Deadly Descent (11 page)

“
Diomedes Carrying Away the Palladium of Troy
,” remarked Derennes, nodding to the statue. “Copy of a work by the Swede Sergell, they say.” Muscles tensed in mid-stride, his hand gripping a small statue of Pallas Athena, the Greek hero glanced sharply to his right. “He's seen light glinting off the sword of an enemy,” said Derennes. A golden glow from the candles bathed the statue's clean, perfectly proportioned features. Anne imagined him alive, alerted to danger. Her head turned instinctively in the same direction.

Catching her eye, Derennes pointed to galleries beyond the hall. “You must see the duke's collection, one of the greatest in France.” At the entrance, the young man spoke to a liveried footman who let them pass. They entered a large room with more splendid paintings on its walls than Anne had ever seen before. She raised her mask in wonder.

“Here are my favorites, the Lombard School, especially the Carracci brothers and Guido Reni.” Derennes walked up to a cluster of pictures and also lifted his mask. He seemed at ease and engaged with the art before him, as if the painters were his intimate friends. Anne could understand his appreciation of their lovely landscapes and mythological scenes. But what pleasure could he draw from their religious works? He seemed so worldly. When he stepped back from admiring the pictures, she asked about them.

“These artists had to paint what their patrons wanted,” he replied. “But Augustino Carracci, like the other two painters of the school, sought beauty above all, even when the subject was religious, like this one.” Derennes grasped Anne's elbow and drew her closer to the picture of a man being skinned alive. “Look, two men with sharp knives are peeling off Bartholomew's skin, but he feels no pain. His body still expresses ideal beauty. The mounted officer directs the torture with serene calm. A witness discreetly averts his eyes. From above, a sweet angel offers a martyr's crown to the upstretched hands of the saint.”

Stepping back, the young nobleman extended his arms as if calling a blessing on the painting. “There you have it,” he exclaimed. “Perfect structure and balance, light evenly diffused, colors toned down. A quiet, harmonious scene that delights our eye.”

He savored the pleasure for a moment, then turned to Anne and pointed at the scene with a now trembling hand. “What has
this
to do with real martyrdom? Think of it! The flaying of a man alive. Bloody butchery.” He folded his arms in disgust. “Art for the devout indeed!”

Anne was at a loss for words, growing weary of the chevalier's sardonic observations. Much of what he had said made sense, but she detected in him an unhealthy passion for beauty, as if its pleasures were all that mattered.

They hurried past Guido Reni's
Saint Sebastian
with a glance at the martyr's elegant nude body pierced by three arrows. “I want you to see the next one,” the nobleman murmured darkly. “It ought to intrigue you.” They approached a small painting by Reni of a young woman tied to a pillar, gazing toward heaven. A man held a long pincers at her mouth. “She's Saint Apollina,” Derennes remarked. He shot Anne a malign glance that made her shiver. “The man's about to pull out her tongue. The best way to deal with women who use it loosely.”

His remark shocked Anne, as if it were a threat aimed at her. Out of the corner of her eye, she observed him closely. Head tilted back, eyes shifting from one painting to the next, he seemed to have altered his attitude. He had had enough of serene beauty, she concluded. His expression had become unfathomable, vaguely menacing. Refusing to be intimidated, Anne cleared her throat to get his attention. “I understand there was a murder here a year ago.” She took care to speak as if merely curious, prompted by the scenes of violence depicted in the paintings.

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “It was nothing—a clown's quarrel with an old actress.”

His words rang in her mind. “It was nothing.” His cheeks were flushed, sunken. His eyes, dark, cold. With a curt motion for her to follow, he left the gallery.

Back in the main hall they fell behind a group of exotic “savages” beating drums and shrieking wild incantations. He touched her arm and pointed toward a deeply recessed doorway. “In here you will find a rare garden of delights.” She hesitated, sensing that something wasn't right. He reached for her arm, as if to draw her in. She shook her head and took a step back.

At that moment, a masked pirate appeared suddenly at her side. “Wait a moment,” he said. She recognized Chevalier de Pressigny, a note of anger in his voice. “Simon, I need to speak to you. Miss Cartier, would you excuse us.”

