The Cathedral of Fear Page 4

  Lupin and I had agreed to meet at home right after lunch to decide what I should do before four o’clock. Meanwhile, I could not help but rack my brains about that piece of paper — apparently meaningless and yet so carefully hidden in the house — and about the talk the woman had with me the day before. Her answers had not entirely convinced me, and I wondered whether I should show up for the afternoon appointment. I felt suspicion toward that strange woman and was reluctant to give her the envelope. Nonetheless, it made me deeply uncomfortable to keep something that someone had so urgently requested and that I had been told was so dangerous.

  When Lupin finally turned up at our house in the afternoon, he had changed his clothes and put on a brand-new outfit that was a bit too large for him. He was also boasting a scent that was somehow familiar.

  We went out into the garden and took a slow stroll, discussing what to do. We walked side by side, like astronomers discussing the marvels of creation. And in that moment, all the events and the meeting of the day before seemed distant, as if I had experienced them in a dream or read about them in a book.

  “What I can’t figure out,” Lupin interrupted all of a sudden, “is why this lady didn’t get the owner of the house to write a note authorizing her to retrieve the letter. That’s what I would have done in her place. How else does she think she can get it delivered to her based solely on her word?”

  “That’s what I asked her, to tell the truth. She replied that d’Aurevilly was very ill and is no longer rational. She hinted at some relatives who wanted to seize the estate and the fact that the housekeeper was in cahoots with them. Quite a vague story, actually. It struck me as suspicious.”

  We concluded that we knew too little to make a decision, and that the only possibility was to go meet with the woman so that we could at least ask for some explanations.

  We headed toward the village with determined steps. The sweet smell of warm bread and raisins wafted through the alleys of the old village, between the cone-shaped roofs of the small castle and the medieval houses that had survived the revolution.

  We reached the bench where I’d sat the previous day a few minutes before four. We sat down to wait, trying to talk about other things.

  The bell towers chimed four o’clock, and then half past. We looked at each other, shocked, as it was twenty minutes to five by then.

  Lupin rose. “Let’s go,” he said firmly. “I don’t think a young lady like you should have to waste her time waiting for a bizarre woman who tells vague stories.”

  So saying, Arsène offered me his arm, and we prepared to go back home.

  As we walked through the village, we reviewed what had happened to me the day before step by step, searching for a detail that I might have missed.

  “Exactly when did the woman begin to act afraid?” Lupin asked at one point in the discussion.

  But I could not tell him. I had not noticed anything strange around us then — nothing at all.

  Only then did I remember the carriage that had approached on the main street of the village. And suddenly, that image made me think of the unusual carriage I had spotted on the streets of London last Christmas. When I was going to the Shackleton Coffee House — my friends’ and my favorite cafe during that London winter — the carriage had come alongside me and a mysterious woman leaned out to give me a little Christmas gift.

  “Nothing strange … at least, I don’t think so,” I muttered. “Only an approaching carriage that came into the village shortly thereafter.”

  Lupin stuck his hands in his pockets and led us toward the river. “And then there’s what she said about your mother, that she had known her for many years …” he trailed off.

  “And that she would be in danger,” I said.

  “You haven’t yet spoken to her, of course.”

  “I didn’t think it would be a good idea,” I admitted. “And not just because of how she has been feeling at the moment, but because I think it would worry her too much, in any case.”

  Lupin seemed to agree with me. “Your mother is from here?” he asked.

  “No,” I replied.

  “But she’s French?” he asked.

  “Yes, from Fontainebleau, just south of Paris.

  “I know it. Where the palace is.”

  “But I’ve never been there. My mother did not particularly like going back,” I said. “She liked being in Paris. Only in Paris, to be precise.”

  He made a hard face, which I quickly understood the reason for. We were both convinced we had to deal with demanding Parisian mothers, both of them a bit too pampered and incompetent. But instead, as the facts soon showed, neither of us was right to believe this.

  “She said if your mother knew what she was doing, she’d kill her,” my friend continued. “But the word kill is very odd for a lady to use,” he observed. “She could have used an expression like take steps or be annoyed about it. But kill? Doesn’t that seem a bit too … strong?”

  I nodded. And that observation reminded me that the woman had seemed to be playing a part, like an actress.

  I was about to tell Lupin so, when at that exact moment, a hand grabbed my by the shoulder and yanked me to the ground.

  I screamed, but a second hand pressed over my mouth to stop me. Then it pulled down my collar, grabbed my gold pendant, and tore it off me. I felt my skin sting and kicked at my assailant, barely missing him.

  I wound up flipped upside down, just as something sparkling fell to the ground. It ricocheted two steps in front of me with a metallic clink. A knife.

  “Irene!” Lupin shouted.

  He threw himself at my attacker like a lightning bolt, shoving him away. Then he stepped between a second man and me. The man was kneeling on the ground, holding a bloody hand and cursing in a low voice.

