The Phantom of Rue Royale (9 page)

Bourdeau roused him from his reflections. The carriage had stopped outside the Deux Castors, where a crowd was milling about before the window. A police officer known to Nicolas was barring the door to an angry group of women who had been joined by a throng of onlookers. Nicolas jumped out and elbowed his way through the crowd to ask the officer what was going on.

‘What’s happened, Commissioner, is that a maid from this house, a skinny young girl, ran out half-naked, in fact naked as the day she was born. And there she was, jumping, shaking, falling to the floor, foaming at the mouth and screaming! People gathered to look, some laughing, some concerned. I got here just in time to stop these women stoning her as if she were a mad dog. That was a whole other story. She was as stiff as a piece of wood and tried to bite me. God be praised, her mistress brought out a
blanket, and we rolled her in it, took her inside and put her to bed, where she fell asleep.’

The crowd was yelling more loudly than ever. A stout woman shoved Nicolas out of the way with her stomach. Hands on hips, she harangued the crowd.

‘Is it any surprise they want to stop us drowning the witch? Are you planning to stand in our way? Don’t think we haven’t recognised you – you’re Sartine’s henchman!’

‘That’s enough!’ cried Nicolas. ‘Be quiet, woman, or you’ll end up in the Hôpital.
5
As for the rest of you, I order you in the name of the King and the Lieutenant General of Police to disperse immediately, or else …’

Impressed by Nicolas’s authority, backed up as it was by Bourdeau’s robust presence, the crowd withdrew, although not before greeting this mention of Monsieur de Sartine with jeers, which gave Nicolas pause for thought. The two policemen escorted Charles and Jean Galaine from the carriage and into the shop. They were met by Madame Galaine, looking very pale in the candlelight. There ensued a silent scene during which Bourdeau pushed the men into the office, while Nicolas turned to the woman.

‘Madame …’

‘Monsieur, I must see my husband immediately.’

‘Later, Madame. He has identified the body of your niece by marriage. She was murdered.’

Émilie Galaine showed no reaction. In the flickering light of the candles, her face remained impassive. What did this absence of feeling mean? Nicolas had occasionally encountered such
self-possession
before, and knew that it often concealed great emotion.

‘Madame, can you account for how you spent yesterday?’

‘There’s no point in questioning me, Commissioner, I have nothing to say. I went out, I came back.’

‘Madame, that doesn’t tell me much. Do you expect me to be satisfied with that?’

‘I don’t care – that’s all you’re going to get from me.’ The colour was returning to her face, as if the blood had begun circulating more quickly beneath her skin. ‘You’ve come into this family to bring us bad luck. I’ve answered your question: I went out; I came back. There’s no point insisting.’

‘Madame, it is my duty to warn you that as soon as a case of homicide has been referred to the Criminal Lieutenant in charge of criminal investigations, the King’s justice will be able to use various means to make you talk, whether you like it or not.’

He was aware of the futility of what he was saying. He had never believed in torture. His long conversations with Sanson and Semacgus had convinced him that confessions obtained under torture were worse than useless, since those who made them would say anything to save their lives.

‘What happened to your maid?’ he resumed. ‘Do you refuse to answer questions about that, too?’

She nodded stubbornly.

‘Very well. Would you be so kind as to call your sisters-in-law? I want to question them. Perhaps
they
’ll talk. As for you, I’d like you to go into your husband’s office.’

Émilie Galaine walked to the far end of the room and abruptly pulled open a door to reveal two women huddled behind it, clearly eavesdropping. Nicolas recognised the taller of the two as
Charlotte, the elder sister, who was biting a handkerchief as if to stop screaming.

With her head down, the shorter of the two trotted up to him. She was dressed in plain, dark colours, combining black lace and jade necklaces. She looked like her elder sister, but her features were stretched more tightly over her withered face. With her thin lips, she smiled humbly, but this humility was somewhat belied by the mobility of her grey, prying, unfriendly eyes. Her dull hair had been laboriously arranged into powdered curls – a hairstyle that seemed to have no connection with her overall appearance, which was as unattractive as could be imagined.

