The Grand Tour: Four International Mysteries

by Michaela Thompson

  Since we were this close to the subject it seemed appropriate to ask, “Could he have stolen it?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. He was pretty passionate about it. But I don’t think he did, because when it happened he was plenty upset. And of course that guy got killed, and Bruno considers life to be sacred, you know?”

  “What about other people, other members of the Speculatori who—”

  She was shaking her head. “I don’t know. I’m not one of the Speculatori or anything, I’m just a friend passing through town. I’ve been on a meditation retreat in India, and now I’m heading back to Oregon. And Bruno doesn’t talk much about the Speculatori, anyway.”

  “You don’t know anybody else who’s involved?”

  “Nope. Bruno is the sort of secretary.”

  After a pause, with an avid look I’d seen on many faces before, she said, “Are you going to write this up for the paper?”

  I used her eagerness as leverage. “Possibly. If I can get enough hard information, that is.”

  “Gosh, I’m sure Bruno would be glad—”

  A phone rang, somewhere in the back of the apartment, and she excused herself to answer. That was good luck. I’d been afraid I was going to have to change my mind about the herb tea, and I detest herb tea. Keeping an ear out for her, I slid out the lower right-hand drawer of the desk. The idea of doing this had come into my head in the last couple of minutes. Either you’ll approve or you won’t, so I won’t waste time defending myself.

  With Jane trilling, “Hi!” and “Oh, yeah?” in the background, I looked in the drawer. It was empty except for a bundle swathed in black cloth. In a slightly disconnected state, I watched my hand move toward the cloth, touch it. The cloth was soft and slippery, and whatever it concealed was cold and hard. Holding my breath, I pulled the cloth away.

  Staring at me, like a giant, disembodied eye, was a crystal ball on a black stand. I gasped and dropped the cloth back over it. Shakily, I closed the drawer. Would the ball show my intruding face the next time Bruno Blanc gazed into it?

  I tried another drawer. Jane’s voice had lowered, but she was still talking. The contents here were less exotic, more in the check stub and bill receipt line.

  I surely didn’t have much more time. The middle drawer had ballpoints, unused paper and envelopes, paper clips. The top left …

  In the top left drawer was a document holder, one of the folding cardboard ones the French love. It was stamped with ancient-looking images of the sun and moon in gold and black, and neatly tied with a black grosgrain ribbon. If I owned such a thing, I’d certainly keep my important papers in it.

  I gave an end of the ribbon a tug, and it untied cooperatively. A peek inside the folder and a quick riffle through the sheets in it confirmed that these were papers relating to the Speculatori. I spotted at least one letter to Bernard Mallet at the Bellefroide.

  I’d have loved to take a leisurely look, but time was running out. Jane’s tone, now barely audible, sounded valedictory.

  Damn. When I shuffled the papers back together, preparing to close the folder, I passed a sheet I hadn’t noticed before. It was a scribbled list of names, seven or eight of them. All were French except one. All were unfamiliar to me except the same one: Clive Overton.

  I closed the folder and was retying the ribbon in a semblance of the way it was before when Jane said, “Bye.” I closed the drawer, wondering what the name of Clive Overton, the art conservator who’d taken me to the Bellefroide and collapsed after the theft and murder, was doing on Bruno Blanc’s list. It could have been a list of members of the Speculatori. Or it could have been a list of enemies of the Speculatori. Why hadn’t it occurred to me before now to check up on what had happened to Overton? I had to think more about this, but I didn’t get a chance right then because Jane returned.

  Her manner was considerably subdued. She said, “Listen. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go out. You’ll have to catch Bruno later, I guess.”

  She was running her fingers nervously through her hair. I said, fishing, “It’s not an emergency, I hope?”

  “Nope, nope, nothing like that. Just— unexpected. Sorry.”

  I could hardly do anything but leave, but as I was going I remembered Madeleine Bellefroide’s ransom and said, “Would you tell Bruno something for me? Tell him a ransom is being offered for the mirror’s return. A lot of money. If he wants to know more, he can contact me.” I scribbled my name and office address on a page from my notebook and gave it to her.

