67
Yashim flopped down into the old armchair in Palewski’s drawing room. The ambassador sat on a stool, cradling his violin. Now and then he plucked one of the strings and fiddled with the pegs.
“Doesn’t like the heat,” he explained. “Or neglect, for that matter. Gone very dry.” He picked at the four strings.
Yashim grunted. “Lefevre was paying Xani off.”
“Very decent of him.”
“I imagine he had an ulterior motive.”
Palewski bent over his fiddle and started tuning a peg.
“The thought occurred to me. Lefevre could have sidled up to Xani and promised him a fortune to find out if the serpents’ heads were really here. But Xani hasn’t been in the house for weeks.”
“The fortune, as you call it, was already paid. Lefevre wouldn’t have necessarily known that Xani wasn’t around here much. But now Lefevre’s dead-and Xani has disappeared.”
“Do you think he got scared?”
Yashim ignored the question. “Have you checked that the serpents’ heads are still here?”
Palewski looked up at the ceiling. “Do you know, Yashim, the one treasure I possess outright? That’s actually mine?” He picked up the bow, leaned forward on his stool, and tapped the door of the sideboard. The door swung open without a sound. Behind it stood a bottle. It was squat and green and had a wax cap. “My father bought a whole case the year I was born,” Palewski said mistily. “Martell. The last bottle.”
Yashim sighed. “The heads, Palewski.”
“Funny you mention it. I moved them from the armoire just yesterday. Terribly heavy. Put them under my bed.”
“Good idea,” Yashim said.
“I thought so. On the other hand,” Palewski added cheerfully, “I seem to have acquired a guardian angel. Someone who doesn’t want me to lose them. Kills Lefevre. Kills a moldy old bookseller he dealt with. Kills the Jew, who could connect Lefevre with Xani. Xani disappears. Maybe he’s dead, too. And so the trail goes cold. I keep the heads.”
He closed the sideboard with the tip of his bow.
Yashim rolled his eyes. “Maybe you’re the killer, Palewski. You have the most obvious motive.”
“Motive, yes.” Palewski smiled and laid the violin down. “But you, Yashim, had the better opportunity.”
“We’re in danger, Palewski. Perhaps Marta, too.”
His friend looked up. “Marta? She doesn’t know about the serpents’ heads.”
“So you say. But they don’t know that, do they? I think you should send her away for a while.”
“I will,” Palewski said doubtfully. Both of them knew instinctively that Marta would refuse. “And your Madame Lefevre?”
“My Madame Lefevre, as you call her, was never involved. Anyway,” he added, glancing at Palewski’s violin, “she’s staying with Widow Matalya. Not with me.”
He reached forward and picked up the violin to miss the expression on the ambassador’s face.
“I should talk to Xani’s people, I suppose. Maybe they know where he is, or where he’s likely to have gone.”
“The watermen’s guild?” Palewski looked doubtful. “They’re very close, from what I gather. Oldest guild in the city, all that. I don’t suppose you can just drop by for a chat.”
“I wasn’t intending to. I do have a few contacts, you know,” Yashim said stiffly.
68
Yashim found Amelie Lefevre on his divan with a book in her hands.
She jumped up when he came in.
“Monsieur Yashim!”
“Madame!”
They both stared at each other. Then both began at once:
“I was curious-”
“I didn’t expect-”
Amelie was the first to recover.
“I felt lonely, Yashim efendi. The door was unlocked, and I found some books. French books.”
She held up a slim volume. He took it and read the title on the spine. De Laclos: Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
“I’ve never read it,” she said.
“It’s unlucky,” Yashim replied.
“You believe that?”
Yashim slipped the book back into the shelves. “I read it once. I liked it very much.” He pushed against the spine with his thumb. “Six, seven people died.”
“And now?”
“Three men have died,” he said. “One was a bookseller. One was a moneylender. Your husband was the third.”
Amelie flinched. “My husband,” she echoed. She drew her arms over her knees and rocked back and forth on the divan. “Tell me. Tell me who the others are.”
Yashim sat down beside her, trailing his arms between his knees.
“There was a bookseller,” he began. He told her about Goulandris.
“So who killed him?”
He let his head hang.
“I thought-for a moment-it might have been your husband.”
Amelie stood up. “Max?”
“Please. Monsieur Lefevre paid for information. The man he paid has disappeared. I think he’s dead. He owed money to a moneylender. Your husband paid him off: two hundred francs.”
“You know so much,” Amelie said. She sounded bitter.
“The moneylender I found last night,” Yashim pressed on. “After you came.”
“So Max paid for information. What of that?”
“The moneylender was dead.”
Amelie went to the stove and leaned over it. She turned. “I don’t understand. Max-this bookseller, the moneylender. You didn’t like him? My husband.”
Yashim blinked in surprise.
“He wrote to me about you,” she said. “He thought that you were his friend.”
“I thought-I thought that we were alike. In certain ways.”
“You!” She snorted. “Max was many things, yes. But he was a man.”
Yashim thought: she is alone, her husband dead. He gestured to the divan and she sat down where she had sat that first night, when they were friends.
“I am sorry, monsieur. Please forgive me.”
“I am making coffee,” Yashim said. “Will you have some?”
She nodded, and Yashim turned gratefully to the stove.
“A man came here,” she said. “He opened the door.”
“Yes? Who?” Yashim measured the coffee into the copper pot.
Amelie bit her lip. “I don’t know. He just sort of-stared.”
“Did he say anything?”
