“Antoine’s name has already come up once in this investigation. Jimmy told me last night that he referred Sawyer Blakely to Antoine when he came into Mo’s Bar asking for a guide to take him into the deep forest. I went to his apartment last night to look for him, but he was out.”
Angel quirked an eyebrow at her. “No doubt you rang the doorbell politely and left the building when he didn’t answer, respecting his privacy all the while.”
“As a matter of fact, I climbed the drainpipe and broke into his apartment through an open window. I wanted to check that he hadn’t done a runner.”
Angel laughed. “That’s my girl. And had he?”
“It didn’t look like it. He had been in the apartment recently, and there was no sign of packing. He seemed to be out for the night as usual.”
“I should like to know whether he was the person who guided the dead man into the forest. And also, whether he was the person who put an arrow through that man, using his childhood friend’s equipment.”
“I’m going to pay him another visit. This time I expect him to be home.”
Angel stood up. “And I should be getting ready for my first meeting of the day. Come for dinner tonight, chérie, and tell me what you have found out.”
“I might not be able to, depending on the direction this investigation takes me in. But I will keep you posted – you can count on that.”
The day was heating up as Eulalie joined the mid-morning crowds on Lafayette Boulevard.
Most of the locals were already at work, so the wide, tree-lined walkway belonged to the tourists who were window-shopping or enjoying a leisurely breakfast at a sidewalk café.
Some families were already heading to the beach, their pale skin gleaming hopefully in the tropical sunlight. In the late afternoon, no doubt, Eulalie would see them again, broiled like lobsters and slapping after-sun lotion onto their painful skin.
Just as she was about to turn down Bonaparte Avenue, she saw someone who looked strikingly out of place in this jolly holiday crowd. He didn’t even fit in with the local businessmen who tended to wear light, tropical-weight suits as their business attire.
This man looked as though he would have been more at home on Bond Street in London in the middle of winter. He was wearing a black suit, a charcoal overcoat, a neat bowler hat, and a pair of leather brogues. He was carrying a tightly furled black umbrella and swinging it jauntily as he walked.
He had his back to Eulalie, but she had no trouble recognizing him as ‘Lord’ Peter Pringle.
What did he think he was doing in that stifling get-up at ten in the morning on Prince William Island? Was this his idea of what the titled English gentleman wore on holiday? Or perhaps he was on his way to a meeting and trying to impress everyone with his overwhelming Britishness.
Eulalie decided to follow him. Everything about him rang warning bells in her head. The fact that he had managed to get close to Fleur meant it was her duty to keep an eye on him.
If Eulalie’s father had been good at hiding from people, it was something he had passed on to his daughter. Nobody saw Eulalie when she didn’t want to be seen. Today, she looked more like a holidaymaker than a local. Peter Pringle was accustomed to her blazer, boots and jeans silhouette. He would not be expecting to see her in this bright, strappy top.
She popped into a shop and bought a pair of oversized sunglasses. She pulled her hair out of its ponytail and fluffed it out with her fingers so that it stood out in a wavy black mane around her head. A glance in a shop window told her she looked every inch the tourist on holiday. Anyone who knew her well would recognize her, but Peter Pringle did not know her well.
Keeping a discreet distance, she tailed him down Lafayette Boulevard.
His first stop, it seemed, would be Sweet as Flowers. No doubt he was going in to visit Fleur. That was inconvenient. Eulalie couldn’t walk into the coffee shop without being recognized. She was too familiar to everyone who worked there. But perhaps she could use that to her advantage.
She waited until the alleged Lord Pringle had gone in through the front door, and then walked around to the back. There she found the kitchen staff taking advantage of the mid-morning lull to smoke, drink coffee, and catch up on gossip. They started to greet her but went quiet when she held a finger to her lips.
Fleur’s headwaiter Jethro stepped forward with an enquiring look on his face.
“I’m spying on Fleur’s new boyfriend,” she whispered. “I want to get into the back, so I can hear what they are saying.”
