The Saint-Florentin Murders (15 page)

‘I can well imagine,’ he said solemnly, ‘that your task has not been easy in these circumstances. And how did you first become aware of them?’

‘No one told me anything. But everyone was talking about it, and then the police arrived. Otherwise, we keep our own house in order, if you know what I mean. Anyone who doesn’t play fair,
we obviously try to find out what’s happening, confound the culprit and drive him away without any kind of trial, even if he doesn’t want to go.’

‘Let’s be clear about this, Monsieur. If I understand correctly, when you discover a criminal in your ranks, your first reaction is to dispense justice, whatever his resistance?’

‘That’s right! My God, you’re quick on the uptake!’

‘Why, what did you imagine?’

‘That you were from the police, and that you were investigating the traffic in spent grain.’

‘Spent grain?’

‘That’s right, spent grain! You get it from the breweries, which are only too happy to get rid of it. Take the ripe crushed barley they’ve put to ferment. Well, some of us, the crooks among us, grab the residue at a low price and feed the cattle with that rubbish. And when I say some …’

‘Well?’

‘Well? Don’t try and mollycoddle me. The animal swells up, the meat is spoiled, and the buyer has been had. Even the weight is faked: everyone’s a loser, except the crook!’ He stamped his foot in indignation. ‘Me, I love my animals, Monsieur. I feed them like they’re my own children. Well, that’s all in the past. Why are you here? What do you want?’

‘Don’t worry, Monsieur Longères, my presence has nothing to do with the fraudulent use of spent grain. The Lieutenant General of Police, Monsieur Lenoir, has given me the task of informing your honourable guild of the dangers of an epidemic of anthrax which is spreading to several provinces of the kingdom.’

Nicolas was trying desperately to find a way to introduce the case of Marguerite Pindron. He explained, with a wealth of details, the reason for his coming to Popincourt, the scale of the epidemic, its consequences, and the risks incurred, while insisting on the government’s desire to take precautionary measures. He sprinkled his words with so many veiled threats and
admonishments
that old Longères, horrified by what he heard, hunched over his stick, abandoning his own propensity to chatter.

‘So,’ continued Nicolas, ‘what you need to do, immediately – but at the same time without raising the alarm because, as I’m sure you realise, any panic would be seen as your fault – is inform your colleagues of the present danger and the risks they are running, and insist on the importance of taking the necessary precautions.’

At this point, he respectfully touched on the King’s kindly concern for his people, as well as that of his ministers and the Lieutenant General of Police, not to mention the
parlement
, in an affair so heavy with consequences for the life and smooth running of the kingdom. He punctuated his words with sweeping gestures, deliberately looking insistently at different parts of the cowsheds, as if trying to make an inventory of the contents and detect some anomaly. He strode towards one of the buildings and then immediately changed direction before again veering off, followed by the farmer, who had become extremely alarmed by this inquisition and the flood of words that accompanied it.

‘Gather your colleagues, explain the situation,’ Nicolas resumed, forcefully. ‘The information needs to be passed to everyone in your guild, from Popincourt to Ivry, where there are so many dairies, and from Vincennnes to Chaillot. By the way …’ he had decided to try a direct shot, ‘… how is old Pindron?’

The man stopped, as if taken aback by something incongruous. ‘Old Pindron? The poor man died last year. A sad story, Monsieur, a really sad story. A good man. Yes. Not much of a laugh. No, certainly not much of a laugh, always stubbornly refused a drink. But a fine man, an honest man, who knew his job. Alas, his daughter killed him, or as good as. I assume you know the story?’

‘Not all the details.’ Nicolas was pleased with his ruse. He had hit the target at the first shot.

‘A little madam who brought misfortune to two families. I have no hesitation in saying that. Yes, she killed the old man and launched a poor boy on a career of misfortune.’

‘I’d like to hear all about it – if you have time, that is.’

‘Certainly, Monsieur. Monsieur …?’

‘Nicolas Le Floch, commissioner of police at the Châtelet.’

‘By God, I knew it! Accept my hospitality and have a drink. Talking makes you thirsty, and so does listening. To tell you the truth, with age, my legs grow heavy. If I stand too long, I’m likely to take root.’

