Sepulchre (27 page)
For a while she sat simply staring at the last lines of the pamphlet. It was an extraordinary tale. The occult interplay of music and place had brought the images upon the cards to life and, if she had understood, summoned those who had passed over to the other side. Au delà du voile -beyond the veil - as the title inscribed upon the wrapper declared.
Léonie paused. In the introduction her uncle claimed it to be true testimony. She sat back in the chair. What did he mean when he wrote of the power to 'walk in another dimension'? What did he mean when he said 'my other selves, both past and yet to come'? And had the spirits, once summoned, withdrawn whence they had come?
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Léonie spun round, glancing over her shoulder to left and right, feeling as if there was someone standing behind her. She sent her eyes darting into the shadows of the alcoves either side of the fireplace and the dusty corners behind the tables and curtains. Were there spirits still within the estate? She thought of the figure she had seen crossing the lawns the previous evening.
Léonie shook her head, half amused that she was allowing her imagination to be the master of her, and returned her attention to the book. If she took her uncle at his word, and believed the story as fact not fiction, then did the sepulchre stand within the Domaine de la Cade itself? She was inclined to think it did, not least because the musical notes required to summon the spirits - C, D, E, A - corresponded to the letters of the name of the estate: Cade. And does it still exist?
Léonie dropped her chin into her hand. Her practical self took over. It should be a simple matter to ascertain if there was some manner of structure such as her uncle described within the grounds. It would be in keeping for a country estate of this size to have its own chapel or mausoleum within the park. Her mother had never spoken of such a thing, but then she had said little about the estate. Tante Isolde, also, had not mentioned it, but the matter had not come up during the course of the conversation last evening and, as she herself had admitted, her knowledge of the history of her late husband's family estate was limited. If the sepulchre still stands, I shall find it. A noise in the passageway outside caught Leonie's attention.
Immediately, she slid the volume into her lap. She did not wish to be found reading such a book. Not out of embarrassment, but because it was her private adventure and she did not wish to share it with anyone. Anatole would tease her.
The footsteps became fainter, then Léonie heard the sound of a door closing beyond the hall. She stood up, wondering if she could take Les Tarots. She did not think her aunt would object to the loan, given that she had invited them to treat the house as their own. And although the book had been locked within a case, Léonie was certain that was as protection against the ravages of dust and time and sunlight, rather than a sense of it being forbidden. Else why should the key have been so obligingly left in the lock?
His eyes narrowed with contempt. 'The Carmen Murder'. It offended him, after all the help he had given them, that the gentlemen of the press were so predictable. No two women could be less alike than Marguerite Vernier and Bizet's impetuous, flawed heroine, in terms of character or temperament, but the opera had seeped into French public consciousness to a distressing degree. All it took for the comparison to be made was a soldier and a knife, and the story was written.
In the space of hours, Du Pont had gone from prime suspect to innocent victim in the columns of the newspapers. At first, the fact that the Prefect had not charged him with the murder aroused their interest and made them cast their literary nets a little wider. Now thanks in no small part to Constant's own endeavours - the reporters had Anatole Vernier in their sights. He was not yet quite a suspect, but the fact that his whereabouts were unknown was seen as suspicious. It was said the police were unable to locate either Vernier or his sister to inform them of the tragedy. Would an innocent man be so hard to find?
Indeed, the more Inspector Thouron denied that Vernier himself was a suspect, the more virulent grew the rumours. Vernier's absence from Paris became, de facto, a presence in the apartment on the night of the murder.
It served Constant well that journalists were lazy. Present them with a tale, neatly wrapped like a parcel, and they would offer it, with little modification, to their readers. The suggestion that they might independently verify the information they had been given or satisfy themselves as to the veracity of the facts they had been fed did not occur.
Despite his hatred for Vernier, Constant was forced to admit that the fool had been clever. Even Constant, with his deep pockets and web of spies and informants, working all night, had at first been unable to discover where Vernier and his sister had gone.
He threw an uninterested glance out of the window as the Marseille Express rattled south through the Parisian suburbs. Constant rarely ventured beyond the banlieue. He disliked the views, the indiscriminate light of the sun or dull grey skies that bleached everything under their broad and ugly gaze. He disliked wild nature. He preferred to conduct his business in the twilight of artificially lit streets, in the semi-darkness of concealed rooms lighted in the old-fashioned way with tallow and wax. He despised fresh air and open spaces. His milieu was the perfumed corridors of theatres filled by girls with feathers and fans, private rooms in private clubs.
In the end, he had unravelled the maze of confusion Vernier had attempted to build around their departure. The neighbours, encouraged by a sou or two, claimed to know nothing definite, but had overheard, remembered or absorbed sufficient fragments of information. Certainly enough for Constant to build a jigsaw of the day of the Verniers' flight from Paris. The patron of Le Petit Chablisien, a restaurant close to the Vernier apartment in rue de Berlin, had admitted to overhearing a discussion about the medieval city of Carcassonne.
