The Phantom of Rue Royale (13 page)

‘I say that there is nothing in all of this which should upset you, Monsieur. I’m sure that, confident of your own rights and the legitimacy of the actions of your representatives, you have, as usual, duly defended them and countered the attacks of the Criminal Lieutenant. Moreover, I think Monsieur Testard du Lys too honest a man to have long resisted your gentle but firm insistence.’

Monsieur de Sartine stretched out his leg and admired the glittering silver buckle on his shoe. ‘Oh, really? My gentle but firm insistence? I’m pleased to know that my subordinates give me full marks. Well, they will benefit from my indulgence of their perspicacity. Have you at least made any progress? I don’t want speeches, I want facts. Go on.’

‘Monsieur, we’ve established that the young woman was murdered. We’ve also discovered a probable infanticide. The family situation is extraordinary, and no hypothesis can be ruled out. It would be most annoying if a case that has been started should be taken away from you, and that other, clumsier hands
should interfere with what is already a promising inquiry.’

‘Promising, eh? I need more than promises, and fast! And what of our other subject of interest?’

‘I’m making progress there too, Monsieur. Everything confirms what we had already guessed.’

‘Never mind about guesswork. Come and see me with a detailed report tomorrow evening. After that I’m going to spend the night at Versailles, where I shall see the King in his small apartments after Mass. You’re to come with me, Nicolas. His Majesty is always happy to see young Ranreuil.’

Sartine straightened his wig, did an about-turn and walked out of the duty office with his usual dignity.

‘Ha!’ said Nicolas. ‘I think I need to pay a visit to the Criminal Lieutenant. Then I’m off to see my tailor.’

The office of the Criminal Lieutenant was in another part of the Grand Châtelet. Nicolas was introduced immediately: clearly, he was expected. A small, sly-faced man in a grey wig greeted him less than cordially and proceeded to give him a lesson in procedure, throwing in a number of bitter-sweet observations on the presumptuousness of certain subordinates in the lower echelons of the police. This outburst was received with coolness, patience and humility, at which the magistrate’s attitude softened – so much so that he complimented the commissioner on his good reputation, which had even reached the doors of the high department of justice over which he reigned. Little by little, he agreed that in the heat of an investigation urgency had to prevail over an absolute respect for legalities. Therefore, he concluded, given the good relations he had built up with Monsieur de Sartine, and with the clear understanding that Monsieur Le Floch would not engage in any machinations hostile to his ministry, he consented to pass over, for now, the errors that had been noted, and authorised him, contrary to the usual practice, to continue
with his inquiries and interrogations. From now on, he was
convinced
, the commissioner would observe the necessary caution, share information and show the required reverence which all power, all … Nicolas interrupted this ever-lengthening oration with a humble bow and retreated, barely able to contain his laughter. He hurtled down dark staircases to the entrance archway, where he had the servant on duty call him a sedan chair.

Summer was on its way, and the good weather lightened the commissioner’s constantly shifting thoughts. A stall at the corner of a street attracted him with its pyramid of bright,
yellow-skinned
cherries. An old woman sold him quarter of a pound, and he immediately devoured this unexpected gift of the streets. Without thinking, he began to send the stones flying just as he used to do when he was a child, but a sense of the dignity of his office soon stopped him. The taste of these ‘pigeon’s breasts’ lingered pleasantly in his mouth. By the time he had finished the cherries, he found himself in Rue Vieille-du-Temple, where Master Vachon, who had been his tailor for ten years – and who also happened to be Monsieur de Sartine’s – had his shop and made sure the rules of his profession were strictly observed, while embracing successive fads and fashions, whether he liked them or not.

In his lair at the far end of an oval courtyard, in a shabby building where the daylight barely penetrated, Master Vachon held court, true to form as ever. His tall figure stooped a little now, but his emaciated face, although paler than before, still expressed the same ardour in condemning the present day, supervising and reprimanding his assistants as they bent over wooden counters that had acquired a patina after years of use.
Perhaps he also leant more heavily now on his long,
old-fashioned
cane.

‘How’s business?’ asked Nicolas.

