Miss Donovan’s room is shuttered to the street and remained so, and there is a great hulk of a man who watches the front door for Madame Conti. He insists no one got past him at any time during the hours in question. In speaking to the six ladies who were in the house, I can conclude with a fair amount of accuracy that there were five men present at the time of Miss Donovan’s death, including Mr. Thiroux and the doorman. Twelve persons total when counting the victim. Three of the six ladies provide alibis for three of the men, and vice versa. Two ladies provided alibis for each other, as they were playing cards together in their shared room. That leaves only Madame Conti, the doorman (whose name is Jim Fury), and Mr. John Thiroux in doubt.

While it is easy to imagine the giant of a doorman, or the street-hard Madame Conti as capable of violence, I cannot see where either would benefit from the death of Miss Donovan. Madame Conti certainly had much to lose in terms of business from the notoriety of such a death, and no one in the house indicated there was ever any animosity displayed between Jim Fury (despite his sobriquet) and Miss Donovan.

The natural conclusion, therefore, is that Mr. Thiroux took the knife to his lover under the influence of pharmaceuticals and stabbed her to death.

Sara really had no interest in going to Bourbon Street. From all accounts, it was loud and dirty, and she envisioned drunken men spilling beer on her while women with vast amounts of cleavage vied for attention from same-said drunken men. It made her brain hurt just thinking about it. But she had said yes immediately, because the offer came from Gabriel, and that disturbed her. She wasn’t in a good place. It wasn’t the time to get involved with a man.

But she didn’t see herself begging off the plans either.

Gabriel had stopped walking and was taking his lens cap off again.

“Is that the house?” He was staring across the street at an innocuous light blue structure that came right up to the sidewalk like all the buildings in the French Quarter. The house had darker blue shutters closed tightly on both the bottom and top floors. Only the little third-floor dormers were open to light. While it certainly looked old, it wasn’t decrepit. A little tired maybe, but not falling down. “It doesn’t look very big.”

“It’s not. Just a parlor, which was for gambling and drinking, a private salon that served as Madame’s office, and six small rooms for the girls on the second floor. Madame Conti used the third floor as her private suite.”

“There were only six prostitutes working there? From that article I read I got the impression there were more.”