‘So, we rule out Desforges, leave in the Tellancourts and, tell me, what are your thoughts on the Langlois claim?’
‘As with the Tellancourts, I suspect that the imperative here is a financial one. Dorcas has done some sound detective work of her own and discovers that Mother Langlois, having apparently mistreated her son through his young life, now wants him back in his damaged state to facilitate her flight from the family hearth. I can’t blame her for formulating such a plan but I have to say it casts doubt on the foundation of her claim. Much, I’d say, rests on the statement of this schoolmaster who seems to be so sure of his ground and fighting her corner. Anything known?’
Bonnefoye nodded wisely. ‘You’re nearly there, Sandilands. About as far forward as we are. But there are methods I can employ,’ he said mysteriously, ‘to get at the truth which are not available to a visiting English policeman. Leave it to me. I assure you I will tell you what we know as soon as we know it. I will just say that for the moment we must mark the Langlois claim with a question mark. That’s one cross, one tick and one question mark.’
He grunted with satisfaction. ‘Well, it begins to look very much as though the business is wrapped up,’ he said. ‘Unless you can unearth, I’m sorry, discover, something more sensational chez les Houdart this weekend. It is this weekend you’re spending with them? Good. Well, let me know how you get on, won’t you?’ He gave a sudden and boyish grin. ‘You know how I shall spend the rest of my morning, curse you, Sandilands? Looking through your notes and ferreting about in this case. Waste of my time, I know it! My business is solving the problems of the freshly murdered (three corpses on my books at the moment. Three! Any chance. .? No. .?) not working out who the living may be! You have my number? Ring me at once if there’s anything I can do or say, won’t you? I want this solved and you out of my hair by next Wednesday. Clear?’
‘Clear, old man,’ said Joe and, to Dorcas’s barely concealed disgust, they shook hands in a matey way.
‘Oh, one last thing,’ said Joe, hand on the doorknob. He pointed to his notes. ‘Last page and rather urgent. It’s an outside chance but you never know. Just a suggestion. But I think you’d agree we should explore all avenues. And I’m sure the French technical services are up to it.’
‘Well, Miss Dorcas? Do you still admire the Inspector?’ Joe asked as they made their way back to the car.
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘He’ll do — for a police inspector. He’ll do very well.’
‘And what was all that stuff about studying. . psychology, was it? Are you intending to do such a thing? Because if so, we must take steps to get you educated first.’
‘Of course I’m intending no such thing! Live in London for three years? Urgh! But I had to say something!’
‘Another naughty lie?’
‘A distortion of the truth for politeness’ sake.’
‘Ah. But I suppose I should be relieved that politeness is in the forefront of your mind with the weekend I see stretching in front of us. Lunch first to fortify ourselves and then we’ll get started. I’m not sure what our reception will consist of, Dorcas. Be prepared for anything, will you? We could find ourselves entertained as honoured guests or we could be shown round to the tradesmen’s entrance and fed on scraps in the back kitchen. I’ve encountered both extremes in my time.’
‘I’ve lived at both extremes in my time,’ said Dorcas seriously. ‘Don’t worry, Joe. I’m a chameleon, you know.’
Chapter Sixteen
‘Crikey! Were you expecting this?’ Dorcas asked as they passed down an avenue of beech trees and drew up in front of the gates to the château.
‘No. And what’s more, I’m not even certain we’ve got the right place,’ said Joe, doubtfully. ‘Though we followed the direction from the village carefully enough. Don’t forget I’ve only seen an artist’s impression on a champagne bottle. And if this is the right place our artist has taken quite a bit of licence. The name for a start! I thought, in my simple unquestioning way, it was most probably named as on the bottle, the Château Houdart, but if you look at the old sign outside — a bit battered perhaps and those holes are bullet holes, I do believe — you’ll see it’s the Château de Septfontaines. Seven Fountains? I wonder if they’re still to be found?’
He gazed from the stone arcade with its central arch guarding the forecourt of the château to the procession of tall chimney stacks in the distance.
