City of Light (City of Mystery) (4 page)

“You miss him, Sir,
don’t you?” Davy asked. “Detective Abrams, I mean.”

“I do,” Trevor readily
admitted. “We were never so good of friends until the man left town.  But I
have his weekly letters, which are the very best kind of conversation, and
perhaps the new case outlined in his latest letter has fully as much intrigue
as The Affair of the Bread Knife.”

“I do hope the next victim
is a woman,” Gerry said, drawing up her plump shoulders so that the feathers on
her gown shook and trembled, giving her the appearance of a self-satisfied
hen.  “I have always fancied a career on the stage.”

CHAPTER THREE

Paris

April 18, 1889

8:43 PM

“Bizarre and
dreadful, are they not?”

Rayley wasn’t sure
which startled him more, the boldness of the criticism or his surprise at hearing
his own language.  But whoever had spoken the words was undeniably correct.  On
the table before them were dozens of small replicas of what the Eiffel Tower
was meant to look like upon completion, cast in any number of improbable
forms.  Tea towels, flags, charms, hat pins, and clocks.  A particularly
enterprising seamstress had even designed a dress with a layered collar
emulating the extended triangular shape of Eiffel’s design.  Three women in
this crowded room were in fact wearing that very fashion at the moment, straining
to hold their necks above the collar like dogs in the leash, and apparently
without the dismay that ladies normally displayed when they found a social
rival in similar dress.  All of Paris was gripped in tower fever and it was
indeed bizarre and rather dreadful.

A fresh-faced young
man was holding out a hand to Rayley.  “Don’t tell me I guessed wrong,” he said.
“You’re British, are you not?”

“It shows?”

“Absolutely,” the
young man said, pumping with a vigorous handshake, and using his other hand to
pat Rayley’s shoulder with the automatic intimacy people fall into whenever
they meet a countryman abroad.  “Patrick T. Graham, London Star.”

“Rayley Abrams,
Scotland Yard.”

Graham’s brows shot
up and he gave a long low whistle. “Here tonight on duty?”

“A last minute
invitation from my French hosts.  I’m not entirely sure why.  Your presence in
this fine room is professional as well, I presume?”

“Of course.  Our
readers can’t get their fill of information about the Exposition.”

“Even though the
Queen does not approve?”

Graham laughed. His
cheeks had that sort of perpetual flush that characterizes some men, as if they
had just recently come in from a brisk walk along the river. “Especially
because the Queen does not approve.” 

“She hardly stands
alone.”

“No crowned heads are
expected to attend at all, and the French, pardon the pun, are royally pissed
about it, even though they’re pretending not to care.”  Graham spread his
fingers and ticked the countries off.  “Russia and Germany have also sent their
regrets. Austria, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Sweden.  It’s as if all of Europe has
turned its back on France in its moment of triumph.  Of course the savages of
the world will be here in full force, with the Americans leading the charge as
always.  We can expect a contingent of those countries in South America that no
civilized person can name, Japan, and various rocky little islands from
Southeast Asia.”

“The Americans have always
been quick to claim spiritual kinship with the French,” Rayley said with
authority, although in truth he had only known one American in his life.  A
transplanted whore back in London, who’d exhibited the sort of stubborn refusal
to listen to reason that Rayley considered the hallmark of her nationality. 
The girl seemed to believe she was somehow immune to the Ripper, since up to
that point he had murdered only British prostitutes. She’d been unmoved by
Rayley’s warnings and openly amused by the sight of him unbuttoning his
trousers, all the while lecturing her to be more careful when meeting strange
men.  But, once this brief conversation was behind them, the girl had displayed
such admirable enthusiasm for her chosen profession that Rayley had always
thought the better of Americans for having met her.  “Both countries have an
unnatural degree of interest in democracy, liberty, and fraternity, that sort
of thing.”

