Chapter Thirteen

Being an investigatrix is turning out to be very frustrating, Rachel thought as she walked across the Pont Neuf on Monday morning. Where was the sleuthing, the tracking, the ducking and diving? Where were all the capital-d Developments? Already two weeks had passed since Edgar’s death, and all they had were conversations and theories. It really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be in books and on TV.

But after an hour in the library, her strange meeting with Catherine and her frustrating conversation with Magda had left her mind. Arranging the books demanded focus, but not much thought, and in the semi-hypnotic state this induced, her mind became empty and her senses more alive. She found herself marking the time with sounds she hadn’t even realized she’d noticed: the chink of the cup and saucer being brought on her coffee tray, the soft clicking of a door somewhere in the appartement at precisely eleven, then again at precisely eleven thirty. Now conscious of those clicks, she realized they must be the sounds of someone leaving and returning. Since Elisabeth arrived before she did and left after, and since David banged the door hard whenever he came or went (which in any case was never before noon), by process of elimination she worked out that the clicks belonged to Fulke, going to and coming from his daily shopping. She would never tell Magda, but the fact that she had noticed these things subconsciously and then put them together swiftly made her feel she was a natural detective. She preened a bit.

*   *   *

The Friday morning of her fourth week in the library, the peace was broken by the sound of two voices. Fulke had told her when she’d arrived that David was not yet back from his night out, and the door had already clicked once, so she knew neither of the speakers could be the butler or the master of the house. In any case, both were too high-pitched to be male. She felt her heart beat faster; her natural detecting instincts were telling her that she should eavesdrop. She put down the eighteenth-century atlas she had been trying to shelve and moved softly to stand next to the door. Holding her breath, she all but pressed her ear to the wood.

“As I said, I am here to collect some items,” snapped a voice she instantly recognized as Mathilde’s.

The only response was an indistinguishable murmur.

“Trinkets!” Mathilde said. “Items of sentimental value.”

More murmuring.

“I do not want you to fetch them for me. I wish to collect them myself. They have personal meaning.”

Rachel still couldn’t hear the other voice, but Mathilde’s response conveyed the gist of what it said.

“Of course I’m allowed! I am his wife!”

Nothing, then yet more murmuring.

Mathilde exclaimed, “How do you dare! How can you? I must go into the bureau!” Her voice was outraged but also flinty: whatever she wanted, she would brook no objection.

“You are not allowed back there, madame!” The second voice suddenly spoke very loudly, the way timid people often do when they’ve geared themselves up to be brave. As Rachel had suspected it might, this quavering near-yell belonged to Elisabeth. When she spoke next, she was calmer. “As I just explained, Monsieur Bowen’s instructions were that no one else may enter the bureau until I have been through it and put Monsieur Bowen’s papers in order. Others may see them after that.”

“Others.” Mathilde managed to make the word sound like the worst of racial slurs. “I am not ‘others.’ I am a member of his family.”

“I’m sorry, madame.” Elisabeth’s voice shook. “I cannot contravene Monsieur Bowen’s instructions. They were in his will. Allowing you access to the bureau would be illegal.”

Elisabeth sounded determined, but she also sounded afraid. In fact, all in all, the conversation didn’t seem to be a battle of equals. Rachel knew from experience the way the determined could overpower the diffident, no matter how resolute the diffident resolved to be. She also knew she could learn more outside the library than in. And she also knew she couldn’t stand so still for much longer. She gave the door a hefty push, ensuring that it would open with a bang against the outside wall and announce her presence.

Mathilde and Elisabeth stood about ten yards away, at the entrance to the hall. Elisabeth’s arms were crossed over her chest as if to demonstrate that she intended to stand firm. Mathilde, who still wore her camel hair outdoor coat, stood with her back to Rachel, but even so her stiff posture commanded the scene.

“I thought I heard voices!” Rachel filled her own with inoffensive cheer. “Mathilde, what a pleasure to find you here! We haven’t seen each other for years, and now twice in a few weeks. What luck! You must come into the library and have a cup of tea.” She stood back a bit, revealing the room’s mess. “Or were you on your way out?”

