The Song Peddler of the Pont Neuf Page 16

  “Yes.”

  “Mine also.” He stared into his beer. “It’s probably for the best. He didn’t know how to do anything but farm. There’s not much call for that these days, the way the city has changed.”

  “It certainly is different,” I said.

  “But now, your father, he’d be doing well if he still lived,” he said, looking up. “The price of bread being what it is, bakers are making a lot of money. Perhaps too much money.”

  I felt a strange need to defend my imaginary father. “Some may be, but the honest ones are struggling,” I said.

  “I didn’t mean to suggest your father would have been a thief,” Briard said. “No, please. Forgive me. I meant no insult.”

  “None taken, then,” I said.

  “Something has to change,” he said. “You have a wealthy young master, as do I, so we don’t notice the situation that much. But people in this city are suffering. So many immigrants are pouring in from the countryside looking for jobs, and there’s none to give them. Even if the bakers aren’t making money from the high prices, someone is. The king’s ministers are hoarding grain, I hear, so they can make a nice profit. It’s in the government’s interest to let the people of Paris die of starvation. The fewer people in the city, the less trouble they have to deal with, while they grab all the money.”

  “Monsieur, they’re coming out,” one of the boys shouted.

  The ostler put down his beer. “I’d better get out there before the boys give the wrong horse to the wrong nobleman. You’re welcome to stay and enjoy the warmth until your master is ready to leave. What does he look like? I’ll call for you when I see him coming out of the house.”

  I rose. “Thank you, but I’d better come outside with you. My master enjoys his wine too much, and he’ll be angry if I’m not right outside the door to help him as soon as he stumbles out.”

  He winked at me. “I know the type. We get lots of them here.”

  “Thank you for the beer and the warmth,” I said. “I enjoyed talking to you.”

  We shook hands. “If you’re ever here again, just come back here and ask for me. There’s no need to stand outside in this weather.”

  “I will,” I said. I followed him out of the small room into the stable.

  “Gerard! Help Jean-Luc put those wheels on the vicomte’s carriage. Don’t just stand there gaping, boy! Be quick about it! We can’t have these fancy noblemen waiting for us!”

  I followed Briard into the courtyard, where guests were streaming out of the mansion. The stable boys scurried around, delivering mounts to the men who had ridden them in, and helping the coachmen, who had returned from the taverns of Saint-Sulpice no worse for wear, to harness horses to carriages. As the carriage that had delivered Juliette and her companions drove into the courtyard and stopped at the mansion’s door, I stood back in the shadows near the stable entrance and watched. The five girls came down the steps, Juliette in the rear. As she waited for the footman to help the other girls into the carriage, she turned and looked back at the house. Her delicate features and blond hair gleamed in the lantern lights. One of her companions called to her. She turned around and climbed into the carriage. The footman closed the door after her and the carriage left the courtyard.

  I waited in the shadows for about ten more minutes, watching footmen assist drunken guests to their carriages while Briard and his boys directed traffic and restored horses to their owners. I yawned. I was tired and impatient to get home. When Cobenzl finally emerged, I followed him into the street. He waved off a lantern man and proceeded up the rue du Bac toward the Pont Royal. I followed.

  A half an hour later, after I had seen him safely inside his hotel, I burrowed myself in my cloak and started the long walk home. As I crossed over the Île de la Cité, shivering in the cold, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the tall, German-speaking watcher at all this evening. Perhaps he had finally lost interest in the young diplomat. I certainly looked forward to the day when I could do so, also.

  • •

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Early on Monday morning I dragged myself out of bed, determined to go to the rue de la Poterie and question my client’s neighbors before they left for their daily labor. But as I refilled my bird’s food and water dishes and let him fly around the room, I reluctantly acknowledged that there was another errand I must do first. I hadn’t wanted to be discovered with Montigny’s dead body when I had found him on Saturday, but my conscience now told me that I must go to the city morgue, identify the old man, and pay for a decent burial for him.