A flurry of sideways glances greeted this pronouncement.
“Good,” said Jethro. “I’ve been on the verge of calling you half a dozen times. None of us can stand the guy. We have no idea what she sees in him. Please can you break them up before she does something stupid like selling him a stake in the business?”
Eulalie frowned. “You think she’s on the verge of giving him money?”
Jethro rolled his eyes. “No, I think she’s on the verge of giving him more money. I happen to know that she’s already given him plenty.”
Chapter 14
This was exactly what Eulalie was afraid of.
“What kind of money are we talking about?”
Jethro glanced at the other staff members and they nodded.
“No big amounts yet, that I’m aware of. Just small quantities of cash at this stage. She pays for everything when they go out. Apparently, the poor boy is having trouble getting his British pounds changed into Prince William Island dollars. It’s all terribly inconvenient.”
“Right,” said Eulalie. “There must be twenty currency exchanges on Lafayette Drive alone.”
“And that’s not all. Poor Lord Pringle is struggling to access his huge fortune in London because of a stupid mix-up with the banks, so Fleur has to keep bankrolling him.”
Eulalie dropped her head into her hands. “How can she be so dumb?”
“It’s her hormones talking,” said a woman that Eulalie recognized as one of the baking staff. “She’s completely infatuated. He could tell her he’s the Lord High Commissioner of Mars and she’d believe him right now. It’s not going to last, obviously, but we’re worried about how much damage he could do while it does.”
“We like working here,” Jethro explained. “We don’t want to be out of a job because the boss had a temporary fit of madness. Everything that Fleur owns is tied up in the business. He could wipe her out if she gave him access to the money.”
“I’ll do whatever I can to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Eulalie slipped through the kitchen towards the long storerooms behind the coffee shop. If she were discovered, she would say she had been coming to visit Fleur, as she often did.
It wasn’t quite true that everything Fleur owned was tied up in the coffee shop. In fact, it wasn’t true at all, although most people on Prince William Island didn’t know that. Fleur was a trust fund baby. The daughter of wealthy wine farmers from South Africa, she had access to millions. The fact that she had chosen to turn her back on that wealth and make her own way in the world didn’t change the reality that she had access to very large sums of money indeed.
Eulalie began to wonder if Peter Pringle’s random meeting with Fleur at the Four Seasons was quite as random as it appeared.
Keeping out of sight, she crept closer to where Fleur and Peter were sitting and tried to catch what they were saying. It was quiet in the coffee shop, so she could hear their voices quite distinctly.
“I still feel like I’m in a dream,” Fleur said. “How did I get so lucky? What did I do to deserve having you walk into my life?”
Pringle laughed and there was a long pause while they kissed. Eulalie rolled her eyes.
“And here’s an extra one for luck.” She kissed him again. “I hope your meeting this morning goes really, really well. You deserve it.”
“I hope so too. There’s so much at stake. I’m not just talking about the money, although that will be huge. I’m talking about how my family s
ees me. I’m talking about earning their respect.”
Eulalie could imagine Fleur nodding vigorously. These were words that would speak directly to her heart.
“It’s the same with my family. No matter what I’ve done – what I’ve achieved – they don’t seem to care because I haven’t followed the path they laid out for me.”
“That’s exactly it. My parents would be happy if I stayed in Surrey and helped run the estate. They don’t realize what a limited future there is in farming. I’m out here trying to save the family fortune by making real money and they just don’t care. This is going to be huge. It’s going to transform the island. And all I care about is getting a good word from my mum and dad. It’s pathetic really.” He laughed sadly.
There was another pause and more kissing sounds.
“Don’t say that,” said Fleur. “It’s not true. The approval of one’s family is a basic human need. Believe me when I say I know exactly how you feel.”
