He left Lida sitting in the shadows of the chapel, and went in search of Bazin.
Bazin was in the garden, sitting by the fountain, looking as though he were in deepest contemplation or perhaps in prayer.
“Bazin,” he said. “I am not fooling. Get me my luggage and the horses. We’re going back to Paris.”
Bazin looked at him, and his mouth dropped open. “Chevalier.”
“Do. Not. Call. Me. That. Again. Go and get the luggage. We’re going to Paris. Now.”
Bazin looked miserable. He blinked at Aramis, but he didn’t—as Aramis half expected—say anything about Madame D’Herblay or her expected wrath. Instead, he got up and left.
“Meet me at the stable,” Aramis said to his retreating back.
And though he half expected Bazin to come back with Aramis’s mother or some other way to restrain Aramis. But Bazin came back alone, carrying Aramis’s bag. A glance inside showed that both his brushes and the mirror were in there.
Bazin’s strange acquiescence puzzled him, but he didn’t dare ask anything, lest his words broke it. It wasn’t until they stopped at tavern for some food that Aramis asked Bazin, “You’ve decided to throw your fate along with mine?”
Bazin sighed, pushing is plate away. “Your mother . . . She said you’d never be a satisfactory monk and that she would find you someone to marry.” He looked up at Aramis. “Do you still intend to take orders?”
“Of course,” Aramis said. “In due time.”
A Masked Ghost; Dead Woman’s Jewelry; The Immovable Porthos
P
ORTHOS held his breath as the balcony door of the dead woman’s room shook. It shook. It shuddered. The glass rattled in the frame.
Visible through the small square panes was someone— or rather the shadow of someone. But even size and shape were a guess, at this distance and looking skewedly through a narrow hole in the wall.
But the door shuddered open and was pushed inward with force. A small hand. That was Porthos first impression of the intruder. A small hand attached to a small arm in a black sleeve.
“Someone is breaking in,” D’Artagnan whispered.
Porthos said nothing. First, he was well aware that his voice boomed when he meant it to hiss. Second, the fact seemed well established and hardly warranted words.
Then the intruder stepped into the room, and looked around—as though he suspected someone of watching him. As though he knew about them in their hideaway.
The intruder was—Porthos thought—a boy, barely out of childhood. Small, slim and slight, he dressed in black— stockings, breeches, tunic and hat.
The shapeless hat looked liked something a farmer’s boy might wear, or a fisherman’s son. It was a round thing, of some undefined black material looking spotty and faded in places.
But the strangest thing was the face, which was covered in a hard, glittering white mask which looked like the shape of a face made out of porcelain and with holes cut out for the eyes and mouth.
Porthos felt his heart beat faster, and—as though in response to it, the person’s head turned, fully, to look in their direction. Or so it seemed. But even as Porthos felt D’Artagnan shuffle a little backwards, as though afraid his eye would be discerned, the figure crossed the room, quickly.
There was something about the movement of the creature in the room that made Porthos uncomfortable and worried. It was as though the . . . person weren’t quite human. It moved like a cat, or as people did sometimes in dreams, when they floated past the dreamer, as if in another reality.
Now it floated this way, then that, tiptoeing around the room and, silently, opening trunks. Porthos expected it to turn at any moment and hold a finger to its lips as though to impress an invisible audience with the need for secrecy.
But it didn’t. It just went on, opening trunks and boxes, then closing them again rapidly, till it came to the ornate jewelry box, which it opened.
It rummaged wildly through the jewelry throwing it here and there, like a cat or a small child. Porthos felt as though he were watching an act of madness or perhaps truly dreaming. Were it not for the presence of his friends, equally silent, equally immersed in what was happening, if it weren’t clear that they too were watching the figure, he would think he was dreaming it all.
And then, the figure made a sound, for the first time. It was an exclamation of surprise and delight. A skinny, black clad arm plunged into the jewelry trunk, and out of it emerged, holding a gold chain from which depended a simple cross with no ornament.
The arm, with the hand, moving while the rest of the body remained immobile, lifted the cross up by its chain. It shone in the light from the open door to the balcony, throwing sparkles of gold everywhere.
With exaggerated motions, still, as if on the stage, the figure kissed the cross. And then . . .
Porthos blinked. Before his amazed eyes, the dark-clad apparition took a caper, a bow, backflipped towards the door and then out the door to—
Porthos realized that the person, whoever it was—and if it was indeed made of flesh—was about to jump from the balcony, just as Aramis had done.
Porthos’s body was always one step ahead of his mind. In fact, Aramis, in his more sarcastic moments, would say it was Porthos’s mind. Now his body, whose quick reflexes served him so well in duel and dance floor realized he should intercept the creature, man or phantom, who’d been in the room. Porthos leapt towards the door of the passage, half shoving D’Artagnan ahead of him.
D’Artagnan, not prepared for the sudden move, perhaps because he could not see into the room as well as Porthos could, fell headlong under Porthos push. Or rather, seemed to twirl upon one leg, then fall crosswise in the passageway.
Porthos could not stop in time and tripped on the boy, falling with his legs half entangled in D’Artagnan’s. His body, not fully understanding what had happened, kicked and squirmed by reflex, trying to push out, trying to get to the door, trying to intercept the phantom.
And he realized he had caught Athos a smart kick to the knee that caused the older musketeer to roar and fall, in turn, upon them, in an entanglement of swords and limbs, of shoving, impatient feet and rushing, impatient minds.
“Porthos,” Athos said, in his most polite voice. “If you should only stop kicking me, I believe I’ll have a chance to help you up, and then D’Artagnan should be able to get up also.”
A polite voice in Athos—or that polite a voice in Athos, was always dangerous after one had just tried to break the older musketeer’s kneecap.
