The Left Hand of Justice (7 page)

“I’ll think about it,” Corbeau said, sliding her hand free.

Sophie pulled up the stool beside her and crossed what Corbeau knew to be very shapely legs beneath her dress. The ensemble probably cost some admirer more than what Corbeau made in a month.

“Don’t you have some bankers to harass or something?” Corbeau asked.

“Silly. You’re much more interesting these days. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on in the Montagne Ste. Geneviève?”

“If you knew to show up there this morning, then you know as much as I do. More than that, I couldn’t tell you.”

“Because it’s police business?” Sophie asked.

“Because I have no idea myself. But ghoulies and ghosties aren’t your usual beat. What’s your interest?”

“Let’s just say my interest is personal.”

Sophie arched her back like a cat in the sun. Suppressing a grin at the other woman’s transparency, Corbeau forced herself to look away. “Well, if you learn anything new about the disturbances, I hope you’ll let me know. In the meantime, I do have some questions that may be more up your alley.”

Sophie looked distinctly pleased at the thought. She patted her hair and leaned in on an elbow. “Anything for you, Inspector.”

“What do you know about Hermine Boucher?”

Surprise and pleasure lit Sophie’s face. “Ooh, are you working on that? I wouldn’t have thought Vautrin would let you near such a high-profile case with a ten-foot barge pole.”

“Vautrin has nothing to do with it.”

“Working on your own, then? You never could resist a damsel in distress.”

“Just answer the question, Soph. Who wants her gone?”

Sophie picked up Corbeau’s empty coffee cup and tipped it sideways to watch the sludge ooze across the bottom. “A lot of people. The King, for one. Oh, he’s no fan of the Divine Spark, that’s for sure. Besides, the Great Prophet—that’s Hermine—scares people. It doesn’t come across in the newspaper sketches, but she has this power about her. When she looks at you, it’s as if she can see through you, into your past and into the future.” She met Corbeau’s eyes. “Power like that often frightens those in authority, especially if their authority is illegitimate.”

“Hermine, is it?”

Sophie blushed. Her familiarity in referring to Madame Boucher by her given name wasn’t lost on Corbeau. Nor was her uncharacteristic enthusiasm for the idea of spiritual power. Sophie had always reserved a special disdain for religion. Until now, Corbeau had assumed that disdain extended to the supernatural as well. Sophie shrugged. “The Great Prophet doesn’t stand on ceremony, even with us lowly gossipmongers.”

“Yes, she does quite a bit of work on the behalf of the lowly, doesn’t she?”

“And the King doesn’t like it, not one bit.”

“No, nor her group’s unorthodox beliefs, I suppose. But with the noise the rabble are making about rising prices and new moral restrictions coming down from the throne, I doubt His Majesty would risk making a martyr of her,” Corbeau said.

“Yes, that’s true.” A wicked glint lit Sophie’s eyes. “The Church calls her ‘the Whore of Babylon,’ you know.”

“Babylon the Great, Mother of all Harlots and Abominations?”

“You’ve heard the sermons?”

“No, that’s what Vautrin calls me. When he’s in a good mood.”

Sophie smiled. “Of course those are the exact words that Hermine uses to describe the Church. There’s scriptural evidence to back that up, by the way. It’s not just a convenient insult.”

“So, some bishop on a mission, then.”

Sophie cocked her head, frowning. “Maybe, but Hermine’s group isn’t really big enough to be a threat. Not yet, at least.”

“What about their beliefs?”

Sophie reached for Corbeau’s bread and took a thoughtful bite. “The Great Prophet believes that God uses spirits to speak to us. Of course the Evil One also uses spirits to possess and torment and confuse. It’s not always easy to discern which is which. And then there are all the usual charlatans.”

“So a person needs a wise leader like Hermine Boucher to show them the difference.”

“Exactly. And don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s coarse.”

Corbeau paused to swallow the remainder of the dry bread, wishing she had a drop of coffee left to wash it down. After her breakfast had scratched its way down to her stomach, she said, “How can you tell if someone is speaking for God, or if they’re just after your money?”

“Oh, Hermine is for real,” Sophie said. “I’ve seen it.”

