The Complete Mystery Collection

by Michaela Thompson

  Jack whipped around a corner, pulled into the alley behind our building, and parked next to a row of garbage cans. Despite the darkness, the sinister echoes, the sudden terrifying rattling of discarded newspapers, we got into the building and up to the office without incident. As Kitty unlocked the door I caught the smell of enough musk and patchouli to dab on the pulse points of several harems. Then the door opened, and the unmistakable odor of Sphinx rushed out. It settled in the back of my throat and wrenched several coughs out of me.

  “It was worse this morning,” Jack said.

  Kitty switched on the lights and I rushed to the window, bent on flinging it up for air. I had it halfway raised when I stopped dead. Standing next to the automatic teller booth at the bank across the street was a figure in a black overcoat and hat, leaning on a cane. I had last seen that person on the front stoop of the house near Chateau Josse. “Turn out the light!” I cried and dropped to my knees.

  “What is it?” said Kitty, but the lights went out.

  “Look!”

  They joined me at the window, in time to see the figure turn and start limping toward the Place de l’Opéra. When I babbled out where I’d seen him before Jack said, “I’m going after him,” and started for the door.

  Kitty and I both yelled “No!” at the same time and I added, “The others might be around somewhere, Jack!”

  He said, “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” but turned back.

  I sat down in my desk chair. I had known they’d come back, known they’d be watching. All around me was the pathetic jumble that our minuscule place of business had become. Unrolled typewriter ribbons festooned the desks. The coatrack, never stable, listed to one side with a broken leg. Letters, press releases, and slipcover swatches littered the floor along with shards of my mug and Kitty’s cup. Desk drawers gaped open, and clean typing paper had been saturated with Sphinx. The scent hung over everything like a noxious fog.

  “Do you still want to search?” Kitty asked in a tentative tone.

  “Might as well.”

  She pulled the blinds and turned the light back on, and I turned grimly to the task. In half an hour or so I’d been through it all and hadn’t found anything missing. My typewriter would surely reek forever. “Time for that word processor,” I joked feebly, although there wasn’t a damn thing funny about it. I hated this entire situation, and most of all I hated the smell of Sphinx.

  I sat at my desk feeling defeated, trying to wind up an unwound typewriter ribbon. I had never before realized how full of enemies the world could seem.

  After Dinner

  “Whoever tore up the office was in Paris last night. Bruno and his friends were in the country,” I said.

  “It’s not that far. Couldn’t they have driven back here and done it?” said Jack.

  I considered. “I’m pretty sure they didn’t. The wind made a lot of noise, but I would have heard the car. I hardly slept at all.”

  “Research has proven that often when people think they hardly slept at all they really slept quite a bit.”

  “Jack, I know damn well I would have heard the car. It was outside my window, practically. Besides, we’re not talking plain old insomnia. We’re talking massive fear, serious—”

  “All right. You would have heard. Where does that leave us?”

  It was around midnight— in other words, the shank of the evening for many Paris restaurants, including the one not far from the Opera where Kitty, Jack, and I had just had dinner. We were sitting at a banquette table, the mirrors that lined the wall behind us reflecting a dining room with every place occupied. Glasses clinked, smoke drifted, conversation and laughter flew around us at lubricated volume. Late diners were still arriving. After a long and at times furious debate at the office about whether to risk leaving the building, Jack had finally announced that no mysterious person in black was going to keep him from eating dinner. Kitty and I had fallen in line with his point of view, and we were now mopping our plates, finishing the wine, and waiting for coffee.

  “Who wanted the mirror?” I said, counting on my fingers. “Bruno Blanc, Madeleine Bellefroide—”

  “Hey! Maybe it’s Madeleine Bellefroide,” said Kitty, who’d been looking sleepy. “She hired a couple of thugs to steal it, and they panicked and killed Pierre Legrand. Now she’s joined forces with Bruno. She’s the one in black with the cane.”

  “And the ransom offer?” I asked.

  “Camouflage. Cast suspicion elsewhere.”

