The Missing Masterpiece

by Jeanne M. Dams

  ‘So they took him to the hospital.’ Where my husband might be at this very moment.

  ‘Yes, and today one of the Community went to see how he was getting on. And – wait for it – he wasn’t there.’

  That jolted me out of my preoccupation. ‘What do you mean, he wasn’t there? Had he been moved to an intensive care facility or something?’

  ‘The hospital staff know nothing. A nurse went in to give him some medication and he was gone, clothes and all. He’s done a runner.’

  ‘But – with a head injury – surely that’s not a good idea! He could have concussion, bleeding in the brain—’

  My mobile rang.

  TEN

  ‘Hello, love, sorry I couldn’t give you advance notice, but I was able to get a plane at the last minute. I’m at the airport in Rennes, about to get a train to Pontorson. Can you meet me there in about an hour? I’ll phone you when I’m almost there, shall I?’

  I did manage not to burst into tears, but only just. ‘I’ll be there.’ I clicked off the phone before my voice started to waver. ‘Alan’s on his way,’ I said to Peter. ‘He’ll be at the station in Pontorson in an hour or so.’ I looked at my watch. ‘How long will it take us to get there?’

  ‘Five minutes, if there’s no delay getting out of the Mont traffic. Ten at the most.’

  ‘Oh.’ Now that he was so near, I was wild with impatience to see him.

  ‘You aren’t still worried about him, are you? I’m sure you’ve worked out that he didn’t answer his mobile because he was on the plane.’

  Oh. Well, no. I hadn’t got beyond my enormous relief that he was all right, and near, and I was going to see him soon. ‘Umm,’ I said, and Peter grinned.

  ‘You’re going to have to drive, you know,’ I said sternly. ‘You insisted on giving me that brandy. I don’t know the French laws about drinking and driving, but I’m not taking any chances.’

  ‘Besides, I know the way to the station.’

  ‘That, too.’

  I would have liked something to eat, to soak up the brandy, and to fill the time. But I wasn’t in the mood for a snack, and a proper meal would have taken too long. An hour, less five or ten minutes, is too short a time to do much of anything, and far too long to do nothing. The only reading material at hand was in French, and I couldn’t concentrate, anyway.

  Time does pass, no matter how slowly. The earth does continue to turn on its axis at its accustomed pace. After I had picked up Le Monde for the twentieth time and put it down again, Peter took pity on me. ‘I suppose we could go. It’s early, but you’re going to wear out that newspaper you can’t read.’

  ‘You’re a gem, Peter. I’m sorry I’m being so silly. It’s just that we’ve not been separated very often in our married life, and with all the peculiar things going on …’

  ‘And you’re in a strange place where you can’t speak the language. I do understand. The keys, please?’

  Alan called while we were on the way, and after all we weren’t terribly early, and the train got in, and Alan stepped off, and I discovered that my titanium knees would actually let me run to his arms.

  ‘Now there’s a greeting for you! Not that I’m not pleased, love, but is something wrong?’ He held me away from him and searched my face.

  ‘Not now. I’m just really, really glad to see you.’ I looked down at his feet. ‘What’s with the boot?’

  ‘In place of a cast. It allows me to walk on the foot. More or less.’ He was also carrying a cane, which he waved with a grimace.

  ‘Oh, well, this, too, shall pass. Anyway, Alan, meet Peter Cummings, who’s been my navigator. Peter, my husband, Alan Nesbitt.’

  We straightened out the usual confusion about our different surnames, and then Alan said, ‘I don’t know about you two, but I’m famished. I’ve been travelling since early this morning, and my last meal is but a distant memory. Peter, you’ve been staying around here for a bit, I gather. What restaurant would you recommend?’

  ‘Sorry, sir, but my budget runs to take-away sandwiches. I believe there’s some fine food to be had in Pontorson, and of course in Avranches, but that’s a bit further afield.’

  ‘Dorothy, have you a choice, then?’

  ‘The place where I ate the first night, here in Pontorson, was quite good. And it’s nearby. And as it’s early yet, we might be able to get in without a booking.’

  ‘Lead me to it. Oh, thanks, Peter, but I can manage the bags.’ He gave me a sideways grin, and I knew he was amused at being considered an old duffer incapable of carrying his own suitcase.

