The Dumas Club: The Ninth Gate Read online

  “Why would I know about it?” asked the widow. Her voice was deep, slightly husky. The echo of a heavy night. She hadn’t looked inside the folder yet and was still watching Corso, as if she expected something else before examining the document and satisfying her curiosity. He adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose and assumed a serious expression. This was the formal introduction stage, so he kept his efficient “honest rabbit” smile for later.

  “Until recently it belonged to your husband.” He paused a moment. “May his soul rest in peace.”

  She nodded slowly, as if that explained it, and opened the folder. Corso was looking over her shoulder at the wall. There, between an adequate painting by Tapies and another with a signature he couldn’t make out, was a framed piece of child’s needlepoint depicting little colored flowers, signed and dated Liana Lasauca, school year 1970—71. Corso would have found it touching if flowers, embroidered birds, and little girls in bobby socks and blond pigtails had been the sort of thing that made his heart melt. But they weren’t. So he turned to another, smaller picture in a silver frame. It showed the late Enrique Taillefer, publisher, with a gold wine-sampling ladle around his neck, wearing a leather apron that made him look like a Mason. He was smiling at the camera and preparing to cut into a roast suckling pig. He held a plate in one hand and one of his publishing successes in the other. He appeared placid, chubby, paunchy, and happy at the sight of the little animal laid out before him on the dish. Corso reflected that Taillefer’s premature demise at least meant that he wouldn’t have to worry about high cholesterol and gout. Corso also wondered, with cold technical curiosity, how Liana Taillefer had managed, while her husband was alive, when she needed an orgasm. With that thought he cast another quick glance at the widow’s bust and legs and decided he’d been right. She was too much a woman to be satisfied with suckling pig.

  “This is that Dumas thing,” she said, and Corso sat up slightly, alert and clearheaded. Liana Taillefer was tapping one of her red nails on the plastic that protected the pages. “The famous chapter. Of course I know about it.” As she leaned her head forward, her hair fell over her face. Behind the blond curtain she observed her visitor suspiciously. “Why do you have it?”

  “Your husband sold it. I’m trying to find out if it’s authentic.”

  The widow shrugged. “As far as I know, it’s not a forgery.” She gave a long sigh and handed back the folder. “You say he sold it? That’s strange.” She thought a moment. “These papers meant a lot to Enrique.”

  “Perhaps you can recall where he might have bought them.” “I couldn’t say. I think somebody gave them to him.” “Did he collect original manuscripts?” “As far as I know, this was the only one he ever had.” “Did he ever mention that he intended to sell it?” “No. This is the first I’ve heard about it. Who bought it?” “A bookseller who’s a client of mine. He’ll put it on the market once I give him a report on it.”

  Liana Taillefer decided to grant Corso a little more attention. His prospects took another little leap. He removed his glasses and cleaned them with his crumpled handkerchief. Without them he looked more vulnerable, and he knew it. When he squinted like a shortsighted rabbit, everybody felt they just had to help him cross the road.

  “Is this your job?” she asked. “Authenticating manuscripts?”

  He nodded vaguely. The widow was slightly blurred and, strangely, closer.

  “Sometimes. I also look for rare books, prints, things like that. I get paid for it.”

  “How much?”

  “It depends.” He put his glasses back on, and her image was sharp again. “Sometimes a lot, sometimes not so much. The market has its ups and downs.”

  “You’re a kind of detective, aren’t you?” she said, amused. “A book detective.”

  This was the moment to smile. He did so, showing his incisors, with a modesty calculated to the millimeter. Adopt me, said his smile.

  “Yes. I suppose you could call it that.”

  “And your client asked you to come and see me...”

  “That’s right.” He could now allow himself to look more confident, so he tapped the manuscript with his knuckles. “After all, this came from here. From your house.”

  She nodded slowly, looking at the folder. She seemed to be thinking something over. “It’s strange,” she said. “I can’t imagine Enrique selling this Dumas manuscript. Although he was acting strangely those last few days... What did you say the name of the bookseller was? The new owner.”

  “I didn’t.”

  She looked him up and down, with calm surprise. It seemed she was unused to waiting for more than three seconds for any man to do as she said.

  “Well, tell me then.”

