Bell was surprised that she’d refused him. Apparently, her timidity did not make her compliant. “You should believe me because you already know what kind of man Gly is.” She shuddered at the mention of his name. Bell knew he’d touched a nerve. “And because I took the time to find that picture and return it to you.”
Looking at the photograph in her trembling hand brought her to a conclusion. She opened the door fully and turned back into her apartment so that Bell could follow. The place was nicely furnished and tidy. The kitchen had an ornate ice chest with brass accents, and the stove had two separate burner rings. Bell could see there was a bedroom, though he couldn’t directly see into it, and a private bathroom with a porcelain shower.
“I have no c
offee,” she said. “Would tea be all right?”
“Only if you are making some for yourself,” Bell said.
She’d been tracking toward the kitchen, but Bell’s answer changed her plan and she shuffled to the couch and wedged herself up against one arm. On the nearby table sat a stack of fresh white hankies and several used ones looking like they’d absorbed so much grief they’d never be clean again. She took an unsoiled handkerchief and absently kneaded it with her thin fingers. The photo she placed on the coffee table.
Bell removed his hat and outer coat and settled into a chair opposite the widow. Outside, the sky was a melancholy gray. Into the quiet he said, “Do you know what your husband did for the Société?”
She didn’t answer his question. She said instead, “That pig Foster Gly told me that even though they were in America on company business, the fight was Marc’s fault, and so they will not pay me his insurance. We have just a little in savings. I cannot afford this apartment. What am I to do?”
There was nothing Bell could say. He simply watched her hands worry as she worked the hankie as though it were a rosary.
“Gly lied so the Société de Mines didn’t have to pay the widow’s benefits. He and Yves are the real friends. Marc just went along with whatever his older brother told him to do. Marc is younger by a few minutes and this is something Yves has used their entire lives to control my husband. Late husband,” she corrected quickly.
She finally looked up from her lap. Her eyes were glossy, but no tears wet her cheeks. “He was good to me in the early days. He wanted to be a draftsman. He was really very good at it. I was a shopgirl. We met in a park, quite by accident. I knew he was the one for me the very second I saw him. I know now that I was the first girl to ever show any interest in him. It’s why we started dating and why he proposed so quickly. It’s funny. They’re identical twins, but there’s something . . . I do not know the English word.”
“Yves is the kind of rogue that girls fall for,” Bell offered, thinking of that dark intensity he’d seen.
“Yes. That is it. Yves always had girls around him. Pretty ones. Marc was so shy. Unsure of himself because Yves had belittled him since they were boys.”
“Things changed when Yves met Foster Gly.” It was a statement by Bell, not a question.
“Yes. Yves didn’t really have employment. He spent his nights in bars. He knew people. Did things. Illegal things, you know? I am not sure if Gly knew his reputation and sought him out or if they met through mutual acquaintances, but the two became friends. Gly was an employee of the Société and he offered Yves a legitimate job.
“Yves hadn’t been able to recruit Marc for any of his schemes because I would not allow it. But when Yves told Marc he could have a job too, it was too much. Marc had to follow his older brother.
“Up to then, I was able to protect Marc from Yves’s influence, but that was no longer the case. Yves won. Marc changed. He would stay out drinking after work. He would just grunt at me when I had questions. The love drained from our marriage, Monsieur Bell. No, that is not true, Marc let Yves and Gly suck the love from our marriage.”
Tears finally started down her cheeks and she began sobbing in earnest, deep and gut-wrenching sobs. There were two responses open to Bell at this moment, a choice men must make at their own peril. Either the sobbing woman wants to be comforted or she wants to work through it on her own. There was definitely a correct answer, but the problem was that the solution changed from cry to cry with no clue as to what was now desired.
He figured she’d spent a lot of time alone, so he let her be. He had to give her credit, though. She was crying over a life she’d expected but didn’t get. For many people, that was an inconsolable circumstance, but she pulled herself together, dabbing at her eyes and finally giving her nose a good blow.
“Forgive me,” she said at last, her eyes and nose red.
“There’s no need. I understand. And if our roles were reversed, I see myself crying just as much.”
She smiled at that, and there was a shadow of gratitude in her gaze. “Did Marc . . . Did he . . .”
“Suffer?” Bell supplied. “No, he died instantly.” Bell returned to his original question. “Do you know what your husband did for the Société des Mines?”
“Not specifically. He had an office here in Paris, but he traveled often.”
“With Gly?”
She nodded. “Or Yves. And sometimes both.”
“Would you like me to tell you what they did specifically?”
The tone in his voice gave her pause. While she was curious to know some things about her husband’s life he’d kept from her, he’d died a violent death at the hands of someone who was supposedly his friend, and her truer self knew that whatever kind of man Marc had become, she was better off not knowing the details. “I do not believe I would like to know, monsieur.”
“That is a wise choice.”
She asked, “You came here for more than to tell me the truth about Marc’s death, yes?”