“Lass, I cannae believe you knocked on someone’s door in the wee hours,” Rosie said as Brigid came into the bookshop.
She cringed. “You know, Rosie, I agree. I feel bad about that.” She looked at me. “I really am sorry. I was … I don’t know, on a roll or something.”
“It’s okay.” I smiled.
Tom had thought the whole thing ridiculous. He harbored no ill will against Brigid, but he thought she should have waited until a decent hour or just texted back and waited for a later reply. He didn’t dwell on it, but the fact that she’d come over when she had only highlighted her thoughtlessness.
“Have you heard from Inspector Winters?” Brigid asked me.
“I have. I let him know what we’d discussed about Jacques, and he said he would meet me, us if you want, at The Banshee Labyrinth at noon. The police did get inside last night and confirmed that no one was being held captive anywhere in there, but they didn’t look for a book. The owner was out of town or something but is coming back this morning. Winters also told me that Louis Chantrell is not a suspect, though he is a very interesting man.”
“Aye?”
“Yes, and left it at that, saying you and I would see soon enough, but he didn’t seem concerned about us visiting him.”
“What did he say about Jacques?”
“Inspector Winters was aware that Shelagh didn’t have any blood relatives. He’d talk to the inspectors on the case, but they probably know too. But the more I think about that first meeting with Shelagh, the more I wonder if Jacques wasn’t just a close family friend or something and Shelagh was using a term of endearment. I don’t know, I’m just glad the police will double-check.”
“Well, I will work on it too.” She glanced at her watch. “I have a full day, but we’ll see. Let’s at least get to the bottom of the somewhat strange and mysterious Louis Chantrell.”
Hector whined up at me from where he’d been sitting at my feet. I reached down to pick him up.
“I’ll be back. I’ll be fine,” I assured him.
He wiggled, and I let him kiss my cheek and then reluctantly handed him to Rosie.
“He thinks ye need tae be extra careful around even somewhat strange and mysterious people,” Rosie said.
“I promise I will be.”
“I hope so.” Rosie sent Brigid some raised eyebrows.
Brigid squirmed as she nodded.
“Och,” Rosie said before she and Hector turned and made their way to the back of the shop.
The snow had started again, but the wind wasn’t bad. Brigid and I put on hats and, both of us in boots, took off toward the bus stop.
“I didn’t want to drive in this weather. Come on,” Brigid said.
We boarded the second bus that came along and sat next to each other. There was no need for small talk, because Brigid was on the phone the entire trip to Louis’s house. I caught snippets of her conversations, and at one point I suspected she was speaking to her aunt, Grace, who also happened to be media-relations minister to the city’s lord provost. I pricked up my ears, curious to hear about some city business, but she kept her voice low enough and the bus engine was loud enough so that I couldn’t make out the details.
Louis Chantrell lived in an old brick house on the edge of one of the rougher neighborhoods. A narrow home, it was two stories and a short attic space high, the first-floor windows almost completely hidden by an overgrown garden. There were no flowers in bloom, and the falling snow was beginning to accumulate on the old, seemingly ignored branches and stems.
“I wonder how this place looks in the summer,” Brigid said as we stood on the sidewalk in front of the house, outside the short wrought-iron fence that outlined the property.
From the corner, the view down either bordering street showed older buildings, some covered in the same sort of graffiti I’d seen on the bottom of Darcy’s Roost.
“Maybe he cleans up the garden in the spring,” I said. “It could be nice.”
“Could be,” Brigid agreed. “I wonder why he lives here, though. I’m sure Shelagh pays him well. This is all odd.”
She took a step toward the path that led to the front door. I followed.
Brigid knocked, the sound echoing inside. “If he comes to the door with vampire teeth, we’re leaving.”
I laughed, but I didn’t think she was trying to be funny.
We heard fast footfalls approach, and then the door opened quickly but with a weary creak.
“Ah, hello,” Louis said. He blinked at me. “Delaney?”
“Yes,” I said. “I really wanted to see your place, and Brigid’s a friend.”
Brigid shrugged.
Louis smiled. “Ah, don’t blame you. Quite the story here. Come in, then. Come in. I’m baking, but I will join you in the drawing room momentarily. Coffee or tea?” He’d already started walking away.
“Coffee, thanks,” we both called after him.
“Do you know the story?” I asked Brigid quietly as we went in and shut the door behind us.
“No, but I’m always up for a good one.”
The house seemed even narrower from the inside. A steep stairway was close by on our right, its old wooden planks worn shiny and slightly bowed in the spots where feet had stepped.
The same planks made up the flooring. They weren’t in terrible shape, but scuffed here and there. Hooks lined the wall to our right. A coat hung from one, a pair of boots on the floor beneath.
I was just about to ask if we should remove our coats when Brigid took the lead and did exactly that. I shrugged out of mine and hung it up too.
