The Mysterious Point of Deceit

by Beth Byers

  “And then?” Lisette asked with that flat command that required honesty.

  “And then I saw him returning it. He denied he did, but I saw it. He did it late. The door between my room and Antoine’s room was open. It was open, and my son crept inside, turned on the dressing room light, shuffled about, and then left. He didn’t live with us, you know. I asked the butler the next day if Philip had come, and it was clear he had. I told him to keep it between us as a favor for me.”

  “The butler agreed.”

  “He knows better than to disagree,” Mrs. Grantley said simply.

  “So the flask was back?” Severine reached out and petted one of the puppies while Anubis leaned into her side.

  “It was back, it was empty, and it had been cleaned.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I asked Philip if he knew anything about it.”

  “He said no?” Mr. Brand asked.

  “He said no,” Mrs. Grantley agreed. “Then I gave it to him and told him I knew his father would have wanted him to have it.” She laughed meanly. “It’s good for Philip to carry the reminder of what he did. Antoine of course, wanted Antoine Junior to have it, but sometimes a wife has to sidestep the wants of her husband.”

  Severine eyed Mr. Brand and Lisette, who both seemed to have reached the same conclusion. They were quite done with Mrs. Grantley and yet, they knew they couldn’t be.

  “What about Mr. Thorne’s sister? What happened to her?”

  “All I can give them is a name,” Mrs. Grantley said, “and I’ll be saving that until this is through.”

  Severine glanced at Mr. Brand and Lisette. They weren’t going to get anything more of use. Lisette rose. “I’ll see you out, ma’am.”

  Lisette enjoyed ending the interview with the woman, and Severine couldn’t help but hide a smile. She didn’t blame Lisette a bit for that move as they all needed a long walk to cleanse their palettes after that woman left. The moment the door closed behind her, they sighed in unison.

  “What a woman,” Mr. Brand said with disgust.

  “What a mess,” Lisette added.

  “What to do next?” Severine asked and none of them had an answer.

  They eyed each other and then threw out ideas until they’d decided upon hiring someone to follow Mrs. Grantley and her grandchildren along with someone to watch her house.

  Chapter 8

  “I’ve found her,” Lisette crowed two days later.

  Severine glanced up from her dressing table where she was applying lipstick as Lisette repeated, “I’ve found her.”

  “Her?”

  “Madame Cocotte.” Lisette’s smirk was so self-satisfied, Severine had to laugh. It was ill-timed, and she smeared her lipstick. She muttered low as she carefully dabbed off the lipstick, refreshed her powder, and then carefully reapplied her lipstick and then grinned in the mirror at Lisette.

  “How did you find her?” Severine turned to face her friend and noticed the gleam of triumph in Lisette’s dark brown eyes.

  “Sleuthing, brilliance, and persistence,” Lisette said, holding cupped hands over her head and moving them back and forth.

  “And?” Severine prompted.

  “And,” Lisette grinned cheerily, “perhaps I might have known a girl who provides fortunes down in the French Quarter.”

  “Perhaps?” Severine smirked and then rose. “Do I look appropriately grim enough?”

  “You look like a nun transfigured into a bright young thing and got stuck halfway there,” Lisette told Severine. “Except, it looks intentional and fabulous.”

  “I suppose that’s what I am,” Severine admitted as she straightened her skirt and then added a hair band to her long black hair. It hovered around her shoulders and down her back. Her dress was sleeveless and her white shoulders peeked through the long black hair. “Stuck halfway between my time at the nunnery when my only thoughts were fixed on my parents and now. If only I could find who killed them, I might be able to do something else. Be something else.”

  “What would you be?” Lisette asked curiously. She had little sympathy for Severine as far as being fixated on her parents’ death. They had, both of them, hard childhoods. Severine, however, had never wanted for food, shelter, or even safety. Lisette had struggled for all of those things, but she’d been wrapped in love from her mother and grandmother.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps I’d be an adventuress.” Severine chuckled at the idea. “Could you see me in trousers and a white men’s shirt with a kerchief around my neck?”

