The Club Dumas

“About the nine correct engravings,” said Corso, “from The Nine Doors of the Kingdom of Shadows.”

The sound of a clock striking could be heard outside the closed window, through the wind and rain. Almost simultaneously a clock inside the building, downstairs, struck eleven times.

“I see there are more madmen in this affair,” said Liana Taillefer. She was watching the door. There had been a noise behind it as the final chime struck. A glint of triumph flashed in her eyes.

“Careful,” whispered La Ponte with a start. Corso knew what was going to happen. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the girl stand up straight, tense and alert, and he felt a rush of adrenaline.

They all looked at the door handle. It was turning very slowly, as in the movies.

“GOOD  EVENING,”  SAID  ROCHEFORT.

He was wearing a raincoat buttoned to the neck, shiny with rain. His dark eyes shone intensely beneath his felt hat. The pale zigzag of the scar stood out against his dark face. The bushy black mustache accentuated his southern looks. He stood motionless at the door for some fifteen seconds, his hands in his coat pockets, a puddle forming around his shoes. Nobody said a word.

“I’m glad you’re here,” said Liana Taillefer at last. Rochefort nodded briefly but didn’t answer. Still sitting on the bed, she pointed at Corso. “They were becoming impertinent.”

“Not too much, I hope,” said Rochefort. His voice, as Corso remembered it from the Sintra road, was pleasant, educated, and had no definite accent. He didn’t move from the doorway, his eyes fixed on Corso, as if La Ponte and the girl didn’t exist. His lower lip still looked swollen, with traces of Mercuro-chrome, two stitches holding the recent wound together. Sou­venir from the banks of the river Seine, thought Corso malevolently. He looked with interest to see the girl’s reaction. But after her initial surprise, she had resumed the role of de­tached spectator.

Not taking his eyes off Corso, Rochefort asked Milady, “How did they get here?”

Milady gestured vaguely. “They’re smart.” A quick look at La Ponte. “One of them, anyway.”

Rochefort nodded. His eyes half-closed, he seemed to be an­alyzing the situation. “This complicates things,” he said. He took off his hat and threw it on the bed.

Liana Taillefer smoothed down her skirt and stood up with a sigh of agreement. Corso half turned toward her, tense and hesitant. Then Rochefort took his hand out of his coat pocket, and Corso deduced that the man was left- handed. The discovery didn’t do him much good—the left hand held a snub-nosed revolver, small and dark blue, almost black. Meanwhile, Liana Taillefer went over to La Ponte and took the Dumas manuscript from his hands.

“Now call me a whore again.” She was so close, she could have spat in his face. “If you have the guts.”

La Ponte didn’t. He was a born survivor. His intrepid-harpooner act was reserved for moments of alcohol- induced eu­phoria. “I was just passing through,” he said placatingly, wanting to wash his hands of the whole business.

“What would I do without you, Flavio?” said Corso, resigned. La Ponte looked injured. “You’re being unfair,” he said, and went and stood by the girl, which must have seemed to him the safest place in the room. “From a certain point of view, this is your adventure, Corso. And what’s death to a guy like you? Nothing. A formality. Anyway, you’re getting paid a fortune. And life is basically unpleasant.” Looking down the barrel of Rochefort’s revolver, he put his arm around the girl’s shoulder and gave a melancholy sigh. “I hope nothing happens to you. But if it does, it’ll be harder for us: we have to go on living.” “Traitor.”

La Ponte looked saddened. “My friend, I’ll ignore that last remark. You’re overwrought.”

“Of course I’m overwrought, you sewer rat.”

“I’ll ignore that too.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“I get the message, old buddy. Friendship is made up of little touches like that.”

“Nice to see you’ve kept your team spirit,” said Milady caustically.

