The Orphan's Tale

by Anne Shaughnessy

  Malet's smile deepened as he squared his shoulders and leaned deliberately back against the tree. "Go on," he said through his teeth. "Do your part: I have done mine. I may have regrets, but I did the best I could. Now finish it."

  His tone of voice made Vaux look up sharply. "Good God!" he exclaimed. "You think I am going to kill you! You fool! How could you believe such a thing of me? We're friends! Didn't you listen to me? I said I meant you no harm! Did you think I was lying?"

  He put the pistol back, located Malet's handkerchief, smoothed it, and folded it into a gag. "This is what I meant," he said. " - though, knowing you as I do, I imagine you'd prefer the pistol."

  Malet shrank back against the tree and fought the knots as Vaux leaned toward him. "You can't run forever," he said. "I am warning you! You're forfeit under the law!"

  Vaux smiled and shrugged as he set the gag in place and made certain it was effective but not too tight. "Leopards don't change their spots," he said at the edge of the wood, "And I don't expect you to change your soul. But first you have to catch me."

  XXXV

  INSPECTOR MALET DISCOVERS

  THAT DEATH IS PREFERABLE TO NOTORIETY

  Malet hated the idea of anyone coming along and finding him. To be overpowered by a man twenty years older than him, thirty pounds fatter and three inches shorter, to be tied with his own necktie, gagged, and tethered to a sapling like a dog, was bad enough. To have someone else witness it was unthinkable!

  He relaxed after a moment with as close to a wry smile as he could manage. He had lost this exchange and his pride would serve as a forfeit. Everything would be well if -

  Pierre le Noir.

  The name drove all other thoughts from his mind for the space of time it took him to draw a shaking breath.

  It was just possible that Dracquet had the man waiting to kill Malet the first chance he could get. Malet had certainly left Dracquet in no doubt of his intentions, and as d'Anglars had said, a player in a game could have more than one reason for his presence. It would be a stroke of luck for the man to find him like this!

  Malet cursed through the gag and wrenched at the cravat with growing panic. His blasted temper! He could usually keep it under control, but he had slipped disastrously - and after promising Count d'Anglars to be careful for his own safety! And now he couldn't even shout for help. He tried to twist out of the knots, but the silk held more strongly than any chain could.

  He froze as he heard someone running along the path. There were at least three people pounding along toward him. His heart lurched and he thought feverishly that if he could get his hands, tied as they were, to his coat pocket, he could reach his pistol.

  He strained at the knots and then gave up, panting, as four young men came pelting into the clearing. They skidded to a halt amid the leaves and stared at him with wide eyes.

  Malet's mouth twisted with annoyance even as he sank back against the tree, dizzy with sudden relief. Far from being Pierre le Noir or any of Dracquet's murderous toughs, they were obviously students, dressed in such an extreme of last year's fashion as could be achieved among the used clothing merchants at the Carreau du Temple with a limited amount of cash. They blazed with brightly patterned waistcoats and Wellington hats that looked like nothing so much as flowerpots set on their narrow ends. One of them wore a long‑tailed frock coat of a pink virulent enough to smite Malet between the eyes.

  This young man took in the situation at a glance, went to his knees beside Malet, and untied the gag.

  "Can you get up?" asked a student wearing a shaggy beaver hat with the back part forward to disguise the fact that it was very worn.

  Malet scowled up at him. "No," he said gently. "I can't."

  "You're as big a fool as ever, Adrien!" said the young man in the pink coat. "Look at him: he's tied to the tree! Untie his feet while I take care of his hands. Your temple is bruised, sir: are you hurt?"

  Malet shook his head.

  "Were you robbed?" asked the beaver‑hatted student as he bent over Malet's ankles. He had the handkerchief untied after a few seconds.

  The pink‑coated sprig had dropped to his knees beside Malet and was working at the knots.

  "What happened?" demanded another, dressed in acid yellow broadcloth. "A bearded old fellow told us he heard someone being attacked!"

  Thank you, Vaux! Malet thought savagely. "I was waylaid by a thief," he said aloud. "Don't bother with the knots, for God's sake! Just cut them!"

