A short butler in fussy garb answered her knock and escorted her to the visitor’s parlor after she asked to speak with Monsieur Étienne Gaston.
“I’ll see if he’s receiving.”
“Tell him I’m a friend of Elena Loffredo.”
The man’s face blanched. “One moment.” He flounced out of the room.
She waited more than a few moments and had a chance to look around, admiring the floor to ceiling books in the receiving room. An oriental carpet lay on the parquet floor and a crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. In the bay window stood a black walnut table with carved legs, the top covered with a damask cloth underneath a lamp with a fringed shade. A wooden box sat next to it with Gaston’s name engraved on a brass plaque. No dust anywhere, and she suspected that everything was in its place and for show. Even the books looked as if they were arranged by size. In one corner was a harpsichord and Serafina imagined Maria running to it. Suddenly the room shifted and she had trouble breathing. She missed home.
To pass the time, she walked over to the instrument. The casing was covered with an elaborate inlay. Absentmindedly, she touched the wood and was standing next to it, fingering the keys when Gaston entered the room.
“Do you play?” he asked. Before she could reply, he walked quickly to her, a thin man, taller than Loffredo, and she held out her hand. His lips brushed it lightly. “Étienne Gaston.”
“My youngest daughter plays, a prodigy. Unfortunately she couldn’t travel with us on this visit.”
“A pity. And you are?”
The man didn’t offer her a seat, so she took one after handing him her card. “I’m a friend of Elena Loffredo. And you are lovers.”
The man blushed but did not deny it. “A brash manner of speaking, you’re obviously not from France, Madame.”
“I’ve traveled from Oltramari, Elena’s hometown. I’ve been commissioned to investigate her ... disappearance.”
He pursed his lips, said nothing. Could it be that like the rest of her friends, he hadn’t heard of her death?
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“I’d have to consult my calendar.”
Serafina decided to say nothing and waited for him to speak. Silence, she found worked wonders. In time Gaston squirmed. He rubbed his chin, patted the pockets of his smoking jacket, a very interesting garment, velvet, perhaps indigo, hard to see in the dim light of the room. “Excuse me while I consult my appointment book.”
She bit her tongue instead of making a remark and wished she’d taken Rosa along, imagining how the madam would handle him. She took the plunge. “Oh, how silly of me not to see it before this, but I’ve just noticed your jacket, what an exquisite garment. No wonder Elena is so taken with you.”
The man smiled. “Do you think so? It was a gift from my mother some years ago.”
“And looks so well on you. For a scholar, you maintain yourself very well. Some men begin to look like the chairs they sit in, and while I’m sure you sit most of the day reading and writing and so forth, yet you have the physique of a man who works in the open air, without his roughness of course.”
“Such a nice compliment.”
“Not so, I assure you.”
He looked at her card. “Madame Florio, I have just—”
“I don’t wish to take up much of your time. I know you must be so busy preparing your talks and reading and whatever else it is you scholars do. Just help me with the answers to one or two questions, that’s all, I beg you.” She smiled, batted her lashes, wishing she’d rouged her face.
“Hmm, the last time I saw Elena. You know her well? She can be quite beguiling. Quite.”
“Surprising, a free spirit, I’d call her,” Serafina said. “In many ways unique. We’ve known each other since we were very young.”
He smiled. “Then you’ve known each other a very long time.”
She betrayed nothing, deserved it, perhaps, but she kept a quiet face.
“She takes me to interesting places and last week was no exception,” he said. “We went to ... how to describe it. We attended an opening.”
“Sponsored by the Salon?”
“Quite the opposite, I’m afraid. No, unfortunately, an exhibit of twenty-five or thirty painters, similar in style and temperament, it seemed. Hundreds of the things hung in Félix Nadar’s studio. He lent it to them for the occasion. Lighting not so good, but they drew a large crowd. Many of them are Elena’s friends. She’s taken with them. I found them uninteresting at best, some lacking all ability. However, I went to please her.”
