Angels of Music (3 page)

‘I agree,’ said Trilby. ‘The old idiot’s probably in love with the minx.’

‘I’ll bet nuggets Petite Poupée has been down to the dressmakers to see how she looks in black,’ said Irene. ‘Then steered by the apothecary’s on the way home. If used in excess, those boudoir philtres for the use of senior gentlemen are bad for the constitution… so I hear.’

‘If that is the case, we are required by our client to intervene,’ said Erik.

‘I’ll say,’ put in Trilby. ‘Can’t let some filly get away with murder. We’ve got a reputation to think of.’

‘Does Madame Présidente fear for Gérard’s life?’ asked Christine.

There was a pause. Breathing could be heard through the tube.

‘It may come to that. At present, she is more concerned that the old fellow is not “acting like himself”. She takes a keen interest in the defence of France…’

‘Sausage-eaters are notoriously rough on whores and stingy about paying.’

‘Thank you for that insight, Irene. “Adler” is a German name, is it not? As I was saying, Étienne Gérard’s change of mind on matters military and political troubles Madame Sabatier more than his absence from her customer register. She believes the Grand Marshal might have been “got at” in some way…’

‘Hypnotised,’ said Christine, thrilled.

‘Mesmerised,’ said Trilby, dreamily.

‘Doped,’ said Irene, cynically.

‘She wonders if the Grand Marshal even
is
the Grand Marshal.’

‘Murdered and replaced by the mad twin from the attic,’ suggested Christine, who read a great deal of sensation fiction, avidly following every
feuilleton
in every periodical in Paris. ‘Possessed by one of those invisible
horlas
one hears of and forced to do the bidding of some creature from beyond the veil.’

The Persian gathered back all the documents, and resealed the packet.

‘Erik,’ said Irene, ‘are you
sure
this is a job for the Agency? It sounds mighty like some scorned
comare
, sulking because Sugar Daddy has cut off the cash flow, out to do dirt to the chit who has stolen him away. Shouldn’t they settle it with a decent knife-fight and leave us out of it?’

The Persian produced several more wallets.

‘The Grand Marshal is not an isolated case.’

T
HE
M
ARRIAGE
C
LUB
had international members, though all were often found in Paris. Aristide Saccard, the daring international financier, a man who would never escape the soubriquet of ‘shady’; the Duke of Omnium, an English cabinet minister whose speeches were rumoured to have the mystic power of sending entire Houses of Parliament into restful sleep (‘If Planty ever had to declare war,’ sniped one critic, ‘we’d have to wake up the enemy to shoot at him’); Chevalier Lucio del Gardo, a respected banker no one outside the Opera Ghost Agency would have believed moonlighted as a needlessly violent burglar known as ‘the Spine-Snapper’; Walter Parks Thatcher, the American statesman and banker; Simon Cordier, behind his back called ‘Monsieur le Guillotine’, a magistrate and sculptor, renowned for cool, balanced and unsympathetic verdicts in capital cases; and Cardinal Tosca, the Papal Legate, reputedly the greatest virtuoso of the boudoir to come (or be chased) out of Italy since Casanova.

All were getting along in years, widowed or lifelong bachelors, and had recently taken to wife much younger, socially unknown women, or – in the Cardinal’s case – brought her into his household as official servant and unofficial bed-warmer. All had reversed long-held public positions since their happy unions, made peculiar public statements or financial transactions, been far less often seen in society than before (Gérard was not the only old bridegroom to be missed at his favourite brothel) and were reported by estranged friends and relations to have ‘changed their spots’. All, it transpired, had first encountered their current spouses at
soirées
hosted, on an absurdly well-appointed barge in the Seine, by one Countess Joséphine Balsamo. Some said the Countess was a direct descendant of the purported sorcerer Cagliostro. It was believed among the peers of
la Présidente
that the Countess was directress of an unofficial wedding bureau, schooling girls plucked from orphanages or jails in the skills necessary to hook a prominent husband, arranging discreet disposal of the lovestruck old men, then taking a tithe from the widows’ inheritances. A flaw in the theory was that none of the husbands, as yet, had died in the expected mysterious circumstances – several long-term moaning invalids had leaped from apparent deathbeds and taken to cavorting vigorously with their pixie-like sylph brides.

