The Secret Knowledge (4 page)

“I don’t understand.”

“They would prefer no further communication.”

“I’m to be shut out?”

“You were never let in. You claim there was an engagement but there is no evidence of it, and Pierre’s father would in any case not have given permission.”

Yvette can barely feel the blow but she is aware of it, like witnessing an assault by one stranger on another. She feels pity of an abstract kind.

“I must leave,” Gilberte says.

“I agree.”

“I have other visits to make. Pierre had so many friends.”

“Not all of them good. That’s why he was murdered.”

Gilberte rises brusquely. “Enough of this.”

“But are the police still investigating? Why have they not come back to interview me again as they said?”

“The inquiry is no longer your concern.”

“How can you possibly say that? You don’t care, do you? None of you care. You simply want this terrible thing to go away – so you tell me to go. I won’t be silent!”

“You know nothing, Yvette, and anything you say will only cause further anguish. If you try to spread rumours there will be consequences.”

“Get out of here, damn you!”

Madame Courvelles re-enters just as Yvette is getting to her feet, the cousin stepping back in anticipation of being struck. The scene is undignified, ghastly. “Calm yourself!” Madame Courvelles cries as she rushes to embrace her daughter, both sobbing while Gilberte excuses herself and leaves.

The funeral, in Yvette’s mind, was the wedding she and Pierre had planned, their union. Either she, too, is dead, or else the man is alive. Both possibilities exist for her with equal force and reality because around the incident in the park so much doubt adheres, obscuring truth, demanding faith. In the following days there is no further word from Pierre’s family, from the police, or from anyone, as if all would prefer the couple never to have existed.

Leaving the house alone, intending to take some air, Yvette is met by the eyes of a brown-suited man coming along the pavement from the other direction who neatly raises his hat with a nod, as if he knows her and has the right to acknowledge it. She finds the gesture rude and unwelcome, fixes her line of sight ahead, but the man addresses her as she passes.

“Mademoiselle Courvelles.”

She stops, turns and looks at him, silently demanding an explanation.

“You have my sincere condolences. Pierre was a fine man.” The stranger must be only a few years older than she, but has a look of maturity and worldliness.

“You knew Pierre?”

His eyes roll in sad affirmation. “We were intimately acquainted. My name is Louis Carreau.”

It means nothing to her. “Are you a musician?”

“A music lover but no expert. Pierre’s circle was wide, it is not surprising if he never mentioned me. Though he spoke often of you.”

She feels herself blush, and for the first time in weeks is aware of a smile on her lips.

“He loved you very much, mademoiselle. He told me… I shouldn’t mention this.”

“Tell me, please.”

“He spoke of wanting to be with you forever.”

Tears are in her eyes. “He is.”

Carreau nods sorrowfully. “I suppose so.”

Yvette can see he has the air of knowing more than he says. “What else did Pierre speak about?”

Monsieur Carreau suggests they walk together. “Pierre’s interests were so varied, a conversation with him could be about art, philosophy, history.”

“Or life,” she recalls. “That most of all. The sheer joy of being in the world.”

“Yes, mademoiselle, he had such hopes and ambitions, which is why I find the recent circumstances so mystifying and distressing.”

They have reached the small gated garden that was her intended destination, but she continues past the entrance, still unsure of the man accompanying her. “I, too, am mystified, why anyone would do such a terrible thing to him.” Carreau halts beside her; she sees pain on his face, its suddenness inexplicable. “You do know what happened, don’t you?”

“I know what is asserted, mademoiselle, and that is what I find so incredible.”

“That he was murdered?”

Carreau’s expression alters once more. “You mean they didn’t tell you?”

“What are you talking about?” She feels almost the same foreboding she experienced on the day it happened.

“I spoke carelessly, forgive me, it is of no consequence…”

“What should they have told me? I knew they were hiding something!”

