Alan said, ‘Wait, I’ll go with you,’ but Sam was already out of the dining room. Alan tried to follow, but a young couple with a little boy were just coming in, and by the time Alan got around them Sam had gone out the front door of the hotel.
It happened so fast. A car was parked right in front of the door. Two men got out; Sam stepped aside to get out of their way. Then there were shouts and sounds of a scuffle. Alan ran faster than I’d known he could. More shouts. The sound of a car roaring away.
By the time I got there, the hotel staff were gathered around something lying on the ground. I pushed my way through.
Sam lay sprawled on the concrete, Alan bending over him. I think I cried out. Alan was speaking to him.
‘Sam, can you tell me your name?’
‘You know damn well my name’s Sam Houston!’
Alan turned briefly to me. ‘He’s all right, love. Right, friend, is anything broken, do you think?’
Sam is built roughly along the lines of a Texas longhorn, and he looked quite a lot like one as he got slowly to his feet, shaking his shaggy head. ‘What’s gonna be broken is some guy’s head, soon’s I find him, the no-good, low-down son of—’
‘Ladies present, Sam. Come on back in, and we’ll find some plaster for those scrapes.’
‘You just gonna let those bastards get away?’
‘They’re long gone, Sam,’ I said soothingly. ‘No point in chasing them now.’
‘We’ll find them,’ said Alan, sounding very grim. ‘Come, now.’
He was bleeding a bit from several scrapes, his lip was cut, and his pants were torn, but he seemed to have suffered no real damage. We got him cleaned up, with considerable help from a shocked staff – this sort of thing simply did not happen at l’Ermitage. We sat down then in our sitting room, closed and locked the door, and put a glass of cognac in front of Sam, who by that time had calmed down a little.
‘Don’t want that stuff,’ he said petulantly. ‘Want you to catch the b— rats who did this.’
‘Alan called the police while we were nursing your wounds. Drink it; it’s good for shock.’
‘How you gonna catch ’em? I didn’t even get a good look at ’em. Got in a good punch, though!’ He smiled reminiscently, and then winced and touched his lip.
‘I saw the licence plate,’ said Alan. ‘Though it may be a stolen car, or hired. Looks as though one of them punched you, too. Drink your medicine.’
‘Huh! Little tap, is all. Took me by surprise, or he wouldn’t have landed that.’ He moved his jaw from side to side, experimentally. ‘My daddy taught me how to defend myself, and I learned a little more on the streets of Chicago. If you catch up with those … er … crooks, one of ’em’s gonna be nursin’ a pretty sore jaw. Broken, maybe. I hope.’ He sipped at his ‘medicine’ and put the glass down. ‘Okay. What I want to know is, what’s the point to all this … er … stuff, and who’s doin’ it?’
‘Which brings us back to where we left off yesterday,’ said Alan, ‘when I had to go talk to young Mr Douglas. Who knows what you were hoping to find here at the Mont?’
‘Nobody! I didn’t tell a livin’ soul.’
‘Then who could have guessed?’ I asked. ‘Your musician friends at the university? You were asking some pretty pointed questions.’
‘Dorothy, they’re musicians. If I laid one of Abelard’s songs down in front of ’em, they’d get all excited about doin’ an arrangement of it, and puttin’ it in proper notation, and writin’ an accompaniment, and maybe translatin’ the words – but they’d never even think about askin’ me where it came from. They just plain wouldn’t care.’
‘Your travel agent, then. Or did you book the flights and so on yourself?’ That was Alan.
‘Had my secretary do it. She can do anything on a computer, and she’s used to me goin’ all over the place. Only worries if it’s someplace hard to get to, but not a normal place like Normandy.’
‘And she wouldn’t have been curious about why?’
‘She’s travelled some. She’s never been here, but she knows about it. She would’ve figgered I was comin’ here for the same reasons everybody does, plus a little extra because it’s so old.’
I had run out of ideas.
‘All right,’ said Alan. ‘After you got here. Your driver brought you to this hotel. Then what?’
‘They brought in my luggage. I checked in. They showed me my room.’ Sam’s patience was wearing thin. ‘I asked ’em where was the best place to start lookin’ for hidden treasure.’