  Corso waited a moment, just long enough for Liana Taillefer to start tapping her nails impatiently on the arm of the sofa.

  “His name’s La Ponte,” he said at last. This was another one of his tricks: he made only small concessions but allowed others to feel they’d won. “Do you know him?”

  “Of course I know him. He supplied my husband with books.” She frowned. “He’d come around every so often to bring him those stupid serials. I suppose he has a receipt. I’d like a copy of it, if he doesn’t mind.”

  Corso nodded vaguely and leaned toward her slightly. “Was your husband a great fan of Alexandre Dumas?”

  “Of Dumas?” Liana Taillefer smiled. She had shaken back her hair, and now her eyes shone, mocking. “Come with me.”

  She stood up, taking her time, smoothing down her skirt, glancing around as if she had suddenly forgotten why she had got up. She was much taller than Corso, even though she was not wearing high heels. She led him into the adjoining study. Following her, he noticed her broad back, a swimmer’s back, and her cinched-in waist. He guessed she must be about thirty. She would probably become one of those Nordic matrons on whose hips the sun never sets, made to give birth effortlessly to blond Eriks and Siegfrieds.

  “I wish it had only been Dumas,” she said, gesturing at the contents of the study. “Look at this.”

  Corso looked. The walls were covered with shelves bowing under the weight of thick volumes. Professional instinct made his mouth water. He took a few steps toward the shelves, adjusting his glasses. The Countess de Charny, A. Dumas, eight volumes, the Illustrated Novel collection, editor Vicente Blasco Ibanez. The Two Dianas, A. Dumas, three volumes. The Musketeers, A. Dumas, Miguel Guijarro publisher, engravings by Ortega, four volumes. The Count of Monte Cristo, A. Dumas, four volumes in the Juan Ros edition, engravings by A. Gil. Also forty volumes of Rocambole, by Ponson du Terrail. The complete edition of the Pardellanes by Zevaco. More Dumas, together with nine volumes of Victor Hugo and the same number by Paul Feval, with an edition of The Hunchback luxuriously bound in red morocco and edged with gold. And Dickens’s Pickwick Papers, translated into Spanish by Benito Perez Galdos, alongside several volumes by Barbey d’Aurevilly and The Mysteries of Paris by Eugene Sue. And yet more Dumas—The Forty-Five, The Queen’s Necklace, The Companions of Jehu—and Corsican Revenge by Merimee. Fifteen volumes of Sabatini, several by Ortega y Frias, Conan Doyle, Manuel Fernandez y Gonzalez, Mayne Reid, Patricio de la Escosura...

  “Very impressive,” commented Corso. “How many books are there here?”

  “I don’t know. About two thousand. Almost all of them first editions of serials, as they were bound after being published in installments. Some of them are illustrated editions. My husband was an avid collector, he’d pay whatever the asking price was.”

  “A true enthusiast, from what I can see.”

  “Enthusiast?” Liana Taillefer gave an indefinable smile. “It was a real passion.”

  “I thought gastronomy ...”

  “The cookbooks were just a way of making money. Enrique had the Midas touch: in his hands any cheap recipe book turned into a bestseller. But this was what he really loved. He liked to shut himself in here and leaf through these old serials. They were often printed on poor-quality pa
per, and he was obsessed with preserving them. Do you see that thermometer and humidity gauge? He could recite whole pages from his favorite books. He’d sometimes even say ‘gadzooks,’ ‘ye gods,’ things like that. He spent his last months writing.”

  “A historical novel?”

  “A serial. Keeping to all the cliches of the genre, of course.” She went to a shelf and took down a heavy manuscript with hand-stitched pages. The handwriting was large and round. “What do you think of the title?”

  “The Dead Man’s Hand, or Anne of Austria’s Page” read Corso. “Well, it’s certainly...” He ran a finger over his eyebrow, searching for the right word. “Suggestive.”

  “And dull,” she added, putting the manuscript back. “Full of anachronisms. Completely idiotic, I assure you. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. At the end of each writing session he’d read it to me page by page, from beginning to end.” She tapped bitterly on the title, handwritten in capitals. “God, I really hated that stupid queen and her page.” “Was he intending to publish it?”

