The Whispering of Bones (25 page)

“I've had friends, too,
mon brave
.”

That brought tears, and Charles pulled his handkerchief from his sleeve and held it out.

“I'm sorry,” Coriot said, using it and handing it back. “I'm sorry I tried to strike you.”

“Well, one should not strike a man for pushing for the truth. But I did push you.”

“Do you believe me, that I didn't kill him?”

“I do. But I need to know who did kill him. Did he have enemies? I take it he was not such a Gallican as you are.”

“No. He was—” Coriot glanced suddenly down the lane on their left. “Ah, no, here they come!”

A half dozen goats were trotting toward them up the lane, followed by the goatwoman called Hyacinthe. Charles and Coriot moved quickly to the side of the street, where another lane branched to the right.

“I seem to see those goats everywhere,” Charles said, watching a tiny kid trotting awkwardly beside its mother. “That's Talking Flea Street they're coming from, isn't it?”

“Yes. How did you know? My father rents out a house there. The street's run-down, but it's cheap. There's even some pasture left farther along, that's why the goatwoman lives there.”

The goats were turning toward the city, as though they knew their way, and Hyacinthe was murmuring to herself and scrabbling in the heavy bag she carried. As she drew out a hunk of black bread, she looked up and saw Charles. She froze, staring at him, and then ran at him with her stick poised like a sword.

“I told you!” Her voice was a high-pitched sing-song. “I tell you again. Follow the dead, find your death!” The whites of her faded eyes showed and she seemed to be looking through Charles.

Coriot and Charles backed hastily into the weeds. “Calm yourself, Grandmère,” Charles called, wondering what it was about him that set her off. Maybe, he thought wryly, she didn't like Jesuits, either. The first time, he'd taken her words as warning, but maybe they were a threat. More likely, though, she was only crazy, like so many poor and lonely old women.

She retreated into the midst of her goats, like a lord surrounded by his protecting ring of retainers, and went on her way, eating bread. Which made Charles remember again that he'd missed midday dinner. He doubted he'd be offered anything at the Coriot house, given his errand.

“We go this way to get back to the rue Saint Jacques and my house,” Jacques said, starting down the steeply sloping right-hand lane. “What was the goatwoman talking about?”

“Who knows?” Charles shrugged. “I think the poor old thing imagines dangers everywhere.”

The sloping lane took them back to the rue St. Jacques, and then it was a short walk to the Coriot house, which was set back from the road a little north of Notre Dame des Champs. Which started Charles wondering, for what seemed like the hundredth time, why Paul Lunel had been killed in Notre Dame des Champs.

“Stop a moment, Monsieur Coriot,” Charles said. “Did Paul Lunel stay in your house during the time everyone thought he was in the Novice House? On your soul, I want the truth.”

“No,
maître
.” Coriot seemed puzzled by the question. “He never stayed here, though his brother, Alexandre, did. He was with us when Paul went to the Novice House. Then Alexandre went to his mother in the country.”

Charles thought of something else. “Do you know if Paul liked to go and pray in Notre Dame's crypt?”

The boy shrugged and sighed. “He stopped talking to me about those things.”

Coriot rang the bell hanging beside the gate, and a servant opened it. In the cobbled court spread before the old stone house, two young men in black legal robes copiously trimmed with black ribbons were mounting their horses. The man nearest the gate, who was red haired and freckled like Jacques, recoiled when he saw the boy and Charles.

“Jacques!” the man called. “What are you doing here so early? And with him?” He pointed his chin at Charles.

“They've tossed me out.” The boy's tone wavered between bravado and apology. To Charles, he said, “That's my brother Victor.”

“Have they? Good.” Victor Coriot adjusted his hat to a fashionable angle over his lushly curled wig. “It's about time. I have a case at the Palais. Go in to
Maman
. She'll moan at you about being thrown out, but that's a small price to pay for being quit of Louis le Grand.” Ignoring Charles, he and his companion rode toward the gate.

