Author's note: Thanks for all the nice reviews! I just want to let you know that I won't be updating again until next Wednesday or so. I'll be on a brief holiday in France with a choir.

Chapter Fifty-Two

December 11th 1895: Meg

I looked at Christine, frowning.

"What do you mean - ´Erik´?" I asked her. "Do you think we should ask him to help us search for Clarille? Yes, that may be a good idea. Erik knows a lot of – "

"That's not what I mean," Christine interrupted me. "I... I..."

She paused, her head jerking to one side. At first, I thought she was in pain again, but after she had repeated the motion twice in exactly the same way, I understood the meaning behind it: She didn't want to go on in front of Mme.Marandette. Whatever she had to say was a secret.

"This tea is nearly cold," I told the elderly lady. "Would it be asked too much if you made some more? I think we'll all be awake for quite a while, and your tea is truly excellent. Christine looks much healthier already."

"Of course I'll make more tea," she replied, getting to her feet. Throwing Christine a last concerned glance, she seized the tea pot and carried it out of the room.

"So?" I urged my friend, as soon as we were alone. "What is it? What did you want to say?"

"I... I think Erik could be behind it all," she answered, looking highly uneasy. It was clear that she found it very hard to make such an accusation.

"What makes you say that?" I wanted to know.

I myself had thought a lot about who could have done it, all the way to Christine's house, but Erik had never crossed my mind as a possible suspect.

"Well..." she began slowly. "You know what happened. You know what I told Erik and Raoul. Maybe Erik just... wanted to have a good look at the girl who could be his daughter and took her away."

"He could have had a look at her without abducting her," I argued. "He could have just come to visit her. Surely you'd have let him do so, wouldn't you?"

Christine nodded.

"Of course," she replied. "It would have been no problem, none at all. If he had just told me that he wanted to see her... But he didn't say a word. He just left."

"And that alone makes him suspicious to you?" I asked sceptically. "Perhaps he only left because he didn't want to continue watching Raoul and you kiss. Perhaps he was too angry to ask you anything."

"Yes, but that could be exactly why he took her," Christine said. "He didn't only want to see Clarille, but punish me by making me worry about her."

I shook my head, wondering why my friend was so negative about Erik all of a sudden. Was it because Raoul had kissed her, and Erik had not?

"I don't think Erik would do that," I told her. "He loves you. He wouldn't want to make you upset."

Christine did not reply. She merely gazed at me, her dark eyes full of a deep sadness that I was sure had little to do with Clarille.

"You can't know what Erik would do or not do," she finally said. "Neither can I, or anyone else. Even those of us who were close to him don't know him anymore. He was gone for such a long time."

"Yes, but..." I began, not sure what I wanted to say.

It was hard to find the right words while my friend was so determined to think the worst of Erik. I didn't know why she insisted that he had changed so much. I hadn't seen a lot of him since his return, but apart from the rather unwise move to bring Marcella to the first meeting with Christine, I hadn't noticed much of a difference in his behaviour.

"What about Raoul, though?" I asked, desperate for a different angle on the subject. "If you think Erik could have done it, you could easily suspect the same about Raoul. Maybe he also wanted to have a look at his possible daughter."

Christine dismissed my idea with an impatient gesture.

"Raoul wouldn't do anything like that," she claimed. "And even if he had wanted to do it, he couldn't have. Think about the time, Meg. When we left the opera, he was still waiting for his coach to arrive. His coachman isn't very reliable. Raoul couldn't have brought that Cecile back home, driven out to your house, distracted Marielle, taken Clarille and left again before Jean and you came back. It doesn't make sense."

I noticed that, if nothing else, Christine's head didn't seem to be aching anymore, or she couldn't have made such complicated calculations.

"You're right," I muttered. "Raoul can't have done it, unless we suspect that he took Cecile with him, and he wouldn't have been that stupid."

"Besides," my friend continued. "Why should he have done it? Before I left, we talked about meeting again. He knew that he could see Clarille if he wanted to. Why should he abduct her?"

"Hmmm..." I made.

Christine had a point. Still, I didn't like the way she was insisting that Erik must be the culprit. To me, her reasoning sounded far more like hurt feelings than like real explanations. I could understand that she longed to find a quick solution to a problem that was every mother's worst nightmare, but I didn't like the almost fanatical way she talked about it.

"Let us go then," she said.

"Go?" I repeated, puzzled. "Go where?"

"Go to Erik, of course," she replied impatiently, looking at me as if she thought me rather stupid. "We've got to go to him and get Clarille back."

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I was aware than nothing I could say would make her change her mind. She thought that her daughter was with Erik, so she'd go to him. And maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all. I seriously doubted that Erik had abducted the girl, and I was 

confident that seeing the truth for herself would make Christine realise that she had been wrong to accuse him. Besides, Erik would be a useful help for us.

"All right," I agreed. "But you've got to promise me not to accuse him of anything as long as we're not certain that he did it."

Christine nodded, albeit very reluctantly.

"Maybe I should better go alone," I added as an afterthought. "You're still rather weak, and it's the middle of the night. You should better lie down and..." I interrupted myself as I saw the expression on her face. It was clear that my suggestion made her furious.

"Do you really think I could go to sleep now?" she asked, glaring at me. "Meg, my child is missing, and we know the person who has abducted her. What would you do in my situation – try to find her or go to bed?"

"All right, all right," I said with a little sigh. It would have been easier without Christine, but I knew she'd never let me go alone.

I got up, and my friend came to her feet as well. I was relieved to see that she no longer seemed to feel faint. She didn't even have to hold onto the sofa for support, and her face wasn't pale anymore either.

We were just about to leave the room when we met Mme.Marandette, carrying the tea pot.

"Good gracious, where are you going?" she wanted to know. "Shouldn't you better go to sleep, Christine?"

"I'm feeling much better already," my friend replied with a reassuring smile. "We have to leave immediately. It's very important."

"But where are you going in the middle of the night?" the elderly lady asked, looking utterly confused. "I can understand that you want to do something, but wouldn't it be better if you went to your friend's house and alerted the police straight away?"

"Oh, we've already done so," I told her. "Jean, my husband, stayed behind to talk to them. But Christine and I... we've got... another lead, so to speak. It is possible that a friend of ours took the child... as a joke, you know. We just want to go to him and check whether we're right."

Mme.Marandette didn't look as though she had understood much of my quick explanation, but I didn't know what else to say without starting to lie. Moreover, I didn't want to upset or even scare her with the details of what could have happened.

"Could you have an eye on the children until I get back?" Christine asked. "I don't want to leave them alone, and Jacqueline is..." She turned to face me. "Where is Jacqueline, Meg?"

"She's still at our home," I replied. "I'd have brought her with me, but she wanted to stay with Marielle. Poor thing. She was upset enough as it was, and the prospect of telling everything to the police made it even worse. She needed a friend at her side. You know, with her background..."

Christine nodded. I didn't dare say more in front of Mme.Marandette, but my friend understood me anyway. If I had had a family like Marielle's, I wouldn't have been keen on being interrogated by the police either.

"Of course I'll look after the children," Mme.Marandette promised. "Do you know when you will be back?"

"Not until I've found my daughter," Christine replied firmly.