City of Light (City of Mystery) (30 page)

He scooped up the
palest drink on the tray, since he could not quite shake the impression that
the jewel-toned ones were some variation of the poisonous brews that had done
in the Borgias.  He sampled it carefully, but was unable to hazard a guess of what
plants might have yielded their juice to create the violet-tinged flavors
inside the glass.  Sloe berries?  Pomegranates?  Some fortified cherry liquour?

And just then he saw
Emma gliding past him on the arm of Armand Delacroix.

Geraldine had also
noted the movement of Emma and Delacroix across the room and like Trevor, she
reacted with alarm.  As Marjorie Mallory had predicted, Isabel was not present,
and Delacroix had spent the first part of the evening escorting his alleged
niece around the party, introducing her to nearly everyone in sight.  But now
the child was devouring pastries over by one of the food tables and Delacroix
appeared to have been snared by Emma.  Or had it happened the other way around?

Geraldine looked to
the right.  Trevor was standing guard, some ridiculous pink drink halfway to
his lips.  She looked to the left.  Tom too was sidling toward them.  So good,
at least they were all aware of Emma’s position in the room.  They had originally
planned to draw Isabel into a discussion of other socials which had been held
in honor of the Exhibition, hoping that in the process of talking about parties
they’d attended together, she would also be divulging the dates in which Armand
had been in Paris.  If Emma was careful to be subtle with her questioning,
presumably the same strategy would work just as well with Armand himself.

Since Emma was
well-monitored by the men, Geraldine drifted over to the dessert table where
Marianne was steadily popping petit fours into her mouth.  

“Good, aren’t they?”
Geraldine ventured.

The girl, or perhaps
actually the boy, merely glanced at Geraldine, apparently unsurprised at being
addressed in English and irritated at having been interrupted, however briefly,
in her assault on the buffet.   Geraldine had seen the same sort of intense,
compulsive eating in the pregnant teenage girls from the foundling home, whom she
often employed to help Emma with the housework.  When a young person had gone hungry
at some point in their life and thus carried the fear that hunger might return
at any time, it seemed they would always approach a bountiful display of food
in precisely this businesslike fashion, determined to consume a much as
possible in the least amount of time and resentful of any social construct,
such as conversation, which might impede them in this mission.

So Armand was
evidently keeping Marianne, be she male or female, in the same state of
malnutrition he had inflicted on his other young employees.  Tom had explained
it all to Geraldine during the channel crossing, but it was still a bit
shocking to stand beside the child and to note her relentless attack on the
sugary treats of the dessert table.  Emma had distracted Armand and pulled him
away from Marianne’s side, but there was no telling when he would be back and
the iron bars of his control would once again descend around her.  In the
meantime, the child clearly intended to eat as much as possible.

Geraldine popped a
sweet into her own mouth and considered Marianne out of the corner of one eye. 
She was wearing gloves – bad form while dining and Geraldine was surprised that
Armand would not have better schooled the girl in manners.  After all, she was
on display in hopes of attracting the attention of a certain class of men,
although Armand was discreet and it was hard to determine which men in the room,
if any, had fallen prey to the charms of this young and innocent-seeming
creature. 

“I love sweets,
myself,” Geraldine ventured, as soon as a browsing couple disappeared and she
and Marianne stood once again alone at the table. “Sometimes I eat them until I
simply can’t eat any more.”

This earned her a
small nod from the child, who also looked over her shoulder to make sure that
Armand was still safely out of sight.

“And sometimes I
wish I could find a way to take them home with me,” Geraldine continued. “There
are so many beautiful things here it seems a shame that I don’t have the room
to sample them all at once.” She lowered her voice and edged a bit more toward
Marianne in a conspiratorial manner.  “Do you know what I sometimes do when I’m
very naughty?”

The girl looked up
at her, a little blank-faced, as if she was having trouble imagining a
situation in which a woman Geraldine’s age might manage to be naughty.

“I slide a couple of
them in my glove,” Geraldine continued.  She herself had been sampling the
bon-bons in the correct way, with her right glove removed and held in her left
hand.  She smiled.  “Which do you think are the best?”

“These,” Marianne
said in a whisper, speaking for the first time.  She pointed a calfskin-covered
finger at some ornate chocolates topped with great doffs of cream. 

Geraldine reached
with her ungloved right hand and plucked one from the tray and, with a sly wink
at the child, who was staring at her in fascination, she slid it into her empty
right glove.  It was a messy affair and only the most naïve of people would believe
that a society woman might steal food in such a fashion, but Marianne was not
only naïve, but accustomed to hunger.  She watched the chocolate disappear into
the mouth of Geraldine’s glove and then, with another quick glance in the
direction of Armand, tried it herself.  She pulled off her right glove and
reached.

Tricking the girl
into exposing her hands had been Geraldine’s game all along.  She had grown up
surrounded by doctors and scientists and was well aware that the parts of the
body which indicate gender are not only those which one might expect.  Men have
a sinew in their throats that women do not, a protrusion foolishly called an
Adam’s Apple, which could easily be concealed with a high-necked gown of the
sort Marianne was presently wearing.  The feet of men are almost universally
larger than those of women, but this too is easily hidden beneath skirts and
within cleverly-cut boots. 

But the hands. There
is no way to disguise the fact that a man’s hands are shaped differently from a
woman’s and that his wrists are thicker.  Marianne snatched the chocolate
quickly, but not quickly enough.

“Mademoiselle
Bainbridge?”

Geraldine, who had
never relished the fact that her unmarried status doomed her to an entire
lifetime of being addressed as “Miss,” ”Senorita” and “Mademoiselle,” turned
toward the butler who stood before her, a telegram on a tray.  He explained, in
tactfully slow and simplified French, that this message had been delivered to
her apartment and that the maid had then brought it here.