“I wish we could succeed together!” Pringle said, as though struck by an idea. “Then we could show both our families. If only all your money wasn’t tied up in this coffee shop. You could come in on this deal with me and triple your profits. That would make your parents pay attention. It would make my position stronger too - to have another investor on board. It’s a shame you don’t have any money lying around. We would make a fantastic team. Me, the overseas investor, and you, the prominent local businesswoman. Ah, well. It was a nice thought…”
There was another long pause.
“As a matter of fact…” said Fleur.
Eulalie leaned hard against the rack of flour she was hiding behind. It toppled sideways and landed on the floorboards with an earth-shaking crash. At least three bags of flour burst open.
She heard shouts coming from inside the coffee shop but didn’t wait around. She slipped ghost-like out of the storeroom and through to the kitchen.
“Cleanup in aisle seven,” she told Jethro as she walked past.
Eulalie waited around the side of the building, keeping an eye on the entrance.
Two minutes later, Lord Pringle emerged onto Lafayette Boulevard, swinging his umbrella. She smiled. She had known he wouldn’t stick around to help with the cleaning. He might get flour all over his Savile Row suit.
As she lagged behind him, letting him get further and further ahead, while still keeping him in sight, she thought about what she had learned.
He knew who Fleur was, without a doubt. And more importantly, he knew who her family were. He had probably known from the start that the Du Toit family of the famous Cedar Chest Winery in Cape Town had a daughter living on Prince William Island. He would have known all about her bid for independence from her family, and their disapproval of this. He probably knew to the last cent how much money there was in her trust fund.
He could easily have discovered that she was pitching her flavored sugars at the Four Seasons a few days ago, so he could lie in wait for her.
Poor Fleur had stood no chance at all.
Eulalie was under no illusion that her burst flour trick had put a stop to Pringle’s efforts to get money out of Fleur. All she had done was delay him. Now she had to take advantage of that delay. Somehow, she had to make Fleur see him for what he was – a two-bit conman.
Eulalie was more convinced than ever that Mrs. Belfast was right – he wasn’t British at all. The fact that he had named Surrey as the location of his family’s huge farming estate was another mistake. Surrey might have been countryside once, but it was mostly suburban now. The old landed estates had been broken up and sold off for housing. The kind of private stately home Pringle had described was rare there these days.
Wherever Pringle was going, it was a surprisingly long walk. He turned off Lafayette Drive onto Harbor Road, making Eulalie wonder if his meeting was in the Dockside neighborhood.
Why didn’t he take a cab?
Then it occurred to her that he probably couldn’t afford it. Whatever cash Fleur had been giving him was probably used up on living expenses. He wouldn’t waste money on transport when he could walk for free.
Twenty minutes later, she knew that Dockside was indeed his destination. This was taking a lot of time out of her morning, but she didn’t begrudge a second of it.
It was while Pringle and Fleur had been talking that it had occurred to Eulalie that Pringle’s presence on the island might be connected to her investigation. He had mentioned a deal that was going to bring untold wealth to Queen’s Town. He had also been staying at the Four Seasons – the same hotel as Sawyer Blakely. And he had popped up at the same time as Megamoxy had begun making its play for developing the deep forest.
Eulalie wasn’t a great believer in coincidences – not in a tiny place like Prince William Island. Everything was connected.
Pringle turned into a coffee shop, taking her by surprise.
When she saw him sit down at a table, she went into a coffee shop diagonally opposite him and sat down at a table too. She positioned herself so that she could keep an eye on him through the bay window.
He ordered a glass of iced water and sat sipping it slowly. He took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his face and neck. Then he took out a comb and styled his sandy hair back into its Byronic flick.
Eulalie realized what he was up to. He didn’t want to advertise the fact that he had walked all the way from midtown to Dockside. A man of his means would naturally have taken a cab. He was using this opportunity to get back into character as the unruffled British aristocrat.
She could only respect him for his cunning.
Ten minutes later, he was up again and heading out the door. Eulalie left money on the table for the coffee she had drunk and headed out after him. She thought he must be close to his destination now. Even half a block was enough to make one start sweating in this heat, especially if you were wearing a suit and overcoat.
