Dangerous to Know

25

Within an hour, Colin had finished with the police, and felt he’d seen all the evidence likely to be gathered from the hospital. The murderer had entered and exited through the office window. A struggle had ensued, and it was unclear whether the vicious criminal had come upon Dr. Girard already in his chair and subdued him there, or if they’d fought and he’d forced him into the seat. If it was the latter, the intruder had tidied up all signs of the altercation before leaving the scene. The doctor had suffered a blow to the head that had likely knocked him unconscious, after which his murderer slit his wrists, planted the suicide note, and made his escape.

“Cretinous,” George said as we settled back into our carriage. “What sort of person does such a thing?”

“The patients are the most obvious place to start,” Colin said. “But none of them has any marks that suggest having been involved.”

“I’m glad,” I said. “It’s hideous to think someone he was trying to help would lash out at him in such violent fashion.”

“But isn’t it more frightening to think it’s someone of sound mind?” George asked. “Someone who’s not confined to an asylum?”

“Are any murderers of sound mind?” I asked.

“No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness,” Colin said. “Aristotle, I believe.”

“It all comes back to the Greeks, doesn’t it, my dear?” I asked. In a short while, we’d entered the city of Rouen and were settled in the Priers’ sitting room, I next to Cécile, who rejoiced at seeing us. Madame Prier greeted us alone, and put on a good show, welcoming us as if our presence ranked somewhere near the second coming of Christ. Until, that is, we introduced George.

“Oh dear,” she said, giving him her one hand to kiss while she flung the other over her forehead. “Monsieur Markham, do forgive me, but I wish I could have saved you from this association with my dreadful relatives.”

“I can assure you, madame, that Madeline is all delightful charm. There’s not a lady on earth with qualities superior to hers, and should you have the pleasure of making her acquaintance you would never again consider her branch of the family dreadful.”

“I’d expect no other opinion from such a clearly devoted husband,” she said. “But the madness that consumes them is not to be taken lightly—it is that I consider dreadful. Apologies if my meaning wasn’t clear. I shall pray your wife escapes even a touch of it.”

“I understand your side of the family, revered though it may be, suffers from the same affliction,” George said, his voice affable, his smile wide.

“So you know our secret, of course you do,” Madame Prier said.

“I hope I haven’t offended you,” George said. “I had hoped you could perhaps offer me some insight into your daughter’s treatment—tell me if anything in particular helped her.”

“I wish I could, but unfortunately nothing seemed to make a difference.” Her face was hard as she talked about Edith, but softened as she turned to Colin. “Monsieur Hargreaves, Toinette will be beyond disappointed to have missed you. She’s calling on a friend.”

“It’s such a shame she didn’t come to the country,” I said, my smile a masterpiece of the disingenuous. Cécile, who was sitting next to me on the horsehair settee stifled ironic laughter. “I could have thrown a little party for her.”

“That would have been lovely,” Madame Prier said. “You’re so kind to think of her.”

“You know how fond we are of her,” Colin said. I resisted the urge to kick him. “I’m afraid, however, we’ve come bearing no glad tidings. Dr. Girard was murdered last night.”

“Dr. Girard?” Confusion filled her wide eyes. “Are we acquainted with him?”

“He’s the one who treated Edith, Maman.” Whether Laurent had been lurking in the background from the time we had arrived or whether he’d snuck in, all stealth and quiet, was unclear. But when he stepped out from the shadows, his voice bellowing, it was as if all the heat had been sucked from the room. “How could you forget such a thing?”

“Why would you expect me to remember the horrid man’s name?” Madame Prier said. “He did nothing useful for her.”

“He did more than you.”

“Laurent, have you not yet grown tired of embarrassing yourself in front of guests?”

“Not in the slightest. I take after my dear mother.”

I sighed with an almost romantic delight as he stalked across the room and slammed the door. Laurent half terrified, half amused me. I appreciated the drama he could lend to a situation; it reminded me of a sensational novel. As the conversation restarted around me, I wondered what, exactly, he thought of Dr. Girard, and whom he blamed for Edith’s escape from the hospital. Most of all, I wanted to see his handwriting. “Can we follow him?” I whispered to Cécile.

Cécile paused for a moment, clasped her hands together, and tapped one thumb against the other. She looked at Madame Prier, then at the door, and then slumped against me.

“Mon dieu!” she said. “I’ve come over all dizzy. Kallista, will you take me to my room?”

