The Cavalier of the Apocalypse

by Susanne Alleyn

27

  "The servant?" said Brasseur.

  "Aren't servants just as capable of human passions as the rest of us?" Aristide demanded. Brasseur did not answer. The soft buzz of voices from the front chamber of the office rose in the silence.

  "It's true, you know," Brasseur said a moment later. "You never do remember a servant in the background. And yet they're people, too?"

  "A servant, 'a superior young man,' as Madame Fournier put it, who is probably half-brother to his master, and knows it," said Aristide, still looking away. "A favored servant and friend to a master who is an ardent Freemason and who worships equality, and who has always encouraged him to believe that he deserves as much from life as any other man. A servant who received an early education befitting a nobleman's son, and who has probably only remained a servant out of admiration and loyalty to the master-the brother-whom he adores. It all fits." He paused, as the fragments of evidence fell into place, one by one, inexorably.

  "Beaupr?au sometimes brought him along to the Saint-Landrys when he called; Sophie and Madame Fournier told me as much, and-my God-he was there this afternoon, waiting on his master, when I was watching for Eug?nie. And he seemed restless?said something about not leaving Paris with Beaupr?au, that he might have to stay behind. After all this, can you imagine that he would desert Beaupr?au so abruptly, unless the thought of someone else was consuming him?" He paused for an instant, trying to remember how much he had said in front of the young man.

  "They-they told me, also, that he was always polite but aloof with the maids, when a privileged servant like him could have had his pick of them. A man like him, low-born but conscious of his aristocratic blood-with his head full of Beaupr?au's audacious ideas about equality and natural rights-no, he must have believed he could aspire to something much higher than a chambermaid."

  "And so-with more than a little encouragement from the lady-he dared to fall in love with a married woman well above his station?"

  "And, I'm sure, to believe she returned his love." He was biting his thumbnail again, and thrust his hands in his pockets to still them. "God, Brasseur, it's so cruel. Moreau must have been attending Beaupr?au at the Saint-Landrys', months ago, and Eug?nie caught him staring at her-any man would, if he's drawn to that fragile, helpless sort of woman who arouses gallantry-"

  "-and she decided he was ripe for the plucking," Brasseur muttered.

  "Easy enough to send Sophie and Marguerite out to amuse themselves, give the servants the afternoon off, then invite him out of the kitchen and exchange tender whispers-or more-in private with him in her own home, while Saint-Landry and Beaupr?au were closeted away with their little conspiracy." Aristide felt himself trembling with anger and stalked to the window, not daring to look at Brasseur.

  "But Moreau's been right beside you these past couple of days, helping you," Brasseur said suddenly. "He wouldn't willingly have investigated his own crime!"

  "He didn't. He stuck by me because he was genuinely worried about Beaupr?au, and he couldn't have known that Beaupr?au's mysterious disappearance was directly connected to Saint-Landry's murder. Though he managed to divert any attention from himself right away, by suggesting that his master's friends might be involved in some shadowy plot. And I promptly fell for it, thanks to Beaupr?au's mischief-they unwittingly helped each other in obfuscating their various schemes."

  "That must be why he tried to confound us with all the sham Masonic rubbish."

  "Yes. Some things you don't share with a servant, even a longtime friend and confidant like Moreau, and Beaupr?au would have told him nothing about his scheme regarding the diamond necklace. Moreau's an intelligent fellow, though. He couldn't have failed to see that something suspicious was going on among his master and some of his friends, all of whom also happened to be members of the same lodge."

  Brasseur pulled a dossier from the shelf and rapidly skimmed it. "The timing fits. He knew something was up, and took advantage of it. He must have laid his plans back in October-"

  "That's probably right about the time when Eug?nie realized she was pregnant, and chose her pawn?"

  "Moreau began slipping out every week or two-"

  "He's a trusted servant, he has keys, he can go in or out of the h?tel at any time he pleases-"

  "-Slipping out to leave his churchyard fires and his magic symbols-"

  "-And it wouldn't have been hard to duck out into the back streets, by the stables-"

  "-To make us think we were dealing with a madman or a sinister conspiracy," Brasseur concluded. "And then Saint-Landry's death would have seemed just an unhappy, accidental result of the other thing."

