A Free Man of Color - Barbara Hambly [134]
Questions crowded his mind, a jam of logs at high water behind his teeth, and the first of them, the largest of them, was always, What do I do?
He was glad of Dominique’s prattle, of her presence in the room. It gave him time to think.
“Cathedral Alley isn’t so very far from the levee,” he pointed out in time. “Or from Gallatin Street. We had Kaintucks all over town during Mardi Gras.”
Dominique sniffed. “And I’m sure the significance of Ash Wednesday completely escaped them. One would think after a week they would get the hint.” If she felt any uncertainty at all about the presence of a white lady in her parlor, she certainly didn’t show it. “You poor darling, thank God Ben was there. What were you doing down on Rue Royale, anyway, Ben? I thought you were going to Olympe’s.”
“I thought I saw someone who could give me an explanation about the night of the murder,” said January, and his glance crossed Madeleine’s. Her eyes, downcast with confusion at finding herself in the house of a plaçée, went wide with shock and dread.
“Now, don’t talk about murders,” said Dominique severely, and patted Madeleine’s shoulders. She hesitated for a long moment, then picked her words carefully. “My brother is helping the police investigating Angelique Crozat’s murder—for all they’re doing,” she added tartly. “Personally, I’m astonished the one who was strangled wasn’t that awful harpy of a mother. I was speechless when I heard how she’d sold off all your jewelry and dresses … and do you know, Ben, she’s been flouncing around town for days in a mourning veil down to her feet, and the most dreadful cheap crêpe dress. It streaked black all over Mama’s straw-colored divan cushions. Excuse me, dears, I’ll just go to the kitchen and see if your coachman is all right.”
Not even random violence that could have ended in murder, thought January wryly, could shake Dominique’s sense of caste. Watching his sister through the arch into the rear parlor, and thence through the French door at the back and into the rainy yard, he knew that the coachman would be shown all consideration, given a cup of coffee and some of Becky’s wonderful crêpes, in the kitchen. The rain had let up almost completely, and through the open French doors to the street a few droplets still caught the lamplight as they fell. The streaming brightness flashed on the millrace of the gutter, and on the slow, lazy drips from the abat-vent overhead. A fiacre passed, the driver cursing audibly at the Trepagier carriage that stood, horse blanketed, before the cottage. A few streets away a man’s voice bellowed, “Now, don’t you push me, hear! I am the child of calamity and the second cousin to the yellow fever! I eats Injuns for breakfast.…”
Madeleine shuddered profoundly and lowered her forehead to her hand. Very softly, she said, “Don’t ask me about it tonight, Monsieur Janvier, please. Thank you—thank you so much—for helping me, for being there.” Her shoulders twitched a little, as if still feeling the grasp of heavy hands, and she brought up a long breath. “I know why you were there. You followed me from … from Rue Bienville, didn’t you? I thought I saw you as the fiacre pulled away.”
“Yes,” said January softly. She raised her face, her eyes meeting his, steadily, willing him to believe.
“He is innocent. I swear to you he had nothing to do with the murder. I—” She took a deep breath. “I strangled Angelique. Please, please, I beg you …”
“You didn’t,” said January quietly, “and I know you didn’t, Madame. That outfit of yours was leaking black cock feathers all over the building and you were never near that parlor. And you had nothing on you that could have been used for a garrote. Did you stay to see him?”
“No! He had nothing to do with it, I swear to you.”
“Were you with him?”
She hesitated, searching in her mind for what the best answer would be, then cried “No!” a few instants late. “I saw him—that is, I saw him across the lobby.… I saw him the whole time. But we weren’t … we didn’t …”
She was