Part 8 (2/2)

Beyond the tall windows of Dominique's exquisite dining room, the small light that got past the wall and rooflines of the houses behind them was fading, though it was barely six. Knowing he'd have to be out at a ball in the Saint Mary faubourg for most of the night, January had slept a few hours after the funeral, but his dreams had been unsettling. When he came down to the kitchen, Dominique was there, an ap.r.o.n over the spinach-green silk, sleeves rolled up, helping Bella and Hannibal wash up tea things. ”Mama's over at Phrasie's,” she said. ”I told Bella I'd get you supper.”

”You've been in Paris too long,” said Hannibal. He raised his wine gla.s.s to Dominique in what was mostly a respectful salute to his hostess but partly a flirtation. She caught his eye and returned him her most melting smile.

”Or not long enough.” January returned to the table.

”You really thought the police would investigate the murder of a colored woman if the leading suspects were all white?”

January was silent, feeling the heat of embarra.s.sment rise through him and disgust at himself for the trust he'd felt in the law, in the police, in the Kaintuck officer Shaw. He had, he thought, in fact been in Paris too long. Law-abiding as he was in his soul, it had taken him years to learn to trust authority there.

”What did the note say?” he asked in time. ”Because you have to admit, Madame Dreuze's story about Madame Trepagier sending a confederate to plant hoodoo hexes under her rival's mattress isn't something I'd care to take into court.”

”Oh, that...” His sister made a dismissive gesture. ”Everybody in that crowd knew perfectly well that Madame Trepagier tried to swear out a writ late yesterday afternoon to stop the sale of the jewelry and the two slaves, and Madame Dreuze spent the whole morning at Heidekker and Stein's, peddling every fragment, dress, and stick of furniture. Why else do you think Phrasie was carrying on so? She had to cover up. G.o.d knows anybody who causes Euphrasie Dreuze inconvenience has got to be the Devil's in-law. Just ask her.”

”I had a wife like that once,” remarked Hannibal, dreamy reminiscence in his eye. ”Maybe more than one. I forget.”

Minou rapped him on the arm with her spoon. ”Bad man! But no, Ben. It wasn't that.”

She rose and crossed to the sideboard where the covered dishes of greens and jambalaya, the rolls, and the wine stood ready, and from a drawer took a half a piece of yellow foolscap, folded small. Hannibal got to his feet and held her chair for her when she returned; she looked as surprised as she would have had her brother performed this gentlemanly office, then smiled at him again, and seated herself in a gentle froufrou of skirts. January had watched his sister at the Blue Ribbon b.a.l.l.s enough to know that, without being unfaithful to Henri Viellard in thought, word, or deed, she always had that effect on men. Certainly, to judge by the warm solicitousness of her eyes, Hannibal was having his customary effect on Minou.

The note was written in the labored hand of one who has acquired the discipline of orthography late and incompletely. At least, thought January dourly, it wasn't tobacco stained.

February 16 1833Mis January:Regarding the notes which I askt you to make last Thursday night, many thanks for yor efort and time. It apears now, however, that they will not be necesary, and I would take it as a grate favor if you would put them aside in some safe place where they will not be seen. My deepest apolagys for puting you to the trouble of making them.

Yr o'bt s'vt, Abis.h.a.g Shaw She was only a placee, after all.

January's hand shook with anger as he set the paper down.

”An American,” he said softly. ”We should have known better than to look for more.”

Minou was silent, turning the tall crystal wine gla.s.s in her fingers. Henri Viellard was a good provider: The cottage on Rue Burgundy was decorated with expensive simplicity, the table china French, the crystal German. When first he had entered the house last November, January had immediately guessed that the podgy young man had simply given his mistress carte blanche. If tonight's simple meal was anything to go by, her choice of a cook was in keeping with the rest of the establishment-and possibly, though Viellard wouldn't have admitted it, the real attraction of the menage.

It was not the house of a prost.i.tute, not the house of a woman who sold herself to a man. It was the home of a couple who would have been married had the Black Code not forbidden it, the home of a woman whose man was prevented by law from living with her. The home of that curiously nuanced cla.s.s of individual, a free placee of color....

