The Essence of Malice Read online

  “And so we find ourselves at the scene of another murder,” Milo said, coming back to the sitting area. He didn’t seem much troubled by the fact, for he lit another cigarette and settled back into his chair. I couldn’t help but think that he looked particularly content.

  “What do you make of it?” I asked. “Do you think it’s likely that Helios Belanger was killed?”

  “Madame Nanette is not one to make accusations lightly. If she thinks that something sinister is at work here, I’d place odds on her being correct.”

  I didn’t know her at all well, but I had had the same impression. There was something calm and steady about her. She did not seem a woman who would jump to conclusions or make hasty assumptions. She had not given us the names of her suspects, but the sweeping accusation that it might be anyone in the family was troubling. A family as prominent as the Belangers would be difficult to infiltrate, let alone accuse of murder. We had our work cut out for us.

  “This won’t be easy,” I said, voicing my thoughts.

  “No,” Milo agreed. Then the corner of his mouth tipped up. “But that’s what makes it interesting, isn’t it?”

  It occurred to me that he was taking a singularly sanguine attitude about all of this. He had taken it completely in stride when she told him that her very famous employer might have been murdered, and I wanted to know why.

  “You didn’t seem much surprised by anything she had to say,” I remarked.

  “I was expecting trouble. It wasn’t particularly surprising.”

  “Murder is not particularly surprising?” I demanded.

  “Not anymore,” he replied.

  Despite the nonchalance of his tone, suspicion was beginning to build. “But Helios Belanger is a well-known name. You didn’t bat an eye when she mentioned him.”

  “Murder is murder, darling. No matter to whom it happens.”

  The realization hit me suddenly. “You knew Madame Nanette was working for the family of Helios Belanger.”

  He blew out a stream of smoke. “You don’t suppose I would receive a troubled message from her without making a few inquiries?”

  Milo could be incredibly resourceful when he set his mind to it. Naturally he would have wanted to know the details of Madame Nanette’s situation.

  “Then you already knew that Helios Belanger was dead?”

  “Yes. It was in all the papers.”

  I could not exactly fault him for my ignorance on that score. I hadn’t had much interest in news on holiday. I suppose I ought to have tried harder to stay au courant. What I could fault him for was his silence on the subject.

  “You heard Madame Nanette’s employer had died suddenly, and you didn’t think to mention it to me?”

  He sighed. “Darling, as I told you last night, I didn’t want to trouble you with every little detail. I was attempting to gather information before I alarmed you.”

  Though this was a very poor excuse, I decided to move on, for the time being at least.

  “You said you know the younger Belanger son?”

  “Michel, yes. He and I know each other fairly well, though I haven’t seen him in a year or two. We were in a few scrapes together in our younger days.”

  I could only imagine what Milo’s definition of “a few scrapes” was. He had once described the time he and the drunken heir to a dukedom had nearly been arrested for driving a car, the backseat full of scantily-clad women, into an Italian fountain as “a minor mishap.”

  That particular event had occurred before we met, but there had been a handsome array of reported transgressions since then, and I wondered what Michel Belanger must be like if Milo disapproved of him.

  He replied in that uncanny way he had of seeming to read my thoughts. “The problem with Michel is that he has never grown up. While I have become rather staid in my old age, he hasn’t changed much since our carousing days.”

  My brows rose. “Staid, are you?”

  He smiled. “Why, darling, haven’t you noticed? I’m developing into a perfect paragon of virtue.”

  This did not deserve a response. “So this Michel isn’t a very nice sort of fellow, then?” I inquired, directing the conversation back to reality.

  “To give you some idea, his father finally sent him away from home when he was nineteen or twenty after the maids kept turning up pregnant,” Milo said.

  “Oh,” I replied.

  “You see? I may not enjoy a spotless reputation, but at least I don’t have half a dozen illegitimate children scattered across Europe.”

  “How very staid of you,” I replied wryly.

  “Well,” he said, rising from his chair, “I don’t suppose there’s anything more to be done tonight. Shall we go out?”

  “Now?”

  “Certainly. We’re in Paris, after all, and the evening is young.”

  There was a certain logic in that argument that I couldn’t deny. “Why not?” I replied, rising from the sofa.

  An hour or two of music and dancing might be just the thing to clear my head before we began our inquiries.

  Besides, Milo had just spent the past several minutes reveling in the memories of his glory days. It was probably best that I kept an eye on him.

  5

  MY FIRST STEPS toward solving the mystery of Helios Belanger’s death were taken the next morning at breakfast. I sat at the table enjoying some of the excellent pastries and strong coffee provided by the hotel and glancing through the newspaper. I was certain that the sudden death of so noted a person would have made for several juicy articles, but the majority of those had apparently been written in the days immediately following Helios Belanger’s death. In this morning’s newspaper, there was only a small piece describing reported funeral preparations. It seemed the funeral was to take place that day.

  I set the paper aside as Winnelda moved to the windows and flung two of them open, a gust of cool spring morning air billowing into the room and swirling the curtains.

  “It’s such a beautiful morning,” she said dreamily. “Paris is just as wonderful as I ever thought it would be.”