‘Ah, my dear Commissioner, I’d need several heads to deal with all these innovations! Look, here’s the latest.’ He waved a shapeless piece of lace. ‘Just take a look at this. It makes my blood boil. The simple elegance of a woman’s
fichu
is no longer enough, we must add to it – overburden it, more like! Farewell the beauty of the white cambric or muslin
fichu
, whether flat or fluted! And look at this hood, held upright on the shoulders. How? you may ask. By the complicated means of a length of trimming shaped like a hoop. You’ll never guess the name of this brainwave! They call it a
rise-to-heaven
. May it please God we get there! That’s for the women. As for us men, we’re inspired by Germany, especially its sense of economy. No sleeves on the jackets. Here’s a jacket and waistcoat. It makes my head spin. Everything is novelty! Now here’s something for you, with your love of classic styles and the colour green. This is a specimen that’ll never go out of fashion,
a coat à la Sanson
, which would suit you down to a T …’

‘
À la Sanson?
’

‘Yes,
à la Sanson
. Didn’t you know – I thought he was a friend of yours – that he has long been a leader in fashion? Before his marriage, he was a giddy young fellow – quite a ladies’ man, too.’

This information surprised Nicolas. ‘Charles Henri Sanson, the public executioner?’

‘The very same!’ cried Master Vachon, delighted that for once he could tell this man from the Grand Châtelet, with his fearsome reputation, something he did not know. ‘He frequented high society and was known as the “Chevalier de Longval”, after a
property belonging to his family. He had an insatiable taste for hunting. Not content with assuming a dubious name and title, he carried a sword and dressed in a blue coat, which is the prerogative of the nobility. They even say that he was called to order by the King’s procurator, who loudly disparaged him for being nothing more elevated than an executioner. After this angry outburst, Sanson is said to have adopted green as a colour and had his coats tailored to a particular cut, which was so unusual that it drew the attention of the Marquis de Lestorières, the self-styled arbiter of elegance at Versailles. The fashion spread, and soon everyone was dressing
à la Sanson
. Isn’t that a pleasant story?’

His tall body bent with laughter. Then, with a furious glance at his apprentices, who were all listening, he came closer to Nicolas.

‘They even say he had a weakness for Jeanne Bécu,
1
the current concubine. Her uncle, the Abbé de Picous, was close to his family. Sanson used to tend his rheumatism with the fat of a hanged man! But I’m getting on your nerves with my ramblings. What can I do for you?’

He rushed over to one of his assistants and twisted his ear.

‘Ah-hah! I caught you, working with long stitches. Do it again and you’ll see. You’ll be fined! You’ll be fined!’

Nicolas took a small shiny object from his pocket and handed it to Master Vachon. ‘What do you make of this?’

The tailor adjusted his spectacles, turned the object over and moved it close to a candle so that it gleamed several times. ‘Pah!’ he said. ‘A brass tag designed to finish off a cable stitch. A novelty object for a novelty uniform. In fact, I’d wager …’ He walked over to a cabinet made up of a number of drawers stacked side by
side and searched in one of them. Before long, he brought out a handful of similar objects. ‘I was sure I’d seen them somewhere before. As I’m sure you know, I have some very high-class customers, both at court and in town. Well, this little brass article is a trifle added, unnecessarily I’d say, to the new uniform of the City Guards, so unhappily worn for the first time during the festivities organised by the provost in Place Louis XV.’

‘Just what I wanted to know. Could you further indulge me by telling me the names of the customers who bought this article?’

‘I can’t refuse you anything. Let’s see, there was Barboteux, Rabourdin …’ He consulted a dog-eared register. ‘Tirart and … Langlumé. He was the major, the most demanding and the most … arrogant, I must say.’

Before he could take his leave, Nicolas still had to feel a few new fabrics offered by the tailor. Once outside, he walked, lost in thought, through streets he knew well from having lived here when he first arrived in Paris. He passed the house in Rue des Blancs-Manteaux, which had been the scene of his first exploits. God, how long ago it all was! But the present was proving equally full of surprises. Master Vachon had revealed an unknown side to his friend Sanson. Could it be that Monsieur de Sartine’s police force did not know these things, or was it simply that he himself had never sought to discover them? People were so various in the image they presented to others. They opened different drawers depending on who they were talking to or, like mirrors, reflected what was expected of them. So that unassuming man of proven qualities – erudite, pious, if not devout, sensitive and
compassionate
, always trying to make the most of the scientific knowledge he had acquired from the suffering of the tortured and
condemned – could also be light-hearted and concerned about his appearance, quite unlike the shy figure in his puce coat who officiated in the semi-darkness of the Basse-Geôle. Well,
everyone
had a right to his freedom, and perhaps this was a way for Sanson to exorcise the horror he confronted daily in his work. Nicolas was suddenly annoyed with himself for passing
judgement
. He had to give credit to a man he considered a friend. Those who benefited from this appellation should not be judged: they had to be taken as they were, in all their light and shade.