  “Very cagey. And to evade suspicion even more thoroughly, she sticks the mirror into an urn in the Luxembourg Gardens and loses it.”

  “There could be a reason. Keep an open mind. You have a soft spot for Madeleine.”

  She was right. I wanted to trust Madeleine Bellefroide, although if I thought about it I couldn’t see why I should.

  Jack expelled smoke, thickening an already heavy atmosphere. Kitty patted back a yawn. “What about Lucien Claude?” I said.

  “Mr. Adorable? What about him?” Jack remained touchy about Lucien’s looks.

  “Why was he killed? I can see why they got rid of Legrand—”

  “You can? Why?”

  “Because they wanted the mirror, and—”

  “They had the mirror. Pierre Legrand was lying face down on the floor. He wasn’t stopping them, any more than you were.”

  “Yeah, but suppose he had reason to know who they were, because of some prior approach or deal.”

  “O.K.”

  “So they kill him because of that. But why Claude?”

  Jack let smoke drift slowly out of his nostrils. Then he said, “The same reason, maybe.”

  “Then why get involved in trying to ransom it back?”

  “Say he was going to double-cross them.”

  Just for argument I said, “He seemed so sincere.”

  “I never said he wasn’t a good con man.”

  The coffee arrived. Kitty said, “Look. You saw the people who killed Pierre Legrand. Why don’t you go through the suspects and decide who couldn’t have done it?”

  I threw my mind back to those awful few minutes in the storage room at the Bellefroide. “It couldn’t have been Bruno Blanc or Lucien Claude. They’re too tall,” I said. “It couldn’t have been Bernard Mallet or Clive Overton, because they were with me. It couldn’t have been Madeleine Bellefroide—”

  “But the killers could’ve been hit men hired by any of those people,” Jack said.

  I ignored his excellent point. “It could have been the two guys who abducted me. Louis and the other one. They’re about the right height.”

  “Which is—”

  “Medium. And medium build.”

  “Maybe they’re the ones, then,” Jack said.

  I shook my head. “They’re in with Bruno Blanc, and Bruno didn’t have the mirror. Bruno wanted the mirror. If his friends had stolen it, he’d have had it, wouldn’t he?”

  “Unless something completely misfired,” Jack said.

  “I have the feeling a lot of things misfired, up to and including the ransom transfer,” I said. “The only problem is, I can’t figure out where the divergence is between the way things went and the way they were supposed to go.”

  Waves of laughter from the next table washed over us. Everybody was having a wonderful time. “You know who’s fishy?” I said.

  “Yeah. Chantal Legrand,” said Jack.

  “Chantal? I was going to say Bernard Mallet.”

  “Look at Chantal. Look at all the dust she kicked up, calling a press conference to clear her darling husband’s name.”

  “Well, she—”

  “Instead of doing that, she made him look worse.”

  “Cherchez la femme, huh? The woman is always wrong?”

  “Sweet little wife, ha!” Jack’s tone, I thought, was edged with real bitterness.

  I tried to pull us back to the realm of speculation. “Yeah, but what does Chantal have to do with Nostradamus’s mirror?”

  “Oh, w
ho the hell knows.” Jack slid down in his chair, staring at the bottom of his espresso cup.

  “Well, I think Bernard Mallet is fishy,” I said.

  When Jack didn’t answer, Kitty said, sleepily, “Why?”

  “He seems to hate the mirror. He doesn’t want it back. Did I tell you he asked me not to proceed with the ransom plans?”

  Jack roused himself. “So he stages a robbery at his own museum and has his guard murdered so he can get rid of an artifact he considers a piece of junk,” he said sarcastically.

  I was irritated. “Look, Jack. It’s easy to be negative and piss on everything.”

  “Good suggestion.” He stood up. “Excuse me for a second.”

  As he made his way toward the toilets, I said, “What’s the matter with him?”

  Kitty ran her finger around the top of her glass. “I think talking about Chantal put him in a bad mood.”

  “Obviously. But why?”

  “Something to do with husbands and wives.”

