The Cathedral of Fear Page 6

  “As you wish, but we’ve got to have that piece of paper. And I have to take it to Saint-Vigor, to Mr. Montmorency.”

  “And we’re telling you, Bernache, if you want that piece of paper, you’ve got to give us guns.”

  Lying down on the boards in the barn, Sherlock, Lupin, and I looked at each other, alarmed.

  “Without guns, we aren’t going back in there.”

  “And even with guns, you’ll have to pound away, because —”

  “Because you’re a pack of bunglers!” Bernache yelled. “You only had to steal some parchment from a little girl! And you —”

  CRACK!

  It was one of the boards I was lying on. Before I could even curse, the entire section of the ceiling we were resting on opened up below us.

  CRA-CRA-CRA-CRACK!

  It was a fall of a few meters, and the debris fell onto one of the crooks below. I landed on something soft, which did me no harm at all. By time I stood up, Sherlock and Lupin had already jumped down after me.

  “There they are!”

  “It’s them!”

  “Look out!”

  The two men I had not knocked down with my entrance started screaming, “Stop them!”

  I saw Bernache fumble under his coat and pull out a long black object. Sherlock jabbed him with his elbow, and a gunshot went high into the rotted wood ceiling.

  “Let’s get out of here!” I shouted.

  We got to the exit amid an uproar of screams.

  “Not along the street!” Arsène screamed. “This way!” He dashed into the muddy, wet fields.

  We ran with our hearts in our throats, getting farther and farther away from those hoodlums. Only when the barn was a tiny dot in the distance did we slow down.

  Our clothes were filthy up to our knees, our faces were spattered with mud … and all three of us were laughing like lunatics.

  We hugged each other, making sure we were all okay.

  “Did you see them?” Sherlock asked, laughing.

  “The panther!” I exclaimed.

  “The roof monkey!” Lupin said.

  Sherlock coughed, catching his breath. Then he added, “Whoever this Mr. Montmorency is, he’s put together a team of genuine imbeciles.”

  Arsène pointed to his chest. “They were afraid of me! Do you realize? And there were three of them!”

  “And of Mr. Nelson!” I chortled.

  “And Irene’s only answer was to put one of them out of action by diving onto him!”

  Laughing, we staggered back to the d’Aurevilly house, completely soaked and sneezing in chorus.

  “Good Lord,” Mr. Nelson remarked when he opened the door for us. He stood still, blocking the doorway. “Take the secret stairs,” he whispered.

  Meanwhile I heard my mother’s voice asking behind him, “Who is it, Horatio?”

  “No one, madam!” he replied. “No one!”

  We clambered to my room via the hidden stairs. Once there, we hid our wet clothes in a large sack. Trying not to make noise, I gave each of my friends a robe and took one for myself. Thus cloaked, we sought refuge in the attic.

  “I don’t even want to ask what happened to you,” Mr. Nelson said a few minutes later. He was carrying a huge tub of hot water, which he had us soak our feet in right away. “Nor what trouble you’ve gotten into.”

  “Mr. Nelson —” I began.

  “Not one word, Miss Irene.”

  “Listen —” Lupin started.

  “And as for you two gentlemen,” Mr. Nelson said, “it would behoove you both to sit there quietly, so that I don’t go telling your families about whatever exploits you’ve recently undertaken.”

  He poured something pungent into the water and began massaging our calves vigorously without a word. Even though it was a treatment for avoiding colds, it seemed very much like torture. When he decided he was done, he looked at each of us one at a time with such an air of reprimand that I could not help burst out laughing.

  “Do you find something funny, Miss Irene?” he asked.

  “I’m very sorry, Mr. Nelson. We’ll tell you everything, if you wish,” I said.

  “I insist on it, as the price of my silence.”

  Both Sherlock and Lupin nodded faintly.

  “Okay … I think this time we really need you,” I said.

  “Need me for exactly what?” Mr. Nelson asked.

