City of Light (City of Mystery) (19 page)

“He got the idea
from watching his own children,” Emma said, her edginess softening a bit, as it
so often seemed to when she was in conversation with Tom.  “Shakespeare was the
father of boy-girl twins and he used to watch how, in play, they would often
switch roles and each pretend to be the other.”

“Truly?  I didn’t
know that, but it strikes me as quite fascinating,” said Tom, exhaling smoke in
the general direction of the window. “Although now that I think of it, when we
were back in the nursery Leanna sometimes tired of only having brothers and
would dress me in her clothes and proclaim me to be her little sister.  William
and Cecil would howl with laughter whenever they found me sitting at her tea
table in petticoats and hair bows, having been strictly instructed to answer to
nothing but ‘Beulah Jane.’  Gad, but they all used to torment me.  ‘Tis the
curse of the youngest brother, I suppose.”

Geraldine and Emma
chortled in amusement while Trevor observed the scene in silence.  The rare
mention of the names “Cecil” and “Leanna” may have briefly rang through the
small compartment like church bells, but as usual, Tom had managed to divert
any potential awkwardness with his easy charm.  This is what I will shortly be
called on to emulate, Trevor thought, and it has nothing to do with the cut of
your clothes.   It’s an unshakable belief in your own worth, complete
confidence that, come what may, the world will always love you.   Leanna and
Geraldine have it too.  The Bainbridge fortunes may have ebbed and surged
throughout the years, but each member of the family had been born with an
innate self-assurance that seemed to radiate from them on an almost cellular
level.  It was why Tom could so freely admit he didn’t know a certain fact
about Shakespeare, why he cheerfully conjured an image of himself dressed in
girls’ petticoats and perched at a tea table.  He knew how to make himself the
butt of the joke and then sit back to chuckle at his own folly.  He doesn’t at
all fear looking foolish, thought Trevor.  Which is why he never will.

“But Beulah Jane
here proves my point – that all the things which we think define us are simply
the roles that society, or perhaps our older sisters, have demanded we assume,”
Emma said, arching her back in a futile attempt to stretch. “And so, presumably,
we could drop these identities as easily as we once put them on.”

“I don’t believe
that,” Trevor said.  “I am what I do.  We all are.”

“Nonsense,” Gerry
said briskly. “Trevor, you simply must buck yourself up because Emma and
Shakespeare have it quite right.  When the gangplank drops at Calais we will
descend as whomever and whatever we choose to be.  And for the course of this
trip, we shall play the roles of an addle-headed wealthy family who have come
to carelessly gobble up the pleasures of Paris as if they were canapés on a
plate.  In the process we will toss money around like bait because this offers
our best chance of finding Isabel, and, ultimately, Rayley.”

“Very well,” said
Trevor.  One of the most annoying things about Gerry was how often she was
right.

“And don’t worry,
Trevor,” Gerry said. “I’m sure you think I’m overstepping my bounds, but this
sort of society, with all its silly rules and layers, is the one arena in which
I have more experience than you.   When we get to Paris, we shall all defer to
your judgment on matters of detection and investigation, as always.  You shall,
as they say, call the shots.”

“Certainly,” said
Tom.

Trevor nodded,
wishing he believed them. 

“But before we dock,
you have a choice to make, Emma,” Gerry said, with a wicked hint of a smile. 
“For the purposes of our little tableau will your fiancé be Trevor or Tom?”

There was a beat of
silence, brief but excruciating, before Tom leapt in.

“Say you’ll be mine,
darling,” he whispered loudly, bringing one of Emma’s small hands to his
chest.  “I’d drop to one knee, but there isn’t any room.”

Emma laughed and
nodded, glancing at Trevor as she did so.   But he had once again leaned back
and closed his eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Paris

9:20  PM

After the crossing
and the train ride from Calais to Paris, they were exhausted.  The four of them
sat around a small table tucked in the corner of a café only a block from their
new home.  Emma had ordered for them, and apparently quite competently, but
beyond this brief exchange, their conversation was limited.  Emma repeatedly
rubbed her temples, and Trevor seemed to have lost his appetite somewhere over
the channel.  Even Tom and Geraldine’s customary enthusiasm was muted. 

