Bones of Paris (9780345531773)

by King, Laurie R.

  Outside the billiards room, the grand stairway ascended to his right, an invitation to the black-and-white clock-room. The front door was off to the left. And he needed to be on the other side of the stairs.

  His sock-clad feet padded silently over the marble, but just as he cleared the bottom of the stairway, a door opened somewhere and heels began to tap their way towards him. He dropped behind the statue of a much-draped woman, every muscle screaming in protest. As the heels tap, tap, tapped past, he risked a glance: the blond demon-footman. The front door opened, and Stuyvesant shambled towards the far side of the stairway.

  The door was locked.

  Shit. Stuyvesant fished out the lock picks—at least Fortier hadn’t confiscated those—and bent over the mechanism. The servant would return any instant. He could hear voices: the man was talking to someone. The gardener? Yes, he heard the words feuilles and pelouse, something about—

  Stuyvesant closed his eyes. Took a breath. You have all the time in the world. It’s a simple mechanism. Your hands are fine.

  The butler’s shoes were tap, tapping back across the tiles when the lock gave. The door opened and shut without a sound, leaving one beat-up American in the dark, sweating against the ancient stone walls.

  EIGHTY-ONE

  “HOW CAN YOU claim your victims are ‘gifts’?” Grey asked. “You choose them. You knew several of them. One was even your lover.”

  “Philippa? Dear, shy, blossoming little Philippa? She was as much chance as any of them. You must understand, Monsieur, I merely receive what the machine brings me. I begin looking five days before the time of sacrifice. Some are given immediately, others at the last minute. Most, like you, are given a day or two before they are needed.”

  “Objets trouvés.”

  “Objets donnés. Gifts from the universe.”

  “So the morning you needed a blonde woman, you woke up next to Miss Crosby and put a gun to her head?”

  “No no, I had sent her away before that. I happened across her—that is, she was given—as I walked along the river. And what a special gift! Although I fear her bones are too distinctive for public eyes. You know, Monsieur, the world thinks of Didi Moreau as a bone artist, but his art is derivative of mine. I shall give him one or two of her bones, but the essential parts of Philippa Crosby—her life’s story told in calcium—will be mine alone.

  “Oh, Monsieur. It is not given to many men to free a young woman, first of her inhibitions, then of her flesh.”

  EIGHTY-TWO

  STUYVESANT THUMBED THE Ronson to life.

  Up the circular stairs lay the clock, and a ballroom smelling of death. Le Comte’s story of using grave-soil to disconcert his guests felt like so much hooey: if there was a smell, it was more likely because the ballroom was near a decomposing body. That meant a door.

  A door, and a man with a gun against a man with a jackknife and a cigarette lighter.

  The house was sure to have an arsenal somewhere, given the touchy history of Parisians towards their aristocracy. But he had less than an hour before … God only knew. Leaving the stairway risked a fatal delay.

  As he stood on the landing, torn between up and down, the stairwell came alive with sound: a bell, from the magnificent clock in the black-and-white room. Noon.

  In fifty-two minutes, some bits of gear would reach a mark and the equinox would ring out, with the death of a blond-haired man to feed an obsession.

  He glared up the stairway. If I had a wrench, I’d jam it into your damned guts.

  He started down.

  EIGHTY-THREE

  12:01.

  “Tell me about the bones,” Bennett Grey asked. “You give them to Didi Moreau, he puts them in his boxes, and you hang the boxes on your wall. How does that serve the machine?”

  “The bones are mere beauty—the gift’s inner beauty, as the photographs record the outer beauty. At first, I simply took photographs and abandoned the gifts to the fate of all flesh. But some eighteen months ago, I happened to see one after the rats had finished with it, and found it beautiful. Shortly after that, I met Didi Moreau—your sister’s doing, that introduction—and he taught me a better way to clean bones.

  “My first attempt was with Philippa, and what a reward I had! Her bones—they are magnificent. It’s a pity I can’t let Didi have her photographs—it would be too great a risk—but most of her bones are anonymous enough. I shall treasure her, in my commemoration of gifts. As I will treasure you.”

  Grey blinked. Was he supposed to thank the man?

