Текст книги "Memory of Flames"

Автор книги: Armand Cabasson

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CHAPTER 15

MARGONT was radiant, his fingers ink-stained and his hands full of paper. Around him typesetters and printers bustled about, brushing purposefully past him. The print shop was a hive of productivity pouring out ink like honey. They had received several orders that they had to fulfil as quickly as possible. Restaurants were changing their menus. In 1800 on the eve of the Battle of Marengo, Napoleon – then merely Bonaparte – had eaten a delicious dish: chicken with a tomato sauce flavoured with little onions, garlic and crayfish. After the battle, the recipe had been renamed ‘chicken Marengo’ and was to this day very popular. It was as if the flavour of the sauce was enhanced by the glory of the victory. Inevitably today innkeepers were offering ‘beef Olssufiev’, reflecting Napoleon’s resounding defeat of General Olssufiev’s small elite army at the Battle of Champaubert, which had set off an astonishing series of victories. But Margont knew that there were dozens of other Olssufievs waiting in the wings.

Margont had suggested an unusual typeface for a ball invitation and was reading the proofs. He was yet again imagining he was printing his newspaper. His fingers manipulated the lead letters with the ease of a master. As he was checking the phrases, his imagination was creating others, all with the word ‘liberty’ in them. This double personality was mixed with a third, that of a royalist. Margont was trying to find the most convincing posters supporting a restoration. The more he succeeded in that the more he would gain the confidence of the Swords of the King. But it would be a double-edged victory. What if the Swords of the King, in their enthusiasm, teamed up with other royalist groups? What if Paris found itself blanketed with posters? How ironic if Margont’s success in his mission should bring about the thing he most dreaded. Mathurin Jelent knew that Margont was playing a role, but although he passed Margont orders and went through the accounts with him, his face never betrayed what he knew. He was completely at ease.

A street urchin burst into the print shop. He was scrawny, but

arrogant and aggressive, like a cockerel ruling the roost. One of the employees picked up an iron bar, which had been part of a now useless press, and put it over his shoulder. Bands of marauding children were plaguing the capital, terrorising passers-by ... ‘M’sieur de Langes, your friend Fernand wants to see you; he needs money urgently. Otherwise, he’s in danger of being chucked in the Seine ...’

Margont followed him out, seizing his hat and coat on the way. The lad led him to a small street in Faubourg Saint-Germain where they found Lefine, who rewarded the boy with a coin.

‘What’s happened?’ demanded Margont.

The debt story was their code for an emergency. Lefine told him that they were very near Catherine de Saltonges’s house. Actually the house belonged to her parents, who had withdrawn to the country to flee the scandal surrounding their daughter’s divorce. Saint-Germain had once been a favoured address of the nobility, but that had all changed after 1789. Many of the landlords had emigrated to escape the Revolution, abandoning their houses,

which had been seized, declared national property and resold. Now diverse social groups co-existed: aristocrats, republicans grown rich from the whirlwind of events of the last few years, dignitaries of the Empire – Marshal Davout, Prince Eugene de Beauharnais, Cambaceres – and armies of functionaries who worked for the Ministries of War, the Interior, Culture, Foreign Relations ... It all made an astonishing mosaic of royalist white, republican blue and imperial gold.

Lefine gestured towards the child and said, ‘Let me introduce Michel. He and his brother have been keeping a watch on Catherine de Saltonges for me.’

Margont could not believe his ears. ‘He’s one of the trusted men you’re relying on?’

‘Yes, he is! When you’re worried about being followed, you turn round all the time trying to see if anyone looks suspicious. But who would notice a brat, and a beggar at that? Michel, tell Quentin what you saw.’

‘That woman, she’s acting very strangely ... She hasn’t stopped

crying since yesterday. This morning she went out twice, alone. She took a few steps along the street and then started crying, changed her mind and went back inside again.’

In the print works, the child had spoken the language of the street urchin, now he expressed himself more clearly. He delighted in deceiving everyone. Just like Lefine!

The third time, she went to Rue de la Carance. That’s in Faubourg Saint-Antoine. She tried to make sure no one followed her but I was always right there. It was easy! A woman let her in. I’d say your woman stayed about an hour. Then she came out again, crying and very pale! You would have thought she was about to mount the scaffold. She went home four or five hours ago. I wasn’t sure if I should, but I alerted Fernand ...’

‘You were right. What did she go to do in Saint-Antoine? Right, Fernand, you stay here in case she comes out again. And, Michel, you take me to the person she went to see.’

‘That’s dangerous,’ Lefine declared.