  Lisette rolled her eyes. “The only sort of adventuring you’d be doing is horrifically long walks along moors and among the heather like Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights.”

  Severine paused and hated herself for a moment for asking, “Have you read Wuthering Heights?”

  “Surprised?”

  “Only with a large dash of embarrassment for wondering about it at all.”

  Lisette snorted. “I read it only recently. Took it from your library here. It was all in tatters.”

  “I read that one over and over again before my parents died.” Severine shuddered at the memory. “It seemed as though only Heathcliff and Catherine felt as I felt.”

  Lisette choked on a laugh.

  “Yes, I know,” Severine muttered, “I was ridiculous.” After a moment, she added, “I’m sorry it was surprising to me.”

  “It shouldn’t be,” Lisette told her flatly. “It wasn’t like I went to a good school, thick with books in the library.”

  Severine reached out and took her hand. “Your native genius has shone through all the same.”

  “That Heathcliff—I’m not a fan. But I went for another, and there isn’t more?”

  “Try the other Brontë sisters.” Severine rubbed the back of her neck and added, “I always felt quite linked to Jane Eyre as well, and she has survived my childhood while I find myself quite disgusted by the residents of Wuthering Heights.”

  Severine grinned and then whispered, “Sister Bernadette read novels. She kept them hidden under her bed in the cell. She was utterly serious about plants and studies and research, but she dabbled in novels which was quite disapproved of by the nuns, you know.”

  “Oooh, a rebellious nun,” Lisette mocked. “What else did she do? Drink a second glass of wine at dinner? Sleep late?”

  “Stop it,” Severine said easily. “They loved me when no one else did, and Sister Bernadette shared her novels and her plant knowledge.”

  “So you can grow tomatoes? I like them fried and green,” Lisette joked.

  “Poisons, silly. Didn’t I ever tell you she grew poisons and medicines? Tinctures and the like?”

  “Poisons!” Lisette paused. “There’s a sun room at the back of the house. You should start your own. You’ll never know when you need a good poison, cher.”

  “One that can be traced to me? I think it’s rather like a loaded gun, dear Lisette. It’s too easy to use if it’s right there. A little sprinkle in Grandmère’s coffee, and my life gets surprisingly easier. What if, instead, we find the killers and then discover Paris?”

  “Paris?” Lisette’s eyes brightened and she pretended to consider, then mockingly checked her calendar.

  “Paris, a swing by the nunnery, maybe a little trip through Prague.”

  “Prague?” Lisette groaned. “They didn’t teach Prague at school.”

  “That will make it all the more adventurous,” Severine promised with a glance at the clock. She frowned and then wrapped herself in a black wool coat edged with black fur. She added gloves and sighed. “Time to meet Florette.”

  “Are you going to tell her about Mr. Oliver?”

  “Despite myself,” Severine admitted, as she glanced once more in the mirror. She didn’t want to admit to the nervousness that made her delay. “I like her.”

  “I like her too,” Lisette said. “She’s kind when no one else is. She didn’t dive into the trouble with you at the mansion. She didn’t side with Andre,
and she might like your grandmother, but she doesn’t pretend that your grandmother is good to you.”

  Severine sighed and put money, a handkerchief, a compact, her lipstick, a small revolver, and her house key into her clutch. She felt only a moment of hesitation about the revolver. She’d requested it from Mr. Brand and he’d delivered and even given her the basic lessons in its use. Where another man might have argued against her carrying it, Mr. Brand had been supportive, even enthusiastic, that she had another form of protection.

  She clucked to Anubis. She had insisted upon the dog so often and with such large tips for those who allowed him entry with her, that he’d added to her overall look. That wasn’t why she insisted upon him, but the rich, orphan with the massive guard dog was just the level of notoriety that refused her father’s old companions from ignoring her. They could disapprove, but they couldn’t ignore.

