Dying on the Vine (15 page)

In referring to Geller Fox had said that some people called him a phony. Was that Fox's sore spot? Did people call
him
a phony? Was he a phony?

I had said I would meet Veronique at two o'clock because I hadn't been sure what time I would be back from the truffle market, and it was now one-thirty. I walked to the
mairie
and near it was the French equivalent of a tea shop—a bakery that sold bread and pastries for takeout as its primary business but also had three or four tables. I decided on a complete change of pace and ordered a glass of tea and a
pan bagna.
The long bread roll filled with anchovy fillets, onions, and olives mixed with olive oil is one of the staples of vineyard workers during the harvest and is satisfying—but only just. I found myself counting the hours to dinner but I manfully declined anything further despite the wonderful baking smells. I had another glass of tea and watched for Veronique's arrival.

L
A VOIX
IT WAS CALLED
—The Voice. It was in a street so narrow that with a stretch, I could touch the buildings on both sides.

“What are we looking for?” Veronique asked me before we went inside.

“I wish I knew,” I told her, and she flashed me a look that clearly suggested an unfavorable comparison with her husband when it came to investigating. She wore a pink shirt with a bolero-type red jacket and a white skirt and looked charming.

The newspaper office might be old on the exterior but the equipment in it was surprisingly modern. The proprietor, Monsieur LeQueux, was out soliciting advertisements but his daughter was in charge in his absence. She was a healthy, plump, farm girl in appearance but she knew the business from A to Z. She was about the same age as Veronique and the two of them had an immediate rapport.

Elise was sympathetic when she heard of Morel's disappearance—which was mostly due to Veronique's use of a trowel in laying on the tragic aspects of being a woman alone. Elise glanced at me, intrigued, when Veronique introduced me as “a family friend,” and pronounced herself anxious to do whatever she could to help.

She remembered Edouard Morel's visits very well. He had been here three times, she said. On the first two occasions, he had wanted to see “these files”—she indicated rows of microfiche. They were records of births, marriages, and deaths, but Elise said it had been only the latter that Morel had wanted to see. She quickly had us set up and scanning them.

No, it wasn't any specific names, Elise said. Morel seemed to be noting the ages and cause of death of everyone whose decease was reported. We went through them, starting from the present. As I jotted down these items, one fact rapidly became apparent—the locals lived to a ripe old age. The majority were eighty or over, several ninety, and there were even four centenarians.

During the last three years, only one death was violent—an eighty-eight-year-old man had fallen under his own farm tractor. All the others were of natural causes, the ailments causing death predominantly pneumonia, heart failure, and cancer. We went further back—and then further. No change in the pattern was evident and Veronique snapped off the viewer with an exasperated sigh.

Elise said, “It's Doctor Selvier's article that brings most people here.” She noted our blank look. “His article on wine?” She reached for a plastic folder. “I had to put it in here,” she said. “It has been so popular. We have been asked for reprints by so many people—not just Monsieur Morel.”

It was an article that had appeared in
La Voix
three months ago. The author, Doctor Selvier, wrote of the generally beneficial effects of wine drinking and quoted several authorities in support of his recommendation. He went on to laud the Saint Symphorien wines as being especially valuable for their ability to retard oxidation in the body and thereby bestow antiaging characteristics. Willesford wines were used as examples and I noted that there was no mention of the Peregrine wines. The doctor's conclusion was that drinking wine prolongs life.

“This Doctor Selvier,” I asked Elise. “Where does he practice?”

“Why, right here,” she answered in surprise. “He's our village doctor, here in Saint Symphorien.” She gave us directions.

“Before we go, there's just one other thing we'd like to check—” I looked meaningfully at Veronique.

“Oh, yes,” she asked Elise, “the last time my husband was here, did he ask to see your records of Provence aristocracy, the history of family names and so on?”