“A kinship based on
a mutual desire to show off is more like it,” Graham said with a snort and Rayley
found himself laughing back.  “But the Americans are certainly sending France
their best – Thomas Edison and his phonograph, James Whistler and his
paintings, and the word is that Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley and a whole troop
of those Indian fellows are going to drive a herd of buffalo down the Champs-Elysees.
Or perhaps it’s bison. Whatever they call them. Can you imagine?”

“It should be quite
the scene.”

“What’s the
difference between a buffalo and a bison, anyway?  Or are they the same beast?”

“I’m sure I don’t
know.”

“Well, I won’t rest
until I have the answer. I’m a newspaper man, and we can no more stop asking
questions than we can stop breathing.”  Graham regarded Rayley with a sideways
glance. “Rather like detectives, in that regard, I’d imagine.  So I’ll ask you the
question that lures us all here tonight.”  He motioned Rayley closer for a slow
whisper. “Will… he…finish…on…time?”

It was indeed the
question of the hour.  There had been notable progress on the tower during the
last few weeks, but even Eiffel’s most ardent supporters had begun to openly
doubt the structure would be ready for its scheduled debut on May 9.  It now
stood a strangely stark figure but, looking at the souvenirs spread around him,
Rayley realized it was actually closer to completion than he would have
guessed.  The tower would always be more about engineering than art, showing
its cables and gears with impunity, forcing its observers to admire how it
worked more than how it looked.  Even when finished, Rayley suspected the tower
would never seem entirely so.

But just as tower
fever was running high in Paris, so was tower anxiety, which was why Eiffel and
the Exposition organizers had found themselves obliged to host this very party in
the lobby of the Normandy Hotel.  It was a glittering event.  The room swathed
in the national colors, waiters with trays of lobster and prawns circulating
among the crowd, the string orchestra in the corner playing an endless series of
songs by French composers.  All intended to assure investors, the press, and
the most prominent citizens of Paris that on opening day the tower would be not
only a beacon of progress but an elevated town square the likes of which the
world had never seen, complete with promenades, shops, and restaurants. A pile
of money was on the line.  Money and Parisian pride.  Although no one had
directly said as much, Rayley suspected that he and the other high ranking
members of the police force were invited here tonight in anticipation of
possible problems. 

“They appear to be
ready to begin.  I should find my translator,” Rayley said, although he was a
bit sorry to part from Graham and the first unfettered conversation he’d
enjoyed for months.

“No call, old chap,”
Graham said.  “My French is rather good, if you’ll trust me.”

“You speak French?”

“Have to, for the
job.  You don’t?”

Rayley felt himself
flushing but held it down.  His failings with the language had put him at a
severe disadvantage on more occasions than he cared to count.  The official police
translator only repeated the bare bones of conversations, leaving Rayley to
grasp futilely at the deeper meanings.  Many times a long and quite possibly
significant speech in French had been followed by an insultingly short
translation in English, something like “He says no” or “Would you care for more
wine?”  But Graham was an open and unguarded sort, clearly inclined to bombast
and gossip, and Rayley had no doubt he would embellish his translations with
precisely the sort of details he’d been starved for since November. Rayley
nodded at Graham. The man’s arrogance was annoying, but at least he was British
and thus annoying in a familiar way.

The orchestra stopped
playing and a hush fell over the crowd.  It was just past nine, Rayley noted by
the cluster of Eiffel tower clocks on the table beside him, and the speeches
were getting underway with a surprising promptness. 

Gustave Eiffel had
made his millions as an engineer in the railway industry.  He’d risen to wealth
and prominence by performing tasks others had deemed impossible, building
bridges over seemingly uncrossable spans of water and weaving tracks around the
most resistant of mountains.  Tall and handsome, with a crest of white hair, he
entirely looked the part of a captain of industry as he strode across the small
makeshift stage the hotel had provided.  A young couple trailed in his wake.

“His daughter and
son-in-law,” Graham whispered. “Wife’s dead, but he’s eager to present as a
family man. Trots them out for all occasions.”

