Read Online The Blood of Lorraine by Barbara Pope - Free Book Online

chambers reverberated with the hard-luck stories of those who swore that if it had not been for an unexpected twist of fate, they would have never done wrong.
    “I knew Antoinette.” This came out in a whisper.
    “How? How did you know her?”
    “She’s from my parts. We were in school together.”
    Martin glanced at his notes. Geneviève Philipon had only had six years of schooling, so the women had known each other since childhood.
    “She went to the city, hoping for a better life. But,” the wet nurse looked up at Martin, “she got started in that factory. I don’t think she wanted any kids until….”
    “Until?” Martin raised his eyebrows. The fact that Antoinette Thomas did not want a child might be important.
    “Until Pierre made enough money so she could quit.”
    “And that didn’t happen?”
    Geneviève Philipon shook her head. “He drinks too much.”
    Martin leaned forward. “And you? Were you still able to feed the child from your own breasts when he died?”
    Her eyes widened with fear as she folded her arms over her sterile bosom and slowly began to shake her head. “But,” she pleaded, “I gave him everything I could. By the name of Mary the Most Holy Virgin I swear it. I even took the cow’s milk from my own children’s mouths to feed him.”
    “And what else did you feed him?”
    The woman shrank back in her seat. “Nothing. Nothing, truly. He was not ready. I knew that.”
    “You know that. Well—” Martin made a show of searching through the mounds on his desk. Although Fauvet had not yet submitted his report, any piece of paper would do. “This,” Martin said, holding up an official-looking document, “is from the doctor who examined young Marc-Antoine Thomas, and he reports that the poor child died from asphyxiation. Either smothered or choked to death on a piece of bone or meat or, even, a stone.” He paused before continuing. “Do you know why we don’t know what killed him? Why we don’t know what he might have choked on?” He stared at her until she met his eyes. “Do you know why? Because,” he said in a loud voice, “someone cut him open and gutted him!”
    Her gasps came out in a series of low croaks. Martin was not sure whether they echoed her inconsolable sorrow, or guilt and naked fear.
    “And,” Martin pressed on, “I believe that you are the one responsible for the death of this unfortunate little boy and that you are the one who heartlessly and savagely took out his insides.”
    Her eyes grew wide. She gulped, then declared, “Oh no sir, no. ’Twasn’t me. Or my kids. ’Twasn’t any of us. It was that man. That Jew.”
    “I don’t believe you.”
    “But I told the policeman, and he wrote it all down. It was that man. I swear. It was the Jew.”
    “There was no man. There was only you and your children.”
    “No, no,” she wailed. “We wouldn’t do that. We loved Marc-Antoine more than—”
    She stopped short, not daring to go on. It was one of those moments that occurs in so many interrogations, when the sudden silence is so palpable that you could reach out and clutch at it and will it to speak to you. Instead, Martin merely grasped the arms of his chair and leaned forward. “More than who?” he asked slowly and quietly. The mother or the father?
    “No one, I didn’t mean….” She brought the shawl over her face again, as if that would be enough to fend off Martin’s questions.
    Martin glanced over to Charpentier and nodded. This was their signal that the clerk should be ready to take down a spurt of uninterrupted testimony. Charpentier responded with a cocksure smile. This was the part of any interrogation he liked best, the moment when a suspect either began to confess or, even better, got tangled up in a web of lies. He never wasted any sympathy on the poor and the ignorant.
    “Very well, then,” Martin said, settling back in his chair again, “if what you say is true, I want the whole story from beginning to end of