Yes, he did, said Elise, and she took us over to some shelves holding a number of huge, bulky tomes that had not yet been reduced to slips of plastic. She was called away by the phone and Veronique and I quickly located the appropriate volume and turned to a page not quite turning yellow. Veronique's finger moved down it and I heard her gasp.

“What is it?”

“Look!” she said in a whisper. “The last viscomte de Rougefoucault-Labourget was a colonel in the army. He died at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 leaving no heirs. The line is extinct!”

French villages are heterogenous in their makeup and it was not unusual to find that the doctor's office was in one of the older, restored parts of the village where money and effort had been lavished on several streets to turn them into expensive residences.

Doctor Selvier's was as expensive as any, a stone building on three floors and comprising his offices and his home. A svelte dark-haired woman in an impossibly white nurse's uniform sat in the front office. She looked as if she would have been more at home in Paris than a village in Provence. She gave us a delightful smile and told us that visiting hours had ended fifteen minutes ago. Veronique explained that we merely wanted to ask the doctor a couple of questions about his article on wine. She continued, saying that I was a journalist from England and had to catch a plane in the morning, so if there was any way the doctor could spare us five minutes—

When we were ushered into his office, he gave his watch a meaningful glance. Veronique kept her story brief, stressing the angle of an English journalist writing about French vineyards. She added that she was here as my interpreter.

Doctor Selvier was a handsome man, graying at me temples, vigorous and with a deep resonant voice. He must have had a fanatical following among the female populace and I noticed Veronique responding to him.

“Oh, yes, that article,” he said. “It brought a lot of comment even though I didn't say anything that other doctors and researchers haven't said already. Drinking wine has many beneficial effects.”

“One of them being longevity?” I was glad to hear Veronique leap in with that question early.

He turned his gaze on her. “Certainly. Wine lowers the blood pressure; relaxes the nervous system, thereby reducing the strain on the arteries; facilitates gastric secretion, so helping digestion; and is diuretic, thus encouraging the elimination of organic wastes. With all those improvements in the body's operating condition, it is bound to perform for a longer duration.”

“Do you believe, Doctor, that the wine from some vineyards is more beneficial than others? The wine from Willesford, for instance,” asked Veronique.

“I have found it higher in iron and tannin, richer in mineral salts than the wines from several other vineyards,” he said. His delivery was a little more paced now, not as free-flowing as his earlier stock statements. He studied me as if wondering how much I understood.

“So people live longer?” I said.

“There are other factors, of course. The so-called Mediterranean diet of fruit, bread, and olive oil is extremely healthy. Most people here eat that way.” He went on smoothly. “We don't know enough yet to be able to analyze many of the characteristics of wine. Nor do we know enough to be able to measure their effects on the human body.”

“I have one more question, Doctor. Why isn't the wine from Peregrine the same as the wine from Willesford? The vineyards are adjacent, the climate is the same, the soil must be the same. … What is the difference?”

His pause was a fraction longer this time.

“I don't know. I haven't studied the wine from Peregrine.” He didn't sound as if he had any interest in doing so. He wriggled his left wrist, the one with the watch. Perhaps he hoped it would buzz. Instead, the brunette nurse came in to remind him that he was requested at the hospital. They must have had a prearranged code for that interruption. We thanked him and left.

“He likes publicity,” Veronique said. “He liked the publicity he got when that article appeared, but he doesn't seem so anxious to talk about it now.”

“Strange,” I said. “An English journalist might have gotten him more coverage. I wonder why he was so cool?”

“We came in off the street,” Veronique said. “Perhaps he would have been different if we had called for an appointment. These provincials like formality.”

“You may be right,” I agreed. “Didn't you think, though, that the doctor was strangely dismissive of Peregrine? It's not in the true scientific spirit of investigation to praise the Willesford wines and ignore Peregrine's.”

“Perhaps Willesford paid him and Peregrine didn't.”

She wasn't just being cynical. She might well have hit the nail on the head.

