“Are you going to tell me what that was about?” Brewster demanded as he approached. Not for him the silent deference of the good manservant or bodyguard.
“I met him during the war, on the Peninsula,” I said. “The encounter was fairly savage, and it almost killed me. We were deciding to let bygones be bygones.”
Brewster regarded me as though he doubted my sanity. “I’ve had plenty of savage encounters in me life, right on the streets of London. When my old enemies see me, they take another road. No bygones for us.”
“The colonel and I might have been friends in other circumstances,” I said. “I’d rather buy him a coffee than strike him down.”
“That’s why a soldier’s life weren’t for me. Don’t want to shake hands and be friends with those trying to kill me. Don’t much want no one telling me what to do either.”
“The army is not for everyone,” I agreed. I’d met plenty who could never adapt to the discipline that kept us alive. “Now, I’ve worked up an appetite. I’m returning to Beaumont’s for my breakfast, if you care to join me.”
I also wanted to find Fernand Devere. He’d reacted strongly to Gallo’s dead body, and I had to wonder why.
Brewster said no further word as we made for the narrow lanes that led to Beaumont’s wine shop.
The proprietor welcomed us with a mere lift of his brows. I’d come to know that, for Baptiste Beaumont, this was an outpouring of joy. He slammed a plate of sausages swimming in thick sauce and a hunk of bread to the table as I sat down, plunking a cup of coffee beside it.
The regulars in the cafe had heard all about the dead man and the gendarmes questioning me. They turned to me in expectant curiosity, and I had to explain what had happened as I ate. Brewster gulped coffee and kept a sharp watch on the door.
“Has anyone seen Fernand Devere?” I asked the room once I’d finished my tale. “He was on the bridge, but I lost sight of him.”
Beaumont shrugged and drifted behind his counter, his effusiveness finished for the day.
“Saw him heading along the quay,” a man in one corner told me. “Past the old arsenal. Probably going back to his ironworks. Seemed to be in a hurry.”
“Ah.” I thanked him, feigning unconcern.
Once I finished the excellent food, restoring my strength, I decided to make for the south of the city and call in at the Deveres’ factory.
When Donata and I had been shown around the ironworks the Deveres owned, I’d expected something rather like a country blacksmith’s, if a bit larger. I’d pictured a stone shelter with a few men pounding at anvils while Emile’s father and uncles trundled the finished goods in horse-drawn wagons to the farmers who’d purchased them.
I had not been prepared for the scale of their operation. We’d arrived at a large brick building with chimneys at either end that belched smoke into the cloudy sky. Several delivery vans waited in the courtyard, and a stream of workers had flowed into and out of the main foundry and the outbuildings surrounding it.
Emile, with his Uncle Fernand, had ushered us inside, giving Donata a thick woolen cloak to shield her and her gown from sparks and soot. She’d worn half-boots for this journey but had been curious enough about the workings to don the crude but sturdy boots Emile brought her to keep her own from being ruined.
The factory’s interior consisted of a huge open room with men working giant bellows to stoke equally massive fires. Workers had banged on bars and poles of iron at their anvils, finishing dozens at a time. The room was open to the second floor, windows high above helping smoke to escape and not linger where the men worked.
The workers had ceased when Emile and Fernand guided us through, letting us move among them without hazard.
Today, my unexpected appearance with Brewster at my side had men glancing up from forges without ceasing their labors.
Two men poured a vat of white-hot iron into a mold, sparks bursting upward in a bright rain. The men were protected by heavy woolen suits and scarfs across their faces, but their brows and hair appeared to be permanently singed.
One man thrust a bar he’d been working into a barrel of water, steam exploding with a sharp hiss. He hoisted the bar out again and left it to cool while he walked to us, hammer in hand.
I hadn’t noted this man on our previous visit. He was as large as Brewster and looked to have once been as active a fighter. His nose had been broken sometime in the past, and his cheekbone bore a large dent, scarred over with pink and white flesh. His dark hair was trimmed close, probably to keep it from the dangerous sparks, but his nearly bald head enhanced his pugilist air.
Brewster stepped slightly in front of me, taking his measure.
“I am looking for Monsieur Fernand Devere,” I told the man in careful French. “Is he here?”
The man only regarded me steadily from light hazel eyes, saying nothing.
“I don’t wish to disturb anyone,” I continued. “I only need a quick word.”
More staring, the hammer clenched tightly in his hand.
“Oi, mate,” Brewster broke in, in English. “He asked you a question.”
