by Iain Pears
I could not decide whether I was being manfully determined or childishly stupid. I continued until I reached the door on the left that the curt instructions had mentioned. I gently pushed it with my hand. It was not locked. It was hardly on hinges at all, and was kept in place mainly by its own weight as it dragged on the floor and leaned against the door posts. Knocking seemed a little absurd in the circumstances, so I put my shoulder to it and levered it up and forwards until a gap large enough for me to slip through opened up.
The passage inside it was completely dark, and the musty smell of neglect and damp hung about it. I waited to see if my eyes could make something out but the blackness was so total that this accomplished little. Unlike the well-equipped agent of novels, I had no matches. There was no sound except for the patter of rain outside and the chuckle of the water as it ran down the street. The thing I was most aware of was my feet, which were soaking wet and icy cold. As standing feeling frightened and cold accomplished nothing, I gingerly made my way forwards, arms out like a blind man, and bumped first into a wall this way, then into another that way. Then I caught something brushing against my sleeve as I turned, and realised I had touched a banister. There was a staircase! Carefully, I put my foot on the first step, thinking to go up quietly. That was useless; the wood gave a crack like a gun going off as my full weight came upon it, so I abandoned all notion of discretion and concentrated simply on not falling, feeling my way up, step by step, until I came to a landing. There the stairs ended, and there, on the left, I felt a door. Assuming I was in the right street and the right building (about which I had no confidence whatsoever), I must have arrived at my destination. I listened carefully, but could hear nothing. I knocked; softly at first, then in frustration and annoyance, hammered on the door as loudly as I could.
I heard a low groan after my first knock and the sound of someone falling out of bed after my second, then a muttering. Next a sound like someone being sick, then urinating in a metal pot. The door opened, just a crack at first, then more widely. An oil lamp was held up, its glare preventing me from seeing who was holding it. “Come in, then,” I heard. A gruff voice, speaking in a mumbling French I could barely understand.
So in I went.
I had never been in a room so filthy or so rank before, and my first instinct was to turn tail and flee. The occupant saw this reaction on my face but, instead of being offended, found it as funny as one can find anything when one is nursing a violent hangover. He was at least dressed, after a fashion, though not shaved and, I guessed, he had not shaved for days, for the grey stubble on his chin—he was a man past fifty—shone in the rays of thin light that came from the smoking lamp he put down on a rickety table.
He was short, broad and powerfully built, stooped over but with lively eyes that never rested long in one place. A deeply lined face, with a thin scar down his left cheek, which was otherwise blotchy from drink and hard living. But despite his surroundings and his gross inelegance, he had a purposeful air, almost one of confidence. All this was communicated in a few seconds and I cannot say that I realised any of this until much later. At that particular moment, the smell and the dirt was all I noticed.
“I’ve come from Mr. Wilkinson for a package,” I said.
“You’re the new boy, are you?” he said with the heavy sigh of the deeply disappointed. He had switched to English after he had examined me carefully with those eyes. I noticed that there was the faintest foreign accent to his voice. Not French, certainly, but his original language was so covered over by time and lack of use it was difficult to ascertain what it might have been. “Do you have something for me?”
“No.”
“No piece of paper, no other letter?”
“No. Why?”
“Because how am I meant to believe you really do come from Mr. Wilkinson? You may be working for the French Government, which would not be good for you at all.”
He said it in a quiet fashion which was deeply threatening.
“I can offer you no proof whatsoever,” I replied. “And I am not sure I would, even were I able to do so.”
“What’s your name?”
“Cort,” I replied. “Henry Cort.”
“A curious name; not very English. Dutch? Flemish?”
I bridled a little at that. “I can assure you I am thoroughly English,” I said stiffly. “My father’s family arrived in England from the Low Countries to escape persecution, but that was nearly two hundred years ago.”
“And your father is alive?”
“Yes, although he suffers from persistent ill health. My mother is dead.”
I sensed a faint quickening of his interest at this, although there seemed to be nothing behind it. “And your father’s occupation?”
“He is an architect when his health permits. Most of the time he is too frail to work.”
“I see. And you were born in…”
“Eighteen sixty-three.”
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling as he considered this piece of information. Then he leaned forward, grabbed my left arm, and pulled up the sleeve of my jacket. Snorted, then banged his knees with his hands and looked up.
“My apologies for the interrogation, although not for the doubts. Unless you become as suspicious as I am, you will not live long in this game.”
“I do not intend to play any game,” I replied. “Nor do I see how what I have just said can convince you of my honesty.”
He almost smiled at this remark. “You must allow me to preserve my secrets. But Mr. Wilkinson knows what he is doing. He sent no proof of your identity because your very existence is its own proof.”
He stood up. “Don’t look so puzzled. It’s of no significance. Have you done this before?”
I didn’t understand a word he was talking about. All I knew was that even the dangers of walking alone across the Ile Saint-Louis would be preferable to staying in that dingy room a moment longer.
