“Why go to such an elaborate scheme? Why didn’t you just kill off both parents in some ‘tragic accident’?”
“I wasn’t sure I could pull off both killings at once. And I thought it would seem more suspicious that way.” He panted in fear, his eyes still wide. “What are you going to do to me, Madame?”
“If only you knew, Monsieur Adnet. What was your new plan once the old one went wrong?”
“When you came in, I had just forced Monsieur Daucourt to sign a changed will. Then I was about to poison him with my remaining dose.”
I shook my head. A gentleman and a scholar, this Valentin Adnet.
After this confession, dear Reader, I ate him up.
Not precisely that, of course… I don’t mean dining so much as I mean exsanguination, but isn’t it so much more fun to say that I ate him up? Either way, I think you have to admit it was justice carried out in a timely fashion—and, after all, I had worked up quite an appetite after using my powers so freely that evening.
10
I am confident you will be pleased to hear how nicely everything worked out after that.
In a later visit with Inspector Baudet, I learned that poison had in fact been added to Madame Daucourt’s dinner but that the Inspector stopped the serving of food just in time.
He also told me that Madame Daucourt had taken a visit from Valentin Adnet shortly before the whole mess began, and that she’d found him snooping in her desk after she excused herself to take a phone call. She’d not thought anything of it at the time, but we quickly determined that was when he took a letter from her desk to use in completing his forgery, which was skillful.
Although they looked, they never found Monsieur Adnet’s body... You see, after my many centuries, I know a few tricks for such things.
Madame Daucourt was of course released from jail and returned to her Monsieur Daucourt. And for his part, after their brief separation, he decided that perhaps his “old lady,” as they say in America, wasn’t so bad after all, and actually that he was rather fond of her—and so he broke off with Mademoiselle Melodie Bouvier, and in fact, I never saw him in my establishment again.
More’s the pity for me. But I can’t feel too badly about that, as the whole story only gave my maison that extra bit of sophisticated notoriety that all businesses thrive under.
But that is the moral of the story, you see. No, not about my maison—but about Monsieur and Madame Daucourt. Sometimes the love you already have, no matter how familiar and careworn, is better than the love you see just over the horizon. And I call that a fine conclusion.
Now, if only Monsieur Escoffier would stop sending me flowers from across the Seine… I’m afraid we really will have a murderous wife on our hands soon…
FIN
P.S. Yes, I did have a word with Melodie Bouvier, where I insisted with a touch of my charme that she was to be nice to Inés from now forward—and she has behaved herself ever since.
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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. Each one can be read in about 45 minutes—perfect for a long commute or for relaxing before bed. 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 (this book!)
The Expiration of Elise – Book 2
The End of Isabelle – Book 3
The Parting of Pierre – Book 4
The Death of Daisi – Book 5
The Mortality of Matias – Book 6
The next book is in progress:
The Finish of Fiore – Book 7
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Annette
FREE Excerpt from Book 2: The Expiration of Elise
Dear delicious Reader! I can’t imagine that you have ever found yourself a suspect in a murder investigation. Surely you have had a sensible and quiet life, as we all should, if we are lucky enough to have the opportunity.
As for myself, my life has had its challenges, but one of the more difficult moments was when I found myself stared down by the gorgeous Inspector Thibauld Baudet as he uttered the words, “You must know that you are, of course, a person of interest in this investigation, Madame.” To be distrusted by someone you have affection for—well, I don’t wish it on anyone.
But how did it happen, you ask? And how did it all work out?
Dear Reader, I will tell you everything…
It all began two days before Christmas—and how wonderfully festive Christmas can be at a high-class Parisian brothel! In every corner of the enormous drawing room I had placed a broad Christmas tree draped with garlands and decorated with metal and glass ornaments and gas-lit globes. From the balcony railing at the top of the staircases hung a sign proclaiming “Joyeux Noël.” I made a point of advising our pianists to play holiday songs, and Monsieur Gachet prepared the finest in Christmas specialties: dove-shaped dinner rolls and baked brie, palmiers, hazelnut tart with pear, and, of course, thick slices of bûche de Noël—the Yule log, decorated with marzipan holly leaves and berries.
Outside, more globes of light filled every bush and tree, the lights reflecting off the snow-covered ground, and on the sidewalks, mistletoe salesmen walked around wrapped in the greenery, looking like walking bushes who used scissors to snip off little branches of themselves for sale.
Of course, I imagine Christmas is equally magical everywhere… but I shall never see it celebrated anywhere but on the Íle Saint-Louis.
But now I’ve tipped into melancholy—I shall extricate myself immediately!
Yes, it was two days before Christmas, at about ten o’clock at night, my drawing room full of my mesdames and their customers, everyone bubbling over with joy from holiday parties and too much champagne, cigarette and pipe smoke wafting up toward the high ceiling, and everywhere you looked, brunette finger curls and red-painted lips. Those were my ladies, of course. Everyone’s wives were at réveillons—holiday dinner parties—so the men were out to play!
I liked to stand at the spacious balcony at the landing, toward which the two broad staircases swept up from the ground floor, so that I could survey my kingdom, as it were, and make sure everyone was as happy as I could possibly make them.
And of course, not everyone was happy. It wouldn’t be business otherwise.
First of all, let’s consider our septuagenarian lady, or l’ancienne as my other ladies liked to call her—Madame Dorothée Thomas. Her octagenarian lover, Monsieur Edward De la Croix, had been waiting for her for two hours and no one was sure where she might be, other than that she wasn’t here, and it was unusual of her to be out on the streets so late and not to have told anyone where she was going.
