The Song Peddler of the Pont Neuf Read online

  “I’m coming,” she yelled back. “I’m coming.”

  I took a sip of the soup. It was very hot, but weak in flavor.

  Montigny lowered his knife and fork. “I don’t understand,” he said. “The last time we met you told me you were certain Gaspard had been blackmailing someone—that police inspector. I forget the name you told me.”

  “Duval. Yes, that is still a possible explanation for his murder. You told me Bricon’s face appeared to have been beaten with a small piece of metal. I met Duval last week. He wears a large ring. Could the marks on Bricon’s face have been caused by such a ring?”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m sure of it,” Montigny said eagerly. “That makes perfect sense. The bruises and cuts could have been made by a ring.”

  “But what did Bricon know about Duval? Do you have any idea?” I continued to drink my soup.

  Montigny thought for a moment. “Wait. I just remembered something. Gaspard and I were drinking once. He had had a bit too much wine. He told me that he knew something that could destroy a very powerful person. I thought he was telling me a tale, that the wine was speaking.” His eyes widened. “It was probably this man, Duval. Gaspard decided to blackmail him and Duval killed him because of it. That must be the answer we are looking for.” He shook his head. “Oh, Gaspard! What were you thinking?”

  “You are jumping to conclusions,” I said. “If it was Duval who killed your friend, we will need evidence to prove it.”

  The waitress brought me a plate of steaming meat and a small glass of wine. Montigny and I turned our attention to our dinners.

  “By the way,” I said a few minutes later, “someone told me that Bricon used to sing songs about a woman.”

  “A woman?” Montigny frowned. “He never spoke of any woman to me.”

  “Her name was Geneviève.”

  The old man’s hand gripped his fork tighter.

  “It probably means nothing but I’ll try to find out more about her. Meanwhile, I’ll keep tracking down the publisher of that pamphlet.”

  Montigny’s hands trembled as he lifted his fork to his mouth. His gaze darted from his plate to me. A few minutes later, he threw down the utensil and rose. “Excuse me, monsieur. I did not realize it was so late. I must get back to work.” I gaped at him as he hurriedly pulled on his cloak and walked away, leaving his dinner half-eaten. He stumbled over a bench on his way to the door.

  “Where are you going?” The waitress raced after him. “You haven’t paid me yet.”

  My client stopped, pulled some coins out of his pocket, and handed them to her. She looked down at them. “What, where are my two extra sous? You have nothing for Henriette today?”

  Montigny scrambled through his pockets. He looked as if he were about to weep.

  “You can add that to my bill, Henriette,” I called. My client glanced at me and then staggered out the door.

  Henriette came over and removed his plate. “What’s gotten into him?” she asked me. “He’s here every day. He never forgets my tip.”

  “An old friend died recently,” I explained, handing her two sous. “He’s very upset about it.”

  “Oh, the poor man,” she said. “Was his friend ill?”

  “No,” I said. “But his death was sudden.”

  She opened her mouth to ask for details.

  “Henriette! The plates are ready!” the cook shouted from the kitchen on the other side of the tavern. She bustled away, satisfied with my tip and my explanation. But as I turned my attention back to my plate, I wondered: was grief for his friend the only source of Montigny’s agitation?

  I finished dinner and started to walk home. In the rue Saint-Denis, market workers were streaming back to work. As I turned into the rue des Lombards, I saw three men standing in front of the Café Diamant, deep in conversation. One of them was Hyacinthe de Breul. He glanced in my direction and grinned when he saw me.

  “If you’ve come to play cards, you are too late,” he said. “I’ve lost all my money.”

  The other men nodded greetings to me, clapped de Breul on the back, and walked toward the rue Saint-Denis.

  “Are you going home?” I asked Hyacinthe.

  He nodded.

  “I’ll walk with you a bit,” I said. We walked east on the rue des Lombards.

  “That old song peddler, Gaspard Bricon,” I said as we reached the end of the street and waited to cross. “You know more about him than you told me the other day.”

  Hyacinthe groaned. “Not this again! I swear, Paul, I’ve told you all I know about the old man.”

