City of Light

Chapter THREE



Paris



April 18, 1889



8:43 PM

“Bizarre and dreadful, are they not?”

Rayley wasn’t sure which startled him more, the boldness of the criticism or his surprise at hearing his own language. But whoever had spoken the words was undeniably correct. On the table before them were dozens of small replicas of what the Eiffel Tower was meant to look like upon completion, cast in any number of improbable forms. Tea towels, flags, charms, hat pins, and clocks. A particularly enterprising seamstress had even designed a dress with a layered collar emulating the extended triangular shape of Eiffel’s design. Three women in this crowded room were in fact wearing that very fashion at the moment, straining to hold their necks above the collar like dogs in the leash, and apparently without the dismay that ladies normally displayed when they found a social rival in similar dress. All of Paris was gripped in tower fever and it was indeed bizarre and rather dreadful.

A fresh-faced young man was holding out a hand to Rayley. “Don’t tell me I guessed wrong,” he said. “You’re British, are you not?”

“It shows?”

“Absolutely,” the young man said, pumping with a vigorous handshake, and using his other hand to pat Rayley’s shoulder with the automatic intimacy people fall into whenever they meet a countryman abroad. “Patrick T. Graham, London Star.”

“Rayley Abrams, Scotland Yard.”

Graham’s brows shot up and he gave a long low whistle. “Here tonight on duty?”

“A last minute invitation from my French hosts. I’m not entirely sure why. Your presence in this fine room is professional as well, I presume?”

“Of course. Our readers can’t get their fill of information about the Exposition.”

“Even though the Queen does not approve?”

Graham laughed. His cheeks had that sort of perpetual flush that characterizes some men, as if they had just recently come in from a brisk walk along the river. “Especially because the Queen does not approve.”

“She hardly stands alone.”

“No crowned heads are expected to attend at all, and the French, pardon the pun, are royally pissed about it, even though they’re pretending not to care.” Graham spread his fingers and ticked the countries off. “Russia and Germany have also sent their regrets. Austria, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Sweden. It’s as if all of Europe has turned its back on France in its moment of triumph. Of course the savages of the world will be here in full force, with the Americans leading the charge as always. We can expect a contingent of those countries in South America that no civilized person can name, Japan, and various rocky little islands from Southeast Asia.”

“The Americans have always been quick to claim spiritual kinship with the French,” Rayley said with authority, although in truth he had only met one American in his life. A transplanted whore back in London, who’d exhibited the sort of stubborn refusal to listen to reason that Rayley considered the hallmark of her nationality. The girl seemed to believe she was somehow immune to the Ripper, since up to that point he had murdered only British prostitutes. She’d been unmoved by Rayley’s warnings and openly amused by the sight of him unbuttoning his trousers, all the while lecturing her to be more careful when meeting strange men. But, once this brief conversation was behind them, the girl had displayed such admirable enthusiasm for her chosen profession that Rayley had always thought the better of Americans for having met her. “Both countries have an unnatural degree of interest in democracy, liberty, and fraternity, that sort of thing.”

“A kinship based on a mutual desire to show off is more like it,” Graham said with a snort and Rayley found himself laughing back. “But the Americans are certainly sending France their best – Thomas Edison and his phonograph, James Whistler and his paintings, and the word is that Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley and a whole troop of those Indian fellows are going to drive a herd of buffalo down the Champs-Elysees. Or perhaps it’s bison. Whatever they call them. Can you imagine?”

“It should be quite the scene.”

“What’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison, anyway? Or are they the same beast?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Well, I won’t rest until I have the answer. I’m a newspaper man, and we can no more stop asking questions than we can stop breathing.” Graham regarded Rayley with a sideways glance. “Rather like detectives, in that regard, I’d imagine. So I’ll ask you the question that lures us all here tonight.” He motioned Rayley closer for a slow whisper. “Will… he…finish…on…time?”

It was indeed the question of the hour. There had been notable progress on the tower during the last few weeks, but even Eiffel’s most ardent supporters had begun to openly doubt the structure would be ready for its scheduled debut on May 9. It now stood a strangely stark figure but, looking at the souvenirs spread around him, Rayley realized it was actually closer to completion than he would have guessed. The tower would always be more about engineering than art, showing its cables and gears with impunity, forcing its observers to admire how it worked more than how it looked. Even when finished, Rayley suspected the tower would never seem entirely so.