  “You, Monsieur, like Philippa, are unique. Will the bones of a man twice dead reflect his difference? Oh, Monsieur, I fear I shall never have another such as you.”

  “Then maybe you should stop while you’re ahead.”

  “There is no ‘ahead,’ Monsieur, there is merely maintenance.”

  “What about the other body parts I’m told Moreau had? The eyeballs, the skin.”

  A look of distaste passed over the patrician features. “Yes, he showed me his collection. Ghoulish. I’ve ordered him to get rid of them—to get rid of everything, in fact.”

  Grey gave a cough of disbelief. “Skin is ghoulish but bones are not?”

  “Bones are eternal, Monsieur. Bones are what we give back to the world, when we are finished with them. These very walls are made of bones: millions upon millions of dead creatures, drifting to the bottom of a prehistoric sea.” His eyes wandered across the rough-hewn stone, the smooth shearing and the tool-marks of the carrièrs, ending up on the instrument on the wall above.

  12:07.

  He sighed, and placed his hands on his knees. “I am grateful for this conversation, Monsieur, but my camera takes some time to set—”

  EIGHTY-FOUR

  DOWN, AND DOWN, Stuyvesant’s exhausted legs followed an endless descent. Fifty steps down, the lighter guttered. It came back up immediately, but it was clear warning.

  Grimly, he flipped the cover over it, and instantly went blind. The steps are even, he told himself. Even enough. You didn’t fall before.

  His toes might have been at the edge of a bottomless cliff, so far as his grip on the iron railing was concerned. He forced his fingers a couple of inches down; his sock-clad foot gingerly felt its way. One step—good. Now another. The step will be there.

  Why the hell hadn’t he counted them the first time? Sherlock bloody Holmes would have. Fantômas would skip down them, Auguste Dupin would have figured everything out sitting before his fire—and any of those guys would’ve brought along a light better than a nearly-dry Ronson. You want heroes? You got Harris Stuyvesant, blundering his way through the dark. In more ways than one.

  If this was a dead end and he got back to Sarah’s house to find Bennett sitting in the garden, he would absolutely kill the little bastard.

  Down, down. And down.

  A faint flattening-out of the iron railing warned him of the stairway’s end. Flame revealed two heavy doors—minus their pretty, black-gowned attendants.

  He put the Ronson back in his pocket and felt his way to the crack, picturing what lay beyond: a dark corridor of bones—he’d be seeing if there were light—with long walls of tightly arranged skulls and tibias, running for some distance off to the left, and to the right for a lesser distance before turning a corner. Across and slightly to the left was the single heavy door that opened onto the cavern with the Danse Macabré.

  Laying both hands on the latch, he turned, praying it was not locked.

  It was not. With infinite care, he nursed his toe against the wood. It gave: an inch, two. A muffled voice came. Three inches; four—then a noise, the small stone scraping under the wood. He stopped, then continued even more slowly. The stone clicked when the door let it go, but by then the gap was wide enough to step through.

  The door opposite was shut, a line of yellow light defining its lower edge: the church candle—he could smell it. As he could hear the voices, a murmur of speech: two men.

  All the way down the stairs, S
tuyvesant had picked up and discarded ideas: lights on? Draw Le Comte out somehow, and use the knife. Lights off? Thank God for the Ronson. But if he did bring the mad Comte out of his cavern, what was to keep the man from putting a bullet into Bennett Grey first?

  His only hope was surprise. If he dove in and knocked over the candle, he’d have a chance. The idea of bullets in a stone room made his body want to pull up into itself, but at least he’d have a chance.

  Unless the door was bolted. He’d be in deep shit then.

  And what if there was a second candle? If he could find a rock—Harris, you idiot, you’re standing in a quarry. He reached for the Ronson, to collect a handful of small stones—

  Then the shouting began.

  EIGHTY-FIVE

  “… MY CAMERA TAKES some time to set—”

  Le Comte’s words nearly obscured the faint noise from outside the door—would have, even for Bennett Grey, had he not been waiting since the candle flame had danced, nine interminable minutes before.

