The Prisoner of the Riviera (The Francis Bacon Mysteries) (12 page)

“Maybe I just like money,” she said and stepped off briskly toward the station, her heels tapping in the morning silence.

Back to the
gare
. Fortunately, I like trains and I’m even rather fond of train stations, where once in a while fortune smiles and one meets an interesting stranger in the loo. But, today, yours truly was all business. My new passport was in my pocket, and as soon as I saw the back of Monsieur Joubert and collected the canceled gambling chits, my alter ego, Marcel Lepage, would be off for Paris and the boat train to London, where I’d be myself again and where the people who count, Nan and Arnold, would take me as I am—rowdy, promiscuous, and occasionally reckless.

Marcel, who is none of those things, had been a strain, and I would have bought the ticket and wired Arnold but for the fear of jinxing my plans. Inconspicuous behind a pillar on the eastbound platform, I brushed up on my cycling vocabulary via
Nice-Matin
until the Marseille express was announced. A rumble and a clatter, a hiss of steam, a wheeze of brakes, a clatter of doors, and Joubert, who was probably a Hungarian named László Bencze, came prancing out of one of the first-class carriages.

He was immaculately dressed in a dove gray suit, wearing a homburg and gloves, as if he were auditioning to play Hercule Poirot. “Ah, Francis,” he said. “Have we a car?”

Have we wings and halos and a liveried chauffeur? “It’s not a long walk,” I said and led him out of the station and up the hill past the
hôtel de ville
. He complained the whole way, but though he was clearly used to being waited on, he would not let me help him with his attaché case. Interesting, that. I chose the street that fronted the house, rather than the garden entrance, which Anastasie said had been used by their wartime clients, and Joubert recognized nothing until we were at the front door and the bell was ringing deep inside.

“The Chavanels,” he said, wiping his face on a silk handkerchief.

“You know them?”

“One met so many people during the war,” he said airily.

Anastasie opened the door, took one look at him, and said, “László Bencze.
Bonjour
. It’s been a long time.”

“It is all my pleasure, Madame.” He made a sweeping bow without looking particularly thrilled, and when we got in the hall, he gave me a sour look. “I might have known better than to rely on you, Francis.”

“You are quite wrong, there,” Anastasie said. “Monsieur Francis recovered your notebook at considerable personal risk. We have merely provided a safe house for him.”

Joubert bowed again without saying what he thought of this. Anastasie led him into the parlor and sent me to Agathe for some refreshments. In the kitchen, I whispered that she should beware of the attaché case. “He has something valuable or something dangerous.”

“Bring that carafe of wine. We will be prepared.”

I bet we would.

Back in the parlor, Anastasie had produced the notebook and demanded, bless her, my gambling chits. Joubert resisted this; he wanted the letter as well.

“You remember Serge Brun, László?” Agathe asked.

Joubert screwed up his face, miming thought.

“He was an associate of Paul Desmarais,” Agathe continued. “Tall, light-brown hair, rather good-looking with a dangerous temper. Later, when Paul joined the Milice, Serge opted for the Resistance, with just about as much conviction.

“I seem to remember someone of that ilk.”

“We believe that he murdered ‘Madame Renard’ and took both the letter and the notebook. Francis was only able to secure the notebook.”

Finally, Joubert agreed to the exchange. Still looking flushed with the heat and the unaccustomed exercise, he ruffled through the pages before placing the book in his case. When Agathe came in with a tray holding wine and water bottles and some of her delicious little cakes, Joubert made another big continental bow. “Such a pleasure,” he said, “to see two such charming ladies again. One had never hoped for a reunion.”

“I imagine not,” Agathe said dryly and passed around glasses of Chablis. “To absent comrades.” Joubert raised his glass.

Anastasie took a sip of hers before asking, “And your absent comrade, Paul Desmarais? We’ve heard rumors of his death.”

He shook his head. “As I told Francis here, there was so little hope that one assumed the end must come.”