He dared not say any more in front of Michel, who seemed to be looking off distractedly into the distance, a sure sign that he was listening for all he was worth. Margont had already weighed up the pros and cons. It was true that the woman he was going to meet might inform Catherine de Saltonges of his visit. But he could always claim he was trying to find out about the other members of the committee, as surely they were trying to find out about him. His investigation was not progressing as quickly as the military situation. He was running out of time and he was obliged to act and ready to lower his guard a little.

‘Let’s go, Michel,’ he ordered.

CHAPTER 16

AS Margont knocked on the door, he had still not worked out a plausible reason for his visit. Unusually for him, normally so methodical and careful, he was improvising. A woman of about fifty answered the door. She smiled in a friendly manner. There was no doubt that here was the woman Michel had described. She invited him in, without asking any questions as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

The living space was cramped but very clean and tidy. Margont was intrigued by the way it was laid out. The room they were in seemed to serve as kitchen and bedroom, with an impeccably made and tucked in bed. But a closed door indicated that there was another room. The premises were like the woman who lived in them: pleasant and welcoming. She offered Margont a seat. Why is she at such pains to make me feel at home? he wondered. The chair she had proposed for him was arranged in such a way that he was not looking directly at the door of the other room. But nor

was the woman hiding it, it was simply discreetly out of sight. Margont guessed that this was no coincidence. Everything here was carefully worked out. The clue to the mystery lay behind that door.

‘May I know who recommended me?’ asked the woman. She was smiling at him, but her question was pointed.

‘A woman friend of mine ...’

‘It’s always “a friend” who recommends me. But I need to know who exactly. Otherwise I won’t be able to help you.’

Firm but kind. A rather extraordinary person. Had she been a man, Margont would have assumed she had been a soldier. She was used to dealing with awkward situations. And the way she had invited him in – he could have been a burglar. She must know how to defend herself. Or else what she did forced her to act in this open way. If she had tried to seduce him he would have concluded that she was a prostitute. Perhaps she was a go-between? Had Catherine de Saltonges come here to prostitute herself in a room behind that mysterious door? But that hypothesis ran counter to

everything he felt he knew about her! Had her husband corrupted her into behaving as he behaved? Margont blushed at the thought and his discomfort reassured the woman.

‘Don’t be embarrassed, Monsieur. It’s quite normal, but rest assured I won’t say a thing.’

That was just the problem ... She was waiting for a response. I’d better just bluff, like Charles de Varencourt, Margont said to himself. ‘It was Mademoiselle Catherine de Saltonges who recommended you.’

That reply put the woman completely at ease. ‘Is she all right? I was worried about her.’

‘She’s still crying a great deal ...’

‘That’s understandable. When you discover you’re having a child, you worry and panic and wish that it didn’t exist, but once it’s gone, you wonder if you’ve made the right decision ...’

An abortionist! Catherine de Saltonges had come to have an abortion. Who was the father? Why had she not kept the child? Margont was bursting with questions.

‘She was very unsure ...’ the woman said.

Her sentence ended in an uncertain silence. She wondered if she were not giving too much away. Margont reflected that she might know who the father was.

He ventured: ‘Um ... the father ... I don’t know if she told you a bit about him ...’

‘Yes, she did confide in me, she had to tell someone. I do feel she should have told him about the child – he had a right to know. If he had supported her, I’m certain she would have kept the child. At the beginning she told me he couldn’t be there because he had business to attend to, but later she admitted that he was not aware of the child’s existence. She felt that he had suffered enough and that he would neither be able to welcome the child, nor to take responsibility for the decision not to keep it. She was distraught that she had fallen pregnant so quickly, when she had previously been married for four and a half years without it ever happening. She said that despite her age, she hoped one day to have another child with her lover, but that next time they would be able to keep

it and bring it up. Together. What a tragedy! The father must have been through terrible times.’

She was eaten up with curiosity and hoped to get him to tell her more. Margont looked worried.

‘We are very concerned about him. Did she explain why?’

‘No, she told me almost nothing about him. Not even his name. When she came the second time, when I performed the procedure, I said to her, “Another married man who makes fine promises and then decides he doesn’t want to leave his wife.” She laughed bitterly and replied, “Exactly right! Except that his wife is dead! And how do you leave a dead person?”’

‘It’s a very sad story ...’ He was trying to be as evasive as possible. Burning to know more, she said: All she would say is, “He’s already lost so many of his family and now he’s about to lose someone else without even knowing they exist. Fate is conspiring to kill his children before they are born.” Isn’t it awful?’

She leant forward so as not to lose a single word of the confidences she thought he was about to whisper to her.

‘Yes. But just now it’s Mademoiselle de Saltonges I’m worried about. She’s so pale and weak ... Did she bleed much?’

‘Inevitably, since the pregnancy was more than two months advanced ...’

