The Baker's Blood Read online

  ‘One moment. Did you lock the door again?’

  ‘No, by now we didn’t know what we were doing.’

  ‘Are you sure there was no one else in the bakehouse apart from you?’

  The boy’s face tensed as he thought hard. ‘To be honest, no, especially as we didn’t open the storeroom. But the carriage entrance was closed.’

  ‘Wait! Where is this storeroom?’

  ‘You have to go into the privy and swivel the cupboard where we keep our work clothes.’

  ‘Is it a large storeroom?’

  ‘It’s a huge dry cellar. A good place for keeping flour. The master didn’t like talking about it, or rather, he didn’t like anyone else talking about it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because there was too much flour and he thought there would be a shortage.’

  ‘I find all this rather confusing. You’re going to have to explain it a little more clearly.’

  ‘He held on to his flour, because he said there’d soon be a shortage in the city and the price of bread would go up. That was already happening. The customers were grumbling, and he’d received threats.’

  ‘What form did these threats take?’

  ‘Charcoal inscriptions on the walls, which Friope kept having to wash off.’

  ‘What kind of inscriptions?’

  ‘Horrible things! They were going to come and ransack the place … and hang us …’

  ‘What kind of man was Master Mourut?’

  ‘Good-natured on the outside, but tough and demanding when it came to work.’ He made an ironic face. ‘And greedy when it came to money.’

  ‘And what about Madame Mourut?’

  ‘She sold bread in the shop. We were nothing to her. We never ate at her table …’

  ‘And where’s the third apprentice?’

  ‘You’d have to ask him,’ the boy said, in a vindictive tone. ‘He’s allowed to do whatever he likes.’

  ‘Including being late for his day’s work?’

  ‘Even that.’

  Nicolas went out to look for Friope. He found him sitting on a boundary stone, gnawing at his fists.

  ‘Come on, it’s your turn.’

  He took him by the shoulders, and felt the frail bone structure beneath his fingers. The boy’s body was shaking and he was unsteady on his feet. Parnaux was asked to leave the room, with Nicolas standing between the two boys to prevent them conferring. Friope was even less well dressed than his workmate. The interrogation resumed. Friope was fifteen, and his father was a ploughman in Meaux. Nicolas asked the same questions and received identical answers, except when he asked about the third apprentice and detected a mixture of anger and fear. Nicolas pretended to know more about the subject than he in fact did, and this really opened the floodgates: it was as if the boy were releasing everything he had too long held in.

  ‘He doesn’t work, doesn’t do anything, and the master doesn’t even notice … If he does anything wrong, he blames us, me or Parnaux. He call us every name under the sun. He’s always telling on us to the master … If he could, he’d even …’

  He was biting his lips. He stopped, wild-eyed. Had he realised that he had said too much, or rather that he was on the verge of admitting something that could not be admitted? Nicolas did not show any outward interest in these confused words and refused to drive home his advantage.

  ‘Where does the flour you work with come from?’

  Friope sighed with relief. ‘The wheat market takes place twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday. But the master gets more. It comes in and out …’

  ‘Can you explain that?’

  ‘Flour arrives secretly in carts covered with canvas, which regularly take away the empty sacks. They’re full when they arrive. There’s a whole system organised by the group of monopolists. When they find out through one of their spies that the corporation is planning to check a bakery, the surplus is moved from shop to shop. The one who hides it receives a share of it as payment for his help. They’re bound together by solemn oaths.’

  ‘And is your master one of them?’ asked Nicolas, alarmed by what he was hearing.

  ‘That’s what I’m telling you! Not only that, but he also trims as much as he can from the dough for each loaf, without pity for the poor. A bit here, a bit there. It’s all for his own profit. But the Lord God and the Virgin Mary are watching and sometimes this small amount of dough, yes, Monsieur Nicolas, this small amount of dough rises in the oven and produces the finest, most golden, most fragrant loaves, which makes the master furious.’

  He seemed almost ecstatic, then suddenly burst into tears. It struck Nicolas that he was the same age as Louis. He waited until Friope had recovered.

