The Paris Cab Mystery

“Get in,” she said. “And close the door properly.”

He climbed into the back seat, bringing with him the cold, metallic scent of rain on wool. Camille pulled away from the curb and turned around the small square. The man kept his head down.

“Which entrance?” she asked.

“The one by the theater.”

“That narrows it to two.”

“The old theater.”

“Most theaters in Paris are old.”

He gave a sharp, humorless laugh. “Just keep moving.”

Camille glanced at him in the mirror. He was perhaps forty, with a narrow face and a small scar beside his right eyebrow. His shoes were polished, his coat expensive, and one cuff was stained a darker color than the rain.

She slowed beside the next arcade. “Here?”

“No. Keep going.”

“You said the theater.”

“I said keep going.”

A horn blared behind them. Camille swore under her breath and continued along the narrow lane. The covered passages near the Palais-Royal were a puzzle even in daylight, their entrances tucked between shops and courtyards, their glass roofs turning every footstep into an echo. In rain, they became a maze of reflections. Signs appeared backward in puddles. Umbrellas clogged the walkways. Every open doorway seemed to lead somewhere different.

The man leaned forward.

“Stop at the next corner.”

Camille pulled in beside a row of iron posts. Before she could put the cab in park, he thrust a folded note toward her.

“Wait here.”

“For how long?”

“Five minutes.”

“That is what everyone says before disappearing for half an hour.”

He opened the door.

“Five minutes,” he repeated.

“Your fare?”

He dropped a coin on the seat. It rolled beneath the rubber mat.

“Sir.”

But he was already running.

Camille watched him cross the lane and vanish beneath the striped awning of a passage. A woman with a red umbrella stepped in front of him. Two delivery boys wheeled a cart across the entrance. By the time Camille leaned toward the passenger window, the man had disappeared among them.

She checked the clock. Eleven fifty-one.

“Five minutes,” she muttered.

She turned off the meter and waited.

The rain tapped on the roof. Somewhere under the arcade, a violinist played three uncertain notes, stopped, and began again. Camille unfolded the note he had given her.

There was only an address written in blue ink: 17 Rue de Beaujolais.

No name. No explanation.

At eleven fifty-six, Camille got out.

She locked the cab and crossed toward the passage, tucking the note into her coat pocket. Warm air drifted from the shops, carrying wax, wet stone, and the faint sweetness of pastries. A bookseller was pulling down his shutters. A pair of tourists argued over a map. Near the center of the arcade, a man in a gray cap pointed toward a side entrance.

“Excuse me,” Camille said. “Did you see a gentleman in a dark coat come through here?”

The man shrugged. “Everyone is in a dark coat tonight.”

“He had a scar near his eyebrow.”

“Then he had a face.”

The bookseller glanced up. “Was he running?”

“Yes.”

“Toward the gallery.”

“Which gallery?”

The bookseller lifted one shoulder. “The one he wanted.”

Camille bit back an answer. She had driven Paris for nine years and knew how to read a street by its traffic, its lamps, and the impatient gestures of pedestrians. But the passages were different. They folded over themselves. One entrance opened into a courtyard; another led to a staircase; a third seemed to end at a wall until someone pushed the right panel.

She followed the bookseller’s gesture.

At the far end, a young woman in a green coat was closing an umbrella. Camille hurried after her.

“Miss? Did you see a man come through?”

The woman turned. “Which man?”

“Dark coat. Wet hair. Scar.”

“He went that way.”

She pointed left.

A jeweler behind her called out, “No, he went toward the theater.”

The woman frowned. “I saw him go left.”

“The theater is left.”

“It is not.”

“It is if you are facing the fountain.”

“I was facing the fountain.”

Camille looked from one to the other. “Where is the theater?”

Both pointed in different directions.

A laugh rose from somewhere behind her. Camille turned, but the sound vanished beneath the rain and the mutter of voices.

She hurried toward the theater entrance, passing closed boutiques and a restaurant where chairs stood upside down on tables. Her shoes slipped on the polished stones. At the end of the arcade, she found a narrow door marked STAFF ONLY.

A man in a black waistcoat stood beside it.

“Has anyone gone through there?” Camille asked.

“Not unless they work here.”

“The man I’m looking for may be hurt.”

The man studied her. “Are you a police officer?”

“No.”

“Then you cannot go through.”

“Do you know where the theater is?”

He pointed behind her. “That way.”

“Everyone has pointed somewhere different.”

“That is because you keep asking different people.”

“I have asked three people.”

“In Paris, that is already a crowd.”

He shut the door in her face.

Camille returned to the cab, annoyed enough to forget her tiredness. The passenger’s coin was still beneath the mat. She knelt and reached for it.

Her fingers brushed paper.

At first she thought it was a receipt. Then she pulled out a cream-colored envelope, thick and damp at one corner. A dark red stain spread across the flap.

