The Scent of Betrayal

by David Donachie

  ‘That puts old Fernandez back in the pit, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes, Pender, I’m afraid it does.’

  Two days saw them approaching the Manchac Post with Harry still undecided as to the best course of action: to stop and visit de Coburrabias, using an excuse to make a swift departure, or to try to skip past the guard boats and get back to New Orleans as fast as possible. In the event the decision was taken out of his hands. As they entered the bend to the north of the post a flag was hoisted atop the ramparts. There was nothing ahead or behind him, so that Harry couldn’t advance any excuse for a failure to stop, and to ensure his compliance, a guard boat was patrolling the river, with armed soldiers aboard.

  ‘What are we going to do about them ingots?’ asked Pender, as they began to steer for the shore. The boat swung in a wide arc to cover their stern and an officer advanced onto the jetty, waiting to greet them as they landed.

  ‘Throw them in the bottom of the boat with Able Mabel and cover them with some canvas.’ Harry leant forward and picked up his coat, reaching inside for El Señor de Coburrabias’s invitation. Once he’d found it he held it up. ‘Let’s hope that this protects us from a search.’

  ‘An’ if it don’t?’

  ‘Pitch it over the side. Because if they find it they’ll probably hang us like that poor fellow.’

  Pender looked round to see what his Captain was pointing at. The desiccated body of a Negro swung from a gibbet at the end of the jetty, with the remaining flesh on the head barely enough to disguise the coming skeleton. Close too, the smell of putrefraction was overpowering. It didn’t seem to bother the Spanish soldier, who stood patiently while Harry tied the pirogue to the jetty. He climbed onto the planking, jacket in one hand and safe conduct in the other, to be faced by an officer whose sole interest seemed to be in the stained nature of Harry’s linen.

  ‘My compliments to your commanding officer, Monsieur,’ his visitor said in French, proferring the letter. The officer took it without bothering to acknowledge if he’d understood, and began to read it with a supercilious look on his face. That changed when he saw the contents, which were written in Spanish. He came to attention immediately and favoured Harry with a bow.

  ‘Señor.’

  ‘My servant will stay here with the boat,’ said Harry, pointing down to Pender, still in the boat. That wasn’t questioned, being to a Spanish mind only right and proper. ‘I trust that El Señor de Coburrabias is here.’

  ‘I regret to inform you, Señor, that he left for New Orleans some ten days ago and has not returned.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Harry, hardly able to believe his luck. ‘So no hunting.’

  ‘I regret to say no.’

  ‘Then I’d best return to New Orleans.’ Harry hesitated a fraction. ‘I’m afraid I do not know your name.’

  ‘Lieutenant Oliverta.’

  ‘I will mention to El Señor de Coburrabias that we have met.’

  ‘But the Comandante would never forgive me if I let you go without offering refreshments.’ He turned to indicate the fort behind him.

  Harry was in a quandary. Time was pressing, yet to decline the offer would look like bad manners. He had the young man’s name, and had a reasonably close view of the fortifications, which would suffice to establish that he had visited the post. But how much more telling it would be to have been inside. He could, with embellishments, make it sound as if he’d tarried at Manchac for quite some time. De Coburrabias had been gone for ten days, so he could easily imply that he spent a week here.

  ‘Then it would be unforgivable to refuse.’

  The whole structure was made of wood, even the quarters of the Comandante and his officers, the only stone building a handsome Roman church, yet they’d made their surroundings as elegant as they could, bringing good furniture and plate from New Orleans. Oliverta led him into a long chamber with a large polished table in the centre. The wall behind was dominated by a large crucifix and at the eastern end hung a decent-sized portrait of King Carlos, while the western wall held a slightly smaller one of de Coburrabias. Servants appeared at the sound of the bell and were despatched to fetch wine and fruit.

  ‘You came from the north?’ said Oliverta, a quizzical expression on his face.

  ‘I got lost on horseback, Señor,’ replied Harry quickly, walking towards de Coburrabias’s portrait. ‘Having found myself north of the post I knew the one certain way to my destination to be the river.’

