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Chapter 23

When I looked through the door, I saw that there were bags under Moreau's eyes, and he looked pale, haggard, and completely drained of energy. Yet, he kept on sawing away on the violin, playing the same passage again and again until he finally got it right. He looked like he might collapse at any moment, but nevertheless, he kept on playing, repeating the same few bars over and over again.

"Mr. Moreau?" I said as I stepped into the room. "What's going on?"

"I told you to leave me alone," Moreau said, frustrated.

"You look tired," I said. "Maybe you should get some rest."

"Not until I get this passage right," Moreau said as he picked up the violin and went back to playing. He played a few notes before I managed to snatch the instrument away from him.

"Hey!" Moreau shouted as I held the violin away from him. "Give that back!"

"How long have you been practicing?" I asked him.

"I don't know," Moreau replied. "What time is it?"

I glanced toward the clock and said, "A little past two."

"Two in the afternoon?" Moreau said before pausing for a moment. "I've been practicing for...nineteen hours? Twenty?"

"Twenty hours straight?!" I exclaimed. It was no wonder that Moreau was exhausted. "Have you gone mad?" Moreau didn't respond, so I said to him, "You haven't eaten yet today, have you?"

"No," Moreau said as he fiddled with his violin bow. "I've been too busy practicing." I took the bow away from him, played a note or two on the violin, and then put the instrument and the bow back into Moreau's case, while Moreau gave me an angry look. "Miss Brackenborough, you don't understand," he said. "I can't fail my next audition."

"I understand that, but you have to take better care of yourself," I said. "At this rate, you're going to drop dead long before you have the chance to audition again."

"But Miss Brackenborough!" Moreau exclaimed, tears starting to well up in his eyes. "I have to...I have to keep practicing. I can't let what happened in Nantes happen again..."

"Mr. Moreau, you're an incredible violinist. I'm sure you'll pass your next audition," I reassured him. "But we're going to get something to eat first, and then I want you to get some sleep before you go back to practicing."

"But-"

"No excuses, Mr. Moreau," I said. "You have to take care of yourself."

I walked out of the room, and Moreau reluctantly followed me, struggling to keep his eyes open as he stumbled downstairs and out of the building. The two of us wandered through the neighborhood, and after a short walk, I dragged Moreau into the nearest bakery, Chez Jean.

Mr. Crémieux eyed the two of us as we walked inside and approached the counter. "Not you again," he said to me. "You're Miss Valencourt's little English friend, aren't you?"

"Seems like you've acquired a bit of a reputation around here, Miss Brackenborough," Moreau said, but I ignored both him and Crémieux.

"Could I get a baguette and a box of eclairs?" I asked, looking through all of Crémieux's delicious pastries.

"It's pronounced ba-get, not bah-get," Crémieux said. "Do you English people have any idea of how to speak correctly, without defiling the language of our forebears?"

I ignored Crémieux, and once he was done ranting and raving, he handed me my food. Moreau and I then immediately left the bakery and found a small wooden bench outside where we could sit and eat for a while. As carriages and people rushed by, I opened up the box of eclairs, and of course, Moreau grabbed one and wolfed it down. He then reached into the box again and devoured three more eclairs just as quickly as he'd eaten the first. "Mr. Moreau?" I said to him. "Is everything alright?"

"I didn't realize how hungry I was until just now," Moreau said as he tore a piece off of the baguette and stuffed it into his mouth. "So did anything out of the ordinary happen while I was practicing? Gertie's already left, hasn't she?"

I nodded and then paused before I said, "The Paris police arrested Sylvestre this morning."

"Wait, really?" Moreau said. "But he didn't do it! You told me that yesterday. He couldn't have."

"That's what I told them, but they refuse to listen. They're convinced that they have the right man."

"Is there...is there anything we can do?"

"I don't think so," I said. "Léa wants to break him out of jail..."

Moreau rolled his eyes. "Of course she does," he said.

"...but that's obviously a terrible idea," I finished.

"Obviously," Moreau said. "We would get caught for sure, and besides, who are we to decide whether Sylvestre did it or not? We should let the police do their job..."

"Yes, but they've arrested an innocent man," I said. "Bertrand Sylvestre doesn't deserve this."

Moreau rolled his eyes. "Miss Valencourt must be rubbing off of you," he said as he wolfed down the last eclair. He then sighed and leaned back onto the bench, looking like he might fall asleep at any moment. "You've changed a lot, Miss Brackenborough," he said softly. "Some days, I hardly recognize the girl I met on the night of the premiere."

"But that's a good thing, isn't it?" I said.

"I suppose so," Moreau said. "You've just gotten so caught up in all of this stuff with Bergmann and Lajoie..."

"I'm just trying to do what's right," I said. "Trust me, I would stay out of this and mind my own business if I could, but Bergmann and Lajoie deserve better."

Moreau nodded and then glanced at the empty box of eclairs. "Could you get me some more of these by any chance?" he said. "They tasted incredible."

"I don't want to deal with Mr. Crémieux again," I said.

"That's fair," Moreau said.

I tossed the box of eclairs into the nearest garbage can while Moreau devoured the last of the baguette. I then turned to him and said, "I'm going back to Sylvestre's house to check on Léa. Do you want to come with me, or would you rather..."

