The Dark Lady Read online

  A sudden idea came to me, which I immediately dismissed — the shadowy figure was too tall and thin to be Mr. Nelson.

  “Sherlock, what does he want with us?” I asked.

  “Shh!” he answered. We watched the mysterious figure disappear into the darkness. Sherlock started to get up, but a sound on the roof behind us froze him to the spot.

  “Sherlock? Irene?” whispered Lupin. “Are you still there? The coast is clear! We can leave now.”

  I stepped out from the shadows and joined Sherlock. We exchanged a look that implied we shouldn’t tell Lupin what we saw.”

  We scrambled through an open window into a dusty attic, and then followed a steep spiral staircase downstairs. We eventually emerged in an alleyway. It was dark and quiet. The cobblestones felt cold and hard compared to the warmth of the roof tiles. We checked to our left and right before entering the street.

  Without saying a word, we headed toward my home. Every doorway seemed to conceal a new threat. The thugs from the gambling house could have been hiding anywhere. The town felt like a dark trap that was ready to swallow us.

  We finally started to relax a little once we passed the statue of René Duguay-Trouin. “What do we do now?” I asked.

  “Spirou will talk about us,” said Lupin, “but I doubt those men will pay too much attention to him.”

  “In any case,” added Sherlock, “we can always convince him to remain silent.”

  “Oh yes, Mr. Holmes!” I snapped. “Do you want to behave like those thugs? Solving everything with violence?”

  “What else do you suggest?” he answered sharply. “Get your parents to help us?”

  “Well, we do need help. These men have no morals and they’ve already attacked us once,” I insisted. “And I doubt it will take them long to figure out who we are.”

  “I might have an idea,” said Lupin. “Remember that I stopped and talked to someone after the meeting in the casino?”

  “What about it?” I asked.

  “I was trying to find out the name of the policemen who are working for Macrì,” Lupin said. “You heard what he said, didn’t you? Chief Inspector Flebourg is honest but some of his men aren’t.”

  “Did you find out who they were?” I asked.

  “I got two names from him,” said Lupin. “If the chief inspector is truly incorruptible, then he will appreciate knowing the names of a couple of dirty cops he has working for him.”

  “So, what are you going to do?” asked Sherlock.

  “Speak to my father,” answered Lupin. “And make sure that he passes the information on to Flebourg. After all, we know the name of the leader of this gang. We know he has accomplices all around the town. And we know he stole the necklace.”

  “No, we don’t know that,” Sherlock said. “Lambert, Poussin, or whatever his name is, stole the necklace. The Italian only sold it.”

  “Maybe it’s possible to get it back,” I said. “We know he sold it to someone in Rue du Temple.”

  Sherlock waved his hands in the air. “No way!” he cried. Lupin and I looked at him with wide eyes. “Don’t you get it? Something doesn’t add up about this whole thing! Poussin stole the necklace and therefore repaid his debt. So why was he killed?”

  “Maybe they wanted to punish him?” I said.

  “For giving them money?” said Sherlock. “I don’t think so. If this fellow was such a talented thief, it would have made much more sense for them to continue to use him.”

  “Yes, Macrì even said that himself,” I said.

  “Why should we believe anything a villain like Macrì says?!” Lupin argued. “That man would be more than happy to make someone pay for a mistake with his life!”

  “Certainly, the man with the two names had a talent for getting himself into trouble,” I said.

  “That’s very true,” said Sherlock thoughtfully. “Maybe Macrì wasn’t the only villain who had a score to settle with him.”

  We sat in silence for a while, full of doubts. A dog barked in the distance. “Talk to your father, Lupin,” I said. “And let’s just keep a low profile for a few days.”

  So we decided to avoid being seen together in town or at the harbor until things had calmed down. We parted with one last hug, saying we’d meet again the following Thursday at Ashcroft Manor if nothing else happened . . .

