The Poisoners E-Book

Marjorie Bowen

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

In the year 1676 Madame de Brinvilliers was executed in Paris for the murders of her father, her two brothers and a sister. It was known that she had procured the mysterious poison that she had employed through the agency of one Sainte-Croix, who, in his turn, had received it from an Italian, Exili, whom he had met when both these scoundrels had been imprisoned in the Bastille for minor offences.
This affair caused an extraordinary sensation in Paris, but, with the death of the Marquise de Brinvilliers, it was considered closed. When this female “monster,” as she was termed, had expiated her crimes, public interest in the matter waned and police investigations into the question of poisons ceased.
Shortly after the execution of Madame de Brinvilliers, however, the priests who were in charge of Notre-Dame, the most fashionable church in Paris, informed the police that “an enormous number” of their penitents, when in the sanctity of the confessional, accused themselves of poisoning their husbands. The active and intelligent Chief of Police, M. de La Reynie, refused to give any importance to this information; he thought that these women were so affected by the Brinvilliers case that they had become hysterical and that these painful derangements were better ignored.

Leseprobe

THE POISONERS

MARJORIE BOWEN

1936

© 2023 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782383839200

THE POISONERS

PART 1:CHARLES DESGREZ BEGINS HIS INVESTIGATIONS

1 … The Girl in the Coach

2 … The Fortune Teller

PART 2:SEARCHING THE UNDERWORLD OF PARIS

1 … The Shop of the Widow Bosse

2 … The Offices in the Bastille

3 … A Night at the Lily Pot

4 … The House Of Dr. Rabel

5 … The Negro Coachman

6 … The Affair at the Louvre

PART 3:THE ITALIAN APOTHECARY’S DAUGHTER

1 … The Apartments of Mlle De Fontanges

2 … Carnation-pink

3 … Innocenzo, Nephew to the Pope

4 … The Plenipotentiary from Savoy

5 … The Paper in the Confessional

6 … The First Prisoner in the Bastille

7 … The Arrest of the Widow Bosse

8 … A Hothouse Bouquet

9 … Soap Balls Scented with Almonds

10 … The Examination of Delmas

11 … A Supper Party at Passy

12 … The Grimoires

13 … La Tulipe

14 … The Devil’s Kitchen

PART 4:CATHERINE LA VOISIN

1 … “Miss Pink”

2 … Solange Is Afraid

3 … The Black Mass

4 … A Sacrifice to Satan

5 … The Most Wicked Woman in Europe

PART 5:THE SUN KING

1 … The Poisoners in the Bastille

2 … Solange in Retreat

3 … In the Palace of Versailles

4 … Mademoiselle des Oeillets

5 … The Shadow of the Poisoning

6 … Solange Walks in the Woods

7 … The King’s Last Love

8 … The Summer House

9 … The Chapel of Saint-Hubert

10 … Charles Searches for Solange

11 … “Miss Pink” Shows Her Hand

12 … Saint-Maurice Pays the Price

13 … The Chief of Police Makes a Decision

14 … The Chief of Police Is Baffled

PART 6:THE BURNING OF A SORCERESS

1 … La Voisin Is Examined

2 … The Woman with the Toothache

3 … The Shuttered House

4 … The Witch’s Daughter Confesses

5 … The King Hears for Himself

6 … The Diamonds

PART 7:THUNDERBOLT IN OLYMPUS

1 … The King’s Last Love

2 … The Punishment of Madame De Montespan

3 … La Montespan’s Punishment

4 … Pearls for Solange

5 … Who Was Saint-Richard?

6 … The Ruby Ring

7 … A Necklace for Solange

8 … The Rag and Bone Shop

9 … A Notice in the Gazette

FOREWORD

In the year 1676 Madame de Brinvilliers was executed in Paris for the murders of her father, her two brothers and a sister. It was known that she had procured the mysterious poison that she had employed through the agency of one Sainte-Croix, who, in his turn, had received it from an Italian, Exili, whom he had met when both these scoundrels had been imprisoned in the Bastille for minor offences.

This affair caused an extraordinary sensation in Paris, but, with the death of the Marquise de Brinvilliers, it was considered closed. When this female “monster,” as she was termed, had expiated her crimes, public interest in the matter waned and police investigations into the question of poisons ceased.

Shortly after the execution of Madame de Brinvilliers, however, the priests who were in charge of Notre-Dame, the most fashionable church in Paris, informed the police that “an enormous number” of their penitents, when in the sanctity of the confessional, accused themselves of poisoning their husbands. The active and intelligent Chief of Police, M. de La Reynie, refused to give any importance to this information; he thought that these women were so affected by the Brinvilliers case that they had become hysterical and that these painful derangements were better ignored.

The French Monarchy was at the height of its glory during this period; Louis XIV was successful alike in the cabinet and in the field, and overshadowed Europe with his diplomacy and his arms; his Court was the most brilliant that the world had known since the days of the Byzantine Caesars; the arts flourished under his splendid patronage and in every department of social life Paris was the arbiter of fashion, taste and manners. The ruthless ambition of Louis made him hated and feared in Europe, but his influence on his times was undisputed. In 1676 he was under forty years of age and embellished not only with the title of “Great,” but with godlike attributes, being commonly known as “the Sun King.”

This gorgeous personage had been for fifteen years united by powerful but illicit ties to the Marquise de Montespan, a great lady of imperious temper and remarkable beauty, who considered herself nearly as high-born as her royal lover and exercised a complete domination over him. She had not achieved her position—Queen of the Left Hand—easily, for Louis did not admire her type of bold, sharp-tongued “mâitresse femme,” and she had to draw him from a sincere love for the gentle Louise de la Vallière. Once, however, she had brought the King under her enchantments, she was all-powerful: not only did she completely detach him from his wife, Marie Thérèse, but fickle and amorous as Louis naturally was, she contrived to keep him faithful to her by banishing out of his reach any potential rival. She had a large family by the King; these children were made legitimate and given titles and quasi-royal honours.

