Read Chapter 4: A Dangerous Question

The gaslight from the rue de Grenelle threw long shadows across the carriage interior, and Julien Lefèvre sat across from Camille with the ease of a man who had already won an argument she had not agreed to have. His hat rested on his knee, his fingers drumming a nervous rhythm against the brim.

"You should not have followed me," Camille said. "The Baron's servants have eyes everywhere. If someone saw you—"

"Someone did see me. I saw myself." He smiled, thin and tired. "And I saw you leave his study with your hands empty, which is a small mercy, though I confess I expected more from you, Mademoiselle Moreau."

"I am not your accomplice. I am not anyone's accomplice." She pulled her borrowed shawl tighter. The night air had turned cold, but the real chill came from the image still burned into her mind: Julien's fingers wrapped around the edge of the Baron's ledger, his face caught in the spill of a green-shaded lamp. "You were in his private rooms. If he had found you—"

"He did not find me. You made sure of that, even if you will not admit why."

Camille looked away. The carriage rattled over cobblestones, past shuttered shopfronts and the occasional glow of a late-night café. She had no right to be in this vehicle with a journalist she barely knew, a man who smelled of cheap tobacco and printing ink, who had twice now pressed warnings upon her like unsolicited gifts.

"I admit nothing," she said. "I only wanted to avoid a scandal. The Baron has been kind to me. He has opened doors."

"He has opened doors that lead to cliffs, Mademoiselle. And I have the papers to prove it."

She turned back to him sharply. "You were reading his ledgers."

"I was verifying what I already suspected." Julien leaned forward, lowering his voice as though the driver might be in the Baron's employ. "The Baron de Villeroy is a patron of the arts, yes. A collector, a philanthropist, a man of polished manners and generous invitations. But his fortune—the fortune that pays for those soirées, those suppers, that carriage waiting outside your theatre—comes from railway investments. Specifically, the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer du Nord-Est."

"I have heard the name."

"Everyone has heard the name. It is printed on prospectuses, on bonds, on the lips of every stockbroker in Paris. The company promises returns of eight percent annually. It promises to connect Paris to the coal fields of the Ardennes. It promises a great deal." He paused. "But the railway is not being built, Mademoiselle. The rights were purchased, the capital was raised, and then—nothing. The land sits empty. The investors receive their dividends, but the dividends are paid from the capital of new investors. A splendid circle, sustained by the optimism of the greedy."

Camille felt the words settle into her chest like stones. She knew nothing of finance, nothing of stocks and bonds. Her world was made of cue lines and costume changes, of Marguerite's borrowed gowns and the smell of greasepaint. But she understood illusion well enough. She performed it every night.

"You are saying he is a fraud."

"I am saying he is a thief, though a very elegant one. He steals from people who believed him when he promised them gold." Julien's eyes held hers. "I have been investigating him for three months. I have interviewed four bondholders who received their first dividends, then nothing. I have traveled to the Ardennes and seen the empty fields where tracks were promised. I have traced the company's registered offices to a single room above a printing shop, where the only thing printed is prospectuses."

"Then take your evidence to the police."

"The police?" He laughed, a bitter sound. "The Baron dines with the Prefect of Police. He contributes to the Minister of Justice's favorite charity. The police will do nothing without proof that cannot be ignored, and proof is what I lack. What I need—" He stopped, and the carriage fell silent for a moment.

"What you need is someone inside his house."

Julien nodded slowly. "You are invited to his soirées. His wife has taken an interest in you. His servants know your face. You have access I will never have."

"And what would you have me do? Rifle through his desk while he entertains guests?" Camille shook her head. "I am an actress, Monsieur Lefèvre. A minor one. My entire livelihood depends on the good opinion of patrons like the Baron. If I am caught spying on him, I will not merely lose his favor. I will lose the theatre. I will lose everything."

"I am not asking you to spy. I am asking you to look. To notice. To remember." Julien reached into his coat and produced a card, creased at the edges, with his name and an address in the Latin Quarter printed in modest type. He pressed it into her palm. "The Baron keeps a private correspondence. If you see a letter with the seal of the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer du Nord-Est, if you hear a name mentioned in connection with the railway, you need only send word to me. I will do the rest."

Camille stared at the card. Its edges were soft from handling, the ink beginning to fade. For a moment, she imagined herself in the study again, the Baron's voice warm at her shoulder, his hand brushing her elbow as he guided her toward the garden doors. He had called her brilliant. He had promised her introductions. He had made her feel, for one intoxicating evening, that she was not merely a poor actress scrabbling for roles but a woman of consequence.

"Monsieur Lefèvre," she said quietly, "I will not be your eyes. Find another way."

The carriage slowed. They had reached the corner of her street, a narrow lane of tall, leaning buildings where laundry hung between windows like forgotten flags. Julien sighed and opened the door himself.

"I will not press you," he said, stepping out to offer her his hand. "But consider this: the Baron de Villeroy built his fortune on the hopes of widows and pensioners. When his scheme collapses—and it will collapse—he will vanish to some foreign shore, leaving others to face the ruin. His kindness to you is not kindness. It is investment."

Camille took his hand and descended to the pavement. Her boots met the cobblestones with a solid, grounding sound.

"Goodnight, Monsieur Lefèvre."

He tipped his hat. "Goodnight, Mademoiselle Moreau. I hope, for your sake, that you never have cause to remember this conversation."

He climbed back into the carriage and was gone, swallowed by the darkness of the boulevard. Camille stood alone in the street for a long moment, the card still clutched in her hand. She thought of burning it. She thought of tearing it into pieces and letting the wind take them. Instead, she tucked it into the waistband of her borrowed gown, beneath the layers of silk and petticoat, where no one would think to look.

In her room, the mattress she rented above a hatmaker's shop greeted her with its familiar lump. Camille undressed by the light of a single candle, hanging Marguerite's gown carefully on the back of the door, and had just begun to unpin her hair when her fingers brushed against the folded paper in her bodice—the note from the Baroness.

She had nearly forgotten it in the chaos of the evening. She unfolded it, smoothing the creases by candlelight.

*Mademoiselle Moreau,*

*I would speak with you privately. Meet me Thursday at the Café de la Paix, four o'clock. There is something I would ask of you, in exchange for the service you rendered tonight. I believe you will find the terms generous.*

*—M. de V.*

Camille read it twice. The handwriting was precise and small, every letter executed with the discipline of a woman who had learned to reveal nothing. A favor. The Baroness, who had seemed carved of ice, who had watched Camille with eyes that registered every seam of her borrowed gown, wanted something from her.

Camille thought of the Baroness's silver locket, the one she had returned. Pale hair inside, a shade that matched no one in the Baron's household. A keepsake. A secret. Something the Baroness feared losing.

She thought of Julien's warning: *His kindness to you is not kindness.*

She thought of the Baron's hand on her arm, his voice low and intimate in the garden. *You are brilliant. You are wasted on that stage.*

Now, a woman who had never once smiled at her had asked for a private meeting. A meeting to request something.

Camille lay back on her thin mattress, the note still open in her hand. The candle guttered. Outside, a carriage clattered past, and she heard laughter from the street below, bright and careless.

Tomorrow, she would return Marguerite's gown, rehearse her lines for Thursday's performance, and pretend she had not spent the evening straddling two worlds, each asking her to betray the other. But the Baroness's note burned against her fingers, and in the darkness of her tiny room, Camille allowed herself to wonder not whether she would accept the meeting, but what she would do once she discovered what the Baroness wanted her to take from her own husband's study.