The Dark Lady Page 9

  On the second floor, a glimmer of light appeared. “Friends!” a guard greeted us. He was lying on a broken couch with a battered oil lamp beside him that created a red halo of light.

  “Friend,” Sherlock replied, walking past him with his face down. The lamp threw out just enough light to see the walls. They were decorated with paintings of hunting scenes, and the stucco was ruined by the dampness. I followed Sherlock step for step. Lupin was so close behind me, I could feel his breath on my neck.

  The voices grew louder as we neared a strip of carpet on the otherwise bare floors. We checked the doors on the left and right. They were all locked. The hallway turned right. At the end there was a large room lit by a flickering candelabra. We passed several rooms, all of them with gaming tables and old chairs.

  It’s a gambling house, I realized. A secret place for people to play illegal dice and card games.

  In the room at the end of the hallway there was a large fireplace with a mirror hanging above it. In the exact center of the ceiling there was a large, jagged hole. A ladder leaned up against the edge of the gap. It seemed as if most of the voices we’d been hearing were coming from there.

  Without saying a word, Sherlock climbed the ladder. When he reached the top, he disappeared. Lupin motioned for me to follow.

  At the top was a man. I tried to hide my small hands from him. “Are there any more?” he asked in a heavy accent.

  I looked down and tried to speak from my throat to lower my voice. “There’s one more,” I said. The man grunted. He drained a glass of something and motioned for me to climb up.

  At the top of the ladder, I saw Sherlock just a few steps away. Lupin and I joined him. We were in a large room full of broken sofas, tattered chairs, and soiled cushions. There was a buzz of voices, with at least twenty people standing around in small groups. Luckily for us, the only light was from a couple of wax-encrusted candles. We went to a dark corner a little ways away from the rest of the people.

  The flickering light illuminated the crowd. I saw a bizarre patchwork of elegant clothing and scars, silk scarves and glass eyes, tailored waistcoats and broken noses, starched shirts and unshaven beards. It was like a costume party that had been infiltrated by the most wicked-looking criminals.

  I thought to myself that I was lucky that Lupin had woken me with a start like he had earlier that night — my messy hair made me fit in.

  The ugly faces, the stench of perfume, the broken furniture, the flaking ceiling, the boarded windows, the long tables used for playing dice games — these elements gave the room a devilish feel. I wanted to squeeze Sherlock and Lupin’s hands, but couldn’t. So, I simply followed them, trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

  I felt suffocated by the musty smell of the room that came from the mildew and the smoke that hung in the air. I shuddered every time I heard a glass or bottle clink, or passed someone who laughed or whispered a prayer for a lucky roll.

  I heard a scraping noise and turned to look. The ladder was being pulled up through the hole in the floor. My heart was beating faster than ever. I felt pure, cold fear.

  There was no way out.

  Chapter 20

  A GENTLEMAN’S MEETING

  The room suddenly went quiet. The gamblers suddenly stopped their laughter and chatter as if someone had given the order to shut up. Sherlock, Lupin, and I kept close to each other in the darkest corner of the room. We tried to be invisible, like shadows among the shadows. I could barely make out the dimly lit backs of the men farthest from us as they bowed toward someone. Others took off their hats and fidgeted with them nervously. We copied them.

  The reason for the sudden silence soon became clear. A man with a shiny head and small pig-like eyes appeared. He was dressed in a gray, formal suit that was at least two sizes too small for him. The mother-of-pearl buttons on his waistcoat seemed on the verge of shooting off across the room, and his black tie was knotted around his neck like a noose. As the man gave greetings to others, I saw that his fingers were covered in rings. And like the desk clerk at the Hotel des Artistes, he had long fingernails.

  He walked to a wooden platform in the center of the room, his trousers stretching at the seams as he stepped onto it. “Welcome, gentlemen!” he said with bravado. “And I do mean gentlemen, since proper ladies are not allowed at our meetings!”

  This comment produced laughter from everyone, including Lupin — until I shot him a stern glance.

  “I am very happy you all managed to make it here,” the man continued, “because the events of the last few days are likely to create some serious problems for all of us. We all know that the police have been snooping about, asking inconvenient questions. And this just might undermine our highly profitable debt collection business. The dead castaway, as that gentleman has now come to be known, has dredged up too much curiosity in town. It’s going to become very difficult to do our work with the police nosing around.”

  “That’s right, Salvatore!” someone said.

  The man named Salvatore motioned for everyone to be quiet. “I’m not going to waste more time than I need to on words. But the latest news is promising. Apparently Chief Inspector Flebourg won’t be calling in reinforcements, and over the next few days, the police plan to scale back their investigation.” There was a murmur of approval around the room. “For the benefit of those of you who weren’t present at our last meeting, I’ll briefly summarize what was discussed. The Parisian — our dead castaway — had run up a rather sizeable gambling debt with us, not even including what he owed the two hotels.”

  “Have we determined his name yet, Salvatore?” someone asked.

  Salvatore threaded his thumbs into his waistcoat and laughed. “What difference does it make what his name was?” he said. “He’s dead!” More laughter echoed around the room.