“And that was the last time you saw her?”
“Yes.”
“At the exhibit? You didn’t go to a café afterward, perhaps for a drink?”
“As I might have mentioned, I’m quite busy, Madame. Not that you’d be interested, but I’m preparing a paper on the world perception of French thought for the Academy. No, unfortunately, I saw her to a cab and we made an early night of it.”
“On the Boulevard des Capucines?”
“Precisely.”
“So you didn’t notice her in your bed that night? Hard to miss, I should think.
Gaston blanched.
“You see, I happen to know you took the garment she wore that night to the nettoyage à sec on the Rue Cassette. By the way, it’s ready for you to pick up, a lovely frock, hanging in the window. They’ve done a brilliant job. The stain is gone, totally gone.”
He stared at her, the light in his eyes extinguished. A succession of emotions brushed over his face—exasperation, anger, fear, amusement.
“Not difficult to see why you and Elena are friends. You’ve caught me out, good work. I admire that.” He stood, walked back and forth and faced her. “Elena is my temptation. I cannot do without her.”
She was silent for a while, letting the man have his emotion, watching him sink back into the chair.
“Too much, she is too much at times. Her friends are ... no one I’d want to associate with. The exhibit, how can I put it, the work of beginners. And she’s so taken with them. Sometimes she can be so mean, so unthinking.”
Serafina thought he was about to cry and compassion for the man overtook her.
He slumped forward, elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. “One minute she tells me we’re through, that she can’t stand me, and the next she tells me she’s going to have my child. I don’t understand her. I proposed to her Thursday night after she told me about the child, but she laughed at me. She said after two months or so of marriage, I’d bore her.”
“And is that why you killed her?”
Startled, he stared at her. “I’d never touch Elena, except in tenderness. Never.” He stood and paced the floor some more.
She could hear monks chanting next door. “Let’s back up. When did you last see Elena? What hour was it?”
“After the exhibit, we went to the Café Odile. It’s around the corner on the Rue de Vaugirard. Not my kind of establishment, but she loved it. We had wine, talked to some of the other patrons, and then we came here. We ... spent the night together. Or at least I thought we’d spend the night together, but she left shortly after we made love—right here in this room, if you can believe it. She tore off her dress here and ... she was passionate, wild, almost mad. After that, I thought we’d sleep together, in bed. I mean, spend the night together, sighing, touching, sleeping, the way couples do, but she picked up her dress, chastising me for soiling it. She asked if I’d have it cleaned since I was the one who ruined it. I said nothing. We went upstairs, but instead of crawling into bed, she riffled through her closet, choosing a set of clothes and told me goodbye. ‘This is goodbye, Étienne, you boring old thing.’”
He sat and held his head again.
Serafina was silent for a while.
“What clothes did she choose?”
He threw up his hands. “A day dress, a suit, I suppose you’d say.”
“And what time did she leave?”
“I didn�
��t look at my watch, but it was well after midnight.”
“No one else was here? Forgive me, a stupid question. Did she say where she was going?”
He shook his head, unable to speak, buried his head. The monks were still chanting next door.
“I’m very sorry to admit she is my countrywoman.” Serafina was silent for a while. “Did you hear about the woman shot to death in the Rue Cassette?”
He nodded. “I saw her body lying in the street.”
“Why would you have? She died early in the morning.”
“After Elena left, I became frenzied, and to calm myself, I walked the streets. Walking helps me, you see, something I do when I need to work on a problem. I was aimless that night. I walked along the Seine, in the Luxembourg, sat on a bench, my mind a blank, trying not to think of her, of what I’d done ... to my life. As I made my way home, I noticed a commotion in the Rue Cassette. Sergents de ville were there in droves kneeling around a body, a photographer, a doctor, perhaps, an ambulance. I remember the horse was skittish. A crowd was gathering. Not unusual. There are a few cafés that draw a low clientele. I asked someone what had happened. A dead woman, he told me.”
