Yesterday Never Dies, page 6
She sounded oddly desolate while making that speech—perhaps, I thought, because she could not think without a certain sadness about the prospect of Saint-Germain no longer wanting her, even though she did not want him to have her. She was rambling slightly, showing the effects of tiredness. I wished, belatedly, that I had offered to make a pot of tea—but the time had passed by now.
I felt that I could speak again, but I had no idea what to say. In the event, I did not have to improvise, because the doorbell rang.
“Who is it?” she asked, fearfully. Reflexively, she reached for her domino, although she could not have imagined that it would provide adequate protection against recognition by anyone she knew.
There was a certain angle through which I could look through the window and catch a glimpse of the person at the door, although it required a rather ungainly contortion. I looked.
“It’s Saint-Germain,” I told her.
I should have been amazed. Saint-Germain was not in the habit of calling on me, in spite of his insistence that we were friends, and I could not imagine why he should be doing so this morning.
“How does he know that I’m here?” she lamented.
“Perhaps he doesn’t,” I said. “Even if he does, I can send him away.” I knew from past and recent experience, however, that Saint-Germain could be a difficult man to put off.
Jana Valdemar clutched at the straw, eagerly. “Perhaps he doesn’t,” she echoed. “Is there somewhere I might hide, until he’s gone?”
“Upstairs,” I said. “Bihan will come back eventually, but there’s no reason for him to go up there, and even if he does, he won’t give you away. You know the way, I believe.”
She ignored the hint of sarcasm. “Thank you,” she said, apparently sincerely. I didn’t bother to point out, knowing that she could hardly miss the observation, that because the stairway had a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn halfway up, she would be able to hear what Saint-Germain and I were saying if she were prepared to take the risk of sitting on the lowest step of the second half of the flight, out of sight behind the banisters.
I had no idea why I had abruptly entered into a tacit conspiracy with her, but I think it had far more to do with her mention of the word “rape” in connection with Saint-Germain than any shared experience in confrontation with the Dweller with the Eyes of Fire. In any case, had I not already taken her side, by warning her at the Comique that Saint-Germain was present?
I answered the door.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE ETHERIZED COMTE
Saint-Germain was past me in a trice, before I could even try to refuse him entry. He seemed more than usually agile. Indeed, as I followed him, he seemed positively jittery.
“Where’s Dupin?” he demanded, on entering the empty reception-room. As he turned back to look at me, I was startled by the appearance of his eyes, which seemed unnaturally keen—not exactly diabolized, but nevertheless quite strange. They seemed a trifle crazed. He too, I decided, had not slept last night.
“Not here,” I replied, testily.
“Then where is he, damn it? I banged on the dragon’s door until my knuckles were raw, but the old witch wouldn’t even answer me. Then I went up to Dupin’s room regardless. It was locked, but he’d taken the key with him, so I peeped through the keyhole when my knock wasn’t answered. He’s not there. Don’t tell me that he’s gone to see Groix already!”
“I don’t see that it’s any of your business,” I told him. “I really don’t like the way that you keep barging in on me, and I’m certain that Dupin wouldn’t like you going up to his room without permission from Madame Lacuzon, even if it is locked.”
“This time,” Saint-Germain stated, confidently, “he wouldn’t object in the least. I have information for him—information he couldn’t discover for himself, since he’s so determined to cut his nose off to spite his face by refusing to join the Harmonic Society, thus depriving himself of access to its Archives. Indeed, I’ve got more than information—I’ve got a mystery, and I’ve got the key to it. He can’t resist a mystery; you know that as well as I do. He won’t thank you for getting in the way, so tell me—where is he?” His speech had a strangely urgent quality, which was more than mere impatience; the words came out so rapidly that they were almost stumbling over one another.
He’s drunk! I thought. Aloud, I simply said: “Why do you want to give him the information?”
