Murder in July

by Barbara Hambly

  He’s in hiding. If it was simply gambling debts he’d speak to his father, and have his creditors turned away, as he has for years.

  This is a man hiding for his life. Hiding until someone else is convicted, and executed, for his crime.

  These thoughts were in his mind as the carriage began moving again, and January gently nudged his borrowed black horse after it, trusting in the clatter of eight hooves, the jangling of trace-chains and cobblestones, to cover his own mount’s iron tread. The dim glow of the carriage lamps bobbed before him, moving east. Damn it, they’re heading for the Barrier du Trône.

  Already they were moving through the grim tenements, the smelly wet streets and low warehouses of the Faubourg St-Antoine. That’s all I’ll need, reflected January. To be ambushed by the local toughs. The men at the customs house will let through a coach and pair but if I’m anywhere near enough to them to follow them on the Vincennes road they’ll stop me for a highwayman, and little wonder …

  He reined into the darkness of the houses as the carriage rattled into the faint starlight of the Place de la Bastille, the huge absurdity of Napoleon’s plaster elephant looming against the night.

  ‘Malik …’ Ayasha’s sharp whisper came at the same moment that he heard hooves clack the cobbles behind him. January swung around in the saddle. ‘You go around to the Barrier de Bercy. I’ll keep behind them here, tell the gate guards a tale.’

  January veered off at once, following the tangle of dirt streets towards the canal, then swung east again along the river to where the palings of the city customs ‘wall’ stood like a finicking reminder of the government’s unpitying demands, and revolutions be damned. In the daytimes the barriers – or more accurately, the areas just beyond the barriers – were lively places, taverns and cafés thriving just beyond the city tax-collection line. Now in the deep of night a few lamps were still lit, and young gentlemen laughed and toasted the girls who’d walked out with them in the clammy warmth of the summer evening. Someone played a guitar in a little estaminet, and a girl sang some raucous ballad about sausages.

  January put his horse’s head to the north, and spurred back through the fields and lanes toward the Vincennes road where it ran through the little village of Picpus, farmhouse dogs barking at him as he passed.

  In the drumming rain, the flickering candlelight of his plaster-smelling parlor – in this other world, this other life – he looked back on that distant, sweltering night. That former self, riding at a hand-gallop and trusting to the night eyes and good sense of his borrowed horse, with the moon barely more than a fingernail hanging above the dark trees. We can’t lose her, he remembered thinking. We have to keep her in sight. Follow her to the young man who killed his brother, the young man who put Anne in danger of her life.

  He remembered how it had felt, to know that he had his quarry in sight at last. To know that this one final knot would be unraveled, and then Anne would be safe, and all would be well.

  Ayasha was there, in the main street of Picpus, a dark shape against the pale daub of the cottages, a hundred feet or so from where he emerged from a back lane. She signaled him with her lantern and then trotted to him. ‘Down here.’ Another lane snaked away, and January could see the dim orange spot of lamp-flame in a window, and the whisper of moonlight on the coach’s pale panels. ‘The driver’s on the box, but he’s rugged the horses.’ Her voice was barely a murmur in his ear. ‘They’ll be there for a while.’

  January slid from the saddle. Ayasha tied their own mounts outside a shut-up inn – as he’d ridden cross-country January had heard one o’clock strike from the village church – and the two of them slipped through back lanes and across somebody’s garden, until the lights of the house, the largest on this side of the village and the only one still illuminated, shone before them. He signed Ayasha to stay outside, in the little orchard behind the house, pistol in her hand, then slipped through one of the wide kitchen windows. They were not yet shuttered, and like the American houses back in New Orleans, French dwellings had their kitchens as part of the main building, separated from the front rooms only by a wide, sanded passage.

  He heard no sound as he moved quietly along toward what had to be the door of the room at the front. Doors to his left and his right – servants’ rooms? Does he dare have servants? And if so, how many? He rubbed gingerly at the bruises, still swollen and painful, on his shoulder and ribs.

  Without a sound, he pushed gently at the door.