They had arrived to
find the Paris apartment not at all as Trevor had pictured it in his mind. 
When Geraldine had described her third cousin on her mother’s side twice
removed, or whatever the deuce the man was, she had called him a “confirmed
bachelor.”  It was a phrase she liked, one she’d used before to describe the
aging George Blout, and for Trevor it painted images of the second sons of
prominent families, men creating a comfortable sanctuary for themselves after
years of military service or some foreign government post.  Dark-paneled rooms
with leather chairs that smelled faintly of tobacco and brandy, perhaps a
suitable picture of a foxhunt on the walls.  Instead they had been ushered into
an almost obscenely colorful house, with rooms painted in gold, rose, citron, and
aqua, each set of double doors swinging open to reveal yet another assault on
the retina. 

Thanks to a flurry
of telegrams back and forth between Geraldine and her cousin, the cloths had
been pulled from all the furniture and the bed linens had been prepared. 
Someone had thoughtfully sent a collection of fruit and biscuits for their
refreshment. Geraldine had said that her cousin was horrified by the changes
being made to his beloved city and thus had fled Paris for the duration of the
spring and summer to stay at his second home on the coast in Nice.  It was a
sentiment with which Trevor could sympathize, since he would have hated to
watch his own motherland tart herself up for the eyes of outsiders.  Besides, the
fellow’s desire to avoid the Exposition was the very reason his apartment was
available to them on such short notice.  

So Trevor’s
intention was to be grateful, not critical, as the group stumbled wearily from
room to room, led by a silent maid who apparently came with the place.  But
when he noted the seventh still life of blurry flowers, the eleventh lamp with tassels,
and yet another wall painted robin’s egg blue, he’d been forced to come to a
conclusion:  The owner of this apartment was entirely too French for his own
good.  

They had dropped
their trunks and valises and retreated to this café.  The tower, nearly
finished now except for its final accusatory point, was visible from this
street – probably visible, Trevor would guess, from half the streets of Paris. 
But that was rather the whole idea, was it not?  Without speaking of it, their
little group had elected to sit at a table near the back wall, with the view
obscured.  Gazing at the tower while they ate, and thus being forced to speculate
on the role it had played in Rayley’s disappearance, was perhaps more
stimulation than they could currently bear.

Still, there were
plans to be made for the morrow. The café had nearly emptied, so there was probably
no danger in talking here. Trevor waited until their table was cleared, save
for four small bowls of a very satisfying custard with a crunchy crust, and
then he asked Geraldine “From the social standpoint, where would you suggest we
begin?”

She was ready. 
“With time so much of the essence, we can’t have our clothing custom made, but
will be forced to depend on prêt-a-porter.  Clothing bought ready made from a
shop, dear,” she added, when Trevor frowned in doubt.  “Quite good quality here
in Paris, or so they claim.  We shall select a suit for you in the morning and
then on to a ladies’ shop to purchase gowns for Emma.  We mustn’t tarry in
terms of finding at least one suitable outfit for us all, because we are
already in possession of our first invitation.”

“Oh dear,” said
Emma, rubbing her temples more vigorously.

“A note came with the
fruit,” Geraldine continued.  “One of our neighbors is having a little party
tomorrow night and will most kindly take the occasion to introduce us to her
circle.  It’s a start.”

“And a good one,”
Trevor said.  “Once I have my costume – for I agree with Emma and refuse to see
this clothing as anything other than such – I shall go to the Paris police and
find Claude Rubois.  Based on Rayley’s descriptions, he seems the most likely
avenue of practical help.  Who knows, Rayley may have confided in him more than
we know, and Rubois may have theories that would prove useful.”  He shifted to
his right.  “I would like it, Tom, if you come along and establish yourself
firmly as part of the team.  Who knows, they may even allow you to view Graham’s
body.”

