„I’ve confused you. Sorry.“
Not confusing at all. He had probably relocked the door so he would not be interrupted while rifling the trunk. She held up the rod of master keys. „I guess you have one of these. Makes it a lot easier, doesn’t it?“
The music ended. Billie Holiday was gone.
Good. She had had enough of dead women for one night.
Malakhai lit a cigarette and exhaled a stream of smoke as he sat down on a packing crate. A crowbar lay amid splinters of wood on the cement floor. A second plume of smoke rose from an ashtray atop a short stack of cardboard boxes. The filter bore the ruby imprint of a mouth.
Malakhai was staring at her, as he removed his tweed jacket and rolled back the blue silk shirtsleeves. His brows were rising, eyes widening in expectation, all but commanding Mallory to speak. But she saw this form of manipulation as her own job, not his, and she turned away from him to survey the surrounding crates. Half of the lids had been pried open.
He picked up the crowbar and set to work on another one.
„What are you looking for?“
„A case of wine.“ He put his weight on the crowbar, and the top of the crate lifted with the crack of breaking wood and tiny squeals of rusted nails. He looked down at the exposed contents, shaking his head. „Not here either.“
Malakhai dropped the crowbar on the floor and sauntered back to the wardrobe trunk. He pulled out a suit of black sequins. It glittered with a million reflections of the lamplight, so dazzling, almost distracting her from Malakhai’s covert search of the pockets.
„Now you must take this one. Louisa insists.“ He held it out to Mallory. „My wife says blondes look wonderful in black.“
She let the garment shimmer in the air between them, dangling from the hanger in his outstretched hand.
Malakhai nodded his understanding. „As you like.“ He returned the suit to the rack. „But later, you’ll come back for it.“ He glanced toward the space above the ashtray and its smoking cigarette, then smiled at Mallory.
„Louisa says you won’t be able to resist her clothes.“ He watched the plume of smoke for a moment, then nodded, as if in agreement. „The sequins will call out your name. They won’t let you sleep until you give in.“
Mallory suppressed a smile. She knew what he was looking for in the folds and pockets, while he played the part of his dead wife’s Dictaphone.
His head tilted to one side, listening to the smoke again. He pointed to the fabrics at the end of the rack. „And these silks? They’ll force you to take them to a party. They’ll make you stay up all night long, dancing and drinking good wine. Louisa wants you to listen to these clothes. They know what’s best for you.“
„What’s Louisa wearing now?“
„The dress she died in.“ He looked over his shoulder and focused on the smoke rising from the ashtray. „It’s sky blue, almost as light as her eyes.“
Mallory walked over to the trunk and stood close to him. He was wearing an expensive cologne, so discreet she hadn’t noticed it during the poker game. And there was another scent on the air, a flower mingling with the dust of the cellar – a gardenia. She looked down at the open lingerie drawer.
A sachet was tucked in with the garments. „All of your wife’s clothes are here?“
„Well, those dancing shoes belonged to Faustine, but the rest are Louisa’s. There was no armoire in our room. This was her closet. Yes, the clothes are all here, except for the dress. She was buried in that.“
„Buried in a bloodstained dress?“
„It was a hasty funeral.“
„Her only dress.“ Mallory ran her hand across the rack of hangers. „These clothes – suits, shirts, trousers – all made for a man and cut down to size.
But she wore a dress the night she died. Why?“
„Women.“ He shrugged, as if this were an answer of sorts. Then he walked back to the crates from Faustine’s and pulled another one from a stack. It was large, but he handled it as if it weighed only a few pounds and set it down on the floor. „Where is that wine? So much to drink, so little time.“
Mallory drifted toward the ashtray where Louisa’s cigarette was smoldering. Her eyes focused on the smoke. „Her hair – it’s cut very short, isn’t it?“
Apparently he didn’t like it when she played his game with the invisible woman. He turned his back on her and bent over the crate. Now he paused, hands braced on his knees. His head turned slightly, only showing her the line of his cheek. „How did you know that?“
So she had guessed right. The long hair from the passport photo had been cut off in Paris.
He looked back over his shoulder. „The boys told you?“
Boys? He must mean the old magicians. She nodded toward the wardrobe trunk. „Short hair goes with the man-tailored clothes.“
His head bowed as he put his weight into the crowbar. „She wore ties with the suits, just like the magicians. Louisa fascinated everyone who came to the theater. Halfway across the room, she could alter her sex with the change of her gait.“ He turned to consult the smoke from the ashtray, a last withering plume from a cigarette that had gone dark. „Her eyes are such a pale blue. There are moments when they seem solid white – eerie. She never needed makeup.“
„But tonight she’s wearing lipstick.“ Mallory circled the crate so she could see his face. „She wore makeup the night she was killed, right? And a dress, her only dress – all tricked out to die like a woman.“
„Yes.“ His dark blue eyes were somber now and fixed on the crowbar as he worked it under the wooden lid. „She was very much a woman that night.“
Mallory’s hand pressed down on top of the crate to work against him. „Were you hiding her from the Germans or the French police?“
The crowbar fell from his hand and crashed to the cement. Mallory took her hand off the crate lid and stepped back. „I know a lot about Louisa.“
He shook his head to say she was lying. „No, I don’t think so. But you know a lot about death, I’ll grant you that. Your lecture at the poker game was very instructive. I never imagined anything that brutal.“
„No? Where were you when she was dying?“
„Elsewhere.“
Mallory was distracted by the plume of a fresh cigarette. When did he light that one? „I’ve met your old friends from Faustine’s.“
„And they couldn’t even tell you where Louisa was born.“ His hands were mauling the packing material. „I’ve never told anyone my wife’s history.“
„Right, the recording contract has a penalty clause.“
He abandoned this crate and looked for a more likely one among the stacks. „Have you ever heard my wife’s concerto? Louisa started writing it when she was only fourteen. She finished it in Paris.“
„It’s odd that your old friends wouldn’t know anything about her background, unless you had something to hide before Louisa died. So I was right. She was wanted. Didn’t you trust any of them?“
„You should play her concerto – she’s in there, her entire personality. The music critics say the work is inhabited – haunted, if you like. Ah, but you don’t believe in ghosts.“
„And neither do you.“ She watched him pull up the loosened lid. „It takes a lot of effort to keep a dead woman walking and talking. You’re the one who works the strings.“
The crate’s interior was exposed, and his face paled as he looked down at the contents, a wooden crossbow. The pistol stock was cracked, and the bow was broken in two. He shook his head, as if this might clear his vision. Unlike the other crates, he took the trouble to replace the lid on this one.
„No wine here either.“ His composure was restored when he looked up at Mallory. „You know nothing about my wife.“
„Her hair wasn’t short in 1942.“ She watched his hands tighten around the crowbar. „Not in August – that’s when she crossed the border into France. An eighteen-year-old bride.“