City of Light

Chapter FIVE



Paris



April 20



5:40 AM



She was both beautiful and smart. A disastrous combination in a woman, one guaranteed to doom her to a life of disappointment, and life had been disappointing Isabel Blout now for thirty-one years.

There appeared to be only a certain amount of time she could spend with a man before ennui would begin to set in, as slow and persistent as mold on a cottage wall. Mama had predicted - had promised, really – that a marriage between a groom of sixty-four and a bride of sixteen would most probably fail to survive the honeymoon. But George Blout had lingered into an even older old age, occasionally still rallying to demand a particularly distasteful variation of his husbandly rights. Her time with Andrew had been six years, five of them delightful. Randolph eight, but with an extended break in the middle. Three years with Carlo, two of them best forgotten. James barely one, and their bond was of a most unusual sort. Unorthodox as it was, the intensity of their time together expanded his presence in her memory and made him seem in some ways the most significant of the lot. Armand didn’t count. She had known him forever, since the fumbling days of her girlhood, and her business with him was of a totally different sort.

Anyone clever with mathematics would see the problem immediately. For a woman who began her romantic life at sixteen, six and eight and three and one adds up to somewhat more than Isabel’s current age of thirty-one.

Yes, regrettably there had been a bit of overlap between the affairs and this had at times proven painful for both Isabel and the gentlemen in question. Others might blame her for this pain and even for the familial and marital upheavals which so often accompanied her arrival in a man’s life, but Isabel did not blame herself. She knew she had been dealt a most unusual and very tricky hand to play. Beautiful and smart. A woman should be one or the other, not both, or else she is in an impossible situation – attractive enough to draw men, but shrewd enough to see through them. Once a woman realizes the frailties of men, her life can quickly assume a nightmarish quality. It’s as if she is being given a series of gaily wrapped presents, and yet she opens them only to find each one empty, until the floor around her feet is littered with piles of tissue and with abandoned boxes.

Isabel had traveled a great distance. Not just Manchester to Paris, obscurity to prominence, ignorance to sophistication, or poverty to wealth, although these transitions, and many others, were all certainly made along the way. She often bemused herself with the fantasy that she would someday return to the town of her birth. She would walk the streets in her finest clothes and wait to be recognized. She suspected it would take some time. Manchester was a small town, but yet her transformation has been so profound that she knew she may have to walk its streets many times before the citizens would recall her name. All those spot-faced boys who’d thrown mud at her and sometimes worse, the ones that called her The Princess for merely daring to be different, for wanting more out of life than the men of Manchester could offer. Her childhood tormenters would be old now. Worn down by too many children to feed and life in the mill. They might not know her at once but then, when understanding finally dawned…they would see a woman resurrected. They would grab at the hem of her gown and beg for healing. They would reach to her like the lepers who tried to touch Jesus.

Isabel looked different, she knew. Sounded different. Moved differently and carried fans and furs and ivory-handled parasols, all the talismans of her new life. But, despite the trappings of change, her real journey had been an interior one. For the past fifteen years, Isabel had been her own artwork, her own invention, her own opus. She had created herself out of nothing, and this had taken a tremendous amount of energy.

The men she would be meeting at the tower… They were not the sort with whom she would normally trifle. The reporter, that boy, the kind of man who would still be called a boy when he turned fifty. And the other, the detective. She had noticed his solitude at the café Sunday last. She had known who he was, of course, since Armand made such a fuss about gathering information on people, especially people who might prove useful at some point in the future. Especially those who’d come from London, who might carry gossip and rumors about their heads like lice.

She had been instructed to spy on him and, as Armand so charmingly put it “to find the dirt.” Armand believed there was always dirt. But it had been the detective’s palpable solitude that Isabel had first noted. Perhaps she had even dreamed about him afterward. She did that frequently - dreamed of men she had only seen in passing.

It occurred to Isabel, as she dressed in the shadows of early morning, that she herself might have been for the first time in her life genuinely lonely. For it was not only curiosity about the tower which drove her down the marble steps of her apartment and out through the heavy oaken door. It had been some time since she had seen so much worship in a man’s face as she had seen in the detective’s. Perhaps she was merely nostalgic for England or perhaps she was homesick for her own youth, the borders of which seemed to be receding even farther in the distance. She would not take him as a lover. He was too ugly, too small and serious and there was a high probability that he might expect the sort of things that she was ill-prepared to give. But she would take him as a mirror. She would hold him out from her at arm’s length and admire the image of her that was reflected in his sad and eager eyes.

