The pool reflected the moonlight. It was a splendid night, the silver moon waning, stars splashed across the sky. The weather was as fine as any late-September night I’d ever known, dry, with a gentle breeze. I pulled up a lounge chair beside Millie.
She raised her wine glass. “You’re not having one?”
“I had one earlier. More than one,” I said. “I think I’ll just watch you enjoy yours.”
“I am doing exactly that.” She took a long drink. “By the way, Le Patio was nice.”
“I told you.”
“You did. Now, what is that big something you have to tell me?”
“You remember I mentioned Kyle.” Since Millie and I spoke in the parking lot at about six thirty, I’d had that revealing conversation with Felicity. Now I knew that Barry was the hit-and-run driver in Paris. I kept thinking of the victim as the cowboy, but my conversation with Kyle had made it clear the man was Frank Pitt, Virgil Pitt’s son. Like several others, he’d wanted the tape I now knew was in my luggage. So much had come to light in just a few hours.
About thirty minutes later, I wound down. Millie was silent for a moment. “Mon Dieu!” she said, finally, doing a fair imitation of Jean-Claude, reminding me of that other conversation I’d had tonight.
“Something else you might like to know,” I said, and I repeated Jean-Claude’s story.
“Any other news flash?” Millie asked. “You’re better than CNN.”
“I do believe I’ve told you everything I know,” I said, leaning back in the lounge chair.
Millie sat up and swung her feet onto the ground. “One night—it might have been the night you went to Aix—that Llorca guy was having dinner by himself at that little table in the corner, and Bettina came around to refill his wine glass. She was leaning close to him, saying something, flirty-like, and you could tell he was sneaking a peek at her cleavage. Not that the poor girl has much of a bosom, but it’s perky, that’s the thing.” She gave a significant smile.
“Next thing you know, her daddy rushes over, looking like he could explode, and says something huffy to her, and she hurries out of the dining room. Then Jean-Claude says something to Llorca. Not loud, but anybody could guess it was a stern reprimand.The guy just got up and left. Never made eye contact with Jean-Claude.”
“Bettina may not be so different from other nineteen-yearold girls who want their independence,” I said, “but I understand Jean-Claude’s worry. Not just because of Llorca’s age, either. He’s creepy.” I couldn’t help wondering what Paul Broussard’s personal opinion was of the museum’s curator.
“What exactly is Llorca’s attraction?” Millie asked.
“He has connections in the art world. He can set her up in Paris.”
“Her sister hasn’t fared too well as an artist’s model.”
“All the more reason for her to prove she can succeed.”
“And what does Llorca get?” Millie asked, with a sideways glance.
“I know the obvious answer is sex, but somehow I don’t think so,” I said.
“We’re in France, you know.”
She was right.
Two young men had been playing chess on the big board, on the other side of the pool. As they came down the steps toward the pool, I recognized them as the Germans I’d seen earlier. “Those guys were checking out the stone room that leads to the tunnel this afternoon,” I said. “It made me wonder if anyone else knows about the passage.”
Millie raised her finger. “That’s right. We haven’t solved that mystery yet, have we?”
“And we don’t know who killed Barry Blake,” I said.
“You think you should have another chat with Inspector Bouvier, now that you have some new information to offer?”
“Definitely,” I said. “Felicity promised to go to the police tomorrow morning, but I intend to talk with him, too.”
“We never did tell him about that day in the tunnel, either. About Louis following us. I’m still suspicious of that dude.”
I pointed out that the inspector had so much to investigate, including a murder, he’d probably just be annoyed that we’d been prowling around in the old part of the hotel.
“Then again, the inspector might know about the passage,” Millie said. “It’s common knowledge that there are tunnels all around here. The tour guide at Montmajour Abbey said so.”
“I haven’t wanted to ask Jean-Claude—because of what happened with Louis—but he’d be the best source. It’s his hotel, after all,” I said.
