The Orphan's Tale (33 page)

"
Chagrined?"

"
Yes."

"
I see.  You're going to try to blackmail me."

"
The term is too crude," said Dracquet.

"
Crudeness is a measure of truth at times. But let's continue: you say that I will be chagrined."

"
In a manner of speaking. Colonel Malet." The voice was very intent.

"
This won't answer," Malet said quietly. "I have never been ashamed of my Army service."

"
Is that so?" asked Dracquet. "Then perhaps you can explain your reticence on that head. The Emperor himself gave you a promotion on the battlefield of Smolensk for 'conspicuous gallantry', as he phrased it, and made you a Commander in the Legion of Honor. Surely that is justifiable cause for pride, and yet no one seems to know of it, Colonel. Is it possible that I am speaking with a secret supporter of the Emperor?"

"
All things are possible," Malet said, "But I would think it unlikely if I were you. Leaving aside the fact that Bonaparte is dead, my military career is a matter of public record, even if I don't choose to sound my own trumpet horn. And I am openly drawing a rather large pension from the Legion of Honor."

Dracquet shrugged.
"I am unconvinced," he said. "You left the Police to enter the armies when your career was approaching its zenith. You served as Colonel of France's finest regiment of Horse Artillery from the Russian campaign until you left the army in the fall of 1814. Your prosperity coincides with the Emperor's career, and I find myself wondering if your loyalty might not lie in that direction."

"
My career, army or otherwise, is public record, as we have already discussed," Malet said calmly, folding his hands on the head of his walking stick. "None of it has ever caused me the least bit of shame."

Dracquet rose and paced a ways down the path.
His expression was very thoughtful. He paused to pick a chrysanthemum and set it in his buttonhole before he turned and came back to the bench. "Very well, Monsieur," he said. "Let me be blunt: you have shown your loyalty to France - no, don't bow! You abandoned a promising career to serve four years in the armies - "

"
I was able to resume that 'promising career', as you put it," Malet pointed out, "after I left the armies, and I have risen further in it since then."

"
You didn't know that you could when you joined to fight for the Emperor - "

"
I joined to fight for France."

Dracquet shrugged.
"If you insist!" he said. "The point is that you did join, you did fight, and you did well - "

"
A colonel isn't precisely a commander of armies. There are more colonels in France at the moment than I can shake this walking stick at, and two out of every three legless beggars you see before a church were heroes of France at one point. If your 'dossier' has somehow given you reason to hope that I will wink at any deviltry you're brewing, let me assure you that you are mistaken!"

"
'Deviltry', my dear Colonel?" Dracquet asked in a hurt voice. "You wrong me! And you wrong yourself! Come, sir, I do understand you! You fought at Paris in 1814, at the heights near Montmartre. You must have looked down through the smoke at the city and known that the end had come. You were with the army when it withdrew from Paris. Can you honestly say that you haven't desired a return of the glory of France, even as I do? A departure from the France of today, the doormat of Europe, the laughing-stock of England!"

"
I would find that speech less nauseating if it were sincere," Malet said.  "I have seen the sort of pies you have had your fingers in, and I don't choose to soil my own hands in them. Let us understand each other: I am a Police officer. What's more, I am an honest Police officer, and if you were to offer me a marshal's baton at this moment to close my eyes to anything that you are planning, I would refuse."

Dracquet sat back against the bench looking wounded.
"M. Malet, you wrong me! You're known to be a man of honor and rectitude, and I am merely reminding you where your loyalties lie and offering you a chance to return to them."

"
My loyalties lie with France, as I have told you. If you act against the interests of France, as I believe you do, then I am against you."

"
You haven't given me a chance to present my proposal," Dracquet said.

"
Nor shall I ever," said Malet. "We can have no dealings now or ever."

"
You won't even consider listening to me?" asked Dracquet.

"
Not for a moment!"

"
Old loyalties don't move you?"

"
My loyalty is a very old one," said Malet. "It is to France. Your loyalty is only to Constant Dracquet's power and prosperity."

Dracquet smoothed his gloves with hands that shook faintly, but his voice was very calm.
"You can't mean that," he said.

"
I do," said Malet. "I am the only person in Paris whom you can't fool. I know all about you. You plot your own rise to power. Causes mean nothing to you, and you have turned your back on truth and honor. I say it again: we can have no dealings!"

Dracquet sat back and frowned at Malet.
"Very well, then," he said. "I am for myself. But who's not? Show me someone who is truly altruistic and I will show you a colossal fool! What's the point of self-sacrifice? And yet, Malet, we could deal well together. You serve France now, you say: think how you could serve her with the power I could give you!"

"
Come now!" said Malet through his teeth. "You paid a high price for my dossier: didn't you read it? I was Cheat-Death's chosen successor! Power! I could have been far more powerful than you, but I chose another way. I could destroy you with your own weapons if I chose to pick them up and use them!"

Dracquet sat back, looking puzzled.

"To be blunt," Malet continued, "I am not for sale! There's nothing you can say to induce me to go along with you in any venture, though I die for it tomorrow! If you think that I am flattered to have been approached by you, let me assure you that I am not!"

Dracquet pushed himself to his feet and turned to face Malet.
"Every man has a price," he rasped.

Malet's expression became sardonic.
"Your mask is slipping," he said.

Dracquet's face hardened, but he paused and collected himself.
His voice dropped, became almost caressing. He had one last card to play.

