The Phantom of Rue Royale (18 page)

Who could possibly be trying to wake him at this hour? He got up, took a lighter from his portmanteau and lit the candle. Smoke rose from it, along with the same acrid smell. He walked to the door and tried to turn the handle, but it resisted: it was well and truly locked. He decided to go back to bed. The sound could have been part of his dream. Or it could have been the house itself: these old houses always creaked, the timber shrinking and dilating with changes in temperature, dampness and dryness. Unless it was a rat. The city was swarming with them, far more than anyone could ever imagine. Whole armies lived in the cellars and came up into the houses at night. Servants were forced to keep their stocks of food and candles well away from their insatiable greed. The arsenic-based rat poison which people put down caused a thousand tragedies. From time to time, one of the fifty thousand skulls on display at the cemetery of Les Innocents started moving, an apparent miracle actually caused by a rat
which had lodged inside a skull and was unable to get out. Amused by this image, Nicolas was about to sink unto
unconsciousness
when three more knocks were heard, this time at the door leading to the landing.

He held his breath and listened, but all was silent. His heart was pounding. He slid out of bed, rushed to the door and pulled it open. Nobody! And yet he was sure he had not dreamt it. He took a few steps out onto the landing, groping along the walls. Then he went back to his room, lit the candle, came out again and examined the next door, that of Élodie’s room. He opened it. In the flickering light of the candle, he looked at the flowered wallpaper and immediately spotted the door leading to his cubby hole. As he walked towards it, it was shaken by three more knocks. He ran back into the other room, certain that he would surprise the joker who was making fun of him, but it was empty. The Galaine house was quiet again. The merchant and his wife did not seem to have been disturbed by the knocking, even though their room was not far away.

What was going on? What strange phenomenon had produced these persistent noises? Nicolas was beginning to doubt his own senses. Was his tired mind concocting these apparitions under the influence of the strange events that had already taken place here? For the first time in his life, Nicolas, who had always been guided by reason, was calling that reason into question. He thought for a long time about what was happening to him, but could not find a plausible explanation, let alone an acceptable one. In desperation he went back to bed, his muscles as tense as if he were expecting a blow. What he had just experienced cast doubt on everything he believed in. He tried frantically to find explanations, hidden
causes, hypotheses he would not usually have thought of. He recalled his childhood, and the old Celtic stories which Fine would tell him during vigils, as she roasted the chestnuts. He remembered listening with a mixture of horror and delight to detailed descriptions of tortures and the final journeys of the souls of ghosts, imprisoned in the bodies of black dogs and thrown into the
youdic
, the Breton Styx. These stories would be accompanied by the howling of the wind and the crackle of the fire, and, when they were finished, his old nurse loved setting his mind at rest. This memory soothed him and he fell asleep. It seemed to him that only happy childhoods gave you memories like that, full of the faces of people long gone.

At about four in the morning, he was woken by the light of dawn. His mouth was dry and his eyes hurt. Fortunately, in his linen shroud, he was untouched by vermin. No sound reached him from Rue Saint-Honoré, as his room looked out onto the courtyard. He stretched like a cat. His tiredness disappeared as he became aware again of the world about him. He seemed to hear a dull beating in the distance, accompanied by a repetitive chant. He found a little water in the jug and drank it greedily. It did not taste very good, but it refreshed him. He laughed, and sang:

He hummed as he dressed, and resolved to wash himself at the pump in the yard. The anguish of the night had vanished, giving way to a renewed desire to untangle the mysteries of the case, even those beyond human understanding. He went out onto the landing, careful not to make any noise for fear of waking the Galaines. There, he heard more distinctly the melody whose distant echo had reached him earlier. It was coming from the top of the house. He climbed the stairs, and the higher he climbed, the louder it became. But what struck him from the beginning was a strange, sweet smell that pervaded the attic like a cloud of incense in a shrine. The key was in the lock of Naganda’s room. He turned it.