“Why don’t we ask him?” Millie turned up the last of her wine.
“Tonight?”
“We’re both leaving Fontvieille this weekend,” she said. “Not much time left.”
Jean-Claude had been at the front desk a little while ago. I expected he was still there.
“Mais oui!” Jean-Claude answered when I asked if L’hôtel du Soleil was built on a quarry. “Stone was mined in this area for hundreds of years.”
“Then you know about the tunnels,” Millie said.
“Oui! There are tunnels everywhere. Fontvieille was full of tunnels for mining the stone. Mine shafts— I think they call them. But the quarries were abandoned long ago.”
“Are there any maps that show where the mine shafts were?” I asked.
This prompted a hearty laugh. “Oh, Madame, I think not. These shafts are very—irregular. At one time perhaps maps were made but . . .” He gave an elaborate shrug. “No one has worked in the quarries for many, many years. The tunnels are sealed off.”
Millie and I exchanged glances. “Jean-Claude, the hotel was built on a quarry,” I said. “Surely you know you have your own personal tunnel underneath the hotel.”
His fingers flew to his mustache. “How do you know this?”
“We snooped,” said Millie.
Jean-Claude’s face melted into a smile. “You did not go far. You could see that the opening goes nowhere! Ah, but you should not go into the dark places.”
“Why do you say the opening goes nowhere?” I asked.
“Because it was sealed off when the hotel was built. I myself have seen, before I made the purchase of L’hôtel du Soleil! Please, you frighten me when you talk of going into the tunnels!”
We thanked him and bid him Bonsoir. No point in telling him the tunnel was not closed off. Millie had the lips-are-sealed look, too. Madame Duvall at the library might have access to maps of underground mazes, but as Millie had pointed out, our time in Provence was almost up.
We were about halfway up the stairs when Jean-Claude called us back. He was frowning, twirling his mustache.
“Why do you ask about these mine shafts?” he said.
“I’m an architect,” I said. “I was interested in the old stone, in how the stone has been used to fill in the new, and I did some prowling. That’s how I discovered the tunnel.”
Jean-Claude scowled. “Someone else asked me about the tunnels.”
“The Germans?” I said. Jean-Claude looked baffled, and I clarified. “Two of the young men who are guests of the hotel, part of the German group?”
“Non!” He waved away my suggestion. “This was some time ago. Weeks. Maybe two months. I cannot say. He asked me if I believed there were antiquities hidden in the tunnel. He wanted to search. I said non!”
“Do you think there might be?” asked Millie.
He shook his head. His face contorted into a grimace, and his voice changed to a low growl. “The man I told you about— the pig!” he said, leaning across the desk. And then, as he surely realized that he’d described the artist in Paris as a pig, he added, “Not the man who paints my daughter Mona. The other, who lives here in Fontvieille.”
I did not have to say Gerard Llorca’s name. Jean-Claude nodded slowly. “He is the one.”
At the top of the stairs, Millie and I stopped, speaking in whispery voices. “The tunnel is not sealed off,” I said. “Maybe Llorca is the one who’s using it. But why?”
“Antiquities?”
�
��We won’t know until we find out where it goes—what’s at the other end,” I said.
“So—are you going back in?” No surprise in her voice. Just the blunt question.
I didn’t answer right away. Was there a good enough reason to go back into that pitch-dark, claustrophobic space? “If Llorca’s up to something illegal, and we could prove it, maybe he’d be arrested, and he wouldn’t be bothering Bettina anymore,” I said.
“Assuming what he’s doing with her is a bother,” Millie said.
“You know what I mean.” I gave Millie an earnest look. This was no joke. “When I came from that passage, I was so thankful to be safe, I was sure I’d never go back. But now . . . I think we should check it out again. I think I should. I’m not trying to influence you, Millie.”
She gave a twist of her mouth. “Most of my mistakes in my life have been on the side of caution,” she said.
“Does that mean you’ll go, too?”