“Come on.” She set off down the hallway.
She stopped outside what I would call a drawing room, but this one was straight out of the movie Psycho. My imagination almost saw it in sepia tones. It was furnished and decorated with antiques. Carved wood framed the couch and chairs around faded pinkish flowered upholstery. This was not an antique revival; the items in this room hadn’t been redone, they’d been used and loved, showing their wear.
“Well, this is fabulous,” Brigid said quietly.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
We walked around the skinny but long room, looking at the multiple items that had been set out on doilies. Lamps, figurines, black-and-white pictures—mostly of people who’d surely been dead a long time. A windup clock ticked so loudly it echoed through the room.
My eyes landed on a familiar picture. A man with muttonchop facial hair hung in a frame in a prominent spot on the wall.
“I know him,” I said quietly as I approached the picture. “Oh, Eugene Chantrelle.”
“The murderer?” Brigid hurried up next to me.
“Yes, the one who killed his wife, Elizabeth. Robert Louis Stevenson followed the trial. It might have inspired Jekyll and Hyde to some extent.” I looked at some of the other framed pictures, noting they all had small plaques or nameplates, and most of them mentioned the last name Chantrelle.
“But Louis’s last name is spelled differently,” Brigid said.
“I had it changed—legally, of course,” Louis said as he came in behind us.
We startled and turned. Louis carried a tray full of more snacks than I’d seen grace any tray in a long time—and I’d seen quite a few trays over the past few days.
“You’re a Chantrelle, without an e?” I said.
“Well, originally I had the e, but with the advent of social media and the internet it all became quite annoying. People would send me bothersome messages and such. It became too much for this man who likes to keep to himself. I had to change it.”
“We met when I did the article about Shelagh, but I couldn’t find you anywhere on social media,” Brigid said. I hadn’t either, but I didn’t mention it.
“I hope not. I’ve done the best I can to keep a semi-low profile. Even after so much time, people still become fascinated by my ancestor Eugene. Reluctantly, I have posted on social media for this house—it’s a museum, and the only way I can keep it is by continuing to show it. But now I can do it by appointment only, infrequently at that. It’s amazing the difference one little e can make—if my name isn’t spelled the way Eugene’s was, the connection doesn’t get quickly made.”
I looked around. “I thought Eugene lived next to where The Banshee Labyrinth is now located.”
“He did.” Louis set the tray down on a table. “This is a reproduction. My grandfather built it.”
“It’s fascinating.”
“It’s old, but it’s also home.” Louis motioned for us to sit down. Once we had our spots, he continued. “Now, Ms. McBride, you want to talk to me about Shelagh?”
“And about you, Mr. Chantrell.”
“Aye? I hope you like biscuits,” Louis said.
“I love biscuits.” Brigid smiled, and I was beginning to wonder if biscuits—cookies—were the only things she ate.
It seemed very chummy, I thought, remembering Elias using the same word when he and I were in a friendly but crowded line at a grocery store. I knew that Brigid wasn’t always friendly, and I wondered if she was preparing some sort of attack.
“Very good. May I inquire if, as a journalist, you’ve heard any news on Shelagh?” Louis asked. “I call the police at least twice a day, but they don’t tell me anything.”
“I haven’t. I’m sorry. You don’t have any idea where she might be?” Brigid took a bite of the cookie.
Louis shook his head, and his eyes shadowed. “At first I thought that maybe she’d set this up, but I don’t think so anymore.”
“Why?” Brigid asked.
“It’s gone on too long. If she’d wanted to scare people by disappearing, she would have reappeared shortly thereafter.”
“That would be cruel, don’t you think? To hide and scare your loved ones into thinking you’d been taken. Blood was found too. Would she go that far?” Brigid asked.
Louis sighed. “She wouldn’t think of it as cruel. She’d be so quick about it that we’d all forgive her. But it most definitely has gone on too long now.”
“How did you come to work for Shelagh, and when did you begin?” Brigid asked.
“Oh, it was decades ago—goodness, probably sixty years now. I first worked for her parents.”
I calucluated that he was probably only five to ten years older than Shelagh, but his bald head still made it difficult to discern his age.
“What did you do?” Brigid asked.
“A wee bit of everything.” Louis laughed, but sobered quickly. “I started working for the O’Conners shortly before Shelagh … well, lost her way for a wee bit. Until recently her escapades were old news. I look forward to the day they return to being unimportant. Nevertheless, I met the O’Conners back when Shelagh was sixteen. One of my duties was to keep an eye on her. In fact, I’m the one who first gave her Jekyll and Hyde to read.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” I said. “Considering your ancestors.”
“Aye. Honestly, I felt guilty about it for a long time, but it wasn’t my fault she took things so far. Stevenson’s story is brilliant. All I did was introduce her to it. She did the rest.” Louis smiled sadly.