Corso was thinking fast, even though there was nothing he could do. No amount of thinking could get the gun out of Rochefort’s hand, although it wasn’t pointing at anyone in par­ticular. Rochefort seemed rather halfhearted, as if just showing the gun was all that was needed to get the desired effect. But however intense Corso’s desire to settle a few scores with the man with the scar, he didn’t possess the technical skill to do so. With La Ponte not in the running, the girl was his only hope of shifting the balance of power. But unless she was an extremely accomplished actress, he couldn’t hope for anything on that flank. Irene Adler had shaken herself free of La Ponte’s arm and sat down on the window ledge, from where she ob­served them all with inexplicable indifference. She seemed de­termined to stay out of it.

Liana Taillefer went over to Rochefort, holding the Dumas manuscript, delighted to have retrieved it so quickly. Corso found it strange that she showed no similar interest in The Nine Doors, which still lay inside the canvas bag at the foot of the bed.

“What do we do now?” he heard her whisper to Rochefort. To Corso’s surprise, Rochefort looked unsure. He moved the revolver from side to side, as if he not knowing where to point it. Exchanging a long and meaningful look with Milady, he took his right hand out of his pocket and passed it over his face, hesitant. “We can’t leave them here,” he said. “We can’t take them with us either,” she said. He nodded slowly. Judging by his renewed grip on the re­volver, his indecision vanished. Corso felt his abdominal mus­cles tense as Rochefort aimed the gun at him. He tried to make some sort of syntactically coherent protest, but all he managed was an indistinct, guttural sound.

“You’re not going to kill him, are you?” asked La Ponte.

“Flavio,” Corso managed to say in spite of the dryness in his mouth. “If I get out of this, I swear I’ll smash your face in. Completely.”

“I was just trying to help.”

“Better help your mother get off the streets.”

“OK, OK, I’ll shut up.”

“Yes, shut up,” said Rochefort. Keeping the revolver on Corso, he locked the door behind him and put the key in his coat pocket. What is there to lose, thought Corso, his pulse throbbing at his temples and wrists. The drums of Waterloo rolled somewhere in his memory, when, in the final moment of clarity before desperation set in, he found himself working out the distance between him and the gun and how long it would take him to cross it. He wondered when the first shot would be fired and where it would hit him. The chances of not being hit were minimal, but if he waited five seconds longer, he might have no chance at all. So the bugle sounded. The last charge with Ney at the head, the bravest of the brave, before the emperor’s weary eyes. Against Rochefort instead of the Scots Guards, but a bullet was still a bullet. This is ridiculous, he told himself just before he went into action. And he wondered if the bullet in his chest would be real or imaginary, wondered if he’d find himself floating in the void or in the Valhalla for fictional heroes. If only the luminous eyes he felt staring in­tently at his back—the emperor? The devil in love? —would be waiting for him in the darkness to guide him to the other side.

Then Rochefort did something odd. He raised his free hand, as if to say, “Give me time,” and started to put the revolver back in his pocket. The movement lasted only a moment, and he aimed the gun at Corso once again, but without conviction. And Corso, his pulse racing, his muscles taut, about to leap blindly forward, held back, bewildered, realizing it wasn’t time for him to die.

Stunned, he watched Rochefort cross the room, press the button for an outside line, then dial a long number. From where he stood, he could hear the sound of the phone ringing on the line and then a click.

“I’ve got Corso here,” said Rochefort. He waited, still lazily pointing the gun at a vague point in space. He said yes twice, Then he listened, motionless, and muttered OK before finally hanging up.

“He wants to see him,” he said to Milady. They both turned to look at Corso. Milady was annoyed, Rochefort anxious. “This is ridiculous,” she complained. “He wants to see him,” Rochefort said again. Milady shrugged, took a step, and angrily turned a few pages of “The Anjou Wine.”

“As for us ...” La Ponte began.

“You’re staying here,” said Rochefort, pointing the gun at him. He licked the wound on his lip. “The girl too.”

In spite of his split lip he didn’t seem to bear her any grudge. Corso even thought he saw a gleam of curiosity as Rochefort looked  at  her.  Rochefort  then  handed  Liana Taillefer the revolver. “Make sure they don’t get out.” “Why don’t you stay here?” “He wants me to take him. It’s safer.”