Rue Saint-Honoré before he found a cab cruising for fares. The interior was so dirty and the upholstery so repulsive, with dubious-looking stains, that he had to sit sideways on the very edge of the seat. His policeman’s eye spotted a large number of bloodstains, which someone had tried to remove without success. What on earth had this vehicle been carrying? Some wounded person, no doubt, picked up from the gutter and carried home after a drinking session. He lowered the window to get a little air.

  The cab advanced by fits and starts, steering a path through the hurrying, distracted crowd. It had to stop in front of a small gathering of laughing girls and boys dancing hand in hand in the middle of Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Antoine to the harsh, merry music of a hurdy-gurdy. The musician wore the costume of his remote province, and was turning the handle with one hand and playing the melody with the other, all the while tapping his clogs in time to the music. Nicolas contemplated this sight with a somewhat nostalgic benevolence. What remained to him of his youth? He remembered running off to the marshes with boys of his age. Then came his interminable studies, gloomy and stifling. He recalled the anguish of school, where, despite his successes, he was despised as a poor orphan by companions who came from the best families in Brittany, and his ambiguous position at the notary’s office in Rennes, where his aristocratic connections had made him both envied and despised by the other pupils. Solitude had been his companion throughout these years, illumined however by the tutelary figures of Canon Le Floch and the Marquis of Ranreuil, his father, and by the even more moving figure, now distant and almost faded, of his sister Isabelle. He prayed that his son, Louis, would be spared such vicissitudes.

  As they drove through Faubourg Saint-Antoine, in the shadow of the Bastille, he was struck once again by the diversity of the sights on offer. The various strata of the population all came together here: tranquil bourgeois strolling with their families, factory workers out for a good time, rich peasants from the faubourg whose costumes looked out of place, brazen women of the streets, and last but not least the armies of beggars and cripples, real or simulated, who poured into the capital of the kingdom from the provinces. Every day, poor wretches arrived by road, attracted by the prestige and illusion of Paris, and hoping to find a solution to their misfortunes and an end to their poverty. Statute labourers, pushed to the point of despair by the unimaginable drudgery of their work and the meagreness of their subsistence wages, would decide to take refuge in the cities, where they swelled the ranks of the destitute. As Nicolas had been observing for years, many of these people became petty thieves, pickpockets, and even murderers, and would end up in gaol, or in chains in the King’s galleys, or worse still as pitiful figures on the gallows.

  He ordered the driver to turn off towards Popincourt. As soon as they left the main road, the hustle and bustle gave way to a more provincial atmosphere, like that of a large country village. The main open space was shared by workshops, the shops of cabinet makers and artisans, and furniture factories, separated from one another by gardens and farms. The warm, heavy odour of manure imbued the air, chasing away the foul smells of the city. Nicolas noticed a sad troop of cows, their sides covered in mud and slurry, being led towards the city gates, from where they would proceed to the slaughterhouse.

  By the side of the road, furniture had been laid out to attract customers. Nicolas remembered with some bitterness having one day bought a small writing desk from one of these workshops. Monsieur de Noblecourt had been curious enough to climb the stairs to see it. His reaction had disappointed Nicolas: what was the meaning of that stifled laugh? He had been so happy with what he had thought was a genuine bargain that he had been really surprised when, a few weeks later, the desk had simply fallen to pieces. There were many crooks and fakers operating here, and they harmed the reputation of the genuine craftsmen, who were a credit to their guild and true artists in furniture. The dregs of the trade would continue to fabricate phantom constructions which, after a mere couple of weeks, would turn out to be rickety, obsolete and worm-eaten.

  In a small dead-end street planted with lime trees, he finally came to a collection of rustic buildings surrounded by cowsheds, gardens and orchards. A woman sitting on a milestone looked at him curiously and confirmed that he was indeed outside the house of old Longères. He got out of the cab and paid the driver, who obstinately kept his hat pulled down over his face. Nicolas observed that the carriage had the number 3
4, followed by an N and the regulation two capital Ps on a white background. He laughed at the coincidence: the initial of his Christian name, and his own age. He was unsure whether or not to notify the transport office about the filthy state of the cab. In the end, he decided to drop it, given that favourable registration number. It was a weakness of his to believe in signs: although he claimed to be a good Parisian, his Celtic soul often came to the surface.

