A Lady in Shadows Page 23

  The last thing I noted was significant amounts of dirt under Fleur’s broken nails and in the half-healed scabs on her hands. On her knees too were dark patches where this same grime—a mixture of blood, earth, and coal dust—had become so ingrained that not even the river had been able to wash it away.

  Fleur’s undernourished condition was not in itself so surprising. On the day I had seen her for the last time, she had already seemed thinner and weaker than she ought to be, as if Rosalba’s passing had robbed her of her interest in food. But it is extremely rare for someone thirsty and dehydrated to the point of death to not drink—if that option still exists.

  A place began to appear before my inner eye. A place without windows, a place with walls and doors against which one might shatter one’s hands without being heard, without being released. A place where the floor was earthen and the walls of stone, and both were black with coal dust and dirt. A cellar. Perhaps a coal cellar.

  Several of the unanswered questions raised by Rosalba’s death concerned the place where she had been found. Why leave her like that, in the coal merchant’s backyard in Rue Colbert? How had her assailant been able to bring her there without being seen? I remembered the curious men, women, and children leaning over the window ledges in the yard like spectators from theater balconies, eager to take it all in. Even on an ordinary night it would be difficult to come and go unobserved in Rue Colbert, and this had not been an ordinary night. The president had been murdered, and the streets had been full of alert, angry, and frightened people. And for every person on the street there had to have been at least two sitting in the windows following what was going on.

  Yet still no one had seen a thing. Marot’s men had gone door-to-door, and while this was not a neighborhood where people fell over themselves to help the police, it was nevertheless remarkable that this heroic effort had not turned up a single witness.

  But Rosalba’s hands had been clean and whole. Even her feet had been unblemished. The contents of her stomach had been negligible, and she would had to have been fasting for about twelve hours preceding her death, but she had not been dehydrated. I could not at present connect her fate to Fleur’s and that grimy and merciless prison I had built in my mind from the clues Fleur’s silent and lifeless body had offered me.

  The facts first. Then the conclusion.

  Had I learned nothing from my ignominious mistake?

  Still. Still I could not shake off the assumption that there was such a room, and that it was located in the immediate vicinity of the coal merchant’s yard.

  I gathered my notes on Fleur and added those my father had made during the autopsy of Aristide Gilbert. I had meant to make a fair copy of them and bring the records up-to-date, but I simply could not concentrate on them right now; I would have to do it later. I placed both in my bag to bring with me when I left.

  I covered Fleur’s tiny battered body with the shroud and tied a new piece of gauze around her jaw to keep it in place. I could not bring myself to blow out the candles.

  There was nothing in that cold room that would let them start a fire. Let them burn out on their own, I thought, and quietly closed the door behind me.

  It was evening when I left the morgue. The streets were busy, as many people were on their way home from work, while others were heading for restaurants or other places of amusement. It was the same in Rue Colbert. An ordinary weekday at the beginning of October, with the daylight fading softly into dusk while a very fine light rain was falling. Quite pleasant, really, since it made the dust settle without being sufficiently heavy to soak through my jacket or transform the dirt into mud. An elderly woman stood on a corner beneath a worn parasol, making crêpes in a huge pan balanced over glowing coals and selling them to those tempted by the sweet golden scent.

  I had no idea how or where to start my search. How was I supposed to find anything that Marot had missed? But he did not know about Fleur’s prison, I told myself. He had been looking for witnesses and the scene of a murder, not for a cellar where a young woman could be kept captive for several days without anyone noticing.

  I was a stranger in the neighborhood and I had been noticed. A straggling line of street urchins had collected in my wake, shrill voices pealing out in the gathering dusk.

  “A copper, mam’selle. Give a copper to a poor starving boy.”

  “Come on, lady. Be nice!”

  At first, I ignored them, especially the ones who turned their reedy voices to homemade chants, presented in a patois so thick that the words were barely distinguishable. Probably just as well, from what I could make out.

  “One-two-three, howd’ya like my ass to see, four-five-six, it can do some cunning tricks, lady watchya clever jack, and pop a centime in the crack . . .”

  This was followed by wild giggling, and they liked their song so much that they repeated it a few more times.

  I stopped. “Do you live here?” I asked.

  “ ’Course. Where else?”

  “I am looking for a cellar . . . a specific one. It is probably a coal cellar.”

  They looked at me with a collective grin that managed to cast severe doubts on my sanity.

  “All the houses have a coal cellar, lady,” said a big-boned, stocky boy of seven or eight, whose hair had recently been cut so close to his scalp that you could see the pale skin through the dark stubble.

  “This one is no longer used for coal,” I said. “And it is closed off. Locked. And the walls must be pretty thick. Perhaps the usual entrance has even been walled over.”

  “How d’ya get hold of the coal, then?” asked one of the smaller boys.