Rayley nodded. 
Eiffel was a messenger perfectly suited to his task, the ideal man to assure
the nervous French that the tower would rise on schedule and that the world
would subsequently bow at its feet.  Eiffel’s voice soon proved the proper sort
too, confident without bravado and slowly-paced, betraying not the slightest
hint of nervousness.  Graham provided whispered bits of translation, indicating
that Eiffel was giving the crowd exactly the phrases that one might expect.  A
centerpiece.  A sign.  A symbol.  Industry.  Democracy.  Progress. 

The triumph of the
modern world.

Was he speaking only
of his tower or of the Exposition as a whole?  Rayley leaned in to ask Graham
and froze before he could open his mouth.

The woman from the
café was in the crowd.  Dressed in gold this time, with the same austerely high
neckline as her first gown, the same exaggerated shoulders and narrow hips. Her
hair more severely pulled back than before, with strands of pearls woven among
the dark tresses.  She was standing close enough to the stage to indicate her
status in the room, or more likely the status of her husband, the man whose arm
was intertwined with her own.

Rayley forced
himself to exhale.  It wasn’t surprising that she would be present at such a
party.  Half of Paris was here, and – with the arguable exception of himself
and Graham – most probably the better half.

The woman’s arm was
linked through the man’s, but it was a casual linkage.  He was almost turned
away from her, straining toward Eiffel, utterly unaware that he had a goddess
for a wife.  She is his trophy, Rayley thought, but a trophy garnered from a
contest long ago, taken in a victory he barely remembers.

Eiffel finished to
applause and signaled toward another man, who began to move toward the podium
with a heavy step and palpable dread.

“Otis,” Graham
whispered. “The elevator chap.”

Even with his
limited grasp of French and thus French gossip, Rayley knew at once what this meant. 
Whether or not Eiffel would finish the structure on time might be arguable, but
it had been painfully evident for months that his team was unable to engineer
any reasonable means of transporting people up and down the frame of the tower.
It had been a scandal when they’d had to call on the Americans for help, more
specifically this man Otis who was now standing behind the podium.  Rayley felt
for him with his thick, workmanlike coat and his stumbling French, which was
probably scarcely better than Rayley’s own.

“Why have they had
so much trouble with the elevators?” he quietly asked Graham. 

“Can’t rise straight
up,” Graham answered.  “They have to run along those strange sloping legs and
go…what’s the word?”

“Diagonal?”

“Precisely.  Cables
are engineered to go either up and down or back and forth, not both at once,”
Graham said.  “Even the Paris papers have admitted it’s a slight complication.”

Rayley frowned. It
seemed more than a slight complication. “So what happens if the tower opens and
there are no elevators?”

“We climb, I
suppose.” 

The voice behind him
was as cool and clear as water.  Since Eiffel had concluded and poor Otis had
begun, the crowd was growing restless, seeking trays of food and drink,
chatting right over his speech, turning the mood back into that or a party.  But
Rayley was still stunned to find her here, at his elbow, her lips curved into a
somewhat mocking smile.

“I suppose you two
know each other?” Graham said.  “Of course you’ve met.  Oh, but you haven’t? 
May I present Rayley Abrams of Scotland Yard.  And Rayley, this is Isabel…Delacroix.”

His hesitation on
the last name struck Rayley as odd, even in this moment when so many other
things were striking him as well.  For the woman had turned to him and offered
her gloved hand.  Had murmured “Detective…” as if it were a glorious word.  Why
would Graham not know her last name?  She was connected to important people, married
to a man who apparently had strong ties to the Exposition, and besides, Graham
seemed to know everyone in Paris.

Otis had finished. 
Eiffel stepped back to the podium for a few final remarks, the sort that even
Rayley could understand.  “A new France,” he had bellowed, evidently a scripted
finale, for in the moment when he uttered the final word, champagne corks had
gone flying from every corner of the room.  Within seconds, frothing glasses
were being set up on bars and waiters were stepping forward with trays of food. 
Someone, Rayley thought, with that parenthetical part of his mind that was still
working, has gone to great expense and trouble for this evening.  Someone is
very determined to ensure that all goes well.