“My friends have come from Sicily on behalf of my uncle.”
Carmela cut in. “And I’d love it if you could design a hat for my friend, Madame Joyeuse,” gesturing to Tessa who wore her teal day dress but was hatless.
“Certainly,” she said, gazing at the hat Carmela wore, a small black pillbox with a spray of dyed feathers and a veil draping slightly over the top and circling down one side. Before they left this morning, Carmela had fussed with it, angled it just so.
“Please call me Madame Josephine. Everyone does. I’m afraid our showroom is a little crowded this afternoon. We must have our clowns,” she said, cocking her head in Ricci’s direction and pursing her lips, “but perhaps we can find a corner where we are not disturbed. This way.”
She led them into a private room with a table and mirror where several hats sat on a rack. A few more were scattered about an overstuffed chair in the corner. The designer asked them to excuse her and returned in a few minutes with several basic shapes, a pillbox, a cloche, a beret, and a straw. In her apron she carried some loose flowers, fruit, feathers, and veils. She dumped these on the table in front of Tessa and began by having Tessa stand in front of a mirror while she looked at her reflection, feeling the fabric of her dress, turning her around, and asking her to sit.
Madame Josephine glanced at Carmela. “You’ve been to our other stores, I see,” she said as she began designing Tessa’s hat, her fingers like the wings of birds in flight, her head cocked to one side.
“Pardon?”
“Your hat. Designed for you at our store on the Rue de la Paix, no? Let me guess the designer, I’ve trained them all, you know.”
“I brought this from home. I made it myself.”
Josephine Joyeuse stopped, straightened. “Lovely work.”
She continued creating Tessa’s hat, placing and shaping the felt just so, rejecting it, picking up a deep cadmium red pillbox instead, pinning, prodding, fussing with speed and dexterity, a hatpin between her teeth. She stepped back to appraise the work, adjusting the angle of the hat, her movements transforming the material, shifting it slightly, pulling it backward, forward, refitting the hat on the head, trying a different veil until she was satisfied. Her touch reminded Carmela of how the voice can inflect words to change their meaning.
“Stand please,” she said to Tessa.
Tessa looked in the mirror and widened her eyes.
Madame Josephine straightened her apron. “Now step back slightly from the mirror.”
Tessa did, and once again saw a change.
“You see how your whole outfit ‘turns’ when you step back, the same way a painting does. That’s how a hat transforms. That’s how you know it works for you.”
On the way home, they stopped in front of Busacca’s store on the Rue de Verneuil and watched as David filled the display with the last of four new hats taken from the back. He’d rolled up his sleeves and wore a black apron. His face was flushed.
The front of the store was spotless. On entering, Tessa breathed the scent of soap and polish.
“No customers yet. It will take a while, but there will be customers, I promise you,” he said, his eyes alive as he glanced at Tessa. “Don’t look in the back, not yet, except I’ve made a stab at the top of my desk.”
They said goodbye, praising his work and promising to return before they left Paris.
He gave Tessa his card.
“Don’t I feel like a cipher,” Carmela said. She smiled at Tessa. “Did you see the way he looked at your hat? You must wear them all the time.”
She waved a dismissive hand. “In Paris, yes. But at home… Just wouldn’t do. How I love this city.” Tessa’s cheeks glowed.
Serafina listened to what Carmela and Tessa had to say about Sophie’s sons and their stores. It confirmed Serafina’s suspicions. “It doesn’t surprise me,” was her only comment. She was interested in the difference between David and Ricci.
Chapter 24: Waiting for News
Serafina had a good idea of who killed the woman in the Rue Cassette and who attacked her in Elena’s apartment, but as she waited for Valois to confer with Dr. Tarnier, she felt the press of time. She decided to act before it was too late, so she wired Busacca.
“Facts in case deliberately confusing. Possible your daughter lives. Letter follows.”
In her letter to Busacca, she brought him up to date on what she’d learned so far-the discrepancy in appearance and class between the dead woman and a countess, the quick burial of the body, the attack in Elena’s apartment, the similarity of the two bullets discovered in the victim’s mouth and in her own shoulder. She detailed the state of Elena’s health before her “demise” and her appointments with the chief surgeon at La Maternite. She mentioned the release of Loffredo who had wrongfully been charged with Elena’s murder. And lastly, while a study of his business was not part of her commission, she believed the distress of his stores in Paris was indirectly related to his daughter’s disappearance. At the very least, Busacca et Fils needed his attention or his business would be left behind other milliners.
Once more she and Rosa combed Elena’s apartment, looking for an address, any clue however obscure as to her whereabouts. They didn’t find a scrap. There was nothing for it but to wait-for inspiration, for truth, for definitive evidence from Tarnier. It was after all spring, the season of hope.
They’d been in Paris a week, and for the last two days talked of nothing but the weather and the food and the sights. Not a bad life, but the pieces had come together in her head and she wanted to get on with the case. The air was warming and Serafina’s spirit was content, the passionate longing for Loffredo dampened for the moment, perhaps because of necessity. It was enough now to be close to him. Truth to tell, she felt empty without him at her side.
So for a few days they enjoyed themselves and forgot about Elena and Sophie and Valois. They argued about the theater, fashion, cuisine, politics. They argued about what made Paris Paris. They never mentioned the future of Sicily. She went with Loffredo and Rosa to see Sarah Bernhardt in Phedre. When Serafina said she didn’t see anything divine about The Divine Sarah, the madam had the effrontery to say, “Too much like you.” They sat in the Jardin des Plantes, in the Tuileries, in the Parc Monceau and in her favorite, the Jardin du Luxembourg. They toured the Gobelins, took a cruise on the Seine. They were happy. Loffredo took them to the studio of Sebastien Erard in the Chateau de La Muette and they marveled at the collection of grand pianos. Perhaps Maria would play one someday.
It was late afternoon when Valois knocked on Serafina’s door. She sent Teo and Arcangelo to fetch Loffredo. They talked of this and that, waiting for everyone to gather.
Valois cleared his throat. “This morning I talked with Dr. Tarnier who said that Elena Loffredo, expecting a child, was indeed under his care. Her last appointment was April 16 at two in the afternoon. Her next appointment was scheduled for tomorrow at nine in the morning.”
There was a hush.
“Why did I doubt you?” Rosa asked.
“So that means either the woman who was murdered in the early morning hours of April 16 was incorrectly identified as Elena Loffredo, or Dr. Tarnier’s patient claiming to be Elena Loffredo is lying,” Serafina said. “You asked to see her signature, of course.”
Valois nodded. “We checked the signature with the Banque de France where she has an account. There can be no doubt: she signed Tarnier’s form.”
“Any account activity?” Arcangelo asked.
Valois blew air out of his mouth the way Frenchmen do. “Not since a thousand franc withdrawal on April 15.”
Serafina shot a swift glance at Rosa.
“What’s the address she gave Tarnier?” Serafina asked.