‘Commissioner,’ she said quickly, ‘we heard everything. Oh, my God, is it possible? As I was telling my older sister, that’s her behind me, looking so upset … Anyway, as I was telling her, she should have got dressed earlier, but everything’s upside down … Imagine, Monsieur, the cat is so old and infirm, it usually keeps close to the edge … But let’s keep to the point. I don’t think those furs should have been taken down so early. Did you notice how late winter was this year? And how much it rained? … That unfortunate marriage which caused us so much unhappiness. What can he do, poor man? Always led …’

Nicolas was struck dumb by this uninterrupted flow of words, which was so incoherent as to make him doubt Camille Galaine’s sanity. The elder sister, her hair as dishevelled as when they had first met, was dressed in brighter clothes, but they were dirty, creased and torn.

‘Please, Mademoiselle, calm down. As you heard, I need to question you about the circumstances surrounding your niece’s unlawful death. And I have to speak to the two of you separately.’

Charlotte began crying and sniffling more loudly. The door to the office opened and Bourdeau put his head round it, looking panic-stricken. Nicolas made a sign to him that all was well. The sisters had formed a couple again, the black wrapped within the scarlet, their distorted faces pressed together. He realised that he would not be able to separate these Siamese twins and that, at least to begin with, he would have to tolerate their strange ways and question them together. Into his mind came the fleeting image of a jar containing a tangle of foetuses, one of the rarest items in Monsieur de Noblecourt’s cabinet of curiosities.

‘When did you last see your niece?’ he began.

Camille, the younger of the two, did not hesitate. ‘Yesterday afternoon. We helped her to get dressed, didn’t we, Lolotte?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the other, ‘and we even—’

‘We even scolded her, because her clothes were too light in colour for an evening out. The idea!’

Nicolas had the clear impression, from the look of alarm in the elder sister’s eyes, that her sibling was interpreting her thoughts very freely.

‘How was she dressed?’

Her little eyes kept darting about, never meeting Nicolas’s gaze. ‘A yellow satin dress and a fur hat with yellow ribbons.’

‘Did she have a bag?’

‘No, no,’ said Charlotte. ‘No bag. But a very pretty Venetian mask. So white, you’d have thought there was powder on it.’

‘You’re confused, that was at Carnival. You have such a bad memory! My sister means she had a reticule with a few
écus
in it. Isn’t that right, dear?’

The other assumed a stubborn, disappointed air. ‘If you say so.’

‘I don’t just say it, I’m sure of it. Oh, Commissioner, my sister’s such a scatterbrain. Just imagine, the other day her canary, say what you like but I say it’s a canary, perhaps even a chaffinch … What was I saying? I read in a travel book that they’ve discovered a new species, Kirschner’s wagtail … But that’s not yours—’

Nicolas again interrupted these ramblings. ‘What time did your niece leave?’

‘I couldn’t tell you. Our poor heads! She left with our maid, Miette. Naganda the savage wanted to go with her and we had to lock him in. We stayed at home, played
bouillotte
and had a light supper. We went to bed just before midnight.’

‘What about you, Mademoiselle, can you confirm that?’

Charlotte, still sulking, shook her head without a word.

He would learn nothing more from the nonsense being spouted by these two terrified women. They were doubtless playing a trick on him in their way, a trick intended to mislead him in his search for the truth. The younger sister’s incoherence and verbosity however, seemed too natural to be feigned. He called Bourdeau, and had Charles and Jean Galaine brought back in. Addressing the father, he asked to speak to Naganda. The man left the room, and returned a few minutes later looking embarrassed.

‘Commissioner, we locked him up, but he’s not there!’

‘I think you’d better explain.’

