Game of Patience (22 page)

Judge Geoffroy raised a hand. “Have the kindness to calm yourself.” He took up a letter from the table before him and offered it to Montereau. “Do you recognize this handwriting as that of Philippe-Marie-Jean Aubry?”

“Yes. It’s undoubtedly his writing.”

“Thank you, citizen. I have no more questions for you at present. You may go. Officer, send in the witness Brelot, if you please.”

An usher brought in Aubry’s manservant. “Citizen Brelot,” said Judge Geoffroy after the preliminary formalities were complete, “kindly describe your employer’s actions on the tenth of Brumaire.”

“Citizen Aubry stayed in until late morning,” said Brelot, glancing about him at the shelves of enormous, leather-bound legal tomes, and shifting from foot to foot. “Then he went out, for luncheon and a stroll about the Tuileries, he said. He came back toward the end of the afternoon. He seemed just as usual, in good spirits. He went into his study, and a bit later he came out, looking very upset, and he ran out of the apartment without a word to me.”

“When was this?” inquired the judge.

“About five o’clock.”

“When did he return?”

“Just before two o’clock in the morning. He let himself in, but it woke me up. Then I heard the clock strike not long after, before I went back to sleep again.”

“And lastly, to the best of your knowledge, does Citizen Aubry own a pistol?”

“Yes, a pair of double-barreled pocket pistols with pearl inlay.”

“Are these your employer’s pistols?” said Geoffroy. Brelot nodded as an usher opened the tooled leather case he held. “Let the record indicate,” the magistrate continued, “that Citizen Brelot has identified the pistols, found during the search of Citizen Aubry’s lodgings, as items belonging to Citizen Aubry. Brelot, is cleaning your employer’s pistols one of your duties?”

“No, citizen. I’m not to touch them, except to polish the case.”

“Let the record also indicate that the pistols are clean and do not appear to have been discharged.”

Too clean, Aristide mused, squinting through the spy hole for a glimpse of the shining steel barrels. What was to prevent Aubry from returning home, hastily cleaning the murder weapon at night while his servant slept, and replacing it innocently in its case? He stretched for a moment and massaged a crick in his neck; the spy hole that peeped from a shadowed corner of the paneling in the magistrate’s chambers had been intended for observers shorter than he.

“Did you notice, when your master left his lodgings so abruptly on the tenth, if one or both of the pistols were missing?”

“No, citizen. Like I said, I’m not to touch them, so I wouldn’t have looked.”

Geoffroy dismissed Brelot and called for Deschamps, porter at the apartment house belonging to Citizen Hatier in the Cour de Rouen, in which Citizen Aubry resided. Citizen Aubry had received a letter that afternoon, Deschamps declared. He remembered it clearly because no post came on
décadi
and the letter had been delivered by hand, by an errand boy, a street urchin. He didn’t know the boy; he might be able to identify him if he saw him again, or he might not.

“Did Aubry read this letter?”

“I don’t know if he read it. But I gave it to him when he came in, and he took it upstairs with him. In his pocket.”

Geoffroy dismissed him and turned to Commissaire Dumas, who had been hovering in a gloomy corner of the chamber outside the pool of lamplight. “Have you found this letter of which the porter spoke?”

“We found plenty of letters in the citizen’s desk,” Dumas said. “But nothing dated after the eighth. And nothing that would have been likely to upset the citizen.”

“Threw it on the fire, I expect,” Aristide whispered to Brasseur. He began to drum his fingers on the nearest stretch of molding on the wall, remembered where he was and that he could be heard, and gnawed at his thumbnail instead.
Dear God, how I detest this part of it.
His stomach felt as if it were tied up in knots.

“Next witness, please,” said Geoffroy. Following the usher, young Feydeau strolled in as if he were arriving at a fashionable salon, chin high over the lofty edge of his stylish collar and stock. “Citizen Feydeau, you have given a sworn statement that one day perhaps two months ago, you saw the late Célie Montereau with a young man in one of the corridors at the opera house?”