  ‘Yes, sir, but with your cane and all, I thought I’d help.’

  Alan shrugged. I made a face at him and handed him the car keys. He held the door open for me, and then the back door for Peter.

  ‘Oh, no, sir, I can catch the bus here for the village. My bike’s there; I’ll get home easily.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’re having dinner with us. It’s the least we can do, if you’ve been keeping my wife from getting lost. Now, love, where’s this restaurant?’

  I had walked there, of course, and I was no longer sure where it was, but Alan didn’t mind driving in circles, and we found it eventually and had a wonderful meal. I don’t know if it was really better than the first time I’d eaten there, or if it was just that my world was now complete again.

  We talked of nothing in particular. The weather back home, the animals. ‘They’re all missing you, in their different ways. The cats follow me about and want a good deal of lap time. Watson won’t let me out of his sight and keeps whining, poor chap. He can’t understand why you’ve deserted him, and of course he doesn’t know you’re coming back.’

  ‘Oh, dear. And now you’ve left, too. But Jane will spoil him rotten. Watson’s our sort-of spaniel, Peter. A mutt, but a lovable mutt.’

  Peter said all the right things, but I could see that he was getting edgy. He wanted to talk about our constellation of disturbing events, and this public place wasn’t a good spot for that.

  ‘Right, then,’ said Alan, who reads people even better than I can. ‘I gather there are a few things we need to discuss. Suppose we have our coffee back at our hotel – yes, and a sweet, my dear, if you can still find room for one – and we can talk. That suit you, Peter?’

  ‘That, sir, is what I’ve been wanting to do ever since I met your wife – talk to you about what’s been happening!’

  ‘Then off we go. Would you like to drive, Peter, since you know where we’re going?’

  Alan waited until we had cups of strong espresso in front of us, along with something sinfully chocolate for me. The lounge at the hotel was busy and noisy enough that quiet conversation was reasonably private.

  ‘Naow then,’ said Alan in a pretty good Cockney accent, ‘wot’s all this?’

  I’d heard him do that before, and only smiled, but Peter choked on his coffee. Clever Alan!

  ‘Constable Plod, I presume?’ said Peter when he had recovered.

  ‘In person, sir. I understand you have a story to tell me.’

  So we told him, both of us, interrupting each other, correcting each other. We tried to be thorough, so it took us through another round of coffee and then some cognac.

  ‘So.’ Alan tented his fingers, a gesture that always reminded me of the late, much lamented Alistair Cooke, whom Alan resembled in other ways as well: height, girth, all-around niceness. ‘Let me see if I have this right. Item: you, Peter, have been delegated by an art dealer to look into some perhaps stolen, perhaps forged, medieval manuscripts, possibly of considerable value. In order to do this you came to Mont-Saint-Michel and spun a tale to the Community at the Abbey, and incidentally to my wife.’

  Peter flushed. ‘Well, sir—’

  Alan held up a hand. ‘My wife finds parts of your story somewhat puzzling, as do I, but as we know about the suspect manuscripts from another source, we’ll let it go for now. Next item: a woman, presumably German, though there is no identification to determine her nat
ionality, or anything else about her, goes out on the notoriously dangerous sands of the Mont and starts digging for something. We have no idea what. The tide comes in and she nearly drowns. She has not yet recovered sufficiently to be questioned.’

  Here was Alan the chief constable with a vengeance. His Constable Plod identity had been discarded. I thought momentarily of reminding him about our Viking gold speculation, and then thought better of it.

  ‘Along the way your friend, Peter, be he archaeologist or medievalist, fails to show up as promised. On the strength of one typed note you accept the fact that his domestic problems are keeping him away. You do try to phone him, but with no luck.

  ‘Then, my dear, you appear on the scene, and with your usual good fortune find yourself embroiled in a puzzle. How did you manage it this time?’

  I had deliberately not told him how I’d met Peter. Now I had to confess. ‘I fell at the Abbey and scraped my knee. Peter, who was guiding the party I’d joined, patched me up, and we got to talking, and …’ I spread my hands. Alan gave me the kind of look that told me he’d press for details later. Well, when we undressed for bed, he’d see the bruises and guess most of it. For now I gave him my most innocent smile, which deceived him for not a moment.