Finally, regretfully realising that he was not going to reveal anything further, she decided to change the subject. ‘But what about your case, Monsieur?’

Margont floundered for a moment, then pulled himself together. ‘No, in the case of my lady friend, she’s only in her first month.’

‘In that case it’s possible that a concoction of plant extracts and a massage of the stomach will be all that’s necessary. If that doesn’t work, or if you leave it too late, I’ll use a needle. But I’m experienced. If your friend decides to use my services she will have to give me her name. Her real name, because I will check ... I need to know. It’s my way of ensuring that there’s no trickery, that you’re not a policeman ... Also, sometimes when I discover the identity of the person I choose to withhold my services. You would be astonished to know the celebrated and powerful people who contact me. Even the wife of a marshal ... In those cases, I always refuse, whatever price they offer me. But you can count on my complete discretion.’

The room behind the door made its presence felt more than ever. Catherine de Saltonges had been there, eaten up by doubt; the odour of her blood still impregnated the air; women had died in there ...

‘I’ll think about it,’ he announced. He rose, adopting the air of a man who had been reassured and who was going to confer the life of his loved one to a woman he barely knew. They said goodbye to each other cordially and Margont took his leave. He had not even revealed his name. As he crossed the threshold he shivered under the glacial caress of those who had died in the house.

CHAPTER 17

ONCE he had sent Michel away, Margont relayed everything to Lefine. As he was talking, a bitter taste filled his mouth as if he had bitten into a plum without checking whether it was ripe. He was upset that he had been drawn into the private life of Catherine de Saltonges. He had barely finished his account before he launched into his hypotheses.

‘In leaving her lover in ignorance of her pregnancy, she lied to him – by omission. And she did that even though she has a horror of lying!’

‘Well, you’re playing at espionage and you’re cheating and manipulating even though, ordinarily, you vaunt the merits of sincerity, honesty and loyalty ...’

‘The world has become a giant fools’ playground where everything is topsy-turvy. Do you think the father is a member of the Swords of the King?’

‘I think it’s very likely, since they’re the only people she keeps

company with. According to the police, since her divorce she doesn’t see her old friends any more. Michel and his brother have been watching her since the beginning of our investigation: she often walks in the public gardens or in Faubourg Saint-Germain, but she never goes to visit anyone, nor does anyone visit her.’

‘She’s been pregnant for more than two months. The child must have been conceived around the beginning of January. She hesitated a while before deciding to get rid of it. If the father really is one of our suspects, it’s possible that he was the murderer. If that’s the case, does she know? Was she his accomplice? She told the abortionist that the father had business to attend to. She also mentioned that he had already lost many close relations. That could be Louis de Leaume or Jean-Baptiste de Chatel ... But the others must also have seen family members disappear during the Revolution. We don’t know enough about the pasts of our suspects, I’ve already told you that.’

‘I’m doing my best to find out! They don’t know anything about your past either, otherwise—’ Lefine stopped short, looking embarrassed.

Margont was reminded once again of the risks he was having to run for this affair. He had fought all over Europe, against the Austrians, Hungarians, Russians, Prussians, English and Spanish ... and yet he could easily be killed right here in Paris by a Frenchman. Apparently Fate had a sense of humour; how it must laugh seated with Death in that tavern at the end of the street, drinking to his demise as it watched him through the window. These sombre reflections were chased away by a flash of inspiration.

The father will go and visit her! Even if he hasn’t guessed what’s wrong he must have noticed that something is. She can’t be her normal self! If he loves her, he must be worried about her. Or else she will go and visit him. She almost died and she’s lost a child she wanted to keep! She needs the man’s support. I’m going to stay here. Call Michel back so that he can help me.¹ ‘And I suppose I’m going to have to try again to find out more about our suspects ...’

Margont was not very good at surveillance. Waiting exasperated him. He tried to make use of the lost hours by thinking about his investigation, especially about the evening he had met the committee of the Swords of the King. Perhaps an important detail had escaped him. In light of what he now knew, the memory of that meeting took on a different hue. Who could be the tormented lover of Catherine de Saltonges? It was Louis de Leaume who had addressed her to introduce Margont as the new recruit. Was that a sign of connivance between them? Or had he merely been the one to speak because he was the head of the committee? It was probably not Honoré de Nolant ... Catherine de Saltonges seemed to have a horror of murder; she would not have allowed her lover to be the hangman of the group. Although ...

Michel was amused to see how Margont, who was obviously a soldier – he had a scar on his left cheek and his assured manner spoke of success in dealing with dangerous situations – could not bear the enforced inactivity. Michel, on the other hand, was enjoying it. He was being paid to do nothing – what could be better?

