The Left Hand of Justice (25 page)

I knew it,
Corbeau thought. She laughed weakly. Javert’s frown deepened.

“With all due respect, Monsieur,” she heard Joseph say from his dark corner of the carriage, “I think the inspector’s been through enough for today.”

Javert turned his scowl toward the boy. But then he nodded. “I agree. We’ll discuss this later, Inspector. Driver, to the Hôtel-Dieu
.
”

The door clicked carefully shut above her head. She heard the prefect’s boots step backward on the uneven pavement. She would really have to have a look at the canvas sleeve Dr. Kalderash had used to bind her shoulder. She looked forward to testing the very functional-looking mechanisms attached to it with the gossamer woven metal in her shoulder bag. Corbeau laughed again, but the pills had rendered the sound fuzzy and weak. Joseph looked down with concern. Corbeau winked.

Above them, the driver snapped his whip above the horses’ heads. With a lurch, the carriage began to roll.

By February, Paris had begun to stir beneath its thick, gray blankets of snow and cloud. The wind had lost its bite, and a festive feeling was in the air, as the entire city looked forward to the approach of spring.

It had been a long winter for Corbeau. Recovery had been arduous, painful, and incomplete. But halfway between the bitter end of January and the first rays of the March sun, her day of decision arrived. Wrapping herself tightly in her coat and scarf, she locked her apartment tight, scraped together a few sous, and indulged in a cab ride to the Conciergerie.

The building looked as imposing as ever beneath its cover of snow—snow now hard from melting and refreezing over the course of each day, rather than soft, fresh fall. Icicles hung at intervals along the roof, their sides diminished, slick, and dripping in the midmorning sun. As she approached the entrance, she walked gingerly. The packed snow had melted the day before, and the pavement was treacherous with ice.

“Inspector!” Laveau called as he recognized her. He seemed happy to see her, and relieved. His face fell, though, when he registered her careful gait and her arm still bound to her side rather than filling the left sleeve of her coat. “Not quite back in fighting form yet?”

“It’ll take time. You heard what happened.”

“All of Paris heard what happened. A lot of people think you’re dead.”

“Only my enemies, I hope. How’s the family?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Fed. Housed. Still, I’d give my firstborn to be back chasing ghosts. Not that I’m complaining,” he added, glancing around warily. “Listen, Inspector, I’d invite you inside where it’s warm, but we’re on tight security after—”

“It’s all right, Laveau.” Prefect Javert materialized beside the young man. He must have caught sight of her through a window and come outside to meet her, though she hadn’t heard or seen his approach. He wasn’t wearing a coat, and as fine as his jacket was, it was no match for the chill. He blew on his hands and rubbed them together. “Inspector, I’ve been expecting you for some weeks, now. Won’t you come inside?”

“Thank you.”

She followed Javert through the arched entryway. This time the guard didn’t even look up from his scandal sheet when she passed by. They continued into the interior of the building, their boot-steps echoing off the stone walls and high, buttressed ceilings, winding through a series of ever-narrower passages until Corbeau wouldn’t have been able to find her way out without a trail of bread crumbs. At last they came to a small door at the end of a long, dim hallway. Javert took out a key and unlocked the door.

His office at the Conciergerie looked much the same as the one at his home, minus the statues and expensive wine. It was tidy. Priestly. The walls not lined with bookshelves were papered with mounted maps annotated in his neat hand and stuck with pins and ribbons. The furniture was plain but well made. A small Persian carpet lay beneath the desk and chairs, the only visible concession to comfort. Corbeau doubted his Majesty had issued the rug.

“Welcome back, Inspector. Please sit.”

Corbeau glanced at the dark wood chair. “I’ll stand. This won’t take long.”

“As you wish.” He took his own chair—wide, padded, with arms—behind the desk and leaned forward, balancing his chin on steepled fingers. “I don’t suppose that, in the course of your vacation, you turned up the plans that woman stole from me?”

“No,” Corbeau said, though she was wearing the canvas sleeve beneath her shirt. After a thorough cleaning, it had made an excellent support for her arm. She had also begun to make progress with the conductive fabric, though the most she had coaxed from it were a few sparks.

