by Nell Goddin
The afternoon flew by with too few hours to get everything done. Bobo smelled the beef and stuck close. Molly scavenged enough flowers from the fading front border to fill a few vases, the rooms looked neat enough, the salad was made, steak seasoned, dessert baking in the oven. For a moment she stopped to breathe in the comforting smell of baking apples and sugar, and crossed her fingers that the menu would be a success.
Dinner was at eight, with guests to arrive at seven for an apéro. Nico was due at 6:45 to help set up.
6:45, 7. No Nico, and no guests.
Molly felt a rising panic. She texted Nico to ask where he was. If this were her own party, she could call a few guests and make sure they were coming, but in this situation, with all the guests strangers, there was nothing to do but wait it out. Four of them had prepaid—surely they won’t bail without calling? She stood in the living room staring out at the road, then decided that looked sort of pathetic so she went into a small room off the living room where she could watch the road hidden behind some curtains.
7:15.
She texted Nico again. The thought of all the money she spent on food was making her queasy. Oh, why did people sign up if they weren’t going to come?
Almost instantly—and with great relief—she got a text from Nico. He was home throwing up.
Well, all right, I’ll just have to manage without him, she thought. Débrouiller, as my French friends would say.
Then a car appeared, driving slowly. It stopped at the driveway and Molly could see an older man looking at the sign for La Baraque. Then he turned in and parked close to the house.
“Bonsoir, Monsieur!” said Molly, too loud.
The man had gotten out of the car but shrank back. “Bonsoir, Madame,” he said softly. “You Americans, you never learn that you do not have to shout. I am right here, after all.”
“Excuse me,” said Molly, realizing that he had a point. “I’m Molly Sutton. I’m very pleased you could come.”
“Hans Gosse,” said the man, with a nod. “I am curious about your cooking. It is brave of you to take on the classic food of the region when you are not a native. Did you not consider serving something you might know better, I don’t know, like meat loaf?”
Molly heard the contempt in his voice but ignored it. “I do love a good meat loaf,” she said. “In any case, I won’t claim to be a four-star chef, but I don’t think you’ll starve.”
Hans shrugged. “And please, enlighten me on why tourists and locals would have any interest in eating together?”
Molly stared at him. “We’ll see,” she said finally. “Come inside, don’t mind Bobo—” And thankfully, two more cars pulled in at that moment, and Molly crossed her fingers that Hans’s mood would improve once he had had something to eat and drink.
But his mood did not improve. Molly began serving drinks and she could hear Hans continuing his litany of complaints to the others. How am I going to keep this guy from poisoning the whole thing, she wondered, making herself a kir after all the guests were served.
Bobo was entertaining two younger women from Amsterdam who were biking through the Dordogne. A single woman, middle-aged, sat at the dining table with her kir in front of her, looking at the somewhat bedraggled bouquet with her lips pursed. Molly was not getting a friendly vibe from her, but she was sitting alone and someone had to talk to her, so she slid into the seat next to her and smiled.
“Madame Baker? So glad you could join me tonight.”
“Is that so? You’ve been talking to all the other guests and ignoring me. I arrived in Bergerac yesterday and saw your flyer in the bulletin board of a pastry shop. I’m feeling a bit homesick for Dorset and thought the dinner sounded like a good way to socialize. But I’m sorry to say that thus far the whole thing has been quite a disappointment.”
“But Madame Baker, you just got here! I’m sorry that my bartender has been delayed and I’m trying to juggle about three jobs at once. I hope that once everyone is seated at the table and I’ve served the first course things will look up.”
Glancing over at the group talking to Hans, Molly saw nothing but furrowed brows and dark looks. The dinner was on the brink of completely flopping, and she jumped up to get some hors d’oeuvres out of the kitchen.
“Who would like an herbed palmier?” she cried, pulling a tray from the oven and cringing at the tense tone of her voice.
The young Dutch women came over and took some, nodding and smiling as they ate. “Very good, Miss Sutton!” one said, reaching for another.
