For the King (29 page)

43

R
och awoke around midafternoon, more tired than when he had gone to bed in the morning, his mind still clouded by lingering shreds of dreams. His father, still in jail, but oddly cheerful, had made an appearance, and so had Short Francis, with his spotted blond and brown beard, in all his loathsome nakedness. Blanche too, smiling her innocent smile, as though nothing had happened. That was more painful than even the thought of Old Miquel.

It was only after Roch had drunk a bowl of vegetable bouillon that he felt refreshed. He removed his shirt and put on a nightgown. He asked his maid to warm water for his bath and in the meantime went to the parlor. Its furniture had been handsome, in the manner fashionable twenty years before the Revolution. Now the velvet of the drapes and upholstery, once perhaps a vibrant buttercup hue, had turned a dull, dusty shade of yellow. His maid, in spite of his instructions, persisted in lining the chairs along the walls, like soldiers at a revue. Paintings of cows grazing in muddy meadows, framed in gold, completed the decor.

Roch dragged the most comfortable chair next to the window. He sat, his chin resting on his hand, staring at a few passersby in the street below. It was a fine afternoon, with a pale blue sky lit by a white winter sun.

First he realized that things were not as hopeless as he had felt before. He must have been worn out then by fatigue and the disappointment of Saint-Régent’s close escape. In fact, much progress had been made over the past few days. Short Francis, one of the two men the Minister wanted, had been caught. An ugly man, whose ugliness was more than skin deep, deceitful, devious, cunning in his own stupid way.

Roch thought of the note found in Short Francis’s coat, with its odd capitalized handwriting.
PLEASE KEEP VERY QUIET, DEAR FRANCIS.
He could not rid himself that there was more to this missive than met the eye. The letter from George found at Widow Jourdan’s lodgings was useful too. For one thing, the Prefecture’s handwriting experts had confirmed its authenticity. It showed that George was not in Paris. He directed the conspiracy from afar, hidden in some farm or château in the West.

And then the questioning of François Carbon, in spite of the Prefect’s unforgivable ineptitude, had revealed much. The short man had lied aplenty. Yet he had revealed the true names and addresses of Saint-Régent and Limoëlan, and had not hesitated to incriminate Bourmont, his former General and employer. But Carbon had steadfastly protected another person, the woman who, with Limoëlan, had taken him to the Convent. At first he had not mentioned her at all, then, when he had realized that the police knew of her, he had said that
three ladies
had accompanied them. He had tried at all costs to draw attention away from that one woman.

As for the note found on Short Francis, why was its author so worried that Francis would leave the Convent, a place where the man seemed to feel safe and comfortable? And it repeated with desperate insistence the warning not to trust anyone but the author. Trust was obviously a commodity in short supply among the conspirators. No more so, Roch thought with bitterness, than between himself and his colleagues. Did he, for one, trust the Prefect? Or Fouché? Or Bertrand? Or anyone else within the police?

And who was the author of the capitalized note? Limoëlan, as Short Francis had stated? But Short Francis had lied on other points, in particular to protect the unknown woman, the
lady
, as Pulchérie had called her, who had taken him to the convent. She too might have written it.

And now something else pointed to a woman: the pug dog. To Saint-Régent, presenting it to
his lady
had been worth the risk of having the silver collar specially made by a jeweler, at a time when his life was at stake. He must be in love to take such a chance.

Were Saint-Régent’s lady and Carbon’s lady one and the same? Perhaps, but the gold embroidered hem of the skirt described by Pulchérie could belong to hundreds of women in Paris.

Roch was startled out of these thoughts when the maid knocked at the door and announced that his bath was ready. He thanked her and went to the little water closet. There he disrobed and stepped into the copper tub. He closed his eyes as he felt the warmth of the water envelop his skin and slowly dissolve his weariness. The comfort of the bath conjured a vivid image of Blanche. Why was it always coming to mind when he wanted a woman?

He shrugged. What a fool he had been! Not so much fooled by her than by himself. He must have loved her, for that was love indeed: the pursuit of the wisp of an illusion. Roch was still angry with Blanche, he was impatient to clear his mind of her, and there was no better way to achieve this end than to replace her, fast, before too many regrets could take hold and fester.

