C. C. Phillips
C. C. Phillips
Dominique, laying awake in the predawn darkness, heard someone pad down the hall past her door. She thought she recognized Adam's soft tread. It must be Adam, for his room was at the end of the hall with one unoccupied room separating them on this floor of the Grants' home. She fought the urge to dash to the door and call after him. It seemed a long while since they had had time alone together and she ached to be in his arms, to tell him she loved him, to tell him… everything.
As the light of day began to creep in around the blinds, Dominique dressed, slipped down the stairs and went out into the garden. She could hear a murmur of voices, probably the temporary sentries posted at General Grant's house. Though she had only met him briefly, Dominique liked Adam's Uncle Ulysses. How incredible that the man may soon become president of the United States! Dominique walked to the garden gate, looked around for the soldiers, then stepped out into the alley. She hurried along the quiet street, turned up Pennsylvania Avenue, crossed the grounds and arrived unseen (except for Sifu Chiang) at her former residence. Having lived in the building for three months, she was a friend to the French custodian at the entrance and he did not pry as to where Mademoiselle had been. Dominique fought a sudden wave of nausea as she climbed the stair and rushed down the hall to her apartment. She fumbled with the key, pushed the door open and spent the next few minutes heaving over the sink in her tiny kitchen. Exhausted from that effort and a lack of sleep, she lay down on her bed waiting for the room to stop spinning.
She fell asleep.
Lisa Downs, the chambermaid, woke Dominique a couple of hours later when she came to make up the room. The French girl was distraught that she had slept so long but tried to hide her distress from the maid. While Lisa stripped the bed and set out fresh flowers, Dominique rummaged through her jewelry case and found the dainty gold locket she had come for. She flipped open the cover: the picture was still there.
Dominique glanced up to see Lisa, wearing a questioning smile, at the bedroom doorway. Before either could speak, the face and hat of a strange man appeared over Lisa's shoulder. Espying Dominique, he roughly slapped his open hand to the side of the maid's head and slammed her forehead against the door frame. Dominique screamed as her friend slumped to the floor. A second man stepped past the first, grabbed Dominique's wrist and, pulling her close, clapped a hand over her mouth. In French he growled, “Don't scream again.” As he dragged her out of the bedroom she kicked a chair which jarred the glass topped table upsetting the vase of flowers Lisa had placed there. The man who had belted Lisa Downs scooped up the unconscious girl and carelessly tossed her on the bed. Dominique bit the hand covering her mouth. The assailant released his hold but the scream was halted in her throat as the man viciously clouted her on the side of the neck and all went black.
Some time later, Dominique, her neck and shoulder aching fearfully, regained her senses. She was in a musty smelling hay shed. One of the men was leering at her, the other was not in sight. In her clenched fist she could feel the little locket taken from her jewelry box.
Full sunlight was squeezing around the edges of the blinds when a loud knock on Preston's door brought him awake. “Come in,” he said.
Mrs. Unzer entered, looked furtively round the room, then focused on the lone occupant of the bed. “Thank God, you're alone in here,” she said.
“Uncle Lyss has enough rooms for half of Washington, Rebecca. Why shouldn't I be alone?”
Rebecca placed her hands on her hips. “Well, I thought maybe you had secreted Dominique in here with you. I wouldn't mind so much in our house but Mrs. Grant would not approve of that kind of goings-on here, her having two young daughters and all.”
Preston blushed. “You know I wouldn't do anything like that.”
“I know more than you think I know,” she said. “Maybe… maybe I even know more than you about some things. Anyway, do you know where Miss Ravenelle is? She was going to teach Julia and I about French cooking.”
Diamond sat up. “Dominique is gone? She wouldn't leave with all the trouble that's going on.”
“I haven't searched the house. She's not in her room… she's not in here with you.”
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his trousers. Rebecca stepped closer and studied his face.“What happened to you?” she asked. “It looks like you've been in a scrap with that big tom cat that's been hanging around our stable.”
Preston felt his cheek. He had removed the slivers driven in from the bullet shattered door but he could not wash away the red scratches nor all of the fine gray metal and lead dust. He shrugged. “There was a fire last night. Our Chinese neighbours lost their house.”
“The new neighbours? Are they alright? How is our house, is it okay?”
“The fire crews were there, I think it was an explosion. Three of the Chinese were killed. I don't think our house was harmed.”
“We had better tell James, I think he was reading about it in the newspaper. Maybe you could give him the facts.”
A grimace of pain swept his features as Preston thought of the cries he had imagined in the Presidential Hotel fire last night. “I have to find Dominique, Rebecca. If she isn't in this house, she may have been caught by Ravenelle.”