Please infect the others with your positive attitude, Molly thought.
“I do believe I see a hair in my drink,” said Madame Baker.
“Are you going to give us an update on the murder case?” asked Léonie, an elderly woman with an encouraging smile. The rest of the guests stopped what they were doing and waited for an answer.
“An update? What murder case?” said Molly nervously.
“The Baron’s, of course. Unless there has been another?” said Léonie hopefully. Several of the others nodded.
“Do you—oh, no. No. This dinner…it’s just an occasion for a good meal. Meet some new people. It’s not…it’s not a…whatever you were thinking. It has absolutely nothing to do with murder.”
Madame Baker stood up and asked, “Who was killed?”
One of the Dutch women, speaking in perfect English, said, “You haven’t heard? The Baron who lived in the huge castle just outside of Castillac. Shot dead in his own house!”
“Did he have a butler?” asked the other Dutch woman wryly.
“It’s almost certainly the wife. It’s the spouse something like a million per cent of the time,” said Léonie with a twinkle in her eye. She had not had a chance to speak English in some time and was enjoying herself immensely.
Molly sighed and went behind the kitchen counter. The guests were animated now, happily discussing the case that she was not quite on. It was disconcerting to realize that so many people—even tourists just passing through Castillac—had somehow heard of her reputation as a detective, and assumed she had been hired. Flattering, in a way, she admitted. But she was not going to disrespect Antoinette by using the Baron’s murder as some kind of cheap gimmick to make her dinners a success. The queasy feeling came back again.
In a mad whirlwind of cooking and serving and catering to the whims of Madame Baker, Molly made it to the end of the dinner somehow. Dinner for eight is no snap to pull off without help, and none of the guests volunteered to do a single thing, but instead chatted away about the murder and criticized Molly’s food as though the meal was part of a Top Chef contest.
Hans Gosse had been passionate in his certainty that she had used premade puff pastry for the pompe aux pommes, and she had quickly come clean and tried to use that fact as a way to discuss the bigger picture of how making food had changed in France over the last twenty years with the development of such conveniences. But no one was interested. They only wanted to talk about the murder weapon, have a vote on whether the beef was under or overcooked, and then on to immigration and whether foreigners should be allowed to move to other countries at all.
“Everything would be better if people would simply stay put,” said Hans Gosse, “and eat the food they were given as children. It would make everything so much simpler!”
“That’s crazy,” laughed one of the Dutch women. “We adore traveling! And especially eating new food in different countries. Dutch cheese is of course the best in the world,” she said grinning, “but you can get tired of the best if you have it every day.”
And actually, Molly thought at the end of the evening, as she stood waving to the last of the guests as they drove off—it seemed as though their favorite part of the evening had been evaluating and criticizing each dish. She sat down on the stone floor of the foyer, exhausted, and Bobo flopped into her lap and licked her face.
I’m not sure I ever want to go through that again,” she said, rubbing the dog’s speckled chest. “I’ll
just have to come up with something else. I can’t give up now, right girl? If I had to go back to Boston at this point, I really don’t know what I would do.”
14
Antoinette had never been happier to see her sons, Luc and Percival. They had finished their studies a year earlier, doing better in the final semesters than when they first left home, having matured and not been as tempted by Paris night life. Luc had gotten a job as a reporter for a newspaper, which suited him perfectly, not being a man who liked being confined to an office; Percival had joined the management of a company whose purpose was still a bit murky to Antionette. They created some sort of particular software that she did not come close to understanding, but as long as Percival was happy, she did not question it.
“I’m only sorry that you came home for such an awful reason,” she said to them after dinner, when what was left of the Fleuray family sat together on the sofa to watch a little television before bed.
“What time is the funeral tomorrow?” asked Luc.
“Ten. I thought it best to get it out of the way early. Your father and I talked about this, he expressly said he did not want any fuss. So it’s going to be only the three of us, plus a very few others at the graveside. Nothing afterwards.”
