Monsieur Pamplemousse & the Secret Mission (Monsieur Pamplemousse Series)

by Michael Bond

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, trying to jog the other’s memory before the conversation took a turn. ‘I was away at the time.’

  Bernard gazed gloomily at his glass and then took a copious draught. ‘I still don’t really know. I mean I don’t know what came over me. It was during that hot spell we had earlier in the year. That didn’t help. I’d had a large lunch. That didn’t help either. I started to feel rather strange soon after I set off and after I’d driven about sixty or seventy kilometres it got so that I could hardly stand it.’

  ‘What sort of strange?’

  ‘Well, that’s just it. Nothing like it has ever happened to me before … at least, not in the same way. I mean … sort of …’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse watched in surprise as Bernard started shrugging his shoulders and winking, whilst at the same time emitting a series of shrill whist­ling noises.

  ‘You mean … you felt like une coucherie? A little diversion?’

  Bernard blushed. ‘You can say that again. I tell you, I don’t usually go in for that sort of thing, but if une fille de plaisir had come along at that moment I don’t know what I would have done. Well, I do … I was beginning to feel quite desperate. More than that …’

  ‘More?’ Monsieur Pamplemousse raised his eye­brows enquiringly.

  Bernard blushed again and then mopped his brow. He poured out another Kir. ‘I felt as though I could have taken on all comers, if you’ll pardon the expres­sion. I felt like the prize stallion at the Cadre Noir. Unfortunately, I was miles from anywhere. At least, I thought I was miles from anywhere.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse found himself hoping Bernard had a good lawyer. If he found himself in the dock up against a prosecuting counsel who meant business he wouldn’t stand a chance.

  ‘So what happened then?’

  ‘I parked by the side of the road and went into a wood meaning to try and sleep it off. I’d put it down to too much drink. I was in such a state by then I sort of – well, it sounds a bit silly talking about it across a table like this – but I got lost. I must have been going round and round in circles. That was when I heard all these voices.’

  ‘Voices?’ Monsieur Pamplemousse reached for the bottle. His throat felt unaccountably dry. ‘What sort of voices?’

  ‘Girls’ voices. I’d parked near a school. A convent, actually, which makes it sound even worse. You know what convent girls are supposed to be like. They were on some sort of ramble. I bumped into them in a clearing and …’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They say I started behaving in a funny kind of way. Like … beckoning to them …’

  ‘Beckoning?’

  Bernard nodded. ‘I can actually remember doing it in a hazy sort of way. First of all some big blonde sixth-former came over.’ He paused in order to emit another series of whistles. ‘I think she must have been in charge. Then the others followed.’

  ‘Beckoning doesn’t sound a very major crime,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse thoughtfully. ‘I don’t see what all the fuss is about. A good lawyer …’

  ‘It depends,’ said Bernard, slowly and carefully, ‘on what you beckon with. What’s annoying is that I’m sure most of them weren’t really bothered. They seemed to be enjoying it – the big blonde one especially – she started to undo her blouse. Then one of the juniors began to cry. Now they’ve all ganged up on me. It’s thirty against one – I don’t stand a chance. Besides, one of them had a camera. Blown up and in colour it won’t look good in court. The Mother Superior definitely has it in for me.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse stayed to finish the bottle of wine and then at a suitable moment took his leave. The visit had done little to raise his spirits; rather the reverse. As he drove off Bernard was busy removing his new rose from its container. From all he’d said he would have plenty of time to nurture it during the coming months. No wonder the Director had talked about having to pull strings.

  At Illiers-Combray he stopped as a matter of course at 4 rue du Docteur-Proust. Like Monet, Proust had enjoyed what might be called ‘simple food’. Sole meunière had been one of his favourites. Scrambled eggs another. He wondered if he had followed Escoffier’s advice and speared a clove of garlic with the fork before making them.

  On the door there was a sign: ‘Hours open 14.15–17.00. Next tour 16.00’. He looked at his watch. Just too late.