  After a row of carts had clattered by, we went across the street and into the rue de la Verrerie, walking along the side of the Church of Saint-Merri.

  “Bricon is dead,” I said.

  Hyacinthe stopped and stared at me, his face as white as an old lady who had overused her lead makeup pot. He squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Dead? What happened? An accident?” he asked as we continued walking.

  “No accident,” I said. “He was murdered, beaten to death.”

  We had reached the back of the church. My friend stopped at the corner that led into the church cloister, which lay in shadows to our left. “No, it cannot be,” he groaned.

  Just then a hulking man stepped out from the shadows and grabbed Hyacinthe by the arm, pulling him a few paces into the cloister.

  “The Playwright is looking for his money,” he growled. “Where is it?”

  Hyacinthe tried to pull away. “Let me be,” he said. “You have the wrong person.” The man pulled him further into the cloister. I started after them.

  The bull-necked ruffian slammed Hyacinthe against the back wall of the church. “Where’s last week’s money?” he growled.

  “I don’t know!” my friend gasped. “My partner must have stolen it.”

  “What is this about, Hyacinthe?” I asked.

  The ruffian looked over at me. “Mind your own business,” he said.

  “Tell him I need a few days,” Hyacinthe said, his voice a squeak. “Friday. I’ll have it for him then.”

  “You had better,” the man said.

  A monk poked his head around the wall, squinting to see us in the shadows. “Gentlemen, is everything all right?” The three of us turned toward him.

  “Yes, thank you,” I called.

  “Hey!” the ruffian cried. I turned back to see Hyacinthe racing through the cloister toward the rue Saint-Merri.

  The assailant laughed. “He’s a fleet-footed one, isn’t he?” He shook his head. “These noblemen are all the same. They like to pretend they are pirates, but the first time you threaten them, they piss in their pants and run off.” He fixed me with a gaze. “What about you? Are you involved with those two? Maybe you have the money for my boss?” He bared his yellow stubby teeth in an evil grin.

  “No. I don’t even know what you are talking about,” I said, backing away, my hands up in front of me. “He’s just an old childhood friend.”

  He looked me up and down. “Well, if you are a friend of his, you’d better tell him to have that money by Friday. If he and Bricon don’t pay the Playwright what he’s owed, they’ll have even more trouble.” He turned and spat on the ground. “Tell him that I’m just the first messenger. The next man is bigger than I am, and carries a knife.” He laughed again and walked away through the cloister.

  I retraced my steps past the church and walked down to the Pont Notre-Dame, my mind full of what I had just learned. So Hyacinthe had lied to me about his relationship with Bricon. The two men had been partners. But how had they become involved with one of the most notorious men in Paris, nicknamed the Playwright because he happened to share the real name of France’s most revered dramatist, Molière, who had died a century ago? I felt a tingle of excitement. Perhaps this was the missing piece I needed to solve my puzzle. De Breul and Bricon had been working for Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, the head of the largest smuggling ring in Paris.

  • •

  CHAPTER TH
IRTEEN

  I rose the next morning as the bells of the Church of Saint-Séverin were ringing nine o’clock. As I attended to the bird, I reminded myself to go to the office of the Affiches de Paris to place an advertisement for his owner before I grew too accustomed to his company.

  Yesterday’s cold had moderated a bit, and the sun was shining in a cloudless sky as I walked over to the quai des Augustins to find the bouquiniste that the bookseller in the Palais Royal, Grivaux, had told me supplied him with illegal pamphlets. Once on the quai, I walked by a large bookstore filled with customers reading newspapers and pamphlets. Across from it, several booksellers had set up small stalls at the edge of the water. The western end of the quai was filled with clergymen in full regalia milling about the entrance to the great old convent, which served as the headquarters of the national church administration.

  I found Simon Janaret’s stall across from the entrance to the convent’s church. I strolled over and looked through the books he had displayed on a wide plank placed across his cart.

  “Are you looking for anything in particular, monsieur?” he asked me. He sniffled. Janaret was thin and balding, with jug ears and listless, greasy brown hair cropped short. Hungry to make a sale, he gave me an eager smile.

