LITMIR.BIZ

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disguise, but it was Bourdeau who was having the last word – he certainly had the ability and experience for it.

      ‘How terrible,’ murmured Nicolas, ‘that Julie’s body has been left like that with no one to watch over it!’

      Bourdeau responded with an indistinct grunt.

      When they opened the door to the bedroom, a sickening odour seized them by the throat. At first, they could make out nothing: the curtains were drawn and the room was in darkness. Bourdeau fetched a candle from the other room and lit the bedroom candles. The flickering light illumined the room. Julie de Lastérieux lay there in her nightdress, her body arched, her legs bent and splayed apart. Death had seized her as she was lifting her hands to her throat. Her head was thrown back on the pillow and surrounded by her flowing hair, and her mouth was open, as if she were screaming. The front of her body was covered in orange-coloured vomit, flecked with blood, which had dripped on the sheets and the carpet. The eyes were bulging, the pupils already clouding over. Nicolas, assailed by memories, was profoundly shocked to see how horribly death had done its work. He had to force himself to carry on. Only by clinging to the idea of dutycould he summon the will power to act as if the poor body lying in its own vomit was not that of a woman he had loved. He had to take charge of the operation. He had noted in the past that, however pusillanimous his emotional reaction to a situation might be, it immediately gave way to a cold determination, even – or especially – when he himself was personally involved.

      ‘Pierre,’ he said, ‘don’t take another step. You don’t know this room. I do, in great detail – that’s why I want to have a very careful look at it. It doesn’t matter if the cause of death is as yet unknown. When we do know it, and if it does prove to be a case of criminal poisoning, we’ll regret not having been more attentive now. Lift that candlestick so that I can see.’

      He stood looking at the room, motionless, deep in thought. Bourdeau, growing impatient, touched his elbow as if afraid he had fallen asleep. ‘Nicolas, we don’t have all that long …’

      ‘In such circumstances, it’s sometimes useful to take our time.’

      ‘And what observations have you made?’

      ‘Some quite surprising ones, actually. First of all, the fire is out, but that’s normal. It’s nearly six o’clock. But the fact that the windows are closed and the curtains drawn – now that’s not in keeping.’

      ‘Not in keeping with what?’

      ‘With Julie’s habits. She always demanded a raging fire – which I hate, as you know – and, to make up for it, she kept the windows half open and the curtains half drawn. Now, unless things haven’t been left in the state they were in when the body was discovered, which I don’t believe to be the case …’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Look at those candles on the chest of drawers. The doctor who came examined the body by their light. They weren’t usually kept there, any more than there were usually all these jewels scattered about. When there’s a dead body and it’s winter, it’s best to let the cold in from outside … I also see a half-empty glass of white liquid on the night table, and a plate with what seems to be a chicken wing in sauce. Now that’s impossible, in fact totally absurd.’

      ‘Why do you say that?’

      ‘Because Julie hated eating in bed. She would never have had food brought in to her. She never allowed me to satisfy my hunger at her bedside. That’s why the presence of this plate bothers me.’

      In the dark, he blushed at the thought of these intimate details.

      ‘Another thing,’ he went on. ‘Why would she have wanted to eat in bed or during the night when she had just finished a sumptuous dinner? It makes no sense.’

      He looked pensively at the little writing case that lay on a rosewood table, surrounded by scattered sheets of paper, along with a quill, a seal and a stick of green wax.

      ‘So much for the room,’ said Bourdeau. ‘What about the body?’

      ‘We’ll have to take a closer look at it. It reminds me of the body of an old man who was stung on the throat by wasps in Chaville, one night last summer. The position of the hands was identical. At first sight, poisoning is an obvious conclusion, as is suffocation. The throat looks swollen, even seen from a distance. The autopsy will tell us more, I hope. We need to take the glass and its contents with us, as well as the leftovers on the plate.’

      ‘There are a lot of footprints,’ said Bourdeau. ‘Muddy ones, too.’

      ‘The police and the doctor. We won’t get much from them.’

      They walked around the room, looking for other clues. Bourdeau pointed to a concealed door in the partition wall. ‘Where does that lead?’

      ‘To the servants’ pantry, by way of the wardrobe, the toilet and the service rooms.’

      Bourdeau opened the door, and walked through a small room full of cupboards which led to a larger one furnished with a mirrored table and a bergère. He opened a second door and found himself in a long corridor with jute-covered walls.

      ‘Through here, the prints are more distinct,’ he observed. ‘A man seems to have walked along it in both directions.’

      Nicolas came and joined him. Bourdeau stared at the floor in amazement.

      ‘That’s quite strange,’ he said. ‘I’ll be damned if these prints aren’t the same as those your boots are leaving on the carpet. See for yourself.’

      They both knelt. After a moment, Nicolas broke the silence.

      ‘Identical. Absolutely and totally identical.’

      Nicolas took a few steps, crouched, took a sheet from his little black notebook and a lead pencil, and noted down the pattern of marks on the parquet floor.

      ‘In fact, they’re not completely identical,’ he said. ‘There must have been a nail loose on the sole, and it’s scratched the floor. Look.’

      ‘And what’s more, these prints are fresh,’ murmured Bourdeau, embarrassed. ‘Or at least, from last night.’

      ‘I see what you’re thinking. There is an explanation.’

      He went back to the wardrobe room and opened one of the closets. Hanging on a rail was a cloak which Bourdeau recognised as one of Nicolas’s, and on a side shelf there were folded shirts and handkerchiefs. But something did not correspond to what the commissioner was expecting, and Bourdeau sensed Nicolas’s dejection.

      ‘Vanished! My second pair of boots, identical to this one, vanished. I always keep some of my things here.’

      ‘Perhaps the servants took them away to be cleaned.’

      ‘I’d like to see that!’ said Nicolas. ‘I learnt from my father, the marquis, never to entrust that task to anyone other than myself. Otherwise you’d never obtain the right polish and brilliance. The surface leather has to look like that of a well-rubbed horse chestnut.’

      ‘All right,’ said Bourdeau, unaccustomed to hearing Nicolas mention his father. ‘But they could be the servants’ prints!’

      ‘Impossible, they always walk barefoot. Julie hated noise. She would have liked people to slide along the floor.’

      ‘The fact remains,’ the inspector went on hesitantly, ‘that the only footprints found in this corridor are yours …’

      He observed Nicolas’s impatient gesture.

      ‘Yours, or left by your boots … Let’s follow them, shall we?’

      The prints led them to the servants’ pantry, which was spick and span. In a larder, they discovered the remains of a chicken dish, which intrigued Bourdeau, but which Nicolas recognised as having been prepared in the style of the West Indies – it

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