The Black Tower (31 page)

W
ELL, AT SOME POINT
, a physician requires his own lodgings.

It’s true, Mama Vidocq would let me stay as long as I wish, but I can no longer impose on her—and her son wouldn’t allow it. Accordingly, he petitions the Ministry of Justice to grant me a reward for my services to the crown. The response is swift: two hundred francs, in a crisp envelope. Before another week is out, I am in possession of three rooms, two suits, a gold chain, and a new pair of calf-length boots. And—my proudest possession—yellow evening gloves.

The one thing I’m missing is a future. But the present, all in all, is agreeable. For several hours altogether, I wander my rooms, taking in every feature. Painted woodwork, gilded moldings. A worktable inlaid with pearl. In the dining room there’s an old Persian rug, bought from Mother Gaucher’s in the Rue du Figuier-Saint-Paul. I give up an entire morning to studying this—every arabesque and palmette—lingering with special relish on the Tyrian purple of the medallion.

At first I think it’s the novelty of my belongings that attracts me. Then I realize that their novelty is what troubles me. Couldn’t they all vanish as quickly as they came?

One afternoon early in June, I’m admiring my Japanese-porcelain dressing table when I receive a surprise visit from Vidocq. He has put his own reward money to good use: a gray summer suit of lightweight English cloth; a silver-capped cane. Eau de cologne has kept his natural musk at bay. And there’s something else about him: Call it belief. He carries himself like a man who
belongs
to these things.

With a tiny scowl, he tours my lodgings, poking the merchandise as heartlessly as a hog butcher.

“Not bad,” he allows. “
Walls
are a bit bare. Never mind, I’ve got some art dealers I can fix you up with.”

Smiling, I pass him a cordial of brandy.

“Why don’t you just sell me the Baroness’s portrait?” I ask him.

And to my surprise, I’m met not with an answering smile but a grimace.

“Not yet,” he mutters. “I may still need it as evidence.”

“Evidence?”

Seating himself at my new dining table, he takes a draft of brandy, holds it for a few seconds in his mouth, then swallows it down in a single gulp.

“I’ve been undertaking some inquiries, Hector.”

“About the Baroness?”

“No, not exactly. Félicité Neveu.”

I look at him. “The washerwoman?”

“With the sickly child, yes.
Virgil,
wasn’t that his name? Well, I don’t mind saying we’ve had the devil’s own time tracking her. When she left Paris back in ’95, she managed to drop off the map. The boy, too. But we
did
learn something rather interesting about her prior career. Seems that, before she was a washerwoman, she was employed as a lady’s maid. With a very distinguished family. Care to guess who? No?” He gives me a quizzical smile. “The Baron and Baronne de Préval.”

My first reaction is to laugh. The second is to weep.

“That’s impossible,” I say.

“So I would have thought. But there are old servants of the Prévals who remember Félicité quite well.
Pretty
thing. Of course, she left the Baroness’s service after a short time. No one seems to recall the circumstances, but they do remember this. She was carrying a
baby
with her when she left.”

Half smiling, he stares into his glass.

“Now who the
father
was, we’ll never know that. Then again…” He shrugs. “We’re not even sure who the mother was. No one remembers seeing Félicité in a family way.”

Turning now, I stare out the window. The year’s first heat wave has left a pall in the streets. Two apprentice bakers are hurling buckets of cold water against their storefront to cool the plaster, and an old man, his blouse streaked with sweat, is hawking fried potatoes with a crackling, famished cry.

“You can’t believe it was the Baroness’s child,” I say.

“I don’t know what to believe.”

“Even if—even if one could
conceive
of such a thing—a woman of her station bearing a child out of wedlock…”

“It’s happened before.”

“…one can’t imagine her
abandoning
the child. Leaving him in direst poverty. That’s the act of a monster.”

“Ah, but you’re presuming she had a choice. The Revolution came along, remember? She had to flee the country. Her lands were seized, her jewels were lost. She would’ve had no way to send money back, even if she’d wanted to.”

“It’s absurd,” I say, shaking my head, unequivocally. “
Anybody
might have been the mother of that child.
Anybody
might have…”

And then I’m struck dumb by a memory. The Baroness’s final words, just as she was being handed down into that boat.

I’ll watch over him,
she said.
As if he were my own son
.

As if he were…

“No,” I say, in a low, hissing voice. “No, it’s all just a bizarre coincidence. Nothing more.”

Vidocq just clucks his tongue. Gives his brandy a swirl.

“Well, I’ll say only this. I’d dearly love another crack at that Baroness of ours.”

“And what would you ask her?”

“I’d start with this. How did your old friend Leblanc learn about Charles in the first place? Did
you
tell him? And if so, how did
you
know about Charles? And, come to think of it, why
did
you mention him to the Marquis? Just to pass the time? Or were you hoping to get him an audience with the Duchess? Was
that
the goal all along?”

