A Rather Charming Invitation
Page 31
“See, honey?” I said to Jeremy. “The links open and close manually, so I can slip a charm anywhere I want, instead of having to get a jeweler to solder it on every time I get a new piece. It’s just perfect for these.” I opened my handbag and pulled out a black felt sack with a drawstring. The saleswoman watched as I opened the bag and carefully laid out five fake Lunaire coins on the mat.
“How pretty!” she exclaimed, turning them over to admire them. “They’re coins, aren’t they? Are they all the same? Yes, they are.”
“They’re antique coins,” I said with housewifely pride.
“How nice!” she said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything like them before.”
“These are the only ones in the world,” Jeremy announced broadly, acting like a boastful hubbie. “Been in my fiancée’s family for years. There used to be more, a long time ago, but her ancestors melted the rest of ’em down for the gold. Yessir, these are the only ones in existence now.”
“They’re a wedding present,” I announced brightly. “We’re getting married soon.”
“Oh, congratulations!” the saleswoman cried. “Why don’t you try them on with the bracelet?” she said encouragingly. I attached all five. Then she helped me hook the bracelet on my wrist. With a great flourish, I held it up to the light, angling this way and that, so everyone could see the dangling, gleaming charms. I didn’t dare look directly at The Follower, but I could feel I’d gotten his attention.
“Perfect!” the saleswoman said encouragingly.
“I agree!” I proclaimed.
“We’ll take it,” Jeremy said, handing the saleswoman his credit card. She went off to ring up the sale. When she returned, she handed me a velvet box for the bracelet. I dropped the empty box in my purse, saying, “I’ll wear the bracelet. Thanks.”
We had chosen this shop not only for the bracelet, but because, right around the corner, there was a small, discreet, venerable old bank that Jeremy had already scoped out a few days ago. We quickly ducked inside, with me glancing around appraisingly, like a housewife who wants to make sure that she approves of the vault that her husband has picked out for them.
The Follower remained on the pavement, staring at us through the glass window. I got a better glimpse of him now—he was a man in his early thirties, thin, in a nondescript suit. There was something hard in his expression, something tough and distinctly at variance with his casual pose. When I glanced up, he quickly turned his face away, and lit a cigarette. Across the walkway, Monsieur Felix established himself on a park bench, pulling a sandwich out of his pocket, like any guy in the crowd.
It was cool and quiet in the bank, where a manager, who was expecting us, now greeted us. I guess The Follower assumed that we were properly distracted, so he slipped into the bank and quickly went over to the counter where the deposit slips and pens are, and he pretended to fill out a form.
“I don’t see why I can’t wear my nice bracelet now,” I said very audibly, with a fake little pout.
Jeremy replied with a rehearsed, scolding tone, “Now, darling, you promised to wait until the wedding to wear it. It will be much safer in here.”
Feigning reluctant acquiescence, I allowed Jeremy to unclasp the bracelet, with its charms attached, so that I could put it in the velvet box that the jewelry saleswoman had just given me. The bank manager, who’d momentarily stepped out to check on the vault, returned and escorted Jeremy and me into the room where all the private safe-deposit boxes are kept under double lock-and-key.
Now that we were out of sight, I took the bracelet out of the box, and slipped it in my purse; then Jeremy locked the empty jewelry box in our allotted slot, and locked it. When we returned to the lobby, The Follower was still there, waiting for us, now actually reduced to pretending to be tying his shoelace as he spied on us.
We left the bank and returned to our parked car, with the broad smiles of two people who’ve suddenly and unexpectedly fallen into clover. We even hugged and kissed, and practically dusted off our hands as if to say, There! That’s a job well done.
We drove away with the wind in our hair and The Follower on our tail. But, The Follower didn’t track us all the way back to the villa; he turned off in another direction. Apparently his boss was the sort of man who wanted to hear bad news right away. Our little performance seemed to have worked.
“Felix is gone, too,” Jeremy reported, eyeing the rearview mirror.
“The whole thing is too creepy for words,” I said.
“Now,” said Jeremy, “we wait for Drake to make the next move.”
Monsieur Felix contacted us a few days later. He pulled up in his battered black Renault, and came loping purposefully up to us. We all agreed that none of us had seen The Follower, and hopefully this meant that Drake had called him off the surveillance. But, since The Follower had vanished once before and then resurfaced, we couldn’t be sure.
“Meanwhile,” Monsieur Felix triumphantly announced, “I am happy to report that we caught a lucky break. I have found Madame Venetia’s wedding car.”
“You did! Where is it?” I squealed.
“Well, like many of the cars, it was taken out of rail service in the second World War and kept in a rail yard. Évidemment, it did a brief stint as a bordello in occupied Paris, until the Americans arrived and used it for a hospital.” He paused. “Overflow, you know, because of the war. Anyway, when the war ended, some of the cars were auctioned, and Madame Venetia’s was sold to a wealthy eccentric, who kept it in his backyard for many years, until . . .” Here Monsieur Felix’s voice became rich with pride, “A chef from Provence bought it, and turned it into a restaurant.”
“Does the restaurant still exist?” Jeremy asked hopefully.
