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

Lara studied some of the photos, looking for anything that might resemble a secret circus. “My great-grandmother performed here in Paris in the 1920s. They called it Le Cirque Secret. Have you ever heard of it?”

The man’s face fell. “Le Cirque Secret? Are you sure?” He motioned toward the door. “Come with me.” He breezed past her and back down the stairs. Before she exited the railcar, Lara looked to make sure the ponytailed lady wasn’t standing outside the gate, but the street was empty. The man was insistent, motioning for her to follow him, his keys and chains rattling as he walked. So fast was his pace that Lara nearly had to run through the door to the main circus building, past the bathrooms and down the hall marked EMPLOYÉS SEULEMENT. As she walked through the door, she found herself in a hall lined with empty animal stalls. The man was ahead of her in the long hallway and was already unlocking the door when Lara got to him. She assumed he was a maintenance man, but she wasn’t sure that he—or she, for that matter—should be in this room.

Once the door opened, he motioned her in and turned on the light. Inside the tiny, windowless office, Lara saw that the walls were littered with more circus memorabilia, but unlike the railcar, this was a private collection. Women spinning by their teeth or riding horses, sad clowns, happy clowns, clowns with umbrellas, horses diving, women walking on tightropes with umbrellas. There were nudes and disturbing fetish photos as well. She felt uncomfortable looking at some of these with the man staring at her, but then there was one picture—a small painting—that caught her eye and seemed to beckon her. It was the painting’s size that stood out as well as the now familiar color palette, the muted baby blues, aquas, and browns. This painting showed a woman with long white-blond, almost platinum hair that was gathered at the nape of her neck. The woman was about to step onto a ladder. The artist had chosen to paint the subject with the trapeze above her, tilting her head toward the ladder before she ascended. It was the moment before the performance was to begin, the excitement and fear visible on her face in her clenched jaw and the firm lines of her mouth. This was a more intimate portrait than the other one, now called Sylvie on the Steed; more time had been spent on this subject’s face. While the finish on this small painting was smooth, it bore the initials EG. Émile Giroux.

She inhaled sharply. “May I?” Lara turned to the man to see if she could remove the painting from the wall.

He nodded.

Lara pulled the painting from the nail on the wall and turned it over. The crude charcoal wording read CECILE CABOT TAKES FLIGHT.

Cecile Cabot.

She turned the frame over and studied it carefully, trying to take in every detail she could so she could describe it to Barrow and Gaston. Holding it in her hands, she found they were shaking. This portrait appeared to be smaller than Sylvie on the Steed, but it could be an optical illusion since this frame was much smaller. From Barrow she knew to look at the canvas—which, after she flipped it over, seemed identical to the one that Barrow was now studying. “Why did you bring me here?” Lara looked up at the man.

“This painting was of Le Cirque Secret. The owner keeps it in here. It is his favorite.”

“This is a very valuable painting, you know.”

The man shrugged. “It does not matter to him.” He pointed to the desk that seemed to belong to the head of Le Cirque de Fragonard. “He calls her his tragic muse.”

“Tragic?”

He nodded. “The woman in that painting died right after she posed.”

“But that’s not possible…” Lara leaned in to study the woman’s face. If Cecile Cabot had died, then who was the woman claiming to be Cecile in Kerrigan Falls? Looking down at the painting, Lara felt a connection to this woman. This Cecile Cabot. The platinum hair. This was the woman who had written the journal.

Lara put the frame back up on the wall. “Thank you. Is there anything more? Archives or anything?”

“Oui.” The man nodded and led her back to the railcar. As Lara stepped up into the car again, watching for the ponytailed lady, she saw the old man bent over, pulling out boxes of papers. “All circus memorabilia.”

Lara knelt down. “Is it okay if I look through this?”

The man nodded. “I have more cleaning to do.” He motioned around the courtyard.

All she wanted to do was run back into that office, pull that painting from the wall, and take it away to the institute.

Furiously rummaging, Lara discovered about ten other boxes containing photos, costumes, programs—everything from the French, British, Spanish, and German circuses before World War II. Two boxes labeled FRANÇAIS seemed the best bet to find anything on Le Cirque Secret. The first box contained a bunch of tickets to other circuses as well as photos—many of them of haunting oddities, like clowns making themselves look like otherworldly creatures with makeup and wigs.

The second box contained circus programs. She was midway through the second box when she spotted them: familiar aged composition books, two of them, with weathered, almost leathery beige covers bearing the name CECILE. Flipping through them, she recognized the familiar handwriting.

She smiled. “A scavenger hunt, huh?” She looked around the railcar. This entire day had been one big scavenger hunt.

The man returned thirty minutes later to find her on the floor surrounded by circus memorabilia.

“Success?” He wiped his forehead with his hankie.

“Oui,” said Lara, holding up the two books.

“Would you like to borrow them?”

“Yes,” said Lara. “C’est possible?”

“Oui.” The man scowled. “These are rotting. They were to be…” He motioned, looking for the word, flicking his hand toward the curb. “Tossed.”

Lara looked down at the composition books, her heart sick at the thought