Well, Charles thought, it was easy enough to see where the younger brother had learned his extreme Gallicanism. Charles stepped into Victor Coriot's way, keeping an eye on the horses and ready to move fast if he had to. Victor Coriot swore and reined his big white gelding to a stop.

“A moment of your time, Monsieur Victor Coriot,” Charles said. “I know that you are a good friend to Alexandre Lunel. Do you have any thought about where his younger brother spent the three weeks between his expected arrival at the Novice House and his death?”

Charles saw the lawyer's spurs move, and he reached up and caught the gelding's bridle. The confused horse danced and laid its ears back, and Victor Coriot and Charles locked eyes.

“No,” Victor Coriot said curtly. “Move out of my way.”

Charles didn't move. “How did you account for his being killed in Notre Dame des Champs's crypt, so close to your own house?”

“Why should I account for it? I was not his keeper.”

“You cannot spare even a thought for your friend Alexandre's murdered brother?”

“At least the poor boy is saved from being one of you.” He put spurs to the horse again, sending Charles to the cobbles as the bridle was ripped from his hand. As Charles picked himself up, the other lawyer followed Coriot through the gate, smiling with satisfaction and looking neither right nor left.

C
HAPTER
21

W
hen the college bell rang for supper, Charles was the first arrival at the scholastics' table in the fathers' refectory. He stood behind his chair, waiting for the others and trying to keep himself from biting into the table's loaf of bread by going over what had happened at the Coriot house. Jacques Coriot had fled into the house while Charles was picking himself up from the courtyard pavement. Charles, seething with anger at the boy's brother, and still having Père Montville's letter to deliver, had pounded on the house door. A hatchet-faced maidservant had opened it and refused him admittance. Mme Coriot was with her son, she'd said unhappily. Charles had thrust the letter at her, adjured her on her hope of salvation to deliver it, and trudged back to Louis le Grand.

Behind him, the refectory slowly filled. All the scholastics except Maître Placide Du Pont and the Englishman arrived, grace was said, and the evening reading from the life of St. Ignatius began from the lectern. Charles was trying not to gulp his soup and eat more than his share of the bread when Du Pont hurried to the table.

Glancing at the reader, he said as quietly as he could, “Have any of you seen Maître Wing?”

The scholastics exchanged anxious looks and shook their heads.

Cold with apprehension, Charles put his spoon down and beckoned Du Pont closer. “He went with me to Père Quellier at the Novice House this morning, but he was supposed to come back here on his own. I had to stay on an errand.”

“Do you know for certain that he returned?”

“No, I don't.”

“So you are the last of us to have seen him.”

“If he didn't return, yes, I am. I told him to go straight back here by the way we'd come. He couldn't possibly have gotten lost!”

“I agree. Will you come with me, please?”

But Charles was already on his feet. Père Le Picart had not come to supper and they finally found him in the dark chapel, praying before the main altar. While they waited for him to finish, Charles prayed hard that Wing was only lost. The soft movement of cloth recalled Charles as Le Picart got stiffly to his feet, the altar's candlelight gilding his thin face.

“What is it?” The rector's shadowed eyes went from Du Pont to Charles. He glanced around the empty nave. “Tell me here. We are private.”

Du Pont said succinctly, “Maître Wing seems to be missing,
mon père
.”

Le Picart drew in a sharp breath. “God forbid. Where have you looked?”

“Everywhere he might be. Everywhere I could think of, at least. None of the theology scholastics have seen him since the morning.” Du Pont looked at Charles.

“You know that he was going to be coming back alone after his extra session with Père Quellier,” Charles said. “He promised me that he would come straight back by the way we'd gone, the only way he knew. I never thought to check that he was back. I should have.”

