The Song Peddler of the Pont Neuf Page 9

  “A few weeks ago.”

  “Did she find another position?” I asked.

  The mistress sniffed. “I have no idea, monsieur. I don’t know where she has gone. She ran off on me, taking my mother’s candlesticks and a valuable rosary when she left.”

  The younger woman looked up. I caught her eye. She flushed and returned her attention to the fabric on her lap.

  Madame Dupré clenched her fist. “I gave her everything. Most of the girls who come from the provinces are useless, but I saw promise in Juliette, so I took her on as my apprentice even though she had only the most rudimentary sewing skills. I spent hours teaching her stitches. That is how she thanked me, by running off with my valuables!”

  “Could either of you tell me anything about her, where I could begin looking for her?” I asked. The younger woman, her head still bowed over her work, shook her head slightly.

  “Neither Agathe nor I know where she has gone,” the mistress snapped. “Now if you please, monsieur. We have work to do. Good day.” She turned her back on me and returned to her chair.

  I hesitated, hoping to catch Agathe’s eye, but she did not look up at me, so I voiced my thanks and left the shop.

  • •

  CHAPTER TEN

  I was relieved to leave the gloomy, oppressive surroundings of the rue de la Tixéranderie. As I headed east along the rue Saint-Antoine, I thought about Juliette Lesage. I did not want to tell my sister that her friend had deserted her mistress under unsavory circumstances until I was certain it was true. Madame Dupré had seemed very quick to blame Juliette for the theft of the missing items, and I suspected that I had not been treated to the entire story.

  I made my way through the crowds that were passing around the ramparts of the Bastille fortress. The customs gate that had guarded this busy entrance to the city had been removed some ten years ago when the traffic coming in and out had grown so heavy that delays sometimes stretched for hours. In a few minutes I was on the main road of the faubourg Saint-Antoine, an area very different from central Paris. The suburb was a community of artisans, mostly furniture makers, who, by order of the king, were not required to belong to the guilds that governed every aspect of commerce in the city proper. The quarter was somewhat pastoral, with low buildings clustered around courtyards that were used with the ground floors as work spaces on most days, while the artisans’ families lived above. Interspersed with these structures were neat, small gardens tended by farmers growing flowers and produce for the city markets; these sat brown and dormant now that winter was approaching.

  Although I heard the sounds of work coming from the courtyards as I walked down the street—the scraping of saws, the pounding of hammers, men and boys laughing—I knew that as in the city, all was not well out here. Many of the artisans were eking out a living, and jobs were becoming harder to find, even in the large wallpaper factory that employed over three hundred men.

  When I reached the rue Saint-Bernard, I turned left and walked to its end, where the Church of Sainte-Marguerite sat surrounded by a large cemetery and a small vineyard. The church, a chapel since medieval times, had been expanded a hundred years ago to accommodate the burgeoning population of the faubourg. But the entry still led into the old chapel, where I stopped and looked around, admiring its low barreled stone ceiling and tall windows set with yellow glass. Ahead of me, light poured from skylights in the roof of the lofty, spacious extension, highlighting the clean white stone of the new altar.

  I found my brother in a small chapel off the newer end of the nave. Wrapped in his vicaire’s robe, he was busy at prayer and did not notice me. While he babbled his entreaties to God in a loud whisper, I stood and considered him. He was two years older than I was, and more like Aimée in appearance. He and my sister both looked like our mother, slender and graceful, while I was short and sturdy, as our father had been. They were the greyhounds who ran in the royal hunt; I was the terrier sniffing and digging a rat out of a barn. As was usual, Bernard’s hair was unkempt, falling loosely over the scar on his left temple, where I, at age five, had hit him with his new wooden top when he refused to let me have a turn.

  I cleared my throat. My brother started.

  “Paul! What are you doing here?” He rose from his knees, frowning. “Is everything all right? Is it Aimée?”

  We embraced stiffly.