Sitting cross-legged on a mat on the floor, dressed only in his fringed loincloth, the Micmac was swaying back and forth, and beating a kind of tambourine. He seemed to be worshipping the idol whose coarse features had struck Nicolas during his first search. In front of it glowed an earthenware dish filled with hot coals, on which dried herbs were burning. It was a spectacle at once savage and serene. The light of dawn entering the garret gradually lit up the Indian’s back, and his skin moved from dark red to bright amber. Nicolas made up his mind to advance, and put his hand on the man’s left shoulder. Naganda did not react. Nicolas walked round him. His face was impassive, as if focused on some distant thought, his open eyes pursuing an inaccessible dream.

Such phenomena were not unknown to Nicolas. Sartine had told him about the strange case of a sleeping man who had risen from his bed, taken his sword and swum across the Seine, all without waking up. He had gone to Rue du Bac and killed a man
he had threatened with death the previous day. Once the deed was done, he had returned home, still fast asleep, and gone back to bed. The following night, he had repeated the journey and had been seen by the dead man’s family, who were in the middle of the wake. He had been tried and found guilty of murder.

Nicolas hesitated to shake the Indian, having heard that it could be dangerous to wake someone from a trance. He was nevertheless about to do so when a shrill cry echoed through the house. There was something inhuman about the cry, and it continued at a pitch high enough to burst the eardrums. Naganda had not even blinked: he continued chanting incomprehensible words, among which Nicolas noticed the repetition of the word
gluskabe
. He retraced his steps, locked the door and quickly descended the stairs from the attic. He almost fell into the arms of Charles Galaine and his son, who were just arriving on the landing in their nightshirts. Marie Chaffoureau was on her knees, pressing her hands into her old cheeks and muttering prayers. The cry had come from the room where Miette slept. They broke down the door.

The scene which greeted them went far beyond anything Nicolas had ever seen before. Miette was on the bed, her shift in disarray, her legs and breasts bare, her body arched in a state of extreme tension. Beneath her, the palliasse was torn, and spilling straw. Her veins and tendons stood out as if on an anatomical specimen: Nicolas was reminded of the terrible wax figures of the ‘theatres of corruption’ in Monsieur de Noblecourt’s cabinet of curiosities.
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Miette was howling like a wolf in the moonlight. But what struck terror into the witnesses was the sight of the bedstead rising a few inches from the floor and shaking, as if carried on a
swell and moved by invisible hands. Nicolas had to get a grip on himself before he could do anything. He ordered the Galaines to help him keep the bed down on the floor. When they laid their hands on it, it felt as if they were touching a boat on the surface of the water. Suddenly, the bed dropped with a dull thud, but then they were astonished to see Miette’s taut body gradually rise into the air. Nicolas seized both her feet and the Galaines her hands. Her skin was burning and hard beneath their fingers. They pressed on her with all their weight. As Miette moved, the three men moved with her, undulating like a wave. But, after a while, she stopped howling and fell heavily back onto the bed; her body went limp, and her breathing eased. They were expecting to see the phenomenon recur, but nothing happened. Nicolas asked Marie Chaffoureau to stay with Miette and call them if the girl suffered even the slightest new attack. He continued to call her ‘the patient’ even though, faced with the increasing number of incomprehensible manifestations in this house, he was starting to have his doubts. Both father and son were too stunned to say a word, and he had to force them to go downstairs. There was one thing he still had to do.

He climbed back up to the attic. Naganda had finished his strange ceremony, and was now sitting with his arms round his legs and his chin on his knees. He looked at Nicolas with an ironic smile.

‘Commissioner, I sense that you are wandering on the shores of truth but cannot find it. Am I mistaken?’

‘I still have a few questions to ask you.’

‘You don’t need questions, you need answers.’

Nicolas did not feel in the mood to play this game. ‘You may
indeed be able to help me find them. First of all, what were you doing a few minutes ago?’ He pointed to the dying embers in the earthenware dish.

‘So, you were spying on me? Never mind. I was imploring the spirits of my people to welcome Élodie into the great land of the dead.’

‘You looked as if you were asleep.’

