The Baker's Blood Read online

  In his carriage, Nicolas pondered this uninterrupted fight against crime that had kept him busy for so many years. The King’s service had drawn him into missions that followed closely on each other’s heels, some indeed immediately giving rise to others. He had been a frail cockleshell carried along by the waves. No normal everyday life, no rest, and other consequences, too. He thought of Louis, whom he had had the good luck to find, but whose childhood years he had missed completely. He closed his eyes and saw Aimée d’Arranet’s face. Where was she?

  Should he write to her? Would his message even reach her? A sense of futility overwhelmed him. But then emotion suddenly prevailed over the idea that he should give himself up to fate. Fate was something over which he had no control anyway, whereas happiness was something you could create for yourself day by day. Then, abandoning these thoughts, he returned to his concerns of the moment, reflecting on the best way to deal with Madame Mourut.

  She looked up at him with an angry expression when he entered the room. She was dressed in black percale. Pale, without make-up, she looked her age.

  ‘Monsieur, am I to be kept confined to my own home for much longer?’

  ‘That’s entirely up to you. If I am convinced that you are telling the truth, this constraint will be lifted immediately. If not … I therefore advise you to yield and answer the questions I’m going to ask you.’

  She looked at him closely, clearly trying to detect some hidden meaning in his words.

  ‘Madame, let me lay my cards on the table, so that you can judge for yourself. I know where you spent the night of Sunday to Monday and who you spent it with. I even know the identity of the young man in question. If you should take it into your head to deny the evidence, I can immediately call a witness who’s waiting in my carriage, wrapped in her fichu.’

  He had often observed that an abundance of small details strengthened the impact of a statement.

  She shrugged. ‘What could you do to me?’

  ‘I could arrest you on the spot, take you to the Châtelet and present you to the Criminal Lieutenant.’

  ‘On what grounds, Monsieur?’

  ‘Suspicion of murdering Master Mourut, your husband.’

  ‘Monsieur, the last time I saw him, he was alive and well.’

  ‘Eating his stew, no doubt?’

  The blow hit home. She crossed her arms in a display of pride. ‘Someone told me they saw him.’

  ‘Who is that, Madame? Are you just telling me another lie?’

  ‘That’s all I can say.’

  ‘It’s not enough. Could it have been Denis, Denis Caminet, your young lover, who went down to fetch a bottle and came across a group of men, among whom he recognised his master?’

  She gave a sharp little laugh. ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘You’re quite mistaken, I can reconstruct perfectly well what happened. You weren’t born to be a baker’s wife. You had to get used to it. A young man appeared, he took an interest in you, you liked him. You resisted at first, then yielded. All perfectly ordinary, if immoral. What’s a little out of the ordinary is killing the husband. That’s going a bit far. Not to mention frequenting the house of someone like La Gourdan! What of decorum, Madame, what of—’

  ‘Who are you talking about? I don’t know the woman.’

  He had the impression that she was telling the truth.

  ‘What did you think the place where you met Caminet was exactly?’

  ‘An inn, Monsieur. Quite well kept, in fact.’

  ‘I see I shall have to enlighten you. The place is a brothel, run by La Gourdan, and not just any brothel, but the most prestigious in Paris.’

  She burst into sobs. ‘Denis didn’t kill my husband, Commissioner. I’m going to tell you everything. When he went downstairs, he thought Monsieur Mourut recognised him. He came back upstairs in a panic. Then, when nothing happened, he calmed down a bit. He decided to leave Rue Montmartre, where the work was not to his liking. He would find a way to get by in Paris and as soon as things were going better, he would get in touch with me. I gave him the jewels I was wearing that day to tide him over. We waited …’

  He handed her a handkerchief.

  ‘… He decided to leave through the door in Rue des Deux-Ponts-Saint-Sauveur while I would go out the back way. I ran and found a cab and came back to Montmartre.’

  ‘And since then, have you had any news of him?’

  ‘How could I? Confined as I am here, with your henchmen at my door!’

  ‘It’s vital that we find him. His absence can only arouse further suspicion.’

  He reflected, deliberately prolonging the moment.

