Chapter 8
The barracks of the gendarmerie lay off the quay on the Rh?ne side of the city’s island, just downriver of the massive H?tel Dieu—the city’s hospital—and the Pont de la Guillotière.
The building I faced was plain and tall, with its crumbling stucco facade revealing dark bricks beneath. High windows faced the narrow street, and the stout shutters to secure the place at night were now open to the afternoon sunshine.
A young man in a stiff uniform guarded the door. When I asked if I could speak to Captain Vernet, he only gave me a sneer.
“Go home, foreigner,” he said in thickly accented English.
Brewster, who’d halted at the end of the lane, exercising his usual distrust of police, turned and glowered at the young man.
I might never have been admitted to the house had not the sour-faced sergeant who’d helped carry away Gallo’s body happened by.
He snarled a few words at the guard and nodded to me. “Captain?” he addressed me in French. “Why do you wish to see Captain Vernet?”
“Is it true he’s arrested Claude Devere?”
The sergeant’s face clouded. “Oui, and we’ve had the whole pack of Deveres threatening us. Are you here to do the same?”
“No, indeed, but I believe the lad is simply unfortunate, not guilty. Does Captain Vernet have evidence to the contrary?”
The sergeant continued to scowl at me, then I saw him conclude that such decisions did not rest with him.
“Come,” he said, gesturing me in. “I will have the captain informed you are here.”
The guard stood ungraciously aside as I followed the sergeant into the interior. A glance behind me showed that Brewster had vanished.
I was used to the Bow Street Magistrate’s house, with its famous Runners clumping in and out, patrollers milling, and young barristers or their clerks loitering in the halls to drum up business with the accused. Those arrested in the night queued to see the magistrate, who would decide their fate.
This building reminded me of an army headquarters, with men of lower ranks darting about to serve the higher, many of the underlings with sheafs of papers in hands or tucked under arms.
Bonaparte’s reforms had made record-keeping more precise, from what I understood, but such bureaucracy took time and mountains of paper. Offices with open doors showed me rows of shelves with niches for all these documents and tables piled with wooden boxes of the same.
The sergeant took me up a flight of stone steps, which were worn in the center from so many feet over the years, and to the next floor.
Here windows let in light and air, refreshing after the close bustle of the lower hall.
The sergeant paused before a plain wooden door that looked like all the others we’d passed and knocked. To a sharp, Entre! he pushed it open.
We stepped into an office that was small, cramped, and dingy. Its appearance thwarted the myth that officers lived lavishly at the expense of the lower ranks. Some British officers during the war had brought luxury with them, it was true, but it was family wealth, nothing provided by the army.
The military of France must be as austere, I decided.
Vernet glanced up from a simple wooden desk overflowing with papers and the slim wooden boxes of the sort I’d seen downstairs.
A shelf along a wall held more boxes. The walls had once been painted a soft yellow, but time and dirt had rendered them a brownish gray.
“Captain Lacey.” Vernet rose politely, looking not at all put out that I’d interrupted him. “Welcome. Please, sit.”
He waved at a straight-backed chair whose white paint flaked in places to show the wood’s natural hue beneath. As its seat was stacked with more papers and ledger books, I had to wait for the sergeant to clear it off before I could rest upon it.
The sergeant, his tasks completed, shuffled out of the room, closing the door noisily behind him.
“How may I assist you, Captain?” Vernet asked. “Have you come to tell me something you recall about Signor Gallo’s murder?”
I perched awkwardly on the rickety chair, steadying myself with my walking stick. “You have arrested Claude Devere.”
“Ah.” Vernet leaned back and drummed his fingers on the only bare surface on the desk. “Yes, you are connected with the Deveres, or soon will be. As I said before, my felicitations on the nuptials.”
“Thank you,” I answered, a trifle impatiently. “Do you have evidence against Claude? Or was he brought in because of his infatuation with Signora Ruggeri?”
“You are well informed.” Vernet ran fingertips along the desk’s edge and shook his head.
“Since that woman came to Lyon, I have had nothing but trouble. Fights that come to weapons drawn in back streets. Duels between higher-born men—which fortunately have come to nothing. Young Claude is a good lad, as far as I can see, but even he was once brawling in the plaza with another young man who claimed to have the lady’s favor. ”
“Did you arrest the other young man?” I asked.