  “Yes, all is well. I had some free time and wanted to see you. It’s been a while.”

  “How is Aimée?” he asked.

  “She is the same as always. She’s working hard for Madame Garsault, and dreaming of one day opening her own shop for the queen and the ladies of Versailles.”

  He smiled and waved me out of the chapel. “Come, let us sit.”

  We went out into the nave and sat in a pew.

  “And how are you?” my brother asked. “Are you making any money with your confidential inquiries?”

  I stifled a sigh. Whenever we were together, it seemed we always had the same conversation, and it always started the same way.

  “As a matter of fact,” I said, “I have a new case—a missing person case that suddenly has become more complicated. I was hired by an old man to find his missing friend, a song peddler.”

  “But surely clients of that sort cannot pay you enough to put bread on your table, or support Aimée at Madame Garsault’s,” my brother said.

  “I make a good wage. My work for the guilds and for the police brings in enough. And I’ve invested the money Father left me—”

  “But none of that is steady income.” Bernard shook his head. “I don’t know why you had to be so stubborn. Father made a good arrangement for you before his death.”

  “Apprentice to a butcher!” My voice raised a tone. “Why would I want to do that? Slinging animal carcasses around all day for some drunken master? I’m much happier working for myself, using my talents and wits.”

  “Ah, happiness,” my brother said. “That’s all everyone speaks about these days, it seems. I’m not sure happiness is what God intended for us, Paul.”

  The bells of the church sounded the hour.

  Bernard rose and adjusted his robe. “Come out to the yard with me,” he said. “I must give bread to the poor.”

  He gestured me to take one of the large bags that was standing by the doorway and we walked outside, where a line of about twenty people stood by the old cemetery, most of them looking as if they would be in their own graves soon: several old men with hollow skeletal faces; a small boy perched on crutches; stooped young women in thin brown and gray cloaks, huddling babes to their breasts; and a woman so short and shriveled I thought at first that she was a child, until she looked up and I saw her wizened cheeks and toothless smile.

  My brother put a hand on each person’s head and said a short blessing as he handed out the small half-loaves of bread. “Tell me more about this new case,” he said, looking over at me as an old man shuffled up to him. “What is so interesting about it?”

  “I’m starting to uncover evidence that the peddler was involved in blackmail. He may have been threatening someone high up in the police department. Now he’s dead—murdered.”

  Bernard raised a brow. “Murdered? What have you gotten yourself into?” He turned to the old man, handed him bread and blessed him. “Be careful,” he said, turning back to me. “Don’t go poking about where you aren’t welcome.”

  “The blackmail victim might be a man named Duval, who is the inspector for publishing. But I haven’t been able to find any connection between him and the dead song peddler.”

  A thin, emaciated man with wispy red hair and a slight limp approached us from the line. Bernard looked at him and lowered his voice. “I don’t recognize you—are you from this parish?”

  The man’s face colored. He dropped his head. “No Father,” he muttered. “I’ve just come to the city from Poitou, looking for work.”

  My brother nodded toward the doorway to the church. “Step over there and wait for me,” he said softl
y. The man limped away. “I’m not allowed to feed immigrants,” he said to me. “I’m supposed to send for the police so they can arrest him for vagrancy.” He shook his head. I saw him slip the bread into the pocket of his robe.

  “I’ve told you enough about me,” I said. “How are you? You look tired.”

  Bernard handed bread to the last person in the line. He looked after the beggars as they straggled out of the churchyard.

  “As you can see, the work here is frustrating right now,” he said. “There is so much poverty. Those people are the ones that are better off than most. At least they are able to walk here to get food. Many are so ill or disabled they cannot leave their homes. I’d like to be able to visit them and bring them food, but the curé won’t allow it. He treats me as though I were his personal servant. I spend more time tending to his errands and needs than to the people.”

  “Have you heard of any open positions for curés?” I asked. “Certainly you are qualified for a promotion, if not in Paris, then somewhere in the provinces.”