  “Are you Simon Janaret?”

  “Yes, I am,” he said, sniffling again. I clenched my jaw. My father used to make the same noise, as if he constantly had to blow his nose but was too lazy to fetch a handkerchief.

  “I hope you can help me. I’m looking for a particular pamphlet—the Memoir of Madame Désirée,” I said. “I was told you sell it here.”

  His face closed. “I’ve never heard of that pamphlet, monsieur. I only sell books here. I don’t deal in pamphlets.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That is strange. Someone who sells political pamphlets told me that you supply them to him.”

  “No, not me. This person is mistaken,” he said, vehemently shaking his head. He gestured around the quai. “He must have meant another vendor.” He sniffled.

  “I’m certain that he gave me your name,” I said.

  His eyes darted back and forth. “Either you are wrong or he is wrong,” he said. “Now if you will excuse me, I have business to conduct.”

  “I’m not with the police, if that is what you are afraid of,” I said. “I’m a confidential inquirer, investigating a murder. A song peddler is dead, perhaps because he was selling that pamphlet.”

  “Too bad for him,” Janaret said, scowling.

  “Please. I must find the person who published it,” I said.

  He laughed sharply. “You are not going to find him here. Now please, let me be. You are scaring away my customers.”

  I stared at him. He turned away and busily rearranged the books on the cart.

  “All right,” I said. “I will go. But if you should happen to discover who published that pamphlet, you can find me at the wineshop near Houssemaine’s bookstore in the rue Saint-Jacques. Ask for Paul Gastebois.”

  He did not reply. As I turned and walked in the direction of the Pont Saint-Michel, I felt his eyes boring into my back.

  The area east of the rue Saint-Jacques near the Seine was lined with cheap rooming houses frequented by riverside workers and market porters. As I walked through the Place Maubert, home to the city’s second largest vegetable and fruit market, the stall keepers huddled behind their wares, their thin coats and worn gloves their only defense against the cold. Just outside the market, on the corner of the rue des Bernardins, stood an ancient tavern. I pulled open its door, found an empty seat at a long table, and ordered dinner. The tavern was like most others in Paris, simple and shabby, serving average food and drink. At the very back corner of the room, next to a large fireplace, an old blind man sat in a chair, his arms gesticulating as he spoke to his rapt audience, a young boy who sat at his feet.

  The waitress brought my meal and a tumbler of beer and I started to eat, keeping my eye on the old man and the boy. When I had eaten about a third of the food on my plate, the old man’s head drooped. As he snored loudly, the boy looked around the room. I caught his eye and waved for him to come over. He reluctantly made his way to my table.

  “Eh, Paul. What do you want?” he asked.

  “And good day to you too, Pascale,” I said. He was a small boy with an oval face and clean, smooth skin. He resembled one of the cherubs that were featured in the paintings that decorated all of the churches in the city—older, yes, and definitely thinner, but with the same artless look about his face. But a man would be well-advised to watch him closely, for this cherub would gladly slip your bulging purse from your belt, snatch your fur-lined cloak from your shoulders, or lead your new horse away while you supped in a tavern.

  “What were you doing over at Notre-Dame the other day?” I asked.

  He widened his eyes and pointed at himself with a finger from each hand. “Me? At Notre-Dame? I haven’t been over there for weeks. Just ask Old Claude over there.” He nodded toward the old blind man, who was now fast asleep.

  “Strange,” I said. “I could swear I saw you and your friends preparing to pick the pockets of some tourists who were looking at the cathedral.”

  “Oh, that day.” He lifted his shoulder in a small shrug. “I thought that might have been you I heard shouting at us,” he said. “No, Paul. You have it all wrong. I wasn’t robbing those men. I wanted to help them find their way around the Île. I was just about to ask them if they were lost when you shouted.”