About the time of the Brinvilliers scandal the position of Madame de Montespan, which had appeared unassailable, was threatened by the King’s sudden attraction towards Mlle Fontanges, a rather stupid young woman, “beautiful as an angel” and belonging to that soft, tender and delicate type which Louis really most admired.

The powerful favourite contrived to keep this possible rival at bay, and no one believed that she would lose any of her influence over her lover; her rule had been so long and so absolute, her hold over the King was stronger than love, it was that of a bad habit.

Such was the situation in Paris towards the end of the year 1678, when this story opens.

What was known in France as l’affaire des poisons was deliberately hushed up by the Chief of Police, acting on royal instructions; small criminals were sacrificed and great ones allowed to escape; most of the examinations and trials were held in secret; at some of these only the King, M. de La Reynie and M. de Louvois, or some other minister, were present. Every effort was made to avert a hideous scandal involving the noblest names in France, and the greatest precautions were taken to this end. The King ordered all the voluminous reports of the case in all its ramifications to be destroyed, every dossier to be burned.

For a long time complete obscurity veiled the subject, until, in 1789, the taking of the Bastille by the Parisian mob brought to light the secret archives of this fortress prison. These were, as the first investigators declared, “in a state of frightful chaos,” but years of patient, erudite labour gradually unearthed from these confused masses of papers the reports of the Paris Police from 1655 to 1744. It was then discovered that a large number of the documents relating to l’affaire des poisons had not been destroyed; there were many lacunae in these and many valuable papers were totally missing, some were mutilated and others half-ruined by neglect, some had been torn in fragments and others were partly burned. The scholars, however, set to work with tireless diligence, and the result of their careful zeal was the partial reconstruction of this celebrated historic mystery.

This was finally reduced to a clear outline by the long labours of M. François Ravaisson, who, with exacting care, sorted, deciphered, catalogued, annotated and explained the mass of documents found in the archives of the Bastille. Wherever possible this admirable research worker filled in all gaps in his material from other sources available in France.

What emerged from these labours was not only a valuable picture of the life of a bygone period, full of minute details and the elucidation of a historic mystery that had puzzled generations, but the reconstructions of a wild, sinister tale of love and magic that would do credit to the imagination of any novelist and provide ample material for what is now called a “detective story” or “thriller”.

It should be recalled that the French police were then the foremost in Europe; considering what evils they had to combat and the modest means at their disposal, their work was of a high order. Nothing like this police organization was known in England until nearly two hundred years later. British love of freedom revolted against secret policing, and even when Peel introduced his “Bobbies” and private detectives, these were resented as “foreign institutions.” The result of these prejudices was unhappy, as the reading of any old English trial will show. National love of fair play was helpless in the face of haphazard methods resulting from lack of trained investigators and from amateur methods of collecting and sifting evidence.

M. de La Reynie, Lieutenant de Police at Paris during this odd and terrifying business of “the poisons,” was honest, efficient and zealous. Living under an absolute monarchy, he was forced to suppress or destroy much of his evidence at the royal command, and obliged to allow many criminals whom he had tracked down to escape, and in conclusion to consign the whole case, to which he had devoted so much toil, to oblivion. Time, however, did him tardy justice, and when his archives did at last see daylight, they revealed his integrity, his courage, his industry and those qualities peculiar to the best type of Gallic mind, finesse, clarity, a logical intellect and a serene acceptance of life and all its perverse difficulties.

It is indeed only the characters of La Reynie and his colleagues that give sanity and the effect of reality to what would otherwise seem a fantastic farrago of incredible people and incredible incidents.

The following novel gives, in the form of fiction, the authentic outline and details of the events, pieced together by M. Ravaisson from the dossiers of La Reynie.

Marjorie Bowen

THE POISONERS

PART 1

Charles Desgrez Begins His Investigations

— 1 —

THE GIRL IN THE COACH

As the coach came swinging round the corner the young man pushed his companion still further behind him and held out his cloak in an effort to protect her, but in vain, the wheels of the vehicle, which was swinging heavily on its leathers, splashed over the broken cobbles and cast a shower of liquid filth over the girl’s camelot dress of blue and silver.

“My birthday gown!” she cried in dismay, “and your new cloak, Charles!”

The occupant of the coach had seen the accident and putting her head out of the window called to the coachman to stop. He had gone some yards however before he could rein up the spirited animals, and when the vehicle had come at length to a halt, the young couple had regained their good temper.

The girl’s first thought had been for her ruined finery, which had not been bought easily or without considerable self-sacrifice; her second thought had been to laugh away the little misfortune in case her husband should be involved in a humiliating and dangerous dispute with a social superior.

“It is nothing,” she said with her hand on his arm, “I can wipe it off. Let us go away quietly. Your cloak, too — that will brush.”

“What are you frightened of?” he smiled good-humouredly. “There’s no one in the coach but a woman. See, she is beckoning to us, she is sorry for what has happened.”

Solange Desgrez was still for withdrawal, but her husband took her hand firmly through his arm and led her towards the coach. This was handsomely gilded and painted and bore on the doors a massive coat-of-arms. The coachman, and the footmen who hung behind, were in liveries of maroon and gold: they stared impassively in front of them, while their mistress leaned out of the window and spoke to the two people in their mud-splashed clothes.

“I am sorry, Madame, and for you too, Monsieur. We were driving too fast, we took the corner too suddenly — I had no idea there was anyone there. Your beautiful dress, it is ruined!”

