Chapel Noir

Chapel Noir

By Carole Nelson Douglas from Tom Doherty Associates

MYSTERY

Midnight Louie Mysteries:

Catnap

Pussyfoot

Cat on a Blue Monday

Cat in a Crimson Haze

Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

Cat with an Emerald Eye

Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

Cat in a Golden Garland

Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt

Cat in an Indigo Mood

Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

Cat in a Kiwi Con

Cat in a Leopard Spot

Midnight Louie’s Pet Detectives

(editor of anthology)

Marilyn: Shades of Blonde
(editor of anthology)

Irene Adler Adventures:

Good Night, Mr. Holmes

The Adventuress

(Good Morning, Irene)

A Soul of Steel
(Irene at Large)

Another Scandal in Bohemia

(Irene’s Last Waltz)

Chapel Noir

Castle Rouge
(forthcoming 2002)

HISTORICAL ROMANCE

Amberleigh*

Lady Rogue*

Fair Wind, Fiery Star

SCIENCE FICTION

Probe*

Counterprobe*

FANTASY

Taliswoman:

Cup of Clay

Seed upon the Wind

Sword and Circlet:

Six of Swords

Exiles of the Rynth

Keepers of Edanvant

Heir of Rengarth

Seven of Swords

*also mystery

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint material:

Belford, Barbara.
Bram Stoker
. Copyright © 1996 by Alfred A. Knopf. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf.

Harsin, Jill.
Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Paris
. Copyright © 1985 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.

Hovey, Tamara.
Paris Underground
. Copyright © 1991 by Tamara Hovey. Reprinted by permission of Orchard Books/Scholastic, Inc.

Jakubowski, Maxim and Braund, Nathan.
The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper
. Copyright © 1999 by Constable & Robinson, London. Reprinted by permission of Constable & Robinson.

Schwartz, Vanessa R.
Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Paris
. Copyright © 1997 by The Regents of the University of California. Reprinted by permission of the University of California Press.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

CHAPEL NOIR: AN IRENE ADLER NOVEL

Copyright © 2001 by Carole Nelson Douglas All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

Forge
^®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Book design by Ellen Cipriano
Maps by Darla Tagrin

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Douglas, Carole Nelson.

Chapel noir : an Irene Adler novel / Carole Nelson Douglas.—lst ed.

p. cm.

“A Forge book”—T.p. verso.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-312-85493-5   ISBN 978-0-312-85493-5

1. Adler, Irene (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women detectives—France—ParisFiction. 3. Paris (France)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3554.08237 C48 2001

813’.54—dc21

2001040151

First Edition: October 2001
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Claire Eddy,
with many thanks for her eagle editorial eye,
and for her scholarly approach
to the art of making books

Acknowledgments

The author owes much to the invaluable assistance of Delphine Kresge-Cingal, a professor at the University of Amiens, France, and her associate, Thierry Melan, founder of a French Sherlockian research organization, the
Centre de Recherches Holmésiennes et Victoriennes
(
http://www.crhv.org
).

Thanks to the modern wonders of e-mail and the World Wide Web, both sources researched Paris both then and now, forwarding images of vintage Paris street maps and scenes.

Delphine also read the novel in manuscript, offering encouragement, research information, and explaining the fine points of French language and usage.

Where these have not been followed, it is due to English usage traditions with French words, or because the author needed to take a little literary license with the facts in what is ultimately a work of fiction.

Delphine and Thierry were tireless detectives on the trail of particular street names and facts, and performed tenaciously enough to impress Sherlock Holmes himself.

I also thank them for an honorary membership in the
Centre de Recherches Holmésiennes et Victoriennes
. I’m very glad that, at the end of
Good Night, Mr. Holmes
, I moved Irene Adler from London to Paris, where she has been so welcomed, and where her books are being reprinted.

Also most helpful were Barbara Peters of The Poisoned Pen bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona, and “Ripperologist” August Paul Alesky Jr., of Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore in Forest Park, Illinois. I thank them both profoundly.

—
Carole Nelson Douglas

Contents

Editor’s Note

Cast of Continuing Characters

Prelude

1. Somewhere in Paris

2. Somewhere in France

3. Nell and the Night Visitors

4. Not So Sweet a Home . . .

5. The Abbot Noir

6. Frère Jacques, Dormez-Vous?

7. Woman of Mystery

8. Call Her Madam

9. Horrible Imaginings

10. Carried Away

11. Rue Royale

12. Family Resemblance

13. Rogue Royale

14. Gypsy Fortune

15. In the Pink

16. Jacques the Ripper

17. La Tour Awful

18. An Unappetizing Menu

19. A Movable Feast

20. Wild Oats

21. The Women of Whitechapel

22. The Judgment of Paris

23. Deadlier than the Male

24. Morgue Le Fey

25. Dancing with the Dead

26. La Mort Double

27. The Skull Beneath the Skin

28. A Werewolf in London

29. Lost Soul

30. Jack L’Eventreur

31. Sins of the Son

32. Sherlock the Shredder

33. With Bated Breath

34. Buffalo Gals

35. Of Couches and Corks

36. Couched in Ambiguity

37. We Three Queens

38. A Message from Abroad

39. Last Tangle in Paris

40. A Map of Murder

41. The French Connection

42. Tableaux Mordants

43. Calendar of Crime

44. A Confederacy of Paper

45. Worlds Fair and Foul

46. An Exhibition in Terror

47. Paranoia

48. No Quarter

49. Lost Innocence

50. Resolution

Coda: The Vampire Box

Afterword