“Wonderful! The color suits you, Mama.”
“Do you think so?” Serafina turned from the glass and faced her daughter.
“No angle it more, like this.” Carmela reached up and adjusted the hat, playing with the angle. “Something’s wrong. The feathers are wrong, I think.” She fussed with them a bit. “Try it now.”
“Perfect,” Serafina said.
“Made of felt for cool weather,” Carmela said. “Soon you’ll need a lighter fabric.”
“If this investigation goes on any longer, we’ll need to send for our summer wardrobe,” the madam said.
Serafina winked at her daughter. “If it does, you can design me a hat for spring.”
Carmela’s face colored and she teared up. “I hope the investigation goes on and on. I don’t want to go home. Here, I’m happy. Here, I can be somebody.”
They were silent a moment, Serafina trying not to let her daughter’s words sting. Then she told Carmela of their meeting with Madame de Masson and with the honorable Leon Renault, prefect of police.
“A charming man,” Rosa said, taking off her hat and carefully laying it back in its box. She closed the lid and tied it. “But uncooperative.”
“So I’m afraid our day was less fruitful than yours, except for our visit to Busacca et Fils,” Serafina said, “where we learned that Sophie de Masson is losing her eyesight.”
“How could she have identified the dead woman as her niece?” Carmela asked.
Serafina shrugged. “The more I hear, the more mysterious Elena’s death seems to me. I’m beginning to believe she’s not dead at all.”
Carmela shook her head. “Hard to believe.”
“Perhaps it’s wishful thinking on my part,” Serafina said.
“Nonsense. Why would you wish Elena alive?” Rosa asked. She picked at a thread on her sleeve.
“Unfortunately, Loffredo is in prison, charged with murdering his wife. He may hang for her death and she may not even be dead.” Without realizing it, Serafina had begun to pace the room.
“Why is he charged with murdering Elena?” Carmela asked, a hand to her throat.
Serafina stopped. “Valois said a cafe owner or some such person identified him as the man he saw with Elena that night.”
“Where?”
“In his cafe, of course, right before she was murdered.”
Carmela shook her head. “But a few hours earlier, she was with another man at the opening.”
“What difference does that make?” Rosa asked. “Elena plays by her own rules. She’s not above being with one man one minute and another man the next. She’s nothing more than a cocotte, and not a very nice one, either.”
Carmela fished in her reticule and brought out a slip of paper. “Etienne Gaston. That’s the man’s name. He signed the exhibit’s guest book underneath Elena’s name.”
“Her lover?”
“According to the women at the exhibit. Here’s his address.”
“What did they say he looked like?”
“He’s tall, thin, scholarly, not their type.”
Serafina began to range about the room again.
“Walking around like a madwoman will do nothing,” Rosa said. “Best to put your mind to a plan.”
“You’re right.” She got out her notebook and began scribbling, scratching out, writing something else and scratching that out as well. She couldn’t stop. It was as if a demon controlled her actions.
Rosa threw up her hands and Carmela looked at her watch, stifling a yawn. In a moment, Serafina saw Rosa looking out the window and Carmela regarding herself in the glass, picking up a soft pillow and arranging it on her head and laughing.
Serafina smiled at her daughter. Her mood had passed, and she began to write in earnest.
“What about images of the dead woman?” Carmela asked. “The French are such great photographers, even in such little light as there must have been at the murder scene, surely they took photos of the dead woman’s face. They love to show them in their magazines. They don’t cringe from such horrors. Take the Paris morgue, for instance.”
“Ghoulish, if you ask me,” Rosa said. “Of course, all we need to do in Oltramari if we crave a horror show is to look out the window.”
Serafina nodded. “The inspector offered to show the photographs to us, surprised that we wanted to see them. He reminded us two or three times of their gruesomeness, and when we insisted on looking at them, he couldn’t find them.”
“Strange,” Carmela said.
“Claims he’d misplaced them and promised to have them in hand soon. We insisted on meeting him tomorrow morning at nine in his office.” She stared out the window, lost. “So the most important thing we learned today was not what was seen, but what was not seen; not what was shown, but what was not shown, not what was said, but what was not said.”
“She’s gone round the twist,” the madam said.
Serafina got up, looked at Rosa and Carmela, and sat down again. “Let’s take a break while I summarize everything we’ve learned about Elena.”
“You mean we should get lost.”
“I didn’t say that. I’ll feel better after I’ve written out a complete list-what we know, what we don’t know, and how to free Loffredo.”
“Careful, Fina. Freeing Loffredo is not what Busacca is paying you to do. He wants Elena’s killer brought to justice, that’s his commission. He doesn’t give a fig for her husband,” Rosa said. “And you don’t want the inspector to find out that you and Elena’s husband are lovers. It would color everything you do and say from now on. In short, you’d be disregarded. Worse, you’d be shut out of Valois’ investigation. If you want me to request visiting the accused, I will, but you should stay far away from the subject. Have nothing to do with Loffredo as far as Valois is concerned.”
She had to hand it to Rosa. She’d remained calm the whole day, knew enough not to try and handle Valois, and now said just the right words. “You’re right of course. But we need to find a way to get word to him that I’m here and not to worry, that I’ll discover the truth.”
Rosa patted Serafina’s arm. “Leave Loffredo to me. I’ll call on my friends at the Italian embassy.”
“What would I do without you?”
“We’re all tired, and I have an idea,” Rosa said. “The last time I was here, I had a delightful tea at a cafe on the Boulevard des Italiens. The street is filled with them. Cafe Tortoni, I believe was the name, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll go to whichever one looks good to us. And I for one could do with a large latte.”
“But I don’t want the children to miss out. Besides, high tea would spoil their meal. Let’s wait until they return and rest until dinner. Pick a restaurant, any restaurant. In the meantime, I’ll gather my thoughts. Why don’t you order yourself a treat from one of those cute little bellboys you flirt with all the time, or better yet, take a turn at one of the cafes in the hotel.”
Chapter 13: A Visit to the Sixth Arrondissement
Serafina was surprised Elena’s friends had not heard of her demise, but perhaps they knew something Serafina didn’t. Not yet, at any rate. Since her meeting with Sophie de Masson, she began to doubt the death of Elena. Did she have enough evidence to request exhumation of the body? It would depend on the photographs of the dead woman. If the images bore no resemblance to the contessa, Valois would have to reopen the case.
She ran a hand through her hair. Not yet six o’clock, fifteen long hours until their meeting with the inspector and three hours until dinner. Time enough for acting.
She stopped. How did she expect to solve the mystery when she hadn’t seen the spot where they’d found the body?
Pulling out her map, she studied it. It took her a while to locate the Rue Cassette. It was on the left bank, her favorite side of the river. She’d go to the scene of the crime. No need to tell Rosa or Carmela-she’d be back before they realized she was gone. Grabbing a light cape and reticule, and throwing a comb through her snarls, she was about to go out when she remembered the dratted hat. But a head covering had a point, especially in the chill of an April evening in Paris. She plunked it on her head and flew down the stairs, asking for a cab to the Luxembourg Gardens. A man in livery driving a small opera bus pulled by a roan horse drew up, and the doorman helped her in.