The Whispering of Bones by Judith Rock

dead man you found.”
    â€œThank you, I’ll go.” Charles had been expecting La Reynie to come looking for him. The abbess had summoned the nearest police
commissaire
to Notre Dame des Champs, and the news would soon have reached La Reynie, the head of the police. Charles started to walk away and then turned. “How did you know about the dead man, Frère Martin?”
    â€œLouis le Grand has the very best air for carrying news.” Martin shrugged and winked at Charles. “My village had the same air, can you believe it?”
    Charles suspected that once Frère Martin knew something, the air wherever he lived would have that same miraculous effect. “Do you have any news of Père Dainville,
mon frère
?” The porter’s smile vanished and he shook his head. “Just that he’s mostly sleeping. But we know sleep heals,
maître
, so that’s to the good.”
    â€œPray God it is.” Charles went heavy hearted through the side door from the passage. The main building’s
grand salon
, where visitors normally waited, was empty. But the rector’s office door opened and Le Picart looked out.
    â€œAh. I hoped it was you I heard,
maître
. In here, please. Monsieur La Reynie wishes to speak with you.”
    â€œYes,
mon père
.” With a sense of girding his loins, Charles crossed the
salon
. He’d helped La Reynie in the past, and he’d come to like and respect the man, even to feel warmly toward him. But having the head of the Paris police seek him out still made him uneasy. When he reached Le Picart’s office, the rector was sitting behind his desk and Lieutenant-Général Nicolas de la Reynie, a big man in his sixties, faultlessly dressed in coat and breeches of finely woven black wool, stood stiffly in front of it. Charles could almost see the tension arcing between the two men. He could certainly feel their inheld anger.
    Charles bowed first to his rector and then to the king’s officer. “
Mon père.
Monsieur La Reynie.”
    â€œBonjour, maître.”
A muscle in La Reynie’s cheek was twitching as he bowed slightly. “I trust you are well?”
    â€œVery well, I thank you,” Charles said warily. “And you?” The tension in the air made him feel as though they were trading conversation from a textbook of manners.
    â€œI
was
well enough.” La Reynie glared at the rector. “I had hoped—”
    â€œOne moment.” Le Picart plucked the conversational bit out of La Reynie’s mouth. “I will explain.
Maître
, we owe the honor of the
lieutenant-général
’s visit to your discovery of the dead man—may God receive his soul—in the Carmelites’ crypt. Monsieur La Reynie has been trying to discover the man’s name and wishes to ask you a few questions about what you saw yesterday. Brief questions.” He leveled a chilly gray glance at La Reynie. “Before you go to your dinner and then to your studies.”
    â€œI am at your service,
mon père
,” Charles said carefully. He knew the rector in this inflexible mood. It usually meant that Le Picart was protecting something or someone.
    â€œMon père,”
La Reynie said through his teeth, “I am hunting a murderer. Surely my questions matter more than anyone’s dinner.” He turned to Charles, almost but not quite turning his back on Le Picart. “Mère Vinoy, the Carmelite abbess, said that you saw a man at the foot of the crypt stairs. No one else reports seeing anyone come up the stairs. Describe the man you saw.”
    â€œAs I told the abbess, I saw only his outline. And
mon lieutenant-général
, it seems very easy to go and come from the crypt unseen. I’m certain that no one saw Père Dainville and me go down.”
    La Reynie frowned and grunted. “Well? The man you saw?”
    â€œHe was silhouetted against the single candle there as he