Percival shrugged. He had no friends in Castillac since he had left for boarding school when he was very young. He had not been close to his father. All he wanted was for the whole thing to be done with so he could get back to Paris.
“Of course that wretch Alexandre Roulier will be attending. I haven’t been able to get rid of him matter how rude I’ve been. It’s just extraordinary. However, I plainly told him he should leave after the funeral so certainly he’ll be gone sometime tomorrow.”
“You’re too polite,” said Percival, using the clicker to flick through the stations. “Are you ever going to get a satellite dish? A few clouds and the reception is utterly shot.”
“Give me that thing,” said Luc, jostling him, and they play-wrestled for the clicker as though they were fourteen.
“You do realize,” Antoinette said slowly, “that Percival will hold the title of Baron from now on. I hadn’t even thought of it until now.”
“No one bothers about any of that anymore,” said Luc, giving up on the clicker and straightening his clothes. “Well, except…does that mean he gets more money than I do? Because screw that.” He gave his brother a sharp jab to the ribs.
Antoinette looked puzzled. “Oh, don’t you remember when your father sat us all down and went over his will? He wanted to be sure there was no inequality, no surprises.” She smiled at her younger son. “I know you and your father struggled to get along. He was very hard on you. But he would never have punished you in his will,” she said, ruffling his longish hair.
Luc looked skeptical. “I have no memory of that meeting. Which is not to say it didn’t happen, it’s just—you know me, sitting around listening to Father drone on was never my favorite thing. The question I have is—what about the emerald?”
Percival and Antoinette stared at him. They all knew about La Sfortuna, and were familiar with the sight of Marcel jiggling it in his pants-pocket with a faraway look in his eye. But after the death of Doriane, no one in the family ever spoke of it, not wanting to do anything to remind Marcel of his sister’s death—never mind that he never forgot for a second, and obviously enough the emerald was not a source of pain as he often carried it around with him. Not talking about it was just one of those unconscious decisions that happen in a family, and after no one questions it, it becomes habit.
“I don’t know where the emerald is,” said Antoinette quietly. She smoothed her hair behind her ears and tried to sit up straight, but she looked tired and thinner than usual.
“Father was ridiculous, carrying that thing around,” said Luc, shaking his head. “Perhaps we should rename it ‘Marcel’s Folly’. Did you check his trouser pockets? That’s the only place I ever knew him to put it.”
“I…as you might imagine, Luc, when your father was discovered, the emerald was not the first thing on my mind.”
“So maybe a gendarme pinched it. Or the coroner. Or maybe he gave it to Es—”
Antoinette did not speak for a moment. Then she wet her dry lips and clasped her hands together. “Esmé Ridding. You can say the name, my dear, it doesn’t trouble me unduly.”
Percival had moved into an armchair beside the sofa. He and Luc exchanged a glance.
“Perhaps it’s odd to discuss such things with you, but you’re grown now, and your father is dead, so why not? I will tell you honestly: your father’s liaison with Esmé Ridding was not high on the list of things that caused me pain. I have other things to worry about, you understand? Look at what’s happening to elephants in Africa, for instance. Magnificent beast, the elephant, and they’re killed by poachers at an alarming rate. That is something that keeps me up at night. Not your father and Esmé Ridding.”
“Mother….”
Antoinette shrugged. “I didn’t say I felt nothing. It was humiliating to be compared to her, yes. She’s not really of this world, is she? Not of my world, anyway. My world is the barn, my dog, my sons…and of course, having lived here for over three decades, Château Marainte. So you see, in my world….”
“I understand,” said Luc. “I find her a bit scary to be honest. Always performing, you know?”
“Do you want us to look for the emerald?” asked Percival.
“Heavens no, you don’t have time for that. Let’s just get through tomorrow, and afterwards we’ll go out for a very nice dinner. I know you both have to get back to Paris. I’ll be in touch about anything related to your inheritance once your father’s affairs are settled.”
