A Rather Curious Engagement

by C. A. Belmond

  Aunt Pen’s apartment always has a calming effect on me, and even now it still felt like an elegant oasis of serenity. Whenever I was in the library in particular, I felt like a heroine in a 1930s movie set. And I always found myself imagining how my great-aunt would handle these sticky-wicket situations I often seemed to get myself into. Sometimes I even felt as if her spirit lingered over me, offering guidance. Yes, she would have known all about being a single woman, alone in a big city, fending for herself with a can-do spirit.

  I switched on the light, and got to work with a large writing pad on the desk, and became deeply engrossed. The meditative atmosphere induced me to think about the case in a slightly different light. It was as if I was trying to build a bookshelf with a do-it-yourself kit that was missing the instructions, and I had all these pieces lying about that simply had to fit together somehow; so I was placing them all out in some kind of order. I kept going over and over the fragmented anecdotes from the Count, and Kurt, and Claude and everybody who had anything to do with it, but still there was something missing.

  Finally my mind rested on one piece of information, and a question which, in all the confusion, I’d forgotten to ask. I picked up the phone and called up the photographer who’d taken the picture of the Corsican holiday celebration. There was no answer at his office, so I called his mobile number that was on the back of the photos.

  “Hullo!” Clive shouted over very raucous background noise of loud music, loud laughter, and lots of clinking and banging. “Who is it?”

  I had to say my name three times before he really heard it. “Ah, Penny,” he said in a friendly way. “I just stopped in for a beer. Fancy a drink?” And he named a pub that was not far from me. I hesitated, but realized that we couldn’t possibly carry on a telephone conversation, so I told him I’d stop in.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The pub where Clive told me to meet him was very unassuming from the outside, apart from clumps of people standing around on the sidewalk, some just arriving, some trying to decide where to go next. They were youngish, very expensively dressed, and the girls were possibly drunker than the boys. They looked as if they had good jobs, and had stopped here to blow off steam after work.

  Inside, there were a lot of reflecting mirrors, and balloons tied to the backs of chairs and barstools. It was dimly lit, and the dance floor beyond was also decorated with balloons and mirrors and bouncing lights, so the whole effect made me feel uncertain about whether I was stepping into another room or about to smash against a mirror instead. Gingerly I picked my way through the crowd, and found Clive seated at the bar with other men his age, all watching sports on a large TV overhead. Some of the men were eating their dinner at the bar.

  “Penny, hi, sit down,” Clive said, sliding off his barstool and letting me sit there. A fat guy at the end of the bar raised his head, looked me over, decided I probably wouldn’t unduly disrupt the men’s zone, and went back to watching the TV. Clive stood next to me, ordered another beer for himself to replace his empty glass, and asked if I’d have one. I picked a Belgian ale that Jeremy often ordered.

  “What can I do for you?” Clive asked.

  “I’m wondering about this family in Corsica who had that shepherd’s hut,” I said. “Did you talk to them at all?”

  “Not that night,” Clive said, remembering, “it was pretty noisy, with the festival and all. But a few weeks later, when the thing went missing, Donaldson wanted me to arrange a meeting with the family, but they wouldn’t do it. Wouldn’t even let him near the site. They were very upset, and felt that they shouldn’t have allowed me to take a picture of a relative’s grave, so they didn’t want any more strangers prowling about. Well, you can imagine how tough it was for them to have a bunch of greedy foreigners clamoring to see them.”

  “So, you never got a chance to ask them about what the artifact was, and how they came to have it?” I asked, disappointed.

  “We-e-ell,” Clive said. After a brief pause, he said, “Look. She told me not to tell anybody about this. I mean, you’re not going to write some article or start an expedition, are you? These people will know you got it from me, and they don’t forgive a betrayal.”

  I assured him that I would be discreet, and was only trying to help someone who thought he’d purchased the Lion and had been misled.

  “Okay, well, there’s a young woman in the family, she’s cool, and very smart. She’s quite educated, won a scholarship to university and all that. She’s studying medicine and genetics; such research is done on Corsica because, you know, it’s a contained community and they can track people more easily.”