“Yes, citizen.”

“What were they doing?”

“Talking. Great heavens, what else should they be doing?” Feydeau smirked and continued. “I didn’t overhear their conversation, but they looked very easy together, and they were clasping hands. And then he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.”

“Any young man might kiss a young woman’s hand.”

“Oh, no … there’s a great deal of difference between the little peck you give a lady’s hand when you bid her farewell after a supper party, and the way he was holding her hand when he kissed it. A very great deal of difference.”

“They seemed affectionate?”

“One glimpse would have told you they were lovers.”

At Geoffroy’s nod, a gendarme escorted Aubry into the chamber. “Citizen Feydeau,” the magistrate continued, “do you recognize this man?”

Feydeau inspected Aubry for a moment. “Yes, I do. That’s the fellow who was with the little Montereau girl at the opera, just as I told you.”

“You are quite sure this was the man?”

“Oh, yes. I wouldn’t forget such a good-looking gentleman.”

When Feydeau had gone, Judge Geoffroy turned his attention to Aubry. “So. Philippe-Marie-Jean Aubry, aged twenty-eight, employed in a subordinate secretarial capacity to Director La Revellière-Lépeaux. You stand suspected of having murdered Célie Montereau and Louis Saint-Ange on the tenth of Brumaire last.”

“I am innocent,” Aubry declared, his voice level. “I know nothing of this.”

Aristide could feel the familiar queasiness, that dread mingled with triumph that always accompanied an arrest, swelling in the pit of his stomach. He glanced at Brasseur, silently listening to the evidence, and suppressed the temptation to seize his friend’s arm and cry, “Wait—despite everything, I might be wrong—the police and the magistrates have been wrong before—dear God, don’t let us send an innocent man to prison and trial, perhaps to his death.”

“Do you deny you knew the late Citizeness Montereau?”

“Of course not. I was once employed in her father’s household.”

“And you were promptly discharged without a recommendation when Citizen Montereau learned of your past?”

Aubry stiffened. “The duel he’ll have told you about was conducted in an honorable fashion, with witnesses. He’s trying to call me a murderer. He wants to soil my name with a crime that was no crime!”

“Calm yourself, citizen,” said Geoffroy. “Have you forgotten that dueling is, and was, illegal?”

“It was an honorable duel,” Aubry repeated, stepping forward to grasp the ornately scalloped edge of the judge’s table. “Citizen Judge, Montereau has held a grudge toward me for years—he wants to call me a shoddy adventurer—”

“Citizen, control yourself! Do you deny you cherished tender sentiments toward Célie Montereau?”

Aubry swallowed hard. “When I knew her in 1789 and 1790, she was still almost a child. I treated her with courtesy, as my employer’s daughter, but otherwise she meant nothing to me.”

“Did you write this letter to Citizeness Montereau?” Geoffroy said, handing it to Aubry. Aubry did not answer.

“Citizen Montereau has already identified your handwriting,” said Geoffroy irritably. “His identification can be readily confirmed by comparing the handwriting in these letters to that on papers belonging to Director La Revellière-Lépeaux, which were written and initialed by you. Pray don’t waste our time. Perhaps you would like to change your account of your relations with the late citizeness?”

“Yes, damn you,” Aubry whispered, his face working with suppressed emotion, “yes, I wrote these letters.”

“Perhaps you were intent upon making love to the girl without her father’s knowledge, and marrying her for the sake of her undoubtedly ample dowry?”

“That’s a damned lie. I loved her. I loved her more than anything on this earth!”

“So you do not now deny you harbored a tender passion for her?”

“No.”

“And were your sentiments returned?”

“Yes.”

“You were, in fact, lovers?”

“Not in a carnal sense,” Aubry said, reddening. “I don’t approve of such relations before marriage. I would never ask that of a reputable woman.”

“But perhaps you believed the young woman had betrayed your affection with another,” said Geoffroy. Aubry made a slight movement.