  ‘Finally, an American man just happens to be around the hotel when my wife needs a lift to Avranches, just happens to offer to take her and her new friend, just happens to decide to accompany them to the museum housing the Mont-Saint-Michel manuscripts. He tells them a story that is peculiar, to put the best possible face on it, lies about his knowledge of French, and becomes, at lunchtime, incapably drunk on Normandy’s famous cider. That last, I may add, is perhaps the most believable part of this entire saga. I’ve tasted the stuff myself, and I’m reasonably sure it could fuel a jet, if not a moon rocket.

  ‘Now, is that a fair summation of the story thus far?’

  Hmm. It hit all the high points, but I thought he’d been a bit hard on Peter. He, however, seemed only somewhat embarrassed, rather than offended. He put down the glass he’d been nursing, which was still half full. ‘I’m not much cop as an investigator, am I, sir? I did tell the truth about the gallery I work for, but they didn’t exactly send me here to look into the manuscript problem. I was due for a bit of a holiday, and I love this part of the world, so I said I’d come here, talk to the people at the Scriptorial, ask a few discreet questions, and see what I could find out. They agreed to help with my expenses. I was a student at Exeter, Dorothy, but since I took my degree I’ve been working at this and that, hoping to find a real job in my field.’

  ‘Music and theology,’ I said with, I hoped, no inflection whatever.

  ‘And medieval studies. I left that out of what I told you, but the rest is true.’

  ‘Small wonder you haven’t been able to find a proper job,’ said Alan. ‘Even taken together, those fields are hardly burgeoning with openings, I shouldn’t think.’

  ‘No. I was not very practical, I’m afraid. My father tried to persuade me into a course of study that would lead to a lucrative position, but I’ve never taken a whole lot of interest in money.’

  ‘Which means you’ve always had enough.’ Again, I thought my tone was neutral.

  ‘Yes, I’m a spoilt brat. I admit it. Until the past year or so, I’d never even thought about where my food or clothing or shelter was coming from. I’m from the West Country, a village near Dartmoor. That’s why I chose Exeter. My father isn’t wealthy, not the landed gentry or anything like that, but he does quite well in business, and he’s always been generous with me.’

  ‘Too generous, perhaps?’ Alan’s tone was carefully neutral.

  Peter considered that. ‘Not foolishly, I don’t think. When I was at university, he made sure I had the necessities, because he wanted me to concentrate on my studies. He’s like that. He didn’t approve of what I was studying, but he made sure I was able to do it without distractions over paying my rent or that sort of thing.’

  ‘But once you had graduated – sorry, had taken your degree – then you were on your own, right?’

  ‘I wanted it that way,’ Peter assured me. ‘I thought it was high time I stood on my own feet. I hadn’t quite understood how much everything costs in London. I share a grotty bedsitter with two other chaps, and it’s as much as I can do to meet the rent every month.’

  ‘So you need money,’ said Alan, conversationally.

  ‘I do. But not enough to steal manuscripts, nor yet to forge them. Not that I could do that, anyway. I’m a good musician, but hopeless at visual art. I had honestly hoped to find some of Abelard’s music in these parts, because finding such a treasure would get me a post at almost any museum or university.’

  ‘And you would not, of course, be tempted to sell it to the highest bidder.’ Alan again.

  ‘Tempted? You can bet I’d be tempted! But I wouldn’t do it. You forget, one of my areas of study was theology.’

  ‘That,’ said Alan drily, ‘probably means you know the difference between right and wrong. It does not necessarily mean that you put those theories into practice.’

  Peter raised his hands, helplessly, and I decided it was time to intervene. ‘Look, I think we’re all tired. Suppose we call it a day and reconvene tomorrow. Peter, will you be all right cycling home in the dark?’

  ‘Yeah, sure, but I don’t know about coming back tomorrow. I told you they want me back at the Abbey, and I think I owe them that. Goodnight, Dorothy. Goodnight, sir. Thank you for the meal.’

  I shook my head at Alan and followed Peter out of the lobby. ‘Peter, you mustn’t mind Alan. He’s thinking like a policeman. Which, after all, was why you wanted him here.’