“Did you see her face?”
“Not all of it, she was lying on her side. She looked like a woman of the night.”
“Could it have been Elena?”
“Hardly. Not her height or shape, not at all. Smaller. I bent down and looked. It was a passing glance, but I didn’t recognize her.” Gaston was hugging himself, trying to keep from shaking.
“And no one saw you?”
“They saw me, but would they remember? Hardly. They were watching horror, much in demand. They were drunk with it.”
As she was about to leave, she thought of one more question. “Do you own a gun?”
He looked at her like she’d gone round the twist. “I have a gun, yes. For protection.”
“May I see it?”
“Of course.”
While she waited for Gaston to return, she thought about what he’d told her. At first she disbelieved his version of Elena’s behavior. But the man was suffering, that was apparent.
When he returned, he was still shaking. “I must have misplaced it. I can’t seem to find it anywhere.” He pulled at the sides of his hair.
“Sit down. Tell me about the gun.”
Gaston shrugged. “New. A revolver made in France near Lyon. I bought it from a friend last year.”
“Where do you usually keep it?”
“In a locked drawer in my bed chamber.”
“Was the lock tampered with?”
Gaston shook his head.
Chapter 14: La Maison Dorée
How she obtained a reservation no one quite knew except that Serafina saw Rosa engage three of the hotel’s staff in animated conversation at the concierge station. Precisely at nine, a voiture de grande remise pulled up in front of the Hôtel du Louvre. The driver helped them into the carriage drawn by a matching pair of grays and drove to La Maison Dorée on the Boulevard des Italiens.
They were seated at a large round table in a private cabinet with a view of the main dining room. Arcangelo, his hair slicked and his face washed, sat next to Tessa. Wearing her teal brocade and a sea green velvet choker, she glanced at Teo who sat on her other side, his face buried in the wine list. Carmela, Rosa, and Serafina were dressed in evening gowns, Gesuzza in her finest black bombazine. Waiters swarmed around them as the maître d’hôtel welcomed them to his restaurant, “The finest in all of Paris.” It looked as though every table was taken and the high-ceilinged room blazed with candles.
“May I suggest some simple dishes to start the meal? I recommend the escargots from Burgundy marinated in a delicate white wine, a fresh green bean salad, the first of the season, a foie gras de canard with fig and grape, and—”
Rosa answered the waiter. “Perfect. Bring them. Two of everything. But before you do, bring us champagne while we wait. Veuve Cliquot. And bring a few baguettes or rolls or whatever kind of bread you offer and some paté. These boys are dying of hunger.”
Arcangelo eyed all the forks and spoons on either side of his plate. Serafina told him to start with the outermost fork or spoon and work his way in. A waiter overheard. Dressed like the others in livery with wig and knee breeches, he hiked his nose higher than Serafina thought possible.
After their food arrived, she felt rather than saw the waiters around their table lifting their shoulders, so she asked the maître d’hôtel for more privacy.
They toasted Paris and their hotel. Carmela drank to Busacca et Fils.
While they ordered the main course, Serafina told them of her visit to the Rue Cassette, her fortuitous meeting with the policeman who found the body, the statement she’d wrung from the owner of the Café Odile, and her meeting with Étienne Gaston, and his assertion that the dead woman on the Rue Cassette was not Elena.
“Why did the owner of the Café Odile lie?” Tessa asked.
“Lucre, my girl.” Rosa turned to Serafina. “Give me the barkeep’s statement. I’ll give it to Valois and get him to spring Loffredo. Remember, you cannot be seen to be in Loffredo’s camp, much less in his bed.”
There was a hush around the table as Tessa, Teo, and Arcangelo looked at one another. Serafina felt her face fill with color.
Each of them had an opinion of Gaston. They were a hung jury: three said he was guilty, three, not guilty, Serafina abstaining.
“I can’t make up my mind about him,” she said.
“What little there is of it tonight,” Rosa added.
