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

was on photo shoots—Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Madrid, and Montreal—the Rivoli.”

She hadn’t thought he was a fan of the circus, but it made sense. “So it was the scholarship,” said Lara. “I’m curious. You said there was a mystery about his death? What killed him?”

“Bright’s disease,” said Barrow, distracted.

Lara looked puzzled.

“An old term for kidney failure,” said Gaston, clarifying.

“That’s hardly mysterious,” said Lara.

Barrow shrugged. “The disease came on rather suddenly. His friends said that he’d cut his hand at Le Cirque Secret and never recovered. They attributed it to Bright’s disease, but the feeling was that it might have been some strange blood disease. He just seemed to waste away within a week’s time. The circus lasted another eight months or so after Giroux died. And just like that”—Barrow snapped his fingers—“it was never heard from again. Its last performance was held sometime in 1926. Mourier looked for word about it anywhere… Barcelona… Rome… London, but it never appeared again.”

Lara couldn’t imagine spending a lifetime researching one person’s work. She understood that these men liked their little art lectures—liked to listen to themselves. Yet as they talked, the ticket burned in her bag. She took a little joy in knowing that she had a secret that wasn’t being tossed around by the two of them for discussion. If they knew she had the ticket, she’d be irrelevant in the conversation about it.

“And you both believe Le Cirque Secret is responsible for his death?” If she was going to go to Le Cirque Secret, she should know what she was getting into. She hadn’t finished the third journal yet. So far, there was nothing indicating that Giroux was about to meet a mysterious end. On the contrary, he seemed to be a man very much in love.

“I believe Mourier,” said Barrow. “He was a well-respected journalist and he was convinced there was something very odd about Giroux’s death. In fact, it remains one of the great mysteries of the art world. After he died, the landlady took his canvases out back to the trash. Man Ray and Duchamp—who happened to be in Paris at that time—pulled some of them out of the garbage. Oddly enough, Duchamp—who was never a fan of Giroux—ended up curating and selling most of his work.”

Barrow stopped for a moment while his entrée was placed in front of him. “The exciting thing about these journals is that they really correspond to the final weeks of Giroux’s life.”

“There was much discussion a few years back about going to the Père Lachaise and exhuming his body to find out what had actually killed him,” said Gaston.

“I was hoping they’d do it,” added Barrow.

“Wait! Émile Giroux is buried in the Père Lachaise? Why didn’t you tell me that yesterday?” Lara couldn’t believe she’d been right near the artist’s grave yesterday.

“I forgot,” said Gaston, shrugging, his face blushing.

Barrow shook his head. “Gaston was never much for cemeteries.”

“Couldn’t it have been something as simple as alcohol poisoning or poison from the paints he used? Pneumonia from a nasty chill?”

Both men grumbled. She wasn’t being a good sport. They were all fans of Giroux and it seemed like she was challenging them.

“Based on Cecile’s diary, I now feel sure the circus also had ties to the occult,” said Barrow. “There were even rumors that it was a gateway to Hell itself. But we found it—you found it. After all these years of searching, we actually fucking found it, Lara. Do you know what it was like? I feel like I’ve sold my soul for this damned circus, believing in my heart that there was always more to the story. I pored through every biography of anyone who had ever known or spoken to Émile Giroux or anyone—I mean anyone at all—who had gone to the circus. I even met people who claimed they’d gotten a ticket, but they were all frauds. I had nothing until Gaston called me and told me what you had in your possession. I am forever in your debt.”

Lara looked up and saw tears in Teddy Barrow’s eyes.

Kerrigan Falls, Virginia

July 3, 2005

Washington Post reporter Michelle Hixson stood in front of the battered chalkboard looking perplexed.

“I’m surprised you’re working on a Sunday,” said Ben.

The reporter gave him a puzzled look. “The story is due to my editor on Tuesday morning. It’s hard to get way out here during the week.”

“Yes, the July Fourth holiday.” Ben noticed she returned her gaze to the board. He had dragged it up from the basement in an attempt to frame out the details about the disappearances of both Peter Beaumont and Todd Sutton. Embarrassingly, it looked like those time lines he’d seen the TV cops use and he felt like he was playing at being a real police officer, like he’d done when he was a kid when his father would set up a small desk for him beside his own, complete with nonworking phone. He could imagine that, as a Post reporter, Michelle had seen real police work at the First Precinct in DC. Given he had little experience with true crime, he was ashamed by how it looked when people walked into his office and found notes taped to the board. Did he look too eager to finally have a real case?

Yet the reporter seemed engrossed, taking in the information. She was tiny, elf-like, with short brown hair. In heels, she came to Ben’s shoulder. “This is quite helpful,” she said, her head following his scribbles. Since Doyle couldn’t be trusted not to blab key clues on the case, Ben had never included details on the board that needed to be protected. He looked at the time line written in pink chalk—the only color he could find at the supermarket. It made the board look like some sidewalk hopscotch game.

“It’s a strange story for sure.” She turned, pushing up her glasses. Everything about her was neat—even her small handwriting in the notebook that he’d glimpsed.

“And your father was