  I wasn’t sure she was listening. I said, “O.K.? You’ll tell him?”

  “Sure,” she said. “So long.”

  I was disappointed that I hadn’t seen Bruno, but more than that I was interested in the call that had transformed Jane from extrovert to introvert in such a short time. It might have been from a dentist, saying he’d had a cancellation and she should come over for a root canal, but I didn’t think so. I thought the call had been from Bruno. And I really wanted to know where she had to go all of a sudden.

  It was only a short step from mad curiosity to the idea that I should follow her.

  I was back out on the Rue Jacob by this time. I could follow her, but she’d catch me doing it. She’d just seen me, seen what I was wearing, everything.

  So I’d disguise myself.

  I had a little time. She’d have to change. I didn’t think she’d glide around the streets of Paris in a long white shift. I glanced up and down the street, and my eye fell on a boutique with a window display of the three wise monkeys, each of whom was wearing a fetching knitted hat and matching scarf. A hat would cover my hair. Since the weather was good, I had my sunglasses. And I hadn’t been wearing my coat when she saw me, because I’d taken it off in the bookstore and had carried it over my arm.

  I rushed into the store and, glancing every other second at Le Jardin Métaphysique, purchased the cheapest hat, brown-and-gold plaid with a gold pom-pom on top. It covered my head to the eyebrows and looked a bit odd with the sunglasses, but it certainly altered my appearance. I was just stuffing my change into my wallet when Jane emerged. She had indeed put on street clothes: tight jeans, black leather jacket, high-topped sneakers, black beret with her hair tucked up under it.

  She started off purposefully down the street. I slipped out of the boutique and started off, just as purposefully, after her.

  Surveillance

  I stayed across the street and sauntered down the Rue Jacob in Jane’s wake, keeping her bobbing black beret in view. I was disconcerted when she turned left on the Rue Bonaparte and disappeared from view, but I crossed over, quickened my pace and relocated her. We soon reached the Place St. Germain, where the coffee-drinkers and a circle of others were watching an itinerant juggler. In the midst of the activity I felt safe in my makeshift disguise, although the new hat was too hot and my scalp was sweating.

  I was getting quite cocky by the time we had crossed the square, and then Jane threw me completely by descending into the Metro at the stop on the corner.

  I halted at the top of the steps. How the hell would I follow her on the Metro? My disguise wasn’t exactly impenetrable. If she got in a crowded car I might get away with it, providing she didn’t spot me on the platform before the train arrived.

  On the other hand, what if she did? Wearing sunglasses and a hat in the St. Germain des Prés station might be inappropriate, but it wasn’t proof of nefarious intent. I’d keep on, play it by ear. I hurried down, digging in my handbag for my Carte Orange monthly Metro pass, hoping she hadn’t already passed the barrier and disappeared in the corridors.

  She hadn’t. I spotted her in the ticket line and stood at the newsstand leafing through the French equivalent of TV Guide until she headed for the barrier and put her ticket through. She was following the signs for the Porte de Clignancourt-Porte d’Orleans line and, naturally, so did I. There were lots of people in the white tile corridor, and I didn’t feel in danger of being spotted. We passed a young woman violinist playing something f
ast and fiery, maybe a mazurka— lively background music for my private chase scene— and emerged on the platform for the trains going toward the Porte de Clignancourt. Jane seemed to lose herself in contemplation of the posters on the walls, blown-up woodcuts of the old Abbaye St. Germain. I studied the mounted Metro map and kept the corner of my eye on her.

  Moments later the train arrived, already well filled with passengers. Jane pushed her way into a car. I got in the same one but entered the door at the opposite end. All the seats were taken, and many people were standing. I gripped a pole and searched for the black beret. As the train started off I found it, among many other heads, blotting out part of an advertisement for winter underwear posted at the far end of the car.

