The Orphan's Tale (42 page)

Larouche did not pause.
He scrambled up to his hands and knees and scuttled away, then pulled himself to his feet and ran as though all the Police in Paris were after him.

Monseigneur would be all right!
That would teach them to try and kill him! He belonged to Larouche!

ALWAYS MAKE CERTAIN THE VICTIM IS WOUNDED

BEFORE ATTEMPTING THE COUP DE GRACE

The blow to the back of his knees knocked Malet sprawling. The echo of the gunshot jolted him from the haze of anguish that had enveloped him and he realized the magnitude of his slip. The trap! He had set a trap - and walked away from it! He was alone, with no back-up, out in the open, and someone had just tried to kill him.

Malet lay motionless where he had fallen.
He spared an instant's attention to register the feel of a lithe little body disentangling itself from his legs and pushing itself to its feet as his hand closed about his pistol. He heard swift, light footsteps fading in the distance.

Someone had just rescued him from an assassination attempt, and he had no idea who it might have been.
But there was no time to puzzle over it now.

The shadows approached him, talking furtively among themselves.
It would not be much longer now before the honest people of Montmartre began to stir. He drew a deep, shivering breath as though he were in pain, and then expelled it in a long sigh.

"
Ah!" said one of the men.

"
Finish it," said another.

They came closer and bent over him.
Someone kicked him, hard, in the side. He did not move.

"
I think he's dead," said a third voice.

"
Turn him," said the first voice. "We'll finish him."

Ungentle hands took hold of his shoulder and turned him on his back.

Malet raised his pistol and fired. One of the forms crumpled to the ground as the others scattered. The second shot from his pistol winged another of them: he heard a muffled scream as he sprang to his feet.

Malet decided it was foolish to pursue them alone.
He had brought his backup pistol, but he did not want to waste the shots. It would take too long to reload his other piece, and there were too many of them. He stayed where he was.

"
Tell Dracquet he's made a mistake!" he called after them, and went over to the man sprawled against the pavement, just before the gateway to the cemetery of Saint Pierre de Montmartre. He turned the man with his foot and frowned down at him.

The man was gasping and retching.
A red foam was upon his lips. Maybe he could be saved, though Malet doubted it. It looked as though the bullet had nicked an artery.

Malet knelt beside the man and tore open his shirt with impersonal solicitude.
He shook his head. Hopeless. He spared a glance at the man's face. It was René Benoit. He frowned and bent to look more carefully, and as he did so he caught a faint scraping noise behind him, as though someone were trying to approach him very quietly.

His eyes widened in the darkness and he drew a deep, soft breath, every muscle tensed...

              **  **  **

Larouche hurtled down the hill of Montmartre through twisting, steep streets, like a shot from a cannon.
He knew that Monseigneur would be safe, but he also knew that the Police would be very angry, and he wanted to be far away from the dragnet that, he knew, they would throw around the district.

He descended to the Place Pigalle, sat down at the base of its fountain and ate the rest of the chicken that he had stolen at noon, listening with half an ear to the drunken chatter around him.
Maybe he could hear something useful... You never found out about handouts if you kept your ears closed.

His thoughts kept straying to that evening
's work. He had done well to keep Monseigneur from being killed. He didn't understand why the thought of that man lying dead in his blood was so disturbing. He told himself that he didn't want anyone to die, but it still didn't explain why he had been so appalled at the thought of those killers trying to murder Monseigneur. Maybe Larouche didn't hate him after all. He didn't know.

Well, Monseigneur was safe.
He belonged to Larouche, as Larouche had decided at the moment he had saved his life. He was Larouche's to befriend or to pester, as the spirit moved him. At the moment he didn't know how the spirit was moving him.

He finished the last of the chicken.
It was good as far as it went, but he was still hungry. He must be growing: it was getting harder and harder to fill his hungry little frame. He needed more food.

He decided to go to the bistro that the flower
-seller had mentioned. A franc a week was well worth the loss of a little of his freedom. He would go there as soon as he could. But in the meantime, he was hungry.

He reviewed the various places he could go for a treat and decided that it was time he paid a visit to M. Dracquet
's house. It wasn't far, and the man still owed him five francs. Dracquet might have no intention of paying Larouche, but Larouche would exact that payment one way or another, whether or not Dracquet was aware of it. Besides, Dracquet's cook, a father of four, was a particular friend.

He grinned, wiped his fingers on his trousers, and set off for Dracquet
's house.

             
**  **  **

"
So it's you, you little scoundrel!" scolded the cook's assistant as he opened the kitchen door and let him in. "Been away for a while, haven't you? What's the matter? Get hungry?"

Larouche grinned at the man.
"I didn't know you cared," he said. He got a swat on the behind for his pains. "Besides," he said, "I heard His Nibs is out of town - "

The cook
's assistant looked suddenly stricken, and he hurried off toward the pantry.

Larouche rolled his eyes toward the cook.

"Don't be nosy," said the cook, who was busy stirring a pan of sauce. He set the pan aside and came forward. "M. Dracquet is still in town, and so is that English fellow, but they don't want anyone to know of it. I have no idea why, but I don't like it. They took the knocker from the door and closed the shutters, and all the curtains have been drawn, and shady visitors from England talking about some princess or other..."

