In the Shadows of Paris (The Predator Of Batignolles) (14 page)

The squirrel’s brains began working; despite his slanting eyes and his visiting card this fellow, whom he recognised from Rue Drouot, might be a police informer. And Adolphe Esquirol was loath to have his registers inspected.

‘One accumulates so many documents of uncertain value over the years, and then one fine day one simply decides to get rid of the whole lot.’

‘As a colleague I understand your reluctance to reveal your sources. Perhaps you could just tell me whether this unidentified text was sold to you and if so by whom.’

Adolphe Esquirol weighed up his options and decided to prevaricate. After all, this samurai in an opera hat seemed a nice enough fellow – why not give him something to keep him happy?

‘The transaction took place in late June at a café near l’Opéra. I have no doubt as to the impeccable credentials of the seller.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Somewhat plump, about fifty, with a florid complexion and salt-and-pepper hair.’

‘Is that all?’

‘When he stood up, he only reached my shoulder, and I’m not even five foot six.’ Adolphe Esquirol frowned and blinked to show that the interview was over.

Kenji doffed his hat. Since nothing was biting upstream he would try downstream, venturing into the heart of the labyrinth that was the Bibliothèque Nationale.

Kenji walked through the enormous doorway on Rue Richelieu, opposite Place Louvois. A hallway took him into a courtyard and on the right a short flight of steps led to a corridor. He stopped to leave his cane in the cloakroom. Thanks to his membership card, he had no difficulty gaining access to the reading room, a vast square hall ending in a semicircle where the librarians’ desk was situated. Kenji moved pleasurably through the hushed atmosphere of this temple of knowledge with its cast-iron pillars supporting a Moorish-style vaulted ceiling, its plush carpets, and the murmur of researchers who handled the books carefully and only interrupted their reading to dip their pens in their inkwells. He began by consulting the catalogues, but was quickly daunted by the scale of the task. He decided to ask one of the librarians.

‘Is it a recent acquisition?’ whispered a slight man with a stoop and a receding forehead. ‘If so, I suggest you go to the acquisitions office.’

Kenji walked back the way he’d come, collected his cane and arrived at the north courtyard. He came to a succession of high-ceilinged rooms, their walls lined with thousands of books. A clerk was painstakingly separating the uncut pages of a dictionary with the aid of a finely sharpened blade, which he hurriedly set down, only too happy to escape this monotonous task.

‘May I be of assistance by any chance?’ he enquired in a high-pitched voice.

Kenji jumped. Two enormous eyes, as round and shiny as marbles, were peering at him through thick spectacles.

The clerk tugged at his left ear lobe as he studied the opportune visitor, and at once resolved to spin out the situation for as long as possible.

‘My dear Monsieur, do you realise that you are standing on the shores of a veritable ocean of paper the level of which is continually rising and which no amount of evaporation can reduce?’ he declared in a nasal voice, as he emerged from his lair.

‘Yes, yes. The text I’m looking for is missing the first—’

‘Two rivers whose waters never meet feed this ocean. One flows from the legal deposit, the other from public sales. Deposit and purchase, purchase and deposit, that’s what it boils down to!’

‘I’m sure you’re right. I—’

‘Consider the noble task it falls to us to perform. This flood of printed matter must be collated, assembled, guillotined, bound, stamped and numbered. Do you ever stop to think about it?’

‘Every evening before I go to sleep,’ retorted Kenji. ‘However, I—’

‘As soon as these volumes arrive, they’re put away in special cabinets. It’s hard enough already to find one’s way around in here with all these additional weekly and monthly publications. And yet, Monsieur, they are a mere trifle compared to the number of periodicals that have seen the light of day at the end of this century. Three thousand a year, Monsieur, three thousand and counting! Worse still are all the French and foreign newspapers – sparing you those with the biggest circulation, such publications as
The Swiss Argus, The Western Bugler, The Charolles Gazetteer, The Picardie Press, The Southern Herald
. What do you make of it all, I ask you?’

‘Nothing whatsoever. I’m leaving,’ Kenji replied.

The clerk caught up with him in a panic, sorry to see his excuse to be idle slip away.

‘Don’t take it badly, Monsieur. If God gave us eyes to see with, it is so that we can use them as best we can. What can I do for you?’

‘I wish to consult a Persian manuscript the title pages of which are missing. It was recently acquired by the library.’

