Floats the Dark Shadow

by Yves Fey

  “I will hardly tell you that.”

  “You know I’ll find out.”

  “I’m sure you can, so the question returns. What will you do about it?”

  Dancier sulked. Finally, he said, “Nothing—unless he wiggles free.”

  “He must be insane, but perhaps not insane in a fashion that will allow him to escape the guillotine.”

  “You hope.”

  “I hope,” Michel acknowledged. He took a sip of the brandy.

  “If this poet isn’t the killer, I’ll make it up to him,” Dancier announced.

  Michel stared at him in disbelief.

  “One way or another.” Dancier shrugged. “I can always publish his poems.”

  Michel gave a bark of laughter. “I find that truly perverse.”

  “I can be perverse.” Dancier winked.

  The man was incorrigible, but the confrontation, the banter had pulled Michel from the worst of his bleakness. He was grateful. He smiled and drank another swallow of brandy.

  Dancier finished his in one jolt. He got up and went to the door, turned. “If you ever think we’re even, let me know.”

  Michel locked the door, then sat down again with the evidence—the books, the photos, the histories. Somewhere there was a key.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The desolate marshes of these pages,

  full of black poison, will soak into his soul.

  ~ Comte de Lautréamont

  ZIGZAGGING through the streets of Paris, Theo pedaled furiously, swerving at last onto the Quai de l’Horloge and into the Dépôt. Dismounting, she leaned the bicycle against the wall then rushed through the door of the police station, only to be stopped by a glaring detective.

  “Let me by!” Theo said, but he stood in her way, pointing at her legs in outrage. She was still wearing her riding breeches, not the wisest choice. Most police overlooked the pointless law, but this one disliked such rebellion flouted in his face. She felt like screaming at him, but that was more likely to get her arrested.

  “Out!” He pointed at the door now, wrinkling his nose with disdain. Theo knew she smelled of sweat and horses. “Out!”

  “I must find Inspecteur Devaux,” Theo insisted, her eyes searching the station. Michel had heard the argument, for he stood up. The officer glared but turned to look at Michel, who gestured to admit her. The man stepped aside and Theo strode to Michel’s desk.

  His gaze was guarded. “Mademoiselle, if you are here about Monsieur Charron—”

  “No.” She shook her head, then blurted, “Matthieu has disappeared.”

  “Another child?” His expression did not change but his eyes were bleak.

  “My landlady’s son,” she said. “There is a new winged cross in the alleyway.”

  “When did he disappear?”

  “Four hours ago. I was out riding when he went missing.”

  “How much does she know?”

  “After Denis disappeared, she was always wary. But she didn’t think Matthieu would be taken in broad daylight…” Theo fought down panic. “She doesn’t know that Denis and Alicia were taken by the same man.”

  “It is better she does not. Her fear will be terrible enough.” He looked down at the folders on his desk.

  Theo knew they held photos he had never shown her. “Averill could not have done this.”

  He looked at her directly. “But his accomplice could have.”

  Theo clenched her fists but kept her voice even. “You have Vipèrine in prison, too.”

  “I no longer think Vipèrine is the killer.”

  A wave of fear swept through Theo. She swayed under its force. Michel reached out and steadied her, but she took a breath and pulled away. “Then who took Matthieu?”

  “There is another man involved, a fiacre driver.”

  “What?” How long had he known about this other man?

  He paused. “There is a chance it is not him. Some friend might….”

  Shock gave way to anger. Her voice dripped disdain. “Kidnap a child? Commit murder?”

  “Stage a ruse,” he countered. “If the friend believes him innocent, perhaps the child is only being held till the real killer is found. Noret might feel guilty enough.”

  “Not guilty enough to kidnap someone else’s child.”

  He frowned. “I know it is unlikely. Would the baron be so ruthless?”

  Theo froze. What might Casimir risk for Averill? “If it’s true, so much the better. Matthieu would be safe. But neither of us believes that.”

  Michel got to his feet and reached for the jacket hung over the back of his chair, then hesitated.

