The Red Necklace (25 page)

“It took two strong men to get him into that carriage, didn’t it?”

“You had to feel sorry for the girl, though. She was in tears by the time they took off.”

Yann had heard enough. A wave of panic flooded through him as he walked past the women and toward the door. He knocked hard, but he knew it was hopeless. He should have gotten her out when he had the chance. Now he hated to think of the danger she was in.

By the time Yann returned to the Theater of Liberty it was early evening. The curtain was due to go up shortly, and crowds were lining up outside, eager to see the show, and being entertained by musicians and tumblers. Yann went through the stage door and up the stairs to Monsieur Aulard’s office.

Têtu was in the middle of a terrible argument with the theater manager. Didier, his great arms folded across his chest, stood watching his boss and the dwarf bellow at each other. Têtu had his sleeves rolled up as if ready to start fighting.

“He is here to protect me, not to run errands for you,” Monsieur Aulard was shouting.

“You don’t need protection. You’re not in any danger. We, on the other hand, need vital information, and that old mooncalf of yours is the one for the job.”

"Don’t keep calling me a mooncalf !” snapped Didier. "You’re always doing that. It’s irritating me.”

“Stop it!” shouted Yann. They turned to look at him. “Stop it! Sido’s gone. Tull came last night. She’s left with the marquis.”

“Well, that was fast,” said Têtu, out of breath. “With luck she’ll be well on her way to England by now.”

“No, something’s wrong. When the carriage came last night the marquis kept screaming and wouldn’t get in. A crowd gathered and he kicked Sido in front of them and insulted them all.”

“He is deranged,” said Monsieur Aulard. “What do you expect?”

“If he was making that much of a din, then their attempt to escape must have been obvious,” said Têtu. "Why wasn’t he arrested?”

“They probably thought he was being taken to the asylum,” said Monsieur Aulard helpfully.

The implication of Têtu’s question suddenly hit them all like a hammer blow. Têtu rolled down his shirtsleeves and pulled at his jacket, all notion of fighting gone.

“That scoundrel,” he said. “We need to make immediate inquiries about Tull. I take it you don’t mind if I use Didier?”

“Of course not. Did I ever say I did?” said Monsieur Aulard.

“Don’t worry,” said Didier, shoving his red cap onto his head. “I’ll be back in time to take you home after the show.”

“Thank you,” said Monsieur Aulard, taking hold of Didier’s hand. "You are a good man.” He went back to his desk. "But Didier, for pity’s sake go down to wardrobe and get a hat that fits.”

Têtu and Didier set off toward the cafés on the rue du Temple. Yann decided to take the maze of small streets that led off the rue des Francs-Bourgeois in search of anyone who had information about the coach or its driver that might lead him to Tull.

It was well past midnight when he gave up. By then the streets were deserted. Occasionally he would come across groups of sans-culottes swaying as if the city were at sea, singing patriotic songs.

“Good night to you, citizen,” they would call drunkenly.

Suddenly an idea came to him. He remembered how partial Mr. Tull was to his beer. Where in the city, he wondered, was a café that sold beer to tempt an Englishman? Of course, the café in the Palais-Royal!

By the time he arrived, most of the clientele was emptying lazily out onto the street. The few customers remaining looked as though they were glued to their chairs. The place smelled of stale wine and beer, and was filled with the smoke from too many pipes. The barman looked up when he saw Yann enter.

“We’re closed, citizen.”

“I haven’t come for a drink. I’m looking for an Englishman by the name of Tull. Does he come in here?”

“What’s that to you?” said the bartender, putting down the glass he was rubbing with a dirty cloth.

“I need to speak to him,” said Yann. “It’s urgent.”

The bartender grabbed him by the lapels of his sky-blue coat.

“Beat it. As I said, we’re closed. Now, you wouldn’t want me spoiling those good looks of yours, would you?”

He let him go. Yann felt a surge of ice-cold fury rush in upon him. He lifted his head slowly to see threads of light coming from everything and everyone in the café. Yann stood there like a puppet-master, feeling in complete control. Instinctively he put out his hand, pulling at the threads, so that first one glass and then another fell, smashing all around the startled bartender, who stood petrified as he watched the young man orchestrating objects to move at his will.