She paused, biting her full underlip in embarrassment. She was very young, and it was clear she did not know what to do. Her sole companion was an elderly woman, who was nursing a frail-looking monkey on a cushion of saffron-coloured velvet. This person, who appeared to be half asleep, offered no help.

Charles Desgrez, curious and amused, waited, his hat in his hand. His wife, also embarrassed and wishing to end the scene, tried to draw him away; but she, too, was interested in the occupant of the coach, despite her desire to efface herself and be civil. An aristocrat, thought Solange, one of the great ladies of the Court, and she noted shrewdly what the other girl, who was about her own age, wore, and how she looked.

Her appearance was singularly fascinating, though she was hardly beautiful; her features were so soft, her complexion was so pale, her hair so light that she gave the impression of extreme, almost exasperating, fragility. An expression of timidity and stupidity, and a slight blurring of the lines of her face prevented her from being lovely; she was rather like a wax doll that had been placed in front of a fire and was beginning to melt. Yet there was an obvious attraction in her air of gentleness and candour and her figure was graceful; she was dressed in purple velvet, with a satin tie under her cravat; all this was far too gloomy and heavy a style for her years, which could not have been more than eighteen or twenty.

“What shall I do?” she sighed, half to herself. “What shall I do?”

The smile of Charles Desgrez deepened; he knew what was in the lady’s mind; she saw that she could not offer them money since they had pretensions to gentility; she also saw that they were so poor that the damaged clothes would be to them a considerable loss.

Taking no heed either of her embarrassment or of the whispers of his wife, who wished to end the scene, the shrewd young Frenchman stood his ground and waited, courteous but firm.

“I shall be late,” said the lady at length; she unclasped a string of sapphires that she wore over her light doeskin glove, and with an appealing look handed it to Madame Desgrez. “Please accept this — no reparation, of course, but a gift from a friend.”

“No, Madame, indeed I would rather not,” began Solange; but the lady told the coachman to drive on. With further murmured apology she bowed to the young couple, then withdrew into the interior of the coach, which was richly lined and padded with celestial blue velvet and knots of orange braid.

Solange, moving from the roadway and standing against the heavy porch of a dark church, held out the string of blue stones and looked at her husband reproachfully:

“You should not have allowed me to take it. It is very valuable, it must be worth more than the dress and my cloak and your mantle all put together.”

“I daresay it is,” replied Monsieur Desgrez dryly, “but the lady can afford to give it, and you, my dear, cannot afford to lose your frock. You know how long it took you to save up for it.”

“But I hope she did not know that,” remarked Solange apprehensively.

“No, she does not think of such things. She tried to do something graceful and courteous.”

“Oh, yes,” agreed Solange warmly. “She meant it in kindness, and in kindness I take it. But I do not like to accept anything so valuable. See, they are fine, square Indian sapphires held together by little diamonds.”

She gave the ornament to her husband, who examined it with a businesslike air.

“Yes, I think it is quite valuable, Solange. The price of it will buy you one or two new frocks, and perhaps another piece of furniture for the salon. Or would you like it yourself — it is the sort of ornament,” he said, with a harsh tenderness, “that I should like to have given you.”

“It is the sort of ornament,” replied the young wife quickly, “that I should not want, even if you ever could give it to me, Charles.”

“I am afraid you will have a long time to wait before I can buy you anything like that.” The smile on his thin lips was stern. “Yes, I should like to see you wearing this, Solange, I should like to see you in a coach like that, with three liveried servants and an old woman with a pet monkey, or any other nonsense you might want.”

“Hush, Charles. It is like blaspheming our happiness. Let us thank the good God for what we have. If you know who the lady is, I think we should return the jewel — it might belong to her husband or her father, who would miss it and scold her.”

“Yes, I know who the lady is,” replied M. Desgrez. “She has no husband. That is Mademoiselle de Fontanges, one of the Queen’s waiting women.” He paused a second, then added with a cynical glance: “and one of the King’s — ”

“Oh, no.” interrupted Solange. “That’s not true!”

“You are her champion,” laughed M. Desgrez, “because she gave you this valuable ornament and spoke kindly to you! Well, perhaps it is not true. Come along, my dear, there is a storm rising.”

They stood for a moment in the thick shadow of the church porch in the twisting street, while the young man put the jewel carefully away in the inner pocket of his coat. It was winter and the filth in the roadway was coated with thin ice. The narrow street was flanked by the dark, grim façades of hôtels, with their iron gates and porters’ lodges. Above the church porch frowning images of saints rose into the grey air. Black clouds driven by a bitter wind were rising over Paris. There were few people abroad, and those few went quickly, with cloaks held over their faces and heads bent before the grim lash of the wind.

Solange wore a grey cloak over the blue and silver dress that had been so splashed; her fine leather shoes were protected by wooden clogs; a dark silk hood was drawn closely under her chin and a coarse goat-skin muff hung by a cord round her neck served to guard her hands from the weather.

Her young husband’s glance took in anew all these details which told of their poverty. He contrasted her in his mind with the woman who had given them the bracelet, and bitter regret and resentment rose in his soul, hardening his fine features and narrowing his light-grey eyes. He was a Lieutenant in the city Police or Watch, and he had no means beyond his salary.

Solange was the daughter of a magistrate at Caen, and her dowry had been small, only sufficient to furnish the very modest two rooms in which they lived. Charles Desgrez knew that his wife might have married better; she had left her native town, her relations, the friends of her youth, her home, all the opportunities that lay before a young, pretty and popular woman, to share his fortunes in Paris; and his pride was stung and his ambitions aroused because of her smiling, uncomplaining love and his narrow, mean and poor prospects; his wife’s pressure on his arm checked his thoughts.

“Come,” she said, shuddering. “The storm is certainly approaching.” She glanced up almost fearfully into the blue-black clouds overhead. “How dark and horrible Paris can be on a day like this!”