  “Whoever it is will torture Matthieu, murder him. We must search!”

  “And where are we to search? Every attempt to find the other children failed.”

  Fear and terror battered her. “I don’t know!”

  He met her gaze, acknowledging her turmoil, then sat and gestured to the chair across from him. “I want you to go over some of the evidence with me. If we uncover the killer, we may know where to look for him.”

  Muscle and nerve screamed for action, but Theo sat down. It didn’t matter how repellent the evidence was if it would help find Matthieu. “Who is this fiacre driver?”

  “His name is Corbeau.” He waited.

  The name meant nothing to her. “Why not this Corbeau and Vipèrine?”

  “Ninette was taken for the Black Mass to be ravished, not murdered. Afterwards, Vipèrine meant to sell her to a madam who lives in Rouen.”

  “Sell her?”

  “Yes. He is vile, he is mercenary. He is even capable of murder, but I do not believe he is the killer we have been seeking.”

  “But Ninette’s kidnapper left a winged cross.”

  “Jules Loisel told Vipèrine about the emblem.”

  “So now you know Vipèrine kidnapped Ninette. Averill is telling the truth!”

  “It is entirely possible Averill thought to snatch her for himself. It is even possible he thought to play the hero and deflect suspicion for his other crimes.”

  “That would be a crazy risk.”

  “Our killer is crazy, Mlle. Faraday. But he is crazily clever too.” Michel took two books from the side of his desk. She recognized one and knew why he had it with him. “Là Bas.”

  “We both discovered the killer thinks of himself as Gilles de Rais. I have looked for similarities in their history to create this strange union.”

  Theo forced a calm question. “What have you found?”

  “Loisel is devious, but apart from his fascination with sacrilege, I see nothing to connect him to the medieval baron. He fears and perhaps hates women, but would not see an innocent young girl ravished. If my theory is correct, it must be either Averill Charron or Casimir Estarlian.”

  Theo closed her eyes, then made herself open them. Blindness was cowardice. She could not bear for the killer to be Averill. But Casimir had never been anything but charming and kind to her. Except in helping to break her heart. Even then, it was Averill who had shown her they were lovers. Casimir had never hinted at such a thing. But whoever the killer was, he was skilled at pretense. Of all of them, Casimir presented the most polished façade to the world, too bright to see behind.

  “Tell me your theory.” Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears.

  “You know that Averill was deeply affected by all that happened to his sister, both the false events and the true.”

  “Yes. Jeanette.”

  “Little Jeanne.”

  Theo felt a chill crawl along her spine, cold talons digging into her nerves. “Isn’t that a gigantic leap of the imagination?”

  “Our killer made some such leap, to enter into his vision of Gilles de Rais.”

  “But Jeanne is one of the most common French names.”

  “Do you believe it signifies nothing?”

  She was arguing only because of Averill. “No. The killer believes he is Gilles de Rais, so Jeanne d’Arc will have immense importance to
him. But perhaps only the historical Jeanne.”

  “Jeanne d’Arc gave the medieval baron de Rais a moment of glory. She gave faith and simple goodness to a life that was at its best utterly selfish, at its worst vile almost beyond comprehension.”

  “That is not Averill.”

  “Not the face that he shows you. He may have another.”

  Theo balled her hands into fists and kept silent. With Matthieu’s life at stake, she must help Michel, not fight him.

  Michel went on, “The killer may have felt that like the baron de Rais, he had betrayed his own Jeanne by not saving her.”

  “Yet she also betrayed him, by not being saved.” Theo knew he was talking of Jeanette’s madness, of Averill’s quest, but some other memory was tugging at her mind. She groped for the words. “Greater even than betrayal by a lover.”

  Who had said that? Was it Casimir or Averill? Did it matter? They were both fascinated by Gilles de Rais.

  Michel watched her attentively. “Yes, I can see it would seem so. He wanted a miracle. Yet it is also the fate of saints to be martyred.”