“Of course,” said
Tom. “It’s impossible to know what to expect, isn’t it?  They might welcome us
with the proverbial open arms or they could just as easily bounce us out on our
ear.”

“True,” said Trevor.
“I don’t relish the thought of going to Rubois, hat in hand, with no way of
predicting how he’ll react.  It would seem we could find some means for the law
enforcement entities to work together in cases where criminals are clearly
trafficking from one country to the next.  As it stands now, all a suspect has
to do is make his way across a national border and he can begin his career
anew.”

“Perhaps that day
shall come,” Geraldine said, reaching over to pat Trevor’s arm. “For this Exposition
is the start of a new era, is it not?  People shall more readily entertain the
idea of traveling from place to place.  All sorts of people, not merely the
rich, and they will eventually come to see the whole of Europe as their home. 
In due time, we will develop a common language and a common currency, as
befitting our small continent.”

“All of Europe in
collusion?  The French and English claiming kinship?  I bloody rather doubt
it,” Trevor said.  But he twisted in his seat to look toward the tower,
nonetheless.

9:55 PM

Rayley had begun to
awaken, if indeed awaken was the proper word, since he had the sensation he was
breaking through layers of water, a drowning man rising instinctively toward
the light.  For a moment he lay motionless, his eyes still closed, waiting for
the latest wave of nausea to engulf him.  He managed to push this one down, but
the sour odor of his shirt indicated that he had not been so successful on
previous attempts. 

Gradually he allowed
his eyelids to open.  Wherever he’d been thrown was dark, very dark.  He would
have to rely on his other senses, at least until his vision adapted.  

He was lying on a
cot and, from its unyielding nature, he believed he might be in some sort of
prison or perhaps a military barrack.  In the distance, he could hear the muffled
suck of water which, compounded by the damp, musty smell of rocks and moss, led
him to conclude that he was near a river.

Most likely the
Seine.

Well, this was
scarcely good news, was it? 

Another smell. 
Urine.  His own.  He had soiled himself like a child, and, judging by the size
of the stiffened circle on the front of his trousers, evidently more than
once.  He felt thirst, most definitely, and beneath the queasy twisting of his
stomach, a dull ache of hunger.  Rayley cautiously turned his head.  He could
see more now, enough to conclude that the room was austere, devoid of all
furnishings except his cot and a bucket tossed in the corner on its side.   

So what was a man to
conclude from this evidence?  That he had been drugged, most likely with the
same chloroform that had been used to subdue Graham.  That he had been taken to
this small cell, which was, judging by the moistness of the walls and the
amount of moss, at least partially underground and near a river.  He had
probably been here for some time already, at least long enough to repeatedly
urinate and to grow hungry, with his unconsciousness most likely being sustained
through repeated contact with more chloroform.  Which meant that someone had
been coming and going, ensuring that he did not fully awaken.  If he had not eventually
become nauseated and thus expunged some of the chemical from his system, he
would doubtlessly still be asleep.  It seemed likely that whoever’s job it was
to render him pliant would shortly return.

What day was it?  What
time?  Was it even day or night?   His eyes were at last beginning to adjust,
courtesy of a small high window above his head, which was focusing a rectangle of
light on the opposite wall.  The glow was of the yellowish-green type emitted
by Parisian gas lamps, certainly not the sun, and so it must be night.  Which
meant he had been in this room at least twenty-four hours, most likely
forty-eight.  Perhaps even, for his hunger and thirst were sharpening as his
head began to clear, seventy-two.

As if to mock his primitive
calculations, a church bell began to toll.  Ten chimes. 

So it was ten
o’clock on the evening of either April 24, 25, or 26.   He was still in Paris. 
And he was still alive - something to ponder as well.  Graham must have been
killed shortly after he was taken but, for whatever reason, Rayley had not.  He
was being kept alive, drugged but alive, for some possible use in the future,
although he had not the slightest notion of what it might be.