Only the mask he wore was his cropped fair hair, thought January, and the scars on his face. But a mask it was, as surely as the elaborate thing of jewels and fur that had hidden Angelique's face on the night of her death. The man's coat and trousers were a costume as surely as that stolen white silk dress had been, more subtle because they used the minds of those who saw as a disguise.
I wear trousers, therefore you see a man.
Your skin is black, therefore I see a slave. Except, of course, that Augustus was one of the few people in this country who saw a musician, and a man. Beside him, Hannibal said again, "Will she forgive me? Will Minou make her understand? I thought it was Minou. She was wearing Minou's dress-I thought it was Minou. I'm so sorry."
January started to say, "It's all right, she was just scared-" and then stopped, and it seemed to him that the blood in his veins turned colder dian the rain.
"Oh, Jesus," he whispered.
Hannibal halted too, looking up at him, baffled. "What-"
"She was wearing Madeleine's jewels," said January softly.
"Who was? Minou..."
"She was wearing Madeleine's jewels, and whoever killed her thought she was Madeleine." January still stood in the middle of the banquette, staring into space, shaken to his bones but knowing, as surely as he knew his name, that he was right.
"They killed the wrong woman."
"Who did? Why would anyone...?"
"The plantation," said January. He made a move back toward Rue Burgundy, then halted, knowing the carriage had moved away from the banquette moments after he and Hannibal had left the house. "Les Saules. It butts up against the Gentilly place-wasn't one of the proposed streetcar routes Granger and Bouille were fighting over out past Bayou Gentilly? If the route goes out there the land will be worth a fortune. If she sells it all to that McGinty fellow for debts..."
"McGinty?" said Hannibal, startled. "McGinty was one of Granger's seconds. The pirate with the red Vandyke, holding the horses."
The two men stared at each other for a moment, pieces falling into place: McGinty's coppery whiskers clashing with the purple satin of his pirate mask, the faubourgs of New Orleans spreading in an Americanized welter of wooden gingerbread and money, Livia's dry voice reading aloud William Granger's slanderous accusations of Jean Bouille in the newspaper, the efforts to discredit Madeleine before Aunt Picard could marry her off.
"Come on!" January turned and strode down Rue Bienville, Hannibal hurrying, gasping, in his wake.
"How did they know she'd be at the ball?"
"Sally. The girl who ran off. The one who had a 'high-toned' boyfriend-a white boyfriend. You or Fat
Mary ever find out anything of where she went?"
The fiddler shook his head. "Not a word of her."
"Ten to one the man she ran off with was McGinty or someone connected with him. He'd been around the plantation on business."
"And tonight..."
"It's got to be someone connected with the Trepagier family. Someone who stands to inherit-and my guess is it's Arnaud's brother. Claud, the one who's been in Texas." He strode along the banquette, heedless of the rain. "Anyone connected with the family would know she'd be at her Aunt Picard's tonight. Anyone could have arranged an ambush."
"Then if the attack this evening wasn't chance..."
"They'll have followed her out of town to try again."
TWENTY-TWO
Hannibal's breathing had hoarsened to a dragging gasp by the time they reached the gallery outside Mayerling's rooms. The rain was heavy now, streaming down from a tar-black sky and glittering in the lamps hung under the galleries. In the amber glow of the candles that the Prussian brought to the open door, January could see no difference, no clue to confirm what he now knew. The epicene ivory beakiness was the same. His only thought was, Even without the scars, that's one homely woman.
"Madame Trepagier is in trouble," said January, as the Prussian stepped out onto the gallery, clothed in vest and shirtsleeves, the short-cropped blond bristle of hair still damp from its earlier wetting in the rain. "Where do you keep your chaise?"
"Rue Douane. Where is she?" He reached back through the door and fetched his coat from its peg. "And how do you-? "
"Bring your guns."
Mayerling stopped, his eyes going to January's, then past him to Hannibal, leaning on the upright of the gallery stair and holding his ribs to still his coughing.
"What's happened? Come in." He strode away into the apartment, where another branch of candles burned on a table before an open book. The place was small and almost bare, but in one corner of the room stood a double escapement seven-octave Broadwood piano, and music was heaped on its lid and the table at its side.
The Prussian flipped open an armoire, pulled a drawer, drew forth the boxed set of Manton pistols with which Granger and Bouille had missed each other, and a bag of shot. From the wall beside the armoire he took down a Kentucky long rifle and an English shotgun.
During this activity January explained, "Someone attacked Madame Trepagier after she left here." Mayerling turned his head sharply, but January went on, "She was assaulted in Orleans Alley by the cathedral. I stopped them, sent her off home, but now I think they'll try again. Her brother-in-law's behind it, he's got to be."
"Claud?" Mayerling handed January the shotgun- thereby, January reflected wryly, breaking Louisiana state law-slung the powder box under his arm, and shrugged his coat on top of it, to keep it out of the
rain. The last time he had had a gun in his hands, thought January, had been at the Battle of Chalmette. "I'd heard he was back in town, staying with the Trepagier cousins."
"When?" asked January, startled.
"I don't know." Their feet clattered on the wood of the stairways, down one gallery, two. "Mardi Gras itself I think, or the day before. At least that's when he sent a message to Madeleine asking to see her."
"Did she?"
"No." His voice was dry and very cold. "I think she knew he was going to propose to her."
"Try to murder her, more like. She's lucky she didn't go. You know what he looks like?"
"No. Which is as well," he added softly, "from what she has told me of the man. But why would he have men attack her? Why would he-"
"To inherit Les Saules," said January as they reached the street.
The sword master checked his stride for a moment to regard him in surprise. "The plantation? But without slaves it's worthless. The land's run-down, there are too few slaves to work what they have, they need to replant every one of the fields..."
"The land will be worth a hundred dollars an acre if they put the streetcar line out from Gentilly, instead of from LaFayette like Granger's company proposed."
"Granger." Mayerling's light, husky voice was soft. "The duel was over Bouille's decision, of course. Since it went against Granger the line will of course be from Gentilly. And Granger's friend McGinty would have known that. He's been pressing Madeleine to sell to him for months now."
"And at a guess," said Hannibal, reaching out one hand to prop himself just slightly on the iron post of the gallery, "Claud Trepagier is the fellow in the green Turk costume who was talking to McGinty in the Salle d'Orleans a few minutes before Angelique came in." "Affenschwdnz," said Mayerling coldly. "The horse is at the livery just down the way. It will take me minutes..."
"Pick me up on Rue Douane below Rampart. Hannibal, you sound like you'd better stay here."
The fiddler coughed, and shook his head violently. "You'll need a loader."
There was no time to argue, so January simply handed the shotgun to Hannibal and took off up Bien-ville at a lope. A few minutes brought him to Olympe's cottage, where a boy of eleven or so opened the French door into the front bedroom, instead of to the parlor where he had been before.
"Mama, she with a lady, sir," said the boy politely, in slurry Creole French. "You come in, though, it pourin' out." He stepped aside. Through an open door into the other bedroom January could see three more children, like little stair steps, sitting cross-legged on a big bed with a large, broad-shouldered, very kindly-looking mulatto man who was reading to them from a book.