The little girl’s worried frown relaxed. Pernelle ignored Mme LeClerc’s clucking and walked quickly down the shop to him.
“More murder? You look terrible, Charles.”
“More murder, yes.” But he was smiling. The shadows under her eyes were gone and the pink in her cheeks contrasted prettily with the shabby gray kirtle and bodice she wore, which were clearly Mme LeClerc’s. A flour- dusted apron bunched the wide gown in thick folds around her waist, and the skirt barely covered her white- stockinged calves.
“Veiled, you said, maitre?” The baker’s wife was frowning and staring at nothing. “I did see a woman in mourning pass by today.”
“When? Are you sure it was a woman?”
“An hour or two ago. I assumed it was a woman. But those mourning veils hide most everything, don’t they?” She shook her head scornfully. “Those veils! If you’re so much in mourning you don’t even want to see where you’re going, then why be out in the street? Why not stay home with the shutters closed and black bed hangings and all? Unless you just don’t want to live anymore and you’re trying to get run over, sin though that would be, though it’s so easy to be hurt in traffic, it’s hardly fair to count it as sin. But losing loved ones takes us all different ways, I suppose. Still, in that flaunting petticoat of hers, she can’t have been all that deeply mourning, now can she?”
“Was the woman you saw carrying anything?” Charles asked, not daring to look at Pernelle, who was openly laughing at Mme LeClerc’s observations.
Before Mme LeClerc could answer, someone coughed politely and they all turned toward the street door. A solidly built man in brown breeches and jacket stood there. He was smiling at them, but most of his smile was landing on Pernelle, who caught Marie-Ange by the hand and disappeared into the workroom. Mme LeClerc moved briskly around the counter. Taking his cue from her hurry, Charles smiled affably and stood between the man and the back of the shop. The newcomer was wigless. His hair only reached the nape of his neck and he wore both a sword and a pistol on his thick leather belt. Everything about him said police.
“Monsieur? Back again?” Mme LeClerc said sharply, demanding the man’s attention. “I told you before that we are not open.”
“You did, madame,” he said, with an easy smile. “But if you sold me a little cream cake, I think no one would know.” He nodded toward the workroom door. “For not being open, you have a lot of help today. From far away, as I could tell from the young woman’s voice when you gave me that magnificent brioche a while ago.”
Charles tensed. So much for La Reynie’s lack of interest in the Provencal-speaking fugitive in the beggars’ Louvre, damn the man. His flies there must have told him she had left. Of course he would start searching at the college door. Charles moved closer to the man.
“I always have plenty of help,” Mme LeClerc said tartly. “And my niece will not thank you for calling her a foreigner.” She waved away the man’s sous and handed him a cake. “Adieu, monsieur.” A pointed “good-bye” instead of the shopkeeper’s hopeful “see you soon.” She walked purposefully out from behind the counter and toward the street, forcing him backward. As he went, he studied Charles as though memorizing him. Then the man dodged among carriages and riders to lean against the bookshop wall across the street, nibbling at the cake and watching the bakery through the traffic.
“Police,” Mme LeClerc said flatly, slamming the door and shaking her head. “He keeps trying to see Mademoiselle Pernelle.”
“And you let her speak to him?” Charles demanded.
“Of course not!” She dropped the bar across the door. “I should have barred the door before, but I thought that would only convince him we had something to hide. When he walked in the first time, I had just called out to the back room that I wanted the work table scrubbed and she was answering me. The man’s master had been here earlier.”
“What? Lieutenant-General La Reynie?”
“Himself. Pretending he was only making sure we were not selling when we shouldn’t. Your Pernelle was in here helping me scrub these counters. And since then, his man”-she glanced pointedly across the street-“has been making me nervous as a wet hen. I don’t like it. I’m sure she’s done nothing that’s police business, nor you, either!”
Ignoring that, Charles went to the door to the old stairs and tried the latch. It was locked, as the rector had said. “Your key is lost, I hear, madame?”
“And our back door is bricked up. If your young lady needs a sudden way out, the only way is through a little back window into your courtyard. Unless St. Anthony takes pity and finds our key to the stairway door.”
“Madame, I fear,” Charles said slowly, “that Mademoiselle Pernelle must disappear. Can you borrow your apprentice’s other set of clothes for her? Cut her hair, blacken some teeth with soot. She can be a mute so she doesn’t have to speak. If the worst comes to the worst and you have to send her through the window, tell her to go to our porter and ask for me. It’s the best I can think of.”
“It’s well enough and well thought. We will do it. And who would expect you to think, maitre, with people being poisoned?” She glanced across the street. “Wait, I’ll give you a reason for coming here.” She clattered into the back and reappeared with a round loaf, dark with rye, tossing it from hand to hand. “If he asks, you can say it’s a gift and I forgot to send it to you yesterday. It’s hot, be careful!”
Charles wrapped it in a fold of his cassock. “Thank you for this, and for everything, madame. I will think of somewhere else your-ah-new apprentice can go. If you need me before tomorrow, tell the porter. And pray!” He went out into the street, a desperate urgency at his heels. He had to get Pernelle away from here and on the road to Geneva. Wishing he could find the entrance to her Huguenot highway, he put up his hand to ring the postern bell and froze. The policeman was still across the street, talking with another, even larger armed man and pointing at the bakery. Charles turned hastily back to warn Mme LeClerc, but two more men, one on foot and one on horseback, closed on him from both sides.
Chapter 27
Mon pere, my master-”
“Silence, fellow!” The man on horseback raised an imperious gloved hand. “Mon pere, a word!”
Tensed for assault, arrest, or both, Charles looked from the boy in servant’s livery to the middle-aged, red- faced man on the horse. Far from laying hands on him, the two were jockeying for his attention like courtiers accosting the king. Realizing that he was holding the wheel of bread in front of him like a shield, Charles shifted it to one arm and smiled at the youngster. Then he turned to the horseman, who was slapping his tawny wool covered thigh impatiently with his riding crop.
“How may I help you, monsieur?” Charles said, smiling insincerely. The sooner well-dressed self-importance got its way, the faster it departed.
The man frowned and squinted at him. “I don’t know you. But you are a Jesuit, surely you know who I am.”
Beyond the rider, Charles saw the two police agents walk away. In tones of heartfelt relief, he said, “I have not the pleasure, monsieur.”
The man drew a long, offended breath. “Your accent tells me you are not from Paris, so perhaps that excuses you. I am Monsieur Jean Donneau de Vise, editor of the Nouveau Mercure Galant. Are you attached to the college?”
“Yes, monsieur. I am Maitre Charles du Luc,” Charles said, groaning inwardly. He had seen the Mercure, a weekly gazette reporting theatre and social news for the court and the wealthy. De Vise would no doubt be writing up Wednesday’s performance. If Charles offended this well-known journalist and playwright, Pere Jouvancy would probably scalp him and use the results to fix the mangy blond wig. “I sincerely hope, Monsieur de Vise, that we will have the honor of your presence on Wednesday.”
“That is why I stopped when I saw you. You can carry my request and I will not have to waste time going into the college. I want a better seat than I had last year. I could hardly see and couldn’t hear a thing. And make sure I am well away from the edge of that damned awning. Rain sluices off it and I will not risk wetting my good beaver hat. Good day.”
