La Salle. La Salle. The name beat in time to Charles’s footsteps like a funeral drum. Who was she? If La Salle was really her name, which he doubted. Whoever she was, what was her connection to Antoine Doute? She had a connection, of that he was certain, though his certainty was irrational and fragile, woven from glimpses of her petticoat: red, rose red, bloodred now in his mind’s eye. It was full dark now and the streets were as close to quiet as Paris streets ever seemed to get. Someone’s Nemesis, Le Picart had called him, and Charles felt like Nemesis as he descended on the Place Royale and strode through the south gate beneath the Pavillon du Roi. A carriage rolled in front of him along the gravelled roadway that divided the arcaded, nearly identical houses from the square’s garden. In the garden, a few murmuring, laughing strollers still crisscrossed the paths around Louis XIII’s statue. An outburst of coarse laughter made him turn to see an obvious fille de joie dart from the ground-floor arcade and run like the wind toward the square’s ungated north-west corner. Her bare-scalped customer pounded behind her, yelling for help and pointing to his long, expensive wig, which the girl carried aloft like a trophy.
Charles left them to it and walked along the roadway, past the arcade’s closed shops and the lanterns burning by house gates. He descended abruptly from tragedy to farce: Nemesis didn’t know which house held the poisoner. Or what she looked like, except that she was small and wore a gaudy petticoat. Hoping for inspiration, he kept on doggedly around the square, looking up at the big windows glowing with candlelight and watching the gates. He supposed he could ring at every house, but a strange Jesuit asking for a servant girl would raise a flurry of questions, maybe warn his quarry and give her time to escape by a back way. His frustrated sigh was answered by a gasp from a dark stretch of arcade.
“Who’s there?” he demanded and immediately felt his face grow hot. A gasp in the dark could have reasons that were none of his business. A stifled sob followed the gasp.
“Who’s there?” he said more boldly. “Is something wrong?” Offering help was certainly his business.
Frere Fabre emerged from the arcade, his red hair shining in the light from the windows. His face was a mask of misery.
For a moment neither of them moved. Then Charles grabbed the boy, twisting his cassock into hard knots. “You followed me. Why?” Fabre turned his head away and Charles shook him. “Why?”
“When you went out, maitre, I was afraid you knew, but you went into that house on the bridge. I came here, anyway, but I didn’t warn her, I swear it! I meant to, but I couldn’t!” The boy covered his face and sobbed in earnest.
“Didn’t warn who?”
“Agnes.” Fabre tried to wipe his face on his cassock skirt and Charles released his hold. “When I got here, I kept remembering Maitre Doissin. And that it might have been Antoine. And I-” He shook his head wordlessly.
“Frere Fabre, who is Agnes?”
“My sister. My half-sister, her surname is La Salle. She’s Mme Doute’s maid.”
Charles stared at him, bereft of speech.
“You saw her at Philippe’s funeral, maitre. I was talking to her.”
“Yes,” Charles managed to say, “I remember. I didn’t know she was Mme Doute’s maid.”
Fabre nodded at the nearest gate. “She’s been here most of the summer with her mistress. The house belongs to Mme Montfort, Mme Doute’s sister.”
“Mme Doute didn’t go to Chantilly with Philippe’s body?”
“She said the journey was too much for her. She made M. Doute leave her here.”
“So you knew it was your sister who had left the gaufres. That’s why you were so upset and tried to confuse what Frere Martin said.”
“Forgive me, maitre!” Fabre’s face was full of anguish. “I told myself it had to be an accident, a mistake, she couldn’t have meant to do it!”
“You saw her leave the package?”
“Not leave it, no. I’d just polished the handles and the knocker on the big doors. For Wednesday’s performance. I took most of the cleaning things inside and when I came back for the rest, Agnes was turning away from the postern. Her back was to me and she had on a mourning veil, but I knew her by her red petticoat. She had her overskirt lifted away from the street.” He laughed unsteadily. “She wouldn’t put off that red petticoat if she was mourning a husband, let alone her mistress’s stepson. I didn’t call out to her because I didn’t have time to talk-once you get Agnes started, you’re stuck.” He looked pleadingly at Charles. “Why would she want to hurt Antoine? Maitre, she couldn’t have known the gaufres were poisoned!”
“She bought the poison herself,” Charles said. “I talked to the apothecary who sold it to her.”
“He’s lying! Or wrong. He must be, please, maitre-”
“You saw Maitre Doissin die, Frere Fabre. A hard death. You saw your sister leave the postern just after the poisoned gaufres were left. Agnes must at least explain herself. Will you go for the police? Ask someone where the nearest commissaire lives and bring him, or one of his men.”
