The Châtelet Apprentice (36 page)

‘My compliments, Nicolas. You have unravelled this plot with a shrewdness that justifies the opinion I have had of you from the beginning. I leave it to you to judge who should be prosecuted or pardoned. With regard to La Paulet, you're right. The policing of a great city can only be carried out by making use of the weakest or the most influential members of society. We must not think ourselves above this. But I have one question for you: who gave you the idea of the
deus ex machina
in the last act? Even I turned towards the door to look.'

‘The idea was inspired by a comment of Monsieur de Noblecourt's,' Nicolas replied. ‘His advice to me was “just pretend”. A woman like Louise Lardin would never have confessed, perhaps not even under torture. I needed to find a way of catching her out when her defences were down.'

‘That reassures me about my capacity to judge people,' Sartine continued with a smile. ‘In the end it's thanks to me, who entrusted you to Monsieur de Noblecourt, that all this has been resolved. What is more, with our old friend the only dead you'll find in his cellar are the bottles he likes to get through in the company of his friends.'

Pleased with his quip, he allowed himself a quick comb of
his wig, opened his snuffbox and offered Nicolas a pinch. The young man accepted and helped himself. This interlude was followed by a sneezing session that left them feeling relaxed and very pleased with themselves.

‘So now,' Sartine continued eventually, ‘not only do you decide who I give audiences to but you also try to deprive me of my supper. I hope the reasons you're going to put forward will justify this impertinence and will not leave me, so to speak, hungry for more explanation. Mind you, to have one particular matter cleared up I would gladly fast for a whole week. Nicolas, do you have the King's papers?'

‘You will have them, Monsieur, if you agree to follow me. It will take us two hours. You will still have time to join your dinner party. There's bound to be something left to eat and drink.'

‘That's adding insult to injury!' Sartine exclaimed. ‘But what can I do? I must submit to his every whim. Come on, let's go.'

Nicolas paused for a moment.

‘Lieutenant General, I have one request to make of you, to right a wrong.'

‘As things stand now, my dear Nicolas, if the request is reasonable you may assume I will agree to it, and if it is impossible I will agree to it anyway.'

The young man hesitated once more before saying:

‘I would like Bourdeau, who conducted this investigation alongside me and whose help has been incalculable, to be involved in its ultimate conclusion. I would understand your reluctance, but I'm sure that we can trust him.'

Monsieur de Sartine began to pace up and down his office, then instinctively started to poke the fire even though it had gone out long before.

‘I'm a man of my word,' he said eventually, ‘but you are putting me in a very difficult position. You are a formidable opponent, Nicolas. It must be the contact with criminals that has made you so tough. However, I understand and share your feeling about Bourdeau. No one is more devoted to you than he is and, if I am to believe the reports, he saved your life. He has shared the suffering, so it is only right that he should share the glory. Who said that?'

‘Joan of Arc at the coronation of Charles VII in Rheims, Monsieur, about her standard.'

‘Nicolas, you never cease to amaze me. You really are a worthy pupil of our Jesuit brethren. You deserve to move in higher circles …'

They left the room. In the main hall they found Semacgus and Bourdeau. After bowing low to the Lieutenant General, the doctor held out his hand to Nicolas.

‘I wanted to express my gratitude to you, Nicolas. You didn't spare me, but you've saved my life because without Louise's confession I was done for. I shall never forget the lesson. Treat my house at the Croix-Nivert as your own. Catherine considers you a son. I am keeping her; she's big-hearted, and Marie Lardin has decided to go to Orléans to live with her godmother.'

Monsieur de Sartine was becoming impatient. Nicolas beckoned to Bourdeau.

‘Will the inspector do us the honour of accompanying us for the epilogue to this case?' Nicolas asked.

‘Upon my word,' said Bourdeau, his face suddenly beaming, ‘I would have bet a hundred bottles of Chinon that there was something more to all this!'

