fashion, and gloves of black kid. As she came closer, he saw that she had also taken the time to apply fresh rouge. She looked, in fact, as she always looked: flawless.
She must have brought the fresh gown, the cosmetics, the bonnet with her when she came to nurse. Of course, the nuns would trample one another to give her a place to change.
"M'sieu Janvier, I hope you will excuse a woman's vanity. Sister Jocelyn, would you have my other things sent without being possessed of a devil. But Emily Redfern has always believed that whoever causes her annoyance must be an emissary of Satan. Like that poor girl."
January said nothing for a time, but the red-and-gold candy tin rose to his mind.
"Did Gervase say anything about where she might have gone?" he asked.
"Only that she said she was `getting on a boat' that night. He is... quite desolate. He's a simple soul at heart, you know. I think he thought that, having run away from the Redferns, the girl was going to remain in the city and meet with him on a regular basis." She frowned, dark brows pulling together over the brilliant eyes. "I sent him into the country, upriver to my cousin's plantation. In a few weeks I'm sure he'll be fine."
They turned along Rue Royale, passing an open lot and then a small, graceful town house plastered with rustcolored stucco, before reaching the pale green fortress on the corner.
"I never saw her very closely, you understand, M'sieu." Madame Lalaurie paused before the gorgeously carved front door. "Only as a shadow, passing along Rue de l'Hopital in the darkness." She nodded up along the street, in the direction of the swamps. "But she seemed so... alone. A little colored girl, going out to brave the world. I hope no ill befell her."
The door opened at her back. "Madame, Madame," chided Bastien in his soft voice, "you should have sent for me."
She laughed. "What, to spare myself a walk of two streets? You should have been a nursemaid, my Bastien." Smiling, she held out her gloved hand to January. "Good luck with your search, M'sieu."
He bowed over her fingers. "Thank you, Madame."
The door closed. January looked up along Rue de l'Hopital, in the direction of her nod. She'd been watching in a window, then: natural enough, if she had worries about Gervase fleeing with his lover. And Cora had gone back in the direction of town-in the direction of Mademoiselle Vitrac's school, where Madame Redfern's necklace and nearly two hundred dollars were cached.
And had never reached her goal. "M'sieu!"
He turned his head. In the doorway of the little rustcolored town house stood the Creole gentleman in the dark coat, the one who had crossed the street to avoid an encounter with the Americans.
The man beckoned him, and January walked to where he stood.
"I beg your pardon," the gentleman said in a low voice. "I could not but overhear what passed between you and Madame. You have a friend, a young woman of color, who went to Madame's house by night?"
He was stooped and thin, pointed of nose and graying of hair, rather like a harassed ferret.
"Not a friend," said January carefully. He and Madame had not spoken loudly, and the amount of information gleaned seemed rather a lot for a chance hearing. "A friend of a friend. Did you happen to see her? This would have been Friday night."
"I saw nothing," said the little man. "But the things that I hear..." He laid a crooked finger alongside his nose. "My name is Montreuil, Alphonse Montreuil. I live here, I and my good wife." He gestured to the town house behind him. He looked down-at-heels, though the main branch of the Montreuil family were fairly well-off.
"Like all sensible people I had my windows shuttered tight Friday night, in the hopes of evading this terrible pestilence." Montreuil crossed himself, and January did the same.
Then the man leaned close, his voice dropping conspiratorially. His teeth were bad and his breath like a dayold midden. "All the same, Monsieur, the things that I hear... This young friend of yours. She went into that house. Are you certain she came out again?"
January stepped back, startled. "What?"
"Are you sure she emerged from the house of that woman?" Montreuil's dark eyes flickered back to the formidable walls of pale green stucco, the neat galleries and tightly closed black shutters. "I have heard terrible things, Monsieur, terrible things. In the dead of the night, when I