Hunger was making her weak and dizzy. She was no longer sure whether it was two or three days she’d been here. Was that Pascal’s plan? To make her so weak she wouldn’t be able to fight him when he came back? Or was he intending to leave her here to die?
From time to time she could smell food cooking, it wafted in to tantalize her. If there was a restaurant that close, why couldn’t anyone hear her shouting and banging? She’d been doing it mostly when there was no light coming through the small hole, with the idea that someone was more likely to hear when there was less noise on the streets. But she couldn’t distinguish between evening and night, or how long she’d slept at one time.
Twice she had heard an accordion playing. It was a common sound in Paris, one she’d found enchanting when she had been free. If that sound could reach her ears, why oh why couldn’t anyone hear her?
She shuffled back to the bed, feeling the bent and broken hairpins beneath her feet which she’d tried and failed to fashion into tools to pick the lock on the door. She had nothing more to use now; she’d taken out the whalebone stiffeners in the bodice of her dress and removed her suspenders, and broken every last one of them. She was defeated. And there was less than two inches of water left in the jug to drink.
She might as well just lie down and wait to die. It was hopeless.
Chapter Thirty-one
Gabrielle was sitting at her desk in the hall when a man walked in. She noticed his pale grey suit first, for it was sharply cut, and it was rare for any of her male guests to be that expensively dressed or to have the presence this man had. Then, as he spoke, the combination of his deep voice and his cold blue eyes stunned her for a moment. ‘I’m Etienne Carrera,’ he said. ‘I believe you are expecting me.’
She could only gasp foolishly. ‘I was hoping you’d come, but I didn’t dare to expect it,’ she managed to get out, feeling like a silly sixteen-year-old. After a moment’s hesitation she got up and held out her hand to shake his. ‘I am Gabrielle Herrison. And I’m so very pleased to see you. Can I get you some coffee and something to eat? You’ve had a long journey.’
‘A coffee would be good while we talk,’ he said.
She rang a little bell, and an older woman wearing a white apron came out of the dining room. ‘Ah, Jeanne! Would you bring some coffee for us up to my sitting room?’
She led the way up to a half-landing and showed Etienne into a small room which overlooked the back yard. It was bright with the late afternoon sun, and simply furnished with a couch, a couple of armchairs and a table and chairs by the window. She removed some schoolbooks of Henri’s from one of the armchairs. ‘My son’s,’ she said. ‘He should be up here doing his homework but he’s slipped out. Do sit down.
‘I can hardly believe you could get here so quickly,’ she went on once she was sitting opposite him. ‘You must have left Marseille as soon as Marcel’s brother spoke to you?’
He nodded. ‘I sensed the urgency. Now tell me, how long has Belle been staying here, and where had she come from?’
‘She arrived just after Christmas. I suspect she’d come from the south as Gare de Lyon serves that part of France. She didn’t tell me anything about herself, just asked for a room in English. But I guessed she’d run from someone as she was wearing an evening dress under her coat, with no hat, scarf, gloves or luggage. Later she asked me if I knew a good second-hand clothes shop as she’d had her luggage stolen.’
Jeanne rapped on the door and came in with a pot of coffee and cups on a tray. Gabrielle waited until she’d left the room, then quickly launched into how she’d guessed what Belle was doing for a living.
‘Normally when I realize this, I ask them to leave,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you will understand that trouble often follows such women. You let one in and her friends follow. I do not want this in my hotel.’
Etienne half smiled in understanding. ‘So why did you let her stay?’
‘Because she was a lady; quiet, polite, clean and charming. She had a warm personality, always with a ready smile, and she was appreciative. But I am quite sure you will know all this?’
‘I do indeed. But did you say anything to her about what she was doing?’
‘No, I think I was afraid I would frighten her away.’
Gabrielle went on then to tell him about how a boy would come with a note for Belle, then a fiacre would arrive later to take her to her appointment. She said that the girl was often out all night, coming back in the early morning. Then she moved on to tell Etienne what happened on the last evening she saw Belle leave.
‘I felt she already knew the man she was meeting. That was the only time I warned her, and advised her to give it up and go home to England.’ She looked right into Etienne’s eyes, her lower lip quivering with emotion. ‘You see, I know at first hand about the bad things that can happen to young girls like her. They may be fine for quite some time, but sooner or later they will come up against a man who is dangerous. And that is what has happened, I fear.’
