The Expiration of Elise

by Annette Moncheri

  Dear Reader, I don’t mind admitting how much I enjoyed the game of cat and mouse I played with my prey through the alleyways of the Île Saint-Louis. I let him suffer—but only a little (I am not so cruel as that). And then I devoured him.

  With gusto.

  13

  Now, you know that I always present a moral of the tale. What purpose is a tale without a moral, after all? —or at least that’s how I see it.

  At the beginning of this story, I commented on how you, kind Reader, have likely had a quiet life and have never had cause to find yourself a murder suspect. I suggested that surely you have had a sensible and quiet life—as we all should, if we are lucky enough to have the opportunity.

  Well, I cleverly hid the moral of the tale right there—in the very beginning. For that is it. Dear Reader, if you have been fortunate enough to have had a quiet life, then you must celebrate it! Because I have found that even a little excitement is often a little too much! And after this incident, I hoped to have a quiet and happy and prosperous New Year.

  Would you like to know how that worked out?

  Then do go on to the next story.

  But here is a hint: If all had been quiet, happy, and prosperous, I don’t think there would have been another story to tell…

  FIN

  P.S. Also, I still needed to do something about my fingerprints in Inspector Baudet’s files… far out of my reach, on the other side of the Seine.

  P.P.S. You’ll be very interested to hear the story that Dorothée told me the next morning. She said she dreamed of her departed cousin, Régis—the one who spoke to us through the Ouija board. She described him in great detail as a slightly heavyset man, balding, with prominent front teeth but charming green eyes. And do you know what he told her? “Thank you for setting it all to right. We were all very worried over here.”

  Don’t you call that a charming story?

  Receive the prequel for FREE!

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  Other Books in This Series

  Dear Reader,

  I currently have 6 short books and a prequel published in the Madame’s Murder Mysteries series. It will be an open-ended, ongoing series, and I will keep writing them as long as you like!

  Here are the titles that are out now:

  The Murder of Mariano – The Prequel – available only via my website: www.annettemoncheri.com/free-stuff/

  The Passing of Pascal – Book 1

  The Expiration of Elise – Book 2 (this book!)

  The End of Isabelle – Book 3

  The Parting of Pierre – Book 4

  The Death of Daisi – Book 5

  The Mortality of Matias – Book 6

  The next book is in progress:

  The Finish of Fiore – Book 7

  To keep up to date on the release schedule, please do subscribe at my website, if you haven’t already:

  www.annettemoncheri.com/free-stuff/

  Chaleureusement (with warm regards),

  Annette

  FREE Excerpt from Book 3: The End of Isabelle

  Dear delicious Reader, I would like to tell you the story of the time that Inés caused us a great deal of trouble—yes, Inés, believe it or not! She is such an innocent and sweet little creature. Really, it was her innocence that caused much of the trouble.

  As you may recall, Inés is the youngest of all my mesdames at work here in Le Chat Rose, and when I first hired her, I suspected that she was too naïve to even know what it was I was hiring her for – but then again, I supposed that if she could manage to get paying customers merely for holding hands, so much the better.

  So it breaks my heart that she was drawn into such a situation. And it really just goes to tell you—

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. And anyway, this story starts not with poor sweet Inés, but with poor Safia.

  Poor, sweet, mad Safia, whose mind has been taken from her. But you will understand that perfectly well when I tell you how it was that I found the body.

  It had been a wonderfully busy night late in the winter, just after the new year, when the days were again beginning to lengthen. My maison had been full, everyone feeling celebratory still after the holidays, but now the night was winding down. The air outside had taken on that unique stillness that is present in the pre-dawn hours.

  Inside, I surveyed the scene from the first-floor landing, my hands on the wooden banister. Perhaps half a dozen clients remained, seated at the low tables and chatting with my ladies. I enjoyed the pleasant hubbub of their conversation and occasional tinkling laughter. The scents of perfume and cigar and cigarette smoke wafted up from below.

  My front door opened, and Hélène Bachelet came in and removed her cape with an elegant spin that also set her short bob into motion. She lay the cape across a nearby occasional table and took the cigarette from her lips and blew out a puff of smoke. She looked up and caught my gaze and gave me a little wave, a wink, and a smile. She was just about to head my way when a stack of envelopes slipped through the mail slot on my door right next to her, catching her attention. Hélène stooped and picked them up and waved them at me.