  He scowled. “Don’t be naïve,” he said. “Every vicaire in the city is looking to move up, and most of them have more money and better connections than I do.”

  “But Father left the bulk of his money to the church,” I said. “Shouldn’t that count for something?”

  “Yes, that’s what got me my position here,” Bernard said.

  I snorted. “I suppose most of his money went to pay for daily prayers to absolve him of his sins,” I said.

  Bernard looked down at me and shook his head. “Don’t be so bitter, Paul,” he said. “You only do yourself harm.” He waved to the immigrant waiting by the door.

  “Perhaps you could find someone in the parish, a wealthy merchant or artisan, to act as your patron,” I suggested.

  He shook his head. “No. I must be content with my lot. This work is what God has called me to do. Now, I must prepare for Mass. Thank you for coming. Send my love to Aimée.”

  We embraced.

  “I’ll try to come again soon,” I said. He nodded. I watched as he headed to the church door. Our arguments were always the same. My brother lacked ambition. He didn’t have the will to push himself ahead. The church was like everything else in France. If a man lacked money and family connections, he needed industry, energy, and even some impertinence in order to succeed.

  As Bernard pulled the bread out of his pocket, handed it to the beggar, and blessed the man, I turned and left the churchyard.

  Although I don’t use it myself, I keep a small store of tobacco in my cupboard to give to various people I meet during my investigations. I’ve found that giving witnesses and informants small gifts often helps to jog their memories or persuade them to tell me something they would at first withhold. On Tuesday morning I took a few plugs of tobacco from the box, shoved them into my cloak pocket, and walked over to the Île de la Cité to see Vincent Chéron. A bracing cold had settled over Paris during the night, and I lowered my head against the blustering wind as I crossed over the Seine on the Petit Pont.

  In the square in front of Notre-Dame, three well-dressed tourists, guidebooks in their hands, gaped at the towers of the great cathedral. A small group of young rowdies circled them. The slightest of the boys, whose delicate, almost girlish features belied his devilish intentions, sidled closer to one of the foreigners, his hand ready to snatch the man’s purse from his pocket.

  “Pascale!” I called. “Come here!”

  The boy stopped in mid-snatch, turned, and, seeing me a few paces away, shouted something to his cohorts. The boys ran around the corner of the cathedral in the direction of the Pont Rouge and the Île Saint-Louis. The tourists, oblivious to the catastrophe they had escaped, chatted happily as they climbed the steps of the cathedral and went inside.

  I continued into the rue Chanoinesse. In the Middle Ages this area had been populated by canons, their neat, sturdy houses nestled in the maze of curving streets north of the cathedral. As one moved up a block toward the Seine, the houses were replaced by tenements, flimsy and dilapidated, packed with rough men who worked on the river or the nearby quais.

  The buildings on the rue Saint-Landry sat directly on the water’s edge. Spaces in between them served as small quais where workers could leave their boats. I walked down to the church that gave the street its name. Across from it I saw the cobbler’s shop that Chéron had mentioned. I entered the shop, asked for the song peddler, and was directed to the third floor by a harried apprentice.

  Chéron answered my knock at once and ushered me into his small, dark room.

  “Did anyone follow you?” he asked as he gestured me to a stool next to a rickety table.

  “No,” I said. What was the man afraid of?

  He lowered himself onto his bed and put his head in his hands. “I cannot believe that Gaspard is dead. Murdered! Who could have done such a thing?”

  “I’m trying to find his killer,” I said. “I need your help.”

  He looked up at me. “What is it you wish to know?”

  “Did Bricon ever speak of a man named Duval?”

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t recognize the name. And I have a good memory.”

  “What was he selling, besides his songs?” I asked.

  Chéron hesitated, his eyes searching my face. “I suppose I must trust you,” he said. He stood and went to a cupboard in the corner of the room. He opened it and pulled out a large, battered wooden box.

  A knock sounded at the door. Chéron shoved the box into the cupboard and went to the door. He opened it a crack.