  In the square opposite the church with its forbidding interior, there was a shop selling madeleines, shell-shaped as they always had been after the shells pilgrims to Santiago-de-Compostela had worn in their hats. He toyed with the idea of buying some, but his mind was on other things. It was like starting off a case in the old days. He needed to put himself in the right mood. Sometimes that took days, during which time he knew he wasn’t always good to live with.

  Pommes Frites, dozing off his lunch in the car, opened one eye sleepily as Monsieur Pamplemousse climbed back in.

  Abandoning all thoughts of his article for the time being, Monsieur Pamplemousse put his foot hard down for the rest of the journey. The article could wait. Proust had died in 1922, Monet in 1926 – two years before he himself had been born. Zola in 1902. His current problem was of the present and suddenly he was anxious to get to grips with it. If he arrived at St. Georges-sur-Lie in good time he would be able to take Pommes Frites for a pre-dinner stroll round the village so that they could get the feel of it.

  After Illiers he drove through kilometre after kilo­metre of open hedgeless farmland between flower-decorated villages with only the occasional black-faced sheep – the Bleu de Maine of the area – to watch him pass. The very monotony gave him time to think. No wonder the area had a high suicide rate. The warning bells were growing louder; more to do with things that hadn’t been said rather than those which had. Gradually the scenery became more wooded again. Here and there a thatched cottage dotted the landscape and the road wound past half-hidden boires – hollow dried-up areas the Loire would flood later in the year.

  St. Georges was on him almost before he realised it. First a farm building with a faded Dubonnet adver­tisement painted on the side, then another with an equally faded sign: ‘Hôtel du Paradis 200 m.’

  As he turned into a square he found himself facing the hotel itself. Stone steps, grey and time-worn, led up to an oak door open to the street. At first floor level there was a long balcony. To the right there was a small garden with climbing roses against the wall and a few tables and chairs set out under a yew tree; doubtless in its time it had watched over many a wedding party or christening celebration. Nailed to its trunk was a notice: PARKING. Below it an arrow pointed towards the back of the hotel.

  Driving through the square he spotted one of the new automatic Sanisettes which were already com­monplace in Paris. It had been placed not far from the hotel dining-room, its entrance door discreetly facing the other way. Not discreetly enough apparently, for someone had already sprayed the word NON in large black letters on the outside.

  Reflecting that the invention of the aerosol was a mixed blessing, he looked around. Peace reigned supreme. There was hardly a soul about. Window boxes filled with begonias and periwinkles adorned the window ledges of houses to his left, geraniums and nasturtiums overflowed on to the cobblestones. To the right there was a sprinkling of shops; a boucherie, a droguerie – its brooms and plastic bowls spilling out over the narrow pavement, a bureau de tabac and a small pharmacie, all dozing in the afternoon sun.

  In a side street leading down to the right of the hotel there was a grocery store and next to that on a corner, the boulangerie; beyond that a cluster of farm buildings and a line of weeping willows showing where the river must be, then open country again.

  As he turned into the hotel car park he felt rather than saw a movement in the far corner near a row of stables, as if someone had dodged out of sight.

  There was one other car; a Renault 14 with a 75 Paris number plate. As he drew up behind it he noticed its windows were covered in steam. Either someone was boiling a kettle ins
ide, which seemed unlikely, or else … even as the thought entered his mind a hand reached up and rubbed a patch clear on the back window. A moment later a woman’s head appeared in the hole. Her face was flushed, her hair awry, her lipstick smudged. She looked as though she had been pulled through a hedge backwards, pulled through for a reason which was not hard to fathom.

  She looked somewhat taken aback as she focused her gaze on to Monsieur Pamplemousse not more than a couple of metres away; even more so when she caught sight of Pommes Frites staring unblinkingly from the passenger seat.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse raised his hat and then backed politely away, parking as far as he could from the other car. His mind was racing. Once again the Director’s parting words came back to him, only this time more clearly. Something clicked in his mind. The warning bells were now much louder.

