Unaware of what was occurring at his house, Emile took a cab to his office and spent five minutes checking that Forquet had fixed the shutters properly before going inside. The draughtsmen’s room was orderly, the drawing boards cleared of papers, instruments tidied away into locked drawers. He stood for a moment in the silence of the normally busy room and looked about. All was well in here, Forquet had made sure that nothing had been left out, so Emile went upstairs to his own office to have one final look round before leaving. He had considered taking some papers away with him, thinking perhaps he could continue to renew his business contacts from St Etienne, but now he decided against it. He would not be away for long, and there was the chance that something of importance might get lost.
For a moment he crossed to the window and looked out into the street below. It looked as it always did, with people going about their business, passing the time of day with acquaintances, hurrying by with bags and satchels, a truly ordinary day. Yet again Emile wondered how urgent the removal to St Etienne was. Normally a man of decision, he never vacillated, but now he still wondered, should he go or should he stay? Georges said he must go, and he’d said he would, but still he felt a certain confusion at the events taking place around him. Left to himself, he thought he might have kept his office open and kept his draughtsmen working on the projects that had been unfinished at the outbreak of the war, but the strength of the fear he’d felt in the Rue de la Paix the previous day had frightened him. He looked out into the busyness of the street beyond his window and told himself he was no coward, running at the first sign of trouble, but that was exactly what he had done, now on two occasions, and he felt a wave of shame.
‘Pull yourself together,’ he said aloud. ‘You weren’t the only one to run!’ Somewhat reassured by the sound of his own voice, he continued, ‘I will take Hélène to her mother and then I will come back into Paris. I will reopen my office and I will not be afraid of the rabble who inhabit the rough districts of this city.’
He closed his office door, locking it carefully behind him, and went down to the street. He locked that door too. His business would be safe until he came back to it. Paris was relying on citizens like him, moderate, professional men, to keep the wheels of business turning. He squared his shoulders and set out to find a cab.
As he reached Avenue Ste Anne, he saw Pierre walking down the street leading a bony nag beside him. Emile paid off the cab and hailed him.
‘Is that really the best you could find?’ he demanded, looking askance at the tired wreck of a horse.
‘I could find nothing else, sir,’ Pierre replied, ‘and this one cost a pretty penny.’
‘Ah well,’ Emile shrugged, ‘he’ll have to do. Take him round to the yard and give him a feed before you hitch him up. I’ll go and find Marie-Jeanne.’
Pierre disappeared into the side lane and Emile turned towards the front door. It was only then that he saw that it was already open, and not only open, but hanging off its hinges. He ran up the steps and paused for a moment on the threshold. The house was silent. Emile drew a deep breath and went into the hallway.
‘Hello?’ he called. ‘Marie-Jeanne? Where are you?’ The silence of emptiness settled back round him and he called again. ‘Marie-Jeanne? Hélène? Are you there?’ Receiving no reply he strode along the kitchen passage to find Arlette or Berthe, but the kitchen was empty, the scullery door standing wide to the stable yard beyond. Emile went outside. Pierre was giving the hungry horse a nosebag of oats. He looked up as his master came out, his face pale.
‘There’s no one here,’ Emile said. ‘Someone has broken down the front door, and the house is empty.’
‘No one?’ Pierre left the horse to his feed and turned to the house. ‘Where is Marie-Jeanne? And Berthe? They must have gone for help when the thieves broke in.’ He tried to sound reassuring. ‘That’ll be it, you can be sure.’
‘Well, they certainly aren’t here,’ Emile snapped. ‘And nor is Hélène.’
With one accord the two men went back into the house. ‘There’s nothing amiss in the kitchen,’ Emile said as he stood by the big wooden table and looked round. ‘See? There’s even some fresh bread!’
‘Could they be upstairs, monsieur?’ suggested Pierre, and walking past his master he went into the hall. When he saw the front door still hanging askew, he said, ‘They must have been robbers. Marie-Jeanne will have hidden Miss Hélène upstairs.’
‘Of course,’ Emile said, ready to clutch at any such straw, and he took the stairs two at a time, calling Hélène’s name, before coming to an abrupt halt at the top where Marie-Jeanne lay, her eyes still staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
‘Oh, my God!’ he breathed. ‘Oh, my God!’ He stepped past her body and shouted, ‘Hélène! Hélène! Are you there, little one? It’s me! It’s Papa. You can come out now! You’re safe now!’
Pierre had followed Emile upstairs and he, too, paused in shock at what he found at the top. Then stepping past Marie-Jeanne he walked slowly down the passage, looking into each room, terrified that he was going to discover a second body. Emile followed him and together they searched each room, calling to Hélène to come out of hiding, but as their voices died away and they listened for an answering cry, they heard nothing. When they had looked in every room but Rosalie’s bedroom, Pierre stood aside, unwilling to enter his mistress’s private boudoir. Emile strode past him into the room. At once he saw the screen lying on the floor and rushed over to the cabinet. Its door stood wide and it was empty.