  “Do you know where the village of Saint-Vigor is?” Lupin asked him.

  “No,” Mr. Nelson replied.

  “Then we’ll need someone else, too,” Sherlock concluded.

  Chapter 10

  THE MONTMORENCYS

  During the carriage ride to Saint-Vigor, I read about the Montmorency family in the Almanac of Gotha, a small book printed in Thuringia. They were one of the oldest families of the French aristocracy. The Almanac contained a brief history and a short list of their properties, which included the one we were going to.

  “I really can’t understand what … ACHOOO! … a nobleman like that could want from me,” I remarked after I finished reading the book.

  “I’d say your part of the map,” Sherlock replied, concentrating on the countryside around us.

  “Then let him have it!” I held back a second sneeze and added, “Besides, it’s not my part of the map. Until a few days ago, I didn’t even know it existed!”

  “And that’s really strange,” Lupin agreed. “It seems like the woman who asked you so mysteriously to get it for her shouldn’t have lost interest, leaving you right in the middle of this shady business.”

  Sherlock made a face, which didn’t escape me.

  “You don’t believe it?” I asked him.

  “I think there’s something we don’t know yet,” Sherlock replied. “That woman didn’t merely ask you to retrieve the map. She wanted to meet you and speak to you. She talked about your mother. She warned you not to tell anyone about that meeting. And then she disappeared into the cathedral. It’s something much more complicated … almost as if she wanted to bring you to someone’s attention.”

  “But why?” I asked. “I just got here, and I don’t know anyone in Evreux!”

  “Perhaps that’s exactly why …”

  The carriage, which Mr. Nelson was driving, slowed a bit.

  Sherlock rubbed his knees with the palms of his hands and continued. “Or maybe it’s because of the house you moved into. After all, it belonged to another nobleman from the Almanac, right?”

  I stared down at the little red book I was holding on my lap. I was surprised that Sherlock had not only had time to browse through it, but that he even knew it so well.

  “Whoa! Whoa!” Mr. Nelson called, pulling on the reins.

  Sherlock headed out of the carriage. “Whatever the truth is, I hope we discover it here.”

  * * *

  The Montmorency estate in Saint-Vigor was impressive. After the stables and a miniature temple at the entrance, a three-story house with a sloping roof came into view. The mansion was encircled by an Italian garden, split into geometric sections by walkways, large majolica vases, and white stone statues. The fountain, which should have been gushing between the two monumental staircases, had not yet been turned back on after the end of the cold season.

  On the left side of the property, an English-style winter garden blossomed. There was a large glass pavilion, furnished with sofas and armchairs. As our carriage arrived, a large number of servants ran out to meet us.

  Sherlock helped me out of the carriage. Escorted by my two friends and Mr. Nelson, who proceeded majestically behind us, I fearlessly walked up to the lean head of the Montmorency service.

  “I’m Irene Adler d’Aurevilly,” I introduced myself, trying to imitate my mother’s haughty behavior that I had hated at other times. “And these are Misters Sherlock Winston
Holmes … and Arsène DePuilles Lupin, of the DePuilles Lupins from Champagne.”

  I did not give him enough time to give more than the most minimal greeting, nor to try to place those thrown-together names with the ones he had already committed to memory as a servant of the house.

  “I deeply regret having come here suddenly and unannounced,” I continued, “but I must speak with Mr. Montmorency. And I must do so right away.”

  At that point, the butler’s hands darted out in a well-practiced maneuver. “I’m very sorry, Miss Aurevilly.”

  “D’Aurevilly,” Lupin broke in right away, to put the servant more on the spot.

  “I meant, d’Aurevilly,” he corrected himself. “But I’m afraid that Mr. Montmorency just —”

  “Tell him that I have the map he’s looking for with me,” I interrupted.

  The servant’s hands waved around even more rapidly. “I don’t believe it would be opportune. He just left … for Paris.”

  “I, however, have reason to believe it is very much opportune to try. We shall wait for him in the winter garden,” I cut him short, trying not to blush or look down at my knees, which had grown weak.