  Two candles burned on the small, plain table in the center of the room. Their light picked triangles of flame in the jewels that lay beside them, the moon and three stars, and the gems of a necklace, coiled like a glittering little snake around a dueling pistol. The woman kneeling before the pale bulk of a chair near the window had let her hair down, and the man seated in the chair, his face against her shoulder, had both hands buried in that river of dark silk. For a moment January only looked at them, clinging together, as he and Ayasha would cling on those endless sweet evenings by the open window of their rooms …

  Then the man raised his head sharply, and the woman turned, and her hand went for the gun.

  January saw the resemblance to Philippe de la Marche at once. Celestin’s face reminded January rather of an unbaked loaf, round and soft-looking, decorated with a sparse Van Dyke beard of the sort which was just beginning to be popular again. His eyes, in the gloom, seemed weary and his mouth twisted a little, in exasperation rather than fear.

  He wore, January saw, mourning black.

  Phaedre Hirondelle stepped back from her lover, pistol leveled on January, her body stiff with anger and pride. ‘It’s your father’s Negro—’

  Celestin touched her wrist, shook his head.

  January, his own pistol in hand, had been about to snap, ‘Don’t call out—’ but didn’t. Neither of them seemed about to do so.

  ‘Oh, put that away,’ said Celestin. ‘I’m sure Father didn’t order you to haul me back to Noisette at gunpoint. You, too, beloved. And it’s no good anyway.’

  He stood, and the opera singer – not releasing her weapon, but lowering it to her side – took his arm defensively. He drew her close, his left hand moving to cover hers.

  ‘Tell my father – with my compliments – that whatever he does, I will not marry Mademoiselle de Taillefer. If he annuls my marriage to Mademoiselle Hirondelle – to Madame—’ he tightened his arm, pressing the woman’s hands against his ribs – ‘I will only re-marry her in two weeks, and there will be nothing he can do about that.’

  SIXTEEN

  January lowered his weapon. ‘Marry her?’

  In that first moment all he felt was a sense of let down, of exasperation – and of enlightenment. He knew of, and had often heard Ayasha expiate upon, the French law which permitted the heads of noble houses to annul the marriages which their sons might make, up until the age of twenty-four. A law doubtless enacted precisely to keep fresh-faced boys like Tin-Tin from marrying opera singers.

  He even remembered someone saying recently that Philippe’s younger brother was twenty-three …

  ‘Before the priest at the church of St-Christophe, in Creteil.’ La Hirondelle raised her chin, and January saw, despite her defiance, the glimmer of tears in her eyes.

  And in the next moment the meaning of the whole chain of events crashed down on him, like an avalanche, like the roof of a collapsing building.

  Only it was not he, he understood, who was in danger of perishing in the ruins.

  ‘And your twenty-fourth birthday is …?’

  ‘The thirtieth of August.’ The new Vicomte de la Marche frowned at the question. It was something any of his father’s servants might be expected to know.

  The day Anne will go before the juge d’instruction.

  ‘Were you with madame—’ he inclined his head just slightly to the singer – ‘on the night of July twenty-seventh? You were seen at Au Mandragore on the twenty-sixth,’ he added. ‘Though your parents claimed in the Gazette that you we
re at Noisette. The twenty-seventh was the night that we believe your brother was actually killed.’

  Celestin’s mouth fell open in shock, in the moment before outrage flared in his eyes. It was Hirondelle’s turn now to silence him, which she did with a quick squeeze of his arm.

  ‘He was with me,’ she said. ‘Both on the twenty-seventh and on the night before. And no,’ she added, as if she read January’s next thought, ‘I’m not playing the opera heroine here, M’sieu …?’

  ‘Janvier.’

  ‘M’sieu Janvier. Any of the girls in the ballet, or any of the stagehands, can tell you that M’sieu de Gourgue – M’sieu le Vicomte,’ she corrected herself, with a sudden grimace of distress, ‘waited backstage for me on the Monday night, and was with me on the Tuesday, dressed very much not in his best, at the house of Claud Boulanger – the assistant director of the Opera ballet – in Vincennes. The man who owns this house, in fact.’

  ‘Does my father honestly think,’ De la Marche broke into her words, nearly breathless with indignation and disbelief, ‘that I would … Would what? Murder my brother? I was angry at him of course: who wouldn’t be? It was only a matter of time before he would have dragged our name through the police courts! And knowing what he did with … with those boys he took up, and with that degenerate wretch of a Jew banker’s son, I prayed nightly for his soul.’

