“Thanks for your time, but we didn’t find anything we can use in our newspaper.”
“Told you so,” he smirked. “If you ever need celebrity photos, give me a shout. I’m the best in the biz.”
“Count on it,” Agatha lied, fuming. “You can totally count on it!”
They left the apartment without as much as a good-bye. On the landing, Dash flashed an encouraging smile and tapped on the rims of his glasses. “I recorded them all, one by one,” he exclaimed. “As soon as I upload them onto the EyeNet, we’ll be able to zoom in on details all over the restaurant!”
They ducked into a cybercafe with WiFi, where they could synch up UM60’s files with the photographs. They sat in a quiet corner, checking each photo against the list of guests and the seating plan. It took more than half an hour to go through them all, but the result was even better than they could have hoped.
“We’ve found three people who could be called a ‘red rose,’” Agatha said at long last, satisfied with their work. “Who would you like to start with, colleagues?”
Dash picked the most suspicious “red rose” on the list, a boxer called Gerard Clouseau. “I don’t trust his face,” he said, looking at the photo. “In the file, it says he trains at a boxing gym in Montparnasse.”
Agatha smiled. “That’s on the Left Bank, all the way across town . . . What are we waiting for? Let’s go track him down!”
“Not another long tunnel,” grumbled Dash, holding on to the triple-branched support pole as their Metro train burrowed underneath the River Seine. “As if taking a train under the English Channel wasn’t bad enough . . . I’m starting to get claustrophobic!”
Short and petite, Agatha was pressed among a crowd of tourists and commuters. She craned her neck toward the window, observing the flashing lights of the mysterious Paris underground with rapt fascination. “Did you know that there’s a whole other world under Paris?” she said. “I just opened one of my memory drawers and a book my father used to read as a bedtime story popped into my mind. It’s called Les Miserables. Parts of it are set in the vast network of sewers and catacombs under the city streets.”
Even in a tight spot like this, pressed against a woolly sleeve clutching a loaf of French bread, Agatha’s imagination turned toward stories. But if books were her favorite subject, the same could not be said for her cousin.
“Uh . . . cat . . . catacombs?” Dash was known for his dislike of cats, especially Watson.
“Catacombs are ancient underground tombs. Nothing to do with cats!” Agatha laughed, then looked at Chandler, who stood by her side like a bodyguard. “Let’s get back to our suspect. Could you please summarize the information in his file?”
“Certainly, Miss Agatha,” the butler replied promptly.
Ignoring Watson, who was stretching out a paw from inside his carrier, Chandler gave a brief biography of Gerard Clouseau. Twenty-seven years old, originally from a tough neighborhood in the port of Marseilles, he was a bit of a bad boy with several convictions for brawling. His talent for boxing had probably saved him from a life of violent crime.
Nonetheless, as the three Londoners soon found out, he still had a temper.
As soon as he saw the small group enter the gym, the young boxer stopped trading punches with his sparring partner, leaning against the ropes with a swaggering air.
“We’re private detectives, and we want you to tell us what happened last night at the Jules Verne restaurant. It’s a homicide case,” Agatha announced without mincing words.
“I thought I smelled cops,” sneered the boxer. “And I’ve never liked cops, especially runt cops like you . . . Since when did the police start recruiting kids? Why don’t you brats run along and play instead of interrupting my training?” Gerard Clouseau was wiry and muscular. He had tattoos running up both arms, ending at the neck with a thorny rose. A red rose. He turned his back on them, strutting back into the ring. “I didn’t kill anyone. End of story.”
Agatha sighed, turning toward Dash and Chandler, who was petting the increasingly restless Watson.
“Just the attitude we’d expect from a man who’s got something to hide,” Dash whispered into her ear. “At school, they taught us to pay attention to a suspect’s first statement,” he added, his voice trembling. “If you ask me, he did it. He’s got a red rose tattooed on his neck, a violent past, and he’s hiding something for sure . . . we just have to flush him out!”
Agatha glanced around the gym. Several young men were training with jump ropes while others pummeled punching bags with red boxing gloves.
