Fever (23 page)

This Lartigue! Just the way he'd spoken to the legionnaire: “
Mon petit
,” he'd called him. And challenging him to a boxing match at the entrance to the fort!

He had a round skull with short, blond hair, did this Lartigue, and blue eyes in a broad face. His chin jutted out.

From outside, the long-drawn-out call of a bugle broke the silence. Three low notes, then, a major third above it, four long notes. The last was held and died away in a melancholy diminuendo.

Studer stood up and went out onto the balcony. For a moment he felt dizzy, only too aware of the lack of railings. But then his attention was caught by the scene being played out below.

The company had drawn up in a square. One man with a curly beard, who was standing in the middle of the formation, shouted a command when he saw the captain coming round the corner of one of the huts. The lines of legionnaires were as motionless as walls. Blue linen uniforms with grey flannel cummerbunds. With a wave of the hand Captain Lartigue indicated that they should stand easy and said a few words, which were immediately blown away by the wind coming from the red mountains to the north. The walls shifted,
loosened. The gazelle slipped through a gap between them and stood beside the captain, who stroked it. Suddenly the whole company was laughing. A black sausage shape came tearing along at furious speed, sending up clouds of dust. The sausage yapped, jumped up on the captain, sniffed the gazelle and wagged its tail. Then it gave a loud sneeze – a Scotch terrier.

The captain strode along the rows and at first Studer could not understand what he was doing. Every time he stopped in front of a man, the latter opened his mouth and the captain popped a little white pill into it, then went on to the next.

A brief command and once more the walls were motionless. A wave of the hand and they crumbled.

“What were you putting in the men's mouths, Captain?” Studer asked when Lartigue reappeared in the tower. Under his arm he held the terrier, which was desperately scrabbling at him with its feet.

“Quinine. I feed my men quinine, two grams a day. They all have ringing in the ears, but it doesn't help.”

“Quinine,” Studer repeated. Suddenly he slapped himself on the forehead.

“What's wrong, Inspector?”

“Nothing, nothing,” said Studer, his mind elsewhere. In it he could see the temperature chart. What was it that was written opposite 20 July?

Quinine sulphate 2 km.

Since when was quinine administered by the kilometre? But didn't that note come just before, or just after, the letters SSE? That was it! The treasure was buried close to a cork-oak beside a red rock in the shape of a man, two kilometres south-south-east of Gourama.

“Have you got a compass?” Studer asked, not realizing he was excitedly pacing up and down in someone else's room. When he did realize, he looked up and
met the captain's eyes. He couldn't quite make out the expression in them. Was it mocking? Pitying?

“You want a compass, Inspector Jakob – sorry, Joseph Fouché?”

Why did the man keep going on about Jakob? Did he know something?

“Yes, please,” said Studer, his voice slightly strained.

“There you are. I imagine you're going for a walk. Don't bother about me, go and get something to eat. One of the men will show you the canteen. And this evening you're dining with me. I have to sleep now.
Au revoir
.”

With that Studer was dismissed. He climbed down the chicken ladder, went into the first hut he came to, demanded a spade and asked for directions to the
ksar
.

The spade had a short handle and the metal blade had a leather cover. Very practical.

The
ksar
was the native village, built like a tower out of clay bricks and half a mile or so from the fort. Beyond the
ksar
the sergeant ascertained which direction was south-south-east and set off. His stride measured roughly two feet six inches, which was eighty centimetres, so for the two kilometres that made about 2,500 steps. But Studer found he could give up counting after only 1,000 steps. The cork oak was clearly visible and from the distance a red rock sticking up beside it looked like a man.

But the sergeant found no need for his spade. Next to the rock was a gaping hole, and the hole was empty.

Deduction? Someone had been there before him. The deduction was so obvious all he could do was shrug his shoulders. But who was that someone? For the moment that didn't matter. What did matter was that Captain Lartigue obviously knew everything. He'd indicated it clearly enough with the suggestive way
he'd kept on saying, “
Monsieur l'inspecteur
Jakob . . . sorry, Joseph Fouché.” OK, Jakob was his name. What was the problem with that? But he was sailing under false colours and that
was
a problem. Still, he'd made his own bed, so now he must lie in it. And if you looked at it another way, it was a completely new situation. In Switzerland he could count on support wherever he went. He had friends in the police and the authorities would cover his back. Here? . . . Here he was all on his own, he had to fend for himself, he couldn't rely on getting help from anywhere. That nice Captain Lartigue, for example, could arrest him on the spot and send him under armed escort to Fez – that is assuming he didn't decide he'd rather get things over and done with and put him before a firing squad. If, on the other hand, he was tried under military law, the prospect was a few years in Cayenne, where things would undoubtedly be made hot for him. The only enjoyable aspect of it was thinking up the articles that would appear in the Swiss newspapers:

We regret to have to report that an experienced police detective, highly regarded in his native canton of Bern, has been found guilty in France of a serious infringement of international law. The French government . . . The steps our ambassador in Paris has taken at the behest of the Federal authorities have, unfortunately, so far yielded no result. In its sitting of 2 February the Federal Council voted to appoint a committee to explore the steps that might be taken in this regrettable affair. The committee will be selected in the next few weeks. Its first task will be to set up a subgroup to commission a report from a leading expert on international law which will examine this sad case from all sides. According to sources close to the government, the committee is expected to delegate the drawing-up of an initial report to a subcommittee. It is hoped that this unfortunate matter will be resolved as early as next year . . .

That's the way things were, a committee was a committee and you couldn't do anything to hurry it up. But perhaps a committee wouldn't be necessary? Perhaps rescue was closer at hand than he thought?

Far away on the horizon a dot appeared, a tiny blob. Studer took out his binoculars. A mule! And on the mule was a patch of white. Perhaps the patch of white was coming to rescue him.