Brigid and I shared a quick look. Clearly, Louis would always feel some guilt when it came to Shelagh’s behavior.
Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of the day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering.
The bookish voice caught me so offguard that my hand flew to my mouth, hoping to stop any sounds of surprise.
I’d very recently read the words that just played in my head. They were from Dr. Jekyll himself, his final statement in the story. In my head, the deep voice spoke slowly, sadly. Why was the bookish voice talking to me now? Was it simply that I was in this house?
“Delaney?” Brigid asked.
Distantly, I heard her, but I wasn’t ready to let go of trying to understand what Jekyll wanted to communicate. What was my intuition keying in on? The words were meant to convey that Hyde was just as real as Jekyll, that both sides existed together, and probably do in most everyone.
“Delaney!” Brigid said as she shook my arm.
“I’m so sorry.” I blinked and then nodded at her. I cleared my throat and looked at Louis. Shelagh had said that Louis was her closest advisor, but was there more, and did that matter? “You two are close, then?”
Louis squinted at me. “Are you feeling all right?”
“I’m fine. Sorry.” I gathered myself. I’d have to think about the bookish voice later.
“Aye, well, we’ve never been romantically involved, if that’s what you’re asking. We are good friends, though. Much love there.” His eyes filled with tears, but he blinked them away.
“Would you say you’re her closest friend? Confidant?” Brigid turned her focus to taking notes.
“Aye. Some might say I’m her only real friend.”
“Really? Why?”
“I’ve known her the longest, and I don’t want anything from her. She’s offered many times to buy me another place to live. This place would sell, but it’s falling down brick by brick. It would need a lot of work. Plus, I can’t just sell it. It’s my history, my family.” Louis sighed again. “I’ve refused to take her help.”
“Can you think of someone who has recently requested something of her? Something big and something she said no to?” Brigid asked.
“Oh, lass, I’ve been trying to remember something—anything that might help the police. Or someone who was angry with her. Nothing unusual has come to mind. I wish it would.”
“What about her family?”
“She has no family.”
I came to attention even more, but Brigid kept cool. “I thought Jacques was her cousin.”
“Oh, that. No, not a blood relation, but I know she had some close friends in France, and she’s the type of person to make people into her family.”
“Call them cousins?” Brigid said.
Louis squirmed briefly. “Well, she never has before, but she has so much love to give. I can understand why she would say that.”
“Did you know Jacques, ever heard of him?”
Louis frowned a moment and said, “No, but that’s not necessarily a surprise. Shelagh and I don’t share everything with each other.”
“Were you in on helping her choose the people to be a part of her treasure hunt?” Brigid asked.
“No, in fact I wasn’t. Shelagh consults me on many things, though not everything, not that.”
“Findlay made sure the messenger delivered the messages?” I interjected.
“Aye. Not everyone was given a handwritten message, however. Just you and Birk.”
“Not Tricia? Not Jacques?” Brigid said.
“No, I heard Shelagh and Findlay discussing it. She said she would get a hold of the other two herself, but the messenger was to go to you and Birk.”
“Does that seem strange?” I asked, wishing I’d remembered to ask Birk if he’d, in fact, seen a messenger.
“No stranger than anything else.”
He had a point.
“He hasn’t even been trying to find the book,” I added. “If he’s out for the library, he’s not doing it the right way.”
“Maybe he simply doesn’t want the library,” Louis said. “That seems counterintuitive to Shelagh’s inviting him to participate, but maybe he doesn’t care about it. Also, he witnessed Shelagh’s abduction. He might be traumatized.”
“What about Tricia?” Brigid asked. “How did Tricia get invited?”
“Shelagh said she was a great librarian,” I said. I turned to Louis. “How would she know that?”
“I wish I knew,” Louis said. “Well, she’s interested in all libraries, all schools with libraries. I’m sure she just came across Tricia along the way.”
Brigid nodded.
“Ultimately I was disappointed that she invited Birk Blackburn,” Louis said.
“Why?” I asked.
“He wasn’t a positive force in her life. They were friends for a time, and he betrayed her.”
“Betrayed?” I said.
Brigid sent me and my tone a quick side-eye.
“Aye. He was part of a group that she really enjoyed, some sort of auction group for rich people.” He was talking about Fleshmarket. “She broke off the relationship with Birk, and next thing you knew, she was kicked out of the group. It was childish, really.”
I hadn’t heard the story exactly that way from Birk, but there were always two sides.
“Sounds dicey,” Brigid said.
“Aye, but it was a long time ago. I asked her why she invited him to the hunt. She told me that he would do the right thing with the books and that’s who she wanted involved.” Louis shrugged. “The last time I saw Birk, it was a friendly moment, so I didn’t use whatever influence I might have to change her mind.”
“When’s the last time you saw him?” I asked.