He stared into the tiny space as if he might still find Hélène crouching, hidden behind the commode, before turning back to Pierre with bleak eyes.
‘She’s gone,’ he said huskily. ‘They’ve taken her. Whoever killed Marie-Jeanne has taken Hélène.’
Pierre, relieved that there had been no second body, said, ‘They will ask for a ransom, monsieur. They will keep her hidden and ask for gold.’
‘We must find her,’ Emile said, and suddenly leaping into action he hurried back towards the stairs. Once more he paused at the top and looked down at Marie-Jeanne’s body.
‘What shall we do…?’ Pierre gestured helplessly to her.
‘Nothing now!’ shouted Emile as he catapulted down the stairs. ‘We can do nothing for her. She’s dead. Hélène’s alive. Come along, man, we must look for her.’
Pierre looked down at the lifeless form on the floor and, bending down, gently closed the staring eyes before making the sign of the cross and murmuring, ‘Rest in peace, Marie-Jeanne. You died trying to save her. Rest in peace.’
‘Come on, man!’ Emile shouted again and Pierre left Marie-Jeanne lying alone and followed him downstairs.
‘Sir, we shall need the horse when we find her,’ Pierre ventured. ‘We should hide him somewhere else in case they come back!’
‘The cowards wouldn’t dare…’ began Emile, but he saw the sense of what Pierre was saying and went on, ‘Take him round to Monsieur Thiery’s house,’ he said.
‘But they have already left Paris, sir,’ Pierre said.
‘I know that, but you may be able to hide him in their stable. Yes, take him there and then come back and we’ll search for Hélène.’
Pierre did as he was bid and within fifteen minutes he had put the horse safely into the neighbours’ stable. While he was away, Emile looked into his own stables to see if the chaise had been touched by the thieves. It appeared that in their hurry to leave with their prize, they had not been into the coach house and the chaise stood as he’d left it that morning, with the valises strapped to the back.
Perhaps Hélène had run away, Emile thought. Perhaps she had escaped while brave Marie-Jeanne kept the thieves at bay. Maybe Marie-Jeanne had paid with her life so that Hélène could make a break for it. And where were Berthe and Arlette? Had they run away or – a thought brought him up short – had they been in on the whole thing? They were new servants, only hired since the family had returned to Paris in February. They had little loyalty to the St Clairs. Their bodies were not here; were they part of the attack or had they simply run away?
When Pierre reappeared Emile said, ‘Did you manage that all right?’
‘Yes, sir,’ replied Pierre. ‘The yard gates were closed, but there was no padlock and chain.’
‘We must go out and look round the streets, calling,’ Emile said. ‘Hélène may have run away when the thieves broke in. Marie-Jeanne at the top of the stairs may have given her the time to get away.’
Pierre didn’t think so, remembering the upturned screen in Madame St Clair’s boudoir, but he could think of no other suggestion and so the two of them set out, hunting the surrounding streets, knocking on the doors of friends and neighbours in case Hélène had taken refuge with them, but several of the houses were already closed up, their owners having fled the violence of the city, and no one in those that were still occupied had seen or heard anything.
‘They must have heard the shot that killed Marie-Jeanne,’ Emile said in despair. ‘Surely somebody heard the shot and looked out of their window. Somebody must have seen something!’ But if they had, nobody admitted it.
They continued from house to house, and the only glimmer of hope they had was when a maid in the last house on the street said she had seen Arlette.
‘I knowed her from when we was kids. Sometimes we spend our day off together,’ explained the girl. ‘She ran past here this morning, with her face buried in a handkerchief. I thought she was crying and I was going to call out to her, but she was gone that quick.’
‘Are you certain it was Arlette, our maid Arlette?’ demanded Emile.
‘Oh yes, sir, quite certain,’ replied the maid. ‘It was me what told her Madame St Clair was looking for a maid.’
‘Was there anyone with her?’ asked Emile, the faint light of hope in his eyes. ‘When you saw her?’
‘Oh no, sir. She was by herself. Probably going home to her ma’s. In a right state, she was.’
‘What is your name, girl?’ Emile asked.
‘Mireille,’ replied the girl.
‘Well, Mireille, can you tell us where Arlette lives?’
The girl nodded. ‘Yes, monsieur, in the sixth arrondissement.’
Emile thought of the narrow streets in that area. How would he ever find Arlette’s home in that myriad of streets, even if she gave him a street name and number?
‘Will you take us there?’ Emile demanded.
