City of Light (City of Mystery)

by Kim Wright

  “May I offer you tea?” he asked.

  The girl winced. “Do you have something more…A glass of wine, perhaps?”

  Trevor was shocked. A woman taking wine with no meal and so early in the day? But of course she was American, her odd flat accent reminding him of that within a mere nine words, and there was no telling how they did such things over there. He nodded and walked back to wrench open the door into the foyer where he found, not entirely to his surprise, Geraldine waiting with wide expectant eyes.

  “I sent Claire to the market,” Geraldine whispered. “She behaves as if she doesn’t understand what we say, but you never know. It seems that the British always claim to speak French when they really don’t, and that the French always claim they don’t speak English when they really do. For all we know that sinister little slip of a maid is a spy, and I promised Miss Mallory absolute discretion. Does she want tea?”

  “She wants wine.”

  Geraldine arched an eyebrow. “She struck me as having a rather anxious disposition.”

  “She does indeed.”

  “Wine for you as well?”

  Trevor shook his head. “No, but you might consider a small sip for yourself.”

  Geraldine bustled off on her mission and Trevor returned to the sitting room. Perhaps in light of the girl’s obvious distress, positioning himself directly opposite her would be too confrontational. He smiled as he walked towards her - the smile was not returned – and then opted to sit beside her on the small divan, as if this were merely a friendly visit. Unfortunately he had never before lowered his considerable bulk to this particular piece of furniture and was unaware that the divan was constructed in such a manner that he would immediately roll toward the girl. He grasped the armrest just in time to avoid touching her, a mishap which likely would have sent her shrieking from the room.

  “Rayley wrote of meeting you on the fateful morning that you all climbed the tower,” Trevor began, looking over his shoulder as he gamely continuing to clutch the armrest with both hands. “He was of the impression that Patrick Graham was determined to befriend you.”

  Marjorie nodded. “Graham came to see me that afternoon. Which would have also been, I suppose, two days before he died.”

  “A social call?”

  A dismissive toss of the head, sending her wispy curls bouncing. “All the foreign reporters keep a desk at the press office. Graham dropped by mine, sat himself down on the edge of it without invitation, and proceeded to tell me a rather fantastical story. At the time I thought he was only boasting, trying to impress me. He was the type who…you know...whenever he was with women…”

  “I believe I understand,” said Trevor, still struggling to contain himself and avoid pressing her thigh against his. “Rayley’s description of the man was most through. So what did Graham tell you?”

  “That the Englishmen who are giving such great sums of money to the French Exposition are not doing so willingly. They are being blackmailed by a man named Armand Delacroix.”

  Trevor rolled back in his seat, no longer caring if this meant his body touched that of the girl’s. He was both surprised and not surprised at this rapid confirmation of his theory, but before he could ask Marjorie anything else, Geraldine entered with a glass of white wine on a tray. She lowered the tray to Marjorie, who took the glass, drained it in a single gulp, and returned it to the tray with a delicate shudder.

  “Another?” Geraldine innocently asked. Marjorie wiped her mouth with her fingertips while Trevor nodded on her behalf.

  “And did he tell you why they were being blackmailed?” Trevor asked, when Geraldine had again left the room.

  “Graham claimed he didn’t know. At least not yet. But he said he was determined to find out and then, on Monday, when I heard his body had been pulled from the river…” Marjorie leaned back too, blinking her eyes rapidly. “I’m not a coward, Detective.”

  “Of course not,” Trevor said soothingly, although he had no idea why she should feel compelled to make this particular declaration. American women were certainly a flock of odd ducks.

  “I’m not a coward,” Marjorie repeated, but her voice was lower this time, as if she were speaking to herself and not to him. “I asked a few questions around the press room and the first thing I learned was that Armand Delacroix is married to Isabel Delacroix, the other woman who had come along on the tower ascent. So what was I left to conclude but that Graham and Isabel must have shared some sort of conversation on that, just as you say, fateful morning. Perhaps he had slipped somehow and told her more than he’d intended. Or, who knows, for the man was impulsive, especially when women were around, perhaps he had directly confronted her with his knowledge that her husband was a blackmailer. But he must have said something to her that she repeated to Armand, for now Graham was dead, tossed in the Seine like a load of trash.”

  “Trash?”

  She paused to think. “Rubbish.”

  “Ah. Yes.”

  She was blinking tears again. “I wired my editor but he told me to leave it alone. Said this sort of business isn’t my affair, and it’s not what our audience in New York wants to read. Said I’ve been sent to Paris to write about fashion and art and architecture and wonderful new inventions. It’s my job, he wires back, to extol the wonders of the Exhibition, to praise the city of light.”

  “City of light?”