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” I said, pouring myself a second cup of coffee from the silver pot as I pulled my pale blue silk robe more closely around me to ward off the chill.

  “Isn’t it glorious, madam? So beautiful and romantic.”

  “Yes,” I replied, as I lifted my cup to my lips. “It’s lovely.”

  She wasn’t the only one succumbing to the charms of the city. After our visit to a nightclub, Milo had seen me back to our room and had gone off to one of his favorite gambling clubs. He had come in shortly before dawn smelling of the traditional scent of such places: cigarette smoke, liquor, and traces of inferior perfume. Whatever women had frequented that particular gambling establishment had clearly not been wearing Belanger scents.

  I didn’t expect he would be rousing himself anytime soon, but I had arisen determined to make myself useful this morning. I had always worked best at these little puzzles by speaking to the people at the heart of the matter, but it seemed unlikely that I would be able to meet any of the members of the Belanger family anytime soon. After all, it would be unseemly to approach them at such a time. What I could do, however, was learn as much about the family as possible.

  I could think of an excellent way to start.

  “Would you like to look over your gossip magazines this morning, Winnelda?” I asked.

  She turned from the window, her excitement clear on her face. “Oh, yes, madam. I would like that ever so much. You and Mr. Ames are so clever, speaking French just like real French people. I spent a long time last night looking at the photographs, but they’re not as good without the words. Shall I fetch them now?”

  “If you like.” I stirred a bit more milk into my coffee as she went to collect her magazines.

  While she was gone, I tried to figure out how I might be able to form some sort of connection with the Belangers. Madame Nanette being a nanny, it was unlikely that
she would be able to introduce me to the family. What was more, they were all in mourning and would no doubt retreat from society. It was going to be difficult, but I would do my best to find a way.

  Winnelda returned, her magazines in hand, with remarkable speed.

  I moved to the sofa and patted the seat beside me. She came to sit, and I took the magazine at the top of the stack and examined the cover. I knew that Winnelda was more interested in the vagaries of young socialites and the love affairs of cinema stars than she was in the “old man” she had seen on the cover of the other magazines, but I hoped that we would both find something worthwhile in our reading.

  Choosing what I thought would most appeal to her sense of the dramatic, I read to her the tragic, if dubious, account of a penniless Russian princess who had wed a commoner against her family’s wishes only to succumb to pneumonia shortly thereafter.

  “It’s romantic, isn’t it, madam?” she said, clasping her hands together. “Romantic and so very sad.” I was fairly certain she was about to come to tears.

  “Yes,” I said. “Very sad indeed.”

  “To die so young, and so very much in love.” She sighed, removing a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbing at the corners of her eyes. “Life is very unfair sometimes.”

  “You’re quite right,” I agreed as I sifted through the magazines and found one for which I had been searching. Helios Belanger’s picture was not on the cover, which was why it had escaped Winnelda’s rather discriminating tastes, but his name was in the corner along with the sensational headline: “The Crash That Led to Death: Helios Belanger Dead After Devastating Aeroplane Accident.” Despite the somewhat misleading headline, I hoped the article might prove useful.

  “This is rather a sad story as well,” I said.

  She looked over at me. “What is it?”

  “It has to do with the elderly gentlemen you saw on some of the society magazines.”

  “Oh? Who is he? Someone important?”

  “Have you ever heard of a gentleman called Belanger?”

  “The name sounds familiar to me,” she said, “but I can’t place it.”

  “He is a well-known parfumier.”

  “Oh, yes, madam!” she exclaimed. “I remember now! My friend Edith is saving her salary to buy a bottle of one of his perfumes called Tigress because she thinks it will make her boyfriend wild for her.”

  “I wish Edith every success,” I said.

  Winnelda shook her head, her expression unhopeful. “Edith’s boyfriend has a wandering eye. I don’t suppose the perfume will be much good.”

  I couldn’t disagree with her on that score.

  “I’d like to see if we can find any information about the Belanger family,” I said, attempting to bring the subject back around to the task at hand. “I’m very interested in what will happen to the company now that Monsieur Belanger has passed.”

  “Very well, madam. I’m sure there must be something here.”

  And so we set to flipping through the magazines with gusto. I found one article discussing Monsieur Belanger’s sudden death and speculating on who would ascend to the Parfumes Belanger throne. As Madame Nanette had told us, it was commonly assumed Anton Belanger would take the reins, but there was mention of Cecile Belanger’s influence in the perfumes her father had released to great acclaim over the past several years. The article even hinted at a bit of an internal struggle between the siblings.

  There was also talk of a new perfume Madame Nanette had said was forthcoming. It was called L’Ange de Mémoire, and there was a great deal of anticipation surrounding its release. In addition to the sensation of the scent itself, which was rumored to be comprised of rare, luxurious, and highly secret ingredients, the bottle had been designed by Jens Muller, a rather famous sculptor. The Belangers had been planning a grand party to reveal the bottle’s design ahead of the perfume’s release.

  I wondered what sort of impact Helios Belanger’s death would have on the sales of the perfume. It would be the last scent to be created under his governance, and I couldn’t help but think the demand for it would be very high indeed.