“No, because he left Lyon soon afterward and has not been seen since. That was months ago. No one has noted him returning, before you ask, so I do not believe he is the culprit.”
“Once Signora Ruggeri caught Comte Lejeune’s eye, Claude would have given up,” I pointed out. “The son of a factory owner could hardly compete with a comte.”
“That son of a factory owner has more money than the comte, in spite of the chateau on the hill and the comtesse’s ancient lineage.”
“Did Signora Ruggeri know that?” I asked.
Vernet barked a short laugh. “She did not appear to. The signora is the sort dazzled by a title and a large house, not to mention the jewels he nearly bankrupted himself to give her.”
“Small wonder there is so much anger at Signora Ruggeri,” I said. “If she is beggaring the poor man, while the rest of Lyon watches.”
“There are some who would not mind to see him fall,” Vernet said. “Not long before the siege, Lejeune disappeared from the city with his young sons and all the family’s money. He left the comtesse behind.”
I thought of the redoubtable woman I’d observed last evening, cooly welcoming her husband’s mistress and even offering her a bed for the night.
When I’d finally been introduced to the comtesse, I’d been impressed by her equanimity.
She showed true serenity, not simply a facade erected between herself and the world.
“He left her behind?” I repeated in anger. “If he was callous enough to desert his wife in a time of danger, then I cannot blame those disgusted with him.”
“He claimed she refused to leave,” Vernet said. “That she vowed to remain in her home, where she’d lived her entire life, and face down those who tried to pry her from it.”
I recalled Bartholomew explaining that the chateau belonged to the comtesse’s family. “She inherited the place?” I asked. “In England, this would be difficult.”
“The wealthy can always find ways to keep property in the family,” Vernet said with disapproval.
“The comte inherited a villa when he came into his title, but it is small. He leases it to a man who oversees his farms. The comtesse’s father bestowed his house on the comte and comtesse at their marriage, as the comtesse was his only child.
Hers was not a titled family, but a very old one, with much power through the ages.
The comte then purchased more properties with the money he married, which he either leases out or puts whatever woman has caught his eye into.
The comtesse and her man of business handle the rents, however, so the comte sees little of the returns. ”
Fernand had told me some of this. I was glad the comtesse was wise enough not to let her husband have free rein with the money.
“The comtesse seems a formidable lady,” I said in admiration. “If she truly did volunteer to remain behind, then she is much to be admired.”
“I was not in Lyon during the uprisings or the siege,” Vernet said.
“I am from a village near Grenoble, and joined up with the army as they rode into the Hapsburg Empire. Was assigned here after the Bourbon king returned to France. The Lyonnais might squabble among themselves, but they stick together against outsiders, I will tell you.”
I had already noted that. “Then they will not be happy with you arresting a Devere.”
Vernet sent me a pained look. “No, indeed.” He sighed.
“Claude is a good lad, if a bit hot-headed at times. Unfortunately, he was seen last night, arguing with Gallo. From the witnesses who gave my men this information, this was earlier, about nine o’clock, across the Rh?ne, in La Guillotière.
There was shouting and waving of fists before the two parted. ”
I did not like hearing this. “Gallo was at the comtesse’s chateau a bit after that. Must have been about half past ten, I’d say. Claude was nowhere in evidence then, and Gallo was whole and alive.”
Vernet shrugged. “Nothing to say they didn’t meet up again later. Young Mr. Devere is being very vague about his whereabouts.”
“Perhaps I can speak to him,” I offered. “I am close to being family but won’t remonstrate with him like his father or uncles would. And I am not a gendarme.”
Vernet regarded me for a long time, assessing me without betraying his conclusions. The drumming of fingers recommenced, then ceased altogether.
“I suppose it could do no harm,” he said. “If Claude will confess all that he did last night, and we can find evidence he speaks the truth, I will send him home. However, if he truly did commit the crime, I cannot look the other way, no matter what his surname is.”
I could see that Vernet would prefer not to have to send a Devere to trial and maybe to the guillotine. However, he was unwilling to simply turn Claude loose, no matter what the Deveres or their solicitors were threatening.
He rose, and I followed suit. I thought he’d call a lackey to take me to wherever they were holding Claude, but Vernet himself led me from the office and along the hall then down two flights of stairs to the cellar.