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, as he put on these coarse, musty clothes. The breeches were several sizes too big for him, and they had to look for a kind of lace to serve as a belt. The quilted waistcoat made it seem as though he had a large paunch. The wig, a black skullcap and a pair of spectacles transformed the commissioner to such an extent that he did not recognise his own reflection in the window.
‘Right,’ said Bourdeau, ‘I’m going to find Rabouine. He’s never far away at this hour. As soon as he’s dressed in your clothes, I’ll go and distract Old Marie, and he’ll slip past me. Meanwhile, you make your way to Monsieur de Sartine’s office, which is never closed. All you have to do is push the gilded moulding on the third shelf in the bookcase. As you know, there’s a secret passage there. Go down the steps to the little door that leads out to the curtain wall, over on the Grande Boucherie side. That’s where I’ll meet up with you. In the meantime, don’t move. I’ll run now and find Rabouine. To be on the safe side, I’m locking the door.’
Nicolas heard the key turning in the lock. Once alone, he found it hard to rid himself of a sense of anxiety, not for himself, but for Bourdeau. His deputy’s loyalty and devotion was dragging him – a man with a family to support and a reasonable chance of continuing his already long career in peace – down a dangerous path. This doubt was joined by another: could he deceive Sartine so deliberately, when the Lieutenant General had been so honest and patient with him? Nicolas had a remarkable gift for finding himself in these moral dilemmas, which he only resolved through painful exercises in casuistry, vestiges of his Jesuit education in Vannes, which inevitably left wounds in his soul. There was another thought that kept coming back: would he, usually so indifferent, or rather, so accustomed to the terrible sights that were part and parcel of a criminal investigation, be able to bear the sight of Julie’s corpse, or her house overrun by police? Would he be able to keep a cool head, the prerequisite for his capacity for clear thought, when he was so intimately involved? Wasn’t Monsieur de Sartine right in wanting to keep him away from the case, and wasn’t Bourdeau, carried away by his loyalty, setting them both on a very slippery slope?
By the time Bourdeau and Rabouine came for him, he had regained his composure. He was writing the note for Gaspard, which he sealed with the Ranreuil arms after slipping a few louis d’or inside
