SIX

Monsieur de La Reynie’s secretary had shown Inspector Legras into the immense old Hôtel La Reynie, the center of the newly reorganized Paris police. Legras looked around uncomfortably at the clumsy, dark furniture of a previous century. Why had he never noticed before how vaguely menacing it seemed? Those rows of law books, lined up like soldiers in the bookcases built against the paneled walls: a rank of silent witnesses against him. The chief was leafing through a little book. His face, even in repose, looked cold, civilized, and hard. A merciless face, thought Legras. The nose, too long and arrogant. The lines between the eyebrows and around the pale eyes, sinister. A dark moustache could not hide the odd sensuality of the mouth. Beneath it, the chief’s chin was just beginning to show the effects of too many formal dinners. Legras resented that, too. A man who lived like that could not understand his struggles.

Spring sunlight fell in a golden stream across the heavy old desk and the open pages of the book. That damned book, his one failure. Why should one little book risk a man’s career? Legras shifted on his feet and clutched his bound ledger to him.

“Legras. I want you to refresh my mind concerning this press—the Sign of the Reading Griffon.” La Reynie’s cold eyes looked up from the book. He did not invite Legras to sit.

“Monsieur de La Reynie…” the Inspector of the Book Trade could feel his knees faintly trembling beneath him. Oh, God, if not a chair, at least a stool. Standing would surely betray him. Legras could see the chief watching his knees with a sort of detached, professional interest. La Reynie, the interrogator, who could terrify a confession out of a suspect long before he was stretched out on the narrow table in the basement of the Châtelet.

“The…the Reading Griffon, publisher of pornographic trash and libelles of distinguished citizens and officials, a propaganda press located in The Hague, undoubtedly supported by the treacherous William of Orange—”

“And yet,” broke in La Reynie, “we have searched every conveyance coming into the city, every load of wood or fodder…” Legras felt somehow less than human, under that unpitying gaze. “Legras, have you yet to consider the obvious? Illegal works, circulating in Paris as freely as if they were printed here…”

“An illicit press? Oh, no. How could that be, Monsieur? I assure you, under our new program of inspection, nothing so large as an illicit print shop could escape us.”

“Legras, you must broaden your mind. Consider a licensed shop, printing by day, say, religious tracts…or a portable press mounted on a cart, moved from stable to stable. I imagine another man might do better. Or, perhaps you have accepted payment from this Griffon?” La Reynie’s voice was silky and menacing. Righteous son of a bitch, thought Legras. It’s only human to take a little something, if there’s no harm in it. But in this affair, Legras felt as clean as if he were newborn. Even he had recognized the danger of the little leather-bound book on the chief’s desk. But if only Monsieur Louvois’s secretary had not found the first copy—Louvois, the minister of war to whom La Reynie, as chief of police, reported. Louvois, the vengeful, the merciless, who never forgot a slight or an enemy. The Terror of the Netherlands had sent the little volume straight to La Reynie with a sarcastic note: “So this is how you keep the peace in the King’s capital?” It was that note that would ruin him, Legras knew. Inadequate attention to duty. “You have brought your records with you?” The chief’s voice called him back to the matter at hand. Here was the moment Legras dreaded. His records: every author in Paris from the highest rank to the lowest. Addresses, works, evaluations of reliability. Legras took pride in his records. Or, rather, he had taken pride in them. No matter who wrote what, a play, a sonnet, or just an epigram, they did not escape the indefatigable Legras’s records for long. Except for one.

“You have seen this work, doubtless, Legras?” asked La Reynie, tapping the little book he had been reading with a forefinger.

“Monsieur de La Reynie, it has just been brought to my attention. Observations on the Health of the State—a malignant little work. I saw at once that it should be banned.” Now Legras felt his knees firmer, but his hands had lost their steadiness. He clasped them beneath the ledgers to still them, then squirmed internally as he watched La Reynie’s pale eyes take note of the gesture. The shadow of the galleys, the noose, seemed to be reflected in them.

“A work of treason, Legras. It advocates the elimination of the exemption of the aristocracy from taxation and proposes instead a replacement of all taxes by a single tithe proportional to income.”

“Unheard of—preposterous,” Legras managed to interject.

“This…ah, Cato…produces mathematical calculations to predict the collapse of the state due to fiscal insolvency. Listen to this: ‘While it may be truly said that His Majesty is the head of the body politic, and the lower orders the limbs, nevertheless, will not the head suffer if the feet become gangrened? Thus have we overburdened the peasantry, who create the wealth of the state through agriculture. And when the rot reaches the heart, the body must die.’ It is clear: ‘Cato’ advocates the destruction of the monarchy under the pretense of reform. This so-called geometric method is nothing but a disguise for treason. No wonder he conceals himself. Your records, Legras. I wish to discover who this Cato might be.”

“I—I have not discovered precisely, but there are several possibilities—here…and here—” Legras had opened his ledger on the desk, and he pointed to various entries with a trembling finger. La Reynie looked at the pages with interest, uncapped his inkwell, and took note of several names and addresses.

“Possible, but not probable,” La Reynie observed tersely. He gestured to his secretary. “Take this to Desgrez,” he said. “I want them brought in for questioning.” As the secretary left, La Reynie turned again to Legras. “And you, Legras—I want you to bring me a little more respectable list than this. See? I have already obtained the lettre de cachet from His Majesty for this Cato.” He indicated an open document lying on the desk, the seals already in place. ‘Life in the galleys.’ I need only to fill in the blank space beside the pseudonym. Now consider, I would hate to see this order gather dust. Find me the man who calls himself Cato, Inspector.”

“Monsieur de La Reynie, it will be done. I guarantee it. I have an informant at the Pomme de Pin…”