City of Darkness and Light(45)

“Madame?” he said. “I understand that you come from the family of Monsieur Bryce in America?”

I decided that this little lie would be the only way of getting information. I pushed the word perjury to the back of my mind. “That is correct. I was asked to deliver a message to him from his family.”

“May I ask what that message was?”

“Certainly not,” I said. “It is a private message, meant for Mr. Bryce’s ears alone, and I am growing rather tired of being thwarted like this. I’m sure Mr. Bryce would not be happy if he found I’d been kept waiting in the front hall.”

He stared at me, looked around, then said, “You had better come in.”

He led me through to the ground-floor apartment. Once inside there was a grander foyer than the communal one—furnished with two gilt chairs with a small bronze sculpture of a ballerina between them, potted palms, and gilt-framed paintings lining the walls.

“We will sit here, if you don’t mind,” he said, indicating the two chairs. “My men are still working in the other rooms.”

A door was open on my left and I saw the back of a policeman who appeared to be dusting the back of a chair with a feather duster. I had seen this done before. “You’re looking for fingerprints,” I said. At least I tried to say it, but the word was outside the scope of my vocabulary. I tried saying, “impressions de doigts” meaning “impression of fingers.” He looked confused. I mimed the making of a fingerprint and he nodded, understanding.

“Ah. Les empreintes digitales—this is new science for us. How in the name of God do you know of such things?” he demanded.

I was about to say that my husband was a police captain in New York, but didn’t want word of this getting back to Daniel. “I am acquainted with the methods of the police,” I said. “We know all about fingerprints in America.” I didn’t add that they had never been allowed as admissible evidence in court, in spite of the police insisting they were the only infallible tool the detective had. Then the import of that police work struck me. “But that must mean that a crime was committed here.”

He nodded. “This must remain confidential for now, but I am afraid to report to you that Monsieur Bryce is dead.”

“Dead? You mean murdered?”

“It would appear so. I am sorry to be the reporter of bad news.”

I nodded. I neither knew nor cared about Reynold Bryce, but my immediate thought was that if someone had killed him, his death might have had something to do with Sid and Gus’s disappearance. Were they now in danger, or … I hardly dared to frame the thought … were they also dead? I swallowed hard. “When was he killed?”

“Two days ago now. We have kept this knowledge to ourselves hoping to identify the killer before the press might learn of it, and we had the American ambassador breathing down our necks.”

I tried to keep my face calm and composed. “And do you have any idea who might be responsible?”

He looked at me strangely. I suppose I had become so used to questioning people that I had forgotten it was neither normal nor ladylike. Most women would have had the smelling salts out by now, swooning at the mention of a dead body.

“Suppose I start asking the questions,” he said. “I am Inspector Henri of the Sûreté.”

In spite of the gravity of the situation I had a ridiculous urge to grin, because his name, pronounced in French was on-ree, and the words “on ri” mean “one laughs.” I’d never seen anyone who looked less like laughing.

“And you are?” he continued, taking a small black notebook from his jacket pocket.

“Madame Sullivan.”

“And you come from?”

“New York.”

“But Monsieur Bryce he was from Boston, no? So how are you connected to him? You are a family member?”

“No, not a family member.” I decided not to stretch the truth too far. It always had a way of coming back and biting me. “I am acquainted with several Bostonian families.” This was true. Gus came from Boston.

“And you came to Paris specifically to deliver a message to Mr. Bryce?” he went on.

“No. I came to Paris to stay with friends. A family member asked me visit Mr. Bryce.”

“I understood he had no family.” He stared at me, long and hard.

“No immediate family,” I said. “The people I know are cousins.”

“And the message?”

“Is no longer relevant, now that he is dead.”

He frowned. “It might well be very relevant.”

“Why?” I asked. “How could a message from America affect a murder in Paris?”