The Adventuress by Carole Nelson Douglas Page B

after such a dire missive arrived. That much must have been determined.”
    Madame Montpensier blinked again, as if just awakening. She sat up straighter and lifted the dog absently—to my arms. Of course I could do nothing but take it, heavy squirming creature that it was. A pink tongue took liberties with my bonnet strings while I tried to follow the scene unfolding before me.
    “No,” Louise’s aunt said, realization dawning in the troubled skies of her lovely dark-blue eyes. “No! Not burned. The distinctive heliotrope-and-sable-colored wax, the size of... of one of Chou-chou’s paw prints, would have melted on the grate.” She shuddered. “Wax like a clot of black blood. There was no peace in the house for a fortnight after such a missive’s arrival. And the scent of it, heavy and foreign. No, Édouard could not have burned the letters. The fact would have been apparent to anyone in the house.”
    “Could he have buried them, or thrown them into the mere? It is convenient for necessary disappearances.”
    “Irene!” I hissed, appalled by her insensitive reference to Louise’s last resting place.
    “Don’t worry, Nell. Louise Montpensier is no more in the mere than she is in Fleet Street... although she could more likely be there than in the mere, because she is not dead.”
    Madame Montpensier’s face whitened. Godfrey made some sudden movement behind me. I inadvertently squeezed poor Chou-chou until he squealed like a little pig.
    “My God, Madame Norton! You are—”
    “No fool, thank you, Madame,” Irene said modestly. “You see, your husband was quite right. Nobody had anything to gain from Louise’s disappearance... except Louise. You yourself admitted that this house was a hell for her. I can imagine how the torment intensified when she was returned by strangers after having eluded Pierre and undergoing an unexplained absence of hours.”
    “But the bracelet dredged from the mere—” Godfrey began.
    “A deliberate trail to a wrong conclusion. That is why Madame Montpensier has hidden it. I noticed it myself on Louise’s wrist. If it were merely a foreign bangle— ivory or coral pieces strung upon elastic cords, for instance—it might conceivably catch upon a sunken tree limb and slip from a drowning victim’s wrist. But this bracelet closed with a strong metal clasp, and gold would not break. Did it break, Madame?”
    The woman shook her head.
    “A mistake. You and Louise should have broken it first.”
    “She was too fond of it to harm it,” the woman murmured.
    “But—” I bent to deposit the leaden little dog on the wooden floor “—if Louise is not dead and has left of her own will, why do you keep silent before the police, Madame?”
    “She protects Louise’s absence, is that not right, Madame Montpensier?” Godfrey put in. “She believes that it is better for herself to be accused of murder than it would be to keep Louise in this house a moment longer.”
    I could not accept this melodramatic answer. “Why cannot everyone know that Louise has left? Why must anyone suffer? The uncle is indifferent to Louise’s wellbeing; the aunt is protective and willing to give up her niece. I do not understand.”
    “Because,” said Irene, “the uncle may be indifferent to Louise’s well-being, but he is not indifferent to the letters, and they involve Louise, intimately. I doubt that she has any idea of why, but she knows she is safer free, her whereabouts unknown by her uncle. It is better for him to think her dead than for him to know her alive.”
    At this point Madame Montpensier blinked several times. “But, Madame, you said you knew. I assumed—”
    “Of course I knew about the tattoo. We all did.” Irene smiled pleasantly.
    “But, Madame—Monsieur—Mademoiselle!” Louise’s long-tried aunt was growing indignant. “I know nothing of any tattoo, and the letters, while mysterious, likely have nothing to do with Louise. She had to appear dead only in order to