“So he’s not dead,” Agathe said flatly.

“He may be dead,” Joubert said. “He was dying, that was certain. When I gave the package to Francis, Paul was surely dying.”

“But now he has recovered?”

“Now he has disappeared.” Joubert spoke in a heavy and resentful tone that reflected the sudden change in atmosphere. Planning to loot the accounts of a dead thug was one thing; going after the resources of a live one who still scared half the Var was another. “He was placed, at my expense,” Joubert continued, “in a private nursing facility. He wrote the letter. Perhaps he wrote others I did not see, but he gave me the package and told me where to send it. I did not think that he would last the night, so I made the arrangements with Francis.”

“A dubious arrangement,” Anastasie remarked.

Joubert scowled. “I wanted it delivered in person. Who could have foreseen the death of Madame Renard?”

“Could he have left the nursing home under his own power?” Agathe wanted to know.

“Never. He had lost a tremendous amount of blood. They operated twice. Had he even been moved carelessly, he would surely be dead by now.”

“But we don’t know for sure, and that changes everything, does it not, László?”

“Please,” he said, “I am Monsieur Joubert now.” He wiped his forehead again with his fine handkerchief.

“It might be wise for you to deliver the document after all,” Anastasie said.

“As you know, Madame Renard has now departed.” Joubert had a strong line in euphemism.

“Who was she?”

“I only know what I was told. The package was to be sent from Monsieur Renard to Madame Renard at the Villa Mimosa.”

“Not to his sister?”

He shook his head and wiped his face again. Back with acquaintances from the heroic days, Joubert did not seem like the hectoring and confident gambling impresario he was in London.

“Who else would he trust?” Anastasie asked.

“You ladies would know better than I.”

“Nonsense. You’ve had associates in town. You’ve seen the photos. Who was she?”

Joubert hesitated, thinking this over. I began to doubt that he did anything spontaneously. “I believe that she was a refugee,” he said after a minute. “East European, possibly Jewish. Paul noticed her when she was detained by the Milice. She needed papers, a safe place to stay.”

“Though we never saw her,” Anastasie said. “We made no papers for such a person.”

“No. By that time he was a big shot in the Milice and did not wish to be compromised by working with you. He made some arrangements; she survived the war. She owed him a big favor.”

“It cost her life,” I said. “And it’s kept her from being identified.”

Joubert nodded. “There is always a risk with valuable shipments.”

Another philosopher at someone else’s expense. “It might have been me,” I said.

Joubert’s expression suggested that I would be no loss.

Agathe spoke up. “Well, Monsieur Whoever-You-Are-Now, I think our business is complete. You have your document, Monsieur Francis has his gambling chits returned. My sister and I have work to do.” She stood up.

Joubert picked up his attaché case and balanced it on his knees. “A moment, Madame.”

“Yes?”

“You and your sister surely know that this material is valuable.”

“It is not ours, Monsieur.”

“Please, do not insult my intelligence. You will know as well as I do why Paul sent it: He was dying or believed he was and wished to get valuable information into trusted hands and ultimately to his sister.”

“The more reason to deliver the notebook to Madame Lambert.”

“Paul had a gambling habit and owed me money. He is dead or incapacitated. Either way, unless I help myself, I’m unlikely to be paid. Besides, who owns such money? He seized what he could; he held it while he was able. Now—” He shrugged. “I suspect you’ve had the same thought.”

“The material is cryptic,” said Anastasie. “That Paul Desmarais is, or was, wealthy is not in dispute. How your package secures that money is not clear to me.”

Joubert put his hand in his case and came out with a pistol. Military surplus certainly has a lot to answer for. “Dear ladies,” he said, “you have had several days to work on the problem. I do not believe our friend Paul was clever enough to have defeated you. Letter or no letter, I need to know where Paul has stashed his fortune.”

The sisters exchanged a look. “Be set to be disappointed,” Agathe said. “You are right. We assume the material forms a sort of cipher. But the loss of the letter is one problem. The other is that Paul didn’t trust anyone completely, and the key is missing.”