Mathilde’s smile was a crack in ice. “Bonjour, Rachel.” She spoke normally, but Rachel saw strain in the corners of her eyes. Her glance took in the state of the library, and she turned her head with a disgusted shudder just small enough to seem instinctive, but just large enough to be intentional. “I was hoping to pick up a few bibelots, but it seems they are not where I thought they were. I will come back another time.” She tightened the belt of her coat, turned on her heel—the first time Rachel had seen this action actually performed—and left.

Once the door closed behind Mathilde, Elisabeth let her arms fall to her sides. “Thank you.”

“It was nothing.” Rachel smiled at the girl. “She’s a difficult woman. I know.”

Elisabeth’s lower lip began to quiver, and her eyes became wet. Judging it tactful, or at least wise, Rachel retreated to the library, once more picking up the atlas. Only later did she realize that Elisabeth’s agitation had presented a perfect opportunity to extract some more information. Her detective instincts might be natural, she reflected, but they weren’t honed. Yet.

*   *   *

“Oh my,” Magda said. They had been looking at magazines at the Gibert Joseph bookstore, trying to get ideas for what Rachel could wear to the upcoming Bal Rouge, but now she closed her copy of Vogue and focused fully on Rachel. “Oh my,” she repeated.

“I know, right?”

A man looking at skiing magazines in the next aisle swiveled his head.

“Keep your voice down!” Magda waited until he returned his full attention to his copy of Skieur. “Obviously there’s something in that apartment that Mathilde wants.”

“Wants a great deal,” Rachel added.

“Evidence!” Magda’s voice filled was filled with delight.

“Yes.”

“Belongings? Photographs? Documents?”

“Presumably one of those.”

“And Edgar wanted this something protected or hidden,” said Magda. “But which? And from whom?”

“I don’t know.”

“And Elisabeth is supposed to get rid of it? Take it away but keep it?”

“I don’t know.”

“And why does Mathilde want it?”

Rachel sighed. “I don’t know. We can’t know. We can’t even know what sort of thing it might be because we don’t know what sort of thing matters to her—what sort of thing she might want to hide or take.” Her whisper became a hiss. “Because we don’t know her.”

“We’re getting to know her. We’re building a picture.”

“I know. It’s just …” Rachel slumped a little. “I don’t see how we’re ever going to get to finish doing that. We’re not the police; we’re not trained investigators. How can we get more information on suspects? We don’t know how to do this. How do people do this? How are we supposed to get anywhere? I just don’t see us getting anywhere.”

“That’s a very negative way of looking at things.” Magda sounded personally offended. “This is an opportunity. An opportunity to hone our investigative skills.”

“Which assumes we have some.”

“Don’t be so silly.” She put the magazine back in the rack and turned to face Rachel. “I can sense we’re onto something. You’re creative; you’ll figure out an approach.” She gathered her coat around her.

“You’re going?” Rachel was outraged.

“I promised my mother I’d call her, and it’s nine in Jamaica. You know what Jamaican mothers are like.”

Rachel didn’t know what Jamaican mothers were like, but she knew what Magda’s Jamaican mother was like. If you said you were going to call on a certain day, Mrs. Stevens would expect the phone to be ringing at the earliest possible polite moment. She watched Magda go.

After she left, Rachel stood for a few minutes, paging through Elle without really paying attention. On television the police were always saying, “I’ll talk to my snitches,” and every literary sleuth seemed to have a network of carefully cultivated connections or village gossips to help them out. The difficulty with being an actual amateur detective was the lack of this inside information. No wonder none of the fictional representations ever featured a detective who was just starting out: without contacts you were nowhere.

Then suddenly she shook herself. How could she have forgotten? She did have a contact! Kiki Villeneuve. Kiki knew everyone who ought to be known in Paris, and if she didn’t know them. she knew about them. She and Rachel had been friends for over a decade, but when Kiki’s husband had died two years earlier, she had vanished, hiding herself away from everyone. She obviously wanted to be left alone, and Rachel, not wanting to intrude, hadn’t contacted her. Now, though, she would get in touch with her. Kiki wasn’t a village gossip—she never gossiped, she used to say. But she was an information hoarder and sometimes an information disseminator. Rachel would be delicate, and if Kiki were still mourning, she would back off. But she needed a contact—a stoolpigeon, a grass—and Kiki was the only person who qualified.