Doctor Death (32 page)

He meant it. It was not just her mother’s will that lay behind his words. What she had done was so offensive to him that he literally could not stomach it.

She had never been able to suffer banishment, did not possess
the strength to tolerate solitude. Even as a child she had much preferred the cane to the horrible isolation of being locked in her room.

Even now she could not stand it. The threat alone was enough. She took a few uncertain steps and got down on her knees at his side. Bent over his lap.

As he had done when she was little, he pulled down her underwear. She heard his breathing change when he saw the signs of what had happened in the pavilion. She had not dared to ask for a bath, because she did not want Odette to see the bruises and tattle. A quick scrub in cold water was all that she had been able to manage, and she suddenly knew that he would be able to smell it, would recognize the sour-sweet scent of semen and sex.

The first blow made her cry out. She did not remember that it had ever hurt so much when she was small, and surely he had not used all his strength and released all of his despairing anger back then as he did now. The second blow was much less violent, the third really just a smack. But the second before he pushed her away, she felt it.

She was lying across his lap, so she felt it at once.

Felt it. Felt
him.

A movement that ought not to be there. A nudge, a rising, a momentary excitement.

They stared at each other, two people lost beyond redemption, each in their separate way. He because he would never be able to get past this moment, would never be able to erase it and make himself and her believe that it had not happened. She because she knew in a second’s bitter clarity that she no longer
was
a daughter of this house but a stranger who could never return.

She did not run from the room. She carefully straightened her clothes without looking at him. Then she walked out and closed the door behind her. She gave the hansom cab driver her pearl
bracelet in exchange for driving her back to school, and two days later she left the convent behind as well. With Emile.

I stared at the creased, slightly damp pages.

Here was the secret that had made the whole family crumble. It was those few moments of unforgivable sin that had sent Cecile into an exodus that she did not return from alive. This was what had troubled her father so deeply that he attempted to blow the memory out of his brain with a pistol. And this was what had made her brother a murderer. Back in the house on Boulevard Saint-Cyr, Madame Montaine was left with a man who might die at any moment and would probably never return to life. And the little sister, the silent child whom no one really saw . . . How I wished that someone or something would watch over that girl.

“Cecile and Emile. We rhyme. We belong together, and now we live like Hansel and Gretel in a gingerbread house. But there is no witch here.”

That is what Cecile had written about the first days in the hunting cabin. But later their idyll grew less Eden-like.

“Imo was here with food. It is a long trip for her when the weather is so merciless, but she is a helpful soul, bless her. Emile does not like her and usually leaves when she comes. But what would we do without her? It is so cold here. Constantly so cold, even when the oven door is almost red-hot. I get chilblains on my hands and fear for my health. Imo gave me a little bottle of tonic; it is soothing and allows me to sleep, which is otherwise almost
impossible. Today I slept for two hours while she just sat looking at me and held my hand. I was still tired and my head felt heavy when I woke up, so she lay down next to me, and I helped her. But now I am constantly getting nosebleeds; that cannot be healthy. Emile got angry and sad when he saw the marks; he and Imo do not understand each other at all. And my boots have disappeared. Emile says that Imo must have taken them, but why would she do that? I think he did it because I began to talk about returning to the sisters. He fears that we will be punished and that he might be jailed. Imo says that people are saying he abducted me. I ought to write a letter, but I do not dare. Half the time I just want to go home, and the other half I remember why I
cannot
go home, and then I despair again.”

A gap. And then, in a hand much less assured:

“We lie together, Emile and I, and then everything is better for a little while. That is the only thing that warms me now, but I start to cough so much from it. He holds me so that I can breathe better, but he cannot make the cough go away. I want to have him inside me all the time so I know that I am not alone. And sometimes he stays in there for hours even if we are just lying still. But he has to go out. Imo does not come anymore. Why, I don’t know. We have almost nothing to eat, only what he catches. He eats everything raw—mouse, beetles, worms—but I cannot make myself do that. It is only when he catches a bird or something else that can be plucked and cooked that I can get it down. He
tries
to take care of me, but it is not easy.”

And the last words:

“Want to go home. Have pleaded and begged. Emile says he will try. Oh, God. It is enough now. It is enough.”

I put down the pages, turned off the lamp, and leaned back on the pillows. Imo. That had to be Imogene Leblanc. Who else could it be? But why had she not said a word? Why had she not
revealed where the two young people were? Was it to protect them—or to protect herself? What was it Cecile had written?
She lay down next to me, and I helped her . . . Emile got angry and sad when he saw the marks.
What marks? And what kind of “help”?

The question and the pictures flickered past on the inside of my eyelids, and it took some time to fall asleep in spite of my exhaustion.

The next day I was so stiff and sore all over that Elise finally had to give up fastening my corset. It was as if my bruised body had swollen in the course of the night, and I could not bear the pressure against ribs, lungs, and abdomen.