His first thought was of the jewelry store on the Quai des Orfèvres where he had bought the ill-fated ring. The young woman there had seemed eager to become acquainted with him. Yet, given the nature of his purchase, she might ask questions that Roch felt no inclination to answer, truthfully or otherwise.

Then Roch remembered the shopgirl who had smiled at him from the window of the Five Diamonds millinery shop. Of course, she too would be painfully linked to the memory of Blanche. He would normally have preferred a bourgeoise like the pretty jeweler, a better educated, probably less demanding woman, but he had no time to waste on the quest for true love. The shopgirl would do for the moment.

He resolved to go to the millinery. He would ask the shopgirl to show him dozens of spools of ribbon and solicit her advice, as though it were a gift meant for another woman. Then he would make a purchase and present it to her. She would blush and feign surprise. The rest was no less easy and predictable. He had earned these few hours of blissful oblivion.

He stepped out of the tub and put on his nightgown. Still warm from the bath, he shaved carefully and put on the clean clothes the maid had laid for him on the bed. He left in the direction of the Five Diamonds millinery. He was turning onto Rue du Pélican when his attention was attracted by a man, clad in a well-cut blue coat, walking straight at him. He was almost as tall as Roch, with an elongated face that matched his slim figure. He wore gold-framed spectacles. Limoëlan.

It did not take the man a moment longer to read Roch’s expression. He turned on his heels and fled. He was fast. Roch shouted
Catch thief!
the cry most likely to grab the attention of passersby. Several men moved towards Limoëlan to stop him, but quickly withdrew when they saw him pull a pistol from under his coat. Roch ran after him and did not bother to draw his own firearm. There was no time to load it, and in any case the street was busy in the late afternoon. It would have been impossible to shoot without risking injuring an innocent.

Apparently Limoëlan felt no such qualms. He stopped and quietly turned around to aim at Roch.
His
pistol must have been already loaded. Roch sought refuge in the corner of a carriage door. He heard the detonation, then the whistling of the bullet. People around ran away shrieking.
Murderer
, thought Roch.

When he cautiously looked out from the carriage door, Limoëlan was nowhere to be seen. He must have turned onto the smaller, quieter Rue Coquillère already. Roch did the same and now pulled his pistol. There was still no trace of the man. Roch walked to the end of the street, which opened on to the much larger Rue du Louvre. Limoëlan could have mixed with the passersby there, or he might be lying in wait anywhere, behind a door, in a staircase, at a window, his pistol reloaded, ready to aim and fire again. The chase was useless. Roch cursed and turned around. His encounter with the assassin had extinguished any flicker of desire for the shopgirl.

44

R
och, after a good night’s sleep, was at his office at dawn the next morning. He was surprised to see Inspector Bachelot already waiting for him, hat in hand, pacing at the foot of the rickety corkscrew stairwell. Roch had often suspected that his promotion to the rank of Chief Inspector had caused some resentment among the Inspectors, formerly his equals. Most had more seniority than he in the police, and some were far older. That was the case with Bachelot, who was over forty and did not look a day younger.

“What are you doing here, Bachelot?” asked Roch, frowning. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching Widow Jourdan?”

Bachelot’s flabby jowls trembled. “Well, Citizen Chief Inspector, she doesn’t need watching anymore.” He stammered. “She . . . she’s dead.”

Roch glared at the man. “Follow me,” he said curtly.

Roch led the way to his office. He slammed the door shut and sat behind his desk without inviting Bachelot to have a seat.

“I am all ears,” he said.

“Well, Citizen Chief Inspector, Citizen Jourdan looked very worried last night. She kept talking about her daughter Toinette, about what would happen to her at the Prefecture. Her elder daughter, Marie-Luce, tried to comfort her and finally she convinced her to go to bed. After that, Marie-Luce stayed in the other room, along with Bertier and Alain and me. We played cards for a while, all four of us, then we went to sleep, Marie-Luce in Toinette’s bed in the corner of the parlor and the colleagues in chairs there. I slept in the second bed in the bedroom, the one that’s on the other side of that sheet. Saint-Régent’s bed, I guess.”

“Do you mean that you all went to sleep?”

Bachelot was fingering the hem of his hat. “Well . . . yes, Citizen Chief Inspector.”