‘House rebuilt by Mansart in 1685, I understand,’ he said. ‘Yes — it begins to emerge. I know what the artist has done — he’s pared it down to its essentials, missed out all the interesting details and moved a vineyard several hundred yards to the north.’
‘Those creatures up there on the piers. What are they?’
‘Gryphons? Would you say gryphons? Something couchant, gardant anyway. Might even be lions. Shall we take a chance?’
‘Yes, let’s go in. They can only set the dogs on us!’
Joe slipped the car into gear and they stole forward through the open wrought-iron gates, taking in the symmetrical wings decorated with classical urns and, in the centre, the main body of the house, its parapet carrying a cargo of gesticulating statuary They crunched their way over the immaculately swept gravel and encircled a stone basin in which a stone Triton with a far from reluctant stone maiden in his arms tirelessly poured a jet of water from a stone shell.
‘Do you think we could have one of those at home, Joe?’ Dorcas whispered. ‘Lydia would love it.’
Joe parked the car neatly in the shade and they set out to climb the shallow run of steps up to the wide front door. No knocker, no bell, but the door opened as they approached it. A manservant smiled a welcome and reached for the car keys Joe still held in his hand. ‘Good afternoon, Commander. Miss. If you’ll permit, I’ll have your things taken up to your rooms. Come this way. Madame Houdart is in the petit salon where she will be taking tea.’
‘Tea? In the petit salon?’ Dorcas muttered. ‘Oh, I say! Awfully glad I put on my silk stockings!’
As they walked behind their guide they caught intriguing glimpses through open doors of a series of stately rooms. In one which appeared by its great size to be the main reception room, a mighty chandelier winked in the afternoon sun and the light was reflected from mirrors and gilded candle sconces along the walls. They ran the gauntlet of the cold marble gaze of a row of classical busts, one perched over each doorway and attending them in their progress along the corridor until they arrived at an image of Athena. At this door the manservant paused. He went inside and announced them. Dorcas scuttled back with a sudden show of nerves to stand behind Joe.
‘Come in, come in! I’m delighted that you could come. Fabrice, we’ll have tea straight away. Will you drink tea, Commander? I can offer you lemonade if you prefer? You must have had a hot journey. Yes, Fabrice, bring a jug of Pauline’s lemonade and have them put lots of ice in it. Oh, and summon Monsieur Houdart and my son in — shall we say — ten minutes’ time?’
Aline Houdart fluttered towards them, a slight and attractive figure, hands outstretched in welcome. She was wearing a pale green silk tea gown and a simple silver necklace and looked cool and at ease, a decorative element of this white and gold, high-ceilinged room. Large grey eyes, a porcelain skin and a cloud of short chestnut hair were Joe’s first impressions. Fanciful visions of Botticelli maidens sprang to mind and he realized he had fallen uncharacteristically silent. And he was staring and gulping like an adolescent youth. Redmayne’s warning had not gone far enough, he thought. He ought to be bearing in mind that this woman who seemed to have all the unconscious allure of an exotic moth had worked to survive horrors that would have taxed the reserves of any man he knew.
Dorcas poked him in the back.
‘Ah. May I present my niece, madame?’ he said, clicking back on to the social track. ‘Miss Jagow-Joliffe. Dorcas.’
Dorcas stepped forward, receiving a perfumed kiss on each cheek and a waterfall of welcoming words. Dorcas was the first to swi
m clear of the polite effusions swirling all around. ‘I wonder, madame, if you are going to introduce us to the stately gentleman reclining by the fire?’ she said with a grin. ‘A boar hound, isn’t he? Very handsome! I’ve never met one socially before.’
‘You are quite right — he is a boar hound. Do you like dogs, Mademoiselle Dorcas?’ said Aline Houdart. ‘I can ask him to leave. . Naughty Bruno! Bad boy! He knows he ought not to be here. I eject him ten times a day and he somehow manages to creep back. He is a trained guard dog and not very friendly with strangers but he will not attack you if you ignore him. Oh, do take care! Mademoiselle!’
