“No, Raoul!” Inés cried, putting her hand out to stop him. He shoved her aside.
I did not back down. “Inés, I need you to leave this room. I need you to walk out of here and go straight back to Le Chat Rose. I will handle this gentleman.”
“No! I don’t want to leave you here alone with him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Obey your Madame.” I fixed her with a look of conviction.
“She’s not going anywhere!” Raoul cried, clutching Inés’s arm and pulling her close.
I was about to lose my patience. I wanted nothing more than to set him straight once and for all. But just then, heavy footsteps sounded on the wood floor of the hallway, and the door behind me creaked the rest of the way open.
Two strong men came into the room. They looked like thugs, common criminals, with well-worn suits and dented bowlers. One of them had a petulant and querulous look.
“What is this?” he said to Raoul. He gestured at me. “Who is she?”
The other thug, however, viewed me with confusion followed by dawning recognition and then increasing alarm. “That’s her, the madame. Of Le Chat Rose. What is she doing here?” He swept his hat off his head as if in respect, which surprised me. He had thick black eyebrows, and there was a bent yellow feather tucked into the ribbon of his hat.
The first fellow glared at me and then at Raoul. “Didn’t the boss tell you to get rid of her?”
My eyebrows shot up. “Oh, did he? I do believe I’m beginning to take offense. Who is this boss you speak of?”
Apparently, our Monsieur Raoul wasn’t the mastermind of this little operation. Which gave rise to a whole new host of questions.
And now there were far too many people in this room. With so many witnesses, I would not be able to use my powers—or, if I did, trying to wipe out all their memories afterward would become a challenge.
“This is not good,” said the second fellow, the one with the thick black eyebrows. He seemed far more anxious about all of this than anyone else. “Not good at all.”
“Shut up, Gagnon,” said the first fellow.
Gagnon? My eyebrows shot up a second time. That explained the eyebrows.
He cursed and punched the arm of his comrade. “Shut up yourself!”
Things were suddenly looking very, very bad for Madame Gagnon and her involvement in all of this.
“I don’t suppose your cousin might be in my employ?” I asked him lightly.
He did his best to ignore me, but with a deeply worried look on his face. Meanwhile, the first fellow, who was overall much more aggressive, spoke to Raoul. “He told you to get rid of her.”
“I tried,” Raoul complained. “I shot her. I got her right in the stomach. I don’t even know how she’s standing here.”
The other fellow threw back his jacket and felt for the revolver at his hip while he leered at me. “I guess that means I’ll have to do it.”
“No, you idiot,” Gagnon said, pressing his hand against the other man’s shoulder. “You can’t hurt her.”
“And who says?” he asked hotly, resisting Gagnon’s pressure.
“You just can’t. It’s not right.” Gagnon’s volume was going up by the moment.
“I agree with Gagnon,” I said. “For what it’s worth.”
The whole situation was almost becoming humorous. But then the first thug pulled his revolver out from his belt and pointed it at me.
“No, thank you,” I said. “I just got through being shot not an hour ago.”
It was time for me to get myself and Inés out of here.
I invoked my supernatural powers and filled my words with my charme. “Gentlemen,” I said, “as much as we have all been enjoying the conversation, it seems to me that it is getting late, and we are all tired, and surely we would all like to go and perhaps get a bit of dinner. Aren’t you all hungry?”
I infused my words with certainty and empathy. “Wouldn’t that be just the thing, to forget about all of this and get a hot meal and something delicious to drink?”
The men exchanged glances and began to mumble agreeably.
“Well, yes, I do suppose so…” Raoul said.
“Yes, it’s so nice to have a peaceful chat with friends, but we really must be going,” I said, and I took Inés‘s hand in mine. She too was under my spell and offered no resistance. “Let us go, my dear. Let us go on out down to the street and find our way back to Le Chat Rose.”
I led her past the men and out the open door of the room, then down the hallway, where I had to hunt for the nearest stairwell.
In the unheated hallway, she began to shiver, as Roaul had taken her away from me without her furs.
“Madame, what just happened? I thought we were talking to that awful Raoul… and then there were more men… and…”
“I know, mon petit chou, it’s very confusing. But you don’t need to worry about it.” I put a little bit more of my charme into my words to prevent her from coming down too quickly – an experience that some people found disorienting. “I will set everything to right.”
In truth, I had no idea how I was going to set anything to right. But it was my job to appear confident and capable to my ladies, to reassure them, and that was exactly what I would always do.
I continued to hunt the exit—the building had twists and turns unanticipated from the outside -but as I rounded a corner, I was surprised by the dominating presence of Monsieur Etruscan Red—and he had in his grasp Madame Gagnon, and in the other hand, a gun.
10
“Madame!” Rainger Gagnon cried.
“Ah, Madame,” Monsieur Red declared. “I am so pleased to see you. Hold on one moment.” He transferred his pistol to the other hand and then took a large envelope from his inside jacket pocket.