  ‘Are you unhappy? You’ve always seemed such a bright boy.’

  ‘You’ve always been good to us, Monsieur Nicolas,’ he replied, looking admiringly at the commissioner. ‘Monsieur de Noblecourt, too, and the cooks, and Poitevin who always slips us a few tasty morsels.’

  He began sobbing again.

  ‘But our situation here isn’t very peasant. Always half naked, always in long johns and cap so that we’re always ready for work. Never going out, except on Sundays. It’s like being in purgatory. My body isn’t made of iron. Night doesn’t bring any rest. As soon as it starts, we begin our day.’

  Suddenly, there was a great noise. The door to the servants’ pantry opened and Bourdeau appeared, followed by an auxiliary officer and two soldiers of the watch. He made a sign to Nicolas.

  Notes

  1. Seventy-two livres: about fifty-four euros.

  2. Art objects: the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris still has some of these. Bertin’s natural history cabinet is now part of the Queen of England’s collection.

  3. Usual informant: regular readers of this series will recognise the Duc de Richelieu, an old friend of Monsieur de Noblecourt’s.

  4. Abbé Galiani (1728–87): man of letters, the author of dialogues about the grain trade in which he attacked the economists.

  5. Antiquarian: at the time, an expert on the Ancient World and an interpreter of inscriptions.

  6. See The Phantom of Rue Royale.

  V

  THE BAKEHOUSE

  When we plunge a blind man into darkness,

  he is unaware of it; but the sighted man shudders.

  MADAME DE PUISIEUX

  Bourdeau drew Nicolas aside.

  ‘Unrest is growing in the city. People are gathering everywhere. No violence for the moment, but a lot of heated debate. On the way here, I passed a detachment of the watch entering Rue Montmartre, where several bakeries appear to be under threat.’

  ‘Is it as bad as that?’

  ‘Worse. All night, information has been coming in to police headquarters, confirming your impressions. There’s increasing excitement all around the outskirts of Paris, in Beauvais, Passy, Saint-Germain, Meaux, Saint-Denis. There’s said to have been looting. Thousands of men have gathered in Villers-Cotterêts. In Pontoise, everything’s been turned upside down, and there’s been destruction of property. The whole length of the Oise is in turmoil. At L’Isle-Adam, grain barges have been stripped and the sacks torn open.’

  ‘But for what reason?’

  ‘It’s said that mysterious emissaries have convinced the common people that they risk dying of starvation because all the grain is being taken to Paris to be sold abroad at a high price. Remember those old stories of a famine pact? Well, they’ve come back! The worst thing of all is that order will only be restored by taking measures nobody is prepared to take.’

  Nicolas was pleased – although he did not say so – to see Bourdeau go back to being a policeman, for whom disorder was a breach in the regular course of the world.

  ‘Nobody’s received any instructions, not the police, not the mounted constabulary, not the army. Those who should be taking command are refusing to do so. I heard that even Monsieur Lenoir is demanding written orders, and is refusing to do anything on his own initiative un
til he receives them. Meanwhile, the situation is getting worse. But what were you talking to the baker’s boys about?’

  Nicolas gave him a detailed account of the previous night’s events and his initial observations.

  ‘Only an autopsy will be able to confirm or refute your suspicions,’ said Bourdeau.

  ‘You know I have to go to Versailles today, so I’m going to leave all this in your hands. Have the body taken to the Basse-Geôle, and summon Semacgus and Sanson. I couldn’t bear leaving such an important element to the wretched local doctors, whose incompetence we know well. Before that, we’ll need to question the widow and the third baker’s boy, if we can find him. Concentrate initially on the neighbourhood, especially the house where those two boys live …’

  The boys in question were waiting by the door, heads bowed, for this conversation to end.

  ‘I pass them every day,’ Nicolas said, as if thinking aloud. ‘I live in the same house and yet I don’t know anything about them. I’d like them to be put into solitary confinement until the autopsy’s been carried out. Find two preferential cells at the Châtelet. Let them be fed at my expense, well fed, and make sure the gatekeepers look after them. Separate cells, obviously.’

