Henri d’Aulnay-Pradelle strode into the vast post office on the rue du Louvre in midafternoon and chose a bench from which he could keep an eye on the rows of post office boxes lining the wall next to the monumental staircase that led up to the first floor.
Box 52 was no more than fifty feet away. Henri feigned interest in his newspaper but soon realized that he could not keep up such a pretense for long. Before they checked their box, these crooks would surely keep watch for a while to make sure there was nothing untoward, and they probably checked in the morning rather than the afternoon. And now that he was here, his worst fear was that he would be trapped indefinitely: at this late stage, as far as the crooks were concerned, there were more risks involved in coming to pick up the last few payments than in catching a train to some far-flung corner of Europe or a steamship to Africa.
They would not come.
And his time was precious.
This thought depressed him.
Abandoned by his workers, deserted by his business associates, disowned by his father-in-law, forsaken by his wife, with no prospect of help against the impending debacle . . . Henri d’Aulnay-Pradelle had been suffering the worst three days of his life until that last-minute summons, the messenger who came to find him urgently with a scribbled note on Marcel Péricourt’s visiting card:
“Come see me immediately.”
He had leapt in a taxi, raced to the boulevard de Courcelles, in the house he encountered Madeleine on the stairs . . . She had that same vacant grin on her face, as always, like a goose laying an egg. She gave not the slightest sign that she remembered how coldly she had dispatched him only two days ago.
“Ah, so they managed to find you, chéri?”
She sounded relieved. The bitch. She had told the messenger he would find him in Mathilde de Beausergent’s bed; Henri could not help wondering how she knew.
“I do hope you weren’t interrupted before your climax,” she said, and since Henri did not respond, added, “But of course, you’re on your way to see Papa . . . All this men’s business is so tiresome . . .”
Then she cupped her hands over her belly and returned to her favorite pastime, trying to guess whether the baby was kicking with his feet, his heels, or his elbows, he thrashed about like a fish, the little beast; she loved to talk to him.
As time dragged on and countless people came and went, opening every box except the one he had been watching, Henri shifted his position to a different bench, a different floor, he went up to the smoking area, from where could peer down at the ground floor. This idleness was death by a thousand cuts, but what could he do? He cursed Péricourt, it was his fault he was forced to hang around here uselessly. At their meeting he had been shocked by the old man’s appearance. He looked dead on his feet, his face was haggard, his shoulders hunched, his eyes ringed with dark circles . . . He had been showing signs of frailty for some time, but his condition seemed to have suddenly deteriorated. At the Jockey Club, it was whispered that he had never quite been the same since his fit of apoplexy the previous November. When speaking of Marcel Péricourt, Docteur Blanche, the epitome of discretion, lowered his eyes; that said it all. An unmistakable sign had been a fall in the share price of some of his companies. They had rallied since, but even so . . .
The very idea that he might be ruined only for the old goat to kick the bucket afterward—too late—was unbearable. If only the bastard could die now rather than in six months or a year . . . True, his will was categorical, as was the marriage contract, but Henri still had an unshakeable confidence in his ability to get what he wanted from any woman, a talent that had only ever failed him with his wife (the irony!). But if need be, he would muster all his powers and make short work of Madeleine; he would have his share of the old man’s fortune, he’d see to that. What a mess. He had wanted too much, or too fast . . . No point raking over the past, what was done was done; Henri was a man of action, not one to feel sorry for himself.
“You are facing very serious problems,” the old man said as Henri sat down opposite him, still clutching the visiting card bearing his summons.
Henri had said nothing, because it was true. A problem that might have been fixed—that little business with the war graves—seemed almost insurmountable, now that he stood accused of bribing an official.
Almost. But not utterly impossible.
Because, the fact that Péricourt had sent for him, had stooped so low as to ask for his help, had sent a messenger to his mistress’s bed to fetch him, must surely mean he needed him desperately.
What could have happened that the old man had been reduced to calling upon Henri d’Aulnay-Pradelle, whose very name he could not mention without contempt? Henri had not the slightest idea. But here he was, in the old man’s study, no longer standing, but sitting, and it was not he who was asking for help. A ray of hope began to glimmer. He asked no questions.
