They waited until the last of the royal procession had passed and the somber throng that had gathered to watch it began to drift away.
Without looking at Hero, Sebastian crossed the street toward the girl. She appeared to be alone and moved away aimlessly, as if simply filling in time until the coming of evening. He didn’t think she’d recognized him.
The air on the rue de Rivoli was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies and rotting teeth and the horse droppings left by the departed procession. The girl cut across to the rue Saint-Honoré, and Sebastian followed her up past a dilapidated old church. He was careful not to glance toward Hero, who was keeping abreast of the girl on the far side of the street.
It was Hero the girl noticed first. Sebastian was aware of her casting quick, anxious glances at the extraordinarily tall gentlewoman in the rich burgundy pelisse and ostrich-plumed hat who inexplicably stayed with her as she turned up the rue des Petits Champs toward the Place des Victoires. Grandly dressed ladies did not walk the streets of Paris, for without pedestrian pavements to lift them up and away from the muck and manure, their fine slippers would quickly be ruined, the hems of their grand silk and muslin gowns hopelessly soiled. And so, even though she might not understand why, the girl sensed that this unknown gentlewoman was in some way a threat to her.
Hastening her step, the girl turned down one of that warren of old streets that stretched away to the north of the Palais-Royal, then darted sideways into a narrow, noisome passage that cut between two decrepit old houses. It was there that she heard Sebastian’s footsteps. She whirled with a startled gasp to see him coming up behind her, then turned to try to run.
He pushed past her, blocking her way forward. She spun back toward the street, only to find Hero already there, at the passage’s entrance, trapping her between them.
“We don’t mean you any harm,” said Sebastian, holding his hands spread wide, palms up. “We simply want to talk to you.”
“Talk?” The girl swung toward him again, her face pale and trembly, her chest jerking with her frightened breaths.
“Just talk. Two weeks ago I saw you standing beside the statue base on the Pont Neuf. It was perhaps half past eight; the night was cold and misty and—”
He saw her eyes go wide, her lips parting in terror, and knew she had seen something that night. She cast a frantic glance around the dark, rubbish-strewn passage as if desperate to escape, and Sebastian said quietly, “You don’t need to be frightened. We only want to know what happened on the bridge that night. The woman who was killed was . . . very dear to me.”
The girl bit her lower lip, her gaze falling to the wretched muck at her feet.
He said, “Tell us what you saw. I swear to you, no one need ever know where it came from.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because I’m asking you here, now, rather than hauling you off to the Sûreté nationale.”
She let out a mewl of fear and scuttled sideways to flatten her back against one of the passage’s old stone walls.
“We don’t want you hurt,” said Hero. “We only want to know what happened that night.”
The girl looked from him to Hero and back again. “I don’t know anything!”
“Yes, you do. You saw her, didn’t you? A tall older woman in a dark blue pelisse with a velvet collar?”
The girl hesitated a moment, then gave a faint, reluctant nod.
Sebastian said, “Did she arrive by carriage or in a fiacre?”
“Fiacre,” whispered the girl. “The driver drew up at the entrance to the Place Dauphine, and she got out.”
Why? he thought. Why hadn’t Sophie told the fiacre driver to take her into the square itself?
“Then what?” said Hero.
“She just stood there a moment, looking into the square. I think she was nervous.”
“What makes you say that?”
The girl shrugged. “I could tell.”
Sebastian believed her. This was a girl whose very survival must all too often depend on her ability to read the emotions and intents of others. He said, “How long did she stand there?”
Another shrug. “Not long. Then she turned and walked out onto the bridge. Not fast, like she was going someplace. More like she was trying to screw up her courage to do something.”
To do something. Something such as enter the Place Dauphine, ring a bell, and face the son she had abandoned more than twenty years before?
Aloud, he said, “Then what?”
“Then . . .” A pinched look appeared around the girl’s nostrils. “Then they came.”
“ ’They’?”
“The man and the woman.”
Sebastian’s heart was pounding so hard it was roaring in his ears. He barely heard Hero say, “What did this man and woman look like?”
The girl gave a shrug that was more like a shiver. “He was tall. Lean. The woman . . . Well, I think maybe she was smaller, but I don’t really know. I didn’t pay much attention to her.”
Sebastian said, “They were walking?”
The girl shook her head. “They came from the carriage.”
“What carriage?”
“The one that was waiting near the entrance to the square.”
“What sort of carriage was it?”
“Just . . . a carriage.”
“Not a fiacre?”
“No.”
“You say the carriage was waiting? Not following the fiacre?”
“No. It was there before.”
Waiting for Sophie? thought Sebastian. Except . . . how could anyone have known to expect her there? And then he understood: They had known the same way Hortense had learned of Sophie’s visit to Malmaison. They had paid one of Sophie’s servants to alert them of her return to Paris, and that same informant had no doubt told them exactly where she was going that night.
Aloud he said, “What did the man and the woman do?”
“They followed her.”
“You mean they followed the first woman when she walked out over the river?”
The girl nodded. “She walked almost to the Right Bank, then turned to start back. That’s when she saw them—the man and the woman following her, I mean.”
“Did she know them, do you think?”
“I suppose. They spoke, but I don’t know what they said. I couldn’t hear.”
“And then?”
“Then the tall woman pushed past them and kept walking toward the island. That’s when the man—” The girl sucked in a quick, frightened breath. “That’s when—” She broke off again, her voice falling to a barely audible whisper. “I think he stabbed her. I don’t know what happened after that. I ran.”
“Was there anyone else around?”
“No, no one. Well, no one except their coachman.”
“Was he in livery? The coachman, I mean.”
“I don’t know. It was dark.”
Hero said, “Tell us more about the man—the one who stabbed the woman. You say he was tall. How tall?”
The girl twitched one shoulder. “Tall.” She jerked her chin toward Sebastian. “Not as tall as him, though.”
So probably not de Teulet, Sebastian thought, trying to remember the height of Colonel de Gautier. “How old?”
“Your age, maybe. More or less.”
“Dark or fair?”
“I don’t know.” Her breathing had stilled. She was beginning to sound less afraid, more aggrieved and impatient with their questioning. “It was night. And he wore a hat.”
“What about the woman? Was she fair? Dark? How was she dressed?”
Again the negligent roll of a shoulder. “She was dressed well enough, I suppose. I told you, I didn’t pay much attention to her. She was just . . . a woman.”
And thus not a potential customer, thought Sebastian.
Hero said, “Is there anything at all distinctive you can remember about either of them?”
The girl thought a moment, then shook her head. “They were just . . . ordinary-looking. Except . . .”
“Except?” prompted Sebastian.
“Well, the man did limp. But that’s ordinary enough these days, isn’t it?”
Sebastian and Hero exchanged a quick glance. He said, “When the first woman came in the fiacre, where was she coming from? The Left Bank or the Right?”
“The Left.”
“You’re certain?”
She nodded. “The mist had lifted a bit at that point, so I could see it coming along the quay.”
“Along the quai des Augustins, you mean?”
The girl shook her head. “From the other direction. The quai Malaquais.”
And then suddenly what had been muddled and hopelessly twisted became straight and clear.
Sebastian knew exactly where Sophie had been that night and why.