Gabrielle showed him the note she’d found in Belle’s room. Etienne studied it carefully. ‘Monsieur Le Brun, a common enough name! What made you think she’d met this man before?’
‘She looked especially beautiful, she’d gone to a lot of trouble and she was excited, as if she expected to be going somewhere smart with a man she really liked.’
‘So you think he was a wealthy man?’
‘She wasn’t dressed for a night out with a poor man.’
‘Could I look in her room?’ Etienne asked.
‘Of course. I was going to suggest you stayed in it.’
‘I don’t think I’ll be doing much sleeping tonight.’ Etienne smiled with his mouth but his eyes remained cold. ‘I need to get started on investigating. But I must see around her room before I go out. Women’s possessions often tell a great deal about them.’
Gabrielle went up to the next floor with him, unlocked the door and handed him the key. ‘I’ll give you another one for the front door before you go out,’ she said.
After Gabrielle had gone downstairs Etienne stood still for several minutes, just looking around the room. He could smell a musky and heady perfume. He noted the row of shoes beneath the wardrobe, the hairbrush, face powder and hairpins on the dressing table, and the three hats on the chest of drawers. It reminded him of coming into the cabin they shared on the way to America for he’d been touched then by her neatness and femininity.
He had a mental picture of the way she used to curl up on her bunk reading a book, absentmindedly twiddling with a lock of hair, and the way she’d look up at him and smile.
He shook himself and turned to the job in hand, opening drawers, examining the clothes in the wardrobe. He was impressed by them – although second-hand, they were good quality and stylish. Belle had clearly acquired a great deal of sophistication in the last two years.
Then he moved across the room to look at the sketchpad by the bed. When he saw it was all hats he felt curiously emotional, for he remembered she’d told him her dream was to have a hat shop. He read some of the notes beneath the sketches and it appeared she had also learned how to go about making her designs; he didn’t think she had that knowledge two years ago.
He began to search then, for logic told him that if she’d been making money to get back to England, she would never have risked taking it out with her at night.
First he removed all the drawers and looked for anything stuck to the bottoms. When that revealed nothing he lifted up the mattress and felt beneath it. He slid his hand down the back of the headboard, turned the dressing-table stool upside down. He was running out of ideas, and stopped to look around him again. He put his hand up the chimney and found nothing but soot. Then he noticed the drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe. There was nothing in it. He pulled it right out, looked underneath it, then put his hand back into the space beneath where the drawer sat, and his hand met a tin box.
He drew it out and opened the lid. Lying inside was a thick bundle of francs. He flicked through it quickly and guessed there was well over a thousand.
Etienne returned the lid to the box and replaced it where he’d found it, then put back the drawer and stood up. It was a great deal of money and proof that Belle’s clients were very wealthy men, for Gabrielle had said she never went out more than four nights a week. He was impressed that she’d saved so much – most girls in her position would have frittered it away on clothes and fripperies. Paris was a giddy place, a pretty girl could easily think she had the world at her feet and act accordingly. But she’d stayed in a cheap hotel, bought second-hand clothes and sketched hats, and no doubt when she wasn’t with a client she was dreaming of going home to her loved ones and opening a hat shop. He was deeply moved by that, and it made him determined to turn Paris upside down if necessary to find her.
So who was this Monsieur Le Brun she’d left here to meet?
Etienne locked the door and went back downstairs. Just as he turned on the last half-landing by Gabrielle’s sitting room there was a knock on the front door. Gabrielle hurried to answer it.
The tall, slender man on the doorstep took off his hat as he saw Gabrielle. ‘
Bonsoir
.
Je suis Noah Bayliss,
’ he said with a stilted English accent.
Etienne hurried down the remainder of the stairs. Gabrielle had said she’d sent a telegram to this Englishman, but hadn’t explained fully who he was.
‘I speak English.’ Gabrielle used the tone most French people adopt with English people who torture their language. She turned to Etienne and quickly said in French that Noah was a friend of Belle’s family, and that he’d come to Paris several times in the past two years to try to find her. She then introduced Noah to Etienne, and told Noah that Belle had given her his name as someone she trusted.
Etienne moved closer and shook the man’s hand. ‘We are very glad you’ve come, we can do with all the help we can get.’
Noah looked confused. ‘What do you mean? The telegram said there was news of Belle. Where is she?’
Gabrielle intervened to say how Belle had been staying here and had disappeared. She explained she hadn’t wanted to put anything alarming in the telegram but hoped for Noah’s help and was grateful he’d come so quickly.
