Red In The Morning (18 page)

And so we came back to the farm, just as the sky was paling, before the cocks had made up their minds to crow.

At half-past ten that morning – Wednesday, August the fifth – we held a council of war. We had rested and bathed and eaten, and now we were listening to Mansel, who was speaking very quietly, as though he were thinking aloud.

“This wire” – he pointed to the form – “is clearly the second wire, correcting the first. The first said that something was fixed for August the eighth. I don’t know when it arrived, but it made Gedge leave at once – no doubt for Châteaudun or its vicinity. When he meets Rust, he will learn that he need not have been so precipitate – and will be very much vexed. What is more to the point, he will learn that Rust has wired him again. And that will infuriate him, for he will immediately fear that, if we break into Arx, that wire will fall into our hands.

“Though I’m using the future tense, all this has happened by now, for today is August the fifth.

“Now I think we may take it for granted that Gedge won’t come back. Once he is there, he will stay till the job is done. But he’ll be on the tips of his toes, in case we appear on the scene, to queer his pitch. And when we do appear on the scene, as we most certainly shall, the vials of wrath will be poured out.

“Very well. I’d rather have killed him in Arx, but that can’t be helped. What we must aim for is to strike when he’s actually doing the job. Then, though we may be observed, we shall be excused. So the first thing we’ve got to find out is where the job’s going to be done: that will probably show us the nature of the job. It’s almost certainly a jewel robbery – jewels are Gedge’s field. And it is going to be committed not far from Châteaudun. Châteaudun is a little town not quite thirty miles from Chartres. And for Chartres I propose that we leave – this evening at seven o’clock. We’ll eat our dinner at Pau and drive through the night. We shall be at Chartres for breakfast, and then we can get down to things. If we can’t get wise in five days, we deserve to be shot.”

Be sure we agreed with him.

And so it came about that by six o’clock that day the cars were packed and that, after a dinner at Pau, at ten o’clock that night we took to the open road.

We had four hundred miles to go and plenty of time. Mansel and I shared the driving, and Mona Lelong and Bagot chattered or slept. The servants, using the Lowland, followed behind. It was as we rose out of Tours that the dawn came up. I never saw such a heaven as I saw then. The whole of the sky was fretted with tiny clouds, and every cloud was ablaze with a crimson glow. Above and beyond was the blue; but this was overlaid by a crimson coverlet. And the magic of this brocade came down to touch the earth. Highway, meadows and trees rendered it helplessly. For three or four minutes the whole of the world was red. Then the great alchemist rose and, using his ancient prerogative, turned the firmament into the purest gold. But the saying stuck in my mind,
Red in the morning, Shepherd’s warning
. Foul weather was ahead.

Arrived at Chartres, we drove to a small hotel where Mansel was known. Here we fared much better than we should have fared anywhere else; for, because we were with Mansel, we were no ordinary guests, and nothing was too much trouble, so long as we had what we wished. So we bathed and broke our fast and rested till lunch. And at three o’clock that day Bagot and Bell and I set out to prove the country which lies about Châteaudun. But Mansel, with Carson and Rowley, drove into the town itself.

Before we left –

“What we want is a château,” said Mansel; “a country house – with a rich, persevering owner who loves to get big people beneath his roof. We all know the type. He doesn’t care for his guests: as like as not he hates the sight of them: but he wants to be able to say, ‘When so-and-so was staying with me this summer…’ That is for him the freedom of heaven itself. Now when I say ‘big people,’ I don’t mean people who count: I mean people who are ‘news’. He’d rather have an itinerant divorcée who was notorious than an ex-Viceroy of India in failing health.

“Mark you, I may be quite wrong. It may not be a house party that Gedge desires to attend. It may be a sale or a wedding: it may be a business deal. But I think it is a house party. And when I reach Châteaudun, I’m going to try the tradesmen that serve the neighbourhood. Your action will be more direct, for you will locate a château and then have a drink at a hamlet a mile or two off. But for God’s sake watch your step. Gedge caught me bending once – at a village inn.”