  The pink sprig said, "But this is beautiful silk! It must have been expensive!" He sounded wistful. He stopped, pulled off his gloves - Malet noticed a split in the index finger - and worried at the knot.

  More people arrived to jostle and stare. Malet stiffened: a man on the fringe of the crowd, his chin disfigured by the scar of a powder burn, was watching him intently. The space between them was empty. The crowd seemed to fade from sight and hearing in that moment of recognition, and it was as though they were alone and waiting.

  Their eyes met and locked. Le Noir's right hand slid into his pocket and clenched about something the size of a fist. He smiled and slowly started to withdraw his hand, revealing a small pistol. He took a handkerchief and wrapped it around the grip and barrel and started to level the piece just as a lady, cooing solicitously, stepped directly between them and thrust a vinaigrette under Malet's nose.

  Pierre le Noir had missed his chance. Malet caught a quick glimpse of the man's expression as other people clustered around Malet to offer advice. It was full of baffled rage as he turned and slipped away.

  Malet closed his eyes for a moment, trembling with reaction. The lady offered the vinaigrette again as the noise and movement of the growing crowd crashed back into his awareness.

  Malet looked up at the woman, a plump, motherly sort with a round, smiling face. "Thank you," he said quietly. "You saved my life."

  She capped the vinaigrette and moved away with a smile.

  The knots were beginning to give a little, to Malet's relief. He felt like a lion in a zoo. It only lacked a little boy poking him in the ribs with a stick to make the impression complete.

  "Poor man! What happened?"

  "Attacked by a thief!"

  "Here? Best summon the Police!" And one of the bystanders went running off.

  "There!" said the pink student, "I think I have it! Just a few minutes more!"

  A few minutes? That would be a few minutes too long! Malet suggested once more that they cut the cravat. The suggestion was discussed among the students and then dismissed. Malet took his temper in a stranglehold.

  "How did he manage to overpower you?" demanded one strapping fellow in the garb of a dock worker, fixing Malet with the gaze of one who knows how to fight. His eyes lingered on Malet's shoulders and clearly speculated on his height and weight.

  Malet lifted his chin and deliberately lied for the first time in over thirty years: "He had a gun," he said. There. His cheeks reddened slightly and he looked down, ashamed.

  The dock worker misread Malet's emotions. "A gun, you say!" he exclaimed. "Best not to argue with one of them! No shame to you for that!" he broke off as more people came into the clearing, two of them wearing the uniform and the indefinably officious air of Police constables.

  The men elbowed their way through the crowd until they were before Malet. "What's going on?" demanded the younger. He looked down and recognized Malet for the first time. His eyes widened and he pushed the student in pink aside for a moment. "M. Chief Inspector!"

  "Never mind that!" snapped Malet. "You - " this to the senior constable. " - there's a man in this park with the mark of a powder burn on his chin. I want him! Send out an all points bulletin at once! He hasn't had a chance to go far! Find him and arrest him!"

  "At once!" said the older constable, and hurried off.

  "But be careful!" Malet called after him. "He's armed!"

  "The poor gentleman was robbed at gunpoint!" said the lady with the smelling salts.

  "This is no 'gentl
eman' - he's a Police Inspector!" objected the younger constable.

  "The two aren't mutually exclusive!" Malet hissed.

  The constable met Malet's glare, paled and busied himself with clearing the crowd back.

  The knots finally gave way. Malet sprang to his feet, the cravat in his hand, and tried to compose his expression to smiling benignity. "Thank you all for your help," he said through his teeth. "You can't know how truly grateful I am for your concern. I hope your afternoon is as pleasant as you have made mine!"

  "That's right," said the Constable. "Move along! You'll read all about it in the papers tomorrow, I am sure - "

  "No they won't!" said Malet.

  "No?"

  "No!"

  "Oh. Well, move along! Thank you all!"

  The crowd began to disperse, some people pausing to wish Malet well and make various suggestions for his recovery from the shock of being attacked. These ranged from the offer of another whiff at the vinaigrette - which was gently declined - to the consumption of a large glass of cognac.

  The dock worker paused and said, "You probably want to put your fist through something, just now, don't you, Guv'nor?"