  Chapter 22

  6 RUE DE MÉZIÈRES

  On Monday morning I had no way of knowing if Lupin had spoken to his father about the corrupt police officers, or if Théophraste had passed the information to Chief Inspector Flebourg. Even though the cases seemed as good as solved, my thoughts kept going back to the events of the last couple days.

  My father was getting ready to go back to Paris and was giving instructions for preparing a carriage. He was planning to leave right after lunch so he could arrive that evening. The two days he’d spent by the sea seemed to have refreshed him. Even Mother, who was normally so thorny and unfriendly, seemed pleasant.

  I went to the post office with Mr. Nelson for two reasons. First, I wanted to see the narrow streets of the town again by daylight so I could try to reconstruct where I’d been the night before. Second, I was too scared to go and do that alone, although I’d never admit that to Lupin or Sherlock.

  “Are you feeling all right, Miss Irene?” Horatio asked when we were halfway to the post office. “You haven’t said a word.”

  I was quietly concentrating on every person we saw to see if anyone was looking at me oddly. Maybe Macrì and his men knew who I was, or maybe it was all in my imagination. “I didn’t sleep well last night, Horatio,” I said.

  Horatio stared for a moment at the few clouds scattered in the sky. “You didn’t sleep well, or you didn’t sleep much?” he asked.

  I looked at him, trying to decide if he’d seen me escaping out my window or not. But his face was completely blank. So we traveled the rest of the way to the post office in silence.

  There were already quite a few people waiting when we arrived, so we stood patiently in line. Gone was the lively chatter of last Friday. Instead, people were discussing the strange weather. The clouds from the day before seemed to suggest that a storm was on its way.

  “Miss!” came a vaguely familiar voice. In an office doorway, I saw the postmaster’s friendly face greeting me. I’d spoken to him on Saturday afternoon in the lobby of the Hotel des Artistes.

  I returned his greeting, but he beckoned for me to come closer. I asked Mr. Nelson to excuse me and went over.

  “I trust you are well, Miss?” the postmaster asked, shaking my hand. “Do you have any letters to send?”

  I told him that Mr. Nelson who handled the mail, but I could tell the postmaster didn’t really want to talk about that. He walked into his office, went over to his chaotic-looking desk, and started looking for something. “The other day, you piqued my curiosity about a mysterious guest in room thirty-one. Well, apparently your suspicions were incorrect. He never sent any correspondence to the office of any newspaper in Le Havre or Brest.”

  “So, he wasn’t a journalist?” I asked.

  “That’s the conclusion I came to,” the postmaster said.

  I thanked him for telling me and said I’d pass the information to my friends. “They won’t be very happy, but at least it’s something we can rule out,” I said.

  “But this doesn’t mean that there’s nothing else interesting about Mr. Lambert!” the postmaster added. “I first discovered that almost all of Lambert’s mailings went to just one address in Paris. And then I discovered this!” He pulled out a small, oddly shaped parcel.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “A package with no sender listed,” he said. “But it’s to be sent to the same address in Paris. See here? The sender’s part is blank, but the recipient is the same. I found it after comparing the records. The package was al
ready on the Saturday evening coach for Paris, but I brought it back here.”

  It was a small parcel, too thin to hold jewelry. But while the postmaster was waving it around, I noticed that the address was 6 Rue de Mézières. “So, I told Chief Inspector Flebourg all about it,” the postmaster continued, “and he’ll be dropping by this morning to pick it up. Perhaps it will be useful in his investigations.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. Meanwhile, I kept repeating that address in my head. “You might have discovered something very important, sir,” I said.

  “That’s what I’ve been thinking,” he said with a smile. “And I wanted to tell you, since I wouldn’t have discovered it if it hadn’t been for you and your friends.”

  I thanked him again and started to leave, but when I was almost at the door a question popped into my head. “Excuse me, sir,” I said, turning back toward him, “but if the package was still with the outgoing mail on Saturday, when was it posted?”

