Читать книгу The Poisoners - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 9

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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 be fore 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 learnt 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, leant 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 learnt 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.

Was it possible, he asked himself, that this peculiarly atrocious form of crime was corrupting all Paris and he knew nothing of it?

He felt alarmed and ashamed; this deadly poison so mysterious, so difficult to trace, then, could be bought quite easily, almost openly, in Paris; there must be a ring of scoundrels and their dupes in the horrible business. That it could be used easily he knew too well from the Brinvilliers case, as Desgrez had reminded him; doctors were powerless to discover the symptoms, and how numerous would be the opportunities! In the familiarity of domestic life a woman could poison her father, her husband, her brother, her sister, her child without arousing any suspicion...The Chief of Police said aloud, though under his breath: "The women—always the women! Desgrez—it is the women! They are kept so close, they lead unnatural lives, almost like prisoners—they have lively passions and no means of expressing them. And very often their husbands or their fathers are cruel. Well they take the only weapon to their hand. It seems that we may find it is a weapon that has been used very freely."

M. La Reynie called out suddenly to one of the copyists in the window: "Masson, bring me immediately the dossier of a certain Widow Bosse, who lives at the sign of 'The Lily Pot' in the rue de Saint-Pierre near the Parvis de Notre-Dame."

The clerk, a thin, grave man, rose instantly and left the room. La Reynie turned to Desgrez.

"You shall be paid the money you gave this woman. Tell me what else I can do for you. It seems to me that I am much obliged to you."

A fine colour stained the young man's clear features.

"The only favour I ask," he said, and he could hardly keep the eagerness from his voice, "is that I may be permitted to have a hand in the investigation of this affair."

"Who better suited?" replied the Chief of Police.

"Many, I daresay," replied the young man modestly. "I have not had much experience. But I am ambitious, newly married—"

"Your wife must be a brave, clever woman," put in the Chief of Police kindly.

"Yes, she is, but I do not know that what she did required much courage. She would always be at our service if there was something that a woman alone could do."

"She certainly managed this little affair very well, and if I can do anything—"

"That, Monsieur, is all I require, permission to assist in any investigation you may undertake."

"You have that, of course," replied La Reynie, "but for a moment I do not know how to act. To arrest this La Bosse would be to cause suspicion among a wide circle of criminals; it is better to have her watched, notice who her clients are and discover all we can about her."

"Meanwhile, if Monsieur permits the comment," said Desgrez drily, "several more victims may be sent on the way to heaven."

Before M. de La Reynie could answer, the copyist, Masson, returned with the dossier of the Widow Bosse. In this police register she was described as a Provençal who had come from Marseilles six years ago; at first she had been employed in making hat and bonnet shapes, then she had opened a little shop for the sale of perfumery and soaps. She obtained the capital to do this by a loan from a lover, a married man named Bax, a wool-merchant in a small way. He still visited her and was supposed to have a share in the business. She was fairly respectable and had never given any trouble to the law.

"You see," remarked M. de La Reynie when he had glanced over this dossier, "nothing very much is known about her, simply because no one has troubled with her. We must find out a little more."