Memory of Flames by Isabel Reid (Translator) Armand Cabasson

Author:Isabel Reid (Translator) Armand Cabasson [Armand Cabasson, Isabel Reid (Translator)]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Historical
ISBN: 9781908313409
Publisher: Gallic Books
Published: 2012-08-26T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 25

THE policeman said nothing as he took Margont to the Marais, not far from Place des Vosges. He marched sullenly ahead without looking back once; perhaps he was hoping to lose him ‘accidentally’. He was so put out by having to look after this officious parallel investigator that when they arrived and Margont asked him to go to find Medical Officer Jean-Quenin Brémond at the hospital Hotel-Dieu, he replied with disarming indolence, ‘I’m afraid I won’t be able to find him.’

The words were like flints rubbing together in Margont’s mind, causing sparks of fury to light his eyes. The man quickly changed his mind and hurriedly set off to find the doctor.

Behind its sober facade, the house harboured a stunning luxurious interior. There was a Mazarin desk covered in brass marquetry, a gold table with a white marble top, silver candle-sticks, Dutch paintings, Gobelins tapestries of mythological scenes ... Margont felt as if he had opened an oyster apparently like all the

others, only to find pearls rolling in every direction at his feet. Count Kevlokine did not seem to have led the difficult wandering life of the leaders of the Swords of the King. What’s more, he ran far fewer risks. Had he been picked up by the police half an hour earlier Monsieur de Talleyrand and Joseph would have received him in the Tuileries Palace. Rat-ridden cellars for the ultras, palaces for the moderates.

A man came over to Margont. He was twenty-five or twenty-six, well turned out and fresh-faced with an impatient, slightly aggressive manner. ‘I’m Inspector Martial Sausson.’

‘Delighted to meet you,’ replied Margont without introducing himself.

‘I’ve been told not to ask who you are, why you are investigating or whether you have any information that I don’t—’

‘Exactly.’

Margont thought he could almost see black clouds of anger emanating from Sausson.

‘Here’s my report, Monsieur Unknown. This morning a servant by the name of Keberk comes to work for his employers Monsieur and Madame Gunans, a rich bourgeois couple, well, not so rich now that the Emperor has imposed a blockade on England. The Gunans made a fortune in maritime trading. Keberk tries to open the servants’ door with his key. It doesn’t open, which is very unusual. At night his employers bar the entrance, but early in the morning they remove the bar so that Monsieur Keberk can enter using his key when he arrives. It is the first time he has encountered such a problem in all his fifteen years of service. Keberk is alarmed and knocks at the door, shouts through the windows then runs off to tell the police that his masters have been murdered. As the house is in my area of jurisdiction, I come in person, accompanied by two of my men. I look about and discover that a shutter at the back has been forced open. I take the decision to enter the house with Monsieur Keberk. I find no sign of the Gunans. But I do discover the body of a man whom Monsieur Keberk says was called Monsieur Melansi, a friend of his masters.

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