“First of all, because he’s the only man in Paris with intelligence enough to help me sort out what lies behind it, and secondly, because when I’ve told him what I have, wild horses won’t stop him from going with me tonight to see whether anything comes of it. This stupid animosity of his has dragged on far too long. We ought to be friends, and I won’t stop trying to make him see that until he realizes the fact. The Harmonic Society needs him—and he needs the Society, although he won’t admit it.”
“I can see why you think you need him,” I said. “But it’s no use—he’s never going to help you in your money-grubbing schemes. It’s completely contrary to his principles.”
Saint-Germain stuck his Chinese bamboo cane in the umbrella-stand, perched his hat on top of it, took off his gloves and sat down—without being invited—in the armchair that Jana Valdemar had just deserted. He slumped back, and sighed, deeply and theatrically.
“It’s not about that,” he said. “You’re missing the point completely—and you know as well as I do that his so-called principles are pure hypocrisy.”
“I know no such thing!” I retorted, sharply.
“Oh, sit down,” he said. “Since I can’t find Dupin, I’ll settle for you. Let’s talk like two civilized human beings, and see if we can’t settle these idiotic differences. I’ll give you the information—the gist of it, at least—and let you decide whether you ought to pass it on to Dupin; but first, do you know why Dupin is so hostile toward me, when all I want to do is be friends with him? As fellow scholars, that is, not in pursuit of any money-making scheme.”
I sat down, although it felt like conceding defeat. “I think the reason he has such an antipathy toward you.” I said, trying to speak in a level fashion in the hope of sobering him up by example, “is that he believes that you’re incapable of separating scholarship from money-making schemes. He’s a true scholar.”
“Oh yes,” said Saint-Germain. He suddenly yawned, betraying his tiredness in spite of his agitation. The reflex seemed to take him by surprise too; he was too slow to cover his mouth, but he was quick to apologize: “Sorry, I’ve been up all night chasing tidbits of fact and legend. While I was excited at the prospect of communicating them to Dupin...but where were we? Oh yes. Dupin the true scholar: Dupin the true cynic, the follower of Diogenes, who believes that philosophers shouldn’t seek worldly wealth. Very noble—but completely impractical. Even Diogenes couldn’t live in a barrel for long. It’s all very well scorning worldly wealth, but a man has to eat, and, if he lives in Paris and not in sunny Athens, to have some substitute for a roof over his head, and, if he lives nowadays and not in Diogenes’ day, to pay for his books.
“Yes, it’s true, the first time Dupin and I met, I tried to swindle him. In those days, I tried to swindle everyone. It was the way I made my living—but Dupin couldn’t see the necessity, even of me living, let alone the swindling. Censorious prig. And now I have a nice town house, twice the size of yours and ten times the size of his little hovel in the Rue Dunot, with servants. I have a nice book collection of my own, as well as access to the Harmonic Society’s Archives. I charge all kinds of people for various kinds of services, and I help myself to a proportion of the Society’s funds in a fashion befitting its President—although, in fairness to myself, I ought to add that the Society’s coffers have become considerably fuller since I became President. Dupin might call that swindling, but I don’t...not any longer, anyway. I’m respectable now. It’s business. More importantly, I’m a respectable scholar now, which is what I always wanted to be, which is what all the swindling was for.”
“Good for you,” I observed, dryly.
“Yes,” he retorted. “It is good for me—and it could be good for Dupin too, if he weren’t such a snob and a hypocrite. He looks down on me, but only because he knows, deep down, that he’s no better. He takes such pride in not being a swindler or a beggar, but he still has to live, doesn’t he? He still has to eat. And how does he do that? He sponges; he parasitizes—he parasitizes you, Monsieur Reynolds. He even came to live here for a while, didn’t he, until he felt compelled to go back to his hovel, not because he was conscience-stricken, but because he couldn’t bear to be separated any longer from his familiar spirit. How many times does he eat here every week, at your expense, Monsieur Reynolds? Have you ever seen him pay for so much as a cab fare?”
