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attention; they didn’t even look down, just carried on pacing up and down the courtyard, chatting away and taking swigs from the bottle. The captain may have been one-armed but his eyesight was excellent; he could see boots and spurs under the soutane. What then? An officer of the Tsar’s disguised as a priest? He raised his pistol, stepped out into the yard and, in order not to shoot his enemy in the back, called out, ‘Show yourself!’
    The major-domo turned round. It was Sergeant Martinon; his eyes had a glazed look. The captain stamped on the cobbles. ‘You inbred idiots! I could have killed you!’
    â€˜Me too?’ asked the bogus curate, pushing back his mantilla.
    â€˜You too, Bonet!’
    â€˜Sir, as you can see, we’ve laid our hands on this Russian’s clothes …’
    â€˜An entire wardrobe,’ added Trooper Bonet, shaking out the skirts of his soutane.
    â€˜The major-domo?’
    â€˜Nothing to fear on that score, sir,’ said Martinon. ‘He’s been asleep all this time in the apartments on the second floor with the troupe of actors, that’s why we couldn’t find him.’
    â€˜Take off that tawdry finery and follow me, you utter incompetents! Do you think you’re at a masked ball?’
    The captain tucked his pistol back in his belt and grabbed the bottle of brandy, which he finished in a singledraught. Then the three troopers set off up the main staircase, almost at a run, but in the middle of the first landing the captain gestured at them to slow down: a couch had been dragged up the steps and a Russian cuirassier was sprawled on it, muttering incomprehensibly in his sleep.
    â€˜No danger, sir, he’s no more Russian than we are and he’s drunk.’
    â€˜Maillard!’ roared the captain, hoisting the sleeper like a sack of grain.
    Maillard didn’t wake up either when d’Herbigny tore off his white tunic with its black facings or when he dropped him back onto the tiles. In a fury, the captain urged on his dragoons, still dressed as a parish priest and a servant; on the next floor he kicked open the reception room’s double doors and discovered the actors’ dormitory. Each of them had made a bed with furniture from the other rooms. Mme Aurore, the manageress, had been entitled to the softest sofa, the others had unhooked curtains and pushed chairs together. They woke up together, squealing; amongst them, a tall, shaven-headed figure in a collarless linen tunic, who was propping himself up on one elbow when the cuirassier’s wig and uniform hit him in the face. ‘Get up,’ cried the captain. ‘And confess!’
    â€˜Confess what, sir?’
    â€˜That you’re no more a major-domo than I am!’
    â€˜I have been in Count Kalitzin’s service for fifteen years.’
    â€˜False! You’ve got the cropped hair of the Tsar’s soldiers!’
    â€˜To make my wig easier to wear.’
    â€˜Liar! And this uniform?’
    â€˜It belongs to the count’s eldest son.’
    â€˜This good fellow has not left our side,’ Mme Auroreput in, hoping to calm d’Herbigny, who was turning bright red.
    â€˜It’s an alibi! He’s just waiting for his moment to burn us alive!’
    â€˜By all the saints in heaven, it’s not true,’ said the Russian, crossing himself.
    â€˜Get up!’
    â€˜A little peace and quiet wouldn’t go amiss. It is morning, after all,’ observed the Great Vialatoux, emerging from under a blanket.
    â€˜Silence! I know about war and I’ve got a nose for this sort of thing!’
    â€˜You have got a nose, a long one, but you don’t condemn someone just on a hunch,’ said the juvenile lead, who had spent the night on a bed of Oriental rugs, his tinplate armour by his side.
    The Russian agreed to get up. He didn’t look at his accuser but at the door instead; he opened his mouth slightly, probably