Charles laughed and put his cup back on the sideboard. “Do you suppose the good man always leaves his guests the run of his house? Did he even tell you his name?”
Damiot shook his head as they went out into the lane. “I wish we could have stayed. That little Fontange is the prettiest dove I have ever seen. My father will be eaten up with envy when he hears about her.”
“I had no idea men felt such passion for doves.”
“I have tried to persuade the school bursar to build a dovecote in the fathers’ garden, but he refuses to spend the money. Especially now.” Damiot sighed. “Nothing is more beautiful in a garden than the cooing of doves.”
They mounted Flamme and Boeuf and ambled along the village street until they came to closed wooden gates with a high expanse of slate roof showing beyond them.
“This looks likely.” Charles swung his leg easily over Flamme’s back and dismounted.
Damiot struggled out of his saddle and they walked the horses to the gate. The manservant who answered the bell was courteous enough and wished them a good year, but his uneasy glances and brief answers made Charles certain that he had heard the anti-Jesuit rumors. Yes, he told them, this was Mme Theriot’s house. No, she was not at home. Yes, Paul Saglio worked here and could be found in the kitchen. He took them through the cobbled court, past a pretty girl drawing water from the well, and opened the rear door. He gestured them inside, called out to Saglio, and left them before anyone answered.
“What do Jesuits want with me?” a voice growled belatedly from the kitchen. “Tell them to go to hell.”
Charles, with Damiot behind him, followed the voice into a large, high-ceilinged kitchen with two large fireplaces, a massive worktable in the center, and every sort of pot, pan, cooking fork, sieve, ladle, spice box, and kitchen cloth overflowing the shelves and cupboards crowded around the walls.
“Hell is a long journey, Monsieur Saglio,” Charles said pleasantly. “Though the warmth might be all too appealing on a day like this.”
The small lithe man with a white cloth tied around his head turned sharply from the oven set into the wall. He held a long flat wooden paddle for putting loaves in the oven. His lip curled and his eyes traveled slowly from their hats to their boots.
“Your Society already has the Mynette goods. So I hear. I am only a poor servant; you’ll get no gold from me, my fine blackbirds.” His face darkened. “How did you find me?”
“Someone knew you were here,” Charles said vaguely, not wanting to set Saglio on the hapless priest. “So you have heard of Mademoiselle Mynette’s murder.”
“Who has not?” He began to softly beat the wooden paddle against his leg.
Charles decided not to waste time on subtlety. With an eye on the paddle, he said, “You tried to dishonor her and she turned you out of the house. Shortly before she was killed.”
Saglio’s black eyes flashed from Charles to Damiot. “What is that to you?”
“You were very angry with her.”
“Fickle bitch.” The Italian flung the paddle onto the work table. “Sweet as sugar and then acted like she was Blessed Mary herself. ‘Ooooh, don’t touch me, Paul Saglio!’ ”
Charles clasped his hands tightly together at his waist to keep himself from hitting the man. “She promised more than she gave?”
Nodding, Saglio widened his eyes and broke into a stream of furious Italian.
“Ah, monsieur,” Damiot said, his voice full of spurious sympathy, “I see, she spurned your manhood. That has moved men to kill more times than can be told.”
Saglio stared at him. “Kill her? Me? Do you think I am crazy? Why would I risk the gallows for the pleasure of strangling the little bitch?”
“Then tell us what you were doing before dawn on the Friday morning after Christmas.”
“Why not? I was running all over the house like every other servant here, trying to get old Madame Theriot on her way to Paris.” He rolled his eyes. “The old ones are worse than the young ones. But they have more money,” he leered, “and money compensates trouble taken.” Grinning at the expressionless faces of the two Jesuits, he slowly adjusted the well-filled front of his breeches. “Trouble of every kind, you understand.”
Wanting to get out of Saglio’s presence even more than he wanted to slam a fist into the man’s face, Charles said curtly, “Who can swear you were here that morning?”
“Alain in the yard, the one who came to the door. The pretty maid who’s been out at the well too long talking to Alain. My mistress herself, though she’s already left on her round of New Year’s visits.”
Charles looked at Damiot. “Mon pere, will you go and speak with the maidservant and Alain?”
“With pleasure.” Damiot strode out of the kitchen, his boot heels striking like hammers on the stone tiles.
“If you want to know who killed Martine,” Saglio said, watching Charles, “look for her ex-gardener. Tried to get into her bedroom, he did.” He grinned. “Always saying she had something he wanted. Don’t we kill the ones we love? Or lust for, anyway?”
“Do you mean Tito La Rue?”
“I mean Tito La Rue, indeed.”
Charles gazed thoughtfully at a ham hanging from the ceiling, wondering if there might after all be reason to find the gardener and question him. “How old is this Tito? Describe him.”
“I don’t know his age, younger than me. Middle height, hair something like mine, not as black. Well fleshed, he liked his food.”
“And where is he now?”
“Paris? Peru? Hell? Who knows?” Sniffing the air, Saglio whipped around and opened the oven. With the long paddle, he brought out four brown-crusted loaves and slid them onto the table. Charles’s mouth watered at the rich, yeasty smell.
Saglio gazed with approval at his work. “Look, mon ami, I’m busy, I have to cook dinner for all the people madame is bringing back with her.”
If the rest of the dinner measured up to the delicious-smelling bread, it would indeed be a feast. “Where did you learn to cook?” Charles couldn’t help asking.
“From my mother, in Rome.” He took a plucked chicken out of a cupboard, slapped it down on the table, and picked up a knife. “Like I said, ask my mistress where I was when Mademoiselle Mynette died. She’ll tell you the same as I have.”
“Shall I also ask her what you were doing in Paris on Monday?” Charles doubted now that Saglio was actually the man who’d tried to stab him outside the tavern that evening, but he had to put Reine’s insinuation to rest.
The man stared at him. “I haven’t been to Paris since Christmas. My dear mistress has kept me too busy here feeding her holidaying belly. What are you trying to make me guilty of now?”
“Of trying to stab me,” Charles said conversationally, watching the knife in Saglio’s hand.
“If I’d tried, you’d be dead.” Saglio scowled, flourishing the knife, whether at the chicken or Charles, Charles wasn’t sure. “Now go away and let me cook.”
Chapter 18
Charles found Pere Damiot chatting amiably with the two servants at the well.
Charles nodded to the three of them. “Have you discussed Monsieur Saglio’s whereabouts last Friday morning?”
“Oh, yes,” Damiot said. “We have, and I’ve learned that he was here, though we’ve agreed that it is always preferable to have him elsewhere.”
“That I agree with wholeheartedly,” Charles said. “What about the day before yesterday, Monday?”
Both servants began to laugh.
“He was here, mon pere,” the maid said, with a glance at the manservant. “Very much here!”
“And why?” the manservant broke in gleefully. “Because sometimes madame makes him wait at table as well as cook, so she can gaze at his pretty face-and on that Monday, at dinner, he poured hot cream sauce into her lap! By some terrible mistake, you understand. He spent the rest of the day apologizing and making dainties to soothe her temper and make her love him again.”