  “Dumb nut. She said there wasn’t no coal in it any longer,” pointed out the bony one, who seemed to be the spokesman.

  I lowered my voice and made it suitably dramatic. “That’s right. Because it’s a secret cellar. If you find it, there’s a demi-franc for a finder’s fee—and hot crêpes for everyone.”

  That had about the same energizing effect as Galvani’s instruments on the quadriceps femoris of a frog. They jumped up and raced in all directions, whooping and cackling, and the bony one yelled back over his shoulder: “Wait here, lady. You might as well order them pancakes right away!”

  Having endured a mild nausea all morning, I was now suddenly starving. I bought one of the tempting crêpes for myself and consumed it with an eagerness I usually did not feel for fried batter.

  Nausea. Menses nil. Sudden cravings?

  I did not care at all for the messages my body was sending me. I stared at the last sticky remains and felt most of all like throwing them away, but the hunger was merciless. I wolfed them down and licked the syrup from my fingers like a badly behaved child. After that, I had to get out my handkerchief to return my hands and lower face to a reasonably respectable condition.

  One of the street urchins came racing back.

  “We’ve found it,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Come and look, lady!”

  My heart jumped, and I followed him farther down the street, in through not just one but two back courtyards.

  “There!” he said, and pointed.

  At first, I could not see what he meant at all. Some minor construction was in progress—a shed in the middle of the courtyard had been torn down and was, judging by the mason strings and foundation excavation, to be replaced by a larger one. But I could not see any cellar.

  “Where?” I had to ask.

  “Over in the corner!” he said triumphantly. “You said it was secret and maybe walled in . . .”

  Now I could see what he meant. There was a cellar, or there had been. At present it was full of rubble from the demolished shed, and when the floor of the new one went in, it would disappear entirely.

  I felt a momentary chill down my spine. The thought that there was a hollow down there, and that it might be big enough to hide a person . . . It would be like being buried alive.

  But Fleur had not been buried, I reminded myself. The prison she had found herself in ha
d an exit—at least for her jailers.

  “Are there other entrances to that cellar?” I asked.

  “Nah, don’t think so. Wouldn’t be a secret, then, would it?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but that is not the right one. The right one has a door—but it probably isn’t easy to find.”

  He looked crestfallen.

  “Listen, lady,” he said. “Now don’t try saying it’s not the right one even if it is—just to get out of paying. Right?”

  “No,” I said, and traced a finger across my neck in a throat-cutting gesture I had not used since I was about seven and still played with Paul Tessier. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” I clicked my tongue to emphasize the seriousness of the promise.

  “Good,” he said. “ ’Cause we don’t like cheats around here!”

  The next two cellars they showed me did in fact have doors, but they were basically ordinary coal cellars to which all of the inhabitants of the house had access. The darkness had deepened and the evening had grown colder, and the flock had thinned because some of them had been called home to supper. It was time to call off the hunt, at least for today.

  “Listen,” I said. “I can’t give you the half franc. It will still be waiting for you if you find the right place and come to Carmelite Street with a message. But you have worked hard, and you have earned at least a part of the reward.”

  I bought ten large crêpes well filled with thick black treacle—it was cheaper than honey—and parceled them out among the boys. It worked out to about half a pancake per boy. The crêpe seller was quite pleased but still asked us to retreat a little up the street while we ate so as not to scare off the more respectable customers.

  Ten crêpes—eleven with the one I myself had devoured earlier—made a significant hole in my petty cash, especially since it had not yet quite regained the two francs I had given to the rebellious Pauline. If I were to continue scattering various forms of bribes in this way, I would have to start looking for a paying job. As it was, I had to cover my expenses from the already distinctly unimpressive household budget in Carmelite Street. Perhaps it had been a little hasty of me to reject Constance Heering-Dreyfuss’s generous offer outright, I thought with an ironic smile. Then I remembered the morning’s sickness.

  Nausea. Menses nil.

  The thought of the dowager’s bargain was suddenly no longer the least bit amusing.

  On the way back to the streetcar stop, I threw a last glance into the coal merchant’s yard. There were lights in most of the apartments, and the smell of frying onions came wafting down from several open windows. A woman emerged from one of the back doors with a slop pail that she emptied into one of the big galvanized barrels waiting for the honey wagon. She sent me a curious look, and I greeted her politely.

  “Good evening, madame.”

  She did not answer, but instead stared at me for so long that I myself took another look at her.

  I had seen her before, I realized. She was Adrian Althauser’s housekeeper. She banged the lid of the container down with a clang and hastened back toward the open door to the stairwell.

  “Wait,” I said. “Please! I just want to talk to you!”

  It was clearly not mutual, but I set aside my dignity and sprinted as fast as I could. I managed to get my foot in the door just before she tried to slam it.

  “Please stay,” I said. “I only want to ask you a couple of questions.”

  “I’m busy,” she said. “My husband’s waiting.”