Corbeau leaned back, half-listening as Sophie went on to describe a dozen astounding supernatural feats she had seen the missing woman perform. A few Corbeau identified as advanced stage tricks. Others Corbeau had witnessed herself in the course of her work, although she wouldn’t have described them in terms of spirits acting through people. From Corbeau’s experience, many of the things people blamed on spirits were unconscious manifestations of an individual’s vital spiritual forces. But it wasn’t this difference in terminology that nagged at the back of her mind. What bothered her was the light in Sophie’s eyes—the gleam of the true believer—as Sophie spoke of the missing Madame Boucher.

“You keep speaking of her in the present tense.” Corbeau interrupted Sophie’s monologue. “The woman has been missing for several days without a ransom demand. It’s not looking good.”

Sophie stopped short and smiled patronizingly. “If you’d seen what I have, you’d have a little faith, Inspector.”

“I’ve seen that and more. If anything, it discourages faith. You sound very taken with this woman.”

Sophie’s smile turned brittle. “No business of yours. I admire her, that’s all. She’s very powerful, and she’s used her power to help a lot of people. Actually, you’d find this interesting. It’s sort of the other side of what you used to do. You used to help people channel spirits—”

“I did nothing of the sort—”

“You know you did. You just called it something else. Of course you didn’t care as long as it was making you money.”

“Money you didn’t mind spending. But that’s not the point. My formulae helped people to develop what was already inside—”

“They came to you for help, and how many ended up in the madhouse or in the grave?”

“They came to me for a quick path to power. I gave it to them.”

Why did so many of their discussions turn into a fight?

“They came to you for help,” Sophie insisted. “But Hermine actually does help people. She helps them keep the spirits away.”

“Really?” Corbeau quickly forgot their argument. If Sophie was correct, Madame Boucher had been working the reverse of Corbeau’s own research. Where Corbeau’s potions had brought out her clients’ latent supernatural abilities, Hermine Boucher was helping people suppress them. “How?”

“Do you remember, Bernadette?” Sophie asked, suddenly, irritatingly switching the subject. “That little basement in Montmartre? When it was just the two of us?”

“I told you never to call me that.”

“Relax, there’s no one around but Marie, and she’s not talking. I miss those days. You do, too. Sleeping all day, champagne all night—remember?”

“That was you. I spent my nights in the lab.”

“Not all of them. Don’t you miss it, Elise?”

Corbeau ground her teeth in frustration. She wanted to steer the conversation back to the Church of the Divine Spark, but she couldn’t resist setting Sophie straight. “Which part? Holed up for fourteen hours at a time nursing a still in a poorly ventilated basement, or spending the rest of the time hiding from the people who wanted to kill me and take my recipes? Hard to remember which part was more fun.”

“I meant the part where it was you and me against the world.”

Corbeau sighed. Slowly the fighting urge began to drain away. She did remember that part, and not without fondness. But it was too late and too much water under the bridge. “We’ve tried that, Soph. It never quite works out, though, does it?”

“Only because you’re a tyrant.”

“And because you won’t do as you’re told.”

They glared at each other for a moment. Sophie cracked a smile and looked away, shaking her head.

“What about Maria Kalderash?” Corbeau asked.

The smile faded. Sophie set her jaw in the defiant way that Corbeau knew well.

“If you’re looking for a murderer, Inspector, look no further than that witch.”

“Wait. Who said anything about a murder? What do you know?”

“All I’m saying is that if anyone would want to do Hermine harm, it would be that woman.”

“Why?”

Corbeau could think of a handful of reasons, all neatly presented in Javert’s dossier. But Javert had put the articles together. Javert had an agenda. Additional information would help Corbeau to better evaluate where fact left off and Javert’s desire to arrest Dr. Kalderash began.

“Hermine brought that Gypsy chit up from the gutter and right into her house. She introduced those ridiculous contraptions into society and made Kalderash’s name synonymous with fashion. Then when it came time to return the favor, the good doctor begged off on some high-and-mighty scruples.”

“What did she want Kalderash to do?”

Sophie looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure. But whatever it was, she wouldn’t do it, and Hermine was furious. That’s why they parted ways.”