“Excuse me, dear,”
Geraldine said, seizing the envelope and stepping back from the table. 
Marianne, who had now managed to cram four treats into her glove, paid her departure
no mind, and Geraldine scanned the room for Trevor or Tom.  But both men had
taken posts in the vicinity of Emma and Armand, Tom attaching himself to a
large circle of people in animated conversation and Trevor pretending to smoke
in the open portico beyond.

Geraldine retreated
to a curtained corner of the room, threw her chocolate-filled glove into a
potted plant, and ripped open the telegram.  The message was brief:

.

Have Hammond clear
thumbprint from Cleveland Street glass.  Also Dover ledger books.  No names
match yet.  Please advise.  Davy.

She frowned, trying
to remember precisely what Trevor had told Tom to request of the boy.  Trevor
had wanted Davy to secure the British dockmaster ledgers, so the bit about
Dover was to be expected.  But the addition of a fingerprint - this was real
news. Even with her limited knowledge of the subject, Geraldine had heard
enough to know that if the fingerprint for Hammond matched that of Delacroix,
this would be worth more in court than a thousand dockmaster ledgers. 

The crowd parted and
Geraldine caught a glimpse of Emma and Armand.  They were standing close,
evidently deep in conversation.   Emma was holding a champagne glass and he –

Bother it all.  The
crowd had surged back into the void and for a moment she could no longer see
them.  Geraldine moved deeper into the cave of the curtains, taking care to
shove the crumpled telegram into her remaining glove as she did so.  She waited
for the crowds to part again and then she saw them.  Yes.

Yes, it was
precisely as she had hoped.

Armand Delacroix was
holding a tumbler of scotch.  

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Paris

April 27

12:20 AM

The four of them
gaped at the simple glass tumbler as if Geraldine had somehow managed to
unearth the Holy Grail.

“You’re certain it’s
the right one?” Trevor asked, for the third time in as many minutes.

“Of course,”
Geraldine said.  “I noted the exact moment when Delacroix drained his glass and
put it on the serving tray.”

“And you didn’t
smudge it with any prints of your own?”

“Really, Trevor, you
must have a little more faith in me.  I balled up my fist and thrust it in the
glass and then expanded my fingers and voila - the tumbler came right up with
it.  And then I went straight to the maid and retrieved my cloak for
concealment and then sent her to collect the three of you and from that point
you all know precisely what happened.” Geraldine exhaled with vigor.  “I may
have brushed it slightly at one point with my cloak but I don’t think I did.  I
took great care.”

“Well done, Auntie,”
Tom murmured.  He had brought the flame of a candle to the glass and was
studying it from every angle. “It’s mixed with something, perhaps powdered
sugar from those figs Delacroix was eating all night, so with any luck we have
a workable print.  We’ll take it to the police lab first thing in the morning. 
And we must wire Davy to send the Hammond print.  By courier, I’d suppose?” 

Trevor nodded slowly,
his hand to his mouth.

“Then in the
meantime, I suggest we try to get a good night’s rest,” said Geraldine. “I
don’t think a single one of us has slept more than four hours within the last
forty-eight, and if we grow any more exhausted, we shall all lose the gift of
deduction entirely.  Honestly Trevor, you must remove that worried look from
your face and welcome this glass as a gift from the Fates.  I don’t know what
the word is for it, but you seem to be one of those people who are more
disturbed by good news than bad.”

“No, not at all,”
said Trevor although her observation was actually apt.  A stroke of fortune
always made him feel as if he were being set up for a fall.  “I’m delighted to
have this glass in my possession.  If the prints match and we can prove that
Delacroix is the same man who was running the brothel on Cleveland Street, then
we can arrest him in the name of Scotland Yard.”

“And once you get
him alone, he will talk,” Emma said, glancing at Trevor, who didn’t glance
back.

“Oh yes,” he said
quietly.  “Once I get him alone, he most certainly will talk.”

2:49 AM

    “Where is she?”

“You tell me.”

Rayley had been
tracking the movements of the small panel of light across the far wall of his
room and this, along with the steady and helpful chime of church bells, had led
him to believe that another full day had passed.     

Armand Delacroix had
entered the room a few minutes earlier and positioned himself precariously on
the overturned bucket in the corner of the cell.  Rayley had sat up in bed to
face him, taking care to seem a bit more unsteady than he actually was.  Ever
since his accidental nausea had taught him that this was an effective means of lessening
the impact of the chloroform on his system, he had employed a more calculated
means of expunging the drug, taking care to hide the evidence beneath his
mattress.  He certainly didn’t intend to announce his relative sobriety to
Delacroix, so Rayley slumped against the wall and allowed his lips to part in
the suggestion of a stupor.

“I have no desire to
be unreasonable, Detective,” Delacroix said, smooth and elegant as ever, despite
his rather vulgar position crouched on the pail.  “I simply need to know what
you’ve done with her.”

What he had done
with her?  It seemed to Rayley that the question should be going in the other
direction. “You’ve seen Isabel since I have,” he said.  “You escorted her to
the police station on the evening of April 23 to provide your alibi, did you
not?  A trip she most certainly made under duress.”  Rayley was trying to walk
a fine line between engaging Delacroix in fruitful conversation while still
sounding suitably drugged.

“Don’t play me for a
fool, Detective.  It’s clear enough that you’ve somehow helped her get back to London.
 I know for a fact that she wrote you, asking you to meet her at dawn at the
tower on the day she disappeared.”

A sudden tickle of
nausea rose in Rayley’s throat and his hand rose automatically to his mouth.  Delacroix
watched him with alarm, an expression that Rayley noted even as he struggled to
contain the sensation.