  “That’s what they call Paris,” Marjorie said. “That’s what they want all of us call it. God knows they’ve made that plain enough.” She gave a bitter little laugh. “We’ve been indoctrinated at every turn that our function is to write about parties and pastries and the new republic, not some squalid tale of bodies floating down the Seine.” She looked Trevor directly in the eyes, for the first time since they had met. “Because it must be something very dark, don’t you think? Delacroix is apparently blackmailing quite a few men and for significant sums of money. So whatever he knows about them has to be absolutely dreadful. I remember Graham sitting there on the corner of my desk saying, ‘It must be damning information, Marjorie. Damning indeed.’”

  “You didn’t by any chance tell this story to Rayley Abrams, did you?”

  Geraldine was back with the wine. She handed the glass directly to Marjorie this time and then retreated, pausing at the door to raise her eyebrows at Trevor. But when he pointedly ignored her mute question, she gave an audible sigh and slipped back into the hall.

  Marjorie took a sizable sip and gazed thoughtfully into the distance. “I didn’t get the opportunity. After I heard that they’d found Graham’s body, I started thinking. Of all the people who went up the tower that morning, everyone was a reporter, a photographer, or an employee of the Otis Elevator company. Everyone except two, that is – your friend Detective Abrams and Isabel Delacroix.”

  “Rayley introduced himself to the group as a detective?” Trevor asked with surprise.

  Marjorie gave him a small smile, genuine this time. “Of course not. He was trying to avoid drawing attention, so in an elevator crammed full of braggarts and busybodies his very modesty singled him out. We pride ourselves on getting the story, Detective Welles, so I venture that by the time the elevator had risen to the base of the tower, every reporter in it had silently vowed to discover the true identity of Rayley Abrams.” Now she openly chuckled. “The poor man would have been far less intriguing if he had donned a red dance dress and put feathers in his hair. I knew he was Scotland Yard by noon and I daresay all the others did as well.”

  Marjorie took another sip of wine, and then another. “And Detective Abrams knew all about Isabel Delacroix, didn’t he? That was why he was with us in the first place, because he was following her. He was aware of her connections, and that her husband Armand was practicing extortion against a circle of important British men. But tell me this. Had he discovered more than Patrick Graham? Did Abrams know exactly what sort of dirt Armand had dug up on the British?”

  Trevor hesitated. It was trivial in light of all that
had happened, but for some reason he was unwilling to publically confess that the reporter had learned more than the detective. “My dear Miss Mallory,” he said. “I have no idea the extent of what Detective Abrams knew or suspected. My team and I were in London when the things you have described transpired and our communications with Rayley were sporadic and incomplete.”

  The wine must have finally begun to work its effects on Marjorie Mallory’s system, for this time she made no effort to hold back the tears which sprang to her eyes. “I went to the police and asked for him,” she said, her voice a hiccuping whisper. “Knew I should tell him what Graham had told me just in case…Just in case he somehow didn’t know. But they said he wasn’t in that day. They told me that they had no idea where he’d gone or when he’d be back.”

  “And that news must have frightened you badly,” Trevor said with sympathy. She was trembling again and he considered taking her hand.

  “Detective Abrams was so kind to me that day we went up, all of us crammed in that horrid loud elevator,” Marjorie said, letting her head loll back a bit. “He even tried to shield me from Patrick Graham. But then, when the doors finally opened, it was like a scene from a fairy tale, Detective Welles, nothing but air and excitement, as if we all really had found the city of light. Everyone was taking my picture. We were laughing. I would never have believed that, within days, three of us would be gone.”

  “Three of you? I know Graham is dead and Abrams is missing –“

  Her head snapped up with surprise. “So you haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “Isabel Delacroix has disappeared from Paris. No one claims to have seen her since the same night that Detective Abrams vanished. One of the rumors in the press corps office is that Abrams gave her a police escort back to London, personally ensuring her passage across the channel.”

  “I can assure you that rumor isn’t true,” said Trevor.

  “And another is that she found her way back to London on her own.”

  “Possible,” conceded Trevor, mentally making a note that they should look for Isabel’s name as well as Armand’s in the dockmaster rosters. “But it seems to me more plausible that she is simply hiding here in Paris. She’s wealthy, is she not? That always helps.”

  Marjorie shrugged. “She’s married to a wealthy man, which is a bit different. Her bills may be promptly paid, but that doesn’t mean she has cash in pocket. Women live…we live differently than you do, Detective Welles. For even when we seem to be firmly ensconced in the lap of luxury, there is always the knowledge that this lap can drop out from under us the very instant a man decides to stand up and leave.”

  Trevor was slightly startled by the cynicism of this statement, even more shocked than by the rapid disappearance of the wine in the girl’s glass. “But Isabel has connections with wealthy people, at least, friends to whom she could turn. There are any number of places where she might take refuge.”

  “I suppose,” Marjorie conceded. “No one has laid odds on that notion yet. I hope it won’t shock you to learn that newspaper reporters bet on the outcome of stories. We truly are the pack of hyenas that everyone proclaims us to be.”

  “I’m not shocked,” Trevor said. “Detectives do the same thing.”

