City of Light (City of Mystery) (46 page)

“We will bring down
the boats to sweep the river,” Rubois called to Trevor.  “If Detective Abrams
is in there, we will find him.”  As he grew closer, he added more quietly, and
with more sympathy.  “Perhaps you wish to talk to Delacroix.  Once we get a
prisoner within the walls of the station, I am afraid he is ours.  This is
French soil, after all, and he must answer for our crimes before he answers for
yours.  But if you come now I can give you a few minutes in the wagon.  You can
ask him whatever you wish and we shall…I assure you, we shall look the other
way.”

Carle translated and
Rubois watched comprehension slowly growing in Trevor’s eyes as he made his way
back to the bank and struggled out, his hands trembling so violently he could
scarcely grasp the reeds and grass to help pull himself up the bank.  If there
was any truth left in Armand Delacroix, Rubois was offering Trevor the chance
to beat it out of him.

“You know you
can’t,” Tom said, suddenly at his side with his voice so low and calm that
Trevor might have mistaken it for the sound of his own conscience.  “You’re
Scotland Yard and that has to mean something, even here.  We can interrogate
him, of course, but I doubt he’ll give us anything we don’t already know.  And
there’s no reason to wait for boats to come and sweep the river.  If Rayley’s
gone under, we both know well enough where he will surface.”

Trevor nodded,
although his limbs were giving way and he couldn’t totally come to terms with
what all these voices were telling him.  It would seem that he had failed yet
again.  Not failed in capturing the criminal, for the man who had caused this
nightmare was trussed and tied in the back of a police wagon.  Whether justice
took the form of a blade in Paris or a rope in London was all the same, for
either way Delacroix would be gone from the earth.  And perhaps this counted as
success by some standards.

But not for Trevor. 
He was beginning to realize that for him law enforcement would always be more
about protecting the innocent than punishing the guilty.  What good would a
thousand closed cases and citations do him if he couldn’t save the people he
knew and cared for?  First he had lost Emma’s sister to the Ripper and now
Rayley too was gone.  Or perhaps, most dreadful thought of all, he had even
caused it.  The posters, which had been his idea, had apparently not merely
forced Delacroix’s hand but driven him into a frenzy of destruction. 

“It’s not your
fault,” Tom said firmly, his hand on Trevor’s arm, for the man’s stricken
facial expression showed well enough what he was thinking.   “You did what you
thought was best. We all did.  Once a criminal has taken a hostage, he holds
all the cards.  You’ve told us that many times.” 

Trevor nodded,
although the younger man’s words seemed to be coming from far away.  He was
going into a type of shock, he realized with relief, a sort of protective
numbness that would allow him to function.  For this day was not yet over and
Trevor knew he still owed Rayley Abrams two things.  He must retrieve his body
from the Seine and he must find Isabel Blout.    

4:11 PM

The flic Rubois had
dispatched to summon help must have flown on the wings of angels – or at least
shouted the news to every fellow officer he’d passed – for within minutes a
handful of police had gathered, representing a variety of functions and ranks. 
Trevor and Tom accepted their offer of an official carriage and headed back
down the street in the direction of the bridge where the whole matter had
started, the bridge where it would likely end.  The bridge where Emma and
Geraldine would be waiting for them.  Although they did not say it during their
brief and silent ride, Tom and Trevor were thinking the same thing.  It took
thirty minutes for a body to float downstream from the sewer to the bridge. 
They needed to arrive at the bridge before that much time had passed or the women
waiting there might be subjected to an experience from which they might well
never recover.

But when they
arrived, they found only Emma, sitting on the same stone wall where they had
left Geraldine, slapping a glove against her palm and looking impatient.

“Where have the two
of you been?” she said irritably as they approached. “Geraldine seems to have
utterly disappeared and – why are you staring at me so strangely, Trevor?  Did
you find Rayley?”

“In a way,” said
Tom, stepping forward to put his arm around her waist for Emma had risen
slowly, staring back at Trevor.

