spigot warmed at the front of the fireplace, and a waiter dressed a la Armenien, in a red-and-gold turban and a long embroidered robe, moved through the room, refilling cups from a long-spouted silver pot.
A woman of fifty or so, in a high-necked gown of sober black, collected the money and kept watch over the proceedings from a half-walled counter near the fireplace. Her eyes widened as she recognized Lieutenant-General La Reynie, and she hurried out of her little fortress, her tall white fontange headdress quivering like the erected crest of a startled bird. At the clattering of her low heels on the diamond-patterned floor tiles, a dozen men looked up to see who had come in and a ripple of silence followed her across the room. With a disapproving glance at Charles, she curtsied to La Reynie.
“You are welcome to The Procope, monsieur.”
“Thank you, madame.” La Reynie smiled widely. “May I take it from your welcome that we no longer have a quarrel about your closing time?”
Her lips smiled back, but her small black eyes were cold as she said, “Naturally we have no quarrel. You will find, if you stay so long, that we close and lock our door at six, exactly as required. Would you care to sit by the fire, monsieur? There is a table there.”
Charles waited for La Reynie to explain that they were there on business, but the lieutenant-general only looked questioningly at him, as if a table by the fire or not were the extent of his worries on earth.
“That would be a great gift, madame,” Charles said sincerely.
Eyes followed them as the woman led the way to a warm corner hung with red-and-blue tapestry. She beckoned the waiter to them, curtsied again, and returned stiff-backed to her post. The turbaned and gowned young waiter had liquid dark eyes and a scattering of pockmarks. He bowed elaborately.
“What is your pleasure, messieurs? I can offer you coffee of the best, or chocolate in the Spanish style, or spiced limonade. Or one of our frozen waters, since you are sitting so warmly. We have anise, orange, cinnamon flower, frangipani, and barley. And our cakes and wafers are the freshest and most toothsome in Paris!”
La Reynie ordered coffee and cakes for two, and the waiter sped gracefully away.
“What about the beggar?”
“Wait. We’ll watch a little first. The word will be out that the body has been found. We may not be the only ones wanting to speak to Reine.”
“Ah.” To keep up the appearance of polite, nothing-saying talk, Charles said, “I know Signore Procopio is Sicilian. Are the rest of them Sicilian, too?”
“Yes, mostly. Procopio’s relations. It’s always a good idea to employ relations, because you can pay them nothing. Very Italian.” La Reynie grinned. “Also very French.” He raised his eyebrows slightly at Charles. “And now let us survey our fellows. When our coffee comes, we will enjoy it like tired men glad to be silent and listen to others talk. Before we move on to other things.”
As Charles let his gaze wander the room, he realized that no pipes were in evidence. “No tobacco here?” he whispered, surprised.
La Reynie shook his head. “No. In some others, but not here. I don’t think the French will ever hide themselves in a reeking fog of tobacco smoke as the English do. Also, Procopio welcomes women-escorted, of course-and women will not come if the air is foul.”
This morning, though, there were only men at Procope’s.
“Recognize anyone?” La Reynie asked softly.
Charles shook his head. “Do you?”
La Reynie looked surprised, for once. “Of course I do, I recognize half of them. For what that’s worth. Probably not much. Most of our fellow idlers have probably done nothing worse than lie to their wives and refuse to pay their tailors.”
The coffee arrived, along with small almond-flavored cakes. Charles had drunk coffee before, but not often. He breathed in its fragrance and drank deeply, sighing with pleasure as he set his cup down and thinking that this was worth penance. He picked up a cake and went back to watching the room. Most of the interest in the newcomers had subsided. Aside from two or three men eyeing them and leaning toward each other as they talked, their presence didn’t seem to be much bothering anyone. La Reynie took off his cloak and turned his chair so that he could stretch his black-stockinged legs in front of him. He sipped his coffee contentedly, seemingly oblivious of everything else.
Charles ate a cake and scanned the wall across from them without moving his head. The instinct that had kept him alive during the Spanish Netherlands war was telling him they were being watched, and too intently. From the barely open door, he guessed, which probably led to the kitchen. Seeming to study a shelf above the door that was lined with glowing copper pots graduated in size like a fertile man’s family, Charles murmured to La Reynie, “Someone beyond that door across the room is very interested in us.”
“Ah. Yes, I see, very nice.” La Reynie nodded appreciatively at the pots. “One would like to see them at close range.”
“One would. Shall we pay a visit to the kitchen?”
“We were already going to. That’s where Reine will be, if she’s here. But we should go now, before our interested friend disappears. The necessity is through there, anyway. After you, maitre.”
“You are too courteous, monsieur.”
Charles drained his coffee bowl and set it down. Rising, he walked casually toward the slightly open door. It shut with a snap. He told himself that even in these times, most people would not do a cleric serious damage. Whatever the truth of that, the invulnerable feeling coffee seemed to give him was rising into his head, and he pushed the door open harder than he meant to. It slammed against the wall and bounced back into his hand. Which told him that the watcher was not behind the door.
“I beg your pardon,” he said genially, and stepped into the kitchen.
An aproned man squatting beside the fireplace with a long-handled fork in his hand stared at him and went back to poking a roasting chicken. A frowning woman of thirty-five or so stood at the central table, kneading dough. But Charles still had the feeling that someone was watching him. Sensing La Reynie at his back, he let go of the door and stepped farther into the kitchen.
“The necessity, monsieur, if you please?” he asked the man at the fireplace.
“In the yard.” He gestured with his fork.
“You first, maitre.” La Reynie moved up beside Charles. See who’s out there, his eyes added.
As Charles crossed the room, shadows moved in a corner. He tilted his head slightly toward the movement and kept going.
Behind him, La Reynie circled toward the corner, chatting affably to the cook and the woman. Charles went out into the cluttered back court, stopping the outer door’s swing so he could hear what went on in the kitchen. He surveyed the yard. A man unloading barrels from a cart and rolling them across the snowedged cobbles and down a ramp to the cellar paid him no attention. Charles looked swiftly into the privy beside the kitchen door, found it empty, and went back inside.
La Reynie, holding a rusted iron candlestick with a tallow candle in it, was standing in front of the corner where the shadows had moved. The man with the fork had dragged a stool in front of the fire and set a carafe full of dark wine beside it. He was sipping from a large glassful as he kept loving watch over his chicken. The woman at the table had stopped kneading her dough and was scowling at La Reynie.
Drifting toward the corner, Charles put himself between her and the lieutenant-general.
“… then when and where did you last see him?” La Reynie was saying, still looking into the corner.
“Thursday evening. Here.” The voice was a woman’s, old but still melodic, like a cracked viol that could make you imagine its past glory.
“At what time?”
“He left just before the absurd hour you force Monsieur Procope to close, mon cher.” The woman’s laughter played suddenly up and down the scale. “Come, Nicolas, it is not the old days, you cannot herd people into their houses at dark, like they were cows.”
Mon cher? Nicolas? Charles shifted, trying to see the woman, and waiting for La Reynie to put her scathingly in her place.
But he didn’t. He laughed. “That never did work well, did it? As you know better than any of us, Reine.”
The woman laughed deep in her throat. “Curfews were never worth a cabbage, and the ones who made them were the worst at keeping them. You certainly were.”