  “But why would that make our killer kidnap children?”

  “We need only know that our Gilles found some reason to clothe himself in the other’s history. Perhaps he only looked for the excuse to kill.”

  “So, Averill has a sister named for the saint, about whom he feels overwhelming guilt.” When Michel nodded, she asked. “And what of Casimir?”

  “Gilles de Rais had a grandfather who mistreated him. So did Estarlian. He was an orphan taken in by an old and perhaps cruel man. His grandfather died a little over a year ago, and the killings seem to have begun not long afterwards.”

  “A man most ancient and utterly corrupt…” Theo remembered.

  “Yes, there is something like that in Là Bas.”

  “Not only the book. Casimir said that to me the first time I met him. We both wore mourning, but he did not pretend to love his grandfather.”

  “It sounds as if he hated him.”

  “But is that enough to create a killer—a Gilles de Rais who destroys children?”

  “Fire invaded both their lives. Casimir lost his childhood home. Averill’s country estate burned to the ground not long ago.”

  “And Jules?” she asked again.

  “We’ve found no such parallel in his life, beyond the fascination with Satanism, which Charron and the baron both share.”

  “Casimir?”

  “Vipèrine said the baron had been to a Black Mass conducted by the infamous Abbé Boullan.”

  Theo thought that strange. Casimir had chastised Averill for his interest in the mass but had been to one himself. But if Casimir had told him that, Averill would have been all the more determined to go.

  “We have a room for questioning here as well as in the cells,” Michel told her. “Inspecteur Rambert will bring Monsieur Charron there.”

  Michel escorted her inside the interrogation room. The claustrophobic walls were stained yellow and reeked from tobacco smoke but this could not be as terrible as the cells. There was a small rectangular table with two chairs on either side. Theo stood waiting until Averill was led into the room, once more in manacles. Michel directed Averill to sit on the far side of the table. Theo sat and Michel took the chair beside her. Inspecteur Rambert remained to guard the door.

  Unexpectedly, Michel gave her the lead. “Tell him what has happened.”

  Theo swallowed hard. “Matthieu was kidnapped today, Averill.”

  Shock, horror, relief played across his face in quick succession. “Then…” he began.

  “No.” Theo broke in. “The killer has an accomplice.”

  “And so you would still be guilty,” Michel finished.

  Averill turned to look at him. “Because madness runs in my blood? Because I write poems about death?”

  “Perhaps,” Michel answered, then coldly, “Tell me about Corbeau.”

  Averill paled. Theo’s heart seemed to drain of blood with that paleness.

  “You know him,” Michel said coldly. “When I questioned you the other night, you remembered the name.”

  Averill spoke very carefully. “A few times we had a driver named Zacharie. Once I remember Casimir calling him le corbeau—he wore a large black coat that night, loose and flapping. It might have been this Zacharie’s last name or simply a poetic jest.”

  “No jest. His name is Zacharie Corbeau.”

  “He is involved in these murders?”

  “Yes, very. But not alone.”

  “I knew him only as a guide. He had an extensive knowledge of the more unusual brothels.” Averill realized the implication of that and scowled at Michel. “None with children—or none that we visited.”

  “You should not have lied.”

  “I did not lie!” Anger ignited in his eyes. “I was not sure he was the man you meant. I was not certain why you brought up his name. Why should I make myself look guiltier than I did already—or tangle someone else in your web?”

  He had not wanted to tangle Casimir, Theo realized.

  Averill slammed the desk with his fists. “I believed Vipèrine was the killer,”

  “For a time,” Michel said. “Then you only wished to believe it.”

  “You don’t know my mind. I feel like a child given a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces hidden.”

  “When did you last see Corbeau?”

  “He was often our driver a year ago but not so much recently.”

  “Your driver—and Casimir’s.”

  “Anyone can hire a carriage.”

  “All the victims are known to at least one of the Revenants,” Theo reminded him. Averill glared at her like an enemy, then looked away.

