The corpse was that of an old woman—definitely no art piece. She lay, legs akimbo, on her side with her back turned toward me. Her hands were gnarled from arthritis; she had led a hard life. As I knelt I chanced to look back up the alleyway and saw that the beggar girl was staring intently at us and what we were doing, with more curiosity than the body of an old woman would be likely to draw in this neighborhood. I saw that Henri had noticed her at the same time. “Do not frighten her,” I whispered, but still I was surprised when he simply turned away. I turned likewise for a few moments, busying myself with necessary arrangements for my work. I did not realize until I looked back up the alley that I had not been breathing.
The girl was still staring toward us with huge eyes and a terrified expression, but there was something else, too, something I had seen when sometimes I chanced to meet Henri’s contacts among the criminal element: They were always aware that something must be in it for them, and they were always on the lookout for a deal. This girl, for all her youth, had that same hungry look. Who could blame her? I thought, and I smiled at her.
She ducked away, and for an instant I thought I’d lost her. But her head reappeared around the corner, her shoulders poised for running while her pinched face tried to smile back at me. Had I given her any money when I entered the alley? I might have, on another day, with more time or better spirits about me, and still I might have on the way out, distracted enough to see only a begging hand. I held my smile as I walked toward her, and for the first time truly looked at her.
She was perhaps twelve, and very pretty, as well as very dirty. She wore a brown cotton dress that did not cover her ankles, and she wore no shoes against the coming winter. Her hair was black, oily, and brushed back from her forehead, evidently with her fingers. Her eyes were also black, and pervaded with a sadness neither fear, nor greed, could displace. Her mouth might never have truly smiled. She had a russet woolen shawl over her shoulders, and she held, to my astonishment, a violin, seeming in good repair. As I approached her she astonished me still more by starting to play. It was a gay little ditty I knew from my youth in the country; here it was heartbreaking. I wanted to ask her to stop hurting me, but of course I did not. Augustine should have been with me, listening to the beggar girl play, and we would give her almost all our money, saving just enough for mocha, and go away happy.
The girl held my eyes as I walked up to her, and then she stopped playing and said, “He gave me a gold coin.”
“What did he look like?”
She hesitated and looked down.
“I do not have a gold coin,” I said, “but I will see that you are paid.”
“It’s not . . . it’s not just that.” She swallowed. “He was a very frightening gentleman, Monsieur.”
“I’m sure he was. But I need to know.”
“A tall man. Dark brown hair, not long. Short, like a businessman’s.” She took a breath, and I thought that the man must have been frightening indeed if just the memory of him had her in this state.
“It is all right,” I said.
“I will move my corner,” she said. “Brown eyes, but fevered. He had been drinking absinthe. I know the look.” She glanced down again, and I could have cried for her and what she may have had to do in the evenings to survive. “A very handsome man, in a wolfish way. Very high cheekbones and a full mouth. He came from money. He would have liked to kill me.” She had raised her eyes and stared at me straight, and I knew she told the truth.
“Henri!” I called. I turned to the girl. “Stay there, dear. I will come back with money for you.”
She nodded and bit her lower lip and reminded me of Augustine, and I fled back down the alley.
“Have you checked for identification?” I asked, grabbing my camera like a drowning man a raft. The serving woman lay sprawled, as I said, quite unlike the other corpses we had found, but the knowledge that we had a witness lent urgency to my curiosity. That and the description of the man as tall and wolfish.
“The Soulavies,” I told Henri the moment he could hear me. “They knew Odette. They were at Mme. Gaudet’s party. They visited Augustine at the hospital. They are the ones who have Augustine, and they are the Artists of Death, as well.”
“There is no reason to think that this woman would be one of your art pieces, Edouard,” Henri said indulgently, but yes, I did check. Not that a woman of this class would have any identification anyway.”
“She had roses,” I said, almost to myself. Petals lay scattered across the pavement. I shook my head. “Sometimes, Henri, I wonder if I have ever actually known another human being in my life.”
“She had onions, too, it looks like,” he said, still unperturbed. “I know you want to be looking for your Augustine. But I assure you that I have many men on the case right now. I will transmit your latest information. We will scour all of Paris, Edouard. We will find her. For now, it is best for you to concentrate on your work.”
He was right, of course. The pebbly leather of my camera soothed my heart a little, though it made me feel shallow to be so easily comforted; but suddenly I was crying as I started to photograph the old woman. I took my pictures instinctively, making all the right movements with my hands, my eyes, my equipment, and seeing nothing. And then I felt remorse—this dead woman deserved the dignity of my attention.
I knelt to photograph her head. Her bonnet was askew and hid her face. I adjusted it and something fell from the ribbon around the crown. A white piece of paper, paper I recognized instantly. Handwriting I recognized instantly.
“Henri!” I cried. “Augustine!”
“What?” He sounded quite as confused as he ought to have.
“It says 21 rue Mazarine. Oh my God, we have found her.”
“Edouard, what are you—” I handed him the paper, already rising to pack my equipment.