She was right. He turned into the lobby of a new building that had gone up in place of a demolished warehouse. She stood near the entrance and watched as he filled out a form at the security desk. He waited while one of the security officers called upstairs, presumably to check his credentials. He was allocated an electronic visitor’s tag, which he clipped to his breast pocket. Then his briefcase and umbrella were put through an x-ray scanner and he was allowed through a turnstile to reach a bank of elevators.
As he disappeared from sight, Eulalie stepped back to look up at the building. The exterior was smoked glass from top to bottom. Her chances of climbing it were zero. She wasn’t Spiderman.
On impulse, she walked into the lobby and went up to the security desk.
“Morning!” She swung her messenger bag up onto the desk. “I have a delivery here from Megamoxy.”
The guards glanced at each other.
“From Megamoxy?” said one, looking puzzled. “You mean to Megamoxy, right?”
The other guard glared at him. “I’m sorry, madam. There’s no company here by that name.”
“Oh…” Eulalie looked around uncertainly. “My mistake, sorry.”
She turned and walked out of the lobby, her shoulders slightly hunched.
Back on the street, she straightened up and raised a hand to call a cab. She had wasted enough time hiking through the streets of Queen’s Town. She needed to get to Finger Alley quickly so she could be sure of catching Antoine at home.
Once she was in the mercifully air-conditioned interior of the cab, she texted Chief Macgregor.
Eulalie: Megamoxy has secret offices at 44 Harbor Road – the big glass building. A man calling himself Lord Peter Pringle has come to Queen’s Town to get in on the Megamoxy deal. He is trying to convince Fleur to put up money for them to invest together. The person who guided Sawyer Blakely into the forest may have been Antoine. I’m going to speak to him now.
She didn’t have to wait long for a reply.
Chief Macgregor: You’ve made a lot of progress. We’ll look into 44 Harbor Road, but our hands are tied because the
y’re not suspected of anything illegal. We’ll investigate Pringle too, but there’s nothing we can do to prevent Fleur from making a bad decision. Don’t lose your temper with Antoine. If I find him dangling from the fifth floor, there will be consequences. You’re a police liaison officer, remember.
Eulalie pulled a face. He was such a spoilsport. Just because she had once lost her temper and dangled Antoine out of his apartment window didn’t mean she was going to do it every time. It was shortly after the murder that no one could pin on him, and Eulalie had felt fully justified in giving him a scare.
But today she needed his co-operation, so she would try a different approach. She had every intention of waking him up, but this time it wouldn’t be with a knife to his throat.
The cab dropped her at the entrance to Finger Alley and she walked the rest of the way to Majestic Towers. The oversized sunglasses were tucked out of sight in her messenger bag and her hair was back in its customary ponytail.
Instead of climbing up the side of Majestic Towers, she went in the front door and took the stairs. Antoine’s apartment door was locked – untrusting little rat that he was. Eulalie pulled a set of picks out of her bag and got to work picking the lock.
It was a skill Jimmy the Knife had taught her years earlier. She wasn’t particularly adept at it but as long as she had some time she could get through most ordinary locks.
When the lock clicked, she slipped silently into the apartment and closed the door behind her. Antoine’s breathy snores could be heard emanating from the bedroom. It was a relief to hear them. The possibility that he could have skipped town last night had niggled at the back of her mind.
She slid into his bedroom like a shadow and headed straight for the scarred wooden table next to the bed. It had a single drawer that was slightly ajar.
She opened it quietly and removed the pistol she found inside. Her reflexes might be good, but she didn’t fancy trying to dodge a bullet fired at this range. She slid the gun under the bed where Antoine would find it later after a long and no doubt frustrating search. Eulalie sat down on the room’s only chair, shifting a pile of clothes out of the way first.
The Complete H-Series of The Eulalie Park Mysteries Page 87
