The Man with the Lead Stomach (30 page)

‘There he goes with his obsession again,’ said Sartine.

‘Well, it so happened that I knew Mademoiselle Bichelière’s fragrance very well and even the … size of her foot.’

Nicolas blushed. Bourdeau emerged from the shadows and hurried to his rescue.

‘The commissioner, sir, has a very good nose and the gift of recognising smells.’

‘Does he indeed?’ said Sartine. ‘And a well-trained eye for recognising ladies’ feet. Strange, strange!’

His sudden imitation of Monsieur de Saint-Florentin’s quirk of repeating words and the slight involuntary twitching of the eye revealed the magistrate’s barely suppressed amusement.

‘Well,’ Nicolas continued unperturbed, ‘the two fragrances were identical …’

‘It’s about time you reached your conclusion, Commissioner,’ said Sartine, who appeared weary at having to furnish so many expressions of surprise at Nicolas’s carefully constructed narrative.

‘I’m getting there, sir. We are confronted with a machination in which filial piety and perverted ideals were accompanied by a devilish desire for revenge.’

Suddenly the wounded man coughed and, attempting to clear his throat, began to speak. Lambert’s slightly coarse tone had now given way to another more natural way of speaking which seemed to betray an innate distinction, adding to the mystery surrounding him.

‘As I am about to appear before God,’ he began, ‘and submit to
His judgement, the only one that matters to me, I do not wish to leave anyone else the task of explaining my actions. Commissioner Le Floch has just used a term that touches me greatly: filial piety. May my actions, however dreadful they seem to most people, be truly represented.’

These opening words had exhausted him. He attempted to sit up because he was short of breath. Bourdeau helped him to find a more comfortable position. As he had become agitated the blanket had slipped down and his half-open shirt revealed a blood-soaked dressing wrapped right around his chest.

‘I was born Yves de Langrémont, in Auch. My father, a lieutenant in the Comte de Ruissec’s regiment, was executed for cowardice in action … Cowardice!’ A stifled sob interrupted his words. ‘My mother died of grief as a result. I was twenty-five, leading a dissolute, wasteful life. We were immediately thrown on the street. My sister could not stand our new way of life for long and ran away with a troupe of travelling players … Only a Jesuit priest, my former teacher, tried to help me. He was a tormented spirit, interested only in ideas. At school he despised the mediocrities, those who, in his words, floundered because of their own inadequacies. His colleagues and pupils found the iciness of his anger disconcerting. He could see that I had received an outstanding education and had acquired a great store of knowledge but that I also surrendered to wild outbursts, driven on by a vivid imagination, always liable to be carried away by ideas and fancies. How could I be taught to reconcile so many contradictory qualities?’

He asked for some water. After glancing at Monsieur de Sartine, Nicolas handed him a glass.

‘I discovered from one of my father’s comrades the exact circumstances of his execution. He also brought me a bundle of papers proving the Comte de Ruissec’s wickedness. I used some of them to prepare a report that I gave to the Minister for War, along with a petition to the King asking that one of his noblemen be brought to justice. Nothing came of it and I even received threats from various quarters and was ordered to keep quiet. My father’s friend died and left me a considerable fortune as his heir. I decided to use it to take revenge by my own means. My former teacher had been driven out of his order by a decision of the bishop’s court. He was forced to flee and magistrates issued a summons for his arrest. He did indeed hold subversive views about the legitimacy of assassinating kings who transgress the rules. His idols were Clément,
1
Ravaillac and Damiens. His zealousness threatened the Society of Jesus. Before going into hiding abroad he convinced me that the sovereign was
responsible
for the misfortunes that had befallen my family. So to the hatred of my father’s assassin was added the hatred of the person in whose name innocents were killed.’

He was breathing with increasing difficulty. Monsieur de Sartine went closer to him.

‘Sir, now tell us how this infernal plot was devised that has caused the death of so many people.’