He approached me, pulling Madame Gagnon along with him, and extended the envelope toward me. “Open it,” he urged me. The man wore the smile of a crocodile—toothy and villainous.
“Who the devil are you?” I asked.
That question took the smug smile off his face. “My name is Belvedere Von Trossen. I believe that name should ring a bell.”
“Ohhhhh.” I felt as if my lungs had been sucked down into the pit of my stomach. “You’re the one who’s been sending me letters. You want to buy my maison. One might say you have been a bit pushy.”
“And one might say that you have been a bit stubborn,” Monsieur Von Trossen said. “Your establishment continues to be one of the most profitable of all the brothels in Paris. You know, I have no objection to the fact that women typically own and run the brothels. It was really only a bit of a lark when I first wrote to you inquiring about the possibility of my purchasing it. But then you said no.” His face hardened. “No one says no to me.”
“I’m afraid you’re about to hear it again,” I said lightly.
“Don’t be a fool,” he said. “Open the envelope.”
I did so, and inside it found the title to Le Chat Rose, ready for me to sign.
“The nerve,” I said. “You stole this from my office when you stole my license and receipt. Do you really think to threaten me into signing this over to you?”
“I do,” he said, a tight smile upon his face. “I would like to remind you that I hold your employee entirely helpless here.”
“Oh?” I studied the aforementioned employee more closely. Although she was wide-eyed and panting a bit from either fear or exertion or possibly both, she did not look altogether hysterical. And as I may have mentioned before, she is built something like a blacksmith. And, I do believe, has the capacity to flatten any enemy if given sufficient motivation.
And there was also the fact that she had, a day or two ago, shown herself capable of climbing out of a high window and then making her way down to the ground, which had given me cause to wonder whether she had a less than illustrious history—which might prove useful in the present instance.
“Madame Gagnon,” I said conversationally, “I believe you have the power to put
this man in his place.”
It was not a normal sentence I uttered. I put my charme into it, and the power of my persuasion, and no small amount of supernatural encouragement. Even a bit of urging, perhaps.
I saw a sense of resolution enter Madame Gagnon’s eyes. Her back stiffened, and just as Monsieur Von Trossen began to turn toward her in concern, she pulled loose one meaty arm, balled up one large fist, and let it swing mightily at his head.
He dropped like a sack of bricks.
Madame Gagnon shook the pain out of her hand and rubbed her knuckles.
Just then, the two thugs from earlier, plus Raoul and Inés, came around the same corner, behind the two of them.
“The gun!” I shouted to Madame Gagnon.
She picked it up, then shrieked and dropped it out of sheer terror of handling the thing. But the thugs were still coming, and with another small shriek, she picked it up again and this time managed to point it in their general direction, which caused them to stop in their tracks and shout in alarm.
“Steady, Madame Gagnon,” I said soothingly, with more of my enchantement in the words. “You can do this.”
Her hands steadied and she kept the weapon trained on the three men.
Her cousin let out a heavy sigh, his shoulders drooping, and he held his hands halfway up in a semblance of surrender.
“Lester,” Madame Gagnon said, not too roughly. “This has to be the end for you. You can’t go on in this way. Think of our dear mother and what you have put her through.”
“’Our mother’?” I asked quizzically. “I thought the two of you were cousins?”
I was beginning to imagine family relationships that were too progressive even for me when Madame Gagnon turned toward me. “He is my cousin, but his mother gave him to my mother and she raised us alongside one another. We’re really more like siblings than anything else.”
She’d let the weapon lower toward the floor, and the other thug, the more aggressive one, pulled his revolver and began to point it toward Madame Gagnon.
But just as quickly, Lester Gagnon grabbed his wrist and twisted it until the weapon dropped. He forced the other man to his knees. “No,” he said regretfully. “It’s like my sister says. This has to be the end of this. I won’t do it anymore. Not when it gets my family into trouble.”
Footsteps sounded behind me, and I turned to see, to my great relief, Inspector Baudet, and behind him Monsieur Carré and—to my surprise—Hélène Bachelet, her cheeks rosy from the cold wind outside and her eyes bright with excitement.
The inspector took everyone into custody who could be considered involved—which was every male present, as it turned out—and the rest of us made our return to Le Chat Rose. There, everyone insisted I return to my settee, although I assured them all that I was feeling fine.
Right away, we had to take turns giving the inspector our complete statements. Of course, I had a few details I had to leave out of the discussion, and a bit of dissembling to do as to how I’d found Inés and Raoul in that bare apartment, but it came out all right.
After the questioning was over, Hélène Bachelet seated herself at my side and covered my cheeks and forehead with perfumed kisses. “Darling,” she said, “quel horreur! I can’t believe the gall of that monster, to come in here and do such a thing to you, and to terrorize Inés and Madame Gagnon at the same time.”
“How in the world did you all find us?” I asked.