Her ploy, while perhaps inelegant for her self-imposed standards, served its purpose. Colin clearly saw through it at once—he watched as I guided her to the stairs, any hint of concern absent from his face. He could not, however, hide his amusement from me.

“I’m impressed with your instant reaction,” I said, as we climbed the stairs. “You hardly hesitated at all.”

“I don’t like to waste time,” Cécile said. “And the conversation was putting a terrible strain on my ability to feign attentiveness. It’s a shame I’m not in the room you had—we could descend on Laurent unannounced.”

As it was, we made our way to the top floor of the house and knocked on Laurent’s closed door, which he opened without making us wait. Then, leaving it open, he turned around and walked back to his piano.

“You were quite right, Kallista,” Cécile said, following him in and gingerly stepping around piles of sheet music. “He has the cluttered mind of a genius. Or at least the cluttered room.”

“Why are you here?” he asked, crossing his arms and scowling at Cécile.

“Your sister’s doctor is dead. Murder made to look like suicide. Badly done, wouldn’t have fooled anyone. Not a professional,” I said.

“A professional murderer?” Laurent laughed. “I can’t decide whether to despise you or pity you, Lady Emily.”

“We’ve no time at present for you to do either,” Cécile said. “Where were you last night?”

“Me? Are you suggesting I killed Dr. Girard?”

She shrugged. “It’s possible, is it not?”

“Aside from the fact I had no reason to want him dead, it’s not possible. I was here all night.”

“Alone?” I asked.

“Of course alone. Do you think I bring lovers to my mother’s house?”

“You like to think you shock me, don’t you?” I asked.

“Don’t be tiresome, Laurent. Can your family verify you were here?” Cécile asked, then turned to me. “I think, Kallista, that I would perhaps make an exceedingly fine detective. I rather excel at questioning persons of interest. Do you think there’s a special sort of gown I should adopt for the profession?”

Laurent sighed as if he was irritated, but his eyes betrayed him. Laughter danced in them. “Much as I’d like to see the result of you imposing haute couture on the art of investigation, I’m afraid I’ve not time for any of this nonsense.”

“Are you not interested in what happened to Dr. Girard?” I asked. “His killer might lead us to your sister’s.”

“That’s fascinating, I’m sure, but what have I to do with any of it? I was here last night and certainly wouldn’t have killed my own sister.”

“Who would have wanted him dead?” I asked. “Does anyone in your family blame him for what happened to Edith?”

“By the time Edith escaped from the asylum, no one in this house—myself excluded—had the slightest concern for what she was going through. You’ve spoken to my mother. She’s relieved her daughter is dead. It’s a wonder Edith didn’t take her own life the way she was treated.”

“I can’t imagine your mother killed Dr. Girard,” Cécile said. “It would have taken too much effort in directions she would not find interesting.”

“You do know her well, don’t you?” Laurent asked.

“Well enough.”

“What about your father?” I asked. “Was he happy with Edith’s progress? With her doctor?”

“He was pleased at having her out of the house.”

“Laurent, I think it’s desperately important that we try to locate your sister’s child. Whom, you should remember, is your niece,” I said. “Chances are Edith tried to find her, and this poor little girl is still with the man who killed her mother. Surely you’re not willing to let such a situation go unchecked?”

“What do you want from me?” he asked.

“Did you really know nothing about Lucy?”

“Not a thing. If I had, I would have put her somewhere safe myself. And now this useless doctor is dead, I’ve less of a chance than ever of finding the child—who should, I must point out, be raised by me.”

“You?” Cécile was all skepticism. “A bachelor? Living with his parents? You are fit for raising a little girl? Who, for all you know, is already happily settled in a comfortable home? Hubris, my dear Laurent. Hubris.”

He replied to her, but I did not hear the words. My attention was focused on the pile of manuscripts nearest to me, on the words scrawled at the tops of the pages and the marginalia on the sides. All written in the same handwriting I’d seen only hours before on Dr. Girard’s supposed suicide note. My heart thumping in my chest, I bent down and picked up the sheet.

“Written any suicide notes lately, Laurent?” I asked.

“How dare you?” He grabbed the paper from my hand.

“I thought I recognized the handwriting from when I was last in your room. So why did you kill him? Did he keep Edith’s baby? Did she fall in love with him? Were you jealous?”

He slapped me, hard, right across the mouth.

