‘I don’t think anyone living in Montmartre is troubled at the idea of a brothel,’ Noah said with a grin. Walking up from the Pigalle, they’d seen dozens of street walkers, and they’d looked at the posters of the cancan girls outside the Moulin Rouge. ‘Some of the artists who live here only paint girls in brothels, so there must be hundreds of them.’
‘Maybe so, but this square looks like a place where ordinary people live,’ James said.
James Morgan would be described by most people as ‘a gentleman of leisure’. When his father inherited his grandfather’s successful hardware shop in Birmingham, he sold it and sank everything into manufacturing bicycles. He was a visionary, and while most people thought him crazy to take such a risk on something which might only be a five-minute wonder, he was convinced that bicycles would become the most popular means of transport. He was right of course, and having got into the business before the rest of the world realized their value, and overcome various teething troubles, British-made Morgan bicycles had become the benchmark of good craftsmanship and reliability.
His company had gone from strength to strength, selling not just to the home market, but exporting all over the world. James was officially employed in the London office, but his only real work was taking trips around Europe to find new outlets. This was why he had been happy to agree to come to Paris with Noah: to all intents and purposes he was just checking on some of the shops which already stocked Morgans.
Noah pulled out his pocket watch. ‘Almost one,’ he said. ‘So why don’t we go and have luncheon in that place over there?’ He pointed to a restaurant across the square with tables and chairs outside. ‘We can play the part of a couple of bounders and ask the waiter where we can find some girls!’
James laughed. He liked being with Noah; his warmth, good looks and confidence drew other people to them. James didn’t find it so easy to make friends – he wasn’t exactly shy, just unable to push himself forward. He knew he wasn’t handsome, being short and a little tubby, and his hair seemed to recede further each time he looked in the mirror. People were always saying that at thirty, well-educated and wealthy, he was the most eligible of bachelors, but although his parents and their friends were always introducing him to suitable girls, they never seemed to be very keen on him. The truth was that he thought women found him boring, and he felt he must be for he was still a virgin. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell Noah that.
Two hours later, after a good lunch with several glasses of wine, the two men were having a brandy each.
James had not been able to bring himself to ask outright if there was a brothel nearby, but Noah, with only a handful of French words to work with, a little sketch of a naked woman on a piece of paper, and a great many gestures with his hands, had managed to make himself understood to the little old waiter with a stooped back and a green apron almost as long as his trousers. The waiter pointed diagonally back across the square, exactly to the address they had, and held up seven fingers which they had to assume was the time the place opened.
‘So we’re doing fine so far,’ Noah said, ordering another brandy. ‘Once I knew that was a brothel I didn’t think it wise to mention Madame Sondheim. If she got to hear anyone was asking about her, we might find we couldn’t get into the place.’
‘So we’ve got to go in there tonight?’ James said nervously.
‘How else are we going to find out anything?’ Noah asked, rolling his eyes in a display of impatience. ‘Come on, James, you’re the one that speaks French, don’t you go all reluctant on me now.’
‘I’ve just never been in a brothel before,’ James whispered, not wanting anyone to overhear him. ‘I don’t know the form.’
‘They kind of know if you’re green.’ Noah laughed, remembering his first time. ‘I don’t suppose it’s any different here. We’ll both act like novices, that way we might get to chat more to the girls. As you are the one with the French, you could make out you don’t really want to do it as you have a fiancée at home.’
‘But I wouldn’t mind doing it,’ James said eagerly.
Noah smirked. ‘You are a novice, aren’t you?’
James hung his head and admitted it. Noah had explained everything about Belle witnessing Millie’s murder when James agreed to come to France with him, but now he felt he had to tell his friend how he met Millie and how he felt about her.
‘I was totally smitten with her,’ he admitted. ‘She was so beautiful, warm-hearted and kind, not the way people think whores are. It’s because of how she was that I must find out where Belle is, and all those other girls too.’
‘Did you love her?’ James asked. He had agreed to come on this trip because he felt he and Noah would be rescuing girls from moral and physical danger. But his sheltered upbringing made it hard for him to accept that any decent man could have had romantic ideas about a whore.