  The morgue was located on the ground floor of the Châtelet, on the prison side, opposite to the wing where I attended police court. I’d never been to a morgue before, so it was with a bit of trepidation that I followed the directions of a guard down several dank hallways and pushed open a large, heavy door. I found a spacious, windowless room filled with long rows of cots, most of which contained bodies that were mercifully covered with sheets. Oil lamps put out a dim light. A cloying smell overwhelmed the room. I fought the desire to cover my face with my handkerchief.

  No living person was about. “Hello,” I called. “Is anyone here?”

  A tall man with pock-mocked skin and a few tufts of dark hair on his head came from a room in the back. “Just load them onto the cots,” he said without looking at me. “Oh, my apologies. I thought you were from the Watch, with the new delivery,” he said.

  “No,” I said. “I’m here to see a body.”

  His brow twitched. “I hope you are not another tourist,” he said, pursing his lips. “You have an interest in the macabre, is that it?” He folded his arms across his chest. “We cannot allow people to view the bodies.”

  “No, I am sorry,” I said. “I misspoke. I’m a confidential inquirer.” A lie formed easily on my lips. “My client—an old man—is missing. I heard talk in Les Halles yesterday that an old man had been murdered in the neighborhood. I wanted to be certain that it wasn’t my client.”

  “Ah, yes, the old man with the cut throat.” He rubbed his chin. “A gruesome case.” He pointed to a corner of the room. “He’s over there. Are you sure you want to look? Most people cannot handle the sight of a violent murder.”

  I’d seen him in a worse state than he’d be in here, I thought. “Yes. I must find my client.”

  He led me down an aisle and stopped at a cot. With a quick twitch of his hand, he pulled the sheet off.

  I had been holding my breath in anticipation of seeing the awful sight of my murdered client again, but when I looked down at the body, I exhaled in relief. The signs of Friday night’s butchery had disappeared. Montigny’s blood-soaked clothes had been removed and the wound in his neck cleaned, so it was now just a jagged cut in the old man’s bluish, almost transparent skin. The skin itself was very loose, appearing to be peeling off his arms and legs. To my disgust, tiny worms swarmed over his eyes, his mouth, the wound on his neck, and his genitals.

  “What are these insects?” I asked.

  “Maggots,” the attendant said. “They devour the body. As you can see, they don’t wait until we can get it into the ground.”

  “Surely there must be something—”

  “There’s nothing we can do to control them,” he said. “That is why we must bury him today. Is he your client?”

  “I’m afraid so,” I said.

  “I’m sorry. You can give me some information for the burial report. Did he have a family? They should be informed of the death. They will have to report it to the government so the tax men can inventory his possessions.”

  “He had no family, as far as I know,” I said. “And he had few possessions. He was poor—he worked in the cheese market.”

  “Well, in that case, if you don’t want him to be interred in the pauper’s pit, you’ll have to pay five livres for the burial.”

  I gritted my teeth and pulled out my purse. I handed him the money.

  “I’ll write you a receipt,” the man said. He wal
ked over to a desk in the back of the room, sat, and opened a large ledger.

  “What was his name?” he called to me.

  “Montigny. Hubert Montigny.”

  “Was he born in Paris?”

  “No,” I said. “But I don’t know where he came from. Somewhere in the northeast, that’s all I know.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll just put down ‘provincial’. Just give me a moment, monsieur, and I’ll cover him up for you.”

  I looked down at the old man. How did this happen to you? Did Duval murder you? How can I prove it?

  The attendant returned, handed me a receipt, and covered Montigny with the sheet.

  “It’s funny how things are sometimes,” he murmured.

  “What do you mean?”

  “This man was just in here a week or so ago. I recognized him when the Watch brought the body in.”

  “Yes,” I said. “A good friend of his had been murdered. He told me that he came here to identify him.”

  The man frowned. “Murdered? Hmm. Let me think. No. I believe you are mistaken, monsieur. If I remember correctly, the body he identified showed no signs of murder. It was an old man, a vagrant. He looked like every other poor person who dies in the street.”