She watched while Derennes unlocked the door and the two men disappeared into the room. How odd! she thought, that the door had been locked. What had Derennes intended? She shivered, as the possibilities flashed before her mind's eye. Revelers jostled her. She hardly noticed. Why had the directeur intervened? For her sake? He hardly knew her.

While she stood there perplexed, another masked figure in a pirate's costume came up to her. “Dido, I believe. May I be of service?”

She breathed a sigh of relief.

Georges bowed deeply with a flourish of his hat. “I've been following Pressigny, and trying to keep an eye on you as well. Looks like he and I arrived at a critical moment.”

Anne described her encounters with Derennes from the rehearsal yesterday up to now.

“I believe he intended to do you harm. The notebook you mentioned must contain guilty secrets. He may suspect you've read parts of it. Pressigny somehow realized what Derennes intended to do and, for whatever reason, stepped in to stop him.”

“I shall think better of him from now on.”

“Let's see what happens.” Georges glanced dubiously at her regal garb. “You must change your costume downstairs. I'll wait here for you. Hurry back before they come out.”

Ten minutes later, Anne returned as a shepherd boy. “Any sign of them yet?”

“No. I'm beginning to wonder.”

For another ten minutes, they strolled through the hall, keeping the door in sight. Masked men and women gathered around buffet tables of food and wine, or sat in small groups in the hall. Minstrels in Italian costumes filled the air with lilting songs. At the far end of the hall Anne noticed a pair of rooms apparently reserved for gambling and piquant entertainment. She might check them later.

Finally, the recessed door opened. Pressigny edged out, glancing nervously left and right. He locked the door, took a deep breath, and stepped into the hall. Georges and Anne drew close enough to study his face. Beneath his studied nonchalance she could detect the twitching of his mouth and his shifty troubled eyes. He glanced her way but didn't recognize her in the new disguise. He donned his mask and hurried away.

Georges leaned over and whispered to Anne, “I'll follow Pressigny for five minutes and then come back. Keep an eye on the door and stay out of trouble.”

Anne resumed the watch alone. She was trying to look inconspicuous, when Henriette Picard approached her in the guise of a Greek goddess. A garland crowned her hair, a low-cut gossamer gown revealed all the contours of her body. “Good Lord,” Anne thought. “I'm trapped.”

Henriette gripped her by the arm and drew her close. “Who is this charming lad, may I ask?” Brandy had slurred her speech and clouded her vision.

“A humble shepherd, Mademoiselle,” replied Anne, lowering her voice. “Would you excuse me, I'm waiting for a friend. You and I must meet on another occasion.” At that moment, Anne saw Georges weaving his way through the crowd toward her. “Ah, there he is,” she exclaimed, tearing herself loose from Henriette.

Georges appeared puzzled. “Pressigny turned in his costume and left the building. Much agitated.”

“Shouldn't Derennes have come out by now? Could he have left by another door?”

“This is the only one,” Georges replied. “I know the palace, every inch of it, from the days I worked for Lieutenant-General Sartine. For a month, I investigated a cabal the duke was believed to have organized.” He paused, scratched his head, stared fixedly at the door. Suddenly, his face lighted up. “There
is
another way out.” He pointed to the recessed doorway. “That leads to a storeroom and a hidden door to the basement. I can guess where he might be. Let's go!”

They took a circuitous route into the basement and, by the light of an oil lamp, made their way through a narrow, moldy passage. Sconces on the wall, draped with cobwebs, resembled mythological beasts. Their candles had yellowed with age and stood askew. Georges stopped at a rampant basilisk whose webbing had been recently disturbed.

“He triggers a lock,” Georges said. “There's one like it on the other side. The door's hollow. Turns on a pivot.”

Anne gingerly touched the basilisk's serpentine body, the sharp, hooked beak, the malevolent protuberant eyes, the crowned head holding a grimy candle—a cryptic sign for the horror that she suspected took place within.

“Pull down on it.”

She did as he asked and a section of the wall slowly swung inward. She stepped cautiously into a dank windowless room. A few candles burned low in the fantastic wall sconces. Others were spluttering out, throwing a fitful light over the room. Pincers, hooks, pokers, and other sinister instruments hung on the walls of massive, crudely cut stone blocks. A brazier stood in a corner of the room, an iron poker resting in the glowing charcoal.

