“Where?” Henri asked, eyes on me.
“Dining room,” I said quickly. “The door locks.”
He had begun to move in that direction when Mrs. DuPont said, “The police were here to see you, Mademoiselle, and to take the things of the little man who is dead. I told them I can say nothing, that I know nothing of you. …”
“No gendarme!” the slouching man yelled. “No gendarme!”
I thought I could glimpse the beginnings of an actual expression on Mrs. DuPont’s face, a slight widening of the eyes before I shut the pocket door of the library and went through to the dining room. Henri put the man in a chair at the table while I set the red cap and the little slip of paper carefully on the sideboard, beside the covered remnants of breakfast. The key hung from a string on the door frame. I used it to lock both doors, and then sat, the fish still cradled in my hands.
Henri leaned back in his chair, playing with a spoon. The slouching man watched him warily. “Parlez-vous anglais, mon ami?” Henri asked.
The man’s eyes shifted back and forth between us. He was a bit older than I had thought, with gray in his hair, and the lined face of a laborer. “A little English,” he said carefully.
“Ask him why he chased me into the courtyard four nights ago,” I said. He watched me speak, then looked to Henri for the translation. When he understood the question, his words came quickly, low and earnest. Henri turned to me.
“He says he did not chase the young woman, that he wished her no harm. That the lady could not get into her house, that she was on the street alone with the lamps out, and that he followed to make certain she found her own door.”
The man’s gaze again darted, trying to decipher the English and my reaction to it. I shook my head, disbelieving. “Ask him why he has been watching my door at all, then?”
This was done, and the man frowned. He stared down at the little sugar spoon traveling through Henri’s fingers, and then up at my face. He spoke quietly, making Henri lean forward to hear.
“He says he is waiting for a man, that this man was to have come six days ago, but that the man has not come as he was meant to. He says sometimes it takes days for the man to come, but not this many days.” The slouching man spoke again, and Henri said, “He says he is waiting, and then a young lady arrives in a carriage — that is you, Miss Tulman — and that he knows her face. He thinks he has seen it before.” Henri asked a short question in French, and his dark eyes swung back to mine after the man’s response. They were dancing. “He says that he has seen your face in a painting.”
I met the eyes of the slouching man, who was studying me intently, as if by staring he could break the barrier of language between us. I raised my hand from my lap and placed the little silver fish I’d held tight to my palm between us on the table. The man’s face transformed, lines curving upward in a smile. “Jean-Michel,” he said.
I leaned forward, hands pressed flat on the table. “Where is Jean-Michel?” I said, taking away the man’s grin.
The slouching man also leaned forward, our faces just a few feet apart before he began to speak. Henri said, “He was hoping you would tell him. That you would know. He is worried.”
“Then if he doesn’t know where he is, ask him how he knows him, why he was waiting to speak with him. Ask …” I had to stop the questions from tumbling from my mouth. Henri spoke, and the slouching man returned with a sharp question of his own.
“He says that he knows who you are, he knows your face. But he wants to know if I am trustworthy.”
“Are you?” I asked.
Henri’s shoulder went up elegantly, the insolent smile at one corner of his mouth. “Of course.”
I thought of the twelve ramming thuds of his shoulder against Mrs. Reynolds’s attic door, looked back at the slouching man, and nodded once. The man stared thoughtfully at the table, then the words began to flow in a smooth rhythm. Henri kept up a simultaneous translation.
“His name is Joseph LeFevre. He is a metal worker, and met Jean-Michel thirteen months ago in a silver shop on the Rue Basse-du-Rempart. And yes, Miss Tulman, that would be rather close, as Mrs. Reynolds told you. Joseph says that Jean-Michel was able to do him a favor at one time, a favor that meant much to him, and in return, he was able to find out things that Jean-Michel wished to know.”
Henri paused, listening. “He says he has much family in Paris, brothers and cousins, all men that can close their mouths — he means hold their tongues, Miss Tulman — and that Jean-Michel pays for little jobs to be done, finding out about things, about the buying and selling of metals and certain …” Henri hesitated. “… chemicals, and the building of ships, and that this has put bread on the tables of his nieces and nephews. He says that Jean-Michel has no love for the emperor, or this war. …” The translation halted as Joseph sighed. “But always, he says, Jean-Michel is searching for a man.”
I did not have to ask the name of the man. It was Ben Aldridge. “And what did Jean-Michel find? Ask him that.”
Henri listened to the man’s response and said, “He does not know. He says Jean-Michel never tells him why, or what his information means. …” Henri smiled at the flow of French coming from the slouching man, his eyebrows rising slightly. “But he says that if Jean-Michel asked him to fight another Waterloo, then he would fight another Waterloo, and sing while he did so, and that his brothers would do the same. Because Jean-Michel, he is like them, but he is not like them. He is noble.” Henri put his dark eyes on me. “That must have been a very large favor your servant did, would you not agree, Miss Tulman?”
I didn’t answer. I was watching Joseph, who was still speaking, his eyes on mine. “He says after Jean-Michel left the silver shop, they were to meet regularly at Rue Trudon, but now Jean-Michel is not here. And he says there are men watching the house.”
I drew a quick breath. “English or French?”
“French,” Joseph replied directly. “They are … discrets.”
“The men are discreet,” Henri translated. “Combien?”
“Trois,” the man answered.
Three Frenchman watching the house. The emperor, then, not Mr. Wickersham. I retrieved the slip of paper I’d found beneath Lane’s bed, sliding it across the dining-room table until it lay beside the fish. “Does this mean anything to you?” I asked.
Joseph glanced at it and shook his head, pushing it back toward Henri, who told him what it said. The man frowned. “Soyez prudent, Mademoiselle.”
“He says you should be careful, Miss Tulman,” said Henri.
“Ask him if he saw Mr. Babcock,” I said. “The small man who arrived in the carriage with me.”
When he had finished asking, Joseph spoke quickly. “Yes,” Henri replied for him. “He left with two of the men who had been watching. Early in the morning, the day before yesterday.”
I let out my breath. Mr. Babcock left with two Frenchman. So that crime was at the hands of the emperor, too. The fury that had accompanied my grief stretched out for the idea of Napoléon III like Uncle Tully’s snaking blue electricity was drawn to the next pole. Obviously the emperor must believe the weapon my uncle could produce was powerful indeed, much more valuable than one lawyer’s life. But how could he know that my uncle was not dead? Unless it was French agents that had opened Uncle Tully’s grave, and not Mr. Wickersham’s men?
Joseph was still talking. Henri interrupted with a quick question, listened, and then said, “He says it did not look like an unfriendly meeting. But he did not see the little man come back. I do not think he knows your friend is dead.”