‘Fernand, for heaven’s sake! The Swords of the King might come across you. If you have all that money on you, they’ll know immediately who you’re working for!’

‘Don’t worry, I’ve already spent it all. I may be greedy, but I’m not stupid. I paid the men - four in all, because there were also two men watching Catherine de Saltonges - and I bought a present for a lady friend.’

He smiled disarmingly. Margont, who was always in a ferment of projects and ideals, sometimes envied his friend his nonchalant approach to life.

‘Let’s go back to Charles de Varencourt,’ continued Lefine. ‘No one ever visits him. But he often goes out, so he’s almost never at home. Unfortunately, he is practically impossible to follow. For example, he will suddenly begin running and, obviously, the person who’s following him can’t do the same ... He sometimes manages to lose my men. Sometimes I go myself to keep watch outside his house. I’ve tried to follow him three times but lost him. But yesterday I got Natai to tell me that Varencourt was coming to see him that day, to collect his traitor’s salary. Natai refused to say exactly how much it was, from which I gathered that Varencourt is even greedier than I am. I hid opposite Natai’s office. Varencourt came to get his money and immediately went off to gamble. He was so impatient that he wasn’t as cunning and careful. He was trying quite hard, like the other times, but he must already have been thinking about the hands he was going to play, and this time he didn’t manage to lose me.’

‘Are you sure he didn’t spot you?’

‘When I follow someone, they only see me if I want them to! First he went to Quai des Miramiones, opposite Tie Saint-Louis, to a

cabaret, La Gueuse du quai. He seems to be very well known there. Everyone greeted him by the name Monsieur Pigrin. And his nickname seems to be King Midas because he’s so lucky at cards that everything he touches turns to gold! I wish I was like that. He joined a table of whist players and began betting, betting, betting ... I was having a drink with a bunch of drunkards who were all telling me their misfortunes, either real or imagined, and I was able to watch him discreetly. You should have seen his face as he looked at his cards. Such nervous excitement, such impatience, such rage ... Oh, yes, the card-demon has him in its grip. And it’s a hell of a demon, I can tell you! He won more often than he lost, and left with his winnings. He didn’t seem worried about being set upon for the money - he must be armed. He didn’t go far, only to a second bar, very small, Le Louveteau. I didn’t go in there; it would have been too risky. So instead I asked a passer-by where I could find a game of cards. He gave me a few addresses of the best-known ones, La Commere, Le Sultan du feu ... I went to the closest, which was Le Sultan du feu. What a strange name!’ ‘That’s what the Mamelukes called Bonaparte during the Egyptian campaign, because our infantry fired on all the devils opposing them.’

‘Who do you think came in half an hour later? He joined the other players like a starving man feeding his hunger. The more he plays, the more the card-demon reinforces his hold over him.’

‘Like eau-de-vie only makes a drunkard thirstier and thirstier...’

‘But this time he didn’t play whist. He played vingt-et-un and he took huge risks. At first he accumulated winnings. But as he was pushing his luck, he began to lose. I did notice one thing. There was something that gave him more pleasure than winning. It was when he began to win after having lost a lot. It was very striking. When that happened, he was exultant.’

‘Interesting. As if he prefers climbing back up a slope to climbing it in the first place.’

‘That’s a complicated way of saying what I’ve just explained clearly. That’s you all over, that...’

Margont could easily imagine Charles de Varencourt busily

studying his cards. When he spoke, he always seemed to be bargaining, to be engaged in a game.

‘What did he do next?’

‘At about six o'clock, he went to Faubourg Saint-Germain, Rue de Lille. Having played with the poor, he then went to play with the rich. He knocked on the door of a baroque-looking abode with moulded columns and statues of naked beauties supporting a large balcony — exactly the kind of house I dream of! A valet opened the door to him and greeted him with a bow, but not a deep bow. I had the impression that the owner of the house considered himself superior to Varencourt but that he nevertheless enjoyed his company. The servant said: “Monsieur le Comte would be delighted to play cards with you today but he would like to make clear that this time he will shuffle the cards himself” Varencourt agreed and went inside.’

‘Perhaps he cheats sometimes and that’s why his host wanted to deal the cards himself...’

‘Other players arrived. There was an old aristocrat in a powdered wig, his face whitened with make-up, with one of those horrible tufts of hair on his chin. You could have sworn that he had inadvertently fallen asleep at Versailles and woken up twenty years later thinking, where the devil is Louis XVI? What’s happened to the court and the Swiss Guard? Next to arrive was a captain of the National Guard, jingling his money in his hand. Finally a couple of bourgeois arrived at the same time, boasting of their success in the games they had just played.’

They must have thought that swaggering would bring them luck. As if they were saying to Luck, “You remember us, don’t you? We spent such good times together the last time ...” What superstition!’

‘I think they were all addicted to gambling. I did some research on the owner. He’s the Comte de Barrelle. Imperial nobility. Sixty-three years old and never leaves the house. Varencourt came out th ree hours later looking depressed. Not bitter or angry, more despairing. I’m sure he had lost everything. He went home and sat up late. When every other house in the street was in darkness,

there was still a candle burning in his bedroom window.’

‘What’s his house like?’

‘He rents an attic. As small as a pigeon house/

‘I’m living like a pigeon too. How can he bear to live like that when he doesn’t have to? The police are giving him vast sums of money!’

‘He prefers gaming. And all this time soldiers aren’t receiving any pay!’

‘Everything froze during the retreat from Moscow ... Going back to Charles de Varencourt. Why is he addicted to gambling?’

‘Is there always a reason?’

‘Not always. But sometimes. If he’s the murderer, why the fire? There are too many blanks, too many gaps in what we know about the suspects. Time is not on our side, and yet we mustn’t fail! The situation is already bad enough.’

Margont looked up the hill of Montmartre. From up there, the whole of the capital could be seen. It was the key to Paris. If the enemy captured it, they would mount large-calibre cannons on the top of it and they would be able to bombard the city. There should have been swarms of crack soldiers on the hill, building redoubts. When an ant hill is threatened, it covers itself in ants. The same should have gone for the heights at Saint-Germain, at la Villette, at Buttes-Chaumont and at Nogent-sur-Marne. From 1809 to 1810, when Wellington, the commander-in-chief of the British troops, had been operating in the Iberian Peninsula, he had erected fortifications at Torres Vedras to protect Lisbon. Margont had seen them with his own eyes. Ditches, pre-ditches, traps, bastions overlapping each other, entrenchments flanking the assailants, little fortresses ... More than a hundred redoubts and four hundred and fifty cannons, all in three stacked lines! A triple line of defence, three raised fists, warning the French to stop! When Marshal Massena came face to face with them, leading his sixty thousand men, he had indeed stopped short. He and his general staff had spent entire days trying to find ways through the blockade, had reached the conclusion that ... it was impossible, and had ordered his troops to retreat. Wellington had triumphed without even