The Man with the Lead Stomach Read Online Free PDF Page A

slumped in the armchair, apparently grappling with his thoughts. Nicolas did not disturb him, but returned instead to the body.
    Candlestick in hand, he examined the scene, starting with the wooden floor. He spotted a few recent scratch marks, which could have been caused either by gravel sticking to the sole of the boots or by something quite different.
    His attention was then drawn to the desktop. Under the hurricane lamp in the middle of the desktop leather he found a sheet of paper and, scribbled in large capitals, the words: ‘FORGIVE ME, FAREWELL’. To the left of this sheet lay aquill next to an inkstand. The position of the armchair behind the desk indicated that the person who had written this message had then stood up, pushed the chair back and made off to the right towards the door, presumably to go round the front of the desk and to end up where the body now rested.
    He looked at the corpse once more, paying special attention to the hands, and tried unsuccessfully to close the eyes. He then had a thorough look around the room and noticed to the left of the entrance a huge, elaborately carved wardrobe that almost reached the ceiling. Its doors were ajar. He pushed one open and looked inside; it was dark and cavernous, reminiscent of the box beds of his childhood in Brittany. A strong smell of leather and earth filled his nostrils. In the bottom part was a collection of boots, some in need of a good brushing. He pushed back the polished door of the wardrobe, then drew a plan of the apartment on a page of his notebook.
    Continuing his inspection, Nicolas spotted a break in the moulding of the wainscoting. To the left of the alcove a door opened on to a dressing room with deal half-panelling and an adjacent water closet. The room was tiled in Lias 9 and black marble. The walls were hung with wallpaper depicting exotic birds. It was lit by a bull’s-eye, which he checked was closed. He stood in thought for some time before the dressing table and its fine porcelain bowl, admiring the toilet case with its razors and mother-of-pearl and silver-gilt instruments carefully laid out on a white linen towel. He also subjected the brushes and combs to the same scrutiny, as if mesmerised by the sight of such splendours.
    When Nicolas returned to his superior, Monsieur de Sartine was pacing to and fro in the bedroom, carefully avoiding thecorpse. His wig was straight again and the colour had returned to his bony cheeks.
    ‘My dear Nicolas,’ said Sartine, ‘I am in the most terrible predicament. Like me, you are convinced that the young man took his own life, is that correct?’
    Nicolas was careful not to answer and, taking his silence to be tantamount to assent, the Lieutenant General carried on, though not before checking in the pier glass that his wig was properly back in place.
    ‘You know the procedure in such cases. The assumption is one of suicide, and the commissioner who has been informed goes to the scene without his gown and draws up a report without the least fuss or publicity. Then at the request of the grieving relatives, but equally to preserve the conventions, the magistrate requires the parish priest or requests him via his bishop to conduct the funeral service for the deceased and to bury him quietly. As you are also aware …’
    ‘Until recently the bodies of those who committed suicide, since they were deemed to be their own murderers, were tried and sentenced to be dragged along on a large timber frame attached to a cart. I know that, sir.’
    ‘Very good, very good. However, notwithstanding this appalling public ordeal on the hurdle, the body was hanged and denied burial in consecrated ground. Fortunately a more enlightened philosophy and our more compassionate times now spare the victim and the family such distressing and shocking excesses. However, we have just such a tragedy here. The elder son of a noble family with a promising future ahead of him has just died. His father is close to the King,