City of Light (City of Mystery) (16 page)

But Leanna was a
pain that had faded and when Trevor thought of her now, his primary emotion was
chagrin at his foolishness. How could he have ever thought he would draw a
woman like Leanna Bainbridge from the side of a man like John Harrowman?    

The affection he held
for Emma Kelly was more sensibly placed and he could only hope that it would
have the chance of a different outcome.  As the orphan of a country
schoolmaster and his middle-class wife, Emma was a far more socially plausible
target for Trevor’s attention than Leanna had ever been.  Geraldine made
constant broad hints that Trevor should court Emma, and had all but said she
believed any overtures would be welcomed.  But anyone with an ounce of
objectivity could see that Emma was in love with Tom Bainbridge, that she held
for him precisely the same sort of doomed devotion Trevor had once held for his
sister. 

What a muddle. 

He could casually invite
Emma to dine, he supposed, or take her to the theater. The problem today, all
those awkward misunderstandings, may well have resulted from the fact that
their journey was for the purpose of work.  That was likely why she was so prickly
and quick to take offense. Why he had felt compelled to assume the tone of her
superior.  

But in London it was
possible.  He could contrive some situation which would give her the
opportunity to more clearly show her feelings.   Emma was a practical girl, and
perhaps she was prepared to put her infatuation for Tom in some sort of box and
place it on some a high shelf in the back of some very deep closet.  Perhaps
she was more prepared than he knew to accept invitations from Trevor and she
didn’t really think of him as – dreadful phrase! – “like a brother.”  She did
treat him with affection, but it was the sort of democratic affection that was
difficult to interpret.  Last night as she showed him the door, she had leaned
in and brushed his cheek with hers, sending a sharp and no-doubt inappropriate
thrill throughout his frame.  But of course then, in a killing instant, she had
taken Davy’s hand and likewise brought her cheek to his.

So Davy and Trevor had
turned away.  Descended the steps, then parted to walk in their separate
directions.  Davy had gone home to his family, Trevor to his bachelor’s room.  And
Emma had gone back into the warm, well-lit house.  The house she shared with
Geraldine and Gage.

And, of course, Tom.

4:52 AM

Paris

They could call the
tower a marvel of engineering all they wanted, Rayley thought, but to him it
would always be a monstrous thing.  Especially when viewed from below.  Rayley
tilted his head to study the structure, which rose into the night like a curved
black blade, then pulled his coat around him and shivered.  There was only one
reasonable explanation for why Isabel had asked him to meet her here at such an
hour.  Apparently she planned not merely to flee Paris but to also flee the man
who had brought her here.  And she wished to return to London without the
assistance, or even the knowledge, of the husband waiting there. 

Now that he had
risen from his bed and dressed, Rayley’s head had cleared and he was less
inclined to self-pity.  He might not be rich or socially connected, but he did
have power of a certain kind.   It came in the form of the Queen’s seal, which
was embossed upon all his paperwork.  The French may have snickered at it when
he arrived, but Rayley had no doubt that this smear of gold would be quite enough
to silence a border clerk in the channel office.  His status in Paris was
gossamer, insubstantial, far less than the glamour that lay casually tossed all
around her, left behind by – he was fully prepared to admit this – any number
of men.  But it was still of a type that might afford Isabel a quick journey home
with no questions asked, enough to get her back to the rocky shores of England
and whatever redemption she hoped she might find there.

Rayley had now waited
for nearly an hour.  His notebook was in his pocket, because he had plans of
his own.  He’d come here to make a deal, the only deal he knew how to make.  He
would help her escape in exchange for her telling him everything she knew about
Patrick Graham - what he had been investigating, and how he had died.  Frightened
and beautiful the woman might be, but Rayley was still a detective, and he knew
on an instinctual level that it had been no accident that he had met Isabel. 
She had known who he was, or at least what he was, on the day that she seated
herself so ostentatiously before him at the café and begun to sketch.  And that
night at the tower party, she had been sent across the crowded room by someone,
most likely her brutal lover, specifically to befriend Rayley and Graham. To
distract them, to mislead them, to learn precisely how much the reporter and
the detective might have discovered about some scheme her lover had undertaken. 
Rayley still didn’t know what it was they were all so afraid that he knew, and
it was painful to admit, in this cold dark place, that even the giddy Graham
must have managed to learn things that he had not.   

Not to mind.  Rayley
may have been slow to see how it was all connected, but he had his wits about
him now. The wheel was turning, the play was drawing to a close.  Isabel’s
lover and his friends were not merely upstart businessmen trying to buy
respectability by investing in the Eiffel Tower and the Exposition. Something
far more sinister had brought her to France.  But Isabel’s usefulness to her
lover was waning and her knowledge of the true nature of his business - the
very knowledge which had once made her valuable - now made her vulnerable.  Graham’s
death must have shaken her to the core.  She undoubtedly feared a similar fate
awaited her.  

Yes, Isabel Blout
was frightened and desperate and beautiful but Rayley could not let any of this
move him.  He would pull out his notebook and he would stand firm in his
demands.  She would earn her passage back to England only with the truth.

And then there was a
rustle. A sound, subtle but persistent. 

A woman’s skirts,
perhaps. 

“Isabel?” he called.

No answer. 
Something moved above him.  The sensation of swooping, a flapping of wings in
the wind.   It had been a bird, no doubt.  They were nesting amid the legs of
the tower.  A thousand birds, a thousand nests, perhaps four thousand babies
when the full warmth of spring was unleashed.

“Isabel?” he
repeated. He was still looking up.  He cursed himself for coming so early, but
here he was, shivering and coughing in the morning cold, waiting for Isabel.  Waiting
for the chance that had been seized by so many men before him, the chance to be
useful to Isabel Blout.