When their entrées arrived, Serafina took a bite of her duckling, marveling at the crunch of the skin, the sweet tenderness of the meat. It was cooked to perfection, sizzling on the plate and filled with a bread and orange stuffing. She relished all the different flavors. Perhaps the French relied too much on sauce. Still, she was glad to partake of their cuisine and to share the experience with her daughter and friends.
“Our meeting with Valois is not until nine tomorrow morning and there is one thing we need to explore beforehand, Elena’s apartment.” She sliced a piece of duck and dipped it into a side dish of mashed potatoes.
“How will we do that?” Rosa asked, her mouth full of veal sautéed in apples.
“I’m not sure, but we’ve always managed before this. We’ll find a custodian or some other servant who’ll let us into her apartment. You know how Elena always angers them. It won’t be difficult to get them on our side. We’re sure to find information that we must have.”
Carmela cleared her throat. “Arcangelo and Teo were over there this afternoon.”
“It’s a distance. How did they manage?”
Arcangelo, his cheeks distended with food, looked at her. His eyes reflected candlelight.
Carmela answered for him. “They took le petite ceinture.”
“The train that goes around Paris,” Rosa explained, dabbing her mouth with the linen.
“And what did you see?”
Arcangelo swallowed his food. “A fancy building on a square. Custodian or guard or something, has a station just inside the gate and we talked to him. I said I was Elena’s friend and had important information for her. The custodian told me she was out at the moment.”
“Did he say when she’d be back?”
He shrugged. “He doesn’t expect her back until next week.”
“We ought to be able to talk our way in,” Rosa said.
“If we arrive by seven tomorrow morning, taking this train you speak of, we should be able to finish our business and meet with Valois at nine as planned,” Serafina said.
Rosa nodded.
“Reasonable, but I think we need a better plan for insinuating ourselves into her apartment,” Carmela said.
“Let me worry about that,” Rosa said.
“She plans to grease her way inside,” Serafina said.
“Do you have a better plan?” Rosa broke her bread, spreading it with paté.
Carmela
put down her fork. “There might be a way to prove that the body is not that of Elena.” She took a sip of wine. “We need to ask Valois about the coroner’s report, whether or not the victim was with child. According to the women we met at the exhibit today, Elena boasted of her condition.”
“We might learn the name of her midwife from going through her desk,” Serafina said.
The main course was surpassed only by the dessert, a glace au four with mounds of creamy ice and topped in chocolate sauce that drizzled down the side. Even Teo smiled when he saw it.
On the way home Serafina’s corset pinched unmercifully. She gazed out the window but was unaware of time passing until they’d been delivered to their door and Rosa touched her arm, telling her to get out of the carriage.
Chapter 15: A Visit to Elena’s Apartment
Teo licked his lips thinking of Maria’s hands on the keyboard. He thought of their beauty and suppleness. Of her concentration. He wondered how one person could be born with so much talent.
One day she would be his friend again and life between them would be better. After all, she did walk to school with him that one time, so there was hope. He swallowed, remembering the last morning they’d walked together and how she’d talked to him about Brahms and how most people in Oltramari misunderstood his music. “Most people in Oltramari never heard of Brahms,” he’d said. But she hadn’t been listening. A group of her friends had overtaken them. They pointed their fingers at him, calling him moon face and sniggering. After that, Maria refused to walk with him. He forced the memory from his mind.
When he wasn’t working with Carmela, Teo tried to think of the perfect gift he could bring Maria from Paris. If he attended a concert, he could tell her about it. But how would he do that? He’d seen a notice in the Galignani Guide of an organ recital at St. Sulpice and found the church on the map. He’d missed the concert, but perhaps he could find a program lying about in the square. He stared out the window, his hand on the sash about to close it, mesmerized by all the horse-drawn vehicles, the laughter, the streets lit by hundreds of gas lamps.
Murder On The Rue Cassette (A Serafina Florio Mystery) Page 11
