The Man with the Lead Stomach (14 page)

Having vented her anger she became more human. Out of sheer kind-heartedness he drew closer to her and stroked her hair, talking to her gently. She was sobbing and clung to him. He clasped her half-naked body, intoxicated by its fragrance. She lifted her face, offered him her lips and pulled him towards her. Nicolas surrendered to his instincts. The ottoman almost collapsed beneath the ardour of their embrace. The cat, terrified by the din, was hissing furiously. Nicolas could not help hearing a first name that his companion screamed out twice as she sank her fingernails into his back …

The maid returned very quickly, with a bottle of wine and two glasses. Her arrival prevented any embarrassment between the two of them that might otherwise have arisen. For him this was a tricky moment, when he had to resume his official role in unusual circumstances, even though, like a true gentleman, he had
performed to the apparent satisfaction of La Bichelière. But he did wonder whether, with women, appearances were always what they seemed.

‘Mademoiselle, at the risk of displeasing you, I must ask when you last saw the vicomte.'

She looked at him in exasperation as if what had just happened should excuse her from all further questioning.

‘So you're back to being a police officer again. You weren't quite so curious just a moment ago. You've had what you wanted. What is the meaning of this inquisition?'

‘You have given me everything I could wish for, Mademoiselle. I have just a few questions. I admit that my visit here is a result of an … The Vicomte de Ruissec has disappeared.'

He would soon see what results a half-truth would bring. Either she had rare strength of character or she had nothing to do with the death of her lover: she made no attempt to show any concern.

‘He can go hang. That's the least of my worries. I saw him last Thursday and I told him that I knew he was betrothed and that he'd pulled the wool over my eyes. He wanted to sort things out, he said, so that he could keep me. I would have liked to have seen that! Oh, I know his little game; he would have played the knave at Court with his strumpet and then in his spare time would have slid under my sheets. For free, of course.'

She had resumed her toilet and had drawn the screen again. He could no longer see her. He could hear water being poured.

‘What about Tuesday evening?'

‘What about it? Are you going to name every day of the week?'

‘That's the only one,' said Nicolas, watching the cat playing under the bed with a light-coloured man's wig, near which lay white clerical bands.

‘Tuesday evening? Tuesday evening there was no
performance.
Harlequin was ill and I stayed here to rest.'

She did not, however, look like the sort of person who rested.

‘Alone?'

‘Monsieur, you are overstepping the mark. Yes, alone. Alone with Griset, my cat.'

At the sound of its name the tomcat emerged from its hiding place and went warily over to its mistress, its tail raised and its eyes trained on Nicolas. There was nothing more to add and Nicolas bade farewell; she did not reply. The maid accompanied him out with due ceremony, then shamelessly held out her hand for her reward. After a moment's hesitation he paid his contribution. The Bichelière household certainly had many faults but modesty of manners was not one of them.

Once he was back outside he began to regret what had happened. How on earth, he asked himself, could I have lost control and surrendered to my instincts like that in the middle of an
investigation
while questioning a witness in a criminal case? A small voice inside him tried to plead extenuating circumstances: he had not really wanted to do it, the girl was pretty and forward, and anyway was known to be of easy virtue. Added to this
soulsearching
was an underlying anxiety. The whirlwind of sensations had been so violent that he had taken no precautions. He remembered only too well his friend Semacgus's advice. 
Speaking from long experience as a libertine, he had warned him of the dangers of the company of actresses, opera girls and other harlots, too happy or too carefree to be bothered about spreading the poisoned fruits of their licentiousness far and wide. The surgeon had urged him to use a sheath made of sheep gut, more commonly known as a condom, which was a man's best defence against Venus's revenge. Finally, who was this ‘Gilles' whose name had unfortunately disturbed the moment of climax?