6:02 AM



Working the early shift at the morgue was hardly the best job in Paris, but the workers shuffled in as the church bells struck six - silent, sleep-grogged, and resigned to their fates. Two unidentified bodies had come in during the night and would require embalming for display. Two more had gone unclaimed for more than a week and would thus be buried beneath generic crosses in the small cemetery across the street, deemed the Pauper’s Garden.

The burials were especially dispirited tasks, since each one marked a failure for the French police, who prided themselves on body identification. But with the starting date for the Exhibition nearing and more people streaming into Paris each day, the count would certainly keep rising and, given the fact that many of the visitors were foreign - vagabonds, gypsies, criminals, and itinerates seeking work - it was unlikely that many of the bodies which would arrive at the morgue in the next few months would ever be named or claimed. The police and the morgue workers were braced for an onslaught of corpses, and some were concerned that the demand might be more than the patchy soil of Pauper’s Garden could bear. There was talk of procuring land for a second cemetery, for just as the city was opening new hostels and cafes in anticipation of the visitors, so must they create accommodations for the anticipated dead.

But of course, even within the republic of the morgue, some bodies received preferential treatment, such as the corpse which had been held in its own marble vault since it had been found on the banks of the Seine on the morning of April 12. This body had been embalmed, but it had not been put on display with the others, nor was there any talk of carting it out to Pauper’s Garden. At the insistence of the supervising detective, it was even packed in ice to preserve it as perfectly as possible, although in anticipation of what fate, no one could say. The marble vault kept the ice frozen rather well but even so, it had to be completely changed twice a day, with the origin of each new work shift and even now, two workers were headed toward the vault pushing a wheelbarrow. It was a tedious task, for large quantities of ice were not easily obtained at 6 AM in Paris, but this was what had been ordered and what the morgue workers must do.

This corpse was special. It was bound tightly in muslin, wrapped with the care of a mummy. In a mere matter of days it had achieved a certain notoriety among the workers and in a building where the dead were treated nonchalantly, the body in the marble vault was handled with care. They called her The Lady of the River.

6:05 AM



Across town from the morgue a group of seventeen people, including two representatives from Eiffel’s engineering firm, huddled at the base of the tower. Rayley, who arrived early for all engagements as a matter of habit, had been waiting for a half an hour when Graham blustered up amid a pack of his fellow journalists.

No Isabel.

One of the American engineers, a chap with the prosaic name of Thomas Brown, introduced himself and began listing the glories of the Otis elevator system, using short sentences, which were promptly translated into French. He described the cable system as being “doubly safe,” wincing a little on the phrase. A decade may be a long time in the world of engineering, but it is a mere blink of the eye in public memory and Rayley wondered how many in their little party were considering the fate of the Baroness de Schack on this particular morning. No one was meeting anyone else’s gaze. In fact, they stood in a small circle, eyes downcast, rather in the manner of a family gathered at a burial plot, preparing to drop roses on the coffin of a departed loved one. Brown mumbled steadily through his prepared speech, striving to hit the middle ground between reassuring his audience while stopping short of scolding them for being anxious in the first place.

Through his research, Rayley knew that the Otis company prided itself on its stellar safety record, which was largely the result of having created and patented hoisting cables a certain design. If a cable broke or was for any reason stretched too far, leaf springs were released, bringing the falling car to what was promised to be a slow and gentle stop. Apparently the French had hired the American firm because of this admirable technology and then proceeded to doubt the very mechanism for which they had paid so handsomely, forcing the Otis company to not only install their patented hoisting cables but also a sort of rack and pinion halting device that Eiffel used on his railway ventures. Thus, the tower could be touted as “doubly safe,” and thus Brown’s barely concealed dismay as he claimed it to be so. Rayley felt sympathy for the man. No one knew better than he how the French could both invite and exclude in a singular gesture.

“And so we begin,” said Brown. “Mind your step at the entrance, ladies.”