Luc finally found a show he could stand to watch, and he leaned back on the sofa and put his head on his mother’s shoulder.
“My boy,” she murmured, closing her eyes and reaching her hand out for Grizou to sniff before he turned around three times and lay down on her foot.
Trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, Alexandre had gone out for dinner in Castillac after telling Antoinette that he didn’t want her to go to any trouble for him. La Métairie had no Michelin stars but he found it interesting enough, and after eating three courses at a corner table and putting away a fine bottle of Médoc, he called a taxi and returned to his room. Knowing Antoinette was annoyed with him, he figured staying out of sight was the best idea for the moment, which in a place the size of Château Marainte was perfectly easy to do. The family’s bedrooms were in the central part of the building, but Alexandre had been put in a large suite in the west wing. He had a small sitting room with a sofa covered in blue and white toile, the walls decorated with portraits of Fleurays long dead, a white-tiled bathroom with an enormous cast iron tub, and a canopy bed trimmed in antique lace.
It lacked the room service of the Georges V, but other than that, Alexandre had no complaints. The water pressure was stellar and the west wing was very private. As long as he kept an eye out for Georgina, he had all four floors to himself. It was silent in the house apart from the occasional banging of radiators. He had no reason to think that Marcel would have hidden La Sfortuna in the west wing rather than the east or the north, but why not start where he was and expand the search as necessary?
All the while, in the background of his thoughts, he was bidding the emerald to come to him, to reveal itself. And he absolutely believed this would have an effect.
Instead of Roulier, how about Alexandre Valois-Saint-Rémy? So much more elegant. I might spend the first three million euros on an apartment in Paris. With staff, of course….
He made quick work of his own rooms, tapping on the walls and opening drawers, checking the undersides of chairs, the bed, the small desk. Early in the morning, when he knew Antoinette was at the barn and her lazy sons still asleep, he went through the other rooms on his floor. They were sparely furnished, usually only with a bed, small table, and an empty armoire. The stone floors were cold even through his
shoes. He opened every drawer, lifted mattresses, shook out curtains. After several hours there was still no sign of Georgina or any of the family—he could wander from room to room, going down to the third floor and then the second, pretending that he was the Baron, grandly moving down the staircase with his nose in the air, lord of his domain.
On his final night at the Château, the night before his friend’s funeral, he lay under an eider down quilt covered in maroon silk, hands behind his head, feeling a surge of anger. It was not going to be easy to stay on afterwards—Antoinette had not been subtle about wanting him gone. But the Château was so vast that he had barely scratched the surface of all the places to search. He was irritated with Marcel for not making this easier for him, but at the same time, he realized he was not giving Marcel enough credit. Of course the Baron hadn’t simply shoved the stone under a mattress in some random room! The box was going to be hidden somewhere meaningful, somewhere clever. Alexandre needed to think harder and smarter. He had to get inside his friend’s head, understand what Marcel had been feeling and thinking, and then he would be led to La Sfortuna.
Of course, other people’s feelings were not exactly Alexandre’s strong suit. As he lay in bed he remembered his friend but felt not so much as a wisp of regret about his death. He recalled a dinner they had eaten together in Paris about a month earlier. Alexandre had ordered the veal with a Marsala sauce and been quite satisfied with it. The wild boar had been excellent as well. As for what Marcel had talked about, he had no memory whatsoever. He had only pretended to pay attention at the time.
Sighing, he rolled over on his side, visions of the jewel gleaming in his hand pushing out all other thoughts. Suddenly, sickeningly, he wondered if Marcel had given the jewel to Esmé Ridding. As far as Alexandre knew, Marcel had not been one to get overly sentimental about his mistresses; he enjoyed them, he treated them well, but they did not gain influence over him concerning anything that mattered. But perhaps Esmé was different. She was not just any good-looking woman, after all—she was France’s most treasured beauty, an international star. Marcel might have given it to her on a whim. Admittedly, it would be a gesture with real impact.
