City of Light (City of Mystery) (39 page)

Paris

10:36 AM

Armand Delacroix was
a man with broad financial interests, not all of them relevant to the matter at
hand.  This Trevor and Tom concluded after visiting the first two houses on
Rayley’s list, both of which were located reasonably close to the river but which
upon inspection turned out to be nothing more than middle class houses for
rental, additional sources of income for the ever-resourceful Delacroix.  Now they
stood on the sidewalk of the Boulevard Saint-Michel and gazed at Delacroix’s
own home, an impressive brick affair which had been painted white and was
largely covered with a bank of ivy. 

“He’s come a long
way from 229 Cleveland Street, hasn’t he?”  Tom said drily.

“He isn’t using this
house as a brothel,” Trevor said, his eyes taking in the perfectly tended
gardens and the charming window boxes dotted with flowers. “He lives here
himself, probably with the child he calls Marianne and Isabel too, at least
until she escaped.  Rubois says he hosts parties much like the one we attended
last night.”

“So where is the actual
business conducted?”

“Most likely in some
of the rooms on this list.  But not so many boys are involved and not so many
clients either, I should think.  Delacroix appears to have learned from his
mistakes in London and has decided to streamline his Paris operation.  The
parties are to procure and groom clients, as well as to sustain his public
façade as a civic crusader. The actual liaisons take place elsewhere.”

“We need to be
looking closer to the water,” Tom said impatiently. “Not these polite little
neighborhoods, but the rougher streets.”

“What makes you so
sure?” asked Trevor.  “Whether in London or Paris, Delacroix seems to make a habit
of conducting his business in, as you say, polite little neighborhoods. For all
we know, he could be holding Rayley in the most pleasant looking house in Paris.”

“I don’t think so,”
said Tom.  “Emma will hang me for telling you this, but last night –“

Just then a bicycle
approached them, bouncing on the cobblestoned street.

“Detective Welles?”
asked the young man, whom Trevor now noted was dressed as a flic, his uniform
obscured by his jacket.  When Trevor nodded, he pulled a telegram from his
front pocket and handed it over with a smart, almost military gesture.

The words “Detective
Welles” evidently had exhausted the boy’s store of English because he immediately
switched to French.  “He says Rubois gave him a list of the places we might
be,” said Tom.  “This is the seventh place on the list he’s tried.”

“It’s from Davy,”
said Trevor, ripping open the envelope.  “I don’t believe he ever sleeps
either.”

“See here,” Tom said
to the flic in French. “You know these neighborhoods far better than we.  Would
any of the addresses on this list be located near the bad part of river?   The
criminal part, I mean.”

The young man
squinted at the paper thoughtfully, as Trevor looked up from the telegram.

“Dear God,” he said
quietly.

But Tom merely
glanced at him for the flic was speaking too, running his stubby finger down
the list of addresses, coming to rest on the section near the bottom.

“These are the sorts
of places where the sewer rats live,” he said.

“Sewer rats?” Tom
asked distractedly.  Trevor seemed to have lost interest in the entire
conversation.  He had gone over to lean against a tree.

“Street people,”
said the flic, with a sanctimonious frown. “They live outside when the weather
allows, but in the winter there are little rooms down by the sewer they can
rent by the night.  Or the hour. Drunkards and whores and bastards and thieves
and-“

“I understand,” said
Tom, cutting him off before he could unleash a full sermon.  “That’s precisely
the sort of place we’re looking for.  See here on the map, where are those
addresses in relation to the Pont des Arts?  Might any of them be a half hour
by foot upriver?”

The flic frowned,
suggesting that either the question required some consideration or, more
likely, that Tom’s French was beginning to falter.  He brought the map closer
to his face to study it and Tom looked back toward Trevor.

“So what fresh news
does Davy bring?”

Trevor broke from
his reverie with a startle, as if he had forgotten that Tom and the flic were
even there. Then he read aloud.

Henry Newlove
traveled Paris April 11.  Has older brother Ian.  Also boygirl for Hammond long
ago.  Then married a man.

“Married a man?” Tom
said, walking over to the tree where Trevor still was still leaning, deep in
thought. “Actually married?  He must have that part wrong.  But the bit about
Henry Newlove coming to Paris on the 11
^th
is interesting in light of
our timeline.” He took the telegram from Trevor’s hand to read it for himself.

“Sir,” the flic
called.  “There are three addresses on this list which might be near the area
you’ve requested.”

“Just a minute,” Tom
said, his voice rising. “He says Henry’s older brother Ian was also a
boy-girl.  Also, he says, which implies that Henry himself was a boy-girl.  And
he came to Paris…Dear God, this means the Lady of the River must be Henry
Newlove.  He was killed the day after he crossed the channel.”

“Yes, naturally, but
not only that,” said Trevor, gazing at the pretty white house where the monstrous
Armand Delacroix lived in comfort. “I believe there are ways we can use this knowledge
to find Isabel Blout.”

10:40 AM

“She says that the
clothes were given to her by a friend,” Emma told Geraldine. “And that she
can’t imagine what concern it is of ours.”

“Offer her another
coin,” Geraldine said. “And confirm that it was a male friend.”

The three women were
sitting on the stone wall, a companionable enough place to rest now that the
day was warming, and Emma supposed she had even gotten used to the smell rising
from the sewer beneath them.  The French prostitute had not seemed surprised when
the two women had intercepted her on her way out of the sewer opening.  She had
smiled when Emma told her that her dress was pretty and smiled even more
broadly when Emma had offered her money.  She was one of those rare women who look
less attractive when they smile.

