The Expiration of Elise

by Annette Moncheri

  “What does this have to do with it?” Carré asked, slightly less hostile now. He took a noisy slurp of tea, with evident satisfaction.

  “Well, only that perhaps what’s really speaking through a talking board is not the spirits. Perhaps it’s the unconscious minds of those who are touching the planchette.”

  “But we weren’t moving the planchette,” Melodie argued, looking disappointed at the naturalistic explanation.

  “None of us thought we were,” Hélène said. “But that’s exactly it. We could have been moving it without even realizing it, if it were really unconscious. Ladies, think about the things we learned. They were things that Dorothée could have known from looking at her family Bible as a child. Perhaps a part of her mind remembered the name Régis.”

  “Well, now that I could go along with,” Carré said.

  “It’s not against your religion to believe in the unconscious?” Melodie asked, trying to provoke him.

  “Melodie,” I said gently. “Behave yourself. In this establishment, we welcome Catholic, Presbyterian, Jewish, and whomever else might show up. Zoroastrian and all.”

  She scowled prettily. The too-beautiful and therefore thoroughly spoiled woman had a tendency toward arrogance and scorn. In fact, at one time, she was a bit of a bully toward our youngest, Inés Dujardin.

  She took a drink of her champagne, then shifted the topic back on track. “Well, if it’s true, it’s certainly much less exciting.”

  “The other theory is the wrong kind of exciting,” Carré said. He scoffed. “Good heavens. I can’t believe the sort of conversation I’m having with a group of ladies.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Careful, Monsieur. You are surrounded, you know.” I winked at him, patted him on the shoulder, and made my exit, but not without catching Hélène’s eye.

  Something about her theory was nagging at me.

  She got up and followed me up the sweeping staircase, where we took up stations side by side at the landing.

  “Do tell,” Hélène said.

  11

  “Well, first of all, it turns out Léo Leblanc stole the murder weapon from Monsieur Martin,” I said.

  “Really?” Hélène’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened. “Then he’s the murderer?”

  I half-shrugged. “I’m not quite ready to say so. I have no proof he still had possession of the weapon at the time of the murder, and no clue what his motive could have been. But he did steal the knife. I’m also considering your theory about the Ouija board. Assuming that what the board revealed was only what each of us already knew, even if we didn’t know that we knew it, if you know what I mean…”

  “Yes, I’m following,” she said enthusiastically.

  “I feel that our list of those involved is beginning to create a shape, although I’m not sure what it is yet. Dorothée, whom someone attempted to murder. Elise, murdered. Léo, who stole Martin’s knife, although we don’t know yet that he had it at the time of the murder.”

  “Estaban, who’s been cleared because his fingerprints didn’t match,” she chimed in. “And then the Ouija board gave us the name Régis, which was a name Dorothée could have remembered without realizing it.”

  “And most importantly,” I went on, “when I asked who tried to kill Dorothée, it said Elise. But first it gave us the letters P, E, C, and O. Which I’ve realized could have been false starts: ‘Pe’ for ‘petite fille,’ because Elise was Régis’s granddaughter. But ‘Co’ for ‘cousin’—”

  “Because Elise was also Dorothée’s cousin,” Hélène finished. “So everything the board said points to Elise. But which one of us would have suspected that? Because it never would have occurred to me. We know Elise was angry with you for what was happening with Estaban. Why would she have been angry with Dorothée? Do you know anything the rest of us don’t?”

  “Well…” I said thoughtfully. I cast about in my mind for everything I so far knew, even if I had dismissed it already. “Estaban told me that Elise had many enemies. That she was greedy and grasping. She’d had several squabbles over wills and inheritances, at least until everyone in her family passed away.”

  “Everyone but Dorothée,” Hélène said slowly.

  “Oh!” I cried. We had the same realization at the same moment. “Inheritance!” we said in unison.

  “Could Elise have stood to inherit Dorothée’s jewels?” Hélène asked breathlessly.

  We stared at each other, both of us thinking fast.

