Spectacle(85)

Nathalie examined the envelope and saw something wedged in the corner. She tipped the envelope into her hand. Out came a piece of maroon cloth.

Maroon. Did the color have significance? A symbol of blood, perhaps?

“I opened that envelope almost an hour ago and can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t get any work done.” Arianne chewed a fingernail. “What do you think it means?”

Nathalie read the note one more time, as if it might say something different now, and put it back in the envelope. She pressed the cloth between her fingers. Silk.

Silk, just like—

“Oh! I know what it is!” said Nathalie, rapping a knuckle on Arianne’s desk. “From his cravat. It had a piece missing, like someone cut it off.”

The only probable “someone” was the person who’d killed him. Who else?

She dropped the silk on the floor, stooped down to get it, and fumbled getting it into the envelope. Was the cloth a souvenir? A symbol of power? Or maybe it was just to taunt Paris, like the Dark Artist had done. Why follow in the footsteps of the man you murdered?

Arianne sat back primly and arranged a stack of articles. “Perhaps it’s just a hoax,” she said, her tone unconvincing.

Nathalie was about to protest, to tell Arianne it seemed very real indeed, but then she noticed the young woman’s hands trembling as they hovered over the pages.

M. Patenaude will use his gift and know. He’ll convey it to Christophe. An actual errand boy would deliver the materials, and M. Patenaude’s interpretation, to the morgue. The irony.

“A fraud, well … that’s for others to decide.” Nathalie placed the envelope on the desk as Arianne shuffled through the pages, lips pressed together. “We needn’t worry. Tout va s’arranger.”

Nathalie didn’t know if everything would be fine, and in fact, she didn’t think that to be the case at all. She knew she’d be turning this over and over in her mind the rest of the day and probably well into the night. But if it gave Arianne even the slightest degree of reassurance, it was worth saying.

As she walked away from Arianne’s desk, she paused. Maman was healed and would be returning to work soon, but Nathalie would be staying on at the newspaper anyway. It was time to act like it.

She removed her cap and let down her hair. Standing up to her full height, she turned back to Arianne. “Please tell Monsieur Patenaude that from now on, I’ll be showing up in my normal clothes. We’ll figure out how to explain it to the gentlemen.”

“I will tell him,” said Arianne with a compliant nod. She seemed grateful for the subject change. “And good for you.”

Nathalie had seen and heard things no one else had, and she’d had experiences this summer few could conceive of, never mind live through. If she was good enough to help solve a case, then she was good enough to walk into Le Petit Journal as herself.

Whoever wrote the letter and quoted Ovid wanted to go unnoticed. Nathalie, from now on, aimed to be utterly indifferent to anyone’s inquisitive gaze.





40


PARIS NIGHTMARE OVER

Dark Artist Dead, Killer at Large



Le Petit Journal’s headline the following day told Paris about the current state of affairs, with an article covering the Dark Artist’s murder and identity, complete with morgue photographs, as well as the search for his unknown assailant. The newspaper also published the letter with the Ovid quote and described the silk fragment as a “thread-for-thread match—though even this doesn’t make the cravat whole.”

Nathalie wished it were a prank. She wanted to think the Dark Artist’s killer was acting out of bravery or principle, someone who caught him in the act and imparted his own sense of justice. The witness from across the shore had overheard a struggle; Nathalie had imagined a man walking alone in the fog, horrified by what he stumbled upon and disposing of the killer in a fit of fury. Or something happened when her vision of the scene cut out. Or the man was connected to one of the victims, stalked the Dark Artist, and confronted him.

But not this. Not a killer who sent letters and cravat pieces. Who was playing games now, and to what end?

By the evening, a special Dark Artist issue of the newspaper was out. She spread it on the sofa to read and provided an abridged version to Papa, who’d misplaced his reading glasses. Maman was changing out the drapes in the bedroom. “The police picked up a man seen near what’s believed to be the vicinity of the murder.”

“Based on what?”

“The estimated time the body was in the Seine compared with how long it took to … drift to where it was found.” Nathalie leaned forward as her fingers ran along the column. “Also, they have quotes from a woman, identity withheld, who spoke to a reporter outside the morgue. She said she’d known Damien Salvage from an opium den they both frequented. She’d first encountered him in February, shortly after the triple murders by Pranzini, and said Damien ‘possessed something akin to respect for the murderer.’”

“And here he is,” said Papa, “dead before the guillotine drops on Pranzini. With even more blood staining his soul.”

“Both fair and unfair,” Nathalie said. She, Simone, and Papa planned to go to the Pranzini execution, less than two weeks away. Too bad it wasn’t the Dark Artist’s death sentence. “The paper also says the woman didn’t think anything of it at the time: ‘Who with an iota of reason, even in a cloud of opium, would?’ That’s a direct quote.”