  “You mean… Is his marriage shaky, or something?”

  “Something. I don’t really know.”

  “What’s his wife like?”

  “Claire? Gorgeous. French. She comes to his office every now and then. They have a couple of kids who are almost grown.”

  “But what—”

  “Who knows? Jack stuck it out when you and I didn’t. Maybe he’s sorry.”

  I was swept by sadness. “What a life. You’re sorry if you do, and sorry if you don’t.”

  “That’s about it.”

  “Let’s go home.”

  We didn’t talk much on the way. Jack seemed to be driving faster than usual. Kitty yawned repeatedly and leaned her head against the window.

  When we pulled up on the Avenue Gabriel, Kitty said, “Let me go first and get the door open, Georgia Lee. Then you hurry in.”

  “Right.”

  She slipped out of the car. Nervous, I looked up and down the dark, quiet street and inspected the park across the way. As I watched, a dark figure rose from a bench.

  I stared, immobilized. The person in the black overcoat and hat hovered there like the manifestation of a nightmare. A moment later, reanimated, I grabbed Jack. “Look! Over in the park!”

  He saw. “God damn it,” he said. He pulled the hand brake, jumped out of the car, and sprinted across the street. Before I could decide whether to follow him or go to the door, where Kitty was beckoning, Jack had grappled with the shadowy form and they both fell flat.

  Some flailing ensued, but it didn’t look like a fierce contest. No reinforcements emerged from the bushes, either. I jumped out of the car and ran toward them, with Kitty close behind.

  Jack was getting to his knees, dusting his hands, by the time we reached him. The man in black was writhing, moaning with what sounded like serious pain. A hat and cane lay near him on the gravel. In the light from the street lamps, I could see his face plainly.

  “It’s Clive Overton,” I said. “Overton, the art restorer. Remember?”

  Overton groaned. We got him under the arms, dragged him to his feet, and hustled him across the street to Kitty’s before somebody alerted the police.

  Clive Overton

  Overton lay wheezing and grimacing on Kitty’s sofa. The three of us stood looking down at him, Kitty holding a glass of water.

  “What if he dies?” I hissed to Jack.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, but I thought he looked scared.

  Kitty knelt beside Overton. “Would you like some water?” she asked.

  He didn’t respond, but the wheezing lessened. In a few minutes he motioned for water. After she’d moistened his lips he lay back with his eyes closed, and eventually the heaving of his chest slowed down. When he opened his eyes, it was to look at me. “I beg you,” he croaked.

  Maybe he wasn’t going to die. If not, I was plenty pissed off with him. “Where are Bruno and the boys?” I said. “Are you here to drag me back to Chateau Josse for another go-around?”

  “So you know,” Overton said.

  “Yes, I know. I saw you out there. I saw you watching the office tonight, too.”

  He looked tearful. “None of this is right,” he said.

  “You’re telling me.”

  He struggled to sit up. “Yes, I watched the office. I was desperate to find you. When I saw you at the window tonight, I knew you’d returned to Paris. I thought perhaps you’d stay here instead of at home.”

  “How did you know about Kitty?”

  “Bruno met her at your office, and remembered her name. I found her home address in the telephone directory.”

  Bruno, no doubt, could do the same. I no longer felt so safe here.

  “We never intended to harm you,” Overton was saying.

  “Is that so? Is that why your friends grabbed me, and locked me up—”

  “None of it was supposed to happen!” Overton’s face was bright red. “Hear me out. Hear me out, can’t you?”

  I didn’t want to push him into a stroke. “All right. I’m listening,” I snapped.

  He took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “I came to beg for the mirror. The mirror is all we want.”

  “ ‘We’ being—”

  “The Speculatori. Students of the art of divination.”

  Jack put in, “A secret society?”

  Overton shook his head. “We have no occult rituals. We are nothing more than a group of people with an interest in the subject. Our most talented member by far is Bruno Blanc, who is truly gifted.”

  “What about art restoration?” I asked. “Are you really an art conservator, or is that just a cover for the Speculatori?”