‘That is the power of medicinal plants. Inhaling them plunges a person into a halfway world. His spirit flies away and enters into contact with the gods. My father was not only a chief, but also a shaman, in other words, a priest and healer. A sorcerer, you would call him.’

‘I heard you say the word
gluskabe
several times. What’s that?’

‘
Kluskabe
is a great warrior from the world of the gods, our hero and protector.’

‘The statue’s very ugly.’

‘The statue isn’t of Kluskabe, it’s the frog monster that stopped the waters of the earth from flowing. When he was defeated, Kluskabe passed into the monster’s body. The statue facilitates divination.’

It was now Nicolas’s turn to be ironic. ‘So you’ve had revelations, have you?’

‘The sacred frog foretold my death.
Only the son of stone can save me
.’ He said these words in an even tone, with a melancholy expression on his face.

‘Do you by any chance know what kind of stone that would be?’

‘Alas, no! Although it would certainly be in my own interest to elucidate this prophecy. My power allows me to receive
warnings, but not to decipher them! It’s the situation of all Cassandras.’

‘Don’t worry, the law protects those who tread an honest path. Talking of which, what would you say if I told you that, during the night when you claim you were in a deep sleep, a witness heard footsteps in your room?’

‘I would say, Commissioner, that the form of your question implies the answer. There is nothing improbable about it. There must have been a point when someone came in to steal my things.’

He had answered without hesitation, and the explanation seemed plausible. Naganda was holding Nicolas’s gaze without the least sign of embarrassment or confusion. He was like a bronze statue.

‘I’ll leave you to your thoughts,’ said Nicolas. ‘I’m going to lock you in, not because I don’t trust you, but as a protective measure. Be patient, the truth will out. If you are innocent, it can’t hurt you.’

As Nicolas was on his way back down to his room, he bumped into a bulky figure charging up the stairs. In the darkness, all he could make out at first was the grey triangle of a hat. Then he recognised Dr Semacgus.

‘Guillaume, where are you running so fast? Anyone would think you were attacking a ship!’

‘Damn it, man,’ replied Semacgus. ‘When a friend sends for me, I come running. Bourdeau passed on your message. I left Vaugirard before dawn. In Rue Montmartre, I woke the whole household, but they told me you were here, so here I am.’

‘Come in here,’ said Nicolas, pushing the surgeon into his room.

Semacgus sat down on the stool, Nicolas on the bed. The commissioner gave an account of the turn his investigation had taken, making no secret of the fact that the highest authorities in the Kingdom were now taking a close interest in the story of the Galaine household. He described the strange events of the night, Naganda’s trance and above all Miette’s terrible attack.

‘If I didn’t know you so well,’ said Semacgus, ‘and didn’t know you were a lover of reason and enlightenment, I would fear that the magic spells of your native Brittany had gone to your head.’ He shook his head and sighed. ‘Mind you … What you’ve told me reminds me of phenomena I’ve observed when I was serving in the King’s navy. At our trading posts in the Indies, and also in Africa, I witnessed a number of intriguing scenes. Remember Awa going into convulsions – you’ve told me about it dozens of times – and prophesying the death of my loyal
Saint-Louis
.
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What can I say? I’d first have to examine this maid. That might tell us a thing or two about this supposed devilry!’

‘You have my permission. She’s resting in the room above us. The cook’s looking after her.’

They went upstairs. Standing flat against the wall, Marie Chaffoureau was saying a rosary, kissing the crucifix after each prayer. Nicolas asked her to leave the room. Semacgus approached the prone body and looked down at it for a long time. Then he took Miette’s pulse, lifted one of her eyelids, and parted her legs. Nicolas watched as he lifted her shift. The surgeon stood there for a while, head down, then drew Nicolas outside and asked the cook to resume her watch. Semacgus looked at Nicolas with his large, sanguine face, his eyes sparkling sardonically, and hit his palm with his fist.

‘Quite a tall tale, all these virgins of yours! Do you know what’s wrong with the poor girl? She’s expecting a child!’

Nicolas did not at first react, as if he had not understood.

‘Pregnant!’ Semacgus almost yelled. ‘That’s right, pregnant! At least five months pregnant!’