seem to have added to an anxiety that seems to have gripped the whole valley, and prompted me to an action that I have contemplated several times before but never undertaken.”
“It must be an interesting location for a geologist,” I remarked, “Your husband spends a good deal of time in the caves, I imagine.”
She hesitated, but then decided that she might as well continue, given that Dupin would presumably tell me anyway, once she had confided in him.
“Far too much, in my opinion,” she confessed, “and he spends all winter fretting, waiting for the thaw in order to gain access again. It’s become something of an obsession, reaching an unprecedented fever pitch in the last two weeks. He has made discoveries there—indeed, he told me long before we married, swearing me to secrecy from the other members of my father’s coterie, that he had first gone into the caves as a child, while his father was away at war, and found something wonderful there, about which he was anxious to send a mémoire one day to the Académie—but nearly thirty years have gone by since he told me that, and no mémoire has been forthcoming. He keeps on saying that there must be far more to find, which he would find, if he only had a little more time—but I know little more now about what it was he found as a boy than I did when he first confided that news to me, even though I have seen the specimens he has brought out. Whenever I ask him about what still remains inside the mountain, he merely mumbles that it is immovable, and that he has not yet discovered the whole of it. I have often had to fight a powerful temptation to go into the caves to see for myself, in spite of the danger.”
I did not imagine that she meant danger from the dragon, or any other phantom of folklore. She seemed an eminently commonsensical person, sufficiently well-controlled to suppress the agitation that she must be feeling. She seemed glad of an opportunity to talk—and perhaps glad, too, that she had an opportunity to talk to someone else before renewing an old acquaintance with Dupin that would inevitably stir up echoes. I wondered how much she had confided to Madame Lacuzon—and how much Madame Lacuzon had confided to her.
I filled the lady’s wine-glass again. She took a long sip, and relaxed slightly.
“I can understand why your patience has worn thin,” I observed.
Her lips formed a wry curve that I could not honestly describe as a smile.
“I have often suggested to my husband that we should invite people that we had known in Paris to visit us—especially Auguste,” she remarked, distantly. “He always agrees in principle, but always puts it off.”
“But this time,” I said, probing gently, “he finally agreed?”
“Yes,” she said. “He agreed.”
I had the strong impression that her husband had been given little choice—that the agreement had been forced. I also took the inference that the lady had not paused after obtaining that agreement, lest it be rescinded. Otherwise, she would surely have written to notify us of her arrival...unless, of course, she was also anxious that Dupin, too, might be inclined to procrastination, if given an opportunity to object.
“Perhaps I have said too much,” the lady suddenly remarked. “I beg you to let me put this matter to Auguste in my own way, in my own time.”
“Of course,” I said.
I heard the front door open then, as if one cue. I knew that it was Dupin; he was the only person in the world who was entitled to do so without ringing. The Bihans always used the back door, as befitted the dutiful servants they took an altogether un-post-Revolutionary pride in being.
I gathered myself together in anticipation of Dupin’s surprise, and my enjoyment thereof...and, of course, of the further revelations that were still to come.
CHAPTER TWO
DUPIN SURPRISED
By 1847 I had already seen Auguste Dupin confronted with some exceedingly strange things—things far stranger than I had once been able to imagine—without flinching, or even condescending to seem surprised. I had never, in all the years of our acquaintance, seen him look “thunderstruck” or “flabbergasted”—but those were the two words than came into my mind when I saw his eyes settle upon Julie Guérande as he opened the door of my sitting room that evening.
Perhaps I am exaggerating, and my own anticipation had added more than its fair measure to what I saw—briefly, it had to be admitted—but I remain convinced of the impression. Dupin was more disconcerted by seeing that old acquaintance of his student days than he had been when he had looked through a window between the dimensions and had seen the Crawling Chaos on the threshold of invading our sector of the Universe.
As I said, the effect was brief. It only took a few seconds for his gaze to register the sight, take account of the shock and repress the overt reaction of astonishment. Then he glanced in another direction—toward the sleeping girl—for a slightly longer interval, collecting himself all the while.
Finally, he bowed politely, and said: “I see that we have visitors. Forgive my startlement, Madame Guérande—I’m a little tired, having spent the last three hours racking my brains over a strange puzzle.”
“How is Lucien?” the lady inquired. “I haven’t seen him since the day when I last saw you, at the Messageries—although news of his good fortune has reached us, even in the Ardèche. Prefect of the Parisian Police!” Her tone was slightly unsteady now, and she was obviously nervous, although she had been quite self-composed a few moments earlier.
I poured the dregs from the wine-bottle into a spare glass and handed it to Dupin. Madame Bihan appeared, as if by magic, carrying another bottle, already uncorked, and set it down. She it was, I think, who indicated to Dupin with her eyes that he would be welcome to slice some cheese from any of the fragments she had brought. I had assumed that he would not want any, and was mildly surprised to see him pick up the cheese-knife. I suppose that he wanted some task with which to be busy, other than drinking wine—and perhaps some reason for prevarication, in order to get his thoughts in order, even before answering a question as innocuous as the one she had asked.
I hastened to get up and move my chair in order to make room around the hearth for a fourth. Madame Bihan stirred up the fire and used the tongs to place two more small logs on it—but Dupin did not sit down immediately. He began murmuring as he cut himself a slice of cheese and picked it up, but suddenly seemed to realize that he was speaking too softly, and raised his voice lightly, in order to make himself heard without running overmuch risk of waking the child.
“Monsieur Groix is very well, considering,” he said, before taking a bite of the cheese—a Saint-Paulin, I think. Then he stopped in order to chew.
Neither I nor Madame Guérande had to ask “considering what?” Revolution was in the air, and the political division of the various police forces of which Lucian Groix was in nominal control—a division with which Dupin remained scrupulously uninvolved—was extremely busy detecting plots against the regime and filling the prisons with dissidents.
When Dupin has finally swallowed, he did not have to hurry in order to add: “Is this your daughter, Madame?”
“It is,” the lady confirmed. “Her name is Sophie. She’s twelve years old. I’d introduce you properly, but the journey has tired her out, as you can see.”
“My friend has introduced himself, I suppose?”
“Oh yes—Mr. Reynolds and I are the best of friends already.”
A slight shadow seemed to pass over Dupin’s face as she said that, but I could not believe that it was jealousy. It was more likely to be anxiety, caused by not knowing what Julie Guérande might have told me while we were waiting for him to return.
“And how is Monsieur Guérande?”
“Claude is not so well, I fear,” the lady countered. She seemed to have tired of the forced conventional manner of conversation, and wasted no further time. “That, as you will undoubtedly have deduced, is why I am here. I’m sorry that I did not write to warn you that I was coming,