Nicolas got into a cab in Rue Saint-Antoine. So he had not been mistaken: the object which had blocked the door leading to the roof of the ambassadors’ mansion did indeed come from the
uniform
of a City Guard. And who else apart from Major Langlumé could have had access to a building reserved for the provost’s special guests? He alone, for reasons still to be explained, could have nurtured a plan to keep a police commissioner up on the roof. It was not Nicolas personally who had been targeted, even though they had been involved in an unpleasant altercation a few hours earlier, but the representative of Monsieur de Sartine, the man the Lieutenant General had sent to keep an eye on the festivities. To put obstacles in the way of his mission – that, in a nutshell, had been the major’s intention. He would have to discover the motives, which were not unconnected with what happened after the disaster. Perhaps things might have turned out differently if Nicolas had not had to waste so much time escaping through the chimney and had been able to act sooner.

But Nicolas’s curiosity had been aroused on another matter,
and he resolved to consult the Châtelet’s archive. It was a collection read by few, but full of surprises. The information in it came from various sources, some from police spies, some from the operations of the
cabinet noir
. So strong was his desire to check the archive that he went straight there as soon as he got back to the Châtelet. Helped by the ancient clerk of the court who was the curator of the collection, he soon discovered an imposing bundle devoted to the Sanson family. In it was a profusion of papers and files, untidy but chronological. He finally found a recent document which seemed to provide a useful summary:

There was nothing in all this to surprise Nicolas, who was
amused to see himself included. As for the mysterious initials, they clearly denoted Madame du Barry. Nor was there anything here that might have made him see Sanson in a less favourable light. Nicolas reflected on the subterranean life of the archive, which underlay and reinforced the work of the police and the law. He worked all afternoon, thinking and writing, while receiving emissaries bearing messages both written and oral from his colleagues in the twenty districts of the capital. The hours went by without his being aware of them. It was only when hunger began to gnaw at his vitals that he looked at his watch. He gathered his papers and walked to Rue Montmartre.

Night was falling on a glittering city. Only the previous year the street lighting had been poor, provided by ill-conceived lanterns hung across the roadway and only lit between twilight and two o’clock in the morning. After much consultation, Monsieur de Sartine had devoted his energies to the installation of street lights. A way was found to fix the lanterns in position and to improve the delicate mixture of oils in order to increase combustion. The artists Argant and Quinquet, renowned for the invention and manufacture of lamps for interior lighting, had participated in the enterprise. Not only was the street lighting now on all night, but the main road from Paris to Versailles was lit, too, providing security and wonder to the occupants of the coaches travelling at night between the city and the Court.

When Nicolas got to Monsieur de Noblecourt’s house, he went straight to his apartment, which seemed larger now that he had added a small desk and moved all his books to beautiful
shelves of white leaded wood. The pleasant smell of cooking suggested that the supper would be a fine one. He assumed that the master of the house had guests. Apart from such special occasions, the former procurator was, more often than not, condemned to a meagre portion by Marion, his elderly
housekeeper
, who wanted to spare her master, so attracted to the good things in life, a resurgence of his gout. Nicolas changed his coat and tied a fine lace cravat round his neck. Thus elegantly attired, a reflection of Master Vachon’s classicism, he went down to Monsieur de Noblecourt’s floor.

For a moment he waited in the shadow of a display cabinet in order to get an idea of the evening’s guests, and noted that the former procurator was speaking to one of them in a more deferential tone than was his custom with his table companions.

‘I am pleased, Monseigneur, to find you in such perfect health. The last time I had the honour of receiving you in my humble abode, you were suffering from a most irksome increase in the humours …’