  “If everyone else in their family is passed away, it stands to reason that the last surviving family member might inherit,” I said. “Doesn’t it?”

  “I think so,” Hélène said. “So Elise tried to kill Dorothée by shoving her into the safe. But then…”

  “Léo is a thief,” I said, shaking my head in dismay. “He could have seen what Elise was up to, and he could have decided to get her out of the way and get the jewels himself.”

  “But how would he have known about the jewels and Elise’s inheritance?”

  “Perhaps he confronted her and forced her to reveal it. I haven’t quite figured it all out yet, but—"

  Just then, Monsieur Georges approached me. “A word, Madame.”

  I gestured for him to speak freely in front of Hélène.

  “I have confirmed that Léo Leblanc was seen at the maison near the time of Elise’s death. Mademoiselle Marchand found him skulking about in your office and had one of the other servants ask him to depart.”

  Hélène’s eyes widened. “That’s it, then. It was Léo!”

  I grabbed her hands. “We need to find him. Right away.”

  Her eyes shone in excitement. “I need your telephone.”

  I knew that Hélène knew just about everyone on the Île, but when I saw it in action—! She placed call after call through the operator, doggedly persistent through every brief conversation—“Has anyone seen Léo Leblanc tonight? Any idea where he might be? Ring Le Chat Rose immediately if you hear of any leads!”—and at last she uttered the words, “Oh, was he? Just ten minutes ago?” She turned shining eyes on me, her cheeks flushed. “Just leaving the Demartinis. Wonderful. Elle, you are more helpful than you could possibly imagine.”

  She hung up and we grabbed each other’s hands in breathless excitement.

  “We must call for Inspector Baudet,” she said. “I know you want to confront him, but you can’t do it alone.”

  “Of course!” I said. “Go ahead and call the inspector. But I don’t want to lose the trail. I promise I’ll hang back until the inspector catches up.”

  I was lying. Of course.

  She picked up the phone again and I hurried out of Le Chat Rose and turned into an alleyway, where I made sure I was alone before I transformed into a bat and flew out into the night.

  I found him walking down a street, looking downtrodden, his hands shoved in his pockets and his gaze on the cobblestones before him. I had no pity for him.

  I waited until the street was otherwise empty, and then I swooped down behind him into my human form, grasped his arm with my preternatural strength, and dragged him into a nearby alley. This time, we wouldn’t be interrupted.

  And this time, I was wearing gloves.

  I tore open his shirt and used my gloved hand to rip the crucifix from around his neck and throw it far into the alleyway. Even such a brief exposure frightened me to the core, but I shoved Léo up against the wall and forced myself through will alone to regroup.

  I applied all my charme. “Confess. Tell me what you did to Elise.”

  He whimpered and his muscles went slack so that I had to hold him up. “I didn’t do anything to Elise.”

  My brow furrowed in confusion. “What happened to Elise?”

  “I don’t know,” he whimpered. “I promise.”

  I stared at him in confusion. How could he not know? “Tell me why you returned to Le Chat Rose on the twenty-third.”

  “To make sure the old lady was okay,” he said. His eyes reddened.


  Utterly taken aback, I softened my grip on him. “The old lady?”

  “I saw Elise shove the old woman in the safe. I didn’t want to interfere in whatever was going on, so I left. Or, I tried to leave, before you caught me pickpocketing. But then I started thinking about it, and I felt bad. I was scared she was going to die if I didn’t do anything. So I went back, but she wasn’t in the safe anymore, and your servants threw me out. That’s all I know. I swear.”

  He swallowed hard, and I knew he was telling the truth. I gave him a bit of a shake to remind him to use his own muscles to stand up, and I released him. In fact, I straightened his shirt for him while I reconciled this information with what I knew.

  I had been completely wrong about Léo.

  “Then you didn’t have the knife on the twenty-third. Someone else had it.”

  “I told you I gave it away.” His eyes darted to the side; he was still hiding something from me.

  I glowered. “Tell me who you gave the knife to.”

