The Cavalier of the Apocalypse

by Susanne Alleyn

9

  The forbidding, middle-aged maid who had accompanied Sophie to the Basse-Ge?le opened the door to Aristide and brusquely told him to wait in the foyer. A few minutes later she returned and led him to the salon, where Sophie jumped to her feet at the sight of him.

  "Monsieur Ravel! I didn't expect?" She hastily bobbed him a decorous curtsy. "Have you learned anything-"

  "Have you had any word from your brother?" Aristide asked at the same instant. He paused, feeling sheepish, and asked again: "Your brother's not yet returned?"

  "No. And I'm worried to death. What about the body that was stolen? What have you learned about that?"

  "Very little," he told her, "but we don't know yet that your brother was the dead man, do we? The theft may have nothing to do with him."

  "Yes, of course you're right," she said, though he could tell that her thoughts were far away. "Please sit down."

  As he pulled a chair forward, he belatedly noticed Marguerite Fournier, perched on a hassock in a corner. She smiled and gave him a brief nod before returning to the knitting in her lap.

  "Is Madame Saint-Landry not here?"

  "She retired to her boudoir after Monsieur Derville left us," said Marguerite. "The inspector's news distressed her more than she'll admit; she's delicate, and I don't think she'll be able to see anyone else today. Will you take some refreshment, monsieur?"

  Marguerite had a beautiful voice, Aristide realized, low and rich. Most men, he thought, would pay little attention to her if they passed her on the street, but the sound of her voice might make them turn.

  "I must tell you," he said to Sophie, after agreeing to coffee, "that I'm here in place of Inspector Brasseur. That is, I need to ask you some questions the police might ask, but since I'm not a police official, only one of their-er-authorized agents?you needn't speak to me if you don't want to."

  "But of course I will," Sophie said promptly. "I was nearly about to send for the commissaire, I'm so concerned about Lambert. Have you any news at all?"

  Aristide shook his head. "I fear not. Mademoiselle Saint-Landry, I know there's no portrait of your brother here, but have you anything at all that could help us to identify him?whether living or dead?"

  "The miniatures!" she said, after a moment's thought. "I'd almost forgotten. Lambert felt that having a full-size portrait painted was far too expensive-he's always one for little economies-but he agreed to have a pair of miniatures done when he married Eug?nie." She hurried to the mahogany buffet against the wall and brought out a small velvet-covered case from a drawer. "That was nine years ago. I hope these are of some use?"

  He inspected the tiny portraits that nestled within three-inch frames. Both sitters had worn their most formal clothes for the occasion. Eug?nie he recognized immediately by the enormous, wistful gray eyes, which captured the viewer's gaze, even when overshadowed by a looming, powdered coiffure of the past decade, when the prevailing fashion in hairdressing had demanded height and two or three rows, at least, of stiffly pomaded curls. Eug?nie's taste, it seemed, had run toward the elaborate. Her bridegroom, on the other hand, an agreeable-looking man in his early thirties, neither handsome nor ugly, looked out at the viewer from beneath a simple, crisp peruke with one neat row of side curls above each ear.

  "I don't know," he said at last, shutting the case, not wishing to distress her, though he suspected that the missing Saint-Landry might indeed be the dead man of the churchyard. "He was older. It's difficult to tell; the portrait is so small, and your brother is younger in it, of course, and the powdered wig changes the appearance so much. The man I saw might have been your brother, mademoiselle, but I couldn't swear to it. You mustn't give up hope of finding him, not yet."

  "I'll do whatever you say, Monsieur Ravel," Sophie said. Reaching for the case, she inadvertently brushed his hand with hers.

  "Tell me more about Monsieur Saint-Landry," Aristide said quickly, groping at something useful to do, as she clutched the velvet case to her, blushing. He fumbled with his notebook, found his stubby pencil at the bottom of his pocket, and began to scrawl down notes. "His full name: Jean-Lambert Saint-Landry? Age?"

  "Forty-one."

  The point of the pencil abruptly snapped in his fingers and he muttered an oath that, he remembered belatedly, was unsuitable in the presence of young ladies. Sophie gave a nervous giggle. He felt again in his pocket, realized he must have left his penknife at home, and muttered, embarrassed, "if you would be so kind?a-a pen?"