‘I’ve just been up and the door was locked, but when I opened it, there was no one there! He must have escaped over the roofs. They’re as agile as cats …’

‘Not ours,’ said Camille. ‘You don’t know the tomcat—’

Nicolas cut her off shamelessly, hoping to avoid the flood of words that would follow. ‘Let’s go up to the attic, shall we? Show me the way.’

Galaine hesitated for a moment, then led him along a corridor, at the end of which was a staircase. On the third floor, which was reached by a stepladder, a door stood open onto an attic room. Through the open skylight, the twilit sky could be seen. A
straw-bottomed
chair had been placed below the skylight. It seemed to Nicolas that you would need considerable strength to hoist yourself up by your arms and get out through an opening that was so hard to reach. He had some experience of such exercises … The furniture was Spartan, the bed consisting of bales of straw beneath a large blanket with a strange pattern. Clothes hung in a neat row from a rope strung across the room. Many were native, but he noticed a brown greatcoat and a big, wide-brimmed black hat.

‘That was what he usually wore when he went out,’ Charles Galaine said. ‘We made him wear them, otherwise people got scared at the tattoos on his face and his long black hair.’

‘Are there any clothes missing, as far as you can see?’

‘I have no idea. I don’t keep count of the savage’s rags. Isn’t it enough that I’ve been feeding him for more than a year?’

Nicolas continued his search. In a small wooden casket, he found a few amulets, some small figures carved out of bone, a doll with the head of a frog, several bags filled with some unknown substance, three pairs of moccasins and a few obsidian pearls identical to the one found in Élodie Galaine’s hand. He quickly seized them before her uncle could notice. They went back downstairs in silence. The rest of the Galaine family were
waiting, as motionless as when he had left them. Nicolas warned them to stay within the walls of the capital: instructions would be given to the officials at the tollgates to have them arrested if they infringed this order. A perfectly illusory measure, but they did not need to know that.

Night was falling by the time the two policemen found
themselves
outside in Rue Saint-Honoré. Nicolas decided to accept La Paulet’s invitation. Dr Semacgus had presumably not been informed of the renewed offer, so he suggested to Bourdeau that he go with him instead. The inspector declined with a smile: Madame Bourdeau was waiting for him and, besides, he was the father of a large family. But he had a question for his chief.

‘May I ask why you didn’t interrogate the servants? There’s that Miette, and an old cook.’

‘It’s too early, Bourdeau. We don’t want to panic the whole household. Domestics always have a lot to say, but you have to approach them carefully and gently. Our first harvest hasn’t been so bad, though …’

Bourdeau bade him farewell and got into the cab. Nicolas set off for the
faubourg
where the Dauphin Couronné was located. Once again, those familiar premises would play a part in an investigation. What did La Paulet have to tell him about the previous night’s disaster? And what was the good news she wanted to announce? As he walked, he went over the
interrogations
in his mind and made some notes in his little black notebook. The son did not seem especially surprised by the murder, but he alone had shown genuine emotion when
confronted with the body. The father had said that the sisters were supposed to accompany Élodie to the firework display, but they had not confirmed this. Other details played on his mind: the reference to a Venetian mask; the mention of a marriage, which could have been the marriage of the Dauphin, but could just as easily have been Charles Galaine’s second marriage. And, finally, those obsidian pearls, which certainly cast suspicion on the Micmac Indian who had vanished somewhere in the city. Nicolas was not worried about him: if he really was wandering around Paris, he would be apprehended as soon as the watch and the spies were supplied with his highly unusual description. Incidentally, what language did he speak?

One last thing intrigued him: although the younger sister was impeccably dressed, the elder seemed slovenly and neglectful. How could there be such a startling contrast between two people who were so close? There was also Madame Galaine’s silence, and the fact that no one had mentioned Élodie’s condition. Yes, the case was turning out to be more difficult than Monsieur de Sartine had imagined when he had allowed him to pursue this investigation in order to conceal another. There was also little Miette. What was that attack all about? It was some years now since a number of people had gone into convulsions over the grave of a Jansenist deacon at the Saint-Médard cemetery.