To take his mind off things, Nicolas walked towards the Place des Victoires. He was always struck by the beauty of the place. He had never had the opportunity to examine closely the monument at its centre. Above the inscription ‘
Viro immortali
' Louis XIV sat enthroned in glory. Protected by the figure of Fame with wings outstretched, the monarch looked down on slaves in chains, with the globe at his feet, beside Hercules' club and lion's skin. One day as they were crossing the square in a carriage Sartine had rattled off an anecdote, as he loved to do. He told Nicolas how a courtier, the Maréchal de La Feuillade, had built this square, taking his cult of the King so far as to have an underground passageway constructed from the crypt of the church of the Petits-Pères to a vault situated directly beneath the statue in which his mortal remains could pay court to the King for all eternity. The Lieutenant General of Police had also pointed out that this used to be an area of ill repute and that a reminder of its murky past was to be found in the street name Vide-Gousset.
1

Nicolas got back to Rue Montmartre on the stroke of seven. The normally peaceful household was a hive of joyous activity. Marion and Catherine were busy in the pantry, surrounded by the
noise and pleasant smells of the supper they were preparing. He could particularly smell the delicious aroma of fish and buttered croute. The atmosphere in the house helped dispel his lingering sense of melancholy, due as much to a heavy stomach as to his amorous exertions, whose beginning and ending had not lived up to the pleasure he had experienced in between.

Poitevin went back and forth, his arms laden with silverware and bottles which, Nicolas discovered upon enquiry, were to be used to lay the table that had been set up in the library that evening. He asked for some hot water and, still faithful to his godfather's precepts with respect to personal hygiene, washed thoroughly before changing. When he entered the drawing room to be greeted by Cyrus jumping about, he heard three voices express their surprise at seeing him.

‘Here comes the prodigal son!' said Monsieur de Noblecourt, on his feet and wearing a magnificent Regency-style wig. ‘Hunger has brought him in off the streets!'

Nicolas blushed at the biblical reference. He would have to learn to ignore these innocent jokes since those who made them were unaware of their meaning for him.

‘My dear Nicolas, you have arrived just at the right time. Two of our friends have done me the honour of asking to dine with me this evening.'

Glasses already in hands, Monsieur de La Borde and Dr Semacgus were smiling. They had never met and had just been getting acquainted. The company exchanged greetings. Nicolas sat down. The fire was burning cheerfully high; he surrendered to the wellbeing and warmth of friendship.

‘Nicolas,' Monsieur de Noblecourt went on, ‘we are amongst
friends, the door is well and truly closed. Give us a detailed account of the results of your investigations.'

The young man recounted the course of events, beginning with the evening at the Opéra particularly for La Borde's benefit. Reporting to Monsieur de Sartine meant he needed to be able to explain facts quickly and clearly, avoiding excessive or tedious details. The Lieutenant General would not have tolerated them because he was a model of verbal precision himself. He continued his account, missing out certain details that he wanted to verify first. There was no doubt about his friends' discretion but Nicolas never told everything, not even to Bourdeau. He blushed slightly when he came to the episode with the lovely Bichelière. He suddenly thought that he did not even know her first name and also that he would have to find out about this ‘Gilles' fellow who had made such an ill-timed intervention in his love-making. Most surprised by his account of events was the First Groom to the King's Bedchamber, who had only
witnessed
Nicolas's hurried departure during the performance at the Opéra.

‘I now understand,' he said, ‘why Monsieur de Saint-Florentin summoned the Lieutenant General of Police yesterday as a matter of urgency. The result of this audience was the order to abandon the investigation and the body was then taken from you. I understand, however, that you had already established a diagnosis …'

‘I've been giving our problem a great deal of thought since yesterday,' Nicolas said. ‘This frightful death resulting from the
ingestion of molten lead … Lead can be found everywhere. We still need to find those who use it.'

‘Printers,' said La Borde.

‘Quite right, but also gunsmiths,' added Semacgus.

‘Roofers,' said Nicolas.

‘And coffin-makers.'

Monsieur de Noblecourt gave a knowledgeable wag of his finger.