I will not set down our progress because for fifty hours it did not deserve that name. Though no one could have worked harder, our luck was out. On Friday and Saturday morning Mona did more than her share, visiting Châteaudun’s market and shop after shop, while Mansel searched the country I had not had time to reach. But pick up the scent, we could not: Gedge had passed off our map.

To save the face of my proverb, a thunderstorm had broken on Thursday night: but the sky had cleared very soon and the following day had been excessively hot. Since Saturday had promised to be even hotter still, we arranged to ‘call it a day’ at half-past four and to rally at five o’clock at our own hotel. And so we did.

It was, I confess, a sober gathering.

For two days’ very hard labour, we had precisely nothing to show. And time was running short. Tomorrow would be the ninth: and whatever was due to take place would take place in two days’ time.

“Any suggestions?” said Mansel.

“Not from me,” I said. “Except that Châteaudun should be counted out.”

“I agree. In fact I’ve been forced to the conclusion that Châteaudun was a blind. I mean that Rust wired from there because Châteaudun was
not
the nearest town. That was, of course, always on the cards: but once you leave Châteaudun, which way do you go? Vendôme? Orleans? Chartres?”

I made no answer, because I had none to make.

“Vendôme’s the smallest,” said Mona. “And it’s only twenty-five miles.”

“Vendôme be it,” said Mansel. “Will you do the market tomorrow? The shops will be shut.”

“I will, indeed. I’d like to be there at nine.”

“So you shall,” said Mansel. “We’ll pick you up at midday. And now let’s forget the matter for two or three hours. We can work out our routes after dinner: it won’t take long.”

For half an hour or so we talked about other things, and then I went out to send a wire to my wife. And when this was done, I strolled to the great cathedral, to look at its lovely glass – for, as all the world knows, the panes of Chartres cathedral are finer than precious stones.

I could not, I think, have gone at a fairer hour, for the evening sun was pouring into the shrine, printing the glorious colours upon the cold, grey stone and making majestic magic on every side. Indeed, they remembered the rainbow that paints its own reflection for two or three minutes of time: for there was the real wheel-window, ablaze with light; and there, on pillar and flags, was its delicate counterpart.

For a quarter of an hour I stood or moved in the church, quite forgetting that I had been tired, gazing upon the beauty which Nature was drawing from Art and wishing very much that Jenny was there by my side, to see the miracle. And finally I sat down on one of the high-backed chairs at the side of the nave, proposing to rest for five minutes before I took my leave.

It was, I think, as I sat down that I heard Brevet’s voice.

“My dear lady, you must hold me excused. Many a better man than I has endeavoured to describe the windows of Chartres. And every one has failed – for the very good reason that they are indescribable. As well attempt to describe a rainbow snared in a fountain or the miniature of a maid in her lover’s eye.”

The man was pacing the aisle. At the moment a pillar was rising between him and me. But in two or three seconds he would have passed the pillar, and I should be clear to be seen, three paces away.

Standing against the pillar was a confessional.

In a flash I was inside this, and the faded curtain was drawn.

It was as well I moved.

My chair had been the last of its row: and its row was the first of its batch. Brevet turned directly beside it, leaving the aisle for the nave. And his companions with him.

One was an elderly woman, very highly made up, very expensively dressed, whose shoes were too tight. Her pearls, if real, must have been most valuable. The other was a girl who might have been twenty-three. An enormous solitaire diamond winked on her ill-shaped hand. Her expression was disagreeable and she was patently bored.

But, though I observed these things, I was not thinking of them. A car was waiting outside – the car that had brought the three and, when they emerged from the shrine, would take them away. It would take them whence they had come…to the château for which we were seeking…where the house party was assembling…the house party of which Brevet made one.

The thing was so clear – so obvious. All things were possible – with Brevet within the gates and Gedge without.

Somehow I had to get out and to follow that car.

Brevet and the two women were standing in the midst of the nave. He was, of course, discoursing and pointing to this and to that. As they turned to go on, a body obscured my view. The next moment a priest had entered the confessional. He had, no doubt, seen me go in and now was come to hear what sins I had to report…

As Brevet passed out of sight, I thrust a note through the grating and fled for the southern door.

