The Blood of Lorraine by Barbara Pope Page A

wide open and Marc-Antoine gone. She was sure the tinker had used his tools to break the lock and steal the child. She called to her neighbors for help and they hunted frantically for the boy, only to find him near a stream in the woods, cut open and drained of all his blood. She then walked into town to find Pierre and Antoinette Thomas. They returned with her to the village and retrieved the body of their son.
    Pierre Thomas interjected at this point by shouting that we should find the ritual murderer who was probably an Israelite butcher disguised as a tinker.
    Two police officers calmed Thomas down and accompanied him to the morgue at the Faculté de Médicine, where the child will be examined.
    Michel Jacquette, Inspector of Police
    That was it. A grieving father voluble with drink and grief. A fairy-tale version of the lone bloodthirsty Jewish male stalking the home of a widow and her children. Singer was right. They were all lying. But who created this particular lie? Martin scanned the report again. And where was the grieving mother in all this? Jacquette was a good man. If she had anything to say, he would have reported it. Yet she was silent. Dumbstruck by the loss of her child? Or by the clumsy scheming of those around her?
    Calmed by the absurdity of the fabrication, Martin closed the file and started down the stairs, holding on to the banister, taking one slow step at a time. All he needed was to get one of them to tell the truth, and it could all be over today or, at most, tomorrow. An ignorant, talkative woman was likely to be the weakest link in the chain of lies. It should be easy. He would interrogate Geneviève Philipon first.

5
    M ARTIN’S CHAMBERS WERE NOT AS commanding as Didier’s. Yet if you were accused of a crime or had lied to the police or simply happened to be numbered among the unschooled poor, crossing the threshold from the little vestibule into the spacious office with its hard wooden chairs, document-laden desks, and austere white walls had to be nerve-racking, for you were about to encounter an examining magistrate who had the right to question you endlessly, jail you indefinitely, search your home and belongings at will, interrogate everyone near and dear to you, use the words of your enemies against you, and, finally, by a legal logic well beyond your ken, decide what crime to charge you with and what court to send you to. If he chose the big one, the cour d’assises , well, then, you could be facing years of hard labor, or even the guillotine.
    No wonder the wet nurse could barely move her feet. Although he never undermined his authority by showing it, Martin usually sympathized with the more humble suspects that were hauled into his chambers. Not today. Didier had made it abundantly clear that any of the crimes Geneviève Philipon had allegedly committed—neglect, murder, the brutal disgorging of an innocent child—had repercussions that reached far beyond her little village because of the story that she had invented to cover up her deeds. Repercussions for the courthouse, for the city, for Martin. He needed to find out the truth about what had happened to little Marc-Antoine Thomas before Philipon had a chance to spread her dangerous lies.
    While the police officer led Geneviève Philipon into the room, Martin made a show of studying the papers on his desk in order to reinforce the frightening impression that he was in the midst of making important, mysterious, even fatal decisions. Martin fully recognized in her slow, shuffling steps the sound of one resisting her fate. When he looked up, he was not surprised that she was trying to shield herself by hiding her sallow face with the threadbare brown woolen shawl she wore over her head. Gripping it at her neck, she glanced furtively at both Martin and Charpentier as the police officer placed a hand on each of her shoulders and pressed her into the chair.
    Although she was a pitiful little creature, Martin glared at her in stony