City of Light (City of Mystery) (27 page)

“You didn’t by any
chance tell this story to Rayley Abrams, did you?”

Geraldine was back
with the wine. She handed the glass directly to Marjorie this time and then
retreated, pausing at the door to raise her eyebrows at Trevor.  But when he
pointedly ignored her mute question, she gave an audible sigh and slipped back
into the hall.

Marjorie took a
sizable sip and gazed thoughtfully into the distance.  “I didn’t get the
opportunity. After I heard that they’d found Graham’s body, I started
thinking.  Of all the people who went up the tower that morning, everyone was a
reporter, a photographer, or an employee of the Otis Elevator company.  Everyone
except two, that is – your friend Detective Abrams and Isabel Delacroix.”

“Rayley introduced
himself to the group as a detective?” Trevor asked with surprise.

Marjorie gave him a small
smile, genuine this time. “Of course not.  He was trying to avoid drawing
attention, so in an elevator crammed full of braggarts and busybodies his very
modesty singled him out.  We pride ourselves on getting the story, Detective
Welles, so I venture that by the time the elevator had risen to the base of the
tower, every reporter in it had silently vowed to discover the true identity of
Rayley Abrams.”  Now she openly chuckled. “The poor man would have been far
less intriguing if he had donned a red dance dress and put feathers in his
hair.  I knew he was Scotland Yard by noon and I daresay all the others did as
well.”

Marjorie took
another sip of wine, and then another. “And Detective Abrams knew all about
Isabel Delacroix, didn’t he?  That was why he was with us in the first place,
because he was following her.  He was aware of her connections, and that her
husband Armand was practicing extortion against a circle of important British
men.  But tell me this.  Had he discovered more than Patrick Graham?  Did
Abrams know exactly what sort of dirt Armand had dug up on the British?”

Trevor hesitated.  It
was trivial in light of all that had happened, but for some reason he was unwilling
to publically confess that the reporter had learned more than the detective.
“My dear Miss Mallory,” he said.  “I have no idea the extent of what Detective
Abrams knew or suspected.  My team and I were in London when the things you
have described transpired and our communications with Rayley were sporadic and
incomplete.”

The wine must have
finally begun to work its effects on Marjorie Mallory’s system, for this time
she made no effort to hold back the tears which sprang to her eyes. “I went to
the police and asked for him,” she said, her voice a hiccuping whisper. “Knew I
should tell him what Graham had told me just in case…Just in case he somehow didn’t
know.  But they said he wasn’t in that day.  They told me that they had no idea
where he’d gone or when he’d be back.”

“And that news must
have frightened you badly,” Trevor said with sympathy.  She was trembling again
and he considered taking her hand.

“Detective Abrams
was so kind to me that day we went up, all of us crammed in that horrid loud
elevator,” Marjorie said, letting her head loll back a bit.  “He even tried to
shield me from Patrick Graham.  But then, when the doors finally opened, it was
like a scene from a fairy tale, Detective Welles, nothing but air and
excitement, as if we all really had found the city of light.  Everyone was
taking my picture.  We were laughing.  I would never have believed that, within
days, three of us would be gone.”

“Three of you?  I
know Graham is dead and Abrams is missing –“

Her head snapped up
with surprise. “So you haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Isabel Delacroix
has disappeared from Paris.  No one claims to have seen her since the same
night that Detective Abrams vanished.  One of the rumors in the press corps
office is that Abrams gave her a police escort back to London, personally
ensuring her passage across the channel.”

“I can assure you
that rumor isn’t true,” said Trevor.

“And another is that
she found her way back to London on her own.”

“Possible,” conceded
Trevor, mentally making a note that they should look for Isabel’s name as well
as Armand’s in the dockmaster rosters. “But it seems to me more plausible that
she is simply hiding here in Paris.  She’s wealthy, is she not?  That always
helps.”  

Marjorie shrugged. “She’s
married to a wealthy man, which is entirely different.  Her bills may be
promptly paid, but that doesn’t mean she has cash in pocket.  Women live…we
live differently than you do, Detective Welles.  For even when we seem to be firmly
ensconced in the lap of luxury, there is always the knowledge that this lap can
drop out from under us the very instant a man decides to stand up and leave.”

Trevor was slightly
startled by the cynicism of this statement, even more shocked than by the rapid
disappearance of the wine in the girl’s glass.  “But Isabel has connections with
wealthy people, at least, friends to whom she could turn. There are any number
of places where she might take refuge.”

“I suppose,”
Marjorie conceded. “No one has laid odds on that notion yet.  I hope it won’t
shock you to learn that newspaper reporters bet on the outcome of stories. We
truly are the pack of hyenas that everyone proclaims us to be.”

“I’m not shocked,”
Trevor said. “Detectives do the same thing.”

“Really?  That must
be how you won your handsome suit.”

They sat for a
minute in awkward silence while Trevor tried to decide if she was flirting with
him or if, more likely, she was merely tipsy.

“And the third
theory of what has become of Rayley and Isabel?” Trevor finally asked. “It seems
such rumors always come in counts of three.”

Marjorie blinked
rapidly and drained her glass of wine.

“Indeed,” said
Trevor.

5:05 PM

Emma paced on the
sidewalk outside the apartment, waiting for Tom.  It was taking him a long time
to simply send a telegram and when she finally saw him making his way down the
street it was clear he had stopped off for a drink, or more likely two.  It was
scarcely her job to keep count of how much alcohol Tom consumed in the course
of a day, but it most certainly was a great deal, and even more disturbing than
the volume was his tendency to try and hide it.  He would often do precisely
this – slip out on some errand, be gone longer than anticipated, and return
slightly blurred and a half-beat behind his normally brisk conversational
pace.  For a man as bright as Tom, a half-beat behind was still faster than
most, so he was generally able to conceal his afternoon trips to the pub.  Emma
doubted if anyone other than her had ever noticed.

