“Please remove your cloak, Your Highness,”the royal gentleman commanded.
Sarie smiled. “Yes, my dear Louis.” Sheremoved her coat to reveal the full splendour of her evening dress,fluffed and ruched and cut low to reveal two-thirds of her bosom. Astring of fake pearls — courtesy of King Louis — graced her neck,and upon her head sat a glorious blond wig.
“Madame de Pompadour, how thoughtful of youto grace the royal presence,” intoned Gardiner Clough, smiling asMadame de Pompadour curtsied before him.
“My wish is your command, Your Highness.”
“And you know what the king wishes of youtonight, don’t you?”
The Marquise de Pompadour began pulling thegown away from her breasts. “To be ravished by royalty, YourHighness.”
The king jerked his cod-piece aside and moved- in not too kingly a fashion — towards her. .
Later they play-acted a scene they hadperformed several times in the past. In bed (the folds of a rug), after spirited love-making, they nibbled at fruit and Louis toldher of the many battles he had fought in and the many soldiers hehad dispatched to Heaven or Hell. Then he pulled out a sheet ofpaper and read one or more proclamations, glorifying his power,while his mistress stroked his penis and lavished epithets ofpraise upon him. Sarie was particularly proud of this part of theperformance, never missing a cue and feeling quite cosy and safefrom the various terrors of the world outside.
“Would you like me to read a proclamation?”she said this evening, deciding to improvise a bit in order toprolong the performance.
“As you wish, my love.” Clough handed her thepaper he was holding.
Recalling a speech he had given last week — Sarie had a great memory — she mouthed the ringing words of aproclamation ordering out the troops to quell a riot in the streetsof Paris.
Suddenly, Clough snatched the paper away fromher. “I hope you didn’t look at the name at the top of that paper!”he said sharply.
“Oh, no, sir, I didn’t,” Sarie said. But shehad. She couldn’t help it. The paper he had decided to use had hisletterhead on it: Gardiner Clough, Esquire. Part of the arrangementthat Clough had with Madame LaFrance was that Sarie would know himonly as Sir Lancelot. She had been given directions to his house,but told nothing else. Nor did she want to know. Five shillings forhalf a night’s work was not to be sneezed at. But she had seen hisname and was afraid it showed on her face.
But Clough said evenly enough, “All right,Sarie. I believe you. You’re a good girl.”
“What will we do next week?” she asked.
“Robin Hood and Maid Marion.”
Sarie left happily with the coins in her coatpocket. She made her way back to the Jarvis Street entrance toDevil’s Acre. She had one more alley to negotiate when she heardthe thump of footsteps, heavily, behind her. She turned just intime to see the blade of a knife aimed at her throat.
***
There was a small crowd around the body when Cobbarrived. He had to nudge his way towards it and Dr. Withers,kneeling beside it.
“Throat slashed, just like the first one,”Withers said.
The body was lying face down, but the girl’sface was turned to the right, as if jerked that way by the slash ofthe blade that killed her. The snow, freshly fallen the previousevening, was soaked with her blood.
“A God-awful way to die,” Withers said.
“Who found her?”
“A woman named Nell from Madame LaFrance’sbrothel, she said. She’s standing right behind you.”
“I recognize this face,” Cobb said, turningtowards Nell. “She worked with you at the brothel.”
“It’s Sarie Hickson. Oh, God, poor Sarie.”Nell let her tears flow again.
“What time did you find her?”
“About an hour ago. She was supposed to behome by midnight, but when she didn’t come in, we figured she’dstayed over at her customer’s place. When she didn’t come forbreakfast, we began to get worried. So Madame LaFrance asked us togo out searching for her. We soon found her. Our house is justbeyond this alley.” She let out a sob. “She almost made it.”
“And what’s this?” Cobb asked as he bent overand picked up the big blond wig that lay in the snow a foot or sofrom the body.
“That’s the wig she wore fer thecustomer.”
“It looks like some sort of stage-wig,” Cobbsaid to Withers. “And that dress of hers looks like the costumefrom some play.”
“But she had the wig on her head, I’d say,”Withers said. “It just toppled off when she fell here.”
“So we’ve got another blond woman with herthroat slashed,” Cobb said.
“And it looks like the same knife, I’d say,although I’ll need to examine the wound carefully to be sure — backat my surgery.”
“Somebody don’t like prostitutes,” Cobb said,gazing sadly down at the lifeless body. “Any guess as to the timeof death?”
“Well, rigor has subsided, even in thisweather, so I’d say early this morning or late last night.”
“I should be able to track her movementsanyway, and pin down the time.”
“You gonna look for bootprints?” Withersasked.
“If I can find any prints,” Cobb said,glancing at the crowd. “But it snowed fer an hour last evenin’. Allthe traffic has come from the brothel side of the alley. I’ll godown the other direction. If the killer went east, I could pick upa trail.”
Cobb set off. Twenty feet past the body andthe mass of footprints left by the onlookers, he found what he wassearching for: a single set of giant bootprints. They swerved leftat the end of the alley and went farther east up a second alley. Hetracked them to where it opened onto Jarvis Street. There he bentdown and looked closely at them. The star-shaped pattern wasunmistakable. The same person had killed both young women.
The trail now went cold. Just before it did,Cobb noticed that the killer appeared to have been shuffling aboutat the end of the alley, as if waiting for the coast to clear onJarvis Street before venturing out. Cobb stepped onto Jarvis andsearched amongst the many competing sets of prints for any sign ofthe star shape. He found none. It was as if the killer had suddenlybecome invisible and vanished, or had somehow taken wing. Cobb wasthankful he didn’t believe in ghosts.
Just as he was turning back into the alley,he noticed, on the Jarvis boardwalk, an object he had overlookedbefore, half-buried in the snow. It was a white scarf. Agentleman’s silk scarf. He picked it up. On one end it had amonogram: a “P.” He put it in his pcoket. Then he went back to thescene of the crime. The coroner had left, but Wilkie was nowpresent and keeping the curious at bay.
Cobb addressed them — a cross-section heguessed, of the denizens of Devil’s Acre: gamblers, bootleggers,pimps, whores and worse. “Did anyone here see anythin’ in thenight? Or hear anythin’ unusual?”
“We wouldn’t pay it no mind if we did,” oneof the men answered. “There’s lots of strange noises in Devil’sAcre at night.”
“But we don’t go ‘round killin’ each other!”a woman shouted. “What’re the police gonna do about it, eh?”
“Oh, they don’t give a damn about us uphere,” another added. “To them we’re just riff raff.”
“We are doin’ everythin’ we can to find thekiller,” Cobb said. “But I’ve got to get a witness, don’t I? And Ineed yer cooperation.”
“I’ll wait here fer the undertaker,” Wilkiesaid, happy to be just an ordinary constable.
“In the meantime, I’ll go on down to thebrothel,” Cobb said
Nell joined him and they walked slowly backtowards Madame LaFrance’s place.
As they neared it, Cobb said, “Were you andSarie friends?”
“We was. The best. I never ever thoughtanythin’ like this could happen, even here. You might get beat upand yer money stolen, but not yer throat cut — like that.”
“Do you know where Sarie had been?”
“I’m not allowed to discuss customers. You’llhave to ask Madame LaFrance.”
“I intend to,” Cobb said.
***
Madame LaFrance brushed a single tear from her eyeand offered Cobb a cup of coffee. They were seated in a small denthat Madame obviously reserved for herself. It was comfortablyfurnished and sported a modest fireplace, in which a pleasant firewas now burning. Cobb loosened his collar and accepted thecoffee.