Porthos was hurried and hassled. He could see in his mind’s eye the figure all in black standing poised at the edge of the balcony. He could imagine it escaping, out of their range forever.
It wasn’t only that they couldn’t catch it, but that it, having made its way up here, should have a form of making its way down. And that even if this were not the murderer, it could give them an idea of how the murderer had got in.
However Porthos’s self-preservation instinct knew that one did not trifle with Athos in this mood. By a supreme effort of will, Porthos managed to stand still, while Athos disentangled himself and stood.
Athos waved a hand in front of Porthos eyes. “Here, Porthos, take my hand. I believe I can help you stand up.”
Porthos obeyed, taking Athos’s hand. Despite his being almost twice the other man’s bulk, and all of it lean muscle, it did not surprise him that Athos could pull him upright with little effort. After all, he’d had other occasions to meet with Athos’s wiry strength and besides the older musketeer had that type of will power that often made up for physical prowess.
Upright, holding onto the wall, Porthos felt relieved to see D’Artagnan get up. “You did not twist a leg?” he asked the young man, who had fallen in a most unnatural position.
But D’Artagnan only shook his head. “No. It’s no worse than what I did to myself everyday when practicing sword fights with my father in the fields behind our house.”
“I’m very glad not to have caused you injury,” Porthos said.
But Athos nudged him on the shoulder. “If the two of you gentlemen could manage to make it down the passage without tripping over your own feet or each other’s feet, we might yet see how the creature got into the room.”
“We never will make it in time,” D’Artagnan said. “I know that we’ll never catch him.”
“It wasn’t a him,” Athos said, laconically behind Porthos. “It was a her.”
“Indeed,” D’Artagnan asked, as he started walking down the passage towards the door hidden by the mirror. Porthos followed as close as he could without risking tripping over the young man. “I would have sworn it was a young man.”
“No,” Athos said. “It did not move as a young man. The . . . Steps were wrong.”
“Perhaps it was a ghost,” Porthos said. Here, in this passage, walking in the half darkness, it seemed wholly possible. “Perhaps it was the ghost of the young woman who died here coming back to reclaim her lost faith. Did you notice that it was a cross she retrieved from the trunk cluttered with much more expensive baubles?”
“Porthos,” Athos said, as they came to the mirror door and D’Artagnan opened it slowly, looking out. “Just because Aramis isn’t here, there is no reason at all for you to start thinking like him. It was not a ghost. That is the worst of metaphysical nonsense.”
Just then the door opened fully. They rushed out. Hermengarde, in the hallway, looked at them, her eyes widening slightly, probably at their disheveled condition.
“There was a ghost in the room,” Porthos said. It was the first thing that came to his mind and he flinched as he said it, even as Athos turned around to glare at him.
“There was an intruder in the room,” Athos said.
Now Hermengarde looked at all of them as though they had taken leave of their senses. “There can’t be an intruder in the room,” she said. “I was here. I can see the door,” she pointed down the hallway. “No one came or went.”
“She came through the balcony door,” Athos said.
Hermengarde’s blond eyebrows shot up towards her hairline, as she stared at Athos. If Porthos had made such a statement, he thought, the girl would have laughed at him.
But this was Athos, and it was Athos with his head thrown back, his lips tightly compressed and a look of utter disdain on his face.
Hermengarde tilted her head sideways. “It’s impossible,” she said.
Athos only stared.
Hermengarde reached under her waist band for the loop of keys. From it, she pulled the key to the room. One step into the room was enough to confirm for Porthos that they hadn’t been dreaming. The room was deserted, but the door to the balcony stood wide open and the jewelry box too was open, with handfuls of jewels strewn about.
D’Artagnan ran to the balcony. “Nothing,” came his voice. “Not a ladder, not . . . Nothing.”
Athos cast a look at the jewelry trunk, managing to convey the impression that it had personally offended him, then he stalked out to the balcony, himself.
Their voices came to Porthos, slightly distant but completely understandable.
“A rope ladder,” Athos said. “Whoever it was could easily have used a rope ladder.”
“Easily?” D’Artagnan asked. “But how? It couldn’t have been thrown with hooks up here. What are the chances it would reach? And then, after the person left, who would loosen the ladder and remove it? No one could have entered this room while we were gone.”
It wasn’t strictly true, Porthos thought. Hermengarde could have. He looked at the little blond maid, though, and failed to believe she had. Or that she was, even now, hiding a rope ladder somewhere about her person.
“It was a ghost,” Porthos said. His voice echoed strange even to himself. And he normally didn’t really believe in ghosts and spirits, or to be honest, anything he couldn’t touch, feel and bite. “It must have been a ghost.”
Athos came back into the room. “Porthos, don’t speak nonsense. Why would a ghost wear a mask? Why would a ghost wear male attire? And why would a ghost come in from the balcony, and open the door rather than just walk through it?” He looked down. “Besides, look here. Footprints.”
As he spoke, Athos pointed down, at a row of footprints from the balcony door. They’d been made in reddish dirt, and they faded progressively more till they ended a few steps from the jewelry trunk. “Only a corporeal entity could leave these,” Athos said.
Porthos felt better. He didn’t really want to believe in ghosts, anyway.
“Perhaps the dirt can tell us something,” Athos said. “Perhaps it will tell us where she came from.”
Porthos sighed. This was another of those instances of his friends getting lost in their own thoughts. “Athos,” he said. “The entire garden has that same fine reddish dust. It won’t tell us anything but that she stepped in the dirt of the garden, beneath the balcony, before she came here.”
Athos straightened up, from where he’d knelt, examining the foot prints, and looked up at Porthos and sighed. “Perhaps,” he said. “But if so, how did she get up here? She can’t have flown.”