“I understand I am meant to collect a letter of some sort. If that is the case, please give it to me and I will be on my way.”
He snorted, as though I had just said the most imbecilic thing in the world, then reached under the mattress of his bed. As he did so, I noticed a pistol jutting out from under the dirty grey pillow.
“There you are,” he said. “Take it and go. Deliver it to Mr. Wilkinson as swiftly as possible. Do not stop, do not let it out of your possession for a second.”
He handed it over, and I looked at it. “But it’s not for him,” I protested. “It is addressed to a Mr. Robbins. I know of no such man.”
He stared at the ceiling, as though invoking the Lord to come and smite him.
“Yes,” he said heavily. “How curious. However, fortunately, your job is not to think but to move those little legs of yours in the right direction until you have accomplished your task. If I say it is to be handed to Mr. Wilkinson, then to Mr. Wilkinson it must go. Understand? Now go away.”
He turned, and lay down on the bed with a heavy sigh. The interview was at an end.
I glared at him with all the hauteur I could muster, turned and left. My dignity was as offended by the encounter as was my sense of smell. I marched down the stairs, thankful only to be heading for the open air once more, my mind full of all the cutting remarks I might have made to put the appalling man in his place, and remind him that he was dealing with a gentleman. Not some servant, which I tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade myself was his own station in life.
I walked towards the river and safety, going more swiftly than usual because the sooner I was off that stinking island the happier I would be. My annoyance pushed all thought of danger out of my head as I walked, and my mood lightened with every step I took.
Apart from a heavy blow on the head and the sensation of falling forwards onto the pavement—stone of some sort, I noted, with weeds growing up between the cracks, one with a bedraggled purple flower on it—that was the last thing I recalled for some time. It didn’t even hurt, to beg
in with.
CHAPTER 2
When I woke up again I felt as though my head was splitting; stars danced in my eyes, and I could feel the blood pounding through my temples. I looked around as much as I dared, considering there seemed to be a real possibility that my head might come off entirely. Mainly I saw the ceiling—from which I deduced that I was no longer in the street, but had been picked up by someone and brought into a house. What was I doing there? What had I been doing? I groaned, tried to sit up, then collapsed back again. It was the smell that made me realise where I must be.
Then I remembered. The letter. My hand rushed to my pocket and felt for the reassuring crinkle of paper. Nothing. I tried another pocket, then another, then, just to make sure, went back and tried the first once more. Nothing. It had gone.
“Oh, my God,” I said as the realisation hit me. “Oh, no.”
“Looking for this?”
I was lying on his bed, which smelled of dog and unwashed man. I turned my head, and saw the man I had met earlier, sitting calmly in a chair with the letter he had given me on his lap. The relief I felt was indescribable.
“Thank you, sir,” I said with genuine emotion. “You rescued me from those scoundrels. Who attacked me? Did you see them? Who hit me?”
“I did,” he said, still calm as ever.
“What?”
He made no effort to help me out.
“Why did you hit me?”
“To steal this letter.”
“But you’d only just given it to me.”
“Well noted,” he said.
To be attacked in such a manner was bad enough; to be made fun of as well was well-nigh intolerable, and I decided that it was time to give this man a lesson he would not readily forget. I had spent much time at school in boxing, and felt that I could readily overcome the resistance of a man well past his prime. So I began to rise, but found that my legs were unwilling to support me; I waved my fists in his direction and even as he pushed me lazily back on to the bed with a contemptuous look on his face, I realised how utterly ridiculous I must appear.
I slumped back down, my head spinning, and groaned loudly.
“Head between your knees, until you stop feeling sick. I didn’t break the skin, you’re not bleeding.”
Then he waited patiently until I was once more able to lift my head up and look at him.
“Right,” he said. “I hit you on the head because I do not wish to die through association with an idiot. Your behaviour was not only juvenile, but also dangerous. Do you have no sense at all? You were utterly unaware I was behind you, even though I went out of my way to give you as much warning as possible. Have you learned nothing? Remembered nothing? Did you ever, even once, look round to check who was behind you? No. You strolled down a dark alley, hands in your pockets like some idiot tourist. I did hit you harder than was necessary, I am sure. I apologise for that. But I was so outraged I felt like hitting you even harder, and you should thank me for my restraint.”
If my head was spinning from the blow he had inflicted on me, it was spinning even faster now as I tried to understand what on earth he was talking about.
“I was asked to come to your lodging, sir,” I said stiffly, “and collect a letter. That was all. Nobody mentioned anything about playing hide and seek through the streets with a murderous lunatic.”
He paused, then looked at me more soberly. “You aren’t… Oh, my God! Who are you? What are you?”
I told him that I was a banker working for Barings. He snorted, then laughed out loud.
“In that case I owe you an apology,” he said, with the air of a man who didn’t really think that he owed me anything of the sort. “You must think me a very strange fellow.”
“I think I could manage a better description of you than that,” I said.
“Come with me.”
He helped me off the bed, steadied me as I almost fell over again, then guided me to the door and down the stairs.