Now he was smiling,
raising one finger to his lips as he approached her, in a gesture of childish secrecy.

“And why is my fair
Emma out waiting for me here in the street?” he asked.  “Do you have some sort
of confidence to share?  Or are you simply wishing for a few private moments
with your fiancé before we make our first public appearance as a betrothed
couple?”

“Oh yes, yes that,”
Emma said distractedly.  It had been such a bizarre day that she had entirely
forgotten that this evening she would be expected to don her flesh-colored gown
and convince a room full of strangers that she was the fiancé of a well-to-do doctor.

“I do want to ask
you something,” she went on. “Something I’m not prepared to say in front of
Trevor.  He’s too…protective, I suppose.  I doubt he will ever consider me a
full member of the team.”

Tom nodded slowly
and leaned against the filigreed gate. “He means well, but I understand what
you’re saying.  Isn’t it funny how the great champion of modern forensics has
turned out to be such an old-fashioned man at heart?  I take it that you have
some theory you wish to put forward, but that you think might be better if it comes
from me.”

“Actually I have a
theory that I want you to help me test.”

At this point they
saw Claire resentfully trudging toward them with a sack from the market.

“Ah, Claire,” Tom
said as she neared, and he proceeded to tell her that if a telegram should come
for him that evening that she should send it on immediately to the home of
Madame Seaver. 

“Your French is
perfectly fine,” Emma said, when Claire had nodded and gone up the steps to the
front door. “The Tuesday Night Murder Games Club doesn’t really need me here at
all.”

“This sort of self
pity isn’t like you,” Tom said, taking her arm and leading her away from the
gate. “You’re an entirely vital member of the team, as you know full well.”  He
looked at her closely.  “What’s really on your mind?  Will your smart new navy
dress survive a sit on the steps, do you think?  Or should we stroll while we talk?” 

Emma trembled for a
second, partly from her agitation, and partly from the fact that Tom was
standing so close.  Even when mildly intoxicated, he still saw her more clearly
than anyone else.  He did not remember the night they had collapsed into each
other’s arms last fall and would most likely never remember it, at least not
consciously.  But on some deeper level there was a connection between the two
of them that had been forged during their singular evening as lovers, a sort of
instinctive understanding that defied rational analysis.

“There’s one fact
that everyone knows, everyone agrees upon,” said Emma, making a concerted
effort to pull her attention back to the subject at hand.  “That both the
unidentified body of the boy-girl and the body of Graham were found at
approximately the same point along the Seine and that neither had been in the
water long.  So it would make sense that they were both released from the same
place as well, would it not?”

“Here,” said Tom. 
“Sit.”  He took off his jacket and spread it across the third marble step. 
Emma, noting that the fashionably thin Parisian skirt severely inhibited her
movement, slowly lowered herself down with a swiveling moment while Tom carelessly
plopped beside her. “There’s a bridge very close to where the bodies were
found,” Tom said. “The assumption has always been that this was where they must
have entered the water.”

“Yes, I know, but
remember what Trevor says about assumptions,” Emma said.  “Besides, those
theories originated when the first body was discovered.  At that point the
authorities believed they were dealing with a suicide, ergo someone who had
jumped, so of course the police would focus their attention on the most likely
place that a suicide would choose, which is a bridge.  But now that the
boy-girl and Graham as well, have been deemed the victims of murder, it seems
it is time to revisit the original assumption.”

“Quite so,” Tom
said, beginning to see her point. “If you had murdered someone, or had rendered
them unconscious by chloroform, you would hardly need to throw them from a
bridge.  In fact, given the amount of foot traffic the average city bridge sustains,
that would be the least sensible way to dispose of their body.  More likely you
would simply carry them to the riverbank and put them in the water.”

“The more I’ve
thought about it,” Emma said with a nod, “the more convinced I’ve become that
the important part of the puzzle isn’t where the bodies came out of the river,
but rather where they went in.  What do the riverbanks of the Seine look like?”

“I don’t know,” Tom
admitted.  “I’ve crossed the river by bridge before, but never really bothered
to look down at the banks. The Seine isn’t as wide as the Thames, especially
not in the pass where the bodies were found, so I assume the banks are not as
steep.” He nodded at Emma.  “We shall go first thing tomorrow morning and take
a look.”

“I think we should
go tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“I told you, I have
a theory.”

“I don’t like the
sound of that at all, Emma.  I know you don’t think Trevor treats you like a
fellow, but we simply cannot go off on our own testing theories by the light of
the moon.  Please don’t jerk your chin at me like that.”

“How much time do
you think we have?  It’s a good sign that Rayley is still merely missing, I’ll
concede.  Whoever killed the boy-girl and Graham clearly wanted them to be
found as quickly as possible to send some sort of message.  A message to the
men being blackmailed or perhaps even to the French police.  So the very fact
that we haven’t found Rayley’s body suggests he is still alive and being held captive
somewhere.”

“Trevor believes it
is Delacroix.”

“I didn’t say he was
being held by someone, I said he was being held somewhere,” Emma said sharply. “Obviously
it’s Delacroix or someone connected to him, but it seems to me that arresting
Delacroix may be our longest route to the truth.”

“Right now he’s all
we have.”

“Right now you’re
correct, which is why I’m suggesting we consider the case from a different
angle.  Trevor will be Trevor and he will follow the slow and steady steps of
justice, knowing that if he collects enough evidence against Delacroix he will
ultimately find Rayley.  But if he hesitates too long what he may find instead is
Rayley’s body.”