The Last Serenade (Sybil Ingram Victorian Mysteries Book 2)

by Amanda DeWees

“Who?”

  “Why, Julia’s late husband. Armand Leclerc. He was a tailor. Did you not know?”

  “No. I had no idea.” So Julia’s married surname was Leclerc—“the clerk.” No wonder she had changed it to something with more drama and grandeur.

  “It was through his theatrical connection that they met,” Helaine explained, and handed me another photograph. She tapped the man who stood next to a very young Julia. Leclerc was a thin middle-aged man with the stooped posture of someone much older. There was something defeated about his expression, and I wondered at Julia for marrying a man whose temperament differed so much from hers.

  “When they married there was some talk because he was so much older,” Helaine continued, “and she was such a young thing, not yet seventeen. Some wags claimed that she married him simply so that she could have costumes perfectly tailored to her. I suspect that she would have been successful in any case merely due to her beauty and determination—”

  “—and cunning.”

  She smiled. “That as well. Certainly I think that although the beautiful costumes her husband made for her helped to showcase her beauty, they alone would not have given her a career. In any event, the two of them went their separate ways within a few years of the wedding.”

  “So soon!” Julia had been more than disingenuous, then, in leading Roderick to think that her husband had been an active impediment or restraint in her life. Unless... “Did he take the separation well? Or did he try to reclaim her?”

  “He was not a very forceful personality. She easily dominated him, and I think he was too timid to either hold her interest or assert his marital rights and force her to return.” She sipped her coffee and added, “Malheureusement, I think he lost interest in life after Julia left him.”

  Sad indeed. It sounded as if the man Roderick dueled had been not much more than a shell—the wreckage Julia had left behind. “Did the news surprise you that Julia is now a primary suspect in Fournier’s death?” I asked.

  She took some moments to mull the question before replying. “I think actors are naturally suspicious to many people,” she said. “We are perceived as possessing great emotionality as well as skill in deception. As for Julia herself, she has a strength of purpose that has served her well in her career, and I admire her for it. If she is not always entirely scrupulous in how she goes about getting what she desires... well, who among us is blameless in that regard?” She refilled my cup, then hers. “Granted, it was peculiar the way Armand died.”

  Poised at my lips, my cup froze. “Oh?” I said. This was the first time I had heard an outsider speak of Julia’s husband’s death, and I realized that the story Helaine had heard was probably the common perception.

  “The story given out was that he confronted a robber breaking into his house and was shot,” she said. “But I don’t think anyone really believed it.”

  “What do you think happened?” I asked, careful to keep my interest from showing too keenly.

  Despite my effort at nonchalance, her eyes dwelled thoughtfully on my face as she answered. “Not having been there, I could not say. Your fiancé is the person most people suspect, although his motive is unclear since he and Julia parted ways immediately afterward. I imagine you know a great deal more about the matter than anyone else.”

  Certainly more than I intended to tell a mere acquaintance, no matter how kind and distinguished. “I am curious to know the general trend of thought,” I said. “I hope no one believes that Roderick would have murdered him deliberately.”

  Her lips pursed in a doubtful moue. “People like to believe what is sensational, Miss Ingram.” She leaned forward to place her cup on the tray, and with the action she seemed to transition into a different train of thought. “I was fascinated by your performance at the séance. Or should I call it a possession?”

  The term gave me pause. It was something that I sometimes worried about—that a spirit might take control of me to the point that I was no longer able to exert any control over my own body. “You could call it channeling, perhaps,” I said. “It isn’t an act, but nor do I feel I am completely at the mercy of the spirit who speaks through me.”

  She absorbed that with a thoughtful nod. “How long have you been able to do this?”

  “It started late last winter. I had been able to see spirits before that, but none had ever spoken through me. The first one to do so was Roderick’s mother, in fact, and I suspect that one reason she was able to make herself felt through me is because I was falling in love with him. So she and I had a common bond, in a way.” Her intent stare told me that she was eager for more details, so I added, “That experience seems to have initiated me into the ranks of mediums. Since then I have channeled perhaps six or eight spirits.”

  “How extraordinary. How does it happen? Does a restless spirit attach itself to you, or do you have to go seeking it?”

  I smiled at the image of a spirit clinging to me in hopes of being heard, its insubstantial hands clutching me by the ankle so that I dragged it everywhere as Marley’s ghost dragged his chain, but then my smile faded. It was tragic, not amusing, that there were souls trapped here in torment. “A bit of both, in a sense,” I told her. “I usually have to invite them, so to speak, but there must be a soul nearby that passionately needs to communicate.”

  “So if you were to visit, say, the location where a murder took place, and you opened yourself up, if that is the right way to put it—then the victim would speak through you?”

  “She might. Roderick’s mother did. But a great many souls seem to have been able to pass from this sphere into the next world despite a violent end or unfinished business. Ghosts are not as plentiful as I rather expected... or perhaps it is just that I am not yet a sensitive enough instrument.”

  “So you do not go about practicing frequently, I take it.”