  Signalling Pommes Frites to follow him he made his way out of the car park towards a telephone kiosk he’d noticed on a corner near the square. As they passed a lane at the side of the boulangerie he saw the doors were open; no doubt to let the heat from the ovens out. A blue Renault van was parked nearby. He nodded to a bearded man in white overalls who was watching him from the doorway, but it wasn’t acknowledged. Instead the man turned and went inside.

  He dialled his office number. ‘Véronique … Pamplemousse here. Give me Monsieur le Directeur, please.’

  There was a pause. A long pause. He got ready for the encounter to come.

  ‘I’m sorry, Monsieur Pamplemousse. Monsieur le Directeur says to tell you he left early.’ The voice at the other end sounded aggrieved on his behalf. It was the voice of one who did not take kindly to repeating so palpable a falsehood to someone she knew. He decided not to make an issue of it and compound her embar­rassment.

  ‘Never mind. Do you have Bernard’s telephone number?’

  There was another pause. Shorter this time. ‘He has changed his number. It is now ex-directory.’

  ‘It is most important.’

  ‘Do you have a pencil?’

  He wrote it down and murmured his thanks.

  ‘How is your aunt, Monsieur Pamplemousse?’

  ‘It is hard to say at this moment in time. I am reserving judgment.’

  ‘If there is anything else I can do for you …’ He repeated his thanks and then hung up.

  Bernard sounded slightly out of breath. Doubtless he was still in the garden.

  ‘I will not keep you. I have just one question to ask. It is to do with your misfortune. Tell me where you had lunch that day.’

  The reply confirmed his worst suspicions. The meal he’d eaten in St. Georges-sur-Lie had obviously left a deep impression on Bernard.

  ‘It was one of the worst I can remember. A little place not far from Saumur. The chief asked me to call in there, God knows why …’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse allowed the voice to drone on, but his mind was hardly on the conversation as he stared out at the toilet on the other side of the square. For two pins, if he’d had an aerosol he would have added the Director’s name to its concrete façade. How could anyone be so two-faced, so … so … Words failed him.

  ‘Thank you, Bernard … you too …’

  He paused as a thought struck him. ‘Take care – and Bernard, I cannot promise, but if it is at all possible, if all goes well, you understand – I may be able to help you with your problem. I will be in touch. Au revoir. I must go now. I have another call to make.’

  He stood for a moment lost in thought, then he picked up the phone and inserted another coin in the box.

  ‘It’s me again … Pamplemousse. There is something else you can do for me. Several things, in fact.’

  If Véronique was surprised to hear his voice again she didn’t register it; his list of requirements drew no comment.

  ‘I will do my best, Monsieur Pamplemousse.’

  ‘Can you address them to me care of Poste Restante, Tours, and mark them urgent.’

  ‘Oui, Monsieur Pamplemousse.’

  ‘When I get back, Véronique, I will give you a large tin of rillettes. It will, if I have my way, be made not from the pigs of Angers, but from Monsieur le Directeur’s own flesh and bones.’

  Replacing the receiver before the other had time to reply, he came out into the sunshine again and gazed up at the Hôtel du Paradis.

  Still waters indeed! Deep, dark, muddy, blacker than black waters more like it; waters thick with mire. No wonder Michelin hadn’t seen fit to award the hotel a red rocking chair; by the sound of it a red mattress would have been more to the point.

  Pommes Frites followed the direction of his master’s gaze, taking in the ivy covered walls and the dining-room to the left of the entrance, its tables already set for dinner. He knew a good hotel when he saw one. There would be steaks; rich, succulent steaks, red and oozing with juice; liver, and bones – lots of fresh, juicy bones to gnaw. He couldn’t wait to get at them.

  Together they made their way towards the front door, each busy with his own thoughts. Their steps reflected their mood. Pommes Frites’ were jaunty and full of anticipation. Monsieur Pamplemousse’s, on the other hand, were grim and purposeful; they were the steps of a man with a mission; a man who might not as yet know quite where that mission would take him but, come what may, no one was going to stop him completing it. The saving of Bernard was rapidly taking precedence over the saving of the Hôtel du Paradis.