“Bien sûr! Not only does it exist, it recently earned another gold star. It is in Vence. A village up in the hills above Nice.”
“I know where Vence is,” I cried. “It’s a pretty place where Matisse made his great stained-glass window for the church.” Monsieur Felix gave us the address and telephone number of the restaurant.
“Jeremy, we have to book a table there right now!” I said. “The only question is—will it still have the original border pattern?”
“Only one way to find out,” he said. “Provided that Monsieur Felix tells us the coast is clear.”
Monsieur Felix smiled. “I will continue to signal you via e- mail. As long as you’re not being followed, I will keep reporting that everything is OK!”
Chapter Forty
The old town of Vence sits amid the hills of Provence, looking down from its ramparts onto the other little villages below. The market square, with its beautiful fountain, was once a Roman forum. Our restaurant was farther into the countryside, considerably off the beaten path, down an old dirt road. Just when I was beginning to think we’d taken a wrong turn, we came upon a sign, painted and lettered like a vintage Orient Express poster.
We turned into the driveway, which led to a sudden clearing, where we saw what appeared to be a magical train, several cars long, that seemed as if it had somehow jumped off its coastal track, and miraculously, madly climbed up into the hills, then arrived at a dead halt. It looked exactly like its name, Le Train du Temps Perdu.
“A train from a lost time!” I marvelled.
We parked, as other diners had, in a small round parking lot encircled with white rocks. The entrance path to the restaurant was flanked by two sets of “ecologically correct” imitation railroad tracks, which ran through a front yard that was actually a wonderful herb garden. The herbs were whimsically allowed to grow between these wooden ties, as if they were weeds that had sprung up along an old, disused train track. Weeds, indeed! They were delightfully fragrant cooking herbs: thyme, basil, oregano, marjoram, borage, parsley, lavender, fennel . . . all the sunshine herbs of Provence and Liguria. There were also patches of bright-faced, edible flowers. The man who’d taken our reservation on the phone had told us that the entire menu was organic, even the wine.
Jeremy glanced at the chess tables and said longingly, “Wouldn’t mind playing a game.”
“Keep moving, buddy,” I murmured. “We’re on a mission.”
We were led through a Bar Car from an old train that once picked up travellers from transatlantic ocean liners docking in Cherbourg; and where, right now, a few nicely dressed young couples were happily clustered around an antique bar with a frosted glass mirror, decorated with needle-etched tulip designs. Next was the Kitchen Car, redone with black and red lacquer panels and abstract geometric artwork, where patrons dined on casual fare served to them at vintage kitchen tables. This was followed by a First Class Sleeper, decorated with tiger-lilies, whose bed had been replaced by one very long table for large dining parties like the family now seated there. We moved on to a big, fancy Pullman dining car, lined with forest-green leather banquettes, crimson curtains in the windows, and adorable Orient Express lamps; it was occupied by serious French diners, and a few English and American tourists who had clearly made a reverent pilgrimage here.
While we walked through all this, my historian’s nose quivered delightedly at the stunning decor and antiques, but I soon felt rising trepidation as I realized that these cars had all been overhauled, repainted and refurbished. Each bore a framed black-and-white photograph of what the original car had looked like. I held my breath as we reached the very last car on the “train”, afraid of what I might find.
The quiet, private Bridal Car had its door open, revealing that it overlooked a larger kitchen garden with rows of vegetables, salad greens and fruit trees. This car had only four tables, each seating just two people, so it was meant to be a romantic place for couples. I noticed two slender, elegant pairs of French diners in their forties and fifties, and a young couple, shyly absorbed in each other, probably honeymooners. All the napkins on theses tables had bridal white lace edging, and the plates were a soft rose color. White roses and velvety violets stood in silver vases.
Jeremy and I were seated at a nice booth tucked in a corner, with blue leather chairs and a white marble tabletop. Ordinarily, this would be a great table, so very private. It was not, however, an ideal spot for two decor-spies like us.
A waiter quickly appeared, handing us menus of a normal amount of offerings, which were nevertheless printed on the most enormous-sized menu folder that I have ever seen. He said he would return shortly to tell us the specials of the day.
“Psst,” Jeremy said from behind his leather wine list, “I didn’t see any framed photo of this original car, did you?”
“Nope,” I replied.
“Did you bring Venetia’s photograph?” he asked.
“Yes,” I whispered, ducking behind my gigantic menu, surreptitiously comparing her photo to the patterns on the walls all around us.
We were definitely in the right place. Just as Venetia had said, two of the walls were covered with pretty mirrors made of pale blue glass, decorated with opaque figures of barefoot dancers in Isadora Duncan-style tunics, holding bunches of purple grapes beneath bowers of flowers. This motif was echoed on the other two walls, which were covered with wallpaper friezes of similar dancing figures in white and blue. The marquetry was indeed Art Deco. Atop each wall was a continuous strip of painted woodwork, just beneath the moulding, running all around the Bridal Car. I squinted, trying to make out their design . . .
“Cocktail?” asked the waiter, reappearing. “We are featuring a lovely rosé champagne today by the glass. May I suggest that for your pleasure?”