It was the best he could think of. He couldn’t leave Fabre here to warn Agnes. And if Fabre didn’t come back-well, that would be information, too.
The boy gave the gate a last anguished look and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “I’ll go.”
To Charles’s relief, Fabre returned quickly, bringing a man in the night watch uniform of plumed hat and blue jerkin laced with silver. The man was built like a bull, with hard eyes and a mouth like a trap.
“This is Monsieur Servier,” Fabre panted. “He is-”
Servier cut across the social niceties. “What’s going on?”
“I am Maitre Charles du Luc, from the College of Louis le Grand, monsieur. A tutor died there this afternoon. From poison. Which you may already know, since our rector notified your lieutenant-general. The tutor ate poisoned gaufres intended for a little boy, Antoine Doute. The woman who left the gaufres is Agnes La Salle, maid to Mme Lisette Doute. Mme Doute is the boy’s stepmother and she is staying here with Mme Montfort, who is her sister. I want you to question the maid and the stepmother. The maid was recognized just after she left the cakes, and I know where she bought the poison.”
Servier’s eyebrows rose as he eyed the gate. “You know Montfort’s related some way to the Guises,” he growled.
“The king’s law runs here, not the Guises’, monsieur. And God’s law runs everywhere.”
“Just so you know whose broth you’re stirring. The commissaire’s not going to like this. He’s already had a murder tonight-an apprentice did for his master and they’re all in his house, witnesses, widow, accused, you should see it.” Serious offenders and witnesses were usually questioned first by the neighborhood commissaire, no matter what the hour.
Servier hitched up his belt, which supported a light sword and a small pistol, and took the pieces of a heavy wooden baton from under his cloak. He assembled them into a long, thick weapon, pulled the Montforts’s bell rope, and followed up the pull with a volley of baton blows on the gate. Running feet approached and a grille slid open.
“Tell your master that M. Servier of the watch wants to see Mme Doute and the woman Agnes La Salle.”
“My master is not at home.”
“Then tell your mistress. But first open the gate.”
The man started to bluster and Servier lifted his baton in front of the grille and slapped it loudly against his open palm. The grille slammed shut, bolts were slid back, and the gate began to open. Servier wrenched it wide and strode into the cobbled yard, Charles and Fabre behind him. The servant’s eyes grew round when he saw their cassocks.
“Please,” he said, “wait here.” He backed toward the tall, beautifully carved house door across the court.
“We’ll wait inside, if you please,” Servier said. “Or if you don’t.”
With a helpless gesture, the man hurried ahead of them to the door of the beautiful brick house, whose upper floors made three sides of the court. The lower floors housed stables and outbuildings. A lantern beside the open stable doors raised gleams from the paintwork of a coach standing inside. They followed the servant into an anteroom at the foot of a curving staircase.
“I beg you, wait here!” The man held his hands toward them as though warding off a pack of dogs and ran upstairs.
“Come on,” Servier said over his shoulder to Charles and Fabre. “But if you make a noise and the women get away, I’ll arrest you both instead.”
They went soft-footed up the gleaming stairs, toward the sound of women’s voices exclaiming and arguing. The voices grew louder as the servant emerged from a door carved with fruit and garlands.
“Who’s in there?” Servier demanded, over the man’s protests.
“I am.” The woman who had come out of the salon put enough ice into the two words to freeze the Seine from Troyes to Rouen.
The servant stepped hastily aside and walked to the head of the stairs, blocking their path. Charles made a pretense of rubbing his chin to make sure his mouth was closed. She looked like one of the goddesses cavorting on the painted ceiling above her head. Her pale hair, gathered up behind and dripping ringlets around the perfect oval of her face, was silvery in the candlelight. Little golden pears hung trembling from her ears and her low bodice spilled creamy flesh and ivory lace. One dimpled hand held up shimmering gray satin skirts. Her eyes were the blue of pond ice. Her cold gaze settled on Charles.
“Mon pere? What is this about?”
“Madame Montfort?”
She nodded fractionally.
“I apologize for this intrusion, madame. I am Maitre Charles du Luc, from Louis le Grand. I beg you to hear what M. Servier has to say.”
“I must speak with the maid Agnes La Salle,” Servier growled. “And her mistress.”
“Her mistress is unwell and is seeing no one. Why do you want her maid?”
“Because these good Jesuits have laid evidence that she poisoned a man this afternoon.”
The heavy skirts slipped from Mme de Montfort’s hand. “That is absurd! She has been with Mme Doute all day. You are mistaken.”