  He sucked air deep into his lungs, rallying his energies down to the dregs, and he shouted. The blare of his voice smashed the stillness, bouncing off the stones and startling Le Comte nearly backwards off his chair.

  “HARRIS, HE’S ARMED! RUN! SMASH HIS CLOCK! RUN, UP THE STAIRS, YOU’VE GOT TO SMASH THE BLOODY CLOCK TO PIECES!”

  Le Comte was on his feet, staring first at Grey, then at the door. Drawing a revolver from his pocket, he reached for the bolt.

  When the door came open, Grey yelled all the louder, urging Stuyvesant to run faster, to smash, to hurry—and although the aristocrat had the sense to check first, snaking out an arm to flip a switch that beamed brightness through the doorway, Grey’s racket covered any sound of an invader’s feet rushing up the long circular stairs. Charmentier withdrew his head from the doorway, looking from prisoner to clock.

  Grey could read the agony of indecision on Le Comte’s face, then the choice: if Grey was creating a ruse, the chains rendered it pointless. But if that busybody American was out there …

  His manifestation of order in the universe was at risk.

  Le Comte ran for the stairway; Grey’s exhortations followed him, until his dry throat strangled into coughs and ragged breathing.

  Long seconds later, the faint sound of approaching feet. Grey watched the bright rectangle, panting …

  Harris Stuyvesant filled the doorway, the grin on his face testimony to the size of his relief.

  EIGHTY-SIX

  STUYVESANT SLAMMED THE door and ran the bolt at the top, retrieving the chair to wedge under the handle as insurance.

  “Jesus, when you started shouting, I thought he’d shoot you for sure. I nearly came for the door—didn’t know it was bolted. I just squeaked around the corner before the lights went on. Why didn’t he? Shoot you, I mean. Not that—”

  “Timing,” Grey croaked. “The point of equinox. Not sure when that is.”

  “Twelve fifty-two.” Stuyvesant spotted the enamel jug and splashed the last of its water into the cup before easing down on his knees, lock picks in hand.

  “Sarah?” Grey asked.

  “She’s fine. Went off to the country with Cole Porter, if you can believe that. And not only did she not apologize, she got royally pissed at me because I sort of questioned her for a while before telling her about Doucet. Can you shift so your wrist is in the light? Thanks.”

  “Doucet?”

  “He’s in the hospital, awake and talking.”

  “Good. He told me they were—Le Comte did—but I wasn’t sure.”

  The picks explored the guts of the padlock. “Sorry,” Stuyvesant mumbled. “This is a better lock than I’d expect.”

  “Someone managed to get free. The wall bolt is new, too.”

  “Joanna Williams,” Stuyvesant said. “English. June, 1927. Aha!”

  He stuck out his hand to Grey, and the two kneeling men exchanged that heartfelt expression of male camaraderie, the handshake.

  Stuyvesant used the wall to get to his feet. “He’ll be back any second. I don’t suppose he said anything about another door?”

  Grey stared at his rescuer’s laden pockets. “Aren’t you armed?”

  “Not really. I could set his sleeve on fire.” He wrestled his shoes from his pockets and put them on.

  “You came here without a gun?” Grey’s voice rose in astonishment. “Then locked yourself in without knowing if you could get out?”

  “I’d have brought a weapon if I had one—but yeah, that’s about the picture.”

  “Any backup?”

  “Not really. Fortier and Doucet know where I was going. Or, they will. Maybe not for a day or two. And we might be able to keep Le Comte out, but I’m not really keen on a diet of rats grilled over an altar candle. Oh—here.”

  He dug back through his pockets, handing Grey a smashed and filthy bread roll.

  “Can you stand?” he asked.

  Grey drank the last of the water and stuck the roll in his shirt pocket, freeing his hands to be pulled upright. Stuyvesant draped the blanket around his shoulders. “What do you think? Is there another door?”

  “Sure to be.”

  “We need to either get it open, or figure how to shut it against Le Comte.”

  “I’m ready,” Grey said.

  But first, Stuyvesant went back to work the short puddle of soft wax free of the stone with his knife. With the stub flickering in his left hand and his right arm around Grey, they began to circle the room, two unlikely figures stepped down from the Danse.