  "You said the boy you found, the one who delivered the letter that lured Saint-Landry out that night, described a man who could have been Beaupr?au. But it could just as easily have been Moreau." Outside, a municipal refuse cart had paused behind a grocer's wagon pulled by a bony, balking horse. Aristide stared at the shouting, swearing carters without seeing them. "The letter must have been from Beaupr?au, or so Saint-Landry thought."

  Brasseur nodded. "Who better to forge Beaupr?au's handwriting than the man who knows him best?"

  "But then Beaupr?au suddenly vanished, and Moreau was frantic with anxiety for his friend's safety. He knew mad Masons hadn't killed Saint-Landry, but he knew nothing else, nothing of the marquis's whereabouts. For all Moreau knew, Beaupr?au's disappearance just after Saint-Landry's death was mere coincidence, something genuinely having to do with whatever it was they were involved in, and Beaupr?au was in real trouble somewhere, or even dead. He sincerely loves Beaupr?au like a brother, and so he determined to try his best to find him and help him, by assisting us as well as he could. Even if it meant taking the chance of being found out himself."

  "That poor young fool?"

  Aristide shook his head. "No. The tragedy of it is, he's not a fool. God, it's so heartbreaking. He's a thoroughly decent man, intelligent, agreeable-capable of such love and loyalty-and she took full advantage of those qualities and convinced him to throw his life away for her." He closed his eyes for a moment. "You were right, you know, about people who commit murder for love."

  "We'll have to take him in to the commissaire for questioning right now, you know," Brasseur said, as he rose from his desk. "I'm sorry."

  "I know."

  "You needn't come along if you don't want to; I know you've taken a liking to him."

  "No-I'll come," Aristide said. "I think he'd want a friend present."

  After scrawling down a brief message to be sent to the commissaire, Brasseur called for his subinspector, Paumier, and they hurried out to the street and commandeered the first fiacre that passed. Neither Aristide nor Brasseur said anything more as the crowded cab jolted out through the short, winding streets of the Latin Quarter toward Rue St. Dominique.

  They paused at a local watchpost near St. Germain des Pr?s and requested two guardsmen to accompany them. A barked order let them past the porter at the gates of the H?tel de Beaupr?au. After setting his men at the servants' door and at the doors to the rear of the mansion that led out to the formal gardens, Brasseur rang the bell at the front door.

  "My apologies to Monsieur de Beaupr?au and to his family," he said to the footman who answered, "and I understand this is a household in mourning, but I'm under orders to take in the valet Gabriel Moreau for questioning regarding a police matter. Stand aside, please."

  Cowed, the footman shrank back. "His room's in the attics, monsieur. But I haven't seen him for some time-not since Monsieur de Beaupr?au went out this afternoon."

  Beaupr?au himself descended the sweeping staircase to the foyer a moment later, surprised and bemused. "Inspector Brasseur! How charming to see you again, and so soon. I trust you're not hounding me in regard to that little matter we've already talked about. Because I should have to discuss your officious conduct with Monsieur d'Orl?ans, you know."

  "Forgive me, monsieur," Brasseur said, glowering, "for disturbing your household, but if you'll recall what you said to m
e and my associate about Madame Saint-Landry?"

  "Don't tell me you suspect me of being her confederate, Inspector. We've been through this."

  "No, monsieur. Your valet."

  "Gabriel?"

  Beaupr?au stared at him for an instant, stunned, before his expression abruptly changed and he paled. "Oh, dear God. I must have been blind."

  "You never imagined him falling in love?" Aristide said, joining Brasseur.

  "Of course I did-but with some shopgirl or lady's maid. Not with a bourgeoise. And yet of course it must have been my own doing," he added bitterly. "Me and my endless, hollow talk of natural rights, in a world where equality and natural rights are still no more than pretty theories!"

  "Is he here, monsieur?" said Brasseur.

  "No, he didn't re-oh, sweet heaven." Beaupr?au paused, marshaled his thoughts, and began again. "Inspector, I must tell you something, although I hope to God I'm wrong about all of it. I called on the Saint-Landrys this afternoon, bringing Gabr-Moreau-with me. On my way back to my carriage, I caught sight of Monsieur Ravel here, hanging about the street corner in a particularly hideous coat and hat."

