"Damp? Oh, no. Dry as a bone. See? The ribbons ain't run a bit, and the wool's not stained." I held out a sleeve to him. My G.o.d, I thought. They gave my description to the police when I vanished. Famille Pasquier-important enough to be a scandal, to be remembered by the police. But somewhere inside me, a voice was singing, "He doesn't recognize me; I look different; he called me pretty."

"Hmm. Interesting...," he said, as the little carriage pulled up in the great courtyard of the Chatelet.

"Is there somethin' wrong with my clothes?" I asked, making my voice sound alarmed.

"Why, not at all," Desgrez replied smoothly. "They are absolutely perfect. Au revoir, little lingere. Perhaps I will have the pleasure of meeting you again someday."

CHAPTER TEN

Captain Desgrez strode purposefully through the guardroom of the Chatelet to the inner door at the far end of the great stone hall. He scarcely acknowledged the greeting of the group of officers who stood as he pa.s.sed, laying aside the muskets they were cleaning.

"What's wrong with him?" asked one of the officers, putting aside his long brush and pulling a pack of cards from his pocket.

"Don't bother him. When he's got that look on his face, he's on the scent of something," replied the sergeant.

"On the scent? Then too bad for the something," announced the first man, as he shuffled and dealt the cards.

Through the open door, they could hear the captain shouting at the chief records clerk in the rooms beyond the guardroom. Presently, Desgrez came out with a folder tied with string under his arm and vanished in the direction of Monsieur de La Reynie's chambers.

"Ah, Desgrez, do come in. I was about to send a boy in search of you." The Lieutenant General of Police, wearing his crimson robe of office, was as courtly as always, although he did not rise from his seat. Behind him the wall was lined with law books. Before him on the desk lay the transcript of the confrontation of two false coiners, who had previously been interrogated separately. La Reynie had marked the conflicting testimony and made note of it in the little red notebook that never left his side. It was a big case, one that involved the treasury and possibly even treason. Louvois, the royal minister to whom he reported, would be impressed. Desgrez removed his hat and bowed.

"Monsieur de La Reynie-"

"I can tell by the look in your eye, Desgrez, that you are on the track of something. Tell me, does it relate to the papers under your arm?"

"Monsieur de La Reynie, Latour the forger is back in town." La Reynie put aside his notebook.

"That gallows bait?" the chief of police responded.

"And he was driving a girl wearing a dead woman's dress." Desgrez opened the folder: "Pasquier, Genevieve, Disappearance Of." A sc.r.a.p of costly deep gray wool fluttered out as Desgrez laid a dressmaker's sketch before his chief. "The identical garment, badly torn, neatly mended."

"The case is closed, Desgrez. The body was found in the river."

"But the dress, Monsieur, showed no signs of ever having been soaked. The braid had not run. It could have been new, apart from the mending."

"And so you have come to request that the case be reopened, as-"

"As murder, Monsieur de La Reynie. Relatives disappear entirely too easily in this city, especially when an inheritance is involved. As I recall, the girl involved had just been left a rather choice country property the son had expected to come to him. I wish to make further inquiries."

"Very well; your zeal is commendable. But I will have to request that you delay your work on this case in favor of a much greater matter. I have just received word that Madame de Brinvilliers has fled from her hiding place in England at last. The scandal of her escape from France was laid at our door, Desgrez." La Reynie looked suddenly bitter.

"But...her rank...surely Louvois knows...she was a.s.sisted at the highest level..."

"They are blinded by rank, Desgrez. They believe there should be two laws, these courtiers, one for them, one for everyone else. But rank does not dazzle me, I a.s.sure you. This kingdom must have one justice, or perish. Her rank does not change the facts; the woman poisoned her family systematically to get money to support her lovers. If she were a commoner, her ashes would already have been blowing in the wind. I want you to find her, wherever she is, and bring her back for execution."

"Where was she last sighted?"

