Jane Vows Vengeance (22 page)

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Appointment?” Jane said. “No, we don’t. We were hoping to speak to Ninon Grosvenor. Clare Marlowe sent us. Well, she didn’t
send
us so much as she just gave us the address.”

The young woman cocked her head. “And what business do you have with Ninon?” she asked.

Jane suddenly found herself at a loss for words. She hadn’t
really thought this far ahead. She’d assumed that she would just tell Ninon Grosvenor why she was there when she met her, but now it all sounded so strange that she wondered how she could ever have thought she could do that. But the young woman was waiting for an answer.

“It’s about the stained-glass window in the chapel,” she said, deciding that it was best to be direct. “The one with the heart being pierced by a needle.”

She expected the young woman to say something, but all she did was raise one eyebrow.

“I—we think we understand what the window represents,” Jane continued “And we think we might have some information about it.”

The young woman looked at Jane for some time, then at Lucy. “Information?” she said. “What kind of information?”

Jane hesitated. “That’s a little difficult to explain,” she said. “It’s a bit complicated, and I’m afraid it all sounds slightly silly, but we think that—perhaps—the window is a clue to solving a great mystery.”

“A mystery?” said the young woman. “What kind of mystery?”

Jane looked at Lucy, unsure if what to say next.

“Vampires,” Lucy said. “It’s about vampires. We think the window is a clue to finding something that might be able to help a vampire get her—or his—soul back.”

Jane held her breath. She couldn’t believe Lucy had just blurted out everything. Now, surely, the young woman would think them completely mad and tell them to go away. Then they might never discover if the secret to finding Crispin’s Needle was in Eloise Babineaux’s house.

“You should have said so in the first place,” the young woman said, holding the door open. “Come in.”

Jane entered quickly before the woman could change her mind. Lucy followed. When they were inside, the woman said, “I
am Ninon Grosvenor. Welcome to my house. I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself earlier, but you cannot be too careful.”

“That’s true,” Lucy said. “One of my mother’s neighbors was robbed by men pretending to be with the electric company.”

Ninon laughed. “Oh, I’m not worried about burglars,” she said. “It’s reporters I am always on the lookout for.”

“Reporters?” Jane said. “Why would reporters be bothering you?”

Ninon looked at her. “You don’t know who I am?” she asked.

Jane, embarrassed, said, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I probably should, shouldn’t I? You
do
look familiar. Are you a singer?”

Ninon laughed again. “No,” she said. “I thought perhaps Clare would have told you. I am a courtesan.”

“Courtesan?” Lucy said. “Didn’t they go out of fashion, like, a hundred years ago?”

Ninon shook her head. “They just started calling us hookers,” she said. “But of course that’s not what we were then and not what I am now. Come with me.”

She led them up a sweeping staircase to the next floor, where they entered a beautifully appointed sitting room. It was decorated in modern furnishings that somehow blended perfectly with the age of the house. Ninon indicated a Charlotte Perriand sofa upholstered in pink leather.

“Please,” she said. “Sit.”

Ninon herself sat down in an unusual armchair that looked very much like a hollowed-out football floating in the air. It too was upholstered in leather, although it was red.

“Is that a Fasanello?” Lucy asked, admiring it.

Ninon nodded. “My aunt was a collector of modern furniture,” she said, running her fingers over the chair’s curved arm. “I inherited it along with this house.”

“Eloise Babineaux was your aunt?” Jane asked.

Ninon shook her head. “My aunt’s name was Isobel Marchand,”
she said. “Eloise Babineaux was our relative going back many generations. Although this house did belong to Eloise at one time.”

“Clare said that Eloise was a courtesan,” Lucy said.

“That’s right,” said Ninon. “The women in our family have been for centuries. Of course, things have changed a great deal since Eloise’s time. Now there is great interest in my gentlemen friends on the part of the press. I have to be very discreet.”

“Understandable,” Jane said. “It must be very … interesting.”