Every emphasis in his voice has a sensual intensity now. How he desires her! It makes me shudder, imagining the Baroness in that windowless room in the basement of Number Six. No duchesses or doctors to save her. Just Vidocq, in all his savagery, bearing down.

And chasing a fantasy, I tell myself. Noblewomen don’t hand over their own sons to washerwomen. And then try to plant them on the throne of France.

But then a voice rises up inside me:
Why is that any more a fantasy than your Swiss gardener?

Yes, Vidocq could press the Baroness all he liked, but he would come, finally, to the question that no one—no one alive—can answer. Who
was
the boy my father carried out of the tower that night? And what happened to him?

I take a bottle of raw Burgundy from the armoire. I pour myself a tall glass. Behind me, I hear Vidocq’s trailing sigh, and I turn to see him draw a pipe from his pocket.

“Got any matches, Hector?”

Such a painstaking quality to how he fills his pipe now. Measured and cool, like a sniper taking aim.

“The thing is,” he says, “we can’t lay
everything
at the Baroness’s door, hard as we try. After all, the piece of evidence that
really
carried the day—well, she had nothing to do with that.”

“What do you mean?”

“That little note of your father’s! The one we found in the back of his journal. All that business of the birthmark—I mean,
that’s
what got us to the Duchess, wasn’t it? It’s what set everything in motion.”

“I suppose so.”

By now the smoke has formed a nimbus over his head, and the fumes come rolling toward me, they crawl up the cavities of my head.

And then, out of nowhere, Vidocq sets down his pipe and reaches for a leather satchel. Snaps open a compartment and takes out that piece of aged stationery, still bearing its creases. Still bearing those familiar words…

To Whom It May Concern:

 

You may verify the merchandise via the following particular: a mole, black-brown…

 

“Funny thing,” says Vidocq, tracing the letters’ outlines. “The stationer is Bromet’s. I’m sure you know the shop, Hector.
Venerable
firm, very close to the medical school. But you see, when I showed Monsieur Bromet this particular example of his handiwork, he couldn’t make heads or tails of it.”

“Why not?”

“
Oh, dear me,
he said.
Such an old piece of paper, but that particular watermark—why, we’ve been making that one less than a year.
Oh yes, he was quite sure of it. He registered the watermark himself last September.”

Vidocq rests his finger on the edge of the paper, gently pushes it away.

“Well, you could’ve blown me out to sea, Hector. Your father died—more than a year and a
half
ago, wasn’t it? Now I may be missing something, but I believe that makes this document of ours—well, I hate to be crude, but most people would call it a
forgery
.” He nods, very slowly. “Yes, indeed, someone has played us a pretty little trick, it seems. And, of course, being the sort of fellow I am, I had to ask:
Who?
”

He taps his pine stem against his nose. Once, twice.

“Well, last night,” he says, “I couldn’t sleep, no surprise. So, to pass the time, I started to sketch out a little profile in my head. I figured whoever our forger was, he had to be someone with—let’s say, lots of
practice
writing like your father.
Years,
even. Someone who could do it in his sleep, practically. And whoever it was—I’m guessing he truly
believed
Charles was the lost dauphin and knew we needed just
one
more piece of evidence to nail the case shut.

“So this fellow, I imagine he sat down and asked himself: What’s the one identifying mark on Charles Rapskeller? The birthmark between the toes, yes? I’m guessing he noticed it when he was”—a soft clearing of throat—“when he was helping Charles with his boots. So now he just had to plug that little detail into a fake document. Then sit back and let it do its work.

“And through it all—I’m convinced of this, Hector—the fellow was acting in perfect faith. With the very best of intentions, yes. He just wanted to see justice done.”

I touch the small crust of sediment that’s settled across the bottom of my glass. I put it to my mouth, and I feel my lips shrinking back.

“It’s an interesting theory,” I say.

“Yes, I’m chock-
full
of theories today. And none of them proven, more’s the pity. Oh, Christ! I went and forgot why I came here in the first place.”

Reaching once more into his satchel, he pulls out another document. Sets it on the table in front of me.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Just my little account of the whole affair. Everything that happened from—mm—Leblanc’s death onward. Not for
public
consumption, you understand, strictly for
my
files. I figured since you were so much a part of everything, Hector, you could look it over for me, and if everything checks out, then just”—his gloved hand grazes along the bottom of the last page—“just sign your name
there,
would you?”

I pick up the first page and turn it over, but the words break down the moment I try to read them.

“This all looks much as I remember it,” I say.

“Are you sure? I’d hate for you to sign your name to something that didn’t happen.”

You could put a hundred listeners in the room—no one would hear any other meaning in those words. No one but me.

“I’m certain,” I tell him.

“Well, then, thanks very much. You don’t have a quill about, do you?”

“On the desk.”