‘In that case, there’s no point in me taking you to the stacks where the most valuable books are kept, eighty thousand all told – a phenomenal enough number, but when I tell you that the entire library is home to two million…’

‘A fat lot of good that does me,’ groaned Kenji.

‘When you say “recently acquired” it leads me to conclude that your book is being rebound, for which we have at our disposal a budget of a mere thirty thousand francs. Naturally this limits our ability to purchase because…’

Kenji felt himself falter. Was there no escaping this fellow’s endless patter?

‘Is your manuscript at the binder’s?’

‘You just told me you thought it was!’

‘Quite so, Monsieur. However,’ the clerk resumed, ‘you mentioned a Persian manuscript and anything relating to the Parsees attracts Hagop Yanikian like a bear to honey.’

Kenji was beginning to think that the man had lost his reason, when he added in a hushed voice, ‘Hagop Yanikian is an employee of Armenian extraction whose job it is to deliver books for rebinding to the acquisitions office. Only, whenever he comes across a Persian text, he spirits it away so that his cousin can copy out any passages that might interest him.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘It’s quite simple, Monsieur. If you return to the reading room, you can’t miss this famous cousin, Aram Kasangian. He sits at the end of the big table to the right of the main desk. He’s spent the last fifteen years wearing himself out compiling a Persian–French dictionary. He’s a permanent fixture here. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had your manuscript.’

His head spinning, Kenji left, after half-heartedly thanking the clerk, who looked up triumphantly at the clock. Hurrah! Only five minutes until closing time.

Outside, the heat was oppressive. Kenji stopped at a drinking fountain and quenched his thirst with the aid of a tin cup attached to a chain. It was almost six o’clock. Suddenly faint, he flopped onto a bench in Place Louvois.

‘You miserable swine! What kind of performance do you call that? Are you going to make an effort or do I have to force you! You deserve a kick up the backside, you jackass! Do you want us to be booed off stage on opening night?’

Edmond Leglantier flung his plumed hat furiously onto the stage of Théâtre de l’Échiquier as he railed at his fellow actor. Sheepishly Ravaillac retreated stage right to prepare for a second offensive against the Gallic Hercules.

‘Well, what is it? Why is our stage manager twitching like a scared rabbit?’

‘Quick, Monsieur Leglantier, hide, it’s Monsieur Vannier!’

On hearing the name of his main creditor, Edmond Leglantier rushed over to the prompter’s box and opened a trapdoor, vanishing from the stage and ending up beneath the auditorium. He could hear a general commotion above him as his company scattered. He walked down a narrow passageway leading to the props room and bumped into a female figure bending over a trunk, putting away some pasteboard plates.

‘You can’t see a thing down here! Who’s that?’ he asked, feeling an ample behind.

‘It’s me, Andréa,’ the young girl squealed.

‘Well, I never. What a shapely pair of haunches you have, my lovely. You’d be an absolute knockout in a tightfitting bodice. No need for the claque, the fellows in the stalls would be crying out for an encore!’

Andréa took a step backwards, pressing herself against the wall; Leglantier’s wandering hands were already exploring her.

‘Don’t be shy – let me look at you! Oh, what a lovely pair, and all your own,’ he muttered, feeling up her bodice.

Andréa gave him a resounding slap and promptly burst into tears. Edmond Leglantier rubbed his cheek.

‘A spirited wench! If you’d only stop blubbing, you’d be sure to impress the crowd.’

She could star in a classical sketch, all transparent veils and revealing robes. Nothing too deep; she’s still wet behind the ears. Or a saucy pantomime with pan pipes, he thought to himself.

‘You could play the Valkyrie,’ he said, as an afterthought.

‘Who’s that?’

‘A kind of Amazon, but with a winged hairstyle – daughter of the god Wotan.’

‘The coast is clear,’ the stage manager boomed.

‘Blow your nose, you silly girl, I’m going back up,’ Edmond Leglantier said to Andréa.

The royal carriage stood centre stage hemmed in by two carts outside a tavern called the Crowned Heart Pierced by an Arrow. While the actors were busy straightening their wigs, Edmond Leglantier reflected with satisfaction that he no longer needed to live from hand to mouth now that the Ambrex swindle had paid off. He was back on his feet again, but he didn’t want the news getting out or else every sponger in France and Navarre would be rolling out the red carpet for him, beginning with his mistress, Adélaide Paillet, of whom he’d grown weary. I’ll replace her with the luscious Andréa, he thought.