“Is this what Derennes had planned for me?” She stared at the pincers and the hot poker. “Saint Apollina, indeed!” She trembled.

Georges glanced sharply at her. “What's the matter?”

She related to him what Derennes had said in front of Reni's picture of the saint's martyrdom. As she finished speaking, her eye strayed to a white cloth on the floor in the shadow of the brazier. She picked it up—a kerchief. “Pressigny's been here.” She showed Georges the directeur's monogram.

“The two men must have come down here from the storeroom. So where's Derennes?” Georges looked about the room. With the toe of his boot he lifted the edge of a square straw mat. “What's this?” He pulled the mat aside, and unbolted and raised a heavy trap door.

A fetid odor from below drove him back reeling. He returned with the lamp and peered into a dark pit.

“Christ!” Georges rubbed his eyes. “A skeleton! A woman, judging from the hair. One of Derennes' victims?”

Anne looked over his shoulder, then stepped back, nauseated. She couldn't speak.

“As best I can judge,” Georges continued, “it's been there for some time.” He lowered the lamp as far as he could. “Good God! The floor of the pit is littered with small skeletons. Cats or dogs, I think. And there's something moving just beyond the reach of my light.”

Anne joined him again at the trap door.

A figure crawled haltingly into the light and looked up. “Get me out of here,” Derennes cried, his tunic torn and dirty, his face bruised, his nose bleeding.

“Who beat you and threw you in here?”

“I won't say.”

“Did you do this?” Georges brought the light directly over the skeleton.

“No. I never saw her before.”

“Liar. What had you planned here for tonight? Candles lighted. A hot poker in the brazier.”

Derennes didn't respond at first, then shouted again, “Get me out of here!” He began to whine piteously, covered his face with his hands.

Georges slammed the trapdoor shut and bolted it. His chest heaved with rage. “Damned, abominable liar!”

“Do we call the police?” Anne asked, her voice breaking.

“Not until I talk to the colonel.” Georges put the mat back over the trapdoor. “We'll leave Derennes here for now.”

Back in the narrow passage, Georges pushed the door shut behind them. “You'd never find it unless you tapped the wall up to the hollow sound.”

They returned by way of the stairway up to the storeroom, observing that something had been dragged across its dusty floor. Fresh blood had spotted a sofa-cover, a chair had a newly broken leg. “Pressigny must have beaten Derennes here, dragged him downstairs to the dungeon, and thrown him into the pit.”

At the exit to the main hall, Georges leaned on the door for a few moments. “I wonder what drove Pressigny to such violence?” He looked up at Anne. “Is he so fond of you?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Could be, though I haven't encouraged him. He might have other reasons. Henriette said he dislikes Derennes and wants to expel him from the Amateurs.” She gestured with her eyes toward the wall with the hidden door. “He also might have learned what Derennes was doing in the dungeon.”

Georges nodded, then picked the lock with a thin tool from his pocket, opened the door, and stepped outside. “The party's going strong. We can get away unnoticed.” They walked through a colorful tumult of revellers and out of the main hall.

***

The palace theater was dark and empty. From the Amateurs' party came faint echoes of music and laughter. Revellers returning their costumes to the wardrobe shouted in the distance. Georges studied Anne with concern. “This may be our best chance to visit the office upstairs. Are you fit for it?”

“Yes. I'll rest tomorrow.” She shook herself awake. “I was looking for a journal or calendar when Derennes walked in.”

They climbed stealthily up to the second floor where they found the office door locked. Georges drew the tool from his pocket. “No one is likely to interrupt us.” He picked the lock in seconds, then secured it again when they were inside. While Anne rolled a rug against the door sill, he closed the shutters on the window and lit a couple of lamps. “Now to work!” He reached for a shelf of books above the table.

Georges soon found the theater's journal. Its entries began about three years earlier, when Chevalier de Pressigny had taken charge of the Amateurs, bringing order and energy to their enterprises. The journal, in the hand of two or three scribes, recorded each day's events in copious detail. “The police might have looked at this,” said Georges, scanning the entries, “but they didn't mention it in their report.”