  “Indeed not. I am glad to help people, both corporeal and bodiless, and I try to do so if someone asks it of me, but it is not a passion like acting, for example. I do not envision ever making spirit communication my primary object. Roderick and I will find plenty to keep us busy in our life together without my hanging out my shingle as a medium.”

  “Yes, of course. You both still have so much artistic achievement ahead of you. And you may decide to have children.”

  I smiled noncommittally. “And you?” I asked. “Have you children?”

  She shook her head. “Besides each other, it was our careers in which we invested our energies and our passion, always. I did not feel any lack at the time, but now I confess I wonder if we chose well. It is lonely here without close companionship.”

  The thought of losing one’s cherished partner awoke a terrible sympathy in my heart. Having grown to love Roderick so wholly, the thought of having him taken from me was like a physical pain. In the oppressively mournful atmosphere of Helaine’s home, I could imagine it all too easily: Roderick killed in an accident, dead from some illness...

  This would not do. I must steer the conversation toward less doleful territory. “I don’t think you ought to doubt your actions now,” I said stoutly. “Children may be intractable, after all; even if you had sons or daughters, they might have left you here in solitude anyway, to spend their energies seeing to their own families or striving to make a living elsewhere. You would do much better with a paid companion. Unlike children, they can be dismissed when they prove unsatisfactory.”

  Her smile was not so much gentle as tired. “No doubt you are right.”

  Our conversation must have wearied her—or saddened her. Setting down my cup and saucer, I rose. “I must let you rest before tonight’s performance,” I said. “Thank you for inviting me. I’ve enjoyed it so.” The polite lie came automatically to my lips even though I was craving relief from the oppressive emotional atmosphere.

  “Not at all, ma chère. It has been pleasant to tell stories of the old days.” She rose as gracefully as a woman half her age, and I had to revise my impression of her. She did not
lack physical energy, only high spirits.

  I could not help but wonder if she would benefit from moving house, for as soon as her maid showed me out, I felt the weight of depression lift from me like a physical burden cast aside. My thoughts were no longer preoccupied with loss; instead, my determination returned to get to the bottom of the crime—and leave Paris with Roderick as soon as we were able.

  Then a realization broke upon me as startlingly as a rain shower, and I stopped short in the act of descending the stairway. How could I have missed the pattern before? It was Helaine’s presence that always brought with it that sense of gloom and oppression, first at the theater and now in her own home. Kenton had felt it as well but had ascribed it to the theater, and I had let his mistaken conclusion shape my thinking. When I thought back, it was only in Helaine’s company that I had experienced such a dismal sense of futility.

  What must it be like for her, then, to live with that feeling every day, every hour? If that was what her husband’s death had done to her, theirs must have been a profound connection indeed. Little wonder that she sought distraction in work and wished for companionship.

  She had given me potentially fruitful information about Kenton, however, and I resolved to speak with him. He and I had unfinished business in any case.

  At this hour, Englishman that he was, he was likely to be taking afternoon tea before departing for the theater for tonight’s performance. I directed my coachman to take me to his apartments, and was vindicated when the building concierge confirmed that Kenton was in.

  When I was shown into his parlor, his welcome was a bit strained. He said, with forced jocularity, “I hope you aren’t here to ask me to release you from our informal contract.”

  I did not find the matter humorous. “By that I suppose you mean that you have no intention to stop blackmailing me and Roderick into continuing to perform for you. Let us call the thing by its proper name.”

  He acknowledged that home truth with a half bow. “In that case, I think the proper term is extortion rather than blackmail—but I know that is beside the point. I am truly sorry for resorting to such low tactics, but I cannot afford for this production to fail.”

  His apology mollified me somewhat, but I did not let it distract me from my purpose. “That is something I wish to discuss with you,” I said, settling myself uninvited in an armchair. “You used to be one of England’s leading lights in the theater, yet now you are an exile from your home country and were forced to go to a known blackmailer to finance your production. What happened?”

  All good humor left his eyes. “That is none of your affair, young lady.”

  “I think it may have bearing on Fournier’s death,” I said. “Inspector Girard may believe that Julia is the prime suspect, but I believe you are. By the way, in case any wild ideas should come into your head, my driver has instructions to wait for me, and if I have not returned in twenty minutes he shall bring a policeman and break into your apartments if necessary to retrieve me.”

  He reeled back in his chair as if I had struck him. “Good God, Sybil, do you think I would murder you?”

  “I consider it within the realm of possibility,” I said coolly. “You are a desperate man, Kenton Ivey... or were, until Monsieur Fournier so conveniently died. Roderick and I overheard you at the reception on opening night. Clearly something more serious than financial debt placed you in his power. Is it the same thing that caused you to leave England?”

  “How much do you know about that?” he asked, his manner guarded.

  Not wishing to implicate Helaine, I said, “I have heard that there was talk about a young actor you took under your wing.”

  His eyes fell, and I was struck as if for the first time by the melancholy cast of his features. “Have you also heard that that young man is now dead?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know how.”

  His Adam’s apple moved convulsively in his thin throat. “By his own hand.”