  Lupin balanced from one foot to the other like a juggler. He did not seem at all intimidated by having to face two men considerably bigger than himself. One of them threw a punch, but Arsène dodged the blow and delivered a kick to his ribs. I heard him exhale like a bull, and I got back up.

  “Are you okay?” my friend asked me, without glancing away from our attackers.

  “Yes!” I replied, then I felt my neck. “The pendant! They stole it from me!”

  “The young lady’s pendant!” Lupin cried out.

  “Hit him!” shouted the man with the bloody hand.

  The other man hesitated, and that hesitation was crucial for us. Lupin had continued to retreat toward the river and I with him. When he heard those words, he did not wait a moment longer. He seized my wrist and pulled me into the current.

  I found myself imprisoned by my dress, being dragged to the bottom of the river. With a rush of air, I kicked with all my might and returned to the surface about ten meters farther downstream from where we had been attacked. I tried to get to where the current was weaker, and then I saw that Lupin was swimming beside me.

  Without a word, we crossed the river and climbed back up by the reeds along the opposite bank. Dripping, we headed toward the d’Aurevilly home.

  I felt Arsène’s arm supporting me and looked at him. He was still keeping a close watch to make sure those hoodlums weren’t following us.

  “All okay?” he asked me.

  “Yes, but … what’s going on?”

  Chapter 7

  REVISIONS

  The candle burned quickly, as if there was a current of air flowing through the bay window, stretching the flame. It sat on the ground, beside the pages scattered across the floor. Lots of them, all wadded up and thrown away. Abrupt cross-outs and the sentences I could not finish stood out on all of them.

  Dearest Sherlock …

  All the pages began that way. And they continued in as many different ways as possible, until I felt ridiculous enough to stop writing, reread what I had tossed away already, and start over. The attack I had su
ffered that afternoon had finally convinced me to write to him, but that was not why I wanted to be clear about what I said to him.

  Looking back, I must have felt vaguely in danger, but I would never have admitted it to myself then. Why would I tell Sherlock that a strange woman approached me in the park, claiming to know my mother? In our long conversations, Sherlock Holmes and I had spoken about many, many things, but practically never about either of our families. It was as if the subject was taboo for both of us.

  At that time, as I probably have already written, I was convinced my family was not my real family. But even though the events to follow provided the proof, I could never actually have explained why I was so certain.

  I think it had something to do with what happens to many young people the age I was then, especially if they are stubborn and a bit rebellious — as I was. Those moments of complete misunderstanding, in which the distance between oneself and one’s own parents seems profound.

  I had always perceived this distance between my mother and I, and I had grown up convinced that I was not really her daughter. But it was a completely private feeling I had — and it did not even occur to me that others might share it.

  Therefore, that day in Evreux, faced by a woman who spoke about my mother, I did not doubt for a moment that it could refer to anyone other than Mrs. Genevieve Adler. The mother with whom I had spent all my years, at least as far back as I could remember anything, and who was now recovering from a lung infection a few rooms away from me.

  It is strange how young people think, but that is exactly how it was for me those days. And that confusion in my thoughts was one of the reasons all three of us risked our lives as we had never done up to then.

  And if I now write all three of us, it is because I did finally manage to finish my letter to Sherlock Holmes that night.

  I sealed it and gave it to Mr. Nelson, who hid it in the pocket of his big jacket, with an expression of agreement and understanding.

  The letter left that same morning with the fastest postal carrier, and I spoke about it with Lupin that afternoon.

  “It seems like it may be a bit difficult for the letter to get to him with what’s going on in Paris,” my friend commented. “But you did well to let him know anyway. In case something should happen to us.”

  What could happen, of course, was not clear to either of us. And we racked our brains to understand the recent days’ events.

  “If you’d like, I’ll go speak to your mother,” Lupin offered at one point.

  I stopped him from doing so, and he did not insist. He never commented on the theft of the pendant, nor asked me if it had any special value besides the gold it was made from. For my part, I was careful not to examine why he was so quiet.

  “Arsène?” I said when evening fell and he said goodbye to me, in order to return to the inn where he said he was staying.

  Long, gray clouds cut through the evening sky. The late winter sun had already set, and soon nearly everything would turn dark.

  “What is it?” he said.

  The air quivered as if a swarm of invisible insects had risen from the bushes.

  “Has it ever happened, when you think of me or see me …” I hesitated.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know,” I continued.

  And I really did not.

  “It’s like … I don’t know … a little strange?”

  Lupin moved his head back, as if to avoid a blow. He smiled. “Strange in what way?”

  I felt stupid to have asked that question. Stupid and naïve.

  Why would he ever have felt strange? I wondered, looking down at the ground as if I were at the edge of a precipice.

  And what was the name of that girl who had left everything to join the circus, that girl who only a few months earlier I had been insanely jealous of?

  “Forget it,” I answered brusquely.

  I went back into the house.