  “What’s her name?” I asked. Clive started to fish around in his pockets. Being a photographer, he had lots of pockets. While he searched he continued, “Anyway, she became the spokesperson for the family, to handle all the attention they were getting. She protects them. She talked to me once. She’s in her late twenties, I’d say.”

  “What did she tell you?” I asked, watching him still fishing in his pockets.

  “Oh, you know, after the uproar I asked her what the thing was, and she said it was a family treasure which had been stolen many years ago and then recovered. Most of the time they kept it out of sight. Once a year they take it out for this ceremony. They’ve done this for many years. But this particular time, it got stolen. They say it’s because of my photo. But,” he said defensively, “somebody told me the thing is cursed. Certainly seems surrounded by bad luck.”

  “But—whose grave was it?” I asked.

  “An ancestor,” Clive said. “Of—oh, Lord, what is her name?” He found his mobile phone at last, did some rapid finger work and then said triumphantly, “Ah! Diamanta.”

  “I’d really like to talk to her,” I said as calmly as I could.

  “I only have an e-mail address for her, no phone. But look, you must promise me that you won’t hound her if she doesn’t reply. As I said, she’ll know you got it from me.”

  “Sure, no problem,” I said, and he let me look on his phone and copy it down.

  “Anything else you can tell me about it?” I asked. Clive shook his head.

  “She’s your best bet. But she doesn’t live with the family year-round. She’s at the university. So don’t be surprised if it turns out to be a dead end.”

  I slid off the barstool and thanked him. Clive looked at me with interest. “Would you like to pop round somewhere quieter for a bite to eat?” he inquired.

  That’s when it dawned on me that, without Jeremy by my side, my snooping could inadvertently help a guy get the wrong idea of why I so urgently wanted to see him, and how excited I was by what he was saying. I sort of forgot about that stuff. I thanked him nicely and he took it with good humor. Then I headed out on my own.

  At night, the streets of London can be very changeable, even in the best neighborhoods. Roads that hum with life by day can become totally deserted and shut down in the evening; and a street that’s busy and well-lighted at night might still be right next to a dark, deserted one. So when I turned the corner, searching for a cab, I ended up walking down streets more dangerous-looking than they were when I’d first set out earlier. And, suffice it to say that even when lots of people are out and about to keep you company, well . . . binge drinking is never a pretty sight, especially when someone’s either getting sick, curbside, or is staggering around in a volatile state, becoming suddenly belligerent and aggressive with strangers. I saw two girls physically slugging it out over a guy. Nor is it so great to walk past crowds of emboldened, loud men who bump into you on purpose when you pass them.

  I found the taxi stand, but it was empty. I heard another pair of footsteps echoing behind my own. I went faster. So did they. I crossed the street and tried to make a quick turn unexpectedly, but whoever was behind me seemed to anticipate my every move. There was nobody else about. I made a few more test-moves, and decided that yes, I was being followed. A glance over my shoulder told me the guy was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, hi
s hands thrust in his pockets. I peered way ahead at the next corner, and I saw a lone car approaching.

  There comes a moment, in times like this, where you have to abandon all pretext of fearless normality, and run like hell, even if it means finally letting your stalker know that you are terrified. I reached that moment right now. I took off, running madly in the direction of the car ahead, hoping I could at least get someone to witness my murder so that they could tell the police. The feet behind me began rapidly running, too. I put on a fresh burst of desperate speed and, just as I reached the corner where the car was approaching, I was seized with a mad inspiration. I waved at it and shouted as loudly as possible, “Officer! Over here! Officer, help!” as if it were a police patrol car that I was flagging down. The car slowed, and I ran right up to it, and banged on the hood.

  Well, it worked. I guess whoever was behind me was so freaked out by the idea of police that he simply vanished, seemingly into thin air. I looked back only once, and the street behind me was eerily empty. The startled driver of the car, a man, steered away from me, accelerated and drove off. I ran the whole rest of the way back to the townhouse, flung myself inside, locked the door, and leaned against it, panting.