Le Picart made no response to that. “Go to the police
barrière
, Maître du Luc, and—no, it's late, the
sergent
may not be there. Go straight to our
commissaire
and bring him to my office. He will have heard the happenings in the neighborhood during the day and may be of some help. I will also send for Lieutenant-Général La Reynie.” To Du Pont he said, “Check Maître Wing's room again, also the library, the latrines—in case he is ill—and the other small chapels. I've heard that his devotions wander all over the college.” A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, but his eyes were full of worry. “And Maître du Luc, when you return with the
commissaire
, send him on to me and stop at the bakery. Ask the LeClercs if they've seen Maître Wing. I've also heard that he wanders to the bakery and that Marie-Ange slips him little morsels. And we all know that Madame LeClerc keeps a good watch on the street.”

Charles and Du Pont bowed and left the chapel, nearly running. The neighborhood's police
commissaire
lived in the Place Maubert, a few minutes' walk from the college. As Charles went, running in reckless earnest in the small dark streets where there were few lanterns and no one around to see him, he hoped that the
commissaire
wouldn't simply send his
sergent
. The
sergent
was slow and stolid, and Charles's gut told him there wasn't time for that. But when he reached the
commissaire
's
house, his heart sank. At night, people often took their problems straight to the house, and the lantern-lit courtyard was full of shouting, arguing people. The
sergent
, threatening both sides indiscriminately with his stick as he tried to keep order, turned with relief to Charles.

“What is it,
maître
? So long as it's not families, I'll do anything you want if it'll get me away from this! We've got a girl who's slapped her mother-in-law over a stolen frying pan, and a sister-in-law who's come after the girl with a knife, and the husband, intelligent soul—who was the only other witness—has slunk off to some tavern.”

“I'm almost envious,” Charles said, half smiling. “I'm afraid we have something worse. Another missing Jesuit. The rector begs Commissaire Tourette to come quickly to his office.”

The
sergent
grimaced. “Leaving me with these squawking hens. Ah, well. I'll go and tell him.” A grin split his big, good-natured face. “You want my stick while I'm gone?”

Charles laughed and the
sergent
plodded through the furious women, shaking his head and his stick at every question. Charles drew back into the courtyard shadows, but not before a bedraggled matriarch holding a gnarled hand to her face spotted him and came at a waddle.

“You tell her,
mon père
, she'll never go to heaven treating me like she does! Honor your mother, it says! And your mother-in-law, too. I only borrowed her filthy frying pan and that's another thing. Dirty?! You've never seen—”

She was still in full spate several minutes later when the
commissaire
came out of the house in his official black robe and hat. He nodded at Charles, set the matriarch briskly aside, and made for the courtyard doors like a man sighting freedom. Charles glanced over his shoulder at the abandoned
sergent
and saw that the outraged woman had cornered him and was starting over with her story.

A wind had begun to blow again from the river, tangling cloaks and sending the reaching fingers of winter down collars. Commissaire Tourette jammed his hat more securely down on his wig. Charles reached up to secure his own hat and realized he'd rushed from the refectory without it. As they walked, he told Tourette all he knew about Maître Henry Wing. When he finished, the man pulled a wadded handkerchief from his coat pocket, honked into it, and shook his head.

“I hate this wind. Well, I've been praying you wouldn't lose another one. But it seems God's not hearing me. Has anyone found this one's clothes?”

Charles felt his stomach twist at the
commissaire
's bluntness. “No. Not that we know of. That may be to the good.”

But Tourette's assumption that Wing was dead hung in the air like fog. When they reached the bakery, Charles sent Tourette
on to the college postern and knocked on the LeClercs' door. No one came. Charles tried to peer through the crack in the shutters. The shop was dark, but light showed from the room next to it. He was about to knock again, when an approaching light glimmered.

“Who's there?” a deep male voice bellowed.

The baker, Charles thought, realizing he'd only seen the baker, whose name was Roger, twice in all the time he'd been at Louis le Grand. Not surprising, since bakers did much of their work at night, but it was Mme LeClerc Charles wanted to see.

