"Malarkey!" barked Henry VIII. Only men were visible in the doorway, but January could see the silken bevies of women grouped in the other two entries, watching with eyes that held not love, but worried calculation, like the occupants of a sinking vessel computing the square footage of the rafts.
From the parlor a wailing shriek sliced the air: "Angelique, my baby! My angel! Oh dear God, my baby!" Other voices murmured, soothing, weeping, calming.
January's eyes returned to the faces of the men. It was absurd to suppose the murderer was still in the ballroom, or anywhere in the Salle d'Orleans. Henri Viellard certainly wasn't, having beaten a hasty retreat through the passageway to the concealing skirts of his mother, sisters, and aunts, who would be willing like any group of Creoles to perjure themselves for the good of the family. William Granger likewise seemed, as the Kaintucks put it, to have absquatulated. In fact only a small group of men remained in a room that had been crammed with a preponderance of them moments before. The ladies in the Thedtre d'Orleans must have wondered why their menfolk had developed so sudden a craving for their company.
January hoped this man Shaw had the wits to set a guard in the Theatre's lobby as well as in the court and at the doors from the gaming rooms to the Rue Orleans outside.
Augustus Mayerling was one of those who remained, arms folded, at the rear of the group. His students, perforce, stood their ground as well, unwilling to have it said of them that they fled while their master remained, although a number of them didn't look happy about it.
"This is ridiculous," declared Ivanhoe. "You overstep your authority, young man."
"Well, maybe I do," agreed Shaw and absentmind-edly scratched his chest under his coat. "But if n you was to be murdered, Mr. Destrehan, I'm sure you'd like to know that the police was keepin' all suspects and witnesses in the same buildin' until they could be asked about it."
"Not if it meant all but accusing my friends of the deed!" The Knight of the Oak scowled darkly under his helmet's slatted visor at this offhandedly correct deduction of his identity. "Not if it meant needlessly impugning their reputations, running the risk of exposing their names to the newspapers-"
"Now, who said a thing about newspapers?"
"Don't be a fool, man," snapped Bouille, who from his well-publicized quarrel with Granger over the past few months had reason to know all about newspapers. He seemed to have either drunk himself to the point where he didn't care about the risk to his reputation, or more probably simply had no concept that his reputation could be at risk. "Of course the newspapers will get any list you make. And publish it."
"Froissart," ordered a truly awful Leatherstocking, "send one of your people to the police station and get Captain Tremouille and let us end this comedy."
" 'Fraid the captain's off this evenin'," said Shaw.
"He'll be at the LaFrenniere ball," said Peralta quietly. He turned back to Shaw, the gaslight glittering on the lace at his throat and wrists. "I understand your position, Lieutenant, but surely you must understand ours. There are men here who cannot afford to have their names dragged through the American newspapers, which, you must admit, display very little discretion in their choice of either subject matter or terms of expression. If you cannot take our information without demanding our names, I fear we must stand on our rights as the leading citizens of this town and refuse you our assistance."
Under a narrow brow and a hanging forelock of grimy hair, Shaw's pale eyes glinted. He spat again and said nothing.
Quietly, January said, "Lieutenant?" He wasn't sure how the man would take a suggestion from a colored, but every second the impasse lasted increased the chance of someone finding a good reason to forget the whole matter. The man at least seemed to be willing to investigate a placee's death, which was something.
Shaw considered him for a moment, lashless gray eyes enigmatic under a brow like an outlaw horse's, then walked to where he stood.
Very softly January said, "The women will know who's who. Have a man in the room take down color and kind of costume when these men give their testimonies masked and match up the descriptions with the women later."
Shaw studied him for a moment, then said, "You're the fella found the body."
January nodded, then remembered to lower his eyes and say, "Yes, sir."
"Froissart tells me you kept him talkin' and kept the place from bein' blockaded."
January felt his face heat with anger at the master of ceremonies' casual shifting of criminal blame. He forced calm into his voice. "That wasn't the way it happened, but I can't prove that. He was going to have the body taken up to an attic, clean up the room, and not call the police until morning. Maybe not call the police at all." He wondered for a moment whether this man would have preferred it that way... but in that case he'd have found some reason not to come quickly. "I kept him talking to give my sister time to bring you here."
"Ah." The policeman nodded. His face, ugly as an Ohio River gargoyle, was as inexpressive as a plank. " 'Xplains why a private citizen all dressed up like Maid Marian brung the news, 'stead of an employee of the house." His English would have earned January the beating of his life from his schoolmasters or his mother, but he guessed the man's French was worse. "Now I think on it, 'xplains why anyone brought the news at all. So Miss Janvier's your sister?"
"Half-sister. Sir."
"Beautiful gal." The words might have been spoken of a Ming vase or a Brittany sunset, an admiring compliment without a touch of the lascivious. He turned back to the assembled planters, bankers, and merchants crowded in the ballroom door. "Gentlemen," he said, "as a representative of equal justice in this city, I can't say I approve of divagatin' from the law, but I understand yore reasons, and I'm bound to say I accepts "em." He shoved back the too-long forelock with fingers like cotton-loom spindles. "With your permission, then, I'll note down what any of you saw anonymously, and I thank you for doin' your duty as citizens in figurin' out the circumstances of this poor girl's death and findin' the man what killed her. I will ask that you be patient, since this'll take some little time."
There was an angry murmur from the ballroom. January saw several of the men-mostly Americans-glance toward the curtained passageway and guessed they'd have a number of desertions the moment Shaw was out of sight. "Mr. Froissart," said Shaw softly, "could you be so kind as to lend us your office for the interviews? It'll likely take most of the night, there bein" so many. Would it trouble you too much to make coffee for the folks here? Boechter," he added, motioning one of his constables near, "see to it nobody wanders in off n the street, would you?"
Or wanders out, thought January, though he guessed Constable Boechter wasn't going to be much of a deterrent if Peralta or Destrehan grew impatient and decided to quit the premises. Shaw motioned him over and said, "Maestro? I'd purely take it as a favor if while you're waitin' you'd play some music, give 'em somethin' to listen to. Sounds silly, but music doth have charms an' all that."
January nodded. He wondered whether it was chance, or whether this upriver barbarian truly knew the Creole mind well enough to understand that by turning the nuisance into a social occasion with food, coffee, and music, he would keep his witnesses in the room. "If it's as well for you, Dominique and I can wait to be interviewed last. Sir. You may want to get through as many of these as you can before they get bored and start walking out."
The lieutenant smiled for the first time, and it changed his whole slab-sided face. "You may have a point, Maestro. I think I'll need to talk to your sister first off, to get the shape of what it is I'm askin'." He spoke softly enough to exclude not only the men grouped in the ballroom doorway, but Froissart and his own constables. "I take it your sister's here with her man?"