City of Light

Chapter TWENTY-THREE



Paris



10:36 AM



Armand Delacroix was a man with broad financial interests, not all of them relevant to the matter at hand. This Trevor and Tom concluded after visiting the first two houses on Rayley’s list, both of which were located reasonably close to the river but which upon inspection turned out to be nothing more than middle class houses for rental, additional sources of income for the ever-resourceful Delacroix. Now they stood on the sidewalk of the Boulevard Saint-Michal and gazed at Delacroix’s own home, an impressive brick affair which had been painted white and was largely covered with a bank of ivy.

“He’s come a long way from 229 Cleveland Street, hasn’t he?” Tom said drily.

“He isn’t using this house as a brothel,” Trevor said, his eyes taking in the perfectly tended gardens and the charming window boxes dotted with flowers. “He lives here himself, probably with the child he calls Marianne and Isabel too, at least until she escaped. Rubois says he hosts parties much like the one we attended last night.”

“So where is the actual business conducted?”

“Most likely in some of the rooms on this list. But not so many boys are involved and not so many clients either, I should think. Delacroix appears to have learned from his mistakes in London and has decided to streamline his Paris operation. The parties are to procure and groom clients, as well as to sustain his public façade as a civic crusader. The actual liaisons take place elsewhere.”

“We need to be looking closer to the water,” Tom said impatiently. “Not these polite little neighborhoods, but the rougher streets.”

“What makes you so sure?” asked Trevor. “Whether in London or Paris, Delacroix seems to make a habit of conducting his business in, as you say, polite little neighborhoods. For all we know, he could be holding Rayley in the most pleasant looking house in Paris.”

“I don’t think so,” said Tom. “Emma will hang me for telling you this, but last night –“

Just then a bicycle approached them, bouncing on the cobblestoned street.

“Detective Welles?” asked the young man, whom Trevor now noted was dressed as a flic, his uniform obscured by his jacket. When Trevor nodded, he pulled a telegram from his front pocket and handed it over with a smart, almost military gesture.

The words “Detective Welles” evidently had exhausted the boy’s store of English because he immediately switched to French. “He says Rubois gave him a list of the places we might be,” said Tom. “This is the seventh place on the list he’s tried.”

“It’s from Davy,” said Trevor, ripping open the envelope. “I don’t believe he ever sleeps either.”

“See here,” Tom said to the flic in French. “You know these neighborhoods far better than we. Would any of the addresses on this list be located near the bad part of river? The criminal part, I mean.”

The young man squinted at the paper thoughtfully, as Trevor looked up from the telegram.

“Dear God,” he said quietly.

But Tom merely glanced at him for the flic was speaking too, running his stubby finger down the list of addresses, coming to rest on the section near the bottom.

“These are the sorts of places where the sewer rats live,” he said.

“Sewer rats?” Tom asked distractedly. Trevor seemed to have lost interest in the entire conversation. He had gone over to lean against a tree.

“Street people,” said the flic, with a sanctimonious frown. “They live outside when the weather allows, but in the winter there are little rooms down by the sewer they can rent by the night. Or the hour. Drunkards and whores and bastards and thieves and-“

“I understand,” said Tom, cutting him off before he could unleash a full sermon. “That’s precisely the sort of place we’re looking for. See here on the map, where are those addresses in relation to the Pont des Arts? Might any of them be a half hour by foot upriver?”

The flic frowned, suggesting that either the question required some consideration or, more likely, that Tom’s French was beginning to falter. He brought the map closer to his face to study it and Tom looked back toward Trevor.

“So what fresh news does Davy bring?”

Trevor broke from his reverie with a startle, as if he had forgotten that Tom and the flic were even there. Then he read aloud.

Henry Newlove traveled Paris April 11. Has older brother Ian. Also boygirl for Hammond long ago. Then married a man.

“Married a man?” Tom said, walking over to the tree where Trevor still was still leaning, deep in thought. “Actually married? He must have that part wrong. But the bit about Henry Newlove coming to Paris on the 11th is interesting in light of our timeline.” He took the telegram from Trevor’s hand to read it for himself.