  ‘Surely you could not have been lost for long, Señor. Did you not ask at the missions?’

  Harry pretended not to hear. ‘He cuts a handsome figure, your Comandante.’

  Oliverta smiled, since Harry was right, and got no further with his enquiries as his guest forcefully discussed the picture. His remarks flattered the youngster’s superior, but then so had the artist. The features were accurate, but the brush had caught the combination of arrogance and humour that was the core of his subject’s personality. He was in the full regimental dress of a hidalgo officer, the steel breastplate on his chest half hidden by a dark red cloak. The helmet of a Spanish soldier nestled under his arm, nearly touching a glittering, jewel-encrusted decoration, shaped like a bursting star. The background was one of the gatehouses of New Orleans, with an avenue at his back leading down to the levee and the faint trace of masts and rigging that topped its height. Harry ranged over the whole landscape talking through the arrival of the refreshments. Running out of things to say, he pointed to the small white dog which sat against the bastion wall, looking forlorn.

  ‘A pet?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of, Señor.’

  Harry spun round and headed for the other end of the room, to examine and discuss the painting of the lieutenant’s King. Here was a less imposing creature altogether. Hard as he’d tried, the artist, probably executing a copy, had failed to disguise this mad monarch’s shifty look, or brush out the pose of a man expecting a blow. But Harry couldn’t say that, of course, so he fell back on everything James had told him, discussing the way that the two different artists had used their brushes. This involved him in a great deal of bluff and bluster, plus a parade from one end of the room to the other, and the topping up of his glass each time he passed the decanter. He dredged everything James had ever told him from his memory. The majority of it was totally irrelevant, but he was sure that this youngster knew even less about art than he did, and it served to keep the conversation off the route by which he’d come there.

  ‘I wonder, Lieutenant Oliverta,’ he said finally, looking down at his mud-streaked shirt, that being followed by a scrape of the chin, ‘if I could ask you for some clean linen and the use of a razor. I’m afraid mine was mislaid by that fool I have for a servant.’

  ‘Of course, Señor. I will lend you one of my own shirts. My manservant will shave you. Please follow me.’

  Harry was led into a suite of private rooms, small but adequate, with Oliverta shouting as they passed down the narrow corridor. A servant appeared, then immediately rushed off for water. Oliverta produced a shirt from a deep drawer and gave it to him.

  ‘If you take the chair before the mirror.’

  ‘Most kind.’

  Oliverta bowed and left the room, giving Harry a chance to sigh with relief. Half an hour later, shaved and in a clean shirt, he re-asserted his dominance of the renewed conversation, hardly pausing for breath as he gabbled on, happy to observe that his host’s eyes were showing signs of glazing over.

  ‘Rude of me, I know, Lieutenant, but since Don Cayetano isn’t here, I wonder if you’d take it amiss if I set out to return to New Orleans?’

  ‘No!’ said Oliverta, jumping to his feet just a shade too quickly.

  He was out of the post and back on the river within ten minutes, almost hustled off the jetty by a man who’d identified him as a bore.

  ‘It’s perfect, Pender,’ said Harry, gaily, as they steered the pirogue back out into the channel. ‘I can even pretend to be put out that having accepted his invitation
I arrived to find him absent.’

  ‘I don’t care what excuses you use, your honour, he’ll still wonder why you took your time in gettin’ there.’

  ‘Let him,’ Harry replied, chucking his servant some fruit he’d lifted from the table. ‘All I have to do is put you up on a horse, let you trot, and the reasons for the delay will be self-evident.’

  Harry landed the pirogue upriver after dark, in the residential area outside the city walls, then used the palisade to guide him to his destination. As they made their way through the now dried-out earth outside the northern wall his eyes were searching for the gaslit beacons that would identify the Hôtel de la Porte d’Orléans. He was close before he realised that, unlike the other taverns, they were unlit, that the whole building, apart from a few candles, was in darkness.

  ‘Somethin’s a bit rum here, your honour.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Harry replied softly.

