The Glamourist (The Vine Witch #2)(13)
“I’m visiting a medium later in the week. She does séances to communicate with those who’ve passed over to the other side. Several of my circle have been already and highly recommend her.”
“A séance?” Jean-Paul shook his head as if he hadn’t heard right. “To speak with the dead? Why would you do that?”
“To speak to your father, naturally.” Marion took a sip of her coffee, raised a brow, and smiled at her son. Then she spoke to Elena. “I noticed you studying that painting a moment ago. It is beautiful, isn’t it? And yet it’s quite ordinary in comparison to the one I had hanging there prior.”
“The colors are so . . .”
“Bold! Yes, I agree. It’s all part of the modern sensibility. But, before Philippe and I were married, I had a portrait done by a splendid new artist. But I cannot for the life of me remember the man’s name. Something foreign sounding. Tell her, Jean-Paul.”
“It was a portrait of my mother. His take was . . . different. I can’t remember who the artist was either, though he’s apparently grown quite famous.”
“That’s right. His works are highly valuable now,” his mother inserted.
“Which is why the painting was stolen.”
“Stolen?” Elena asked.
Jean-Paul explained how weeks before his father died there’d been a break-in. Jewelry, cash, some paper bonds, and the painting—all taken in a brazen daytime robbery. The police couldn’t figure it out. There was no sign of the door being forced, no way anyone could carry so much out the window, and none of the neighbors or passersby apparently saw a thing.
“There were a rash of burglaries that summer along the rue de Jardin,” Marion said, pointing out the window to indicate the park view. The woman shook her head at the state of the world. “But it wasn’t as bad as Madame Chevalier’s loss. A million in gold stolen.”
“Who keeps that much in gold?” Elena asked.
“Precisely. I think there was some foreign deal she was involved in that required cash. Enough money to fund a small country as I recall. Nearly destroyed her financially. It happened years and years ago, but no one was ever caught. She’s quite recovered from the theft now.
“Oh, and while we’re on the subject.” Marion opened the drawer of a bureau desk and removed a small velvet box. “I found something the other day among your father’s things. I thought for sure they’d been stolen as well, being solid gold. They’re from his time in the service in the colonies.”
Jean-Paul opened the box. Inside were a pair of gold cuff links, each sporting a crescent moon and star emblem, immediately sparking a chain of memories in the mother and son about the father’s brief post in the desert. While they reminisced, Elena stared at the window Marion had gestured to earlier. She let her shadow vision seep in ever so slightly, lowering her eyes as if she were listening in deep concentration.
There, near the latch, the faintest trace of a spell, like a cobweb that showed only in certain light. Someone had used magic to get in and out. A masking spell of some sort, based on the cloak-like webbing that spread to the glass. That’s why the police couldn’t figure the case out.
“So, you see, dear”—Marion had begun speaking about the séance again—“I need to talk to my late husband so I can ask him who the artist was. I might like to hire him again.”
Elena felt Jean-Paul’s hand squeeze hers. She shook loose from her shadow vision and nodded and smiled at her future mother-in-law as if it were perfectly normal to want to pay a swindler a large sum of money to speak to an empty crystal ball in the hope the dearly departed might respond. A few reputable necromancers did exist—at least Grand-Mère had mentioned one she’d seen raise the dead in her youth—but she knew of none who took money from mortals on a whim. She wouldn’t be surprised if this medium turned out to be one of the infamous Charlatan clan. Their brand of fraud seemed to be everywhere lately.
“Perhaps I could accompany you,” Elena said, curious to see if it was a witch involved with these hapless mortal women. “We do see a lot of that sort of influence in the valley.”
Jean-Paul sat up. “Really?”
“Oh, that would be splendid! I’d love to show you off to my social circle.” Marion clapped her hands together in delight. “And now that you’ve surprised me with this wonderful gesture, I have something wonderful I’d like to show you both in the morning. It will require an excursion through the city. Please say you’ll come.”
Elena sensed Jean-Paul inwardly groan, but they agreed to accompany Marion in the morning, not wishing to deny her the pleasure of presenting her surprise.
CHAPTER FIVE
Tante Isadora, the woman who’d taken Yvette in when her mother had abandoned her, stood in the doorframe silhouetted by the smoky glow of the hallway’s gaslights. Her auburn hair, streaked now with filaments of gray, was parted in the middle and swept atop her head in a pile of marcel curls. Her cheeks were heavily rouged in an effort to revive the youth long gone from them. A stiff corset held her middle-aged form inside a purple silk evening gown. The double flounce above the hem was a common stitch-witch trick to make the dress appear more expensive than it was.
Tante Isadora stared at Yvette and exhaled. “Leave us, Louise.”