called me a filthy scoundrel, then ran out of the house.”
Mr. Slade stood motionless, his hands steady on the railing, his manner stoic. “I let Mireille go because I was too proud to follow. I thought she would soon return and we would make peace. But the next night, the police raided the professor’s house during a meeting of the secret society. They arrested all the members. Mireille was among them. The police took everyone to prison. The professor was executed for treason. And Mireille-”
The muscles of Mr. Slade’s throat contracted. “She gave birth to our son in prison that night. He was stillborn. She died some hours afterward, hating me.” Mr. Slade paused and, with a visible struggle, regained his composure. “Never have I spoken of this to anyone.”
What shock, horror, and compassion I felt! “I am so sorry,” I murmured, inadequate to comfort him, yet glad he’d confided in me.
His gaze was fixed on some inner horizon. “Seven years have passed since Mireille’s death. Seven years during which I threw myself into my work because I had nothing else, though I’d come to doubt the morality of what I did. Mireille taught me to see the rebels as people oppressed by their rulers, the allies of my superiors. I closed my mind to those thoughts, and closed myself to anybody who might gain my affection and cause me more pain. But now I see the sun rising after a night I expected to last forever. I begin to think that God is benevolent as well as cruel; He compensates for what he takes away.”
Bemusement inflected Mr. Slade’s quiet voice. He glanced at me, but I instinctively averted my eyes so that I missed the look in his. He spoke in words almost inaudible: “I begin to find happiness and meaning in life again.”
My hands tightened on the rail. I wanted to believe that our companionship was the cause of his renaissance; yet I knew that his beautiful, beloved wife was my rival, even though she was dead. Now I faced a dismal fact: I was as much in love with Mr. Slade as I had been with M. Heger, in spite of there being as little prospect for requital. Perhaps the search for Isabel White’s master was what had diverted Mr. Slade from his grief; perhaps he endured my company only because he wanted me to draw the criminal out of hiding.
As with my previous journeys, what happened in Brussels was something I could never have anticipated.
We disembarked at Ostend, where we caught a train for Brussels. As we traveled across the flat, bare Belgian countryside, I gazed out the window. The sky was a leaden, uniform grey; the air was warm, stagnant, and humid. Pollarded willow trees edged fields tilled in a patchwork of green hues; torpid canals lined the roadsides. Painted cottages added specks of color to the serene landscape which gave no hint of the many wars fought here. First conquered by Julius Caesar, Belgium was later ruled by the Franks, by the Dukes of Burgundy, and then the Hapsburgs; these were followed by the Holy Roman Emperors of Austria and Spain, by France under Napoleon, and by Holland under the Prince of Orange. Belgium finally won independence in 1831, and it kept peace during the revolutions this year. Here I, too, had won a battle-to tear myself away from M. Heger before my love for him destroyed me.
Upon reaching Brussels, I rode with Mr. Slade in a carriage through the avenues. Medieval houses still sheltered in cobbled lanes near boulevards lined with stately mansions. Colorful open-air cafes and markets still bustled; the air still smelled of the foul River Senne. Burghers clad in dark coats and hats abounded, as did peasants in rustic garb. Voices babbled in French and Flemish. I couldn’t help searching the crowds for M. Heger. We entered the Grand Place, the main square in the lower city. The bell in the tower of the Gothic town hall tolled seven o’clock. Gas lamps illuminated the scrolled gables, fanciful statuary, and elaborate gold ornamentation that graced the merchant guild houses. In the east, the towers of the Church of St. Michel and Ste. Gudule rose majestically on the hillside. I gazed beyond it, towards the aristocratic upper city, where the Pensionnat Heger stood.
Mr. Slade secured us lodgings in the Rue du Marche aux Herbes, at the Hotel Central. Such palatial elegance! Such glittering mirrors and chandeliers! Such a smart clientele! My spacious room was furnished with brocade chairs, fluted lamps, and luxurious Flemish carpets and tapestries. I spent my first evening there, and much of the following day, while Mr. Slade went out to recruit his friends among the Brussels police on a hunt for the exiled French radical LeDuc.