‘I decided to come to Paris to find my sister and to gain access to the Ruissec family. Unfortunately –’ he tried to turn towards Mademoiselle Bichelière – ‘our misfortunes had led her into a type of life that despite all my exhortations she refused to give up. She would not concede to me on this matter. She merely agreed to help me to see that justice was done. Here I solemnly wish to
declare that she knew nothing of my plans and played only a passive role in the situations I set up without understanding their consequences.’

‘We shall see about that later, sir,’ said Sartine.

‘It was not difficult for me to gain access to the Ruissec family. I paid the vicomte’s manservant to give up his position and immediately took his place. It was just as easy to gain the confidence of the young man and his brother, whose frenzy for gambling gave me the advantage of seeming to be a willing, discreet lender. It did not take me long to realise that the comte also sought vengeance. Having been befriended by the
malcontents
and the pious, they had recruited him to their conspiracy. I gained his confidence and became his secret factotum. Gradually I passed myself off as the agent for a clandestine group preparing the new reign. In this way I built up two intrigues, one for the benefit of my personal vengeance, and the other, just as real, to punish the King for his injustice. I did not want to bungle my plan. I had to entangle and ensnare the comte so that he had no possible way out. He was implicated in a plot. His sons were in my hands. A judicious use of certain documents forced him to consent to the marriage of my sister –Mademoiselle de Sauveté – whose true identity he still did not know.’

‘But,’ said Nicolas ‘you yourself pretended to be Mademoiselle de Sauveté. In her house in Versailles I found unusually large women’s shoes and a tow-yellow wig, as well as your fingermarks on left-hand side of a cup. Not to mention the clerical bands under a bed, which you presumably used for pretending to be the vidame.’

‘I was indeed free to move around in different guises, acting
various roles. In the midst of my preparations I came across a galley slave who had served his time and was wandering about accompanied by his deaf-and-dumb son. He was a former fountaineer. His experience enabled me to enter Versailles to prepare subsequent events.’

Nicolas, who could not help feeling an element of pity for the man, remembered just in time that the subsequent events included a long series of increasingly cruel murders and the King’s intended assassination.

‘Everything was coming together as I wanted,’ continued Langrémont. ‘The Ruissecs were in my grip. The comte was conspiring in the belief that he was part of a secret and fearsome organisation whose chief communicated with him via me, and whose hide-out was in the fountaineer’s workshop. However, it so happened that the Comte de Ruissec, convinced of the treachery of a Life Guard called Truche de La Chaux, asked for him to be executed as a traitor to the cause and a threat to our interests. Why and how the Vicomte de Ruissec took his place, I have no idea.’

Monsieur de Sartine turned towards Nicolas. ‘You can no doubt throw some light on that.’

‘Yes, sir. The Vicomte de Ruissec intercepted a note intended for Truche de La Chaux. When Lambert saw the vicomte and not the Life Guard arrive at Apollo’s Chariot for the meeting he no doubt considered that providence was delivering up to him his enemy’s son for him to wreak his revenge upon, and the most dreadful thing of all was that it was the Comte de Ruissec himself who had given the order for the person coming to the meeting to be killed. So the father signed his own son’s death warrant!’

‘How can you be so sure of this?’

‘A search carried out in Grenelle amongst Lambert’s belongings turned up, carefully hidden away, the note brought by the page and intercepted by the Vicomte de Ruissec. Its content is harmless enough: “Be at Apollo’s Chariot at midday.” But it has the great merit of being in the Comte de Ruissec’s handwriting.’

‘Was it not strange and foolish to have wanted to keep such a compromising document?’

Lambert raised his voice; it was firmer, as if telling the story of his vengeance had strengthened it.

‘On the contrary, it was proof that the Comte de Ruissec was guilty of the trap that had cost his son his life. It was a useful protection for me, and also served as a means of blackmail. But there is one essential point about which you are mistaken, gentlemen. I did not know it was the Vicomte de Ruissec. The man who was due to come was masked for reasons of security. It was only after … the execution … that I realised it was my enemy’s son and, as God is my witness, however much I may have hated that family I swear that I would never have allowed what happened, had I known it was the vicomte.’

‘It’s easy to say that now,’ Sartine butted in. ‘That doesn’t explain why the comte wished to be rid of Truche de La Chaux.’

