The Adventuress (11 page)

Since we’d returned Louise to her home, we’d searched our most exotic volumes for the possible meaning of the tattooed letter. Irene’s operatic education had given her a taste for collecting the obscure and dramatic, so we pored through books of ancient lettering forms, volumes on the arts of cipher and code, guides to the mysteries of Rosicrucians and Masons, compendiums of ancient maps and fabulous lost treasures, of arcane oriental tattooing practices, of sailors and the sea, and—I don’t doubt—of cabbages and kings.

Irene sneezed. The parrot immediately produced a respectable imitation of the sound. Dust swirled in the lamplight, motes lifting like desert dervishes at each turn of a heavy parchment page. “Goodness!” she said. “I had no idea that ‘toade spittal’ was such a frequent ingredient of love potions. No wonder these elixirs work only in grand opera!”

I looked up from the eighteenth-century bible I studied. I held that the odd, tattooed letters were taken from an illuminated religious manuscript and when identified, should point to a particular passage that, if it did not solve the mystery, would at least enlighten us spiritually.

“What manner of book are you reading?” I asked Irene.

“A magician’s
grimoire
—oh, the French have a way with a word: grim-wahr!” she enunciated breathily. “Think what dread formulas may lurk within.”

“ ‘Gibberish’,” I said. “That is the literal translation of the word
‘grimoire’.”
Of course I pronounced it “grim-oh-ire” despite my best efforts. “You will not decipher these tattoos in a book of magic.”

“Nor you in a holy book,” Godfrey added as he strolled in, his forefinger in a volume as thick as mine. “I remain convinced that the letters are taken from the motto on a coat of arms.”

“O, S, E,” Irene mused. “You think each letter begins a word in some Latin phrase? ‘Omni Summa’—whatever. But it is impossible!” She banged her book shut and looked more closely at Godfrey’s reference. “Coats of arms thrive in every country.”

Godfrey turned his volume to reveal its title:
European Coats-of-Arms, Their Origin, Evolution and Significance, with Illustrations of All Major Family Modifications.

 
“Oh!” Irene moaned, burying her face in her hands at the extant of the search. At that moment Sophie entered, curtsied and announced a visitor.

“At eight in the evening?” Godfrey asked.

Sophie, prepared for this objection, produced a visiting card that caused Godfrey’s eyebrows to leap for his hairline when he read it. He told Sophie to admit the caller.

“Well.” He thumped his book atop an unsteady pile of volumes. “This should prove interesting. My dear le Villard.” He stepped to the threshold to greet a dapper man of olive complexion.

Monsieur le Villard’s palms brushed the sides of his pomaded hair—so black and shiny it resembled patent leather—before he bowed to Irene and myself in turn.

“You have found us mired in our homely evening pursuits, Monsieur,” Irene said demurely. “Perhaps we could remove to the front parlor and send for refreshments.”

“No, no!” The man began to pace, then realized that he was not in his own domain. He leaned forward to inspect Godfrey’s face. “But, my friend, you have taken an injury!”

Godfrey laughed deprecatingly. “An encounter with a... rose bush while I was looking for the, ah, cat.”

At that moment a raven-black shadow lofted down from an upper bookshelf: the elusive Lucifer seeking quieter sleeping quarters. We all jumped as if startled by a jack-in-the-box, then laughed in shared embarrassment.

“Yes,” the Frenchman said, “even a cat may look at a queen, but more frequently it will lead its owner astray. May I recommend keeping a bird instead? Wonderful pets! Fascinating.”

We paused. What was the best method of pointing out Casanova’s eminent presence to a detective who had failed to notice it? Monsieur le Villard was blind to our quandary as well. He took an elegant step, then whirled to confront us. One small hand made a fist that smacked the palm of his other hand. The French words rolled off his tongue so briskly that I had to listen closely to catch all he said.

“I have come, Monsieur, Madame—?”

“Mademoiselle.” Irene nodded toward me.