“Would Madame Renard have had it?”

Anastasie shrugged. They really were a cool pair. “Perhaps. Or perhaps his sister. Without the key, and perhaps the letter, the notebook is without value. Like that weapon, Monsieur.”

“You would say the same if you had found the key and worked out the solution,” Joubert observed.

I’m not sure the sisters noticed, but I could see Joubert’s pistol waver slightly. Of course, being a good deal heavier than me, the drug probably acted more slowly on him.

“You are quite right, dear László, so you must decide which is more probable. And which is less dangerous, to do something irrevocable to us or to assume Paul is alive and collect your gambling debts in some other way.”

Without putting down the pistol, Joubert wiped his forehead again with his silk handkerchief. “I am no longer used to this charming climate,” he said.

The old ladies said nothing but sat watching him as still as cats. All of a sudden, he lurched to his feet, the attaché case tumbled to the floor, and the pistol discharged into the ceiling. Joubert collapsed into the chair, his eyes closed, his face flushed. The weapon slipped from his grasp, and I picked it up.

“I hope he’s not had some sort of attack.” I didn’t fancy helping the police with any new inquiries.

Agathe laid her hand on his chest. “We should have given him more,” she said. “What’s in the case?”

Anastasie investigated. “Nothing much. A change of underwear and socks, the notebook, of course, and an address book. A few names here in the Var, we will copy those, and a train reservation for Zurich. We are making progress, Monsieur Francis.”

She went into the kitchen and emerged with a bottle of beer and a small bottle of brandy.

“What about Joubert? He has friends here. They will probably know that he was meeting me.”

“But not where. That was well done, Monsieur Francis. And now we will stage a little comedy. Help me take him to the foyer.”

We each took an arm, levered the heavy Joubert from his chair, and half walked and half dragged him through to the tiled foyer, where Anastasie sprinkled him lavishly with a mix of brandy and beer and left him, as she put it, “to percolate” for a while. He started stirring at dusk, and Agathe and I got him out of the house by the rear entrance and deposited him with the precious briefcase just outside one of the restaurants in the upper town.

“Monsieur Leclerc! Monsieur Leclerc!” Agathe called.

When the proprietor came out, formal in a dull black tuxedo, and looking gray and anxious, she exclaimed about the drunken man in the street. “A scandal, Monsieur. That he is in such a state.” And so on.

Monsieur Leclerc, in turn, grew incensed at the idea that this
étranger
had been in his establishment. “But no, Madame Chavanel. But never!”

They raised their voices and argued back and forth across Joubert, who had lost all his usual elegance to slump drooling on the pavement. Aunt Agathe and Monsieur Leclerc seemed genuinely excited and upset, but their responses were so pat that I concluded they had used the routine before. They carried on until the café patrons, the waiters, even the cooks had been alerted and the windows of the neighboring houses were thrown open; then Monsieur Leclerc drew himself up and announced that, purely as a humane and public-spirited gesture, he would summon the gendarmes.

“Poor man,” Agathe said, her indignation vanishing. “I know he will be in good hands with you, Monsieur Leclerc.” She took my arm and we walked back to the house.

“He will remember,” I said.

“When he remembers, it will be too late. And you, Monsieur. You would do well now to leave as soon as possible.”

I thought that good advice.

Debt free and carrying excellent papers, I was set to leave the golden Riviera. I had collected thanks from the Chavanels, busy packing for what Anastasie described as a “strategic holiday.” I had abandoned my former passport and gifted the remains of my sketching kit to a beachfront rival. There was nothing to keep me from a speedy return home, where I’d see Nan and go to bed with Arnold and get into my studio. I was bound for the post office to telegraph the good news, when someone called, “Francis.”

I’d make a terrible spy, a dreadful double agent. Forgetting Monsieur Lepage, I turned around to see Pierre, waving frantically. “I could do with a hand,” he said.