Dorcas had advanced smoothly on the huge brindled dog stretched the full length of the hearth. She knelt, a small and vulnerable figure, at his side and spoke a few words into his ear. His heavy head went up in surprise but he made no objection when she proceeded to scratch him under the chin, murmuring the while. His tail thumped and he gave a strangled whimper of ecstasy. An embarrassing scene, Joe thought, and cleared his throat in warning but Aline appeared enchanted. When Dorcas went to sit on a sofa the dog heaved himself up and, with what Joe could have sworn was an apologetic glance all round, followed her, settling down uncomfortably on her feet.
‘It’s a talent she has,’ murmured Joe, recovering himself. ‘Runs in the family.’ He didn’t want Dorcas to launch into one of her stories about the esoteric lore she had acquired from her father’s gypsy friends where he was fairly sure the party trick had come from.
At any rate the ice was broken. And perhaps that was one of the dog’s functions he thought, cynically. The tea arrived and Dorcas, extricating herself, slipped easily into her role of stand-in hostess, dispensing it with quiet skill, leaving Aline Houdart and Joe the opportunity of starting their conversation. Aline did not beat about the bush. In less than the ten minutes before the men arrived she had outlined and delicately put a question mark by the friendly relationship between her brother-in-law Charles-Auguste and Sir Douglas and she had prepared Joe for the discord between the close members of the family, defining their allegiances and ambitions.
‘So, you will find, Commander — I say, shall I call you Joe? I feel a ridiculous compulsion to salute when I use your rank! — you will find that I am alone in my claim that this man is my husband. Both Charles and my son Georges maintain that he is not. There is little enough peace in this household at the best of times and I would say that this is decidedly one of the worst.’ Her smile and her good humour suggested otherwise.
‘May I just ask, madame, before it becomes inconvenient, what exactly is the position in law of the inheritance, should this gentleman prove to be Clovis, your husband?’
‘Oh, very little change,’ she shrugged. ‘My son inherits the estate in its entirety whatever happens. Very soon if Clovis is indeed dead. Rather later if his father returns, since he will have to await his death. But at all events he will inherit. Charles-Auguste is my son’s guardian, no more than that. He has his own estate in the south but is kind enough to spend time with us helping to run the champagne business which is, you must understand, far more profitable than an estate producing a very ordinary vin de pays. In medieval times, Charles-Auguste would have been known as the équyer or maître d’hôtel. An honoured position in a noble household. Ah, here they come!’
She heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor seconds before Joe’s keen ears picked them up. Her eyes flashed a warning, a finger hovered playfully over her lips for a moment involving them in her game.
It was deftly done. In minutes she had recruited them to her team. He’d known generals who would have benefited from this skill. And two who had it.
Charles-Auguste came in closely followed by a young boy who could at first sight have been taken for his son, though the boy was a good head taller. Joe experienced a moment of confusion, struck as he was by the resemblance between the handsome middle-aged man now holding out a hand to him and the lost soul they had seen in a hospital cell. Charles Houdart was shorter than Thibaud with the same greying fair hair and blue eyes, the same fair complexion. But there the similarity gave out. These eyes were focused, friendly and intelligent. The man crackled with energy. He brought into the refined room an eddy of fresh air with the slightest scent of the stables. Must be a little difficult to live with, Joe guessed and instantly dismissed the thought.
More introductions were made, kept efficiently to the minimum by Houdart. He looked about him, preparing to present the young people. Georges advanced and shook Joe’s hand. A firm grip, an inquisitive eye. A shy smile.
‘And you must meet the Commander’s niece, Dorcas,’ said Aline. ‘A young lady as clever, I suspect, as she is pretty — which is to say, very!’
Georges followed her waving hand to the sofa where Dorcas was once again sitting in uncomfortable proximity to the hound Bruno. He stared and took in the scene at once. ‘No! Don’t get up, mademoiselle!’ he said and went over to shake her hand. ‘We know better than to disturb old Bruno when he’s settled.’ He sat down by her side with no further ceremony and began to talk. The boy smiled a lot, Joe thought, for a sixteen-year-old. He had thick chestnut hair like his mother but there the similarity ran out; his nose and chin might, flatteringly, have been called decisive. Not love’s young dream, Joe was relieved to note, but better than that — his face was full of the promise of character. And a good character at that.