Monsieur le Villard stroked the thin strands of his jet-black mustache much like a cat grooming its whiskers after a bowl of cream. His next bow was profound. “Mademoiselle.”

I was not impressed. He hastened on: “I have come—” he repeated, then lifted a graceful hand. “But I am being impolite. I have not thanked you, Monsieur Norton, for your aid in the matter of the will.”

“You have made progress!” Irene divined. “Please draw up a chair, Monsieur, and share our table at least, if you will not eat or drink.”

“Progress, yes!” He beamed at each of us in turn after he sat down. “The English consulting detective is what we Parisians call a man of many parts, a genius with an eye to the minutiae, a precision that would well endow a mathematician. I am translating his dissertations on various subjects so that the French detective service may once again come to the forefront of international crime- solving; our reputation has sagged a bit since the days of Vidoq. For this opportunity alone, I am most grateful, Monsieur Norton.”

Another bow, this made while in a seated position. I was growing quite dizzy from so much bobbing and scraping.

“However”—one more furtive brush at the lip adornments, which rivaled a mandarin’s for length—“I call not merely to express my gratitude. I fear—how can I say it but with brutal plainness? The matter that brings me to you at this inconvenient hour is the Montpensier tragedy.”

We each sat upright as if inflicted by an outbreak of starch. Had Louise defied all sense of self-preservation when she’d returned home and revealed the forced imposition of a tattoo upon her person?

“Montpensier?” Godfrey repeated dully.

“Tragedy?” Irene echoed.

Casanova and I exercised enough restraint to remain silent.

“Most tragic.” le Villard answered Irene’s query first, perhaps deferring to the woman, which Frenchmen have made into a national pastime; perhaps merely addressing the issue that most concerned him. “The young lady, I fear, is gone.”

“Louise? Vanished?” Irene looked indignant.

Godfrey sank back into his chair, his voice flat as if he were not surprised. “Dead, then?”

Monsieur le Villard nodded soberly.

“Well, which is it?” I could not refrain from asking testily. Three such long faces at least owed me some clarity.

“Mademoiselle?”

I fixed the French detective with my governess’s most gimlet eye. “Is the young lady dead, or merely vanished?”

“Both, I fear.”

“How can that be?”

“An apt question, Mademoiselle—?”

“Huxleigh,” I snapped, relieved to use a good English word that made no bones about its pronunciation—to me, at least, although some Americans insist on pronouncing it “Hux-lay” instead of “Hux-lee.”

Monsieur le Villard straightened at my intonation, adding paltry centimeters to his height. “Mademoiselle Montpensier is both dead... and gone. You will understand when you hear my account. You must pardon me, I cannot reveal many details. It is a shocking case, a girl so young and so pretty.”

“But what has happened, for God’s sake?” Godfrey demanded.

Irene stretched a hand to his over a pile of books. Godfrey was obviously shocked at hearing that the girl he had rescued less than two days earlier was now truly lost. Irene’s gesture, however, signified more than comfort; it called for caution. I saw that at once, if Godfrey was too overcome to notice.

Our position was delicate, to say the least. Louise’s aunt and uncle, like the French police, knew nothing of the recent attack upon her or of her suicide attempt. Mentioning these sad facts now was not only futile, but possibly dangerous. We three could be held responsible for withholding the information, for not notifying her relations. Monsieur le Villard’s “tragedy” might indeed become one for all of us. I saw regret suffuse Irene’s face as well as Godfrey’s, and felt its sour bile in my own throat.

“How... did she die?” Godfrey asked.

The detective shook his gleaming head. “By water.”

Godfrey nodded heavily. “That is why you recovered no corpse.”

“Indeed.” le Villard bit his lip, which set his mustaches to quivering. “A sad scandal for an old and reputable family. I had the dreary duty of questioning the aunt—”

“Questioning the aunt?” Irene had risen and was leaning over the detective as if
she
interrogated him. “Honoria Montpensier is suspect? Of what?”

