by Mike Ripley
‘Whereas, the banks in Vichy which come under the beneficence of a German occupation will have their assets converted into Reichsmarks …’
‘And, given the likely outcome of the war, which would you prefer?’
‘Just how many dollars might we be talking about?’ I enquired, adding: ‘Hypothetically, of course.’
‘It could be millions. No one knows for sure except Nathan Lunel, who did the banking.’
‘Then we must ask this M’sieur Lunel some serious questions.’
‘That could be difficult,’ said Robert gravely; very gravely. ‘I told you that you had arrived too late, Albert, and I meant it. The Vichy government decided to embrace National Socialist ideology last month and ordered a mass round-up of Jews with a view to deportation. Nathan Lunel is in a concentration camp.’
NINE
Entremets
The Dorchester Hotel, London. 20 May 1970
‘Oo needs a palate cleanser when there’s perfectly good wine still on the table?’
Mr Lugg’s observations on the entremets intermission in proceedings went mostly ignored by those who heard them, and his feelings were not mirrored by his actions as he helped himself by the fistful from every passing plate of canapés – which he pronounced as if asking questions of primate behaviour. Only Precious Aird, armed with the innocence of youth and the enthusiasm of the American, felt confident enough to take him to task.
‘My, what a grumpy-boots we are, and this is supposed to be a party! Well, I think it’s all just swell, a real class act. In California, you don’t get refinements like this, just a flunky pushing a sweet cart at high speed.’
‘These ain’t puddings,’ sulked Lugg, ‘they’re hardly mouthfuls of anything. You’ve got a proper dessert to come and then there’s cake.’
‘You guys don’t stint yourselves, do you?’ As she spoke, Miss Aird deliberately averted her eyes from Mr Lugg’s substantial girth. ‘No wonder there are so many eating irons on the table.’
Lugg gave a quiet grunt, as if confirming his darkest suspicions. ‘Yes, well, you Yanks never could handle cutlery, though the rules are pretty simple: start at the outside, work your way in towards where your plate goes and always keep the fork in the left hand. Anything else is just unnatural.’
‘You’ve told me that three times tonight,’ said the girl with an innocent smile. ‘Maybe I’ll get the hang of it before we get to the coffee and cigars.’
Lugg’s bushy eyebrows arched like two caterpillars in a hurry. ‘Cigars? You’re not one of those females who smokes cigars, are you?’
‘I will tonight, but only if you promise to look as outraged as you do now. I’m young and American: it’s my duty to shock the older generation.’
Holding high a glass in her right hand, Precious plucked at the hem of her way-above-the-knee dress with her left, crossed one foot over the other and bobbed a dainty curtsey in front of the dinner-jacketed monolith.
‘Cheek!’ growled Lugg.
‘I hope this old bulldog isn’t worrying you, Precious,’ said Rupert as he weaved through the throng towards them, narrowly avoiding a waiter with a tray of drinks and swerving to avoid Jolyon Livingstone who was bent over a plate of canapés, interrogating the angelically patient waitress holding them on their provenance.
‘Oh, that’s never going to happen, is it?’ Precious chirped. ‘Lugg has been tutoring me in something called “Hetiquette”, which I intend to look up as soon as I can get to a dictionary. How’s tricks down at the posh end of the table? We’re kinda cut off way down there below the mustard.’
‘The salt,’ Lugg corrected. ‘Below the salt.’
‘Everyone’s enjoying themselves, I think,’ said Rupert hesitantly, ‘but I’d be fibbing if I said there hadn’t been a few sticky moments.’
‘I could see that,’ said Lugg. ‘Only wish I’d stayed on at night school to do lip reading. Your ma not getting on with the French lady then?’
‘It’s not that they’ve come to blows or anything, but there’s a definite coolness there. Madame Thibus is very tight-lipped about why she’s here tonight, and Pa is doing his usual bonfire of the vagaries act, pretending it’s nothing really to do with him, when of course it must be as it’s his birthday party. And I’ve been charged with keeping the Spanish woman, Mrs Vidal, amused, though goodness knows, she’s proving to be hard work.’