‘My friends, my friends, I remember an evening with the late Duc de Saint-Simon. He entertained rarely and stingily, being rather tight-fisted but exquisitely courteous. One evening in the year 1730 or thereabouts, he arranged a supper party, which was unusual for him. I was there, listening to the conversation. One of his friends who was visiting Paris at the time, the Duke of Liria, the Spanish Ambassador in Muscovy … He was, it must be said …'

A long digression was in prospect, one that would
considerably
delay the main point of the speech.

‘… He was the son of the Duke of Berwick, himself the son of James II. I can see Nicolas becoming impatient. What it is to be young! In short, the Duke of Liria was telling the Duc de Saint-Simon how it was an old Russian custom to execute counterfeiters by making them ingest molten metal, which, he added, made their bodies explode. They probably did not use lead, which liquefies quickly. In any case, with the unfortunate vicomte it must have required a pipe or a funnel to force this devilish potion down his throat.'

‘It seems to me, Monsieur Procurator,' interjected La Borde, ‘that there is also a fifth and a sixth profession that handle lead.
First the executioner and, above all, fountaineers. In Versailles the other day I was watching the conduits of Neptune's fountain being repaired. They did not stint on the lead.'

‘In a word,' said Semacgus ironically, ‘you have a ready-made list of suspects … But still what could be the reason for this barbaric punishment? What crime could merit such an end? Not so long ago they used to cut out the tongues of informers.'

The four dining companions indulged in lengthy speculation, then turned their attention to the case of Mademoiselle Bichelière. If Madame de Ruissec had been pushed into the well of the dead what was the connection between her death and the actress? Their suppositions were interrupted by Marion who, grumbling, reminded them that it was time to sit down to dinner.

As they were getting up, Semacgus grabbed Nicolas's elbow and whispered in his ear: ‘I suspect you, my young Romeo, of taking your questioning of La Bichelière rather further than you would have us believe …'

What was originally intended to be a quiet supper turned into a feast, even if, under his housekeeper's watchful eye, the elderly procurator abstained from the morel pie. He made up for it with the
sole à la Villeroy,
which Catherine brought in reverently, but he managed to resist the temptation of a restorative white Mâcon. Had he shown the least inclination to taste it the ever-vigilant Marion would have prevented him, white wine being notorious for exacerbating the symptoms of gout. Meanwhile the assembled representatives of the medical profession, the royal Court and the Châtelet pursued the task in hand methodically, whilst
exchanging
the latest gossip. Their favoured topics were once again: the war; rumours of negotiations with England; the business with the
Jesuits, who were under increasing threat; and the failing health of the King's favourite, made worse by the rumours of the King's latest fancy who was said to be with child by him. Finally dispatches from Moscow indicated that Tsarina Elizaveta Petrovna's health was declining rapidly.

Monsieur de Noblecourt mentioned a strange event that one of his Swiss correspondents had drawn to his attention.

‘In Geneva they saw a shining ball of fire which, as it
disappeared,
exploded, and everyone felt a short earthquake along with a muffled noise. My friends thought they had been plunged into darkness when the brightness of the phenomenon had passed.'

‘What a very philosophical tale!' said Semacgus. ‘Your Calvinist friends have been drinking too much Fendant … Here they are, imagining night in the middle of the day.'

Monsieur de Noblecourt nodded thoughtfully. ‘Sometimes the obvious can blind us to the truth. To return to the case before us, I would advise our young Châtelet commissioner not to attach too much importance to appearances but to seek to discover instead what lies behind them. The present is born of the past and it is always worth disentangling the past of the protagonists in a drama, to find out who they really are as opposed to how they wish to present themselves, who they say they are or what they would have people believe.'

Following these wise words they went their separate ways. For a celebration to end someone's convalescence it had turned out to be a lively evening. Nicolas accompanied his friends outside. He was pleased to see that La Borde and Semacgus were already on such good terms. The two men, though different in character, age
and station, had in common their friendship for Nicolas. The First Groom of the King's Bedchamber, having at his disposal a Court carriage, offered to take the doctor back to Vaugirard.