  “Of course I’m an art conservator. That’s how I make my living. And until recently the Speculatori had no need for a ‘cover’.”

  “But now?”

  “Now we are in difficulties. And still we don’t have the mirror we’ve gone through so much to obtain.”

  Overton had gotten hold of himself, and although he looked ill he was now much more the pudgy and proper Englishman I had accompanied to the Bellefroide. He was, in fact, a good deal more loquacious than he had been on our taxi ride. He said, “I can only tell you what happened.”

  “Go ahead.” We gathered around, like children waiting for a bedtime story. Kitty stayed on the floor beside him, Jack leaned against the mantel, and I sat in the chair next to the long-dead fire.

  Overton said, “I looked into the mirror. That was the beginning.”

  The chills came, wave after wave. “You looked in Nostradamus’s mirror? How did you manage that?”

  “It wasn’t difficult at all.” His lips moved, suggesting a smile. “Bernard Mallet wasn’t always the director of the Musée Bellefroide. It was a tragedy for the Speculatori when he was named to the position five years or so ago, after the previous director died. Mallet’s predecessor was considerably more lenient in his handling of the mirror.”

  He leaned back, his eyes fixed on the luxuriant plaster garlands that surrounded Kitty’s fireplace. “Some years ago, perhaps fifteen, I paid my first visit to the Musée Bellefroide,” he said. “At the time I was an assistant, something of an apprentice, in the workshop of a widely respected expert in art conservation. He had been called to the Bellefroide for a minor consultation and he brought me along, more to look after his travel arrangements than for any other reason.

  “It was a time of extreme turmoil in my personal life. Without going into detail, I will say that questions concerning my direction and identity had become so pressing, and so seemingly unresolvable, that I thought constantly of killing myself. I had, some time before, a suicidal accident, when I walked into traffic without looking where I was going. I escaped with a broken leg. When I’m under stress, the leg still aches terribly. It’s aching now.”

  Overton shifted his weight with a grimace before continuing, “The man I worked for and the director of the Bellefroide were old friends. When our work was done, they wanted t
o disappear for coffee and gossip together. So that I would be occupied and out of their way, the Bellefroide’s director, Mallet’s predecessor, took me to the storage room and invited me to look at the works that were not on display. He was a jolly fellow, as unlike Mallet as you can imagine. He pointed out several items he thought might interest me, and as he was leaving he said, ‘And if you’d like to see your future, have a look in Nostradamus’s mirror.’ He opened the drawer where it was kept, showed me the case, and told me about Josef Claude, the man from whom the Bellefroides bought the mirror. He said, ‘I think the later members of the family thought owning such a thing wasn’t quite dignified, and they refused to have the mirror displayed. But have a look, if fortune-telling interests you at all.’

  “I had never, at that point, given a thought to divination or the occult, and I had no intention of wasting my time looking into Nostradamus’s mirror. I was so engrossed in my own troubles that I gave only perfunctory attention to the contents of the storage room. Soon I was staring out the window, caught once again in my ever-descending spiral of self-hatred.”

  Overton massaged his leg slowly, frowning. I thought of the cold, slippery weight of the mirror, the way it had felt before I dropped it into the Medici Fountain.

  “I don’t know what made me turn from the window,” Overton continued. “When I did, I saw that the drawer where the mirror was kept was still open. I thought I would close it, so the director wouldn’t realize how uninterested I’d been in his treasures. But instead of closing the drawer, completely without premeditation, I picked up the mirror case.

  “I remember telling myself not to be foolish, even as I was opening the case and taking the mirror out. The mirror was cold to the touch, and its surface was perfectly brilliant, perfectly black. It was like an object in a hallucination. I bent over it and looked.”

  He’ll say he didn’t see anything at first, I thought. Then there’s a stirring in the depths.

  “Although my face was directly over the surface, I saw nothing, not even my own reflection,” Overton said. “I began to feel a sort of panic, but was unable to look away. And then, deep in the blackness, there was a sign of movement.”