So they had settled
in on the stone wall, each of them gazing out toward the river, as if they were
vacationers taking in a scenic view.  Their position meant that Emma could not
see the woman’s face as they talked, a disadvantage she supposed, since Trevor
had pounded into her head many times that most liars reveal themselves through
their facial expressions and body gestures, not through their choice of words. 
But she told herself it was probably all right.  The woman, who announced her
name to be Francine, had balked at Emma’s suggestion they climb up to street
level and, upon consideration, Geraldine’s stamina probably would have suffered
in the attempt.

Besides, what reason
would this woman have to lie?

“Tell us about the
friend who gave you the clothes,” Emma requested politely, but with what hoped
was an echo of Trevor’s quiet authority. 

Francine launched
into a long-winded and somewhat self-serving tale, but the salient points were these: 
The man was not a regular customer.  She had not asked his name.  He had seemed
a bit down on his luck, as indicated by the fact he had been unable to provide
the requested coins for her services.  Instead, he had offered her this suit of
fine clothing, which he claimed to have obtained just hours before from a woman
he had met in one of the bars.  A pretty woman whom he said had been weeping.

“Certainly sounds
like Isabel,” Geraldine said thoughtfully, after Emma had translated the story
so far.  “Ask her what sort of clothes the man gave her.”

Work clothes, as it
turned out, not too surprisingly.  Francine reported that the man was small,
not much taller than she herself.  Probably that is why the woman approached
him of all the men in the bar that night, because his clothes were the most
likely to fit her.  Oh, and the pretty weeping woman hadn’t been wearing the
dress she had traded away.  She’d been dressed in other clothes, just as fine,
and she had pulled the plum-colored outfit from a traveling valise.

“That’s almost
definitely the woman we’re seeking,” said Emma.  “What is the name of the bar
where all of this happened?”

Le Rire Femme,
Francine said.  The Laughing Woman.  It was a favorite among the sewer rats,
she explained, and it had been especially festive on the night in question. 
For the men had just learned that Eiffel was hiring unskilled laborers to help
in the completion of the tower.  Her client had told her he was going over the
next morning to find work.  He had promised that he would pay her in the proper
currency the next time.

The tower, Emma
thought.  How it casts its shadow over every part of this twisted story. 

“So there.  After we
walk our final steps we must find Trevor and tell him that Isabel was alive and
well two days ago,” Emma said, as Francine bid them a slurred au-revoir and
continued her trawl down the river bank.  “That she was last seen weeping in a
bar called The Laughing Woman and exchanging her beautiful dress for a sewer
rat’s rags.  I only hope for her sake she can wear men’s clothing more
convincingly than I could.  Why are you smiling like that?”

“I have a bit of theory
myself,” said Geraldine. “And I feel quite rejuvenated from our little hiatus here
on the bank.  After we have walked our 2500 more steps do you think we might
visit the tower?  I suddenly have an urge to see it up close, near the base, at
the spot where Rayley was taken.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Paris

11:30 AM

A scream arising from
his own throat awakened Armand and he sat up in bed, his heart pounding and his
hands gripping his silken sheets. The dream had already come once before and he
suspected it would come again, that it might indeed haunt him through the rest
of his life.

For it was
unshakeable, this vision of Henry floating down the Seine, his face upturned
and trusting, looking so much like a child in sleep.  His skirts spread around
him, his hair framing his face like a dark flower, the eerie serenity of the
scene. 

But there was
another reason that the image gripped Armand.  He had seen Henry floating in a
river before.

Ian Newlove and
Charles Hammond had known each other’s secret at a glance.  In many ways
Charles had been dealt the easier hand to play.   Back when they were boys in
Manchester, Ian’s large eyes and delicate frame, his precise gestures and
perennially hopeful smile had made him the more logical target for the
neighborhood bullies.  But Charles was more –

Well, there was no
way to say it except that Charles was more normal, that he had been better able
to blend in.  Charles had watched the other lads harass Ian, tossing pebbles and
coal at him, following along behind with their silly songs and mocking
nicknames, and he had initially considered himself the luckier of the two.  But
over the years that followed, there had been times when he had privately questioned
this early assumption.  For the ability to hide one’s true nature can be both a
blessing and a curse.

Charles had never
joined into the cruel games, but he had often pretended not to know Ian when
the two passed on the street.  He would turn his head and feign a great
fascination with something in the distance.  Ian forgave him these slights and
had never betrayed him, even though, with a single word, he could have turned
the wrath of the neighborhood boys toward a new and far more interesting target. 
No matter how fast Charles looked away, it was always there, in his peripheral
vision.  Ian’s knowing but compassionate smile.

Summers were a whole
different world.  They were brief, for when school was out for the term most of
the local boys went straight to the mills and factories seeking work.  Carting
out slag, throwing buckets of water on the gears to keep them from overheating,
rolling great bolts of cotton in and out of the warehouses.  But between the
school term and the summer work there were always a few precious days, three or
four in June and a like number in September, when they found themselves at total
leisure.

The summer they
almost lost Henry – how old were they then?  Fourteen?  Fifteen?  Ian’s mother
had said to watch out for him and when Charles became an adult, looking back,
he saw the unfairness of that request.  Why would she saddle them with a
toddler to care for on their fleeting days of freedom?  Yes, they were fourteen
and Henry had been…two.  He was still wearing dresses, his curls yet uncut.  They
had packed a lunch and gone down by the river.  Fishing they called it, although
they had no nets or reels.

Despite appearances,
Ian had been the true innocent of the two.  Charles knew a bit more about
matters, courtesy of the village parson, and thus he was able to show Ian
places the boy had not known existed, take him to continents on his body that
were hitherto unexplored.  Even now, Charles could remember the shimmering
light of that summer afternoon, Ian’s incredulous face, the way his hand
gripped at the grass as they rolled, tuffs of it coming loose, freeing the hot
wet smell of the earth.