“It's Maître du Luc from the college,” Charles shouted back. “I must speak with you and your wife.”

The bar on the door thudded as the baker set it aside, a key grated in the elaborate lock, and Roger LeClerc held up his candle and glared at Charles. “You'll have to speak with me. What?”

“Forgive me for disturbing you,
monsieur
,” Charles said.
“The rector sent me to ask if you or Madame LeClerc have seen our English scholastic Maître Wing today. He's missing.”

LeClerc blinked at Charles, frowning, but before he could answer, his wife's voice called, “Who is it, Roger? If it's not the police or beggars or students, bring him in, I haven't seen anyone all day and what am I to do, be as silent as a turnip because of a baby?”

Charles's eyes opened wide. “Has the baby come already?”

LeClerc shook his head and sighed like a storm gust. He opened the door a little wider and Charles saw the worry in his face. “It's trying to come but it's too early. She's had hell since the afternoon.”

“Roger, bring whoever it is inside and shut the door, I am freezing!”

Reluctantly, the baker let Charles in. Marie-Ange put her head around the door between the shop and the room next to it, and when she saw Charles, she ran to him and hung on his arm. Her father started to pull her back, but Charles smiled over her head at him.

“It's all right,
monsieur
.” He looked down at the little girl. “How is your mother,
ma petite
?”

Her brown eyes were wide with fear. “It's hurting her so much. I don't know how to help her. She—”

“Maître!”

The three in the shop jumped and looked toward the inner doorway. Charles, at least, was reassured by the volume of Mme LeClerc's impatient shriek.

“I can hear that it's you,
maître
, come in, don't mind my old Roger, he thinks I'll break if anyone looks at me, but if no one comes to talk to me, I tell you I will die of boredom just to spite you all—that is a joke, Marie-Ange. But come in here, all of you, if you don't want to find a madwoman in the morning!”

LeClerc rolled his eyes and shrugged. Marie-Ange seized Charles's hand and dragged him into a large, square room with whitewashed walls, warm from its big fireplace surrounded by cooking utensils. Mme LeClerc lay back on pillows in the large bed, under a faded green quilt. The green bedcurtains were wound tidily around the bedposts and a picture of the Holy Family was tacked to the wall above the bed. There was a table, a bench and an armchair, a tall cupboard, and several old chests. Beyond the hearth, a small bed stood in a shallow alcove.

Mme LeClerc's round face was pale and sweating, but she smiled at Charles across the hillock of her belly and held out her hand to him. “You see me as God made me,” she said, tucking a swath of curling chestnut hair under her white linen cap. “Well, not exactly, perhaps, but . . .” Her eyes closed and she grimaced in pain. “Ah, blessed Saint Anne, enough! Roger, I've said it before and I say it again, the furnishings for marriage beds are green because green is the color of fools and here you see what happens to one of the fools in the bed!” Another spasm shook her.

Charles looked anxiously at the baker. “Has the midwife been?”

“Yes. She's coming back tonight. She says the baby may come or may wait.” The man's tired face softened a little. “Marie-Ange asked your porter Frère Martin for a tisane from the infirmarian. I said how would a Jesuit know what to give a pregnant woman, but whatever he sent gave her some ease and I'm grateful.” He sighed and rubbed his drawn face. “As for what you asked me—no, I've not seen your Englishman today. And my wife and Marie-Ange have been only in the chamber there.”

“Have you lost Maître Wing?” Marie-Ange said, pouring water into a cup. “I hope not, I like him.”

“Wing?” Mme LeClerc drank a little as Marie-Ange held the cup to her lips. “That English Henri, like the old king? Hah. If that one's gone off somewhere, I can imagine where. To put some other poor woman in this plight.”

Charles stared at her and then laughed out loud. “No,
madame
, truly, not this Henri.” He patted her hand. “I will pray for you,
madame
, and that the little one waits his time. Or if not, that you'll both be well and strong.”