He took me to some sort of bar. It was nearly ten o’clock. He led me over to a table in a dark corner, got me to sit, then called for brandy. I was not used, at that stage, to drinking brandy but he insisted, and after a very short while I found that my head stopped hurting, and my speech became voluble.
“So,” he began once more, “I apologise. And owe you an explanation. I was under the impression that you knew what you were about. What Mr. Wilkinson is thinking of, sending me someone so unprepared, is quite beyond me. He knows how I…”
His trail of thought came to an end as he drank his brandy down in one go, and called for another. The place we were in was the sort of establishment I would never dream of entering, or would not have done then. I imagined that every single person in it—all were men—was some sort of cutthroat, pimp or robber. I later learned that this assessment was entirely correct.
He grunted. “My name is Jules Lefevre… in fact, that is not my name, but no matter. It will do. I provide certain information to His Majesty’s Government which it otherwise might find difficult to obtain.”
“You are French?” I asked.
“Perhaps. Now, it is important that the information I provide reaches its destination. It is also important that it does not fall into the wrong hands, it being of a confidential nature. Do you understand?”
“I believe so,” I said.
“In which case, it is important that those people carrying these letters know how to keep them. You agree that this is important.”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“Good. So that is what Wilkinson has asked me to do with you. Teach you to look after yourself.”
“Are you sure?”
“He said he was sending someone to me to finish his training, and he would identify himself by coming to ask for a package. That seems like you.”
“I know, but no one has ever mentioned anything of this to me. I feel I should have been consulted…” I could tell I was sounding more petulant with every word I uttered, and decided to keep quiet. You could say that my future was decided solely by a desire not to appear silly to a man I scarcely knew.
“Well, you weren’t. I suppose there was a good reason. Now, what I did to you just now could have been done by anyone. And your lack of attention could have had severe consequences. The only good thing to come out of it would be that you would be dead and unable to mess anything else up.”
My head was still spinning, and still hurt foully, even though the brandy had steadied it a little. In compensation, my empty stomach was also beginning to add its protest at being subjected to the brandy. Lefevre was eyeing me curiously.
“You don’t know what this is all about?”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed, as he considered the meaning of it. Then he shook his head. “No point trying to fathom the ways of the great and the good. That’s his decision and I suppose I must live with it. It seems you are to be my apprentice, so we might as well get started. Be at the Gare de l’Est tomorrow morning at eight. I will meet you in the buffet. You will not recognise me or greet me in any way. But when I move, you follow me. Do you understand?”
“I understand, but I’m not sure I agree,” I replied. “What do you mean, your apprentice? And what’s this about getting started? Started on what?”
“Learning how to stay alive, of course.”
“I was managing quite well until I met you. And what if I don’t want to be your apprentice?”
“Then you don’t come. You go back to your life in the bank, and fill in ledgers for the rest of your life, or whatever you do. I don’t care one way or the other. Wilkinson seems to have chosen you. Take it up with him. But don’t ask anymore explanation of me, because I can’t give it.”
He stood up. “Make up your mind by tomorrow morning. Come, or don’t come.”
“Just a minute,” I said, a little tartly.
He looked back at me.
“What about this wretched letter?” I pointed to the envelope on the table that had given me
so much grief. “You can hardly criticise me for carelessness if you are so forgetful yourself.”
He looked, then shrugged. “It’s only an old newspaper,” he said. “It’s not important. You don’t think anyone’s going to trust you with something important, do you?”
And he walked out, leaving me behind in that den of iniquity, which, now his protection was withdrawn, suddenly began to seem very frightening.
As discreetly as possible—which was not at all—I left as well, feeling dozens of eyes on me as I headed for the door, and the hushing of the chatter as conversations paused so people could look at me. I felt a hot flush spreading up the back of my neck, and it was all I could do to avoid bolting out of that place as fast as my legs would carry me. Pride can be a useful thing. I believe I completely hid my discomfort and my mounting fear, although the experience of the evening made me feel violently sick and my legs were still wobbling from the assault.
The night air, touched with sweet smell of sewage though it was, refreshed me considerably and, once I had leaned against a wall awhile, I began to feel much improved. It was almost midnight now and eerily quiet for the centre of a major city. I was some way from my hotel and with no alternative but to walk there. My head ached, I was starving from lack of food and felt thoroughly wretched. I was also afraid that awful man would attack me once again, so I could not even concentrate on my sense of having been ill used as I made my way to the bridge to cross over back into civilisation.
CHAPTER 3
It goes without saying that I got no sleep that night, even when I did manage to get back to my hotel. It was already two by then and I realised I would have to be up again early if I was to make my appointment for eight o’clock. It still had not occurred to me to miss it; my anxiety concentrated entirely on not being late, on not making myself out to be a fool once more. The turmoil of the evening and the fear of oversleeping did not drive away my weariness, merely the possibility of doing anything about it, and at six o’clock I found myself tiptoeing down the stairs once more and out into what would eventually be the dawn of a new day.