  I stared determinedly at the black spot, anxious not to lose her when she got off. I was so consumed with my pursuit that the purpose of it had become almost secondary. We stopped at Odéon, St. Michel, Cité. The beret stayed put. At Châtelet, a big transfer point, there was considerable flux as passengers got off and on. I lost sight of her for a moment or two, but then I saw the beret again. She seemed to have gotten a seat, one of the fold-down ones next to the doors, and was sitting with her back to me. I relaxed somewhat. That probably meant we were staying on a while.

  The stops slid by: Étienne Marcel, Reaumur Sebastopol, Strasbourg St. Denis. The beret didn’t move until the Gare du Nord, when it stirred and turned and I saw to my horror that its wearer wasn’t Jane at all, but a bent-over man old enough to have fought in the trenches during World War I. As he shuffled out the door I cursed: myself, for trying to keep my eye on somebody while wearing sunglasses in a Metro car, and the French, for having an item of headgear as common as the black beret.

  Then I saw Jane. She had found a seat all right— practically underneath my elbow. While my attention was fixed on the old codger, she had somehow worked her way to my end of the car. I backed away carefully and by the next stop had gotten a seat myself, in the corner.

  The car had emptied considerably. I began to worry about her seeing me, but she wasn’t really looking. She nibbled a fingernail, studied her reflection in the window, and showed no inclination to get out. We had almost reached the Porte de Clignancourt, which was the end of the line. Paranoia set in, and I began to wonder if she was part of an elaborate ruse to draw me away from the Rue Jacob, where even now Bruno Blanc and the Speculatori were bent over the mirror in mystic consultation.

  Soon, we pulled into the Porte de Clignancourt station. Jane left the car without a glance at me and walked toward the exit. Taken by surprise, even though this was what I’d been waiting for, I rushed after her.

  We emerged on a busy intersection where several streets came together. Buses lumbered by, horns hooted, and the pavements were filled with people, most of whom were moving in the same direction. Jane joined the crowd, and I followed Jane and everybody else across the intersection.

  The opposite sidewalk was lined on both sides with tables and stalls selling God knows what: canvas carryalls, stuffed animals, aluminum saucepans, boots with flower appliques, plastic earrings. It dawned on me that today was Saturday, and that the largest and most famous flea market in Paris was in this neighborhood. We must be on the outer fringes of it now.

  Jane pushed along, not stopping to browse the cut-rate batteries, cow-shaped milk pitchers, and racks of leather pants. I elbowed my way behind her, jostled by bargain-seekers. It was too bad I didn’t have time to check this out for “Paris Patter.” I’d planned to get out here for that purpose sometime. The most famous part of the flea market wasn’t the modern stuff we were passing now, but the many dealers in antiques, curios, and secondhand wares of all sorts. As people always say about everything, people said the flea market wasn’t what it used to be, that the fabulous bargains in antiques once found there were found no more, that the prices were as high as in shops, and so forth. Right now, the price level wasn’t my concern; keeping up with Jane was.

  We had reached a wide pedestrian precinct filled with booths. Jane’s steps slowed. She paused beside a table piled high with rolled-up Ace bandages and glanced around uncertainly. I hoped she wouldn’t catch sight of me hovering and approach to ask directions, but in fact she snagged a boy of about twelve who must have spoken English, because in a minute he was pointing and she was nodding vigorously. We set off with renewed confidence.

  The nature of the merchandise began to change from modern junk to older items which may have been junk as well but were quainter. We traversed an open passage where gilt-framed mirrors reflected chairs with sprung seats, and rusted metal picnic tables shared space with life-size statues of torch-bearing Nubians.

  At last we entered a building like a vast shed which had aisles lined with numbered stalls. A few of the stalls were closed, their contents hidden by pull-down shutters of corrugated metal, but most were open. Jane threaded her way through the shoppers, looking from side to side at the vendors of ship’s figureheads, duck decoys, jet necklaces, cherrywood barometers, and old sheet music. By now, I was definitely too warm. A trickle of perspiration slid down the back of my neck from underneath my hat, and my sunglasses were slipping on my nose.

  Jane stopped, looking lost, and turned all the way around toward me. I tried to lose myself in a display of mounted antlers and disgusting stuffed animals. Then a male voice with a French accent called, in English, “Jane! Over here!” and she waved and crossed diagonally to a stall where two men were standing.