“I don’t think so, madame. But others will decide that.” Servier started to climb the few remaining stairs.
“No! Wait. I will bring the maid out, you can speak to her downstairs. Her mistress, my sister, knows nothing of this. She is very near her time. It’s her first and your coming here has already upset her more than enough.”
Servier and Mme de Montfort locked eyes. He smiled at her bosom and withdrew a short way down the stairs, forcing Charles and Fabre down behind him, stopping where he could still see the salon door. When she saw that he would go no farther, she went back into the salon. Voices clamored briefly and she returned with a delicately built girl a few years older than Fabre. The tendrils of hair escaping from her white coif were as red as her brother’s. Watching her over his shoulder, Servier descended to the anteroom. She had not yet seen Fabre, who had withdrawn with Charles into the anteroom’s shadows. When Servier turned around, the girl checked sharply at the sight of his baton, but Mme de Montfort forced her down the last few steps. With an assessing glance at Servier, the girl lowered her dark lashes and folded her hands at her tiny waist. Her breath came fast, swelling her plain black bodice.
“Yes, monsieur?” she said softly.
“You are Agnes La Salle?”
“Yes.” Her lips parted over small even teeth, and her voice grew breathy. “Is there-something-anything-I can do for you?”
“You left poisoned cakes at the college of Louis le Grand today. A tutor ate them and died. I am arresting you for murder, mademoiselle.”
Agnes sprang away from him and clutched at Mme de Montfort. “No! I’ve done nothing, tell him, madame!” Then she saw Fabre. “Denis?” she faltered. Emotions chased each other like clouds shredding and forming across her face. “Tell him, Denis,” she shrieked, flinging herself into his arms. “I am innocent!”
“It’s all right,” her brother said, holding her tightly. “You didn’t know they were poisoned. But I saw you at the college, and-”
She reared back in his arms. “What do you mean, you saw me?”
She wasn’t surprised at the mention of poison, Charles noted. Only at having been seen.
“I saw you leave the postern,” Fabre said. “You had on a veil, but I still knew you.” He smiled a little. “I saw your red underskirt.” His eyes pleaded with her to be the sister he’d always known. “The porter gave me the package to deliver and-it was terrible, Agnes. Antoine’s tutor ate some of the gaufres. I saw him die.”
She tossed her head and pushed him away. “Other women have red petticoats. And what does it have to do with me? Even if I brought the child some cakes, as my mistress told me to, it’s hardly my fault if some old man is ill and dies!”
“Antoine?” Mme Montfort’s face was rigid with horror. “The poisoned cakes were for Antoine?”
“What poison?” Agnes stamped her foot, as though they were all thickheaded. “The baker must have poisoned them!”
“Where did you get them? When?”
“Yesterday. From a shop on the Place Maubert.”
“But you bought poison, Mademoiselle La Salle,” Charles said quietly. “You bought aconite from the dwarf on the Petit Pont. You bought it more than once.”
“You lie! Everyone knows Jesuits lie, what you say means nothing!”
“I saw you go into his shop. M. Riviere, the apothecary, has your name and your purchases in his register.” If there was a register. But that was another matter.
She shrugged indifferently. “My mistress sends me to buy it.” Her calculating gaze flicked from face to face. “Talk to her.”
“Oh, we will, mademoiselle,” Servier said. “We will talk further with both of you. At the Chatelet, I think, since the commissaire is so busy.” He grinned evilly. The Chatelet was notorious for its torture facilities.
Agnes screamed and slammed her hand into his face, catching him in the eye, and plunged toward the door. Charles caught her and swung her around. Blinking furiously, Servier grabbed her and pinned her arms against her sides.
“It was her, it was my mistress!” Agnes screamed, writhing against his hold. “She set me to it, I won’t die for her and her brat!”
“That’s good enough.” Servier gave Charles a satisfied nod. “You hear that?” he said to Mme Montfort, who seemed to have turned to stone. “Your sister’s accused of murder. You say she’s expecting and ill. Keep her here. I’ll be back shortly and if I find her gone, madame, I’ll take you instead.”
Agnes threw back her head. “You’ll burn, Lisette,” she screamed at the dispassionate divinities on the ceiling. “Tell them, you bitch, it was you, not me!”
Stumbling on her skirts, Mme Montfort fled up the stairs. The manservant, who had been listening from the upper floor, rushed down with a cloak and Charles draped it around the now-sobbing Agnes. Fabre stood frozen, his face wet with tears.
“Judas,” Agnes spat at him, as Servier pushed her over the threshold. “You had your chance to get away from the godforsaken tannery. This was mine! Damn you to hell, you stinking Judas!”