City of Light (City of Mystery)

by Kim Wright

  “Plausible as far as it goes,” Emma said. “But can’t you see how the two strands might be connected? Let’s consider the timeline. According to his letters, Rayley first meets Isabel while in the company of the newspaper writer Patrick Graham. She sees them talking and approaches them both at the same time, extending a rather abrupt and unlikely offer of friendship. Graham is invited to climb the tower as part of a select group of the press chosen to witness first-hand what all this invested money has wrought for Paris. But was even this much accidental? If Isabel is as tightly tied to the network of investors as Gerry has theorized her to be, then she likely knew that part of the business of that evening was to invite the journalists to inspect the tower. She maneuvers a way to be standing beside the men when the invitation is issued and, quite by course, she becomes included in the plan.”

  “Yes, but to what end?” Tom asked. “Isabel, Rayley, and Graham all tour the tower together. They agree it’s a marvel, they admire it, they grow dizzy from the altitude, and then they come down. As far as we know, that’s the end of the story. Even if the situation was contrived to lure Rayley and Graham along, I can’t fathom what the benefit would be for either Isabel or the man who might be using her as bait.”

  “Neither can I,” Emma admitted. “At least not so far. But the truth remains that within days of this event Graham is murdered and Rayley disappears. I refuse to accept that as mere coincidence.”

  “Now that much I’ll admit,” Tom said. “Making the acquaintance of Isabel Blout seems to be a very dangerous hobby for men and the reason is undoubtedly tied to her lover and his pool of secret investors. Graham was a reporter, Rayley a detective. Evidently they had each discovered something unsavory, or at least someone feared they might be on the verge of it. “

  “The answers to all these questions lead back through Isabel,” Geraldine said decisively. “Trouble follows the girl and always has. Trevor, do stop pretending to sleep and tell us what you think of all this.”

  Trevor opened his eyes and gave a rueful laugh. “If you and Emma can discover the role the Blout woman plays in the intrigue, it could prove useful indeed. But I do not intend to fully drop my identity as a Scotland Yard detective. Rayley wrote that he had earned the respect of at least one French officer so it might prove equally useful to contact the man and see if he can shed any light on the Graham case.”

  “Then you shall be a detective by day and my honorary nephew by night,” Geraldine said. She attempted to uncross her ankles but the four of them were so packed in the berth that any movement by one necessitated a shift by all the others. “The three of us are merely amateurs so we’ll need someone at our teas and parties who truly knows his craft.”

  Trevor slid a bit closer to the window and shook his head. “I could never pass as upper class.”

  “Of course you can,” Geraldine said. “Society is nothing more than a very long and rather boring theatrical, darling, and to succeed you must simply speak the right lines and look the part. We shall shop for Emma’s costume when we disembark in France and for men it’s even easier. One reasonably well-cut suit will do the trick.”

  “If Trevor and I are to pass as aristocrats, then ‘costume’ is quite the right word,” Emma said, with a light laugh. “I suppose Shakespeare said it best. ‘All the world’s a stage, the men and women merely players.’ But he wasn’t just speaking of class when he wrote those words. He was speaking of all the masks we wear - age, nationality, religion, race, gender.”

  “Strange to ponder,” Tom said, extracting a cigarette from a case, “that gender is but a role when it seems to be the core of everything we do in life. But then male actors played the female roles in Shakespeare’s time, did they not? And then of course there are all those comedies where brothers pretended to be their sisters and girls were costumed as boys. A male actor dressed as a woman who is pretending to be a man. It quite boggles the mind.”

  “He got the idea from watching his own children,” Emma said, her edginess softening a bit, as it so often seemed to when she was in conversation with Tom. “Shakespeare was the father of boy-girl twins and he used to watch how, in play, they would often switch roles and each pretend to be the other.”

  “Truly? I didn’t know that, but it strikes me as quite fascinating,” said Tom, exhaling smoke in the general direction of the window. “Although now that I think of it, when we were back in the nursery Leanna sometimes tired of only having brothers and would dress me in her clothes and proclaim me to be her little sister. William and Cecil would howl with laughter whenever they found me sitting at her tea table in petticoats and hair bows, having been strictly instructed to answer to nothing but ‘Beulah Jane.’ Gad, but they all used to torment me. ‘Tis the curse of the youngest brother, I suppose.”

  Geraldine and Emma chortled in amusement while Trevor observed the scene in silence. The rare mention of the names Cecil and Leanna may have briefly rang through the small compartment like church bells, but as usual, Tom had managed to divert any potential awkwardness with his easy charm. This is what I will shortly be called on to emulate, Trevor thought, and it has nothing to do with the cut of your clothes. It’s an unshakable belief in your own worth, complete confidence that, come what may, the world will always love you. Leanna and Geraldine have it too. The Bainbridge fortunes may have ebbed and surged throughout the years, but each member of the family had been born with an innate self-assurance that seemed to radiate from them on an almost cellular level. It was why Tom could so freely admit he didn’t know a certain fact about Shakespeare, why he cheerfully conjured an image of himself dressed in girls’ petticoats and perched at a tea table. He knew how to make himself the butt of the joke and then sit back to chuckle at his own folly. He doesn’t at all fear looking foolish, thought Trevor. Which is why he never will.