Ordinarily, nothing would please me more, but the afternoon express, the through connection from Marseille to Paris, and the boat train awaited, as well as a resolution to behave with prudence and common sense.

“Another delivery,” Pierre said. “We can take the motorcycle.”

I explained my travel plans and hinted at the necessity for leaving town immediately.

“Perfect. You can take the night train from Cannes and avoid the station here—if you need to.”

That remark should have told me something right there, but I guess “prudence and common sense” don’t necessarily include intelligence. “I’m afraid it will have to be a modest dinner,” I said, as most of Malet’s cash would go for tickets.

“I know a place by the docks. Very good, very cheap.”

How quickly other considerations vanish in the face of food and drink with a handsome companion. We walked to the bike shop, where I was once again wedged into the sidecar with various bicycle parts. Outside Cannes, we met up with a bicycle support truck, where Pierre delivered gears and brakes to a group of thin, intense men in black bike shorts and bright shirts, who discussed gear adjustments, brake tension, and other arcane technical matters like monks with a psalter. It was dusk before we made our way to a sailors’ bistro where the tide slapped at the pilings beneath the floor. The fish only came fried but it was fresh, and the bread and soup were excellent. Pierre entertained me with the progress of the Tour, while I revealed as little as possible about my adventures with the Chavanels.

Everything was fine, more than fine, until we decided to have a wander on one of the beaches before I was delivered to the train station. For reasons that you can imagine, we picked one beyond the city lights, and we were cruising along on our way to pleasure and the
plage
, when a vehicle ran up behind us in a loud and aggressive way, flooding the sidecar with light. I expected him to overtake us, probably with more élan than sense. An oncoming car passed us, then two more. With the road ahead clear, the car accelerated and drew level. I saw a glint of metal in the open back window, shouted to Pierre, and slid down as far as I could in the sidecar. There was an explosion; Pierre hit the brakes; the motorcycle slewed left and right, bounced off the back end of the sedan, caromed across the road, banged into a low retaining wall then angled over both lanes, jumped the curb, and flew onto the sand.

I found myself dangling at a crazy angle, enveloped in the smell of hot oil and distressed metal, with my shoulders inches above the cool, gray beach. Another lurch and the sidecar came to rest while the cycle, still game, threw up a volcano of sand.

“Get out, get out!” Pierre cried. I saw him tumble off the bike and crouch behind the half-upended sidecar.

Something pinged off the metal, and I slithered out to join him. More shots, two or three at least, before the lights of oncoming traffic sent the car accelerating away. Pierre stood up and occupied himself with French invective, while I moved various parts of my anatomy to see whether everything that was burning and aching was still operational.

“They will be back,” I suggested finally, which set Pierre to poking and probing, first the sidecar, which had a shot-out tire and a serious list, then the cycle itself, which, with encouragement, ground its motor and showed signs of life. He took a wrench from the little pannier that held his tools and loosened the bolts holding the sidecar, abandoning it on the shore. With that weight removed, we wrestled the motorcycle out of the sand and hauled it up onto firmer ground.

Though I was concerned that our attackers would return, Pierre refused to abandon the valuable bike, and I did not feel that I could leave when I’d brought him so much trouble. He wheeled the motorcycle under a streetlight well off the main road and set to work. At last, he got the motor running properly and hopped on.

“I can walk,” I said. “You go back. I’ll find my own way to the
gare
.”

He pointed out the dangers of this, and we were arguing back and forth when we heard a car. Just an ordinary car to me, but the mechanic’s ear detected something more ominous. “Get on the back,” he cried, and before I was well seated, he gunned the motor, which accelerated despite sand and salt to carry us away from the shore—and the station. Up in the older part of town, Pierre plunged into a network of small streets, cornering recklessly and weaving between cars.

“Are they behind us?”