  “I checked that as well,” said the postmaster, “but I can’t really give you an answer. The package must have come to the post office last week. Something must have gone wrong, since it remained here longer than it should have.”

  I decided that it probably wasn’t very important, anyway, since I now had an address: 6 Rue de Mézières.

  Chapter 23

  PARIS

  “You should be more pleasant to your mother,” my father said as we rode in the carriage to the railway station.

  “I know, Papa,” I said. “But sometimes it’s difficult.”

  “It’s not easy being a good parent, either,” Father said. “We’re all just trying to do our best.”

  I wasn’t convinced, but had no intention of arguing. My father knew it wasn’t fair — the constant ups and downs in my relationship with Mother were caused by ongoing tension between my parents, which I found out years later when I finally met my real mother. But that summer, when Mr. Nelson loaded Papa’s suitcases and my tiny travel bag onto the carriage, I was an adopted child who didn’t know she was adopted.

  “Goodbye, Horatio!” I cried as the train whistled. “I’ll be back home soon!”

  “Take care, Miss Adler,” he said affectionately. He seemed to want to follow me onto the train as he came within half an inch of giving my hair a friendly ruffle.

  Needless to say, it had been easy to convince my father to take me with him to Paris, and almost impossible to convince my mother to let me. The most worrying thing for her was the return train trip, which I’d have to do completely by myself.

  “What is the use of going to Paris for just one day?” my mother almost cried.

  My excuse was pathetic. I’d said that I needed some books from home and that I couldn’t wait for father to send them to me. I’d get them and be back on the train the day after.

  “This is a mere whim, Irene! A mere whim!” my mother cried before finally giving in to my stubbornness. She was actually right, for once. But she couldn’t even imagine the kind of whim that had actually led me to leave.

  I ran to my seat in the carriage and sat down at the window cross from Father. He looked at me with a satisfied little smile, like he was looking at some small, priceless treasure. “There’s no stopping you, is there,” he said.

  With that simple phrase, he made me want to tell him all about my secret adventure.

  * * *

  The next day, before dawn, Father left for work. That worked out perfectly, as he didn’t know anything about me leaving our home in Saint-Germain-des-Prés and walking to 6 Rue de Mézières. It wasn’t far from where we lived.

  I crossed Rue Saint-Sulpice and headed toward the gardens before turning onto a side street with low, narrow, and poor-looking apartment buildings. Number 6 was a two-level building that looked quite broken-down.

  When I got there, it was before eight in the morning. That gave me about four hours since my train left at noon, and I’d brought everything with me for my return trip, including the books, so I wouldn’t have to stop back home before boarding the train.

  There was a brass bell attached to the bricks next to the gate. I pulled the cord, producing a delicate tinkle, and then waited. To my surprise, an elderly woman appeared. She was very simply dressed and I got the impression that I must have interrupted her. Her face was very beautiful but her slow movements made her seem much older than she looked.

  “May I help you, miss?” she asked, as she dried her hands.

  I hadn’t been prepared for a conversation so I didn’t know how to explain my presence there. So, I chose to be direct.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, madam,” I said with a reassuring smile, “but do you know a gentleman by the name of François Poussin? Or possibly Jacques Lambert?”

  The woman looked at me, both awed and sad at the same time. I tried to determine from her expression what was going through her head. “I know that he sometimes sends letters to this address,” I continued, still smiling. “So, I was wondering if you, or someone else who lives here, might know him.”

  The woman suddenly burst into tears. Then she asked me, “What has happened? What has happened to my poor Julien?”

  Chapter 24

  A MAN WITH MANY NAMES

  As planned, on Thursday afternoon, Lupin, Sherlock, and I met at Ashcroft Manor. We all came from different directions and arrived just minutes apart. Sherlock was there before I arrived. Soon after, Lupin arrived in his rowboat.

  We all had a lot of news to share. Apparently Chief Inspector Flebourg had been very busy. The tip about the corrupt officers had convinced the honest policeman to call for reinforcements to bring order to the town.