“Sounds good,” Jeremy agreed hurriedly, and the waiter smiled and went away. I guess he thought that Jeremy was smitten with my charms and eager to be alone with me, like the other diners who were intent on their own private conversations, murmuring quietly. I tried peering into the mirrors to see if the wall patterns were reflected there.
Within a few minutes, I whispered, “Jeremy! Is that a cartouche over the doorway?”
“Do you think I have eyes in the back of my head?” Jeremy inquired, since he was facing one of the walls without mirrors.
“And the flowers,” I continued in a low voice. “They could be the purple moonwort.”
“Are you sure?” Jeremy asked. Then he glanced up and said, “Here comes that waiter. Better take a look at the menu and pick something to eat.”
“How can you think of food at a time like this?” I demanded.
He scanned his menu and said appreciatively, “All in the line of duty. Wow, this is excellent gastronomie. Might as well enjoy ourselves.”
So, when the waiter returned with our cocktails, we ordered the day’s special. He suggested a particularly fine red Sancerre wine to accompany it. All the while that Jeremy was handling the ordering, I kept surreptitiously trying to figure out the wall patterns.
I thought we were playing it very cool, acting like everybody else around us, but the waiter evidently noticed my eager gaze, because after he took our order, he smiled at me and said proudly, “Perhaps you’ve heard of the decor of this carriage? They say it was made for a bride. It was painted by Cocteau, in the 1930s, so the artwork has been carefully preserved just as it was.”
“Lovely,” I breathed, not allowing myself to catch Jeremy’s eye until the waiter had departed.
“Just like Venetia to fail to mention that her little artist friend was Cocteau!” Jeremy said. He reached into his pocket, pulled out something and handed it to me, under the table. It was my camera.
Startled, I took it. “Go ahead, shoot the cartouche,” he said.
“Are you mad? We’ll look like a couple of awful tourists and they’ll throw us out,” I hissed.
“You want to crack this case or not?” Jeremy asked. “Just do it fast. I’ll go stand under the doorway, and you pretend you adore me and want a photo, and you can shoot the cartouche.”
“I do adore you,” I said distractedly, “but . . .”
Jeremy got up, went to the door, turned round and smiled sheepishly at me. A few other diners looked up momentarily, then chose to ignore such gauche creatures as us. I snapped away, but my lens couldn’t pull that darned cartouche into a close-up. So, I had to get up from the table, and move closer.
The waiter returned, sized up the situation and, as if hoping to put an end to it, said, “Shall I take a picture of you together?” I had no choice but to hand him my camera, and go pose foolishly alongside Jeremy, while the waiter wasted the last precious bit of my camera’s battery power on us two dopes.
“Swell,” I muttered when I returned to the table. “I guess we’re insulting the chef.”
“Quiet,” Jeremy said. “I memorized it. Give me something to write on.”
I quickly tore a sheet from my notepad and handed it to him. Meanwhile, I sketched the other designs I’d seen all around the room, which I now identified as swans, putti and moonwort. So, when the waiter arrived with our food, there we were, like two kids, earnestly doing art class.
Well, you try to surreptitiously copy a whole four walls of pattern, whilst dining on an incredible meal. Somehow, we managed to get one wall after the amuse bouche of lightly breaded and baked oysters with a lemon and caper sauce; then we copied the second wall while devouring a fish c
ourse of turbot baked with fennel and black olives, served with just-plucked-from-the-garden skinny French string beans; and we got the third wall while feasting on delicate roasted hen, with potato croquette and a garden salad of greens topped by tiny pink, blue, purple and yellow edible flowers; and the fourth wall while nibbling on a dessert of fresh fig tarte with lavender honey and caramel ice cream. It was the kind of meal which, as my father says, “One remembers forever, into one’s dotage, when you have no teeth left, and you’re nodding by the fireplace in your robe and slippers.”
By the time the check arrived, I was fully sated, and I had all those images and Latin lettering swirling in my head. I only hoped our notes would make sense when we got home. We rose, thanked our gracious hosts, and marched down the front walk, past its railroad ties and fragrant garden.
“Wow,” I said as we climbed into the car. “If that’s how they ate on the train bleu, why on earth did they ever invent airplanes?”
“A meal like this should be followed by a nice nap in the garden,” Jeremy observed sleepily. He checked his mobile to see if the coast was clear. The message from Monsieur Felix was the same. OK!
Chapter Forty-one
When we returned to the villa, we printed out the new photos and notes, and added them to the other ones on the dining-table jigsaw-puzzle of clues.
“You were right about the old top border,” Jeremy said, impressed. “There’s the cartouche, the swans, the cupids, and the moonwort. Look. It matches up perfectly with the cut-off bits in the main body of the tapestry. Here’s the Latin from the new cartouche.”
He consulted his notes:
SEQUERE VIRUM QUEM IN MATRIMONIUM LOCAVISTI, DOMUS POST TE, VIA PRO TE.
“Let’s see if I can get that into English,” Jeremy muttered, scribbling.
When he was done, however, he still looked puzzled. “You’re not going to like it, because it’s just more of that obedient wife stuff.”