Irene Adler: Chapel Noir Part 8

tell them these stories . . .

-ANONYMOUS

FROM A JOURNAL.

I have met the most remarkable woman! She is American, of course. And very beautiful. And was dressed as a man! And smoked the most adorable pet.i.te cigars.

The sudden appearance on the scene of this most intriguing apparition has banished my unusual state of suspended animation. Here I had imagined that I wished to see and experience every side of life, no matter how squalid or sordid. Yet discovering the dead women my first night at the maison de rendezvous was enough to give me serious pause, despite the poverty, misery, and filth I have experienced elsewhere.

The luxury of the death scene added a sort of operatic decadence to the violence of the slaughter.

It was as if the ghost of violent death still hovered in that reeking and fashionable room. As if its unseen, hollow, pitiless eyes watched me. And me done up like a French crumpet in a whalebone corset and frou-frou, as ready for crunching as a marzipan cake.

I shiver as I write this. The murderer could still linger in the house. I find myself most puzzled, though the trail has led here and I but followed it.

From the gutters of Whitechapel in London to the boudoirs of brothels in Paris: it hardly seems possible that Jack the Ripper could manage such a leap in place and time and stage setting.

And besides, the wretch is dead.

Or so the London police would have us all believe.

I have not properly "sketched" my new acquaintance and fellow countryman, though. She has the rare sort of face whose beauty is undeniable yet so indefinable that neither men nor women can keep their eyes off of her. I am not considered unappealing, yet would pale beside her, and I cannot precisely say why. I can only imagine how men would react. She seems indifferent to her physical force although I suspect she sometimes hides behind it.

Her companion is another sort. After my recent visit to London, where I soon became fed up with the English wh.o.r.e's att.i.tude of superiority to all other living beings, I am in no mind to suffer this American beauty's typically British familiar. Even the most innocuous of that breed marches to the tune of "Rule, Britannia" and radiates the sn.o.bbish certainty that she was put on this earth to set other people straight. This particular domestic martinet is a mousy soul named, of all things, Nell, like the spineless put-upon heroine of a melodrama. Those blessed with great beauty seem to crave the company of the plain. Or perhaps it's the other way around. I wonder what her husband is like. Not the companion's; she is a spinster. "Irene Adler Norton" the cigar-smoking beauty called herself. That implies a husband, though why he would let his wife go off on such gruesome investigations alone is beyond me.

I had heard of these European practices among certain privileged women-tattoos, cigars, naughty lingerie-but never expected to meet such a creature. And she has the ear of the police, has worked for the Pinkertons. Not one to underestimate.

I wonder if she follows the same trail that I do? The companion admitted that they had been in London, but that was many months ago, and is irrelevant.

Or is it?

I cannot believe my luck, dreadful as the state of affairs is. I could not wish to be in more fortuitous circ.u.mstances. Not least among these lucky aspects is the fact that police have ended all custom at this maison de rendezvous for the time being. For the time being, Thanatos and not Eros is in residence here. Death and not Love.

I admit that, for my purposes, Death is the much more desirable resident.

Call Her Madam

No doubt it gives one a comfortable feeling of wear smart

underclothing, pa.s.s the kind of laws that suit one and preach

endless sermons about virtuous behavior . . . But no sooner have

the streetlights been turned low than off they go

to pay us a visit.

-AMeLIE HeLIE, KNOWN AS CASQUE D'OR

"What a willful and errant girl!" I said after Pink had left.

"Don't distress yourself, Nell. We at least offered her a chance to leave. And with the police coming and going, the usual activities of the house will be suspended for some time."

Irene cast a wistful glance at the brandy decanter. "I am afraid I shall have to interview the madam."

"Madame who?"

"A woman who supervises a house of convenience is a called a madam, Nell."

"Supervises? You seem to imply some sort of order."

"A place like this is also called a disorderly house," she said with a rueful smile.

I was too confused to ask for further enlightenment.

We went into the pa.s.sage, where a gendarme in his handsome uniform of navy blue stood on guard.

"Monsieur l'inspecteur?" Irene asked.

The man led us to the front stairs and then down to the first floor and to a grand salon larger and even more lavishly appointed than the chambers upstairs.

As we entered the opening double doors, we pa.s.sed a white-veiled bride leaving in the company of a black-robed nun.

Naturally, I stared at their departing backs, a most incongruous pair, but Irene paid them no attention. Or rather, I should say, they did not receive her prolonged attention. Irene's eyes darted over every detail of the room and its occupants, even the departing ones, like emissaries from a crossbow.