  “I am sorry to hear it,” I said, taken aback.

  “It was a greater tragedy than the world can ever know. Matthew could have been the greatest actor of his generation. Such suppleness of voice, such clarity in the play of emotions over his face... I shall always be thankful that he chose me to teach him the craft of the theater, though it cost me dearly.”

  I sat quietly now, letting him tell the story without interruption, although I did not know if he was still aware of my presence, so transfixed was he by the remembered extremes of joy and agony.

  “I saw his natural genius at once,” he said almost to himself, “but something more as well: a compassionate and courageous spirit. I had never been drawn so powerfully to anyone. It had completely overwhelmed me before I even recognized what was happening... but even if I had, there was no way I could have prevented it. The heart, so to speak, has a mind of its own.”

  I understood just what he meant. Certainly I had not chosen to love Roderick. If my intellect had had control of my heart, I would never have selected a man as arrogant, rude, presumptuous, and infuriating as he had appeared to me when first we met. But my heart had chosen for itself, and so had Kenton’s, without any intention on his part. I was simply more fortunate than he in that my love was not forbidden to me. I had no idea how our story might have unfolded if I had not been so lucky. What if Roderick had been married, for instance, or what if my husband had lived? Would Roderick and I have parted for ever or eloped and become social outcasts? Either choice was a bleak prospect.

  For a long moment we were both silent, lost in our own ponderings. Then Kenton stirred, clearly bringing his mind back to the present.

  “Naturally the rumor-mongers’ tongues wagged,” he said. “Not within the world of the theater, of course. But one of our most prominent backers kicked up a fuss. The money dried up; productions failed. Then there were the newspapers.” His lips tightened as if the memory angered him. “It was then that we realized England was no longer hospitable to us.”

  “And France was a place where you could still work and be happy.”

  “For all too short a time. I did not fully understand the pain that Matthew felt at knowing that he could never return to his home country, at having to live with the knowledge of what everyone, including his entire family, had read about him in the rags. It was too much.

  “He begged off a performance one night, saying he felt low. I promised to return as soon as the curtain fell. I was taking my bow when I saw the policemen at the back of the auditorium.” For a moment he was silent, his eyes lowered so that I could not read them. “So often since then I’ve thought of how different things might have been had I arrived there first, had it not been the police who found him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They claimed there was no note. I knew that was a lie; Matthew would never have... left me... without a word. I suspected from the first that they were suppressing the note for their own purposes. Much later, when Fournier approached me with it, I learned that there was a corrupt member of the police force who sold such pieces of evidence to the unscrupulous.”

  “So the note incriminated you—would have ruined you here as you had been ruined in England.”

  He did not need to reply.

  “What did Fournier want in return for his silence?” I wondered aloud. “More than money, I gather.”

  “He had written a play, and he demanded that I appear in the leading role. A dreadful play.”

  I had expected something far worse. “He was a poor writer?”

  He shut his eyes as if trying to blot out the memory. “Far worse than that. The play depicts the recent war and the Communard uprising in terms that are unflattering to the French. No, that is too weak a word. It is slanderous, nothing less, and designed to inflame the tempers of all who see it, but especially the new government. Not only would it ruin me professionally to be associated with such a work, but I would probably be arrested and imprisoned.”

  “But why would he write such a thing? Do you
think it fed his self-importance?”

  “Oh, doubtless. He kept declaring that he would be hailed as the next Robespierre. Considering that that gentleman met his end at the guillotine, I would have thought Fournier’s self-interest would have argued against such a comparison.”

  For some reason that dry aside made me laugh. It restored some of my former feeling of camaraderie for this man. “You’ve been under a great strain,” I said.

  He sighed. “When he appeared at the theater the night of your performance, I knew my hopes for mercy were slim. I had the money at hand, thanks to the opening-night receipts, but as for signing the contract for the play... I asked him for more time, for a chance to discuss all of the reasons it was a disastrous idea. He laughed, of course.”

  Avoiding my eye, he muttered something I did not catch.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said I struck him. I, er, socked him on the jaw. And then, before he could regain his sea legs, I locked him in.”

  Startled, I sat back in my chair. Somehow even murder seemed less unlikely for this man than fisticuffs. “What did you hope to gain by that?”

  “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I just couldn’t bear his smirk any longer.” He shook his head. “I have to bear the guilt of knowing that that is why someone had the chance to kill him—he could not leave the theater until someone let him out.” He grimaced in self-reproach. “I left the key in the lock and asked Albert to release the man later, after he had had time to cool off. But he told me and the inspector that at intermission he found the door already unlocked and assumed someone else had let Fournier out.”

  It was impossible to deny that his actions had opened up a field of opportunity for the murderer by causing Fournier to remain on the premises longer than he otherwise would have.

  “Did you tell anyone you had spoken with him?” I asked.

  “I did not have to. Plenty of the cast and staff were close enough to hear us talking.”

  So that brought us no further to the identity of the killer. Which reminded me. “The séance when you asked me to try to determine the source of that sense of unease...”