  With a smile I gestured for her to bring them and come up to see me.

  A moment later, after we exchanged cheek kisses, she handed me the mail and we flipped through it together.

  “Oh, Anaelle has another letter from her sister,” I said. “Look how fat this one is.” I held it up lengthwise to Hélène.

  “A continuation of their latest row, I expect,” she said, her eyes gleaming with enjoyment.

  Anaelle and her sister managed to keep a fight going by mail for weeks on end. To hear Anaelle’s version, her sister was more demon than human—but then again, there’s always the other side to every argument, and Anaelle is certainly bitter and cold enough to provoke others.

  Upon seeing a familiar name on one of the envelopes, I suppressed a groan.

  Hélène, of course, suppressed nothing. “Oh, not him again.”

  “Him again, apparently,” I said.

  The name on the envelope was Belvedere Von Trossen, and he had a stubborn interest in acquiring my place of business. He was a magnate of sorts - owned property all over the Left Bank, and had been making inroads into the ĺle for a few years now. “Another one for the fire, mon amie,” I said, handing the envelope to Hélène. “Oh, and wait, here’s another to burn.”

  I handed her an envelope from the Parisian Moral Society, which was made up of ancient biddies who deeply resented the coming together of my mesdames with their husbands and sons and grandsons.

  “The poor dears,” Hélène said.

  “Oh?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. “You pity them?”

  “They are so very old,” she said. “Very old people have trouble with the progression of society, and they really can’t help it, the poor things.”

  “Oh, I suppose,” I said.

  I flipped through the rest of the mail. “Another letter for Monsieur Georges from his very elderly mother.” I was struck by a thought and glanced up at Hélène. “I wonder whether she is a member of the Parisian Moral Society.”

  “Probably better not to ask,” she said.

  “Indeed.”

  Of course, a handful of advertisements had come to me, which I also planned to burn. And another envelope, meant to be outgoing and labeled as from Madame Rainger Gagnon, had been returned with the note that the recipient—Lester Gagnon—was no longer at that address. “I need to go check on Madame Gagnon anyway, and Madame Safia,” I said, waving the envelope. “I shall see you soon. Ah, I see her now coming from the kitchen.”

  Madame Rainger Gagnon is the night chaperone for Madame Safia, who is verging on elderly and, sadly, growing
weak of mind. Gagnon is a woman with the build of a blacksmith and a voice like stones grinding together and dark eyebrows that tend to unite when she is upset, and I expect that she would easily flatten anyone who raised a hand to her Safia. Yet she is also a wonderfully kind soul.

  “See you later,” Hélène said with a smile and a wink, and I pressed her hand and bid her adieu with a kiss on her cheek.

  Madame Gagnon came up from the kitchen carrying a tray with a plate of delicate morsels – a bite or two of cheese, some bread, a chèvre and tomate tarte, a few sautéed asparagus tips.

  “Getting hungry, Madame Gagnon?” I asked with a smile as I fell in alongside her.

  She startled and gave me a surprisingly guilty look. The dark eyebrows edged closer together. “No, no, Madame,” she hastened to assure me. “Safia requested a few bites of something, that’s all.”

  “Oh, you know it’s all right with me if you help yourself to the kitchen,” I said, giving her a reassuring touch on the elbow. I was surprised at how anxious my off-the-cuff remark had made her. “Here, this letter has been returned to you.”

  I dropped it on the tray for her, and she gave it a look of dismay.

  “Not bad news, I hope?” I said.

  “I hope not,” she mumbled.

  I didn’t want to pry, so I changed the topic. “And how is your charge tonight?”

  I felt so responsible for sweet Safia. After employing someone for a decade, I couldn’t let her hang out to dry, as the Americans like to say. I would care for her all the rest of her life, or at least until she reached a point where her life was not so enjoyable, and then… well, you may remember what I said about that in my first story.

  “Same as ever, Madame,” replied Madame Gagnon as we walked along the wide hallway lined with bedrooms for the mesdames. “Same as ever.” Now it seemed to me that she was studiously avoiding eye contact. And whatever for?