“Sir,” the flic called. “There are three addresses on this list which might be near the area you’ve requested.”

“Just a minute,” Tom said, his voice rising. “He says Henry’s older brother Ian was also a boy-girl. Also, he says, which implies that Henry himself was a boy-girl. And he came to Paris…Dear God, this means the Lady of the River must be Henry Newlove. He was killed the day after he crossed the channel.”

“Yes, naturally, but not only that,” said Trevor, gazing at the pretty white house where the monstrous Armand Delacroix lived in comfort. “I believe there are ways we can use this knowledge to find Isabel Blout.”

10:40 AM

“She says that the clothes were given to her by a friend,” Emma told Geraldine. “And that she can’t imagine what concern it is of ours.”

“Offer her another coin,” Geraldine said. “And confirm that it was a male friend.”

The three women were sitting on the stone wall, a companionable enough place to rest now that the day was warming, and Emma supposed she had even gotten used to the smell rising from the sewer beneath them. The French prostitute had not seemed surprised when the two women had intercepted her on her way out of the sewer opening. She had smiled when Emma told her that her dress was pretty and smiled even more broadly when Emma had offered her money. She was one of those rare women who look less attractive when they smile.

So they had settled in on the stone wall, each of them gazing out toward the river, as if they were vacationers taking in a scenic view. Their position meant that Emma could not see the woman’s face as they talked, a disadvantage she supposed, since Trevor had pounded into her head many times that most liars reveal themselves through their facial expressions and body gestures, not through their choice of words. But she told herself it was probably all right. The woman, who announced her name to be Francine, had balked at Emma’s suggestion they climb up to street level and, upon consideration, Geraldine’s stamina probably would have suffered in the attempt.

Besides, what reason would this woman have to lie?

“Tell us about the friend who gave you the clothes,” Emma requested politely, but with what hoped was an echo of Trevor’s quiet authority.

Francine launched into a long-winded and somewhat self-serving tale, but the salient points were these: The man was not a regular customer. She had not asked his name. He had seemed a bit down on his luck, as indicated by the fact he had been unable to provide the requested coins for her services. Instead, he had offered her this suit of fine clothing, which he claimed to have obtained just hours before from a woman he had met in one of the bars. A pretty woman whom he said had been weeping.

“Certainly sounds like Isabel,” Geraldine said thoughtfully, after Emma had translated the story so far. “Ask her what sort of clothes the man gave her.”

Work clothes, as it turned out, not too surprisingly. Francine reported that the man was small, not much taller than she herself. Probably that is why the woman approached him of all the men in the bar that night, because his clothes were the most likely to fit her. Oh, and the pretty weeping woman hadn’t been wearing the dress she had traded away. She’d been dressed in other clothes, just as fine, and she had pulled the plum-colored outfit from a traveling valise.

“That’s almost definitely the woman we’re seeking,” said Emma. “What is the name of the bar where all of this happened?”

Le Rire Femme, Francine said. The Laughing Woman. It was a favorite among the sewer rats, she explained, and it had been especially festive on the night in question. For the men had just learned that Eiffel was hiring unskilled laborers to help in the completion of the tower. Her client had told her he was going over the next morning to find work. He had promised that he would pay her in the proper currency the next time.

The tower, Emma thought. How it casts its shadow over every part of this twisted story. How it haunts us all.

“So there. After we walk our final steps we must find Trevor and tell him that Isabel was alive and well two days ago,” Emma said, as Francine bid them a slurred au-revoir and continued her trawl down the river bank. “That she was last seen weeping in a bar called The Laughing Woman and exchanging her beautiful dress for a sewer rat’s rags. I only hope for her sake she can wear men’s clothing more convincingly than I could. Why are you smiling like that?”

“I have a bit of theory myself,” said Geraldine. “And I feel quite rejuvenated from our little hiatus here on the bank. After we have walked our 2500 more steps do you think we might visit the tower? I suddenly have an urge to see it up close, near the base, at the spot where Rayley was taken.”