With a purse full of coins, Constant's manservant had easily tracked down the cabman who had transported them to Saint-Lazare on the Friday morning, then the second fiacre that had taken them thence to the Gare Montparnasse, something he knew the gendarmes of the 8th arrondissement had thus far failed to discover.
It was not much, but it was enough to convince Constant it was worth the cost of the train ticket south. If the Verniers were staying in Carcassonne, that would be easier. With the whore, or without her. He did not know what name she lived under now, only that the name by which he had known her was carved upon the tombstone in the Cimetière de Montmartre. A dead end.
Constant would arrive at Marseille later that day. Tomorrow he would take the coast train from Marseille to Carcassonne and there would install himself, like a spider in the centre of a web, waiting for his prey to come within range.
Sooner or later, people would talk. They always did. Whispers, rumours. The Vernier girl was striking. Amongst the black-haired, coal-eyed, dark-skinned people of the Midi, such white skin, such copper curls would be remembered.
Constant took Vernier's timepiece from his pocket in his gloved hands. A gold casing with a platinum monogram, it was a distinguished and distinctive watch. It gave him pleasure simply to possess it, to have taken something of Vernier's.
His expression hardened as he pictured her smiling at Vernier, as once she had smiled for him. A sudden image flashed into his tortured mind of her uncovered before his rival's gaze. And he could not bear it.
To distract himself, Constant reached inside the leather travelling valise for something to help the journey to pass. His hand brushed over the knife, concealed in a thick leather sheath, which had cut the life from Marguerite Vernier. He pulled out The Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm and Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell, but found neither to his taste.
Léonie had barely departed the library when she was accosted by the maid, Marieta, in the hall. She thrust the book behind her back. 'Madomaisèla, your brother has sent me to inform you that he is planning a visit to Rennes-les-Bains this morning and would be pleased if you would accompany him.'
Léonie hesitated, but only for a moment. She was excited at her plans to explore the Domaine in search of the sepulchre. But such an expedition could wait. A trip to town with Anatole could not.
'Please give my brother my compliments. Tell him I shall be delighted.' 'Very good, Madomaisèla. The carriage is ordered for ten thirty.' Taking the stairs two by two, Léonie bounded up to her chamber and cast her eyes around for some secret place to conceal Les Tarots, not wishing to provoke interest on the part of the servants by leaving such a volume in plain view. Her eyes fell upon her workbox. Quickly she opened up the mother-of-pearl lid and concealed the book deep within the reels of cotton and thread, the jumble of scraps of material, thimbles, pins and needlebooks.
She wandered out to the terrace at the back of the property and stood with her hands upon the balustrade, looking out over the lawns. Broad slatted shafts of sunlight, filtered through a veil of cloud, made it difficult to see clearly in the abrupt contrast between light and shade. Léonie took a deep breath, drawing in the fresh, clean, unpolluted air. It was so unlike Paris, with its stink of soot and hot iron and the perpetual mantle of smog.
The gardener and his boy were working on the beds below, strapping the smaller bushes and trees to wooden stakes. A wooden barrow stood filled with raked red autumn leaves the colour of wine. The older man wore a short brown jacket and a cap, with a red handkerchief tied at his neck. The boy, no more than eleven or twelve, was bare-headed and wearing a collarless shirt.
Léonie descended the steps. The gardener snatched his cap from his head as she approached, brown felt the colour of autumn earth, and clutched it between grimed fingers. 'Good morning.'
'The devil's work, the storm. All the old signs. Music over the lake last evening.' His breath was peaty and sour and Léonie instinctively pulled back, a little affected, despite herself, by the old man's sincerity. 'Whatever do you mean?' she said sharply.
The gardener crossed himself. 'Hereabouts the devil walks. Each time he comes out of the Lac de Barrenc, he brings with him violent storms chasing one another across the country. The late master sent men to fill in the lake, but the devil came and told them plain that if they continued their work, Rennes-les-Bains would be drowned.' 'These are just silly superstitions. I cannot-'
A bargain was struck, not for me to say why or how, but the fact of the matter was the workmen withdrew. Lake was let be. But now, mas ara, the natural order again is overturned. All the signs are there. The devil will come to claim his due.'
'Natural order?' she heard herself whisper. 'What can you mean?' 'Twenty-one years ago,' he muttered. 'Late master raised the devil. Music comes when the ghosts are walking out of the tomb. Not for me to say the why and how of it. The priest came.' She frowned. 'The priest? Which priest?' 'Leonie!'
She worked the dates out in her head. Twenty-one years ago, he had said, which would make it 1870. She shivered. In her mind's eye, she saw the same date, the year of publication, printed upon the front page of Les Tarots.
The gardener's words chimed so precisely with what she had read this morning. Léonie opened her mouth to ask another question, but the old man had already pushed his hat back on his head and returned to his digging. She hesitated a moment longer, then hitched up her skirts and ran lightly up the steps to where her brother stood waiting.
'There,' she said. 'Quite respectable!' Anatole shook his head, half frustrated, half amused. They walked together through the house and climbed into the carriage. 'Have you been sewing already?' he asked, noticing a piece of red cotton thread stuck to her sleeve. 'How very industrious!'