A Free Man of Color - Barbara Hambly [129]
“I know last fall that American Jenkins came over and talked to Clemence, at just about every Blue Ribbon Ball,” said Dominique. She lowered the papers, her dark eyes sad. “But of course Angelique never could stand to see men paying attention to anyone but her. Still, I’d never have thought Clemence would harm a hair of Angelique’s head.”
“Nor would she,” said January softly. “If she went to Doctor John for a gris-gris, she could have gone for something else. Poison, to slip in her glass—and she’d have had every opportunity in the world. Even an emetic on the night of the ball, if she wasn’t up to doing murder. Strangling her with a scarf at a public ball …” He shook his head.
“Chéri, I was ready to strangle her with a scarf at that ball,” retorted Dominique, returning to shuffling her papers. “And I hadn’t just seen her walk off with the first man who’d paid me any attention in my life. There,” she said, poking her finger down. “I thought I saw her go running downstairs just after Galen did. She could have come back up the service stairs.”
“What is that?” January craned his head to see what was written. “I thought Shaw came and got his notes when they opened the case again.”
“Silly.” She crossed to him, handed them over—neat, small, perfect French handwriting on creamy gilt-edged notepaper. “I copied them. If there’s going to be a nine days wonder in this town, of course I’m going to make sure I’m the one who has all the facts.”
Minou had rearranged the notes in chronological order. At quarter of nine, Clemence Drouet was listed as “downstairs—court? lobby?” Also listed in the court at the time was the orange-and-green Turk, and Indian with a question mark, which could have been anyone.
Shortly thereafter, Xavier Peralta had been seen going into Froissart’s office with the dueling party—Granger, Mayerling, the purple pirate, Bouille, Jenkins—but when one Doucette Labayadere (costumed as a mulberry tree—a mulberry tree?) saw them emerge, the party had consisted solely of Froissart, Granger, and Bouille. The others, presumably, had left at some earlier time.
No one had seen Galen Peralta in the downstairs lobby after the progressive waltz, but at least one other person had seen Augustus Mayerling.
He sat for a time, turning the notes over and over in his hand.
Mayerling was an outsider. A white man, true, but a man raised outside of slave-holding society. A man who would pick a surgeon on the grounds of experience rather than color.
If nothing else, it was worth asking what he knew.
“May I take these?”
“You may not!” retorted his sister indignantly. Then, relenting, “I’ll make you out a copy; you can get it tomorrow.”
“You’re a peach.” He kissed her hand, then looked out the open French doors, where the light was fading to final, rainy dusk. “Something tells me we may need an extra copy where we can get at it.”
“I have the original notes, too,” she said. “I mean the ones the officer made that night. Monsieur Shaw left them here when he had his fair copy and I just put them in a drawer. Will you be speaking to Monsieur Shaw?”
January set down the notes. “I don’t know,” he said. “If I can do it without being arrested on the spot, yes. You say you gave him my letter. Did he read it?”
She nodded.
“Did he say anything?”
“Nothing. Just put it in his pocket. But he can read,” she added quickly. “I saw him read these notes when he took them.”
Olympe sniffed, sounding extremely like their mother. “There’s miracles every day. Will you need a place to stay, brother? This Shaw will know Mama’s house—this house, too,” she added, and January noted, a little cynically, that for one tiny unguarded second Dominique looked relieved. “If worse comes to worst there are other places you can stay as well, until we can get you out of town.”
“Good,” said January bitterly. “So I can be a fugitive, because witnesses don’t want to testify anything that