The man fell silent, and he looked as nervous as his assistant.
He drew a deep breath after a moment and added, "But that's not my concern, scamp. and it shouldn't be yours either. Sit down on that stool and eat this - " he set a quarter of blancmange before Larouche and put a pot of jam at his elbow. "Here's a nice sweet for you: eat it up."

Larouche didn
't like blancmanges, but he did understand the theory of supply and demand. If he didn't eat this one, he knew, he would end up wishing, some time down the road, that he had. No use regretting things, so he set his curiosity about Dracquet aside and shoveled the blancmange into his mouth, drank a fair-sized glass of rich milk, and nodded from time to time as the cook talked.

It took very little to please grownups, or at least the good ones.
The cook chattered on, unaware that Larouche was only paying attention with half his mind.

A
sudden crash and clatter followed by the sound of angry voices cut the cook off in mid spate.

"
What the devil do you mean coming to my house openly like this!" Dracquet's voice roared from the front of the house.

Larouche
's eyes widened and he scurried to the kitchen door.

"
Come back here!" the cook hissed. "There are some things it's best not to know!"

Larouche flashed him a look of scorn, pushed through to the sitting room door and peeked around the corner into the room.
Dracquet, very red and quivering, was resplendent in a brocaded dressing gown and a tasseled smoking cap. Larouche could see a woman in the room beyond, in a state that he had heard described as 'en deshabille', but which he himself termed half-naked.

A
man before him was picking himself up off the carpet with his hand to his face. "I had nowhere else to go," he objected. He flinched when Dracquet raised his hand again.

"
Really! So you came here! Dolt! Get off the carpet, Declaire! You're making a mess! Why shouldn't I send you away? You botched your attempt! My best marksman! A clear shot at him and you botched it!"

"
Le Noir fired at him and he crumpled," said Declaire. "René went up to finish him, and he pulled out a gun and shot. We all scattered, but not before he winged me. It was a mistake."

"
I will say it was! Where's Benoit?"

"
Back at the Butte," said Declaire. "He's dead."

"
You left him there?" Dracquet demanded. "Good God! He will be recognized for certain! And if he saw Benoit, then he will have an inkling - "

"
He said 'Tell Dracquet he made a mistake'," said Declaire with the air of a messenger afraid of his news.

"
He used my name, you say?" Dracquet demanded. "That crowns everything! You have botched it for certain - "

"
But le Noir's still there," said Declaire.

Dracquet
's back was turned, but his voice was easier when he spoke again. "That's something, at least," he said. "Well, you'd best get your hurts tended to. The evening's at an end for you."

Larouche drew a cautious breath.
So Dracquet had tried to kill Monseigneur! That bore some thought. At least Monseigneur was safe for the moment. Larouche sighed and withdrew to the kitchen.

The cook was waiting, frowning at him.
"Well?" he asked quietly.

"
Someone was killed tonight," Larouche said.

"
Killed!"

"
That's right," Larouche said. "It was Benoit. I think they tried to kill a cop, and they messed up. Dracquet's really pissed off."

"
Watch your language!" snapped the cook, still looking shaken. "René! Well, well! Not that he didn't have it coming to him."

"
Attacked a cop," Larouche said again.

"
You don't say! He was asking for trouble, then. No one in his right mind attacks a cop!"

Larouche thought of his stone
-throwing ventures and said nothing. He only looked up at the cook with wide-eyed innocence. "May I have some more milk?" he asked.

WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?

Malet drew a deep, soft breath, every muscle tensed.
The magnitude of his error smote him with all the force of a thirty-pound shot. They had followed him from the Prefecture, not from the restaurant. They were coming after him. They had fled only to regroup and send their wounded away. All his planning was useless: he had stepped out of his own trap, and they were between him and his friends.

He cast about for a way to get to help.
Christien L'Eveque's precinct was just to the north - and he could hear sounds coming from that direction. They would expect him to try to make his way to a Police or Army post; it would be useless even to try, especially in this arrondissement, where he knew he had enemies. He considered going to the Rose d'Or, but the thought of the innocents at that inn facing a hired killer like Pierre le Noir stopped that line of thought.

Danger lay all about him, and he could not remain where he was.
He was surrounded on all sides but one, and he had a sense of shadows converging upon him. The church cemetery was behind him - he whirled around, plunged into the silence of the cemetery, and flattened himself in the slight indentation formed by the lintel of the gate where it joined the wall.

He heard running feet and voices, low and swift.
They paused outside the gate.

"
He will have taken off east! That's where that fellow said he was heading: that's where he wants to go! You, Edouard - take Villatte with you and circle through here, then join us by the gate. I will send four others, as well. You'll have to split up and rejoin us here while we check along the walls. Two of you remain here at the gate, in case he tries to leave this way. We may be able to save our time and simply corner him here. But be careful: he's a tough one! Now hurry!"

The sound of grim, quiet laughter stopped the footsteps.
"Fools!" said a harsh, cold voice. "You don't catch a tiger by baiting a mousetrap!"

"
Do you have any suggestions?" demanded the first voice.

"
Load your pieces with your heaviest shot and set up a tiger hunt," said the second voice.

Malet heard murmurs, then the second voice said,
"You do what you want, le Noir. We're going after him."

"
It's your funeral," said le Noir's voice.