Sartine stood up, walked around his desk – stopping one of the wigs from slipping as he did so – took Nicolas by the shoulder and pushed him gently towards the door.
‘If you want my advice, I think you should take some time off. What would you say to going to Versailles and paying court to His Majesty’s daughters? Only yesterday Madame Adélaïde was asking after you. Or else, visit Madame du Barry, go hunting with the King. In short, a little courtly spirit would not go amiss in the present situation. Versailles is a place where we have to show ourselves often lest we are forgotten!’
As Nicolas, followed by Bourdeau, was about to descend the staircase, he heard Sartine call the inspector back. They spoke for a few moments, but Nicolas could catch nothing of what was said. Bourdeau then rejoined him and walked with him to their carriage without saying a word. Nor did he open his mouth as they rode through the fog-shrouded streets in which people moved like vague shadows. Nicolas, too, remained silent. He did not care where they were going. He was once more in the grip of his perverse imagination, his mind filled with horrible images and interminable and fevered reflections on the causes and consequences of what had happened. Then, as if trying to break through his defences, Monsieur de Noblecourt’s words came back to him, echoed by Monsieur de Sartine’s instructions. They sounded within him like the repeated strokes of a funeral bell, like so many manifestations of the imperceptible dangers with which he suddenly felt surrounded. The cause of Julie’s death had still to be established, and yet everyone was keen to give him advice and recommend him to be careful. The fact was, he told himself, that however friendly and trusting they all appeared to be, he was being treated as if he was presumed guilty. Guilty of what? It was difficult to tell. That was what aroused his unease, this diffuse anxiety, this impression of slipping down a slope without anything to hang on to. He threw a sideways glance at Bourdeau, who was so still it seemed as though he were sleeping with his eyes open. He would have liked to talk to him, but no sound emerged from his mouth, and besides, what would he have said? Solitude had been his companion since his earliest childhood, and now it had reasserted itself in the cruellest, most unexpected way.
The noise of the carriage and horses echoed beneath the sombre archway of the Châtelet. The old walls plunged him into a melancholy so profound that Bourdeau had to pull him by the arm. The errand boy looked at him without recognising in this grim, downcast man the brilliant horseman who usually threw him the reins of his mount with a great laugh. Nicolas walked his usual route like an automaton, and passed Old Marie, the usher, without greeting him or making one of those friendly remarks which the old man cherished as a mark of friendship. He somehow found himself in the duty office. Bourdeau glanced through the register of incidents, then looked Nicolas in the eye and pounded on the old oak table.
‘That’s enough now, you have to pull yourself together. I’ve never seen you in this state, although we’ve been through a lot together! You’ve been wounded, knocked senseless, abducted, threatened. You must have undergone far worse ordeals than this. We must do something.’
Nicolas smiled weakly. ‘Do something? What do you want me to do? I’ve been told to go hunting and pay court to the ladies!’
‘Precisely! That’s exactly what you’re going to do. Or at least, that’s what Monsieur de Sartine has to believe you’re going to do.’
‘What do you mean?’
Bourdeau had opened the wardrobe where, for years, they had been accumulating a whole carnival array of clothes, hats and accessories. This collection, constantly enriched with new finds, was used by officers whenever they had to follow a suspect or were engaged on a mission in a dangerous faubourg and wanted to pass unnoticed. The inspector took out a quilted waistcoat, handfuls of tow, a large shapeless black coat so worn and threadbare that the black was turning green, a pair of thick shoes with brass buckles, a round, wide-brimmed hat, a great antique wig the hair of which seemed to have come from the mane of a dapple-grey horse, a thick linen shirt, a cotton cravat of doubtful cleanliness and equally dubious stockings. He threw the whole lot willy-nilly on the table.
‘Nicolas, get undressed and put on this stuff.’
The commissioner shook his head. ‘What madness are you dreaming up?’ he asked.
‘Just doing what friendship dictates. It being understood – and I say this before knowing anything for certain about Madame de Lastérieux’s death – that I believe you, and that I know you are innocent in this affair, I don’t see why I should deprive myself of your help in an investigation to which you can contribute a great deal.’
‘But how, for God’s sake?’
‘Let’s say a man your height, dressed in your clothes, with a muffler over his nose, comes out, accompanied by your servant, and gets in the carriage. “To Versailles, and don’t spare the horses!” Monsieur de Sartine will immediately be informed of your departure, and he’ll be relieved to know you’re doing as he asked. Meanwhile, you slip out, you meet up with me a few streets from here, and we proceed with the investigation together.’
‘But what should I look like?’
‘What does it matter? You can be an informer, an officer. Or better still, a clerk, there to note down my observations. A scruffy-looking fellow, with his eyes so tired he wears dark glasses.’
He handed him a pair of spectacles with smoked lenses.
Nicolas rose to his full height. ‘I’ll never allow you to commit this folly,’ he exclaimed. ‘If this case is a criminal one, you’re risking your job, perhaps more. There’s no way I can permit this.’
‘What do I care about my job,’ replied Bourdeau, ‘when the man I accepted as my chief when he was twenty years old, the man I’ve followed everywhere, the man I’ve saved from death several times, whose conduct and honour I’ve learnt to respect, finds himself in a difficult situation? What kind of man would I be not to try and remedy it with all the strength at my disposal? And what kind of man would you be, if you rejected my devotion?’
‘All right,’ said Nicolas, moved to tears. ‘I surrender.’
‘Not to mention the fact that, should this affair become complicated, it will be your judgement and experience, as always, which will lead us to a solution.’
Bourdeau had been walking up and down, striking his right leg with his tricorn. Now he stopped to think.
‘We have to find someone just your height, someone we can rely on. Now I come to think of it, Rabouine has a similar physique.’
‘He has a pointed nose.’
‘That doesn’t matter; his face will be hidden by the muffler. And there’s another advantage in using Rabouine. I’ve just remembered he knows that page in Monsieur de La Borde’s service at Versailles. Damn, I can’t remember his name …’
‘Gaspard! He rendered me a signal service in 1761, in the famous Truche de la Chaux case.’2
‘That’s perfect, then. With a note which you’ll write for me, he’ll welcome the disguised Rabouine with open arms, admit him to the palace and hide him in Monsieur de La Borde’s apartments. We just have to decide on a price, the fellow’s quite partial to coin of the realm.’
With nimble fingers, Bourdeau mimed a hand distributing coins.
‘His master is in Paris tonight,’ he went on. ‘He told me last night that he isn’t on duty. He is said to be smitten by a new conquest. Gaspard spreads the gossip: “My master’s friend, young Ranreuil, you know, the commissioner, is resting, he’s not well.” Rabouine abandons your clothes and comes back to Paris in secret. Everyone thinks you’re in quarantine in Monsieur de La Borde’s apartments. Sartine is relieved. There we are, everything’s sorted out.’
Faced with Bourdeau’s almost violent enthusiasm, Nicolas realised that he had to suppress his feelings and do exactly what the inspector wanted. There was a certain revulsion, of course,