He awoke to a familiar smell and the noise of the curtains being drawn back. On a little table, one of the servants placed a pot of steaming beverage, a cup and a plate of rolls which Nicolas assumed were home-made. Doubtless accustomed to being discreet, the servant did not even look at him. As he was finishing his breakfast, the door opened and a small shape in a white nightdress crept up to him.
‘Good morning, Monsieur. I’m Gabriel. I’m five. Did you sleep well?’
‘Very well thank you, and good morning to you.’
‘I’d like to ask you something … something …’ He hesitated, and Nicolas gave him a smile of encouragement.
‘You’re the first friend of my father’s I’ve seen here. Why is that?’
Nicolas felt quite embarrassed. How could he answer the child? Did the boy know his father’s occupation? It seemed unlikely that Sanson could have concealed the true nature of his work from his children, running the risk that they might discover it by chance later on and be doubly shocked. But Nicolas did not know that for certain. How was he to handle this?
‘I think your father is so pleased with his family that it’s the only thing he needs to make him happy. He has friends, but he only sees them in the city.’
The boy frowned, seemed to think hard about this, then relaxed. His eyes thanked Nicolas. The explanation, weak as it was, had no doubt answered an unformulated question. He left the room without saying a word, just as he had entered. Nicolas washed and dressed. He carefully disguised himself again as the clerk of the court, although he had difficulty in finding enough dust for the finishing touches. While waiting to leave, he leafed through some devotional books he had found in a little cupboard. This house, so peaceful, so distant from the horrors of the world, was nevertheless the home of the public executioner.
Towards midday, he went downstairs. Sanson had been called away on some dreadful task. His wife greeted Nicolas warmly. She told him how happy her husband had been with his visit, and made him promise to do her the honour of returning another time. She did not seem surprised to see him in his unprepossessing disguise. She was a woman of discretion and duty, and nothing could surprise her.
Madame Sanson let Nicolas out of the house through a little concealed door into Rue d’Enfer. He walked along the street a little way, then turned round and walked back towards Rue Poissonnière. He wanted to make sure he was not being followed. He had done enough tailing of suspects not to be caught out himself. He soon came to the Hôtel des Menus Plaisirs. He knew that this fine-looking building served as a storehouse for all the machinery, decorations and clothes used in Court celebrations. Visiting it one day, he had been taken aback by the juxtaposition of material left over from a grand ball with the remains of the catafalque from a princely funeral. He did not have to wait long for Bourdeau. While he waited, he was amused by the number of pretty young women coming in and out, some little more than children. A few winked at him impudently as they passed. He had to admit that his curiosity was aroused: his appearance was hardly calculated to stir such interest. Then Bourdeau’s carriage loomed up, a door opened, and he leapt in.
‘I hope you didn’t wait too long,’ said the inspector, in a jovial tone.
‘Not at all. You’re as accurate as the clock on the Palais de Justice.’
‘You seemed puzzled.’
‘Yes, I was wondering about all those pretty women going into the building. Some of them were far from shy.’
‘Ah!’ said Bourdeau, slapping his thigh. ‘That’s not unusual – it happens every day. All the girls from the Opéra and the theatres, provided they have a protector, have letters of introduction.’
‘Of introduction? To visit that establishment? For what purpose?’
‘What purpose? Why, the most appealing purpose of all for a woman. It costs as much to repair all the material left over from royal celebrations as it does to buy it new. So it’s left to the greed of these young madams. You should see them! They plunder what ever they find – satin, other fabrics. They just can’t get enough.’
‘At the King’s expense!’
‘The King’s? At our expense! The leftovers from Court celebrations being thrown away like that should trouble any good citizen concerned about the use his taxes are put to. That’s what happens when the strength of the State lies with the monarch alone. One of these days, another force will prevail, to provide a counterweight to these reprehensible excesses. Not to mention the King himself, who, they say, speculates on the price of grain to line his pocket.’
Nicolas recognised that vein of caustic criticism to which Bourdeau sometimes gave vent, often with some justification.
‘Come now, Pierre, you’re quite wrong. You’re drawing rash conclusions from dubious premises. I can’t let you say that. Can you honestly imagine His Majesty doing something like that? It’s the kind of thing you read in the newspapers and lampoons published in London and The Hague. And what kind of counterweight do you mean? Are you now in favour of the parlements, who’ve so often rebelled against the authority of the King?’
Bourdeau shook his head, unconvinced. ‘I’m not thinking about the parlements, but about the people. They have no voice, no one to speak for them.’
The carriage suddenly swerved violently, throwing Nicolas on to the inspector. They heard oaths and cracks of the whip. The coachman’s window opened.
‘I’m sorry, gentlemen, it was a delivery boy who was daydreaming as he crossed the street. We almost knocked him over.’
The carriage set off again. To their right, Nicolas saw a curly-haired young man with an alarmed expression on his face, wearing a tight white apron and carrying in one hand a silver coffee pot and in the other a tray with a bowl and a pyramid of cups he had miraculously saved from disaster. When they reached the Châtelet, Doctor Semacgus, his face tense with annoyance, was waiting for them in the duty office.
‘What can you tell me?’ asked Bourdeau. ‘Have you finished your research? Can we close the case?’
‘Far from it,’ replied the surgeon. ‘There was indeed poisoning …’
‘We already knew that.’
‘Yes, but I’ve now established premeditated poisoning. All my observations – and of course I checked everything several times – lead me to this assertion.’
Nicolas felt a chill descend on him, and he had to sit down on a stool. So, what he had suspected from the start had at last been confirmed.
‘And what are your reasons?’ asked Bourdeau.
‘Oh, two rats! Or rather, six, because I did the experiment three times, which makes twelve, because I used one group for the liquid and the other for the food. The chicken didn’t produce any result, but the liquid – what a massacre! I tell you, that poison’s more effective than arsenic if you want to get rid of rats. At first the animals seemed confused, then the symptoms started coming thick and fast. Yawning, spasms, abundant sweating, squeals of distress. When they were shown water, they immediately ran to drink it, but as soon as they’d drunk it they rejected it and started crying out in pain. In the end they brought up phlegm tinged with blood. Within a quarter of an hour they were dead.’
‘And what kind of poison was it?’
‘That’s the problem. I have no idea.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That we still have to identify the corrosive ingredient in the beverage.’
‘You know it exists, then.’
‘I finally managed to precipitate it. By reducing and drying the traces of humid material, I ended up with some tiny fragments of crushed seeds.’
‘What