A Man in Uniform Read Free Page B

with this.”
    “My condolences, Madame. He is recently deceased?”
    “Oh no, six, seven months now.”
    “So sad, very sad. Could he possibly have been as young as yourself?”
    “Five years older.”
    “Too young, too young. An accident perhaps?”
    “An accident?”
    “His death, I mean …”
    “Oh yes, of course. An accident. But really, we need not speak of him.”
    Dubon noted with interest that she did not seem to have been a particularly fond wife. The thought gladdened him a little, although he did not stop to examine why.
    “Well, Madame.” He paused, knowing full well he should send her about her business but wanting now to prolong the acquaintance. “I will think on it and make some inquiries of colleagues. Perhaps I can find an advocate who would be more appropriate to your needs.”
    “No, Maître, really, it must be you.”
    “You flatter me. At any rate I will make my inquiries and contact you in a few days.”
    “Can I come again the day after tomorrow at this time, if it is not too inconvenient?”
    It was not in the least convenient. He glanced at the wall clock behind her. It was twenty past the hour, almost too late to bother visiting Madeleine. He would have to ask Roberge to send his mistress a message telling her he could not come tonight. And the following day he would again be pressed to see her because he and Madame Dubon were to attend a ball at General Fiteau’s. His wife was insistent that he be home early on such occasions so that she could discuss her costumewith him and review the probable guest list. So, if his visitor came again in two days’ time, on a Friday, he might be forced to make do without Madeleine until the following week. None of this was what he would have wished.
    “Perfectly convenient, Madame. I am at leisure Friday afternoon.”
    “I will try to be here by four.”
    “I look forward to Friday, then.”
    “Thank you, Monsieur.”
    She stood and offered him her black-gloved hand. He took it and bent over it without touching it to his lips before slowly straightening himself and then letting it go.
    “Until Friday,” he said.
    She smiled in response and walked out the door.
    He waited until he heard her speak to Roberge on her way out and close the door of the outer room before he picked up the speaking tube and called the clerk into his office.
    “You will have to send a message for me. The post office is at the corner,” Dubon said as he opened a drawer and pulled out a blue sheet of paper. He sighed as he filled in the form. If Lebrun had been there, he would have taken a look at the time, readied the form himself, and been poised, without Dubon having to ask, to send the
petit bleu
. Paris’s system of local telegrams was known affectionately by the blue paper on which the messages were written before being stuffed into glass containers, ready to hurtle across the city along a network of pneumatic tubes that connected all the post offices and then be delivered by hand from the nearest outlet. There was a post office down the street from Dubon’s office and, but a few streets away on the other side of the avenue de l’Opéra, one next door to Madeleine’s apartment. Lebrun actually could have walked the distance in less time than it took the messengers to pick up the telegram and deliver it, but Dubon would never have submitted him to the embarrassment of appearing on his mistress’s doorstep.
    He composed a brief message of regret and folded it over, addressed it, and handed it to Roberge.
    “You can take it now and send it on your way home. I will lock up behind you.”
    “Yes, Maître. See you tomorrow.”
    Dubon tidied his papers and left the office ten minutes later. He walked down to the rue de Rivoli at a leisurely pace and entered the place de la Concorde at the northern corner, passing the statues representing the cities of Lille and Strasbourg, the latter draped in black ever since the province of Alsace had been lost to the Germans