The Lieutenant General led them towards his carriage. Nicolas ordered the coachman to go to Vaugirard. During the journey he hardly had time to assess the scale of his triumph. Under Sartine's wary eye, he outlined to Bourdeau the affair of State linked to the criminal case that had just been resolved. Then each of them withdrew into silence. Nicolas was prey once more to doubt, his eternal enemy. Although he was sure of himself and of his deductions, and convinced he was nearing his goal, he dared not imagine the consequences of failure in these circumstances.

The Lieutenant General toyed with the lid of his snuffbox, snapping the clasp shut at regular intervals. The coach-and-four hurtled through dark and deserted streets. Soon they were in Vaugirard. Nicolas gave the coachman directions to Dr Descart's house. The place still looked just as grim. They had scarcely stepped out of the carriage when Bourdeau began to whistle a strange tune. In the shadows, on the other side of the road, exactly the same tune could be heard in reply. A spy was there, keeping watch on the house. The inspector went off to speak to him and came back saying that everything was in order and that no one had attempted to get in.

After breaking the seals Nicolas opened the door. He struck a light from a tinder-box and picked up a piece of candle that lay on the floor. He lit it and handed it to Bourdeau, asking him to do the same with the candelabra to illuminate the main room. Sartine looked in horror at the appalling mess in the house. Nicolas cleared the top of Descart's desk with a sweep of his arm and laid out three pieces of paper. He then fetched an armchair and a chair and invited his companions to sit down. An inscrutable-looking Monsieur de Sartine complied without comment.

‘Monsieur,' Nicolas began, ‘when you did me the honour of letting me into a State secret that I had begun to suspect as the criminal investigation proceeded, I set myself the task of doing all I could to solve this matter too. I had little to go on at first. You told me that Commissioner Lardin had been required in the course of his duties to go through the papers of a plenipotentiary who had just died, and had stolen several very important
documents
to do with the interests of the Crown, thus threatening the security of the State. Once in possession of these papers Lardin was in a position both to ensure his own impunity and to set up an odious blackmail scheme. However, due to the extent of his gambling debts, he was himself at the mercy of Mauval, the agent and henchman of Camusot, head of the Gaming Division, who is corrupt but beyond the reach of the law.

Sartine looked at Bourdeau and sighed.

‘I won't dwell on the danger of these documents being divulged to foreign powers, nor on the fact that it was
impossible,
Monsieur, for you to take action against the perpetrators of this crime of lese-majesty. But I was convinced that the case of Commissioner Lardin's disappearance had to be closely linked to the existence of these State papers that had been … let's say … mislaid.'

‘Why was that?' asked Sartine.

‘The constant presence of Mauval during the investigation, his spying, his threats and assaults on me could only have been for a very good reason. Lardin was dead, but his murderers had not managed to lay their hands on the documents which the commissioner had endeavoured to hide from them.'

‘Explain to me how they could have learnt of their existence.'

‘The plot, Monsieur, the plot. When Lardin planned to
eliminate Descart in agreement with his wife, he informed her that he was in possession of papers that would be extremely valuable for someone to sell. He made it clear to her that these papers were the ultimate guarantee of their impunity. However, the man still retained an element of caution. He added that he had concealed these papers in her cousin Descart's house. Where better to hide them than in the house that would be passed on to Louise Lardin, Descart's natural heiress and the wife of his alleged victim? However, he was careful not to tell his wife exactly where he had put the papers.'

‘Nicolas, this is wonderful! It sounds as if you were there! Were you by any chance behind the door and under the beds listening to everything? On what have you based such a confident account of the details of this tale? Is this why you've brought me to this godforsaken suburb?'

‘On my intuition and my knowledge of the people I've been proud to unmask. There was in fact one imponderable and unexpected element in this well-oiled mechanism. A tiny grain of sand, a stumbling block …'

‘Oh, really? What is it? This is like listening to the worst kind of empirical philosopher!'