“You regret Normandy?” her husband asked, pressing her hand to his side, and hastening her along over the dirty cobbles, where the gutter, full of filth and rubbish, overflowed from the late rains.

“No, Charles, I regret nothing. But Paris somehow seems to overwhelm me, it is so strange and sinister.”

“Paris, why, you know nothing of it, my dear. What if you had seen that side of it which I have!”

“Paris is where horrible things happen.” she whispered, settling closely to his side. “Where they used to happen. I am glad that is all over.”

“Glad that what is over, Solange?”

“I was thinking,” replied the young wife, “of Madame de Brinvilliers. You know. I am glad I was not in Paris when she was put to death, though she was a wicked woman, who poisoned so many people.”

“She was a monster,” said the young police officer briefly. “But she has been destroyed and there is an end of that. We have no such criminals in Paris now.”

“Why, you speak almost regretfully, Charles!”

“Perhaps I do. If I could discover some such crime, if I could track some such criminal, why, I might be able to get you a coach and pair and three liveried servants, and plenty of clothes and a sapphire bracelet, Solange.”

“I would rather you did not, Charles, I would rather no such chance came your way, for such work must be difficult and perilous.”

“Don’t you wish difficult and perilous things for me, Solange? Do you want me to be content and quiet? I am only twenty-five, and I married you.”

She pressed his arm in silence, not wishing him to be different, proud indeed that he showed ambition and resolution. Yet she was happy as she was, for she loved this man and never regretted that she had left her pleasant town of Caen to come to this strange, bewildering and unfriendly Paris; even though her husband’s duties took him away from their little home so often and she spent many hours alone, Solange was content.

The inner radiance of this contentment made her oblivious of the darkening day, of the gathering strength of the gusts of wind, of the increasing gloom as they proceeded through the sombre streets of Paris.

— 2 —

THE FORTUNE TELLER

Their destination was a small house close to Notre-Dame, which was occupied by one Maître Perrin. This man, who was an obscure clerk in the Parliament of Paris, was one of the few friends whom young Desgrez — who had been in Paris only two years — knew in the capital. A good-natured bachelor with an excellent housekeeper, he had offered the young couple a little party on the occasion of the bride’s birthday.

Solange Desgrez had been married only three months and her cheerful good-humour, her pride and pleasure in her new estate, her quiet devotion to her duties and her young husband, had greatly touched the generous heart of Maître Perrin, who had lived in Paris for so many years without achieving or even remembering the ambition of forty years ago that had sent him from Brittany to the capital.

The old clerk was, in his way, as content as the young wife; he liked his little house, his good housekeeper, his cosy post, his sufficient salary and his little circle of friends. His tolerance, his fondness for society and his eagerness to be amused by odd, racy characters made his circle of acquaintances a wide and somewhat eccentric one.

“I expect we shall see some strange people there tonight,” remarked M. Desgrez as he pulled the elaborate iron bell in front of Maître Perrin’s door.

“Oh, yes, he has some such diverting friends,” laughed Solange, ready to be amused and pleased with everything, “and his food is very good and his wine is of the best!”

“Yes,” smiled M. Desgrez, “and when that wine has gone round a little, we sometimes hear some strange stories. But perhaps tonight there will be some music, which keeps everyone more or less in order, and we shall leave early.”

The thick yellow candles were already lit in the lawyer’s modest but comfortable room, and a log fire burned sturdily under the hooded chimney-piece. An excellent supper of game, pies, roast fowl, stuffed meat, marzipan, fruit and sweetmeats stood upon the polished table — and the bride’s place was garnished with a pretty wreath of waxed flowers, through which was drawn Maître Perrin’s gift to Solange, a pair of white gloves with a silver monogram embroidered on the backs in small heads.

The pleasure and gratitude of Madame Desgrez were interrupted by apologies for her soiled dress. There was no doubt about it, the blue and silver taffeta was ruined, though the neat old housekeeper with sympathy and dismay did what she could with warm water and a clean cloth. The filth of the Paris gutters, which ran, choked with refuse, down the centre of the street, had left unsightly stains upon the delicate fabric.

M. Desgrez was reticent about the accident, and no one pressed him — such mischances were common enough in the Parisian streets. Solange, with a delicate sense of propriety, followed her husband’s lead; she said nothing about Mlle de Fontanges or the sapphire bracelet; and the company, after roundly cursing the state of the Paris streets, the insolence of the aristocrats and the costliness of wearing apparel, sat down to enjoy Maître Perrin’s feast.

The young police officer’s narrow grey eyes ran with amusement and interest over the company; he was interested in his work and eager for promotion, ambitious, keen, shrewd and industrious, and though it was commonly believed that Paris was the best policed capital in Europe with a minimum of crime and criminals, yet Desgrez always hoped that something might occur that would give him an opportunity of proving his worth. He had made himself tolerably well acquainted with the life of Paris, both that which showed on the surface and that which flowed beneath; he had a shrewd knowledge of the Court personalities, Court politics and intrigues; he did not disdain to gather from humble sources, such as members of the loyal regiments, members of the King’s own special police force and even servants employed in aristocratic mansions.

At a first glance, the people who had gathered to do honour to Madame Desgrez appeared commonplace, if amusing; there were two dry, middle-aged lawyers of the same secure position and mediocre gifts as Maître Perrin himself; there was a third man, who was a wool merchant in a small way, and his pretty young wife, who aped Court fashions; there was Madame Vigoureux, wife of a ladies’ tailor; there were a few other members of the small bourgeoisie, whom the young Lieutenant’s experienced eyes passed over as nonentities, and there was the Widow Bosse, whom he had met before, and who kept, he knew, a small perfumer’s shop, which supplied the more ambitious citizens’ wives with soaps and perfumes, that were cheap imitations of those used by Court ladies.

