The Club Dumas

‘Well,” said d’Artagnan to Atkos. “So you see, dear friend It is a fight to the death.”

Athos nodded. “Yes, yes,” he said. “I know. But do you think it’s really her?”

“I am sure of it”

“Nevertheless, I confess I still have doubts.”

“And the fleur-de-lis on her shoulder?”

“She is an Englishwoman who must have committed some crime in France, and who has been marked for her crime.”

“Athos, that woman is your wife, I tell you,” repeated d’Artagnan. “Do you not recall that both marks are identical?”

“Nevertheless I would have sworn that the woman was dead, I hanged her very well”

This time it was d’Artagnan who shook his head.

‘Well? What are we to do?” said the young man.

‘We certainly can’t go on like this, with a sword hanging eternally over our heads,” said Athos. ‘We must find a way out of this situation.”

“But how?”

“Listen, try to have a meeting with her and explain everything. Tell her: ‘Peace or war! My word as a gentleman that I will never say or do anything against you For your part, give me your solemn word to do nothing against me. Otherwise I will go to the Chancellor, the King, the executioner, I will incite the Court against you, I will denounce you as a marked woman, I will have you put on trial, and should you be acquitted, then upon my word as a gentleman, I will kill you myself, in any corner, as I would a rabid dog.’“

“I am delighted with this plan,” said d’Artagnan.

Memories brought other memories in their wake. Corso tried to hold a fleeting, familiar image that had crossed his mind. He managed to capture it just before it faded, and once again it was the man in the black suit, the chauffeur of the Jaguar outside Liana Taillefer’s house, at the wheel of the Mercedes in Toledo.... The man with the scar. And it was Milady who had stirred that memory.

He thought it over, disconcerted. And suddenly the image became perfectly sharp. Milady, of course. Milady de Winter as d’Artagnan first sees her at the window of her carriage in the opening chapter of the novel, outside the inn at Meung. Milady in conversation with a stranger. Corso quickly turned the pages, searching for the passage. He found it easily:

A man of forty to forty-five years of age, with black, piercing eyes, a pale complexion, a strongly pronounced nose, and a per­fectly trimmed, black mustache...

Rochefort. The Cardinal’s sinister agent and d’Artagnan’s enemy, who has him beaten in the first chapter, steals the letter of recommendation to Monsieur de Treville and is indirectly responsible for the Gascon’s almost fighting duels with Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.... Following this somersault of his mem­ory, Corso scratched his head, puzzled by the unusual association of ideas and characters. What link was there between Milady’s companion and the driver who tried to run him down in Toledo? Then there was the scar. The paragraph didn’t mention a scar, but he remembered clearly that Rochefort always had a mark on his face. He turned more pages until he found the confirmation of this in chapter 3, where d’Artagnan is recount­ing his adventure to Treville:

“Tell me,” he replied, “did this gentleman have a faint scar on his temple?”

“Yes, the sort of mark that might have been made by a bullet grazing it...”