Death and Transfiguration

Chapter 36

The next day, I hardly wanted to do anything, not when Pascal was dead, but nevertheless, I picked myself up, and I went to the Order of the Nightingales meeting with Moreau. On the way there, he asked me about how the symphony was going, how Sylvestre was doing, whether I'd tried Crémieux's newest pastry at Chez Jean, anything but Léa or Pascal. However, despite his best efforts, nothing he said could lift my spirits. Moreau was perhaps the greatest friend I had ever had, but even he couldn't help me now.

When we got to Léa's house, Moreau knocked on the door and whistled Bruckner 7, but there was no answer. "Strange," Moreau said after we had stood there for a while, after he'd whistled the opening melody thrice. "I wonder if we're in the wrong place."

"No, this is definitely her house," I said, terrified that something had somehow happened to Léa.

However, Léa soon opened the door for us. "Mattie!" she exclaimed as she gave me a tight hug. "Sorry I kept you waiting. It's a jungle in here."

I peeked my head into the house, and sure enough, she was right. Even more Nightingales than usual had flocked to Léa's house, and they were all crowded together, whispering about Louise Pascal's mysterious death, the return of the killer who had so brutally slaughtered Bergmann and Lajoie. It was just like what had happened after Lajoie's death, when everyone seemed to have their own theory on who had killed Lajoie, but at the same time, the atmosphere now was more detached, more cerebral. To most of the people here, Pascal was a stranger, someone who happened to have been murdered by the same person who killed the tuba player of the Paris Opera and one of the greatest composers of our generation, but to me, Pascal was something akin to a friend.

I followed Léa as she made her way through the crowd, occasionally stopping to talk to someone or grab some food, but eventually, she decided to stop and talk to Georges de Villiers for a while. Léa and de Villiers exchanged pleasantries while she chomped on one of Crémieux's eclairs, and after a while, Léa asked, "How are you holding up, de Villiers? It must be crazy for you, now that Pascal's gone..."

Of course. De Villiers had been the one who had hired Pascal in the first place. If anyone knew what she had discovered, if anyone missed her like I did, it was the conductor of the Paris Opera. "It is a bit surreal," de Villiers said. "Just the other day, she said that she had made a major breakthrough, but now, I suppose we'll never know what it was."

"That's funny," I said. "She said the same thing to me."

"Perhaps she was making it all up," de Villiers said. "She always seemed to be inept, and I considered hiring someone else, but she was the cheapest option around...well, you get what you pay for, am I right?"

I scowled and turned away, searching through the horde of people for Moreau. As Léa kept on conversing with de Villiers, I made my way through the crowd until I found him, leaning against a wall, violin case in hand. However, within a few minutes, Léa ran after me. "Mattie!" she exclaimed. "Where are you going?"

"I just wanted to talk to Moreau for a few moments," I said.

"Oh, alright," Léa said. "In all honesty, I was getting sick of de Villiers too. He always seems to think that he can speak ill of anyone, even the dead."

As the two of us approached Moreau, Léa was still trying to talk to me about Pascal. "So Pascal wasn't on that list of names, was she?" Léa said just as Moreau looked up from a piece of sheet music one of his fellow violinists had given him.

"No, she wasn't," I answered. "I don't know if the killer has any connection to Claire. They might not if the note doesn't have anything to do with the murders."

"What are you two talking about?" Moreau asked.

I glanced toward Léa and asked, "Do you want to explain it to him?"

Léa hesitated for a moment, but when I glanced back at her, she sighed, and she told Moreau everything, from how she'd broken Claire Sylvestre's heart to the note she'd left behind before she'd moved to New Caledonia. When she was finished, Moreau thought about it for a while, and then he said, "Maybe it is all connected."

"How?" I asked.

"Bergmann and Lajoie were on the list," Moreau said. "Maybe the killer was using that note as a hit list, but if so...they must have had some other reason for killing Pascal."

"Well, she did have some evidence that we never managed to find," Léa said. "She was at Sylvestre's house the night she died, right?"

I nodded, and Moreau thought about this for a while. "I've got it," he said eventually. "Pascal must have known who the killer was. She was on the verge of solving the case, so they killed her, both to protect their identity and to throw off the police and the general public."

"That's...almost brilliant, Mr. Moreau," I said. "Why haven't you been helping us more with the case?"

Moreau shrugged, but the more I thought about it, the more sense Moreau's explanation made. Pascal had made a breakthrough in the case, and if she had in fact determined who the murderer was, then it only made sense that they would go after her. It made sense with the other evidence too - those curves on the victims' arms must have been Cs.

C for Claire Sylvestre.

However, Pascal hadn't seemed particularly confident in her discovery last time I'd spoken to her - perhaps it was nothing more than a suspicion. Perhaps we were on the wrong track entirely.

Either way, I hated that Pascal had died in vain. There was no rhyme or reason as to why she had been murdered. She was simply too smart for her own good. I looked around the room - perhaps the killer was among us, conversing with other musicians, hiding behind a curtain or a tray of appetizers. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so forthcoming with my thoughts on the murder, not when I could end up like Pascal at any moment.

"Are you alright, Miss Brackenborough?" Moreau asked.

"I'm fine," I said.

"Are you sure?" Moreau asked. "I know it must be hard, now that Pascal's gone, but I'm here for you, no matter what. We can play through Mr. Maret's new violin sonata, or we can just talk..."

"I think I'm going to go home," I said. "I have a lot on my mind, and...I think I just need some time alone to process it all."

"Do you want me to come with you?"

"I think I'm alright."

Moreau sighed and then said, "Alright. Stay safe out there, Miss Brackenborough."

I waved goodbye to Moreau and Léa, and I headed out the door and back toward the boarding house. A part of me regretted leaving the party so early, not playing that violin sonata with Moreau, cutting short my time with Léa, but at the same time, I had told Moreau the truth. I really did need some time to myself, and I felt like I might have broken down altogether if I had stayed there any longer.

On my way home, I passed by the scene of the crime, the exact spot where Léa and I had found Pascal's body. I started to cry once again as I relived the night before, but through the tears, I spotted something. There was a stray piece of paper, not far from the crime scene. I picked it up off of the ground, and although it was soaked in rain and mud, it was still legible.

It was the attendance records for a Paris Opera rehearsal: the one that had taken place on the day of Lajoie's death. I examined the page, and just as everyone I had talked to had said, only Lajoie himself was absent. Everyone else had attended rehearsal that day.

Everyone, that is, except for Jean-Luc Sylvestre.

I kept on walking, wondering what this could possibly mean. Perhaps there was some reasonable explanation for this, some reason why Jean-Luc hadn't attended rehearsal. Perhaps he was doing as Léa suggested: running off to the fencing hall, having a nice moment with his girlfriend, doing whatever it is children do for fun these days instead of going to orchestra rehearsal.

I passed by Sylvestre's house, and as I walked past the living room window, I glanced inside. Jean-Luc was there, alone, crying on the couch, and even though I didn't know why he had burst into tears, I understood his pain. I knew what it was like to lose someone you cared about.

And all at once, I knew who the murderer was.