  “Are you certain? I was told the man’s face had been beaten and cut, probably by some metallic object, perhaps a large ring.”

  The attendant shook his head.

  “He hadn’t been beaten to death?” I asked.

  “No. I’d say he had died of natural causes, or perhaps from the cold. Or maybe he finally had too much to drink and his body gave out.”

  “But my client—”

  “Oh, I would have remembered a man who had been beaten to death. I’d have remembered a cut and bruised face.”

  I searched my brain for a description of Gaspard Bricon, and finally remembered what Marie, the cabbage vendor, had told me. “Did the dead man have a large nose and an extremely rectangular forehead?”

  “Hmm. Let me think. No, I wouldn’t say the nose was overly large. It was an average nose. And the forehead—just an average forehead.” He scratched his own nose. “It was odd, though.” He gestured toward Montigny. “This man here—he asked me a lot of questions that day, before he identified the body. He wanted to know what would happen to it. I told him what I tell everyone. I always hold onto a body for a day or two, to give loved ones a chance to come identify it. If no one comes, I send it over to one of the churches nearby, to be put in the pit for the indigent.”

  “What did he say to that?” I asked.

  “He identified the body and paid me for a proper burial, like you just did for him. Then he asked me to send it out for burial immediately. I told him that I already had a full wagon to go out that afternoon. There wasn’t room for anyone else. He gave me a livre to take one body off and put his friend on.”

  “Do you send bodies out for burial on Sundays?” I asked.

  “No, monsieur. Of course not. That’s against the law. I’d lose my job if I did that. No. I put that body on the cart that Friday. Friday afternoon.”

  Something prickled in my mind. “I’m confused,” I said. “My client told me that his friend’s body was brought here on Friday night. On Saturday, he was at work at the cheese market and heard a boy talking about how a dead man had been found on the quai des Ormes on Friday night. He was unable to get here before you closed on Saturday, so he came in on Sunday and identified his friend.”

  The man shook his head. “No, no, that’s impossible. Like everyone else in the city, we are closed on Sundays.” He looked around the room. “Not that I couldn’t use the extra day of work, though. We’ve been so busy here since it started to get cold. Every morning the watchmen bring in another few poor souls who have frozen to death on the streets.”

  I frowned.

  “No, your client was here late Friday morning. I remember because it was my son’s name day. I was planning to leave early for the celebration. Right before dinnertime I loaded your client’s friend on the wagon and sent it off.”

  “Are you certain?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  I tipped him a plug of tobacco and a few coins and left. Outside, I hurried north toward the rue des Lombards, my mind in turmoil. My client’s account of Bricon’s murder had been a fiction. The man he had identified and had paid to be buried as Gaspard Bricon had probably been just an unfortunate vagrant. But why had Montigny lied to me? And where was the old song peddler?

  • •

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Hubert Montigny had been the second person to be less than truthful to me about the song peddler. He was dead and could not explain himself, but the first person was very much alive, and was about to tell me everything he knew.

  The Café Diamant in the rue des Lombards was busy with workmen eating dinner. When the tavern keeper directed me to an empty seat, I asked if he had seen Hyacinthe de Breul.

  “The vicomte?” He assumed an air of false deliberation. “No, monsieur. I have not seen him today.”

  “Are you certain?” I asked.

  He gestured around the room. “If you do not see him, monsieur, he is not here.”

  I pointed to a stairway in the back corner of the room. “Where does that lead?” I asked. “To the private rooms? Is that where the gamblers meet?”

  He grabbed my arm as I headed to the stairs. “No, monsieur. There is no gambling in this establishment. Please—”

  I freed myself from his grasp and bounded up the stairs.

  “Monsieur, you cannot go up there,” he called after me. “It is my private quarters. My wife—”

  I stopped on a landing with three doors opening off it. I pushed open the closest door. The room was small and stuffy, filled with tobacco smoke. Hyacinthe sat around a large round table with three other noblemen, their clothing as bedraggled as his. In the corner, a burly man with bloodshot eyes and a full beard stood idly tapping a cudgel against his palm. All of the men looked up at me.

