Barbary silenced him with a gesture. “Wherever did you get such a crack-brained notion? I did nothing of the sort. How could I? The man is unconscious.”
“You already told me you had borrowed money from him!” Mab snapped.
Barbary flushed. “Yes, but— To tell truth, Mab, I took the money. I know you won’t approve, but I was very hungry, and so was Tibble, and we must feed him, too, you know.”
“You took—” Mab stared. “You went through his pockets?”
“I did.” Barbary tossed aside the mirror. “And I would do so again. Even though I admit it probably isn’t quite the thing to go through the pockets of an unconscious man. But even if he weren’t unconscious, why should I go anywhere with him?”
Did Barbary think she could so easily pull the wool over everyone’s eyes? “Because he is handsome as Apollo and rich as Croesus, as you no doubt have realized!”
“Well to grass, is he?” Barbary inquired. “I suppose you think I should look for a gentleman friend who is full of juice. It would certainly be the practical thing to do, because I do not wish to spend my life tipping everyone the double and fearing any moment to be clapped on the shoulder and arrested for debt! But I have told you I am done with romance, and I mean it, Mab. I’ll shed no more tears over any gentleman. And I still don’t understand why you should think I ran off with the Duc.” She glanced at the corner of the room where she had last seen the invalid. “Oh! The camp bed is gone.”
Tibble attempted to break into the conversation. “The camp bed is in the closet,” he offered. “The Duc—”
Barbary pressed her hands to her breast. “Gone! Oh, mercy! He’ll lay charges against us—against you, Mab!”
“Against both of us, you mean,” Mab said irritably. “He’d be hard pressed to say which one of us is which, with you wearing my dress. Yes, and by the way, if you went out for food, where is it?”
“You don’t believe me!” Barbary looked reproachful. “I’ll tell you what it is, Mab, you think I ran off with your beau. As if I would! And do not remind me yet again of that accursed hussar, because that was all a very long time ago. Think, Mab, if you will! Had I gone off with your Duc, I would hardly have come back here, would I?”
Mab had to admit that such an action hardly seemed sensible. “He is not my Duc. Then who have you been talking about if not him?”
This was certainly a difficult conversation. Barbary unstoppered her vinaigrette and inhaled. “Conor, of course! I encountered him in the Jardin des Plantes. I did not bring back food because I became quite lost, and Conor brought me home. Except that he didn’t know it was me, he thought it was you, and so you must remember that you have already met him, should you encounter him again.”
“You told him—” Mab stared. “Of all the beetle-headed things to do!”
“I had to tell him something, didn’t I?” retorted Barbary. “And don’t suggest I should have told him the truth, because I would never dream of doing such a thing.”
Tibble was still waiting patiently for an opportunity to speak. He cleared his throat and said, “The Duc hasn’t gone anywhere. I moved him to the divan.”
The ladies rushed simultaneously to the divan. There, indeed, slumbered the missing Duc. Barbary touched his forehead. “His color is considerably improved.”
“At least, for the moment, we needn’t fear he will lay charges against us,” Mab scowled. “What do you mean, should I encounter your husband again?”
Barbary looked apologetic. “Well, Conor does know where you live. He appeared rather taken with you, I might add. Yes, and now I think of it, for you to say unkind things about me and accuse me of dangling after your Duc is for the pot to call the kettle black!”
How had Mab come to be in the wrong? She didn’t recall having accused Barbary of any such thing. “What are you talking about?”
Barbary moved to the end of the divan and arranged a blanket more carefully over the Duc’s feet. “Conor, of course. He was very interested in his wife’s cousin.”
Definitely Mab’s cousin was a madwoman. “I have never met the man.”
“Yes, you have!” Barbary abandoned the Duc and gripped Mab’s arm. “You must remember that! I shall describe him to you—he is tall and dark-haired and damnably attractive in a certain arrogant style.” She looked pensive. “I think he may also be a bit of a rogue
.”
Mab didn’t doubt it for a moment. Her life was not already complicated enough, now Barbary must attract for her the attention of a rogue
.
This discussion of a gentleman she had not met recalled to her one whom she had. “Your husband is the least of our worries,” Mab said, and recounted the appearance in Maurice’s studio of lnspecteur Ollivant.
“The police!” breathed Barbary.