  I slipped as close to them as I dared. Both men were tall. One, who had a beaked nose and frizzy, shoulder-length gray hair, was almost cadaverously thin. The other was breathtaking. He was very French-looking, on the order of Louis Jourdan in Gigi, with dark hair and eyes. He was wearing a jacket in a muted blue-gray tweed and a blue turtleneck. If this looker was Bruno Blanc, I was damned envious of Jane.

  It seemed that he wasn’t. As best I could tell, the frizzy-haired one was performing introductions. The Louis look-alike took Jane’s hand and inclined his head over it slightly, as if he longed to bury his face in her palm and lick it until she swooned. For the moment the only sure identification was the frizzy-haired man, whom I heard Jane refer to as “Bruno.”

  The three of them moved toward the back of the stall, even farther out of earshot. The handsome man, whom I guessed to be the proprietor, was apparently a specialist in scientific instruments. Several brass telescopes on wooden tripods stood in the boxlike space, and glass-fronted cabinets held old cameras, microscopes, a sextant or two, various weighing scales, retorts, and beakers. I slipped closer. In a bowl on a table was a supply of cards. I picked one up: Lucien Claude, Scientific Instruments, and a phone number. I put the card in my bag.

  As Jane, Bruno, and the handsome man— Lucien Claude?— conversed, I realized that I had successfully completed my operation. I had followed Jane and found Bruno. Now what? Did I expect Bruno to walk out of here with the mirror under his arm? Should I wait until Jane and Bruno left and then strike up an acquaintance with the devastating Monsieur Claude? This plan had strong appeal, and I had all but decided to follow it when something happened to change my mind.

  For no particular reason, I glanced over my shoulder. Across the way, where I had stood among the antlers and stuffed animals, was a stocky blond man. He was watching me. I knew immediately that he was the same blond man I’d seen eating french fries, and later looking at post cards, across the street from Le Jardin Métaphysique on the Rue Jacob. I could only conclude that while I’d been so single-mindedly following Jane, the blond man had been following me.

  A hollow place yawned in my gut. This man had seen me go into Le Jardin Métaphysique. He had seen me emerge and had seen me disguise myself and go off after Jane. I had been so focused on my own pursuit he could’ve been, and probably was, in the same Metro car with us.

  We stared at each other, eyes locked. He started toward me. I backed up a few steps as he came forward. Then I turned and started off down the aisle at a brisk pace, dodging br
owsers and bulky items of merchandise like a huge rattan baby stroller and a juke box.

  I knew I didn’t like the man’s looks, hadn’t liked them since I first saw him stuffing his broad, unpleasant face with fried potatoes. I didn’t like his short blond hair, brushed forward over his low, Neanderthal forehead, and I didn’t like his bulky shoulders, which seemed about to burst the seams of his trench coat. Who would wear a trench coat when following somebody, anyway? It was such a cliché.

  I speeded up, intent on the rectangle of light at the far end that led to the outside. When I glanced behind me I saw him barging determinedly forward, not even trying to be casual about it.

  I thought about yelling for help, but for the moment had forgotten how to yell for help in French. Besides, I wasn’t sure how to explain what the man had done to me, which so far was really nothing.

  At this point, when to all intents and purposes I was running rather than walking, a precious little long-haired white dog crossed my path. I mean she literally crossed my path, and unfortunately her leash was tied to a rolling tea cart piled with an assortment of china. None of it was Limoges, or Sévres, or anything terribly valuable, which was lucky since several pieces fell off and broke when the cart jerked as I tripped over the leash.

  I landed on my knees, my sunglasses flew off, and two anguished howls went up, neither of them from me or the dog. The cart’s owner was bemoaning the loss of her china, while the dog’s owner, shrieking, “Mimi!” was rushing to banish any shame or discomfort her pet might be feeling. I hauled myself to my feet unaided, but in the next instant my trench-coated friend was at my side. He hovered in the background while I paid for two teacups and a dessert plate and then slid his hand firmly under my elbow and steered me away.