  We continued flipping through the pages until Winnelda stopped, examining the caption on a photograph.

  “Here’s a picture of the youngest son, Mitchell,” she said.

  That would be Michel. I took the magazine from her and looked at the photograph. The quality was not very high, likely owing to the fact that it had clearly been taken when he was moving toward the photographer at an accelerated speed. It seemed Michel Belanger had not wanted his picture taken. The caption of the photo—“Michel Belanger leaves the home of Pierre and Georgette Rochart in the pre-dawn hours while Monsieur Rochart is away on state business in Brussels”—gave a good hint as to why he had been trying to avoid being photographed.

  The common assumption was that the French were a bit more lenient when it came to romantic relationships, but Michel Belanger leaving the home of a government official’s wife in the early hours of the morning, while the official was away, seemed a bit beyond the pale.

  “He seems to be very handsome,” Winnelda said, leaning toward me to peer at the photograph again.

  “Yes, I suppose he is,” I said. Though, from what I had heard from Milo and Madame Nanette, his personality was not at all attractive. I wonder if he had assaulted the photographer, another example of his temper.

  We had been reading over the magazines for the better part of an hour when my vision began to blur from staring at the tiny print. There had been surprisingly little information about the Belanger family in them. I could only assume all the relevant stories had been in the magazines that Winnelda had avoided because the photographs of Helios Belanger had not appealed to her.

  “Let’s stop for the time being, shall we?” I asked at last. “Perhaps we can acquire more magazines later.”

  “Yes, madam. There were ever so many more, and several of them had Monsieur Belanger on them. I would have chosen some of them had I known.”

  She gathered up the magazines just as Milo made his appearance in his dressing gown.

  “Good morning,” he said, walking toward the sitting area.

  “Good morning,” I replied. He looked well rested, despite the fact that he had slept only for a few hours.

  “I’ll just lay out your clothes for the day, shall I, madam?” Winnelda asked. “The blue suit, perhaps?”

  “Yes, that will do nicely. Thank you.”

  “What fresh mischief have you schemed up this morning?” Milo asked as Winnelda disappeared into the bedroom, magazines in tow.

  “Nothing as dramatic as all that. We were looking for clues in her gossip rags,” I said, “though we found surprisingly little. The problem, as I see it, is that we have no way to introduce ourselves to the family. Even if we were inclined to inject ourselves into their lives, it can’t be done while they’re mourning. If only we had some sort of connection.”

  He made a noncommittal noise and turned in the direction of the coffeepot that still rested on the table behind the sitting area.

  “I want so much to help Madame Nanette, but I just can’t see at this point how we are going to do it.”

  “Don’t give up hope just yet, darling,” he said. “Something will turn up.”

  Something in the way he said it made me look sharply at him over my shoulder, but he was pouring coffee and didn’t appear to notice my inquisitive look.

  Another thought occurred to me. “Why are you up so early?” I asked. “I rather thought you’d be abed until noon, considering your late night.”

  “Too much fresh air in this room,” he replied, glancing at the open windows. “It was seeping into the bedroom. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I suppose it is rather bracing when compared to the thick, airless atmosphere of your gambling club.”

  “You’ll be glad to know my evening there was a success,” he said, stirring sugar into his coffee.

  “You won, did you?” I asked, settli
ng back on the sofa, my back to him.

  “A thousand pounds, give or take a few francs,” he said, “but that’s not what I mean.”

  “Oh?” I asked, only marginally interested in his gambling exploits.

  “You said we need a connection to the Belangers, and we have one,” he said.

  I turned again to look at him, suddenly very interested in what he had to say. “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. We have a connection to the Belanger family.” He lifted his cup to his lips and took a drink, clearly enjoying leaving me in suspense.

  “Who?” I demanded.

  “André Duveau.”

  I frowned. “He knows the Belangers?”

  He slathered butter on a croissant. “Darling, he told you he was in the perfume industry.”

  Of course. How silly of me not to think of it before now. He had given me the bottle of perfume, and I had never stopped to think there might be a connection. What a dismal display of deductive powers.

  “You don’t mean to tell me that he’s associated with Parfumes Belanger?” I demanded.

  “That is exactly what I mean to tell you.”

  “Why on earth didn’t you say something before this?”

  He brought his cup and saucer to the sofa and sat beside me. “In the course of my inquiries about Madame Nanette’s position, I learned that Helios Belanger once did business with André Duveau. In fact, they often holidayed together in Como. I thought it might be a good means of forming a link to her employer’s family.”

  My lips parted in surprise as the implications of what he had just told me sank in. “You cultivated Mr. Duveau’s friendship deliberately.”

  He shrugged. “We share many common interests. It wasn’t difficult.”

  Sometimes it still surprised me how very devious Milo could be.

  “Turns out it was a lucky thing I did, given recent events,” he went on. “He mentioned in Como that he enjoyed gaming at a particular club. I telephoned him last night to see if he would introduce me there. So you see? I was gathering information.” He smiled. “You don’t think I spent the night out gambling purely for my own amusement?”