This woman amused the observant young man, because of her affected airs of gentility, her talkativeness, her mechanical coquetry, the extravagant styles of lace and furbelows with which she decked her middle-aged charms.

As he obliquely watched her now across the loaded table, he thought to himself: “She must be making a good deal of money. The clothes she is wearing are very expensive.”

Feminine garments were uppermost in his mind then because of the accident to Solange’s birthday dress; he knew what that had cost; the Widow Bosse’s gown of crimson silk gallooned with gold braid must have been double that price; she had a fair string of pearls round her plump white throat, too, and one or two fashionable rings, a bag of brocade at her waist, while the cloak over the chair had a collar of glossy sables. How was it that this little shopkeeper could dress so well?

As the talk and laughter grew louder, M. Desgrez whispered this question to his host, leaning slightly forward across his wife.

“Oh,” whispered Maître Perrin with a wink, “the Widow Bosse? Yes, she is very handsomely set out, is she not?” he added with an air of mystery. Then, lowering his voice still more and leaning behind Solange’s fan of mirror glass and dove’s feathers, he whispered: “She tells fortunes, you know, and casts horoscopes.”

“Does she?” whispered Solange gaily. “Then I will do the same. I swear I know as much about such things as she does, or as anyone can about such nonsense.”

Maître Perrin shook his head and winked again deliberately at M. Desgrez. “We know better than that, don’t we, Monsieur? No, no, it is not a business that a pretty young woman like you, Solange, can meddle in.”

“But if it does no harm, it is an easy way to earn money!”

Her husband glanced down the table to where the florid widow, who had already drunk several glasses of wine, was noisily laughing with her neighbour, the tailor’s wife.

“Fortune-telling and casting horoscopes,” he repeated. “You are wrong, Solange, such practices may do harm.”

But Maître Perrin smiled indulgently. “No, no, don’t be so severe on the good woman. She is a pleasant creature enough, though she trades a little on human credulity. She only promises handsome husbands to old maids and good fortune for their children to married women, a little bit of good luck to the unfortunate, and then she sells them a ball of soap, a flagon of scent, and everyone is satisfied.”

“She’s drinking far too much wine,” whispered Solange to her husband, lifting her fan to her mouth. “Why doesn’t someone tell her? I think she’s really very disagreeable.”

The young man did not reply; he was studying the Widow Bosse, who certainly had a peculiar physiognomy; from the smooth contours of her round face rose a delicate, beak-like nose out of all proportion to her small baby mouth; her eyes, blue and prominent with a slight cast in one of them, gave her a fascinating expression; her complexion was a brilliant pink and white and owed little to artifice, and her feeble chin rolled in lines of fat to her plump neck; her hair, rather thin, was well pomaded and hung in small spiral ringlets in a fashionable style across her forehead and onto her white, slightly humped shoulders.

Desgrez thought (and laughed at himself for it) that she was like a cruel caricature of Mlle Fontanges, the lady who had ruined Solange’s frock and given her the sapphire bracelet.

The Widow Bosse became conscious of the young man’s gaze and, calling to him down the table with embarrassing clumsiness, challenged him to drink her health. This he did with grave courtesy.

The Widow swallowed her wine, smacked her moist rosy lips and filled her glass again. Her neighbours tried, in a joking way, to restrain her, but with a sudden flash of temper she threw them all off. Again her plump white hands glittering with the ostentatious jewellery closed round the glass; when she had again emptied it, she stared in a hostile fashion at Desgrez and challenged him, leaning forward and shouting down the table.

“What are you staring at me like that for? Who do you think I am? Do you suppose, because you’re in the police, I am afraid of you? I must say, Maître Perrin, this is funny company you ask one to meet! Come, young man, what do you think of me, after you’ve taken such a good look?”

Everyone had had sufficient wine; the entire company looked at Desgrez, who answered gravely:

“I think you are charming, Madame. I was admiring your beautiful satin dress, your exquisite furs, your sparkling jewels, your brocade bag and gold braid — and I was thinking what a clever business woman you must be to be able to earn all these fine things for yourself.”

The Widow Bosse laughed and touched her thin curls, highly gratified.

“I do quite well for myself, it is true,” she boasted with tipsy self-assurance. “A poor woman who’s left quite alone has to, hasn’t she? Yes, I do better now than I did when my husband, God keep him, was alive.”

“By selling perfumes and soaps, Madame?” asked the young Desgrez, “or by telling fortunes?”

“Fortunes!” echoed the Widow Bosse, and her voice rose to a metallic cackle. “Yes, I tell some pretty fortunes. Come round and have yours told, my fine young man — or rather — let your wife come!”

“Indeed, I should like to,” began Solange, but her husband silenced her with a smiling glance, while he continued, leaning forward and speaking to the laughing widow:

“How far can you see into the future, Madame, and how many of your predictions come true?”

“All of them,” she said, shaking a fat white finger at him, “all of them! There’s no woman who’s come to me to complain of her husband who can say I never helped her.”

“By the cards?” asked Desgrez with a careless air.

“By what else?” put in Madame Vigoureux. “She tells fortunes, by the cards, by a tray of sand and by a bowl of water. I have been there myself, it is most amusing.”

“Especially,” leered the Widow Bosse, “when a lady turns up spades.” She reached out her hand for the dark bottle of claret, which her neighbour snatched out of her reach. “I shall soon be able to retire,” she boasted. “I shall buy myself a château in the country and a handsome young husband, and keep a coach and four horses. Yes, three more pretty dears who want to be widows and my fortune will be made.”

The company laughed; everyone save Desgrez and his wife was a little flown by wine; Maître Perrin, comfortably warmed by food and drink, smiled cosily:

“What nonsense she talks, La Bosse.”