  “When they got to the casino,” said Lupin, his eyes sparkling, “there wasn’t a single sign of Salvatore Macrì.”

  Lupin explained that the Italian had escaped. However, he’d left his network of contacts exposed, along with all the low-level crooks who were just starting to work for him.

  “I don’t think it will be long before we also find out who killed the man with two names,” Lupin said. He added that the chief inspector had confided in his father that the suicide theory was absolute nonsense — there was a wound on the back of the dead man’s head, as if he’d been hit hard. The murderer had then put rocks in his pockets to make him sink, but apparently the body had been dumped in the wrong place because the current brought it back to shore.

  “So it must have been one of the low-level gang members,” Sherlock said. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have made such a stupid mistake.”

  But we still couldn’t make sense of the note we’d found. If it was indeed a murder, the suicide note conflicted that assumption.

  As the two boys talked, I stayed quiet. I wanted to be the last to talk, for dramatic effect, when I told them about the sensational news I’d discovered in Paris.

  “I discovered that my mother knows Lady Martigny very well,” Sherlock said. “When I found that out, I could have kicked myself. Just think — she’s one of three ladies my mother plays bridge with every afternoon!”

  Sherlock had learned from his mother that the theft of necklace was a terrible blow for the whole Martigny family. Her husband, who was alerted by telegram about the theft, had even threatened divorce over the matter. The necklace was the most precious of all of the family’s heirlooms.

  “It does seem, however,” said Sherlock, “that my mother’s friends are all defending Lady Martigny. The theft was so spectacular and unforeseeable that you can hardly blame her for being careless.” He had a distant look on his face, and kept biting his lower lip.

  “You think there’s more to it?” I asked.”Something we missed?”

  “I don’t know,” Sherlock confessed with a grin, “but there’s one thing that still doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Do you think there’s something false about all of Lady Martigny’s friends defending her
?” I asked.

  “Actually, I think it’s quite normal that four friends would support each other when times get tough,” Sherlock said. “Although my mother was the last to join the group, the other three — Lady Martigny, Lady Fouchet, and Baroness Gibard — have been vacationing in Saint-Malo for years. What I really don’t understand is how it’s possible that someone like our man with two names managed to climb down off the roof, steal the necklace, and then go back the way he came without anyone noticing.”

  “Why is that so amazing?” I asked. I wanted so badly to tell them what I’d discovered in Paris.

  “Elementary,” Sherlock said. “Do you remember how heavy he was when we turned him over on the beach?” Lupin nodded. “And it wasn’t just because of his wet clothes and his pockets full of rocks. He was fat and not at all athletic.”

  I looked at Lupin, who nodded soberly. “True,” he said. “He seemed really out of shape.”

  Sherlock looked at me as he were waiting for me to add something. But I had nothing to say about the man’s physique. I did have something else to say about him, however. “His real name was Julien Lascot.” Both of my friends were stunned. “And I know this for certain because I spoke to his mother.”

  Both Sherlock and Lupin sat down again and stared at me in silence. “His mother was expecting a visit,” I said. “She said that she’d always known that one day someone would come knocking on her door to tell her that her son was dead. But she’d always imagined it would be a policeman, not a girl like me.” I smiled, remembering the woman inviting me to make myself comfortable in her simple but well-maintained sitting room.

  “The Lascots have never been wealthy,” I continued. “Julien’s father was a bricklayer and his business had a good reputation with his customers, but apparently he didn’t want Julien to study or to follow in his footsteps. So Julien ran away from home ate the age of sixteen and never returned. Although his mother didn’t tell me as much, I realized that Julien became a rogue who lived by his wits and was obsessed with the idea of proving to the world how good he was. He wrote home once in a while to tell his parents about his adventures and to brag about his successes. According to his mother, though, her son was just wasting his money, his good looks, and charm on his vices: gambling and adultery!”