‘What is love?’ Noah said with a wry smile. ‘If it is having someone on your mind so continuously that you can’t eat, sleep or think about anything else, then yes, I loved her. But I think my father would insist that what I felt was lust. I suppose that if I had been able to whisk her away from Annie’s Place and been on my own with her, then maybe in a few weeks I might have discovered that’s all it was. But I didn’t get the chance to find out. So I suspect I’ll always be hoping to find another woman that makes me feel the way she did. Have you ever felt like that?’
‘The closest I’ve come to it is having very lurid dreams about one of the girls I saw in my father’s factory in Birmingham,’ James admitted. ‘If I hadn’t had one or two glasses too many I wouldn’t tell you, but this girl was testing out the height of the saddle on a bicycle. Her skirt was rucked up and I could see her black-stockinged leg, right up to her knee, surrounded by the lace on her petticoat. I thought it was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen.’
Noah sniggered. ‘But what did she look like?’
‘Just ordinary really,’ James admitted. ‘I only see her leg in my daydreams, not her face.’
‘Well, James, along with finding out what happened to Belle and the other girls here in Paris, we’ll have to make sure you get something more substantial to dream about than a girl and a bicycle.’ Noah grinned. ‘Now, let’s go for a walk and get to know the area before we come back here tonight.’
The two men returned to the square at eight that same evening. Darkness had fallen when they came out of their hotel on to the Pigalle, but they found themselves plunged into brilliant light, noise and action. They were astounded by the huge numbers of bars, cafés and restaurants which hadn’t been apparent earlier in daylight. A tout outside the Moulin Rouge was yelling out that it was the top show in Paris, and tourists of many different nationalities were standing outside gawping at a huge poster showing a row of female legs high kicking out of a froth of net petticoats.
As they walked up the steep, winding lane, music from pianos, accordions and violins wafted out of dark, smoky bars. Cooking smells from the restaurants vied with those of street traders with their hot chestnuts or crêpes, and added into the pungent mix was the odour of horse droppings too.
James and Noah’s eyes popped many times as a tout shoved a picture of statuesque showgirls wearing little more than a few sequins and a large feathered fan under their noses. There was no shortage of prostitutes either, they were accosted several times during their walk, and whatever it was that the girls said to James they got him blushing furiously.
James said that the doorman had warned they should be careful as it was still a dangerous place, full of thieves and thugs, even though many of the old dwellings had been pulled down in the last ten years as the Sacré-Coeur was being built. But Noah thought it was the most thrilling place he’d ever been to. It was picturesque, colourful and vibrant, with a strong overtone of sauciness thrown in and less squalid than Seven Dials.
‘Another drink before we go over there?’ James suggested as they got to the square. Madame Sondheim’s place was in darkness except for a red light by the door. But Noah was sure that the lack of light inside was only because it was shuttered, not because there was no one there.
‘That’s just delaying tactics,’ Noah teased him. ‘It’s best to go now, they are bound to be busier later on, and we might not get a chance to talk to anyone. Now, I’m relying on you, you’re the one with the French. I’ll try and get an English-speaking girl, however ugly.’ He broke off laughing. ‘I want you to see I am serious and committed!’ he added.
James looked like a frightened rabbit as they approached the front door. ‘Courage, my friend,’ Noah said. ‘What’s the worst that can happen in a brothel?’
‘That I couldn’t get it up?’ James replied, assuming that was Noah’s worst-case scenario.
‘No, for me it’s a fire breaking out and I have to run out naked,’ Noah grinned.
James laughed, and found it made him feel a bit less tense. ‘That’s easily overcome, just keep your clothes on.’
When Noah rang the doorbell a little hatch shot back and they saw a woman peering out at them. Noah lifted his hat to her. The door opened and a rather gaunt-looking woman of at least fifty, wearing a plain black dress, stood there.
James told her in halting French that they were English and a friend had given them this address. The woman made a gesture to come in with one hand, then, after closing the door, took their hats and ushered them into a room to the left of the hall.
