house?”
“I-she-” Morel chewed his lip. “Monsieur, this Mademoiselle Mynette of whom you have been speaking was Mademoiselle Brion’s dearest friend and she is grieving terribly for her. It is too much to expect her to see her father’s body, after what has been done to him!”
Charles put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “It will be a shock to her, yes. But do you not think that, even so, she will want to do the last offices for her father?”
“But wasn’t he a member of one of your confraternities? Couldn’t they see to him?”
“His uncle, Monsieur Callot, is a member of the Congregation of the Sainte Vierge, but Monsieur Brion was not. Forgive me, Monsieur Morel, but I wonder if you are not thinking too little of Mademoiselle Brion’s courage. That is an easy mistake to make with women. I have known Mademoiselle Brion a very short time, but I suspect she has more than enough courage-and love-for this new ordeal.”
Reluctantly, Morel nodded. “Yes, she has courage. And she loved her father. In spite of his faults.”
La Reynie said kindly, “Monsieur, please do me the favor of going now and telling her to expect her father’s body this afternoon. I will see that he is conveyed to her with all respect. She will be grateful for your coming now with my message, because she will have preparations to make.”
Morel hesitated and looked at Charles. “You will come with me, maitre?”
“I have another matter to discuss with Maitre du Luc,” La Reynie said smoothly. “Better not wait for him. For Mademoiselle Brion’s sake.” He gestured courteously toward the street.
With a last warning look at Charles, the dancing master went. When he was out of hearing, La Reynie said, “His reason for protecting the Brion daughter is obvious, but I also noticed that when the Brion son was mentioned, Monsieur Morel didn’t want us to talk about him. Is this son already a novice?”
“No, his father did not approve of his wish.”
“Ah. Did they quarrel over it? Could the son have killed him?”
“Yes to both. But I’ve met him and I don’t think he has the stomach for it.”
“Monsieur Morel was trying so hard to keep us from discussing him, I can only think he disagrees.”
“He is trying to save Mademoiselle Brion from more grief. As I would like to do, too. What he didn’t want you to know is that her brother has been quarreling with his father over more than religious vocation. His father was forcing him to court Martine Mynette for her money and he, of course, didn’t want to marry.”
“And now the unwelcome bride and the implacable father are both dead. Even a would-be monk may strike back if you push him too far. But how does this donation fit into that convenient picture-I would think Monsieur Henri Brion would have searched for it very diligently indeed. Why marry his son to a failed heiress? Which makes what the Chatelet clerk told you more than a little odd. Who is this clerk?”
“I don’t know his name,” Charles said absently, as his thoughts about Gilles Brion shifted suddenly. It was hard to see the young man as a killer. But a thief? Henri Brion indeed had no reason to want the donation lost, since he wanted the Mynette money. But Gilles Brion had an urgent reason. And he would have had opportunities to steal it, frequenting the Mynette house as a suitor. If the document disappeared permanently, so would the reason for the marriage. But Gilles Brion did not have his father’s access to the Chatelet records, so how could he also have stolen the original? Had he realized that he could not hope to get his hands on the original document and decided that killing his father was the only way to put an end to his difficulties?
La Reynie had turned to his sergent. “Leave the wood seller and her friends to guard the path, and get men to take the body to the Chatelet. And then to the Brion house. Which is where, Maitre du Luc?”
“Off the Place Maubert in the rue Perdue, at the Sign of Three Ducks.”
La Reynie nodded his thanks. “But before you do any of that,” he said to the sergent, “send a man to watch the Capuchin house on the rue St. Honore. If any young layman comes out or goes in, stop him. You are looking for Gilles Brion. What does he look like, Maitre du Luc?”
“Small, frail looking, brown hair. He wore embroidered linen the only time I saw him. And high heels on his shoes.”
“And if you find him, hold him there at the monastery until I come-tell him only that I need to speak with him.”
“Yes, mon lieutenant-general.” He climbed quickly up the slope and disappeared into the alley.
“Now,” La Reynie said, “as we climb out of here, maitre, tell me the rest of the reason you are concerning yourself in this.”
“As you obviously know, the Jesuit college stands to get the Mynette money. Simon Mynette, the father of the murdered girl’s adoptive mother, promised the money to the college when his daughter was gone, because there was no other family left. But that was before the adoption and the donation entre vifs. Now that Martine Mynette has been murdered, rumor is growing that Jesuits connived at her death to have the inheritance. I met Mademoiselle Mynette at the Brion house the day before she died. Pere Le Picart has asked me to find out what I can about her death to help quell the rumors that are flying. Unless Henri Brion’s killer is found quickly, this death is going to make them fly even faster.”
La Reynie nodded, and they made their way in silence up the narrow path between the old houses. The gathered women, quiet now, were still standing in the rutted little dirt street.
“Mesdames,” La Reynie said, sweeping off his white-plumed hat, “where might I find Reine now?”
The women traded looks and the eldest said, “Probably at The Procope, monsieur.”
“I thank you. And my thanks to you especially, madame,” he added to the wood seller, “for sending to the barriere for the sergent. He is going to ask you and your friends to keep people from the path here for a short while. I hope you will oblige him.”
To Charles’s surprise, these poor, lowborn women did not curtsy to La Reynie. They simply nodded regally, and La Reynie nodded respectfully in return and replaced his hat.
“I find it interesting,” he said, as he and Charles walked away, “that men mostly ignore each other until someone’s honor is threatened. But women! They ignore nothing and so they know everything that goes on in a quartier. I could not do my job without them.”
Charles murmured acknowledgment, but his thoughts were across the river. “Are you going to the Capuchins to look for Gilles Brion?”
“Not yet. If young Brion killed his father and fled, he is gone. If he is still at his prayers, the sergent will find him easily enough. We are going to Procope’s coffeehouse.”
The thought of hot fragrant coffee nearly brought tears to Charles’s eyes. But Jesuits did not go to coffeehouses and La Reynie knew it.
“That is a wickedly tempting suggestion, mon lieutenant-general. You know I cannot sit in a coffeehouse.”
“The Society of Jesus forbids tobacco, not coffee. If the head of the Paris police compels you to sit in a coffeehouse, you can sit there. Two sets of eyes and ears are better than one.” He smiled a little. “Even if the one is me.”
Chapter 10
Procope’s coffeehouse was in the rue des Fosses St. Germain, west of Louis le Grand and near where the old wall curved north to meet the river. The rue des Fosses was part of the ongoing effort to free Paris from its walls and make it a modern, open city. The old, towered stone walls were being slowly leveled and the defensive ditches on either side filled in to make wide, somewhat raised promenades planted with trees. On the Right Bank, the walls had come down quickly, but on this side of the river progress was slow, as progress always seemed to be on the Left Bank.
Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli’s coffeehouse was a world away from the ditch where Henri Brion’s body lay. Charles expected to see the beggar woman called Reine sitting at its door, but no one was there and La Reynie led the way inside. Everything about Procope’s had the glitter of success. Its walls were hung with tapestry, paintings, and even a mirror. Graceful chandeliers with crystal pendants hung from the ceiling, banishing the morning’s grayness. Well-dressed men sat at round tables, sipping coffee from bowl-like cups. Many were absorbed in books and news sheets, while others played cards or talked and argued in low voices. An enormous brass kettle with a