The last customers ran from the café as chairs went flying across the room. Yann slammed the door behind them. He laughed. He was enjoying himself. He turned back to the bartender.

“Let me ask you again. Does a Mr. Tull drink here?”

“Yes, yes,” said the bartender anxiously.

“And do you know who he works for?”

The bartender beckoned him closer.

“You promise you won’t say anything?” he whispered into his ear. “I’m a dead man if you do.”

Exhausted, Yann walked back to his lodgings. The performance in the café had taken all his strength. Now, more than anything, he needed to sleep. Suddenly he understood why Têtu had always looked so ashen after working the Pierrot.

He dragged his way up to his room to find Têtu sitting on the stairs waiting for him.

“Where have you been?” he asked.

"Trying to find out who Mr.Tull works for,” said Yann, opening his door. Even though it was nearly dawn, the air hadn’t cooled down. There was no wind, not even a breeze, just insufferable heat. He sat down heavily on the bed.

“The Duchesse de Lamantes was brought back to Paris two nights ago under the arrest of the National Guard,” said Têtu. “Apparently Tull has a lucrative trade in double-dealing his customers.”

Yann lay down on the bed. “Tull,” he said, looking up at the skylight, "works for Kalliovski. I’m sorry, Têtu, I need to sleep.”

Têtu got up to leave. “There is one last thing you should know. Two more prisoners were delivered to the Abbaye last night. The Marquis de Villeduval and his daughter.”

chapter twenty-six

Mr. Tull felt that he had earned his money good and proper. The night before last had been hard work indeed. It had taken him longer than he had expected to get that lunatic of a marquis into the coach. The noise the man had made was enough to wake the dead, blast his blue blood! He attracted unwelcome attention. Mr. Tull had had to bang loudly on the roof of the coach.

“Bloody well shut up! If you don’t, I’ll come and deal with you.”

The sound of Mr. Tull’s large fist and rasping voice reverberated around the inside of the coach. It made Sido jump, but it had the desired effect. The marquis stopped banging on the windows. He looked at Sido, aghast.

“Hear that? The devil is up there and he’s coming to get you. As far as I’m concerned he can have you, wretched cripple that you are.”

Sido sat huddled in the corner. She felt vulnerable. Her leg hurt from where her father had kicked her, and there was no Jean Rollet to protect her if he decided to attack again. She just hoped that Jean would be all right. He had told her he had relatives he could stay with for a while, that she was not to worry. Seeing him disappear had been hard indeed, as if the last brick in the ruins of this life had come tumbling down. She didn’t like Mr. Tull, and she didn’t trust him.

Since Sido spoke hardly any English, and Mr. Tull’s French was so bad that she had trouble working out what he was saying, there was no way of discovering whether she had reason to be concerned. All she knew was that they were leaving behind everything that was familiar.

“Well,” said the marquis as the coach made its way through the darkened streets, “what is it you want from me?”

“For you to calm down,” replied Sido.

“And if I do, will you and the devil disappear?”

Sido turned away from him and looked longingly out of the grimy window. She thought of Yann and wondered what he was doing. This Revolution should have been so glorious, she thought. It should have been her salvation, yet here she was, tied by birth to one of the pillars of the old regime. Everything her father stood for she loathed, yet she felt that the word
liberty,
a word that was used so often and with such passion, would never apply to her.

At St. Germain the carriage slowed down and then came to a sudden stop. She could hear people speaking outside, and dimly through the grubby windows she saw that Mr. Tull was not alone.

Suddenly she realized what was happening. A feeling of suffocating panic overtook her. She tried desperately to open the carriage doors and gave up, defeated. They had been tricked. They were not going to England. They were being taken to prison.

“Sit down,” said her father sharply. “It is not your place to open the door. Leave that to the footman.”