With these thoughts going through his mind, Studer reached the fort. It stood there, silent, in the slanting rays of the early evening sun. Beside the guardroom Studer saw two heavy wooden doors – clearly the two cells. Perhaps a Swiss detective would spend the next night behind one of them?

Studer returned the spade. Then he climbed back up the chicken ladder and knocked. Since there was no answer, he went in. Captain Lartigue was lying on a couch in one corner of the room, asleep. The gazelle and the Scotch terrier were stretched out in peaceful companionship between the captain and the wall. Both blinked sleepily at the sergeant; the dog briefly raised its head, then let it slump back down onto its crossed paws. Studer tiptoed across to an armchair, sat down, picked up a book that lay open on the little table and started to read. It was poetry, French poetry, mellifluous and sad. it suited Studer's mood. Some prisoner had probably written it:

                            
The sky above the roof,

                            
So blue, so calm;

                            
The breeze above the roof,

                            
Rocking a palm.

Sergeant Studer's eyes filled with tears and he fell asleep . . .

The shared repose seemed to form an invisible bond between the four of them. When they woke a couple of hours later they seemed glad to be together.

The captain said, “Had a little nap too,
monsieur l'inspecteur
?” and Studer countered with, “How about a vermouth,
mon capitaine
?” The gazelle and the dog played tag in the room, round and round the sergeant's chair; then they suddenly stopped and looked up at Studer with a friendly gaze. The gazelle had moist eyes, like a girl in love, and the dog was like a grizzled negro. It was very cosy in the tower room.

And outside was an evening as cool and red as strawberry ice. A gentle breeze wafted in through the open balcony door. A few stars, round and white and shining, were scattered like peeled hazelnuts among clouds that looked like lumps of bramble jelly. A little later the moon appeared, putting an end to this confectioner's delight. It was huge and pale, and the light it cast over the huts and yards recalled gigantic white linen sheets that had just come from the bleaching green. A bugle sent out its mournful cry again, a signal, with trills and coloraturas – and, like a great Italian singer, it held the penultimate note for so long, you started to tremble waiting for the return to the tonic. And hardly had the final note died away than a song started up, soft, muted. It went with the evening, with the plain and the clear light of the moon. At times a male voice soared above the choir accompanying it in a rumbling bass.

“The Russians are singing,” the captain said in a soft voice. Studer listened, rapt. It was deeply moving, in a way he had never experienced before; there was nothing like this at home . . . So this was the Legion, the Foreign Legion: a song of the great dream, the dream of horses, mountains, plains and the sea . . .

Lartigue was still lying on the couch, his hands
clasped behind his head, breathing in the songs like a strong perfume. Suddenly the singing broke off. The captain leapt up.

“You're looking for Collani, the clairvoyant corporal, Inspector . . . No, don't deny it.” Lartigue went over to the little door leading out onto the wooden steps and whistled. From below came the clatter of footsteps. The captain gave a quiet order, then closed the door, went to the fireplace and put a lighted match to the wood that had been laid there. The scent of thyme gradually filled the room.

“Should I put the light on? Or are you happy with the moon?”

Studer nodded. He couldn't speak. The captain seemed to understand how his guest was feeling and filled two glasses with a liquid clear as water. Studer took a sip. It was damned strong and tickled his throat, but it was warming.

“Date brandy,” the captain explained. “The Jew who supplies me with sheep bribed me with three bottles. And that was very sensible of him, otherwise I'd have had him making bricks for two months, because he'd tried to pull the wool over my eyes, so to speak, with his sheep. They were only twenty-five pounds live weight, and that's too little . . . But I presume you're not interested in that,
monsieur l'inspecteur
Jakob – sorry, Joseph Fouché.”

But he was! He was very interested in that kind of thing. The demands that were made on the commandant of a little outpost like this! He had to be a doctor, livestock dealer, vet, military strategist, judge, commander of a fort, father to his men . . .

“Who is your immediate superior, Captain?” he asked. “Who do you report to?”

“Me?” Captain Lartigue grinned, and it would have
been an exaggeration to call it a good-natured grin. “Me?” he repeated. “I'm a little king. No one tells me what to do, apart from the Resident in Fez. Officially, my company is part of the Third Regiment – but it's regarded as a battalion. And the colonel of the Third Regiment is much too far away. In Rabat. Just imagine, 250 miles as the crow flies. So I'm commandant of the fort, of the battalion – and the area all around is subject to me as well. So you see,
mon cher Inspecteur
. . . Fouché, that's it . . . So you see,
mon cher Inspecteur
Joseph Fouché, – remarkable, isn't it, that you have the same name as the great emperor's minister of police? – there's nothing to stop me having you summarily executed.”

The grin – good-natured or not – had vanished from the captain's lips. His mouth was narrow, straight, his lips slightly pale.

“If I were to put a man who bears the name – let's assume legally for the moment – of a French imperial minister, if I were simply to put this man before a firing squad, there would be no one to prevent such an act of summary justice. It may be summary, but you must agree that executing a spy is an act of justice. To satisfy the formalities, I might call a little court-martial, say a lieutenant, two sergeants and two corporals. Five men – plus one: me as both prosecutor and judge. You'd be allowed to conduct your own defence. As prosecutor – and judge – I would say, ‘Before you stands a man who has entered an occupied zone with a forged passport. I suspect him of being a spy. At the moment there is no one we can spare to escort him to Fez, so the case must be decided here. We do have the necessary powers. Since it is a case of espionage and since – as the interests of France are at stake – I cannot present the evidence in open court, there is only one possible
verdict: guilty; and one possible sentence: death.' What would you say to that Inspector Jakob – sorry, Joseph Fouché?”