Whom Americans like Shaw would see only as n.i.g.g.e.r wh.o.r.es.

With a certain amount of effort he kept his voice even. ”Do you have the notes?”

Hannibal was out of his chair and helping her rise before January could make even a belated move in that direction. Therese, the servant woman, entered in silence and cleared away plates and serving dishes as Dominique extracted a thick ma.s.s of yellow foolscap from yet another drawer in the sideboard, and in equal silence brought coffee things and a little pale brown sugar in a French porcelain bowl.

”So far as I can tell,” said Dominique, spreading the papers as the men cleared the cups to one side, ”these are the people who were at the ball, and next door in the Theatre d'Orleans. I checked with all my friends, and all their their friends, and we figured out even the Americans and decided who had to be at least some of the people in the other ballroom.... We know Henri's family had to be there, for instance, because that awful mother of his never lets him go out without taking her and his sisters and Aunt Francine, and we know Pauline Mazanat and the Pontchartrain Trepagiers had to be there because they're the heads of the subscription committee that was running the ball.... That kind of thing.” friends, and we figured out even the Americans and decided who had to be at least some of the people in the other ballroom.... We know Henri's family had to be there, for instance, because that awful mother of his never lets him go out without taking her and his sisters and Aunt Francine, and we know Pauline Mazanat and the Pontchartrain Trepagiers had to be there because they're the heads of the subscription committee that was running the ball.... That kind of thing.”

Her long, slim fingers shuffled neatly through the pile of foolscap scribbled with Shaw's uneven lines and the guardsman's pinched hand, sorting them out from the scented buff sheets of her own notepaper.

”The only ones we're not sure of were the men downstairs in the gambling rooms, but of course without tickets, they weren't allowed up the stairs. You can be sure Agnes Pellicot knew exactly exactly who was asking her about her daughters. Can you believe that who was asking her about her daughters. Can you believe that awful awful Henry VIII with his six wives is a man named Hubert Granville who's been talking to Francoise Clisson about her daughter Violette?” Henry VIII with his six wives is a man named Hubert Granville who's been talking to Francoise Clisson about her daughter Violette?”

”Were all those six wives his?” asked Hannibal, interested.

”Oh, no.” Dominique laughed, and ticked them off on her fingers. ”One of them was Bernadette Metoyer, who knows him through her bank-he's the president of the Union Bank and he lent her the money to set up her chocolate business when Athanase de Soto paid her off. Two of them were her sisters who help her in the chocolate shop, one was Marie Toussainte Valcour-Philippe Cournand, her protector, had to attend his grandmother's dinner that night-one was Marie-Eulalie Figes, who is placee to Philippe's cousin, and he he had to dance attendance on Grandma Cournand as well, and one was Marie-Eulalie's younger sister Babette. Marie-Eulalie is trying to come to an understanding for Babette with Jean duBose.” had to dance attendance on Grandma Cournand as well, and one was Marie-Eulalie's younger sister Babette. Marie-Eulalie is trying to come to an understanding for Babette with Jean duBose.”

With that kind of intelligence system in operation among the placees and their families, January no longer doubted the accuracy or completeness of Dominique's lists. Names were appended in Dominique's small, flowery hand to all the witnesses who had remained to testify, and to all but perhaps twenty of the costumes listed by various persons as ”seen.” Among those ”seen,” January was unsettled to note, was ”Indian Princess.” And she had been seen by at least three people in the upstairs lobby after the music had started playing.

d.a.m.n, thought January. The charge that she could have had anything to do with Angelique Crozat's death was ridiculous, but Madame Trepagier had put herself in serious trouble by remaining. Why had she come upstairs after he'd told her to leave? Even without a ticket, a costumed woman could have slipped past the ushers, who were only there to keep out drunks and chance strangers from the gambling rooms. But it was, after all, a Blue Ribbon Ball.

Had she had second thoughts? Something else she had to tell him and was later prevented?