Dorothée had told us once with shining eyes that her Monsieur De La Croix had fought in the Franco-Austrian War of 1859, and pointed out that he still carried his military bearing, despite his use of a cane. He was a handsome and forceful man. Impatient now, he had formed a permanent frown under his knobby nose and tapped his cane on the floor in an impatient rat-a-tat.
And now Monsieur Georges was speaking to a patron who clutched a handkerchief to his face, wiping away blood from a fast-bruising gash on his forehead. “Oh!” I said to myself. I rarely saw physical injuries in my ma
ison. It made me wonder what could possibly have gone wrong in the bedroom.
Monsieur Georges had his hand on the customer’s arm and was speaking to him in what I knew would be a calming tone, and likely offering first aid skills. My night butler had many skills.
I came down the stairs carefully in my high heels. As I crossed the floor, Estaban Escoffier caught my gaze from across the room, and he smiled and waved at me.
The gesture made my heart sink. Which it shouldn’t have, since Estaban was an attractive fellow, young-looking despite his middle years, with honest features set in a wide, handsome face, and brown hair that tended to stick up rebelliously in spots.
But if you recall my first story, then you know perfectly well why my heart sank. He was far too attached to me because I had been forced to use my enchantement on him in connection with Pascal’s murder. Now I needed him to give up his infatuation with me before his wife lost her temper. Again. More seriously.
Estaban had so far only been shouted at, or so he told me, but his wife, Elise, was the sort of alcoholic Scottish redhead who gives alcoholic Scottish redheads a bad name. I had long suspected Estaban was a bit hen-pecked, but I was increasingly concerned that he might be hen-murdered.
I crossed my fingers in hopes that he would see me busy and go find company with one of my ladies.
When I reached Monsieur Georges and the injured patron, I said, “Bonsoir, Monsieur. I am so sorry to see you in pain.”
“Well, then, you ought to have your girls trained better!” he said, his voice loud and his face flushed beneath the drying blood.
“I’ll fetch bandages and ice,” Monsieur Georges said.
“We will be in my private meeting room,” I told him, and he hurried off.
I put my hand on my customer’s shoulder and gazed into his eyes while I applied a touch of my charme to soothe him. “I’m so sorry, mon ami. Do come along with me and I will take very good care of you.”
I took his hand and pulled him through the drawing room.
On the way, Estaban Escoffier again waved at me, his smile more desperate this time, and I nodded sweetly to him, while I said not-very-polite words inside my own mind.
The other person to catch my eye was Monsieur De La Croix, who pointed to his wristwatch. I nodded at him. I still had no idea where his Madame Dorothée might be. I caught the sleeve of a servant and asked her to send a runner out in search of her, then signaled to De La Croix that I’d taken action.
Once in my private meeting room, which was a small drawing room adjacent to my office, I seated my injured guest and myself on cushioned chairs near to one other and again placed my hand on his arm in sympathy. “Do tell me what happened.”
The man turned red again and stammered a bit. “Well, I’ll tell you this much, it was in the ropes room. And your girl Anaelle doesn’t know how to use the ropes properly! She fell backward and kicked me right in the face! With heels on!”
I will tell you that were it not for all my years of experience in catering to men’s fragile emotions, I would have laughed. Instead, I took on my most serious look.
In fact, the injury did have a distinctly heel-shaped bruise near its center.
“I am so sorry, Monsieur…”
“Martin Martin, if you please.” He wiped the trickling blood again. “Yes, both names the same, Martin Martin.”
I fought back another smile.
“Monsieur Martin,” I said with a soothing tone, “I will have Anaelle trained again on the ropes, and I offer you my most sincere apologies. Your next three nights at Le Chat Rose are free of charge no matter how long you stay or how many ladies you care to meet. Bring along a friend and he will also be free of charge all night long.”
“Well!” he said doubtfully, but then his face lightened and a hint of a smile crept onto it.
Monsieur Georges materialized with an armful of first aid supplies—an ice bag, a damp towel, ointments, and bandages.
“Monsieur Martin, you are in capable hands now,” I said. “I do hope your night improves. And I will tell all the girls and all the staff that you are a VIP guest as of now.”
He nodded, placated now, and I called for a servant to escort him back to the drawing room and help him find his next companion.
I decided my next stop was to find Anaelle and ensure that she was uninjured. I planned to take the back staircase, as it was closer to Anaelle’s bedroom on the floor above, but as I passed by the various rooms and my office, I thought I heard an extremely faint and muffled cry—almost as faint as the miaou of a cat several rooms away.
I paused and listened intently, extending my supernatural senses out into the adjacent areas.
Again, there it was. “Help!”
A very quiet voice, and elderly, it seemed to me. Female.
Madame Dorothée?
My heart nearly stopped.
Continue reading - The Expiration of Elise is available now!
About the Author
Annette Moncheri is une americaine but a francophile! She adores books about French food, culture, parenting, and more. She reads, writes, and speaks French un peu - a little (a very little!). Part of the joy of writing books set in Paris is the excuse to read books and watch films set in Paris. She hasn't been there herself yet, but she feels the need to do some on-site research coming up!
Annette grew up in small towns but has resided in Houston, Texas for more than twenty years. She's married and has a young son and two cats. Art, beautiful things, and live performances of music and theatre are essential to her survival. And she loves to go to La Madeleine Café and try to comprehend the expats speaking in French!
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