Ladies? As he had been looking about for Isabel, Rayley had noticed only one female, an American, clearly the sort who favored votes for women and smoked cigars she detested in an effort to make some sort of philosophical point. The young woman’s face was pretty but her hair was cropped short, barely past her ears, and the cut of her jacket struggled to conceal all evidence of her gender. Graham, whose taste in women appeared to be truly catholic, had of course taken to the creature at once, attempting to draw her into a discussion about the difference between a buffalo and a bison. To her credit, the woman had given him an incredulous look and moved to a different part of the circle. She had proclaimed herself to be a reporter from the New York Times and probably knew no more about prairie animals than the rest of them.

But the Times reporter had been the only female in their midst when Brown had begun his speech and now he had used the word “ladies,” clearly plural. Rayley stepped back to crane his neck and indeed, there she was, standing apart from the others. She wore shades of purple. An amethyst coat with a scarf of lavender above it, a hat of deep rose pulled low across her face, plum colored gloves. Or perhaps he merely imagined the colors. Although the sky was slowly beginning to lighten, they still stood swathed in shadows.

At the translator’s invitation, the group began to shuffle toward the square box of the elevator, which Brown had explained could hold a maximum of sixty people for its two-and-a-half minute ascent. Sixty would make you feel rather packed, thought Rayley, and the webbed metal design of the car was enough like being caged as it was. He was struggling not to indulge his tendency toward claustrophobia and was relieved that no one in the group, save Isabel and Graham, knew he was a Scotland Yard detective. Should his nerve fail, he hoped to only humiliate himself, not the whole of his motherland and Queen. Isabel had walked straight to the corner, although whether or not to enjoy the view or to get a better grip on the handrails, he couldn’t say. He found himself in the middle of the car, wedged between Graham and the girl from the Times, who seemed happy for his presence, if only as a buffer.

“I say,” Graham ventured, leaning across Rayley in fresh attempt to start up with her. “When Otis talked to your very own paper last year he said the Tower would never be built, that there was too much risk. And now here his company is, all tangled up with Eiffel. I suppose financial opportunity creates strange allies, does it not?”

The girl sighed and the elevator commenced with a jerk. Rayley startled and his hands flew in the air, a gesture no one but Graham appeared to notice.

He grinned at Rayley and wove his way over to Isabel, who had yet to greet either of them. It was a very odd business, Rayley thought. She had been outrageously friendly in the hotel ballroom but was so aloof today. Well, good luck to Graham if he was trying to engage her in conversation, because the minute the car began its ascent it became quite apparent that American leaf springs and French rack and pinion mechanics combined to produce a cacophony as loud as a runaway train. The female reporter clamped her hands over her ears and within seconds half the men in the car had followed suit. They were rising slowly and more steadily now, but the feeling of a diagonal ascent was disorienting and Rayley planted his feet a bit further apart and stared down at the boots of the man beside him, thinking that if he fixed his eyes on something still inside the car the motion might be less unnerving. He was beginning to regret several of his decisions at breakfast.

Brown had said they would rise 275 meters. This information had meant very little to Rayley at the time and probably to none of the others as well. If a man had spent his life no higher off the ground than a second story balcony or an oak tree climbed in childhood, 275 meters was a pointless measurement. They had all stood at the foot of the tower and gazed up at the base when Brown said this, but looking up, Rayley was beginning to understand, was quite a different thing from looking down. For when he had tried to fixate on the boots of the man beside him, he had been forced to notice the sight of the ground below, visible between the slats in the elevator floorboards and steadily retreating, like something from a nightmare.

Rayley gasped for air. Inhaled, tried to exhale. He had not wanted to perceive the slowly receding benches and sidewalks of the park beneath them, but now that his vision had locked on the sight, he seemed unable to look away, even though the rest of the occupants of the car were growing ever more jubilant. For when the elevator cleared the tops of the trees, suddenly they could see all around them, farther than they had ever seen before. There were cries of delight beneath the drone of the engines. Some people released one hand from the rail and ventured to point at a landmark or another. The Seine, a blue-gray ribbon. Notre Dame, the Sorbonne, the Palais Royal. Or perhaps their own apartment building or hotel, suddenly looking very small and insignificant against the spreading panorama of the city.

Rayley concentrated on the arithmetic. Two-and-a-half minutes was how many seconds? Two times sixty and then thirty more…150 seconds, not so long. He lifted his head and, very cautiously, looked at Isabel.

