“Oh, what I would give for a bit of warm brandy,” mumbled one of the men walking past them. Haidée recognized the voice of Maurice Ducos. She had glimpsed him at the funeral, but he had held back with his cronies. “And maybe a willing wench in my bed.”
One of Ducos’s friends gave a leering laugh. “Willing, my old man? Haven’t you looked in a mirror lately? You’re as ugly as a pug and bigger than a house.”
“Oh, with enough gold, even the most beautiful woman would be there for the taking,” boasted Ducos. “Why, that little actress…”
Haidée gave an outraged gasp and was about to storm out of her hiding place to give the odious fat man a taste of her fist when Renaud pulled her back, whispering a warning. She forced herself to tamp down on her anger, although inside, she stilled boiled with it.
By the time the men had passed, heading in the opposite direction of the inn, Renaud finally let her go. And with annoyance, she stamped her foot, not caring if the puddle she stepped in splattered on her clothes.
“Oh, the brute,” she huffed. “I can’t be bought and paid for!”
To her consternation, Renaud seemed amused by her temper tantrum. “You, of all people, should be aware that men fantasize about such things all the time.”
“What an insufferable thing to say. You wouldn’t be so blasé about it if you were thought to have easy virtue and were treated like a glorified bed warmer.”
“Actually, that sort of intrigues me. No one has ever compared me to a bed warmer.”
“You’re impossible. I give up.” She began walking down the street, looking for the café.
Renaud caught up with her. “Maybe I’m impossible, but you can’t give up. Because then where would we be?”
“We would be nowhere, that’s where we would be. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s bad.” The rather run down building of the Green Café loomed before them. In the rain, it looked even more derelict. She didn’t miss Renaud’s dubious expression as she shoved the door to the café open. “Trust me. This place will be less crowded than the Cormorant.”
“That’s not it. I just can’t wrap my mind about the fact that you’re here. With your taste for the finer and more frivolous things in life, I wouldn’t think that you would frequent this kind of establishment.”
“You said that I wasn’t silly.”
“You’re not silly. But, oh never mind. Apparently, I don’t quite understand you at all.”
She gave him a triumphant smile and then stepped inside.
The café enveloped them in a blanket of warmth once they crossed the threshold. The place was brighter than what she had remembered from her last visit. There were also a lot more people. But from their mode of dress, Haidée decided that all the people present were the locals. She was aware that eyes were on her as she stepped toward an empty table at the edge of the room.
Renaud held out the chair for her. As she sat down, he said in her ear, “Try to smile. You look far too remote. The locals are going to gossip.”
She gave him a frown when he took his own chair. “I am not going to smile. It would be completely inappropriate. We just came from a funeral. Besides, the locals should be gossiping about their own lives, not ours. We’re just visitors from the mainland, remember? Locals always view outsiders as a little odd. The only reason they would gossip about you or me would be if we directly interacted with them.”
“I did hear something about you insulting a shop keeper. And that you were trying to pursue Monsieur Galliard. I didn’t pay much attention to it, of course.”
His grin made her sit up straighter. “The shop keeper asked for it. And I wouldn’t go to tea with the magistrate even if he begged me.”
“And what if I asked you to have tea with me?”
“I’m having tea with you right now, aren’t I?”
“Technically, I think it would be lunch.”
The serving girl eventually made it to their table and inquired if they wanted anything. Haidée requested hot tea—definitely not the terrible tasting cider that Davenport had recommended the last time—as well as some more filling items like soup, fish, and bread. Her companion requested the same. The maid nodded and once she left, Haidée looked around, finally noticing the giant hearth at one end of the café filling the place with the light that she had puzzled over.
“Can you open a lock?” Renaud asked suddenly.
She turned back to look at him. “Excuse me?”
“Can you open a lock,” Renaud repeated. “Without a key?”
Haidée considered his question, catching the words that he didn’t say. What he was really asking was if she could open a locked door with her abilities. “No,” she replied. “I can’t see into a lock so I would have no idea how it would work and adapt my…work accordingly. However, if I saw the key to the lock, I could probably fashion something similar.”
“I see. I have to admit that I don’t really understand people with your ability. I still don’t quite grasp what your kind of people can work or can’t. I only go to someone like you to obtain certain defenses so I won’t be completely helpless if I find myself in certain situations.”
She found herself smiling. “I find that men do not like to admit to anything that they don’t know.”
“It depends on who I’m talking to.”
The maid came back with their meal. For a couple moments, they sipped their tea first to fill their bellies with something warm. The marten jumped from her shoulder to the table to grab one of the bread rolls. The little animal grasped the sides of the piece of food as if it were lifting a huge boulder and began to gnaw on it with its sharp teeth.
As Haidée picked up her spoon to dip into the steaming soup, she said, “Do you know how to pick locks, Monsieur Renaud?”
“I’ve had some experience with all sorts of locks.”
The look in his eye made her spoon pause halfway to her mouth. “You’re not just talking about door locks, are you?”
“Oh ho! Look what we have here! Monsieur Renaud and Mademoiselle Avenall. Mind if I join you?”
Haidée’s spoon slipped out of her fingers in surprise. Renaud scowled at the interruption. A man was standing by their table, his wet coat dripping onto the floor. She recognized the tri-cornered hat and the ruddy face.
“Monsieur Davenport,” said Haidée. “What a surprise.”
Renaud just nodded.
Taking that as an invitation, the observatory librarian pulled up a chair and blatantly signaled for the serving maid to bring him hot cider and a filet mignon. As the woman rushed to get his order, he gave a great sigh and took off his hat to hang it at the end of his chair.
“Bad weather out, isn’t it?” the man said.
“Quite,” said Renaud. “Do you come to this café often?”
“Of course. It’s a lot more low key than the dining room at the Cormorant. There are too many vacationers there, if you catch my drift. In fact, it was just the other day that I took Mademoiselle Avenall here to get acquainted.”
Renaud shot her a look.
She faintly shrugged. “I had some questions about ink.”
“Oh really?” Renaud turned back to Davenport, his gaze now more alert. The observatory librarian did not miss the fact that he was now under scrutiny. “So what do you know about ink, Monsieur Davenport?”
“Not much, I’m afraid. Although it is quite the legitimate question since poor Legard and D’Aubigne were written on when they were discovered. I wouldn’t take so much stock on what they were written with so much as to what was written and why.”
Haidée took another discrete look around the room. None of the tables near them held any café patrons and none of the patrons that were in the room appeared duly interested in them besides a few obvious stares. She sipped her soup and then said, “Since Messieurs Legard and D’Aubigne are now deep underground, I can say with some confidence that we will probably not know what was written. However, the question of why is the intriguing one.”
Renaud agreed. “And perhaps the first step in trying to find out why is to find out who.”
“As in who killed the two men.” Davenport looked thoughtful. “That is an interesting problem. Although Legard and D’Aubigne were alike in many ways, they were also both rivals. Who would stand to gain if both of them were out of the way?”