  ‘The murder of a brother,’ replied January softly, ‘is quite literally the oldest crime in the world, monsieur. Forgive me for coming to the wrong conclusion when the other obvious suspects were proved to have been elsewhere.’

  ‘Even Ben-Gideon’s wife?’

  ‘Do you know Anne Ben-Gideon?’

  The young vicomte shook his head.

  ‘I do. And believe me, she would not have—’

  ‘But she sent him a note,’ said Celestin. ‘A note to lure him to a meeting with her. Or to lure her husband, I … I don’t know really which of them she intended to kill …’

  January could only shake his head. ‘She never sent such a thing.’

  ‘She did,’ insisted the young man. ‘Her maid saw her write a note that morning. And Laurent – one of the Ben-Gideon footmen – took it in and laid it on the hall table. She must have known my brother would be there. It had “Urgent” written on the outside, Laurent says.’

  ‘You’ve seen this note?’ January fumbled through his memories: Anne, Tuesday morning, at the Palais Royale, an English hunting-rifle on her back and the little silver muff pistol stuck in her tricolor sash. Gerry O’Dwyer hovering respectfully at her elbow.

  Daniel ducking into the house behind the St-Denis barricade later that afternoon: The dear boy is as beautiful as an angel but has no sense whatsoever …

  ‘Anne was on the barricades,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t know what time she set forth that morning. Was the note written in pen or in pencil?’

  The young vicomte shook his head. ‘I didn’t see it. But Laurent swears such a note was delivered, and that it wasn’t there after my brother left Ben-Gideon’s house.’

  ‘Laurent was hired by your father,’ protested January. ‘As was Madame Ben-Gideon’s maid—’

  ‘To protect them,’ returned Celestin. ‘Naturally. Can you imagine going to the law with such knowledge, if you were still at the mercy of that family? By what I have heard, if Moses Ben-Gideon knows what a scruple is, he hides the knowledge well. And that poor fool Armand, madame’s brother … I think he would say anything to destroy testimony against his sister. I have spoken to Laurent,’ he added quietly. ‘And to Liane Pichon. You say you know Madame Ben-Gideon, but how well do you know her? Liane says she hated Philippe like poison. Hated her husband as well, for disgracing her before the whole of society. How could she fail to do so? He’s the one who drove her to take lovers—’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ January snapped, and bit back a comment – which would have helped nothing – about the upcoming disgrace in the de Gourgue family when it was revealed that they now numbered an opera singer in their ranks.

  ‘It is ridiculous, Tin-Tin.’ Phaedre Hirondelle put a hand on her husband’s wrist. ‘No man drives a woman to misbehave herself … certainly not a woman of so strong a character as madame. And that note Laurent saw – and you will admit, m’sieu,’ she added, turning to January, ‘that Madame Ben-Gideon’s hand is a distinctive one – could have been anything. She might have written any number of notes that morning. Myself, I would not believe the word of a woman’s maidservant, particularly when she has been hired by that woman’s enemies. Or the girl could have been unsure as to the date. It is easy for a new mistress to push one’s recollections one way or the other, if one is afraid for one’s own livelihood.’

  The velvet swags of her hair shifted across her shoulders as she shook her head, and her eyes were dark with the recollection of, perhaps, her own days of fear.

  ‘But unfortunately I am not the juge d’instruction. And unfortunately, the note no longer exists. It was undoubtedly in Madame Ben-Gideon’s hand, Laurent says—’ she glanced for confirmation to her young husband, who nodded – ‘which Laurent knows quite well, of course. It was sealed hastily with a wafer, he says, and the word, “Urgent” was written across the face of it …’

  ‘Urgent?’

  The young man nodded. ‘My mother would have it,’ he said, ‘that Ben-Gideon destroyed it, rather than have his wife accused—’

  ‘Not an action,’ put in La Hirondelle, ‘one would look to see, if his wife had murdered his lover.’

  Celestin shook his head, his face suddenly tight with grief. ‘I don’t know what to think,’ he admitted. ‘Everyone at Noisette was talking about it, and accusing madame … My father shut himself up in his room for hours, weeping, I think … He never weeps. And then that horrible old Taillefer and his wife started asking, What about the marriage? Father …’ He hesitated, twisting the fingers of his right hand with his left, then raising his hands to stroke and straighten his moustaches, as if he feared they would come loose.