She was, in herself, a dizzying sight. She had turned, her eyes darting over the sinking city with a slight smile on her face. In profile, she looked like a cameo, her features perfectly proportioned, her dark hair tucked under her hat so that there was nothing to distract from the height of her brow or the almost architectural symmetry of her lips. Only her hands, clad in their plum leather gloves, betrayed any anxiety, for she was clutching the handrail tightly as she rose on tiptoe to peer through the webbing of the elevator cage, straining to see more. For a moment Rayley was distracted, lost count in his nervous march to 150 seconds, and he was surprised when the car gave a final delicate shudder and came to a stop. The engines ceased to wail and in the sudden silence he sensed the pulse of his own ears.

“And here we are,” Brown said, as the jaws of the cage cranked open. He said it casually, as if he made this harrowing ascent on a daily basis, which he probably did, and he was the first to step out onto the platform. He looked back expectantly. “Ladies?”

For once the notion of “Ladies first” felt more like a gauntlet thrown to the ground than a social courtesy, but, for what Rayley suspected were utterly different reasons, both Isabel and the American journalist seemed up to the challenge. The reporter dropped her hands from her ears and stepped out, pointedly ignoring Brown’s offered hand. Isabel followed, giving the man one of her casual, radiant smiles. Then, one by one, the men clustered within the elevator filed out and onto the platform of the Eiffel Tower.

“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary” Graham muttered, and Rayley was in total agreement. The base of the tower stretched around them, laid out much like the promised city square, the comparison Eiffel had used on the evening when they all first met. Brown began to walk the parameters, using a cane to point out where the restaurants would be, each at a different corner. A British-American bar, a Flemish brasserie, a Russian restaurant, and, of course, a French one as well. Each would have the capacity of seating 600 diners, he added, a figure that might have stunned Rayley had he not been concentrating so hard on controlling the impulse to scream. Brown was walking slowly, flanked by the ladies with the men struggling to stay close enough to hear, for although it was a mercifully calm day, the wind at this height blurred his voice. Rayley’s feet stumbled across the rough floorboards, which Brown had assured them were a temporary measure designed to protect the marble tiles beneath from the boots of the workmen. Worst of all, the entire structure was gently swaying, bringing back memories of his wretched channel crossing.

“Six hundred people in four establishments,” Graham said with amazement, as the group came to a stop on the corner where Brown said the Russian restaurant would be. “That’s over two thousand possible visitors in the restaurants alone.”

“Correct, Sir, but just a start,” Brown said. “There will be shops flanking the sides and an open area in the middle for musicales and entertainments. Just as a public park in any neighborhood, inviting thousands out to converse and mingle.”

A neighborhood dangling in mid-air, Rayley thought. And with everything on a much larger, rather intimidating scale. He thought of the pub where he used to gather with Trevor and the rest of the boys back in London – well, in truth he rarely had joined them, but Rayley’s memory had been busily rewriting history ever since his feet had first struck the soil of France. That pub could have housed no more than sixty men, elbow to elbow on a Friday night. Picturing a place ten times larger strained his imagination, and he wondered what it would feel like to sit drinking in a bar that size, where there was no hope of ever knowing the man beside you, where the pub was not a reflection of its own small section of the city, with the same faces coming in each night, but was rather a bar floating above the earth entirely, enticing travelers from all corners of the world. People who had never seen each other before, would never see each other again. Would it change their means of interacting? It seemed it must. The Tower is not just a step in engineering, he thought. A structure of this size has the power to recreate us socially, to change how we view our fellow man.

But his thoughts appeared to be exclusive to him, for the rest of the group was murmuring in satisfaction. Most of them had little notebooks out and were scribbling down Brown’s every word. He had moved closer to the periphery now, and was pointing at something in the distance with his cane. Rayley hung back and, to his surprise, Graham lingered with him. It was cold this high in the air, and Graham had pulled his scarf so that it covered the lower half of his face.

“What do you think?” he asked. “A marvel, to be sure.”

“To be sure. With the floor so incomplete, I’m surprised they have such a substantial railing.” Tilting his head, Rayley directed Graham’s attention to the elegantly wrought railing behind where Brown stood. It stretched to the middle of the man’s chest, an artful tangle of filigreed steel. “It seems much higher than it would take to prevent someone from slipping.”

Graham shook his head. “It’s not to protect against an accidental fall, it’s to prevent leapers. Can you imagine how many people would be tempted? Such a romantic way to say au revoir, not to mention the chance to get one’s name in the history books.”

