Chapel Noir Read online

  “Nothing? What did you talk of during all those ‘conventional’ days?”

  “Talk of? I . . . don’t remember. Exactly. And even if I did, it would be none of your business!”

  “Aha! Don’t remember indeed. You remember enough to plead forgetfulness. As Godfrey would say in court, I rest my case. Nell, I am not exaggerating when I say that Sherlock Holmes, for all his wiles and his astounding deductive ability, is more at sea in these affairs than you and I. Only we can stop this fiend, though it will require us to face matters that will give us nightmares for years to come. I admit that I have the edge in suspecting the wickedness of the world, but I know that you are up to whatever this murderous fiend may force us to confront. And”—she dropped her custody of my arm—“I cannot face it alone.”

  I would have gasped at this last admission, had I not been holding my breath through her monologue. Irene’s eyes were intent upon mine, and clearer than Russian amber.

  “We can go forward and cross swords with this monster who kills women in such monstrous ways, or we can retreat and leave it to the gendarmes and Sherlock Holmes, as women always have before us.”

  I clasped my gloved hands. It was one thing to pore over the crime sketches in the illustrated papers. It was another to confront death face to cadaverous face. I recalled Irene’s nightmare, the first in my experience. She was putting the decision in my hands. It was not too late to withdraw. We could meet Bram Stoker, stroll through the macabre display as thousands did each week, then return to Neuilly to eat quiche and feed Casanova grapes.

  Or we could delve into unholy books and bloody murder.

  And perhaps save lives.

  My fingers sought the comfort of the chatelaine in my skirt pocket, tightening on the trivial assemblage of feminine tools as if they were the keys to the kingdom, as if I were a Papist clutching my superstitious rosary beads. For the first time I saw that it was all a matter of faith, and a matter of who or what in which one put one’s faith.

  Since she had rescued me eight years before from the London streets, I had always put my faith in Irene. Now we were in Paris, and she was putting her faith in me.

  I nodded. Grimly.

  And I would so love to outwit Sherlock Holmes. Personally.

  24.

  Morgue Le Fey

  When the slabs are empty and there is no show to see, they are apt to complain that death allowed itself an intermission that day, without thinking of their good pleasure.

  —VICTOR FOURNEL

  If anything would have encouraged me to reconsider my rash decision, it was the severe disapproval the booksellers exhibited on hearing the title Psychopathia Sexualis.

  For the first time in my life, I regretted that I had learned no Latin, although I realized that the word sexualis had unsavory overtones that made the word psychopathia even more mysterious and sinister.

  Finally, one of these ancients deigned to excavate a musty cardboard box at his feet. He plucked the offending volume from it like a Burgermeister of Hamlin producing a dead rat.

  The book itself was in surprisingly fine condition, considering the decrepit bookseller and stock.

  Irene pounced on it, then read a random section. She frowned and turned a page, then another, her frown deepening.

  My misgivings were immense. “Are you having difficulty reading it?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said, abruptly shutting the book with a clap like small thunder. She paid a few sous for it and tucked it tight under her arm.

  “I thought you could read German well.”

  “The typeface is one of those maddeningly intricate Germanic fonts, like reading The Book of Kells. I will peruse it later,” she decreed. “Now, Nell, what does your lapel watch read? Heavens! Almost eleven. We must hurry across the Pont de l’Archevêché to the morgue.”

  As if anyone living would rush to visit the morgue.

  My heart lifted to see children at play in the lovely gardens of the quai. French children are quite charming, possessed of somber, intelligent faces even in frivolous moments. English nannies were quite as much the fashion here as French maids were in London, and I breathed a sigh of pure nostalgia as we passed through the budding flowers, and the flowering buds of French family life.

  I would carry this enchanting picture with me as we plunged into the hurly-burly brutality of the Paris Morgue.

  Luckily, our escort was a giant of a man, and we both spotted him pacing before the main building at the same instant. But it was the building that made the deepest impression, as it had before.

  The Paris Morgue was, like the French flag and the French national motto, based on a trefoil.

  I knew from previous experience that the door through which the bodies came was at the rear, near the river.

  The public came to pay its calls on death from the front.

  And this I had never confronted. This façade was as straightforward as death: a main building and two wings in miniature of itself, each with a Greek pediment. Heavy frontal pillars reminded one of cemetery markers at military attention, and above them on the main building were inscribed the words “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.” A quantity of narrow chimneys poked up from the side building roofs like rifles on parade.

  The French Revolutionary motto struck me as particularly appropriate for a holding place of the dead, for where does any of us find perfect liberty, equality, and brotherhood, save in death?

  Of course the French tricolor fluttered in the wind at the center of it all.

  I have been known to harbor an English prejudice or two against things French. Yet I must say that it is particularly French, and specifically Parisian, to elevate death to the level of an exposition. On the one end of the river Seine, the Gypsy carnival of l’Exposition universelle transpired on the Champ de Mars under the pierced shadow of the Eiffel Tower. On this end of the river Seine, behind the Gothic bulwark of Notre Dame cathedral, this modest low building erected on a principal of three, like the Trinity, acted as mortuary, mausoleum, and public spectacle for le tout Paris.

