‘It’s true,’ admitted Relmyer. ‘I have been preparing the plan for several weeks, even before I met you. It’s what I call “the tactic of the false weakness”. It worked! We’ve seen him again, I sparred with him!’
Margont flushed with anger. ‘It was a suicidal tactic! We all nearly didn’t make it!’
‘I thought, I hoped, that he would try something, but how could I have guessed that he served in the militia and that he would throw himself on us with a crowd of soldiers?’
‘Is that all that you have to say to justify that carnage?’
‘No, that’s not all I have to say in my defence!’ stormed Relmyer. ‘Certainly there could have been many deaths and it would have been my fault, but I could very well have been the first victim! I was the bait. I thought my hussars and you would be the hook, not a second worm. I gave myself a one in two chance of surviving his shot and that was the reason that I needed you! Had I been killed I would have died knowing that I was bequeathing the investigation to Pagin and to you two.’
Lefine was appalled. This man is insane!’
Relmyer persisted, supporting his discourse with great sweeping gestures, which were not normal for him.
‘It has nothing to do with madness, it’s mathematics! If your opponent is an exceptional horseman, attack him while he’s having lunch at an inn! Everyone has a weak spot and that’s where you have to strike him! The man I’m looking for is a remarkable defensive tactician. He hides his traces, never draws attention to himself... So I harassed him, irritated him with my provocations, more and more. Until his exasperation obliged him to seek a direct confrontation. I acted like a beater who makes so much noise to frighten the prey that he eventually leaves his hiding place. I forced him to attack and reveal himself, which was so different from his normal way of proceeding that he showed himself much less effective than usual. That’s why the ambush was a big setback for him: badly prepared, badly organised and badly executed. On the other hand, as soon as our man returned to his favourite tactic
- hiding in the forest, avoiding head-on confrontation, using treachery - he regained the upper hand. If you abandon me, I won’t hold it against you, of course. Pagin and I will in the end flush this wolf out of the forest!’
‘How did the man find out that you were looking for him? How did he know where to find us when?’
‘I told you: I’ve been preparing my trap for a long time. I have been endlessly planting clues wherever I’ve been so that he understood that I had returned and was searching for him. I put little tin soldiers along approximately the path where he kidnapped me, in the ruined farm and around my old orphanage. Children’s toys in the places that linked us: the message was clear. And then there was the ruckus I made at Lesdorf Orphanage, the official and unofficial complaints by Madame Blanken, the scene with the police and magistrates when I tracked them down in Vienna to complain about their incompetence ... Everyone was talking about my return.’
Margont pressed his injured side so that the sharpened pain would chase away the effects of the alcohol again. Lefine, understanding what Margont was doing, shook his head, alarmed. Margont did not take his eyes off Relmyer.
‘When I went with you to explore that ruined farm, it had been burnt down. Apart from the fact that he wanted to burn any possible evidence, it was his response to your provocations. He was letting you know that he had received your message loud and clear, that it was in your interest to abandon your search and that, if you continued, you would end up like Franz and Wilhelm! He was trying to scare you.’
‘At first, I was shocked,’ conceded Relmyer. ‘But then I was happy! My plan was working, the man was starting to panic.’
‘The scene you made at the ball was all part of your plan!’ ‘Absolutely. And I also left a tin soldier on poor Wilhelm’s freshly dug grave.’
Relmyer’s assured facade was crumbling. Another facet of his personality started to show through the tatters.
‘What choice did I have? To sit on the terrace of a Kajfeehaus on the Craben, sampling the coffees all day and hoping to see him pass by? No, I had to force him into an error, and to do that I had to lower my guard. Yes, I almost got myself killed, but see how we have progressed, thanks to my plan. Now we know that he serves in the militia and that he’s an officer! I’m going to find out all about the Landwehr and the Viennese Volunteer regiments! And all that in addition to the clues we might find in the registers Ah yes, the registers, let’s talk about those properly! What exactly was that report that threw us into the lion’s mouth. Is it a fake?’
‘Of course it’s a fake! I suspected as much. It was too good to be true. Vienna is crawling with spies and Austrian sympathisers, and we know our man sometimes crosses over to our side of the line. He must have asked one of his acquaintances to find out about me. He learnt that I was spending my days in the Kriegsmin-isterium. It was even easier to discover since I was doing everything possible to make it known. Obviously he must have understood that I was on the trail of the registers. All he had to do was make up that false letter ... I can only dare to hope that he wrote it himself: but all the same he wouldn’t make us a present of his handwriting.’
‘How did he get it into the Kriegsministerium?’
Relmyer lowered his gaze. ‘I didn’t find it there, in fact. A Viennese man sold it to me. He claimed to work for the army and to have stolen a heap of documents just before Vienna fell to the French. He said he wanted to make money selling them to the French. According to him, he was keeping a watch on everyone who went into the Kriegsministerium, trying to find out what they wanted and seeing if that corresponded with what he possessed: maps, reports, files on officers, inventories, the layouts of fortified buildings ... I offered him a tidy sum in exchange for a dozen letters relating to the Austrian army. Only the one I showed you had any bearing on our case. The Viennese man must have been hand in glove with our murderer. Unfortunately the murderer used an intermediary. I know that because while I was launching my expedition, two of my hussars, who were discreetly following the Viennese fellow, grabbed him to interrogate him. He described the individual who had contacted him and paid him to make sure I received the false letters. The description did not tally at all with the man we’re looking for. Alas, it has not been possible to identify him. I turned in the charlatan to the general staff. If he really does possess confidential documents, our marshals will be very interested by what they find at his house.’
Relmyer did not care about the war. His remark was merely an attempt to placate Margont and Lefine, but it failed dismally.
‘It was a dirty trap!’ responded Margont. ‘You knew it: that’s why you pretended that you found the document yourself. It looks as if our adversary did not even bother to finesse this story of the trade in stolen documents. I believe that he suspected that you had guessed that it was just a trap! It’s as though together you had agreed a sort of rendezvous! The two of you, you agreed to play the game! And you, Lukas, you even limited the size of your escort so as not to dissuade him from attacking.’
Relmyer rapidly assessed these words.
‘I don’t know if he knew that I was a willing victim of his trap. But your friend Piquebois had definitely spotted that my first attack was intended to incite him to act. He believed that his assault would prevail anyway/
Lefine concluded, exasperated: ‘And here you are, all in disarray except for our enemy. Lieutenant Relmyer, you have manipulated us since the beginning because you knew that we would oppose your tactic of the earthworm on the fish-hook!’