  “Yes, of course. Under a pseudonym: He probably would have chosen something like Tristan de Longueville or Paulo Florentini. It would have been so typical of him.”

  “What about hanging himself? Was that typical of him?” Liana Taillefer stared intently at the book-lined walls and said nothing. An uncomfortable silence, Corso thought, even a little forced. She seemed absorbed in her thoughts, like an actress who pauses before going on with her speech in a convincing manner. “I’ll never know what happened,” she answered at last, her composure once again perfect. “During his last week he was hostile and depressed. He hardly left this study. Then, one afternoon, he went out and slammed the door. He came back in the early hours. I was in bed and heard the door close. In the morning I was woken by the maid screaming. Enrique had hanged himself from the light fixture.”

  Now she was looking at Corso, to see the effect of her words. She didn’t seem too upset, he thought, remembering the photograph with the apron and the suckling pig. He even saw her blink once, as if to hold back a tear, but her eyes were perfectly dry. Of course that didn’t mean anything. Centuries of makeup that can be smudged by emotion have taught women to control their feelings. And Liana Taillefer’s makeup—light shading to accentuate her eyes—was perfect.

  “Did he leave a note?” asked Corso. “People who commit suicide often do.”

  “He decided to spare himself the effort. No explanation, not even a few words. Nothing. Because of his selfishness I’ve had to answer a lot of questions from an examining magistrate and several policemen. Very unpleasant, believe me.”

  “I understand.”

  “Yes. I’m sure you do.”

  Liana Taillefer made it obvious that their meeting was now at an end. She saw him to the door and held out her hand to him. With the folder under his arm and his bag on his shoulder, Corso shook hands with her and felt her firm grip. Inwardly he gave her a good mark for her performance. Not the happy widow, yet not devastated by grief; no cold “I’m glad that idiot’s gone” or “Alone at last” or “You can come out of the wardrobe now, darling.” If there was anyone in the wardrobe, it was none of Corso’s business. Nor was Enrique Taillefer’s suicide, however strange—and it was mighty strange, gadzooks, with all that business of the queen’s page and the disappearing manuscript. But neither the suicide nor the beautiful widow were any concern of his. For now.

  He looked at her. I’d love to know who’s having you, he thought with cool technical curiosity. He drew a mental picture of the man: handsome, mature, cultured, wealthy. He was almost a hundred percent sure it must be a friend of her deceased husband. He wondered if the publisher’s suicide had anything to do with it, then stopped himself in disgust. Professional quirk or not, he sometimes had the absurd habit of thinking like a policeman. He shivered at the thought. Who knows what depths of depravity, or stupidity, lie hidden in our soul?

  “I must thank you for taking the time to see me,” he said, choosing the most touching smile from his repertoire, the one that made him resemble a friendly rabbit.

  It was met with a blank. She was looking at the Dumas manuscript.

  “You don’t have to thank me. I’m just naturally interested to know how all this will end.”

  “I’ll let you know how it’s going... Oh, and there’s something else. Do you intend to keep your husband’s collection, or are you thinking of selling it?”

  She looked at him, disconcerted. Corso knew from experience that when a book collector died, the books often followed the body out the front door twenty-four hours later. He was surprised, in fact, that none of his predatory colleagues had dropped by yet. After all, as she had admitted herself, Liana Taillefer didn’t share her husband’s literary tastes.

  “The truth is, I haven’t had time to think about it.... Do you mean you’d be interested in those old serials?” “I could be.”

  She hesitated a moment. Perhaps a few seconds longer than necessary. “It’s all too recent,” she said at last, with a suitable sigh. “Maybe in a few days’ time.”

  Corso put his hand on the banister and started down the stairs. He took the first few steps slowly, feeling uneasy, as if he’d left something behind but couldn’t remember what. He was certain he hadn’t forgotten anything. When he reached the first landing, he looked up and saw that Liana Taillefer was still at the door, watching him. She appeared both worried and curious. Corso continued on down the stairs, and his frame of vision, like a slow-motion camera, slid down her body. He could no longer see the inquiring look in her ice-blue eyes; he saw instead her bust, hips, and finally her firm, pale legs set slightly apart, as strong as temple columns, and suggestive.