  “Paul!” Hyacinthe exclaimed. “Have you come to play? We’re almost finished with this round. We can deal you in in a few minutes.”

  “I’m not here to play cards, Hyacinthe,” I said. “I must speak with you.”

  The tavern keeper appeared on the landing behind me. “Gentlemen, my apologies,” he said. “Monsieur, I must insist that you leave right now. If you refuse, I will summon someone to remove you.”

  “It’s all right, Armand,” Hyacinthe said. He stood. “Excuse me, please,” he said to the other players. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  “Don’t be too long,” one of them, a fat man in a garish red suit, said. He laughed. “You owe me a hundred livres.” I noticed him exchange glances with the guard in the corner.

  Hyacinthe and I followed the tavern keeper out to the landing. The man glared at me and hurried down the stairs.

  “Did you have to come here and embarrass me?” Hyacinthe hissed. “Don’t you recognize the man in the red suit? That’s the comte de Marmont. I’ve been trying to get into this game for months now. Their regular fourth did not show up today, so they invited me to play. What do you want?”

  “Tell me about Gaspard Bricon,” I said.

  “That old man! Again! I’ve told you all I know.”

  “I’ve been to see the Playwright,” I said. “I know you and Bricon were selling tobacco for him.”

  He paled. “You’ve talked with Poquelin? You didn’t tell him where I live, did you? He’s after me.”

  “No, I left you out of the conversation. But I’m sure he knows where to find you. You’d better pawn a few more candlesticks and pay him what he’s owed. Now tell me, where is Bricon?”

  Hyacinthe shrugged. “I have no idea. As I told you, I haven’t seen him in a few weeks.” He frowned. “I thought you told me he was dead.”

  “My source gave me incorrect information,” I said. “I don’t know if he’s dead or alive. Tell me about your arrangement with him.”
<
br />   “We were business partners. I met him on the Pont Neuf one evening when I was flirting with the waitress in the café. He was looking for someone to help him sell tobacco—someone who could go places he couldn’t.”

  I nodded. “A nobleman, like you.”

  “Yes. No one else knew we were partners except Poquelin. That’s why I spent so much time over on the bridge. Bricon would pass supplies to me, I would turn in the money I had made, and he would give me my share of the profit from the week before. I suggested that he pretend to harass me with his songs, so that no one would suspect we were in business together.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “A few weeks ago. I’d handed over my earnings to him a few days before. He was going to take the money to Poquelin and bring me back my share. But when I went to meet him on the bridge, he wasn’t there. I assumed he had run off with the money instead of taking it to Poquelin. I swear to you, Paul. I don’t know where he is.”

  The burly guard stepped out of the room and put his hand on Hyacinthe’s arm. “Say goodbye to your friend,” he snarled. “You are wanted back in the game.”

  Hyacinthe turned to me. “I swear on my mother’s grave, Paul,” he said. “I don’t know where Bricon is. I wish I did. Poquelin is after me for all of our earnings. If you find the old man, bring me my money, before the Playwright kills me.”

  Despite the fact that he had lied to me before, I believed Hyacinthe when he said he did not know Bricon’s whereabouts. I was convinced that the two men’s involvement with Poquelin’s smuggling ring was unrelated to Bricon’s disappearance. I was left with two avenues of investigation: Bricon’s activities in the illegal publishing world, and the possibility that he had been blackmailing Duval. Perhaps the two avenues were connected—in the blackmail note I had found in the old man’s room, he had threatened to reveal Duval’s “heinous behavior” to the lieutenant of police. But what behavior? Was it that he knew that the police inspector was dishonest, that he misused his position to seize illegal pamphlets and profit from their resale? I sighed. My brain was muddled. I felt I was making no progress. Meanwhile, my client was dead, and I had no idea what had happened to him.