“It is,” said Ninon. “People assume that men come to me for sex. Some do, of course. It would be ridiculous for me to deny that. But mostly they just want me to listen. This seems to be something that many wives and girlfriends don’t wish to do. I, however, am a very good listener.”

As she spoke she picked up a cigarette case from a table beside the chair. Opening it, she removed a cigarette and lit it using a small gold lighter shaped like a skull embedded with crystals. The flame emerged from the skull’s mouth. Ninon inhaled and blew out three perfect smoke rings.

“So,” she said. “You have come to talk to me about the vampire needle.”

“Is that what you call it?” Jane asked.

Ninon nodded. “I remember my aunt calling it something else, but I’ve forgotten what it was,” she said.

“Crispin’s Needle,” said Jane. “What else did your aunt tell you about it?”

More smoke rings emerged from Ninon’s mouth and floated toward the ceiling. “She said that Eloise Babineaux believed that it was a tool for the killing of vampires.”

Jane didn’t contradict her. Then Ninon looked at Lucy. “But you said that it does the opposite,” she said.

Lucy glanced at Jane, clearly not sure how to respond.

“That’s right,” Jane said as Ninon’s gaze returned to her. “From what we understand, it was believed that Crispin’s Needle could restore a vampire’s human soul.”

Ninon tapped her cigarette on the edge of an ashtray. The end glowed brightly as she took another drag. “I had not heard that,” she said.

Jane couldn’t read the woman at all. Did she think Jane and Lucy were mad? Did she know more than she was telling them? It was impossible to say.

“I understand that there’s a chapel in the house. That’s where the stained-glass window is, correct?”

“I don’t know that I would call it a chapel,” said Ninon. “A sanctuary, perhaps.”

Jane was confused. “I don’t understand,” she said.

“Eloise Babineaux was a very superstitious woman,” Ninon said. “She believed in all kinds of things—ghosts, werewolves, vampires. She thought that one of her suitors was a vampire. His name was Edward St. John. He was English, a secretary to the ambassador, the Earl Granville.”

“Granville Leveson-Gower,” Jane said. “Of course. I knew hi—”

Lucy coughed.

“I remember him from history class,” Jane concluded.

Not only had she known the Earl Granville, she had known Edward St. John as well. He
had
been a vampire, and a rather nasty one at that. If Eloise Babineaux had been mixed up with him, she probably did have reason to be afraid.

“Eloise heard about this needle,” said Ninon. “I don’t know where. She had the window made and placed in a room at the top of the house, thinking it would protect her. She slept in there every night.”

“Apparently it worked,” said Lucy. “I mean, she was never turned into a vampire, right?”

“She died of consumption,” Ninon replied. “Everybody did back then. It was very romantic, apart from the spitting up of blood.”

It was, Jane felt, time to get to the point. “Do you know if Eloise ever actually found the Needle?” she asked.

Ninon looked at her quizzically. “You think it exists?” she said.

“I don’t know,” Jane answered. “We think perhaps it might.”

“Would it be very valuable?” asked Ninon.

“That’s difficult to say,” Jane said. “Some people believe it was made from the nails used to crucify Christ.”

Ninon snorted. “Another fairy tale,” she said.

“Yes,” said Jane. “Well, to answer your question, Crispin’s Needle might indeed be very valuable.”

“If it exists,” Lucy added.

“If it exists,” Jane agreed.

“And what makes you think it might be here in the house?” Ninon asked.

Jane hesitated. “Just the window,” she said, knowing that any other explanation would sound insane. “As you know, it’s the same as the one in the Church of St. Apollonia.”

“Well, you’re certainly welcome to look for yourself,” Ninon said. “But understand that if you do find anything, it belongs to me.”

This thought had not occurred to Jane. Now that it had, she saw that there might be a problem. If Crispin’s Needle indeed was in the house, Jane wanted it for her own use. But of course Ninon would have a claim on it.