But just as tower fever was running high in Paris, so was tower anxiety, which was why Eiffel and the Exposition organizers had found themselves obliged to host this very party in the lobby of the Normandy Hotel. It was a glittering event. The room swathed in the national colors, waiters with trays of lobster and prawns circulating among the crowd, the string orchestra in the corner playing an endless series of songs by French composers. All intended to assure investors, the press, and the most prominent citizens of Paris that on opening day the tower would be not only a beacon of progress but an elevated town square the likes of which the world had never seen, complete with promenades, shops, and restaurants. A pile of money was on the line. Money and Parisian pride. Although no one had directly said as much, Rayley suspected that he and the other high ranking members of the police force were invited here tonight in anticipation of possible problems.

“They appear to be ready to begin. I should find my translator,” Rayley said, although he was a bit sorry to part from Graham and the first unfettered conversation he’d enjoyed for months.

“No call, old chap,” Graham said. “My French is rather good, if you’ll trust me.”

“You speak French?”

“Have to, for the job. You don’t?”

Rayley felt himself flushing but held it down. His failings with the language had put him at a severe disadvantage on more occasions than he cared to count. The official police translator only repeated the bare bones of conversations, leaving Rayley to grasp futilely at the deeper meanings. Many times a long and quite possibly significant speech in French had been followed by an insultingly short translation in English, something like “He says no” or “Would you care for more wine?” But Graham was an open and unguarded sort, clearly inclined to bombast and gossip, and Rayley had no doubt he would embellish his translations with precisely the sort of details he’d been starved for since November. Rayley nodded at Graham. The man’s arrogance was annoying, but at least he was British and thus annoying in a familiar way.

The orchestra stopped playing and a hush fell over the crowd. It was just past nine, Rayley noted by the cluster of Eiffel tower clocks on the table beside him, and the speeches were getting underway with a surprising promptness.

Gustave Eiffel had made his millions as an engineer in the railway industry. He’d risen to wealth and prominence by performing tasks others had deemed impossible, building bridges over seemingly uncrossable spans of water and weaving tracks around the most resistant of mountains. Tall and handsome, with a crest of white hair, he entirely looked the part of a captain of industry as he strode across the small makeshift stage the hotel had provided. A young couple trailed in his wake.

“His daughter and son-in-law,” Graham whispered. “Wife’s dead, but he’s eager to present as a family man. Trots them out for all occasions.”

Rayley nodded. Eiffel was a messenger perfectly suited to his task, the ideal man to assure the nervous French that the tower would rise on schedule and that the world would subsequently bow at its feet. Eiffel’s voice soon proved the proper sort too, confident without bravado and slowly-paced, betraying not the slightest hint of nervousness. Graham provided whispered bits of translation, indicating that Eiffel was giving the crowd exactly the phrases that one might expect. A centerpiece. A sign. A symbol. Industry. Democracy. Progress.

The triumph of the modern world.

Was he speaking only of his tower or of the Exposition as a whole? Rayley leaned in to ask Graham and froze before he could open his mouth.

The woman from the café was in the crowd. Dressed in gold this time, with the same austerely high neckline as her first gown, the same exaggerated shoulders and narrow hips. Her hair more severely pulled back than before, with strands of pearls woven among the dark tresses. She was standing close enough to the stage to indicate her status in the room, or more likely the status of her husband, the man whose arm was intertwined with her own.

Rayley forced himself to exhale. It wasn’t surprising that she would be present at such a party. Half of Paris was here, and – with the arguable exception of himself and Graham – most probably the better half.

The woman’s arm was linked through the man’s, but it was a casual linkage. He was almost turned away from her, straining toward Eiffel, utterly unaware that he had a goddess for a wife. She is his trophy, Rayley thought, but a trophy garnered from a contest long ago, taken in a victory he barely remembers.

Eiffel finished to applause and signaled toward another man, who began to move toward the podium with a heavy step and palpable dread.