‘You’re going to give us away, Boss,’ he told Margont with his most ironic smile.

‘Don’t call me “Boss”.’

The boss is the person who pays, Boss. If you don’t stop walking about and turning in circles, someone is going to notice us. You need to melt into the crowd – but you hate crowds.’

‘Because they don’t move fast enough. You’re right, though, I’ll try to calm down.’

Half an hour later he was less calm than ever. He was on the point of returning to the printer’s when the door opened. He hurriedly hid out of sight. Michel was aghast. ‘It’s a good thing your woman is still crying and can’t see anything much, otherwise she would be wondering who that man was, pressing himself against the wall and dirtying his overcoat just as she was coming out.’

‘You stay here, Michel.’

‘Happy to.’

Margont followed Catherine de Saltonges. He had not taken offence at the brat’s comments. He knew the child was right, and

tried to behave like someone out for a stroll like everyone else. He raised his collar and crammed his hat down on his head to make himself unrecognisable at first glance, hoping it would be assumed that he was feeling the cold. The crowd also helped to make him less noticeable.

Catherine de Saltonges was making her way along Boulevard Saint-Germain in a strange fashion. Sometimes she would walk quickly, at other times she was almost stationary. She was riven with indecision. She branched off towards the Seine, reached the embankment and went over to the river, moved closer to the river, then closer still ...

She’s going to throw herself in, thought Margont. What should he do? Save her and ruin all his efforts to be accepted by the Swords of the King? Call for help? Catherine de Saltonges leant over the green, glacial water. An invisible thread seemed to pull her backwards. Nevertheless she continued to walk along the embankment. It was as if she was walking along beside Death and finding it surprisingly soothing. Finally she turned back and went across the old Saint-Michel bridge, which now resembled a plucked peacock. In 1809, the sixty houses that had been built on the bridge two centuries before were all destroyed.

When she reached Tie de la Cite, she crossed the cathedral square and went into Notre-Dame. Margont went in as well and kept to one side so that he could slide discreetly from pillar to pillar. Although thousands of churches and abbeys had been devastated, pillaged, transformed into stables or stone quarries with readymade stones, or even into the Stock Exchange (the Paris Stock Exchange had been installed in the church of Petits-Peres from 1796 to 1807), Notre-Dame had been left relatively unscathed. It was in fact where Napoleon had been crowned emperor of the French on 2 December 1804.

Catherine de Saltonges’s steps resounded with surprising force, as if the burden she was carrying was weighing her down. She looked tiny amidst the vertiginously tall columns. In the gloom, the multicoloured windows gleamed, transmitting the light of God to man through their images.

She went into a chapel and knelt down – or rather fell to her knees – and joined her hands. She was motionless, so wrapped up in prayer that it seemed as if she had been changed into a pillar of salt. Christ looked down at her from his Cross with such compassion that he might have been about to rip his hands free from the nails to hold her in his arms.

Moments passed. When she eventually moved again it was to bow, as if she were about to prostrate herself. Then she rose and returned shakily through the cathedral. She stopped at the intersection of the nave and transept and looked up at the dome where there was a painted medallion representing the Virgin holding the baby Jesus in her arms, against a starry night background. Catherine de Saltonges repressed a sob.

But when she reached the light of the entrance, she began to walk firmly. She must not reveal her wounds and hurt to the world. Ever.

Margont hesitated. Instead of following her, he went back to the chapel. At the foot of the cross, in the middle of the lighted tapers, were three little objects, nestling next to each other. A folded woman’s handkerchief, a button, and a golden bracelet just big enough to fit the wrist of a baby ...

Margont stretched out his hand, feeling as if it were being devoured by imaginary insects born of his guilt. The button was gold-coloured metal, like the button from a uniform. But it had been beaten with a flat object. Not with a hammer, in which case it would have been cracked and crushed. The heel of a shoe? Unfortunately the motif was unrecognisable: perhaps a number or a letter, an emblem, or two symbols intertwined.

Margont decided to leave the two other items since they did not tell him anything he did not already know. The bracelet would soon be stolen. Catherine de Saltonges had not wanted to keep the jewel she had intended for the newborn. But she had not been able to bring herself to give it to someone else, or to have it melted down or to throw it away. Instead she had offered it up to Christ in the hope that he would authorise a mother come to pray to him to take it for the wrist of her child.

Margont knelt on one knee and scraped the edge of the button on the ground leaving a light tracing of gold dust. Then he slipped it into his pocket.

He went out and caught up with Catherine de Saltonges, who was walking slowly home. He reflected on the strangeness of the little family: a woman who had almost thrown herself into the Seine, a child dead before it was born and a man of whom nothing was known but this damaged button.