V
ERONIQUE DROPPED ME OFF
at Le Relais and as it was still only four-thirty, I decided on a visit to the Willesford vineyard. The place was at the heart of this puzzle that grew more perplexing the more I discovered. I suspected I was learning the wrong things, but how was I to know which were the right ones?

I parked as far away from the farm cart as I could. It still stood there, just as it had with Emil leaning against it. I went inside to find Simone's office empty. Wandering in search of someone, anyone, I ran into Lewis Arundel.

“Ah, the pride of Fleet Street,” he said with his usual tinge of sarcasm. “Know any more than when you started?” he asked.

“Quite a lot,” I said. It was equally untrue whether applied to writing an article or investigating a mystery, but it might shake him up a bit.

“Just had a few drinks with the Welsh wizard,” I said breezily, trying to jar loose some information from him. He invited me into his office, which was a smaller version of Simone's with glass on three sides.

“Is he still trying to get the twig to twitch?” he asked.

“I think he's being very successful.” The lie got even more of his attention.

“Really? Hot on the treasure trail, is he?”

I wasn't sure what he meant by that but I wanted to keep the ball rolling.

“I was surprised to find a dowser here,” I continued, still being chatty. “I didn't realize water was a problem.”

He leaned back in his chair and put one long leg up on the corner of the small crowded desk.

“No problem here,” he said flatly.

“Then how can it be a problem over at Peregrine? The terrain is the same. How could they have a problem with water and you not?”

He pulled open his desk drawer and rummaged around until his hand emerged with a packet of cigarettes. When he was puffing contentedly, he asked, “Told you he was dowsing for water, did he?” He sounded amused.

“Well, maybe he didn't. He told me he was a dowser and I assumed he was talking about water. He did mention previously dowsing for oil in South America.”

“He was quite a hot shot at that, I believe.” Arundel puffed a poor imitation of a smoke ring, frowned, and tried again. It was no better. “Dowsed lots of other things too.”

“We talked about Uri Geller—he made a million dollars in less than a year finding metal deposits.” I paused, thinking. “Is that what you meant when you said ‘treasure' a minute ago?”

“Never did get the hang of these,” Arundel said. He blew another plume of smoke that no geometrician would ever have recognized as a ring. He took his leg off the desk, leaned even farther back, and regarded me with the faintest of smiles that was really more of a smirk.

“You can't blame poor old Elwyn,” he said solicitously. “These hills have been alive for centuries—not with the sound of music but with the tread of seekers after the Treasure of the Templars.”

“I suppose I've heard legends. … I didn't know people were still looking for it though.”

“More than ever. People still enter the lottery, don't they? Odds are about the same and you don't even have to buy a ticket.”

“I didn't realize that it was supposed to be around here, either.”

“Several regions claim it in campaigns that are no doubt spearheaded by the local chamber of commerce.”

His phlegmatic manner made it hard to tell how much he was merely trying to stir things up. As an occasional drinking companion of Elwyn Fox's though, he might know a lot about him.

“So there's no water problem,” I said.

“We don't have one at Willesford. Can't speak for the Peregrine crowd.”

“Do you know any of them besides Gerard?”

“You've met him, I suppose? Yes, nice chap, knows wine. But any others? No, I've never seen a soul.” He gave me a searching look. “Interested in Peregrine, are you?”

“It's a close neighbor of Willesford so I have to be. But you're right—it's Willesford I'm writing about. What about these rumors that Peregrine wants to buy you out?”

“It wants to expand—where else can it go?”

“It must think you're a valuable property.”

He shrugged carelessly. “We are.”

“But surely you're not
that
valuable a property?”

“How valuable?” His eyes opened a fraction wider. “I don't know how much Peregrine has been offering. Do you?” The last question came as a swift jab.

“No,” I said, “but it must be on public record.”

He laughed. “Peregrine? It's incorporated in Monte Carlo. You know what that means.”