  Aristide nodded in confirmation as Beaupr?au continued. "As we left, I remarked to Moreau, almost without thinking about it, that Ravel was probably waiting to tail Madame Saint-Landry, because I had mentioned to you yesterday that I had my suspicions of the lady's conduct."

  "You told him you thought Madame Saint-Landry had a lover, who might have murdered her husband, and that we were likely to suspect both of them?"

  "Yes-like a fool. He seemed unaffected by what I said, but five minutes later he unexpectedly asked me for a few hours off, so he could say his goodbyes to a certain girl before we left Paris. I let him go, of course, though he hadn't spoken of any sweetheart to me for months. And I've not seen him since."

  "And you think now," Aristide said, "that, instead of visiting some girl he made up on the spur of the moment-"

  "He must have decided, then and there, to make a run for it. If he knew that the police were shadowing Madame Saint-Landry, then he would also have guessed that eventually they would learn who her lover was. He knew the game was up and that his only hope was in fleeing the city."

  "I expect you're right," said Brasseur, "but with your permission, monsieur, we'll still have to search the house."

  Beaupr?au nodded. "If you must. Though I pray you don't find him."

  Moreau was nowhere in the attics, neither in his own simply but comfortably furnished chamber nor in the other servants' tiny rooms. Brasseur looked into his wardrobe and shook his head.

  "Doesn't look like anything's missing. If he's decided to run, he didn't come back and collect anything. Spread out, lads, and find him if he's in the house."

  A quarter hour's search proved that Moreau was not in the servants' quarters, nor was he in Beaupr?au's apartments or in any of the formal rooms or bedchambers. They converged in the cellars, the subinspector and guardsmen shaking their heads.

  "Round up the other servants and question them," Brasseur ordered them. He strode into the busy kitchen, Aristide following, and confronted the cook, a stout, surly middle-aged man.

  "Have you seen the valet Moreau this afternoon?"

  The cook shook his head impatiently but one of the kitchen boys laid down his knife.

  "Maybe a couple of hours ago," he said. "He came down to the kitchen, and asked me what was for supper. The last of the cold roast pheasant from Monsieur de Castagnac's funeral supper, I told him-only for the upper servants of course-and pot-au-feu, like always, if anybody wanted something hot. He said that would do, and went off again."

  "Cold roast pheasant," Brasseur echoed him, mystified. Aristide frowned. Why, indeed, at such a time, would Moreau return to the H?tel de Beaupr?au but not gather any of his effects, yet concern himself with trivialities like the evening menu in the servants' hall?

  Brasseur dismissed the kitchen staff with a grunt and stomped back along the corridor to the tunnel. "I'm off," he said to Aristide. "I have to send a message to all the barriers to have him stopped, though he's probably long gone by now."

  "But why on earth would Moreau be asking about supper?" Aristide said, hurrying at his heels, as the subterranean door to the courtyard banged behind them. "He must have had other things on his mind than a chat with the cook!"

  A vision of the kitchen and the worktable, where the kitchen boy and an undercook had been chopping winter vegetables, abruptly sprang to his mind and he realized, with an icy jolt, where Moreau would be.

  "Perhaps?perhaps it was merely an excuse to visit the kitchen." He raced up the steps to the terrace and courtyard, toward the waiting fiacre. "Brasseur, when he left Beaupr?au with the excuse of wanting to say goodbye to a girlfriend-"

  "He would have made straight for the barrier, I expect-"

  "But maybe he didn't. Maybe, with his suspicions aroused, he chose to return to Rue de Savoie, hang back, out of my sight, and trail Eug?nie himself. He might have been shadowing both of us all the way to that hotel. So much for my talent for trailing a suspect, when the follower can't even tell he's being followed!"

  "So you think he might know about the other fellow, then?"

  "I'm sure of it," Aristide said, flinging the door of the fiacre open. "Because I can guess why he went to the kitchens. Come on!"

  "Where the devil are you off to?" Brasseur demanded.

  "To find Moreau!"