The Club Dumas

Somebody was gently slapping his face, so he reluctantly opened one eye. La Ponte was leaning over him, looking wor­ried. He was still in pajamas.

“Get your hands off me,” Corso said grumpily.

La Ponte sighed with relief. “I thought you were dead,” he said.

Corso opened the other eye and started to sit up. He im­mediately felt his brain moving inside his skull like jelly on a plate.

“They really gave it to you,” La Ponte informed him un­necessarily as he helped him up. Corso leaned on his shoulder and looked around the room. Liana Taillefer and Rochefort were gone.

“Did you see who hit me?”

“Of course I did. A tall, dark guy with a scar on his face.”

“Have you ever seen him before?”

“No.” La Ponte frowned indignantly. “Seemed like she knew him well enough, though.... She must have let him in while we were arguing in the bathroom. He had a split lip, too, it was all swollen. He’d had a couple of stitches.” He felt his own cheek. The swelling was going down. He gave a spiteful little laugh. “Seems like everyone around here is getting what he deserves.”

Corso, searching unsuccessfully for his glasses, gave him a resentful look. “What I don’t understand,” he said, “is why they didn’t clobber you too.”

“They wanted too. But I told them it wasn’t necessary. They could just go about their business. I was an accidental tourist.”

“You could have done something.”

“Me? You must be joking. That punch you gave me was quite enough. I held up my hands like this.... Peace signs. I just sat on the toilet seat nice and quiet until they left.”

“My hero.”

“Better safe than sorry. Look at this.” He handed Corso a folded piece of paper. “They left this behind, under an ashtray with a Montecristo cigar end in it.”

Corso had trouble focusing on the handwriting. The note was written in ink, in an attractive copperplate hand with com­plicated flourishes on the capitals:

It is by my order and for the benefit of the State that the bearer of this note has done what he has done.

3rd of December 1627 Richelieu

Despite the situation, he almost burst out laughing. It was the safe-conduct granted at the siege of La Rochelle when Milady demanded d’Artagnan’s head, later stolen at gunpoint by Athos (Bite if you can, viper) and used to justify the woman’s execution to Richelieu at the end of the novel.... In short, too much for a single chapter. Corso staggered to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and put his head under the stream of cold water. Then he looked at himself: puffy eyes, unshaven, and dripping with water. Not a pretty sight. And his head was buzz­ing like a wasps’ nest. What a way to start the day.

La Ponte appeared in the mirror beside him, handing him a towel and his glasses.

“By the way,” he said, “they took your bag.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Hey, I don’t know why you’re taking it out on me. All I did was get laid.”

anxious, corso crossed the hotel lobby, trying to think quickly. But with every passing minute it became more unlikely that he would catch the fugitives. All was lost except for a single link in the chain, book number three. They still had to get hold of it, and that offered, at least, the possibility of getting to them, provided he moved quickly. While La Ponte paid for the room, Corso went to the phone and dialed Frieda Ungern’s number. But the line was busy. He called the Louvre Concorde and asked for Irene Adler’s room. He wasn’t sure how things stood on that front, but he calmed down a little when he heard the girl’s voice. He let her know the sit­uation in a few words and asked her to meet him at the Ungern Foundation. He hung up as La Ponte was coming toward him, very depressed, putting his credit card back in his wallet.

“The bitch. She left without paying the bill.”

“Serves you right.”

“I’ll kill her, with my own hands, I swear.”

The hotel was extremely expensive and La Ponte was out­raged at her treachery. He had a clearer idea now what was going on, and was gloomy as Ahab bent on revenge. They climbed into a taxi, and Corso gave the driver Baroness Ungern’s address. En route he told La Ponte the rest of the story—the train, the girl, Sintra, Paris, the three copies of The Nine Doors, Fargas’s death, the incident by the river... La Ponte listened and nodded, incredulous at first and then stunned.

“I’ve been living with a viper,” he moaned, shuddering.

Corso was in a bad mood. He remarked that vipers very rarely bit cretins. La Ponte thought about that. He didn’t seem offended.

“She’s a determined woman,” he said. “And what a body!”

In spite of his resentment at the recent dent in his finances, his eyes shone lecherously as he stroked his beard.

“What a body,” he repeated with a silly little smile.

Corso was staring out the window. “That’s exactly what the Duke of Buckingham said.”

“Who’s the Duke of Buckingham?”