Duval and the Italian Opera Singer

by Michele McGrath

  “You’re certain?” Lefebvre asked sharply.

  “No. The light was poor both times and a woman walking is different from one being carried. She was wearing a red pelisse though. Not a colour you often see, at least not around where I live.”

  “How could you tell it was red in the dark?”

  “Monsieur Farcet, the doctor, lives in the apartment below us in our building. He always leaves a lamp burning in his window so his patients can find him at night if there is a need.”

  “Tell us about this woman.”

  “She was walking by herself, the man was not holding onto her. She didn’t seem to be distressed and she climbed up into the coach without any fuss, so she must have been all right. Bernard might have been mistaken about what he’d heard. So I thought no more about it until Claude came asking for information.”

  “Do you and Fournier know each other?” I asked in surprise.

  “Agnès is a friend of my wife, Berthe,” Fournier explained. “That’s why I brought the two of them here. I knew they’re reliable and I thought it better to get them away from the area in case Jacques Evrard returned and someone had seen me calling on them. Most people around there know I work for the Police.”

  Fournier’s apartment was in the next street to Evrard’s home. He had always lived in the district and so had his wife. They had a lot of acquaintances and Berthe made her own clothes. No wonder she knew the local draper’s wife.

  “He’s not nice that Evrard,” Agnès said. “He used to knock about that poor woman he kept something terrible. I threw a pan of hot water over him once. That stopped him so she was able to run away.”

  “Did you recognise Evrard then?” I asked.

  “I would not say so for certain, but it looked like him.”

  “What about the other man, the night before?”

  “He was slighter. His hair was fair but I didn’t see his face. He had a muffler wrapped around his chin.”

  Jacques Evrard and Renardin? I wondered.

  “Can Agnès and Bernard stay here with you until we find Evrard, Alain?” Fournier asked. “There’s enough bad blood between them and Evrard, already. I don’t want them to be hurt for telling us what they saw.”

  I shrugged and looked up at Eugénie who had reappeared from the bedroom.

  “Of course.” She replied without waiting for me to answer. I would have refused considering her condition, but I could not do so in the face without arguing with her. That is something I would never do in public.

  The rest of the night reminded my of my army days. All the men, with the exception of the soldier on guard, slept rolled up in coats or blankets on the floor. The two women shared our bedroom with Marco. I must be getting old. I felt far stiffer than I ever remember when I woke up.

  Early next morning, Fournier, Lefebvre and I made a hurried toilette. We were about to depart when one of the guards, Antoine, said to me,

  “I could not help overhearing you last night, Monsieur. Your door isn’t very thick. You should get it changed if you really want to keep secrets. You are going to search Saint-Cloud for Marco’s mother, are you not?”

  “We are. So?”

  “I was stationed at the palace for a time. Without orders, I can’t come with you, but it is a very big place with many spaces where someone could easily be hidden. Some of the outbuildings are remote enough that even if a captive screamed for hours, no one would hear them. There is a man there who could help you. He is a decent type, although he is an officer.” Antoine grinned. “His name is Captaine Frezet. Perhaps he’s still there. He had a bullet in his shoulder at Marengo and his left arm doesn’t work too well any more. He’s a good organiser though. There’s not much about the place he doesn’t know. Tell him I sent you to him, he’ll remember me.”

  “Thank you,” I said. This might help considerably.

  “I don’t like to see the boy missing his mother so much, poor little scrap.”

  I smiled. There is a gentle side to this big soldier although I would not want to be his enemy.

  On the way to Saint-Cloud, I asked the others,

  “Why did the Evrards kidnap Carla rather than kill her? It would have been far less trouble.”

  “Murder means the guillotine. If she’s alive and well, they might have escaped that fate,” Fournier said, “if the Emperor is in a forgiving mood. Certainly Charles appeared to be too much of a coward to act against his orders, not sure about Jacques though. There must be a reason. Hopefully we’ll find out when we catch him.”

  “I suppose you’re right. Doesn’t Saint-Cloud seem an unlikely place for them to take Carla?”

  “I agree,” Fournier replied but Lefebvre asked,

  “Who is the person most closely associated with Saint-Cloud?”

  “The Emperor of course, that’s why it seems so strange.”

  “Let me ask you this then, who goes there less frequently of late?”

  “The Empress. She prefers Malmaison.”

  “Probably doesn’t want to mix with all her husband’s mistresses.” Lefebvre grinned. “She can keep her dignity at Malmaison but don’t you see that’s a good reason to plant the girl at Saint-Cloud? If she’s found there dead or alive, then the finger of guilt is pointed at the Emperor not the Empress. It’s in her best interest if the boy is never associated with her country home.”

  “Too late for any of that now that Marco has met the great man.”

  “That meeting isn’t common knowledge and may not have reached the ears of the conspirators yet.”

  “True. If it had, there would be no further need to keep Carla so closely guarded.”

  “Yes, there would,” I said, suddenly sure. “She’s the final piece of the puzzle. Marco’s resemblance to the Emperor might just be a coincidence. If Napoléon doesn’t recognise Carla as the girl he spent time with, then the whole story is cast into doubt.”

