(Claude Norbert is continuing his tale.)

"It started when my sister Anne went—went into domestic service—."

There was something he was not saying. Went into domestic service, yes, but that slip—where else did she go?

"Our Aunt Clarisse, one of Da's younger sisters, was head housemaid in the Comte de la Fere's country residence—that's down near Lyons, you know, where they have the silk factories."

Again, Lyons came into the equation. I remembered that Monsieur Hussenot had spoken of a law firm near Lyons which handled matters for the unknown owner. A trip to Lyons might be necessary—after hours, with my set of lock picks.

Claude had not paused in his narrative. "So when our Mam and Da thought it would be best that Anne were to—were to find a position somewheres—."

He had repeated himself again. There was something about the reason Anne went away—no, was sent away—that he did not want to tell.

"Tell me—so I can get a better idea of your background—if one of your sisters were 'in trouble', and had no prospect of marrying the man, what would your family do?"

"Oh, that's easy. It happened already—at least once as I know of. One of my sisters—not Anne—isn't really my sister. She's my niece—and she's older nor I am, too. When one of our oldest sisters found herself increasing, and no husband in sight, our Mam and Da just took and passed her daughter off as one of us. Mind you, I'm not saying which, as she's married now, and has five children in wedlock. My sister, not my niece."

"That's quite a compassionate solution. Was it a terrible disgrace?"

"I don't think so, but as I wasn't born yet, I can't say. Anne might know. She was—six, then, I think."

"I'll remember that—But I interrupted you. You were talking about how Anne found a place." I reminded him.

"Right. Da wrote to Aunt Clarisse, and she got Anne a place as junior housemaid there. That was where she started, but the cook there took a liking to her."

"I see. How old was she—your sister?"

"Eleven."

Eleven. What sort of disgrace can an eleven year old girl have gotten into?

"Is it usual in your family, to go into service so young and so far away from home?" I probed.

"You might say as it is, now. But there's a world of difference between coming here to work for Anne and going among those as is mostly strangers, as she did. Anyways, the cook there, I forget her name, taught Anne all she knew.

"Now, our family, we like our food as much as anybody, but our Mam was just a good plain cook, like most of my sisters is, too. Their food is good, but nobody'd go out of the way for it. But Anne can take the same ingredients and make the same dish, in the same way, and have folk licking the plates clean and swearing they never tasted nothing half so good. She can do anything as fancy as a toff could ask for, too."

"What's the secret?" I asked.

"I'm only just starting to figure that out, sir, and that's after being here, helping, a year and a half. Then, after Anne got married, and her husband went off to America, and she had her baby, she found her job here."

Ah. An opening. "I have to say I don't think much of this absent husband of hers. What sort of man goes to America and leaves his wife—his expectant wife, no less—for several years? And an architect who works for the Vanderbilts should have been able to provide well enough that his wife should not have to work for her living—let alone his son's living as well."

"She didn't have to go to work," he answered, proudly. "He did right by her. She wanted to work. She says as it's better working nor it is sitting on her arse all day, alone but for the lad. He's a right handful, and no mistake, but he's better off for having a mother what isn't clammed in all day, trying to be a toff and not managing it. As to her husband going off to America—she says as neither of them knew as she was expecting. I don't know what sort of man he is, seeing as I never met him, but Anne won't hear a word against him. She thinks as highly of him as she does of—of spring coming after winter."

"High praise indeed." I said, wryly.

"And she's a good woman." Claude continued in her defense. "There's nobody about as could even whisper a word against her virtue—so keep that in mind, sir, should it be as she might come by to talk with you as I am now."

"I don't doubt it," I soothed him. "Forgive me if I have seemed to imply otherwise. It's merely that she seems to have been abandoned—and left with a child who would excite comment anywhere in the world. I understand he takes after his father?"

"So she says, sir."

"Remarkable. She met her husband in Lyons, I suppose?"

"Yes. They was married in the Registry Office there. I've seen the certificate."

A trip to Lyons was definitely in order. A marriage certificate is only a piece of paper, unless it has been duly registered and recorded by the proper authorities. I had to find the record of that marriage—or, rather, the lack thereof.

"Could it be that in marrying your sister, he felt he had married beneath him? Might that be the reason for his departure and his prolonged absence? Architects do not often marry cooks."

"Sir, a man what looks like my nephew Erik ought to thank God every night that any woman, let alone my sister, would agree to marry with him. Anne isn't the prettiest in our family, but she comes close. She's got a tidy figure, she's good-natured and clever besides. I don't think as he'd be that stupid."

He had an excellent point, but it was off the track of my questioning.

"Did anyone in your family—other than Anne, of course—ever meet her husband?"

"No." Claude said, thoughtfully. "Nobody knew a thing about her getting married—until afterward."

"After she was married?"

"No—after she had the baby."

"Isn't that rather unusual?" I inquired.

"Ye-ess," he drew out the word, "but Anne—our family's never been one for doing much letter writing."