  “This really sucks, working on this case alone,” was my first thought, which I said aloud. My own voice sounded phony-brave, shaky. For a few minutes I didn’t dare move or even flip on a light, waiting to see if my stalker had diabolically resumed his pursuit. But the street was silent. I found myself wishing that those elderly tenants were still around. I fumbled for my mobile phone, thinking I’d call for a cab back to Aunt Sheila’s.

  However, oddly enough, Aunt Penelope’s telephone started ringing. I hadn’t used this line in months. The answering machine wasn’t connected, so it just rang and rang. I turned on the hall light, and picked my way over the carpentry tools on the stairs as I went up to the second floor. At first, I stood there, staring at the phone. The caller could be any one of assorted nuts. It rang again. Finally, I picked it up.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  It wasn’t Jeremy. But it was another familiar voice.

  "Penny?” Rollo boomed. "That you? Good Lord, been searching for you everywhere.”

  I had visions of Rollo sitting on the yacht, drinking all Jeremy’s wine and driving the crew crazy. “Where are you?” I asked.

  “London. Been chasing after ole’ Mortimer and the trail went cold three times. But now I’ve got some information for you that will knock your socks off, dear girl!” he cried, sounding enormously pleased with himself.

  Oh, God, I thought to myself. I’ll end up in business with Rollo instead of Jeremy.

  And then, in the background of Rollo’s call, I heard a familiar voice which could make your blood curdle. It was Great-Aunt Dorothy, saying to Rollo, in a scolding tone of contemptuous disbelief to her son, “For God’s sake, Rollo, why on earth are you helping that girl? She robbed you blind of your inheritance! ”

  “Hold the line a moment,” Rollo told me in a tense voice. There was a muffled sound, as if he were trying to cover the phone, but I could still make out every word when he retorted hotly, “Stay out of this, she’s my friend and she has faith in me, which is more than I can say for you!”

  I was astounded. Who would have thought that Rollo would even remember what I said to him on the yacht, much less care? But apparently it meant something for him to be, if not entirely trusted, then believed, at least now and then. It dawned on me that if his mother was yelling at him, then maybe he really did have some good information for me.

  “What have you got, Rollo?” I asked.

  “Sorry for the delay,” he muttered as he returned to me. “But I thought you’d want to know that I heard on my grapevine that, just as I expected, it was old Mortimer Jones who sold that Lion to your Count.”

  “Was it really the Lion?” I asked.

  “Darling, who can say? My sources didn’t actually see it. But the point, dear girl, is that Mortimer is back in Corsica now. I’ve a notion of how we might flush him out, and find out for sure if he ever really had the right lion. But, Penny, we’ll have to hurry. I have some other business to tend to tomorrow, but I can meet you at the yacht day after that, and you must be ready to go.”

  “Go?” I echoed.

  “Corsica, darling!”

  It crossed my mind that I shouldn’t exactly let Rollo mastermind my fate. But I thought about what my mother said about full speed ahead on a dream. And at this point, all roads seemed to lead to Corsica.

  “Okay, I’ll phone the captain and tell him to make sure the crew is there and ready,” I promised.

  “Good work,” Rollo said, and we hung up. Then I fired off a nice, friendly e-mail to Diamanta.

  When I returned to Aunt Sheila’s apartment, she was on the telephone chattering with friends. I waved to her and went into the living room, gazing out the big window at the lighted boats going up and down the Thames, while I talked to Claude on my mobile and asked if we could make a voyage to Corsica. He assured me that the crew would be ready and waiting, with plenty of provisions.

  As soon as I hung up, my phone shrilled and vibrated and nearly leaped out of my hand.

  “Penny!” Jeremy said, sounding excited. “Where the hell have you been? Every time I call somewhere they tell me I just missed you. First Mum, then your folks; and your line’s been busy whenever I tried it.”

  “Well, I’m a very popular woman,” I said wearily. “What did you expect?”