“Without my help, your problems are insoluble.”
Here, Henri’s pride led him to make his first mistake: he pursed his lips dubiously. M. Péricourt reacted with a fury of which his son-in-law had not thought him capable.
“You are dead!” he roared. “Dead, do you understand? Given the business you are mixed up in, the government will take everything from you, everything! Your wealth, your property, your reputation . . . you will never recover! And you will end up in prison.”
Henri was of that breed of men who, having made a tactical blunder, are capable of excellent intuition. He got up and made to leave.
“Stop right there!” M. Péricourt said.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Henri turned, strutted across the room, leaned over his father-in-law’s desk, and said:
“Well, stop wasting my time, then. You need me—I don’t know why, but let me be very clear, regardless of what you ask, my conditions will be the same. You have the minister in your pocket? Very well then, you will personally intercede on my behalf, you’ll have every scrap of evidence against me buried, I want no charges brought against me.”
Henri settled himself once more in the armchair and crossed his legs, looking for all the world as though he were at the Jockey Club waiting for the steward to bring his brandy. Another man in this situation might have trembled, worried about what would be asked in return; not Henri d’Aulnay-Pradelle. Having spent three days brooding over his impending downfall, he was prepared for anything. Just tell me who to kill.
M. Péricourt was forced to explain everything: how he had come to commission a war memorial, the extent and scale of this swindle of which he was perhaps the most important, the most prominent victim. Henri had the good sense not to smirk. And he began to sense what it was his father-in-law was going to ask.
“The scandal is about to break,” Marcel Péricourt said. “If the police manage to arrest these men before they get away, everyone will want a piece of them—the government, the courts, the newspapers, the veterans’ organizations, the victims . . . I don’t want that. I need you to find them.”
“What do you plan to do with them?”
“That’s not your concern.”
“Why me?” he said.
He quickly bit his tongue, but it was too late.
“To find scum takes someone well acquainted with the gutter.”
Henri took this on the chin. M. Péricourt immediately regretted the insult, not because he felt he had gone too far, but because it might be counterproductive.
“Furthermore, time is of the essence,” he said in a more conciliatory tone. “It could be a matter of hours. And you are the only man I have at hand.”
Toward six o’clock, having moved perhaps a dozen times, Henri was forced to face the fact that his surveillance mission would not produce results. Not today, at least. And no one could say whether there would be a tomorrow.
What alternative did he have but to wait around on the off chance that the men who had rented Box 52 would make an appearance? The printworks that had produced the catalog?
“No,” Péricourt had been adamant. “If you go, you would have to ask questions, and if word gets out that there are concerns about the printer, it will be traced to their clients, to this company, to the swindle, and there will be a scandal.”
If he could not go to the printer, that left only the bank.
To find out where Patriotic Memory had deposited the down payments received from its clients would take time, and approval, all things that Henri did not have.
It was the post office or nothing.
True to his nature, he decided to disobey. Despite M. Péricourt’s injunction, he took a taxi to Rondot Frères, printer, rue des Abbesses.
On the way, he again flicked through the Patriotic Memory catalog his father-in-law had given him . . . M. Péricourt’s reaction was not simply that of a seasoned businessman who has been cheated; he had taken it personally. So what was it really about?
The taxi was held up for some time on the rue de Clignancourt. Henri closed the catalog, vaguely impressed. The men he was looking for were clearly experienced criminals, a highly organized gang he had little chance of finding since he had few resources and even less time. He could not help feeling a sneaking admiration for the sheer ingenuity of the scam. The catalog was a masterpiece. Had it not been for the fact that his life depended on catching these men, he would have smiled. Instead, he vowed that if it came to his life or theirs, he would bombard this gang with everything he had: with grenades, with mustard gas, with a machine gun if he had one. Give him a breach the size of a mouse hole, he would wreak carnage. He felt the muscles in his stomach and his chest tense, his lips tighten . . .
That’s all I ask, he thought, just give me one chance in ten thousand, and you are all dead.