“Nonsense, indeed!” cried the Widow, rising. “I tell you I’ve only got three more poisonings to do and I shall be a very wealthy woman.” She staggered and lurched back into her chair, clutching at the table edge.

“She ought to go home,” protested Madame Vigoureux. “She has had too much to drink and she does not know what she is saying.”

“Poisonings, indeed,” laughed one of the lawyers. “I suppose she is thinking of that filthy syrup she sells that my wife uses for her complexion.”

Madame Bosse now began to weep, her round, fat white elbows on the table, her plump fingers knuckling her prominent eyes. She was a poor honest woman, she declared, and it was a shame to make a jest of her and to bait her. She did nothing but sell scents, soaps and complexion washes and tell the cards for a few friends.

Madame Vigoureux comforted her, and Maître Perrin led the conversation to general talk of the extravagances of the Court, the last arrogance of the well-detested royal mistress, Madame de Montespan. Her insolence and her extravagance grew to greater heights with every day; she had been the King’s favourite for twelve years and her influence over him seemed greater than ever; it was really astonishing, just as if the woman knew charms or witchcraft! The little people eagerly gossiped about the great people, turning over their vices, faults and peculiarities with greedy and spiteful zest.

Lieutenant Desgrez listened keenly. He often discovered a good deal of truth in the chaff and scandal and gossip, and it amused him to hear these petty creatures, their tongues loosened by wines, exposing their own jealousies and malices by commenting on those of others.

The character of Madame de Montespan, the gorgeous Queen of the Left Hand, was torn to pieces without compassion. She was declared to be old, raddled, venomous, vile-tempered, an adept in making furious scenes, careless in her dress, unclean in her person, a proper witch.

Desgrez smiled to himself; he had seen the lady driving in her golden coach with six white horses through the allées of Versailles, and he knew how untrue were these mean slanders.

Solange made a little grimace at him behind Maître Perrin’s head; she wished to go home, she did not care for this atmosphere of drunkenness, ugly gossiping, flushed faces, raucous voices; she had had enough of her birthday party; Maître Perrin was charming — but some of his friends! Her husband understood, and rose from the table.

It took them some time to make excuses and farewells; within half an hour they were out again in the now dark Parisian streets which were lit only by lamps set at rare intervals over the house doors. The wind had increased in strength, a few drops of rain fell now and then from the torn, hurrying, invisible clouds.

“There is a stand for hired coaches by the Cathedral,” said Desgrez. “We will take one.”

Solange protested against the extravagance, but the young man insisted. The streets were not only filthy, but not safe after dark.

“You don’t want me to be murdered trying to protect you, do you?” he said, kissing her smooth cheek on which the wind blew cold and which the rain wetted.

A shabby vehicle was found; the worn-out horse took them slowly homeward; in the foul-smelling darkness of the worn interior Desgrez put his arm round his young wife.

“It has been a hateful day for you, my dear. First your pretty dress was ruined, then, your birthday party — well, it was not what you should have had, not what I should have wished to have given you. I am sorry I took you there. Maître Perrin is not careful enough whom he invites.”

“Oh, no,” protested the happy girl, with her head against her husband’s shoulder. “I was quite content — indeed, I found it amusing — though perhaps next time we’ll make a little feast at home, just the two of us, with a good fire and bottle of wine you have chosen, and dishes that I have cooked, eh, Charles?”

He kissed her again on the forehead where the fair curls fell from beneath the hood; Solange was a handsome young girl, twenty years of age, with that straight, brilliant beauty of her countrywomen which in later years turns to hardness of outline and fixity of colouring. The racial likeness between herself and her husband was strong; though they were in no way related, they might have been cousins. They were alike, too, in character, cool, brave, shrewd and capable.

“Would you like to do something for me?” whispered Desgrez as the wretched vehicle trundled on its way, jolting them now together and now apart as it bumped over the Paris stones.

“Anything in the world, Charles — of course, you know it.”

“Well, I want you to go to the Widow Bosse and have your fortune told.”

“That, surely, is a waste of money,” replied Solange disappointed. “I thought you were going to ask something difficult.”

“I think this may be difficult before we have finished. I do not want you to go as yourself. You must put on some disguise. As a police officer’s wife you will have to become used to such things. I do not think she observed you very well today. I have seen her before, have you?”

“No.”

“You will be able, perhaps, to alter your voice, your hair — ” He paused, thoughtful. “Yes, I should think it can be done. You must go to her, you must make some little purchase, you must ask to have your fortune told.”

“Yes,” said Solange, when her husband paused. She was impressed by the gravity of his voice.

“It might be a chance for us, I don’t know. When she begins to tell the cards you must take your opportunity and do exactly as I tell you. We will have a rehearsal so that nothing can go wrong?”

PART 2

Searching the Underworld of Paris

— 1 —

THE SHOP OF THE WIDOW BOSSE

The Widow Bosse sat in her little shop, intermittently studying her face in a hand-mirror. She had taken a long time making up her complexion, her lips, her eyes and her hair, and she was by no means displeased with the result. A handsome cape of red fox fur lay across her shoulders; her dress of green cloth was laced with gold across her broad bosom to where it met her cravat of Mechlin lace.

She was directing a young man with a bilious complexion to tie up some boxes of soap scented with lilac, carnation and rose, and dividing her attention between this occupation and her own appearance.

The shop bell rang and a young woman stepped lightly up to the counter. Madame Bosse was instantly all smiles and attention. The newcomer was tall, dressed in a cheap, grey, mantle and wore a small complexion mask or vizard; her hands were gloved and she carried a plain purse without crest or monogram.

Madame Bosse smiled more broadly. She was used to all these precautions.

“I should like,” said the young woman in a provincial accent and lowering her voice, “to purchase a flagon of scent. I am tired of orange-flower water — possibly you have something a little more novel?”

