Ministry Protocol: Thrilling Tales of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences
Page 47
*****
Anne-Marie balanced a tower of lavender boxes in one hand, knocking on the unmarked door with the other. When it opened a crack, she bustled right in.
“Petit dejeuner.” Anne-Marie opened the top box, continuing in her best street French, “Compliments of an anonymous gentleman.”
A few sleepy-faced girls hunched over thin porridge at a long table, only to look up licking their lips as soon as the scent of hot bread and powdered sugar wafted from the open boxes.
“You bake these?” one of the girls asked, mouth already stuffed with pain au chocolat.
“Bien sûr,” another girl said. “Runs a boulangerie on Lepic, oûi? I saw her giving milk to a cat with kittens, once.”
Anne-Marie smiled and urged them to eat, making polite conversation as more and more girls appeared and fell to the pastries. After her brief time with Joe, she was more than happy to slip back into French. She knew a few names, had been sure to bring their favourite treats. Finally, when they’d mostly forgotten she wasn’t one of them, she settled down between two girls and nudged the redhead on her left.
“Did you hear about Ned Gilly?” she asked, pulling a box of éclairs closer.
The girl shrugged and helped herself to a sweet. “What about him?”
“He was found dead yesterday morning. At Notre Dame.”
The girl crossed herself with bitten fingertips. “Good riddance to bad rubbish. Great, nasty brute. Gave me this last week.” She pulled down the shoulder of her shift to show a yellowing bruise on her clavicle.
“Did you know Badger Leeds and Dickie Edgington, too?”
A younger girl nodded. “Dickie was my first. Didn’t pay.”
“He wasn’t as bad as Badger was, with the cigar burns.”
“Sound like a nasty bunch,” Anne-Marie said. “And all Englishmen, too.”
The girls nodded, their mouths full and their fingers sugar-rimed.
The youngest girl piped up with “Mistress hates the English. One of those three monsters killed her daughter, but we don’t know which one. We’re all glad they’re gone.”
One of the other girls hissed at her, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Is your mistress here? I’ve been wanting to talk to her about some half-priced baked goods.”
The girls stopped chewing and stared at Anne-Marie. The redhead beside her snorted and tossed her oozing éclair on the table. “Tastes funny.” She glared daggers at Anne-Marie. “But thank the anonymous gentleman for his kindness, just the same.”
Anne-Marie shrugged and rose, leaving the ravaged boxes behind. The redhead followed her to the door, slamming it on her lavender bustle. Unless Joe found something better, her money was on the Folies Bergere and the cabaret’s mysterious mistress.