He had made another slip. 'But Anne.' What about Anne? What was he concealing?

"Sir, I don't feel as I should be talking so much about what's rightly Anne's concern. If you want as I should keep talking to you, I'd take it kindly if you asked me about something else." He would have sounded much more impressive had his voice not broken twice while he said it.

Damn. I had made him suspicious. "Certainly. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uneasy." From there I led him to talk more about himself, and about his life as the youngest of the Norberts. He told me about the scrubby patch of woods he played in as a child, and the big, empty snail shells he searched for, whorled in white and pink, to play a game he called 'conkers.'

I asked him questions from time to time, and he gradually shed the tension that had come over him when I probed too deeply into Anne's secrets.

I heard about the two siblings who followed him into the world, only to leave it again a few brief weeks later. He spoke heavily of the sudden death of his mother, who had lain down one afternoon for a nap from which she never awoke. It was heart failure. She had not yet turned fifty. I sympathized.

Once he mentioned the death of their mother, I knew he had worked his way back around to the objects of my interest once more.

"Anne got home about noon on the day afore the funeral." he explained. "She brought two big baskets of food with her—a great big ham, a smoked turkey, pâté de foie gras, and a big dish of cassoulet. That cassoulet was the first time as I'd ever known food could be like that—more than somewhat to fill your belly. It was more than good…

"We'd been eating the last of the coq-au-vin our Mam made before she died. It was a sad thing when that was gone, it was like she died all over again, cause we was getting further and further away from when she was alive. Then Anne came with her dish, and—I just felt better, for eating it. She brought Erik along of her, of course."

"What sort of welcome did they get?"

"It should have been the same as anybody—but for the boy. The way as folks talked about the boy, when Anne wasn't right there to hear them..."

"Yet they put up with him."

"Our Da put his foot down, and said as she was a good daughter, what had turned out to be a credit to them, and a grandson was a grandson, whatsoever he looked like and they was both welcome under his roof—and if they didn't like it, them as said so could leave."

"A powerful argument." I commented.

"Anne was there—she knew how folk was talking, and she was creeping around like she was trying to make herself small, until then. She started to cry, and Da gave her a hug, and…" He talked about other relatives, and how they took the death.

Eventually I prompted him with the question, "How did Anne come to choose you, out of all the other young ones who weren't settled into a profession as yet?"

He snickered. "It wasn't funny when it happened, but when we was at the funeral service that next morning, Anne and Erik and me was all sitting in the same pew. I was on the end, and Erik was between me and Anne. Halfway through, he starts fidgeting something awful.

"Anne says to him, 'Sit still, love.', but after another minute, he's doing it again, and then he says, loud enough so's everyone can hear him, 'Mam, I've got to widdle right now!' Anne ducks her head and puts her hands over her face, then fast grabs for Erik's hand, but I picked him up and said, 'I know where to take him.' Because the church was new, and she'd never been there before. So he and I went out the side door, took care of things, and after that, he was as good as gold.

"The only problem is, she explained to him, afterwards, that you don't talk about having to go when you're out, or when you're in company. And he listened. So now, if he has to go when we're out somewheres with him, he won't say nothing until his bladder's bursting, and even then he only whispers it. So you have to find a place damn quick!"

"That must be—inconvenient."

"And how!" he agreed with me. "Anyways, after the burying, Anne searched me out, and said, 'Claude, I've got to go back to the inn tomorrow, cause they don't have a cook while I'm gone. I need help in the kitchen, there. I've asked Da if he can spare you, and he's willing if you is.'

"'What, that he and I should go and work along of you?'

"'No, that you should. I'd hoped to take a couple more of you younger ones. Lord knows there are few enough prospects for you here, but you and Rob's daughter, Amelié is the only ones as have treated my little lad decent in spite of how he looks. I thank you for that.'

"'I don't know as you ought to. I can't hardly tell what he looks like. I'm near as blind as a bat, and we've no money to get me eye-glasses.'

"She was struck dumb for a space, and then she said, 'Why don't nobody tell me these things? If I find you an eye-doctor and get you some glasses, do you think you could still see your way clear to treating him decent?'

" 'Don't see as I shouldn't.' I said, and that was how we worked it out."

"Do you like it here as much as Amelié does?"

"I don't know about that. It's all right." he said, diffidently. "I've got to be going, sir. It's getting late, and I got to start the dough for tomorrow morning's rolls."

"One last thing before you goes." I decided to risk another question. "Why was Anne sent away when she was eleven?"

"I—it's complicated, like." He paused. I waited. Would he answer, or refuse?

"I was only four. Mam had just had what was to be her last baby, and it was a girl. They called her Diane. I remember— as she was sickly to begin with. She looked like five pounds of meat what's been ground for sausage. Anne was only just old enough to watch her. Diane was the first baby as Anne was trusted to watch all on her own."

"Did the baby get hurt, because Anne was too young or too careless?"