Carreau looks skywards as though wishing reassurance of the earth’s solidity. He speaks reluctantly, regretful both of the subject matter and of being forced to share it. His eyes when he levels them are so replete with earnest sympathy that he has the look of a professional mourner. “I have a friend in the justice ministry, I asked him to examine the papers relating to the case. There were witnesses to what happened. Mademoiselle, Pierre was not murdered…”

“My God, he’s alive?”

Carreau shakes his head. “It was by his own hand.”

She feels herself stagger; Carreau reaches to support her but quickly withdraws his arm when she shakes free. “Get away from me, you madman, or I shall call for help.”

“I simply tell you what I know.”

“This is all lies.”

“You knew the family were concealing a fact more painful than the death itself, now you understand what it is. I am sorry to have brought you news of which you would have been better to have remained ignorant. I should bid you goodbye.” He raises his hat again with the same polite self-assurance of his earlier introduction and is about to step away when Yvette, her thoughts restoring themselves to order, restrains him.

“How can they believe Pierre shot himself?”

“It is what the investigators have concluded, though they naturally wish to preserve the dignity of a high-ranking family.”

“But it was only minutes after he proposed marriage to me.”

Carreau’s brow furrows in shared puzzlement. “He asked you that very day? Then the improbable becomes surely impossible.”

Yvette’s mind is racing. “We have to tell the police.”

“It would not be a good idea.”

“Or your friend in the ministry. Don’t you see, Monsieur Carreau, there has been a terrible error, the police have got it wrong, he couldn’t have done what they say.”

Carreau sighs. “I’ve seen the papers, mademoiselle. I will not describe to you the detail with which one witness related what he saw, but I can tell you there is no doubt.”

“He saw Pierre die?”

“He saw him point the gun between his eyes and pull the trigger.”

Yvette covers her face.

“The witness saw the weapon go off, the wound it made. Death was instantaneous.”

She is not too distraught to recognise the flaw in the story. “Where is this witness? Why should we believe him?”

“Others viewed less clearly but no less certainly. We know beyond question the manner of Pierre’s death. It’s the motive that I can’t fathom. But for the police the case is closed, likewise for Pierre’s family. It seems, mademoiselle, that you and I are the only persons interested in discovering the truth.”

Finally she understands the reason why he has made himself known to her. “What should we do?”

“We can try to make enquiries of our own; but unless there is some further evidence, perhaps an unknown aspect of Pierre’s life, a shadow that marred his happiness…” He stares penetratingly at her. “Can you think of anything at all?”

She says she can. The new friends, Pierre’s disappearance, even the symphony; she tells Carreau everything, and finishes by bringing from inside the collar of her dress the fine gold chain that has been hanging round her neck, at the end of it a small key.

“This is what he gave you?” Carreau is transfixed as though by a priceless treasure; he peers closely at what she holds, longing to touch it. She removes the chain from her neck.

“Pierre was so insistent that I have it; at the time I thought… I don’t know what I thought. Afterwards it seemed so inadvertently prophetic. Yet now…”

“Did you ever see the writing desk? Do you know where exactly it is situated in the house?”

“No… in his room I suppose. I can never go there, I wouldn’t be admitted.”

“But I can go.” Carreau extends his palm. “I shall pay the parents my respects.”

“And get Pierre’s music? How?”

“I shall find a way, trust me.”

She gives him the key, still on its fine chain, feeling as if she is giving up her own child, and in the moment when his fingers curl around the prize to take it from her, she is gripped again by doubt, and by the thought that in trying to save Pierre and his work she is really betraying him. “Give me something in return,” she exclaims.

“You want payment? Some kind of pledge?”

“Only your word. Promise that you will bring it back to me, and the music. I’ve lost Pierre once already, I can’t lose him again. Do this for me, Monsieur Carreau. Do it for our friend.”

Carreau smiles thinly. “We shall both have what we want, Mademoiselle Courvelles. Trust me.”

She feels she has made a terrible mistake; for some days afterwards there is no word from Carreau, she wonders if he is simply an unscrupulous music dealer willing to prey on a grieving woman in order to obtain a manuscript. A letter arrives, which she at first assumes must be from Carreau, though as soon as she begins to read, she realises it is from another.

