The Club Dumas

addressing Poirot struck me as, if not ingenious (everybody does that sort of thing now), then an amusing device. After all, people write for amusement, or ex­citement, or out of self-love, or to have others love them. I write for some of the same reasons. To quote Eugene Sue, vil­lains who are all of a piece, if you’ll permit me the expression, are very rare phenomena. Assuming—and it may be too much to assume—that I am a villain.

The fact is that I, the undersigned, Boris Balkan, was there in the library, awaiting our guest. Corso entered suddenly, knife in hand and an avenging gleam in his eye. I noticed that he had no escort, which worried me slightly, although I retained my mask of imperturbability. Otherwise I had set the stage well: the library in darkness, a candelabrum burning on the desk before me, a copy of The Three Musketeers in my hands ... I even wore a red velvet jacket that was—it must have seemed like pure coincidence to Corso but was in fact nothing of the sort—strongly reminiscent of a cardinal’s purple.

My big advantage was that I was expecting Corso, with or without an escort, but he wasn’t expecting me. I made the most of his surprise. The knife he held was worrying, together with the menacing look in his eyes, so I decided to speak to forestall any move from him.

“Congratulations,” I said, closing the book as if his arrival had interrupted my reading. “You’ve managed to play the game right to the end.”

He stood staring at me from the other end of the room, and I have to say that I found his look of disbelief highly amusing.

“Game?” he managed to say hoarsely.

“Yes, game. Suspense, uncertainty, a high level of skill... The possibility of acting freely yet according to rules, as an end in itself. With a sense of tension and pleasure at the difference from ordinary life....” These were not my own words, but Corso wouldn’t know that. “Do you think that’s an adequate definition? As the second book of Samuel says: ‘Let the young men now arise, and play before us.’ Children are the perfect players and readers: they do everything with the utmost seri­ousness. In essence, games are the only universally serious ac­tivity. They leave no room for skepticism, wouldn’t you agree? However incredulous or doubting you might be, if you want to play, you have no choice but to follow the rules. Only the person who respects the rules, or at least knows and applies them, can win. Reading a book is the same: you have to accept the plot and the characters to enjoy the story.” I paused, trusting that my flow of words had had a sufficiently calming effect. “By the way, you didn’t get here on your own. Where is he?”

“Rochefort?” Corso was grimacing in a very unpleasant way. “He had an accident.”

“You call him Rochefort, do you? How amusing and appro­priate. I see you’ve followed the rules. I don’t know why it should surprise me.”

Corso treated me to a rather unnerving smile. “He certainly looked surprised the last time I saw him.”

“That sounds rather alarming.” I smiled coolly, although I actually was alarmed. “I hope nothing serious happened.”

“He fell down the stairs.”

“What?”

“You heard me. But don’t worry. Your henchman was still breathing when I left him.”

“Thank God.” I managed to smile again and hide my un­ease. This went beyond what I had planned. “So you’ve done a touch of cheating, have you? Well,” I said, spreading my hands magnanimously, “no need to worry about it.”

“I’m not. You’re the one who should be worried.”

I pretended not to hear this. “The important thing is that you’ve arrived,” I went on, although I’d lost the thread mo­mentarily. “As far as cheating goes, you have illustrious pred­ecessors. Theseus escaped from the labyrinth thanks to Ariadne’s thread, Jason stole the golden fleece with Medea’s help.... The Kaurabas used subterfuge to win at dice in the Mahabharata, and the Achaeans checkmated the Trojans by moving a wooden horse. Your conscience is clear.”

“Thanks, but my conscience is my business.”

From his pocket he took Milady’s letter folded in four, and he threw it on the table. I immediately recognized my own handwriting, with the slightly affected capitals. It is by my order and for the benefit of the State that the bearer of this note, etc.

“I hope, at least, that the game was enjoyable,” I said, hold­ing the paper in the candle flame.

“At times.”

“I’m glad.” I dropped the letter in the ashtray, and we both watched it burn. “In matters of literature, the intelligent reader may even enjoy the strategy used to turn him into the victim. I believe that enjoyment is an excellent reason for playing. Or for reading a story, or writing one.”

I stood up, holding The Three Musketeers, and paced around the room, glancing discreetly at the clock on the wall. There were still twenty long minutes to go before twelve. The gilding shone on the spines of the ancient books lined up on their shelves. I looked at them a moment, as if forgetting Corso, then turned to him.

“There they are.” I made a sweeping gesture to include the whole library. “They are silent and yet talk among themselves. They communicate through their authors, just as the egg uses the hen to produce another egg.”

I put The Three Musketeers back on its shelf. Dumas was in good company: between Los Pardellanes by Zevaco and The Knight with the Yellow Doublet by Lucas de Rene. As there was time to spare, I opened The Knight at the first page and began to read aloud:

As Saint Germain I’Auxerrois struck twelve, three horsemen descended the Rue des Astruces, each wrapped in a cape, seem­ingly as sure as the stride of their horses....

“The first lines,” I said. “Always those extraordinary first lines. Do you remember our conversation about Scaramouche? He was born with the gift of laughter.... Some opening sentences leave their mark a whole lifetime, don’t you agree? Of arms and the man I sing. Have you never played this game with someone you trust? A modest young man headed in midsummer, or that other one, For a long time I used to go to bed early. And of course, On the 15th of May 1796, General Bonaparte entered Milan.”

Corso frowned.

“You’re forgetting the one that brought me here: On the first Monday of April 1625, the market town ofMeung, the birth­place of the author of Roman de la Rose, was in a state of commotion.”

“Indeed, chapter one,” I said. “You have done very well.”

“That’s what Rochefort said before he fell down the stairs.”

There was silence, broken only by the clock striking a quar­ter to twelve. Corso pointed at the clock face. “Fifteen minutes to go, Balkan.”

“Yes,” I said. The man was devilishly intuitive. “Fifteen minutes till the first Monday in April.”

I put The Knight with the Yellow Doublet back on the shelf and continued pacing. Corso stood watching me, holding the knife.

“You could put that away,” I ventured.

He hesitated a moment before shutting the blade and put­ting it away in his pocket, still watching me. I smiled approv­ingly and again indicated the library.

“One is never alone with a book nearby, don’t you agree?” I said, to be conversational. “Every page reminds us of a day that has passed and makes us relive the emotions that filled it. Happy hours underlined in red pencil, dark ones in black... Where was I, then? What prince called me his friend, what beggar called me his brother?” I hesitated, searching for another phrase to round off the idea.

“What son of a bitch called you his buddy?” suggested Corso.

I looked at him reprovingly. The wet blanket insisted on bringing down the tone. “No need to be unpleasant.”

“I’ll do what I please. Your Eminence.”

“I detect sarcasm,” I said, offended. “From that I deduce that you have given in to prejudice, Mr. Corso. It was Dumas who made Richelieu a villain when he wasn’t one, and falsified reality for literary expediency. I thought I’d explained that at our last meeting at the cafe in Madrid.”