  “Really? That must be how you won your handsome suit.”

  They sat for a minute in awkward silence while Trevor tried to decide if she was flirting with him or if, more likely, she was merely tipsy.

  “And the third theory of what has become of Rayley and Isabel?” Trevor finally asked. “It seems such rumors always come in counts of three.”

  Marjorie blinked rapidly and drained her glass of wine.

  “Indeed,” said Trevor.

  5:05 PM

  Emma paced on the sidewalk outside the apartment, waiting for Tom. It was taking him a long time to simply send a telegram and when she finally saw him making his way down the street it was clear he had stopped off for a drink, or more likely two. It was scarcely her job to keep count of how much alcohol Tom consumed in the course of a day, but it most certainly was a great deal, and even more disturbing than the volume was his tendency to try and hide it. He would often do precisely this – slip out on some errand, be gone longer than anticipated, and return slightly blurred and a half-beat behind his normally brisk conversational pace. For a man as bright as Tom, a half-beat behind was still faster than most, so he was generally able to conceal his afternoon trips to the pub. Emma doubted if anyone other than her had ever noticed.

  Now he was smiling, raising one finger to his lips as he approached her, in a gesture of childish secrecy.

  “And why is my fair Emma out waiting for me here in the street?” he asked. “Do you have some sort of confidence to share? Or are you simply wishing for a few private moments with your fiancé before we make our first public appearance as a betrothed couple?”

  “Oh yes, yes that,” Emma said distractedly. It had been such a bizarre day that she had entirely forgotten that this evening she would be expected to don her flesh-colored gown and convince a room full of strangers that she was the fiancé of a well-to-do doctor.

  “I do want to ask you something,” she went on. “Something I’m not prepared to say in front of Trevor. He’s too…protective, I suppose. I doubt he will ever consider me a full member of the team.”

  Tom nodded slowly and leaned against the filigreed gate. “He means well, but I understand what you’re saying. Isn’t it funny how the great champion of modern forensics has turned out to be such an old-fashioned man at heart? I take it that you have some theory you wish to put forward, but that you think might be better if it comes from me.”

  “Actually I have a theory that I want you to help me test.”

  At this point they saw Claire resentfully trudging toward them with a sack from the market.

  “Ah, Claire,” Tom said as she neared, and he proceeded to tell her that if a telegram should come for him that evening that she should send it on immediately to the home of Madame Seaver.

  “Your French is perfectly fine,” Emma said, when Claire had nodded and gone up the steps to the front door. “The Tuesday Night Murder Games Club doesn’t really need me here at all.”

  “This sort of self pity isn’t like you,” Tom said, taking her arm and leading her away from the gate. “You’re an entirely vital member of the team, as you know full well.” He looked at her closely. “What’s really on your mind? Will your smart new navy dress survive a sit on the steps, do you think? Or should we stroll while we talk?”

  Emma trembled for a second, partly from her agitation, and partly from the fact that Tom was standing so close. Even when mildly intoxicated, he still saw her more clearly than anyone else. He did not remember the night they had collapsed into each other’s arms last fall and would most likely never remember it, at least not consciously. But on some deeper level there was a connection between the two of them that had been forged during their singular evening as lovers, a sort of instinctive understanding that defied rational analysis.

  “There’s one fact that everyone knows, everyone agrees upon,” said Emma, making a concerted effort to pull her attention back to the subject at hand. “That both the unidentified body of the boy-girl and the body of Graham were found at approximately the same point along the Seine and that neither had been in the water long. So it would make sense that they were both released from the same place as well, would it not?”

  “Here,” said Tom. “Sit.” He took off his jacket and spread it across the third marble step. Emma, noting that the fashionably thin Parisian skirt severely inhibited her movement, slowly lowered herself down with a swiveling moment while Tom carelessly plopped beside her. “There’s a bridge very close to where the bodies were found,” Tom said. “The assumption has always been that this was where they must have entered the water.”

  “Yes, I know, but remember what Trevor says about assumptions,” Emma said. “Besides, those theories originated when the firs
t body was discovered. At that point the authorities believed they were dealing with a suicide, ergo someone who had jumped, so of course the police would focus their attention on the most likely place that a suicide would choose, which is a bridge. But now that the boy-girl and Graham as well, have been deemed the victims of murder, it seems it is time to revisit the original assumption.”

  “Quite so,” Tom said, beginning to see her point. “If you had murdered someone, or had rendered them unconscious by chloroform, you would hardly need to throw them from a bridge. In fact, given the amount of foot traffic the average city bridge sustains, that would be the least sensible way to dispose of their body. More likely you would simply carry them to the riverbank and put them in the water.”

  “The more I’ve thought about it,” Emma said with a nod, “the more convinced I’ve become that the important part of the puzzle isn’t where the bodies came out of the river, but rather where they went in. What do the riverbanks of the Seine look like?”