It took us both a beat to start laughing.
‘Okay, Sam. One for you!’ I chalked it up in the air. ‘But there’s still a point to the exercise. We have to try to find out why someone’s trying to kill you.’
‘Not kill me.’ He was sober now. ‘We worked that out before. Even those b– those thugs just now. They were tryin’ to take me away, but they didn’t aim to do me much damage.’
‘To get rid of you, then. You must have mentioned to someone what you were doing here, or hoping to do.’
‘Yeah, I get it.’ He closed his eyes. ‘So first thing, once I was settled here, was take a nap. I never get any sleep in a plane, and it’s a long flight, Chicago to Paris. I’d slept some in the car, but I crashed for sure when I hit that bed.
‘I didn’t sleep more than a couple hours, though. I know enough about jet lag to want to get on a regular schedule as soon as I can. Besides, by then I was hungry. It was past lunchtime at home, and almost suppertime here, so I went out and got me a sandwich and a beer. And no, I didn’t talk to anybody, except to ask at the desk where to find food. Couldn’t talk to anybody much, come to that, unless they spoke English. And then I came back and read the book I’d brought with me, and went to bed early.’
Alan considered that. ‘And the next day, Monday, I imagine you went to the Mont?’
‘First thing. The shuttle doesn’t come this far, but the bus from Pontorson does, so I caught that to the shuttle stop. Sat next to a couple who spoke English, so we talked about the Abbey; they’d been there before. Just chit-chat, y’know, nothin’ important.’
‘Was this on the bus or the shuttle?’
‘Both. We both caught the same shuttle.’
‘Ah.’ Alan didn’t quite rub his hands together, but his face conveyed satisfaction. ‘And did they accompany you to the Abbey itself?’
‘No, we got separated in the village. A real crowd, y’know, even first thing in the mornin’, and that street is sure narrow! Last I saw of ’em, they headed into some shop, and I wanted to go straight up to the Abbey.’
‘What shop?’ asked Alan.
‘Dunno. They’re all kinda alike – tourist stuff, souvenirs, T-shirts.’
‘Some of them have quite nice things,’ I said. ‘Overpriced, of course, but you expect that in a tourist trap. There’s one with some lovely tapestries.’
Sam shrugged. ‘Can’t say I noticed. Don’t care a lot about that kinda thing. My wife, she was one for fixin’ up the house. Looked real nice back then. Now, just doesn’t seem like it’s worth the effort. So anyway, I went on up to the Abbey and paid my money and toured around with the audio thing. Just sort of a once-over, so’s I’d know what I wanted to see when I came back. Took most of the mornin’, so I had me some lunch there in the village. Talk about tourist trap! The food wasn’t bad, but it set me back as much as a fancy dinner back home – and Chicago’s not what you’d call cheap.’
‘Did you encounter the couple again, the ones you chatted with earlier? What did they look like, by the way?’
‘You do keep harpin’ on them, don’t you? I never saw ’em again, and maybe wouldn’t’ve reckernized them if I had. They were just ordinary. American, by the way they talked, or maybe Canadian. Nothin’ special. Didn’t talk to anybody over lunch, either, or on the shuttle or the bus back to the hotel. I was runnin’ outta gas by then, so I had me another nap, and then walked to a little grocery store. Bought some stuff for a snack-sup
per, brought it back here, had a bite to eat, went into the bar and had a drink or two, read some more, went to bed. And the next day you know.’
‘Not quite. We know most of it from the time someone picked your pocket on the ramparts, but get us to that point if you will, please.’
Sam held up his hands in the classic gesture of frustration. ‘What’s the point? I’m telling you, nobody knew what I was up to. Nobody cared. I’m no dumb bunny, y’know. I didn’t speak to any sinister strangers, I didn’t drop any notes from my research. Didn’t bring any with me, in fact.’
‘And yet someone has tried to run you off. Twice. The next time they might consider a more permanent solution to their problem. So I want you to tell me what you did that morning, the Tuesday of your accident, from the time you got up, please.’
