The Baker's Blood Page 27

  He stood up. Nicolas was distressed to see that there were tears in Lenoir’s eyes as he held out his hand.

  ‘Don’t forget me! Now go.’

  Overcome with emotion, Nicolas left without turning round. Outside, a familiar voice hailed him. It was the Chevalier de Lastire.

  ‘I went to Rue Montmartre to find you,’ he said, ‘and was told you were probably at the Châtelet. I’ve just come from there, having obviously been unsuccessful. I decided to try my luck with Lenoir, and God be praised, here you are!’

  ‘How is your wound?’ Nicolas had noted that the chevalier was still wearing his turban-shaped bandage.

  ‘It’s healing. My head has been through a lot worse than that! I’m terribly sorry, believe me, not to have taken more of a role in the investigation you are currently pursuing. I’ve been all over the city, after a quick trip to Versailles … No point in saying any more about that. The popular discontent will be short-lived. No thanks to the authorities, who’ve handled things so badly. But there will be consequences: there’s a rumour that Sartine, and therefore Lenoir, helped to stir things up out of hatred for Turgot. Now there have to be a few executions, as soon as possible, to make an example. That’s the only way for order to be restored. Although it seems already to be restored, judging by how quiet the city is. I have to continue my researches, in order to clear Monsieur de Sartine of the accusations which are sure to be made against him. So I don’t think I’d be of any use to you in Rue Montmartre. How far have you got with that?’

  Nicolas had been sworn to secrecy by Lenoir, and he had no intention of betraying that trust, even to his friend. He kept his answer vague, while observing to himself that the situation was running in his favour. He could not help recalling Bourdeau’s misgivings about Lastire. The fact that he could not participate in the investigation was sure to please the inspector, whose happiness mattered to him.

  ‘Suspicion is falling increasingly on the baker’s immediate circle, wife and apprentices. We’ll get there in the end.’

  Lastire offered him a lift in his carriage, an offer Nicolas declined with the excuse that he preferred to return to the Châtelet on foot in order to get a better sense of the atmosphere in the city. The chevalier left in a jovial mood, promising that he would soon buy him dinner in return for the one in Versailles. Nicolas walked to the Châtelet via Place des Victoires, Rue des Petits-Champs and Rue Saint-Honoré. He felt saddened by his interview with Lenoir. He was not taken in by his chief’s gentle irony, knowing that it concealed genuine sorrow. He was reminded of certain periods in his own life, certain dark moments when everything had seemed to collapse about him without any possibility of salvation, when the heart and soul, crushed beneath the burden, seemed powerless to resist. In his opinion, Lenoir was a magistrate who gave every indication of working for the public good. Repaid with ingratitude, he was now concentrating all his efforts on repressing a profound despair instead of using his concern and loyalty, and perhaps more, in the service of the King.

  It was necessary to overcome misfortune, and force oneself to become detached. It was that detachment that allowed him to confront the difficulties life kept bringing him, like a river depositing on its banks the flotsam it had collected during its course. He was moving like a sleepwalker, thinking of what men had constantly to confront and their attempts to find a middle way, a way that was balanced. Not to sink under the weight of humiliation was as essential as not to take refuge in the ultimate failing: pride. The way in which one withstood the consequences of a defeat revealed the true nature of a human being. The Marquis de Ranreuil had often remarked that it took less courage to lay siege to a city than to overcome certain vicissitudes in which only the heart and soul played their part. Semacgus accused of a serious offence, Sartine facing disgrace, Madame de Pompadour plagued by the intrigues of her rivals, and the late King, so courageous in his death agony: all of them had taught him, each in his or her own fashion, the supreme quality: nobility of spirit. Now Lenoir had fallen and, more affected than he was willing to reveal, was also confronting it in his own way. All these examples, and his own, confirmed to him that it was better to suffer injustice than remorse. These reflections revived the budding casuist from the Jesuit school in Vannes. The perfect example was where the virtue of humility became a kind of self-regard and ended up as the deadly sin of pride.

