Moreau shrugged. “We might, one day. But our arrangement, it suits us.”
I nodded, as though I understood, but I was even more curious about his lady now.
Brewster returned from the hall. “This floor is empty.”
We moved to the one below, which held a sitting room, a writing room, and a small dining room for intimate suppers or breakfasts.
I found the house cozy, and I would be tempted to lease it myself if we planned to stay longer in Lyon, but I understood why Signora Ruggeri grew impatient with it. It was a pleasant house but nothing grand, and Madame Martin had likely not been a sympathetic retainer.
Comte Lejeune could visit his dove in this nest, but it must not have been the glamour Signora Ruggeri had hoped for when she’d ensnared an aristocrat.
Brewster searched these rooms with our assistance, but we found nothing. We descended to the ground floor, the public rooms.
“She’d hardly stow the things here, would she?” I asked as Brewster began checking walls in the large drawing room. “She’d receive guests in these chambers, not to mention the comte.”
“You’d be surprised, guv. I once found an entire silver service tucked behind the wainscoting in a foyer. Only one spindly footman to guard the way into the house, and that only during the day. Some people beg to be robbed.”
Shaking his head, he continued tapping on walls in the dining room, while Moreau and I went through drawers in the matching sideboards.
Not until we were in the drawing room that ran the depth of the house did Brewster find a hollow behind paneling under a window.
“Here’s summat,” he announced.
He pulled out large, oblong book and laid it on a long table behind a sofa. Brewster never stood back and waited for his employers to tell him what to do—he opened the book and began to scan the pages.
It was a ledger, with neat columns of names and amounts, some marked as French francs, some as Venetian coins. A third column held single letters or symbols, which were meaningless to me.
What did have meaning was the name Devere printed in the middle of the page. The number next to it told me they’d given Signor Gallo two hundred francs but not what they’d received in return.
“This is a damning book,” Moreau declared in hushed tones, as Brewster continued leafing through the pages. “Many prominent men of Lyon are listed here. And ladies too. I suppose some names are from other cities as well, wherever Signor Gallo traveled.”
“Yes,” I agreed grimly. “I have to wonder why whoever cleared out the other things did not take this.”
“Could be they didn’t know it was here,” Brewster said. “Could be the they found all the bits and bobs but didn’t realize he’d cataloged it all. Or maybe they couldn’t read, and didn’t know what the ledger was. Not everyone is so lucky.”
“If they couldn’t read the ledger, then they’d not be able to understand the letters and papers either,” I pointed out. “They must not have realized the ledger was here, as you say, or they were nearly caught burgling the place and ran out of time. Madame Martin might have surprised the thief.”
“Or whoever it was believed the ledger was safe enough for now.” Brewster replaced the panel but left the book open on the table. “No one but an experienced thief would have found this hole. I wager Gallo and the signora received their guests in here, took the cash for their silence, and then totted up the figures without having to run upstairs for the ledger.”
“Possibly.” I reached to touch a page but pulled my finger back as though it would tarnish me. I closed the book instead. “The most likely person to have taken all the documents out of this house was Signora Ruggeri herself.”
Moreau regarded me doubtfully. “You said she admitted that Signor Gallo stashed the papers here but they vanished. Possibly Gallo took them away again.”
“She did say that.” I nodded. “But we must recall that Signora Ruggeri is an accomplished liar. She might have told me the tale so that I’d not attempt to search the house. Unfortunately for her, she did not have a good measure of my stubbornness.”
“Most don’t,” Brewster said.
“When I first saw Signora Ruggeri, she was fleeing a mob,” I said, ignoring Brewster. “She’d come into the square from a street that could very well lead here. I did not note her carrying anything, but I couldn’t see clearly. She might have tried to clear out the house that day, ready to take the things Gallo had left to her villa.”
“Gallo weren’t dead then,” Brewster said. “Why couldn’t it have been him toting the things back to his own rooms?”
I stared at the paneling Brewster had tucked into place as I pondered. Not a crack or seam betrayed the hiding place’s existence.
“Perhaps once Signora Ruggeri persuaded the comte to move her to more luxurious accommodations, Gallo could no longer enter this house. Signora Ruggeri might have promised to fetch the papers for him, but, once she did, took them to her new abode instead of delivering them to Gallo’s rooms in La Guillotière. Hence Gallo’s fury when he followed her to the comtesse’s soiree.”
We’d assumed Gallo had been a spurned lover intending to force Signora Ruggeri to return to him. But if Gallo had learned she’d stolen his lucrative business from him, he might be even more incensed. The words I’d heard him shout could have meant rage at Signora Ruggeri for moving the documents out of his reach.
“What do we do with this, guv?” Brewster gestured to the ledger.