  “Here.” Grey came to a halt before a dozen tapestry skeletons walking into graves. Stuyvesant stuck the burning wax stub on a lip of stone, and ripped the priceless weaving from the wall.

  Behind it was a rectangular wooden door, black with age, its lower edge a foot above the floor. Stuyvesant got out his picks. “How’d you know it was here?”

  “The smell.”

  “What smell is that?”

  But when the hatch came open a crack, he knew: no veteran of the trenches would mistake that stench.

  Stuyvesant leaned against the door, shutting out the smell of death. 12:15.

  “D’you think he’s waiting for us?”

  Grey nodded at the candle. “If we put that out, can you get it going again?”

  “God, I hope so.” With a pinch of Stuyvesant’s fingers, the cavern went black.

  “Don’t move,” Grey whispered. The rustle of his trousers; the faint creak of the door. Neither man breathed until Grey drew back.

  “He’s not there.”

  “Say a prayer.” Stuyvesant flicked the Ronson.

  Once. Twice. The third time, the small flame persisted long enough to light the wick. Stuyvesant ran a hand over his face, and half-lifted Grey through the door.

  On the other side was more catacomb, crumbling bones thick with dust. Only the Inspection des Carrières plaques suggested it was known to the daylight world. A narrow tunnel went for perhaps forty feet, then widened into another, smaller cavern.

  This space was dominated by a new, stoutly built wooden box the size of a giant’s coffin. The stench was almost overwhelming, with a mingling odor of sewage that seemed almost healthy in comparison. Even so, the smell of putrefaction was not fresh.

  “I’d expect it to smell worse,” Stuyvesant murmured.

  “It must vent into the sewers,” Grey replied. “It’s how he hides the smell.”

  “Is that crate what I think it is?”

  “Don’t open it!”

  Stuyvesant didn’t have to. It could only be one thing: big brother to the corruption boxes of Didi Moreau. “What do you reckon we’d see in there?”

  “At this point, not much but bones and beetles.”

  “She’s been in there for three months. The bastard has it down to a science.”

  “It wouldn’t be your Miss Crosby, would it?”

  “Nicole Karon. A twenty-four-year-old brown-haired shop girl who vanished in June.”

 
Stuyvesant moved, spilling candle-light across a stack of bones, neatly tucked in beside the corruption box.

  The disjointed skeleton was fresh, soft-looking. Obscenely clean, although a few of the bones were still connected, their ligaments too tough for tiny jaws. The sternum and two ribs were smashed, probably from the bullet that had killed her. Most of the other bones were intact.

  Next to the delicate skull lay the bones of a forearm. Its ulna showed the scar of a childhood break, where a ten-year-old had leapt from a fire.

  “Oh, Pip,” Stuyvesant moaned. “Oh, honey. God damn it all to hell.”

  Grey rested a hand on the other man’s shoulder. That would have been me.

  EIGHTY-SEVEN

  AT 12:21, A FAINT noise echoed down the subterranean labyrinth; Stuyvesant blew out the light. They waited, but the noise did not repeat. The valiant Ronson produced a flicker on its sixth snap, and they went on.

  He tried not to think of just how much catacomb there was down here. Three hundred kilometers, right? “Do you have any idea where we’re going?” he asked Grey.

  “I’m following the fresh air.”

  12:28, and the fresh air lay before them: on the other side of a massive, permanent iron grate. Reluctantly, they turned—and the candle blew out. This time, the Ronson would not light it. One of the greatest cities in the world over their heads, and they might have been in a skiff in mid-Atlantic.

  Grey groped around for Stuyvesant’s hand. He set it on his shoulder, and led the way into darkness.

  Hours seemed to pass, a lifetime of staggering blindness before Stuyvesant’s weary brain told him that the darkness had a shape: Grey’s head. With a cry, he let his arm drop.

  “Yes,” Grey replied. “Should be just up here.”

  Another heavy grate. But this one had hinges, and a well-oiled padlock.

  They stumbled into daylight, raising filthy faces to the sweet city air. The cloudless sky was an azure bowl, the sound of children’s voices like a caress from God. Taking two steps to the side, Stuyvesant recognized the Lion of Belfort.