City of Light (City of Mystery) (14 page)

“February 10,” the
woman said.

“You remember the
precise date?”

The woman looked
down into her lap. “It was my birthday.”

Perhaps I judged too
quickly, Trevor thought.  As bizarrely ill-suited as this man and woman seemed
to be, there could still be genuine affection between them.  At least he had
visited her on her birthday.  He considered the woman in the rocking chair more
closely.  He supposed it was possible she could have been pretty once, long
before the deep lines at the corners of her lips began to make their way toward
her chin.  The crevices not only aged her, but gave her the odd look of a ventriloquist
dummy, as if her mouth was a creaky hinge just waiting for someone to slip his hand
inside it and make his words her own.  

Emma opened her notebook
and continued to question the woman on the particulars.  Her name was Janet.  She
and Charles Hammond had been married for eleven years.  He resided primarily in
London while she remained here. This arrangement had been in place for the
majority of their marriage and she promptly added, without Emma asking, that
she preferred it that way.

Trevor’s gaze moved
back to the photograph on the mantle.  The man pictured there was actually more
than a bit of a dandy, his curly blond hair much longer than the current fashion,
his mustache elaborately waxed and curled.  He reminded Trevor of that fellow
the Indians had finished off in America…what was his name?  Custer?  They said
Custer had been arrogant, that this very arrogance had led to his doom, and it
seemed quite possible that Charles Hammond shared the same trait.  For the face
in the picture was haughty, turned to the side in half-profile, giving the
illusion that the man was looking out the window, past the small yard and the
dirty street beyond.  Already planning his escape from Manchester.

Janet Hammond saw
him studying the photograph and shot him a defiant look.  She must have known
how unlikely it would have seemed that a woman like her could be married to the
man on the mantle.  She must have known that it would be hard to imagine
circumstances that would put the two of them in the same room, much less the
same bed.

“Where is your
husband now?” Emma asked.

The woman turned
back toward her. “I’m not entirely sure.”

Emma took a
different tack.  “If you had to guess, what would you say?”

“Paris.”

Trevor was so
startled by this blunt and quite possibly honest answer that he twisted his
whole body toward the woman and Emma likewise shifted on the divan.  Without
prompting, Janet Hammond went on to explain that her husband’s business
required the importing and exporting of cloth.  Fabrics from the mills of
Manchester making their way to London and then on across the continent via the
merchants Paris.  “He goes there on a regular basis,” she said.  “Three or four
times in a normal year, more frequently of late.”

“Why more frequently
of late?” Emma asked.

“The Exhibition,”
the woman said. 

“He’s providing
cloth for the Exhibition?”

The woman nodded and
Emma sank back in her seat, momentarily unsure of herself for the first time
since the questioning had begun.  She and Trevor exchanged a quick glance.  It
was highly unlikely this woman had ever known the exact nature of her husband’s
business – highly unlikely that she knew what he truly sold was the flesh of
young boys.   Besides, now that he considered it, Trevor supposed it was
possible Charles Hammond was a fabric exporter as well, that having a
respectable-sounding second business could serve to conceal the more sinister
activities of the first.

“He doesn’t just
sell cloth of course,” the woman calmly added, again surprising both Emma and
Trevor.

“What else does he
sell?” Trevor asked.

She shook her head. 
“He procures British investors,” she said, a glimmer of pride in her voice,
“for the French Exhibition.”

This volunteered
tidbit of information, accurate or not, flummoxed Trevor so completely that the
room fell into a moment of silence.  It was Emma who finally broke it.

“And where does he
find these British investors?”

“A few in London,
most of them expatriated to Paris,” Janet Hammond said

“Expatriated?” Emma
repeated blankly.

“It means people who
have moved from one country to another,”  Janet said smugly.  “In this case,
from England to France.”

“Yes, yes, I know
what it means,” Emma murmured, looking uncertainly to Trevor again.  This woman
was not at all what she had first seemed and she was clearly relishing the
effect that her revelations were having on Emma and Trevor.  Her desire to
impress people with her intelligence will ultimately be her undoing, Emma
thought.  Someday someone will trap her into telling more than she should.

“And how did Charles
become acquainted with the expatriates in Paris?”  Emma asked. 

“Oh, but Charles
moves in high social circles,” Janet answered.  “The very highest.”

“Ah,” said Emma, the
face of the Duke of Clarence flitting across her mind. 

“They frequent,”
Janet continued, “the finest clubs and restaurants in Paris.  Perhaps on the
continent.” 

“Ah,” Emma said
again, her eyes involuntarily moving around the room. If her husband was
cavorting in the finest restaurants in Paris while she lived in a moldy cottage
in the shadow of cotton mill, she doubted she would manage to report the fact
with such pride. 

“How does he
convince these men to provide funds for the Paris exhibition?”  Trevor asked. 
“They’re English, after all, even if they are living in France.  What incentive
would they have to underwrite the cost of French glory?”

The question hung in
the air but for a second.

“It’s an investment,
of course,” the woman said.

“A rather risky one.
The papers say the costs of the Exhibition have run far over budget.  Eiffel’s
Tower might not be finished in time, and then where will they be?  The
laughingstock of Europe.” Trevor looked at the woman closely.  “It doesn’t
sound like a proposition which would tempt a prudent investor.”

“Charles is very
persuasive.”

“It seems he would
have to be.”

“You don’t know
him,” Janet Hammond said, sitting back into her rocker.  “He could convince a
man to bet his last shilling, a woman to sell her own child. He could wade out
into the harbor and convince the very tide to turn.”

Trevor looked once
again towards the photograph on the mantle.  He didn’t doubt for a minute that
she was right.