  Severine drove the Rolls-Royce Phantom with Anubis in the back seat to retrieve Florette from her parents’ house. Florette had moved from Grandmère’s home to her parents’ home upon their return, and Severine had to go inside to retrieve Florette rather than honk the horn. She did so with a sigh and no trace of eagerness.

  “We’re not invited?” Barnabé asked with just enough of a pout to plead his case without quite letting go of his manliness.

  “I told you we’re going shopping,” Florette said, and it sounded like she’d said it so often her voice was a little hoarse. “You can romance Severine on another day.”

  She laughed at the dark look her brother gave her, took Severine’s hand, and yanked her out the door. “Come! Mama intends to scold you some more.”

  Severine didn’t delay after that comment. She hurried down the steps and into the auto. Before she’d started the car, the curtains twitched. Aunt Delphine wasn’t the type to chase someone out of the doors, so the second they’d gotten beyond the front steps, they’d be safe. That didn’t stop Severine from feeling as though they were being chased. They hopped into the car, then she peeled away from the house and Florette giggled as they swung around the corner.

  A moment later, Severine slowed the auto down and suggested, “What if we started with a walk?”

  “That was said in a way that promises bad news,” Florette told Severine. “Have you decided to stop looking into your parents’ lives and leave?” Florette sounded sad. “Mama will nag at you until you give in and move in with someone else. I wouldn’t stay either. I already am desperate for a reason to escape the house. I can only hope that I can marry soon. It’s like they’ve bound me up in cotton and sheets, and I can’t move or breathe. I feel like I’ve been mummified alive. Grandmère, for all her faults, never really cared if I went shopping with the girls or had luncheon with a beau or even lingered in bed with chocolate and a novel.”

  “Your mother objects to all of those things?”

  “I feel like I need permission to breathe.”

  Severine laughed and then she stopped near New Orleans Park and got out of the vehicle. Florette followed willingly enough even though she’d told Severine at least a half dozen times that it was incomprehensible that Severine went for such long, lonely walks.

  “What is wrong, Severine?” Florette asked. “You have that tight look on your mouth that says you’ve seen something sour.”

  “I’ve learned something sour, and I find that I don’t want to tell you.”

  “Why not?” Florette asked. “What has it to do with me?”

  “You’re half in love with Mr. Oliver,” Severine told her, “and I’m not sure he’s a widower.”

  “What?” Florette asked, her big blue eyes wide and beginning to brim with tears. Severine winced. She opened her clutch and handed over a handkerchief.

  “He came here looking for his wife. Mr. Thorne’s sister. I don’t have any idea where she is, why she was here, or what they expect to find, but he’s still in love with her, Florette. Alive, dead, missing, in between, I don’t know. But he’s gone for her.”

  Florette spun away from Severine, curling her shoulders into her chest. She was utterly still and quiet for a long, long moment and then she looked up. Severine couldn’t see where Florette’s eyes were fixed, but after a long while she crossed to a stone bench, took a seat, and arranged her legs prettily.

  Any sign of tears was gone. Any sign of distress was gone except that the tightness around the mouth had spread from Severine to Florette.

  “I don’t think he meant to hurt you,” Severine offered, sitting next to her. “He seemed quite upset when I confronted him directly about hurting you.”

  “Lovely day,” Florette said in reply, her fingers clenched hard around the handkerchief. “The way the trees contrast with the sky is simply breathtaking.”

  Clearly, Florette didn’t wish to speak further on the subject. So Severine offered, “The swans in the pond are always nice to see. Shall we wander that way?”

  Florette nodded without speaking, and Severine noted a sudden trembling of her jaw. They walked slowly with Anubis trailing them until they reached the pond. Florette took a seat immediately and Severine gave her several moments to herself by moving closer to the water.

  After a while, Florette rose and said with forced brightness, “I should like to have tea.”

  They walked silently back to the car and as Severine started it again, Florette said softly, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Florette sniffed once. “I always did like Bernard Mason.”