Mr. Tull unlocked the carriage and stood aside as one prison guard took charge of Sido and two others dragged the marquis out, taking the precaution of tying his hands behind his back. Mr. Tull stood there looking unconcerned. He couldn’t care less. They were just another pair of lost sheep rounded up for the slaughter. He would get a good purse for the marquis and his daughter, more than enough to settle his bills and allow him to forget his cares in this stinking sewer of a city. It was another night’s work successfully done, though it hadn’t been as much fun as duping the old duchess. He chuckled at the memory of seeing her dressed up as a governess. He had heartily enjoyed her humiliation. Still, the girl stuck in his gullet a little. She didn’t deserve her fate, but orders were orders, and who was he to judge the right and the wrong of it.

“Anyway, money’s money,” he said under his breath as he climbed back up onto the coach. “They’ve brought it on themselves, all these lords and ladies. Let
them
eat cake.”

The marquis entered the prison of L’Abbaye as if going to stay at a grand château. He did not notice the dirtiness of his surroundings, nor did he hear the growls of the jailers’ dogs. He stood there tall and proud, a man to be reckoned with.

“What is your name?” the clerk at the desk asked.

“I am the Marquis de Villeduval of the Château de Rochefort des Champs.”

The clerk smiled. “You don’t say, citizen.”

The gatekeeper, an ugly, bad-tempered man with a paper-cut for a mouth and an all too generous helping of teeth, stood swaying back and forth and smelling strongly of liquor. At his side were two ferocious hounds that looked more than a little hungry and saw all new prisoners as potential dog meat.

“And your name, citizeness?”

“Sido,” she said quietly. She did not give her surname. It seemed pointless. What did any of it matter anymore?

“Which would you prefer, citizen, a cell with two beds or one?”

“I need an apartment to myself,” said the marquis imperiously, “and I shall need a room for my valet.”

“And what about the young lady, citizen?”

The marquis looked around the room and, appearing to see no one, lowered his voice. “She hasn’t followed me, has she? Been trying to shake her off, you know. If you see her, don’t let her in. Demand to see her papers. She’s in the employment of the devil and I know for certain that she’s dead.”

The clerk looked at him, puzzled. “You’re a strange one, you are. Well, I take it you want two single cells? That will be thirty livres a month, not counting your meals, which are extra, as is water and a glass. We aim to provide the highest service here.”

The marquis appeared not to have heard a word; he stood with his eyes fixed at some invisible point before him.

“Show me to my apartment,” he demanded.

“Not so fast, citizen, payment up front. Nothing on the slate. We don’t know how long your stay is likely to be.”

The guard standing behind him started to laugh.

“Do I know you, sir?” asked the marquis.

The guard directed a great gobbet of spit onto the stone floor.

“I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure,” he smirked.

“We have no money,” said Sido quickly. “We have nothing.”

“No money!” snarled the turnkey. He laughed disdainfully.

“Then you will both be living in the banqueting hall,” said the clerk. He called to another guard to take the marquis to the men’s quarters.

“Which cell for her?” asked the turnkey.

“The one for nonpaying guests.”

“My pleasure,” said the turnkey. “This way.”

“Papa!” cried Sido as the marquis was led away. He did not turn around.

“Friendly kind of man, ain’t he?” said the turnkey. “This way, citizeness.”

The dogs were now pulling so hard that Sido thought at any moment the turnkey would topple over. He yanked the dogs back, holding on tight to a rail with his other hand.

“These are the women’s quarters.” He held up the lantern to reveal a row of doors, each with a small barred window. In one of them the face of the duchess appeared. Sido could hardly believe that it was only a week since she had seen her, so altered was her appearance.

“Oh no,” she called out, seeing Sido, “not you as well. I am so sorry, I didn’t . . .” Her voice trailed off, lost as the turnkey prodded Sido down the long dark corridor.

If there is a hell, thought Sido, this must be how it would look, how it would smell. She wished she had had a drink of water before she’d gotten into the coach. She felt so unbearably hot and thirsty.

“This,” said the turnkey, opening a door, “is for lady customers who can’t pay for their board and lodging.” He pushed Sido inside. “Sweet dreams, citizeness.”

Sido stood with her back against the heavy door, in a soup of thick darkness, unable to see a thing. The key turned noisily in the lock.