City of Light (City of Mystery) (49 page)

“A great many people
saw nothing.”

“I am a detective.”

“And still human.”

“You would have
noticed something was amiss at once, I’m sure you would have.  If ever you had
seen her...Before that final night, I mean.  Back when she was in her glory.”

Trevor noticed that
Rayley still could not bring himself to use the proper pronoun.  Or perhaps the
mistake was unconscious.  The mind works very hard to protect itself, Trevor
thought.  The mind is its own best friend.

“You’re forgetting
that I saw the Whistler,” Trevor said.  “Back in London, before it shipped, and
of course that night on the tower…”

The water of the
Seine was still, all flecks of light and shimmer.  This is why they say Paris
is so beautiful, Trevor thought.   It is a trick.   A trick of the light.

“I shall never find
a way to sufficiently thank you for saving my life,” Rayley said, his voice as
low as a whisper.  “You or any of the others.   When I consider what you all
went through, especially Miss Bainbridge…”

“There’s no need,
Rayley.  Really.  You shouldn’t trouble yourself.”

“But I fear I never
will be able to stop troubling myself, at least not on this particular
subject.” Rayley set up, turned to Trevor and looked him full in the face. 
“You say you saw the Whistler back in London, when your mind was composed and
settled, so I beg you to tell me.  Did you note something in Isabel’s portrait
that I did not?   Were you cleverer than me?  Because I keep thinking that
there must have been a sign.”

There were more
birds around them now.   Swooping, diving, majestic in the air but brutal when
they descended to the water in search of fish.   They gave out loud angry caws,
screeches of warning as they fought, one with the other, their talons slicing
the golden air.

“I assure you, man, there
was no sign,” Trevor said.  “She was beautiful.”

To review City of
Light on Amazon, visit:

http://www.amazon.com/City-Light-Mystery-ebook/dp/B008QG505U/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1

Historical Note

The Exposition
Universelle of 1889 was a real event and did draw an unusual collection of
luminaries to Paris, including James Whistler, Annie Oakley, Paul Gauguin,
Thomas Edison, and others who make cameo appearances in City of Light. My depiction
of their personalities is entirely fictional. For information about the
building of the Eiffel Tower, which is so central to my story, I wish to extend
my hearty thanks to Jill Jonnes, author of the nonfiction book “Eiffel’s
Tower”. For those wishing to know more about Paris in this exciting era, I
encourage you to read her beautifully-written and fascinating work.

Although I altered
the dates slightly to suit the purposes of the novel, the raid on a male
brothel in Cleveland Street in 1889 was a real event. The young boys who worked
there were indeed procured from the telegraph office and Charles Hammond, Henry
Newlove, and Charlie Swincow are the actual names of people involved with the
scandal.

The other characters
in the book – with the notable exception of Queen Victoria – are fictional.

Other Stories in the
“City of Mystery” Series

City of Darkness,
the first book in the City of Mystery series, is set in 1888 London, where Jack
the Ripper roams the streets with impunity and Scotland Yard seems helpless to
stop him. The science of forensics is in its infancy but a few detectives,
Trevor Welles and Rayley Abrams among them, realize that they are dealing with
a new kind of “modern” criminal and thus Scotland Yard will need equally new
and modern methods to catch him. City of Darkness is available on Amazon.

City of Silence, the
third installment in the City of Mystery series, is set in St. Petersburg. The
Queen’s beloved granddaughter Alexandra is determined to marry the young
tsarevich Nicholas, but Victoria has doubts about how well her sheltered and
naïve “Alecy” will fare in the venomous court of Imperial Russia. When two
ballet dancers  are found murdered in a most bizarre fashion, Trevor and the
Scotland Yard forensics unit travel to the Tsar’s Winter Palace to investigate.

City of Bells, the
fourth book in the City of Mystery series, takes the Tuesday Night Murder Games
club to Bombay.  When Geraldine receives a telegram saying that her former beau
Anthony Weaver has been arrested for the murder of his wife, she insists on
traveling to India to ferret out the truth.  But the truth is a slippery
matter, especially in the secretive world of the Raj, and in order to free
Weaver, Trevor and his team will have to unravel a story which began decades
earlier, with the infamous Slaughter at Cawnpore.

If you’d like to
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Mystery Facebook page or send your email address to [email protected].