Lived was the wrong word, of course, but he wouldn't correct her when she prided herself on care of speech. "Not a word," he answered. "But I did not associate greatly with those who repeated tales of bogeymen."
"Bogey-wolves," said Jack. "Let's hear it."
Mrs. Smith lowered her book into the light, and read aloud in French: "In the winter of the year of our Lord fourteen hundred and thirty nine, when famine lay upon the land and civil war smoldered between the followers of the Count of Armagnac and those of the Duke of Burgundy, the countryside was locked in snow such as none had seen. The city of Paris was laid under siege by a pack of wolves such that none could enter or leave the city for fear of being cast down and devoured. Many starved, and many travelers were slain, and livestock was raided away by beasts with no fear of man. The wolves came into Paris along the Seine, which was frozen with the great cold of that year, and their leader was the bandit wolf called Couped, for he had lost his tail in a trap. In those days, some kennelmasters crossed wolves and hunting-dogs to create the fiercest hounds, but as happens when one meddles in God's affairs, they bred a monster. The dog was untamable, and so he was sent to the baiting.
"Couped feared not men, for men had made him. But he had a hatred of them. In the fullness of time, he escaped from the fighting pits and fled into the wild.
"When he returned, it was with an army at his back."
Phoebe lowered the book, her finger still marking her page. She cleared her throat and spoke in English. "Sparing you any further moralization or melodrama, it goes on to say they held the city under siege for three months, and in no less than a fortnight killed and devoured fourteen men, women, and children. Courtaut was captured on St. Martin's Eve and paraded through the city in a cart before being dispatched. The total death count is given as nearly a hundred, but I wonder how many of those froze or starved and were, you know, gnawed. It also says the wolves dug up corpses in cemeteries—I suspect that's embroidery, because if the Seine were frozen, the ground certainly would be too—and stole from larders—and it says they ran through the very streets of Paris herself."
"They still do," Abby Irene pointed out.
Sebastien folded his arms. "Les loups du Paris," he said. "Les bêtes de la Ville-lumière."
"But not the beasts we have to catch."
"No," Sebastien said. "Abby Irene, do you suppose the legend could have inspired a. . .man? A slasher? Such things do happen—"
"Maybe," she said, her mouth twisted with thought or skepticism. "But that doesn't do anything to explain the nature of the dead man's wounds. Or why you found a man's footprints beside those of a beast, in the alley."
They were still sitting, staring at one another, when Mary opened the door after a quick tap. She stepped within and pushed the door to the frame behind her, one hand still resting on the handle to prevent the latch from clicking. She looked directly at Abby Irene, and waited until she nodded. "Ma'am?"
"Yes, Mary?"
"Someone is here to see you." Her voice was tight. She came forward, and extended a hand that shook visibly. Abby Irene lifted the visiting card from Mary's fingers; her eyes widened when she read it. She made as if to slip it into her décolletage, and then hesitated and handed it to Sebastien. Her kid gloves brushed his palm. He felt her warmth through them, and folded his fingers around the card.
It read, Henri LeBlanc. Sebastien read it twice, disbelieving. "Your prince has balls," he said.
And Abby Irene, shaking her head, burst out laughing. "Have the desk send him up, Mary? I'll see him alone. In the other bedroom."
* * *
Henry looked the part he'd assumed, with his black curls unpomaded and crushed out of shape by a tweed cap that was still in evidence, tucked under his arm. He'd let himself go unshaven, too, and the creases down his cheeks left by an outdoorsman's squint made him look older, now, rather than dashing. He paused just inside the door, shoulders squared in a tweed jacket, hands shoved into his pockets, and stared at her.
She had thought herself prepared. But, looking at him, she understood her numb detachment as shock.