  “What about the funny business of the heartbeat?”

  “How many people know about that? Only the few of us were in the room when we discovered it, very few, in fact. I’d never heard the tale before last night and I read the Moniteur.”

  “The Empress would know, surely. He is her husband after all.”

  “About Napoléon but not about Marco, unless we talked. If we had, that would make it even more imperative for them to make sure Carla doesn’t meet the Emperor again. Let’s hope they don’t decide to risk the guillotine after all and we find her in time.”

  My words increased my uneasiness. I wanted to order the driver to go faster but the carriage was already making good speed. I doubted we could go faster without killing the horses. To divert my mind, I started to plan what we would do when we reached the palace. The first thing, of course, was to find this Captain Frezet of Antoine’s.

  Chapter 12

  Finding him proved to be rather harder than I expected. The Captain was off duty and would have to be sent for. The officer of the guard refused to help me and a heated argument occurred. The situation was not helped by the fact that the Emperor was in residence and so the soldiers were consequently more alert. This quarrel took place in the middle of the courtyard where the officer had been making his rounds. Several grooms stood holding horses by the doorway, but I paid them little heed. I did not immediately realise their importance, nor did I recognise the figures who came out of the palace door. The sun shone into my eyes and I was intent on my task, which were my excuses. By chance at that instant, the officer of the guard’s voice rose as he said,

  “I repeat, Monsieur, it is not possible.”

  Lefebvre told me later that his tone drew immediate glances from the group beside the horses. The next moment the Emperor strode across the courtyard towards us.

  “What’s going on, Duval?” he demanded.

  We all bowed and then I asked,

  “If I might beg a moment of your time, Sire, in private?”

  His eyes flickered over us and then he nodded. We walked a little way apart while I
explained the situation to him. I have always thought that Napoléon Bonaparte is a great general and an excellent organiser. I recognised that fact when he did not have the power or the ability to command the instant obedience that he has now. We saw those abilities in practice and they were amazing. He instantly perceived the necessity of making a thorough search and was extremely annoyed that Marco’s mother remained in jeopardy.

  Within minutes, he had the guard turned out, with orders to seal the palace grounds. By chance, the best brains in the Empire were present that day at Saint-Cloud and they were put to work organising a man-hunt on a massive scale. No need for us to call on the services of an obscure captain of the guard any more, the Emperor himself gave the orders. We were divided into teams with allocated search areas and sent out to comb our assigned sections. The soldiers on duty, the domestic servants, grooms, coachmen, aides-de-camp and the Emperor’s entourage were all pressed into service. Only those individuals not personally known to the Emperor or new members of the staff were excluded.

  These people were herded into a room until Lefebvre, Fournier and I could vet them. We went up and down the rows checking each individual. We were, of course, looking for either Jacques Evrard or Renardin in disguise. I did not expect Carla to be amongst them. Surely she would have spoken to me at once if she was. Nevertheless, I did not discount the fact that she might have a reason to keep silent, a threat to Marco possibly. So I checked each face carefully and found that, as expected, she was not there. No one even came close. Many of the women were too tall or too short, or with the wrong colour eyes, things that cannot be changed in a trice. To make absolutely certain, I addressed each of the women in rapid French and made them answer in the same language, which Carla could not do.

  The case of Jacques Evrard was not the same. Neither Lefebvre nor Fournier had ever seen him, only his brother, Charles. Jacques was fairly like him but different in certain ways. I pulled out Charles’ picture and told them both his height, build and eye colour. Those men who did not match these characteristics were sent to join the search. A few were left after we dismissed the others. My friends checked each man’s face against the sketch and then I made the final examination. We did not find Jacques.

  The third person we were looking for was Renardin, the deputy head. He, of course, was well known to many. Questioning the servants revealed that he had not been seen at Saint-Cloud for some time. Most of them thought that he would be found at Malmaison. We did not correct them, for fear of revealing too much about our intentions.

  After this unsuccessful examination of the new staff, we went with the other teams searching the palace. It is a huge place with lots of little rooms and spaces hidden in the roof or down in the cellars, exactly as Antoine described them to me. There are also outbuildings which were used for many different purposes. I joined a group which had been assigned to crawl under the rafters of the roof. I asked for such a team because I thought it had more chance of success than several others in the more frequented sections of the palace. Before long, I wished I hadn’t been so foolhardy. Nobody had been up in those spaces for years, if at all, since the place was built. Dust lay thickly on all the surfaces. It got into our eyes and up our noses. I kept sneezing black slime into my kerchief. We had to inch our way out along beams that ran over the elaborate painted ceilings which hung just below. I tried not to imagine what would happen if one of us fell off the beam and tumbled down upon them. I doubt the ancient canvasses would be strong enough to hold a falling body. A plunge through onto the marble floors below was unimaginable; except I was able to imagine it far too clearly for my own comfort! I forced myself to put this vision out of my mind and concentrate on following the man in front of me. All the time, we heard the scurry of tiny feet in the darkness. Fortunately rats and mice have never bothered me. I’ve certainly seen many of them in the Police, both the animal and human variety. Eugénie hates them though. When I laughed at her once, she told me that I should try wearing a skirt and see how I liked the possibility of them climbing up it then. I have never accepted her challenge.