‘What, sir, now?’
‘Yes, girl, now!’
‘I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t leave the house. Madame Jourdain would turn me off without a character.’
Emile could feel his frustration rising. ‘Is Madame Jourdain at home?’ he asked, his voice tightly controlled.
‘I can enquire, sir,’ came the reply. ‘Who shall I say is calling?’
Stupid girl! he thought, but the niceties had to be observed, and even though Mireille knew perfectly well who he was, she waited for him to produce his card to send up to Madame, who was probably, even now, watching them from the window.
‘Please will you give my compliments to Madame Jourdain and say I am sorry to disturb her so early, but I need to see her on important business.’
‘Yes, sir,’ agreed the maid, accepting his card. ‘Would you care to wait in the hall?’
Exasperated, Emile stepped inside and said, ‘Please hurry, this could be a matter of life and death.’
Mireille’s eyes widened with the drama of the situation and disappeared upstairs to the drawing room. While they were waiting to be shown up, Emile turned to Pierre.
‘Go back to the streets and keep asking. Who knows, someone could have seen her… or the men who broke into the house. Maybe someone saw them and knows which direction they took; knows if they had a child with them. I will visit Arlette and hope she can tell me more.’
‘Yes, monsieur,’ answered Pierre and let himself out of the front door.
Moments later Mireille returned to usher Emile upstairs. ‘Where’s the other man?’ she asked, looking round anxiously.
‘Don’t worry about him,’ replied Emile, ‘he’s gone.’
He followed the maid up into Madame Jourdain’s drawing room. Madame Jourdain rose to greet him, but did not extend her hand. She was a tall, rather scrawny woman with a beaky nose, thin lips and hard, calculating eyes. She looked at Emile with some disdain. She knew the name of St Clair, but she had never met Emile or his wife and calling in this fashion was not at all expected.
‘I am sorry to disturb you, madame,’ Emile said and gave her a brief and edited version of what had happened. He made no mention of the murder of Marie-Jeanne. ‘I don’t want to alarm you, madame, but I need to speak to my maid, Arlette, who ran away from the attack. My daughter is missing and I need to ask Arlette what happened. Your maid Mireille knows where she lives and I wondered if you could spare her for half an hour to take me there.’
‘You think this Arlette will know something?’ asked Madame Jourdain.
‘Until I speak to her I cannot tell, madame,’ replied Emile evenly, ‘but I must try and find her. If my daughter ran away, we need to find her again. I was taking her to the safety of the country this very morning.’
‘And she did not want to go. Perhaps that is why she ran away.’
Emile held onto the rags of his temper. ‘She was looking forward to going. Madame, I think she may have been abducted, but until I speak to Arlette I shall know nothing for sure.’
Eventually Madame Jourdain gave a small shrug. ‘You say Mireille knows where this girl lives. She may take you now, but I need her back before my husband comes home for his midday meal.’ She rang a small bell on the table beside her, and the alacrity with which it was answered suggested that Mireille had been standing outside the door. Madame gave her instructions and moments later the maid had her shawl around her shoulders and they were back in the street. She led Emile to the end of the road and then took a small alleyway to the left, leading away from the prosperous area where he and the Jourdains lived, into the more run-down parts of the neighbourhood. Following her through the countless twisting lanes and narrow streets, Emile wondered if he would even find his way back into a civilised part of the city. At last she turned in through an archway and led him across a small yard hemmed in by dilapidated buildings and up a flight of stone steps. At a turn in the stairs were two doors, and then the steps disappeared into the gloom of the floor above. Mireille paused outside these before knocking on one of them.
‘In here,’ she said and banged on the door with her knuckles. The door didn’t open but a reedy voice called out from within, ‘Who’s there?’
‘It’s me, Mireille,’ answered the maid. ‘There’s someone to see Arlette.’
‘She don’t want to see no one,’ said the voice.
‘It is important—’ began Mireille but Emile interrupted her.
‘It is I, Emile St Clair,’ he spoke the name imperiously, ‘and I need to speak with Arlette… now. Please open this door at once.’
The door remained shut, but they could hear voices from inside the apartment. Emile was just about to shout through the door to them again when they heard the sound of a bolt being drawn back, then the turn of a key in the lock and slowly the door was inched open. An old woman’s face, creased with wrinkles and the sunken cheeks of the toothless, appeared in the gap and she looked at both Mireille and Emile before she opened the door any further.
‘Please, madame,’ Emile said, his voice tight, ‘I must speak with Arlette.’
Apparently having assured herself that the two visitors on her doorstep posed no threat to her or her daughter, the woman opened the door wide enough to let them in and then closed it quickly behind them, immediately sliding the bolt across to secure it.