  The City of Light could be very dark indeed at times.

  Bram Stoker spied us and hurried forward, tipping his hat as he arrived.

  The crowds were quite astounding. Except for the occasional horse-drawn omnibus—high affairs with glittering wheels, the back ones much larger than the front, and curved stairs at the rear leading to the second level; how only two or three beasts could pull such dozens of passengers I have no idea—the people came on foot, though one glimpsed the sole hansom cab or bicycle among the throng.

  One sees workmen in crude corduroy trousers and loose, Gypsy-like blouses. Gendarmes in taut blue jackets spangled with brass buttons in military rows. Old women carting baskets as ladies tote reticules. Children in short pants and full short skirts, charming as pastels in Montmartre. And respectable women, young girls even, dragging along reluctant male escorts as if their fathers, brothers, husbands were as good as tickets to the opera or ballet in serving as entree to this macabre display.

  “I don’t know what to expect,” I murmured once we three had exchanged greetings.

  Mr. Stoker cleared his throat. “I have never viewed the dead with female companions. Florence, of course . . .”

  Irene picked up his unspoken thought. “I recall that the drowned man you rescued in the Thames and carried home to Cheney Walk in Chelsea upset her.”

  “Drowned. Dead, despite my brother Thornley’s best efforts to revive him. I’ll never forget my brother’s working over the poor sopping wretch on our dining-room table . . . Florence never forgave the dining-room table for serving as hospital bed and then, plainly, a bier. She wanted to move, and soon after we did.”

  “It is handy to have a brother who is a doctor,” Irene commented, eyeing me significantly.

  The man’s words came back to haunt me: “I could not allow him to enter an arena where one with his skills was so suspect.”

  If Sherlock Holmes’s physician friend was i
n danger of suspicion in Whitechapel, what about the physician brother of a gigantic man who kept ungodly hours and possibly patronized French brothels?

  Could Bram Stoker have learned enough of surgery from his brother to perform the crude explorations committed upon the dead prostitutes?

  And were we about to explore the Paris Morgue with the very man who had perpetrated these internationally infamous slaughters?

  I saw that no matter what we saw on our visit to the morgue, the most important observation I could make would be of the behavior of our eminent guide to the horrors within.

  The crowd radiated the air of a holiday expedition. I heard English chattered among the French, and saw many girls as pink-cheeked as our new acquaintance Elizabeth. Thank God that she was not with us today! Despite any sordid scenes she had seen in the maison de rendezvous and finally on its gruesome siège d’amour, this virtual zoo of death was something no young woman should experience willingly. Bram Stoker stood behind us, a hearty wall of vested English tweed I was glad to have as buttress, while we shuffled our way into the main chamber.

  Five rows of people were shepherded along the glass barrier that bisected the room as neatly as a surgeon’s scalpel making an incision, save this was an architectural division.

  Bram . . . I mean, Mr. Stoker, had shepherded us in his own imposing way, and we were the among the “fortunate” few who could pass with our noses right up against the glass.

  I glimpsed a green curtain pulled open its full width at both extremities, and in between . . . ah, it seems an affront to commit a description of what I saw to handwriting on a page: two rows of twelve stone slabs, each surmounted by a body, naked save for a bit of loincloth.

  The shock of such a sight is impossible to impart. I felt as if dashed with ice water, then consumed by fire. Was my heart beating? So strongly that it felt as if savage hands were drumming upon my skin. A roaring in my ears turned every word of French or English around me into Hungarian. My feet seemed unconnected to the floor, and my head seemed to bounce against the high ceiling.

  Such nudity had only been glimpsed in paintings before, and then I had quickly glanced away. I cannot say whether the male or female form was more shocking, save that they both were white as paper. And so still. Some looked as though they could wake and walk in the next minute. Some looked as though only the undertaker’s art held flesh and bone together.

  And yet . . . the face and form of death was so fascinating, so horrifying, that I could not take my eyes off of them. What separated them from me? Besides glass? Minutes? More likely hours. Then days. Not long before they had stood upright, clothed, had breathed, laughed, cried, cursed. Then died. And now they lay for all to see, nothing protecting them, no one standing between them and curious strangers.

  It was blasphemy to gaze upon them. It was cowardice to look away.

  Irene’s gloved hand squeezed my elbow.

  I glanced into her eyes, so bright and animated, and read their message.

  I turned my head to look up at Bram Stoker.

  His face was ablaze with a look of unholy wonder, as if he read a book that had never been written before.

  “Thank you, Bram,” Irene said when we had run the gantlet of the dead. We stood on the walk outside again, and she was adjusting her gloves.

  People jostled us. I smelled wet corduroy and garlic, lavender cologne. And baby’s breath.

  “This is all you require of me?” he asked, confused.

  “Yes. Nell and I will visit Notre Dame before we meet our coachman, who will return us to our hotel. I am sure you have other sights to see.”

  “Yes.” He sighed, frowned. “I hope this was of use to you.”

  “Oh, new experiences are always of use to the observant.” She cocked her head like a robin inspecting a worm.