‘So’s her daughter – Prisca, is it? – down our end of the festivities,’ said Precious Aird. ‘She really comes across as someone who doesn’t want to be here. She even made Robert the randy schoolboy look as if he’s had a cold shower; not that he didn’t need one. Who is that kid, anyway?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ sulked Lugg.
‘Somebody Pa unearthed as a schoolboy up in Suffolk a couple of years ago and has been keeping an eye on ever since. Pa says he comes across as a “moonstruck calf” whenever females are around, whatever that means.’
‘I don’t know what that means either, but I recognize the symptoms. He sure didn’t cut any ice with Miss Vidal, though I reckon he wouldn’t have if he’d had a blowtorch.’
‘Like mother, like daughter, eh?’ Lugg strained his neck out of his starched white collar in order to survey the surrounding crowd of talking heads. ‘Where is the Ice Queen, anyway?’
‘She’s gone to the ladies’ bathroom,’ said Precious between sips from her glass. ‘I don’t know where the randy schoolboy is, but I ain’t goin’ hunting for him.’
‘Young Oncer, if that’s what he’s called, is ensconced with Jonathan Eager-Wright over by the piano,’ reported Rupert, ‘in a deep discussion about mountaineering as far as I can gather. I overheard him say he’d read one of Eager-Wright’s books on climbing techniques and, as that is the only subject under the sun on which old Jonathan is willing to engage in sociable conversation, he may be gone for some time.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Precious Aird to no one in particular; but then to Rupert: ‘How’s Perdita doin’? Enjoying herself down the dinosaur end of the table?’
‘Oi, you! Less of the cheek,’ warned Lugg.
‘I was forgetting,’ said Precious, ‘I’m the one sitting with the dinosaurs.’
She reached out a hand towards a plate floating by, which contained the last two stuffed mushrooms in captivity, but a larger, much larger, hand shot out from a white cuff in a blur of movement and swept up the unsuspecting fungi.
‘Age before beauty then,’ said Lugg, before filling his gaping mouth.
The room throbbed with dinner-jacketed shoulders rubbing against each other, glasses tinkling with ice and occasionally colliding with jewellery, the ambient temperature growing due to cigarette smoke, almost as quickly as the rising volume of the chatter from glowing, well-fed and well-watered diners, grateful that the whistle had been blown for half-time.
The level of background noise was such that Mr Augustus Randall found himself almost shouting to make himself heard, although from the pained expression on his wife’s face, Mary Randall was having no trouble whatsoever in hearing him.
‘I’ve no idea what Albert was going on about,’ moaned Guffy, ‘giving that sermon of his. Why was he whispering?’
Not for the first time, Mary took a soothing approach.
‘He wasn’t whispering, darling, he’s just naturally soft spoken. Not like you, who is only happy when you’re yelling for the dogs to come to heel or bellowing across a field to make the cows come home. Monsieur Fleurey and I could hear him perfectly well. We really are going to have to get you fixed up with a hearing aid if you insist on eavesdropping.’
‘I wasn’t prying, just trying to follow the conversation. Thought that was what you were supposed to do at dinner parties. It’s Albert’s party and Albert was holding court, so I tried to pay attention in case questions were asked afterwards. Only caught one word in three, though. Something about the war …?’
Mary stretched out a hand and patted her husband’s straining shirt front roughly i
n the heart area.
‘Yes, my dear, Albert was talking about what he did in the war, but I don’t think he expects you to take notes. It was quite fascinating. I had no idea he was involved in all that secret stuff.’
‘Secrets?’ bristled Guffy. ‘He’s not giving away secrets to a German, is he?’
‘Not at all, dearest. Albert’s talking about history. Things that happened more than twenty-five years ago, and from the way Albert tells it, that good German gentleman knew far more secrets than Albert did.’
‘Good German? The only good German—’
‘Guffy, behave!’
‘Is one who brews beer. They make damn good beer, the Germans. And cars: their cars are absolutely first rate. What’s the matter, darling, what did you think I was going to say?’