  Cautiously, he entered the farm, anxious not to provoke a nasty-looking yellow dog which was barking and pulling on a rope. A stooped elderly man emerged from a lean-to. His face was lined and weather-beaten, and a crown of sparse white hair framed a skull covered in brown blotches. He was wearing a brown jacket with horn buttons, grey breeches, rough woollen stockings and sturdy hobnailed clogs. Leaning with both hands on a gnarled stick, he looked at the intruder without saying a word.

  ‘Monsieur,’ Nicolas said, feigning a detached, casual air, ‘would you be able to tell me where I could find Monsieur Longères?’

  The man turned aside and spat. ‘Do you want the young one or the old one? If it’s the old one, here I am.’ He angrily kicked the beaten earth. ‘Not the same bloody story again, damn it! We’ve already told you everything’s been settled. I’d have thought the commissioner was satisfied. It’s not going to look good for us. To tell you the truth, I’m the one who has to see to all that, and it doesn’t make me popular in spite of my white hair …’ He threw a stone at the dog, which was howling. ‘Shut up, Sartine!’ He gave Nicolas a sideways glance. ‘No offence. He’s a good guard dog.’ He laughed and slapped his thigh with his hand.

  Nicolas was smiling to himself. He had previously come across a parrot bearing the name of the former Lieutenant General of Police. He pretended to understand the meaning of the farmer’s speech, convinced that the truth sometimes emerged from the most incoherent statements.

  ‘I can well imagine,’ he said solemnly, ‘that your task has not been easy in these circumstances. And how did you first become aware of them?’

  ‘No one told me anything. But everyone was talking about it, and then the police arrived. Otherwise, we keep our own house in order, if you know what I mean. Anyone who doesn’t play fair, we obviously try to find out what’s happening, confound the culprit and drive him away without any kind of trial, even if he doesn’t want to go.’

  ‘Let’s be clear about this, Monsieur. If I understand correctly, when you discover a criminal in your ranks, your first reaction is to dispense justice, whatever his resistance?’

  ‘That’s right! My God, you’re quick on the uptake!’

  ‘Why, what did you imagine?’

  ‘That you were from the police, and that you were investigating the traffic in spent grain.’

  ‘Spent grain?’

  ‘That’s right, spent grain! You get it from the breweries, which are only too happy to get rid of it. Take the ripe crushed barley they’ve put to ferment. Well, some of us, the crooks among us, grab the residue at a low price and feed the cattle with that rubbish. And when I say some …’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well? Don’t try and mollycoddle me. The animal swells up, the meat is spoiled, and the buyer has been had. Even the weight is faked: everyone’s a loser, except the crook!’ He stamped his foot in indignation. ‘Me, I love my animals, Monsieur. I feed them like they’re my own children. Well, that’s all in the past. Why are you here? What do you want?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Monsieur Longères, my presence has nothing to do with the fraudulent use of spent grain. The Lieutenant General of Police, Monsieur Lenoir, has given me the task of informing your honourable guild of the dangers of an epidemic of anthrax which is spreading to several provinces of the kingdom.’

  Nicolas was trying desperately to find a way to introduce the case of Marguerite Pindron. He explained, with a wealth of details, the reason for his coming to Popincourt, the scale of the epidemic, its consequences, and the risks incurred, while insisting on the government’s desire to take precautionary measures. He sprinkled his words with so many veiled threats and admonishments that old Longères, horrified by what he heard, hunched over his stick, abandoning his own propensity to chatter.

  ‘So,’ continued Nicolas, ‘what you need to do, immediately – but at the same time without raising the alarm because, as I’m sure you realise, any panic would be seen as your fault – is inform your colleagues of the present danger and the risks they are running, and insist on the importance of taking the necessary precautions.’

  At this point, he respectfully touched on the King’s kindly concern for his people, as well as that of his ministers and the Lieutenant General of Police, not to mention the parlement, in an affair so heavy with consequences for the life and smooth running of the kingdom. He punctuated his words with sweeping gestures, deliberately looking insistently at different parts of the cowsheds, as if trying to make an inventory of the contents and detect some anomaly. He strode towards one of the buildings and then immediately changed direction before again veering off, followed by the farmer, who had become extremely alarmed by this inquisition and the flood of words that accompanied it.