  ‘He doesn’t believe a word I say.’

  ‘That isn’t true. He’s reserving judgment, and I must say, in view of the number of lies you’ve told, he’s justified. And if you’ll take my advice, you’ll come back tomorrow and tell him nothing but the strict truth from now on. He’s very good at detecting lies. And incidentally, after more than forty years as a schoolteacher, so am I. Good night.’

  ELEVEN

  Several interesting things happened the next day. I was feeling so bouncy and refreshed in the morning, after a very satisfactory night spent with my long-lost husband, that I actually got up early and went for a little walk before breakfast. I didn’t walk far, but it doesn’t take long to get into real country from the ‘village’ that acts as the service area for Mont-Saint-Michel’s tourists. I was enchanted to see a flock of sheep being driven to pasture by a man in a truck and two energetic and self-important dogs. Okay, the truck was twenty-first century, but the rest of the scene had probably been happening for the past two or three hundred years, at least. I assumed these were destined to be the famous Normandy ‘pré-salé’ lamb, seasoned on the hoof by grazing on the salt meadows washed at high tide by the sea.

  The sheep were charmingly silly, and I rather hoped they were all too old to be slaughtered for the dinner table. Of course that meant their babies …

  I decided, like Scarlett, to think about that tomorrow, and turned back toward the hotel.

  I found Alan and Peter sitting in the lounge over coffee and pastries, chatting amicably.

  ‘Join us, my dear. I’ve just ordered extra coffee and croissants; I was sure you’d be back soon. Did you enjoy your walk?’

  I told them about the sheep, in between bites of exquisite pastry and sips of incomparable coffee. Croissants have become a staple all over the Western world, and for all I know the Eastern world too, but the French are still better at them than anyone else.

  Had I cavilled yesterday at the lack of an English breakfast? Well, I wasn’t myself yesterday. Now Alan was here.

  I smiled at him and Peter and said, ‘You two seem to be getting along fine this morning.’

  Alan grinned. ‘You didn’t say anything last night, but I know you thought I was a bit hard on him. No ill feelings, eh, old chap?’

  ‘I deserved it,’ said Peter
, also grinning. ‘I should have known better than to try to pull any wool over your eyes – or Dorothy’s. She’s as good at spotting flim-flam as you are, sir.’

  ‘You’re not a terribly good liar, you know,’ I said, holding out my cup for more coffee. ‘But why did you bother to lie to me? You didn’t know me from Adam, and I surely don’t look like a threat to anyone.’ I smoothed down my short grey hair, tossed into disorder by the morning breeze. ‘I’m the sort authorities automatically dismiss as harmless, and most people simply don’t notice. Women of a certain age are invisible.’

  ‘Anyone who dismisses you, my love, is making a huge mistake. I only regret that I met you too late to draft you into the constabulary. However, we’ve only delayed the news long enough for you to get some caffeine and calories into your system.’

  ‘What news? What’s happened?’

  ‘Our friend Mr Krider has returned, singing an entirely different tune this time!’

  ‘No! Tell!’

  Alan poured me more coffee, offered milk and sugar with careful deliberation, held out the plate of brioches, shoved the little basket of assorted jams my way. I cracked, as he knew I would. ‘Alan Nesbitt, I swear if you don’t tell me this minute I’m going to pour this over your head!’

  He grinned. ‘I wondered how long you’d hold out. Peter, you begin.’

  Peter was grinning, too. ‘I spotted him when he walked into the lobby about an hour ago. I cycled over early, because I didn’t know when you’d be up and about, and I wanted to apologize. I’d thought about our conversation last night, and I was kicking myself for acting like a lout. I saw you out walking, Dorothy, but you were too far away to hear me shout, and you looked like you were having a good time, so I went on.’

  I held up the cafetière in threatening fashion.

  ‘Yes, right, to the point. So I walked in the lobby, and there was Krider, just getting up from his petit déjeuner, cup and saucer and crumby plate left behind. Well, I may not be the world’s most observant soul, but I know this hotel serves breakfast only to residents – well, and their guests. So it looked very much as though Krider had spent the night here.