Margont emptied it, carefully examining each dress, the spring jacket and the two nightdresses. The garments, which were folded, had nothing special about them.

He was peering at the window when a flurry of footsteps was heard on the staircase. A few moments later Sergeant Lefine stood stiffly to attention in the doorway and, with a smile on his face, bellowed: ‘At your disposal, Captain.’

Fernand Lefine, who hailed from Arles, was such a quick-witted fellow that the parish priest had done his utmost to teach him to read and write. His parents, humble farmers, had got it into their heads that he would become a schoolmaster or a mayor. That showed how little they knew Fernand. He was the laziest, craftiest man in the entire region. Instead of using his talents wisely, he exploited illiterates, getting them to pay him to write their letters. He had an easy-going attitude to life and considered it really stupid to see things otherwise. One day a policeman had caught him stealing from a neighbour’s vegetable garden. This representative of the law, a former soldier, had warned him that he would come back for him in three days and haul him off to prison. Lefine was then given three options: he could go to prison; he could pack his bags and prepare to spend his life as a fugitive roaming the countryside; or he could join the army, in which case the police would never dream of depriving the motherland of such a stalwart defender in these troubled times. So it was that in 1801, aged only seventeen, Lefine entered the French army. There he met Margont and the two men had become inseparable. That said, friendship, like everything else on this poor earth, has its limits.

Margont grabbed a flabbergasted Lefine by the collar and flung him to the ground.

‘You miserable wretch!’

Lefine remained sitting, clutching his throat, waiting for the storm to pass.

‘How could you have told my life story to the agents of that cursed Triaire? For what price did you betray our friendship? A high one, I’m sure.’

‘Oh, that …’

‘So there’s something else as well, is there?’ thundered Margont.

Lefine straightened his shako. His brown hair was always well cut and carefully combed. His self-assurance, knowledge and resourcefulness – a euphemism – made him a very popular figure in the 84th.

‘You notice that I confess to my crime, Captain. And a crime confessed to is half—’

‘That sort of stupid talk only works in the confessional.’

Margont squatted down to force Lefine to look him straight in the eye.

‘Of course you confess. You’re the only possible suspect! Who knew about my criticisms of the Emperor’s policy after Eylau? Only Saber and you! And Saber has too much of a sense of honour.’

‘But I also have—’

‘Don’t use words you don’t know the meaning of.’

Lefine stood up again, followed by Margont, whose nervous, jerky gestures were still menacing.

‘I was forced into it, Captain. It was last year. A sergeant-major sent for me. He told me he had orders from very high up. He wanted to know everything about you! Supposedly it was to do with promotion. He threatened me. He told me that if I didn’t obey I’d be sent to the colonies, on the other side of the world. And on top of that I’d be downgraded to—’

Margont shook his head. ‘No, no, no. You’re as cunning as a monkey and in the fairground they don’t train monkeys by waving a stick at them, but by throwing them peanuts.’

‘They also paid me a bit,’ Lefine admitted.

‘You didn’t have to tell them all that you knew, traitor. That’ll teach me to talk too much. And save that pathetic look for the grenadiers of the Royal Guard. The Italians love commedia dell’arte. I should have you transferred to the navy.’

Lefine went pale. The sea filled him with panic and fear, which he had always refused to explain as if he really believed in those writhing sea monsters that adorned the oceans on maps and on public fountains.

‘Yes, I wouldn’t put it past you,’ he muttered.

‘Just because you saved my life doesn’t mean that you’ve got the right to sell it. Now repeat to me exactly what you said to this sergeant-major.’

‘Well, more or less all I knew …’

Margont’s anger subsided somewhat at the thought that such a reply was inevitable.

‘He was stupid, that sergeant-major, Captain. The more I told him, the more he paid me. So of course I told him everything.’

‘Of course.’

‘And after I’d told him everything I knew, I went on, making things up. Well, my imagination’s boundless. Not like the sergeant-major’s purse, which ran out in the end. Two or three things I made up completely: you love horses, you dream of one day breeding your own; you’re in love with the pretty daughter of a Montpellier notary who doesn’t want you as his son-in-law until you’re a colonel; you have a distant uncle who lives in Louisiana and you’ve toyed with the idea of starting a new life in the New World.’

Margont smiled to himself. The file put together by Triaire was so stuffed with nonsense that it should prove impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff. He felt less cheated.

‘One thing intrigues me, Fernand. You said so much that you must have known that one day I would find you out, but that didn’t bother you. Why not?’

Lefine had recovered his self-assurance.

‘It’s true that I had underestimated your anger a bit. But above all I know how to make myself indispensable. And when someone’s indispensable, what can happen to them?’

The answer was as impudent as it was true. It brought Margont back to his investigation. What if the murderer were an indispensable officer? He had asked himself that question dozens of times. He put his arm on Lefine’s shoulder.

‘Since you sold my secrets, I’m going to give you a taste of your own medicine. And more than you bargained for. Prince Eugène has put me in a particularly difficult position. Well, I’m going to tell you the whole story, and then you’ll help me with my investigation and I’ll feel less lonely in hell.’

CHAPTER 5

LEFINE guessed that any mention of this business would get him into terrible trouble so, having a talent for weighing up the pros and cons, and being blessed with a pragmatic disposition, his first words after Margont had explained were: ‘So what do we do now?’

Margont selected a collection of poems and slipped it into one of his pockets.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not just helping myself to a book for some late-night reading. The man we’re looking for managed to seduce this woman in just a day. However, we know that the victim was not the sort to fall for the first man to come her way, so what could he have said to charm her so much?’

Margont brandished a second collection, like an impassioned preacher holding up the Bible.

‘Look how well thumbed these pages are. She read these works over and over again. She must have thought that he matched her ideal. The description of our murderer’s personality is in here.’

Lefine was sceptical. ‘For a respectable woman she was a bit quick to invite a stranger into her bedroom.’

‘That’s easy to explain. If the murderer really was an officer, he would only have had a few hours to spend in Tresno before starting out on a campaign that might last several months. Hundreds of soldiers had come here to enjoy themselves, so the only quiet place would have been her room. She was trusting; she didn’t seem to think he would take advantage of the situation.’

‘Or she wanted him to do so …’

‘That makes no difference to the argument.’

Margont leaned out of the window. He was not afraid of heights. It looked easy to him to step over the frame and get on to the roof.

‘Go down and tell the grenadiers and passers-by not to panic. Tell them I’m after a deserter and, as he used to be a chimney sweep, I suspect him of having hidden away somewhere up there. Then keep an eye on me from the street.’