A Free Man of Color - Barbara Hambly [137]
But none of that, he thought, meant that Augustus Mayerling hadn’t been the one to wind that scarf around Angelique’s neck.
“I still want to have a look around his rooms,” said January after a time. “In any case he’ll want to hear what happened tonight.”
He cannot pass himself off as a gentleman, Jean Bouille had said of the American Granger, little realizing that the spidery-thin sword master who had taught him was doing exactly that.
Only the mask he wore was his cropped fair hair, thought January, and the scars on his face. But a mask it was, as surely as the elaborate thing of jewels and fur that had hidden Angelique’s face on the night of her death. The man’s coat and trousers were a costume as surely as that stolen white silk dress had been, more subtle because they used the minds of those who saw as a disguise.
I wear trousers, therefore you see a man.
Your skin is black, therefore I see a slave. Except, of course, that Augustus was one of the few people in this country who saw a musician, and a man. Beside him, Hannibal said again, “Will she forgive me? Will Minou make her understand? I thought it was Minou. She was wearing Minou’s dress—I thought it was Minou. I’m so sorry.”
January started to say, “It’s all right, she was just scared—” and then stopped, and it seemed to him that the blood in his veins turned colder than the rain.
“Oh, Jesus,” he whispered.
Hannibal halted too, looking up at him, baffled. “What—”
“She was wearing Madeleine’s jewels,” said January softly.
“Who was? Minou …”
“She was wearing Madeleine’s jewels, and whoever killed her thought she was Madeleine.” January still stood in the middle of the banquette, staring into space, shaken to his bones but knowing, as surely as he knew his name, that he was right.
“They killed the wrong woman.”
“Who did? Why would anyone …?”
“The plantation,” said January. He made a move back toward Rue Burgundy, then halted, knowing the carriage had moved away from the banquette moments after he and Hannibal had left the house. “Les Saules. It butts up against the Gentilly place—wasn’t one of the proposed streetcar routes Granger and Bouille were fighting over out past Bayou Gentilly? If the route goes out there the land will be worth a fortune. If she sells it all to that McGinty fellow for debts …”
“McGinty?” said Hannibal, startled. “McGinty was one of Granger’s seconds. The pirate with the red Vandyke, holding the horses.”
The two men stared at each other for a moment, pieces falling into place: McGinty’s coppery whiskers clashing with the purple satin of his pirate mask, the faubourgs of New Orleans spreading in an Americanized welter of wooden gingerbread and money, Livia’s dry voice reading aloud William Granger’s slanderous accusations of Jean Bouille in the newspaper, the efforts to discredit Madeleine before Aunt Picard could marry her off.
“Come on!” January turned and strode down Rue Bienville, Hannibal hurrying, gasping, in his wake.
“How did they know she’d be at the ball?”
“Sally. The girl who ran off. The one who had a ‘high-toned’ boyfriend—a white boyfriend. You or Fat Mary ever find out anything of where she went?”
The fiddler shook his head. “Not a word of her.”
“Ten to one the man she ran off with was McGinty or someone connected with him. He’d been around the plantation on business.”
“And tonight …”
“It’s got to be someone connected with the Trepagier family. Someone who stands to inherit—and my guess is it’s Arnaud’s brother. Claud, the one who’s been in Texas.” He strode along the banquette, heedless of the rain. “Anyone connected with the family would know she’d be at her Aunt Picard’s tonight. Anyone could have arranged an ambush.”
“Then if the attack this evening wasn’t chance …”
“They’ll have followed her out of town to try again.”
TWENTY-TWO
Hannibal’s breathing had hoarsened to a dragging gasp by the time they reached the gallery outside Mayerling’s rooms. The rain was heavy now,