  He chose not to tell Bourdeau everything. It was not a question of concealment or lack of trust. It was just that there were things which meant nothing at the moment and would only be of interest if they were indeed dealing with a murder. He wanted to give the inspector the opportunity to bring his own experience to bear on the case – and, hopefully, come to the same conclusions as he had. He would doubtless reach them in other ways, but he was sure they would confirm his own deductions. It was his usual method, and so far it had always paid off. He led Bourdeau over to the two young men.

  ‘Does either of you smoke a pipe?’

  They looked at each other, surprised by the question.

  ‘No,’ replied Parnaux, while Friope shook his head.

  ‘What about the master?’

  ‘No, he doesn’t smoke either. Dough is a delicate thing, it takes on any smells that are around.’

  Bourdeau nodded, without fully comprehending.

  Nicolas took him by the arm. ‘There was a strong smell of tobacco smoke in the bakehouse.’

  ‘Someone might have burnt something in the oven.’

  ‘Impossible! It hadn’t been lit.’

  ‘And what do you deduce from that?’

  ‘That Master Mourut may have had a visitor before he stuck his nose in the dough. We need to answer the basic question: death by apoplexy, accidental death, or murder? We also need to take into account the matter of the keys. How could the baker have died a natural death, locked in his bakehouse without keys in his pocket?’

  Nicolas walked back to the baker’s boys and told them what had been decided. Friope began weeping and wringing his hands. Bourdeau gave orders to the auxiliary officers and the men of the watch to leave as discreetly as possible, in order not to provoke any further reaction outside. Although he knew the question was pointless, Nicolas could not help asking Bourdeau if any news had come in during the night concerning Louis’s disappearance. The inspector shook his head. There was every indication that he shared the commissioner’s frustration and that he was desperately sorry not to be in a position to bring him any comfort, any glimmer of hope. They walked out into the street. Day was just breaking. For Nicolas, contact with the crowd that had gathered in Rue Montmartre was like a shock to the flesh.

  They formed a compact, shapeless mass with, here and there, a torch or lantern carried at arm’s length, lighting impassive or distorted faces, inscrutable or staring eyes. You could sense an unknown force in the group, which was subdued for the moment, but might be unleashed by the slightest move, the most harmless word, the most innocent gesture. Their exit from the Noblecourt house provoked a muted murmur. It was like the wind in the trees at the beginning of a storm, when the silence is suddenly shattered, giving free rein to the fury of the elements. Nicolas and Bourdeau took care not to pay the slightest attention to this still slumbering beast. A man cried out, ‘Bread for two sous!’ The crowd applauded and roared their approval, as if with one voice, then everything calmed down and once again these people resumed their motionless wait.

  Nicolas knocked at the door of the neighbouring house. It was opened by a bareheaded woman, the Mouruts’ elderly maid, who sometimes worked in the shop and was not noted for her gracious manners. To Nicolas’s request to see the baker’s wife, she replied sourly that her mistress could not be disturbed before the time when she usually woke. Changing tactic, Nicolas seized the woman by the arm and pushed her inside the house.

  ‘I demand to see your mistress immediately.’

  A voice rose from the end of the corridor. ‘It’s all right, Eulalie, bring Commissioner Le Floch here. He’s our neighbour, Monsieur de Noblecourt’s lodger. Forgive her stubbornness, Commissioner. Because of her age, she can’t even do her job properly. Cantankerous, and that’s not the half of it! Leave us, Eulalie.’

  All this was uttered in a tone at once contemptuous and irritable. The maid walked away down a dark corridor, muttering insults.

  ‘She imagines she can rule the roost in the house and the shop because she was here when Master Mourut was born.’ The baker’s wife laughed a trifle sourly, as if her mood were forced. ‘I’ve never got used to that name, which forces you to say and do things … Mourut, can you imagine?’