  He stopped behind a tree, examining the hotel which lay across the dirt-track road. The lights from the nearby buildings illuminated the front, but that only served to underline how quiet it was. There were no girls plying their trade, nor customers arguing for their services. The double front doors were shut tight and any noise they heard came from other establishments.

  ‘Call it instinct, Pender, but something tells me that a knock at the front door would be a bad idea.’

  ‘I make you right, your honour. Do you want me to get round the back an’ have a look?’

  ‘Let’s both go.’

  The forlorn look of the place was underlined by the view from side and rear. The veranda was silent, the long set of windows that led out into the garden shuttered, with only a faint glimmer coming from Hyacinthe’s private apartments above.

  ‘Happen they’ve been shut down, Capt’n.’

  ‘No happen about it,’ Harry said. They walked gingerly up the stairs which led from the garden and Harry tried one of the windows. It was locked and he stepped back as he heard the jingle of Pender’s picks.

  ‘No noise,’ said Harry, unnecessarily.

  ‘There’s a latch as well as a lock,’ Pender replied, pulling out his thin-bladed knife. He inserted it between the two doors and raised it slowly, a grin splitting his face as he felt the resistance of the latch. Gently he eased it up and opened the door, moving it faster at the least hint of a creak to minimise the noise. The thick drapes were only half drawn, and once through them they were plunged into near total darkness. Pender put his hand on Harry’s chest for a moment, until their eyes became adjusted to the small amount of available light, then inched his way across the room to the foot of the main staircase.

  ‘Walk up near the wall, your honour,’ he whispered. ‘They creak less there.’

  Harry nodded and went ahead of him, feeling rather foolish. The sudden thought struck him that de Carondelet had shut the place down for some misdemeanour, that he’d open a door and find Hyacinthe and his brother calmly playing cards. Yet by the top of the stairs he was wondering if danger threatened. The silence was all pervasive, too overwhelming to be a recipe for a happy outcome. They stopped outside the door to Hyacinthe’s private apartments. The door was very slightly ajar and Harry pushed it wider. The silhouette at the untidy desk perplexed him for a moment, then the figure turned slightly and he recognised James. That brought an immediate feeling of relief. At least he was safe. But what was his brother doing sitting at Hyacinthe’s desk, going through what looked like her papers?

  ‘James?’

  He spun round, his face fearful. ‘Harry, you’re back.’

  There was no joy in either the voice or the manner. ‘Where’s Hyacinthe, and why in God’s name is the place shut up and dark?’

  James stood up as Harry closed the gap between them. ‘Don Cayetano shut it down.’

  ‘Why?’

  He took Harry’s arm and led him to the door that connected the salon to Hyacinthe’s bedroom. He tightened his grip on his brother’s arm as they passed through the open door. The coffin lay on two trestles in the middle of the room, a set of candelabra at either end. Both men walked forward slowly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Harry,’ said James, ‘so desperately sorry.’

  Harry Ludlow fell to his knees before the body of Hyacinthe Feraud.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  ‘SHE WAS left to be found, Harry,’ said James. Her body had been discovered on the edge of the road, right by a swamp. But he didn’t go on to say how easy it was to feed a body to the alligators in this part of the world, which made murder, and the disguising of the deed, very easy.

  ‘She was last seen alive in the Calle Borgana, and it was assumed she was making her way back to the Porte d’Orléans. No real attempt was made to avoid her discovery. It’s as though the torture was meant as some kind of warning.’

  Again James was dissimulating for Harry’s benefit. Clearly Hyacinthe had been killed in one place, then left in another. Harry sat, his head bowed over his knees, eyes closed and hands clasped. He said little since he had seen Hyacinthe’s mutilated body, except to emit groans of despair. James had left him alone for a while, with a huge glass of brandy, and talked quietly to Pender, but time was short, with the funeral due to take place at eight. His brother had to decide what he was going to do. He thanked the Lord that Harry hadn’t seen her before the embalmer had made good some of the ravages on her face and body, hadn’t been present when one of de Carondelet’s watchmen had examined her and made a cavalier remark about her death being that which commonly fell to whores. James had been tempted to strike him. Harry would have killed him on the spot.