Christine held, against experience, to the possibility that nothing more was amiss than a collection of genuine May to December romances (‘More like March to Next February,’ commented Irene) which should be protected from the jealous wiles of Erik’s client. Trilby considered malfeasance was likely on the part of these men of wealth and influence, and that the Countess Joséphine was simply a well-dressed procuress with a dubious title. She felt the true victims of the Marriage Club were the unfortunate, nearly-nameless children given over into the beds of men who purchased them as they might a hunting dog or a painting. Irene suspected everyone was up to no good, and wondered what their angle on
l’affaire Balsamo
ought to be. She was as much magpie as eagle and it occurred to her that this case should afford access to households where valuables might be carelessly strewn about for the filching.

The Persian, through his police and government contacts, had obtained a list of the Countess’s holdings. Few of her interests were in the name she most commonly used. These papers were passed through a shutter, to the chamber behind the mirror.

‘This seems the most likely “lead”,’ said Erik, after a perusal. ‘
École de Danse Coppélius
. The Countess is a “sleeping partner”. Young women of barely marriageable age and malleable personality might be found in a dancing school,
hein
?’

The Persian showed again the photograph of Poupée Gérard. In the corner of the picture were scratched the initials ‘
É.d.D.C.
’

‘It’s a perfect front,’ said Irene, getting the talk back on track. ‘Haul ’em in, paint ’em up, sell ’em off.’

A lever was thrown, and two wardrobe doors sprung open, disclosing three varied sets of female attire and one suit of male evening dress (with turban). The girls knew at once which were their costumes. The Persian took the turban.

‘Christine, Trilby,’ said Erik, close to the glass, eyes shining. ‘You will try to enrol at the
École Coppélius
. Christine, at least, should be able to pass an audition if dancing is actually required, while Trilby can certainly be passed off as bride-to-be material.’

The girls looked at each other, not sure whether to be offended by Erik’s implications. Then Christine was struck by the loveliness of her new dress, and forgot any sleight.

The shutter opened again. A newly struck, gilt-edged invitation card lay within. The Persian picked it up by forefinger and thumb, careful not to smudge the ink. Erik had a printing press in his lair – along with much other apparatus somehow smuggled below for the use of the Agency.

‘That,’ said Erik, ‘is for the Countess’s Summer Ball, to be held tonight on her famous barge. She expects the pleasure of the company of Rhandi Lal, the Khasi of Kalabar, and his daughter, the Princess Jelhi.’

Irene held up a silken sari, pressed her hands together in prayerful submission, and bowed mockingly at the mirror, eyes modestly downcast.

‘Try not to overact, Miss Adler.’

W
ITH HER JEWELLED
headdress, scarlet forehead dot, exposed midriff, kohl-lined eyes, near-transparent costume and sinuous walk, ‘Princess Jelhi’ was instantly popular, attracting a platoon of admirers in white tie and tails or dress uniform. Most of the men had swords: as a consequence of jostling for position among the upper ranks, several duels were likely.

As Irene flirted and fluttered, the Persian scanned the ballroom.

The dancing floor was not the classic square, but an oblong. Brassbound porthole-shaped windows above and below the waterline reminded guests that they were on the river. The mooring was secure and the barge heavy in the water: only the slightest motion confirmed that the company was not on dry land. The theme of the ball was Childhood Remembered, and the room was dressed as a giant’s child’s playroom. Ten-foot tall wooden soldiers and other outsized toys stood around, as conversation pieces or to excite wonderment. In the centre of the floor, a gigantic, stately top spun on its axis, ingeniously weighted not to stray from its spot or fall over. Above it all shone a giant, crescent-headed Man in the Moon. A wooden spoon on wires shovelled snuff into a lunar nostril.

Irene lifted a bare foot, showing off her painted nails and oddments of paste jewellery from the opera house’s vast store of dressing-up kit. The motion parted her sari, affording a glimpse of shapely inside-leg. Gasps rose from her admirers and she tittered modestly at the ‘slip’, chiding the gallants in delightfully broken babytalk French.

The Persian looked about for anyone
not
enraptured by the Princess. If the business of this ball was fishing for fiancés and an uninvited interloper was raiding the stock, the fleet who held rights in these waters would be out of sorts. The Countess Joséphine had not made an entrance, but the Persian knew she would be watching. Erik was not the city’s only addict of secret panels, two-way mirrors, listening tubes and portraits with removable eyes. Any descendant of the mountebank Cagliostro would be mistress of such matters. The single exposed eye of the snuffling Man in the Moon glistened like a lens.