I stumbled as Cécile gasped and stepped towards him. Without hesitating, I stopped her, came forward myself, smacked him back, and watched a deep red mark develop on his cheek. He said nothing, but raised his hand to the spot. I resisted the urge to touch what I knew must be its twin on my own face.

“The paper was ripped out of a notebook, like the one lying there,” I said, pointing to a slim volume resting on top of the piano.

“Don’t touch that.” He stepped in front of me, blocking any progress I might try to make in pursuit of the object in question.

“Why are you so concerned if you’ve nothing to hide?” I asked.

“What did the note say?”

“It was a quotation from Hamlet. And a comment.”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t near the asylum last night.”

“Did you write the note?” I asked.

“I’m not in the habit of depositing my writing with the possessions of dead men.”

“Then explain to me how Dr. Girard got it?”

“There’s nothing to explain. You can’t prove I wrote it—you don’t have it in your possession. If the police care to query me on the matter, I shall welcome them with open arms. They’ll find nothing.”

Something in his tone indicated with supreme strength the truth of his final statement. The police would find nothing, but only because Laurent would destroy anything that might be of use before they even thought to contact him. I was desperate to look in his notebook, but knew he wouldn’t let me. His handwriting could be identified by the police in any number of ways—but I didn’t need anything further to convince me who wrote the false suicide note. I wanted to read more, to find out why someone would do such a thing.

And why, after we’d learned the truth about Edith’s baby, her doctor—quite possibly the only person who knew the story in its entirety—had been killed. Had our investigation catalyzed more violence?

“Lucy is all that matters, Laurent,” I said. “We have to find her.”

“I’ve done nothing but try since you told me she’s alive,” he said, his voice low and rumbling. “All I know is that there was a man called Myriel who visited her.”

“What did you find out about him?” I asked.

“What do you know?” His eyes narrowed and darkened.

“We’re in possession of the belongings he left in his rooms near the asylum,” I said. “They’re remarkably interesting.”

“I need to speak to my father,” he said. “Forgive me for walking out on such an invigorating conversation, but I’ve nothing further to say to either of you.”

Cécile, intent on liberating Laurent’s notebook from its rightful owner, refused to return to the country with us. Colin forbade her to touch the book, but agreed that keeping her in the Priers’ house was a rational decision—she might observe something significant in the family’s behavior. He knew perfectly well, however, that she would be in possession of the journal the next time we saw her. George had managed to forge some sort of connection to Madame Prier by the time we left the house—she implored him to return for tea, but did not include Madeline in the invitation.

“She’s so like Madeline’s mother,” he said as we drove away from Rouen. “At least the way she was before we were married. Eccentric, yes, but charming all the same. How fortunate that she escaped my mother-in-law’s fate.”

“Was she able to offer you any useful insight?” I asked.

“Not a shred,” he said. “I do wish I could have met Monsieur Prier. He must be a character of his own. Where does he keep himself hidden?”

“Cozied up with his mistress much of the time,” Colin said.

“And their daughter.”

“Another daughter?” George asked.

“This one much younger than Edith and Toinette,” I said. Colin subtly jabbed my side. “Not that it’s any of our business, of course.”

“No, of course not,” George said, laughing softly as he turned to look out the window. “Must be something to have so many children.”

Discomfort prickled in the air, as each of us looked away from the rest. Each of us childless. Each of us carrying the small heartbreak of tiny losses.

None of us spoke again for the duration of the journey.

21 July 1892

Emily’s questions about the daughter of the Markhams’ gardener spurned me to inquire about the matter. The servants wouldn’t tell me a thing—no surprise there—but a visit to the boulangerie in Fréville resulted not only in a spectacular baguette stuffed with ham and Gruyère cheese, but also the story that circulated at the time. The child, it seems, did die on the property, and the good citizens of our village are convinced she haunts the area.

Ridiculous, of course. I’ve no time for wailing cries and misty apparitions. And ribbons, according to the story. The ghost, you see, has a propensity for dropping them wherever she goes. No doubt they’re supplied by every bored adolescent in the area.

Now that I think on it, I saw a ribbon crumpled on the ground when I was out riding some days ago. Blue, though I’m not sure the color is of any significance. I have a vague memory of Emily asking about ribbons in conjunction with the child. I do hope no one has polluted her mind with such nonsense. My opinion of her is much improved, but she’s still more vulnerable than I would like.

No one, however, could argue she is not a good teacher.