  “I don’t believe I know him,” Severine said. “But life-long decisions should be made carefully. Especially when carefully manipulating a mother with a comment on the wealth and jewelry Grandmère has to leave behind, and Grandmère taking a deliberate stumble that would mean she would need you as a care companion.”

  Florette turned slowly towards Severine who parked the auto near the hotel and restaurant.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying if you promise to tell Grandmère to give information about me, she’ll give you a place to stay and will even ask for you.”

  Florette stared. “I’m not going to give Grandmère information about you.”

  “It’ll be fine.” Severine had no intention of letting Florette truly into her confidence. “Especially if you tell her that you don’t feel good about the idea, but that you’ll share both ways freely.”

  “Freely?” Florette’s jaw dropped. “But why would either of you benefit from that?”

  “Because you’re smarter than Grandmère and Andre believe you to be because you’re from my side of the family. Also, she thinks you have a price.”

  “What if I do?”

  “Then I’ve made a mistake about you. I believe you’re principled and kind. I believe that the state of your heart matters to you.” Severine’s eyes moved over her cousin’s face and she added, “You are ready to love, but you deserve the time to find the right man. Your instincts are right, because I believe that Mr. Oliver is exactly the kind of man you’d want to marry. He’s twisted up with his missing wife and perhaps, not for you. But just the right kind of man.”

  “What if nobody like him ever loves me?” Florette sniffed once. “I suppose I liked him rather well.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “How could I?” Florette’s jaw tightened. “He sidestepped the things that mattered. He talked about the weather, the people around us. He didn’t layer me with compliments and write sonnets about my eyes.”

  Severine laughed as Florette shot her a sardonic look. “Did you want sonnets?”

  “He was kind and attentive. But he didn’t really make me believe he loved me. He didn’t really lead me on. I led myself on, and now I feel quite stupid.”

  Severine got out of the auto. “That means we’ll have to order two desserts.”

  “Yes,” Florette agreed.

  “And perhaps afterwards we’ll spend all of our pin money on silk stockings and new dresses.”

  “Father is ho
me.” Florette grinned. “I’m in the mood for a wardrobe beyond my pin money, but happily, I can send the bill to him.”

  Chapter 9

  The two-story building was made of brick and had large windows with brick arches over each one, drawing attention to the overall beauty in the details. The second story was surrounded by a wrought-iron balcony that was rife with hanging plants. A woman was hanging over the balcony, smoking a cigarette. Her hair was bobbed and her red dress was fringed, and she seemed to glow with sheer beauty. Perhaps it was the beauty of the area reflecting back to her. Either way, Severine had to pause in sheer admiration.

  “It’s so different here,” she murmured.

  “Than the religious wilds of the Austrian mountains?” Lisette asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Severine’s laugh was low as she checked the buildings for some sign that they’d reached the right place. Anubis huffed as they passed a man playing the saxophone. The wail of the instrument filled the air all around the building and Severine and Lisette paused for a moment to appreciate the soulful call.

  “Would the nuns disown you for talking to a medium, fortune teller type?”

  “I’m sure they wouldn’t be enthusiastic about it, but they don’t disown or stop loving. That’s not how they’re made. They advise with love and kindness.”

  “My grandmother, my father’s mother, would take me by the ear and drown me in holy water for this.”

  “Didn’t your father abandon you? What gives her the right?”

  “She stops by here and there to leave judgement. It would have been better,” Lisette said without inflection, “if she’d abandoned us too.”

  Severine reached out and squeezed Lisette’s hand and then stepped away to look up at a flowering plant. “It is so beautiful here. Very different from my religious wilds, but yes, so beautiful.”

  “Which do you prefer?” Lisette asked curiously, her gaze landing on a very tall, very thin fellow at the end of the street. He looked both as if he’d been stretched out and as if he knew her. Severine met his eyes with her own and saw something in them. She wasn’t sure what it was, but he had thoughts about Severine. Of that she had little doubt.