  3

  DINNER FOR TWO

  Breathing heavily after his exertions with a towel, Monsieur Pamplemousse paused and gazed dis­believingly at a bidet which stood below and slightly forward of the washbasin in his bathroom. A mirror above the basin reflected Pommes Frites peering round the open door leading to the bedroom. He, too, was registering disbelief. Disbelief tinged with growing concern was written large all over his face as he watched his master slide the bidet out on its rails and remove, one by one, and in the reverse order in which they had been carefully placed ready for dinner, underpants, a shirt, trousers and a bedraggled pair of socks. Pommes Frites did not wag his tail. He sensed it was not a tail-wagging occasion.

  Also reflected in the glass was the mirror image of the obligatory card on the back of the bathroom door giving the number of the room and the price, par nuit, par personne, together with a list of the various facilities it included. In this case the chambre was numéro un, and apart from a grand lit and a balcon, it included a salle de bains containing a bain, a lavabo and a bidet. Petit déjeuner was twenty francs extra; chiens fifteen.

  The Hôtel du Paradis boasted four other bedrooms offering between them a choice of lavabo and bidet, douche and lavabo, W.C. and bidet, or just a douche and bidet. But in none of them was it possible to enjoy all five facilities at the same time.

  In the end, so great had been his desire for a long and relaxing bath after the journey, Monsieur Pample­mousse had chosen numéro un, above the dining-room and facing the square. It had seemed well worth the extra twenty francs a night and if the worst came to the worst he could always make use of the automatic toilet in the square outside. Now he was beginning to regret his choice.

  Not only was the room, with its hideously unfor­gettable flowered wallpaper, one of the most depres­singly uncomfortable he had encountered in a long time, filled with dust-ridden sporting trophies and furnished with bizarre examples of bygone carpentry handed down from another era, the plumbing in the salle de bains had to be seen to be believed.

  Undecided looking pipes emerged from the un­likeliest of places and hovered before setting off in various unexpected directions. Some were sawn-off and plugged; others disappeared into yet more holes in the wall never to reappear again. The one thing they all had in common was the fact that they had been installed by someone possessed of an unswerving belief in the adage that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line; which gave rise to an effect not unlike that of the engine-room of an early submarine; cramped and dangerous. Taking a bath had not been an enjoyable experience. The only savi
ng grace was a heater in the middle of the wall. Operated by a cord switch, it had been installed with a blind disregard for the laws of safety, probably by the same hand respon­sible for the plumbing, but its warm glow offered a welcome contrast to the rapidly cooling water which emerged from the tap marked CHAUD.

  All of which wouldn’t have been so bad, but when he went to clean his teeth in the washbasin, scalding hot water from an entirely different system gushed forth from a tap marked FROID and made his bristles go soggy with surprise.

  But the unkindest cut of all happened when he emptied the basin and discovered that for some strange reason the waste pipe went via the bidet. The one bright spot was that he hadn’t been sitting on it at the time. Getting his clothes wet was bad enough, but clothes could be dried and ironed. He shuddered to think of the suffering that might have been caused to his bare and sensitive flesh had it been in the path of the same water that had practically melted the handle of his toothbrush.

  What particularly grieved him was the fact that the trousers were his special working ones; the pair with a secret compartment in the right leg – a modification of Madame Pamplemousse’s which enabled him to con­ceal his notebook beneath the folds of a table-cloth while making out his reports. Thankfully the notebook itself was still on the bed where he’d left it. He had a feeling he would be making good use of it before his stay was out.

  Dressed once again in the clothes he’d worn for the journey, he crossed and opened the French windows leading to the balcony. The square was deserted; the few shops closed for the day. Below him and a little to one side stood the Sanisette. Its concrete façade looked slightly out of place alongside the other buildings, but no doubt in time it would become an accepted part of the scene.