  "You never spoke truer word!" Malet said grimly.

  The man chuckled. "Eh, but you never argue with a gun!"

  "A gun?" demanded the Constable.

  The pink sprig pushed himself to his feet, dusted off his trousers, and started to join his friends, who were waiting on the edge of the clearing.

  Malet halted him with a hand on his shoulder. "I didn't get a chance to thank you for coming to my assistance so promptly," he said, including the rest with a glance.

  The young man shrugged and smiled. "You needed help," he said. "It was the only thing we could do - you might have been hurt."

  "Well I wasn't, thanks in good part to you." Malet folded the cravat and gave it to the young man. "It's yours, since you admired it. And here - " he gave him a gold Louis, " - I hope you and your friends will drink some champagne with my heartfelt thanks."

  The young man looked at the cravat with delighted eyes, and then held out his hand. "It was my pleasure, Monsieur! And - and who should we toast?"

  Malet paused and considered another lie. What did it matter? "Alexandre Guerin," he said. "Chief Inspector, 18th arrondissement."

  "Very well, M. Guerin: the toast will be to your very good health!" the young man said.

  Malet watched them leave.

  "Your name is Paul Malet!" said the Constable with a grin.

  Malet turned on him. "I am aware of that," he said. "I have been aware of that for a long time!"

  XXXVI

  LAROUCHE DISCOVERS THAT

  SOMETIMES THE QUARRY IS MORE FORMIDABLE

  THAN THE HUNTER

  Larouche had spent an enjoyable half‑hour following Dracquet around and throwing stones at him. His tall, shiny beaver hat made a much more satisfactory target than Monseigneur's, and the man himself, being thoroughly detested, was a better target as well.

  He had come upon the man as he was speaking quickly and earnestly to a mean‑looking fellow with a mark on his chin like a smear of black paint. He had seen him around Dracquet's house during the past week, and the man made him feel uneasy and vaguely sick, as though a mist of evil surrounded him.

  The man had nodded and hurried off in the direction that Dracquet had come from, leaving Dracquet to Larouche's mercy.

  Larouche succeeded in knocking Dracquet's hat from his head four times in a row, and then occupied himself with hitting various parts of his anatomy with stones of varying heft and sharpness. He had succeeded in driving him away after hitting him on the left side of the seat of his trousers with a particularly sharp rock.

  Dracquet had hailed a cab and stepped inside, and a moment later the cab had gone off at a canter. At that moment if Dracquet, swearing and rubbing his backside, had found himself sharing the coach with Orestes in his flight from the furies, he might have discovered a kindred soul.

  Larouche chuckled and made his way back into the gardens, looking for something amusing to watch. Maybe Monseigneur was still there, though he decided, in all fairness, that Monseigneur had enjoyed quite enough of his attentions for the day.

  He made his way up the tree‑lined Avenue de l'Observatoire, his lively eyes darting to and fro, watching the strollers, alert for any neglected food or blankets. Pickings were slim now that the weather was growing colder; he had found nothing for the past several days. Luck was with him this day: two lovers on a secluded bench, intent on each other's company, did not see him make away with their half‑eaten box of chocolates.

  He nibbled at a chocolate, the box under his arm, and favored those who stared at him with a smudged smile. Chocolate was delicious! He had had so little of it in his short life that this taste was like a sample of the joys of paradise.

  The old woman who sold flowers at the Rue August Comte smiled at him, as usual, and beckoned him over to give him a carnation, which she insisted on placing in the frayed top buttonhole of his shirt. He grinned at her and offered her a chocolate.

  "Not but what I should tell the cops about you, you little thief!" she said with a gap‑toothed smile. "Eh, but I recall a time when I had boxes and boxes of these, as much as I wanted to eat!"

  Larouche cocked a doubtful eye at her.

  "Oh but I did!" she said. She broke off to sell a rosebud to a passing dandy. "Time was I was a beauty, and the King himself noticed me!"

  "Oh?" Larouche said skeptically, "Which king?"

  "Louis XVIII! He wasn't king then, of course. But I was quite the fashion for a year or so! The du Barry ruined me!" She shrugged and sniffed a rose. "It's better so," she said. "It saved me from the guillotine."