"No. She died, while Anne was looking after her. They do, sometimes, when they're real small. They just stop breathing in their sleep, and die. I never heard as Diane died of anything but that."

"Did your parents blame Anne? Or did a doctor blame her?"

"No. Nobody blamed her at all. But Anne—she took it hard. Real hard. She went into hysterics. They got her calmed down—but then the priest came, and she had another fit. I remember it. She was carrying on something awful. Kicked over the what-not table and broke everything on it."

"No one blamed Anne—except for Anne." I said, slowly. This was significant.

"That may be how it was, sir." He was respectful. "After that, she wasn't never the same. The doctor said as it was a morbid melancholy. So they sent her away, thinking as if she was away from all that reminded her, it would be the best for her. Good night, sir. I hope you're on the mend."

"Good night." I said. My mind was hard at work.

Claude Norbert had been a veritable font of information, but the truth still failed to coalesce for me.

Might Anne have done something—something no one detected, or suspected, which killed that baby? On purpose, by accident, or by mistake? Or was she innocent—but imagined herself to be guilty? How did that fit in with what I already knew of her?

It did not. There was much more to Anne than was readily apparent.

Nadir had left me to conduct this interview on my own, so he was not there to question what I did next. I went into my trunk and found one of my black masks. I was already planning to go out for a walk after it got dark. If that walk happened to take me by the kitchen house, I had seen a sturdy oak tree that grew next to it, with limbs that looked eminently climbable.

I was going to do something rather unwise.

Well, it would not be for the first time.

Cassoulet for comfort:

Cassoulet is a quintessentially French dish, and the one common denominator in it is that it must be made with white beans and several different kinds of meat, including sausage. It is an incredibly rich dish, and well suited for the depths of winter. This version does not call for pig's tails or goose fat or any other of the exotic regional specialties, and it is somewhat simpler than most.

1 lb dried small white beans

2 stalks celery, with leaves, chopped

2 bay leaves

2 sprigs of parsley

¼ lb bacon, cut into 1 inch lengths

olive oil, if needed

3 whole chicken breasts, skinned and boned—or buy 6 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into 1 inch chunks.

1 pork tenderloin (unseasoned), cut into chunks about an inch square

1 large onion, peeled and chopped

1 cup chopped carrots

1 cup chopped celery

6 cloves garlic, minced

2 cans good quality chicken broth

1 bay leaf

1 28 oz can diced tomatoes, undrained. Fire-roasted are the best, if your store sells them

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 kielbasa 'ring', cut into 1 inch slices.

½ cup parsley, chopped

salt and pepper

Begin the day before you want to eat it, and pour the dry beans into a large pot. Pick them over carefully to be sure there are no pebbles or chunks of dried mud among the beans, which has been known to happen. When you are reasonably sure everything in the pot is indeed a bean, fill the pot with water, and let it sit overnight.

Two and a half hours before you want to eat, drain the water off the beans—it may be foamy or murky, which is normal—and rinse them thoroughly. Drain them again, return them to the pot, and fill it with enough water to cover the beans to a depth of about 2 inches. Add the celery, the two bay leaves and the two sprigs of parsley. Bring to a boil and simmer for half an hour.

In the meantime, fry the bacon in the bottom of a very large pot until brown. Remove the bacon, leaving the grease in the pan. Brown the chicken and the pork tenderloin in the bacon grease. When done, remove to a bowl, and set aside.

If the pot has no grease left, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and sauté the onion, carrots, celery, and garlic for about 8 to 10 minutes.

Return the meat to the pot. Transfer the cooked beans to the pot, discarding the bay leaves. Add the chicken broth, the bay leaf, the tomatoes, and the thyme.

Simmer for an hour over very low heat, stirring occasionally.

Add the kielbasa. Simmer for another half an hour, stirring occasionally.

Add the parsley. Test to see if pepper and salt are needed. Serve and eat.

A/N: Wow, thirteen reviews for Chapter 10 alone. I must be doing something right…

Erik for President: Anne wouldn't let little Erik go by himself to talk to the mysterious man in the cottage, but he does have the run of the property. You'll have to wait and see.

An Anti-Sheep Cheese Muffin: Anne and Erik senior won't be meeting for at least three chapters, but as he's taking up stalking again, he'll be getting much closer to both mother and son.

Thornwitch: I do plan to bring Marie Perrault into the story, but not in either profession you mentioned. She won't be appearing for a while, however.

Bella: Another new reader! Thanks. I'm trying to keep Erik Sr. as true to himself as I can.

Pickledishkiller: I hope that's a scream of anticipation and suspense, and not excruciating boredom.

Sat-Isis: The first meeting will be interesting, I promise—but in the meantime, he'll be going crazy—or, rather, crazier.

And, as always, a thank you to my other readers and reviewers: HDKingsbury, Emily, Allegratree, Lexi, Julia (awoman), Sue Raven, and Erik's Girlfriend. I'm so glad you're there.