  Returning to the present, he decided to ask Bourdeau to find out if there was indeed a tavern called the Grand Hiver and to continue searching for Caminet, whose corpse was still nowhere to be found. Why had he disappeared? Had the body been stripped bare by some wandering dealer in second-hand clothes? That was common enough, and when it happened the body was usually hidden. He would have to make enquiries in that direction. Everything was complicated by the fact that they were still not sure how exactly Master Mourut had been killed. He next looked for a pretext that would allow him not to lie to Bourdeau about how he was spending his time. He would say he was paying a visit to Anne Friope, neglecting to add that he would then be going to Vincennes.

  Pleased to have found this honest stratagem, he covered the rest of the way with a lively step, avoiding being splashed by passing carriages and jumping over the dirty puddles left by the rain that had fallen in the past few days. Outside the Grand Châtelet, he came across a busy-looking Rabouine, whose face lit up when he saw his chief.

  ‘What good wind brings you here?’

  ‘There has been some movement in Rue du Poirier. A woman entered the ruined mansion opposite the Hénéfiance house. I had Tirepot at hand, so I left him on guard.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘Some time later, the chimney of the Hénéfiance house started smoking.’

  ‘Smoking? That’s interesting. Continue the surveillance.’

  He found Bourdeau impatient and obviously out of sorts. Nicolas, who knew him well, assumed that Lastire’s brief visit to the Châtelet had a lot to do with it, that it had revived a prejudice that dated back to the journey to Vienna and a sense that there was a bond between them from which he felt excluded. But once Nicolas had pointed out that the chevalier was currently otherwise engaged, Bourdeau cheered up and took a great interest in Rabouine’s news of the smoking chimney. Nicolas gave him the task of finding the Grand Hiver inn, the discovery of which he owed to Louis’s ingenuity. Bourdeau would check the lists of the office of security, where that kind of business was recorded, and, if need be, would pay a visit to the place itself. He would have to devote himself urgently to this task while Nicolas went to see how Anne Friope was now and questioned her if her condition allowed it. At that moment Catherine appeared, out of breath. She had come to inform Bourdeau that a legless cripple, a former soldier of the King, had presented himself in Rue Montmartre on a little wagon mounted on castors and pulled by a dog, citing the commissioner’s name. After gorging himself on a copious helping of bacon soup moistened with wine, he had left a message indicating ‘that a woman had entered the house’.

  ‘Not much point running all the way here if you already know that!’ said Catherine, irritably.

  This confirmation of Rabouine’s information set them speculating further and allowed Nicolas to conceal his planned visit to Vincennes. After seeing Anne Friope, he ought to go straight to Rue du Poirier to see the situation for himself. He would indeed go there, but on his return from Vincennes.

  He found Dr de Gévigland by the prisoner’s bedside. She was as well as could be expected, having slept the rest of the night. The doctor asked for permission to go home and get some well-earned rest. He would be back that evening to examine his patient. Nicolas found the young woman dressed in a kind of monk’s cowl, her head on a pillow made up of her male clothes. She seemed both scared and embarrassed to see him.

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ he said, ‘I’m pleased to see that your condition has improved. I must, however, ask you a few questions. Your friend has confessed that he followed Caminet on Sunday night. I know that Caminet was blackmailing
you.’

  She appeared relieved.

  ‘Parnaux remains one of the suspects – as do you – in the death of Master Mourut, but also in the disappearance of Caminet. I know Caminet was threatening you, and Parnaux was seen near his body.’

  He was playing somewhat with the truth, groping his way, stating as certainty what was far from certain. The young woman’s reaction was immediate.

  ‘That’s all lies, he didn’t go anywhere near him.’

  He refrained from reacting to this, not wishing to interrupt the spontaneous nature of her words.

  ‘No, he didn’t go anywhere near him,’ she repeated in a lower tone. ‘I can vouch for that.’

  ‘Did he tell you that?’

  Her bloodless face turned red and she burst into tears. He felt an immense pity for this lost child overcome with misfortune.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In that case, your words do not count as evidence in a criminal investigation, and Parnaux remains one of the suspects.’