I strained to see over my shoulder. The lights of a dark car bobbed several vehicles behind us. Pierre made a sharp turn; seconds later, the sedan followed. “Yes,” I said. “Yes.” I thought perhaps I could get off, that with less weight the cycle would move faster, that Pierre would be safer alone. But when I shouted for him to let me off, he refused. “They want us both,” he said, which opened other possibilities and, with a cry of “hang on,” he took an alley that would have been too narrow for the sidecar and which stymied our pursuers. He wove between the litter bins and scraped back stoops to emerge at a street bordering a park. The motorcycle roared up a steep hill into a leafy residential area that looked respectable and dark. Here the valiant machine began to stutter and wheeze, and I became aware of a strong smell of petrol.

“I think the tank is leaking,” I shouted, his curly hair blowing against my mouth. “We’re running out of gas.”

Pierre slowed up, trying to nurse the motor just a little farther, but it sputtered to a halt, and we jumped off. When Pierre spotted a driveway running between high walls, he wheeled the bike behind some cypress trees. My impulse was to walk back to the
gare
, but the sound of a heavy car cruising on the street beyond sent us running up the drive. The windows of the villa were all dark, but something about the silhouette against the night sky was familiar, and as we crept down the side toward the garden, the long windows, decorative trim, and cornice all came into focus. I realized that I was looking at the original of the Chavanels’ masterly miniature.

“This is Madame Lambert’s house,” I said and grabbed his arm. “Did you know?”

“Only now,” Pierre said.

For the moment, I chose to believe him.

The back garden was a fine one, laid out in geometric beds and surrounded by more of the funereal cypresses. I fancied a moonlit evening there, but the car nosed up the drive, and we fled to the terrace, where, more in desperation than hope, I tried one of the French doors. It opened without a sound. Pierre stepped inside and I followed, locking the door behind us.

All quiet within. An open window cast a rectangle of moonlight on the floor and a curtain moved slightly in the night breeze. Otherwise only a few thin bars of light crept though the shutters. We settled ourselves behind an overstuffed couch and waited. A voice in the garden, footsteps on the terrace, a door latch being jiggled—all bad things, followed by whispers.
They know we’re here,
I thought, and I expected the crack of glass and the speedy entrance of our pursuers. But no, the voices receded. A minute later, I went to the French doors and peered out. The terrace was empty, the garden deserted. They had just been guessing, and they might go on to try every drive and every garden on the street.

“Pierre,” I said.

No answer. I became aware that the house had a slightly musty, closed-up smell as if no one lived here, although the rear door had been left unlocked and a window open. Now that our immediate danger had receded, I felt disturbance like a lingering shock wave. I walked down the long tiled corridor toward the front of the house. On my right would be the library and the dining room; on my left, the best parlor with the ancestor portrait over the mantel and a frescoed ceiling. It was curious to see the house come to life, shooting up, as it were, from its doll-sized prototype. Pierre was standing beside the elegant curving stairs where, supposedly, Madame Lambert had shot her husband.

“Don’t touch anything,” he warned.

“What is it?” I asked, but even in the dimness, I saw the shape on the floor, a woman with long hair in a dark dress. “Is it Madame Lambert?”

“I’m guessing.” He put his hand on her neck and immediately drew back as if startled.

“Is she alive?” I stepped forward ready to put my ARP training to use.

“She is cold,” said Pierre. “She is like ice.”

“The fish locker.”

“Serge Brun,” he said.

I did not have time to digest this idea, for in the distance we heard the sound of a police Klaxon. I could see myself providing assistance to the French police until I had gray hair. “Let’s get out of here,” I said. In my anxiety, I must have raised my voice, for a cry came from the upper floor.

“Who is it? Who is there?”

We both jumped. When we came back down to earth, we saw a shadow above and the foyer lights came on. A woman with auburn hair and a distraught expression on her pale freckled face ran halfway downstairs and stopped. She was wearing a summer dress and carrying an old shotgun. I’m not sure I like Frenchwomen’s taste in accessories.

“Who are you?” she demanded, her voice rising. “Don’t move or I’ll call the police.”