“Indeed, yes,” said La Bosse, rising, “in my little parlour at the back of the shop.”

The customer followed Madame Bosse past the shelves that were loaded with tin and lacquer boxes and bottles and jars of majolica ware, into a neat, modest parlour, where a tall window discreetly curtained with green serge looked on to a small courtyard. A pleasant fire burned on the hearth, there was a table, some armchairs, a cabinet, and a cat, curled flat as a winkle just drawn from its shell, on a cushion.

When the customer, who was Solange Desgrez, entered this apartment she felt a little twinge of dismay. She did not greatly care to be alone with La Bosse, who was firmly shutting the door between the parlour and the shop; the young girl, however, soon laughed at her own fears; her courage was equal to any emergency, and this was not an emergency, merely a slight embarrassment. Even if Madame La Bosse recognized her, she had a story up her sleeve to account for her disguise; but the fortune-teller showed no sign of discovering, in the masked stranger, the wife of the young lieutenant of Police.

“You perhaps have come for the cards, for the horoscope?” she suggested slyly.

Solange nodded and seated herself at the table. She had rehearsed this scene several times with her husband and had her part perfectly by heart; feeling a little amused and a little foolish, she recited the story that she had learned from Charles Desgrez.

She declared that she was a well-placed lady, who did not wish to divulge her name, that she was in trouble and prepared to pay highly for any assistance that the Widow Bosse might give her. She admitted that she was unhappy with her husband, whose affection had cooled since the early days of their marriage, that he was behaving to her with injustice and even cruelty, and that she had seen a man whom the greatly preferred to this disappointing partner.

To her surprise the Widow Bosse seemed to accept this story as quite an ordinary one, nor did she try to penetrate her client’s disguise; she only asked:

“Who has sent you here, and what makes you think that I can help you?”

To these questions Solange replied: “A lady of some importance has sent me; I do not care to mention her name even between ourselves. You understand? She is a penitent at Notre-Dame. Is that sufficient?”

“A penitent at Notre-Dame,” repeated the Widow Bosse. “Tell her, then, to be careful.”

“Oh,” replied Solange, feeling her way through this conversation, which she did not understand, “she is being very careful — and you helped her considerably. Now, will you help me?”

“It will be expensive,” replied the fortune-teller coyly.

“Oh, as for that, it does not matter. I am prepared, of course to pay highly — but only on results,” added Solange prudently.

The Widow Bosse smiled, and throwing down the pack of cards she held in her hand, as if they were no longer of any use, said: “Come into the shop with me, and as we are passing through I shall give you a packet of soap balls and a purple phial — this will contain a love potion, which you must give to your husband. I ask no money now. Come back to me in three days’ time and if he is not kinder we will try other means.”

With this the Widow Bosse waved her plump hands in token of dismissal, and Solange, feeling that she had wasted her time on a silly frivolity, passed out into the shop, received the soap and phial and then went into the street. As the shop door closed behind her she shuddered from the blast of the March wind.

Paris looked dark and gloomy, with tourelles [turrets] and towers rising up an iron-grey colour against the sky, which appeared like the dappled breast of a grey goose. Solange drew herself closer into her woollen hood and cloak as she crossed the Place du Parvis de Notre-Dame. It was on this wide, sombre square in front of the great Cathedral, and surrounded on either side by the river, that criminals were executed, and as Solange glanced up half in disgust at the heavy Gothic porch of the Church of Our Lady she thought of the scaffold that had been erected there not so long ago, where Madame de Brinvilliers, the poisoner, had been beheaded before her body had been cast into the flames.

A few beggars, mutilated by the wars or disfigured with disease, crawled by, fluttering dark-stained rags; the iron-coloured river ran sluggishly under the Pont Henri-Quatre; Solange stifled a sigh for the old, girlhood days at Caen; she did not regret her marriage, but she wished that her husband had another occupation in another city. She did not know what he was hoping from the errand on which he had sent her to the Widow Bosse’s shop, but she feared that she had wasted her afternoon on a piece of folly and she was half-inclined to take the foolish phial of purple glass out of her bosom and throw it into the sullen gloomy river. It probably, she thought, contains nothing but coloured water; she wished, however, to fulfil scrupulously her husband’s instructions, so, hunching her shoulders against the wind, she turned towards their modest apartment.

— 2 —

THE OFFICES IN THE BASTILLE

M. de La Reynie, the Chief of Police, sat in his offices in the Bastille; this stern, massive building was a medieval fort, which had been one of the most formidable in Paris; it was still garrisoned, but used now as a State prison where the higher class of offenders were sent, and as the Headquarters of the Parisian Police, who kept their archives there and transacted most of their business behind these thick, ancient walls.

M. de La Reynie was a man still young, of majestic appearance, austere, painstaking, of unimpeachable integrity; he sat in a plain closet lined with shelves, on which were files, books, locked cases of papers. He was severely but fastidiously dressed and his face had an eager look.

In the light space of the round window embrasure sat two clerks copying out dossiers; before the Chief of Police stood the young Lieutenant, Charles Desgrez, who was so insignificant and so newly come to Paris that M. de La Reynie had never heard of him before.

It had been with some difficulty that the young Lieutenant had obtained this interview, but now that at last he stood before the great man he found that he was received with grave and courteous attention; he did not know that, before he had been received into his presence M. de La Reynie had made careful enquiries as to his background, character and work.

M. de La Reynie glanced now with approval at the fine, strong figure, clean, precise features and alert grey eyes of Charles Desgrez.

“I need not tell you to be brief, Desgrez.”

“I shall give you the essentials of my story, Monsieur, in the fewest possible words, but I think we should be alone.” Desgrez smiled towards’ the two industrious copyists in the window embrasure.