“He’s my friend,” I said, lamely.
“He’s your friend!” Saint-Germain retorted. “Lucien Groix is his friend too—the other surviving victim of his parasitism. The Prefect of Police! Who would give him a position for the asking: Head of the Sûreté, if he wanted it; or, if that would be too much like getting his hands dirty, a position filing and cataloguing in the National Archives. But oh no—Auguste Dupin couldn’t possibly get a job, because philosophers don’t do jobs, because they’re true cynics who need to maintain their asceticism and their independence. Except that it makes him less independent, not more, because it means that he has to rely on you to feed him and supply him with brandy, and accommodate his books, and pay his bloody cab fares!”
“Are you drunk, Saint-Germain?” I finally demanded, losing my patience.
He seemed surprised by the question. “I’ve been up all night working, and I had to keep myself awake,” he told me, reproachfully. “I started out on black coffee, but halfway through the second cup I couldn’t stand the taste anymore, so I started covering it up with cognac. That worked for a while, and then I switched to iced champagne. By first light, I needed a little extra, so I added a couple of drops of ether to the last glass—a trick one of the members taught me. Worked like a charm. I can keep going all day now that I’m past the dangerous hours—Thibodeaux was right about that, of course.”
“I think you ought to make an effort to calm down,” I told him.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m perfectly calm. I’m making a sane and rational point. The point is that we all have to live—even people who’ve taken vows of poverty. It’s all very well to decide not to take any active economic part in society, but that only leaves you dependent on the charity of others. It was the same for Diogenes, Buddha, Jesus, and Saint Rosalia. They were all too holier-than-thou to feed themselves, so somebody else had to do it. How else can you be a hermit, for God’s sake?”
“Saint Rosalia?” I queried.
“Yes. Female hermit. Lived in a cave near Palermo. Probably not connected in any way with the Norman writer who borrowed her name, although she was Norman-descended, so they might have been distantly related. That’s part of what I wanted to tell Dupin, if I’d been able to find him. The true story of Scribe’s magic branch.”
“Saint Rosalia has no business being mentioned in Robert le Diable,” I told him, eager to prove my erudition. “Robert, Duke of Normandy, was dead before she was born. Different centuries.”
His feverish eyes squinted at me. “You’ve been doing research too, haven’t you? But I saw the opera too, and it’s obviously set in a much later period than Robert the Great’s, so the Robert in the play must really be some other Robert, even though people carelessly take the inference that he’s supposed to be Robert the Great. Norman history is lousy with Roberts, even before you start adding in Hrolfs and Robins and Oberons and God only knows what—but all that’s beside the point. Saint Rosalia is beside the point. What matters is Thibodeaux’s legacy, and the timing of its employment.”
When he mentioned the name Thibodeaux, my eyes automatically went to the book that was sitting on the arm of my chair. Striking like a viper, he took possession of it.
“Aha!” he said. “La Résonance du temps! We’ve got that too, although it was in the library rather than the cupboard—probably his own copy, deposited before he died. Would you believe that I’d never even heard of it until last night? I hadn’t the slightest idea who Blaise Thibodeaux was, let alone that he’d been a member of the Society for thirty years. Doesn’t that prove my point?”
“What point?” I asked, wondering whether I would be able to follow him better if I’d had a stiff brandy or a bottle of champagne to fuddle my head. I wasn’t about to start sipping ether, though; according to Dupin, who had heard about the fad somehow, its stimulant effect was likely to be far too costly.