  “What about the money he owed us, Macrì?” someone else asked. “If it was the Hotel des Artistes that owed us that much money, I’d empty their cellars and set fire to their curtains. What are we doing about the dead man’s debt?”

  It took Salvatore Macrì a moment to silence the chaos this comment produced. “Gentlemen, please! Everything has been taken care of!” he said, waving his ringed hands around like a conductor. “The debt has been settled!”

  Someone passed Macrì a leather bag, which he opened for everyone to see. It was full of money. Murmurs filled the room. “This is the money our Parisian jeweler friend in Rue du Temple gave me for the diamond necklace that Lady Martigny so kindly donated to our cause!” Macrì said. “We are most grateful to Lady Martigny, but we are particularly grateful for the acrobatic skills of the late Mr. Poussin — or Lambert — who got into her home from the roof and stole the necklace for us. It’s such a pity that we didn’t find out about his acrobat skills earlier. If he’d worked for us a little longer, we could have easily robbed quite a few rich visitors.”

  The audience laughed. “But unfortunately,” Macrì continued, “his career as a bad gambler and an excellent thief has been cut short.”

  Salvatore Macrì lifted the bag of money so everyone could see it. “This brings us to the matter of our accounts, which is certainly of great interest to us all. Naturally, I have already taken my commission — a small fee for convincing our two ‘friends’ in the police department to sabotage the investigations. What remains of the money will be plenty to cover all of the expenses we incurred while entertaining our dead friend with the two names. Almost twelve hundred francs!” His voice rose in a crescendo as Macrì ended his speech.

  A series of colorful expressions and curses rapidly spread around the assembly of men. I’d never heard such language before in my life and it served as the final confirmation that these people were the lowest of the low.

  By slipping into their meeting, we’d quickly discovered a lot that we hadn’t known, and my friends and I were now piecing together all the missing links. That decrep
it building was an illegal gambling den, operated by the Italian in the gray suit, Salvatore Macrì. He used it to lighten the wallets of wealthy vacationers looking for entertainment.

  Apparently, Macrì also had some shady contacts with a number of the hotels in the town. Even some of the police were involved. And it seemed that the dead man was so deeply in debt to these violent men that they forced him to steal a lady’s jewelry to repay them.

  Each piece of the puzzle now seemed to fit into its right place, and everything that had happened until then seemed to make sense. This was why the thugs had ambushed us in the street. It was also why Chief Inspector Flebourg seemed so inept at conducting his investigations — there were officers under him being paid to thwart his every move.

  My head was spinning with thoughts of nothing but shady deals and criminals. I’d never dreamed that there were secret organizations at work behind the scene in a pretty little tourist town like Saint-Malo. I’d never imagined there could be such corruption in the police force.

  Everyone was milling around Macrì and the bag, pushing and shoving, and yelling things I will not repeat here. I couldn’t help but think of pigs around a feeding trough. The meeting was obviously coming to an end, so Sherlock, Lupin, and I tried to move toward the ladder, hoping it would be lowered again soon. I was sweaty and dirty, but it wasn’t the dirt on my skin that made me feel so uncomfortable — it was having to be in the same room with these . . . people.

  “Wait a minute,” Lupin whispered, interrupting my train of thought. He walked off and exchanged a few words with one of the men. Sherlock and I pretended to be deep in conversation, making sure our eyes didn’t meet anyone else’s.

  We heard shouts coming from the lower floor, but at first no one paid attention to them. Then they grew louder and someone began shouting for Salvatore Macrì. The head of the gang listened to the voice for some time — long enough to make the three of us very nervous.

  Lupin joined us again and exchanged a glance with Sherlock, the meaning of which I couldn’t catch. “This way,” said Sherlock, pointing to the door that Macrì had appeared from on the opposite side of the room.

  “And we had better be quick about it!” added Lupin.

  The three of us scurried as fast as we could across the rotten, old carpets.

  The shouts from below became more and more clear: “Salvatore! Salvatore! Someone has gagged Jerome!”

  Jerome must have been the guard at the door who Sherlock had knocked out with the pistol. Now there was no doubt that we’d been discovered.

  We kept hurrying toward the door. Just as Sherlock was about to grab the handle, the door opened right into his face. Little Spirou was carrying a silver tray full of chipped cups. For an instant, we all stood there staring at each other, not knowing what to do.

  Suddenly, Spirou screamed, “Hey! What are you doing here?”

  “Out of my way, you idiot!” Sherlock yelled. He pushed Spirou over, the cups and silverware clattering to the ground. We jumped over him and ran for our lives.

  Lupin was bringing up the rear. “Don’t even try following us!” he yelled, waving the pistol at the astonished faces behind us.

  But their shock didn’t last more than a few seconds. Roars of anger rose up behind us like a storm tide as we dashed through Salvatore Macrì’s apartment.

  Chapter 21

  MOONLIGHT ACROBATS

  Just ahead of me, Sherlock was running for his life. “This way!” he yelled. “Quickly!”

  Behind me, Lupin kept looking over his shoulder to check to see if we were being followed. Sherlock bashed open each door with his shoulder and we ran through the rooms, one after another.

