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Silence.
More silence.
And another teaspoonful of silen
ce.
Finally…
‘No.’
I thought as much.
Accompanied by the noise of grinding teeth, Mr Ambrose reached into his drawer, pulled out some official-looking writing paper with pre-printed letterhead. In his precise, small, and murderously neat handwriting he penned a few quick words, and signed the note with a flick of the wrist. Then he pulled a bellpull, and waited until a messenger boy peeked his head through the door.
‘Oui, Monsieur?’
Mr Ambrose threw him the letter. ‘Pour que Sa Majesté, le roi Louis Philippe, soit livré immédiatement.’[25]
The boy’s eyes went as wide as saucers. ‘Oui, monsieur! Tout de suite, monsieur!’[26]
He shut the door, and I could hear him running down the corridor at breakneck speed.
At the desk, Mr Ambrose sat down heavily in his chair and gave me a stony look.
I sent him back an encouraging smile. ‘It’s to prevent a horrific war and untold amounts of bloodshed.’
By the looks of him, that wasn’t a great consolation.
*~*~**~*~*
While Mr Ambrose brooded over how much money he was going to lose and mobilized his forces to spy on Dalgliesh, I had been ordered to receive my punishment. As vengeance for forcing him to spend money, it was to be my task to interview the opera staff once again, but this time with a new perspective. We weren’t just dealing with some petty rivalry between artists. We were dealing with a traitor—both from Mr Ambrose’s perspective and, if we were right, from the perspective of the King of the French.[27]
And everything depends on detective inspector Lilly Linton. Huzzah!
I didn’t share the new direction of the investigation with my translator, however, when she asked why the heck we were starting the interviews all over again. Considering what we suspected now, it was entirely possible she was the architect of the whole plot, and had placed the snake in her own changing room to throw us off the scent. I didn’t like to think my drinking buddy could be the force of evil we were trying to root out, however, she was definitely sneaky enough. It was the reason why I liked her.
‘Monsieur?’ a boy stuck his head in through the door. I nodded and waved at him.
‘Let them in.’
He disappeared, and a moment later, the first suspect entered the room. I tried my best to ask new questions without being too obvious about what we suspected, like: Have you worked here long? Have you ever worked for other operas in Paris? Are you satisfied with the wages Mr Ambrose pays you? (The last being more of a rhetorical question.)
My particular focus was on the men and the larger women. I doubted very much one of the pixie-like ballerinas would have been able to drag a days-old corpse halfway through the opera house undetected. Still, I couldn’t afford to leave anyone out. So the day dragged on and on, filled with endless questions, until finally the sun sank beyond the horizon.
Once again, the messenger boy stuck his head in the door and said something in quick French.
‘He says there’s someone outside asking for an interview,’ Claudette translated, ‘and—’
‘Let them in, let them in.’ I waved a tired hand. ‘I’ve conducted dozens of interview today, one more won’t hurt.’
‘Err…I don’t think he meant that kind of interview. I think he meant—’
The door opened.
‘Good evening,’ an eerily familiar voice said. ‘I’ve come to apply for the post of—Mr Linton! Good Lord, Mr Linton – is that you?’
Slowly, I lifted my gaze, dread rising inside me, to see standing in the doorway the slender, beaming figure of Emilia Harse.