“Did it ever enter your mind, Bachelot, that I did not leave you there to loll around, or play cards, let alone go to sleep? So anyway, what did happen?”

“I was awakened around four in the morning when I heard Citizen Jourdan stirring on the other side of the sheet. It was pitch dark, but she was all dressed already. She told me she was going downstairs to get water in the courtyard, because she wanted to do her laundry.”

Roch cursed. “Her laundry? At four in the morning? I know that you are not married, Bachelot. But perhaps you have a concubine? A maid, at least? How many females of your acquaintance do their laundry by candlelight at four in the morning, in the middle of winter too?”

Bachelot flushed. “I guess you are right, Citizen Chief Inspector. I didn’t think of it at the time. After Citizen Jourdan was done with her laundry, she went down to the courtyard again to empty her bucket. Then she told me she was going back to bed, and she disappeared behind that bedsheet.”

“Wait a minute, Bachelot. She slept on the window side of the sheet?”

“That’s right. I couldn’t see what she was doing. I thought she was undressing and going back to bed. But a minute later, I heard a big noise. I rose right away, Citizen Chief Inspector, but I couldn’t see her. The window, a sash window, if you recall Sir, was open. Her bucket was lying there on its side, like she’d upset it when she’d stepped on it to jump out of the window. There’s no light in the courtyard, so I couldn’t see a thing down there. So I called to Bertier and Alain, and we ran downstairs. We found Citizen Jourdan, sprawled on her stomach, just outside the latrine door.”

“She was fully dressed?”

“Yes, Citizen Chief Inspector. She was still breathing, but she couldn’t speak. I had a physician fetched, and she was taken to the Charité Hospital. I came directly from there, Sir. She died before they had time to take her to a bed.”

“Well, Bachelot, I must congratulate you,” said Roch. He raised three fingers of his right hand. “I leave no less than three Inspectors there, and between all of you jackasses, you cannot even watch one old woman?”

Roch rose from his chair and walked to Bachelot, who was still standing. “Now do you understand what this means? We have lost a crucial witness, one who could have led us to Saint-Régent. And pray who is going to tell Toinette that she no longer has a mother? I should send you break the news to her yourself.”

“Maybe she won’t be so surprised, Citizen Chief Inspector. Her sister Marie-Luce told us last night that their mother had already tried to jump off the window two months ago, and that Toinette had caught her by her skirts and pulled her back just in time.”

“Then that child has more wits about her than you and your distinguished colleagues put together.” Roch paused and looked into Bachelot’s eyes. “You realize what public opinion will make of this? That the police killed Citizen Jourdan to silence her?”

Bachelot flinched. “I expected better from you,” continued Roch. “When I told you to watch that woman, I meant keep an eye on her at all times, not play cards or go to sleep. Your negligence is unforgivable.” Roch pointed to a chair and handed Bachelot a quill. “Sit down. I want a full report immediately.”

Bachelot went to work with alacrity, pausing once in a while to reflect, the quill against his lips. Roch, absorbed in his thoughts, barely heard the pen scratching against the paper. Citizen Jourdan had died at a very convenient moment for the Chouans, when she could have revealed much about Saint-Régent, and maybe his accomplices. Roch wondered about Bachelot. Was the man guilty of only gross negligence, or had he, in cold blood, pushed the Jourdan woman to her death?

Bachelot had belonged to the police for ten years, and his record was unblemished. Yet he had dropped that ladder at the Convent on the day of Carbon’s arrest, as though to raise the alarm. And the fact that the short man’s accomplices had learned so fast of his capture confirmed Roch’s suspicions. Also, come to think of it, how had Gillard, the owner of the Mayenne Inn, understood so quickly that the place had been put under police surveillance? The assassins must have at least one informer within the Prefecture. Roch had suspected the Prefect or Bertrand, men he hated, and who returned the favor, rather than an unremarkable subordinate such as Bachelot. That was what happened when he let personal feelings cloud his judgment.

Roch told Toinette of her mother’s death. She took the news better than he had feared. She wept, of course, but, as Bachelot had guessed, she did not seem very surprised. She confirmed that her mother had tried to jump off the window two months ago. This, of course, did not mean that the widow had committed suicide the night before.