Dorcas smiled back and replied. The boy laughed and whispered something. Dorcas laughed. They both patted the dog. So far so good, then. Joe felt free to turn his attention back to Houdart and answered his keen enquiries about Sir Douglas and London which he appeared to know well.
Conversation flowed and Joe was surprised to hear, distantly, a clock sounding five, the signal for the party to break up evidently. Aline rang for the footman to have them shown to their rooms adding: ‘We will be dining at seven. Earlier than you are accustomed to perhaps? But this is the country not Paris or London and we have our country ways. Our country cooks too! I hope you like simple hearty food? Foie gras? Smoked haunch of wild boar? Poulet au champagne? Do join us for drinks in the salon when you come down.’
As they climbed the stairs a step or two behind the footman, Joe leaned towards Dorcas and hissed at her: ‘That trick of whispering magic into dogs’ ears, miss — does it work on boys?’
She gave him a knowing look. ‘Oh, yes, it does. Trouble is — you can only use it once on a human. I’m saving it up.’
Joe woke to the insistent serenade of a song thrush perched on the parapet in front of his window and groped for his wristwatch. Seven. Eight o’clock breakfast had been declared so he had plenty of time for a shower. He scrambled out of bed and slumped on to the stool in front of the dressing table to check that he’d survived the night. Incredibly, he had no headache, not a sign of the hangover he had expected. And yet he’d drunk a large quantity of excellent champagne, he remembered. Jokingly, the family had chosen a different champagne from the estate to accompany each of the courses, promising the more usual parade of Pouilly and Clos Vougeot the next day.
He frowned at his dark unshaven features incongruously framed by the ornate gilded mirror and decided that the blue and white draperies of toile de Jouy did him no favours. He blinked and yawned and wandered off into the adjoining bathroom to start his day.
At ten to eight he tapped on Dorcas’s door and tapped again, disconcerted to hear no reply. Odd. She didn’t have many virtues but punctuality was one of them. She never kept him waiting. Had she overslept, worn out by the strain of appearing at a dinner party? They had sat down eight to dinner, the numbers swollen by neighbours chosen, Joe guessed, for their youth and animation. Dorcas, discreetly dressed in blue silk and Lydia’s best pearls, had looked very pretty and she’d behaved, he remembered, impeccably, seated between Georges and Charles-Auguste; every time he’d glanced in her direction she had been listening or talking with enthusiasm, even laughing. A strain on a girl, anyway, and he wouldn’t blame her if she
was intending to have a lie-in.
The manservant of the previous evening hurried down the corridor. ‘Mademoiselle is not in her room, monsieur. She went out riding at six this morning with Monsieur Georges.’
‘She did what? Riding? Good Lord! But what on earth would she have been wearing?’ was Joe’s disconnected thought.
With no sign that he found the question strange, the man replied: ‘Jodhpurs, sir, a shirt and a pair of riding boots which the young lady had in her luggage. She lacked only a hat but we were able to supply this item from stock.’ And, responding to Joe’s discomfiture: ‘They expressed their intention of returning in good time for breakfast. At all events, sir, breakfast is a meal young Master Georges would always be prompt to attend. And it is a very informal occasion you will find. They suggest you join them. If you will come with me?’
The two young cavaliers were already settled at the long table in a beamed breakfast room towards the back of the house and halfway through their meal when Joe arrived. They were still wearing their riding gear and their only concession to civility was to have removed their boots and lined them up by the door. Georges rose politely to his feet and greeted him, stepping over in his socks to the buffet to bring him coffee in a large silver pot.
‘We’ve got the place to ourselves,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Maman never comes down for breakfast — she has it in her room and appears at about ten. She’s expecting to see you then, by the way, to show you the estate and tell you her side of the story. If she hasn’t already.’
‘And your uncle Charles?’
‘He’s left to go and finish some work in the vignoble. It’s coming up to the time of the vendange and the next few days are crucial. Conferences every morning with every hoary old expert in the vicinity! Milk with that? There’s croissants if you’d like them? Boiled eggs? Ham? Baguettes? Butter from the farm? Cook’s strawberry jam?’
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