It was Madame Martin. She breathed shallowly, more blood staining her neck.
“Madame, what has happened?”
Madame Martin blinked, frowning as though trying to place me. “She cut me.” The words came in a cracked whisper.
“Signora Ruggeri did this?”
“No.” Madame Martin took a long breath. “She is mad. She took her. Killed me so she wouldn’t have to share the money. Contemptible bitch.”
“Tell me who, Madame.”
Madame Martin’s eyes slid closed. “Ma sœur.”
“Your sister?” I asked in surprise. “Who is?—?”
Madame Martin did not answer, her pain rendering her insensible.
“Is she dead?” Moreau asked, his worry tinged with compassion.
I straightened. “No, but she needs a surgeon.”
I seized a few of the cleaner rags from the shelves and pressed them to the cut in her neck. The gash hadn’t severed the vessel that would have gushed her life’s blood from her, but she’d die without help.
Both of us feared to move her, in case we made the wounds worse, but we found blankets and pillows in other rooms and tucked them around her, rendering her as warm and comfortable as we could.
“We will bring help, Madame,” I assured her, though I was uncertain she heard me.
Moreau and I headed out of the house. I scanned the street for a patroller of some kind, but I saw no one. We’d have to cross the bridge again, to alert the gendarmes and find help for Madame Martin.
The first drops of heavy rain began to fall by the time we reached the bridge. I saw, to my dismay, that Denis’s coachman and carriage were nowhere in sight.
“Bloody hell,” I said, not bothering with French. “I suppose he went to wait out the storm.”
“Go back and stay with Madame Martin,” Moreau said. “I can reach the gendarmes more quickly.”
I saw the sense in this and nodded to him. The cool humidity of the coming storm made my injured knee stiffer, and I’d be slow.
As we turned to take our separate routes, a shriek of terror rose from beneath the bridge.
“Captain! Help me!”
The English words held the unmistakable accent of Manchester. Signora Ruggeri’s second cry cut off abruptly, then came splashing.
Moreau and I hastened to the edge of the bridge and peered down the bank to the Rhône. The river was even more swollen today, with more rains in the mountains filling the riverbed. Heavy drops now pattered on the water, quickly wetting the light summer coat I’d donned for the wedding and Moreau’s more sturdy jacket.
A small boat rocked on the river’s waves below us, the struggles of the two inside making it pitch and roll.
One figure was Signora Ruggeri. Her hair had come down, curtaining her face while she fought with the more robust woman.
Ma sœur, Madame Martin had said.
Her sister, the caretaker of Gallo’s rooms, Madame Jourdain.
I’d thought Madame Martin was familiar when I’d first met her, but I simply assumed I’d seen her about in Lyon. I hadn’t made the connection with Madame Jourdain, whose face under grizzled hair had been marred by her persistent scowl.
If Madame Jourdain had realized that Gallo was blackmailing the wealthy and prominent of Lyon, she could have contacted her sister, Madame Martin, in the Presqu’île for help. Perhaps she bade Madame Martine suggest to the comte that the townhouse would be a perfect place in which to hide his ladybird. With their eyes on both Gallo and Signora Ruggeri, the two sisters could scheme get their hands on the blackmail money.
Signora Ruggeri had soon begged the comte to give her another home. Because the townhouse was not up to her standards, the world thought. But perhaps Signora Ruggeri realized the danger that both housekeepers posed for her.
