“The staff in this house talk about those goings-on, on occasion,” Bartholomew said as he poured coffee for Grenville. “There’s not one who didn’t lose a parent or grandparent or other member of their family to the retaliations. It was a bad time.”
“Twenty-five odd years ago now,” Grenville pointed out. “I have difficulty believing Gallo would be murdered for bringing it up.”
“It depends on what he intended to do with the information,” I said. “Perhaps this man, Potier, still has teeth, and Gallo threatened to betray someone who’d stood up to him all those years ago.”
“Potier must be dead by now, surely,” Donata said with the conviction of a woman not many years past her thirtieth. “Either in some battle or done away with by the restored monarchy.”
“I might be able to discover his fate,” Grenville offered. “I have many friends in Paris, some in the upper echelons, who can find out these things.”
“If they can do so without causing a stir,” I warned. “No one Lyon would be happy to see the man again, or even hear about him.”
“Let sleeping dogs lie. Yes, I understand.” Grenville nodded and lifted his cup. “I do know how to be circumspect, my dear friend.”
“You are an expert at it,” Donata assured him. “Were you able to translate the letter, at all? The one found in Gallo’s rooms?”
“Ah.” Grenville took a sip of coffee and clicked his cup into its saucer. He reached into an inner coat pocket and withdrew the letter with its broken seal. “I’ve had a bit of trouble with it, because the Italian it’s written in is archaic. There are words and phrases I’m hopeless to translate, and a dictionary hasn’t helped me.”
“May I?” Donata held out a slim hand, and Grenville passed her the letter. She unfolded it and skimmed a page. “I see what you mean. The construction is odd, but it is not a dialect.” She peered more closely at the paper. “It seems to be about a business transaction, but I cannot decipher of what sort.”
“No signature or greeting,” Grenville said. “Either those have been removed, or they were on another sheet, now lost.”
“Gallo might have kept the pages with the names,” I suggested. “Hidden them elsewhere. Maybe he feared what did happen—someone would find his hiding place.”
“The paper is of fine quality.” Donata rubbed the sheet between her fingers. “Expensive. If it is old, as you suspect, Grenville, it has held up well. Not brittle and crumbling as cheap paper will do with age.”
“The stationary of an aristocrat,” Grenville concluded. “Or a very wealthy merchant, as chaps from Florence or Venice tended to be in the past.”
“It could have been appropriated from an archive during Bonaparte’s occupation,” Donata said. “Taken as a valuable artifact rather than as a document of information.”
“I have another fellow I can ask about that.” Grenville took the letter Donata handed back to him and carefully slid it into his pocket. “One who collects such pieces of history.”
“Of course you do,” I said.
“It is the Comte Lejeune himself, as a matter of fact,” Grenville said, ignoring me. “That is, If I can find the blasted man. He hasn’t been to his hunting lodge but hasn’t returned home either. I do hope he’s all right, what with chaps going about stabbing other chaps.”
Grenville’s hand strayed to his abdomen, where a few years ago, a man had driven a knife into him. He’d been assisting me on another problem and had stepped into the path of a desperate man.
“You take care while you’re searching for the comte,” I said. “I think we’d better find him. He might be the one who killed Gallo, but then, he might be another victim.”
“An appalling thought either way,” Grenville said. “I don’t know the comte well, and I’m not certain I like him, but I wouldn’t wish him harm. In any case, the comtesse does not need a husband who either murders those who threaten him or is murdered himself.”
In my opinion, the comtesse would be well rid of the man, but if he’d committed a crime, she would be caught in the shame and whatever legal retaliations the French government would take. I agreed that she did not deserve such troubles to be poured upon her.
“We will run the comte to ground,” I said with confidence. “Bartholomew, can you and Matthias assist? Inquire among the servants if any know where the comte actually is, or if not, where he might go?”
“Be happy to, sir.” Bartholomew brightened, always eager to join in our hunts.
“Carefully,” I admonished. “Gallo upset someone, and I don’t want to replicate his mistake.”
“Of course.” Bartholomew sounded surprised I’d doubt him.
“Excellent,” Donata said. “We will have opportunity to ask Signora Ruggeri about him ourselves, tonight.”
My brows rose. “Will we be entertaining her?”
“Marianne will,” Grenville answered. “Or, rather, one of her actor friends is, and she will hostess for him. I suggested they invite Signora Ruggeri. It will be a gathering of actors, artists, and a few of the more respectable of the demimonde. I assured Marianne we would all attend.”
Marianne’s gathering took place in a large, fairly modern house in the Croix-Rousse, north of the old city. The area had been home to silk factories of the last century and had housed their workers. After the war, artists and their set had taken over a part of it. Marianne’s crony, a retired actor from London, had renovated a townhouse, transforming it into a studio and comfortable home.