Her face lit up and she called out to Gerard Clouseau, waving her hand. She’d thought of the perfect way to capture his interest.
“What do you want now?” roared the boxer. “You’re messing up my training!”
Agatha flashed him a mischievous smile. “You call this training?” she goaded him. “How would you like to box with a real champion?”
“Who, that skinny punk with the weird sunglasses?” laughed the boxer, puffing up his sweaty chest. “Come on, get a grip. He’s a wimp!”
Dash’s hair stood on end. “Uh-oh . . . did I hear that right? I . . . what are you trying to do to me?” he babbled.
Just then, Chandler stood up to his full height. Handing Watson back to his young mistress, he loosened the bow tie on his tuxedo. “Leave it to me, Master Dash,” he declared firmly.
An elderly attendant went to get Chandler some gloves and led him to the locker room. The butler was ready in minutes, wearing boxing gear for the second time that day. It had been years since his last professional bout in the ring.
News of the challenge spread around the gym and a crowd of onlookers gathered around the ring, ready to bet on the hometown favorite.
At the sound of the bell, Gerard Clouseau began bobbing and weaving around the butler, whose movements were solid and slow.
A pair of lightning-fast lefts caught Chandler in the side, followed by a well-aimed right hook to the head. A series of jabs and uppercuts followed, which the butler took without batting an eyelid.
“You’re a dinosaur,” taunted the younger boxer. “You’ll never get close enough to even touch me!”
He spoke too soon. With one sudden, devastating thrust of his arm, Chandler punched the younger boxer square on the jaw. With a single blow, Clouseau collapsed onto the mat, out cold.
Dash and Agatha, who had been holding their breath in fear that Chandler would be hurt, climbed into the ring to congratulate him. The rest of the gym burst into applause and laughter. It was the fastest bout anyone could remember.
But what now? How were they going to wake Gerard Clouseau?
The task was taken on by the elderly attendant, who dragged the tattooed boxer into the locker room and stuck his head under the cold water.
“Wh-wh-wh-what happened?” stammered the muscular young man.
“You were schooled, that’s what happened,” replied the attendant good-naturedly. “These people want to ask you some questions. Think you still can string a sentence together?”
“Eh? What? What happened to that ugly bulldog?” asked the boxer, confused by Agatha and her companions. “Oh, man, there he is! Ask me whatever you want, I give up!”
Agatha pulled out the Jules Verne blueprints, pointing to a table near the victim’s. “Were you sitting here last night?” she asked drily.
He confirmed with a groan, pressing an ice pack against his swelling eye. “Yeah, my manager took me out for dinner. We were toasting the boxing tour I’m doing in South America,” he said. “But I swear I had nothing to do with the murder of that nasty Russian!”
Agatha rested her chin on crossed hands and asked, curious, “Why didn’t you like him? How well did you know each other?”
“No . . . ouch . . . I never laid eyes on him before last night.”
Agatha snapped her fingers, her eyes lightin
g up. “Of course! I’ve studied the guidebooks, and if memory serves me correctly, there’s a private elevator that goes directly to the restaurant on the second level. You had a fight with him on the way up, am I right?”
“H-how did you know that?”
Gerard Clouseau was even more shocked than Dash and Chandler, who already knew about the girl’s incredible intuition.
“You booked tables at the same time; therefore it’s logical that you would have ridden up in the same elevator,” said Agatha. “What was said during that four-hundred-foot ride?”
The boxer shook his head. “I wanted to punch him out,” he admitted, still angry. “That moron got up in my face about what I was wearing: sleeveless top, chains, baggy pants. He told me I looked like a rapper, that tourists were spoiling the atmosphere of the world’s most elegant restaurant!” he growled. “This Russian guy has the nerve to call me a tourist? It was an insult, and I wanted to make him pay.” He clenched his fists, groaning in pain. “But my manager held me back. That was the only time I spoke to that Renko dude.”
“Just as I thought,” Agatha said with a sigh. She thanked Clouseau, gingerly shaking his bandaged hand, and led the way to the door.