“Lives have already been lost in the building, or so I would have to assume.”

Graham shrugged. “They admit to three, so I’d guess the number to be twice that. The death of a few workers is to be expected in such an ambitious enterprise, I would imagine, and a price Paris is more than willing to pay. For the public will be thrilled with the scope of this clean and modern new city in the air, the grandeur which appears to have been manufactured in an instant.” Graham attempted to snap his fingers on the word “instant” but his woolen gloves hampered the drama of the gesture. “The elevator doors will open and they will immediately cease to question the risk or the cost. It will seem as if the tower has always been here. They will wonder how they ever managed to live without it. This is what progress does, you know. Each step into the future makes us ever so much grander and more demanding and thus ever so slightly less human.”

Rayley was surprised by this burst of philosophy from such an unlikely source. “When the elevator doors open,” he said, “I wonder how many of them will suddenly realize they have a fear of heights.”

Graham chuckled, his seriousness gone at once on the breeze. “It’s true,” he said. “I’ve certainly never been this high before. Well, I once climbed a mountain on a trip to Scotland, but that’s rather a different thing, isn’t it? Atop a mountain, you look down and see the ground and trees gradually sloping away, and here you look down and see nothing and nothing and then the ground. There’s something unnatural about it. It’s as if we are dreaming, is it not? Tell me Abrams, do you ever fly in your sleep? Because that is what it feels like to me, as if we are all suspended here in some collective dream.”

“I suspect Monsieur Eiffel would tell us that was precisely his point.”

Graham glanced toward the group. “Ah dear, I see the photographers are setting up, so I’d better go and make sure my lad has his lens pointed the right way. He’s a fool, you know, mentally infirm even by the limited standards of his profession. They all claim to be perfectionists, but I think it’s just a cruel desire to make people stand in ludicrous positions for a long period of time while they keep their heads beneath their cloths and laugh at us. Excuse me.”

“Indeed.” Rayley rocked back on his heels with a sigh. He had gotten a little more comfortable with the wind and the cold and the slight sway of the boards beneath his feet but he had forgotten about the damn photographers. Now they would be stuck here for much longer, perhaps an hour. He dug in his pocket for his watch.

“He has a private apartment at the top, you know.”

She had appeared at his side just as she did the first time – abruptly, without warning. He wondered if she somehow calculated it, if she had trained herself on ways to approach men with stealth, the better to overwhelm them with the unexpected gift of her beauty.

“Eiffel,” she continued, when it became clear Rayley was not capable of answer. “It’s only for his most select guests. It’s on the third level at that point in a building I believe engineers call the tippy-top.” She laughed, showing small, even teeth.

“The elevators go higher?” It was a stupid question, since they clearly didn’t, but it was the only thing he could think of to say. If he ever managed to get back to London, he would spend more time with the other detectives, Rayley vowed to himself. He would insist that they teach him how to talk to women.

“Oh no,” she said. “You ascend on foot.” She pointed to a spiral staircase near the center of the platform, far away from where the photographers and journalists had clustered. They were determined to show the background of Paris in their shots and were thus setting up along the guardrail. They’d all seemed to simultaneously realize they must perch their cameras on platforms in order to shoot above the railing, a complication for which none of them had prepared, and everyone was scrambling around looking for boards and boxes the workmen might have left behind in order to create makeshift risers. There was also the issue of having a human in the foreground by the railing to create scale, so there appeared to be a debate as to who might volunteer. After a brief moment, the young American woman agreed to serve as a model for them all and earned a round of hearty, if somewhat glove-muffled, applause.

Clever girl, Rayley thought. She would have her picture in every paper of the civilized world within the week.

He turned back to Isabel, whom he suspected might be joking, or trying to test just how gullible he truly was. “How many people know of the existence of this apartment?” he asked.

“Very few. I understand it’s beautifully outfitted, can you imagine? Sofas trimmed in velvet, cut crystal glasses on the shelf, and the most wonderful art.”

Rayley was relieved that his frantic newspaper reading frenzy of the last few days offered him the chance, for once, to make a sensible response. “I understand he has quite the collection.”

“Of art?”

“Among other things.”

They smiled as if they were a pair of conspirators, and Rayley relaxed. That was a far better attempt at this flirting business. For he knew that Gustave Eiffel, despite playing the grieving widower and devoted papa, was also known to keep company with the most glamorous women of Paris.