‘Are they boring you, my dear? If they are, I have dozens of proven ways of keeping my husband quiet.’
Making no attempt to lower her voice, Amanda linked arms with Perdita and drew her free of the masculinity grouped around Mr Campion.
‘I’m not bored at all, far from it; it’s all jolly exciting. I had no idea …’
‘No, not many people did. He’s never been one for telling war stories. Perhaps he’s feeling his age, and this party, with Robert here, gives him a chance to draw a line under things, bury hatchets, kiss and make up, or whatever men do.’
‘They don’t seem to have any hatchets to bury,’ observed Perdita. ‘It’s hard to believe they were on different sides. They seem like old pals, even though Albert gave him that terrible scar.’
‘It’s always been difficult to stay angry with him for long,’ conceded Amanda under her breath, ‘no matter how hard one tries.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about him.’ Perdita’s voice betrayed nothing but adoration. ‘He’s having a whale of a time telling tall tales and he has his audience in the palm of his hands.’
Observing the phalanx of dinner jackets huddled around Mr Campion, Amanda pursed her lips.
‘You’re right about the menfolk hanging on his every word,’ she confided to her daughter-in-law, ‘but I have a feeling the tales are not quite as tall as you might think.’
‘You haven’t told us about the girl,’ said Charles Luke.
‘Sorry, what was that?’
Mr Campion had been briefly distracted by a passing Dr Livingstone who had picked an inopportune moment to mention the appeal fund for a new roof for the library of St Ignatius College, the previous roof having been lightened in both weight and value by audacious lead thieves. Having assured the master of his old college that a cheque would be in the post and that Dr Livingstone could certainly trust Coutts Bank if not A. Campion, Esquire, he turned back to his faithful followers who had been joined by Perdita, delicately shouldering her way back into the group.
‘The girl,’ Luke repeated, ‘there was a girl in the street back in Marseilles, when that gang attacked you. Freiherr von Ringer noticed her …’
‘Robert, please,’ said Ringer.
‘Don’t get too familiar,’ warned Campion. ‘He’s a policeman, you know.’
Luke persevered manfully. ‘When you shot the man attacking Albert, you saw a girl who had been tailing him, although Albert hadn’t spotted her. Actually, before you answer that, why did you shoot that chap? You had a gun, he didn’t, and you were in the uniform of an officer of the law, were you not?’
‘I told you he was a policeman,’ said Campion.
‘I wanted to make an impression,’ said Robert von Ringer, and then laughed out loud at the expression on Luke’s face. ‘Forgive me, Commander, but the gangsters of Marseilles in those days respected neither uniforms nor the law. In any case, I was not a real policeman. And I had an ulterior motive.’
‘You were coming to Albert’s rescue, the situation was drastic, you had to shoot first and ask questions later …’ Perdita spoke in a rush, betraying an enthusiasm which quickly embarrassed her.
‘Naturally there was that,’ said Ringer reasonably, ‘but really I was thinking ahead. Yes, I wanted to get Albert to safety as quickly as possible, but I also wanted to be able to find out more about his assailants. A flesh wound would need treatment by a doctor and I would get to hear about it the next day through our network of informers.’
‘The Abwehr always paid a better rate than we did,’ said Campion.
Ringer nodded an acknowledgement to his host, then turned back to Luke. ‘You asked about La Pucelle.’
Luke allowed his face to show his confusion. ‘I’m sorry, who?’
‘The girl who was watching from the shadows. We called her La Pucelle – the maid, as in The Maid of Orleans.’
‘Oo, oo, I know,’ exclaimed Perdita, hopping from one foot to the other and resisting the temptation to raise a schoolgirl-ish hand and cry, Please, sir! ‘Because she was like Joan of Arc. You didn’t burn her at the stake or anything, did you?’
‘I think that was the English,’ said Ringer, ‘and we called her The Maid because that was her name in the Resistance, though we weren’t supposed to know that. It came from her real name, which traditionally means “beautiful maiden”.’