“Emma,” Tom said. 
“Come with me away from the sewer wall and please, let’s take a little walk.”

“We were too late,”
Trevor blurted.  “We found Delacroix, but he was coming up from the river…”

“The river,” Emma
said, shaking off Tom’s arm and walking toward the water.  “If he went into the
river…”

“Don’t go down
there,” Tom called after her.  “Trevor and I can –“

“Leave her be,”
Trevor said.  “She wants to stand with us, even in moments like this.”

Emma squinted
upstream, but what she saw was not the horror she was expecting, but rather a
beauty so profound that it almost seemed to mock her emotions.  A blaze of
afternoon sunlight, already beginning to slant against the water, turning it
into a glittering golden path.  The impressionists are realists, Emma thought. 
For everything they paint - the water, the gardens, this shimmering light - it
is all just as it really appears.   Trevor and Tom were walking down the bank,
she dimly realized, coming to stand behind her.

And then she saw it,
a movement within the mirror of the water.  A stronger current, pushed by the
oar of a rowboat, a dark shape breaking through the brightness, coming slowly
toward them.  In it, two men and behind them, in the back seat, sat Geraldine
Bainbridge.  She looked ridiculous.  The brim of her hat sank around her face,
one feather broken, the other trailing a green string of pond scum.   She waved
her parasol at them and cried “Darlings!  I have him.”

None of them
answered.  None of them moved.  In fact they stood shoulder to shoulder, utterly
immobile, as if they had all been seized by some sort of collective
hallucination.

“You have who?” 
Trevor finally said, as Geraldine drifted closer, proving herself to be not a
phantom at all, but a very wet woman.

“Dear Rayley, of
course,” Geraldine said, peering down at the slowly stirring shape lying across
her feet.  “In fact, he seems to be walking up.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Paris

4:48 PM

Apparently the
amount of money Geraldine had waved at the oarsmen had proven enough to buy not
merely their services, but also their boat.   For they abandoned their craft –
as well as their mad captain – the minute they struck the soil of the bank.  
Funds in hand, they disappeared into the small crowd which had assembled to watch
the drama and evidently volunteered drinks for everyone within earshot. For a
cheer went up and the crowd promptly turned into a parade, following the two up
the hill and into the nearest bar.

Tom converted the
rowboat into a makeshift clinic.  A quick examination proved Rayley to be merely
groggy, dehydrated, and battered, especially around the ribs where Delacroix
had used the stone to weight him.  Emma sprinted off and returned with bread and
a glass of lager which seemed to somewhat revive him, although he remained
listless, sinking back against the side of the rowboat while Tom turned his
attentions to his aunt.

Geraldine was
utterly soaked, a fate she shared with Trevor and Rayley, and as the sun began
to sink and the temperature cooled, Tom insisted they all return to the apartment. 
He said this firmly, and they all understood the logic of his directive.  But
no one seemed to have the inclination to move.  The day’s numerous reversals of
fortune had drained their strength. 

And so they merely
sat, the five of them in a beached rowboat, each silent within their thoughts.

It was Rayley who
spoke first.  “How did you find me?”

The question was
directed at Trevor.  Rayley had been semi-conscious at best when they had
dragged the rowboat from the water, and thus had no idea who had truly rescued
him or how.  In fact, he had even roused himself at one point in the medical
triage and held a hand out to Geraldine, saying quite formally, “I take it that
you’re Miss Bainbridge.  I’m Rayley Abrams, you know.”

“Yes, dear, I know,”
Geraldine had replied. “I’m delighted to meet you.”  And then Rayley had
promptly slumped back down in the boat and resumed his stupor.  The scene would
be the source of much amusement to them all in the weeks and months to come,
but as for now, it seemed too much to expect the detective to absorb the fact
that his rescue had come in the form of an elderly heiress armed with a parasol. 
The eyes of the others went to Trevor at once, looking to him for direction as
to how much information Rayley could accept in this pivotal moment. 