“Why, of murder, Madame. I am not insignificant in the Paris detective service. I do not attend mere accidental drownings.”

“It was not an accident?” Godfrey’s look of relief would have confused even the most optimistic bearer of bad news.

“No, my dear sir. I tell you, the circumstances are such—were cleverly arranged as such—that they might be taken as accidental, but there is the aunt’s presence, of which the woman will not speak, and her utter silence to all questions. Most suspicious. Grief, of course, has driven the uncle to a terrible state; he is barely coherent. I tell you, the family is ruined!”

“But the
reason
, Monsieur,” Irene said. “What is the aunt’s reason for murdering her niece?”

Le Villard shrugged, a fatal gesture, for Irene could tolerate indifference no more than she could swallow stupidity. “I will find the reason, and when I do, it will be revealed as tawdry and feeble, as all such motives are.”

“In the meantime,” Irene said a trifle icily, “I hope you have no objection to our visiting the family and offering condolences. We have only just met, yet we feel—”

“Of course. And I also must ask you and your husband about your chance encounter with the young Louise only days ago. Did she strike you as fearing for her life?”

Considering the circumstances, we three remained blankly silent.

“No,” Irene finally answered. “Nothing she did or said even vaguely suggested... foul play.”

“No doubt it is some kind of domestic cancer that eats at the inner soul of a family,” le Villard diagnosed. “Such maladies seldom manifest themselves outwardly. So you have no information that might aid in the course of my investigation?”

“Nothing that would aid your murder investigation, no, Monsieur,” Irene answered for all of us, rising as a queen does when an audience is over.

The French detective was admirably suggestible. He stood promptly to take her hand and kiss it lingeringly. Le Villard had not noticed that Irene’s denial addressed only the assumption on which his investigation was based. No one could shred the truth finer than Irene and still avoid an outright lie. Such occasions always promised swift action on her part, and I found myself anticipating what it would be.

Once the maid had shown out the detective, Irene began to pace the chamber. “Such blind arrogance! He obviously considered our interrogation a mere formality. Monsieur le Villard may be translating the works of Sherlock Holmes, but he has learned nothing of deduction, or of human nature. Madame Montpensier no more did away with young Louise than I did!”

“You met the woman only once, and briefly, Irene. How can you be so certain?” Godfrey had leaned his elbow on a pile of books, looking as worn as a student who has stayed up too late.

“You heard Louise herself say that her aunt was the only influence that made life in her uncle’s house bearable. Oh, what an error has been made!”

“You refer to our decision to return Louise to her home as if nothing had happened?” I queried.

“I refer to
my
decision in returning Louise to her home at all! It was obvious. The poor child was so convinced that her ordeal would make her an outcast to her relatives that she attempted to drown herself. Even an idiot detective like le Villard might have deduced a troubling severity in family life from that.

“But, no, I must concoct a method of hiding the girl’s supposed fault, when the real flaw lay in the family situation. And into that situation I sent Louise, armed only with a jar of vanishing cream!

“Godfrey, we must visit the Montpensier residence at once. I will not rest until I discover what has happened to Louise, and by whose hands.”

Chapter Ten

A
UTUMN OF THE
H
OUSE OF
M
ONTPENSIER

The House
of Montpensier resembled the falling House of Usher in Mr. Poe’s gloomy story. It was a gray, gaunt, raddled edifice. Stains veined the ancient mansard roof that drooped its hooded eyelids over the dark and melancholy gable windows.

Although travelers wax rapturous over the narrow residences of Paris, with their rows of tall French windows, I find such architecture pinched and consumptive- looking. And although fog and smoke seldom clog the parks of Paris as they smother the London byways, the same sooty tracks of crowded urban life that veil London streak Parisian landmarks.

So, in the chill rain through which we viewed it on that gray, early autumn afternoon, the house of Montpensier reminded me of a haughty French dowager whose face paint was melting.