And then he saw it.  Another
movement, quicker and more definitive.   This one coming from the direction of
a streetlight. Advancing steadily until at once and at last, it was upon him. 
A sharp-edged shadow slicing though the bright circle cast by the streetlight. 
A sheet of darkness falling like a –

Darkness falling
like...what? 

For once he had it. 
This one he knew.   For once the French had the better word, the proper word.

The darkness fell
across him like a guillotine.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

London

April 24

9:10 AM

First thing Wednesday
morning, Tom and Trevor made their way to the art dealer in Windsor Square whom
Geraldine had theorized might be in possession of the infamous Whistler
portrait of Isabel Blout.  The dealer himself had not yet arrived, the sale of
art evidently being the sort of business that was rarely transacted before
luncheon.  But a clerk answered Trevor’s persistent rap at the door and confirmed
that the Blout portrait was among the ones being sent to the American pavilion
in Paris.  He explained that they were already crated, due to be shipped
tomorrow, as it were, and he responded to Trevor’s request to view the painting
with a palpable lack of enthusiasm.

Trevor did not like
to show his Scotland Yard badge, preferring to pass in small matters as an
ordinary detective, but this particular occasion seemed to demand it.  The
man’s derisive snort quickly changed to an obedient sniffle.  He consulted the
record books to find the proper crate number and escorted Trevor and Tom to the
dreary packing room in the rear of the shop.  It took him considerable effort
to dismantle the crate with a crowbar, nearly as much to unwrap the protective
tarpaper and finally undrape the muslin, but eventually the enormous portrait was
broken free from its protective layers.  With a final exhalation of effort, the
clerk turned it around and Isabel Blout stood before them.

She was not
beautiful.   

That was Trevor’s
first thought and it surprised him so much that any number of seconds passed before
he was capable of another. The portrait was large, nearly six feet from the
bottom border to the top, and thus the woman was rendered, Trevor imagined,
very nearly to scale.  She was taller than he would have guessed from Rayley’s
description, with a milkmaid’s sway to her back and substantial hands and feet.
Her face was lovely, this he would not bother to deny, but there was a certain
coarseness in her person, lingering traces of her working class roots that the
teal velvet gown and elegantly styled hair could not completely conceal.

No, she was not beautiful
and yet…for some reason Trevor could not quite bring himself to look away.  Isabel
had been posed with her back to the viewer and thus her frame was twisted,
looking over one shoulder.  There was a sense of movement, almost flight, as if
the artist had captured her in the act of a forbidden flirtatious glance.  The
sort of look a woman might give her lover at a party, just as dinner is about
to be served and she must return to the side of her husband.  Whistler’s skill as
a portraitist was evident even to someone who knew as little about art as
Trevor.  The pose was so natural that it seemed somehow unnatural, or at least
very different from the formal seated portraits Trevor was used to viewing.  The
longer he gazed, the deeper grew his sense of unease and then he realized why. 
The painting was so startlingly accurate that it reminded him of a photograph.  It
had the same sense of time interrupted, of someone caught utterly unaware in a
single moment, as if the woman had turned without artifice, never knowing that
she would be observed by centuries of strangers. The eyes were narrowed in
invitation, the lips lifted in the smallest hint of an erupting smile.

Tom was likewise studying
the portrait carefully, his head titled to one side.  “So what do we know of
the lady?”

“Only that she is no
lady,” Trevor said, with a quick look over his own shoulder to confirm that the
clerk had indeed left them in privacy.     

“Perhaps not, but it
only serves to make her more glorious.  Small wonder Rayley couldn’t resist
her.”

“Truly?   I don’t
fancy her type at all.”

“You’re joking.”

“It’s quite obvious
she was born common.”

Tom exploded into a
low guffaw. “Common?  Really, Detective, you can be the most appalling snob.  I
implore you to look more closely.  For there’s something quite intimate about
the portrait, is there not?   Something rather enticing.  I mean, on one level
she is gowned and styled just as one would expect in a portrait of a society
wife. On another level…it makes no sense, but she seems almost naked.”

“And you find that
this heightens her appeal?”

Tom looked at him
incredulously. 

“At the risk of
seeming not merely a snob but also a prude,” Trevor continued. “I must repeat
that she strikes me as unrefined. Like a stage actress playing at being a lady.
 The little things give her away.  Look at the foot, for example, the one
peeking out beneath the skirt.  It’s quite large.”

“The whole painting
is large.”

“But that particular
foot seems somewhat… disproportionate. All the silk and satin in London can’t
disguise the fact she has the bones of a farmgirl.  It’s entirely lost on me
why the lady has been so successful at dazzling a lengthy succession of men.”

“There’s a word for
it, Welles. It’s called sex.”

Trevor gave an
uneasy chuckle.  “All right, all right, I’ll concede the point.  Despite the
fact I don’t fully understand Mrs. Blout’s appeal, I can certainly see why the
portrait created the sensation Geraldine described.  I can even understand why
Whistler might have been reluctant to release it, for he somehow managed to
create a magnificent portrait of a rather average woman.  If my reaction is
muted, it’s only because the lady is so different from what I’d been led to
expect.  Rayley said she was beautiful, and so did Geraldine. But when you
really look at the image before us, piece by piece, I don’t see that beauty.”

“Beauty isn’t meant
to be analyzed piece by piece,” Tom said.  “Not in art and not in women.  Few
paintings, and few women, would survive that sort of cold scrutiny.”

“Indeed?  I would
say that true beauty grows more so with analysis.”

“The Mona Lisa isn’t
beautiful either, not in the technical way you’re describing.  But when you
actually see the painting, somehow it glows.”