Had she decided to seek out Angelique herself?

In either case, she had lied to him Friday morning when she said she had gone directly back to Les Saules.

I was home by eight-thirty, she had said.

Why the lie?

He scanned the rest of the list.

There were only three other women unaccounted for, ”seen” but not identified: ”lavender domino,” ”green-striped odalisque,” and ”gypsy.” ”Creole girls spying on their husbands,” said Dominique offhandedly, when January asked.

”Silly.” She returned his look of surprise with the warm flicker of her smile. ”You don't think Creole ladies sometimes try to sneak in and see what their menfolk are up to? We can spot them a mile away. I understand why they want to do that,” she added more soberly. ”And I...I feel sorry for them, even the ones who complain to the police if you go to a restaurant or buy dresses that are too fine. But what good will it do, to see your husband with a woman you already know in your heart exists? It only hurts more. But most of them don't think about that till later.”

January remembered himself, standing on the banquette opposite Catherine Clisson's house all those hot nights of his youth and shook his head. It did only hurt more. And he knew that it was a rare man, white or black or colored, who would truly give up a mistress because of the pleading or nagging of a wife. They simply hid them deeper or put them aside for a while only to go back.

He turned the lists over in his fingers, the scribbled and amended and much-crossed chronology of the evening, arranged, he was interested to note, like a dance card, by what songs were being played. Minou's dance card from the evening was included in the bundle-with every dance taken, naturally-and even Shaw's original questions were linked to what music was being played.

Dominique must have suggested it to him. He spelled waltz waltz, ”walce.”

No one had seen Galen Peralta after he'd stormed downstairs following his initial spat with Angelique.

”Was there ever anything between Augustus Mayerling and Angelique?”

Dominique trilled with laughter. ”Mayerling? Good heavens, no! He hated Angelique almost from the day they met.”

The woman who marries him will have cause to thank the one who wielded that scarf.

”Because of the way she treated young Peralta?”

”If Trepagier and the Peralta boy were both his students,” pointed out Hannibal, ”it's my guess that's how Angelique met our boy Galen to begin with. Augustus would have had a front-row seat on the whole seduction from the first dropped handkerchief, meanwhile watching her take Arnaud for every cent he had. His...antipathy...could have been as much disgust as hatred. He's fastidious about things like that.”

Hardly a reason for murder, thought January, no matter how fond he was of Galen Peralta. But now that he thought of it, Augustus Mayerling had been absent from the ballroom for far longer than would be accounted for by the conference over the duel.

Four dances-slightly under an hour-had intervened between Bouille's challenge and Mayerling's reappearance to ask January to preside as physician over the duel. During those dances-the most popular of the evening-the lobby had been almost deserted. For the same reason, none of Dominique's friends had been willing to absent themselves from the ballroom no matter what portions of their tableau costumes remained unfinished. Galen, storming out of the building, had been smitten with l'esprit d'escalier l'esprit d'escalier and had gone back to renew his quarrel with Angelique, ascending by the service stair. If Clemence had gone after him down the main stair, she would have missed him. He had presumably departed the same way, and the murderer could have entered quietly from the lobby. and had gone back to renew his quarrel with Angelique, ascending by the service stair. If Clemence had gone after him down the main stair, she would have missed him. He had presumably departed the same way, and the murderer could have entered quietly from the lobby.

Always a.s.suming, of course, that Galen was not the murderer himself.

”Those names on the last page?” Dominique reached over his shoulder to tap the papers. ”Those are the people-Thank you, Therese.” She smiled at the maid who came in to refill the coffee cups. ”Those are the people we know were there that weren't on Lt. Shaw's list, so they must have left either before the murder or just after it, or sneaked out before Shaw could speak to them. Catherine Clisson was one of the ones who sneaked out-or Octave Motet did and insisted she go with him because if anyone recognized her, they'd know he'd been there, too. He's the president of the Banque de Louisiane; he doesn't dare let his name be connected with anything like this. Do you think Galen Peralta was the one who did it? Strangled Angelique, I mean?”

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