Irene Adler could be relied upon to glance at a crowd of gentlemen and single out the most distinguished victims – taking into account inherited or acquired wealth, ancient or modern title, achievements on the field of battle or in the arts, and degree of commitment to their current marital state. At a masquerade where everyone was dressed up as what they were not, she could spot a Crown Prince through a throng of mere Viscounts and chart a course which would lead inevitably to taking the prize. Within minutes, she had dismissed the also-rans and narrowed the field down to the three men in the company worth bothering with.

The choice picks were Count Rouboff, the Russian military
attaché
(which is to say, spy) and a cousin of the Tsar; Baron Maupertuis, the Belgian colossus of copper (and other base metals); and ‘Black’ Michael Elphberg, Duke of Strelsau, second son of the King of Ruritania (a mere unmarried half-brother’s death or disgrace away from succession to the crown). Any or all of these might be candidates for the Marriage Club, though only the Baron was elderly.

Count Rouboff asked the Princess to demonstrate the dancing style of far-off Kalabar, and Irene obliged with a shimmy she had learned as warm-up for a snake-oil salesman in the Wild West. As a well-developed thirteen-year-old, her tour with a medicine show had been her first attempt at escape from New Jersey. Of course, the moves that dried mouths and stirred vitals in Tombstone, Cheyenne and No Name City were still effective in Paris, though the crowds were cleaner and, on the whole, had more of their original teeth. Some women simply gave up, collected their wraps, and went home in huffs, leaving behind befuddled gentlemen who would find domestic lives difficult for the next week or so. Others took careful note of Irene’s steps, and resolved to learn them.

A five-piece orchestra provided ever more frenzied accompaniment in what they must have fondly imagined was the style of far-off Kalabar. The musicians were dressed as a strange breed of clown, with ridiculously stack-heeled boots, lightning-pattern leotards immodestly padded with rolled-up handkerchiefs and cut low to reveal thick thatches of chest hair (not entirely natural), faces painted with celestial maps so eyes and mouths opened disturbingly in purple moons or stars, and shocks of bright orange hair teased up into jagged peaks. The band made a lot of noise, and even more fuss – sticking out gargoyle tongues, making obscene advances to their sparkle-patterned instruments, capering grotesquely like dressed-up apes with their rumps on fire.

Irene began to unwind the interlocking scarves that constituted her sari, wrapping them around admirers’ necks, brushing the trail-ends across their faces to raise their colour. The Khasi of Kalabar, suspecting this might go too far, was on the point of stepping in to reprimand his ‘daughter’ when the Princess was flanked.

Two pretty girls, similar enough in face and figure to be taken for sisters, assumed positions either side of Irene, clicked fingers, and fell in step, mimicking exactly her dance moves. A ripple of applause came from those who supposed the Countess had brought in a choreographer. A frown of surprise briefly passed across Irene’s tinted forehead. She left off the Salome business, concentrating on energetic, elaborate footwork, with snake-moves in her hips and back. Out West, the crowd would have hauled out their Colt 45s and blasted the ceiling. The sisters, however, were not thrown. They perfectly matched her, not even seeming to follow a lead.

The Persian considered the bland, shiny faces of the girls. They showed no emotion, no exertion, scarcely even any interest. Irene was, in polite terms, ‘glowing’ – and thus in danger of sweating through her betelnut make-up. The caste mark on her forehead looked like an angry bullet-hole. It was harder and harder for her to keep up with the dance.

Everyone in the room was watching this trio.

The band were murdering ‘
Ah! Je ris de me voir si belle en ce miroir
’ – the ‘Jewel Song’ from
Faust
. Carlotta’s signature number, as it happens. One of the clowns sang like a castrato, inventing new lyrics in double Dutch. If he tried that within earshot of a certain Phantom, he’d find himself wearing a chandelier for a hat. The Gounod opera was a favourite with Erik.

Irene made a tiny misstep, and lost her lead. Now, she had to follow, to mimic, to copy – and the terpsichorean sisters began to execute a series of balletic leaps, glides and stretches which were too much for the New Jersey Apsara. Her bare foot slid, and she had to be caught by a nobody – her former admirers were now enslaved by the sisters.