to collect all this and take it to the Basse-Geôle. Semacgus can take a look at it, and even test it on rats.’
Bourdeau was stooped over, clearly in the grip of an inner dilemma. ‘I ought to report to Monsieur de Sartine …’
‘Oh, of course!’ Nicolas replied in a somewhat brusque tone. ‘And why not also tell him that you were accompanied by a clerk, a man nobody knew, who was wearing a fine pair of riding boots? Who then told you that he kept another pair in a closet, where the said clerk – a stranger, as I said – pointed out clothes belonging to a police commissioner at the Châtelet he’d obviously never met, but whose breeches he recognised! I told you this was a dead end … Now here you are, caught in a trap, and me with you. Our machinations have rebounded on us. I should never have accepted your generous proposition.’
‘Please, God,’ said Bourdeau, ‘let this death be from natural causes! Because if it isn’t …’
Neither of them really wanted to consider the implications of that. What most hurt Nicolas was to think that he himself, in Bourdeau’s place, would not have been able to keep from wondering about those troubling boot prints.
Notes – CHAPTER 2
1. Mansion rented by Monsieur de Sartine and used as police headquarters.
2. See The Man with the Lead Stomach.
Jesuz mab Doue, n’eo bet kredet
Piv en e vro a ve profed?
Jesus, son of God, was not believed.
Who would be a prophet in his own land?
BRETON PROVERB
Instructions had been given, decisions made, and everything was proceeding methodically. Bourdeau was very much in control. Messengers had been dispatched to Doctor Semacgus in Vaugirard, and to Sanson, the Paris executioner, who lived outside the city walls in a house he owned on the corner of Rue Poissonnière and Rue d’Enfer. For a long time now, Monsieur de Paris – as he was known – had been lending his skills to the performance of autopsies in criminal investigations. He was a discreet, cultivated man, although one who could conceal – as Nicolas had previously discovered – unexpected failings. The friendship Nicolas felt for him was genuine and compassionate.
The two practitioners were to be brought to the Grand Châtelet by carriage and there, that very evening, an examination of Madame de Lastérieux’s body would be carried out. It was not a formality: everything hung on the results of this autopsy. If the assumption of premeditated poisoning proved correct, the machinery of the law would immediately be set in motion, with all the measures and procedures that entailed.
With a pang, Nicolas had moved back against the wall to let the porters take the body down to the wagon. As there was a risk that the body might undergo changes as the vehicle jolted over the Parisian cobbles, they had placed it on a bed of straw with the head held in place with splints to withstand the shaking. Beforehand, Bourdeau had plugged all the orifices of the body with shredded linen in order to prevent liquid requiring analysis from escaping.
He had put off interviewing the servants and the dinner guests until later. It was not a priority for the moment. The two men watched as the wagon set off, had the seals put back on the front door of the house, and got back in their carriage. Bourdeau had with him, in a basket he had found in the servants’ pantry, the remains of the food discovered in the bedroom and the kitchen, as well as the white beverage, which had been decanted into a small bottle that had been duly corked.
Nicolas thanked heaven for his disguise. It allowed him to sink into a kind of drowsiness, a mixture of stupor and grief. He felt a sense of foreboding, all the worse now that night had fallen. He looked out with unseeing eyes at the people passing by, all of them wrapped against the biting cold, their faces hidden behind the turned-up collars of their cloaks. A damp fog had descended, blurring the colours of the streets. The street lamps gave off hardly any light. The sight of the hurrying crowd reminded him of a Flemish painting he had seen in the King’s collection, in which, against the background of a snowy sky, faceless people walked in procession towards a cemetery in the distance. Bourdeau tried to suggest to him that they should stop at the tavern in the Grande Boucherie where they usually went to fill their stomachs before autopsies, but Nicolas did not feel like doing anything. The way he was dressed, he observed curtly, risked drawing attention to himself. The tavern-keeper had known them for years and liked nothing better than to chat with his customers: he was sure to see through his disguise.
The noise of the wheels echoing under an archway drew him from these reflections. The carriage came to a halt. With a fatherly air, Bourdeau lifted the muffler over the lower part of Nicolas’s face and made sure that the smoked glasses were well adjusted, then had a careful look at the area around the entrance to the Grand Châtelet. The way was clear. No one was lurking in the shadows and even the errand boys had abandoned the place for warmer retreats. They descended to the Basse-Geôle. At the beginning of his career, Nicolas had organised autopsies in the ogival torture room, near the office of the clerk of the criminal court. Since then, as the number of autopsies had multiplied, a small cellar containing a stone slab with grooves in it had been pressed into service. It had the advantage that the morgue, which was open to the public, was close by. When Nicolas and Bourdeau entered, they were surprised to find Semacgus and Sanson already there, engaged in an animated conversation. But they had not been brought from their respective residences in such a short space of time: they had both been summoned to take part in a delicate gallstone operation on a patient in the Hôtel-Dieu, and when it was over Sanson had invited Semacgus to the Châtelet to admire some new instruments from Prussia, which had just arrived on the mail-coach.
‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ said Bourdeau, smiling.
The two men turned round. Nicolas held back, taking care not to stand within the circle of light thrown by the candles. He noted that Sanson was elegantly dressed in green. It was the first time he had ever seen him without his perpetual puce coat. It made him look younger and compensated for the solemn air his growing paunch gave him.
‘Won’t Nicolas be joining us?’ asked Semacgus, peering inquisitively into the shadows where the false clerk was standing. ‘Not this time,’ said Bourdeau. ‘Monsieur de Sartine did not think it right that he should be involved in an investigation, or rather, in a preliminary inquiry, which touches him so closely.’ He made a sideways movement of his head to indicate Nicolas. ‘Monsieur Deshalleux, clerk of the court. He will make notes on our conclusions.’
Nicolas bowed.
‘Inspector,’ said Sanson, ‘our friend has told me the facts. I’d like you to convey to Commissioner Le Floch how much I feel for him in his hour of grief—’
He was interrupted by the arrival of the stretcher, carried by two men and preceded by an officer. The body was placed on the stone slab, and Semacgus and Sanson began preparing their instruments in silence. There followed a terrible ordeal for Nicolas. He would never know how he had been able to bear the scratch of the scalpel cutting into the skin, the cracking as the ribs were separated on either side of the trunk, revealing the nacreous tints of the organs, and the various noises and smells of the operation. More unbearable still were the comments and remarks which accompanied this work. This body, once so passionately loved, was nothing more than a wretched, bleeding scrap of flesh. Once they had sewn it up again, salted it and wrapped it in a jute sack, Bourdeau and Semacgus conferred for a long time, then spent more time debating politely which of them would dictate the conclusions. In the end, it was Sanson who took it upon himself to sum up