  Marguerite silently went to the writing-table in the corner and brought him a small lap desk with a sheet of paper and a newly-cut quill.

  "His description," he continued, when he had gathered his wits and dipped the point of the quill into the inkwell, praying that he would not lose his head completely and manage to spill the ink into his lap. "That's to say?beyond what I can tell from the miniature?"

  "Oh?" She had been staring at him, he realized, and abruptly hoped that his frayed cuffs were not too conspicuous.

  Quickly she recovered herself. "Er?medium height, dark brown hair with a little gray in it, brown eyes. You can see he has a nice kind face, but I wouldn't say he's particularly striking. Really, he looks a great deal like any other man of his age."

  "His profession, mademoiselle?"

  "Gentleman?property owner or man of finance, I suppose. Lambert was the sole heir to his family business, a paper manufactory. It was small at first, but he made it quite profitable, and then he discovered that he had even more talent for investing the profits than he did for running the mill itself. So he sold it, years ago, and has been speculating with the capital ever since. Usually successfully; he's doubled or tripled his fortune, I should think." A maid entered with the coffee tray and Sophie busied herself with pouring.

  "I'll put him down as 'property owner,' " Aristide said. "Mademoiselle Saint-Landry," he continued, "if your brother was, indeed, implicated in something dangerous or illegal, who would he be most likely to open his heart to, if anyone? His wife?"

  She set down the coffeepot and thought for a moment. "No, I think he would probably speak to me. Eug?nie isn't?well?" She paused for an instant, handed him a cup, and then continued. "She isn't precisely over-endowed with brains, if you know what I mean. She's very lovely, and she's gracious and she entertains and is a fine hostess at the dinners Lambert gives for business gentlemen and their wives, and she's quite good at all that, but I wouldn't depend on her for anything that involved thinking. She never reads anything except sentimental English novels."

  "Is that a crime, mademoiselle?" Aristide said, as she made a face.

  "Well, I tried reading two or three of them, before she took them back to the lending library. I thought the first one was quite amusing and romantic. But then the rest were all just the same! Endless variations of weepy, contrived drivel with insipid heroines, who always have to be rescued from the castle of the wicked and debauched nobleman who's threatening their virtue." She added sugar to her own coffee and gazed down at the tiny cup in her hands, with a sad smile. "Honestly, I think Eug?nie's a little bored, because she has no children to keep her occupied, and she reads those things for a bit of fantasy. Marguerite and I-we prefer the theater. Comedies-I adored Figaro's Wedding-or good, lively adventures with swordfights and Turkish sultans and depraved courtesans, and handsome heroes and lots of blood."

  "Hardly appropriate entertainment for young ladies."

  "Oh, please, monsieur, you sound like my brother! 'It's not the sort of play a young lady should be seeing.' Fiddlesticks. Perhaps it's not the sort of thing he enjoys-he hardly ever goes to the theater-but I'll attend the plays I want to, and he's never yet stopped me."

  Her tone, despite its cheerful mockery, was so evidently full of affection for her strait-laced elder half-brother that Aristide looked away for an instant, blinking. Sophie quickly tugged a handkerchief from her bodice and blew her nose. "Oh, poor Lambert. It just can't be true. I can't believe anyone could hurt him. He's the best man I know!"

  "Ma
demoiselle, the dead man was found in rather extraordinary surroundings. Was-is-your brother a Freemason, or does he have anything to do with Freemasonry?"

  "Oh, yes," she said instantly. "I believe so. Those are the gentlemen who wear little aprons when they assemble, aren't they? He's been a member of something or other for years and years, because he frequently goes out to meetings."

  "Yes," said Marguerite, "Monsieur Saint-Landry is a Mason."

  "Do you know where he, er, meets with?"

  "His lodge, you mean? As a matter of fact, I don't. He's very close-mouthed about that."

  "He scarcely ever talks about it," Sophie agreed, "and I never pay much attention when he does. Clubs and select societies are really so dull, don't you think?"

  Aristide nearly smiled. "My own opinion has nothing to do with it, mademoiselle."

  She blushed and clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh, have I said something dreadful? I do apologize if I've offended you. You're not a Freemason yourself, are you?"

  "Far from it."

  She glanced over her shoulder, with a flash of a wicked smile. "Because between Lambert, and Eug?nie and Marguerite, sometimes all you hear is endless claptrap about 'the society' and so on."