  She was choking. ‘I was … I was there … I followed Parnaux when he went out … I feared the worst, so I pretended to be asleep and then followed him!’

  ‘Didn’t he see you?’

  ‘No. On the way back I wasn’t able to catch up with him and pass him. It was raining. I got back after he did. He was going mad with worry. I had to admit everything.’

  ‘Did you go and see Mourut?’

  She looked at him in alarm. ‘Never, Monsieur Nicolas. We went to bed. Then we got up like every morning and went to the bakehouse at the usual hour.’

  ‘Rest assured, Mademoiselle, that all this will be duly checked. I am prepared to believe you until we have proof to the contrary.’

  ‘How is my friend?’

  ‘He’s worried about you. Of course, I have informed him of your condition.’

  He was in a state of some bewilderment by the time he left her. Each testimony depended on the previous one like the elements in a house of cards. It needed only one of them to be a lie for the whole edifice to come crashing down, calling into question the whole painfully constructed logic. He took a cab, and to throw any possible pursuer off the scent, asked to be driven to Place Royale. He got out and told the coachman to wait for him at the corner of Rue de l’Égout and Rue Saint-Antoine. He slowly strolled twice round the square, turned into Rue de l’Écharpe, entered the church of Sainte-Catherine, came out again through a side door, and got back to his carriage without anything untoward drawing his attention. Once he reached Vincennes, he asked the coachman to wait some distance from the fortress. He did not head straight to the prison, but got to it by a complicated route during which he finally convinced himself that he was not being followed.

  He presented himself before the two drawbridges which protected the entrance to the château, a small one for visitors on foot and a wider one for carriages. He had to pass through three doors, the last one of which could not be opened from the inside without help from the outside, nor from the outside without help from the inside. Having shown his credentials to a mistrustful gatekeeper assisted by a guard, he found himself in the middle of the courtyard, from which rose the keep. It reminded him of the tower of Elven, an old Breton fortress whose prodigious bulk had taken him by surprise one day when he was hunting wolves with his father, the marquis, in the nearby forest. A forty-foot moat surrounded the château and made it inaccessible. The keep was five storeys high with four corner towers. There were again three doors at the entrance. He was made to wait in a large room on the ground floor, which a gaoler told him was a torture chamber, while pointing out that it was not used much these days. The governor soon appeared, muttering furiously about having been disturbed just as he was starting his lunch. He peered at Lenoir’s letter, examined the seal and looked Nicolas up and down. He finally yielded, having no choice, although he demanded to be present at the interview, as was only fitting when dealing with a prisoner of State being kept in solitary confinement. He was so insistent that Nicolas had to threaten to have him punished if he attempted any further obstruction. Reluctantly, the man gave in.

  He was led to the prisoner’s dungeon through a succession of dark passageways and staircases. A smell of mildew and saltpetre seized him by the throat, reminding him of what was said of a stay in this prison, ‘that it was worth its weight in arsenic’. Again, there were three doors to the dungeon, each equipped with iron bars, two locks and three bolts. It was clear to Nicolas that the precautions at Vincennes were infinitely more stringent than in the Bastille. One door opened from the left, another from the right. Opening them was a whole ceremony of scrapings, creakings and the screeching of hinges.

  He saw nothing at first on entering the cell. The weak daylight falling from three iron grilles arranged in such a way that the bars of one blocked the gaps in the other dazzled him after the darkness of the galleries. His eyes gradually became accustomed, and he began making out details. The cell was a vaulted room three times as high as it was wide. Against the far wall, sitting on a wooden bunk containing a drawer, a man was looking at him, wrapped against the cold in a frayed cloak. Above the raised collar appeared the remains of a torn cravat, and above that a pale, emaciated face with wild, inquisitive eyes. He had long hair and a beard, and seemed ageless. His hands were held tight in rings linked to the walls by chains. His right foot was attached in the same way to a square block of stone in the floor. This system allowed the prisoner to move with great difficulty and only within a limited radius.

  The two men remained silent while the gatekeeper noisily closed the dungeon doors. Nicolas was quickly thinking about how to begin. He reproached himself for not thinking about it earlier instead of letting his mind wander, as he all too often did. He had no intention of lying, throwing his weight around, or holding out any false hopes.