He returned the next day at dusk. We sat together in the hotel’s candlelit dining room, where ornate silver and fine crystal sparkled on tables laid with white linen. Suave waiters served us wine, mussels in garlic and cream, and rabbit stew. The rich food overwhelmed my palate. I felt drab among the fashionable diners. Mr. Slade looked handsome in his evening dress, but weary and discouraged.
“We found LeDuc,” he said. “ An odd, repulsive fellow he is-not above four feet high, with a bald head, pale, blazing eyes, and an arrogant manner. He lives in a dirty attic room, and he was conveniently at home.”
“What happened?” I asked, wondering why he didn’t act happier to have located our quarry.
“At first he denied any connection with the Birmingham Chartists, but after the police roughed him up a bit, he changed his mind. He claims to take orders from a man who is immensely wealthy and extremely secretive. This man told LeDuc to instruct the Birmingham Chartists to take guns from Joseph Lock and murder Isabel White. He paid well for these services, and his money also went towards financing the recent insurrection in France. However, LeDuc doesn’t know the man’s name. They are in frequent contact, and they meet in person, yet LeDuc has never set eyes on him.”
“How can that be?” I said in puzzlement.
“Whenever the man wants LeDuc, he sends a carriage. The driver blindfolds LeDuc and drives him to a house. When he arrives, he and his master talk together. His blindfold stays on the entire time, so he doesn’t know where the house is or what it looks like. Nor can he describe his host. Afterward, the carriage takes him home. LeDuc stuck to his story even when the police threatened him with prison.” Mr. Slade drank his wine, as if to swallow his exasperation. “I’m forced to believe Leduc is telling the truth, and the criminal we seek isn’t him, but his nameless master.”
We had come all the way to Brussels to discover that we had misidentified our quarry and the chase was at a dead end. “LeDuc must have noticed something about the man that might identify him, or something about the house that will help us locate it,” I said.
“He furnished two observations,” said Slade. “The house has a peculiar, sweet smell. And the man speaks French with an odd foreign accent that LeDuc didn’t recognize.”
These seemed meager clues to me. As Slade and I sat in mutual discouragement, a waiter approached me. “ Excusez-moi, Mademoiselle, mais vous avez un visiteur.”
“A visitor? For me?” I said, so startled that I forgot my French and spoke in English.
The waiter said, “ C’est un gentilhomme, qui vous attende au jardin,” then departed.
Mr. Slade regarded me with alarm. “What gentleman knows you’re in Brussels?”
“I cannot imagine,” I said.
“He must have traced you here.” Excitement animated Mr. Slade, and I knew he referred to the criminal we sought. “He has come to you, or sent one of his henchmen, as we hoped he would.”
We hurried to the glass doors and peered out at the garden, but trees concealed my visitor. “I cannot go out there,” I said, shrinking back in terror.
“You must. This may be our only hope of capturing the criminal.” Mr. Slade took hold of my shoulders, gazed intently into my eyes, and spoke with adamant insistence: “You’ve nothing to fear. You won’t be alone. I’ll be watching every moment.”
His determination overcame my resistance; I nodded. “Wait a few minutes while I steal into the garden from the back,” he said, then rushed from the room.
I stood quaking with fright, unwilling to leave the safety of the hotel. But I could not throw away what might be our mission’s only hope of success. Nor could I waste the work for which my sisters had risked their safety. I opened the door and stepped outside.
The setting sun gilded the garden. The day’s lingering heat engulfed me as I crept down the flagstone path. I heard crickets chirping, birds singing, carriages in the streets, and the pounding of my own heart. Rosebushes bordered the path, and each ragged breath I drew filled my lungs with the sweetness of the blossoms. Ahead stood a gazebo. I perceived a man standing inside at the same instant I smelled pungent smoke from the cigar he held. Memories too potent to articulate halted my progress. I stared in astonishment as the man stepped out of the gazebo and walked towards me.
“So, Miss Charlotte,” he said in the brusque, heavily accented English that I’d not heard for almost five years, other than in my dreams. “We meet again.”
