The Ladies of the Secret Circus by Constance Sayers (the little red hen ebook TXT) 📕

father,” said the woman, pulling the door shut a hair to block Lara’s curiosity. “And my grandmother before him. We’ve owned this house for more than eighty years. What’s this about?” The woman looked from Ben to Lara suspiciously.

“I’m looking for a very old painting of a circus. It would be an unusual painting of a lion tamer—a woman. The artist who painted it lived here at one time. We thought there might be a chance that the painting was left here.”

“Are you saying we stole it?” The woman’s voice rose as she leaned her arm on the doorjamb defiantly.

“No, nothing like that,” said Lara. “The painter died. We think it might have just passed down to either the landlady at the time or one of the neighbors.”

“Is it valuable?” The woman was all business.

“Oui,” said Lara. “Quite valuable. Would you have a basement or an attic?”

“Ask her if the Germans took anything during the war,” Ben mumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking from foot to foot.

The woman understood the term and shook her head. “They never bothered with us. I have not seen anything.” She began to shut the door on them, but Lara was quick.

“It’s very valuable,” said Lara, handing her Barrow’s card. “He is with the Sorbonne and can help you. We’re merely trying to find it. They would pay you for it.”

The woman eyed them warily and shut the door. As they made their way back out the door and onto the street, Ben put his sunglasses on. “She’s lying.”

“How can you tell?”

“It’s my business.” He stepped over to the curb and studied the house. “She thinks we’re trying to steal something from her, so she’s not telling us what she knows.”

“It’s exactly what I would think,” said Lara. “If someone came to my house claiming to be looking for a painting, I’d have immediately called you.”

Ben pointed to a café across the street. “If my hunch is correct, she’ll make a move. Let’s just hang over there out of sight and see what happens.”

“Really?” Lara looked at the closed door.

“Really,” said Ben.

After a few minutes, they found a table outside and ordered two café au laits and water.

Ben settled in his chair and turned it to face the house. “I think I could get used to this,” he said, tapping on the table and tilting his face to the sun. He wore a crisp white shirt with rolled-up sleeves and cargo shorts. Immediately, he turned the sleeves another roll.

“It’s nice to know your starched shirts made the journey,” said Lara, adjusting her own sunglasses. She fixed her stare on the house and added sugar to her café au lait and stirred it with a tiny spoon. Given someone was trying to kill her, she found herself looking around for versions of the ponytailed lady. Settling into her Parisian cane chair, she thought she’d try small talk. “So is this your first time in Paris?”

“Oui.” He laughed, trying out his first French word. “My starched shirts and I don’t travel much, maybe Jamaica and the Keys.”

Across the street, the door to the apartment opened and the woman emerged from the house, shifting her weight like she had a bad knee. She now was wearing sunglasses and sneakers and it appeared she’d put on lipstick.

“I’ll be damned. There she goes,” said Lara. “Are we tailing her?”

“We are.” He smiled.

“You go without me,” she said to Ben as she flagged down the waitress.

Ben looked reluctant, but she motioned him on, so he slid out of the chair and took off after the woman. Lara could see that he only made it to the end of the block. After settling the bill, Lara joined him and they ducked behind one of the trees on the wide boulevard. The woman knocked on a door a block down from her own house.

“She didn’t go far,” said Lara. “Why didn’t she just call?”

“Because she wants to see the painting.” Ben held up a map and pretended to be studying it intently.

A man wearing a Brazilian soccer T-shirt answered. After a few brief words, both he and the lady shut the door and were in the house for about twenty minutes. Then the red-haired woman emerged, folding her arms in front of her and scurrying back to Émile’s old house. Ben and Lara had to scramble ahead of her to avoid detection.

Ben wrote the address on a piece of paper. “We’ll ask Barrow to find out who lives there. My bet is that painting is one in of those two houses. They just didn’t know it was valuable.”

“But how could they not know?” Lara placed her hands on her hips and paced the street before gathering her long hair up and twisting it into a hair tie. “Montparnasse was swimming with famous painters. Surely an old painting would at least get you thinking.” It was a bit of a letdown to come away with nothing. She sighed, frustrated.

“You didn’t really think we’d just storm in there and come out with a painting, did you, Nancy Drew?” He was amused.

“No…” But her face gave her away. “Yes,” she admitted, and fanned herself from the heat with her hand.

“Leads don’t work like that. You plant the seed. Trust me, we put something into motion here.”

Lara smiled and looked up at him. “You’re kind of brilliant for a policeman with no crime to fight.”

“I know,” he said with a chuckle. “Where to next?”

It wasn’t Lara who answered; it was the voice in her head.

Can we go to the Rue Mouffetard?

“Maybe we can go to the Rue Mouffetard?” said Lara, echoing her head.

“The market?” Ben shrugged. “Sure.”

They spent the day retracing Cecile’s old steps. Lara felt like a tour guide, feeling a rush of joy as Cecile revisited every location. Lara could feel the disappointment as they visited Les Halles, the market Cecile had remembered, now gone. Despite the magical day, she kept looking over her shoulder and searching the crowd for anyone who