  ‘Monsieur,’ Nicolas began, ‘I would understand it if you were surprised by my presence. I’m the Baron d’Herbignac …’

  He was not lying: that was indeed one of his titles, Herbignac being one of the dependencies of the land and domain of Ranreuil.

  ‘… and I have been given the task by the King to visit the prisons and especially those prisoners who have been detained without trial.’

  The man looked him up and down sceptically. ‘Nice to see the King taking an interest in his prisons after reigning for sixty years! Monsieur, I expect nothing any longer from anyone. I can but listen to you.’

  Nicolas realised that the prisoner had been kept in ignorance of the death of Louis XV and the accession of Louis XVI.

  ‘How long have you been living in this prison?’

  ‘Living is pitching it rather high! For six years, Monsieur, after eleven months in the Bastille without ever having discovered the reason why. I’m sure you know it, although I can only speculate. I have my suspicions, though, and far from incriminating me, they do me credit.’

  ‘What is that reason? I’d be grateful to you if you could tell me.’

  ‘In 1768, I unwittingly discovered a terrible pact drawn up by an infernal league, a conspiracy against the King and the whole of France.’

  He was gradually becoming heated, raising his arms as much as his chains allowed him and causing them to clank horribly.

  ‘A league! A conspiracy! What are you saying? Are you sure?’

  ‘I wish to God it didn’t exist! It’s because they want to stop me exposing them that I’m rotting in prison.’

  ‘And who are its instigators?’

  Le Prévôt de Beaumont4 looked at him and motioned him to come closer, tapping with his hand on the wood of his bunk. Nicolas sat down next to him. A stench like that of a trapped animal rose to his nostrils.

  ‘I have to take precautions, they listen to me,’ murmured the prisoner, casting an anxious glance around him. ‘Let’s talk low. I don’t know why I’m telling you this when I don’t even know you. I suppose you inspire confidence. The perpetrators of this conspiracy are De Laverdy, Sartine, Boutin, Langloais, Choiseul, Lenoir
, Cranat du Bourg, Trudaine de Martigny and many others, including some very famous names. Why am I still being kept in prison for denouncing the famine pact if it doesn’t exist and no other charge has been laid against me?’

  Nicolas found his argument quite logical for a man who was said to be mad.

  ‘Consider, Monsieur, the monstrous abuse of power represented by an arrest for no stated reason. My employment gone, my property seized, my affairs abandoned, my existence wiped out, what a tragedy! Add to that a nocturnal abduction and the loathsome despotism of judges and inquisitors. Oh, I have many grievances, many legitimate causes for complaint! I appeal to His Majesty. Our King cannot remain insensitive to so many iniquities.’

  Nicolas, accustomed by now to the half-light of the dungeon, noticed, at the height of a man’s eyes, some inscriptions that seemed printed on the walls. Le Prévôt caught his glance.

  ‘Despite the constant torments to which I am subjected by my gaoler, I work, I compose. I copy extracts from the books I read. The Comte de Laleu, who lives in the château and has a library of four thousand volumes, is pleased to let me have some without the governor’s knowledge through the good auspices of the turnkey. My God, I’ve thrown caution to the winds. What are you doing, fool? You revealed a confidence, and now this fellow’s going to repeat it!’

  ‘Monsieur, I give you my word of honour that Monsieur de Rougemont won’t hear a word of anything you see fit to tell me in the course of our conversation. But in return you must promise not to reveal the subject of our interview to anyone. It is for the King’s ears and his alone.’

  ‘As you wish. You’re looking at the walls. In all my dungeons, I leave some testimony to my denunciation despite the successive layers of whitewash used to erase them.’

  ‘But where do you find the ink?’

  ‘I use tallow, Monsieur, blackened on a plank held in a candle flame. My pen is made of birch twigs, curved to spread the hot tallow on the wall. As you can imagine, it’s a long process: I can barely manage more than fifty letters in an hour. But let us return to the matter that interests us.’