“Well, Monsieur Georges had come to find me to see if I knew who Monsieur Von Trossen was, and obviously, I did. I wish I hadn’t left so soon that night—I would have seen him there and recognized him and immediately warned you he was present. I suppose he was taking a closer look at the property he expected to claim as his own. So I went promptly to Inspector Baudet, and we showed around the sketches of Raoul and Inés on the streets until someone told us they had seen them, and that’s how we found you.”
“It seems that Monsieur Von Trossen was the one who started this whole thing by wanting to take Le Chat Rose out from under me,” I said. “He had been writing me letters for ages, growing increasingly aggressive. Finally he decided to resort to even more direct means.”
“And I’m sorry to say that Lester had been involved before in helping him to pressure landowners to give up their properties,” Madame Gagnon said. “Lester is a good soul, but he’s been somewhat led astray by the company he’s kept.”
“And so Monsieur Von Trossen asked him to steal the license and receipts and title from my office?” I said.
“Yes, but when Lester asked me to loan him my master key to Le Chat Rose, I decided I had to be the one to do it instead, as I would get in less trouble if I were caught than he would.” She said this shame-faced, and I knew that she felt terrible for what she had done. “I have a weak spot when it comes to my family.”
“I understand that entirely, as I have the very same weakness. But, mon amie, next time, won’t you please trust me with your troubles and allow me to help you?” I asked kindly as I extended my hand to her.
“I will.” She sniffled. “I’m sorry to have broken your trust.”
“Speak no more of it,” I said gently. “For what it’s worth, I’m confident that Inspector Baudet will weigh heavily Lester’s decision to help us in the end, when it really mattered. Perhaps his report will go easy on him.”
“And then how did Raoul and Isabelle end up involved in all of this?” Inés asked quietly.
“Lester told me that Raoul has also been an employee of Monsieur Von Trossen,” Madame Gagnon said. “When the old buzzard learned that Raoul’s girlfriend was dying, he induced him to end her life here, so as to put pressure on you to sell.”
“And by involving you without your knowledge,” I said to Inés, “Raoul hoped to induce you to run away with him.”
“It worked,” she said sadly. “I thought I would go to prison if I didn’t go along with him, under his protection.”
“Inés, darling,” I said, “you are under my protection, and I think you will find that that is no small thing. But even apart from that, if anyone should ever try to mistreat you, remember that you need not put up with it—not now, and not ever. Tell someone, speak up, do something. You have that power.”
She smiled faintly and nodded, still wiping her eyes.
And that is the moral of the story, dear Reader. Inés got into trouble only because her innocence and naiveté told her that she was helpless and powerless. As we grow older and wiser, we learn that there is much we can do when trouble comes knocking, and that we need not suffer alone.
I have been around long enough now to know exactly how powerful I am.
And it is no coincidence that when Monsieur Von Trossen was released on bail, he mysteriously disappeared and never turned up again.
Old buzzard, indeed. But a delicious buzzard nevertheless.
FIN
P.S. Le Chat Rose reopened in a jiffy once I had my paperwork back. And then I had a word with Monsieur Garcia the next time he stayed late on the Île to visit a nightclub. Our conversation in the dark passenger compartment of the taxi was short and anonymous but extremely gratifying. I don’t think he’ll try to extort money from anyone ever again…
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Other Books in This Series
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I currently have 6 short books and a prequel published in the Madame’s Murder Mysteries series. It will be an open-ended, ongoing series, and I will keep writing them as long as you like!
Here are the titles that are out now:
The Murder of Mariano – The Prequel – available only via my website: www.annettemoncheri.com/free-stuff/
The Passing of Pascal – Book 1
The Expiration of Elise – Book 2
The End of Isabelle – Book 3 (this book!)
The Parting of Pierre – Book 4
The Death of Daisi – Book 5
The Mortality of Matias – Book 6
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The Finish of Fiore – Book 7
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FREE Excerpt from Book 4: The Parting of Pierre
Dear delicious Reader! I cannot wait to tell you this story, which has gambling, gunshots, lies, more lies, an adorable little dog named Caramel, a villainous scheme by a group of old ladies, and, of course, murder. Not that I mean to tease you... the teasing in this story comes at the end, and it's not done by me.
We shall begin like this: I rose at six in the evening, as always, and soon began my day’s first rounds of my maison, Le Chat Rose, in the broad carpeted hallway above, glancing in any open doors and speaking to any of my ladies who were at loose ends.
In the present case, Anaelle de Gall was touching up her makeup at a little table while she complained bitterly about her sister to Melodie Bouvier, who lay on Anaelle’s duvet with an arm propping up her head.
“Salut, ladies. Don’t forget you’ve a living to earn downstairs,” I said sweetly.
Anaelle stopped just short of scowling at me. Always sour, that one. “I’ll be out in a moment, Madame,” she said while she applied rouge. Melodie meanwhile picked herself up and went out with a kiss on my cheek.
The End of Isabelle Page 5