“Otis,” Graham whispered. “The elevator chap.”

Even with his limited grasp of French and thus French gossip, Rayley knew at once what this meant. Whether or not Eiffel would finish the structure on time might be arguable, but it had been painfully evident for months that his team was unable to engineer any reasonable means of transporting people up and down the frame of the tower. It had been a scandal when they’d had to call on the Americans for help, more specifically this man Otis who was now standing behind the podium. Rayley felt for him with his thick, workmanlike coat and his stumbling French, which was probably scarcely better than Rayley’s own.

“Why have they had so much trouble with the elevators?” he quietly asked Graham.

“Can’t rise straight up,” Graham answered. “They have to run along those strange sloping legs and go…what’s the word?”

“Diagonal?”

“Precisely. Cables are engineered to go either up and down or back and forth, not both at once,” Graham said. “Even the Paris papers have admitted it’s a slight complication.”

Rayley frowned. It seemed more than a slight complication. “So what happens if the tower opens and there are no elevators?”

“We climb, I suppose.”

The voice behind him was as cool and clear as water. Since Eiffel had concluded and poor Otis had begun, the crowd was growing restless, seeking trays of food and drink, chatting right over his speech, turning the mood back into that or a party. But Rayley was still stunned to find her here, at his elbow, her lips curved into a somewhat mocking smile.

“I suppose you two know each other?” Graham said. “Of course you’ve met. Oh, but you haven’t? May I present Rayley Abrams of Scotland Yard. And Rayley, this is Isabel…Delacroix.”

His hesitation on the last name struck Rayley as odd, even in this moment when so many other things were striking him as well. For the woman had turned to him and offered her gloved hand. Had murmured “Detective…” as if it were a glorious word. Why would Graham not know her last name? She was connected to important people, married to a man who apparently had strong ties to the Exposition, and besides, Graham seemed to know everyone in Paris.

Otis had finished. Eiffel stepped back to the podium for a few final remarks, the sort that even Rayley could understand. “A new France,” he had bellowed, evidently a scripted finale, for in the moment when he uttered the final word, champagne corks had gone flying from every corner of the room. Within seconds, frothing glasses were being set up on bars and waiters were stepping forward with trays of food. Someone, Rayley thought, with that parenthetical part of his mind that was still working, has gone to great expense and trouble for this evening. Someone is very determined to ensure that all goes well.

“Would you like champagne?” Graham offered.

“Champagne is always nice,” said Isabel, and Rayley nodded. Graham left them in search of glasses and, at least for the moment, the two stood alone, an island in the sea of bustling, chattering Parisians.

“We’ve met before,” she said, her voice so soft he was forced to lean in to catch the words.

“In a way. You sketched me. On the Rue Clairaut.”

“And did I capture you?”

There were many things he could have said in response to such a provocative verb, but what he chose was the truth. “I looked sad.”

She exhaled softly, turned away. She had been flirting, he realized belatedly. She had meant the remark in a sort of playful jest and he had failed to respond in kind, had crushed her gaiety as surely as rose petals beneath a man’s shoes. But no, this made no sense. She would not flirt with him. Not here, in this crowded room with her husband so close by. Not anywhere, if the truth be told. Not ever.

“I thought you were French,” he blurted out.

“You overheard me with Armand? It’s a natural enough mistake, I suppose. But I assure you, Detective, that despite all appearances I am as English as a woman can possibly be. Devonshire cream poured into a champagne flute.” She laughed. Angels and fountains and music…. those ridiculous things men say about a woman’s laughter. They all came stampeding over Rayley like a herd of bison down the Champs-Elysees. And then she was leaning toward him, her voice a whisper in his ear, her breath evident and warm and the gesture so intimate that Rayley feared for a moment his knees might give way. “So are you disappointed?”

Before he could answer the wretched Graham was back upon them, clutching three champagne classes in a most awkward fashion and bearing fresh news.

“Guess what I’ve just heard,” he said, lining the glasses carefully along a small mantle, sloshing a little as he did so.

“Neither of us is good at guessing,” Isabel said, reaching for a glass. “It’s against the detective’s training and I gave up the habit as a girl.”