The room was very warm, thanks to a blazing fire. There were four girls in the room, all scantily dressed, with silky negligees barely disguising their underwear. The woman who had shown them in offered them a drink; there was no choice, just red wine. She then introduced the girls as Sophia, Madeleine, Arielle and Cosette. Arielle was a dark-haired beauty, with huge, limpid eyes, and a wide, full mouth, but the other three girls were all unremarkable.
James shook their hands, which made the girls giggle.
‘Do any of you speak English?’ Noah asked.
‘A leetle,’ the small, mousy-haired one called Cosette replied.
James began speaking to Arielle and Noah noted that she seemed quite taken with him and involved with whatever he was saying to her. Noah smiled resignedly at Cosette and took her hand to kiss it.
That made all the girls giggle too, but Cosette looked as if she liked it.
A pianola in the corner of the room was playing, and Noah held out his arms to dance. Again Cosette giggled as if no man had ever suggested such a thing as a dance before. ‘Does Madame Sondheim not like you to dance?’ he asked. He knew many madams didn’t like the girls wasting their time with such things.
‘You know her?’ Cosette looked alarmed.
Noah shook his head. ‘No, not me. My friend came here, he said she was very fierce. Is that right?’
Cosette nodded. Noah noticed she had pretty grey eyes, and even though her hair looked in need of a wash, it was marvellous that she spoke some English.
‘You tell me about it upstairs?’ he said, sensing she would be very guarded in front of the other girls.
‘You want me?’ she asked, as if astounded.
Noah wasn’t sure he wanted to have sex with her, but he smiled and said of course he did. All at once she had her hand in his and practically dragged him from the room while James was left with the beautiful Arielle, Madeleine and Sophia looking on.
Cosette took him up to the third floor, but as they went past the closed doors on the first and second floors he heard sounds which suggested there were other girls in there with clients. Cosette’s room looked just like her – worn, untidy and uncared for.
‘You must give me the money,’ she said, holding out her hand.
Noah had not got to grips with French money, so he took a ten-franc note from his pocket and handed it to her. She frowned, so he added another to it, and this time she smiled and went to the door where she handed the money to someone else.
She began to take off her blue wrap, but Noah stopped her. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘My friend wanted woman very much. I just come with him. We just talk?’
Cosette shrugged and sat on the bed, pulling the wrap back over her shoulders.
‘Englishmen strange,’ she said, shaking her head.
Noah laughed. ‘Yes, that is so. Many of us like very young girls. I heard Madame Sondheim gets very young girls sometimes.’
‘Not for young men like you,’ she said incredulously. ‘Only old men.’
Noah came and sat on the bed beside her and took her hand in his. ‘Does she get young English girls?’ he asked.
Cosette nodded. ‘Sometimes. It is bad. We hear them cry. Not good for us, the men who come only want this.’
Noah took that to mean trade was dropping off for her and the other girls because of it.
‘Have you seen any of these young girls?’
‘No, never see. They stay upstair. Not come in parlour.’
‘Locked in?’ Noah mimed the locking process.
She nodded.
‘The men go up there?’
Again a nod. ‘How much?’ he asked.
She made a gesture with her hands which appeared to mean it was a huge amount of money and she pursed her mouth in distaste.
‘Then where do they go?’ Noah asked.
Cosette didn’t seem to understand that question. Noah tried again, changing words, asking how long the girls stayed upstairs, but she still kept shaking her head and saying ‘No understand’. But the strangest thing was that there were tears in her eyes.
He took out his wallet and peeled off some notes. ‘For you,’ he said, folding her hand around the notes. ‘Madame will not know.’ He lifted her chin and very gently wiped her tears away with one finger. ‘Now tell me why the tears?’
A volley of French spewed out, and even though he didn’t understand a word of it, he knew outrage when he heard it, and it wasn’t directed at him. ‘English, please,’ he said. ‘Where do the girls go?’
‘I not know,’ she said. ‘I hear someone say some go to
couvent.
’
‘
Couvent
?’ he queried. ‘Is that the same as convent?’
She shrugged, clearly not knowing if it was.
‘Where?’ he said, and seeing a pencil by the bed picked it up and opened his wallet to find a scrap of paper to write it on.