Old Longères led him to the elongated one-storey main building. They walked down a few steps into a vast room with a floor of beaten earth and whitewashed walls. A dresser, a long, worn oak table with two parallel benches, a resplendent copper drinking fountain and a fireplace with a trammel were the only furnishings. Old Longères clapped his hands. Immediately, an elderly maidservant limped in to take her master’s orders. She went back out through a door in the corner of the room and down to the cellar, and came up again with a pitcher and two thick glasses. They sat down at the table, and the host poured a little raspberry-coloured wine.

‘It’s Suresnes, fresh from the cask.’

He pushed a bowl of walnuts towards Nicolas, and himself grabbed two and cracked them in his fist. The crumbs fell on his brown jacket.

‘You can imagine the kind of things people said in the
faubourg
,’ he began. ‘That a beautiful girl from a good home should refuse the hand of a worthy suitor, a gardener like his father before him, was a real scandal. How could she reject the union of the garden and the farm? The fortunes of the Pindrons and the Vitrys would have been linked and everyone would have been satisfied. Why did she have to give it all up? It’s as if, begging your pardon, she had a fire between her legs! Oh, I know what they said, that her suitor was a bit of a simpleton, that he wasn’t able to charm her and drive out her crazy ideas. But isn’t that what happens when people get married? They have to realise that self-interest is more important than excitement. That’s what it’s like in the
faubourg
: the only things that matter are the animals and the plants! What girls really want doesn’t count. But believe me, marriages are no worse for that.’

‘So it had a tragic end?’

‘More than tragic! It killed old Pindron. We have a sense of honour round here. Madame Pindron sold everything to buy an annuity, and disowned her only daughter. She retired to her native province, far away from the scandal.’

‘What happened to the daughter?’

‘She vanished! No one’s had any news of her. Oh, there’ve been rumours, every now and again. Some say she’s in La Force prison, others say they saw her dancing with a bear at a fair on the boulevards, and some claim she’s walking the streets around
Quai Pelletier and even that she’s trawling for men in the wooden pyramids on the banks of the river, where you get all kinds of dissolute characters. Lord knows if there’s any truth in these tales.’

‘And what about the suitor?’

‘Young Vitry? Anselme? He abandoned the garden and the vegetables he loved so much, not to mention his parents. They say he was seen in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau, rolling in the gutter. I heard that he caught a foul disease and did so many mad things that he was locked up in Bicêtre, either with the patients suffering from venereal disease or with the lunatics. That’s quite some misfortune! The Vitrys don’t want to have anything more to do with him.’

Nicolas had heard enough. To allay suspicion, he made another pointless speech about the epidemic, drank a few glasses of wine, ate some walnuts, then took leave of his host. Longères, delighted by his visit, made him promise firmly to return. He vowed that everyone – God bless the young King – would do their duty and strive to preserve the city from the anticipated calamity. If anyone grumbled, he himself would plunge his pitchfork into their backside. All the same, he had to point out, without wishing anyone any harm, that the butchers shouldn’t be forgotten, and that the police should check that they really had certificates and receipts from those who sold them their animals. Not to mention their obligation to slaughter within twenty-four hours after purchase.

Nicolas promised everything that was asked for.

Once in the street, he regretted having paid his fare and dismissed the cab. He found himself forced to go back to Rue du
Faubourg-Saint-Antoine to find transport. Paris awaited him, and a projected visit to the major-domo’s family. But before that, he planned to question Jean Missery’s sister-in-law. Once past the Bastille, he would take Rue Saint-Antoine, then Rue
Saint-Honoré
as far as the junction with Rue Saint-Jacques, then turn right into Rue Planche Mitray, a true source of pestilence where you had to hold your nose, cross Pont Notre-Dame and the Petit Pont, carry on as far as Rue de l’Estrapade until, behind the Sainte-Geneviève Abbey, and not far from Place de la Vieille Estrapade, he reached Rue des Postes, where the house of the Daughters of Saint Michel was located.

