by Morgan Rice
“The one who disappeared immediately before the others started to die?” the officer said. “And now here you are? What role did you play in those deaths Mademoiselle Fiaux?”
“No,” Amelie said hurriedly, “I was telling these people that I wasn’t involved in any of that, I was controlled by a shadow, and it wanted to open a door to…”
She tailed off, obviously realizing how that must sound.
“Is that what it was?” the officer demanded. “You went mad, and then you killed them?”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” Amelie insisted. She gestured to Kaia. “She’ll tell you.”
“And who are you two?” the officer demanded.
“I recognize this one,” another said, stepping forward and pointing to the inspector. He wore the insignia of a police sergeant. “He came down to the station before, demanding that he be allowed to help with the case. Is that what it was, Englishman? You wanted to ‘help’ so that you could deflect attention from your accomplices?”
“From my accomplices?” Pinsley said, sounding shocked by it.
“This is probably all some English plot,” another of the Sûreté officers said. “Just like the bombings were!”
“Good point, Constable,” the sergeant said.
“That’s not a good point,” Kaia insisted. “No one here had anything to do with any murders. We were trying to help Amelie when she was attacked!”
It was the best thing she could think of to say, but even to her, it didn’t sound entirely convincing. It certainly didn’t seem to be enough to pacify the police officers.
“You can tell that to our inspectors at the station,” the sergeant said. “And then to a judge. And then probably to Madam Guillotine. We take spies and murders seriously in Paris.”
“What?” Kaia said, trying to think of a way out of this. She looked over to the inspector, hoping that he would have a brilliant idea that would save them all. Right then, though, he was still standing there, holding the marble arm that he’d been using as a club. It didn’t make him look any more innocent.
“You’re all under arrest,” the sergeant said. “Come quietly, or there will be trouble.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Pinsley looked around, trying to assess their chances of getting out of this in one piece. He didn’t like what he saw. With the police around them like that, he couldn’t see a way out that didn’t involve them all being hurt.
Yet if he let them be taken into custody for the murders, who would be left to stop the actual killer? They would be free to strike again at the theatre or around it. That would have been unacceptable if it had simply been a collection of random actresses there at risk, but when his daughter was there as well… no, he couldn’t allow this.
Pinsley looked around, trying to work out the best way to do this. To his surprise, Amelie de Fiaux shook her head slightly next to him, lowering her voice and speaking in English.
“There’s no need for that. Wait for the right moment.”
“What right moment?” Pinsley whispered back.
“You’ll know,” Amelie said.
“Here, less of that,” the sergeant snapped at them in French. “Now, are you going to come quietly, or do we get to treat you like the murdering scum you are?”
“We haven’t murdered anyone,” Amelie said. “But we will come quietly. We will explain all of this to your satisfaction, officers.”
She sounded utterly in control of the situation, and Pinsley had to remind himself that it was probably an act, even if it was a brilliant one. She even offered her arm to one of the officers to escort her as if this were a stroll down some promenade rather than an arrest.
Pinsley looked over to Kaia, and saw that she seemed as puzzled as he was. Yet the act seemed to have the desired effect: it meant that the Sûreté officers simply led all of them out of there, leaving only a couple to tend to the fallen stonemason, rather than dragging them out in handcuffs. It was only a small element of laxness, but maybe it was one they could capitalize on.
They led the three of them out into the street, walking them back in the direction of the police station Pinsley had been to earlier. It was another slightly lax element to the arrest, since he suspected it would have been more secure to summon a carriage to transport the three of them. Perhaps the officers thought that over a short distance, with three cooperative prisoners, it wasn’t worth the trouble. If they had been his officers, Pinsley would have reprimanded them for cutting corners like this. As it was, he was grateful for it.
The people who were on the street at night looked at them from doorways, as if trying to decide if they were entertainment, or if the whole thing spelled trouble for them as well. For the most part, Pinsley felt that he could tell a lot about them by noticing who shrank back, and who looked closer.
They reached a crowd, outside one of the cafés, where music was playing.
“Out of the way,” the sergeant bellowed. “Make way!”
That was when Amelie de Fiaux looked over to Pinsley. “If this all goes wrong, find Jean-Charles Ariette. Tell him… tell him that I’m sorry. Sorry for walking out without a word.”
“I will,” Pinsley promised. Something about that name caught at the corners of his mind, but there was no time to examine it, because Amelie chose that moment to faint.
At least, she appeared to, with such theatrical style that it instantly caught the attention of the crowd around them. She didn’t just collapse, she toppled, with a cry of distress that seemed designed to draw every eye there to her. If she’d done as much on stage, Pinsley guessed that it might have been thought pure melodrama, yet here and now, it did the trick.
For a second, just a second, every eye was on Amelie, so Pinsley grabbed Kaia’s arm and ran.
He didn’t shout for her to run, didn’t tell her that this was their chance. To do so would have been to draw eyes back to them. Instead, the inspector simply had to judge that Kaia would understand what was happening and go along with it. He had to trust her.