Emile found himself in a dark space, too small to be called a hall. Two doors led off it, one of them closed. The old woman led them through the other into a tiny living room, crammed with an assortment of furniture. Grey daylight hardly penetrated the grubby windows and at first Emile didn’t see Arlette, sitting curled into an armchair. When she saw it really was him she tried to get up, but he waved her back to her seat. Even in the dull light of the room he could see her face was very swollen, a bruise covering her left cheek and running upward to join with another around her eye. Her nose was swollen and red against the pallor of her face.
‘Arlette,’ Emile said, trying to moderate his voice to sympathy, ‘I’ve come to talk to you about what happened this morning while I was out. I know some thieves broke into my house and I can see they hurt you very badly, but I need you to tell me exactly what happened before you ran away.’
Arlette looked up at him and tears began to flood down her cheeks.
‘Come now, Arlette,’ he said and handed her his handkerchief. ‘I’m not angry with you for running away, I don’t blame you, but I need to know what happened.’
Arlette dabbed at her eyes with the hankie and then held it out to him, but he waved it aside. ‘Just tell me in your own words,’ he said.
‘I was in the dining room, clearing the table,’ she began, ‘and then there was this banging on the door. Not a knock, you know, real banging.’ Emile nodded to show he understood.
‘Mistress Marie-Jeanne was on the stairs, and she called down to me not to open the front door.’
‘But you did?’
‘No, monsieur, they broke it down, the men what come in. There was three of them, and one had a gun and the others some sort of clubs. The man with the gun hit me across the face and knocked me down. I screamed and he told me to shut up. Then one of the others yelled at me to get up and get out. And that’s what I did, monsieur. I was out that door like light and I ran, all the way here. Ma barred the door in case they come looking for me.’
‘You saw Marie-Jeanne on the stairs,’ Emile said, ‘was Miss Hélène with her? Or somewhere else in the house?’
‘She was upstairs too,’ replied the girl, warming to her story. ‘She was looking down through the banisters.’ She dabbed her cheeks again and added, ‘I didn’t stay to see what happened next, I can tell you. I legged it here and if you don’t mind, monsieur, I ain’t coming back. Those men might know who I am and that I work for you. They don’t like people who work for people like you, so I ain’t coming back no more.’
Emile ignored this and asked, ‘You didn’t see what happened to Berthe?’
‘Berthe? No, monsieur, she was in the kitchen when they broke down the door. I didn’t see her, but if she had any sense she’d’ve been out the back fast as you like. Them men wasn’t joking.’
‘So you haven’t see Berthe at all?’
‘No, I told you, I didn’t hang around to see what happened.’
‘And you didn’t see anyone else.’
‘Didn’t stop to look. There was some kids in the street, I suppose, like usual.’
‘Now I want you to think carefully, Arlette,’ Emile said. ‘What did these men look like? Was there anything special about them?’
‘Big,’ replied Arlette promptly. ‘Two of them was big. They all had beards and whiskers, and the one with the gun had black hair on his hands. He weren’t so big, but he had the gun and he was the boss.’
‘And what were they wearing?’
Arlette shrugged. ‘Just clothes,’ she said, ‘workmen’s clothes…’ She thought for a moment and then added, ‘and heavy boots, workmen’s boots.’
Emile could see he wasn’t going to get anything else from Arlette, and suspected anything else she told him would be embroidery. All he had learned was what he had most feared: that Hélène had been upstairs when the men broke in. She’d had no opportunity to escape from the intruders and when Marie-Jeanne had been shot she’d had no one to protect her. He decided not to tell the girl that Marie-Jeanne was dead and Hélène was missing. He wanted no sensational version of events out on the streets, and he could see Arlette would relish the attention such a story would bring.
He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out two silver coins. ‘Thank you for your help, Arlette,’ he said as he handed them to her. ‘We shan’t be expecting you to come back, but I hope you get better very quickly.’
Moments later he and Mireille were back in the twisting lanes, heading back to Madame Jourdain. When they reached the house Emile extracted two more coins and slipped them into Mireille’s hand. ‘If you hear anything, anything at all that might help me find my daughter,’ he said, ‘there’ll be plenty more where that came from. But please, do not speak of what you’ve heard this morning.’
The maid gave her promise and thanked him for the money before scurrying back inside to face Madame Jourdain, twenty minutes beyond her time.
Emile turned back towards his home with heavy tread and a heavier heart. Hélène had been kidnapped and carried off by some revolutionary ruffians, and it was all his fault. If he had left Paris when Rosalie first asked him to, Hélène would be safely at St Etienne. If only they had left earlier today; if only he hadn’t visited the office first, they’d have been away. Hélène would be safe and Marie-Jeanne would still be alive. If only, if only…and it was all his fault.