2:35 PM

An hour later,
Trevor and Emma were seated in a tea house across from the train station,
looking out the window at the gathering mist.

“What I don’t
understand,” Emma was saying, as she dreamily stirred cream into her cup, “is
how a man from such humble origins might come to socially interact with the
upper class.  I mean, assuming that the woman is telling the truth about
Charles and the investors –“

“I believed her,”
Trevor said, squeezing a bit of lemon into her own tea. “Yes, she was bragging,
trying to convince us that her husband was a legitimately successful
businessman, but even so.  There was something quite direct and unfeigned in
her answers.”

“I agree that she
was natural in manner,” Emma nodded, “but that only indicates that she believed
she was telling us the truth, not that she actually was.  A husband would
hardly announce to his wife he was running a brothel, would he?  Instead he
would concoct some story about important business abroad.”

“That bit about the
business abroad…”

“But I still don’t
understand,” Emma went on. “Even with his pretty ways, could a man like Hammond
truly mix as an equal with that class of people?  The sort who would have enough
money to underwrite the French Exhibition?  It doesn’t seem likely.”

“Well, there’s that,
but also something else,” Trevor said.  “The words that the Hammond woman used
were eerily similar to what Rayley wrote me in one of his recent letters.  That
the Exhibition was rumored to be in financial trouble, that they were seeking
underwriters, and that a sizable percentage of these investors were British.  
How would Janet Hammond know that, unless her husband had told her?”

Emma frowned.  “The
fact that the Exhibition is running short of funds is hardly a secret.  The
Times is full of it.”

“But nothing about a
private pool of British investors.  I nearly startled when she said that.”

“You did startle. I
saw you.  But I don’t recall Rayley saying that in any of his letters.”

“Not in one of the
letters he sent to the Tuesday Night Murder Games Club,” Trevor conceded. 
“This was in a private letter he wrote me expressing his concerns about Isabel
Delacroix.  Well, perhaps I should say the woman he calls Isabel Delacroix and
Geraldine calls Isabel Blout.”

“Why are you being
so vague, Trevor?  I didn’t know you and Rayley exchanged private letters at
all.  What has he told you that the rest of us aren’t privy to know?”  When
Trevor hesitated, Emma leaned forward.  “Is he having a love affair with this Delacroix
woman?”

Trevor shook his
head.  “Perhaps in his dreams, but that’s all.  He’s enchanted with her and is
curious about her background.  The man she is living with in Paris is named
Armand Delacroix and Rayley writes that he makes his money by procuring private
investments for the Exhibition.”

Emma’s pale eyebrows
shot up.  “Well that’s quite the coincidence.”

“Quite.  And here’s
another one for you to stir into your tea.  Isabel was born and raised in
Manchester.”

Emma’s turned toward
the window and the muddy street outside it.  “She lived here?”

Trevor nodded and
they both took a sip of tea.

“What are the statistical
odds,” Emma finally asked, “that the Cleveland Street case would somehow be
connected to Isabel Blout, and the Parisian Exhibition, and the death of
Patrick Graham?”

“Damn small, which
is why I’m not at all sure the two cases are connected.”

Emma’s eyes jerked
to his face.  “You truly doubt it?  I’ll concede that on the surface it seems
unlikely that a murder in Paris and a brothel in London are somehow linked, but
given the facts before us, it appears they must be.”  She pushed aside her
teacup so roughly that a bit splashed out and set back in her seat.  “Consider
the pieces of the puzzle and then tell me you don’t believe they all belong in
the same box.  We have a British man, Charles Hammond, who goes back and forth
from England to France on business which his wife claims is connected to
under-the-table fundraising for the Exhibition.  We have a Frenchman across the
channel, who Rayley claims is doing the same thing.  The Englishman is from
Manchester and the Frenchman is living with a woman from Manchester.  It seems
there would have to be some link and the link would have to be the woman.”

Trevor gave a slow
nod, although he was clearly not as convinced as Emma hoped he would be.  “I
shall wire Rayley.”

“Well obviously you
must wire Rayley, but in the meantime, we’re already here.  We should try to
find someone who knew Isabel when she was growing up.  What was her maiden
name?”

“I have no idea.”

“Would Gerry know?”

“Perhaps.”

Emma pushed her cup
away.  “How old is Isabel?”

Trevor thought for a
moment.  “Married very young, but been married more than ten years, closer to
fifteen….so I’d say about thirty.”

“And how old is
Hammond?”

“Gad, I don’t know. 
All the boys at Cleveland Street said was that he was an adult, which could
mean anything.  Assuming that the photograph in his wife’s house was recent…”

“He’d be about
thirty as well.”

“I suppose.  But
Emma, we’re making any number of assumptions.”

“I realize that,
Trevor, but it seems to me odd to think that two people from the same small
dreary industrial town, about the same age, should have somehow clawed their way
out of that town and into the expatriate social circles of Paris and yet would
not know each other.  Think of it.  Charles and Isabel could be childhood
sweethearts.  Brother and sister.  Yes, looking at it from the outside, it’s
improbable that your case and Rayley’s should be connected, but given the facts
before us it seems more improbable that they’re not.  The eyes of the world are
looking toward Paris.  So is it really so surprising that the focus of the all
the criminals of Europe might fix there as well?”

Emma sat back in her
chair, proud of her speech, especially the last line, but Trevor was still not
entirely persuaded. “Manchester isn’t such a small town.  Yes, far smaller than
London, but it’s not at all like the village where I grew up or the one you
came from either.  In the rural burgs you’re quite right, everyone knows
everyone.  The children all go to the same school, the citizens all gather at
the same church….”