I was descending the steps, when a hired car disgorged two ladies of middle age.

“I’ll wait here, m’m,” said the driver. “You’ll see all you want to see in a quarter’v an hour. An’ then I’ll take you back to The Grand Monarque.”

I looked to the right, and there was the car I sought. There was no mistaking it. It went with the gorgeous pearls and the very expensive dress. Its footman was talking to its chauffeur with a lackadaisical air.

For a moment my brain zig-zagged…

And then I saw what I must do.

I could not approach the servants and I could not follow the car. But the hired driver was English, and he should serve my turn.

I took out a thousand-franc note and whipped to his side.

“Can you speak French?”

“I can, sir.”

“You see that turnout?” I said.

“Can’t ’ardly miss it, sir, can you?”

“I want to know whose it is and where it belongs.” I slipped the note into his hand. “Find those things out from the servants before the owner comes back. And then report to me at The Grand Monarque. There’ll be another thousand if you make good.”

Without waiting to hear his reply, I whipped to a little lane on the other side of the square.

When I could turn, I saw he was hard at work. Both servants were listening to him, and the chauffeur was nodding his head. Presently he took out a map, which the footman and he explored. And then he produced a pencil…

It was as he was taking his leave that Brevet and the women came out.

I watched them enter the car. Then I turned on my heel and strolled to Le Grand Monarque
.

Five minutes after I had reached it, I saw the hired car enter the Place des Epars.

When its occupants had left, I stepped to the driver’s side.

“Seein’s believin’, sir. The footman was that obligin’, he wrote it all down.”

I stared at the margin of the map.

Mrs Dieselbaum, Château Robinet, Morle.

“Well done, indeed,” said I, and gave him his thousand francs.

“You’re very generous, sir.”

“It’s my day out,” said I, and meant what I said.

We drank champagne that evening – and two hours later we all of us left for Vendôme. Chartres was too close to Morle – a short thirteen miles, and, though it had served us well, my one encounter with Brevet was more than enough.

Soon after dawn the next morning, Mansel and I were standing within a wood, east of the Château Robinet, half a mile off. Bagot and Bell were at hand, and Carson was in charge of the Rolls, a mile and a half away.

The body of the house was plainly extremely old, but this had been bedizened time and again. Harmony and proportion had gone by the board, and though the work done was good work and must have cost a great deal, the result was an architect’s nightmare, and that is the truth. But it did look very expensive: and that, I suppose, was enough for Mrs Dieselbaum.

It stood in a pretty big park and was approached by two drives: a private golf course marched with the woods to the west: finally, the buildings were moated and the drawbridge was up.

“There must be a footbridge,” mused Mansel; “the other side. With the village ten minutes’ walk, the servants would never consent to being locked up all night.”

“Garage?” said I.

“It must be within the moat at the back of the house. If it is, what a place to crack! The drawbridge goes up at dusk: throw a spanner into its works, and it can’t come down. And so you can’t be pursued. And now let’s make our way round to the mouth of the northern drive. The other’s too close to the village, so that is the one they’ll use.”

Forty minutes later we came to the mouth of the drive. There stood the facade of a gatehouse, but nothing more. There were no gates.

“The Bonneval road,” said Mansel. “Turn to the right for Orleans and turn to the left for Chartres. And with a start of a minute, who knows which way you’ve gone? And now we’ll take to those woods and view the house from the west.”

That we moved with the greatest caution, I need not say; for that Gedge was somewhere at hand, there could be no doubt. After a short consultation, the four of us entered the woods.

These proved to be very thick, and it soon became very clear that, unless we came down to their edge, we could not observe the house. Still it was early enough – it was not yet seven o’clock, so when we had gone some way, we turned towards the golf course, which I have said we had seen from the opposite side.

Some twenty yards from the meadows we came to a decent path. This seemed to run through the woods, by the side of the course, and we afterwards found that it led from the house to a spot quite close to the mouth of the drive. Since it curled to and fro, like a stream, it was easy enough to watch, so Bagot and Bell took cover to right and left, while Mansel and I passed straight on to the meadows’ edge.