‘The knife,’ said Holmes. ‘You described a tanner’s dry scraper. A tool particular to that trade.’
‘In any case, I do not take kindly to threats, Mr Holmes.’
‘No, you would not. However I believe this was not a threat, but a friendly warning.’
‘Non!’ she exclaimed.
‘Attendez. I do believe there is danger. The danger may be to your son, rather than to yourself. However, it is possible that your very efforts to find him could put you both in peril.’
Mlle La Victoire sat frozen, listening.
‘In the interests of safety, I ask that you not venture out alone. Do nothing, but allow Dr Watson and myself to search for your son unimpeded. Now, one more question. Did you sense anything wrong before this? In previous visits to your son perhaps?’
‘You must understand me, Monsieur Holmes,’ said the singer. ‘I love my boy. I have observed over the years a healthy and happy child, well adjusted and thriving. I would never have let things proceed if not. It is my feeling that he has been treated kindly and generously by the Earl and his wife.’
Holmes remained impassive. From the doorway leading into the rest of the apartment came the sharp sound of a chair scraping. Holmes stood, immediately on the alert. I joined him.
‘Who is in the apartment with us?’ said he.
Mlle La Victoire rose. ‘No one. It is the maid with the groceries. Now if you will excuse me, please.’
‘Her name?’
‘Bernice. Why?’ But Holmes did not reply. Mlle La Victoire moved to the door, which she opened in a clear gesture of dismissal. ‘Now, gentlemen, I must rest and prepare for my performance tonight. Please join me at Le Chat Noir. I sing at eleven. We can meet afterwards and continue this interview.’
‘We will be happy to be there,’ I said. ‘Thank you for the coffee, and your kind hospitality.’ I approached and kissed her hand. Turning, I saw my companion already had his overcoat on and was reaching for his scarf.
Moments later we found ourselves in the street. It had begun to snow. ‘Come Watson. What do you make of our client?’
‘She is exceedingly beautiful.’
‘Guarded.’
‘Charming!’
‘Complex. Masking something.’
‘I was glad to hear the boy was treated well at the Earl’s.’ I said. ‘Don’t you trust her on that account?’
Holmes snorted and walked faster. ‘We cannot yet be sure of Emil’s treatment at home. Children often learn stoicism early.’
‘But surely Mademoiselle La Victoire would have noticed,’ I said.
‘Not necessarily. Even a mother can miss the signs.’
I was taken aback by this comment. As I had often in the past, I wondered again briefly about Holmes’s own story. Of his childhood, I knew nothing. Had his own mother missed signs? And of what?
A sturdy woman approached carrying an armful of groceries. Holmes called out to her in a cheery voice and perfect accent, ‘Bonsoir, Bernice!’
‘Bonsoir, monsieur,’ she sang back, and then, seeing we were strangers, hurried on.
Holmes looked at me. Who had been in the apartment with us?
I should have known that he had a second, unspoken reason; it was a hallmark of my travels with Holmes. We stowed our luggage, and hailed another cab.
Holmes directed the driver slightly out of our way, taking a scenic route through Paris, heading first east to the Place de l’Étoile. Circling the magnificent Arc de Triomphe, we proceeded next to the Champs Élysées, moving past the impressive Palais de L’Industrie. Arriving at the Place de la Concorde, Holmes pointed out the Luxor obelisk, before directing our driver south to the river. From there the unfinished apparition of La Tour Eiffel loomed vaporously off to our right through the snowy air. It looked ridiculously like something Jules Verne might construct as a ladder to the moon.
‘A monstrosity!’ I commented. Holmes smiled. I wondered how long Parisians would put up with the blasted thing.
Upon entering the Louvre, we began with a tour of the galleries in the southern wing. There Holmes surprised me with his vast knowledge of the collection, and the pleasure he took in introducing me to its finer points. I was happy to see him refresh both mind and spirit, as there were few things other than work and his violin which could relieve his churning, restless mind.
Perhaps I had been wrong, and this trip to Paris would be the exactly the tonic he needed for his recovery.
Moving quickly through several great halls, we came to rest in front of an unusual portrait. The subject was a somewhat eccentric-looking gentleman, dressed in a Bohemian style of eighty years or so ago, with a broad fur collar, a bright red scarf, his white hair in disarray, and a look of devilish, amused intensity on his vivid features. Holmes paused in front of this portrait, apparently taken by it.
I wondered aloud, ‘Who is this strange-looking fellow, Holmes, a friend of yours?’
‘Hardly, the man is long gone. But this painting is a recent acquisition and I have read of it. The subject is the painter Isabey, renowned for his miniatures.’
The slightly odd expression and clothing of the gentleman in the painting struck me. ‘He looks a bit mad!’ I remarked. ‘Or perhaps ready to embark on some shady diversion.’
Holmes turned to me in amusement. ‘Possibly. One never knows with an artist.’
I read the name below the portrait. It had been painted by Horace Vernet – the brother of Holmes’s grandmother! While he spoke little of his upbringing, he had once mentioned this.
‘Ah, your great-uncle is the artist!’ I exclaimed. ‘This is unusual for him, is it not? Wasn’t he more known for historical, and later military and oriental subjects?’ I wondered aloud, proud to demonstrate knowledge in at least one very small corner of the visual arts.
Holmes looked at me in some surprise, and then smiled, returning to his study of the painting.
I had made it a point to familiarize myself with the Vernet family in an effort to understand my friend. Horace Vernet was an odd chap, born in the Louvre itself in June of 1789, while his artist father (Holmes’s great-grandfather), Carle Vernet, hid out there during the violence of the French Revolution.
Carle’s sister, arrested for associating with the nobility, had been dragged screaming to the guillotine. Carle never painted again, but his son Horace went on to become a renowned artist, discarding the trappings of classicism and forging his own path as a renegade painter of a much more natural style whose topics were chiefly soldiers and orientalism.
While the other side of Holmes’s family were English country squires, and