  She eyed the chocolate box that Larouche offered her and finally took another. "Come here tomorrow and I will have some bread and meat for you," she said. "Chocolates are all well and good, but a boy your age needs good food."

  Larouche grinned at her and ate another piece of candy. "This is good," he said.

  She ignored the comment. "Winter's coming on," she said after a moment. "What will you do then? Have you found a place to stay?"

  Larouche shrugged. He didn't like to be reminded. "I will get by," he said.

  She hid a smile. "Well, if you decide you'd like something specific, I have a grandson who owns a little bistro at the Rue des Morts, in Montparnasse. He's looking for a boy to wait tables and clean up for the winter, and maybe even longer, depending on how it works out. There's a bed in the stable and a franc a week. I spoke of you and he was interested. Said that if you were the honest sort of lad I said you were, there might be a place for you. Why don't you go and talk to him?"

  "What sort of hell‑hole is it?" Larouche demanded.

  "No hell‑hole," she said. "Oh, the students go there a lot and talk nonsense, just like they talked in '89! But there's no harm to them and only air between their ears! If you want to talk to him, my grandson's name is Jean‑Claude Bessier. Tell him I sent you!"

  Larouche grinned and opened the box again to offer her another piece of chocolate.

  "Maybe I will!" he said. Suddenly the thought of winter didn't seem so terrible. He sketched a salute, like he had seen the soldiers do, and turned away. And then he froze in dismay.

  Monseigneur was bearing down on them like an avenging angel, his eyes flashing, his face pale with fury.

  The flower‑seller crossed herself and muttered an Ave Maria. Larouche, shrinking back against the flower‑stand, could only stare wide‑eyed as he drew near.

  Monseigneur's stride was as light and brisk as ever, but it had a sort of vehemence about it now that hadn't been there before, as though he were restraining an explosion of rage with a choke‑rein. The hem of his coat, however, seemed to mirror the turbulence of his mood, for it whipped and churned, as though in the force of a gale. The capes, billowing out in the wind, rippled and cracked like wings. His walking stick was clenched in his hand like a sword. Larouche saw
that Monseigneur's clothing was in unaccustomed disorder. His coat was half‑unbuttoned, his shirt collar was open, and his cravat, an unusually fine one of wine‑colored silk, was gone.

  Larouche's eyes widened and he tried to flatten himself behind a sheaf of chrysanthemums.

  Monseigneur passed the flower stall without a glance, stormed across the Place Andre Honnorat, and followed the Rue August Comte to the Boulevard St. Michel, passing through the crowds that parted before him as the Red Sea had parted before Moses.

  Larouche turned to stare after him with relieved astonishment as he swept past. The petals of the flowers quivered in the breeze of his passing.

  Well! Larouche drew a deep breath and turned to the flower‑seller, who was fanning herself. "Holy shit!" he said, "What set him off?"

  "Something got his goat!" she said.

  "Something got his whole stable!" Larouche said. "I am glad it wasn't me!" He grinned and opened the chocolate box again. "Have another," he said. "I will talk to your grandson."

  And he thought, best get out of his way!

  XXXVII

  HAVING BOUGHT A NEW CRAVAT

  INSPECTOR MALET PLANS A HUNT

  Two hours later, Malet smiled grimly down at a sheet of paper that he had just finished filling with writing, and handed it to Sergeant Guillart.

  "There," he said. "That is a good description of the man: stocky, very broad shoulders, barrel‑chested. He has white hair, a short, white beard, very blue eyes, and he appears to be in his mid‑sixties." Malet paused to finger his cravat, a beautiful new one of heavy blue Lyonnais silk, expertly knotted. He had bought it with Vaux' money.

  "I want this notice forwarded to all the Police posts in Paris and the outlying communities of the Seine et Oise Departement," he said, biting each word off. "Any man of that description is to be noted and followed discreetly until he reaches his home. The address and a description of the place is to be sent to me, as well as an outline of his activities. I also want his name, if it can be obtained. But: he's not to be apprehended or..." he paused and searched for the proper word. Finding it, he added, "annoyed under any circumstances. Not yet."