  Only the leader and the final man in the team had lanterns so the rest of us depended on touch alone. A few beams of light fell where the tiles on the roof had fortunately become dislodged, which showed part of the way. I can safely say that we found no sign of Carla or anyone else in that god-forsaken hole. When we emerged at last, our skins looked as dark as if we had come from Africa or the Caribbean. We all coughed and spluttered, with nothing at all to show for our efforts.

  We headed downstairs because we had orders to report to the man whom the Emperor had ordered to keep records of the search. The people we passed along the way gave us amused glances. They were no doubt thankful that they had been assigned easier and cleaner duties. Fortunately nobody said anything. One or other of my companions might have punched him if he had.

  Lefebvre was just reporting back with his own group when we arrived. He rolled his eyes when he saw me and grinned.

  “Don’t say anything!” I warned him.

  “Who me? Why should I tell you that you look like a blackamoor when you know it already?”

  “Where do you want us to go next?” the leader of my team asked me.

  “Somewhere with a little more air to breathe, if you please,” I replied. “The roof is stifling. We need to get the dust out of our throats to be any further use.”

  An old man, wearing imperial livery and who must have served in the army from his bearing, wrote down the result of our search. He looked at the plan of the palace which lay unrolled in front of him.

  “Try the hut that houses the machinery for the fountains then. That’s outside and small enough. By the time you go there and back you’ll be all right again. Get a drink from the kitchens before you go.”

  We trailed after our leader towards the kitchens when we heard a commotion at the doorway. Several men came in carrying a woman between them. Her dirty face was very white but I recognised her instantly.

  “Carla!” I yelled and raced up to her. The group around her tightened and I stopped abruptly.

  “Let me see her,” I ordered. “I was the one who told the Emperor about her disappearance. I won’t harm her.”

  Their ranks opened but they remained on the alert so I did not move nearer.

  “Carla, don’t you recognise me?” I asked her.

  Her eyes had been wandering, but now they focussed on my face. I still wonder how she knew me when I was caked in dirt but she said at once,

  “Signor Alain. Where’s Marco?”

  “Safe and well.” At my words she fell back in a dead faint.

  Some time later, when Carla and the rest of us had been washed, fed and found clean clothes, a messenger summoned us into the Emperor’s presence. To get to his small salon, we had to transverse long corridors, banqueting halls and anterooms. Our footsteps echoed in these huge spaces with their high walls. It was eerie. I measured the distance from the ceilings to the floor with a shudder. Thank God none of us had fallen. No one would have survived the drop. I could not imagine what it would be like to live in such a place. The grand rooms look beautiful but I don’t really enjoy being in palaces. There is a feeling of fear in such places. I suppose I might become used to this type of surroundings in time, but I have never wanted to be an emperor. To be richer than I am at present would be nice, but I would not want the responsibility of great wealth. Eugénie would probably say differently. I must ask her about it some day, even though it is unlikely that it would ever happen to us. I was not the only person to feel intimidated.

  “You won’t leave me, Signor Alain, will you?” Carla whispered to me.

  “He won’t harm you.” I smiled at her. “You came to Paris to see him again and now he’s waiting for you. I’ll stay right here until you leave, unless the Emperor gives me a direct order. Don’t be scared. After all he turned the whole palace out to find you when he thought you might be hidden here. You liked him well enough in Milan, didn’t you?” />
  She smiled as she replied, “I did, but that was a long time ago and many things have happened since then. He may have forgotten me entirely.”

  That was only too likely but I did not tell her so. In this, I had done Napoléon an injustice and I had totally overlooked his phenomenal memory.

  The messenger announced us at the door of the small salon which Napoléon used as his private sitting room. We walked towards him. The men bowed and Carla curtseyed. The Emperor rose and came forward. He looked down at Carla. He took her hand and raised her to her feet. Then he looked at her searchingly.

  “You are Carla?” She smiled up at him and her dimple popped out. He stepped back, still holding her hand. “Of course, you and your dimple. You sang to me in the gardens of the Villa Visconti.”

  “I did, Sire. You remember! Oh, I am glad.”

  “Will you leave us, please, gentlemen? This lady and I have some things to say to each other in private.”

  We bowed and left. Carla did not protest or ask me to stay with her and I felt glad she no longer thought it necessary. Whatever her future held would be decided in the next few hours and I would have felt awkward to be present, even if the Emperor allowed me to remain. They were alone together for ages. Lefebvre and I drank glasses of wine and chatted in a desultory manner. I did not want to talk about the case in front of other people. Too many palace servants and aides hovered within hearing distance and, even though we had found both Carla and Marco now, the investigation was not yet finished. Both mother and son had met the Emperor, but Jacques Evrard, Renardin and the person who had employed them were still at large. I spent part of the time thinking about how best we might proceed. When Lefebvre asked me what I was pondering so deeply, I said I would tell him later.