“Just about a month ago or so at his stables. He was hosting an event, and we loaned our horses. It was a fund-raiser for a child in hospital. Lots of money was raised. I saw Birk only briefly, he was in and out—and as I said, it was friendly. Bygones and all.”
I sat forward. “Louis, what else happened at that event? Do you remember seeing the murder victim, Ritchie John? Were there any issues—with anyone—that you can remember?”
Louis shook his head slowly. “No, lass, I don’t think so. I wasn’t there long myself. I just wanted to make sure our people and horses had all gotten there safe and sound. They had.”
“Was Shelagh there?” I asked.
“No, no. In fact…”
“What?” Brigid said.
“She wouldn’t go because she didn’t want to see Birk, no matter how good the cause. It’s interesting that only a short time later she invited him to a treasure hunt.”
“It is interesting,” I added. “Do you know Darcy John?”
“No, lass, I don’t believe I do. Is she related to the victim?”
“His daughter.”
“I don’t know her.”
I couldn’t think of another immediately pertinent question.
“Louis, what do you think might have happened to Shelagh?” Brigid said.
Louis sighed. “I have no idea. I miss her terribly, and though I’m trying not to think about it too much, I’m beginning to fear the worst. I would give anything to save her.”
“Who do you think is under the monster costume?” Brigid asked.
I thought Louis might brush her off immediately, but he didn’t rush his words. His eyes held Brigid’s for a long moment.
“I don’t know,” he finally said.
“No idea?” Brigid said.
“None,” Louis said more quickly.
“Well.” Brigid seemed to move on to the next subject. “We’d be happy to pay the price of admission, but may we see the rest of the house?”
“Aye. It would be my pleasure. Tickets are free of charge today.”
We started with the kitchen. Similar to those in my kitchen, the appliances were old. These were genuinely old, though, not reproductions. An old icebox sat in the corner and was used as a small pantry now. The cooker was the kind that required a handle to pick up the burners so that a fire might be lit underneath.
“I apologize. Usually I have other things set up in here. It was thought that Eugene poisoned Elizabeth, probably with opium, and this is where her body was found. A pot was left boiling on the cooker. Adding one gives the room some atmosphere.”
“Did you grow up here? Do you live here?” I asked.
“I did and I do. Things are hidden. There’s a small but modernly equipped kitchen through that door. It looks like it leads to a patio or a porch, but it doesn’t.”
Brigid and I peered out a window, seeing the modernly outfitted small kitchen. It would be fine for just one person.
“How many people were in your family?”
“My grandparents, my mother, and me. My father died when I was a wee bairn. People came and went, but now it’s just me. I never married, never had a child of my own. I never even noticed I might be missing something. I have enjoyed this life.”
“Always good,” Brigid said.
“Aye, now, how about a look at the upstairs and then the basement? The basement is everyone’s favorite.”
The stairs that took us to the basement were directly underneath the stairs that took us up to the second level. Though we’d become highly intrigued by the mention of the basement, Louis insisted upon showing us the second floor first. I noticed Brigid furtively typing on her phone as we followed Louis. I’d ask her later what she was doing, but I wondered if she was letting someone know where we were. If so, that was a pretty smart move. I thought about doing the same, but I wasn’t as dexterous as she was.
The second floor had four bedrooms and a bathroom. Three of the four bedrooms were furnished as the mid-nineteenth-century Chantrelles would have furnished them, but Louis’s private room was neat and contemporary. The bathroom was charming vintage.
“They didn’t really have a loo back then, so we just kept this one looking old-timey. We didn’t even put a shower in,” Louis said. “Just a bath. Oddly, even though people know this isn’t authentic, they love this little room.”
The sink, tub, toilet were white—the tub a claw-foot, the toilet adorned with a pull chain.
“Is that how you flush?” I asked.
Louis stepped inside the bathroom and pulled the chain, proving that was indeed how you flushed.
“It’s in great shape,” I said.
“It’s been well taken care of.” Louis looked at the floor. “I haven’t been able to match these tiles again, so I dread the day one of them chips or breaks beyond repair.”
The floor was tiled with small, white hexagons. I’d seen tiles like them, but there was something slightly different about these. The edges were different.
“My grandmother was an unusual woman. Very clever and full of energy. She was responsible for the decor. The basement, however, will illuminate for you my grandfather’s true personality. He was a direct descendant of Eugene, and he knew how to play it up.”
“Well, let’s go,” Brigid said.
Louis led us back down the stairs. When we reached the door to the flight that would take us to the basement, he paused, his hand on an old brass knob.
“These stairs are a wee bit more frightening,” he began. “They’re reliable, but they appear rickety. Please, if you will, just hold on to the handrail.”
Brigid and I nodded together.
It had been a dramatic introduction but didn’t even come close to the drama of rest of the basement. If there was anyplace in the world where a Mr. Hyde might show himself, it was there.