  He was still reeling as he crossed the hall and went into the street. He could think of at least five unanswered questions and needed to put them in order of importance. He stopped at the curb, opposite the railings of the park of El Retiro, and looked casually to his left, waiting for a taxi. An enormous Jaguar was parked a few meters away. The chauffeur, in a dark gray, almost black, uniform, was leaning on the hood and reading a newspaper. At that instant, the man looked up and his eyes met Corso’s. It lasted only a second, and then he went back to reading his paper. He was dark, with a mustache, and his cheek was scored from top to bottom by a pale scar. Corso thought the chauffeur looked familiar: he definitely reminded him of somebody. It could have been the tall man who played at the slot machine in Makarova’s bar. But there was something else. That face stirred some vague, distant memory. Before Corso could give it any more thought, however, an empty taxi appeared. A man in a loden coat carrying an executive briefcase hailed it from the other side of the street, but the driver was looking in Corso’s direction. Corso made the most of this and quickly stepped off the curb to snatch the taxi from under the other man’s nose.

  He asked the driver to turn down the radio, then settled himself in the backseat, looking out at the surrounding traffic but not taking it in. He always enjoyed the sense of peace he got inside a taxi. It was the closest he ever came to a truce with the outside world: everything beyond the window was suspended for the duration of the journey. He leaned his head on the back of the seat and savored the view.

  It was time to think of serious matters. Such as The Book of the Nine Doors and his trip to Portugal, the first step in this job. But he couldn’t concentrate. His meeting with Enrique Taillefer’s widow had raised too many questions and left him strangely uneasy. There was something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, like watching a landscape from the wrong angle. And there was something else: it took him several stops at traffic lights to realize that the chauffeur of the Jaguar kept reappearing in his mind’s eye. This bothered him. He was sure that he’d never seen him before that time at Makarova’s bar. But an irrational memory recurred. I know you, he thought. I’m sure I do. Once, a long time ago, I bumped into a man like you. And I know you’re out there somewhere. On the dark side of my memory.

  GRO
UCHY WAS NOWHERE TO be seen, but it no longer mattered. Bulow’s Prussians were retreating from the heights of Chapelle St. Lambert, with Sumont and Subervie’s light cavalry at their heels. There was no problem on the left flank: the red formations of the Scottish infantry had been overtaken and devastated by the charge of the French cuirassiers. In the center, the Jerome division had at last taken Hougoumont. And to the north of Mont St. Jean, the blue formations of the good Old Guard were gathering slowly but implacably, with Wellington withdrawing in delicious disorder to the little village of Waterloo. It only remained to deal the coup de grace.

  Lucas Corso observed the field. The solution was Ney, of course. The bravest of the brave. He placed him at the front, with Erlon and the Jerome division, or what remained of it, and made them advance at a charge along the Brussels road. When they made contact with the British troops, Corso leaned back slightly in his chair and held his breath, sure of the implications of his action: in a few seconds he had just sealed the fate of twenty-two thousand men. Savoring the feeling, he looked lovingly over the compact blue and red ranks, the pale green of the forest of Soignes, the dun-colored hills. God, it was a beautiful battle.

  The blow struck them hard, poor devils. Erlon’s corps was blown to pieces like the hut of the three little pigs, but the lines formed by Ney and Jerome’s men held. The Old Guard was advancing, crushing everything in its path. The English formations disappeared one by one from the map. Wellington had no choice but to withdraw, and Corso used the French cavalry’s reserves to block his path to Brussels. Then, slowly and deliberately, he dealt the final blow. Holding Ney between his thumb and forefinger, he made him advance three hexagons. He compared forces, consulting his tables: the British were outnumbered eight to three. Wellington was finished. But there was still one small opening left to chance. He consulted his conversion table and saw that all he needed was a 3. He felt a stab of anxiety as he threw the dice to decide what the small factor of chance would be. Even with the battle won, losing Ney in the final minute was only for real enthusiasts. In the end he got a factor of 5. He smiled broadly as he gave an affectionate little tap to the blue counter representing Napoleon. I know how you feel, friend. Wellington and his remaining five thousand wretches were all either dead or taken prisoner, and the emperor had just won the battle of Waterloo. Allans enfants de la Patrie! The history books could go to hell.