The Orphan's Tale (15 page)

"
A summons!" said Elise. "He's trying the same tactics he tried with Charles."

"
It'll be interesting to see how successful he will be," said Yvette. "I suspect that anyone who tries to annoy your 'guardian angel' ends up regretting the effort."

Elise smiled at that.
"I suspect you're right, havette," she said. "I know he will be interested in hearing that Benoit came by. We'd best go tell him right away."

Yvette's eyes widened.
"To - to the Prefecture?" she asked.

"
But of course.  We'll make a day of it!"

"
But who will take care of the place?" Yvette asked.

"
Alcide and Claude," answered Elise. "As well as the rest of the staff. Come on, Yvette. You don't get out often enough!"

Elise bundled her into a pelisse and bonnet and, by main bullying, got her out the door and into a cab.

              **  **  **

Sergeant Jacques Guillart was a plump man of about forty
-three whose career in the Parisian Police was due to his ability to write a round, clear hand and turn a good phrase. He reviewed the reports submitted, rewrote those with glaring errors in syntax or punctuation, and filed the rest. He supervised a staff of thirty and coordinated all communications between the Prefecture and the various Police and army posts throughout Paris. He also maintained the Police archives for France.

He judged people by their reports.
The Prefect, M. Lamarque, for example, wrote a fair hand and had a sober turn of phrase that was quite impressive. Chief Inspector Malet wrote a strong, elegant hand and had a poetic turn of phrase that made Guillart think at once of ballads and the tales told by huntsmen after a successful chase. Inspector Christien L'Eveque, a merry soul, wrote an entertaining report, but was inclined to go into overmuch detail concerning who was standing where and at what time.

Guillart liked and respected these three men.
He had nothing but contempt for Constable Archet of the candle-ends, whose reports were slovenly, illegible and full of pompous phrases. The archives of the Parisian Police did not contain a single original report of Archet's: Guillart had rewritten them all himself. Personally, he thought that Archet would end up in some provincial town as the third-in-command, and good riddance to him. After watching the man's feud with Chief Inspector Malet, he decided that that might happen sooner than anyone expected.

He smiled on everyone but Archet, arrived punctually every morning and left punctually every night to return to his plump, charming wife and his family that had grown steadily over the past years.
He courted no danger, bowed and scraped to no one, and served as one of those who are indispensable to the smooth running of a great piece of machinery.

Everyone liked Sergeant Guillart, and he liked everyone, himself.
But he did have one or two very dear friends, however, aside from his family, and one of them was Chief Inspector Paul V. Malet. At this moment he was standing before the Prefect's desk, smiling down at Malet and offering him a neatly folded napkin.

The Chief Inspector took the napkin, warmly returning the smile - an expression he reserved for a very few people - and opened it to reveal a particularly plump, golden pastry bursting with raisins and walnuts.

"Guillart, this is too generous of your good lady," Malet objected. "Every day I am here she sends in some treat by you, and I have done nothing whatever to deserve it! Surely M. le Prefet isn't treated to this kindness every day!"

Guillart only shook his head.
"I will tell Justine what you say, but she will smile and disagree and keep sending these in for you with her best greetings. You may as well resign yourself to your good fortune."

"
One can but try," Malet said with an answering smile. "And Guillart - do try to get those reports on Dracquet's supposed family ties with Burgundy."

"O
f course," said Guillart. He bowed and withdrew, wiping his fingers and chuckling. The Chief Inspector could never seem to understand what he had done to merit the friendship of the large and clamorous Guillart clan.

Malet had saved Guillart's life in 1830, during the July revolution, but the friendship of the Guillart family predated even that action.
It stemmed from something that had happened during Malet's first year in Paris, six years before.

He had come bursting into the Prefecture one day dragging a sobbing child along by the wrist.
Due to a sudden emergency, Guillart had been filling in as Officer of the Day, and it was to him that Malet had come.

"
She solicited me!" he said through his teeth. "On the Rue de Rivoli, by the Hotel de Ville, no less! Look at her! No more than ten years old if she's a day, and painted like a whore!"

He had released the child, who had collapsed into a chair, sobbing, tears spilling over her garishly rouged cheeks as she rubbed her wrist.

"Do you want to press charges?" Guillart had asked doubtfully. He had heard that Malet was a terror to criminals, but the thought of charging a child was abhorrent to him.

"
Against her?" Malet had demanded. "Of course not! Look at her! What crime did she commit? No, the crime is against her!"

Guillart looked at her wrist, which was beginning to bruise.
"I think you hurt her," he said.

Malet had been pacing up and down the aisle.
He whirled round, looking stricken, and hurried back to her.

"
Did I?" he asked. He dropped to one knee beside the chair and examined the wrist. "Dear God! I didn't mean to! I am sorry, child! But - but her damned pimp came up to her and tried to hustle her away, muttering something about 'taking a hit' later on! The snake!"

He got to his feet, almost sputtering with anger.
"Pimping for a child! You should hear the filth he taught her to spout to a prospective customer! It turned my stomach! I hate all pimps, but those who prey on children - " He was pacing again.

"
What did you do?" asked Sergeant Guillart.

"
Do? I decked him and got her away," Malet said through his teeth, "He won't be breathing very well for the next few months! He sent about ten of his slimy associates after us, too! They caught up with us on the Pont d'Arcole!"

"
Did they know who you were?" Guillart asked.

"
They do now!" Malet answered. "I told them. They seemed impressed, though it may have been my sword at their leader's throat. I suggested that they leave, and they did."