“Ah! Here we are. Fresh inkwell, too! Everything’s so
new
here.”

He sets the implements in front of me and then—who knows why?—turns away. It could be he’s feeling merciful, and yet his back is somehow a worse sight than his face. And as I move my hand across the paper, I still
feel
him—oh, yes—in every loop and slash.

“All done?” he sings out.

He stares at the signature with an unchanging expression. Then he sets Father’s note alongside it. Studies both documents for a few moments longer. Then, nodding, he returns them to his satchel.

“That about does it,” he says, quietly.

He’s nearly to the door before I have the capacity to call after him.

“Chief!”

And that single word creates a kind of envelope around us. For it is the first time I’ve ever addressed him by that title.

“Why did you take me along?” I ask.

“Take you where?”

“To Saint-Cloud. You didn’t need me there. I was only going to get in the way. Why did you bother bringing me in the first place?”

No way to parse the expression in his eyes now. If pressed, I might identify notes of regret, amusement, nostalgia. The barest hint of ire.

“Well, it’s like any journey, Hector. It goes faster with a bit of company.” He tips his hat forward. “I think the journey’s over now, don’t you?”

But still he lingers in that doorway. And in the seconds that follow, he is briefly erased by my earliest image of him: in Bardou’s rags, bristling with suspicion. And then the Vidocq of the present comes sliding back, a far gentler being, and his eyes, against all expectations, ripen into merriment. He throws back his massive head and roars with laughter.

“Thank God you’re not as innocent as you look!”

And then he’s gone.

T
WO DAYS AFTER
Vidocq leaves, I get a summons from the wife of Brigadier-General Beauséant. By now, I’ve become leery of invitations from society ladies, and I’m no more reassured when the lady in question, a dowager of two and sixty, complains at length about the condition of her hips. At the conclusion of which she wheels on me and, in a buzzing baritone, snarls:

“Well?”

“Well
what,
Madame?”

“It was my hope, dear Doctor, that you might favor me with your opinion on my rheumatism.”

“Oh, yes…”

“What I
mean
is: Do you think you might fit me into your schedule?”

“Into my—”

“Please don’t be coy, Doctor! The word is out. You effect the most remarkable cures in all of Paris.”

Very carefully I set down my teacup.

“Forgive me, Madame, but who has told you this?”

“Why, the Duchesse d’Angoulême! Just the other night, she was singing your praises to anyone who would listen….”

A
WEEK LATER
, an invitation to the Tuileries allows me to thank my benefactress in person—but the Duchess is in no mood. She wants only to know if I’ve had news of Charles or the Baroness. She received word from them in Le Havre that they’d been delayed and would take the next ship to America. Since then, no word.

“I’m very sorry,” I tell her. “I’ve heard nothing.”

When we part, she says, in a confidential murmur: “We needn’t worry, Doctor. God has gone to great lengths to bring Charles back to us. God will not abandon him a second time.”

I
N THE END
, Charles and the Baroness fail to keep their appointment with the Lioncourts of the Hudson Valley, and the Duchess, starved for news, receives none. She never, in fact, hears from Charles again.

But her belief in him, this remains steadfast, which is why she declines to meet any of the other “lost dauphins” who come to press their claims on her. And there are dozens. One, a German clockmaker by the name of Karl Naundorff, goes so far as to sue her for recovery of personal property. For his temerity, he is deported to England.

In 1824 comes the long-awaited death of gout-ridden old Louis the Eighteenth. The Comte d’Artois gets the crown he has long craved and, as Charles the Tenth, the chance to practice the absolutism he believes France needs. France disagrees. After six years, he is replaced by Louis-Philippe, a less objectionable cousin. Once more, the royal family is expelled; once more, the Duchess is obliged to leave her native land. This time for good.

Her wanderings take her from Edinburgh to Prague to Slovenia, but she is ever my most faithful correspondent. And if her letters rarely mention Charles, he is the figure that lurks behind every line—and, indeed, the wellspring of our intimacy, for what else do she and I have in common?

Other than my career. Within weeks of her public endorsement, I am besieged with inquiries from all over the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Women, exclusively: countesses and marquesses and ambassadors’ wives and bankers’ mothers, complaining of palpitations, insomnia, frigidity, avidity. Many of them believe they are dying; one is convinced she’s a grouse.
All
of them have francs for the flinging, and before another year has passed, I have my own clinic in the Rue de Richelieu and a reputation as a man with rare (and, by some lights, indecent) powers of suggestion.

I’ll let you in on a secret. Bring a certain kind of woman into a dark room, look her in the eye, and, where necessary, apply the simple physic of touch…you will find few ill humors that won’t yield to that. And if this same woman should wish to cure
you,
who are you to say no?