“He calls it his aerie,” Isabel said. “Accessible to his most select circle of friends. But the second level of the tower is open to all.”

“Only to the mad,” Rayley said. He had read quite enough about the second platform, which was said to have a view of the city that would stop the heart.

“So shall we?”

“What?”

“Shall we climb?”

“Oh, no. God no.”

“But we have plenty of time.” She made a slight gesture toward the journalists, photographers, and engineers. “They aren’t paying any attention to us at all.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to leave the group,” Rayley said and was immediately shamed. He sounded like a nervous schoolboy. “I don’t think the second level is open,” he amended, although that remark sounded scarcely better.

She laughed again. “None of this is really open, is it?”

“We’re here as guests. So if we should be found-“

“Fine, Detective. I’ll go alone.”

Oh God, Rayley thought. Ohgodohgodohgod. Because, with a defiant glance at the others, who were all literally focused on the American reporter, Isabel had begun to walk toward the spiral staircase. He had two options. He could either go with her or let her climb alone. No, now that he considered, he supposed he had three. He could walk over to Brown and inform on her.

All of the choices were equally unappealing.

She’s pulling a bluff, he suddenly realized. The calculated use of the word “detective,” obviously designed to shame him, had instead given her away. She doesn’t truly intend to climb a half-built staircase that most likely leads to nowhere, he thought. It’s a test. We will get no more than a few steps up and she will turn to see me behind her. She will relent and we will laugh about this later. I will have gained her respect and we shall raise champagne in some bar, some properly-sized bar located on the ground, and we shall toast each other’s courage. And we will laugh about later too, years from now, perhaps on lazy Sunday mornings spent in bed.

The last thought only seized the most peripheral part of his mind for Rayley was not a delusional man. He knew that in the real world, in the Paris sleeping below them and in the London sleeping across the channel, he stood not a shred of a chance with a woman like Isabel Delacroix. But the fantasy was enough to get his feet moving. He approached the staircase and, with a sharp exhalation, put his foot on the first step.

She was no more than two or three feet above him.

It was a tightly-wound spiral, with each step not quite large enough to accommodate a man’s foot. The heel of his boot hung off the back of the step, forcing him to lean forward onto the balls of his feet, keeping one hand on the flimsy railing and the other on the more substantial center post. In this pose it was almost impossible to avoid the sensation that she was in his arms, for he had caught up to her quickly. This was a good thing, for if she now lost her footing, she would tumble directly onto him. An appealing thought, followed by the less satisfactory question of whether or not in this bizarre hunched position he would have the strength to catch her. Rayley had a brief vision of the two of them rolling head over heels back to the platform while a dozen reporters and photographers turned to watch.

But as for now, her feet were just above him, her legs not only visible, but unavoidable. He should be a gentleman and stay close enough to catch her and being a gentleman at this small distance offered the bonus of periodic glimpses of ankles and even, once or twice, the flash of a calf. He quickly saw that the climb was arduous, each step steeply pitched and the spiral forcing them to twist and lean ever more to the center. Surely she will stop soon, Rayley thought. No more than ten feet should be enough for her to make her point, to know that if she is determined to do something foolhearted, I will come with her. Even if I don’t want to. Even if my hands are shaking and my breath is in my throat.

Her feet. Her ankles. Her legs. He could not not look. Her foot was long and not as delicately shaped as one might expect. The ankle was sturdy, the leg above it showed sinew and muscle. She has worked at some point in her life, he thought with surprise. This is the leg of a barmaid, a housekeeper, a farmer’s wife. A woman who has used her body for more than caviar and clothing.

“How high do you intend to go?”

The question cost him. Not just pride, but oxygen. He had monitored his exhalations for some time to save up the breath to ask it, and he was relieved to find his voice did not sound strained.

She merely laughed, a sound which appeared to cost her nothing.

“Why do you think the steps are so narrow?” he asked. He knew the proper answer. The spiral was wound tightly to minimize the swaying of the staircase. The question was only a desperate attempt to slow her down.

“So that you can’t change your mind,” she called back wickedly. “Rather difficult to turn and go back, wouldn’t you say?”