“That is Augustine’s handwriting. The old woman must have been bringing it to me at La Salpêtrière. Henri, it is Augustine, and I must go to her now.”
He grabbed my arm. “Not without my help.” He turned to one of the men who was at the scene. “Ariste, secure the scene. I must go. Give that girl all the money you’ve got.” He indicated our violinist. “ I will see you are repaid.”
And bless his dear old crusty heart, he took my arm and hurried me away toward the carriage, toward the rue Mazarine, without even letting me gather up my photographic equipment.
Chapter 59
Charles
WHEN I GOT to the apartment she would ask me if I had gotten rid of the old woman. I did not want to talk. I just wanted my green, my flask being empty. And I wanted my ritual as well: the spoon, four sugar cubes, and a generous portion of water poured slowly, drip by drip, until the liquid reached a perfect louche.
Walking quickly, with fury and chagrin, I remembered that I had not told her all I had felt about Tabby. But she had not needed to ask. She had not needed spoken words, so keen had been all the ties that bound us, skin and muscle and nerve and bone, heart to heart and soul to soul.
I had never before been angry with V, but I was angry with her now. There was never any need to strip the old woman: That had merely been punishment. Would one glance tell her what I was unwilling to tell? She delighted in hearing me recite the details of our kills as we sat out on the boulevards at public cafés, or in the privacy of our elegant bedchamber and the dirty garret bed. At first this had been highly stimulating to me as well, knowing how it excited my lover.
But there had come a subtle change. V needed larger and larger quantities. Even Monique’s had satisfied her for barely a day before she insisted we bring Augustine home. Perhaps after we had killed this girl I would recommend a change of scene. Anything can become a drug, and any drug weakens the system to the point where more and still more is required to achieve the requisite effect. If simply killing would satisfy V, I would kill every woman in Europe. But although we com
mitted our kills together, we both knew they really belonged to her. I was more than V’s accomplice: I was her willing puppet. Long before I got home I was too tired to think. V met me at the door, but she had not readied the objects she knew I would surely need for my green ritual. And then, as I walked by her to the wheeled glass table where my implements were kept, she said, “Make me a glass, Charles.”
I was taken aback. The only time V had ever tasted of my poison was when I had given her an absinthe-dipped sugar cube the night she offered me her life. I glanced at her, but she was not looking at me, and for a moment I felt as invisible as a servant, and my temper flared.
And then she looked into my eyes and laughed her golden laugh.
“It has been a long day, Charles. Look how muddy you are! Come, I will mix your poison, and I will share it with you.”
And for a time we spoke no more. She knelt and removed my boots as she always did, and she performed my ritual with her usual sensual grace and efficiency, and when she set our glasses out she did not drink of hers but watched me drink, with an eagerness in her cat’s eyes.
“You are certain,” she said as I finished my first drink, “that there is no identification on the body.”
“Of course,” I said. There were flowers under the table—V’s hand was petals on my thigh.
“Certain,” she repeated.
“I unclothed the old hag,” I said cheerfully. I had not thought I would lie. I thought that perhaps my punishment had merely been to be given the distasteful task; perhaps I was right.
“Oh, Charles, that must have been ghastly!” For the first time she took a sip of her drink; her cat’s tongue flicked to taste bittersweet green. “Tell me.”
And I realized she knew.
“Oh, V,” I said; the petals had become a silken rope that played and tugged and pulled me taut. “I do not want to speak of it now. Erase my memories of ancient flesh. You have erased them already, surely you can feel that.”
“I thought perhaps that was for the old lady!” She laughed. She was a kitten now, only and always my V. Something had been troubling me on the way home . . . something . . . She finished her drink and said, “Charles! I think perhaps we are floating!” And as she stood she was floating indeed, diaphanous white billows of silk a cloud around her silken hair, her silken white body.
I had a moment’s terror that she would bid me to go to Augustine. Instead, she said, “The girl is passed out again; she is most unattractive now.” She indicated the bed that I had not dared look at. “Take me here on the flagstones in front of the fireplace, Charles. Show me why it is that you so love your Green Muse.”
And I, her servant, her puppy, her lord, and her lover, was more than happy to oblige.
Chapter 60
Edouard
HENRI’S CARRIAGE TRUNDLED through the streets at a reckless speed; mud flew everywhere, and people ran. On the way, something about the address vexed and troubled me and as we pulled up I realized that we had stopped at the very place where I had photographed the murdered body of Lenore DuPrey.
Night was falling fast, and a fitful moon lit the same unsteady towers I had seen before. Still they seemed about to tumble down upon us, almost swaying in the night and the wind.
We flew from the carriage, to the front doorway. But there was a commotion I had at first been too distracted to notice, a gaggle of workmen and a very large, covered object they were attempting to carry up the interior staircase.
“Step aside,” Henri said with authority. “Police business.” At that moment one of the workmen flung aside what covered the large object: It was a piano. The moon abandoned a cloud to shine her full brightness through the doorway upon the ludicrous scene.
“We have to get in here!” I cried, and the foreman said matter-of-factly, “And we have to get this damn piano up four flights of stairs.”