  ‘Gather your colleagues, explain the situation,’ Nicolas resumed, forcefully. ‘The information needs to be passed to everyone in your guild, from Popincourt to Ivry, where there are so many dairies, and from Vincennnes to Chaillot. By the way …’ he had decided to try a direct shot, ‘… how is old Pindron?’

  The man stopped, as if taken aback by something incongruous. ‘Old Pindron? The poor man died last year. A sad story, Monsieur, a really sad story. A good man. Yes. Not much of a laugh. No, certainly not much of a laugh, always stubbornly refused a drink. But a fine man, an honest man, who knew his job. Alas, his daughter killed him, or as good as. I assume you know the story?’

  ‘Not all the details.’ Nicolas was pleased with his ruse. He had hit the target at the first shot.

  ‘A little madam who brought misfortune to two families. I have no hesitation in saying that. Yes, she killed the old man and launched a poor boy on a career of misfortune.’

  ‘I’d like to hear all about it – if you have time, that is.’

  ‘Certainly, Monsieur. Monsieur …?’

  ‘Nicolas Le Floch, commissioner of police at the Châtelet.’

  ‘By God, I knew it! Accept my hospitality and have a drink. Talking makes you thirsty, and so does listening. To tell you the truth, with age, my legs grow heavy. If I stand too long, I’m likely to take root.’

  Old Longères led him to the elongated one-storey main building. They walked down a few steps into a vast room with a floor of beaten earth and whitewashed walls. A dresser, a long, worn oak table with two parallel benches, a resplendent copper drinking fountain and a fireplace with a trammel were the only furnishings. Old Longères clapped his hands. Immediately, an elderly maidservant limped in to take her master’s orders. She went back out through a door in the corner of the room and down to the cellar, and came up again with a pitcher and two thick glasses. They sat down at the table, and the host poured a little raspberry-coloured wine.

  ‘It’s Suresnes, fresh from the cask.’

  He pushed a bowl of walnuts towards Nicolas, and himself grabbed two and cracked them in his fist. The crumbs fell on his brown jacket.

  ‘You can imagine the kind of things people said in the faubourg,’ he began. ‘That a beautiful girl from a good home should refuse the hand of a worthy suitor, a gardener like his father before him, was a real scandal. How could she reject the union of the garden and the farm? The fortunes of the Pindrons and the Vitrys would have been linked and everyone would have been satisfied. Why did she have to give it all up? It’s as if, begging your pardon, she had a fire between her legs! Oh, I know what they said, that her suitor was a bit of a simpleton, that he wasn’t able to charm her and drive out her crazy ideas. But isn’t that what happens when people get married? They have to realise that self-interest is more important than excitement. That�
��s what it’s like in the faubourg: the only things that matter are the animals and the plants! What girls really want doesn’t count. But believe me, marriages are no worse for that.’

  ‘So it had a tragic end?’

  ‘More than tragic! It killed old Pindron. We have a sense of honour round here. Madame Pindron sold everything to buy an annuity, and disowned her only daughter. She retired to her native province, far away from the scandal.’

  ‘What happened to the daughter?’

  ‘She vanished! No one’s had any news of her. Oh, there’ve been rumours, every now and again. Some say she’s in La Force prison, others say they saw her dancing with a bear at a fair on the boulevards, and some claim she’s walking the streets around Quai Pelletier and even that she’s trawling for men in the wooden pyramids on the banks of the river, where you get all kinds of dissolute characters. Lord knows if there’s any truth in these tales.’

  ‘And what about the suitor?’

  ‘Young Vitry? Anselme? He abandoned the garden and the vegetables he loved so much, not to mention his parents. They say he was seen in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau, rolling in the gutter. I heard that he caught a foul disease and did so many mad things that he was locked up in Bicêtre, either with the patients suffering from venereal disease or with the lunatics. That’s quite some misfortune! The Vitrys don’t want to have anything more to do with him.’