shouldn’t be too hard to find out. Someone relatively new to the city, like her, would usually choose the nearest one.’
‘If we find out who it is, we’ll have to talk to him. You know from experience how much useful information a will can sometimes contain. But the most urgent thing is to question the servants and the dinner guests. Do you think you can draw up a list?’
‘I can tell you how many there were without any problem. But who exactly they were will be more difficult to find out. When I arrived for the first time, late that afternoon, the people there, apart from Julie and the two servants, were Monsieur Balbastre, the organist of Notre Dame, a musician who was playing the pianoforte, and four young men playing whist. All a bit vague, as you see.’
‘Monsieur Balbastre may be able to tell us more,’ said Bourdeau. ‘Let’s draw up our plan of campaign. First, question Julia and Casimir, who are at the police station in Rue du Bac. Commissioner Monnaye’s in charge there. Have you ever met him? He’s always seemed to me to have rather a sharp tongue.’
‘That’s an understatement. I’ve heard of some very unfriendly remarks about me and some caustic writings in prose and verse about Monsieur de Sartine. If he’d seen them, it would have made his wig fall off.’
‘There’s no time to waste! Adjust your false belly – it’s dangling on the right-hand side – you look all lopsided!’
The door of the office suddenly burst open, and the Lieutenant General of Police appeared.
‘I don’t know if my wig’s likely to fall off,’ he cried. ‘But I’d like to point out that the position of Commissioner Le Floch, who is supposed – note that word, gentlemen – supposed to be recovering from his grief in a cocoon-like retreat within the royal palace, is definitely lopsided, not to say compromised.’
He came and stood in front of Nicolas.
‘Just look at this get-up! What a sight you are! A disguise like that wouldn’t look out of place on the stage. Anyone would be taken in by it. You ought to walk up and down the boulevard or display yourself at Ramponneau’s.2 Your career would take off immediately!’
Suddenly, his face creased, and he grabbed a stool, sat down, and began gasping with laughter, while the two men looked on – Nicolas anxiously and Inspector Bourdeau quite unruffled.
Notes – CHAPTER 3
1. A building in which costumes and sets from Court celebrations were stored.
2. A fashionable tavern in the outlying district of La Courtille.
Experience began to take the place of age, it had the same effect on us as years.
ABBÉ PRÉVOST
Never, thought Nicolas, had Monsieur de Sartine let himself go like this in front of those closest to him. The object of his hilarity must really be worth it. Every time he looked at the stunned expression on Nicolas’s face, not to mention his absurd costume, his laughter started up again, louder than ever, lighting up his face and fleetingly making him look his real age. His usual gravity and composure were cracking like a veneer, revealing a rough sketch of a happy adolescent. But gradually he calmed down, grew serious again and anxiously adjusted his wig.
‘I imagine, Commissioner,’ he said, ‘that you were expecting some fit of anger on my part. It would certainly have been justified. There are many things I could say about your thoughtlessness – if that is not too weak a word. It’s beyond my understanding that you should have heeded the poisoned advice of a friend acting on my orders. To give Bourdeau his due, he was not at all happy at the idea of deceiving you.’
Nicolas cast an indignant glance at Bourdeau, who did not flinch.
‘Oh, you can forgive him. He defended you tooth and nail, being more convinced of your innocence than anyone, even before it had been established that this was a criminal matter. No use looking at me with that air of dismay. You’ve been with me for nearly fifteen years. Have I ever struck you as being so naïve as to take a suspect purely at his word? For, whether you liked it or not, that was what you were, potentially, even though my natural inclination and my warm feelings towards you led me to believe you innocent. Those feelings, anyway, were the man’s, not the Lieutenant General’s. You know my love of secrecy. I wanted to see you at work on an investigation where you would be free to do as you wanted, knowing that Bourdeau would keep me informed of everything.’
‘Monsieur,’ said Nicolas, taking advantage of a pause, ‘one question, just one question. Why has this test – not that I’m complaining about it—’
‘I should hope not! You are hardly in a position to do so, and I note that you don’t exactly seem overcome with remorse.’
‘Why,’ Nicolas pressed on, ‘has this test suddenly come to an end? If you’d let it continue, you’d have been able to back up your judgement even more conclusively.’
‘Now he’s giving me advice! Reason away if you must, but I have my own reasons for acting as I do, and I don’t need to give an account of them to you. Try not to provoke me. I have every justification to be angry with you for your lack of honesty.’
‘But what should I have done, Monsieur?’ protested Nicolas. ‘Should I have come to you and denounced a friend who had thrown me a lifeline? In not doing so, I wasn’t betraying you. I was discreetly helping justice to do its work, since I was best placed, because of my intimacy with Madame de Lastérieux, to sift the truth from the lies.’
‘There speaks a pupil of the Jesuits in Vannes,’ said Sartine. ‘But all I’m concerned with is the facts. Bourdeau’s reports have certainly tipped the balance in your favour. There remains one factor, which will be decisive in restoring the trust I fully concede to you as a man and would like to restore to you as the Lieutenant General of Police too, Nicolas.’
‘I am at your service, Monsieur.’
‘I want you to tell me in as much detail as possible about your second visit to Julie de Lastérieux’s house on the night in question.’
‘That’s easy, Monsieur,’ replied Nicolas. ‘I went back after my visit to the Théâtre-Français, determined to patch things up with Julie. As soon as I let myself into the house, I heard a lot of noise and realised that the party was still going on. That made me angry again and I decided not to show myself. As Monsieur de Noblecourt was giving a Twelfth Night dinner and I didn’t want to go back to Rue Montmartre empty-handed, I went into the servants’ pantry to recover the bottle of old Tokay I had bought for my mistress. On the way out, I bumped into someone I didn’t know, a musician I’d seen for the first time that afternoon playing the pianoforte. As I was in a hurry, I shoved him aside. Then I passed Julie’s servant Casimir and went downstairs.’
‘I can bear witness to the fact,’ said Bourdeau, breaking his silence,
