The Last Con by Zachary Bartels

Author:Zachary Bartels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2015-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 32

APRIL 3, 1785

PARIS, FRANCE

Cardinal de Rohan had not slept in two days when he turned up at Cagliostro’s door. His wig was disheveled, his clothes and nerves ragged, and his thoughts full of ruin, exile, and the Red Widow—that merciless machine that had separated the heads from a mounting number of bodies and seemed to be only growing in appetite over the past few years. He knew all too well that neither his nobility nor his position in the church would protect him from her falling blade.

The cardinal sipped the elixir his friend offered him, seeing the effects of his shaking hand in the liquid’s surface. He had arrived at Cagliostro’s home on Rue de St. Claude before five that morning, only to find the alchemist apparently on his way out, carrying a bundle of letters and dressed in a very fine iron-gray coat trimmed with gold lace, brilliant-red breeches, and a fine ruffled hat on which perched a long white feather.

“My dear Louis,” Cagliostro had said, setting down his papers and guiding the cardinal to a chair. “Sit, please! I will fetch something for your nerves.”

He had returned with the elixir, a balm for the cardinal’s hands, and a great deal of apparent concern.

“What has happened to you?” he asked.

“I fear I have been played for a fool,” de Rohan answered.

“By whom?”

“The Countess de LaMotte. She has been acting as an intermediary between the queen and my own person, carrying our letters back and forth. It was she who arranged our meeting in Versailles last year. Oh, how could I be so dense?”

“What has she done?” Cagliostro leaned forward, his face full of empathy.

“Some months back she informed me of the queen’s desire for a certain necklace, one worth two million livres. But the queen, she said, was hesitant to buy such a luxurious item during a time of need. And so I volunteered to carry out its purchase and to obtain the piece for Her Majesty, which I did.”

“But do you have that much gold at your disposal?”

“Not even a fraction! I arranged for payment to be made in five installments, the first of which was due a week ago. But the queen has not paid. The jewelers have been harassing me, threatening to go to Her Majesty, moaning that I have ruined them. The older man has twice threatened to end his own life at the gate of my palace.”

The count pursed his lips in thought before saying, “It would seem the queen did not want the necklace after all,” as if this were some hidden kernel of knowledge that he had managed to divine. “Can you simply return it?”

“If only I could! I gave it to the queen’s valet the day I signed surety for it. And now neither he nor the Countess de LaMotte is anywhere to be found, and I am done for.”

Cagliostro placed a firm hand on the cardinal’s shoulder. “It sounds as though you have only one course of action open to you, my friend,” he said.

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