"At Dover," answered the Lieutenant General of Police, handing Desgrez the report of his English spies that he had taken from the desk drawer. "I have here the name of the ship. You can begin by questioning the master of the Swallow. There are also the names of several pa.s.sengers here. My suspicion is that she will go to ground in a convent-foreign, but French-speaking. In which case we will eventually receive notification from the church authorities. The King himself has ordered that the most notorious poisoner in the history of the kingdom cannot be allowed to escape us."

"There is, however, the matter of religious asylum..."

"A small matter for a man as skilled as you, Desgrez. Just leave no traces-nothing that would embarra.s.s His Majesty. I am putting you in charge of the case. You must bring her back here at any cost."

Desgrez bowed in a.s.sent, but deep in his memory he filed away the image of the shopgirl in the gray dress. And before he returned the folder to the records room he scrawled on it, "Callet-lingere" to remind himself of where to begin the inquiry anew.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"My G.o.d, yer the cool one," said my driver as he handed me out of the fiacre and a.s.sisted me to the door of La Trianon's little laboratory. "You led him off this house as if you was born to it. You even sounded just like a little bit a' girl from a linen shop in the rue Aubry-le-Boucher. Now I know what she sees in you. Keep it up, keep it up, and you'll be queen yerself someday." Queen? Queen of what? I asked myself, storing away the information for later use.

The news did not please my hostesses, who wrung their hands. "You'll have to tell her; she has to be moved at once," wailed La Dodee. "She may have brought us straight to-great G.o.d-Desgrez himself!"

"Shh. No more than necessary," whispered La Trianon fiercely, with a glance in my direction.

"Calm yerselves, I tell you. She led 'em off. He took her for the apprentice of a lingere. I'd swear to it on the cross. She's a clever one, she is."

"I suppose we'll have to take his word for it," said La Trianon glumly over a cold supper that evening.

"We'll know in a few days. La Reynie never lets things drag out. They might even be here tomorrow. From the arrest to the gallows-it can be only a matter of days with him."

The name I had copied into my notebook from Grandmother's dead hand. La Reynie. "Who is La Reynie?" I asked.

"La Reynie?" La Trianon answered. "Why, he is the new Lieutenant General of Police. The most dangerous man in Paris, because he is the most incorruptible. He answers to Louvois and to the King only."

My mind raced in several directions at once. Grandmother had written a mysterious letter only moments before her death. She had written to the head of the Paris police, and the letter had been torn out of her hand and destroyed. What had happened to Grandmother, there in that room alone? I tried to remember any strange detail, but I could think of nothing, except the remembered rustle of taffeta outside the room as I entered to find her dying of a seizure. What were my hostesses doing, that they knew so much of the mysterious La Reynie? Surely, it must be more than brewing love potions and telling fortunes. I had to find out what it was.

"...it's not as if a person could earn an honest living in this city," La Dodee was complaining. "But at least rounding up beggars and imprisoning prost.i.tutes keeps that policeman much too occupied to bother us. But still, why shave a girl's head and lock her up for doing just what the great ladies do and get rewarded for? The King's wh.o.r.e lives in splendor, and her children all have t.i.tles. What gives him the right to be keeper of morals for the nation?"

"The King does, my dear," responded La Trianon, "and never forget that."

"Then we must be grateful for the royal family," announced La Dodee, "especially Monsieur." Monsieur, the Duc d'Orleans, the King's younger brother. Monsieur wore rouge and patches and went to b.a.l.l.s dressed as a woman; his male lovers had poisoned his first wife. While Monsieur lived, the King did not dare to carry out the law and execute those who lived like him. The hint was enough. I looked at my hostesses with new eyes. So that was it. A single word from a pa.s.sing stranger could betray them to their deaths for the way they lived together. It was almost disappointing that they were so ordinary. From all the tales I had heard, I would have expected them to have beards, or wear strange clothes.

"You're...um...?"

"Nice girls don't know about things like that. I thought you were better raised," sniffed La Trianon.

"I wasn't raised to be a nice girl. You're thinking of my sister, who's pretty and blond."

"Isn't that always the story, now?" said La Dodee. "My, you're looking odd. Is there something you want to ask us?"

"Well, um...ah...is it true that h-, well, you know, can have babies without, well, a man?" Both women broke into shouts of laughter.