  “But of course,” muttered the butler.

  Our little procession headed to the glass pavilion. A maid opened the door, dressed in white and strutting like a goose. Lupin had her giggling with a silly remark, and we made ourselves at home on the edge of a sofa. Only then did I start to breathe again.

  “How did I do?” I whispered.

  “Just as your mother’s been asking you to do for years,” Mr. Nelson replied. “Regal and flawless.”

  Unsure whether to consider that an insult or a compliment, I remained silent. The sound of approaching steps made me prick up my ears.

  “I’d say we’re in,” I murmured, gathering my friends together.

  “I’d say not,” Sherlock whispered.

  And he was right, because the lean butler appeared a second time from the door leading into the mansion. “I’m terribly sorry, miss, but as I told you … Mr. Montmorency has just left for Paris. Therefore, it’s absolutely impossible for you to speak to him.”

  “Yes, that is definitely a surprise,” I commented, annoyed.

  “So is the fact that poor Mr. d’Aurevilly had a daughter,” he responded, raising an eyebrow. “Nevertheless, that’s the way things are. Perhaps you and your friends have come all the way here for some other reason than what you’ve suggested …”

  “To be precise,” Lupin replied, crossing his arms, “Miss Irene Adler has recently moved into the d’Aurevilly house in Evreux, not far from here. And since then, in a lucky turn of events —”

  “I believe I’ve found something that Mr. Montmorency is greatly interested in,” I interrupted. I held back a sneeze, and then added, my heart in my throat, “But it could be that I’m incorrect.”

  “So the gentleman cannot receive us?” Sherlock insisted.

  “Absolutely not.” The butler stiffened.

  I looked at my friends, trying to find a way to get out of this standoff and blew my nose. “You’re telling me we came all this way for nothing?”

  “I’m wondering if, by chance, you have it with you,” the lean butler asked.

  I looked for a handkerchief. Mr. Nelson handed one to me.

  “Here with us? No. But we have every intention of negotiating with Mr. Montmorency,” Arsène replied in my place. He pulled a white envelope out of his pocket, which bore an address written in a curlicued hand.

  The butler looked at it sharply. “I believe Mr. Montmorency may be interested in reading what you propose,” he replied stretching out his hand to take the envelope. “When he returns from Paris, I mean.”

  “Of course,” Lupin echoed, pulling the envelope back from the butler with the speed of a kingfisher. He placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “ACHOO!” I sneezed at that exact moment, burying my nose in Mr. Nelson’s handkerchief. “Oh, good heavens!”

  “I believe you’ve come down with a nasty cold, miss,” the butler observed.

  “And I fear that I will be needing a washroom as well,” I added.

  The butler straightened his spine and gestured to the maid strutting by. The last thing I saw before following her into the house was Lupin waving the white envelope like bait.

  * * *

  A few minutes later we were back in the carriage, heading out along the path from the Montmorencys’ estate toward Saint-Vigor.

  “What a horrible creature!” I remarked, flustered by the recent conversation with the Montmorency butler. “He was quite repulsive.”

  “But he wanted that envelope — and how,” Arsène snickered. “I think we did well to have come all the way here.”

  The street to Saint-Vigor crossed through a thick grove. As soon as a lane opened to the side, Sherlock tapped on the coachman’s box. Mr. Nelson reined in the horses, stopping the carriage.

  “I think here would do well.” Our friend thoughtfully nodded. As on the trip out, he had never stopped looking at the countryside surrounding us.

  “What do you intend to do?” I asked.

  As his only response, Sherlock opened up one of the suitcases and took out a change of clothes — a wool sweater, hunting pants, a heavy pair of boots — and began changing into them.

  “I would say that it looks as though Master Holmes is about to go hunting,” Mr. Nelson remarked from the coachman’s box.