Dash was right on her heels, saying stubbornly, “He did it! I know he did! Why don’t we grill him some more?”
Chandler interjected calmly, “That was a dead end, young sir.”
“Why?” cried the student detective. “He’s got a red rose tattooed on his neck, and a fight in the elevator is an unshakable motive!”
“Dearest cousin, did he seem like the type who’d use poison to settle an argument?” asked Agatha. “He didn’t even know Boris Renko. He’s just a street fighter with a puffed-up ego. I hope Chandler’s right hook took him down a notch.”
When they got back on the Metro, Dash sprawled across two empty seats. “We’re wasting so much time!” he exclaimed. “My whole detective career is at stake!”
It was almost five o’clock.
“Calm down, Dash,” his cousin encouraged him. “I’ve just opened one of my memory drawers, and I recall that in the encyclopedia of poisons, there’s a substance that produces an effect similar to fainting and is lethal after a couple of hours. Strychnine.”
“Strychnine?” Dash repeated. “What is it?”
“Rat poison, Master Dash,” the butler explained. “I scatter it in the Mistery House cellar once a week because Watson treats rodents like playmates.”
Dash raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “You want to go to the Eiffel Tower to see if there are traces of strychnine in the restaurant?”
“Actually, I was thinking we should pay a visit to our next suspect,” replied Agatha, tucking a stray lock of hair away. “Could you set your spy glasses to search for traces of strychnine?”
“Uh . . . I think so!”
Dash pulled out the EyeNet Plus and pushed a sequence of buttons, causing the LEDs on the glasses to blink. “Great! There’s a ‘Search Poisons’ function. I’m setting it to scan for any toxic substances,” he said with renewed energy. “Who are we going to see next?”
Agatha gave him a little smile. “The next stop is the hotel Coeur Amoureux, where I hope we’ll flush out our red rose,” she replied with a wink.
The majestic Avenue des Champs-Élysées was lined with cafés, movie theaters, and upscale boutiques. Holiday lights sparkled on manicured trees. Despite all this glamour, Parisians scurried past wrapped up in coats or under the shelter of umbrellas, their eyes never leaving the pavement.
Dash was trying to see where he was going by pushing his dark glasses high on his nose and tipping his head back to peer underneath. He was afraid of slipping on the sheets of ice that reflected the holiday lights like broken mirrors. “Do you think the murderer still has traces of poison on him?” he asked as they walked. The late afternoon was so cold that every breath transformed into a small cloud of vapor.
“I doubt it, but if he thinks he’s safe, he might have the bottle in a drawer or some other hiding place,” Agatha hypothesized. “Strychnine is a fairly common substance, but in this case, it would be irrefutable proof of the crime.”
Chandler nodded seriously. Then he heard a ringtone in his pocket and fished out a cell phone. “Miss Agatha, there’s a call for you,” he said.
Agatha’s parents had bought her a cell phone, but since she preferred printed words to technology, Agatha often left it with the butler. She held the phone to her ear, which was numb with cold.
“Oh, it’s you!” she exclaimed happily, then added, “Of course, yes . . . a tube of cobalt blue . . . okay, sure. We should be back in time for dinner!” She handed the phone back to Chandler.
“Was that my brother?” Dash sounded surprised. “I didn’t think he’d have a phone in that ramshackle studio of his . . .”
“Actually, he was calling from his neighbor’s kitchen,” she said with a laugh. “Do you see any art supply stores around here? In Montmartre, there was one on every corner. I should have remembered then!”
As they surveyed the shops, they spotted a glowing sign for the hotel Coeur Amoureux a few blocks from the Arc de Triomphe and immediately forgot about Gaston’s request.
They sat on a bench to strategize. After a rapid exchange of ideas, they agreed that Agatha and Chandler would do the questioning, while Dash did his best not to get caught while searching for strychnine.
Dash was the first to step inside the hotel’s plush lobby. It smelled of lavender and was decorated with white furniture, vases of flowers, lace curtains, and pink armchairs covered with velvety cushions.
