"I understand."
"Yes. I'm sure you do."
Liana Taillefer made it obvious that their meeting was now at an end. She saw him to the door and held out her hand to him. With the folder under his arm and his bag on his shoulder, Corso shook hands with her and felt her firm grip. Inwardly he gave her a good mark for her performance. Not the happy widow, yet not devastated by grief; no cold "I'm glad that idiot's gone" or "Alone at last" or "You can come out of the wardrobe now, darling." If there was anyone in the wardrobe, it was none of Corso's business. Nor was Enrique Taillefer's suicide, however strange—and it was mighty strange, gadzooks, with all that business of the queen's page and the disappearing manuscript. But neither the suicide nor the beautiful widow were any concern of his. For now.
He looked at her. I'd love to know who's having you, he thought with cool technical curiosity. He drew a mental picture of the man: handsome, mature, cultured, wealthy. He was almost a hundred percent sure it must be a friend of her deceased husband. He wondered if the publisher's suicide had anything to do with it, then stopped himself in disgust. Professional quirk or not, he sometimes had the absurd habit of thinking like a policeman. He shivered at the thought. Who knows what depths of depravity, or stupidity, he hidden in our soul?
"I must thank you for taking the time to see me," he said, choosing the most touching smile from his repertoire, the one that made him resemble a friendly rabbit.
It was met with a blank. She was looking at the Dumas manuscript.
"You don't have to thank me. I'm just naturally interested to know how all this will end."
"I'll let you know how it's going ... Oh, and there's something else. Do you intend to keep your husband's collection, or are you thinking of selling it?"
She looked at him, disconcerted. Corso knew from experience that when a book collector died, the books often followed the body out the front door twenty-four hours later. He was surprised, in fact, that none of his predatory colleagues had dropped by yet. After all, as she had admitted herself, Liana Taillefer didn't share her husband's literary tastes.
"The truth is, I haven't had time to think about it.... Do you mean you'd be interested in those old serials?"
"I could be."
She hesitated a moment. Perhaps a few seconds longer than necessary. "It's all too recent," she said at last, with a suitable sigh. "Maybe in a few days' time."
Corso put his hand on the banister and started down the stairs. He took the first few steps slowly, feeling uneasy, as if he'd left something behind but couldn't remember what. He was certain he hadn't forgotten anything. When he reached the first landing, he looked up and saw that Liana Taillefer was still at the door, watching him. She appeared both worried and curious. Corso continued on down the stairs, and his frame of vision, like a slow-motion camera, slid down her body. He could no longer see the inquiring look in her ice-blue eyes; he saw instead her bust, hips, and finally her firm, pale legs set slightly apart, as strong as temple columns, and suggestive.
He was still reeling as he crossed the hall and went into the street. He could think of at least five unanswered questions and needed to put them in order of importance. He stopped at the curb, opposite the railings of the park of El Retiro, and looked casually to his left, waiting for a taxi. An enormous Jaguar was parked a few meters away. The chauffeur, in a dark gray, almost black, uniform, was leaning on the hood and reading a newspaper. At that instant, the man looked up and his eyes met Corso's. It lasted only a second, and then he went back to reading his paper. He was dark, with a mustache, and his cheek was scored from top to bottom by a pale scar. Corso thought the chauffeur looked familiar: he definitely reminded him of somebody. It could have been the tall man who played at the slot machine in Makarova's bar. But there was something else. That face stirred some vague, distant memory. Before Corso could give it any more thought, however, an empty taxi appeared. A man in a loden coat carrying an executive briefcase hailed it from the other side of the street, but the driver was looking in Corso's direction. Corso made the most of this and quickly stepped off the curb to snatch the taxi from under the other man's nose.
He asked the driver to turn down the radio, then settled himself in the backseat, looking out at the surrounding traffic but not taking it in. He always enjoyed the sense of peace he got inside a taxi. It was the closest he ever came to a truce with the outside world: everything beyond the window was suspended for the duration of the journey. He leaned his head on the back of the seat and savored the view.
It was time to think of serious matters. Such as The Book of the Nine Doors and his trip to Portugal, the first step in this job. But he couldn't concentrate. His meeting with Enrique Taillefer's widow had raised too many questions and left him strangely uneasy. There was something he couldn't quite put his finger on, like watching a landscape from the wrong angle. And there was something else: it took him several stops at traffic lights to realize that the chauffeur of the Jaguar kept reappearing in his mind's eye. This bothered him. He was sure that he'd never seen him before that time at Makarova's bar. But an irrational memory recurred. I know you, he thought. I'm sure I do. Once, a long time ago, I bumped into a man like you. And I know you're out there somewhere. On the dark side of my memory.
GROUCHY WAS NOWHERE TO be seen, but it no longer mattered. Bulow's Prussians were retreating from the heights of Chapelle St. Lambert, with Sumont and Subervie's light cavalry at their heels. There was no problem on the left flank: the red formations of the Scottish infantry had been overtaken and devastated by the charge of the French cuirassiers. In the center, the Jerome division had at last taken Hougoumont. And to the north of Mont St. Jean, the blue formations of the good Old Guard were gathering slowly but implacably, with Wellington withdrawing in delicious disorder to the little village of Waterloo. It only remained to deal the coup de grâce.
Lucas Corso observed the field. The solution was Ney, of course. The bravest of the brave. He placed him at the front, with Erlon and the Jerome division, or what remained of it, and made them advance at a charge along the Brussels road. When they made contact with the British troops, Corso leaned back slightly in his chair and held his breath, sure of the implications of his action: in a few seconds he had just sealed the fate of twenty-two thousand men. Savoring the feeling, he looked lovingly over the compact blue and red ranks, the pale green of the forest of Soignes, the dun-colored hills. God, it was a beautiful battle.
The blow struck them hard, poor devils. Erlon's corps was blown to pieces like the hut of the three little pigs, but the lines formed by Ney and Jerome's men held. The Old Guard was advancing, crushing everything in its path. The English formations disappeared one by one from the map. Wellington had no choice but to withdraw, and Corso used the French cavalry's reserves to block his path to Brussels. Then, slowly and deliberately, he dealt the final blow. Holding Ney between his thumb and forefinger, he made him advance three hexagons. He compared forces, consulting his tables: the British were outnumbered eight to three. Wellington was finished. But there was still one small opening left to chance. He consulted his conversion table and saw that all he needed was a 3. He felt a stab of anxiety as he threw the dice to decide what the small factor of chance would be. Even with the battle won, losing Ney in the final minute was only for real enthusiasts. In the end he got a factor of 5. He smiled broadly as he gave an affectionate little tap to the blue counter representing Napoleon. I know how you feel, friend. Wellington and his remaining five thousand wretches were all either dead or taken prisoner, and the emperor had just won the battle of Waterloo. Allons enfants de la Patrie! The history books could go to hell.