  “Let us through!” I shouted at two servants. We ran into them, knocking them down.

  Lupin pointed the gun at them. “And don’t move from there, understand?”

  Sherlock bashed open another door and we found ourselves on a staircase that was as dark as Hades. He grabbed the handrail and peered down. He growled when he saw a man with an ugly face looking straight back at him from farther down the stairs. “They’re coming up,” Sherlock said. And we could also hear other men catching up to us. That only left us one escape route.

  Lupin was the first to run up the stairs. “But if we go up,” I started, “how will —”

  “Come on! There’s no time!” Sherlock yelled, nearly lifting me off my feet as he dragged me along.

  We crashed through a rotten wood door and came out on a small terrace on the rooftop. I almost swooned with vertigo. The rooftops of the old quarter stretched out all around us, black and silver in the moonlight, each one nearly leaning against the next. The clouds from that afternoon seemed to have blown away during the night, making the distant sea look like a black mirror. The whole town was bathed in silence, making the angry shouts and footsteps of our pursuers that much more frightening.

  “Come on,” Lupin said, climbing over the terrace railing.

  “What?!” I said. “You can’t be serious!” Instead of answering me, Lupin crouched down low on the steep roof and began making his way toward the side of the building. I glanced at Sherlock.

  “We have no alternative,” he said. “It’s frightening, I know. But if the those thugs catch us, I fear they’ll give us much more than a scare.”

  An angry roar from behind us convinced me. I climbed over the railing and began crawling across the tiles. They moved under my weight, creaking ominously. I could see the end of the roof just a few feet away, beyond which was the stinking square we’d crossed earlier that night. I started to wonder how high up we were . . .

  I slipped, but Sherlock quickly grabbed me. “Come on, Irene — we’re almost there!” he said. It was all the fault of those cursed shoes that were too tight for me. With two kicks, I sent them flying over the edge. I didn’t even hear them hit the ground.

  The tiles under my bare feet were warm and soft, which calmed me a little. A moment later, we’d joined Lupin on the corner of the roof.

  “Hey! You!” shouted someone behind us.

  The first of Macrì’s henchmen had reached the terrace. A couple of them jumped onto the roof to chase us.

  Lupin stood. He glanced at Sherlock and me. “Are you all right?” We both nodded.

  Lupin took a deep breath and glanced back at out pursuers, who were now crawling along the roof toward us. He turned back and jumped onto the next building.

  “You go next!” Sherlock urged me. Lupin had made it look easy, but as soon as I stood up on the edge of the roof, I felt like the entire world was spinning. “Don’t look down, just jump!” shouted Sherlock. He kept turning to keep track of the men, who were getting closer by the second. “Jump, Irene!”

  I closed my eyes and opened them, trying to focus on nothing but the roof of the building next door. Then I jumped.

  The next thing I knew, I was landing hard on the other roof. I turned and saw Sherlock flying toward me. I got out of his way just in time, and he nimbly rolled onto his back and then to his feet. Then we all started to run.

  Lupin moved like a cat. He’d learned from his father how to climb and keep his balance, and didn’t seem to be scared of anything. He picked the shortest paths of travel to take and chose the least dangerous places to jump. Thanks to his leadership, we started to get farther away from our pursuers. As we moved, I found that the jumping became easier and more natural. When I heard a shout and a thud behind me, I turned, to see Sherlock struggling back up to his feet. “Don’t stop, I’ll be fine!” he ordered me. “They’re still after us!”

  But soon we had lost them, and there were just the three of us wandering among the chimneys and gables of the town. The screams and curses were lost in the night as if they’d never even existed. Lupin guided us to a dark corner between two buildings where we’d be as good as invisible. We rested there for a while, all huddled up together and catchi
ng our breath. I realized that my feet were aching miserably, and I was about to say something, but Lupin stopped me. We slowly breathed in the cool night air, trying to calm ourselves down and let the adrenaline wash away.

  “I’m going to check to see if the coast is clear,” Lupin whispered after what seemed an eternity. “Stay here.”

  I wondered where we were, and tried to get my bearings from the cathedral bell tower. But it was no good. My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that it interrupted my thinking. I saw that I was shivering, too. Sherlock hugged me. I let him, and discovered that he was shivering as well. I can’t say how long we stayed there in each other’s arms in the shadow of the roof, but eventually I started to feel anxious that Lupin hadn’t returned.

  I looked up . . . and what I saw petrified me.

  “Sherlock?” I whispered. I felt him stir next to me, as if I’d woken him. “Do you see what I see?” A couple of roofs away stood a figure who appeared to be looking straight at us. I felt Sherlock’s entire body tense up.

  The man was entirely dressed in black. At that distance at night, I couldn’t make out his features, but there was no doubt he was facing us.

  “Do you think,” I whispered in fear, “that he’s the Rooftop Thief?”

  The man continued to look at us. He remained perfectly still. For a few moments, I thought he might be a statue. When he finally started moving along the edge of the roof, I got chills. I thought again of the hooded figure that I’d seen on the beach. Was he some supernatural being? Why did he keep staring at us? He moved slowly but gracefully over the rooftops as if they were his home.