  ‘The tongue,’ croaked Harry.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just like Rodrigo.’

  James patted him on the shoulder, then drew his hand away as Harry sat up suddenly. His face was drawn and grey.

  ‘Pender asked me on the way downriver why I cared about what happened on the Gauchos. I didn’t really. I made some flippant answer about skewering San Lucar de Barrameda. But I care about this, James.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But what am I to do about it?’

  ‘This is hardly the time.’

  ‘We have no time, James. We must get Bucephalas out of here as soon as we can.’

  ‘Pender told me.’

  ‘Did you get the men off the ship?’

  ‘Yes. Ten at a time to begin with, but the Dons have ceased to count.’

  Harry made a gesture, as if to say ten was enough. His waving hand disturbed the papers on her desk.

  ‘Why were you going through these?’

  ‘Something Bernard said. She went to see the pirate Charpentier in his cell, claiming that he was an ex-lover. Hard to believe that after all this time they plan to garrotte him in a day or two. Anyway, it was hard to refuse such a request.’

  James paused, sighed slightly, then continued. ‘Bernard said that she briefly entertained de Chigny the day we went to the house near the Calle des Ursulines. There were other trips into the city, unexplained ones, made on foot. She wore a veil on several occasions. I was trying to find out where she went.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘No. But I found something else.’

  James stood up and went to the desk. He came back with the first note Harry had received from McGillivray. Harry looked at the crabbed capital letters, deliberately used to obscure the correspondent.

  ‘Bernard told me that the note he delivered didn’t come from McGillivray. It came from Hyacinthe. She must have used this one to copy out the lettering. There’s no good time to say this, Harry. She instructed him to lie to us.’

  Harry’s body shook violently. His hands clasped together hard as he tried to control himself.

  ‘What time did you say the burial would take place?’

  ‘Eight o’clock.’

  Harry stood up and walked towards the bedroom door. ‘I can’t go, James. I don’t want anyone to know I’m back. I only have a limited time and there’s a great deal to do.
So leave me alone for ten minutes while I say my private goodbyes.’

  He shut the door firmly as James turned to exchange a worried look with Pender.

  ‘Do you think he’ll forgive me, Pender?’

  ‘Yes, your honour. But I don’t know that he’ll forgive himself.’

  Harry and Pender slipped out of the house, in darkness, before the servants rose, and took up a position from which they could watch the funeral cortège depart. De Coburrabias arrived, with a small military escort including a drummer, ready to lead the procession. James took up a position by his side. Harry saw Saraille, the newspaperman, hovering about, very much in the manner he had adopted when Hyacinthe was alive. The camaraderie of the people who shared the district was shown by the number who emerged from the other taverns, even the mean-looking shacks that stood furthest from the road. The catafalque was a highly decorated flat-bed cart drawn by hand, onto which the servants of the Hôtel de la Porte d’Orléans loaded the heavy coffin. They were followed out of the building by the girls Hyacinthe had employed, all brightly dressed, which would have accorded with her wishes. Both groups then took up station behind, the drum began its funereal beat, and the chief mourners led the procession toward the city gate. There they would loop through the streets, before exiting to the south-west and the consecrated burial ground. Harry waited till the last faint beat of the drum faded before moving out and heading towards the rear of the hotel. Pender opened the window again and both men entered the silent, empty building.

  The ground was dry enough to dig a proper grave. De Coburrabias spoke a few words after the priest had finished, describing his regard for Hyacinthe and his sorrow at her death. Then he lifted up some shingle and threw it into the grave. Bernard was next, followed by a line of servants and girls from the hotel. James stood for a while after they had gone, watching as the gravediggers loaded the heavy rocks on to the top of the lid, weights that would keep the coffin in place if the water table rose. When they’d finished, and just before he departed, he threw in a single flower for Harry.