“It took all of us to
find you,” Trevor said.  “Emma came up with a very clever forensics theory, and
it led Tom to the rooms where you were being held…”

“And there I
discovered your letter,” Tom said, indicating the glove Emma still held in her
hand.  “Most enterprising of you, old chap, for it confirmed we were at the
right place.”

Rayley was gazing
intently at the glove and blinking rapidly, the workings of his mind almost
visible behind his large grey eyes. “Is Isabel…” he began, and then he stopped,
as if even he was unsure if he could bear the answers to his own questions.

“Alive and in
hiding, as far as we know,” Trevor quickly answered. “Delacroix has been
arrested so she is safe, as are all the boys.”

“The boys?” Rayley
said questioningly.

“The boys, the
girls…It doesn’t matter,” Trevor said.  “It’s a long and complicated story and
one best saved for another time.”

“You think the drugs
have confounded me,” Rayley said.  “And they have, just a bit, but the main
thing is that I seem to have lost my glasses.  And my knickerbockers as well,
if the ladies will forgive me for saying so.”

“Both were
sacrificed in a good cause,” Tom said.  “And anyone would be slightly
disoriented if they had been through what you’d been through, which is why I
must repeat my suggestion that we disembark from this silly boat and return to
the apartment.  Baths and dinner and celebratory champagne are in order, I
believe, and then a good long rest for us all.”

“I think I know where
she’s hiding,” Emma said.  “Isabel, that is.”

The others looked at
her sharply, Rayley included.

“It’s just a hunch,”
Emma said cautiously, for the intense hopefulness of Rayley’s expression made
her wary of promising too much.  “But Marjorie Mallory was telling me that at
the top of the Eiffel Tower there’s a room -”

“But of course,”
said Rayley.  “She knew all about it.  She told me the day we climbed.”  He sat
up more fully now, once again rapidly blinking, with his excitement clearly helping
him to overcome the lingering effects of the chloroform. “But how would she get
up there without…but never mind, Isabel is damn clever and you’re right, Emma, it’s
precisely the sort of solution she would think of, the sort of place where she
would want to go.”

“A room at the top
of the tower?” Tom said skeptically.  “With all those workers coming and going,
someone would see her.”

“Not at all,” Rayley
said definitely, his personality now breaking through the haze of the drugs
like sun after a rainstorm.  “This is a private room, above the public levels. 
Much higher. Terrifyingly so.  But she would go there without hesitation.” 
Rayley’s eyes, which looked so naked without the protective shell of his
customary eyeglasses, darted around the circle. “Isabel is utterly fearless. 
As brave as any man I’ve ever known.”

“I’m sure,” Trevor
said cautiously.  “But there are other things you need to understand, Abrams,
other facts which have come to light in the last few days.”  He hesitated and
fumbled.  “We’ve identified the first body that was found in the Seine, the boy
who was dressed as a girl.  It’s Henry Newlove, Isabel’s brother.”

“Brother?” Rayley
said, frowning.  “I didn’t know she had a brother.  And did you discover why on
earth he’d be dressed as a girl?”

“As we said, long
story,” Trevor said. “Very long story.  But the salient point is that when we
learned his identity we made posters, showing Henry’s face.”

“Newlove,” Rayley said
slowly.  “That name is somewhat familiar...”

“She must be
distraught,” Emma said abruptly, also pushing away from the side of the rowboat
and leaning toward the others. “What Trevor is trying to say, Rayley, is that
in our efforts to force Isabel and Delacroix into action, we revealed to the
general public that Henry Newlove is the corpse they were calling the Lady of
the River.  So yes, Isabel is safe from Delacroix but the odds are high that in
the course of this day she has also learned that her brother is dead.  Which I
imagine would make her –“

“I must go to the
tower,” Rayley said.

“You’ve had a
shock,” Tom said, “and Aunt Gerry is soaking.  If we all return to the
apartment and-“