  He sensed the perception behind the gesture, but not the reason for it, and shook his ruddy head. He was such a gentle bear of a man. I shuddered to think of the expression I had surprised upon his features. And yet, how did the Prince of Wales look when he demanded a woman’s virtue, or he swept her from the presence of her husband? How many demons shelter inside the most respectable of us? Inside myself?

  I sighed, too, as he left us.

  “It is always more instructive,” Irene commented dreamily, “to watch the quick than the dead.” She eyed me sharply. “And how are you?”

  “Shaken. I have never seen bodies so stripped of dignity. Even the most lurid sketches of the Ripper’s victims were somehow less awful. Perhaps it’s the lack of clothing.”

  “Clothing. I cannot tell you how vital clothing is, Nell. It is our carapace, our shell. I am an actress, a singer. I am considered frivolous. Yet I can tell you that costume is the shield of the soul. There, that old peddler woman. Rusty, tattered bonnet, moth-eaten shawl, clumsy shoes, and dragging skirt. She wears her heart upon her sleeve, and also her occupation and place in life. In an instant we discern her station, her history. We decide to buy a rag or two, merely in charity. We decide to ignore her, to pass her by, to forget where she may sleep tonight. Still she walks on, pushing her cart. An artist may paint her into a masterpiece, a tiny black blur in the lower right-hand corner. Or he may do a portrait and make her immortal. Anything can happen to a living creature in clothes. But dead, naked. We are abandoned. Nothing but what other people choose to give us for an epitaph. A victim. A lost soul. An unidentified body. I think that is why people come here. Oh, they think it is for curiosity, for callow sensation, but it is to remind themselves that they live, and that motion is the illusion of life and clothes are what separates them from the helplessness of death.

  “Speaking of clothes, did you notice the tall, mustachioed policeman near the only figure that was covered by a sheet from ankle to chin?”

  “No. But I did notice that shrouded corpse. What can be the reason for such an attack of modesty on the part of the officials?”

  “Modesty, nothing. That was the young woman from the Eiffel Tower.”

  “Amazing! I could not see well enough in that dreary light to recognize her face.”

  “Neither could I. I know it is she because the sheet covers the severe injuries visited upon her by the killer. The Paris police are thorough, but they are not crude. Though they will exhibit bodies past the point of decaying, and even the modern wonders of refrigeration cannot delay mortal dissolution forever, they take care to disguise the outward signs. Nor do they reveal the brutalities done to these bodies.”

  “Ah. So they stationed a gendarme near the corpse to watch for a possible visit from a murderer.”

  “No, they did not. But Sherlock Holmes did.”

  “I am amazed that the Paris police would listen to even Sherlock Holmes in this matter.”

  “They did not, which is why he has to do it himself.”

  I whirled to face the exterior window, through which I could glimpse shadowy forms in motion and the visored cap of the gendarme’s striking form. I took in the parallel glint of his uniform buttons and the hilt of the dashing short sword at his side.

  “It cannot be.”

  “I think it is.”

  “And did he spy us?”

  “Most certainly. And our companion as well.”

  “Do you think he spied someone else truly suspicious?”

  She shrugged. “That I cannot say. How irritating that I cannot don my own disguise and follow him, but he would be gone before I could change personas and return. I am afraid that we must follow more conventional methods in this case, Nell. I will think on what to do about Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

  “I am relieved to hear you relinquish these games of dress-up and subterfuge. I fear that they are more useful for confusing your friends than confounding your enemies.”

  “That may be,” Irene said, taking my arm companionably. “Now let us stroll along the river to the cathedral. I wish to hear my footsteps echo in that sublime space, and to think of the mighty chords of music that have lifted to that stone vault
over the centuries.”

  “I would never discourage you from entering a church, even if it be Romanish.”

  “And the religious environs will be a good antidote to the mortal ruins we have just seen,” she added.

  25.

  Dancing with the Dead

  Within his wild, indulgent soul, one senses a certain pure energy beneath the coarseness, saint and sinner in primal battle, Michael and Luciter entoiled in one body, diquised as a whirling dervish.

  —NOTE TO MYSELF

  FROM A YELLOW BOOK

  His pale eyes shine with that odd compelling light they get at times.

  At such moments one forgets his less-than-humble origins, his brutish manners, even his slovenly clothing and speech.

  He will take me, he says, to the ceremony. To the holy of holies in his bizarre world.

  And then I remember how much of a boy he is, although he has lived as a man since he was fifteen. He has boasted of his drinking bouts then, his thefts, his village parlor tricks, his womanizing. He veers from pride in his sins to paroxysms of penitence. He has also mentioned headaches so severe they seemed to swell his brain.

  It is as if two opposite persons occupy his body and mind, each striving for the upper hand. His primitive, often childlike religiosity he owes to his peasant upbringing. His lust for life, and for lust, he owes to his physical and mental stamina, more than I have ever encountered in any human, and the Ghurka of India and the whirling dervishes of Afghanistan are tireless.

  I feel he will be a man of importance in some place and time, should events fall rightly for him. The only question is will he be an influence for good or for ill? And who is to say which is which? I have danced both sides of that line so many times in my own life that the demarcation has become irrevocably blurred.