She shrugged. “Guess that’s why I bought two flashlights yesterday. Just in case.”
CHAPTER 34
* * *
Ten minutes later Millie knocked at my door. We were both dressed in the clothes and running shoes we’d worn the last time we’d done this.
“You have the flashlights?” I asked.
She patted her fanny pack. “And a small bottle of water and a couple of straws. Not much room in here. Oh, batteries, too. The flashlights look like junk, but they were the best I could do.”
“I’m not complaining,” I said. I’d been wondering how we’d solve the problem of water. I had only a large bottle in my room, but Millie had it under control.
Louis had taken Jean-Claude’s place at Réception..Typically, he appeared bored with his job, which was good for us. No reason to think he knew where we were headed, but I couldn’t help remembering he’d followed us the first time.
A lucky break. Several of the German entourage had returned from some occasion which had called for suits and what I would call Sunday dresses. Not cocktail dresses. They were milling around in the lobby, and as we passed among them, smiling and saying Bonsoir, one of the men asked Louis if they could have coffee in the dining room. Millie and I were able to head to the patio and slip out of sight, without anyone noticing.
Down the steps, into the stone chamber, my heart pounding like a trapped bird. Millie shoved a flashlight into my hand. We switched on our lights, almost at the same time.
“I was afraid it would be locked,” Millie whispered. “After we talked to Jean-Claude, I was afraid he’d come down here and lock it up.”
“He still thinks the tunnel is sealed off,” I whispered back.
“It’s awfully dark,” Millie said, as we approached the first irregular opening.
“Our eyes will adjust,” I said.
Millie bent down and picked up several of the loose rocks, stowing them in her pockets.
“Might come in handy,” she said.
“Why are we whispering?” I asked.
We both laughed. Nervous laughter.
The opening that required us to crawl through looked as if it had shrunk since we were here before, but I didn’t get stuck, nor did Millie. We entered the first in the progression of stone rooms. Spooky, pitch black except for the glowing circles our flashlights made. A musty smell that I would probably never forget, and always associate with tight, dark spaces. Had the passage actually felt roomy, on our first exploration? It seemed to grow tighter with each step. Millie must have felt it, too. She dropped back, and I led the way. We moved silently, cautiously, for what seemed like an endless time.
We passed the turn where we’d encountered Louis. I hadn’t realized he’d come so far into the tunnel. Neither of us spoke of that incident, but the skin on my arms prickled.
A little farther on, I suggested we stop for water. “You first,” I said when Millie offered me the bottle and straw. Something about bringing straws on our exploration amused me. Millie just nodded when I mentioned it. Maybe this was a little too adventurous for her. She drank and then I drank from the other straw and stuck it in my jeans pocket.The bottle was half empty.
I checked my watch. “We left about midnight. Now it’s twelve forty.”
“Seems a lot longer,” she said. “If Montmajour Abbey is a couple of miles—oh, hell, there’s no way to estimate how far underground.”
It might take all night, and the word underground didn’t conjure up pleasant images. “We’d better get going,” I said.
It got harder to see as we progressed. I blinked hard, having trouble focusing. It was as if the blackness were sucking up the light. The grainy flashlight beams gave general dimensions of the opening in front of us, not much detail. Silence only served to intensify the darkness. Breathing seemed to take a greater effort, minute by minute, but I wasn’t sure if my breathlessness was just anxiety. I thought of coal miners and the canaries they sent before them to test the air. I didn’t mention that to Millie.
We covered a great length of the passage in silence. I didn’t let myself imagine how far back in the tunnel we were, and I had no idea how far we had to go. We simply kept shining our beams in front of us, into the sameness that went on and on. Something should turn up—and then it did. The tunnel forked. We could go either way.
For a moment, Millie and I stood close together, without a word. “What do you think?” she asked, whispering again. “Flip a coin?”
“We may as well,” I said, “except I didn’t bring any coins.”
“Me, either.”