Mab nodded. “I don’t know what we should do.”
Nor did Barbary, beyond the immediate moment. “You need food! We all do. I shall go to the store again, but this time I promise I shan’t get lost.” Before Mab could protest, Barbary wrapped the shawl around her shoulders and stepped out into the hall. The Duc’s family was concerned? It was understandable. Descending the stairs, Barbary wondered if there was some manner in which they might be put off the track.
Mab stood staring out the window. Behind her Tibble busied himself at the stove. Mab heard a clatter, then a moan. “Enough!” she said. “Wait for Barbary to return. I have told you already, Tibble, that you should not try to cook. You will bum yourself again.”
But Tibble was not cooking. “Miss Mab! Miss Mab!”
Mab swung around, alerted by the urgency in Tibble’s voice. He was not at the stove, but by the divan, bent over the Duc.
Dead, then? Mab felt chilled. She hurried across the room.
The Duc’s eyes were open, staring at the draperies that hung over the divan. He made even a handsome corpse, Mab thought sadly. Then with painful slowness he turned his head.
Chapter Nine
Inspecteur Ollivant had not given up his quest for a certain missing Duc. At that very moment, he was searching the Palais Royale. No easy feat, this, and it had already taken several hours: Paris’s center of dissipation and depravity was an immense mass of architecture which enclosed six squares, some planted with trees. Thus far the Inspecteur had counted fifteen restaurants and twenty-nine cafès; seventeen billiard-saloons and twenty-four jewelers shops; six booksellers, eight watchmakers, a dentist-pedicure and a manufacturer of pictures in hair. In the wooden arcades known as the Camp des Tartares were a similar profusion of establishments, where officers bought jewelry and other presents for ladies of the
pavé
who strolled about in revealing evening clothes, though evening had not yet come. Beneath the shops were subterranean apartments where less affluent revelers danced and drank and diced, and indulged in whatever other vices struck their fancy.
The first floor was reserved for gambling, and it was those gambling rooms that most interested Inspecteur Ollivant—not for his own sake; the inspector disliked gambling, but in his search for the Duc de Gascoigne. Already Yves had visited the best-known houses: number 113, where the stakes played for round the roulette table were ruinously high, and unlucky players recovered in the ‘room of the wounded’ next door; number 150, which was affiliated with a money-lending establishment that supplied unlucky gamesters with the means to continue playing at an interest of six percent each month; number 64, which boasted tables for
trente-et-quatre
and
passé-dix,
and an adjoining gun shop.
A large number of the rooms opened in succession, and all were crowded with people playing hazard and other games of skill, losing at one table what they had won at the last. An occasional shout of triumph or groan of defeat rose above the murmur of voices, the metallic chink of coins, the crack of the croupier’s stick.
Inspecteur Ollivant was relieved to escape into the fresh air. If the Duc de Gascoigne had indeed engaged himself to gamble in the Palais Royale, it was for the first time; he was not known there. The inspector mulled over this development. M’sieur le Duc had parted from Ma’mselle Foliot, and then disappeared.
Ducs did not simply disappear, not in these days, troubled as they might be. De Gascoigne had to be somewhere. Unfortunately, as to where, Inspecteur Ollivant hadn’t the slightest clue. It was a situation of the most frustrating. Yves was not a man without ambition, and for those ambitions the matter of the missing Duc might well spell doom.
Mais non!
He must not think such things. He would solve the mystery of the missing Duc with such speed and cleverness and subtlety that it would seem only fitting that he be made a plainclothes detective for the newly formed Sûreté. Then he would be rid of this ugly uniform, which was as uncomfortable as it was hot, and which also made very evident his profession as a
Gardien de la Pax.
It took a thief to catch a thief? No such thing. It took the absence of a uniform.
But it was not a thief Inspecteur Ollivant sought today. At least, he thought it was not. Clearly he had overlooked some vital piece of evidence, some clue—but what? Yves was very methodical, and not given to oversight.
Perhaps the oversight was not his. Perhaps some vital piece of information had been withheld. But by whom? An image of a scowling female clad in antique draperies sprang to mind. To tell truth, this image had sprung frequently to mind since Inspecteur Ollivant’s meeting with Ma’mselle Foliot, for he was not accustomed to seeing females so scantily clad. No wonder M’sieur de Duc had taken certain notions. Given such provocation, it would have been much more surprising had he not.
