Lost in her own melancholy, Marianne had not noticed the silence that had fallen between them, or the scrutiny to which Fortunée was subjecting her, until her friend said abruptly: 'Something is troubling you, isn't it? Is it your husband?'

'He?' Marianne uttered a short laugh. 'He was arrested but it appears that he escaped three days later.'

'Escaped? Where from?'

'From Vincennes.'

'Vincennes!' Fortunée exclaimed. 'Nonsense! No one escapes from Vincennes. If he got away from there, then he was helped. And it takes the devil of a lot of influence to arrange that. Have you any ideas?'

'N-no.'

'Oh yes you have. And not only that, but you have the same idea as I have. This escape had been kept very quiet and I'll wager the Emperor knows nothing of it, as he probably knew nothing of the original arrest. Now, will you tell me who is powerful enough to arrange the escape of an English spy from Vincennes without anyone knowing and without the newspapers getting wind of it?'

'Well – there are the warders, the governor —'

'Would you be willing to bet that if we went to the prison we would meet nothing but faces shining with innocence and the most complete denials? No one would know what we were talking about. No, to my mind, the matter is clear, but what I do not understand is Fouché's reason for letting slip an enemy.'

'Yes, but you do not know it all.' Swiftly Marianne recounted to her friend the events which had taken place in the waxworks and Black Fish's appalling revelations. Fortunée heard her attentively and when it was over she sighed.

'This is ghastly. I hope for his own sake Fouché is not aware of all this.'

'How could he fail to be aware of it? Do you think Black Fish would have concealed it?'

'It is possible that he has not seen the minister since the arrest. Fouché might be at Compiègne or on his own estates at Ferrières. Certainly he was in no hurry to investigate the arrest – which might have proved embarrassing. Our minister is a cunning fox, but I shall find out if he knows about this Englishman's hunting exploits, I promise you.'

'How will you do that?'

'That is my business. Just as I shall find out why there has been this curious leniency towards an English spy.'

'Arcadius says that Fouché has been negotiating with the English behind the Emperor's back, by means of the bankers Labouchère, Baring – and Ouvrard.'

Madame Hamelin's dark eyes gleamed suddenly.

'Well, well! That might explain a lot of things, my darling. I had noticed some very odd goings-on around the Hôtel de Juigné recently, and in the vicinity of our friend Ouvrard's bank as well. If Jolival is right, and I trust his judgement, there must be a great deal of money in it for those gentlemen – quite apart from the benefit to France, which is no doubt a minor consideration. Well, I am inquisitive by nature and I shall bring this little business out into the open.'

'How will you do that?' Marianne asked, alarmed at the thought of her friend engaging in this dangerous form of warfare.

Fortunée rose and dropped a motherly kiss on Marianne's brow.

'Don't you bother your pretty head with all this complicated stuff. Let me deal with it in my own way. I promise you we will have a good laugh and that neither Ouvrard nor Fouché will get away with it. Now run and get dressed and come out with me.'

'Where to?' Marianne seemed to shrink back in her chair, as though daring her friend to drag her out of it.

'To do a little shopping. It is a beautiful day. And in spite of what I said, you look dreadful. It will do you a world of good to take a little fresh air.'

Marianne pouted obstinately. She was sure that if she went out for so much as a minute, Gracchus was bound to arrive.

'Come along,' Fortunée persisted. 'I am giving a little supper party tomorrow night and I must go to Cheret in the Palais-Royal and see if they have any oysters. Come with me, it will give you something else to think about. It is not good for you to stay cooped up like this, brooding, and frightening yourself. You are frightened, aren't you?'

'Put yourself in my place. Wouldn't you be frightened?'

'I? I should be terrified, but I think that would make me all the more inclined to go out. It is much better to be in a crowd than all alone within four walls. Besides, what is it you fear from your Englishman? Do you think he will kill you?'

'He swore to be revenged on me —' Marianne stammered.

'Very well. But there are different kinds of revenge. You say he is intelligent —'

'More than that! He is a devil.'

'Then he is not going to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. That would be too simple, too easy, too quick and, above all, unalterable. He would have every reason to suppose, moreover, that the Emperor would use every means to find out your murderer. No, I think he is much more likely to try and revenge himself by making your life a misery, perhaps even to the point of driving you to make an end of yourself, but he will not come and murder you in cold blood. The man is a monster, but he is not an idiot. Think of the money he could still get from you.'