Noah turned to Etienne, his expression one of puzzlement. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand, Where do you fit into this?’
‘It was Etienne who escorted her to America,’ Gabrielle said.
Noah’s eyes flashed. ‘Then I’m surprised you had the cheek to show your face here. Have you any idea what her family and friends have been through?’
‘I understand how it must look to you,’ Etienne said. ‘All I can say in my defence was that I had no choice but to take her. I was ordered to do it, and the people behind it are such that if you refuse, someone close to you will be hurt. But I can tell you that it was with a very heavy heart that I left Belle in New Orleans, for by then I’d grown fond of her, and I assume she felt the same about me as she gave Gabrielle my name as someone she trusted.’
Noah put his hand to his head. Clearly he couldn’t quite grasp what was going on. ‘I need all this explained more fully,’ he said.
‘Yes, you do, and Gabrielle is the one to do that.’ Etienne realized that Noah didn’t know what Belle had been doing here in France, and he didn’t want to be the one to tell him. ‘I’ve got some enquiries to make now, and you must be very tired after the long journey from England. So why don’t you stay here with Gabrielle? She’ll explain everything to you. We can all get together tomorrow morning when you are fresh and know as much as we do.’
‘That is the best plan,’ Gabrielle agreed. ‘I have a room free for you, Noah, but first let me get you a drink and something to eat.’
*
Etienne caught a fiacre to the Champs-Elysées. He thought that Belle would have assumed that wealthy businessmen would find a hotel in that area because of its central position. He had the note Belle had received in his pocket, and he had a rough plan in his head.
As he stepped down from the fiacre and paid the driver off, it occurred to him that the task he’d set himself was going to be harder than he had first imagined. He hadn’t been to this area of Paris for some years, and there seemed to be a great many more hotels than he remembered. He also had no idea which ones were the most fashionable now. Back in the days when he’d gone into hotels to rob the rich of their jewellery and money, there had only been a choice of about ten or so. But a great deal of building and refurbishment had been done for the Exposition Universelle in 1900 – as he recalled, the Gare de Lyon was built for it, and also the first Métropolitain train.
He walked quickly, passing by hotels and glancing in, noting the quality of the clothes and luggage of people getting out of carriages and cabs. He wasn’t going to waste his time with hotels whose guests were mainly tourists; it was the select, discreet and expensive places he was interested in checking.
The first one he went into, the Elysée, fitted those criteria. Potted bay trees flanked the mahogany double doors with shiny brass fittings which were opened by a footman in green and gold livery.
Etienne walked across a white marble floor to the reception desk and smiled at the earnest-looking clerk with horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘Could you tell me the name of your concierge? A colleague of mine said he’d leave a parcel for me with him, but I’m not sure if I have the right hotel,’ he said.
‘We have two,’ the clerk replied. ‘Monsieur Flambert and Monsieur Annily. Flambert is on duty now, he may be able to help you even if this isn’t the right hotel.’ He pointed out the concierge’s desk across the other side of the lobby where a couple of guests were talking to the man.
Neither man had the right initials, but Etienne asked if a Monsieur Le Brun was staying at the hotel. The clerk checked the register and said there was no one of that name staying now.
Etienne then asked the clerk the names of other good hotels he could try. The clerk reeled off names – some were close by, others further afield, but he helpfully marked them on a street map, and even volunteered to give Etienne their telephone numbers.
One by one, Etienne called at all the hotels, but in each case there was no one with the right initials, nor was Le Brun staying there. He made a note of each one he’d tried, with the concierge’s name beside it.
By eleven o’clock he was beginning to think that it might not be a concierge he was looking for but a hotel manager, even though he knew they were usually above making assignations for their guests. There was only the Ritz left to check now, and he didn’t hold out much hope that the most prestigious hotel in Paris would have a man working for them who would risk being involved in anything so shady. He was also wary of even going in, for it had once been his favourite place to rob people of their money and jewellery, and the last time he’d gone there he’d been interrupted by a chambermaid coming into the room to turn down the bed. He’d fled past her and ran down the back stairs, leaving by the back door with someone in hot pursuit. He wasn’t caught, of course – in those days he could run like the wind and scale walls effortlessly. But he’d never dared go back there for fear his luck would run out. However, he reasoned with himself that it was unlikely that anyone who had been working there sixteen years ago would remember a chambermaid’s description of a skinny, shabbily dressed young lad she’d surprised robbing one of their guests.