‘If our man really serves in the Viennese Volunteers and not in the Landwehr,’ continued Lefine, ‘that gives us several clues about him. The Landwehr is a militia created by Archduke Charles when the Austrian army, like so many others, began to be puffed with

pride. Service in the Landwehr is obligatory between eighteen and forty-five, with a great many exceptions stipulated in the regulations: invalids, students, people indispensable to the smooth functioning of society - teachers, different kinds of merchants, policemen, administrative employees, doctors ... The principle of volunteer regiments is to incorporate at the last moment the largest possible number of those exempt from service in the Landwehr.’

Margont rejoiced. ‘Conclusion: there is every chance that our man has a job that exempts him from serving in the militia. But whatever he does is not enough to excuse him from the Volunteers. He’s an officer and we know that he is probably not a military man by training. So why does he have such a high rank? Because he’s a personality: a big landowner, a noble, a high-ranking administrative official ...’

Margont’s face lit up as he spoke. He was pursuing this inquiry with tenacity, refusing to become discouraged, and he was jubilant at every step forward.

‘Perhaps he works at the Ministry of War? That way he would personally have access to the military registers. If not, if he is a high-ranking administrator he will have contacts: his position must have helped him ensure that someone manipulated the lists of regimental losses. Fernand, we must find out the exact causes for exemption from service in the Landwehr.’

‘Alas, that’s impossible. The Austrians have not left us such a document.’

‘How many Viennese Volunteer regiments are there?’

‘There are six battalions of six to nine hundred men. The sixth, so nine hundred soldiers, participated in the defence of Vienna and was finished off when the city fell, so forget them. In the three thousand five hundred Volunteers that remain, there must be a good one hundred subaltern officers.

‘Why did he volunteer?’ wondered Margont aloud.

‘To defend his country ...’ Relmyer suggested.

‘No, he doesn’t care about his country. Look at the considerable efforts he’s taken to commit his crimes. He devotes a large part of

his time to preparing his kidnappings and afterwards, covering his tracks. I think his crimes are the only thing that really interests him in life.’

‘So, it’s to be able to attract his prey better to where he wants them. Like he tried to do with Wilhelm.’

‘No. There’s no need to be a soldier in order to pretend to be one. In my opinion, he was forced into the Volunteers. Or he joined up loudly declaring his “patriotism”, or he would have had to seek new employment. So I think he’s an important functionary.’

‘That’s speculation,’ objected Relmyer.

‘True. But we can state with certainty that he was not very patriotic during the ambush. He abandoned his men just after firing on you. Seeing the officer who had organised the ambush flee contributed to triggering the collapse of the Austrians. His action was solely personal, he couldn’t give a fig about that battle.’

And neither could you, Lukas, Margont added to himself.

Everyone had delivered the information they had gathered and conversation petered out. Their investigation was stalling again and still Luise had not arrived. The war had, though. Everywhere soldiers were strolling: Bavarians who felt more affinity with the French than the Prussians, whose desire to take over the whole Germanic world was growing; Saxon infantrymen who joked with the French dragoons who had sabred them a few years earlier at the Battle of lena; officers striding with determination, avid to bound to the top of the hierarchy; artillerymen who talked too loudly because their cannon had gradually rendered them deaf... Margont could not believe how much the army had changed since 1805. Between 1805 and 1809 was but a short time, yet 1805 seemed to belong to a whole different era. At the time of Auster-litz, the French army had been made up of volunteer troops and hardened combatants. Now the allies - Italians, Saxons, Wurttem-bergers, Hessians, Bavarians, Polish ... constituted an increasingly important part. And they had often previously been enemies. As for the number of French conscripts, they had become dangerously elevated in number. These soldiers, inexperienced and more or less motivated, replaced the veterans killed on the battlefield or mobilised for guerrilla warfare in Spain. The Empire depended on its army. Now Margont detected little fissures ... and this reawakened his fear of dying. That fear inhabited every soldier. You grew accustomed to it as best you could, but regularly, without warning, it overcame you. Margont reacted. He needed more life, immediately, even here!

‘Herr Ober! Coffee, cream and patisseries!’ he ordered.

‘And some schnapps!’ added Lefine.

The waiter brought them everything straight away, smiling to himself as he imagined the look on their faces when he presented them with the bill ...

Luise finally arrived, accompanied by the two hussars whom Relmyer had ordered to protect Luise in this city full of soldiers. She did not reply to their greetings and put a piece of paper on the table in the middle of the cups and the crumbs.

‘Here are the names of several people who maintain the register of effective Austrian soldiers. There are thirty-two of them.’

CHAPTER 23

THE days slipped by. Summer had succeeded spring, and the heat was becoming unbearable. The military climate, like a crystal goblet placed in the middle of the oven of these days of heat wave, was approaching the point at which it would explode into a titanic battle. Now Napoleon was spending his days reviewing his troops. By the same token he frequently inspected the bridges, worried that the Austrians might use their tactic of broken bridges that had been so successful at Essling. The bridges, impressive pieces of workmanship, were now all over the place, as though it had been necessary to build them ceaselessly in order to forget the constant collapse of the first ones. They linked the west bank of the Danube to the Isle of Lobau and to the neighbouring islands, and the islands to each other, weaving a sort of spiders web. Lampposts had even been installed on certain of the bridges, which were protected with landing stages on stilts upriver, fortifications loaded with cannon, troops, a flotilla of ten gunners and myriad little boats.

During this period Margont, Lefine, Relmyer, Pagin and Luise tried to find out a little more about the thirty-two suspects by questioning the reluctant Viennese prisoners. They hit so many obstacles that they gradually became discouraged. Relmyer was convinced that the assassin had tampered with the registers himself. So many names had been added that an accomplice would in the end have guessed what was going on, and who would agree to be associated with such ignominy? As a result, against Margont’s advice, he began to strike off the names of those who manifestly could not be the murderer. He treated them like suspects who had been cleared; he saw everything in black and white, with no grey areas. What’s more, if his hypothesis was not correct, there was a risk that their inquiry would fail, and Relmyer simply could not contemplate such a thing. He therefore persisted in hoping that one of the biographies and one of the descriptions tallied with what they knew about the assassin. And there was another problem. Their list of suspects was necessarily incomplete. Relmyer, knowing that, became more and more tense. The passage of time obsessed him, and at night he was on the verge of exasperation. According to him, no one was making progress fast enough. They met regularly in a cafe to review the situation, but even the cafe ambience no longer relieved their tension.