He frowned down at the girl, who was staring up at him as though he were a cross between Prince Charming and Michael the
Archangel. "How old are you?" he asked after a moment. His voice was gentler.

"
N-nine this week," the girl had answered. Her voice was high and clear.

"
See?" Malet said. "Open your mouth, girl. Look, Guillart: she still has some baby teeth!" He took out his handkerchief and held it before her. "Here: spit on this!" he commanded, and then scrubbed at her face with it after she had.

"L
ook!" he said, handing her the handkerchief, which she furtively tucked away in the ragged bosom of her dress. "She's pretty under all this paint! What sort of foul scum would even think - How long have you been doing this, girl?"

She began to cry again.
"Three weeks, M'sieur."

"
Three weeks?" Guillart had repeated. "Well. What is your name, poppet?"

"
J-Julie."

"
Do you have any family, Julie?" Guillart had persisted.

"
No, M'sieur."

"
Do you want to go back to the streets?" Malet had asked.

She threw herself into his arms, sobbing wildly.

Malet's blank expression made Guillart laugh. He was holding the weeping, clinging child with all the tender solicitude with which one might handle a watermelon.

"
What a question, Inspector!" Guillart chided him. "Of course she doesn't. Poor sweetheart, it must have been terrible for you. You don't ever have to go back. I know a home for you. Take my handkerchief and don't cry. You can hold my hand."

He looked up at Malet, who had set her in a chair and was frowning thoughtfully down at the girl's lowered head.
"Sir? Did you have any plans for placing her? If not, I know where she can go."

Malet had shaken his head.
"Thank you, Sergeant," he had said, bestowed a brief - and, in all, very gentle - smile on the girl, and left.

And
that is how Julie had come to be adopted by the Guillart family.

Mme. Guillart, a country woman from
Provence, where Guillart had been posted as a foot soldier, had never forgotten. The Chief Inspector had been stunned eight months later when Mme. Guillart asked him to be her newest baby's godfather, and he had been rendered speechless by the news that little Pauline Guillart was to be his namesake.

Julie, now a pretty girl of fifteen, regarded him as a sort of angel.
It was she who had baked the pastries this week, and she had personally selected the best, plumpest one for 'M'sieur' this day.

             
**  **  **

Sergeant Guillart made his unhurried way back to his desk, smiling, but wondering nevertheless why Inspector Malet was so subdued this day.
The fact that he had spent the night chasing murderers did not explain it, since the man seemed to thrive on very little sleep. But he wasn't worried: Malet seemed puzzled rather than disturbed.

He returned to his desk with a smile.
When he got there he found the Officer of the Day chatting with two women, a brunette with dark, lively eyes, and a taller, chastely bonneted one with a demurely downcast face but very curious, bright blue eyes.

"
M. le Sergeant, these two ladies are asking to speak with the Chief Inspector," said the Officer of the Day. "They say it's an important matter regarding one of his cases."

Guillart stepped forward, smiling.
"Welcome, ladies," he said. "M. Malet is here: may I announce you?"

The dark woman said,
"I am Elise de Clichy, and this is Yvette Franchotte. M. Malet is presently staying at our inn - "

"
The Rose d'Or!" said Guillart as he bowed over their hands. "Of course! He spoke very highly of the place, especially your English ale and your veal. I am very happy to meet you! Jacques Guillart at your service. Please follow me! M. Malet will be delighted to receive you!"

             
**  **  **

"
I know Dracquet was hounding Charles," Elise said some minutes later, "And I suspect that is why he wishes to speak with you. Here's the message."

She gave the slip of paper to Malet and watched as he read it.
Her smile wavered as she remembered the past night. He showed no sign of fatigue, and there was nothing to indicate a wound. She smiled again.

He looked up after a moment and noticed that Yvette was standing by the window and gazing out over the Place du Parvis toward the facade of the cathedral.
"There's a charming walk along the river there, Mlle. Yvette," he said, "And the flower market is still open."

Yvette turned and nodded.
"I seldom come this way any more, M'sieur," she said shyly, and sat down.

Malet checked his watch and then closed it.
"It's close to noon," he said. "If you ladies would permit me, I know an establishment near here that serves the best salmon I have ever had. We could lunch there."

Yvette's eyes were wide with delight.
"On the Île de la Cité itself?" she asked.

"
Close by. At the Place du Chatelet. I will send someone to reserve a table." He rang a bell on the desk, gave instructions to the office boy who came in, and then returned his attention to the message.

He finally set it aside with an ominous smile.
"If Dracquet wants to speak with me," he said, "He will have to catch me before I leave. I suspect that his hours aren't so early as all that!"

He paused, thinking.
"Saint-Légère told me that he walks a beat now."

"
Yes," said Elise. "I have the route mapped out. I asked for it, in case an emergency should arise."

Malet frowned into space.
"Hm," he said. "I think I will take over his duties for the next two days. We'll see if Dracquet catches up with me."

SPINDRIFT ON THE EDDIES

"
Gut-shot and screeching, I tell you! Holding his innards in with both hands, lying in the muck and shrieking for help, and all we did was laugh at him!" The speaker raised a bottle of gin and took a long pull. "Beautiful, I tell you! Beautiful! And I expecting it all along!"

"
Serves him right, the mad wolf!" cried a woman in a prostitute's brightly colored silk dress. "It's the best news I ever heard! They'll never prey on us again!"