"
Your past, as you have said, is public record," he said. "You will forgive me if I speak bluntly, I hope, but I can discern what can only be a heartache for a man of your breeding. Illegitimacy is a bar to many things, including a lady's hand. Women, odd creatures that they are, are often averse to wedding what they have no hesitation in bedding. I could change that. The bastard son of an opera dancer may be barred from social intercourse with the upper crust, but what of the son of Antoinette de Mallebranche and Dominique de Colbert? That is an entirely different matter! My dear Malet, you're better bred than two-thirds of the people in the Faubourg Saint-Germain - "

"
This discussion is obscene," said Malet, making a motion to rise.

Dracquet set an ungentle hand on his shoulder.
"Oh come now," he said. "You're being foolish. Only bear in mind that you would be considered an acceptable suitor to a certain well-bred lady."

For a moment Dracquet had an odd notion that Malet was about to strike him, though he had not changed his position.
But then Malet smiled and said, "Really, M. Dracquet. My housekeeper may be of impeccable birth, but she could almost be my mother, and I have done nothing to compromise her virtue or that of any other woman, well-bred or not!"

Dracquet frowned thoughtfully at him, but he did not speak for a moment.
He finally collected himself with an effort and said, "You have said that I am engaged in 'deviltry' - what a term! I say that I am not! Listen: I am leaving Paris tonight and I will be away for several weeks. I have made several valid points. Think over what I have said. I will speak with you again when I return. And accept this as a token of my regard - " he held out a small box, opened it, and showed a gold charm in the shape of the medal of the Legion of Honor, enameled, with the center circle formed of diamonds. "It would look very good on your watch chain, M. le Colonel," he said.

Malet shook his head and would not touch the jewel.
"No," he said. "I have the real decoration at home, and it would be pointless to wear this one."

"
I insist!"

"
And I refuse.  Good day. We will speak again when you return."

Dracquet pocketed the box, paused as though he wished to say something else, and then, when Malet lifted his copy of the
Globe
and opened ostentatiously to the agony columns, turned and left without another word.

Malet closed the paper and set it aside after he was gone.
"Several weeks, my hat!" he said through his teeth. "You'll be moving in one week at the most, or I am greatly mistaken!"

So saying, he stood, folded the paper, tucked it into the pocket of his overcoat, set his hat on his head - and swore as the hat was promptly knocked to the ground by a stone.
Damnation! The stone-thrower was very persistent!

He bent and retrieved the hat, and frowned at it.
The stones weren't doing it any good. He turned in the direction from which the stone had come and said clearly, but quietly, "Why don't you go and knock his hat off?" and, motioned in the direction that Dracquet had gone.

Larouche, hidden behind a tree, heard him and chuckled silently.
"I think I will!" he said.

IT IS POINTLESS TO WASTE TIME IN MOURNING

WHEN THE DEPARTED IS NOT DEAD

Malet walked slowly along the paths of the park, his eyes lowered, his mind busy with thoughts of strategy. For Dracquet to approach him as he had indicated that the matter was close to fruition and he was certain of the outcome. He would not have taken such a risk otherwise. Malet would confer with his people and pull in several more shadows and send another messenger to Michaud. He thought, as well, that he would be wise to pay some attention to his own safety now that battle had been openly joined.

He was approaching the walkway that led to the Rue d'Assas, where a line of cabs waited.
He raised his head and looked quickly around. It was a habit he had developed when he had first joined the Police in Marseilles: size up the people around you and the area. Obtain an overall picture of the situation and assess the threat. If there is none, relax. It was reflexive after thirty years: he was no longer aware that he did it.

But now he stiffened.
Something about a man to the left, walking along with a lady, was at once familiar and out of place. He started to turn just as the man made a convulsive motion. He faced the man fully - and came to a complete halt with the odd feeling that the breath had just been knocked out of him and he had been whirled back eight years, to a time when he had been Commissioner of Police in the city of Vautreuil, in Picardy.

Jacques Lambert, the chief magistrate of the town, had been remarkable for his charity and kindness.
He had personally endowed a hospital in the city, and his voice had often been raised in defense of all those suffering from the hardships that had followed the fall of Napoleon. He had even succeeded in enlisting Malet's support, despite the fact that Malet was more concerned with keeping people on the right side of the Law than assuaging their sorrows.

And
then, some years later, Malet had received an anonymous tip concerning the man. The tipper had hinted very strongly that the man was a convict by the name of Jacques Vaux, who had broken his parole almost twenty years before and was still being sought by the Police.

Virtue, however considerable it might be, holds no weight against official suspicion.
Lambert had been Malet's dearest friend, but affection had to take second place to duty. Malet had conducted an investigation, hoping to clear Lambert's name. He had failed, and on the basis of his findings, Sieur Lambert had been arrested and taken to Amiens to stand trial.

Malet had testified at the trial, which caused a sensation.
His friend was sentenced to death, the sentence was commuted to imprisonment at hard labor for life, and Malet was ordered to escort him to prison.

It had been a strange journey.
Lambert, who had reverted to the name Vaux, was pale with exhaustion and Malet, equally pale, silent and thoughtful, looked out the carriage window into the darkness of the clouded night.

Vaux had finally spoken.
"You conducted that investigation personally, didn't you?"

"
Yes," Malet answered. "I did."

"
On your own initiative?" Vaux asked.

Malet thought of all the excuses he could offer, and silently despaired.