“The child?” I asked; he nodded. “You agree with me that she’s a girl?”
“I’ve yet to see reason to doubt your intuition,” he said.
This brought immediate tears to my eyes.
“It’s not that I’ve lost any measure of faith in you, Emily. But I’m going to better look after you from now on.”
I wiped the tears with the back of my hand.
“And I won’t have you wallowing,” he said, smiling. “I love you.”
“I love you,” I said, my insides a mass of confusion.
“So?” he asked. “Do
“I do. And we should find her as soon as possible.”
“He was definitely French.” The girl wriggled in her chair, uncomfortable. “I never really talked to him, though. He came every other Friday, I think it was. Or maybe once a month. Can’t rightly remember, but I know I thought of him as reliable. You could always depend on him showing up again.”
The young nurse’s assistant was the eleventh person to whom we’d spoken. Dr. Girard—who assured us he’d not had a recent visit from Laurent—had not objected to us questioning them, even gave us the use of his office, though he made it clear again he had made no progress when searching out the true identity of the man who, according to the nurses, called himself Charles Myriel. Everyone remembered him as kind and constant, and the general consensus was that his presence soothed Edith, even when she was in the midst of a difficult spell. But no one had ever had occasion to extract from him any personal information. He always came on horseback, alone, stayed exactly an hour, and disappeared with no fanfare.
Frustrated, Colin and I called for the doctor to rejoin us.
“Sir,” my husband said. “We appreciate the situation in which you now find yourself. You assisted this lady in her time of greatest need—you refused to
“You know she was a girl?” he asked, slumping in his chair.
“Every vision Edith reported to her family was of a little girl,” I said.
The doctor shook his head. “That may be so, but she couldn’t have known the gender of the child at the time.”
“She had a one in two chance of guessing correctly,” Colin said.
“And in this case she was correct,” Dr. Girard said. “I wish I could give you something to lead you to this man who visited her, but I can assure you he had nothing to do with Lucy—she was called Lucy. Edith asked if she could name the child. How could I deny her when she was suffering such anguish? She knew her parents would never accept the girl, and agreed to let me send Lucy away—far away—with a cousin of mine.”
“So your cousin is raising her?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I felt there needed to be a further layer of distance to ensure Edith’s identity would remain secret. My cousin took the baby to Gibraltar—he was on his way to Egypt—and delivered her to the care of a Catholic convent there. So far as I know, the nuns are raising her.”
“Do you receive any reports from them?” His story seemed about as plausible to me as the queen deciding to remarry.
“I don’t,” he said. “Monsieur Prier’s reaction to his daughter’s illness was so…violent…I feared for what he might do if he learned the truth.”
“Violent?” Colin asked.
“Violent?” I echoed him. “Did you not think pointing out to us that her father was violent might have been a pertinent fact given that she was brutally murdered?”
“You’re suggesting that he might, somehow, have found out about Lucy and come for Edith, and murdered her?” the doctor asked.
“You just admitted that you were concerned about the possible violence of his reaction,” I said.
“I should, perhaps, have chosen my words more carefully. Violent is what I think of it. Monsieur Prier is an extremely forceful man—and his daughter’s mental condition disturbed him greatly. According to her brother, when she first exhibited signs of illness at home, he scolded her vehemently, as if she could control her behavior if only she chose to. His yelling and bullying did not have the desired effect, of course. But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have used similar tactics on her again if he disapproved of her…condition. Given my own study and beliefs, I thought any such exhibit of temper could cause her a significant setback.”
“What did you think of her relationship with her brother?” I asked.
“Laurent Prier presents a fascinating case of his own,” Dr. Girard said. “He was obsessively close to his sister, and she to him.”
“Is that uncommon with twins?” Colin asked.
“Not entirely,” the doctor said. “But these two took it rather to an extreme.”
“Toinette, Edith’s younger sister, insists that Laurent deliberately drove Edith mad,” I said.
Dr. Girard laughed. “It may have seemed like that to Toinette. His compulsive jealousy and desire to protect her at all costs certainly did not improve Edith’s nervous state. But I wasn’t in the house with them and cannot vouch for what went on there. I only know that Laurent showed deep concern for his sister’s health, stability, and reputation.”
“Did you consider their relationship inappropriate?” Colin asked.
“I did, but I cannot say precisely why or how. Something in the way they interacted unsettled me. He did once after a visit leave behind a journal he keeps, and I admit—with no pride in my actions—that I read it. There was nothing enlightening, I’m afraid. Myriel was here the next day and offered to leave it at the tavern for him. They used to run into each other on occasion. But I didn’t feel comfortable giving it to him.”
“What did you do with it?” I asked.
“I left it with Edith, in her room and her brother collected it on his next visit.” He pushed his hands against his desk. “I do wish I could be of more use to you. I should, I suppose, have put in place a system for better identifying my patients’ visitors, so I might have been better prepared for foiling their murderers.”
His comment—an obvious attempt at humor—did not sit well with me.
“We appreciate what help you have given us,” Colin said, rising. I didn’t feel quite ready to leave, but had no clear idea of what I wanted to do instead. So I stood as well and took my husband’s arm. We thanked Dr. Girard and walked down the long, brightly clean corridor in silence. Only when we stepped outside and were once again alone did I turn to Colin and speak.
“We should go to the village,” I said. “Any visitor to the asylum would have to pass through and someone there must be interested enough in gossip to have noticed a regular gentleman caller. There’s not much else going on around here.”
Colin nodded. “An excellent suggestion.”
“If you tell me you believe in nuns in Gibraltar happily waiting for abandoned babies, I’m never speaking to you again.” I thought carefully about all I knew of Dr. Girard. He seemed a kind man, decent, but had his relationship with Edith grown inappropriate, as her brother’s had? What did he stand to lose if the truth about her child ever came to light? Did he have a motive for wanting her dead?
My husband wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. “I could not love you more.” He kissed me and his lips felt warm and safe and tender. I kissed him back and took his hand, wondering if this was what settling into contentment felt like. We stepped into our waiting carriage and in a few short minutes arrived in the village, which consisted of a single road containing a bakery, a butcher shop, and a tavern.
“Tavern,” we both said, simultaneously, and laughed.
Settling into contentment, I thought, might not be all bad.
I caught myself before I tripped on the wide, uneven floorboards of Le Clos des Roses, a name I hoped was meant to be ironic. The walls, with patches of crumbling plaster, seemed poised to collapse on the rough tables filling the poorly lit room, and the only decoration to be seen was the stuffed and mounted head of a wild boar. Great chunks of the unfortunate beast’s fur had gone missing along with one of the tusks. Hanging from the one that remained was a dingy rag, whipped down by a skeletal serving girl to wipe the table in front of us.