“They’re letting us go up.”

Rayley had no idea what he meant but Isabel’s attention snapped to the boy in an instant. “Up the tower?”

Graham nodded. “They want to prove it’s working, at least the elevators to the base, so they’ve invited the press to tour. That way they can be sure that we shall cast the word far and wide that at sunrise on May 9 the tower will be operable.”

Isabel smiled, once again that private little catlike smile. “They wish to proclaim this even to the English?”

Graham was practically dancing. “Especially to the English. And here’s the plum, the absolute plum. We can invite guests. Will you go with me?”

“You” is a strangely ineffectual word, Rayley had often thought, one of the few failures of his most serviceable language. Because Graham’s invitation was vague, possibly directed to both him and Isabel, possibly to just one of them. But Isabel seemed less troubled by his intent, for she downed her champagne with a single broad gulp and said “I couldn’t refuse the chance to ascend the tower before anyone else, even though I’m still not entirely sure why they would allow you to bring guests.”

“It’s a privilege of the press,” Graham said. “They test everything new on us and if it breaks, they count the casualties as an acceptable loss.”

Isabel laughed.

“So you’re in?” Graham said, looking from one to the other. “Shall we meet at the base of the tower Saturday morning, 6 AM? Sorry for the appallingly early hour but we need to be out of the way before the workmen arrive. You’ll join us, won’t you, Abrams? Think of it. The chance to see all of Paris lying silent at your feet.”

“Of course he’s in,” Isabel said. “He’s with Scotland Yard and thus fears nothing. Oh, I knew I was right to come across the room to talk to the two of you. It was sheer homesickness at first, I’ll confess. A desire to speak in my natural tongue. But I think I also knew that something good would come of the chance to be again with my own kind.”

“Expatriates make strange bedfellows,” Graham said with a chuckle. “I doubt that back in London any of us would consider the other two our own kind. But here in Paris…”

“But here in Paris…” Isabel said, reaching for a second glass of champagne, the one intended for Rayley. “Here in Paris we are but three fish out of water and thus the best of friends. And now it appears we are off on a great adventure.”

“Your husband won’t mind?”

Rayley regretted the words the moment he said them. Graham looked at him with such exasperation that he all but rolled his eyes. I must seem like a stuffy old fool, Rayley thought. A prude and a Puritan, a pensioner taking his two grandchildren on holiday.

“I’m quite sure he would mind if he knew,” Isabel said. “Oh dear. Are we running low on champagne?”

“Not for long,” Graham said, turning to gallop back toward the bar. He shot Rayley a final glance that suggested he should try to do a little better this time, so Rayley swallowed his next question, which was “How on earth can a man not know if his wife leaves the house before 6 AM?”

Isabel was gazing at him quietly. “You are coming with me, aren’t you?”

A shift from “us” to “me” but no indication of what it might mean. Rayley nodded. “Might I ask you something?”

“Please do.”

“That day in the café…How did you know I was British?”

She laughed. “By the way you spoke French.”

An hour later Rayley found himself packed into an overcrowded coach with a half-dozen French policemen of varying ranks crammed in around him. Their voices were giddy from free drink, and for once he didn’t mind that he understood not a word of what they were saying. He sat in silence, going over the evening again and again in his mind. The improbability of it all.

Did he want to climb the tower? Most emphatically not.

Would he climb it?

Yes. If he could climb it with her.

The coach was slowing down on the street where his boarding house stood and Rayley made a move to push to his feet. He knew from a rather humiliating past experience that the police coach would not completely stop, but merely slow, and that he would be expected to leap out at his doorstep. He dug into his pocket for the key to the front door and his fingers grazed the latest letter from Trevor Welles, a letter that had arrived that morning and that he had not yet had the chance to read.

He pulled the envelope out, squinted at it in the irregular glow of the streetlight. Trevor had scribbled something on the back of envelope, evidently a last minute thought. The coach slowed. Rayley jumped, landing lightly on his feet, and waved goodbye at the coach from which no one waved back. He turned the envelope over in his hand, squinted at Trevor’s characteristic scrawl.

A single sentence. A question.

Did the maid scream?