The boy stopped short on the heart-shaped rug in the lobby. “Uh, um, what’s going on here?” he asked, confused.
“The Coeur Amoureux caters to honeymooners,” replied Agatha, joining him. “What did you expect from a hotel called ‘The Lovers’ Heart’ with a neon sign covered in flashing hearts?”
Chandler raised an eyebrow as though he disapproved of the glitzy atmosphere.
Agatha approached the front desk. The lady working at reception wore a candy-pink dress and a necklace of violet pearls.
“Bon soir, Madame. We’re looking for John Radcliffe and Marlene Dupont,” Agatha said in her most charming voice.
“Are you friends of the bride and groom?” asked the lady with a big smile. She picked up the intercom. “Shall I let them know you’ve arrived?”
“Oh no, we’d like to surprise them,” lied Agatha.
The lady pointed at the staircase and said, “Room two zero four, second floor.”
“Thank goodness it’s not the sixth for once!” Dash exclaimed.
Moments later they knocked on the door.
“Marlene, is that you?” called an anxious voice from inside. “Oh, my love, I knew you’d come back to me!”
They heard hasty footsteps, a key turning in the lock. A man in his thirties threw open the door. He had dark blond hair and a crumpled but elegant suit. His face flooded with disappointment. “Who are you?” asked John Radcliffe, scratching his stubbly chin.
Agatha took the situation in hand. “We work for a private detective agency,” she replied. “We’d like to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind.”
Radcliffe went pale and sat on the edge of the sofa, gripping the arm. “Did something terrible happen to Marlene?”
“It’s not about Marlene,” said Agatha. “May we step inside for a moment?”
He invited them in with a hasty nod.
During their last Metro trip, they had studied the couple’s file. John Radcliffe was a brilliant New York attorney, while his pretty girlfriend, Marlene Dupont, lived on the outskirts of Paris, where she designed and sold hats. They had met six months earlier in Marlene’s shop during one of the charming lawyer’s business trips to Paris.
“Is it about the murder on the Eiffel Tower?” he whispered. “
TV stations all over the world are following the investigation.”
Before Agatha could reply, Dash grabbed her attention, pointing repeatedly at the bedside table.
Leaning against a Cartier jewelry box was a single red rose, its long stem wrapped in gold foil.
It was identical to the one in the photo.
In a well-timed move, the butler positioned himself next to Radcliffe so Dash could observe the room with his special glasses.
“Mr. Radcliffe,” Agatha began, “could you tell us what happened last night at the restaurant?”
The lawyer rubbed his forehead. “Everything was just perfect,” he sighed. “Marlene had booked a table at the Jules Verne to celebrate my return to Paris. It was wonderful, better than ever. We were gazing down at the city lights, holding hands. Unfortunately, after dinner I was so caught up in the romantic atmosphere that . . .”
Agatha eyed the Cartier box on the bedside table; it was just the right size for an engagement ring. “You asked her to marry you?” she queried.
He raised his head suddenly, his eyes shiny with tears. “It was the perfect occasion,” he lamented, more and more upset. “I gave her a red rose as a token of my love, and she blushed and lowered her gaze. Then I presented the ring. Marlene went quiet and just stared around the restaurant. She seemed overwrought. She told me that she wasn’t ready for marriage . . . we had been together for such a short time. She got up and ran away in tears. She was so distraught that she bumped into a waiter and two other guests . . .”
“Do you remember what time it was?” Chandler interrupted.
“It was nine o’clock on the dot,” replied Radcliffe with confidence. “I couldn’t possibly forget it, because a split second later I was dazzled by the lights of the Eiffel Tower. You know, the ones that come on every hour with a big flash . . .”
Agatha had read a detailed description of the tower’s famous lights. She nodded, stroking her nose. John’s story seemed plausible, especially since he seemed so heartbroken. But she wanted to dig just a little more. “What did you do after Marlene ran out so abruptly?” she asked, pulling out the blueprints to double-check the position of their table.
The Eiffel Tower Incident Page 3
