The Green Muse by Jessie Prichard Hunter

unchanged.
    â€œI will accept your apology on one condition.”
    â€œAnything.” There was something fundamental in her eye––I did not recognize it.
    â€œThat you not touch me again.”
    â€œOf course,” I said. “Have an orange peel.”
    She burst out laughing. I was ridiculous; I would like to think I did it on purpose, to make her laugh. She actually took one.
    â€œIs that why really are you here so often, to instruct yourself in the behavior of the living in the face of death? And do not tell me it is your friends who force you to come,” she said, smiling at the corner of her mouth. “They look like odd company for a man like you.” Light fell from the high, arched windows in an arc across her face. “You come several times a week. Have you no more serious occupation?”
    â€œWhat could be more serious than this?” I asked, throwing my arm to include it all: the crowd, the dead, and especially her.
    â€œDo you ever think that one day you might recognize one of the dead here?”
    â€œAnd who is it,” I said softly, “that you think you might recognize?”
    â€œIt is who I am behind that glass. You and I.
    We will all look that way one day.” She was dispassionate; she was only talking. “I come here to learn to recognize myself. Because perhaps I really will be behind that glass one day.”
    She frightened me. I did understand.
    â€œWill you meet me for dinner?”
    She stepped back.
    â€œYou understand nothing,” she said without contempt, and stepped into a sudden vacancy ahead of us on the queue. And looked again, without any horror, at the plat du jour .
    I wanted to kiss her. I was seized by violent emotions; I stepped forward, but my hand on her arm was too urgent.
    â€œYou will let go of me,” she said. It was not a question. “You promised me, sir.”
    Of course I did let go, with apologies. Leonard had seen us from across the room. Theo had.
    â€œPlease,” I said softly.
    â€œNo. And that is final.”
    And she stepped away from me, following the crowd with complete composure. For her I no longer existed.

 
Chapter 7
    Edouard
    T HE NEXT DAY I informed M. Bezier of all I had discovered, and later we talked again. I was as excited as a boy who has found a speckled egg in a hard-­to-­reach nest, and he treated me like one.
    â€œCaptain Bezier, I am no detective,” I told him. “I can only see what my camera lens shows me. I can learn only what my pictures tell me. The photographs I took of the woman we found told me, by her manner of dress, that she was not a prostitute, and that, ­coupled with other aspects of her appearance, it was highly unlikely that she belonged in that courtyard. The abandoned glove was too fine, and her hair was clean and well-­cared-­for.
    â€œAnd the manner in which her body was placed—­because clearly it was placed, and not simply left to fall—­seemed to indicate that although she had not been killed there, she had been carefully placed after she died. There was no significant blood loss, and only in a puddle at the base of her neck.” I almost said, her pretty neck , and was appalled at myself. Were the dead becoming so familiar to me that I would have opinions on the prettiness of a corpse? Her pictures,” I hurried on, “showed me that she did not come from that tenement courtyard.”
    â€œLenore DuPrey worked in a club of the most dubious sort, Edouard. She was a dancer; that is, she showed her body off onstage to strange men.”
    â€œBut she had a child. How old is he?”
    Capt. Bezier consulted his notes. “She had a small son. It seems her husband died during her pregnancy.”
    I was silent a moment.
    â€œShe had to survive,” I said finally.
    â€œThere are plenty of widows with children who manage to survive while keeping their clothes on, Edouard,” he said