second language.
“If you say so,” Quire said. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about, Monsieur Durand?”
“Ah, you treat my language with a little more gentleness than most of your compatriots.”
“And your English is excellent.”
“Thank you. I have a certain facility in languages, it is true. And I have had the time to master yours: I became an exile from my homeland many years ago. London was my refuge. And latterly here, of course. A beautiful city you have, Sergeant Quire.”
“I’m sure it’s very happy that you like it. Is there something you’re wanting to tell me, sir?”
“Not so gentle when it comes to pleasantries, I see. I have found that to be a common trait of your countrymen. Not that I complain. Not that I complain.”
Durand took a sip from his cup. He held it delicately. An increasingly loud argument—or perhaps it was a negotiation; it could be hard to tell the difference in these avaricious times—at the next table distracted Quire, and he shot an irritated glare at its occupiers. The two men concerned were sucking away at cigars in between their expostulations, blowing out jets of blue-grey smoke. That was a sight and smell that Quire always considered a little odd, not because he found it unpleasant—he rather liked that deep scent, in fact—but because it spoke to him of Spain. There had been hardly a cigar to be found in Britain until its officers and men came back from the Peninsular War, having learned the habit from the Spanish. The long struggle against Napoleon had all but bankrupted the country, and delivered only strange little trophies.
Quire turned back to Durand.
“Do you know what happened to Edward Carlyle? Can you testify to what occurred at Duddingston Kirk?”
“So hasty,” Durand said quietly, setting down his coffee. “No, I regret I will testify to nothing. Not in a court of law. Not unless I am assured of my safety, and that, I fear, will be a great deal harder to secure than you imagine.”
“What use are you to me, then?” muttered Quire in frustration.
“I confess, I am more interested in the question of what use you might be to me. Are you familiar with the Shelley book?”
“I’m not much of a man for poetry.”
“No, the wife.
“Not much of a man for reading in its entirety, to be truthful.”
“Not a requirement of your profession, I suppose. Never mind. Tell me: you have the manner, and are of the right age… you fought against my countrymen, perhaps?”
The change in the course of the conversation did not greatly surprise Quire. For all his poise, Durand was a man quite evidently ill at ease with his situation, and with his company. His hand betrayed it, tapping nervously at the boss atop his cane. His eyes betrayed it, flicking from the thick, steaming black coffee to Quire’s face, to the door over his shoulder. The man needed a little indulgence, Quire judged, and he bit back his impatience.
“Seven years in the army, near enough. I was at Waterloo; Spain and Portugal before that.”
“Ah. Do you think me your enemy, then?”
“No, sir. That business is over and done with. If there are current matters fit to make you my enemy, of course, that’s different. But I’m hoping still that you’re here to make yourself a friend.”
“Indeed. I met Napoleon, you know.” A brief loss of focus to those nervous eyes, a glance towards memory. “It was a long time ago, before I fell out of favour with his regime. In Egypt. I was a member of the scientific expedition that accompanied him in his conquest of those lands.”
“I know.”
Durand’s surprise was obvious. Quire had no intention of providing an explanation for his knowledge, though. Let the man ponder the fact that he was not the only one with secrets.
“He was very small, I heard,” Quire said.
“Napoleon?
“Caused misery and havoc enough, if that’s what you mean by greatness.”
“True, monsieur. Quite true. Greatness is no guarantor of wisdom, or of a peaceable nature. Believe me, I have cause to know that better than most. Are you sure you will not take some coffee? Or something else, perhaps?”
“I don’t need anything.”
The door behind Quire banged open, and Durand’s eyes went to it instantly, bright alarm in them for a moment. Quire’s arms tensed in response, but he saw the Frenchman’s features relax, and he almost smiled at how easily one man’s unease might attach itself to another.
“John Ruthven might have been a great man once,” Durand said.
Quire leaned in, his interest on the hook now. He said nothing, for fear of diverting the Frenchman from his course.
“But great men can go… astray, that would be the word, no?” Durand said. “More easily than lesser men, perhaps. He has a rare mind, Ruthven, a gift to see further and deeper than most of us. He has done things… ah, they would amaze you. But his is not a kind gift, for what he sees has clouded him, drawn him down paths better ignored.”
“Maybe I can do some correction of that.”
“Maybe. I am not innocent in this, no more than John Ruthven. Not one of us in that house can lay claim upon innocence. You know Mr. Blegg?”
“Not as well as I’d like.”
Durand smiled at that, and sank back in his chair. It was a sad smile, almost one of pity.
“He is not a man you would wish to know better, Sergeant. I assure you of that. And he is not so easily understood as you might think. Blegg is not his only name. I have heard Mr. Ruthven call him Weir, and other names. Darker names. Such is the company I keep, at the gravest peril to my immortal soul.”
The regret in Durand’s voice was all but palpable, and Quire could hear in it a vast acreage of mourning. Mourning, perhaps, for a life gone wrong.
“What’s Ruthven doing in the body-snatching business?” he asked. “Can you tell me that? He can’t need the money.”
Durand gave a twitching snort.
“You think that is what this is about? Selling the dead? Nothing so harmless. But in any case, you misjudge Ruthven. He is no longer a rich man, Sergeant. Not by any means.”
“I’ve seen his house. I know what rich looks like.”
“You have seen one room, no? The public facade. It is a large house, and contains many surprises. Much emptiness. But as for the digging of graves… I do not think you need concern yourself with that. I have the impression that certain recent events may have convinced those involved to stay away from your cemeteries for a time.”
“Tell me what I need to know,” Quire pressed, tiring of Durand’s coyness. “I’ll fix what’s needing fixing.”
Or break it, he thought.
“I do not doubt that you will try, Sergeant. You have already proved yourself a most… troublesome sort. That is why I am here. But be certain of this: you would be dead by now, were you not a member of the police. You are not the sort of man who can simply disappear, not without hard questions being asked. Especially as you have not been precisely quiet about your suspicions of John Ruthven. They have been circumspect. Had you been but an ordinary man… well.”
The Frenchman spread his hands, inviting Quire towards the obvious conclusion.
“I’d not call setting their damned hounds on me circumspect.”
“The dogs? I did not know that. I am not as trusted as I once was. I am no longer fully in their confidence. It does not bode well. But still: a man killed by dogs is accident, not murder, is it not? Circumspect, as I say.”
“What are they, anyway? Those dogs?”
“An early venture on Ruthven’s part into dark territory. A failed experiment, you might say. But he has learned, since then; with my assistance, to my utmost regret. Make no mistake, I come to you in desperation. I am surely doomed, if the charnel house they have built cannot be destroyed, to its very foundations, and them along
