on his knee. “Who would have taken the child?”
“You agree the baby’s still alive?”
“I do. Think on it. Edith discovers she’s with child. Her brother wants her sent away so the situation can be dealt with, one way or another. The good doctor isn’t willing to do what Laurent wants, but knows he can hide the birth—Laurent was the only one visiting—and send the baby somewhere safe.”
“Of course.” I looked at him. “We have to find the baby.”
“It could be anywhere—years have passed.”
“Edith escaped because she wanted to find it. She must have got in contact with Vasseur somehow. He left the Foreign Legion, came for her, and they went in search of their child. And the mission led to her brutal death.”
“It makes more sense than a random killing,” Colin said.
“Does it make more sense than thinking the Ripper’s come to France?”
“At the moment I’m inclined to say yes. Random violence is rare, and although the manner of Edith’s death is reminiscent of the Whitechapel murders, it may be that whoever killed her was deliberately copying his more famous colleague to set the police on the wrong track.”
“A theory not originally your own, if I recall.” I smiled. “So what will you do?”
“We can’t discount the possibility the murderer has come over from England. But this information of yours makes me want to change tactics.”
“New tactics that perhaps don’t require shipping me off to London?”
“So long as there’s no evidence of a madman marauding through Normandy in search of prey, I think I should be able to keep you safe. But are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to go home? Or to Paris with Cécile?”
“It’s as if you don’t know me at all,” I said. “Can you possibly believe I’d rather be anywhere than with you? I’d be so happy I wouldn’t even object to you keeping me safe.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“Shall I convince you?” I asked. After a brief and extremely pleasant pause, we returned to the matter at hand. “Do you think Edith knew where the child had been sent?”
“We’re going to have to question Girard again. My guess would be that she didn’t—there would be too great a risk of her trying to get in contact. But it’s possible the baby hadn’t been sent far.”
“He could have easily sent it out of the country.”
“True, but let’s suppose someone—perhaps this man who visited her—told Edith where the child was. She escaped and wound up dead within a reasonable drive of Rouen.”
“So you draw the conclusion that she’d gone as far as she needed to find the child?” I asked. “She might have only just begun her journey.”
He grinned. “You’re right. I do adore your mind.”
“You’re too kind,” I said. “But I must ask—have you made any progress with our friend Sebastian?”
“
“I wish I could say I’d seen him and recruited him to the Crown’s cause.”
“This is one bet, Emily, you’re not going to win.”
“I’m sure you’d like to believe that. But I’ve not time to discuss it at the moment. Will you excuse me?” I asked. “I want to speak with Laurent. He may prove himself useful yet.”
I applied my usual method for locating Laurent—following the sound of moody Beethoven up the stairs to his room. This time, I didn’t bother to knock on the door, opting instead to head straight for the passage between our two chambers.
“You’re quite good, you know,” I said, coming up behind him as he sat at the piano. “Do you compose as well?”
He grunted in my general direction.
“I’ve spoken with Dr. Girard again. He didn’t do what you asked of him. Edith gave birth to her baby and the child is still alive.”
He stopped playing. “Impossible.”
“Is it?”
“He—” Laurent looked almost flustered, his eyes darting in all directions, his mouth drawn tight. “He wouldn’t have done that. Not without telling me.”
“He had to have known you wouldn’t approve of the choice.”
“He had no right.”
“So far as I can tell, Edith is the one who should have had rights,” I said. “Can you imagine how it must have tormented her not to be able to raise her own child?”
“Of course I can. Why do you think I asked him to do what I did?”
“Wouldn’t what you wanted have been even worse than her simply giving the child to someone else to raise until she was recovered from her illness?”
He didn’t reply.
“Regardless,” I said. “He couldn’t bring himself to go through with it, and now won’t tell me what became of the child. We have to find it.”
“Vasseur. He must have given it to Vasseur.”
“Vasseur was already away in the Legion when the baby would have been born. This might, however, be the time to give me whatever information you can about the man. Where is his family? Where did he live?”
“It is time for me to have a very serious conversation with Girard. You have no reason to be part of this.” He rose to his feet and stormed out of the room, not even bothering to slam the door behind him. All in all, a disappointing exit. I’d come to expect more from Laurent. If nothing else, one should be able to count on a gentleman like him to brood masterfully.
I started down the steps (long after having heard the front door bang behind Laurent—I was glad his departure from the house hadn’t been completely lackluster) and found Colin and Cécile in the garden with Madame Prier and her husband. The sun still stretched high in the summer sky, the air felt warm, and bees skipped happily from flower to flower in search of sweet nectar. Cécile and Madame Prier sat close together, both shaded by Cécile’s lacy parasol. Colin, his long legs stretched in front of him, occupied the wrought-iron chair across from them and was fanning himself with a folded newspaper while Monsieur Prier occupied himself with the inspection of a thread that had come loose from his jacket.
“Come join us, Kallista, and try one of these,” Cécile said, picking up a plate of bergamot oranges in honey. “You look far too melancholy for such a beautiful day.”
I crossed over to them, rejecting the candied fruit and pulling a chair next to my husband’s. “I’m not melancholy, just tired. All this to-ing and fro-ing, and I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“Oh dear!” Madame Prier lifted her eyes to the sky. “It’s the room, isn’t it?”
“The room?” I asked.
“Dominique—” Monsieur Prier glared at his wife, but she didn’t let him continue.
“I shouldn’t have dreamed of putting you in Edith’s room,” she said. “I never gave much credence to her claims of hearing voices, even when I heard her talking back to them. But since her death, it’s all tormenting me. What if there really was something in her room, as she insisted? What if some ghostly girl did speak to her? I suppose I wanted to prove to myself it’s not haunted or possessed or I don’t know what, and I thought—hoped— your staying in it would put my worries to rest.”
“What specifically did she hear?” I asked.
“She was never very lucid about it,” Madame Prier said. “But she’d speak to someone, and she claimed it was a girl—she’d talk about tying ribbons in her hair—got upset when I told her I didn’t see anything. I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything strange while you’ve been up there?”
I steeled myself, hoping to disguise the anxiety tingling through me at her description of the child that so well matched what I myself had experienced. “Only Laurent’s musical efforts.”
“He’s a dreadful boy, isn’t he?” she asked.
“Worthless,” Monsieur Prier said.
“He’s feeling the loss of his sister keenly,” Colin said.