  * * *

  My mother’s health improved before my eyes, and with her, the weather in Evreux. The clouds decreased and then faded away, and the days grew longer.

  I stayed closed up in the house, reading to Mama and receiving Arsène’s daily visits. He became our permanent dinner guest. My father liked my bold friend. And in her room, my mother asked me about him.

  I did, however, hear a faint concern in her voice sometimes, and her questions were often mysterious. For this reason, I tried to avoid them as much as possible, restricting myself to reassuring her of the fact that there was nothing between Lupin and me beyond a good friendship. Nonetheless, the fact that the boy was staying at an inn without his parents watching over him seemed abnormal to my mother, and with each passing day, her worry grew more pressing.

  Having recovered a bit of energy, my mother began to consider whom among her friends in Paris she could write to, ask for news, and possibly send an invitation to visit our estate in the country. I took advantage of this opportunity to ask if she had ever known the former owner of the house in which we were staying, Mr. d’Aurevilly.

  “I believe d’Aurevilly is or was one of your father’s clients,” she replied.

  I asked Papa the same question at dinner.

  “No. I never met him,” he responded. “But we were put in touch with each other through mutual friends.”

  “It’s a small world,” Lupin commented, which led us away from the subject.

  And that was a mistake, because had I found out more about the mutual friends Papa mentioned, perhaps I would have acted differently. Instead, I felt as if I were surrounded by shadows. And as if none of us had a lantern bright enough to dispel them.

  * * *

  I hastened to update Mr. Nelson about the attack at the river, begging him not to tell anyone a word about it. His response was to the point. “When you’re alone, Miss Irene, these things never happen.”

  It had been clear to me that he disapproved of my friends’ visits and that sooner or later, Lupin and I would have to meet secretly. Mr. Nelson certainly knew more than he let on.

  The next day, Mr. Nelson appeared at the end of the hallway with a sly expression on his face, looking like a playful cat.

  “We have guests, Miss Irene,” he began, raising his eyebrows high.

  “And Papa can’t receive them?”

  “I don’t believe it would be appropriate,” he responded.

  “Ah,” I remarked, thinking Mr. Nelson was talking about Arsène’s visit.

  I stupidly hoped Lupin had changed his clothes. Since he had arrived in Evreux, I had only seen him in one outfit. It fit him poorly, too, which my mother had pointed out.

  “He says he’s here for a game of chess,” Mr. Nelson continued, mocking me even more.

  I was caught off guard. “And what does chess have to do with us?”

  “That’s what I asked him. Even though, reading the labels on his luggage, I would say he should have been heading to Brussels.”

  “Brussels, Mr. Nelson? What are you trying to tell me?” I asked. “What guest could have come to Evreux who should have instead …”

  I heard the clatter of Lupin’s boneshaker on the path to the house and realized right away that the guest could not be him.

  “From what I can gather, Miss Irene, your guest seems to have departed from London,” the cunning Mr. Nelson concluded, plunging his hands into his waistcoat pockets. “Should I let him know you intend to receive him, or else —”

  “Sherlock!” I cried out, moving past Mr. Nelson and catapulting myself down the stairs. “I can’t believe it … Sherlock!”

  “Irene? Horatio?” my mother’s weak voice asked, from the room she was a prisoner of.

  I let Mr. Nelson reassure her.

  I ran down, crossed the foyer of the house and, with a leap, found myself in Sherlock Holmes’s arms.

  His odd
checkered cap spun to the ground. I could not help but notice that after being so stubborn, he had finally bought it.

  “Truly remarkable,” Sherlock said, seemingly calm but wrapping me in a tight embrace. I do not know, however, if he was referring to the welcome or to Lupin’s boneshaker.

  * * *

  That evening, both my friends were guests at the house. It was Sherlock’s turn to explain to my father that he had joined us after a chess tournament in Brussels.

  “I don’t believe we’re on the way to Brussels,” my father commented.

  “You’re perfectly right, Mr. Adler,” Sherlock responded. “But reimbursement for all the expenses of the trip was already arranged and … well, I hate to admit it, but I was eliminated in the first match. And since I was expecting to stay on the continent for an entire week, it seemed like a good idea to go find my friends.”

  “Who by a lucky coincidence are both here,” my father smiled. His sly expression greatly reminded me of Mr. Nelson’s.

  “Precisely,” Sherlock said. “And, therefore, what could be better than a visit to the lively French countryside, along the outskirts of a war that’s far from finished — not to mention a looming civil war — rather than returning to London? I considered the pros and cons, Mr. Adler, and felt that a couple of days here wouldn’t be a real problem for anyone. All the rooms at the only inn in the village, the Stag’s Inn, were —”

  I heard a dull thud, followed by wood creaking. Sherlock responded with a sudden silence, which drew Papa’s attention.

  “It seems wrong to send you to the inn, young Holmes, after the journey you’ve had,” my father said. “And I don’t think that our Arsène would have anything against it if we invited you to sleep in the house this evening.”