  He squirmed beneath my gaze. He really didn’t want to tell me. But all I had to do was gaze ever more intently into his eyes until he broke.

  “I gave it to my grandfather. Okay? It was a gift. For his birthday. How’s that for a crime?”

  I hadn’t expected that answer. His grandfather? What were the odds of that?

  I let go of him, and he pulled away. He stumbled away from me a few steps and looked back at me nervously.

  Almost as an afterthought, I called after him, “Who is your grandfather?”

  He answered quickly and hurried away. “Edward De La Croix.”

  Edward De La Croix with the murder weapon!

  I got back to Le Chat Rose with my thoughts spinning. But the first thing I did was verify with Monsieur Georges, who happened to be at the entrance, that De La Croix was not present, and I asked him to let me know if he should turn up. And then I sought out Hélène, whom I found in the upstairs hallway gossiping with Anaelle, to pull her aside and breathlessly tell her what I had learned.

  “Léo didn’t tell me so,” I concluded, “but he could easily have told De La Croix that Elise was the one who tried to kill Dorothée…”

  “So De La Croix killed Elise in revenge,” she breathed.

  “And that means De La Croix is a dangerous man. A cold-blooded killer.” Saying it out loud made a chill run down into my stomach. “Oh, poor Dorothée.”

  We both turned and looked down the hallway toward Dorothée’s bedroom. Her door was closed.

  “I hate to do it,” I said. “But it must be done.”

  Resolutely, I went down the hall and knocked on her door. There was no answer.

  I opened the door. The room was tidy. Too tidy. Dorothée’s clothes and personal items were simply gone.

  There—a note left on the bed:

  Dear Madame, I am delighted to tell you that all my dreams have come true. Monsieur De La Croix has proposed! And he is so eager to begin our lives together that he has begged me to elope! We leave from Gare du Nord this very night. I am so sorry that I cannot invite you as I had promised, but I am confident you will understand. I know you will wish us great happiness. Give my love to all the other ladies.

  –Dorothée

  12

  I all but shoved the letter into Hélène’s hands and rushed back to the drawing room, calling all the while for Monsieur Georges.

  He came out of the kitchen and we met at the foot of the stairs.

  “Did you see Dorothée leave?” I asked breathlessly. “Quickly, sir!”

  “No,” he answered. “I didn’t know she left. What is the matter?”

  “You didn’t see De La Croix come in?” I asked in frustration.

  “No, Madame…” He looked most unhappy to have missed a point I had asked him to watch. “If he came in, it must have been through the back.”

  Just then, one of the other staff passing by caught our words. “Pardonne moi, Madame, but Monsieur De La Croix and Madame Thomas just left,” he said. “I just helped her out with the suitcases not five minutes ago.”

  “Had they called for a taxi?” I asked, clutching his arm.

  “No, Madame—they set out on foot. They said the northern train station, so likely they’ll catch a taxi down on Pont Louis Phillipe.”

  I turned to Hélène. “We must hurry!”

  Monsieur Carré caught up to us. “Is there some cause for alarm, mesdames?”

  “Yes!” I cried. “Come with us! The murderer has taken Dorothée.”

  Hélène and I took off our high heels and ran out of the back entrance, down the alley just behind Le Chat Rose, and then onto the street called Qaui D’Anjou, with Carré gamely jogging along behind us.

  If only I were alone! I could have caught up in an instant using my supernatural powers…

  We had run out without our furs, and the cold air bit at me, and my bare feet burned with every strike on the cold cobblestones. The few people out and about stared at us sprinting along in the night in our skimpy dresses and bare feet.

  There were rarely taxis here on Qaui D’Anjou, a narrow street that ran alongside the Seine a dozen feet below. Pont Louis Phillipe was the broader and busier street, at the other end of the Íle, where they would have gone to find a taxi.

  We were halfway there when I saw them—an old couple at the corner, with a taxi already pulled up, loading suitcases into the compartment in the back.

  “Zut!” Hélène said, and she pushed herself to go ever faster, as did I.