“But why would she leave the house? When and where would she go?”
Preston searched his pocket for his time piece. “I've slept in! I've missed Sifu's training.”
“He'll understand,” Rebecca said, then nodded gravely to Preston's bandages. “You've done something to make that rib injury bleed again. No wonder you've overslept, the amount of blood you've lost in the last few days.”
Uninhibited by Mrs. Unzer's presence, Preston dressed quickly, then followed her down the stairs to the kitchen. General Grant had already gone to the Capitol; Colonel Unzer, the newspaper opened in front of him, held his familiar pose at the Grants' table. Mrs. Grant was stirring a steaming pot on the stove. Through the opened parlour door, a maid could be seen busily whisking a feather duster over the furniture. None of the children were in evidence. Preston apologized for being late but Julia Grant waved him to a chair, saying, “Lyss tells me you were out fighting fire last night.”
Diamond assumed the sentry had informed the general of his absence.
Colonel Unzer looked up. “Which one? There was a house fire out in our neighbourhood, the old Presidential Hotel burned to the ground and another building on the riverfront had damage.”
Preston accepted a bowl of oatmeal from Mrs. Grant, thanked her and said, “Well, I heard an explosion and looked out the bedroom window. There was a big orange ball of fire and it looked to be coming from our house, Colonel Jim. I ran over there to see.”
Rebecca said, “It was our new neighbours, James. Adam says three of them died in the fire.”
Julia Grant said, “My heavens. What is this city coming to? It's as bad as when the war was on.”
Diverting the topic, Preston asked, “Colonel Jim, have you seen Dominique this morning? Rebecca says she isn't in her room…”
Rebecca interrupted, “I hadn't gone looking for her, I thought… I thought maybe you knew where she was.”
Colonel Unzer shook his head. “No. I haven't seen hide nor hair of her since last night.”
Diamond wolfed down his breakfast and, as Rebecca picked up the bowl, he said, “I'll check the garden and talk with the soldiers, maybe she just went out for some sunshine.”
After half an hour, it was evident that Dominique was not in the Grants' house. Her bed had been slept in but she had taken no breakfast. No one, including the guard out front, had seen her.
No one except Sifu Chiang.
Xi-Ping intercepted Preston on his way to the foreign dignitaries' complex. Before Diamond could apologize for missing the practise session, Sifu pointed to the upper balcony and said, “Dominique go early.”
“Did she come back out, Sifu?”
“No… Maybe L'Heureux or Ravenelle go in?”
Preston paled. If those two had been in the Presidential Hotel last night, they must have escaped the fire. He wished he had read, or had Colonel Unzer read, the news report about the blaze. How many men got out? How many bodies were found? “We have to find her, Sifu. If she falls into Serge Ravenelle's hands now, she will be murdered… or worse.”
Sifu and Preston were now more familiar with the foreign building, specifically the east wing. They went the normal route instead of drawing unnecessary attention by scaling the outside of the complex. Diamond believed that Ravenelle was now a desperate man, though the Washington authorities were not yet aware of his connection to the gang wars and street fighting that was going on in DC. If Ravenelle or his commander were inside, and Preston was caught, he would be shot dead in broad daylight. So would Dominique.
Preston exercised more caution than he had before but little time had elapsed before he gained entry to Gabriella's suite. Flowers in the jar on the glass table had not been replaced today. Apparently the maid had not been predisposed to wasting beautiful bouquets on empty apartments. The room was untouched. Sifu Chiang listened at the passage door into Ravenelle's side. He turned to Preston and shook his head. While the master stood guard at Gabriella's entrance, Preston picked the passage lock and slipped into Serge's rooms. The liquor glasses Diamond had heard clinking when he eavesdropped the day before were not in evidence. Preston presumed a chamber maid had been in this suite and washed the crystal. The level in the whiskey decanter had dropped by a third; someone had been drinking more than the few sloshes Preston had heard. After a brief inspection, he determined nothing else had changed; the room had not been occupied during the night. Neither Gabriella's nor Serge's suites held that tantalizing perfume scent Diamond associated with Dominique.
He went back to Gabriella's side, locking the passage door behind him. To Sifu he said, “We'll find our way down to Dominique's apartment. Maybe she needed more clothes or something; the ladies didn't take much with them when they left this place.”
Mademoiselle Ravenelle's apartment was not difficult to find though the system of hallways did not necessarily correspond with the one above it. All rooms on this floor appeared to be suites and apartments and there were three sets of stairs down to ground level. The door to the room that Preston and Sifu thought to be Dominique's was ajar. Preston listened, knocked and then poked his head inside the room. The scent of Dominique's tantalizing French perfume assailed his nostrils and Diamond knew for certain he had the right suite; she was within or had very recently departed.