“You haven’t seen her?” Javert’s tone told her that he knew she’d looked. She and Joseph had scoured the streets as best as they could, but Kalderash had disappeared. Her house was empty and locked up tight. The prefect’s perspicacity might have been uncomfortable, had she not decided to leave police work altogether.

“Not since that night. Sir, the reason I came,” she fumbled the buckles of her shoulder bag open with her good hand and removed an envelope, “was to tender my resignation.” She pushed the envelope across the desk at him. He glanced from the envelope to her, his thick eyebrows knitting together across the bridge of his nose. “I apologize in advance for the handwriting. As you probably know, I’m left-handed.”

“Resignation? Surely not? Not now, when we need you, Inspector—or, should I say, Chief Inspector—more than ever before?”

“Chief…”

Corbeau sank down onto the hard chair. She’d anticipated he’d offer her job back, possibly even with more pay. But though it was what she’d wanted more than anything several months ago, she couldn’t go back to work on Javert’s terms. He had manipulated her. He had invented a crime to entrap an innocent person—a person, she realized too late, she had cared about. If she allowed him to reinstate her in her current position, she would be naming a price for her professional integrity. She would be inviting him to do it again. But as chief inspector…

“With Vautrin gone, there’s no one better suited for the position.” Leaving her envelope where it was, he slid a stack of papers across the desk to her. Duties, responsibilities, and a contract. “Your first assignment will be to re-staff the Sûreté with qualified agents. After that, I’ll expect you to rebuild the Bureau of Supernatural Investigations as quickly as you can.

“And there will be a significant increase in your pay,” he added when she still said nothing. “As well as that of your subordinates. It was shameful what they were expecting you to live on.” He laid a leather envelope on top of the paper stack. Beneath the unsealed flap, she could see that the envelope was heavy with coin. “An advance,” he said, “nothing more.”

Corbeau’s heart pounded. During those long, cold weeks of recovery, she’d made a plan. After resigning, she’d move into one of the spare rooms at Madame Bernard’s house in the Montagne Ste. Geneviève and start compounding again—not sloppy formulae produced for a quick profit, but some of the recipes she’d learned in her childhood. Healing recipes. With Dr. Kalderash gone, the Montagne Ste. Geneviève would need someone to brew medicines, and she, at least, had some knowledge. It would be a difficult life, but not impossible. As a life of service often was.

But as chief inspector, she would have a budget and staff. And she’d be serving not just the people of the Montagne Ste. Geneviève, but all of Paris. What’s more, she’d have the authority to do it her way.

“My department,” she ventured, “to be run without your interference, the way I see fit?”

Javert cocked an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. And I know you wouldn’t, either.”

“What about the King? What would he say about reinstating the Bureau?”

Javert laughed. “Oh, we mustn’t ever tell him. But he won’t dare come poking around. I was his confessor, once.”

He slid her resignation back toward her. She let it lie. Unlike the King, she didn’t trust Javert. She would never trust him completely.

On the other hand, it didn’t mean they couldn’t work together.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

“You’ll think about it? Inspector, do you know how many people would jump at the—”

“I’ll think about it,” Corbeau repeated. “And you’ll wait for my response. You’ll put in a temporary chief, if you must, but you will wait. You need me.” She tucked the money and the contracts into her bag and stood.

Javert continued to stare. Then a slow smile spread over his face. He held up his hands and shrugged. “Of course, Madame. I shall await your pleasure.”

He stood to see her out. She slipped her resignation off his desk and crumpled it into her pocket. An unaccustomed elation settled over her: relief, optimism, and the knowledge she’d made the right decision. Nodding once at the prefect, she turned to leave, a small smile pulling at the edges of her lips.

*

Corbeau stepped out into the brisk, clean, early afternoon. All along the wide Boulevard du Palais, smartly dressed people moved from shop to restaurant to café, weaving in and out between bare trees and piles of dirt-speckled, hardened snow. She considered the question of lunch. The lump of cash in her bag would allow her to eat her meals wherever she pleased for a long time to come. She could travel by cab all over the city for months. Or, she could husband the money carefully and not have to deal with Javert again until the summer.

She decided to enjoy the walk.

