Cinderella Six Feet Under(44)

“Dash it,” Gabriel said. “Come on.” He helped Miss Flax out, paid the driver, and they climbed onto the packed omnibus just before it reeled forward.

“There he is,” Miss Flax whispered. “He’s going upstairs.” A curved flight of steps at the back of the omnibus led to the open-air level.

“Good, then. He won’t see us, and we will be able to see him exit if we keep watching the stair.”

The omnibus traveled a few blocks, made a turn, and then lurched and stopped all the way down the Rue de Rivoli until they had almost arrived in Le Marais. But it turned again and passed over the Seine and alongside Notre Dame, and then they were in the Latin Quarter.

At the Rue Saint-Séverin stop, Grant hurried down the omnibus stairs and into the street. Gabriel and Miss Flax followed.

The streets here were narrow and the old, mismatched buildings somehow suggested a child’s toy blocks. Cramped shops displayed dingy wares, and cafes emanated cigarette fumes and bitter coffee. Presently, Grant pushed through a pair of chipped blue doors.

Miss Flax stopped. Rain dripped from her bonnet brim onto her nose. Gabriel ignored the urge to wipe the drop gently away.

“If this is where Mr. Grant lives,” Miss Flax said, “why, we might be waiting here all day for him to come back outside.”

“Perhaps we might learn the number of his apartment. That would be a start.”

“A start to what? You don’t mean you would housebreak?”

“I prefer to call it reconnaissance. And I seem to recall that you, Miss Flax, are not entirely ill-disposed towards the practice yourself.”

The doors weren’t locked, and they went into a dark little vestibule that smelled of mildew and garlic. An iron railing marked the foot of a staircase.

A squat lady, hands on her hips and her back to them, was bickering with a man. She was doubtless the concierge. Parisian concierges were like dragons guarding the mouths of caves, only instead of breathing fire, they breathed gossip. Luckily, the concierge was too consumed by her tirade, and the man was too frightened of the concierge, for either to notice Gabriel and Miss Flax.

“What’s she going on about?” Miss Flax whispered.

“Something about burst pipes.”

Gabriel was prepared to wait and then simply ask the concierge where Caleb Grant’s apartment was located. But Miss Flax disappeared through a doorway on the other side of the vestibule and returned a few moments later. She tugged his sleeve, saying, “I’ve got a notion.”

“Not another one.”

“Don’t be such a curmudgeon.”

Gabriel hid his smile and followed Miss Flax through the door. A dank flight of stairs led to a cellar cluttered with mops, buckets, and rags, lit only by one high window. Cobwebs swagged the corners. Water pooled across the floor.

“What are we doing down here?” Gabriel asked. “Not everything need be so very theatrical, you realize.”

“I’m not being theatrical. We cannot very well rap upon Mr. Grant’s door and announce that we’ve followed him all the way across the city, that we suspect him of murder, and that he’d better hand over his parcel.”

“I had conceived a somewhat subtler plan, but I do see your point.”

Miss Flax pulled some sort of filthy garment from a peg on the wall.

“You don’t mean to disguise yourself,” Gabriel said.

“No. I don’t need a disguise, because Mr. Grant only saw me dressed as Mrs. Brand. I mean to disguise you.”

*

Two minutes later, Gabriel’s Savile Row suit was covered by a damp, gray workman’s smock that smelled of either underarms or overripe Gruyère, and baggy drawstring trousers. He had changed from his own gleaming shoes into muddy-soled boots, and stashed his kidskin gloves, felt hat, and greatcoat in an empty crate.

“Are you able to see without those goggles, Professor?”

“Goggles? Oh. I suppose so, but—”

“Good.” Miss Flax removed Gabriel’s spectacles and slid them into his smock pocket. “I don’t fancy they go with the plumber’s costume.” She passed him a wooden toolbox. Then she reached up, mussed his hair, and smudged some grease from a pipe joint on his cheeks.

Gabriel attempted not to enjoy her efficient touch.

They went upstairs.

Miss Flax loitered in the background while Gabriel spoke to the concierge. He convinced her that Caleb Grant had sent for him to look at the pipes under his lavatory sink, and that Miss Flax was his assistant. The concierge didn’t appear the least bit surprised about any of this—although Gabriel had never heard of a lady plumber’s assistant—and led the way to the topmost floor.