“No.”

“And overcome with rage, you confronted her, and the man you thought to be her lover, and killed them both.”

“No!”

“The police official who brought you here for questioning has testified that you showed no surprise at being accused of Citizeness Montereau’s murder.”

“That’s a lie! Of course I was surprised—I didn’t do it. But I knew she—she was dead. Word travels fast in the circles I move in. Everyone knew about it.”

Aristide shifted position and hazarded another glance at Aubry. The young man was livid and trembling, though whether with fear, anger, indignation, or anguish he could not tell.

“I loved Célie! I’d never have hurt her!”

“Even when she had deceived you, or was unfaithful to you?” inquired the judge, silkily.

“I loved her… . Oh God, I loved her …” Tears began to spill down Aubry’s cheeks and he hid his face in his hands, shoulders heaving.

“Calm yourself. Do you deny you went to Rue du Hasard, in the Butte-des-Moulins section, on the evening of the tenth of this month, with the purpose of murdering Célie Montereau and Louis Saint-Ange?”

“Yes. I deny it. I would never have hurt Célie!”

“Can you give an account of your whereabouts on the said evening?”

“I—I went out. For a walk.”

“Your servant states that you did not return until two o’clock in the morning. You went out for an evening stroll lasting eight or nine hours?”

“Yes. I—I just walked. Here and there. I went to the Tuileries Gardens for a while.”

“Did you see anyone there whom you knew, who can corroborate your story?”

“N-no. I don’t think so.”

“Have you any proof whatsoever of this long excursion? A bill from a café? A waiter who might remember your face? Can you name any witness who might remember you?”

“I—I don’t think so.”

“In short, you have no proof that you were elsewhere at the time of the murders,” said Geoffroy, turning to his notes. “What was the substance of the letter you received on the tenth of Brumaire?”

“Nothing,” Aubry muttered, after an infinitesimal pause. “Nothing important.”

“Still, I imagine it wasn’t a blank sheet of paper?”

“It—it was from a lady. A private matter.”

“A lady? Citizeness Montereau?”

“No! A—a courtesan.”

“Her name?”

“Émilie. I don’t know her surname or anything about her. I swear to you, I never did this! Someone is falsely implicating me—Montereau has hated me for years—or perhaps it’s a political matter, someone who wants to injure Citizen La Revellière-Lépeaux by defaming me—”

Judge Geoffroy announced that the accused might retire for a moment to collect himself, and meanwhile called the witness Grangier. An usher returned with the porter from Rue du Hasard, looking hideously uncomfortable in an ancient, moth-eaten worsted coat. He thrust his dilapidated three-cornered hat under his arm and repeated his description of what he had seen in the early evening of the tenth of Brumaire.

“Do you recognize this man?” Geoffroy said when the usher had escorted Aubry into the chamber once more.

Grangier peered at Aubry, squinting and frowning. Aubry stood stiff and motionless, avoiding his scrutiny, his face unreadable.

“No, Citizen Judge,” Grangier said at last, “I don’t know him.”

Aristide straightened and glanced at Brasseur, who met his eyes, scowling. A denial from Grangier was the last thing they had expected.

“Look at him again,” said Geoffroy, “and be sure of your testimony. Have you ever seen this man before?”

“No,” Grangier said after a moment. “I don’t think so.”

“Is this not the man you saw running past the door of your lodging on the evening of the tenth?”

The porter stepped closer. At last he grimaced and turned back to the magistrate. “It might have been, Citizen Judge. But I couldn’t swear to it.”

“Describe again the man you saw on the night of the murders.”

“He was young,” mumbled Grangier, “and he had long, dark hair and a dark coat and hat, and boots. That’s all. Young and dark and thinnish.”

“That might describe a great many men,” said the judge. “Pray be more precise. How tall was the man you saw? How did he wear his hair?”

“About as tall as me, or a little less,” Grangier said promptly. “His hair was tied back with a ribbon—and—and his hat was round, with a low crown.”