Dangerous to Know

“Would you like the plat du jour?” she asked, scrubbing vigorously, her rough accent making it hard for me to understand her French. “Chicken with tarragon sauce and potatoes.”

I wasn’t particularly hungry, but Colin instructed her to bring the special to both of us. “Gives an excuse to be here longer,” he said after she’d disappeared into the kitchen.

“I fear for our health,” I said. “But we are in France, so there’s a distinct possibility that rather than poisoning us, this will be the single most spectacular meal we’ve ever eaten.”

“Let’s just hope our poor poulet was better treated than the boar,” he said. He patted my hand. “I’ll be right back.” He walked up to the bar and spoke to the surly looking man standing behind it. From a distance, their exchange appeared congenial enough, and a few minutes later my husband returned carrying two glasses of tart cider. “I told the bartender that your cousin—your French cousin—was engaged to a girl who wound up here, and that he visited her constantly despite his parents forbidding it. When his father, despot that he is, tried to interfere, your cousin left home and disappeared. We, of course, are here in search of him.”

“So what did he say?” I asked.

The girl returned with our food before he could answer. She dropped the plates in front of us, uninterested in preserving the cook’s unexpectedly beautiful presentation. “You’re looking for a man?” she asked.

“We are,” I said. “My cousin.”

“He told me,” she said, tossing her head in the direction of the bar. “We’ve a gent who used to come in here. Sounds like it could be him, but he ain’t been around for the last couple of months. Thing is, he always said he was visiting his mother, not his fiancée.”

“He wouldn’t have wanted to draw any attention to what he was really doing, lest his family discovered the attachment was still very much alive.” Fiction, it seemed, came easily to me. “Can you remember when you last saw him?”

“Springtime, I think. That was the last time he came regular, at least. Seems like he was here once more, just a few weeks ago, but I didn’t talk to him and can’t be sure.”

“Did you usually speak to him?” Colin asked.

“He was very chatty,” she said.

“Did he ever say where he lived?” I asked.

“He kept a room at Madame Renaldi’s. The house across from the church?”

Colin thanked her and dug into his chicken as soon as she’d left us to our food. “This,” he said, “is extraordinary. Have you tasted it?”

The sauce was tangy perfection, the meat moist and flavorful. But I was still unnerved, still unsure as to what to think about this new turn in our relationship. I didn’t like being an unequal partner—or equal but different, whatever that meant—and I didn’t like the fact that it was distracting me from the work at hand. I took one more bite, but found I could stomach no more. Colin, unperturbed, traded his empty plate for my nearly full one and polished off my meal.

“I know this is hard, Emily,” he said. “But it’s for the best. I’m not going to keep you from a fulfilling life. I hope you know that. Trust me, my dear. Together, we’ll find our way through this.” He folded his napkin into a crisp rectangle and placed it on the table. “Are you willing to miss dessert in favor of Madame Renaldi?”

“Mais oui,” I said, fixing a smile on my face. I wanted real emotion back, but all I could summon felt false, painted on. “Lead me where you will. I can’t think of a worthier person to follow.”

21

Bright blue shutters lined the walls of Madame Renaldi’s stone house, and matching flowerboxes, overflowing with red and yellow blossoms, hung from each window. The proprietress herself greeted us at the door and ushered us into a comfortable and welcoming sitting room. Colin did a neat job explaining why we’d come, and I managed a few tears to lend verisimilitude of his story of my poor, missing cousin.

“I can assure you Monsieur Myriel was an ideal tenant,” she said, as if the words would soothe a grieving relation. “He wasn’t here often, and always left his room in good order.”

“Did he only stay when he visited the asylum?” Colin asked.

“He did. But he said he wanted to keep the room available in case his mother—he told me he was visiting his mother—took a turn for the worse. He liked the idea that there was a little home waiting for him whenever he needed it. And his own house was so far away—near Marseilles, I think it was—he needed somewhere to sleep when he was here.”

“When did you last see him?” I asked.

“It’s been several months at least. I received a letter saying his mother had died and that he wouldn’t be back. He included a final month’s rent. Never collected the things he’d left in the room, though, and didn’t give a forwarding address so I could send them. Could I give them to you? I do hate holding on to someone else’s possessions.”

“Of course,” I said, giving her what I hoped was a poignant yet weak smile. “When he resurfaces, we’ll be sure he gets them.”

Colin carried the wooden crate she gave us to the carriage, slipped it inside, and went to speak to the driver.

I settled into my seat, pulling the box close to me and opening its top. The contents appeared ordinary enough: two clean, white shirts, fresh socks, other assorted items of clothing, a razor, shaving lotion, a pen and ink. A neat pile of books, their spines facing up, was stacked down one side: L’Année Terrible, a book of poems about the Franco-Prussian War by Victor Hugo, Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Émile Zola’s La Bête Humaine, and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. A small, leather- bound notebook and a golden watch missing its chain had been wrapped in a linen handkerchief embroidered with the initials HPC.

The notebook appeared the most promising, until I flipped through the smooth, cream-colored pages and found them all blank. Ragged edges near the binding suggested some sheets had been removed, and not neatly, but as they’d been taken from the back, not the front, I couldn’t study later pages in hope of discovering indentations left behind. The watch appeared extremely old—older than the date, 9 November 1870, engraved on the inside. The case showed remnants of ornate decoration, but the detail had been mostly rubbed off, no doubt from frequent use over many years.

“Anything interesting?” Colin asked, as he climbed in next to me. “Possibly,” I said. We lurched forward as the driver urged on the horses.

“Are you all right, Emily?”

“Not entirely. Last night’s revelations sent me reeling.”

“I appreciate that,” he said, his voice grave. “But rather than give too much thought to things you can’t do, focus on what you can. Tell me about Myriel’s crate.”

“Look for yourself,” I said, removing the top. “You may notice something I missed.”

“Unlikely,” he said, leaning forward and examining the contents of the box. He leafed through it all with care, turning the pages of the notebook in much the same manner I had. I watched his hands, strong and competent, as he pulled out the books, checking their endpapers and leafing through the rest. “Did anything strike you about them?” he asked.

“Only that Hugo also wrote Les Miserables, which Monsieur Prier is currently reading,” I said. “We’ve not seen any of Edith’s writings. Surely Laurent saved any letters she sent him. And she might have kept a diary—not, perhaps, after she got sick, but even her records of the months before that could prove useful.” I flashed him what I hoped was a wry look. “I don’t suppose you have a strategy in place for investigating convents in Gibraltar?”

“Quite the contrary,” he said, a wicked smile spreading across his face. “I’ve already mobilized a crack convent investigation team. They’ll be on-site within forty-eight hours. We can expect answers in fifty. Sarcasm suits you, my dear.”