Sam wasn’t happy, but he complied. It was the same story. Chatted to a few people who spoke English. Said nothing of any importance. Decided to see as much of the Abbey as he could from the outside, and climbed up onto the ramparts to do so. Walked part of the way round the island, studying the various levels of the Abbey buildings. Was trying to take a picture when he was nudged and his wallet and passport went flying.
‘And then I ran down as fast as I could. Wasn’t real fast. There was a crowd, and I’m not as young as I used to be.’
I groaned sympathetically. ‘We’ve noticed that ourselves. You do slow down, don’t you?’
‘Ain’t it the truth! And then those cobbles aren’t great for runnin’ on, and I got lost once or twice, what with ever’thin’ goin’ round in a circle on that dratted island. An’ before you ask, no, I didn’t talk to anybody except to ask once what was the best way down, and that didn’t get me anyplace, cause the lady I asked didn’t speak English.’
‘But you got down to the bay eventually. And you say someone called to you about your missing possessions. Called in English or French?’
‘English, o’ course. I wouldn’t’ve known what they were sayin’ otherwise, would I? But say! That’s kinda funny. How’d they know to speak English?’
‘How, indeed?’ Alan’s tone was dry in the extreme. ‘Plainly this was someone who knew you, or knew who you were, at any rate. A man or a woman?’
‘I never saw whoever it was. Sounded like a man, but when somebody’s yellin’ …’ He shrugged.
‘And the accent? English or American?’
Again Sam shrugged. ‘Don’t remember.’ He looked at the wall, plainly seeing not a hotel room, but a place in Mont-Saint-Michel, hearing a voice calling to him. ‘English, I think, lookin’ back, but I’m not sure.’
Which got us exactly nowhere. Alan made one last attempt. ‘That picture you took?’
‘On my phone. Went into the drink along with me. Deader’n a doornail.’
So that was that. We sat and looked at each other with blank faces and, at least in my case, a blank mind.
Alan’s phone rang. He looked at the number displayed. ‘Avranches’. He answered, listened, said a few words, clicked off. ‘The car was hired two days ago by a harmless family from Rome, who reported it stolen yesterday afternoon. It was found abandoned a few kilometres from here. They’re checking it for fingerprints and so on, of course, but they don’t expect any joy. Neither, I must say, do I.’
TWENTY-SIX
After a few moments of depressed silence, I got up. ‘I still need that walk. More than ever, in fact. I didn’t notice earlier what the weather’s like; I was sort of worried about other things. So I’m taking a sweater. I can always take it off. Who’s coming with me?’
Of course they both got up, since they didn’t want me walking alone. I would have been happier by myself, actually. I wanted to think, and chatting doesn’t allow thinking. I doubted I was in any danger from whatever maniacs were wreaking havoc in the vicinity. But I knew my two chivalrous escorts weren’t about to let me off the leash, so I resigned myself to company.
The weather was actually perfect for a walk. There was a little haze to keep the sun from being too hot, along with a light breeze from the sea. I’ve lived inland all my life, so I don’t know where my love of the sea comes from, but the tang of salt air always raises my spirits.
We couldn’t walk far. Alan’s ankle was much better, nearly healed, but a long or too-brisk walk would set him back again. And Sam, as he’d told us, was anything but an enthusiastic walker. The refreshing air had quickened my pace as well as my mood, but when the others lagged a bit I slowed down.
It was a good thing I did. Just around the corner I’d been approaching came a bicycle ridden at speed. I’d come that close to stepping right into its path.
‘Sorry!’ said Peter, nearly falling off the bike. ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I, Mrs Martin?’
‘Never touched me,’ I said. I didn’t sound very friendly. I was still annoyed with Peter. ‘You’re a bit out of your normal orbit, aren’t you?’
‘I was coming to find you and your husband. They told me at the hotel you’d moved over here.’
Oh, dear. We hadn’t thought to tell the hotel people to keep quiet about that. No help for it now.
Alan came up, making sure Sam was right next to him. He didn’t entirely trust Peter, either. ‘You were looking for us, Peter?’
‘Yes. There’s amazing news!’ He looked from Alan to Sam.
‘Mr Cummings, Mr Houston. Mr Houston is a friend from America, Peter,’ said Alan somewhat deceptively. ‘Sam, we’ve told you about Mr Cummings, who volunteers at the Abbey.’