‘That’s quite charming,’ said Perdita. ‘What was her name—?’
‘Corinne,’ interjected Mr Campion. ‘Her name was Corinne Thibus. It still is. She’s over there being pestered by Hal Fitton. Perhaps we should go and rescue her.’
‘That would be more than fair, Albert,’ said Ringer. ‘After all, she did rescue you.’
‘I guess red hair runs in the family, huh?’ said Precious Aird, who had found herself trapped between the most grotesquely mismatched pair of bookends she hoped she would ever come across.
‘It’s said to be part of the Fitton inheritance,’ said the younger one.
‘I don’t have enough hair left to speak of, and it was never red, but then I’m not a Fitton,’ said the other, older and much larger bookend.
‘I’m Edward Longfox,’ said the serious young man, offering one hand to shake while clutching a glass of orange juice in the other.
That clinched it for Precious Aird: the kid wasn’t old enough to drink, which made him, she guessed, about seventeen years old. Being old enough in England, though not in her native California, Precious was acutely aware of such things, and on occasion had treasonously thought that life as a British colony might not have been that bad after all.
‘So you’re a Fitton?’
‘I’m Hal’s grandson. He’s the Earl of Pontisbright,’ said the boy, as though reading from a card, ‘which makes Lady Amanda, his sister, my great-aunt, but I’m not allowed to call her that. She did once say, though, that she might respond to being called simply “Great”.’
Master Longfox spoke with a completely straight, pale-skinned, freckled face, while Precious choked back a laugh.
‘And I’m Christopher,’ said the other bookend, who was twice the age and size of Edward Longfox. Precious, who had spotted both of them making a beeline for her from different directions, had stood her ground but offered a silent prayer that they would not actually collide when they reached her. ‘And you are …?’
‘An American,’ said Precious smoothly. As she shook the older male’s pudgy and rather damp hand, she asked: ‘But not Christopher Fitton?’
‘Oh, no, it’s Campion. Well, it has been since Rudolph appropriated the name. I’m Albert’s cousin and probably the black sheep of the family – well, more sort of grey than black, as I’m in public relations.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Precious, though she did not.
‘Young Edward here is the bright spark, from the brains side of the family, son of a very distinguished scientist.’
‘Who died on an Antarctic expedition,’ said the lad, but no deadpan comedian had ever delivered such a dark punch line with so little emotion.
‘Edward has proved himself a bit of an inventor,’ Christopher went on undeterred, as a good public relations man always should. ‘Came up with some sort of cathode tube device
which could read minds.’
‘Really?’ Precious heard her voice squeak into a higher register and quickly put the whine down to the wine she had consumed. ‘Can you tell what I’m thinking right now?’
The red-haired youth became the red-faced youth.
‘Oh, no, no, it was just a youthful experiment in controlled telepathy.’ Edward spoke as if reading a witness statement in court. ‘The results were deemed statistically insignificant and, in any case, the whole thing only worked on young minds.’ He looked askance at the looming Christopher and for the first time showed a flicker of emotion. ‘Older people were useless as subjects.’
Precious turned a beatific smile towards the older, clearly redundant point of their conversational triangle. ‘And you, Christopher, you said that Albert had appropriated the name Campion, so is that not your name also?’ Then Precious’s eyes widened as she remembered. ‘And you called him Rudolph, not Albert; what’s the story there?’
‘Well, you see,’ Christopher lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘the true family name is—’
‘Snap to, let’s be having you!’ boomed Lugg from suddenly very nearby. ‘This ’ere tea-break’s over, so please form an orderly queue, then it’s quick march to your tables and get your bibs back on!’
Only when all the guests, in a far from orderly fashion, had resumed their seats under the twin beams of Lugg’s gaze, did the fat man lower himself with an audible sigh of relief into his own chair, which creaked in protest at the unreasonably heavy demands being put on it.
Precious Aird could hardly wait to confide in the big man whom she felt, for reasons not entirely clear to her, that she could trust implicitly. ‘Hey, guess what? I think I’ve discovered a secret.’