He hailed a spruce-looking, freshly polished two-wheel carriage. He called out his destination to the coachman, then lost himself in his reflections, his eyes half closed. His little trip to Popincourt had proved highly instructive. Not only had he fulfilled to the letter his mission regarding the preservation of the cattle of Paris – or had that been only a pretext to send him in search of information about Marguerite Pindron? – but he had also learnt a great deal. When you thought about it, it was obvious that, as far as the anthrax was concerned, anyone else could have done the job as well as he had. Did that mean that Lenoir knew more than he had revealed? Was there, in spite of appearances, some kind of collusion between the minister and the head of police? Was the Duc de La Vrillière trying to control the progress of the commissioner’s investigation? And yet, if Sartine was to be believed … But was he telling the truth or did he have some cards up his sleeve which changed the whole game? He shouldn’t get carried away, thought Nicolas, shouldn’t let his imagination run away with him. Take the bare facts as they came,
sift through them, compare them, follow the new leads that were opened up. The Pindron girl had left her family home to escape an arranged marriage. Everything suggested that, having fallen into debauchery, she had wandered the streets of Paris before becoming, after who knew what encounters and what rebuffs, a chambermaid to the Duchesse de La Vrillière. The
contradictions
, heightened by the fog of hatred among this group of servants, a veritable battlefield of rivalries and jealousies, were endlessly intriguing. Nicolas vowed to take a closer look at the tangle of relationships among the occupants of the
Saint-Florentin
mansion. He even envisaged drawing up, in the form of a written document, a detailed picture of the testimonies they had so far gathered. He would also have to dispatch an officer to question the Vitry family, apparently market gardeners in Faubourg Saint-Antoine. The smallest piece of information would help to reconstruct the whole mosaic. He himself would go to Bicêtre, which he did not yet know, despite Monsieur de Sartine’s recommendations to him to visit it. He recalled the grave air he had adopted whenever he happened to mention this establishment, which, he said, was comparable in horror to the hell described by Dante.

The coachman’s cries of encouragement to his horse drew Nicolas from his meditations. The slope leading up to Place de la Vieille Estrapade, the highest point in the city, was steep. The services of the Lieutenancy of Police had recently examined a project for a hydraulic system to bring river water from the Port à l’Anglais with a view to building a public drinking fountain. Owing to the
problems of transportation, the price of water was constantly increasing, and was a burden on the poorest inhabitants. Admittedly, in the past few decades, especially under the late King, this type of construction had proliferated in the city. The carriage set off again with difficulty, just in front of the sparkling sign of the monumental mason Caignard, who, it was said, could supply all kinds of tombs and epitaphs. At the entrance to Rue des Postes, he spotted the office where those Parisians who ventured out at night could hire children to carry lanterns for them. These lanterns were duly numbered, and their carriers registered by the police, who issued them with a stamped licence. Naturally, these young people also served as spies, and their daily reports were part of the gigantic spider’s web whose threads all led back to the Lieutenant General of Police. Nicolas saw a group of austere buildings in the middle of which there rose a grim openwork steeple. His cab stopped, and the coachman pointed out the house of the Daughters of Saint Michel.

This time, Nicolas made sure he asked the driver to wait. Knowing what these men were like, he promised him a princely tip if he found him waiting faithfully at his post. In the corner of a massive door, he saw a handle which he supposed set off a distant bell, and was surprised, when he pulled the mechanism, to hear a metallic clanging from somewhere nearby. Some time passed before the wicket was opened. He introduced himself and stated that he wished to see Sister Louise of the Annunciation. The wicket closed again with a snap and his wait began. The door opened at last. The figure of a tall nun appeared, silhouetted against the light. She admitted him, then carefully closed the door behind him with a suspicious glance at the outside world. She
glided rather than walked along the waxed tile floor of a long dark corridor, lit only at its end by a high stained-glass window depicting Saint Michel slaying the dragon. He was introduced into a kind of parlour on the left, where the only furniture consisted of two armchairs with old-fashioned upholstery.

‘I am listening, Commissioner. I am Sister Louise of the Annunciation.’

The high-pitched voice took him by surprise. Behind him, a little slip of a woman had entered without a sound, so short that he had to lower his eyes to see her. She was as tall as she was wide, almost a dwarf, like one he had seen dancing with a macaque in aristocratic dress at the Saint-Germain fair. She had a puffy, blotchy oval face, and her half-closed eyes were deep-set, as if sunk into the skin. She had full lips, and was smiling vaguely. In her hands, she was twisting a rosary with black beads. With a movement of her head, she motioned him to sit down.