"You left Miss Valencourt at Sylvestre's house?" Moreau said as he raised an eyebrow.

"She should be okay as long as I get back before..." I said, but when I glanced at the clock, I saw that it was nearly four and cursed under my breath. "Where did the time go? Léa must have already picked up the children by now."

"You let Miss Valencourt watch the children?"

I shrugged and said, "What's the worst that could happen?" Moreau looked rather concerned, so I asked him, "Would you like to come with me?"

Moreau nodded weakly, and the two of us headed toward Sylvestre's house, and sure enough, when we knocked on the door, Léa was there with Sophie.

"Mattie!" Léa exclaimed. "I picked up the children, just like you asked me to!"

"Where's Jean-Luc?" I asked her. "He should be out of school by now."

"Oh, he asked me if he could go to Montmartre with some boy in his class...I think his name was Romain?" Léa said. "Obviously, I said yes."

"You're supposed to keep an eye on him, Léa."

"He's thirteen, Mattie - almost a grown man. He can take care of himself."

I didn't feel like arguing with Léa, so I glanced toward the family room, where Sophie was ripping up sheets of paper. I wasn't too worried until I saw the handwritten clefs and key signatures, notes and rhythms.

"SOPHIE!" I screamed as I rushed into the room. "What are you doing?!"

"Miss Valencourt said I could use these for my art project," Sophie said. "I'm making a house for my dolls."

"That's great, but those are your father's manuscripts," I said as I moved the stack of papers away from Sophie. "You don't want him to lose his compositions, do you? All of that wonderful music he's written?"

Sophie nodded, and I carefully put the compositions back into Sylvestre's study, where they belonged. I did my best to piece together the shreds of paper, and for the compositions that Sophie hadn't gotten to yet, I put them on the top shelf, where she wouldn't be able to reach them. Then, I turned to Léa and gave her a furious look, unable to believe the sacrilege she'd committed.

"I didn't do anything, Mattie," Léa said.

"You let Sophie play with Sylvestre's compositions!" I exclaimed. "Why on Earth would you let her do that?!"

"I thought it was funny," Léa said with a chuckle. I looked to Moreau, expecting him to agree with me, but he only yawned, far too tired to meaningfully contribute to this discussion.

"It's not funny, Léa," I said. "That's music that we're never going to get back, all because you thought it was funny to let a young child play with it."

"Oh, come on," Léa said. "Half of it's already been published."

"And what about the other half?"

Léa didn't have a good answer for that, so she changed the subject, as if that would somehow diminish my anger. "So when are we breaking Sylvestre out of jail?" she said.

"You have got to be kidding me," Moreau muttered.

"Ooh!" Léa exclaimed. "We should take Moreau with us too!"

"I don't want to go," Moreau said.

"I don't care. You're coming, whether you want to or not."

"What are we going to do with the children while we're gone?" I asked Léa.

"Is that really your only problem with this ridiculous plan?" Moreau snarked, but neither of us paid him much attention.

"We can leave Sophie with Jean-Luc," Léa suggested.

"But Jean-Luc is a child himself," I said. "That's like letting a horse watch a dog."

"It's all going to be fine, Mattie," Léa said. "Sophie?"

Sophie looked up from the book she was reading for a moment. "Yes Miss Valencourt?" she said.

"Would you like to play with your brother for a while?" Léa asked. Sophie nodded, and Léa turned to me and said, "See? Everything's going to be alright."

I still wasn't sure about Léa's plan, but she practically dragged Sophie, Moreau, and I out of the house and headed straight for Montmartre. Before long, we found Jean-Luc, Romain, and a handful of other children around their age playing some sort of game which involved a great deal of running and screaming. Strangely enough, Antoine was nowhere in sight.

As Jean-Luc ran past the Place du Tertre, Léa stopped him. "Hi Miss Valencourt!" Jean-Luc exclaimed, out of breath and constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure that Romain wouldn't catch him. "I took your advice - I went to French class, but I ditched Latin and mathematics - who cares about those dead Romans anyways? So Romain and I tried to get into the Moulin Rouge, but there's nothing going on there at ten in the morning, so we went into the catacombs for a while, and then we bought a ton of chocolate..."

I glared at Léa again, but she just shrugged. "Jean-Luc, could you do me a favor?" she said to him.

"Depends," he said. "What is it?"

"Can you watch Sophie for an hour or two?" she asked.

Jean-Luc groaned loudly and then said, "Fine. Sophie, do you want to play Chicken, Fox, Viper?"

Before Sophie could respond, Romain ran by and tagged Jean-Luc. "Got you!" he exclaimed, and Jean-Luc let out an overdramatic wail.

"You've got to be kidding me!" he shouted, and while Romain and Jean-Luc squabbled over the rules, Léa turned toward Moreau and I.

"Alright," she said. "Now that that's taken care of, let's get Bertrand Sylvestre out of jail."

Moreau was too exhausted to object, and although I still wasn't sure if this was a good idea, I went along with it. We had no plan, no clue what we would do if something went wrong, but nevertheless, Sylvestre was innocent. We had to clear his name somehow.

I just wasn't convinced that this was the best way to do it. 

A/N: Happy Chocolate Sales Day Eve!

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