Ma’mselle Foliot claimed to have sent the Duc off with a flea in his ear, which may or may not have been true. Yves had suspected at the time of their interview that Ma’mselle had not acquainted him with all she knew. This was no great surprise; it was his experience that the females of the species had a strange aversion to speaking the truth. Granted, the inspector was not married, had no sweetheart. His mama lived with him, however. Though limited, his experience was intense.
He must learn more about Ma’mselle Foliot. Fortunately, in the course of his investigation, Yves had already ascertained her address. He set out through the narrow dusty streets.
Two centuries before, the Faubourg St. Germain had been one of the most fashionable districts in Paris, and the nobility had dwelt the hotels on the streets which ran parallel to the Quai d’Orsay. Today, a great many of the descendants of those noblefolk had encountered Mme Guillotine, and the district had become the haunt of artists and their students, which in Inspecteur Ollivant’s opinion was a testimony to the transitory nature of the elegancies of this life. Not that he despised such elegancies. Indeed, he aspired to have some for himself.
Here was his destination. He looked up at a six-story stone building, its lower windows barricaded with iron bars. Undeterred by its unwelcoming aspect, he passed through the massive gate into a refuse-littered courtyard. A fat gray tabby cat lay dozing in the sunlight. It opened one tawny eye, contemplated him, and hissed. Yves did not especially like cats. “Nice puss!” he said, and gave it a wide berth.
“
Qui va là? Que voulez-vous?”
For a startled moment, Inspecteur Ollivant thought the cat had spoken. He turned to see a black-clad gray-haired woman squinting suspiciously at him. Near-sighted, he deduced, and of an age approaching that of his own mama. Of a comparable temperament, also, judging by her hostile stare.
The inspector contrived to look both humble and respectful. “I intrude.
Pardon!
This is such a splendid building that I had a desire to peer inside.”
The woman looked a shade less suspicious. “You are looking for an apartment, m’sieur?”
If only he might. Inspecteur Ollivant possessed a burning ambition to live apart from his ill-tempered mama.
Ill-tempered old women often possessed amazing amounts of information. The inspector set out to charm the concierge. “I do indeed look for a room. And this building, it spoke to me. I said to myself, Yves, you could not be so fortunate as to live here. There will surely be no rooms available. But still, I had to inquire.”
“You are not in luck, m’sieur.” The concierge seemed to derive a certain pleasure from his misfortune. “I have no empty rooms.”
She could have no inkling of how this information relieved her caller, whose aspirations could be realized only by professional advancement and a higher wage. “I feared it would be so!” he sighed. “If only the stones could talk, what stories such a magnificent old building could tell. Your tenants are privileged, Madame—”
“Gabbot.” The concierge picked up her tabby cat. “I wish my tenants felt the same as you, Inspecteur. A thankless shiftless lot they are.” She studied his uniform. “While it is true that I have no rooms at the moment, in the future—Who knows?”
Yves wondered which of her tenants the old hag planned to evict. “Ah! You expect that someone will leave.”
“Someone always does leave, m’sieur. It is merely a matter of time.” Madame Gabbot arched her sparse eyebrows. “Perhaps you would like to come inside, and see the rest of the rooms.”
Inspecteur Ollivant was perhaps too honest for a Guardian of the Peace; he felt a pang of conscience as result of deceiving the concierge. As was his habit in such moments of dilemma, he thought of the great Fouchè, minister to both Napoleon and Louis XVIII, whose philosophy had been to do as little evil as possible beyond what was strictly necessary.
Was this necessary? It was. One did not make an omelette without cracking eggs.
“
Magnifique!”
the inspector murmured, although the concierge’s apartment was no different from countless others that he’d seen, and furthermore stank of cat. She led him from the staircase into a room that served as antechamber and dining-room combined, with a black-and-white flagged floor; and beyond it into a drawing-room cluttered with furniture. “Seat yourself, m’sieur,” said Madame Gabbot. “Perhaps you would like some coffee.”
Yves agreed that he would like some coffee. Madame Gabbot returned quickly with the beverage, which was hot and bitter and so strong that he nearly burned his tongue. He reminded himself that this experience would surely be excellent practice for when he became a plainclothes detective with the Sûreté.