‘Oh! There were plenty of reasons for that,’ Nicolas went on. ‘Truche de La Chaux had stolen Madame Adélaïde’s jewels. He was being blackmailed by the comte, who had discovered what he had done and was threatening to denounce him if he didn’t obey the comte’s instructions.’

‘What were those instructions?’

‘His task was to spy on the great lady we have referred to. His function gave him access to her apartments where he was to leave
the scurrilous tracts that the conspiracy kept producing against her and the King. However, it is more than probable that the comte had had wind of the ambiguous attitude of his spy because he had other agents spying on the great lady. All Truche was interested inwas his own advantage and he took it where he found it. When attempting to negotiate the sale of one of Madame Adélaïde’s rings with the great lady, the latter recognised the jewel and, having caught out Truche, she ordered him to serve her and inform her about the intrigues of the coterie surrounding the Dauphin and the King’s daughters, whose influence she feared. So, the Comte de Ruissec, convinced of Truche’s double dealing, and fearing his dangerous influence over his sons, decided to do away with him and ordered his execution.’

‘What about the second murder, the killing of the comtesse?’

Lambert closed his eyes at the mention of this death.

‘I am the culprit. I slipped into the convent of the Carmelites before Commissioner Le Floch arrived, broke her neck and threw her into the well of the dead. The comtesse’s chambermaid had told me she was meeting Le Floch and I wanted to prevent that meeting at all costs.’

A coughing fit overcame him.

‘None of this would have happened had we not been caught at Pont de Sèvres as we were about to immerse the vicomte’s body in the Seine. That was when I had the idea of forcing the comte to see his son’s dead body to make him understand that he had caused the death. To show him how his execution of my father had now been avenged by his killing his own son. Nothing could stop me now. I have fulfilled my mission. I have avenged my father. Just before he died I revealed myself to the comte so that
his dying vision was of his victim’s son. His family is decimated.’

He sat up, let out a loud cry, a stream of blood spurting from his mouth. He fell back unconscious. His sister would have hurled herself upon his body had she not been restrained by an officer. While Bourdeau was arranging for the stretcher to be removed, Mademoiselle Bichelière was taken back to solitary confinement.

Monsieur de Sartine stood stock-still, gazing at the slowly dying fire in the great fireplace.

‘He does not have much longer to live. Perhaps that is better for all concerned. As for his sister, she will end her days in some convent dungeon, or its equivalent now that that system no longer exists. In some nunnery at best, or in the depths of some state fortress at worst. I have three questions, Nicolas. First, how did you know the vicomte had been killed in the workshop in the park? We have the confessions now, but before that?’

Nicolas opened his black notebook and took out a small sheet of tissue paper folded in four. Sartine, came closer and saw what looked like black gravel.

‘Sir, I collected this from the hem of the vicomte’s cloak: coal. Where does one find coal other than near a forge, or in a workshop where metal is melted down? I found the same dust in the workshop of Le Peautre, the fountaineer in the great park.’

‘My second question is this: why those dark glasses?’

‘My guardian, Canon Le Floch, had an irrational dislike of eyes of differing colours. Though I do not share his sentiment I always notice this feature, especially because when I first arrived in Paris I had my watch stolen by a robber with such eyes. Look at Lambert. He had to conceal his eyes if he was not to be recognised. When he disguised himself as Mademoiselle de
Sauveté he used those dark glasses. And when his sister played the role of the same person, she did likewise.’

‘My last question, Nicolas: do you have any hope of arresting Le Peautre?’

‘A letter from the intendant of Champagne informed me yesterday that his body had been found near Provins, half eaten by wolves. Before that he had entrusted the little deaf-and-dumb boy he used as a messenger to one of the monasteries in the town.’

‘Man works in strange ways. This was a difficult investigation and you have carried it out very well. There remain Madame’s jewels. Do you expect to find them?’

‘I have not given up hope. We already have the ring.’

‘What about Truche de La Chaux?’

‘His is not a hanging offence and besides, the good lady protects him, but my intuition leads me to believe that the man will eventually be caught in the web of his own intrigue.’