I was reminded again of her admonition to "look close" and see small.

That seemed an impossible task in this vast, gilt-hung salon, with elaborate furniture floating like gigantic lily pads on its blue-marble floor.

And this exceedingly large pond had its resident frog: a most unpleasant person sat like the spider in the center of this web of golden threads, stuffed into a gown of obvious green satin.

Her red hair was frizzled into a fright wig. Her decolletage overflowed a wasp-waisted bodice like two loaves of unbaked French bread. She had a sharp nose above a cheese-soft chin that faded into the high collar of fat cushioning her throat like a necklace of fleshy aspic.

Inspector le Villard hastened to this woman's monstrous side and apparently explained who, or what, we were.

Her bead-bright eyes moved like roaches in the suet pudding of her face to study us.

"Entrez," she urged at last. Pudgy, dingy fingers festooned with rings gestured us over the threshold.

I noticed a motley a.s.semblage of persons seated and standing elsewhere in the chamber, including a grown woman in a child's high-waisted cotton frock, her hair in a pigtail and her hands bearing a pail and spade fit for a nursery outing to the seash.o.r.e.

There was also a wizened elderly man with a terrible squint and some large burly women in house servant's clothes.

Irene crossed the threshold as bid, but waited for the inspector to join her, as he finally did, most reluctantly.

"These are employees of the establishment?" Irene asked in low tones, in English.

"Yes. We have a.s.sembled everyone and are almost through with our questioning."

"What of the clients present at the time of the murders?"

Even Inspector le Villard's mustache seemed to blanche at the question. "Clients? There were few. The hour was between dinner and going out for entertainment."

"Where are these few?" Irene asked, implacable.

"Another room. Madame Portiere is willing to answer your inquiries."

"Is she?" Irene advanced on this woman sitting like a sultan in his seraglio, and I suppose she was not much different from one, save that she did not indulge in the favors of the harem.

I followed, feeling more in the presence of evil than I had in the death chamber.

Madame's piggy little eyes beamed at Irene, admiring her form of dress as if it were a particularly sly joke.

"Brava, Madame. Monsieur. You would do well in Montmartre in your habit so suave." The glittering swollen hand patted the sky-blue-silk sofa seat beside her.

I cannot describe how badly that bilious green gown and pale blue sofa failed to complement each other.

"It is convenient for the city," Irene agreed, pulling one trouser knee slightly upward as she crossed her legs after sitting. "I imagine the doings upstairs have put quite a crimp in your custom."

The woman's tiny eyes rolled expressively toward the ceiling, as if enlisting heavenly witness to the truth of her next words. I could not imagine that Heaven would wish to witness anything that transpired in this corrupt place.

"The prefect has been quite plain. We are to close until further notice. Meanwhile, our staff is under the question." She nodded to knots of humble persons around the room, each tied around the central figure of an interrogating gendarme.

"Most intolerably inconvenient for a maison de tolerance," Irene said, sounding sympathetic. "Although the preferred name is maison de rendezvous these days. Let us hope that the culprit is soon caught and your suspension of service ends."

"Huh!" the woman huffed. "He was not caught in London."

"Then you think that the Ripper has relocated to Paris?"

"Who else would commit such atrocity?"

Irene glanced casually around the huge room. "And will they find a suspect among your retainers?"

"I hope not!" the woman snorted.

"Among your clientele then?"

"Certainly not! That is a sure thing. I cater to only the best, the n.o.blest, richest, and discriminating men in Europe."

I could have taken issue that the best, most n.o.ble, and discriminating men in Europe would ever patronize such an establishment, but I knew better than to insert my opinion.

I had been left standing, like a servant. I was simply n.o.body, hardly important enough consciously to ignore. It often happened thus. It often happened that being ignored was a great advantage in observing and learning . . . things. And Irene knew that as well as I.

She kept her glance carefully away from me as she questioned the woman in her usual erratic way, leaping from one topic to the other so adroitly that Madame leaked information like a punctured balloon.

Finally, Irene's eyes ceased their constant surveillance of the clots of people in the room and focused on me.

"Nell, I do not see Inspector le Villard in the chamber any longer. Do you suppose you could find him? I have a question or two for him."

Of course, I bustled obediently away. Irene continued to chat with the dreadful woman as if she were a long-lost aunt.

Once in the pa.s.sage I was at a loss, a state I do not enjoy.