  I laughed and shook my head. I had met Pascale two years ago, while I was sitting on the rue Saint-André des Arts on a surveillance job. He had been with a group of older boys who were throwing stones at street lamps. A member of the Watch had caught them in the act. The other boys had run off, leaving Pascale to face the consequences. Although only eight years old, he had puffed out his chest and attempted to cajole the watchman into letting him go. I’d recognized something of myself at the same age, so I had talked the man into releasing Pascale into my custody. He lives down the street from this tavern with his grandmother, who cleans lecture halls at the Sorbonne. When he isn’t out on the streets assisting the city’s tourists, he sweeps and clears tables here for a few coins.

  I pointed at the seat across from me. He climbed onto the bench and stared hungrily at my plate.

  “Are you available for a job this afternoon?” I asked.

  “I might be. What is it?”

  “I need to visit a man down in Saint-Marcel.”

  “I know my way around Saint-Marcel,” he said. “I could take you down there for two sous. Who do you want to see?”

  “The Playwright,” I said.

  “In that case, four sous.”

  “You said two.”

  He looked at me as though I were an imbecile. “Taking you to the Playwright’s headquarters? That’s dangerous. He’s got men watching everywhere. I could get in big trouble. Four sous or nothing.”

  “Three sous,” I said. “And I’ll promise not to turn you into the police for trying to rob those tourists.”

  He groused for a moment and then agreed. “You drive a hard bargain,” he said.

  “Do you really know where to find the Playwright?” I asked, my brows askance.

  He snorted. “Sure. I’ve been down there lots of times. I know a lot of his crew.”

  I smiled to myself. Yes, Pascale was me at that age—the ten-year-old swaggerer.

  “What do you want with him?” the boy asked, looking again with longing at my dinner.

  “Nothing you need to know about,” I said. “Just a case I’m working on.” I took one more bite from my plate and handed the rest over to him. “Here, do me a favor and help me out, will you? I’m full.”

  I drank my beer and watched Pascale wolf down the rest of my meal. When he was finished, I paid the bill. He told the tavern keeper that he would return later, and we set out up the rue de la Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, which hugged the hill behind the university buildings and monasteri
es on the rue Saint-Jacques. As we climbed the steep road, I thought about what I would say to Jean-Baptiste Poquelin when I met him. Perhaps I was being foolhardy, expecting to interview a notorious smuggler like any other witness, but I had promised my client that I would find his friend’s killer, and after Poquelin’s man had accosted Hyacinthe, I knew that I had to find out whether the smuggler had been involved in Bricon’s murder. If I could get him to admit that Bricon had worked for him, and could get him talking about the song peddler and Hyacinthe, then maybe—

  “Old Claude is teaching me a new play,” Pascale said. “We were just finishing a scene when you came into the tavern.”

  Old Claude claimed to have been an amateur actor when he was younger, before he had been blinded by a splash of lye in the soap maker’s workshop where he had worked as a journeyman.

  “It’s called Hamlet,” Pascale continued. “It’s by some man from England, named Shakespeare. It’s a tragedy. Do you know it?”

  “No, I’ve never heard of it,” I said. We had reached the top of the hill. We veered slightly to the left and skirted behind the new church dedicated to Sainte-Geneviève. Above us, the skeleton of its large dome swarmed with workers, hurrying to finish construction before winter settled in.

  “This Hamlet—he is a young prince,” Pascale said. “He lives in a big castle, called Elsinore. It’s in Denmark. Where’s Denmark, do you know, Paul?”

  “North of here,” I said.

  We began our descent down the other side of the hill, along the rue Mouffetard.

  “Hamlet has a lot of problems. His father, the king, has just died suddenly. Hamlet is supposed to be the next king—like the Dauphin would be, here—but his uncle stole the throne from him. And then, to make matters worse, Hamlet’s mother married his uncle. He hates his uncle!”

  We passed by several alehouses, their signs in Flemish and Dutch instead of French, since the dyers and cloth makers who lived and worked here were mostly immigrants from the northern countries. A few toothless old men sat on a bench in front of a large establishment, guzzling beer despite the cold weather, gawking at passersby. The aroma of hops emanated from small breweries located down the side streets. Even in the cold air the smell was strong.