When I came downstairs, Papa was in the middle of cutting his plaster cast off his arm with a pair of surgery scissors.

“Is that not a little too soon?” I asked.

“Three weeks has to be enough,” he said, lips clenched. “I am tired of being helpless.”

I did not protest. I could see that it would do no good.

“Next week I should be able to walk again,” he said. “Then I will no longer need to impose on you the sort of unreasonable burden you have had to bear recently.”

“It has not been a burden.”

“How can you say that? Everything you have had to witness, everything you have had to experience . . . that man could have killed you, Maddie!”

There was plaster dust everywhere. The surgery scissors were too small and only nibbled mouselike at the hard plaster crust.

“Let me do that. We need better scissors.”

“Madeleine.”

“Yes.”

“Everything will be fine again.”

I did not say anything, just nodded and went down to the laboratory to find a more suitable pair of scissors. What did “fine” really mean? That everything would be as before? I hoped not. I was no longer content to listen with the door ajar, or sit unnoticed while the men debated. It was increasingly clear that I could not let myself be exiled to the back of the gallery—I wanted to be down there on the operating floor,
doing
things.

When I returned to the salon, the Commissioner and Marot had just arrived, one from a few hours of much-needed sleep in his room at the boardinghouse, the other directly from the préfecture. While Elise fetched coffee and extra brioches, I cut off the rest of the Mathijsen cast and tried to sweep the plaster dust off the table without having too much of it form an insoluble bond with the Bokhara carpet’s pile.

“Ah, fit again,” said the Commissioner. “Or nearly so. That is good to see.”

I could tell by the look on my father’s face that the sudden lack of support was not comfortable for his healing arm, but he tried to pretend otherwise.

“Yes, it won’t be long,” he said. “But do sit down. Any news?”

The Commissioner chose his usual chair while Inspector Marot sat down in the brocade chair next to the chaise longue.

“I intend to announce to the préfecture that the murder of Father Abigore has been solved,” he said, and smoothed the walrus mustache with index finger and thumb, a gesture that emphasized a certain smug satisfaction. “Though the murderer cannot be brought to earthly justice, having already met his Maker.”

“And Mother Filippa?” asked my father. “What about her?”

“The evidence, though circumstantial, is quite strong. We have to obtain a sample of his handwriting to determine if he is the
one who wrote the comments in Vabonne’s Bible. We know that he was given to rages, and that his own daughter sought refuge behind the convent walls to escape him. That may have been the reason for his anger at the abbess. Mademoiselle Karno observed a confrontation between them . . .”

“Just the conclusion of it,” I said for the sake of precision. “It was just one sentence.”

“Yes. What was it he said?” The inspector took out his notebook and got ready to take notes.

“He said, ‘You are not God’s servant, but the devil’s.’ ”

“Exactly. That fits nicely with the disturbed notion that is expressed in the Bible passages. Is it possible to make a cast of his teeth?”

“Unfortunately not,” said my father. “The shot entered under his chin and exited at the back of his head. The lower jaw is practically pulverized and the upper jaw greatly damaged. It would not be worthwhile to try.”

“Too bad. It would have been a nice definite proof.”

“So you have completely given up on the theory that it was Emile Oblonski who killed her?” I could not prevent a certain bitterness from creeping into my voice. Emile lay in the chapel at Saint Bernardine, shot through the chest, waiting for my father and the Commissioner to have time to do the necessary yet pointless autopsy that would formally determine the cause of death. In one of the cells beneath the préfecture, Cecile’s brother sat captive, a confessed murderer. The lives of two people wasted with one shot, and all of it so meaningless and misunderstood that my soul ached.

“I consider Leblanc a far more plausible killer,” said Marot. “We will ask the daughter for a sample of his handwriting. If it matches—well, then there will no longer be any reason to keep the case open.”

Elise arrived with rolls and coffee. No one said anything while she laid the table, but when she had left the salon, the Commissioner straightened himself in his chair with a touch of belligerence.

“But the motive?” he protested. “He might well have felt an anger or a bitterness toward Mother Filippa, who placed herself between him and his daughter. But Father Abigore? Do we know if they even knew each other? And why that whole absurd story with the theft of the corpse?”

“It is not satisfactory,” admitted Marot, and reached out distractedly for a brioche, which he tore into pieces with his fingers and began to chew without making the effort to butter it. “We know that he was the one who set the trap for Abigore. We know that he was the one who later set his dog on the hearse horses and stole the body. It is most likely that he deposited it at manufacturer Ponti’s as a sort of bizarre revenge for the quarrel they had over the dog. We know it was Leblanc who abducted and incarcerated Louis Mercier, and we know he was strong enough to deliver the blow that brought down the priest. We even have him admitting as much to Madeleine. But
why
did he do all of this? He was a religious man. Might he have confessed something to Abigore and later regretted it? Perhaps he feared Abigore might break the Seal of Confession? These are guesses; I do not know
why.
But I do know that he did these things.”