  “I’m going to the bridge,” a deep voice said. “Are you ready?”

  “No, Émile,” Chéron said. “I have a visitor. I’ll see you over there in a while.”

  “All right. But don’t be too late, or I’ll steal all your customers.” The man laughed and clomped down the stairs.

  Chéron closed the door and retrieved the box from the cupboard. He placed it on his bed, took off the lid, and removed a pile of pamphlets, which he handed to me.

  “A few weeks ago, right before he disappeared, Gaspard gave me these. He told me that if any of his special customers asked for him, I could sell these to them.”

  I looked through the pile. Most of the pamphlets were of the type usually sold on the street, each about four pages long, with various titles splashed in large type across their fronts.

  “Did he tell you why he couldn’t sell them himself?” I asked.

  “He told me he might have to disappear for a while. I asked him why, but he wouldn’t say.”

  Ah, I thought. Bricon was about to start blackmailing Duval, and expected some trouble.

  “He told me to be careful with them. I shouldn’t advertise that I had them, and I should only sell them to customers who asked for a specific title. He said I could charge a few sous for each one, but that if I wasn’t cautious, they might be more trouble than they were worth.”

  “What do you think he meant?” I asked.

  “Well, I assumed that some of them were illegal.”

  I opened the pamphlet on the bottom of the pile. It was longer than the others, about twenty pages, with denser type. My eyes widened with recognition as I flipped through the pages.

  “Please, take them all,” Chéron said. “If they had anything to do with Gaspard’s murder, I don’t want to have them in my possession. Maybe you could try to find the publisher. Somehow I had the impression that Gaspard was having some sort of disagreement with him.”

  “All right,” I said. “It’s a good place to start.” I rolled up the pamphlets and tucked them into my cloak pocket. I pulled out some tobacco and handed it to Chéron. “Thank you for talking to me.”

  His eyes lit up as he took the tobacco. “Thank you,” he said. “That’s another reason I’ll miss old Gaspard. He always had a plug of tobacco for his friends on the bridge.”

  “Can you think of anything else I should know about him?” I asked.

  He shook his head.
“No. He was just another poor song peddler, like me, trying to make a living in hard times. I really didn’t know much about him. He never talked about himself or his past. That’s an unwritten rule on the bridge. Everyone leaves everyone else alone.”

  I shook his hand and turned to the door.

  “I’ll miss that beautiful song he used to sing, though,” Chéron said. “The one about Geneviève.”

  “Geneviève? Sainte Geneviève?” She was the patron saint of Paris.

  “No, not the saint. This song was about a real woman. He wrote it himself, he told me. It was full of longing, and Gaspard would be near tears whenever he sang it.”

  “Who was she?”

  “I don’t know,” Chéron said. “I asked him once, but he wouldn’t say. He just shook his head sadly and said: ‘A dream from long ago, my friend. A dream from long ago.’”

  • •

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When I returned to my lodgings, Charlotte was in my room cleaning out my stove and cooing at the bird.

  “Where did he come from?” she asked as I hung my cloak in the cupboard, leaving the pamphlets in the pocket.

  “He flew in the window yesterday morning,” I said.

  She turned from shoveling the ashes from the stove and frowned at me. “Why did you open the window? The air outside is bad for your health,” she said.

  “I opened it for only a minute, to clear my head.”

  She dumped the ashes into her bin, stood, and went to the cage. “Chirrup, my sweet,” she said. The bird chirped back at her. “Oh, my, he is very charming. Will you keep him?”

  “I don’t know. He must belong to someone in the neighborhood. I’m going to place an advertisement looking for his owner. But if no one comes for him, I suppose I’ll keep him.”

  The bird chirped.

  “What is that, little one?” Charlotte asked him. “He wants to stay here, he says. He is fond of this cage.” She laughed. “It’s certainly big enough. He has plenty of room to move around. Why, it’s the Versailles of cages!”