  "I thought the Masons didn't admit women," Aristide said.

  "They don't," Marguerite said. "French lodges don't, at least in theory. But there are other societies besides the Freemasons."

  "Eug?nie and Marguerite are both members of ladies' societies just like them, devoted to ancient rites and doing good works. Giving soup to the poor and collecting donations for widows and orphans."

  "There's more to it than that," Marguerite said, with a tolerant smile.

  Sophie shrugged. "They won't tell me much about it, but Marguerite drops mysterious hints sometimes, and tells me I must join once I'm married." Marguerite smiled again and bent over her knitting.

  "Eug?nie's society-I think they call it the Sacred Order of the Dove-they meet every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon," Sophie continued, "and wear white tunics and colored sashes and pretend to be ancient Roman priestesses or something of that kind, and I'm sure they have all sorts of rituals and incantations invented to make themselves feel important, just like the men. But if that's how you spend your time once you're married, then heavens, let me remain a spinster!"

  She laughed, and her sudden merriment was so contagious that Aristide could not help smiling for an instant before moving on to weightier matters.

  "If you're truly convinced that your brother is a good man," he said slowly, "with no dark secrets, then it would follow that it's unlikely anyone would murder him because he committed some crime against the Freemasons, or betrayed them."

  Sophie vigorously shook her head. "No. Absolutely not."

  "He is-it sounds trite, but it's true-he is completely honorable and upright," Marguerite said slowly. "When he owned the manufactory, he was an excellent employer and took good care of his workers. He hates waste and prefers to live rather simply, and he'll drop the money he's saved from some little economy into the poor-box instead. And if he'd taken an oath, he would stand by it, no matter what." She abruptly replaced her cup and saucer on the table between them and gave him a hard stare. "Why should the Freemasons have something to do with it?"

  Aristide was silent for a moment, remembering how and where the dead man had been found. "Have you heard about the fires and desecrations that have occurred in and near some churches on the Left Bank recently?" he asked them at last. Marguerite nodded.

  "I heard a few rumors from our cook, who had it from the market women. People are saying the oddest things. I've heard a few of the symbols described, and they sound to me like Masonic symbols. But that simply can't be true. The brotherhood is composed of good men like Lambert, whose intent is to do good deeds."

  "Well," Aristide continued, "the dead man was discovered in the churchyard of St. Andr? des Arts, surrounded by Masonic symbols, just as you say, and it looked as if he had either interrupted the vandal in his work, and recognized him, and was murdered to keep him from denouncing the perpetrator; or else he had been setting the fires himself and was murdered to stop him-"

  "Lambert would never do something so horrid as desecrating a church!" Sophie exclaimed. "He's a good Catholic."

  "Then it must be the other way round, if your brother was the murdered man, which we don't yet know, of course. Either he was killed by someone who bears a grudge, real or imagined, toward the fraternity; or else he died because he had discovered that someone else, some fellow Mason, probably, had betrayed the others, and that other person killed him to keep him from talking."

  "That sounds much more like something Lambert would do," Marguerite agreed. "If he discovered that something wasn't right, he would go straight to whomever was in charge, and report whatever had gone wrong. If he'd learned something dangerous, anyone who knew him would have known he couldn't be bought."

  "So what do we do?" Sophie demanded. "Can't the police help us?"

  Aristide sighed. "I don't know what the police can do about missing individuals, or about the murder of a man with no name and, now, no corpse. I'll see what Inspector Brasseur can tell me, but I suspect that nothing will be done until the body is found."

  "But we have to do something. I can't just sit about and wait, when my brother is missing, perhaps dead, and his murderer might be as free as you please."

  "Perhaps, for a start, you could advertise in the newspapers for any information on your brother's whereabouts."

  "That seems so?inadequate," Sophie said.

  "Well, if it's something to do with the Masons, we'll have to wait until Inspector Brasseur and I learn a little more about his connections to them. Meanwhile, we'll try to discover what happened to this man's body. If it wasn't stolen by a resurrectionist, which seems highly unlikely, then surely its disappearance must mean something." He folded the notes he had taken and thrust them into a pocket of his coat before setting the lap desk aside and rising. "Brasseur will be investigating that, I'm sure; the police can do that sort of thing much better than you and I could."