What had become of Dr. Maria Kalderash? Corbeau supposed it was inevitable that the inventor would disappear again. Javert might have let her go that long-ago night in November, but he still thought she had the plans for the Left Hand of Justice. If she remained in Paris, he wouldn’t have been able to leave her alone for long. And there was Madame Boucher. The headlines had blazed with the names of Hermine Boucher and the Church of the Divine Spark through most of December. But both vanished from the papers some time around the New Year. And now, it was as if neither had ever existed. Even if Madame Boucher and Dr. Kalderash had come to an understanding, could either of them have remained in Paris, under the weight of those memories?

She strode down the boulevard. The day was fine, and she was feeling strong. A flash of red down on the corner caught her eye.

“Sophie!” she called.

The other woman turned. A smile broke over her face and she waved. “Elise!”

They hadn’t seen one another since that night in November. Corbeau hadn’t pursued her, and Sophie hadn’t sought her out. Corbeau was surprised at how happy she was to see Sophie running toward her, her crimson redingote peeking out from beneath her new coat, fur hat bobbing up and down as she ran, her shiny boots clacking on the pavement. As she approached, Corbeau reached out her hand. Sophie took it but stopped short of a full embrace.

“I trust you’ve been well, Elise,” she said soberly.

Corbeau nodded. “You?” Sophie nodded back. She was afraid, Corbeau realized—and rightfully so—that Corbeau wouldn’t forgive her for her betrayal in November. And Corbeau hadn’t, not for a long time. But those months of solitude and recovery had given her a lot to think about. And although they would never again share the intimacy they once had, Corbeau had too few friends who knew her from the inside out to cut her off completely. “And Madame Boucher?”

Sophie’s smile returned. She looked both contented and relieved. “She forgave me, Elise, after I convinced her that I’d seen the error of my ways.”

“Have you?”

Sophie looked down. “I think so.”

“Is she still having her outbursts?”

Sophie nodded. “It was a little rough after the whole business in November, but we left Paris for a while to rest and heal. She has a small cottage in the country, so quiet and clean. It’s doing us a lot of good.”

Corbeau shook her head. She couldn’t imagine Sophie voluntarily exiling herself from the nonstop excitement of the city, from her luxurious apartment and many lovers. But she looked healthy, happy even. Perhaps the move was just what she needed. “I’m glad. So what are you doing back here?”

Sophie laughed. “Looking for you, of all things. You’ve been very hard to find.”

“Sorry. Jacques gave me good practice.”

Sophie made a dismissive gesture. “No matter. I knew if you weren’t at home, I could probably find you here. I have some information you might want.”

“No more supernatural emergencies, I hope. I’m on vacation.”

“Well…”

“Out with it, Soph.”

Sophie patted her hair and made a little moue. “All right. I have it on good authority that a small village near Provins has been experiencing strange events. Bangs and crashes in the night, odd-colored flashes of lightning in clear weather, that sort of thing.”

“I said I’m on vacation.”

“They say it all began with the arrival of a doctor from Paris. She arrived from Paris, that is, but everyone’s certain that she’s really from somewhere else. They say she’s unnaturally talented with machines, and even wears a mechanical eye.”

Corbeau’s heart stopped. She’d thought quite a bit about Dr. Kalderash in the past few weeks, and not only because she’d been playing with the woman’s equipment. She’d never met anyone like her, and she was pretty sure she never would again. Excitement rose in her chest, and, to her surprise, she found herself returning Sophie’s smile. “That’s good information, Soph.”

“I thought you could use it, Inspector.”

“That’s Chief Inspector, now. And thanks.”

Sophie reached up and kissed her on the cheek. It was a chaste kiss, like that of a sister…or a friend. Corbeau opened her mouth to speak, but Sophie was already dancing away in the opposite direction, the bloodred hem of her redingote darting out from beneath her coat, as ever out of reach of the mud and slush. Corbeau watched her disappear into the crowd as light, clean snow began to fall.

*

Corbeau reached the walled city of Provins in late April. She had left a few weeks after she’d talked to Sophie, making her way slowly, east by southeast, a bit more than one hundred kilometers. The weather had been cooperative; she’d made most of the journey on foot, sleeping under the stars and stopping at the occasional inn as the mood took her. The advance on her salary had lasted well. If she was careful, she’d have enough to return.