  “It probably will not hurt him to wait a few more minutes,” I said.

  She sent me a frightened look and let go of the door. She rushed up the stairs, and if I wanted to continue the conversation, I would clearly have to run after her. She disappeared through a door on the first floor, but I managed—barely—to repeat my doorstop performance.

  “Madame,” I said, “be sensible.”

  “Go away.”

  “If you don’t want to speak with me, I’ll have to send the police instead,” I tried.

  “Clothilde?” a voice sounded from inside the apartment. “Who is it?”

  The fight leaked out of her.

  “A lady,” she said. “She’s just leaving.”

  “Why? Ask her inside, Clothilde. We have so few visitors.”

  “So this is where you live,” I said. I think I had imagined that she had a room at Althauser’s.

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s no crime, is it?”

  “Of course not.”

  But it was a striking coincidence, I thought. Yet another thread that somehow tied Althauser to Rosalba Lombardi’s death. If I could only figure out how . . .

  The apartment was not large, but it was neat and cozy. Kitchen, bedroom, and a small living room, from what I could see. There were light muslin curtains and potted plants in the windows, and in a comfortable-looking armchair upholstered in mossy green bouclé sat the master of the house, a small, lively looking man with muttonchop sideburns and a pomaded center parting that gave Inspector Marot a run for his money. Apart from that, the most striking thing about him was the empty trouser legs that had been folded up and stitched closed so that it was instantly obvious that both his legs had been amputated just under the knees.

  “Do please excuse me for not getting up,” he said with a deadpan humor. “Henri Arnaud, at your service.”

  He was open and extroverted as she was closemouthed and tense. He asked my name and errand, invited me to sit down, asked Clothilde Arnaud to bring us coffee and “refreshments.” So I knew the professor from the university? Well, he must say that was most impressive for a young lady. For sure, he himself had neither the brains nor the nerves for that kind of work. Clothilde certainly had a lot to report when she came home. Dismembered animals and dead bits and pieces in glass jars, as though they were preserved pears! No, that was not for him. But he was a gentleman, the professor, in spite of the peculiar things he studied. He paid Clothilde well and on time. And that was just as well, because after his own little accident—here he waved a casual hand at his stumps—he had had to move his workshop up here, so no one came in off the street anymore, and only a few of his old customers stayed loyal.

  “What is your trade, then?” I asked, while I sipped carefully at the coffee. It had clearly been standing on the stove for a while and was about the consistency of chimney soot.

  “I am a saddler,” he said. “Well, it’s tough to handle the larger commissions, but I can still repair bags and harnesses and that kind of thing. And resole a pair of boots, if necessary.”

  I spoke with him for another ten minutes or so while I tried to down the burned coffee, but really I was by that point almost as eager to get out the door as Madame Arnaud was to get rid of me. Something had occurred to me, and I could barely wait to see whether I was right.

  I got up at last, thanked them for the coffee and the “nice chat”—Madame Arnaud’s eyes narrowed in her anxious pale face—and said good-bye. She herded me out onto the front steps this time, and I made no objections.

  Outside, in the increasing downpour in Rue Colbert, it took me another fifteen minutes to find it. The windows that had opened on to the street had not just been shuttered or boarded over; they had been bricked up. So had the door. But on the wall, above the recess where the door had been, a faded sign could still be made out: H. ARNAUD, SADDLER.

  I stared at the walled-up entrance while the rain pounded ever more forcefully against the sidewalk and quickly soaked through my thin linen jacket, now more charcoal than ecru. There had to be an entrance somewhere, all I had to do was find it. There was something in there, and I had to find out what it was. Among other things, I was fairly certain there was a cellar . . .

  There was the sound of hoofbeats behind me, and a hansom cab stopped a few meters away. The passenger opened the door and leaned out.

  “Mademoiselle Karno! May I take you home?”

  I stared. It was Christophe, complete with bow tie and an entirely inappropriat
e boater.

  “Are you following me?” I asked heatedly.

  “On occasion,” he admitted cheerfully. “When I have nothing better to do—and when the weather is less unpleasant. You frequent such interesting places, mademoiselle.”

  “Is that even legal?” I asked.

  “Oh, absolutely. As long as I’m not bothering you.”

  “But you are!”

  “By offering to save you from this inclement weather? That is hardly a grave offense. Oh, do hop in, you are absolutely soaked. I promise to behave like the gentleman I really am!”

  I was almost tempted, but I gathered the remains of my sodden dignity around me.

  “No, thank you,” I said. “There is an excellent streetcar awaiting just round the corner.”

  “As you will, but may I at least present you with today’s paper? I am sure you will find it interesting.”

  The hansom cab clattered on. I unfolded the newspaper and the headline jumped out at me.

  “DEATH’S PHOTOGRAPHER,” it said, across most of the front page. I could not help reading it, in spite of the big wet drops that spotted the paper and made the print blur.