  “But Beulah Jane here proves my point – that all the things which we think define us are simply the roles that society, or perhaps our older sisters, have demanded we assume,” Emma said, arching her back in a futile attempt to stretch. “And so, presumably, we could drop these identities as easily as we once put them on.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Trevor said. “I am what I do. We all are.”

  “Nonsense,” Gerry said briskly. “Trevor, you simply must buck yourself up because Emma and Shakespeare have it quite right. When the gangplank drops at Calais we will descend as whomever and whatever we choose to be. And for the course of this trip, we shall play the roles of an addle-headed wealthy family who have come to carelessly gobble up the pleasures of Paris as if they were canapés on a plate. In the process we will toss money around like bait because this offers our best chance of finding Isabel, and, ultimately, Rayley.”

  “Very well,” said Trevor. One of the most annoying things about Gerry was how often she was right.

  “And don’t worry, Trevor,” Gerry said. “I’m sure you think I’m overstepping my bounds, but this sort of society, with all its silly rules and layers, is the one arena in which I have more experience than you. When we get to Paris, we shall all defer to your judgment on matters of detection and investigation, as always. You shall, as they say, call the shots.”

  “Certainly,” said Tom.

  Trevor nodded, wishing he believed them.

  “But before we dock, you have a choice to make, Emma,” Gerry said, with a wicked hint of a smile. “For the purposes of our little tableau will your fiancé be Trevor or Tom?”

  There was a beat of silence, brief but excruciating, before Tom leapt in.

  “Say you’ll be mine, darling,” he whispered loudly, bringing one of Emma’s small hands to his chest. “I’d drop to one knee, but there isn’t any room.”

  Emma laughed and nodded, glancing at Trevor as she did so. But he had once again leaned back and closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Paris

  9:20 PM

  After the crossing and the train ride from Calais to Paris, they were exhausted. The four of t
hem sat around a small table tucked in the corner of a café only a block from their new home. Emma had ordered for them, and apparently quite competently, but beyond this brief exchange, their conversation was limited. Emma repeatedly rubbed her temples, and Trevor seemed to have lost his appetite somewhere over the channel. Even Tom and Geraldine’s customary enthusiasm was muted.

  They had arrived to find the Paris apartment not at all as Trevor had pictured it in his mind. When Geraldine had described her third cousin on her mother’s side twice removed, or whatever the deuce the man was, she had called him a “confirmed bachelor.” It was a phrase she liked, one she’d used before to describe the aging George Blout, and for Trevor it painted images of the second sons of prominent families, men creating a comfortable sanctuary for themselves after years of military service or some foreign government post. Dark-paneled rooms with leather chairs that smelled faintly of tobacco and brandy, perhaps a suitable picture of a foxhunt on the walls. Instead they had been ushered into an almost obscenely colorful house, with rooms painted in gold, rose, citron, and aqua, each set of double doors swinging open to reveal yet another assault on the retina.

  Thanks to a flurry of telegrams back and forth between Geraldine and her cousin, the cloths had been pulled from all the furniture and the bed linens had been prepared. Someone had thoughtfully sent a collection of fruit and biscuits for their refreshment. Geraldine had said that her cousin was horrified by the changes being made to his beloved city and thus had fled Paris for the duration of the spring and summer to stay at his second home on the coast in Nice. It was a sentiment with which Trevor could sympathize, since he would have hated to watch his own motherland tart herself up for the eyes of outsiders. Besides, the fellow’s desire to avoid the Exposition was the very reason his apartment was available to them on such short notice.

  So Trevor’s intention was to be grateful, not critical, as the group stumbled wearily from room to room, led by a silent maid who apparently came with the place. But when he noted the seventh still life of blurry flowers, the eleventh lamp with tassels, and yet another wall painted robin’s egg blue, he’d been forced to come to a conclusion: The owner of this apartment was entirely too French for his own good.

  They had dropped their trunks and valises and retreated to this café. The tower, nearly finished now except for its final accusatory point, was visible from this street – probably visible, Trevor would guess, from half the streets of Paris. But that was rather the whole idea, was it not? Without speaking of it, their little group had elected to sit at a table near the back wall, with the view obscured. Gazing at the tower while they ate, and thus being forced to speculate on the role it had played in Rayley’s disappearance, was perhaps more stimulation than they could currently bear.

  Still, there were plans to be made for the morrow. The café had nearly emptied, so there was probably no danger in talking here. Trevor waited until their table was cleared, save for four small bowls of a very satisfying custard with a crunchy crust, and then he asked Geraldine “From the social standpoint, where would you suggest we begin?”