  “No time for jokes,” he said briskly. “You won’t believe what I’ve found out! First of all, the Count isn’t as cuckoo as everybody thinks. There was an auction in his grandfather’s time, 1890, to be precise. And there was a lion aquamanile listed as ‘The Beethoven Lion.’ And you can’t believe how they make those aquamanilia. I can tell you all about it when I get back because I’ve actually seen some of the tools they use!”

  My mind wasn’t working fast enough at first, so I couldn’t believe my ears. Yet, while my brain was still struggling to process all this information, I was feeling a surge of delirious happiness, a warm rush of delight.

  “Jeremy,” I said, still afraid to believe it, “what have you been up to, out there in Germany?”

  “Research, of course,” he said impatiently. “Guess who I actually had a little sit-down chat with? Kurt’s sister.” When I didn’t reply right away he demanded, “Did you hear me? The Count’s daughter. And boy did she have a lot to say.”

  “Whah—but—I thought you went out there working for one of Harold’s clients,” I said.

  “Oh, that?” Jeremy said dismissively. “I wrapped that up straight away. Then I started picking up the trail of the Lion. Didn’t you get my e-mail that I needed more time out here?”

  “Well, you never said you were working on our case!” I shouted joyfully.

  “Naturally! We can’t just let it drop,” Jeremy said. “I e-mailed Kurt before I left, asking if I could meet his sister. He sent me back a two-word e-mail, Good luck. But I charmed her into seeing me.” He paused for breath. “Any news on your end?” he inquired.

  “You bet! Clive told me about that family in Corsica that the Lion was stolen from!” I said excitedly. “Wait till you hear what he said, and I even got him to give me the name of a girl in the family who might be able to help us. I sent her an e-mail.”

  “Clive?” Jeremy said. “Oh, the photographer. He was an odd duck. How’d you get new information out of him?”

  “I had to meet him at a bar and then I nearly get mugged,” I said frankly. “Some guy followed me back to the townhouse. You’re right, we do need security.”

  “Good God,” Jeremy groaned. “You can’t be traipsing about London alone at night when you don’t even know where you are! Are you mad?”

  “Steady on, m’boy,” I said. I told him all about Rollo’s call, and how I’d alerted Claude to get the boat to take us to Corsica. But, I didn’t bother to mention that I had also been preparing to go it al
one . . . for the whole rest of my life, sans love.

  “Right!” Jeremy said. “I might as well just fly down to Nice directly from here. I do have to meet with Rupert here at lunchtime, though, to hand this thing off to him.”

  “Great, let’s meet at the villa,” I said.

  “I’ll be arriving in Antibes in the evening,” Jeremy said, sounding as if he’d just checked a plane schedule.

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  “See you soon, babe,” he said. “And,” he added, “don’t go out for drinks and carrying on at all hours of the night with strangers. ”

  “Hurry home, darling,” I said sweetly. “I do get into so much trouble when you’re not around!”

  Aunt Sheila probably knew something was afoot, because, the next morning, I was ridiculously cheerful as I hurriedly packed my bags. But she said nothing, just watched me in that alert, droll way of hers. She told me that my parents had stopped by last night, and my father had fixed a bunch of gourmet eats for her, that could be easily assembled into various meals, so she shooed me away.

  The plane couldn’t get to Nice fast enough for me. I took a taxi straight from the airport to Antibes. I’d telephoned ahead to Celeste, who was now cleaning the place once a week. She’d picked up a few things at the market for me.

  Still, it was a little spooky, waiting for Jeremy at the villa alone. The wind rattled through the trees, and the house creaked a bit, but apart from that, it was pretty quiet, especially as the birds grew drowsy when the sun sank below the horizon. The weather was very hot now, so the night was filled with the sound of crickets, cicadas and a strange owl which kept saying plaintively, again and again, Who—oo-OO!

  I ate my dinner listening to him. Then I climbed into bed and lay there in the dark, trying to decide if I should let myself fall asleep (I was totally exhausted by now) or stay up so I could figure out if the car that finally pulled into the driveway and crunched the gravel was Jeremy’s or an axe-murderer’s (that thought kept me awake). While I was still trying to make up my mind, I finally dozed off.