They shook hands with all the cordiality of two strange cats meeting each other. Tails bushed, hackles rose. I stood back to watch the fun.
‘Um … I have some news,’ said Peter.
I thought he wasn’t eager to talk in front of Sam. I ignored the hint. ‘Oh? It must be exciting, to bring you all the way out here. Do tell!’
Alan smiled and cocked his head attentively. Sam, who could see just as well as we could that something was up, said nothing.
Peter gave up. ‘Well, you’ll hardly believe it, but Mr Krider came to the Abbey a little while ago to tell me. A manuscript has been found!’
If he’d wanted to create a sensation, he succeeded. Three mouths dropped. Peter’s attention was focussed on Sam, who was the first one to speak.
‘You’re talking about a work by Abelard?’ he said, in the crisp, standard-American accent that meant he was on edge.
‘Why do you ask that?’ Peter sounded just as tense.
‘Look,’ I said, suddenly tired of the game, ‘we don’t have to stand here and spit and hiss at each other. Besides, Alan’s been on his feet quite long enough. Let’s go back to l’Ermitage where you two can brawl in comfort.’
Both Sam and Peter gave me sharp looks, but they turned toward the hotel, Peter walking his bike.
I wasn’t sure they’d let Peter in. He’d ridden quite a distance this morning, and the day was warm. His clothes were not what our hostelry expected, either. But we could go to Sam’s suite and be quite private. Fortunately our door was quite near the main door of the building, so we snuck in (as I was sure Sam would have put it) and sat in our lounge.
‘Now,’ I said, before hostilities could begin, ‘it’s getting on for lunch time. I’m not hungry, myself, but I could do with something cold to drink. Cider? Beer? Something else?’
The men chose beer; I opted for plain tonic and ordered them on the phone.
When I re-joined the group they were still sitting in a charged silence. Alan, who knew well how uncomfortable that could be, was waiting for someone to say something indiscreet. Peter and Sam were both waiting for the other to speak first.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! This is ridiculous! Peter, you’re wondering why Sam jumped to the conclusion that the manuscript you found, or somebody found, has a connection to Abelard.’
‘It had occurred to me to find that somewhat odd,’ he said stiffly in his most intimidating accent.
‘Come off it. Do you really not know that Sam is t
he person who nearly drowned in the bay a little over a week ago?’
From the look on his face, he had not known. ‘But … that was a woman. A German woman.’
‘No, son, it was me, all right. And I’ve been wonderin’—’
‘One moment, Sam, if you will.’ Alan stepped in smoothly. ‘Peter, Sam is also interested in old manuscripts, particularly anything pertaining to a certain medieval philosopher, of whom, I may say, I am becoming extremely tired. Sam is in fact Dr Houston, a distinguished professor of medieval history at the University of Chicago. He is here on much the same quest as yours, looking for original works by Abelard.’
‘Not original, exactly,’ said Peter. ‘They’d be monkish copies—’
Alan waved that away. ‘And like you, Sam is hoping to gain academic acclaim by such a discovery.’
Peter looked petulant. I could guess he was thinking that a distinguished professor at a distinguished university had as much academic acclaim as he needed, whereas he, Peter, was young and unknown and in search of recognition. He said nothing, however.
‘He came here,’ Alan went on, ‘because he had heard rumours that such manuscripts might exist. I wonder,’ he said, looking Peter straight in the eye, ‘if you would happen to know how those rumours got started.’
I didn’t know young men, in this day and age, could still blush, but Peter’s fair skin turned fiery from the neck of his T-shirt all the way up to his hairline. As for me, I was mentally smacking myself on the head. Of course! All that probing to try to get from Sam the source of the talk, when all the time …
‘Well, sir …’ Peter paused to swallow. His Adam’s apple seemed to be obstructing his throat. ‘We – that is, Laurence and I – we thought that … that is, if the ground were prepared ahead of time—’
He stuck there, so I finished for him. ‘You two started the rumours yourself, so when you came up with something, people would be more inclined to pay attention. Just out of curiosity, is this newly-discovered manuscript real, or one of your friend’s ingenious forgeries?’
The Missing Masterpiece Page 20
