Death and Transfiguration

Chapter 35

I felt like my mind was about to snap, like a single touch might shatter me completely, like I was on the verge of total collapse. I looked back and forth between Pascal, lying dead on the ground, and Léa, who was searching around for the killer, her sword at the ready. I wished I knew what to do, but even more than that, I wished Pascal was still here, alive.

She didn't deserve this, but then again, does anyone deserve such a horrid fate?

Eventually, I stumbled to my feet, and I immediately started running. "Mattie!" Léa shouted as she sprinted after me. "Where are you going?"

"The police station," I said. "They...they need to know what happened."

Léa didn't look convinced, but nevertheless, she followed me. However, before we got there, we ran into Officer Robiquet, patrolling the neighborhood. "Officer Robiquet!" I exclaimed, and when he saw the panic in my eyes, he realized that something was very wrong, and he followed me back to Rue de Turbigo, where Louise Pascal's corpse was lying on the ground.

Robiquet looked sick to his stomach as soon as he saw the body, but nevertheless, as he stepped away from the corpse, he turned to us and said, "You two shouldn't be here. This is no sight for proper young ladies like yourself."

Léa unsheathed her sword, and Robiquet's eyes instantly went wide as she pointed it in his direction. "Say that again, and you'll end up like her," she said.

"Miss Valencourt, you are now under arrest for threatening an officer of the law with a sword that should never be used outside of the fencing hall..."

"Is that a real offense?" Léa asked indignantly.

"Please don't arrest her, Officer Robiquet," I said. "I promise that she was just joking."

Léa reluctantly put away her sword in order to prove my point, and Officer Robiquet took a deep breath, looked away from the body, and said, "I still don't think that you two should be here."

"That's not my problem, Officer," Léa said.

"And how do I know that you weren't the one who did this?"

"Do you really think I would kill someone in cold blood? I have more than my fair share of vices, Officer Robiquet, but I'm not a murderer."

While Robiquet and Léa bickered, I took a closer look at the body. It looked like Pascal had been stabbed with a small knife, the sort of thing one might find in the average kitchen. I glanced toward her forearm, and sure enough, there was a curve written in pen on her arm, just like there had been for Bergmann and Lajoie.

The same person who had killed Bergmann and Lajoie had killed Pascal too.

I searched through Pascal's purse, but there wasn't anything out of the ordinary there. I took her notebook and promised myself that I would search through it later, but everything else seemed perfectly normal: a handkerchief, a pair of gloves, a handful of coins. I couldn't imagine what, if anything, they had to do with the case. As far as I could tell, if Pascal had any new evidence, she didn't have it with her when she died.

Perhaps the killer stole it, but if that was the case, then I might never know what exactly she had found.

What would I do without Pascal? She was the only person who took the case seriously, one of the few people I could trust, and just as we were starting to get to know each other, to become friends, she was gone. We could have cracked the case together. We could have traded clues, and we could have solved the mystery. We could have brought the killer to justice, but now, Pascal was dead, and all hope seemed lost.

All of a sudden, Léa wrapped her arms around me, and with her by my side, I felt safe. "Is everything alright, Mattie?" she asked.

"I don't know," I said. "I miss Pascal. She...she would know what to do."

"I know, but we probably shouldn't stay here," Léa said as she squeezed my hand. "Let's go."

I took one last look at Louise Pascal, the woman who had been so close to solving the case, and then I followed Léa down the street, away from the crime scene. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Robiquet examining the body, taking notes, but I wasn't sure how much he would find. At this rate, everyone in the city would be dead before Robiquet caught the killer.

"Do you still want to go out for coffee?" Léa asked me, but I shook my head.

"I'd rather go home," I said. "Don't get me wrong - I still want to go to Café de la Paix sometime with you, but it's been a long day, and I need to process what just happened, and I can't believe that...that...Pascal..."

Léa held me close, and softly, she said, "I understand, Mattie."

"Thanks, Léa," I said, holding back tears. "Thank you for being here."

Léa smiled, and when the two of us got back to the boarding house, she kissed me goodbye - with the taste of her still on my lips, I retreated into my room, and I got to work on the symphony, making a few tweaks to the first movement. However, I defaulted again and again to minor chords, to achingly slow tempos, to agonizing dissonance. Pascal's death had left me filled with sorrow, and I had to make my music reflect that. I wanted the listener to feel my pain.

After a while, I realized that what I was writing probably wasn't right for this piece, so I crossed it all out, but I didn't want to get rid of it just yet. I wrote it all down at the back of the notebook, and I knew that someday, I would find a use for those melodies, those harmonies, the musical tragedy I'd written.

I glanced back at the note one last time, and I read the list of names once again. Johann Bergmann. Pierre Lajoie. Léa Valencourt. Paul Saint-Yves. Bertrand Sylvestre.

It should have been Léa. If the killer was following the list, they would have killed Léa, not Louise Pascal.

Maybe I was wrong all along. Maybe the killer wasn't using the names on Claire Sylvestre's note as a hit list. Maybe it was just a coincidence that the first two murder victims were the first two names on the list. Maybe I should stop trying to be some sort of amateur sleuth and leave it to the professionals, just like Pascal said that I should.

But Pascal was gone now and the killer was still on the loose. I had to do something, but none of the clues fit together. If the murderer wasn't following the list, then what lead did I have? If there was no connection to Claire Sylvestre, then it could be anybody.

I collapsed onto my bed and tried to fall asleep, but it all felt so hopeless. The killer was still out there, outsmarting us again and again, and it felt like there was nothing I could do.