After several years of this—and more than a few mistresses—I reach the conclusion that my specialty has wandered too far from the Hippocratic ideal. In a volte-face that startles even me, I dedicate myself to venereal disease. It’s a specialty calculated to offend my previous constituency, and yet my very first patients are the noblewomen I used to treat for sluggish blood flow.

Soon, too, the men find their way to my door. Mariners, caulkers, deputy ministers, dukes…I make no distinctions, except that I charge according to capacity. One August morning, I am visited by a distinguished gentleman in a ruffled white silk shirt under a light summer jacket. He follows me into the consultation room, and when I ask him about his condition, he answers, in the most courtly of cadences:

“Got the wrong stuff coming out the dick.”

I look up. A large gray-blue eye is winking back at me. Vidocq.

We haven’t spoken in many years, but I’ve followed his progress through the newspapers. I know, for instance, that he married Jeanne-Victoire—“held up his end,” after all. Surely she would have held up hers, too, except that she died within four years. Mama Vidocq followed six weeks after, and according to scuttlebutt, the great policeman consoles himself now with the charms of a comely young cousin. That is, when he’s not chasing actresses, artists’ models, soubrettes…the wives of his own officers….

He’s stouter and grayer now, more polished in his manners, but every bit as easy with his body. As he spreads his half-naked frame across the examining table, conversation spills from him in a perfect cataract.

“Damn me, Hector, you’ve done well for yourself. Love the candelabra—porphyry, is it? With some malachite thrown in? Beautiful piece. The velvet hangings are a nice touch, too. Must have come from Lyon. Hey, are you married? No? Get on your knees and thank Christ. Here I am, one wife barely cold in the ground, and Fleuride-Albertine badgering me every day to take her to the Bureau of Registry. What’s the point, I ask her? Ah well, there’s a bright side to the clap after all. No one’s going to drag you to the altar with a weeping cock. Not that it keeps me from doing the old heave-ho. Ha! I was
born
erect, it’s the Lord’s truth….”

My proddings do nothing to stanch the words, but a new quality does steal into his voice: vulnerability, let’s call it. I realize he’s talking because he’s nearly as uncomfortable as I am.

“What’s that you’re mixing?” he asks at last.

“Mercury and silver nitrate.”

“Goes right up the old pee hole, does it?”

“Afraid so.”

From his silence, I assume he’s bracing for the syringe. Truth is, he’s already drifting back to our common time.

“Strange business, wasn’t it, Hector?”

“Yes, it was.”

“The part I
really
regret,” he says, “is we’ll never know what happened in that tower all those years ago. And it’s too damned bad.”

O
NE NIGHT IN
December, I come home to find an envelope addressed to me from the United States of America. It contains a brief news item from the
City Gazette and Daily Advertiser
of Charleston, South Carolina. My English is just adequate to making it out:

Baroness Préval, the celebrated Lecturess, has arrived in the City, and is giving an Exhibition of her wonderful powers. Having had the pleasure of witnessing her in person, I cannot but give to this extraordinarily elegant and gracious French Gentlewoman the due praise which true talents are entitled to. Her theme is “Sufferings of a Peeress Under the Reign of Terror, At the Hands of Atheistic Jacobites.” Particularly thrilling is the dramatic reenactment of the attempted guillotining of the Baroness’s son, who, in actuality, barely escaped the event with the loss of his right hand. That part in the tableau is played by the gentleman himself, who also contributes a delightful talk on orchid varieties in Europe vis-à-vis the Americas. I sincerely trust that the Baroness and her collaborator will meet the encouragement such individuals deserve.

—A C
ONNOISSEUR

 

I never show this to anyone—Vidocq, least of all—but I do take it out from time to time. Seeking clarity, I suppose, but finding only more muddle.

I ask myself: Has Charles simply attached himself to a new protector—squeezed himself into a new pair of shoes? Or is he really the Baroness’s son? How, then, did he know all those intimate details of the royal family’s imprisonment? The bells…the death’s-head hawkmoth in the princess’s shift…the letters bound in white ribbon…how could anyone but Louis-Charles have known these things?

So here I sit, a man of middle years, no closer to certainty—and forced, finally, to make my own. Vidocq said there’s never any accounting for people’s faith, but there
is
. We make what we long for. Jesus was the son of a carpenter until a group of believers, contemplating him long after the fact, decided he was more. So, too, Charles, under the pressure of our hopes, became the man we yearned for. He’s that man now. However imperfectly we come to believe something, the
belief
is its own perfection.

Which is to say: Against all evidence to the contrary, I believe that Charles Rapskeller is Louis the Seventeenth.

And even as I assert that, I dance away again. Maybe I’ve reached an age where not knowing is actually richer than knowing.

Or as Vidocq said on my clinic table, watching that syringe advance on him:

“We never solve a damned thing, really. We just make more questions. Now get my snake working, will you, Hector? There’s a flower girl over in the Rue Saint-Claude. Ready for pollinating….”