My dear Mlle Courvelles,

I extend profound condolences and share your grief. Allow me to offer some recollections of our late friend, and believe me when I tell you, they are not without importance.

Pierre would frequently join me, along with several companions, at one or other of our favourite cafés, the popularity of each establishment being proportional to the leniency of its owner in allowing us credit. On one such occasion the topic for discussion was the nature of genius, there were six or seven of us round the table, our half-filled glasses politely and indefinitely preserved from being emptied, our impoverishment dignified by the richness of a conversation that brought Mozart, Michelangelo and Dante to a place favoured by thirsty dockers, as well as less honest members of the working class, male and female, of a kind you probably cannot imagine. I tell you this, mademoiselle, not so as to cast doubt on the honour and integrity of our friend, but merely to remind you that any young man of spirit and intelligence
moves naturally, like a colourful fish in an aquarium, between the light of the surface, and the darker regions beneath.

A voice interrupted us. “Ha, genius!” We turned and saw at a neighbouring table a man alone, unshaven, dressed like an office clerk but so dishevelled as not to have been previously conspicuous. He was, in short, a drunk of the kind every watering hole knows, and before him on the table stood a glass of cognac. “You want to know about genius? I’ll tell you about genius!”

We were all of us in good humour and ready for some sport. “Do tell, then,” said one of us, an actor I shall call Duchêne. “But not for the price of another glass, since we don’t have a sou between us!”

The drunk nodded with a bibulous smile, his eye gleaming. He rummaged inside his dirty jacket that I saw to be torn at the elbow, drew out a gold coin as bright as the filling in his tooth, and flicked it on his thumb, catching it in his hand. We waited for him to speak. He kept smiling, flicking.

“Well?” Duchêne said at last. “Is that all?”

We were about to turn from him when he stopped, reached out, and passed the coin to my friend. “Look carefully,” he said.

Duchêne inspected the object, finding its brightness belied an unexpected antiquity. “It’s from the eighteenth century.” He looked up at the stranger. “Is it real?”

The man gave a shrug of indifference. “Depends what you mean. Study it closely.”

We examined the coin, passing it among ourselves. It was Pierre who spotted the pretence.

“This is fake,” he declared. “It feels too light.”

The man nodded. “It’s made of glass. Belonged to my great-great grandfather who had it made in Switzerland – that and a thousand others.”

“He was a counterfeiter?” one of us asked.

“We could use his talents!” another laughed.

Our companion allowed us our moment of frivolity. “He needed money in order to carry out a certain mission of what you might call a philosophical kind. This was the only way.”

“Did he go to the gallows for it?” asked Pierre.

“No, he escaped, taking his precious papers with him.”

Here, we recognised, was an artist of that all-too familiar kind, the bar-room raconteur. We had nothing to offer, we told him plainly, except our ears. Yet this seemed enough for him.

“My great-great-grandfather had acquired secret papers from a society formed by Jean-Bernard Rosier.”

“Never heard of him,” said Duchêne.

“No,” said the man, “I wouldn’t expect you to. He’s not a name you’d ever have come across in respectable literature.”

“Then what about disrespectable?”

“Perhaps,” said the man, retrieving the coin that was handed back to him, its lustre less enticing now than the gleam of mystery. “I’m no Rosierist, I’m a humble engineer with too much of a taste for the ladies and the race track and the bottle. Yes, sirs, I’m a bum, I’ve not lived long and already I’ve wasted my life. But you gentlemen, you’re interested in genius, and that’s why I wanted to tell you my little story. Now I’d better leave.”

“No, wait.” It was Pierre who spoke. “Tell us more about Rosier’s society. Was it political? A sort of freemasonry?”

“Best left alone,” replied our companion, who, having emptied his glass and seen that there was no prospect of
replenishment, rose with only a little unsteadiness to his feet.

“Your name, monsieur?” It was I who asked.

“Minard.”

All were ready to see the strange fellow leave, except Pierre. “I want to know more about Rosier,” he said abruptly.