  One of my abilities is that I can often sense what someone is feeling—or even smell it, as humans do tend to emit mild scents when they have strong emotions. And I could tell that Madame Gagnon was experiencing anxiety or fear, or something very much along those lines, and thinking back on it, I realized that she had been since the first moment I’d seen her tonight.

  We stopped in front of Safia’s closed door, and Madame Gagnon all but shoved the plate of food into my hands. “Excuse me,” she mumbled, “I have a task I really must attend to. Perhaps if you wouldn’t mind…” She vaguely at Safia’s door, took the envelope from the tray as an afterthought, and tromped heavily down the corridor, leaving me in a state of surprise and puzzlement.

  Something was clearly bothering her. I made mental note to check in with her later.

  I opened Safia’s door. She was kneeling on the rug next to a settee, singing quietly under her breath, and stroking back the golden hair of a young woman who lay there with her eyes closed.

  I carried the plate of food to a table, taking care to step quietly so as not to disturb the sleeping woman. “Safia, who is this?” I asked at a whisper. At first glance, I thought perhaps this was a daughter or granddaughter, as it seemed to me there was some likeness there, if Safia’s hair had once been the same golden yellow.

  Safia raised a hand to her lips to shush me.

  I knelt alongside her so she could speak with me quietly.

  Here I must note something about my nature. I am acutely aware of heartbeats in people who are in close proximity. It’s something of a compulsion of mine, and the same way some people will always lean in to smell a parfum, I will lean in just to listen to the heartbeat.

  This young woman didn’t have one.

  A heartbeat, that is.

  I put my hand on her cheek. She was still warm, but not by much.

  I managed not to cry out, though I had to choke it back. A dead woman! In my own maison!

  She looked so young, and the very picture of health… it simply wasn’t possible that she had expired here on my sofa of natural causes. I thought instantly of Madame Gagnon’s anxiety as she rushed away a moment ago. She knew about it—and hadn’t had the courage to tell me. What else did she know? Was the murderer at large?

  I caught Safia’s hand as she reached out again to stroke the woman’s forehead. “Safia,” I said. “Who is this woman? What happened to her?”

  “She’s my friend. Her name is Isabelle. She’s sleeping—lower your voice.”

  “My dear Safia…” I tried to keep a tone as gentle as I could. “Isabelle is not sleeping—she is dead. What happened to her?”

  “She is not dead,” Safia cried in horror. “She had to rest. She wasn’t feeling well—she was feeling weak and sick. Now be quiet or you’ll wake her!” The color rose in her cheeks and I saw that I risked an episode of hysterics if I pressed the point.

  I took her frail shoulders in my hands and applied a bit of my enchantement. “Safia,” I said tenderly, “I’m sorry. Please be calm.”

  Her bright blue eyes softened and she smiled bravely, though her lipstick was a little smeared, and it made her smile look lopsided. “Mais oui, Madame”—or, in English, “of course.”

  “Safia, who is this Isabelle? Why did she come here?” I asked gently.

  “Oh, well…” Confusion darted across Safia’s face as she examined Isabelle’s face. It suddenly seemed that she struggled to remember.

  Just then, a knock came at the door, startling Safia and dispelling my charme. I cursed to myself and got up to hurry to the door.

  I opened it to reveal the handsomely chiseled features of Monsieur Inspector Thibauld Baudet, which was a surprise.

  And just then, Safia’s blood-curdling scream erupted behind me. “Isabelle! No, Isabelle, no!” She burst into sobs.

  And I winced and held back a curse.

  “Such good timing, Monsieur Inspector,” I said with the best smile I could muster as I held the door wide open and stepped out of the way. “For I believe we’ve just had a murder.”

  Continue reading - The End of Isabelle is available now!

  About the Author

  Annette Moncheri is une americaine but a francophile! She adores books about French food, culture, parenting, and more. She reads, writes, and speaks French un peu - a little (a very little!). Part of the joy of writing books set in Paris is the excuse to read books and watch films set in Paris. She hasn't been there herself yet, but she feels the need to do some on-site research coming up!

  Annette grew up in small towns but has resided in Houston, Texas for more than twenty years. She's married and has a young son and two cats. Art, beautiful things, and live performances of music and theatre are essential to her survival. And she loves to go to La Madeleine Café and try to comprehend the expats speaking in French!

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