“Dominique?” he called, “Are you here?”
Though he heard no response, the chamber did not echo that hollow empty sound of a vacant room. Preston stepped inside; Sifu followed and closed the door behind him. They were in a tiny entry that opened into a small kitchen and dining area. Preston had raced through this room during his escape from Henri L'Heureux and Serge Ravenelle but he had not taken time to admire the decor. It was a half-scale version of Gabriella's suite. On the table —glass topped, slightly smaller than Gabriella's— a vase of fresh flowers had been recently tipped over and water, still dripping on the floor, was forming a puddle. There were cleaning utensils, soaps and detergent, fresh bedding, towels and another vase of flowers on a small cart. Preston stepped across the room, took a cautious look, then entered the bed chamber. Dominique was not in there but, stretched out diagonally on the sheet stripped bed, lay a very pale faced maid; an ugly darkening bruise on her forehead. Sifu stepped past Preston and felt the lady's wrist. A low groan escaped her lips and Preston glanced the question at Xi-Ping. “Bad knock on head,” Chiang said. “She okay soon.”
She might have information which would help find his girlfriend so, while he waited for the chambermaid to regain consciousness, Preston busied himself searching the apartment for an indication as to what had happened. He was convinced Dominique had been here for the scent of her perfume was strong. Unless she had helped herself to a sample, it was unlikely the maid could afford such foreign luxury. Diamond found that one of the drawers on the bedside table had been left partially open. It had not been ransacked. An engraved teak jewelry box, its lid flipped up, stood on an ornate commode. The intrusion did not appear to be the work of a thief for an expensively jewelled brooch lay obvious among the dainty pieces in the box.
Sifu asked Preston to fetch a cup of water and soon the dazed maid was trying to focus through eyes that held a mixture of fear and confusion. She touched fingers to the dark swelling and winced in pain. Looking from Preston to Xi-Ping, she groaned, “My head… Who are youse? What are youse doing with me?”
Preston sat on the edge of the bed and grasped the lady's hand. “Someone has assaulted you. You've taken a clout on the forehead. Did you see anyone here? Do you know who did this?”
The girl leaned forward and Sifu placed a pillow behind her for support. Directing the question to Preston, she asked again, “Who are you?”
“We're friends of the French lady who lives here. We've come to find her because she may be in trouble.”
With an effort, the maid straightened up. “Dominique wouldn't be in no trouble. I know her. I've cleaned her room every day since she come here last spring.”
“My name is Adam Forsythe. Did Dominique ever mention me?”
“Adam?” The girl relaxed visibly. “Oh, Adam. Yes, she talks about you all the time.”
“What's your name?”
“Lisa Downs.”
“Miss Downs, please, tell me, did you see Dominique this morning?”
“You can call me Lisa. Yes. I come to clean her apartment. She let me in when I knocked. We was talking… it takes us a while to say things 'cause she don't talk good English.”
Preston nodded.
“And then she gets this scared kind of look on her face and… and… I can't remember nothing else.”
“Maybe that's when someone hit you?” Preston asked.
“I don't know… I think… I thought maybe Dominique, she screamed or something but it all went black and the next thing I seen was youse two.”
Preston thought for a moment while Chiang gave the lady another sip of water. “Lisa, can you recall where you were standing? Where you were when you and Dominique were having this talk?”
Taking the drink from Sifu's hand, she finished the water, handed him the empty glass and said, “Dominique was in this room by that chest of drawers. I was standing at the doorway. I had just took the sheets off the bed and was fetching the clean ones. Dominique was looking for something in her jewelry box. She must've found what she was looking for 'cause she smiled for a second then she got this scared look….”
“But you didn't see or hear anything that may have caused her fear?”
Lisa reached up to her forehead, groaned again, and said, “No, I didn't hear anything. They must've come up behind me but somehow I got the clout on the front of my head.”
Sifu leaned forward for a closer look at the wound. “Head hit side of door.”
Preston nodded agreement. The assailant had slammed Lisa's head into the door jamb then dropped her unconscious form on the bed. There may have been more than one attacker because Dominique would have tried to escape while the man was occupied carrying the maid.
“If you let this gentleman touch you, he will make your pain go away,” Preston said.
Miss Downs wanted to resist but, noting Sifu's calm assurance, she acquiesced.
While the Master performed his magic, Preston went into the main room for a closer examination. The French doors opening onto the balcony were locked. Other than the tipped vase, there was no evidence of a struggle. Preston put his hands over his face trying to still the waves of gripping grief and wretched fear that tore at his heart.
Dominique was gone.
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