I might have to bite her
, she thought.
That would be most inconvenient
.

Ninon rose from the chair. “Follow me,” she said.

They walked up two more flights of stairs, until they came to the top floor. Here the house was far less elegant, with plain wood floors and faded wallpaper patterned with shepherdesses. Ninon walked to the end of the hall and opened a door.

The room behind it was small, perhaps nine feet on any side. It was painted white, and there were no rugs on the floor. A narrow iron-framed bed was pushed against one wall. The only other furniture was an old wooden traveling trunk at the foot of the bed. It was banded in brass and secured with leather straps. The room’s lone window had been replaced by a stained-glass panel. Like the one in the church at Cripple Minton, it depicted a red heart being pierced by a long needle.

“Have you looked inside that?” Jane asked Ninon, indicating the trunk.

“Of course,” Ninon replied. “It was filled only with old nightgowns. Now it is empty.”

“There could be a false bottom,” Lucy suggested.

“Look for yourself,” said Ninon.

Lucy knelt and undid the buckles on the straps. She lifted the lid and peered inside. Then she put her hand in and tapped on the trunk’s bottom. She shook her head at Jane. “That’s it,” she said.

“And you didn’t need the key to open it,” Jane said.

“Key?” said Ninon. “You have a key?”

I might as well show her
, Jane thought. She pulled the key out of her pocket and held it up.

Ninon took the key from Jane and examined it. “Come with me,” she said.

They left the room and retraced their steps, going back down the stairs and then down yet another flight. They passed through a kitchen and down a final set of stone steps into a very damp basement. It was filled with broken things: an old wringer washer, dolls with no heads, mirrors spotted with age. Everything was covered with cobwebs and dust.

Ninon went to a corner where several large cardboard boxes sat, their bottom edges fuzzed with mold. She opened one and pawed through the contents, then shut it and tried another box.

“Here it is,” she said, lifting out what looked like a small body.
She brought it over to where Jane and Lucy stood and set it on a table.

“It’s a clown doll,” Lucy said.

“A Pierrot, actually,” said Ninon.

The doll was quite large, about two feet in length from the top of its white conical hat to its black-shoed feet. It was dressed in the traditional costume of white pants and a long white coat with three large black pom-poms down the front. Around its neck was a wide white ruffle edged in black, and its ceramic face was painted white with black around the eyes and a single black teardrop sliding down the right cheek. Its lips were painted a faded red. There was a crack running from its left ear down its neck.

“This used to sit in my bedroom when I was a girl,” Ninon said. “It frightened me quite badly, though, and eventually I hid it down here and told my mother that it had been destroyed by our dog. She was angry because it had been in the family for many years.”

She lifted the doll’s coat. “The hands and head are ceramic,” she said. “But the main body is a cylinder of wood. And under here”—she pulled the clown’s pants down, exposing what would have been its backside if it had had one—“is the keyhole.”

Jane looked more closely. Sure enough, there was a small keyhole in the clown’s posterior.

“I always assumed it was some kind of wind-up mechanism,” Ninon said. “Perhaps for a music box of some kind. But there was never a key.”

“What made you think
this
key might work?” Jane asked her.

Ninon looked at her. “I don’t know,” she said. “I hadn’t thought about this Pierrot in years. But when you showed me the key, somehow I knew what it was for.”

“Well, let’s see if you’re right,” said Lucy.

Ninon took the key and inserted it in the hole. It slipped in easily. When she turned it there was a slight clicking sound. Then
the doll’s body opened up. Inside it was lined with red velvet, and down the center was an impression that was designed to hold something long and needle-shaped. The impression was filled with what looked like iron filings. The velvet had several rust-colored stains on it.

Lucy looked at the empty doll. “There was something here,” she said. “It was real.”

Jane picked up some of the filings and rubbed them between her fingers. The remnants of what she was certain had been Crispin’s Needle fell like dirty snow.

“But now it’s gone,” she said.

Monday: Paris