Our efforts to lighten the mood didn’t succeed. I sensed the tension in Millie and I felt my own tension, muscles strung tight as piano wire. But we had to decide.
“Seems this way looks more traveled,” I said, indicating the opening that continued left. “Maybe. I can’t be sure.”
Millie focused the beam of her flashlight into one passage and then the other. “I think you’re right. Fewer rocks on the path.”
“Let’s give it a try.”
As far as I could tell, everything looked the same as the main part of the tunnel we’d left behind. I hoped we’d made the right choice. My throat was dry, but the thought of depleting our water supply deterred me from mentioning a rest stop. On a positive note—and I was making an extreme effort to stay positive—I felt no need for a bathroom break.
A few more minutes passed. I was about to check the time again. About to tell Millie that we should make a decision: How far should we go before we gave up and turned back, either to take the other leg of the tunnel or to head out of this Godforsaken place? What were we doing here, anyway—two middleaged-to-older women, neither of us the sort one would describe as a risk-taker? How had I failed to assess how dangerous this little adventure really was?
And then I heard a sound from Millie that I could only describe as a hiss.
“Dead end!”
Something in the distance changed dramatically. Something was definitely blocking our way. At the same time, the ceiling of the tunnel seemed to go up, the space opening above us to about eight feet. I took a deep breath, and straightened up to my full height of almost six feet, realizing that I’d been hunching a little, all the way.
Both of us shined our lights all around. Almost at the same instant, the beams from our flashlights converged, illuminating a door at what had seemed a dead end.
“An exit!” Millie said, with a lilt in her voice that I hadn’t heard all night.
“Or an entrance,” I said, imagining an even smaller, blacker room behind the door.
Millie groaned at that prospect, as I moved closer to examine the wooden door. It was about four by four, complete with a handle. I pulled on the handle. Without any trouble, the door came open. I shined my light into the space. Shelves. Cleaning supplies, spray bottles, rags. Stacks of ragged quilts. A box of file folders. I reached inside and thumbed through a few of the folders. Nothing.
“It’s a closet,” I whispered.
“Where?” she asked, n
ot whispering.
“Sh-h-h!” I said. She moved closer behind me. “I won’t know till I go in,” I told her.
“You’re going in?”
“We’ve come this far.”
Our hushed voices still sounded too loud for my comfort. Again I put my fingers to my lips. I pushed a stack of quilts to the side, leaned through the hole I’d made, and shined my light.
From Millie, I heard the faintest “Oh God, don’t let anybody be in there!” Right. Don’t let anybody see this light.
I didn’t have to crawl all the way through. All I had to do was stretch, and I was able to reach a door knob, about two feet in front of me. Pushing my torso forward, my feet now dangling, I touched the cold door knob and turned it, without noise.
Through the crack in the door, I could see faint images inside another room. It was risky using the flashlight, but otherwise I couldn’t see a thing. I blinked as I recognized a set of flat files. The first time I’d seen them, I’d thought about the same storage system for architectural drawings in my office in Savannah.
I pushed myself out and lifted the quilts into their place on the shelf. When the door closed, it made a perfect back wall of that tiny closet.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. Millie started to make sounds of protest, but I shushed her. A minute later we were back into the all-consuming blackness. My heart had finally stopped thudding, but I was still breathing hard. I stopped, bent over, and took a few deep breaths.
“I wanted to see,” Millie said, with a little pout in her voice.
“Sorry. I couldn’t take a chance that someone would hear us,” I said.
“Who on earth would hear us?”
“Guards,” I said. “At the Château de Montauban. The passage goes directly into the archives.”
Even though going back through the tunnel seemed shorter than going in, we still had a while before we were home free.
“I guess we know what Gerard Llorca was getting from Bettina,” I said, on our way out.
“We do?” said Millie.
“Access to this passage.”
She made several syllables out of the word. “O-o-o-oh!”
Pursuit in Provence (A Jordan Mayfair Mystery) Page 24