“The point that Dupin ought to join the Harmonic Society. We need to work together, to pool what we know. All the great loners who made fabulous discoveries in secret have been an almost total loss to humankind, because the greater part of their knowledge died with them—even if they wrote a prefatory book, like Thibodeaux. And don’t try to tell me that their secrecy was purely a response to the threat of persecution by the Church. Of course that was a factor—a key factor—but that’s why there have always been societies like ours, all the way back to the Pythagoreans. Yes, they were secret—they had to be, because of the danger of persecution—but at least they provided scope for passing dangerous knowledge on, for handing it down, for preserving it from extinction. I’ll grant you, too, that they provided a golden opportunity for charlatans and poseurs—all the genuine societies have been polluted, and there are imitations that are fake from top to bottom—but even so, they’ve created the possibility of preservation and collaboration, and the loners who won’t join in are refusing that possibility along with the charlatanry. It’s too high a price to pay.
“Anyhow, the point is that Dupin should be working with us, not sitting on his high horse disapproving of us. There really are things that we know, and countless things buried in our Archives that we don’t even know that we know, until we start digging. I can prove it to him, if he’ll only consent to listen...and he will. He probably doesn’t even know that we’ve got Blaise Thibodeaux’s papers, given that he wasn’t a member even before I came on the scene. They can’t have been that close, given that this appears to be a used copy picked up on the bank of the Seine. Do you suppose that even Dupin has managed to read the damn thing? I have to admit that I’ve barely glanced at it myself, being too busy with the papers, but I saw enough to put me off trying to plow through it. I skipped all the statistics in the papers, of course. Couldn’t stand all those numbers—they were making my head spin. Dangerous hours, eh? But I expect that Dupin has read it all, including the statistics—and he’s probably the only man in the world who has. If I were a betting man, I’d wager that Dupin was actually there that night, back in 1834, along with Thibodeaux. Do you know who composed the music, by the way?”
Again, I was taken by surprise by the seemingly-arbitrary shifts in his drug-addled train of thought, in which I was difficulty seeing the underlying pattern. Automatically, however, I reacted to the specific question. “Meyerbeer,” I said, reflexively.
“No, idiot,” he said. “I mean the variant piece—the extended section replacing his version of the dance of the nuns. One of the members suggested Wagner, while I happened to hear the earlier argument, another Erich Zann, although Anton smiled at them both. Couldn’t blame him—a naughty nuns’ ballet is hardly Wagner’s style, and Zann was dead by then...although rumor has it that his music didn’t die with him, even though he was a loner...another one to prove my point. We can, I think, discard the possibility that it was the Devil himself, despite the rich legendry of the Devil’s compositions. You and I and Thibodeaux all know—or knew, in Thibodeaux’s case—that the Church’s Devil is just a fig-leaf concealing the real forces working behind the scenes...behind Robert the Devil, Robin, or Oberon, if he wasn’t just a figment of Thibodeaux’s fascination with the self-signed Rosalia’s house of women...I mean the Robert the Devil of legend, of course, not one in the opera, although it’s the opera that features the magic branch. Am I making sense?”
“No,” I told him, bluntly. It was the second time he’d mentioned an Oberon, and I wondered of he might mean Oberon Breisz, in pursuit of whom we’d made our odyssey to Brittany the previous year, but decided that he couldn’t possibly, given the entirely different context.
“Sorry. Have to make sense, won’t I, if I’m to get anywhere with Dupin—especially if you have to explain it for me. Where should I start? 1834? Thibodeaux’s obsession? Rosalia of Palermo? No—the beginning. Always start at the beginning. Where was the beginning? The Pythagoreans, I suppose. You know about the Pythagoreans?”
“Of course,” I said.
“You think you do. What do you know?”
“They’re the ultimate precursors of both science and mysticism. Based on the observation that resonances between musical notes can be produced by strings of particular lengths that have a fixed numerical relationship to one another, they concluded that numbers were the key to understanding the universe, thus laying the foundations for mathematics and quantitative analysis. They also had theories of metempsychosis and the like, which linked them, via the neo-Pythagoreans and neo-Platonists, to Gnosticism and the entire tradition of occultism.”
“Right. All true, but you’re committing the typical modern error of putting the emphasis in the wrong place. The Pythagoreans’ fascination with numbers never distracted them from the significance of the original phenomenon.”