She clearly understood, because Kaia ran in silence alongside him. That first burst of speed got them away from the police around them, through the crowd and out. They were almost fifty yards down the street before the police realized what was happening.
“It’s a trick! They’re trying to escape!” a voice called behind them in French.
“After them, then!” the sergeant bellowed.
Pinsley and Kaia had two advantages then: the first was the head start that they’d gained thanks to Amelie, precious in any urban environment where it was never far to the next turning. The second was simply that he understood the way the police chased, and the kinds of things he hated when he was running after a criminal.
“This way,” he said, deliberately taking as many turnings as he could in a short space of time. In spite of being shorter than him and hampered by her layers of skirts, Kaia kept up with him easily.
They dodged in front of a carriage, close enough that Pinsley felt the wind of its passage as he jumped away from it. The horses reared, and he knew that would provide a moment or two of distraction for the officers following, but it had downsides, too. Too much disruption left a trail that the greenest of constables could follow.
There was no time to think about that, though, only to take the next turning, and the next. The Sûreté officers following them were still too close behind for comfort. If Pinsley and Kaia could just break their line of sight for long enough, they could disappear into the city and just be one more pair strolling in the Paris night. For now, though, they had to run.
They ran on through the streets of the city, past the colonnaded classicism of the Pantheon, making their way through the evening crowds until Pinsley spotted a fenced off space ahead that made hope rise in him.
“There!” he said, pointing.
“The zoo?” Kaia said as she ran.
Pinsley could understand her misgivings, but it appeared still to be open, even now, and there were still peopl
e strolling through it, staring at the animals. Paris’ grand menagerie seemed like the perfect place to lose their pursuers. They ducked in there, dodging past the ticket sellers, and kept going.
“In here,” Pinsley said, pointing to an animal house. They ducked inside, and leapt over a barrier in a way that almost certainly wasn’t safe.
“What are those creatures?” Kaia asked as Pinsley urged her to duck down among a herd of large, horned animals.
“They’re called rhinoceros,” Pinsley said. “They’re from Africa. And yes, they can be very dangerous if they’re angry. Now down.”
They crouched there among the rhinoceroses, trying to move with them in a way that wouldn’t get the two of them crushed. Pinsley found himself hoping that he wouldn’t startle them. The creatures might be herbivores, yet if they stampeded, they might still easily kill him and Kaia. He had to move quietly, and carefully, and…
“There they are!” a police officer yelled, starting to climb into the enclosure.
“Damn it,” Pinsley said, turning to Kaia. “We need to…”
“Hyah!” she yelled, slapping one of the rhinoceroses on its rump. The creature already seemed to be nervous from having them so close to it, and the extra blow was enough to get it running forward with a snort of annoyance.
Once it started to run, so did all the others, and in just seconds, Pinsley was clinging to Kaia, holding her upright so that neither of them would fall. The police, meanwhile, were scampering back, struggling to get clear before the charge crushed them.
Pinsley saw a chance, and helped Kaia over to a railing, lifting her over it and then hopping over himself. While the police were still trying to make sense of what was happening, the two of them slipped towards an exit.
“That could have gone badly wrong,” Pinsley chided her.
“I know,” Kaia replied, “but what was the alternative? Stand there and wait to be arrested?”
Pinsley had to admit that she had a point. They took a few more turnings to be sure that they lost the police, and then hurried back in the direction of their lodgings. Pinsley was fairly sure that the Sûreté didn’t know where they were staying yet, although that was presumably only a matter of time.
“How did you even end up there, Kaia?” Pinsley asked. “How did you find Amelie de Fiaux?”
“I followed a shadow,” Kaia said, in that frustrating way she had of assuming that the things she claimed to see were as natural as breathing. “The one possessing Amelie’s body. Inspector, there are things that I need to tell you, things about what the shadows are planning.”
“As soon as we get to safety and get all of this sorted out,” Pinsley said. He couldn’t focus on shadows or strange powers or any of it right now, however strange things had been back there in the stonemason’s yard.
He had to focus on the case, instead. His daughter was still in danger.
“Are you sure that Amelie de Fiaux isn’t our killer?” he asked.
“You were there when Xander confessed,” Kaia pointed out, as they reached their lodgings. Madam Farge wasn’t there, and that was probably a good thing, as far as Pinsley was concerned. It meant that he and Kaia would be able to leave quietly.
“I was,” the inspector agreed, and the memory of that lent some credence to the idea that Amelie was telling the truth. So did the fact that she’d helped them to get away. He wasn’t as certain as Kaia was on this matter, but ultimately, it was a question of trust. Did he trust Kaia?
He did, yet, if what she said was the truth, that meant that this latest effort at finding answers in all of this had come to nothing. Pinsley was running out of ideas.
“Kaia,” he said. “You should go to your room. Pack up your things.”
He saw Kaia frown. “We’re leaving?”