  We were closing in when the taxi door shut. An instant later, the driver had climbed into the uncovered front seat and was pulling away, heading north—across the Seine and off the Íle!

  We ran, shouting at them to stop, and shouting at the passersby on the street—“Stop that taxi! Stop it, please!”

  Several people stared at us in confusion and did nothing, and when we came around the corner onto Pont Louis Phillipe, the taxi was halfway across the bridge.

  There, where street turned into bridge, the movement of the water twenty feet below filled me with helpless terror, as is unique to creatures such as myself, and I staggered to a stop, panting. I could go no farther—not on my life.

  Hélène had torn ahead and now looked back, puzzled, forgetting for a moment about what I publicly termed my ‘phobias.’

  “I can’t cross!” I shouted. “You go, Hélène! Stop them!”

  We both took up the cry again, and this time a young man bravely threw himself into the path of the slow-moving taxi and forced the driver to stop. The two shouted at each other, the driver gesticulating madly while the young man pointed at Hélène, who was still running. Cars stacked up behind the stopped taxi and honked their horns, their drivers shouting.

  Hélène caught up just as De La Croix opened his car door and stepped out to argue with the young man, Dorothée still out of view inside the compartment.

  I wrung my hands. I had just sent my best friend out to face a killer alone, with no one else cognizant of the situation. And the young man on the bridge had gotten himself pulled into something far more dangerous than he knew. I looked back—Carré half-jogged along, still a full block away, his hat in his hand, his face bright pink.

  I could do nothing, because I could get no closer. Not even in the shape of a bat could I cross the water. And my charme would do nothing over such a long distance.

  Hélène faced off with De La Croix, shouting at him, “You are a murderer!” De La Croix balled up his fists and leaned forward threateningly—all but admitting his guilt.

  “Hélène!” I shouted in terror.

  De La Croix drew back his fist…

  And then Hélène dropped back into a martial arts fighting stance, with her hands up. She leapt into the air with a spin and delivered a resounding barefoot kick to De La Croix’s midsection, driving him down to the ground.

  Then she stood over him with her hands in a pose as majestic as any I could have imagined.

  De La Croix curled int
o a ball, clutching his stomach, and lay there moaning—and I shouted in victory.

  Dorothée came out of her side of the taxi then and came around to De La Croix, who had started struggling up to his knees.

  “He’s a killer,” Hélène declared. “He killed Elise out of revenge because she shoved you in the safe.”

  “And she deserved it!” he said roughly. “Justice demanded it.”

  Dorothée clutched her handkerchief and wept in horror. “Edward! Did you really?”

  “Sometimes things must be done that the common man is too squeamish to do. That’s when you need men like me. Men who know how to use a knife.”

  Dorothée rallied faster than I would have imagined. She delivered a mighty slap to his face that I didn’t need my supernatural senses to hear. I even winced on his behalf.

  She turned and pulled her suitcases from the taxi herself.

  De Le Croix looked up at her with fury in his eyes. “Don’t you dare go anywhere!” he said forcefully. “You belong to me, and don’t you forget it.”

  She wheeled on him, her blue eyes blazing, and gave him a second slap as hard as the first. “I belong to no man,” she said with equal force, and she stalked away with her suitcases in hand and a tough set to her jaw.

  I pumped a fist in victory. Dorothée was disappointed, surely, but not broken. No, she was far too strong for that.

  De La Croix started to struggle to his feet, and Hélène shouted, “Stay down!” and gave him another forceful kick, this time to the chest. He landed hard, groaning, and then scrambled to his feet and—it made me laugh, dear Reader—turned tail and ran from Hélène.

  But he made the mistake of running toward me.

  Monsieur Carré had finally caught up now, huffing and puffing, but when De La Croix ran our way, he easily shoved aside—or, more accurately, bounced off—the roly-poly police officer and continued on his way.

  “I’ll get him!” I announced happily, and I set off after him, ignoring the cries of admonishment from Carré, who was too winded to even try to follow.