  ‘Madame, I’m going to give you back your freedom. On one condition: that you inform me if you hear anything, anything at all, from Caminet. If he shows himself, let me know. Are we agreed?’

  ‘Yes, Commissioner.’

  He left her and went to find La Babine. She proved incapable of telling him the exact time her mistress had returned home, having herself been away until the early hours of the morning. Given her animosity towards the baker’s wife, he assumed she was telling the truth. He told her she was free to go anywhere she wanted, as long as she did not leave Paris. He found himself back out in the street, suddenly overcome with weariness. He was so tempted to return to the Noblecourt house to rest that he had to take himself in hand. He ran to his carriage in order not to give in to the temptation.

  At the Grand Châtelet, a surprise awaited him. Semacgus, who had spent the day at the Jardin du Roi, comparing the collections of the herbarium there with his sketches from Vienna, had arrived eager for news after the events of the day. He had found Bourdeau and they had talked over the situation while waiting for Nicolas. He gave them a rapid account of his visit to Rue Montmartre.

  ‘How was the lady?’ asked the inspector.

  ‘Madame Mourut talks a lot, keeps silent when it suits her, loves to argue and sometimes bites.’

  ‘What a fine way to sum up a woman,’ said Semacgus with a laugh.

  ‘Do you think she’s telling the truth?’ said Bourdeau, intrigued.

  ‘By and large, I think she told me something close to the truth. There are still of course some shadowy areas. It’s work in progress. I’m not sure if she really knows what happened after her lover left her. I would observe that, by going out through the door leading to Rue des Deux-Ponts, he must have known there was a risk he would run into Mourut … And if Mourut did recognise his apprentice – who was actually his son – he would surely have tried to wait for him. That’s a lot of ifs and maybes …’

  ‘Master Mourut, said Bourdeau, ‘died in his bakehouse. Are we to imagine a long conversation between the two of them, then a return to Rue Montmartre, followed by a poisoning, if that’s the theory we are still accepting?’

  ‘Given what we know of it,’ said Semacgus, ‘the poisoning could have been carried out in the street. But is it likely? It doesn’t seem to me to hold up. It would suggest a great deal of preparation, as if it were all premeditated. But everything points to the fact that Caminet was surprised to see his master in La Gourdan’s house. I don’t think we can state anything for certain at the moment.’

  ‘Guillaume’s right,’ said Nicolas. ‘If that meeting wasn’t a chance one, it suggests a logic rare in this kind of tragedy, which is usually much messier. Let’s retrace our steps for the moment. Caminet leaves La Gourdan’s house and runs straight into Mourut. De facto, Mourut doesn’t know that the young man has just been with his wife. We assume a chance encounter. If it took place, what happened? If it didn’t …’

  ‘If it didn’t, we’re in act five, scene three,’ said Semacgus. ‘We don’t know the ending of the play.’

  Nicolas fell silent, lost in thought. There were still pieces missing from this puzzle. The elements fitted too neatly, whatever the alternative chosen … Of course, they could force the various hypotheses in one direction rather than another, but there was simply not enough evidence to do so a
t the moment.

  Semacgus had leant forward towards Nicolas’s legs, his two hands on his knees.

  ‘Old pains, Guillaume? I didn’t know you needed a stick.’

  ‘Not at all! Although it is sometimes hard to keep standing for too long. No, I was admiring the shine on your boots and—’

  ‘What a strange thing to admire! I’m proud to say that it was one of Chevert’s glorious soldiers who, out of friendship for me, made them shine so brilliantly as to dazzle you.’

  Puffing a little, Semacgus got down on his knees and seized the instep of the commissioner’s right boot. He put on his spectacles, which, out of vanity, he rarely used.

  ‘This must be serious,’ said Bourdeau sardonically. ‘Our man is getting his lenses out!’

  ‘You may laugh,’ said Semacgus. ‘I need them in my botanical work. You’ll see when you’re my age, or rather, you won’t see anything at all. As a matter of fact, I see very well from a distance.’

  He fell silent and collected a small particle that resembled a piece of a human nail.

  ‘Was the work slapdash? Is there still some mud?’

  Semacgus did not reply and carefully examined his find.