He nodded, although he knew she couldn’t see him. He was already tired and he could think of nothing in his experience exactly like this. They plodded upward, past the makeshift ceiling of the first platform, through layers of steel and cables and yet she did not stop. Rayley knew he couldn’t look down. The sight of the floor below him, the ground yet farther beyond that….if he stopped he knew he would never start again. He would die, just here, on this staircase, with the hips of Isabel Delacroix bobbing above his head.

And then, suddenly, light and air. They had broken through the layers of construction to the base of the second platform. And Isabel stopped.

“Astounding,” she said, and this time she made no effort to conceal the gasp in her voice.

Rayley turned his head slightly and saw that she had used the perfect word. The city had grown even smaller, the details even less visible than from the platform below. Paris becoming an impressionistic jumble of shadow and colors, worthy of its greatest artists. If the view from the first platform made you feel like a giant, this vista turned you into a god. He thought of Graham’s remark that being so high was like dreaming, but Rayley had never been granted a dream as grandiose as this.

Isabel twisted and sank down to one of the steps, squeezing as much of her hips onto it as she could. Rayley kept his arms braced against the center pole and the handrail, leaning forward, and it occurred to him that this would be the perfect position in which to kiss her. If he ducked his head only a few more inches, their faces would be brought together. But she might refuse, perhaps even scream. God forbid, maybe even push him.

She belonged, after all, to another man.

“Shall we climb higher?” he said.

He would spend the rest of his life wondering why he had said this.

She shook her head. Her hat had gone askew in the efforts of her ascent and small wisps of hair were coming loose from beneath the brim. There was a flush in her cheeks and even – impossible to ignore at such proximity – a glimmer of perspiration on her upper lip. “I don’t understand the aerie,” she said, when she had caught her breath. “This is the perfect view. To go yet higher would be…a waste.”

“Yes,” he said. “You would see less and less of the earth, only more of the clouds. A man would climb higher only so that he could say that he had.” He looked down at her. “Or a woman,” he added.

“Or a woman,” she echoed softly.

“So are you suggesting that if Gustave Eiffel ever invites Isabel Delacroix to his aerie, she will decline the chance to see his Whistler?”

He said it lightly, his second attempt at gay banter, for even if she was simultaneously in his grasp and beyond his grasp, he wanted to know that in this rarified moment he had been able to flirt with her. That he had momentarily escaped the caged confines of his detective’s brain. That she had taken him, so to speak, to new heights.

But she frowned, turning her chin away from his. “A Whistler?”

With her connections to society, Rayley was surprised she hadn’t caught the reference. The man’s name was in all the papers. “James Whistler,” he said. “A portrait painter of some renown and an exhibiter in the American pavilion. Rumor has it that he’s gifted one of his pieces to Gustave Eiffel in tribute. Tribute for the Tower, that is, and I suppose everything. Everything Eiffel has done.”

“Ah,” she said.

“It was meant as a jest,” Rayley said weakly, for he knew that if one had to announce that a remark was humorous, this rendered it no longer so. “I’m sure there’s no way Eiffel would put a truly valuable painting in a place where no one would ever see it. No one except certain guests of a certain sort, that is, ladies who he –“

To his relief, Isabel turned her face back to him, saving him from having to say more, or of making an even more disastrous conversational error. She wears powder, he realized. Lip rouge, and a dark line of some sort, drawn very fine and close to the base of her eyelashes. But all applied so expertly, with such a light and subtle hand that he had never noticed until this moment, when the light was so sharp and unforgiving and her face was just inches from his.

“I shouldn’t say that I would never go to the aerie,” she said. “It’s just that the circumstances would have to be extraordinary.”

She was looking him right in the eye.

“Besides,” she added, “the name is Blout.”

It was his turn to frown.

“My name,” she repeated calmly, “is Isabel Blout.”

“You aren’t married to him?”

“My husband might object. Come to think of it, so might his wife.”

Rayley’s head once again was spinning. He had a thousand questions but they died mute on his lips. He merely stared at her, face to face, here on this spike rising into the heavens, here on this staircase that led to places they knew neither of them would ever go.

“He is your lover?”

“We might have used that word once. Long ago. Not now. No, not for some time.”

The silence stretched between them. She continued to gaze steadily at him, the corner of one lip slightly lifted.

“Then why have you come here?” he finally asked her. “Why are you in Paris?”

Her eyes were damp with tears, or perhaps it was just the wind. “I wanted to find the truth.”

“How very odd,” Rayley said. “That’s why I’ve come as well.”