“Don’t shoot. We won’t hurt you,” Pierre said.

“What has happened? Why are you here? You aren’t friends of Madame’s.”

“Some men attacked us. We ran into your garden and found the rear door open.”

“How was that possible, Monsieur? I locked up as usual. Eight thirty, I lock the garden door.”

“I think whoever brought this,” Pierre gestured toward the body. With the lights up, I could see that the dead woman’s hair was dark blond, her face, well preserved rather than youthful. “Can you get a sheet or a blanket?”

She took a step closer, night in her eyes. “Oh, no! Oh, no! Has he killed Madame?”

“We don’t know who she is,” I said.

She came down to the last step, looked at the body, and raised the shotgun at us. “Oh, poor Madame Lambert ! My poor Madame Lambert! Don’t move,” she cried, then turned and fled upstairs with a little gasp. Pierre started to follow her, but I put my hand on his arm and shook my head. “Give her a moment.”

Sure enough, she reappeared, still with the gun but now wearing a thin coat and carrying both a purse and a bundle of linen. She came downstairs and covered the body gently. “She is so cold! Poor thing! Her arm is like ice.” She stood, clutching her weapon and visibly shivering.

I didn’t feel too good myself. I touched one of her thin shoulders. “When did you last see your employer?”

“How do I know it wasn’t you?” she asked, moving away angrily and raising the shotgun again. “Who are you? How did you get in here?”

She went on in this vein, until Pierre introduced me as Marcel Lepage, visiting decorator—“Quite famous, madam!”—and himself as a member of the Sud-Est racing team. I noticed that he was careful not to give his name, but his explanation was apparently adequate, for when I asked a second time about the dead woman, she answered.

“Tuesday it was. There was a terrible argument. He arrived just at lunch.”

“Who? Who arrived?”

“Monsieur Brun.”

“Serge Brun?” Pierre asked.

“You know him?” She gave Pierre a sharp glance. “Yes, that is his name. I had just brought in the soufflé when he rang the bell. I brought him into the dining room.”

“He was a welcome visitor, who came often?”

“He was not welcome to me, Monsieur, but Madame said that he was an old friend. Lately, he had come often. More often than I liked.” Though she was still trembling, her voice was firm. Her slight, almost girlish form had deceived me. I realized that she was at least as old as her late employer.

“You said there was an argument.”

“Something he wanted—as usual. I didn’t catch the details, but she was furious. Really furious. Then he showed her something, a piece of paper.” She was silent for a moment.

“And then?” Pierre prompted.

“Then she ordered him out of the house, Monsieur. It was quite a scene. Marie will remember.”

“Who is Marie?”

“She comes in to cook whenever Madame is home.”

“You said you hadn’t seen Madame Lambert since Tuesday. When did she leave?”

“That afternoon, Monsieur. She packed a small bag and called a taxi. And now here she is and so cold. How is she so cold, Messieurs?”

Pierre and I exchanged glances. “She has perhaps been kept somewhere cold,” I suggested, though I couldn’t bring myself to mention the fish locker.

“We must call the police,” she said and moved toward the back of the foyer where, I now saw, there was a telephone on a small gilt table. That was one detail the Chavanels had missed but perhaps it was a recent addition. “The police must know. They know she has enemies.” She leaned the shotgun against a table and lifted the receiver.

We moved toward the door.

“A moment, Messieurs, if you please. How did you get here?”

We explained about the motorcycle.

“I have a better idea,” she said. “But first, I must call the police.”

She dialed the number, then turned her back on us and spoke to the officer on duty, demanding to be contacted with the chief inspector. “I am calling about Madame Yvette Lambert.”

A pause, then she gave a swift but accurate description of the victim and instructed the officers to use the unlocked terrace entrance. She had a rather imperious manner for a personal maid, and I was surprised at how crisp and decisive she sounded, especially when she said, “Certainly, the victim is Madame Lambert. And you will know who is to blame, Inspector. ”