  “Just so,” Sherlock responded, hurriedly pulling off the elegant attire we had worn to present ourselves to the Montmorencys. “That butler wasn’t honest with me, particularly since it looked to me like all the horses were in their stalls.”

  “And therefore, Mr. Montmorency was indeed at home,” Arsène muttered, climbing down to the ground as well.

  “But there’s no need for you to get so worked up about it, Sherlock,” I said.

  “It won’t take more than an hour,” Holmes said. “I kept track of the distance to the house and cutting across from here —”

  “You kept track of the distance, but I did better than that,” Arsène interrupted, smiling. He pulled a small iron key out of his pocket. “You just need to smile at the servants who open the door …”

  “Remarkable,” Sherlock murmured. “But it wouldn’t be a good idea to go in through the winter garden.”

  “Maybe you have a better idea?”

  “Going behind the house,” Sherlock replied.

  “To enter where?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s surer.”

  “Surer than a key?”

  I looked at them, amazed. Was I wrong, or were those two fighting over who should go back to the estate and sneak in on Montmorency?

  “Do you want to know which of you two wise guys is right?” I burst out, as Lupin and Sherlock went on standing up to each other.

  They looked at me. They were acting like two roosters in a henhouse. I had to restrain myself from laughing.

  “I’m right!” I said gleefully.

  Mr. Nelson laid his gloves on his knees, prepared to enjoy what was to come.

  “When I went to the washroom, I took advantage of the opportunity to leave the little back window ajar. If we hurry, we should find it’s still open,” I said.

  “Miss!” Mr. Nelson broke in. “Even if I approved of your idea of sneaking into the house of a French nobleman like thieves, I don’t think I’d risk all of you taking your chances and going adventuring.”

  “That’s fine!” I said quickly. “If one of us —”

  “Ahem!” Mr. Nelson coughed.

  I huffed. Perhaps Mr. Nelson had become somewhat of a partner in our adventures, but his presence still made me feel more limited than usual. “If one of you two … hurries,” I said, “you should find it still open. But be careful.”

  “Well
, I’ve almost finished changing,” Sherlock announced.

  “I’m already ready,” Arsène retorted.

  Sherlock held Lupin back with his arm. “We swore,” he reminded him. “No tricks on each other.”

  “Odd,” Arsène said, closing his fist.

  “Even,” Sherlock responded. He threw out a three with his fingers.

  In the meantime, Arsène had thrown out a two. He won. He gave us a broad smile, a sarcastic bow, and disappeared into the forest.

  * * *

  We waited for Lupin at the little inn in Saint-Vigor. Sherlock tried to get rid of his long face and the feeling of defeat that was bothering him.

  “I was sure I’d figured it out,” he muttered after ordering a cup of tea.

  “What?” I asked. “The odds and evens?”

  He nodded. Scribbling a short mathematical formula on the table, he checked it and concluded. “With any opponent, saying ‘even’ and then throwing out an odd has a fifty-seven percent chance of winning. But with Arsène, who almost always plays three and five, my chances were almost eighty percent!”

  “And the chances that sooner or later I am going to get angry with you are close to one hundred percent, Sherlock,” I said.

  He looked at me, still a little distant. Then he agreed that he did not need to puzzle over it so much. We drank our tea in silence, thinking over some of the topics of the last hour’s discussion, unconcerned that anything bad would happen to Arsène.

  When nearly forty minutes had passed, Sherlock and I walked around outside the inn to where Mr. Nelson was sitting in an iron chair, reading a little book by Mr. George Sand, which he seemed to be finding quite pleasant.

  “Any news?” I asked.

  “Perhaps the fact that this author signs his name as ‘George,’ but is actually a woman,” Mr. Nelson commented, as if he wanted me to understand much more from his sentence.

  We stepped away, and once we were out of Mr. Nelson’s sight, Sherlock did something I had not expected.

  “Wait,” Holmes said. “There is something I’m forgetting …”

  He pulled a golden pendant in the form of a heart from one of his pockets and put it in my hand, enjoying my stunned expression.