‘You look like a scarecrow,’ he yelled at the actor playing the Duc d’Épernon. ‘Try to look intelligent, and read aloud that letter for me from the Comte de Soissons.’

‘The Comte de Soissons has written to you?’

‘Not to me, you dunderhead, to Henry IV! Only Henry IV has left his spectacles at home so he’s asking you politely to read the blasted letter, get it?’

‘Should he be reading it?’ asked Ravaillac.

‘As for you, you ham, shut up and concentrate. This time you must run me through shouting: “Have at ye, man of straw!”

Henry IV and the Duc d’Épernon heaved themselves into the carriage. Lying in wait behind a barrel, Ravaillac bit his nails nervously, trying to remember his solitary line.

The Duc d’Épernon announced, ‘Your Majesty, it is with great tardiness that I reply to your epistle. A rumour is abroad that the enemies of the kingdom are watching you and that your life will be in peril if you mingle with your subjects, for—’

Edmond Leglantier snatched the letter from him.

‘What drivel! Philibert Dumont is a good-for-nothing hack!’

He dropped the piece of paper. Just as he was bending down to pick it up Ravaillac leapt out, roaring, ‘Have at ye, man of hay!’

He lunged twice at the Duc d’Épernon who collapsed screaming, ‘Help! The fool’s run me through! Oh…the pain, it’s terrible.’

Edmond Leglantier leant over him ready to shower him with insults, only to discover to his horror a bright-red stain on the actor’s side.

‘What’s come over you?’ he asked Ravaillac, in a shocked voice.

Ravaillac, whose wig had slipped off to reveal his balding pate, looked aghast at the drop of blood on the end of his dagger.

‘I didn’t do it on purpose,’ he wailed.

‘You blockhead, a moment sooner and you’d have stabbed me!’ Edmond Leglantier bawled.

‘He’s killed me,’ moaned the victim.

‘There’s no button on the tip of the blade. It’s the props man’s fault. He—’

‘Don’t stand there bickering! Go and fetch a doctor!’ cried Maria de Medici.

The stage manager hurried off. Edmond Leglantier carefully lifted his fellow actor’s doublet and confirmed the existence of a superficial wound.

‘Nothing to worry about, my friend – it’s a mere scratch,’ he whispered, using his own shirt, which he’d taken off and rolled up in a ball, as a compress.

Bare-chested, he stood up and caught Andréa gazing admiringly at his muscular torso. He twirled his moustache and roared, ‘Bravo, everybody! A magnificent performance. Stunning dialogue, sublime, a true work of art! Well done! You wreck my production then you try to kill me! I’ll show you what I’m made of! For a start…’

With a ferocious smile he turned to Ravaillac, who shrank back.

‘Fire that bungling props man! I’m going upstairs to rest. You deal with the doctor. I want Épernon back on his feet in one hour, do you hear me?’

He strode across the auditorium with great dignity, puffing out his chest.

‘He’s got a nerve going off like that and making us hang about!’ exclaimed Maria de Medici.

‘And, anyway, I’m the one who’s been murdered, not him!’ whined the Duc d’Épernon.

‘The dagger I had yesterday was shorter with a thicker hilt. It was perfect. Who changed it?’ bleated Ravaillac.

Nobody answered.

Slumped in a wing chair, Edmond Leglantier forced himself to take deep breaths. His cast was a disaster. They’d never be ready to open by the end of the month. Gradually, he began to calm down. What good would come of fretting? By way of relaxing, he conjured up images of Andréa’s naked, lustful body yielding to his desires in the little love nest he would rent for her at Passy or Grenelle. His daydream was shattered by a violent knocking that shook the door.

‘You rat, just wait till I get my hands on you!’

Somebody was leaning against the door so hard that it creaked and groaned under the pressure.

Edmond Leglantier’s first response was to stare at the door handle, which was being jiggled fiercely up and down, and congratulate himself on having turned the key. Then he reflected that a scandal would tarnish his reputation. Still stripped to the waist, he opened the door so abruptly that the man standing there, who was tall, sharp-featured and as bald as a coot, stumbled forward into the centre of the room.

‘Monsieur le Duc de Frioul! To what do I owe the honour—’

‘You have the nerve to speak of honour! Here is my card, I have my seconds, choose your weapon.’