  ‘Is he going to speak,’ cried Bourdeau happily, ‘or will we have to tear the words from his mouth? Let’s fetch Sanson!’

  ‘I am concentrating on the circumstantial, although as yet unable to extricate myself from the predicament in which I find myself.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ continued the inspector, ‘Monsieur de Noblecourt has acquired a following! Semacgus is making pronouncements!’

  ‘You may mock,’ said Semacgus. ‘We shall talk further of this.’ Carefully, he put the fragment inside a huge handkerchief, knotted the four corners and stuffed it deep into one of his coat pockets.

  ‘Just one question, Nicolas, before you leave me free to elucidate this point. Did this soldier of yours really clean your boots?’

  ‘With all the love and care of a job extremely well done. He brushed, scraped, waxed, polished and shone, and finally brushed again. Including the spurs.’

  ‘And then, as Bourdeau here told me, you searched the Hénéfiance house.’

  ‘That’s correct, after walking in the street.’

  ‘Thank you, that’s all I wanted to know. I won’t say anything more today.’

  ‘All of a sudden, he’s a man of few words!’ said Bourdeau.

  ‘Now then, gentlemen,’ said Nicolas. ‘Let’s take this seriously. I think the time has come to question our two baker’s boys. I hope their stay in solitary confinement has worn down their resistance. I remain convinced that they know more than they are willing to admit.’

  Bourdeau looked at his watch. ‘Let’s pay them a visit, after which you will be my guests in our usual tavern.’

  Semacgus was the first to accept the offer, which he did eagerly. Nicolas remembered that his son was waiting for him. But the evening was already well advanced and he would be back quite late even if he refused the inspector’s offer. In addition, he would still have to take stock after the interrogation. Louis must be exhausted and would fall asleep early. They walked downstairs into the part of the old fortress that served as a prison.

  ‘Let’s begin with the younger of the two,’ suggested Bourdeau.

  He ordered the gaoler to give him a lantern and have them taken to the cells by one of his gatekeepers. Night had fallen and the prison was plunged in total darkness. The gatekeeper went in front of them, his keys clanging against the wall. In a loud, sneering voice, he expressed his surprise that anyone should be paying for these two rascals to be well treated. You had to be mad to throw good money out of the window like that, at a time when the price of bread kept rising. Nicolas told him, curtly, to be quiet and take them to the cells without comment. The man paid no attention and started doing his sums.

  ‘Oh, I know it’s easy when you have someone protecting you. They’ve been here two days already. A room with a bed, that costs five sols a day, in other words ten sols. And would you believe it, the sheets are changed every three weeks? As for food, you have to reckon with a livre and four sols a day. That’s terrible, when you think that a labourer barely earns a livre for a working day. Some people are so lucky, you feel like swapping places with them.’

  ‘If you don’t shut your mouth,’ cried Bourdeau, ‘it’s your own place you’ll lose. And don’t get any ideas about mistreating them, we’d find out immediately.’

  The man muttered and fell silent. They had come to the massive door of a ground-floor cell. The key made a scraping sound as it turned in the lock. The gatekeeper kicked the door open, took a step forward and raised his lantern. A ray of dancing light illumined the emptiness and came to rest on the bed. At first, all they could see was an indistinct, huddled shape, motionless beneath the sheets. Nicolas’s nostrils were intrigued by an unpleasant smell he knew well, at once sickly and metallic. He suddenly felt a cold sweat break out all over his body. He sensed that something terrible was happening. It was in a dungeon not far from this one that an old soldier had hanged himself. Whatever the horrible crime of which he was guilty, the memory of that man still filled Nicolas with remorse. An anxious silence fell over the group. There was no sound but their breathing.

  ‘The little devil’s already asleep,’ said the gatekeeper hesitantly.

  Semacgus threw a glance at Nicolas, who immediately realised that his anxiety was shared.

  ‘Everyone move back,’ he ordered. ‘Dr Semacgus will wake the witness.’