  ‘Father loved Philippe very much,’ he went on after a time. ‘But he has all his life thought first of his land, of the heritage of our family. He has recently entered into business partnership with the marquis, on the strength of an understanding that my brother would marry Mademoiselle Marie. Here,’ he said suddenly. ‘I speak of the honor of my family and I don’t even offer you refreshment … Please, sit down.’

  He looked a little helplessly at his bride. ‘I have no idea what sort of amenities Boulanger left for us here—’

  ‘I’ll look.’ La Hirondelle picked up one of the candles. To January, she said, ‘Of course Milord the Comte has had his grooms out looking for M’sieu le Vicomte – and I do beg your pardon, for I know Roquille – my coachman – and the two stagehands who’ve been helping him guard me treated you roughly. But they’d seen you asking questions around the Place des Victoires, and de Belvoire can be unscrupulous. Particularly with a woman whom he considers a danger to his family.’

  She shook her head. From playing for her at Opera rehearsal, January knew her to be exacting where her art was concerned, and more knowledgeable about music than many of his fellow musicians. Looking now at the strong lines of her face, he suspected that she was several years older than her bridegroom – whether Tin-Tin knew it or not – and that she’d be the brains of the marriage.

  ‘For nearly a month we have had to be completely invisible,’ she said. ‘I have sung, and rehearsed, and behaved precisely as I always have, but from time to time I know I’ve been followed, and not only by yourself, m’sieu. Though for two years now my husband has been tucking money away in different banks to take us through this time, because of poor M’sieu Philippe’s death, Celestin hasn’t been able to show his face anywhere in Paris where he could be recognized. He has keys to all his father’s properties, and in them I’ll leave information as to where and how he can find the packets I leave, of money, and instructions as to where I have found for him to stay. Food, too,
sometimes, if the house or the apartment or wherever it is, is vacant. Sometimes our friends are good enough to leave food and wine, but it is always something of a surprise, like a bean in a twelfth-night cake.’

  She disappeared into the dark of the kitchen passage. January saw how her young husband followed her with adoring eyes. Turning back to January, he said, ‘I apologize for my anger earlier. I thought – we all thought – that Philippe …’ His voice cracked a little on his brother’s name, and he pulled himself together with an effort. ‘We thought he had left Paris. He said he was going to, when the trouble started. It was Friday before our parents heard he was … heard what had happened – and by Saturday, they were planning my wedding.’

  He shook his head, not in amazement, but in a sort of pain, like a horse tormented by biting flies. Then he managed a wry little smile. ‘It’s ungallant of me to say so of any woman, but it was always quite clear – to me, at least – that Mademoiselle Marie had no affection for my brother. She didn’t really care whether he was a sodomite or an assassin or a drunkard. Her only concern was that he would one day be the Comte de Belvoire, and she would have a wealthy establishment of her own.’

  ‘And for all the girl’s tantrums and spite,’ added La Hirondelle quietly, returning with a tray containing bread, cheese, some wine glasses and a chunk of paté wrapped in paper, ‘from what I have heard of her mother I can scarcely blame the girl for wanting to escape.’ When she passed close to him, her hair smelled of sandalwood. ‘Did you bring other bravos with you, M’sieu Janvier? I have water boiling for coffee.’

  Ayasha was beckoned in, with the signal January had long established meaning: ‘All is really well’, and she listened with somber eyes to the true story of Celestin’s flight and concealment. In her stillness, January could tell that she knew what it meant.

  ‘The thing is,’ said the vicomte diffidently, ‘my father is not a man to take “No” for an answer. He put tremendous pressure on Philippe – not about his way of life, but earlier, when he had friends of whom Father didn’t approve. One friend – not the louche degenerates he later came to favor, but a quite honest young officer – Father bought up his debts, and forced the man out of the Guards and out of Paris entirely, only because he was a socialist. Father thought him a bad influence. He’s had several of Philippe’s friends arrested – I’m sure they deserved some sort of punishment for their sins, but not … not quite so savage. One man, Father used his influence with the colonial office to have sent to Guiana, where the poor fellow died. Sometimes I thought it was his way of punishing Philippe.