“The Sûreté will be searching for us,” Pinsley said. “We cannot continue to stay at this hotel, in case they trace us here. It is possible that we will not be able to stay in Paris at all.”
“But we’re not finished here,” Kaia said.
“I know,” Pinsley replied. He was thinking of the murders, and of his daughter. If he left Paris with the murderer uncaught, he could be as good as condemning his daughter to death. “We will go back to the theatre, and try to find answers one more time, but we need to be ready to leave as soon as this is done.”
“All right,” Kaia said, and hurried up towards her room.
Pinsley went to his room and collected his remaining things. His pistol was gone, lost somewhere in the stonemason’s yard, but he collected up his clothes and put them in his travelling bag.
He still needed to think, to work this out. There was still something nagging at the back of his mind. In an effort to stimulate that mind to greater efforts, he took out his metronome and set it ticking.
That tick sliced the world into manageable fragments, letting Pinsley focus, letting him concentrate. There was something lodged at the back of his mind, something that he’d heard, something that Amelie had said. He strained the sinews of his mind, trying to force himself to remember.
Then he did.
Jean-Charles Ariette. She’d wanted him to pass on a message to a man named Jean-Charles Ariette. Under any other circumstances, that would simply be a random name, a man to find if Pinsley was going to keep his word. Now though, the inspector realized that the name meant more to him than that.
It had been the name of the man who had tried to pick a fight with him in the bar he’d gone to. A man, in an actors’ bar, close to the theatre, who was so worried about the police that he had attacked Pinsley the moment he had heard that Pinsley was an inspector.
A man who had a connection to Amelie de Fiaux. Could it be as simple as that? Could it be that straightforward? It would only work if Jean-Charles Ariette had already been the kind of man to sit on edge, ready to snap at any moment. What if he had been, though?
What if, when Amelie de Fiaux disappeared, he’d taken it as a rejection, and decided to kill those who took on the most famous romantic role in theatre? Or many he thought of the actresses who had replaced Amelie as interlopers, who had to be killed to leave the way open for her return?
Pinsley wasn’t sure which option sounded more deranged, yet a cold certainty settled on him that it had to be one of them. He cursed himself for a fool; he’d met the killer, and he hadn’t known it. He’d been so busy trying to talk to a washed up actor that he hadn’t seen a murderer right in front of him.
Now, if they didn’t stop him, he would strike again, and again, killing young women in the theatre and maybe beyond. No, Pinsley couldn’t allow that. If he’d been able to, he would have gone to the police with what he thought he knew. Now, though, he and Kaia would have to stop Jean-Charles Ariette themselves.
Pinsley didn’t know where he was now, but he knew where he would be heading. It was time to go back to the theatre.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Jean-Charles Ariette wrapped his opera cloak around his shoulders, preparing for his next great performance. His heart should have been pounding with nerves at the thought of what he was going to do, yet instead, he felt strangely calm. Killing calmed him, it seemed, in a way that almost nothing else did.
This role was different from any of those he had played out on the stage, meaning more, achieving more. How many years had he spent as only a middling actor, getting some roles, being cast aside from others for no reason that he could see? How many rejections had there been, because directors couldn’t see his potential? How many half-full houses had he played before, because the critics were damning, or simply uninterested?
Well, they were interested now. Jean-Charles had heard that the theatre was packed now every night with those wanting to see if something would happen, or simply wanting to say that they had been there. Honestly, he thought as he stretched a velvet rope between his hands to test the tension, the ghoulishness of some people was simply too much.
Not that Jean-Charles was doing this simply for the responses
of the watching public, of course. That would be the motivation of a madman. In any case, if that were his only reason, then he could have done something like this years ago.
He’d had thoughts about it, obviously. All his life, he’d wondered what it would be like to kill someone. A part of him wished that he’d been there back in the days of the Terror of 1793, or the sudden violence of 1830’s attempt at a revolution. The quieter one of the current Emperor hadn’t provided the same… opportunities. Every time he’d thrust a prop sword under someone’s arm on stage, he’d found himself wondering what it would be like to drive it into their heart. Every time an actor pretended death on the stage, Jean-Charles had been disappointed at the unreality of it.
It certainly didn’t compare to the real thing.
How different would things have been if Amelie had never left, never walked away from him without a word like the prima donna she was? He would never have found this, never have found the one thing that felt better than all the rest of it put together.
This was her fault. He’d thought that he was happy while he was with her. He’d thought that life was beautiful. For a while, it had been. They’d been together, the two of them against the world when neither of them could get more than bit parts in plays. They’d been struggling, but they’d been struggling together, and they’d had one another.
Then, Amelie had started to get more famous. Admirers had sent her gifts, like they didn’t know, or didn’t care, that she was his. Her reaction to it was even worse, because she acted like it was flattering for strange men to send her the most expensive perfumes, or like she had the right to do what she wanted simply because she had never yet given in to his wish to marry her.
When Jean-Charles had raged at her for all that, she’d always walked out for a few days, and made him feel like he was the one in the wrong. Well, she’d gone too far this time.
