Gibson threw him a quick glance. “For a parent, it would be terrifying, yes.”
They walked on in silence. This was one of the poorest sections of London, its streets crowded with low, squalid tenements built of decaying wood and mean shops that catered to the nearby docks. The wretched space known as Hangman’s Court lay not far from the spires of the old medieval church. A question addressed to an aged woman selling roasted potatoes from a rusty barrow brought them to a warped door at the end of a dark, fetid corridor. From the other side of the panels came the sound of a woman weeping.
Gibson knocked quietly, almost apologetically.
The sobs ceased abruptly.
“Madame Bisette?” he called. “Alexandrie Sauvage asked me to call. I’m a surgeon.”
They heard a soft, hesitant tread, then the sound of a bolt being drawn back.
The door swung inward to reveal a woman. She looked to be perhaps thirty-five or forty, although it was impossible to say with any certainty. Her face was blotched with tears, her eyes red and swollen, her lips trembling. Rail thin, she wore a rusty black, old-fashioned gown, relatively clean but hopelessly threadbare. The small room beyond her was icy cold and empty except for a rough pallet in the corner, on which lay a tiny form, ominously still.
“Madame Bisette?” asked Gibson, his hat in his hands.
“Oui.”
His gaze went to the child on the pallet. “How is she?”
The woman began to weep again.
Sebastian walked over to the pallet, gazed down at the dead child, and shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” said Gibson.
“My Cécile,” wailed the woman, her arms wrapping around her waist, her body curling forward with the agony of her grief. “She was all I had left. What am I to do now? What?”
“Our apologies for disturbing you at such a time,” said Sebastian, going to press several coins into her palm and close her fingers around them.
The woman stared dully at the coins in her hand, then lifted her gaze to his face. Her English was only lightly accented, her voice cultured and educated. She might be living in extreme poverty now, but she was obviously not born to it. She said, “Why are you here? Where is Alexi?”
Her use of a pet form of Alexandrie Sauvage’s given name surprised him, hinting at an intimacy between the two women he hadn’t expected. Sebastian said, “Madame Sauvage and Dr. Pelletan were attacked in Cat’s Hole after they left here last night. Dr. Pelletan was killed.”
Madame Bisette sucked in a quick breath. “And Alexi?”
“She was badly injured,” said Gibson, “but I’ve hopes she’ll recover.” He hesitated, then added, “Do you know of any reason why someone might have wanted to kill Dr. Pelletan?”
The woman shook her head. “I never knew Damion Pelletan. The doctoresse asked him to look at Cécile.”
Sebastian and Gibson exchanged glances. Sebastian said, “Alexandrie Sauvage is a physician?”
“She is, yes. She studied at Bologna.” Medical schools were closed to women in both France and in England. But Italy had a tradition of female physicians that dated back to the Middle Ages.
“How long has she been in London?” asked Sebastian.
“A year, perhaps more. As a woman, of course, she cannot be licensed to practice medicine here and is only allowed to act as a midwife. But she is a good woman. She does what she can to help those in the French community.”
Again, Sebastian’s gaze met Gibson’s. “I wonder how she came to know Pelletan,” he said quietly.
The dead child’s mother began to weep again, clutching her ragged shawl about her and rocking back and forth.
Sebastian reached out, awkwardly, to touch her thin shoulder. “Again, madam, our heartfelt condolences for your loss, and our apologies for disturbing you at such a time.”
She sniffed, her spine stiffening with an echo of a pride long worn down and effaced. “Merci, monsieur,” she said, holding out the coins he had given her. “But I cannot accept your charity.”
He made no move to take the money. “It’s not mine. The doctoresse asked me to give it to you.”
He could tell by the narrowing of her eyes that she knew it for a lie. But it was a lie she was obviously desperate enough to accept, because she swallowed hard and nodded, her gaze sliding away as she said, “Merci.”
They were retracing their steps back down the dank, noisome corridor when they heard the door jerk open behind them again.
“Messieurs,” she called out, stopping them. “You asked about Damion Pelletan?”
They turned toward her again. “Yes. Why?”
She scrubbed the heel of one thin hand over her wet cheeks. “When he and the doctoresse were here last night, for Cécile . . . I heard them talking. I did not pay attention to most of what was said, but one name they mentioned several times leapt out at me.”
“What name is that?”
“Marie-Thérèse, the Duchesse d’Angoulême.”
Gibson stared at her. “You mean the daughter of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI of France?”
“Yes.”