“They are confidential men,” replied La Reynie a little surprised. “But you may, if you like, lower your voice. Take this chair opposite me and lean forward across the table.”

Desgrez obeyed instantly, and began speaking clearly and swiftly.

“A certain Maître Perrin gave a dinner-party for my wife on her birthday. There was a woman there whom I have met before at his house, a Madame La Bosse, a widow. She keeps a perfumer’s shop and tells fortunes. After she had had too much to drink, she began to boast that three poisonings would make her rich. No one took any notice of this, it was thought to be a jest. You know, that since the Brinvilliers case people have quite had their heads turned by the subject of poisoning. Well, I thought the matter over. As a police officer it had come to my ears that the priests of Notre-Dame had reported that a large number of their penitents accused themselves of murdering their husbands by poisoning. You did not, I think, Monsieur, attach any importance to that?”

“None,” replied La Reynie. “These gabbling, idling hysterical women will accuse themselves of anything. After the Brinvilliers affair it is almost a fashion to be a poisoner.”

“Ah, well,” smiled Desgrez, “that, of course, is as you say, Monsieur. Yet it came into my head to make a little test. I sent my wife to this La Bosse with the excuse of buying soaps and perfumes. I gave her a little tale to recite, she learned it by heart. She soon induced La Bosse to tell her fortune and other nonsense like that. Then she informed her that she was unhappily married, that her husband was unkind to her, that she was in love with another man. This on the first interview. The Widow gave her a little purple bottle containing some fluid supposed to be a love charm. I sent this to Lecoine, the chemist, to be analysed. He found that it contained water, a little sugar, a little laudanum. After three days, as arranged, my wife returned to La Bosse. She said that the charm had been of no use, that her husband was more detestable than ever — speaking, of course, Monsieur, as I had instructed her. The woman then asked for her money. She wanted thirty gold louis d’or.”

As this large sum was named, La Reynie looked keenly into the intent eyes of the young Lieutenant.

“Yes, Monsieur, that is the enormous price she asked. Well, it happened that I was in possession of a piece of valuable jewellery. I had intended to sell this and use the money for my wife’s benefit. I did sell it, and I gave my wife these thirty gold pieces to return for a third time to La Bosse and ask her yet again for relief from her husband.”

The young man paused a second, leaned closer across the table and lowered his voice again. La Reynie nodded to him to continue.

“This time, without the least difficulty, La Bosse took the money and gave my wife a small, white flat bottle very securely corked. She told her to give this to her husband in three separate doses, on no account to touch it herself or allow anyone else to do so, else the charm would not work. I sent this also to Lecoine. Here is his report, here are the two bottles.”

Charles Desgrez put his hand in his pocket and brought out a purple phial, a small, flat white bottle and a piece of paper signed and sealed by the chemist, Jules Lecoine.

“You see, he says it is a solution of sublimate of pure arsenic, sufficient to kill ten people — so that is the way in which La Bosse encourages her clients to get rid of their husbands.”

Without speaking the Chief of Police read the chemist’s report and examined the two bottles.

“You will see, Monsieur,” continued the young Lieutenant, “that there is still half the solution left. You may, if you like, have it analysed yourself.”

“This is scarcely,” said La Reynie in a low tone, “to be believed. Your wife obtained the poison as easily as that?”

“Yes. The inference is that the woman has a flourishing business — she is so used to purveying this poison that she does so without the least hesitation. She feels sure that none of these women will betray her. Indeed, how can they do so without betraying themselves? As you yourself know, Monsieur,” added the young agent of Police with a touch of triumph in his voice, “even the priests’ talk of what has been told them in the confessional has been disregarded, and no one as yet has tried to investigate the subject.”

“That is true, Desgrez. It is, also, I think, a rebuke to me,” replied the Chief of Police gravely. “But I never thought such matters possible. I believed that with Brinvilliers we had stamped out all this question of poison. Yes, I have been blind. I did not think this was going on in Paris. Where do they get this stuff? It comes from Italy?”

“One would have to investigate, Monsieur, and very carefully. You accounted for Madame de Brinvilliers’ accomplices, I think, Monsieur?”

“Yes, the Italian, Exili, died in the Bastille, where he was on another charge. Sainte-Croix, the young Gascon adventurer, who was her lover and who undoubtedly supplied her with the poison, was found dead, you remember, in his laboratory. His glass mask had slipped and some poisonous fumes had killed him.”

“Yes, Monsieur, it was through the letters found in his casket on that occasion that she was arrested, was it not?”

“Yes,” replied the Chief of Police. “We never could find that the affair went any further. Sainte-Croix met Exili in the Bastille — Exili was an Italian and had learned his tricks at the Court of the Vatican. He had been in the employ of Madame Olympe, the Pope’s niece. We never could find anyone else connected with the affair. We thought that we had rooted it all out.”

“Your pardon, Monsieur, but I do not think so. I do not believe that this woman Bosse is an isolated case. The fact that she can so easily and so carelessly sell poisons to a stranger, caring for nothing but a high price, shows that the trade is going on shamelessly, almost openly, in the underworld.”

“There have been no mysterious crimes lately,” remarked M. de La Reynie gravely, frowning down at the little bottle of poison. “No one has disappeared, nor has anyone been found dead, there have been no complaints by relations or heirs of sudden and suspicious deaths.”

“No, Monsieur,” replied the young police agent, “but who can tell how many deaths that have seemed natural have in truth not been so? I believe that one who dies by this subtle poisoning has the symptoms of an ordinary disease, and you will remember that Madame de Brinvilliers practised her arts on the patients in the hospital where she acted as a Sister of Charity. Who then suspected that these people who died under her hand had been poisoned?”

La Reynie sat silent and put his hands over his tired eyes in the attitude of a man before whom a terrifying prospect had been opened.