Gaining the end of the bridge without notice, he stepped onto the Île de la Cité, the ancient island that rose up in the middle of the Seine, and home to Notre-Dame, Louis IX’s Saint-Chapelle, the Parlement of Paris and the Conciergerie.
The small island also housed a great deal of the Parisian poor and was no place for a woman to be walking alone at night.
His suspicions heightened. Was she meeting someone? Perhaps about the stolen papers? Why else would she risk her safety in such a fashion if not for some pressing reason?
After only a few moments walking the main street that encircled the north of the island, Mademoiselle Cadeaux turned towards its centre, slipping into a narrow street intersecting the central buildings. Avers followed and all at once the atmosphere changed.
Gone was the grand architecture of the recent century and the cool river air with it. Small, uneven residential dwellings crowded in around him, the clear sky reduced to a small strip overhead, and the smell of humanity living in close quarters rising up.
Only a few lone torches flickered here and there, the darkness creeping in and threatening in its intensity. What light there was cast by the flames came and went. Unreliable. Unnerving.
Underfoot, Avers could feel something slimy, his feet slipping on the uneven cobbles, and the smell became acrid. The only saving grace in this place was the sweet scent of wood smoke, though it warred with the stronger, nastier smells, and never truly won out.
What on earth was Mademoiselle Cadeaux doing in such a place? And if she was involved with the missing papers, was she acting on instructions from the Comte, or on her own accord?
The sound of something crashing nearby made Avers jump. He remembered with regret the duelling pistols he’d left in the Hôtel du Tremaine. That had been a mistake.
When nothing more calamitous happened, Avers put it down to a clumsy housewife. Quiet resumed in the alley and he continued on, wondering if the reason Wakeford hadn’t found the man responsible for stealing secrets from his offices, was because he wasn’t looking for a man at all.
Up ahead Mademoiselle Cadeaux stopped. Avers ducked into a doorway on the same side of the street, as far away as he could get from the nearest torch, and watched as the woman he’d been following knocked on one of the doors in the warped walls.
After a time, it was opened by someone Avers assumed to be an old man judging by his voice. A moment later a second door opened on the opposite side of the street and Avers heard a woman call out softly. The old man replied in the affirmative.
There was the sound of items being moved around inside the woman’s house, then a light filtered into the dark alley, as she reappeared holding an oil lamp. She had a shawl that she held tightly wrapped around thin shoulders and Avers took her to be little more than eighteen. She smiled warmly at her visitor, a tooth missing in the left-hand side of her mouth, and Avers heard her greet Mademoiselle Cadeaux by name.
A quiet conversation in murmured French took place between the trio and then Mademoiselle Cadeaux handed a small bag to the young woman.
“Merci, merci, you are so kind,” she said, tapping her forehead and curtseying several times.
Mademoiselle Cadeaux murmured something in return and then the young woman began walking slowly in Avers’ direction.
He pressed himself back against the doorway in which he sheltered, every fibre in his being tense, not even daring to breathe. Just a moment before he thought she would come upon him, she stopped at another door and knocked.
He could see her clearly now, and reckoned her to be even younger than his first assumption, perhaps no more than fifteen.
The door upon which she’d knocked was opened a crack and then, on seeing her, the inhabitant opened it a little wider.
“Bonsoir, Jeanne. Mademoiselle Cadeaux has come as she promised,” said the young woman. “She has gifts for us. Magnificent gifts.”
The second woman emitted a half-cry of joy and came forward to embrace the first, her voice breaking, speaking so rapidly Avers couldn’t follow. Together, they headed back towards Mademoiselle Cadeaux and the elderly gentleman, who still stood talking.
Avers let out a sigh of relief. He’d almost been caught. Now was his chance to slip away, and while he wanted to stay to see what else unfolded, he couldn’t risk it. Taking the opportunity, while the four individuals greeted one another, he kept to the wall as he hurried out of the alleyway and onto the main road encircling the Île de la Cité.
As soon as he left the narrow street, the air grew sweeter and the light from the heavens seemed able to penetrate the darkness once again. He walked a little way along the road and then stopped and turned to watch the entrance to the alley.
What had he just witnessed?
That was no meeting to sell secret information. While Mademoiselle Cadeaux’s involvement could explain why none of the Comte’s correspondence contained incriminating information, because she could be communicating on his behalf, it did not explain this night-time escapade.
Whatever these ‘gifts’ were that she was handing out, it couldn’t be secrets from the British government. Such a thing would mean nothing to these people who were more concerned where their next meal would come from than the running of the country.
Could she be enlisting them for some plot of the Comte’s connected with the recently stolen papers?
Avers could not figure out the truth, but what he did know was that this little skirmish had presented more questions than answers. Was Mademoiselle Cadeaux an unwitting pawn of the Comte’s? Or was she in fact, the queen herself?
CHAPTER TEN
When Mademoiselle Cadeaux finally emerged from the dark alleyway on the Île de la Cité, Avers was waiting. She made her way south over the river and then turned west before procuring a chair. Avers followed suit, keeping his distance, until Mademoiselle Cadeaux reached Faubourg Saint-Germain and approached one of the hôtels.
It had seemed the gentlemanly thing to do—to see her home. She might have a penchant for wandering alone through the Parisian streets at night and be a suspect in the case of the missing papers, but that was no reason to leave her to the mercies of Paris’ vagrants.
Avers wondered if the residence, an older looking hôtel built in the reign of Louis XIV, was one paid for by the Comte or the noble’s own. Collaring a link boy who was walking past and offering him a coin, Avers found out it was indeed Vergelles’ Hôtel. So, the woman was returning to her master after her night-time excursion. Interesting.
No doubt she had her own apartments too, paid for by the Comte. When Avers had mentioned the financial benefits of her arrangement with the French noble, he had been met with a cool reception. He’d thought the reaction borne from shame, and he brushed off any guilt at causing her discomfort. He had just been pointing out the truth.
Across the way, a servant finally answered the door and let Mademoiselle Cadeaux in. Once she was safely inside, Avers headed for home.
He walked. He needed to think.
Rather than discovering answers on his reconnaissance mission this evening he had found more questions. So, by the time he made it back to the Hôtel du Tremaine he had resolved to return to the Île de la Cité the following day to discover exactly what Mademoiselle Cadeaux had been doing there.
Returning to the narrow streets of the island early the next morning, Avers rapped on the doors of the dwellings Mademoiselle Cadeaux had visited. The first door returned no answer, but the second two revealed bleary-eyed inhabitants who eyed him with suspicion. The woman who had been addressed as Jeanne, and the old man—gave him nothing. Even the bribe of a few coins had no effect on them.
“Non,” they said adamantly. “I don’t know who this Mademoiselle Cadeaux is.”
Apparently they had no recollection of the woman who had met them late last night. They claimed not to know who she was at all. Even when Avers had described Mademoiselle Cadeaux and the specifics of her visit last night, they had refused to identify her.
