They burst out. They appeared almost like a dark cloud. They spread in all directions for a moment, hysterical and desperate only to be free. Then once they were far up above the crowd and were far enough away that they could safely assume they were beyond the grasp of any human hands, they rejoined together as a group to decide the best way to fly out of the circumstance.
For many years later, that area of Montreal was plagued by more doves than was normal in any part of the city. You could hear them quietly making weeping noises. They were an echo of mourning.
For once there was no one who could complain about Marie’s wealth. It wasn’t as though she would be able to enjoy this display herself. They were the ones who were benefitting. And they realized that moving into the modern age, there was a certain cruelty that would disappear. But there would also be a kind of beauty that would disappear. This outrageous display. They enjoyed it while it was there. There would be a time when it would be impossible.
Equality was a banal idea. A way of life was dying with her, they believed.
Marie’s death was the most important thing about her life. Murdered women were immortalized. She had not lost her personality or any of her spark by being murdered. She had become larger than life when she was killed.
And who really mourned Marie’s death? She didn’t have any close relatives who were bereft at her departure. She didn’t have any close friends. The only people she knew were those maids who were employed by her. And they were all more sorrowful for their loss of employment than anything else.
But of course Marie did have a chief mourner. And everyone knew who it was.
CHAPTER 50
The Trial
When the detective arrived, his carriage almost drove right by the mansion. The mansion was so completely covered by the wiry rosebush with dried frozen petals that he mistook it for nature and didn’t think it was part of human habitation. Instead he thought it was part of the mountain that rose up behind it. It was only when he realized he had gone a house too far that he had the carriage move backward. He stared at the rosebush and allowed the shape of the house to emerge.
He felt for a moment as though he were hallucinating. Or that he was in a fairy tale. And whenever something like that happens, you brace yourself for other strange things to happen.
Anything a little bit magical is terrifying. God forbid you should encounter a miracle.
One of the rosebushes pulled his hat right off his head. It made the wind blow unexpectedly on his bald scalp. And a strong current of unease ran through his body.
This murder had so much to do with women. It was a house filled with women. He was already entering something creepy. The only place where women found themselves in such proximity was the madhouse. He thought when women spent too much time alone, they always went mad. And when he entered the house he felt the same way.
* * *
The questioning of the maids proved to be strange. The detective had been warned that the maids in this household were known to be peculiar. They had a tenuous grasp on reality. Whenever he assembled his list of witnesses, he always prayed there would not be a teenage girl on it. Young girls seemed to love to confuse him and tie his brain in knots. He did think it peculiar the cupcake had been delivered to Marie and Sadie in particular.
“Weren’t you at all suspicious about where these two singular cupcakes came from? And why?”
“Well, no sir. I knew where it came from.”
“And where was it from?”
“It was Miss Antoine herself who gave me the cupcakes and said to bring them out to her and Miss Arnett when they looked happy and everything was in the swing of things, as they say. So when I saw her dancing with Miss Arnett and they looked pretty together, I thought now would be a good time to bring them out.”
“Why were you selected to serve the cupcakes to them?”
“Because I’m the prettiest, I suppose. I mean, all the girls here are pretty but I still get singled out sometimes for being pretty, especially by the mistress.”
“Are you trying to tell me she wanted to commit suicide?”
“I don’t know anything about that. I’m only telling you what I observed. She came in the kitchen with the cakes.”
“And did you observe anything unusual about her demeanor?”
“I don’t know what a demeanor is.”
“Was there anything different about her?”
“Yes! She was dressed shabby. You know how beautiful her way of dressing can sometimes be. So I thought she was in a costume. Everyone had on such funny getups that night. And her voice was different.”
“How so?”
“Marie usually sings her words. But this time she was so serious-sounding.”
“Interesting.”
“Do you think Miss Antoine will get any better?”
“I don’t think so. She’s dead.”
Another maid spoke up at that moment. “The cakes were such pretty things. They weren’t made by Martha. Her cakes are always delicious. But they don’t look pretty. She could never make a rose like that. Nobody here can. If they could, I would know it because I’ve been working on being able to do it myself. They were made by a cake genius.”
* * *
The detective went to look at different bakeries in search of a similar cupcake. When he went into a small bakery on Sherbrooke Street, he was shocked when he saw Marie Antoine working in the back. He tried to make sense of it. For a moment he thought it was a hoax.
“Marie,” he said.
And she answered, “Yes.”
She might have tricked somebody else, but he was a detective. And he was smart. And his brain was able to figure these types of things out. Naturally it did not help that she was holding a tray that had rows of cupcakes covered in roses, quite identical to the ones everyone at the party had described seeing.
She was hauled in for murder.
* * *
The trial lasted through the spring. George was not called on to testify, but she sat at the back of the court observing it all. She was quite used to the cast of characters, but for everyone else in the courtroom, this was an electrifying spectacle. The culprit was more wonderful than anyone could imagine. It was straight out of a penny dreadful novel. They knew the closest thing in real life to fiction was murder. Murder was fiction made incarnate.
There was a play based on the trial. In it, Mary was presented as a jealous insane person. Her similarity in appearance to Marie consumed her and caused her to have a delusion that they had been switched at birth. Mary insisted to the court they were sisters, but this was ruled a falsehood only she believed and that had caused her to spend all her time plotting Marie’s macabre death.
Mary’s lawyers petitioned the court to have the play stopped. How could any jury be impartial when everyone in the city was crowding into a theater to watch their client murder Marie in a cold and deranged, hateful manner?
But after the trial, the moment Mary was declared guilty, her crime became fodder for every form of theater in the city. Even the hurdy-gurdy monkey’s tune seemed to be singing about Mary.