  Nicolas found her words deeply ambiguous. He had entered a small room which was clearly used as a boudoir. Illumined by a tarnished bull’s-eye window, it comprised a hearth, a screen, a sideboard stocked with glasses and a folding chaise-longue, the kind that could be transformed into a bed or an armchair at will. Lying on this, in her morning dishabille, was a woman in her thirties. She had a thin, pink face, on which lines had already appeared. On her head was a tight-fitting nightcap of brocaded gauze with two ribbons. Her shoulders were barely covered by a mantlet of white taffeta trimmed in raw silk. Around her neck, she wore a thin black silk ribbon, more suited to day wear than the casualness of the morning. Below a flood of petticoats, one mule-clad foot swung provocatively. Nicolas stared at it so insistently that she noticed and hid it beneath her petticoats in embarrassment.

  ‘Madame,’ said Nicolas, ‘it is, I regret to say, not as a neighbour but as a commissioner that I have had to force your door. Do you know where your husband is?’

  ‘My husband is an adult. I have too much respect for him and for myself to impose my authority on whatever he has to do.’

  Once again, her words surprised him.

  ‘I quite agree with you. Is he often this late?’

  ‘What do you mean, Monsieur? Surely he’s in his bakehouse?’

  That, of course, was what she should have answered in the first place.

  ‘Did you see him during the night?’

  ‘At night, I rest. When he goes over to the shop, he has the courtesy not to wake me, and besides …’

  ‘Besides?’

  ‘We have separate rooms.’

  ‘Let me be more specific, Madame. When did you last see your husband?’

  There was not a trace of anxiety on her face. Any other woman, thought Nicolas, would already have suspected that something terrible had happened and started to panic.

  ‘Monsieur Mourut,’ she said, with a contemptuous pout, ‘ate his soup and stew in my company, of course.’

  ‘Was he planning to go out?’

  ‘It appeared so, from his attire. In fact, he confirmed it.’

  ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘He had an appointment.’

  ‘Did he tell you with whom?’

  ‘You are persistent indeed, Monsieur!’ she said, in the same oddly haughty tone. ‘I gathered from his words that he was supposed to be meeting someone …’

  Anticipating another question, she bit her lip, revealing as she did so a detail which the semi-darkness of the boudoir had hidden from Nicolas. Madame
Mourut had two black taffeta beauty spots, a conspicuous one near the dimple of one cheek, and a more discreet one on her lower lip. A curious choice of nightwear for a respectable woman: intended to set off the whiteness of a lady’s complexion, they were a strange and even slightly suspicious sight on a baker’s wife who had recently woken, as indeed was the black ribbon he had already noticed. She seemed to become aware of this examination, for it was in a distinctly starchy tone that she continued, ‘I don’t generally interfere in my husband’s activities. I have no idea where he was going or whom he was meeting.’

  ‘And what of yourself, Madame?’ Nicolas liked asking such vague questions, which sometimes hit their target.

  ‘What do you mean, Monsieur? What was I to do? I was asleep until you surprised me … woke me, I mean.’

  In his work as an investigator, Nicolas was sensitive to slips of the tongue. Most of the time, they betrayed a witness’s nervousness, but occasionally they expressed involuntary feelings.

  ‘Please don’t take my question the wrong way, Madame. Truth is like a beauty spot. It may be found in the strangest of places.’

  He heard a sharp intake of breath from Bourdeau. Madame Mourut flushed and once again bit her lip.

  ‘Do you have a key to the communicating door between your lodgings and the bakehouse?’

  ‘No. My husband has one, and so does the apprentice who lodges here.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Denis.’

  ‘And his surname?’

  ‘Caminet. Denis Caminet.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he live outside, like his workmates?’

  She sighed. ‘He’s the oldest. He’s training to become a master. He’s the son of a friend of my husband’s who died. My husband treats him like one of the family.’

  It seemed to Nicolas that she was speaking now with redoubled caution, in a low, expressionless voice. He thought of Mouchette advancing with great caution along the top of a cornice.