“Sounds like Madame Boucher had more of a reason to turn murderer than the Gypsy,” Corbeau said.

Sophie frowned. Clearly she hadn’t realized that this was the logical conclusion of her statement. “I’m just telling you what happened, Inspector. That woman stabbed Hermine in the back. There was bad blood between them, and I wouldn’t be surprised if whatever happened, the Gypsy was behind it.”

“I see.”

“Now I’ve told you everything I know,” she said, smoothing down her redingote and trying to sound pleasant again. “Won’t you come back to my rooms, Elise? Let me spoil you for an hour or two.”

Corbeau regarded her for a long moment. Sophie had passed her some good information, though she’d had to argue it out of her. She was also disturbed by how close Sophie seemed to be to the situation. If this were only a bit of tittle-tattle she’d picked up here and there, she’d have no cause to get so worked up over it. And she was far too impressed with Madame Boucher to be entirely objective.

On the other hand, there was a chance that, given time and the proper inducements, Sophie might remember something more. Corbeau’s head pounded. Sophie laid a hand on her forearm.

“And later, if you’re really interested, I might be persuaded to tell you where the Divine Spark is meeting this very night.”

Corbeau snapped to attention. A look of victory crossed Sophie’s face, and she covered Corbeau’s hand with her own.

“You wouldn’t lie about something like that.”

“Never.”

Corbeau exhaled heavily. Most agents persuaded their informants with coin. Of course with Sophie, she was never sure who was bribing whom. She lifted Sophie’s palm to her lips. “Just this once. I mean it. I’ll be by in a couple of hours, but right now I have something to take care of.”

Maria had awakened before the rain. The early hours of that cold November morning had greeted her with darkness, chill, and the tingling, metallic smell that always reminded her of blood. There had been too much blood, hers and other people’s, spilled over stupid things recently. And violence had followed her all her life—which is why she had sat up in her narrow bed, beneath the sloping ceiling of her converted attic bedroom on the Rue des Rosiers, and resigned herself to the new day even before it had truly begun. Violence was coming. It was no time to be lazy.

Pulling a quilted velvet robe over her nightdress, she padded toward the stairs. The robe had been one of her first purchases in Paris. One of her only luxuries. Spending half her life up to her elbows in metal and grease, and the other half on the run, left little room for nice things. Still, the robe was comfortable and soundly made. It had served her well.

She navigated the stairwell one-eyed and in the dark. The loss of both depth perception and light made even a well-traveled staircase treacherous. She went slowly.

Her home was modest, and the common areas were tidy—although since Hermine had driven her business away, the areas that once welcomed visitors were gradually but inexorably giving way to her research. And research was messy. The hallway, though, remained sparse: a few icons on the walls—more to remind her of home than for the sake of any religious sentiment—and a lamp on a spindly table. But the front room, which she had once kept neat for her customers, was now a shambling, cluttered extension of her basement lab.

She took the hall lamp from its stand, lit it, and set it on the edge of the desk before the front window. Her Eye was on the table, where she’d left it before retiring. Despite the soft leather band, the apparatus was heavy, and by the end of the day, she was ready to sacrifice sight just to be rid of it. She carefully wiped clean the smooth skin the doctors had pulled over the naked socket. Chief Inspector Vautrin hadn’t realized the Gypsy to whom he was teaching a lesson had official sanction to be in Paris. The physician he’d summoned had done a good job covering the damage, but Maria was still waiting for an apology.

She wiped the woven metal that sat between the device and her skin, then buckled the band around her head. The cool mesh met her face with its usual electrical sizzle. She was accustomed to the sensation by now, but it was never comfortable. The Eye clicked and whirred, and the room flickered into three dimensions of color, shadow, and light.

Like the table against the adjacent wall, Maria’s desk was invisible beneath stacks of notes, journals, and books. She’d managed to restrict the tools to the basement, but only out of necessity. Customers no longer filed in and out of the front room, not since Hermine had slandered her name and her work to the empty-headed aristos, who had, at one time, vied to be first to strap on her latest toy. It was just as well. The recreational prosthetics had helped her keep a roof over her head and stash away a suitcase full of money for the next time she had to flee and start anew. But she’d found the work meaningless and trite. She was glad it was over.