  The surgeon approached the narrow bed. With delicate gestures he pulled back the blanket, which slid off without resistance. Nicolas moved the lantern closer. The sheet fell and revealed a pitiful sight. Rolled up into a ball and apparently lifeless, Friope lay on the bed, which was covered in blood. Semacgus seized his frail wrist, took a small mirror from his pocket and held it in front of the young man’s mouth. This moment seemed like a century to Nicolas, who could see only the surgeon’s vast back as he bustled about. He threw behind him some narrow strips of bloodstained cloth. His grave voice rose.

  ‘Gatekeeper, run and fetch the local doctor immediately.’

  Next, turning to Nicolas, he shook his head, compassion writ large on his broad face.

  ‘Nicolas, your witness is safe, although much weakened.’

  ‘Did he try to—?’

  ‘No, not at all. It’s something more surprising than that: your baker’s boy … What’s his name, by the way?’

  ‘Friope, Anne Friope.’

  ‘Anne! All is explained.’

  ‘Guillaume, your words are increasingly confused.’

  ‘The fact is, your baker’s boy isn’t a boy, but a girl, yes, a girl!’

  ‘A girl?’

  ‘Quite well developed, too! So much so that she was two or three months pregnant. She’s just had a miscarriage, but although she’s lost a lot of blood, I think she’ll pull through. Bourdeau, can you fetch some hot water, bandages and shredded linen, a clean sheet, and a blanket that’s warmer than this awful threadbare drugget.’

  ‘That explains a lot of things,’ said Nicolas, ‘and also complicates them even more.’

  A noise was heard. A man entered the cell, led by the gatekeeper, who, tantalised by what had happened, tried to move closer to revel in the spectacle: he was pushed away by the commissioner. Raising his eyes to the newcomer, he recognised the thin face and gentle, ironic eyes of Dr de Gévigland.2

  ‘Monsieur, what a surprise to see you here!’

  ‘My dear friend!’ cried the doctor. ‘You know my field of research. I managed to get a job as a king’s doctor at the Châtelet as a supernumerary to Monsieur de la Rivière and Monsieur Le Clerc. They gladly let me take on more than my share, which is why you see me here this evening.’

  ‘You already know Inspector Bourdeau. Let me introduce a friend, Dr Guillaume Semacgus, navy surgeon. We take full advantage of his great experience during our investigations.’

  ‘Doctor i
s pitching it a little high,’ said Semacgus. ‘I wouldn’t like to justify any unfavourable judgement on the body to which I once belonged.’

  ‘I have the greatest respect for that body. Would you by any chance be the expert on exotic plants, the well-known botanist whose praises are sung by Monsieur de Jussieu?’

  ‘I am indeed he, Monsieur, at your service. But time is passing. What we have here is a miscarriage. In a word, this young woman was passing herself off as a man. Her breasts were bandaged to hold them in and the rest in keeping.’

  He gathered the strip of cloth which had intrigued Nicolas. A weak groan was heard. Nicolas and Bourdeau stepped aside to leave the prisoner in the hands of the practitioners. The water and blanket were brought by the gaoler, who was aghast at these events. After a while, Semacgus and Gévigland reappeared.

  ‘From our mutual observations, it appears,’ said Gévigland, ‘that the prisoner is indeed female. Her weak constitution, her age, and no doubt also the fear and distress she felt at being incarcerated, led to this accident. To protect her unborn child, she should not have indulged in any strong physical activity. Her work at the bakery was fatal to her. She now needs to be kept quiet and rested.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Semacgus. ‘Light food and liquids, groats, bread soup, and thin drinks. Later, a few glasses of good wine.’

  Nicolas was about to speak, but his friend anticipated him.

  ‘Questioning her is out of the question for the moment. Monsieur de Gévigland has offered to keep an eye on the patient tonight in order to avoid any concomitant fever that might endanger her life.’

  They still had Parnaux to question. His cell was around the corner of the same gallery. They found him sitting on his bunk, his head in his hands. He started in panic when the three men came in and looked at them anxiously. He was shaking, certainly with cold, but also perhaps with apprehension at what was to follow.

  ‘My friend,’ began Nicolas, gently, ‘I must tell you that we have made progress with our investigation, and that we are now in possession of information which casts serious doubt on your initial testimony. As a result, Friope and you are suspected of—’