“This is urgent police business,” Henri said in his most imperious voice, and as he spoke he tried to move around the piano to mount the staircase.
“We’ll be out of your way in no time. We just have to deliver this piano to—” He checked his work order. “Odette Alexandrovna.”
“Madame Alexandrovna?” and “Odette?” Henri and I cried at once.
“You know her? ’Cause nobody answered the door up there. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to cart this damn thing all the way back to the docks at this damn time of night. So up it goes. Come on, you, what are you standing around for?” He gestured to one of his men. “Officer, go round back and guard the back stair.”
The workmen were clearly not impressed with us, police or no. For a moment Henri and I simply stood, frozen by the dreamlike scene of piano and moon and impervious workmen in dirty overalls. Then love and fear galvanized me. And I was off to find it before a word could be said. I could hear Henri’s raised, frustrated voice behind me, could almost feel his impotence. A piano! A slum, a murder, an abduction, a three-word ribbon of hope, a beautiful waif with a violin, and a piano, along with a romantic moon!
But then all thought left me but for one word: Augustine. I ran as I had never run, an old image suddenly flashing into my mind: chasing our best milk cow with my sister Natalie one morning while even the delicious smell of morning sausages could not dissuade us from our unkind, enjoyable pursuit of the poor animal. And then it was gone, and I was racing around the back corner of the building where no one had seen anything of Lenore DuPrey, where fully half the residents could not even be confirmed to be whom they claimed to be.
There was a dirty door, and it was open. Not simply unlocked, but open. The officer lay in muck and blood. Jean-Beauclaire stood over him looking shattered and very young. In the time it took him to be surprised, I thought, and I ran up the stairs as fast as I could, hearing faint sounds in the background of angry voices and the creak of the front stairs under their heavy burden. I was too late; I could not be too late. If Augustine were dead I would be dead already myself, and that irrational thought was my hope and my impetus.
There was only one apartment on the fourth floor. I threw myself against the door and almost fell headlong into a filthy gray room. The door was unlocked, and so old that it had hardly taken a shove to split its hinges, to in fact bust the wood to wild, flying pulp.
“Augustine!” I cried. “Augustine!” with my soul in my mouth.
And there she was. She lay on sheets so old as to have almost no color, and she was barely conscious, with an open laudanum bottle spilling its contents out onto the floor next to the bed. But her eyes, when their blue beam met my own, unremarkable eyes, were clear.
“Edouard,” she said softly. “I knew you would come. They lied to me. They said . . . they said you were one of them.” And I saw that her blue belied her condition—she was obviously drugged.
“Augustine,” I said. “Are you all right?” As preposterous a question as the piano I could hear coming up the stairs.
“No,” she said. “They made me drink absinthe. They made me drink laudanum. I feel awful.”
“Where are they?”
“You didn’t catch them?”
“No,” I said regretfully, acutely aware of how badly I had failed her.
“You won’t,” she said. “They are . . . hardly human, Edouard. Oh, will you ever forgive me?” And she was crying, partly, I knew, from the drugs, and partly from her good heart.
“Yes. They tricked you, didn’t they?”
“She seemed so . . . oh, Edouard, she was so lovely! So loving. He was . . . like a wolf. He always frightened me. But I thought . . . I thought that because he loved her, he must be kind, that only his exterior was hard. Edouard, I kept their visits from you, their plans! They said that they would send for you after they had me released from the hospital, but then they said . . . they said—” And her eyes began to close, her voice to fade.
I had been kneeling at
the floor next to the bed; I rose and sat next to her and cradled her in my arms, and she felt like every good dream I had ever had.
“Augustine, Augustine, there is nothing to forgive,” I said to her now-sleeping form. “When I look at you, I see the world.”
Suddenly the racket outside intensified, and Henri burst into the room as if shot from a cannon.
“How’s the piano?” I asked equably; at this moment nothing could distress me.
“Where are they?”
“They have gone.”
Augustine’s eyes opened again, and we realized that the perpetrators had gotten away. But still I had the presence of mind to ask Augustine, “Do you brew a good pot of coffee, my love?”
Chapter 61
Charles
“CHARLES, WE MUST go. I hear a noise downstairs.”
“They could not have found us, V.”
“You did not strip the body, did you? It is likely the girl gave Rose Bertin something by which to find us.” She spoke without rancor, moving about the room, gathering. My hat, my coat, her cape, her red scarf.
“Go.”
“V.”
“They already know it’s us,” she said reasonably. “Let us see what fools the police are, shall we?”
There were sounds at the street floor, a strange, deep knocking and voices.
“Come along now,” V said lightly, slipping my coat onto my shoulders and standing on tiptoe to set my hat on my head. “We are not done with each other.”
“But—”
“The secret stair. We will not be caught. Here, take your knife,” as she handed it to me.
“But she—”
“Oh, go, Charles,” she hissed, and shoved me toward the stair with the clucking noise a wife saves for a foolish husband.
Chapter 62
From the Journal of Augustine Dechelette
The Green Muse Page 29