‘Conscience, Monsieur, conscience. Commissioner Lardin had long been an outstanding member of your police force. He had spent many years in harness, giving of his best in the fight against crime. Something of this had stayed with him. He was not absolutely sure of the loyalty of a woman whose wanton ways he knew and accepted. He tolerated her relationship with Mauval, but could he really trust this demonic couple who had embarked on this evil enterprise alongside him? In any case his motives don't much matter. However, I do believe that in a
sudden act of lucidity and duty, or with a premonition of his impending death, he wished to leave a trail that would lead to the stolen letters. This trail, Monsieur, is on the table in front of you.'

Sartine leapt out of his armchair and eagerly began to read the three pieces of paper laid out on the table.

‘Explain yourself, Nicolas. This makes no sense – I can't make head or tail of it.'

‘First I need to tell you how these notes in Lardin's
handwriting
came into my possession. I found the first in one of my coats, the second was sent to Monsieur de Noblecourt along with a gift, and the third was entrusted to Marie Lardin who was told how valuable it was. At first sight the whole thing doesn't tell us very much.'

‘What about at second sight?'

‘They are very informative and I'm going to prove it. Naturally you will already have noted that it mentions returning the secrets of the King.'

‘Is that all you need?'

‘It's not all I need but it points me in the right direction. I spent a long time searching before I arrived at my conclusions. I moved the papers around as my guardian the canon used to do with the pieces of a puzzle.'

‘What on earth has your guardian to do with this?' Monsieur de Sartine asked impatiently. ‘Do you want me to die of apoplexy before your very eyes?'

Bourdeau retreated into the shadows, looking worried.

‘I mixed them up time and again,' Nicolas continued, arranging Lardin's notes in a different order.

‘And what am I supposed to make of this gibberish?' said Sartine. ‘Have we come here for rhymes, rebuses or anagrams?'

‘Examine the capital letters at the beginning of each sentence, Monsieur. What do they spell?'

‘D … E … S … C … A … R … T. Well yes, they spell Descart. But where does that get us?'

‘It gets us here, to Vaugirard. It was not for nothing that Lardin devised so many stratagems for these notes to reach their intended recipients. He clearly intended that the secret should be discovered, and that the search should be directed towards this house.'

‘How did you possibly deduce that just the word Descart could lead us to what we're searching for?'

‘Thanks to Monsieur de Noblecourt's cabinet of curiosities, Monsieur.'

‘Oh dear,' said Sartine, turning to Bourdeau, ‘I think he's lost his senses again. You told me he was wounded yesterday. It must be the loss of blood.'

This time it was Nicolas's turn to show his impatience.

‘In this cabinet of curiosities, one of the most famous in Paris …'

‘And with which I am very familiar,' Sartine went on,
‘because I've been subjected to our friend's innocent quirk of always wanting to reveal its horrors to his guests at the end of a fine meal.'

‘Monsieur, a few days ago I noticed in that strange setting a large ebony crucifix with its arms closed. It's one of those Jansenist items that would prevent you from obtaining a certificate of confession. I was struck by its appearance. It reminded me of an image I had come across earlier. I questioned Monsieur de Noblecourt. The crucifix in question had been given to him recently, much to his surprise, by Commissioner Lardin. Our friend had found a note wrapped round its base, the very same note that you have before you, beginning with the words “Carefully you open them”. Then, when I carried out a search of the Lardins' house with Bourdeau, I discovered among the commissioner's papers an invoice from a cabinet-maker in Faubourg Saint-Antoine for two unspecified items. As I couldn't get the image of the crucifix out of my mind I sought out the craftsman in question. After I had got lost several times, I reached my destination and the man found the order: two ebony crucifixes, each with an ivory Christ …'

‘We are caught between Scylla and Charybdis,' said Sartine. ‘I don't know what's stopping me getting back into my carriage.'

‘Curiosity and hope, Monsieur,' replied Nicolas with a smile. ‘The craftsman himself expressed surprise at the nature of the work required for one of the items in question. According to him he had been asked to completely hollow out the main part of the cross and to fit it with a lid equipped with a secret catch, a sort of pen box for concealing jewels,
louis d'or,
precious stones …'