  She was ready. “With time so much of the essence, we can’t have our clothing custom made, but will be forced to depend on prêt-a-porter. Clothing bought ready made from a shop, dear,” she added, when Trevor frowned in doubt. “Quite good quality here in Paris, or so they claim. We shall select a suit for you in the morning and then on to a ladies’ shop to purchase gowns for Emma. We mustn’t tarry in terms of finding at least one suitable outfit for us all, because we are already in possession of our first invitation.”

  “Oh dear,” said Emma, rubbing her temples more vigorously.

  “A note came with the fruit,” Geraldine continued. “One of our neighbors is having a little party tomorrow night and will most kindly take the occasion to introduce us to her circle. It’s a start.”

  “And a good one,” Trevor said. “Once I have my costume – for I agree with Emma and refuse to see this clothing as anything other than such – I shall go to the Paris police and find Claude Rubois. Based on Rayley’s descriptions, he seems the most likely avenue of practical help. Who knows, Rayley may have confided in him more than we know, and Rubois may have theories that would prove useful.” He shifted to his right. “I would like it, Tom, if you come along and establish yourself firmly as part of the team. Who knows, they may even allow you to view Graham’s body.”

  “Of course,” said Tom. “It’s impossible to know what to expect, isn’t it? They might welcome us with the proverbial open arms or they could just as easily bounce us out on our ear.”

  “True,” said Trevor. “I don’t relish the thought of going to Rubois, hat in hand, with no way of predicting how he’ll react. It would seem we could find some means for the law enforcement entities to work together in cases where criminals are clearly trafficking from one country to the next. As it stands now, all a suspect has to do is make his way across a national border and he can begin his career anew.”

  “Perhaps that day shall come,” Geraldine said, reaching over to pat Trevor’s arm. “For this Exposition is the start of a new era, is it not? People shall more readily entertain the idea of traveling from place to place. All sorts of people, not merely the rich, and they will eventually come to see the whole of Europe as their home. In due time, we will develop a common language and a common currency, as befitting our small continent.”

  “All of Europe in collusion? The French and English claiming kinship? I bloody rather doubt it,” Trevor said. But he twisted in his seat to look toward the tower, nonetheless.

  9:55 PM

  Rayley had begun to awaken, if indeed awaken was the proper word, since he had the sensation he was breaking through layers of water, a drowning man rising instinctively toward the light. For a moment he lay motionless, his eyes still closed, waiting for the latest wave of nausea to engulf him. He managed to push this one down, but the sour odor of his shirt indicated that he had not been so successful on previous attempts.

  Gradually he allowed his eyelids to open. Wherever he’d been thrown was dark, very dark. He would have to rely on his other senses, at least until his vision adapted.

  He was lying on a cot and, from its unyielding nature, he believed he might be in some sort of prison or perhaps a military barrack. In the distance, he could hear the muffled suck of water which, compounded by the damp, musty smell of rocks and moss, led him to conclude that he was near a river.

  Most likely the Seine.

  Well, this was scarcely good news, was it?

  Another smell. Urine. His own. He had soiled himself like a child, and, judging by the size of the stiffened circle on the front of his trousers, evidently more than once. He felt thirst, most definitely, and beneath the queasy twisting of his stomach, a dull ache of hunger. Rayley cautiously turned his head. He could see more now, enough to conclude that the room was austere, devoid of all furnishings except his cot and a bucket tossed in the corner on its side.

  So what was a man to conclude from this evidence? That he had been drugged, most likely with the same chloroform that had been used to subdue Graham. That he had been taken to this small cell, which was, judging by the moistness of the walls and the amount of moss, at least partially underground and near a river. He had probably been here for some time already, at least long enough to repeatedly urinate and to grow hungry, with his unconsciousness most likely being sustained through repeated contact with more chloroform. Which meant that someone had been coming and going, ensuring that he did not fully awaken. If he had not eventually become nauseated and thus expunged some of the chemical from his system, he would doubtlessly still be asleep. It seemed likely that whoever’s job it was to render him pliant would shortly return.

  What day was it? What time? Was it even day or night? His eyes were at last beginning to adjust, courtesy of a small high window above his head, which was focusing a rectangle of light on the opposite wall. The glow was of the yellowish-green type emitted by Parisian ga
s lamps, certainly not the sun, and so it must be night. Which meant he had been in this room at least twenty-four hours, most likely forty-eight. Perhaps even, for his hunger and thirst were sharpening as his head began to clear, seventy-two.

  As if to mock his primitive calculations, a church bell began to toll. Ten chimes.

  So it was ten o’clock on the evening of either April 24, 25, or 26. He was still in Paris. And he was still alive - something to ponder as well. Graham must have been killed shortly after he was taken but, for whatever reason, Rayley had not. He was being kept alive, drugged but alive, for some possible use in the future, although he had not the slightest notion of what it might be.

  Rayley struggled to sit, but could not find the strength. Even this slight exertion had sent his head swimming and he sank back onto the small cot, an involuntary cry slipping from his lips. And then, as if the church bells had been the cue, the door to his cell began to slide open.