The Phantom of the Rue Royale: Nicolas Le Floch Investigation #3. Jean-Francois Parot

are intact, which would be unlikely if the opposite were the case.’

      Semacgus expanded on this. ‘It would also be hard to explain the facial expression and the presence of black blood in the lungs.’

      ‘From what you can see, was the labour normal?’ Bourdeau asked. ‘In other words, is there any possibility that there was an attempt at abortion?’

      ‘Hard to say. The folds in the skin of the abdomen are undoubtedly similar to those found on a woman who has given birth. However, the marks resulting from a late abortion are generally the same as those following labour, especially when the pregnancy is advanced.’

      ‘So,’ Bourdeau concluded, ‘there’s nothing to prove that there wasn’t a late abortion?’

      ‘That’s right,’ Sanson said.

      Nicolas began thinking aloud. ‘Were we right to move the corpse and perform this unofficial procedure? If we’d left her where we found her, a spy could have stayed there and informed us if anyone recognised her. We may have interfered with the normal order of things and made our task more complicated …’

      Bourdeau reassured him: ‘We’d have arrived on her family’s doorsteps with our accusations, and can you imagine the fuss they would have made? Forget about an autopsy! They’d simply have told us she was crushed in the disaster. And, what’s more, we wouldn’t even have known the poor girl had given birth! I prefer the truth I find for myself to the truth other people expect me to believe.’

      This vigorous outburst dispelled Nicolas’s doubts.

      ‘And besides,’ Bourdeau concluded, ‘as my father, who looked after the dogs for the King’s boar hunts, would have said, at least now we can be sure we won’t mistake the front of the prey for the back. Still, the case doesn’t look as if it’s going to be easy.’

      ‘My friends,’ Nicolas said, ‘how can I thank you for all the useful information you’ve given me and for the light you’ve thrown on this case.’ Then, addressing Sanson, ‘I’m sure you know that Monsieur de Noblecourt has long wanted you to dine with him, and you’ve long refused.’

      ‘Monsieur Nicolas,’ said Sanson, ‘the mere fact that he has thought of me is a great honour, which fills me with joy and gratitude. Perhaps a time will come when I can accept.’

He left Semacgus and Sanson deep in an animated discussion on the comparative merits of Beckeri4 and Bauzmann,5 two precursors of the new science of forensic medicine. The commissioner and his deputy walked in pensive silence to the gateway of the Grand Châtelet. The storm had finally broken, and the roadway was inundated with streams of muddy water carrying rubbish along with them. Bourdeau sensed that something was troubling Nicolas.

      At last the commissioner spoke. ‘There’s one thing that puzzles me,’ he said. ‘Why did the young woman lace up her corset so tightly?’

      NOTES – CHAPTER II

      1. French baroque painter (1644–1717).

2. Cf. The Châtelet Apprentice and The Man with the Lead Stomach.

      3. A name given to Madame de Pompadour, who owned this chateau near Paris.

4. Author of Paradoxum médico-légal (1704).

      5. Author of Vernünftiges Urteil von tödtlichen Wunden (1717).

       III

       THE DEUX CASTORS

      The past is gone, the future yet lacks breath,

      The present languishes ’twixt life and death

      J.-B. CHASSIGNET (1594)

      Nicolas whistled for a cab. They had to get back to Place Louis XV, more specifically to the place where the corpses had been gathered together, to find a grief-stricken family searching for a young girl – or young woman, although the corpse lying in its sack at the Basse-Geôle bore no ring.

      Their carriage reached Rue Saint-Honoré by way of the quais and the cesspools of Rue du Petit-Bourbon and Rue des Poulies, which ran alongside the old Louvre. Nicolas looked out at these foul clusters of hovels, so close to the palaces of the kings and so conducive to every sickness of body and mind.

      The western end of Rue Saint-Honoré consisted of a long row of shops selling fashion, shops which dictated style in the city. At the beginning of each season, the master artisans of this luxury trade dispatched porcelain dummies all the way to distant Muscovy in the north and to the very interior of the Grand Turk’s seraglio in the south. These dummies bore the latest wigs and were carefully dressed in the season’s novelties. The other half of the street, towards La Halle, was given over to more down-to-earth pleasures, such as the Hôtel d’Aligre, a celebrated temple of delicacies, which had been open for a year, its window filled with hams and andouilles. One evening, Bourdeau had given him a fashionable new ragout to taste: choucroute from Strasbourg. This dish, which was now much in demand, had won acclaim from the Faculty, which had declared it ‘refreshing, a cure for scurvy, producing a refined, milky liquid that makes the blood bright red and temperate’. The establishment’s trout au bleu came directly from Geneva in their own court-bouillon, and rumour had it – a rumour confirmed by Monsieur de la Borde – that the King himself sometimes delayed his dinner if this special delivery was late in arriving at Versailles.

      Already the wet slate roofs of the Capuchin monastery near the Orangerie flashed grey on their left. The fiacre turned into Rue de Chevilly, then briefly into Rue de Suresnes, and at last neared the cemetery belonging to the parish of La Madeleine. Here, it slowed down, blocked by a dense, silent, grim-looking crowd, which was itself barred from the parish and its dependencies by a cordon of French Guards. Nicolas banged with his fist on the front of the box to stop the vehicle and stepped out. A man in a magistrate’s black robe, whom he recognised as Monsieur Mutel, Commissioner of the Palais-Royal district, came forward and shook his hand. The two men with him bowed. One was Monsieur Puissant, the police official responsible for performances and lighting, and the other was his deputy, Monsieur Hochet de la Terrie. Both were old acquaintances.

      ‘My dear colleague,’ Mutel said. ‘These gentlemen and I have been organising the identification of the bodies. There’s so little space that, if we let it, the crowd would come rushing in and we’d have a new disaster on our hands. I assume Monsieur de Sartine has sent you to help us?’

      ‘Not exactly, although we are at your disposal. We’re here to carry out a preliminary investigation following a suspicious death noted last night. We need to consult … I assume you have lists?’

      ‘We have three. A list of bodies having means of identification on them, a second list of those already identified by their nearest and dearest and a final list with descriptions of missing persons to help our assistants try to find the relative or friend in question. But the faces are often terribly disfigured, which makes it quite difficult to recognise anyone. What’s more, there’s a storm brewing and we won’t be able to preserve the bodies for too long … Even the Basse-Geôle couldn’t contain them all!’

      The commissioner came closer to Nicolas and, in a low voice, enquired after Monsieur de Sartine’s state of health.

      ‘Well, you know him, my dear fellow,