  “Tell me any link you know to these missing children.” Michel began to go through them in order, their names, their parents’ occupations, where they’d lived.

  As the names went by, Averill looked more horrified but still he battled. “Corbeau often drove us around Montmartre and many other places. But he did not clamber down and talk to children. Casimir did not halt the fiacre and point them out.”

  “Dondre,” Theo broke in. When Averill turned to her, she said. “Dondre was the boy who guided us through the catacombs.”

  Averill closed his eyes. He shuddered. “The catacombs.”

  “It must be Casimir,” Theo whispered, not wanting to believe it, except that it meant Averill was innocent.

  He shook his head vehemently, refusing to look at her. “No.”

  Theo reached out and took his hands, grateful that Michel did not stop her. “Matthieu will be tortured and murdered. Help us.”

  He raised his head and met her gaze, hiding nothing. “How can I accuse him?”

  “Did Casimir give you Là Bas?” Michel asked.

  “Yes. But that was years ago. He even researched the archives,” Averill paused, totally puzzled. He turned to Michel again. “Why do you keep battering me with Gilles de Rais?”

  “Why do you think?”

  Averill looked faintly sick. “He kidnapped and murdered little children—but that was centuries ago.”

  “And the winged cross?” Michel asked.

  “The one you showed me on the gravestone?” Averill paused. “And there was the other one by the Seine.”

  Michel only watched him, looking for some crack in the façade. So Theo told him, “Both Inspecteur Devaux and I discovered that the killer is signing his work with Gilles de Rais’ emblem.”

  Averill looked back at Michel. “I thought the name was only a metaphor for evil—but you were trying to provoke me.”

  “Yes, I was trying to provoke you. The name has taken on new life.”

  Hesitantly, Averill said, “Once or twice, he asked if I’d ever been tempted to kill.”

  “And you answered?”

  “Only my father.” Averill’s voice was caustic. “It was café conversation. Nietzsche’s concept of the superman. Rimbaud’s disordering of the senses to achieve deep
er knowledge.”

  “Didn’t you ask if he’d been tempted to kill?” Michel asked.

  “Yes.” Again Averill paused. “He said he hated his grandfather as much as I do my father.”

  “Before his death?” Michel asked.

  “Do you think—?” Theo broke off. As terrible as such a murder would have been, the children were worse.

  “He was an old man…he fell down the stairs and broke his neck,” Averill said.

  “Did Casimir ask why you did not surrender to temptation?” Michel asked.

  “I said the sin would bury my soul alive,” Averill replied stiffly.

  Theo sensed there was more. “And what did Casimir answer?”

  “He said sin was the way to enter the furthest reaches of darkness.” Averill had stopped naming Casimir. “He said that only in utter darkness could you find your way to the pure and burning light, the holy fire that transfigures the soul.”

  Michel leaned forward, intent. “There was a fire at Casimir’s estate when he was a child.”

  “Yes. He said more than once that he should have died in that fire and instead…” Averill stopped abruptly.

  “Someone else died there?” Michel asked at once.

  “A servant girl who took care of him. He loved her. She was good to him—took terrible beatings for him.”

  Theo’s vision came to life in her mind. She saw the girl in the white nightgown running through the halls. She heard the child weeping. “Jeanne. Her name was Jeanne.”

  Averill looked at her, desolation on his face. “Yes,” he whispered. “She burned to death in the fire. Casimir could hear her screams. He had nightmares about her sometimes.”

  “Casimir is the killer.” Theo had no doubt now. She remembered him watching the Bazar de la Charité burn, tears streaming down his face. Fire is a terrible way to die.

  Averill leaned toward her. “I remember now—Casimir said Jeanne called him her Dauphin, her little prince. He told her he would rather ride to war by her side, her soldier, defending her as she defended him.”

  “Her Gilles de Rais,” Theo whispered, sick with pity and terror.

  There was a silence. Then Michel stood. “I believe it, but it is not proven. Monsieur Charron, you will be escorted back to the infirmary while we search for him.”