As she spoke, Marianne's doubts began to fade before the logic of what she was saying. Fortunée was right. It was the loss of a huge sum of money, so easily come by, which had driven Francis to madness at the moment of his arrest, not the loss of his freedom. The man was too sure of himself to be daunted by prisons or gaolers. But gold, the gold that he hungered for, that was more vital to him than breathing. Marianne got to her feet.

'I will come,' she said finally, 'but don't ask me to come to your supper party, for I should not accept.'

'Well, as to that, I have not invited you. It is a supper a deux, my love.'

'Ah, I see. You are expecting your hussar to come back.'

This suggestion struck Madame Hamelin as so irresistibly funny that she broke into a peal of laughter, or rather her own particular cooing chuckle.

'You are wrong there! To the devil with Fournier. If you want to know, it is another hussar I am expecting.'

'But – who then?' Marianne could not help feeling slightly taken aback to hear that Fortunée, having arrived spitting fire and fury, could now talk so calmly about having supper the next day with another man. The Creole only laughed more than ever.

'Who? Why Dupont, Fournier's eternal adversary, the man who pinked him so prettily in the shoulder the other night! He is a charming fellow, you know? And you can't think how delightful he will make my revenge! Run and get dressed.'

Marianne did not wait for a second telling. Fortunée's logic was beyond her comprehension. To say nothing of her morals. She really was a most extraordinary woman.

An hour later, Marianne found herself tripping at her friend's side beneath the arcades of the Palais-Royal, where all the best food shops were to be found. The day was fine, the sun was shining brightly on the young green leaves, on the fountain and in the eyes of the pretty girls who always abounded in this place.

Marianne was beginning to feel better. They went first to Hyrment's where Fortunée ordered a basket of fresh truffles and a variety of condiments with the observation that it was always as well to encourage men in their amorous propensities. From there, they went to Cheret, the celebrated purveyor of game. Here customers were obliged to squeeze into the long, narrow shop between barrels of herring and fresh sardines, creels of oysters and crayfish, dodging the carcasses of deer hanging like sentinels on either side of the doorway. Marianne could not resist a smile at the sight of the famous Carême, Talleyrand's chef, flanked by a pair of wooden-faced footmen and trailing three kitchen boys bearing enormous baskets. He was dressed in the sober but expensive style of a well-to-do bourgeois and was selecting his purchases with all the solemnity of a diamond merchant examining an array of precious stones.

'This place is too crowded,' Fortunée declared,' and Carême will be here for ever. We will come back later. Let's go to Corcellat's.'

This fashionable emporium, a veritable paradise for all lovers of good food, occupied extensive premises at the far end of the galerie de Beaujolais. Flocks of eager assistants hovered in readiness to serve discriminating clients with mortadella from Lyons, foie gras from Strasbourg and Périgord, sausage from Aries, pate from Nérac, tongue from Troyes, larks from Pithiviers, fowls from Le Mans, to say nothing of gingerbread from Rheims and Dijon, sugar plums from Agen, and crystallized fruits from Clermont.

Fortunée pointed out discreetly for her friend's benefit two or three women of the first consequence who had come to place their orders. One of these, a dumpy, pleasant-faced lady seemed to be on excellent terms with all the staff.

'The wife of Marshal Lefebvre,' whispered Madame Hamelin, 'an excellent creature but hardly Duchess of Dantzig! They say she was a washerwoman and the sticklers of the court will not receive her but she doesn't care, and for all her washerwoman's hands, she has far more the heart of a duchess than some that I could name.' She pointed surreptitiously to a tall, dark woman, a trifle bony but with a pair of splendid black eyes, wearing a rather over-elaborate morning dress and giving her commands with an air of great self-importance. 'I could not say the same of her, for instance.'

'Who is she?' Marianne had seen the woman before but had already forgotten her name.

'Eglé Ney. She is so conscious of her great fortune and her husband's fame that she has become insufferably conceited. You see the pains she is taking not to appear to notice Madame Lefebvre? The men are brothers in arms but the wives cannot stand one another. That is typical of the Tuileries…'