Camille froze.

The rain drummed above her. Behind the cab, a motor scooter coughed to life and sputtered away. She held the envelope between two fingers.

Blood.

Not much, perhaps. A thumbprint. A smear along the edge. But enough.

She looked toward the passage. People moved beneath the glass roof, their faces distorted by rain and reflection. Somewhere among them was the man who had left it behind.

Camille should have called the police.

The thought arrived immediately, followed by another: she had no name, no description worth trusting, and no certainty that the stain was blood. It might be red ink. It might be wine. It might be the result of some dramatic theater costume.

Then she remembered the way the man had pressed his hand to his side.

Camille carried the envelope into the cab and set it on the dashboard. She did not open it. She did not touch the stain again. Instead, she took out her phone and called the station.

A sleepy voice answered.

“Police station, Palais-Royal.”

“I found something in my taxi,” Camille said. “An envelope with what appears to be blood on it.”

There was a pause. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Is anyone else hurt?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where is the envelope now?”

“On my dashboard.”

“Do not touch it. An officer will come.”

“How long?”

“Stay where you are.”

Camille looked at the clock. Midnight twelve.

“I am staying.”

She ended the call and watched the passage.

Three minutes later, a man in a navy raincoat emerged from the arcade. He walked with purpose, scanning the parked cars. Camille straightened, expecting a uniform.

He stopped beside the cab.

“Madame Moreau?”

She lowered the window. “Yes?”

“Inspector Bernard,” he said. “Luc Bernard.”

Camille had heard the name before. Everyone who drove at night knew Inspector Bernard, if only by reputation. He was the sort of policeman who noticed a missing umbrella and remembered it six months later.

His gaze moved to the envelope on the dashboard.

“Did you open it?”

“No.”

“Good. Did anyone else touch it?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Tell me about the passenger.”

Camille described the man, the scar, the dark coat, the hurried instructions. Bernard listened without interrupting. When she finished, he looked toward the passage.

“You followed him?”

“I tried.”

“And?”

“The passages are designed to confuse people.”

“They are designed to sell pastries and jewelry.”

“Tonight they managed both.”

A faint smile touched his mouth, but it vanished quickly. “Did he say anything unusual?”

“He told me to wait five minutes. Then he ran into the passage and disappeared.”

“Did he give you the address?”

Camille handed over the folded note.

Bernard read it under the dashboard light. “Rue de Beaujolais.”

“Do you know it?”

“Yes.”

“Is that where he was going?”

“I do not know.”

“You said he gave you the address.”

“He gave me the note. He never said what it meant.”

Bernard looked again at the envelope. “You should not be involved in this.”

“That is a little late.”

“It is still good advice.”

A police car turned into the lane, blue lights washing over the wet windows. Bernard reached for the envelope, then stopped.

“Leave it there,” he said. “The officers will photograph it first.”

Camille nodded, though her attention had shifted beyond him.

Across the arcade, beneath the awning of a closed hat shop, stood a woman in a pale raincoat. She was not moving with the crowd. She was watching the cab.

Camille met her eyes.

The woman turned away.

“Inspector,” Camille said.

Bernard followed her gaze. By the time he looked, the woman had vanished.

He sent one of the arriving officers into the passage while another photographed the envelope. Camille answered more questions, gave her license number, and watched the clock creep toward half past midnight. When the envelope was finally placed in a clear evidence bag, Bernard handed her the note.

“You may go,” he said.

“That sounds almost like permission.”

“It is a request.”

“For what?”

“Do not search for the passenger.”

Camille glanced toward the dark arcade. “I am a taxi driver. People disappear into my back seat all the time.”

“Not with bloodstained envelopes.”

“I noticed.”

Bernard lowered his voice. “If the man contacts you, call me before you answer any questions.”

“What if he does not contact me?”

“Then you will have done the sensible thing.”

Camille looked at the evidence bag. “Sensible things are rarely interesting.”

“That is why they keep people alive.”

He left with the envelope.

Camille climbed into the cab and started the engine. The heater rattled warm air across her hands. She was reaching for the gearshift when something slid from beneath the passenger seat.

A theater ticket.

She picked it up. The paper was cream-colored, like the envelope, and damp along one edge. Printed in black were the name of a small theater near the Palais-Royal, the date, and a seat number: Row G, Seat 14.

Camille read it twice.

The passenger had not left only blood behind.

He had left a question.

She tucked the ticket into her wallet and pulled away from the curb. In the side mirror, the covered passage grew smaller, its lamps trembling in the rain.

At the corner, a flash lit the darkness.

Camille looked back.

The woman in the pale raincoat stood beside a shuttered café, holding a phone toward the cab. Another flash caught the license plate.

Then she stepped beneath the awning and disappeared.

End of chapter one. 9 more chapters in the full book.