Murder on French Leave Read online

  ‘His mother’s gone to the country. He was invited too, but he didn’t fancy it. He doesn’t much fancy being alone in their flat, either, so we thought the best thing would be for him to come here. He can sleep on the floor, if it’s okay with you.’

  ‘Oh, perfectly,’ I agreed. ‘The only thing is, he may be rather uncomfortable. I don’t think these French floors were really made for sleeping on.’

  ‘I’ll be okay,’ Jonathan mumbled, in his usual ebullient fashion.

  ‘Where’s Adela gone?’ I asked, as Ellen and I laid out cushions and coats on the slithery parquet.

  ‘To the Müllers’ place in Normandy. The Frau rang up at lunch-time and made a great point of it.’

  ‘Why didn’t Jonathan want to go? I thought it was so plushy there? I’m sure he’d have been much more comfortable than with this lot.’

  ‘Part of it is, but they’re only halfway through the conversions. Jonathan has to sleep in some dreary bit of the stables. It’s miles away from the house, and I think he’s a bit nervous, actually. Besides, there’s another reason why he hates going there. That Doctor Müller is an awful drag.’

  ‘Really? He struck me as a rather cuddlesome old party, except when he gets behind the steering-wheel.’

  ‘That’s only his act. The driving Müller is the real one. Jono says he’s a fantastic sadist and bully, so he tries to keep out of his way as much as possible, and who can blame him?’

  ‘Who, indeed?’ I agreed, making a neat job of folding the sheet over my red velvet evening cloak.

  Nine

  At daybreak on Sunday while the juveniles slumbered on, the even tenor of our days took another beating, in the form of a telephone call from my cousin Toby. He was speaking from Cherbourg.

  ‘What are you doing in Cherbourg?’ I asked.

  ‘A curious question! If you must know, I am making a very expensive telephone call to a half-wit in Paris.’

  ‘I beg your pardon. I should have said: how did you get to Cherbourg?’

  ‘On an ocean liner. I didn’t get your cable, by the way.’

  ‘I’ve sent so many cables. Which one didn’t you get?’

  ‘The one about my opening night. It was last Thursday. Not even a postcard.’

  ‘If you’ve come all the way to Cherbourg to tell me that,’ I said, ‘I have news for you.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t. I had this insane idea that it might be better to travel on a French liner, instead of that rolling Odeon they carried me out on.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Very slightly. Hardly worth the bother, though, when you consider where it has landed me.’

  I asked him how the first night had gone and, between all the grousings, there were hints that he was not wholly displeased. Apparently, the play had got a rapturous reception and advance bookings were rocketing. All of which, he explained, was further proof of the total lack of discrimination of American audiences, since, conceivably, no worse acted or directed piece had reached the stage within living memory.

  ‘How’s Ellen?’ he then enquired.

  ‘Fine, just fine. I’d put her on the line, only she’s not awake yet.’

  ‘I was wondering if I was going to see you?’

  ‘Ob, certainly, if you feel like coming into Paris. I’m afraid we can’t offer you a bed and the floor space is a little crowded at present, but . . .’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t thinking of that,’ he assured me hastily. ‘I hate Paris and I’m catching a boat home tomorrow. There seems to be some kind of ferry service. I thought you might all drive up here for lunch.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ I said doubtfully. ‘My geography is not very hot, but it’s a hell of a way, isn’t it?’

  ‘Haven’t you got a car?’

  I explained that the studios had provided me with one for the travelling to work and that I had a separate arrangement with the driver for using it privately, adding:

  ‘But this is Sunday.’

  ‘I know that; it is here, too.’

  ‘I mean, he may not be available. He’s probably taking the wife and little ones to la plage and la mer.’

  ‘There’s plenty of mer here. Rather too much, as it happens. But still, I see what you mean. Why not ask him? Failing that, there must be other ways of hiring a car in Paris?’

  ‘I’ll go into conference with Robin,’ I said, ‘and ring you back.’

  More than an hour had passed before I was able to do so, mainly owing to that particular brand of inertia and procrastination which is liable to overtake any group of people, when required to make decisions on Sunday morning.

  Robin was unenthusiastic about the project, which he rightly envisaged as both expensive and exhausting, but was nevertheless prepared to sink his own wishes in favour of the majority. Ellen was eager to go, but dubious about leaving Jonathan on his own. After much entreaty, Jonathan ungraciously consented to accompany us, but just when all seemed in a fair way to being settled, abruptly changed his mind and said that he preferred to stay at home. I had a sinking feeling that by ‘home’ he now meant 108 Avenue de Suffren and redoubled my efforts to herd the entire flock into one pen.

  The only tall, straight reed among us was Pierre, who had responded to my enquiries by presenting himself and his Citroen within twenty minutes of the summons. Having been sized up through the spy-hole and admitted by Ellen, he was obliged to spend the ensuing half hour sitting around and drinking coffee, while the rest of us drooped about, arguing the toss and letting the precious minutes slip through our nerveless fingers. It was he who finally brought order to this chaos by coming up with the compromise so dear to the hearts of all true vacillators.

  His simple suggestion, delivered in the form of a lengthy and rather impassioned monologue, was that instead of driving all the way to Cherbourg, we should meet Toby somewhere along the route. Lisieux was the place he recommended, where there was a Gothic cathedral meriting a glance. In this way, Pierre reminded us, we should halve our travelling time and enable ourselves to take the little promenade and the little apéritifs, so essential for working up an appetite for lunch.

  Even Jonathan regarded this proposal favourably, although he found it necessary to go to the bathroom and brood for twenty minutes before giving it the seal of his approval.

  Pierre had patently considered luncheon to be the cornerstone of the excursion and when I re-established contact with Cherbourg I found that Toby’s mind ran on the same lines. The only stipulation was that we should not eat it in Lisieux, which would be crammed to suffocation with Gothic-cathedral fans. His Michelin guide revealed that, twenty kilometres to the east, at a village called Assy-les-Cygnes, was to be found the Auberge du Père Bernard, whose entry was embellished with an impressive number of stars, knives and forks and songbirds.

  It only remained for Robin to calculate how his store of travellers’ cheques would stand up to such onslaughts, Jonathan to emerge from the bathroom and Ellen to set her tartan cap at the right angle, for the whole party to be on its way.

  We reached Lisieux soon after midday and tracked Toby down behind a copy of France-Dimanche outside a café in the main square and catching up, as he explained, with the domestic life of the Royal family. He was full of grumbles about the heat and boredom of his journey, but I could tell that he was really in good spirits and that the play’s success still fired an inner glow.

  Ellen must have sensed it, too, for after our little promenade she readily agreed to drive with him to the next stop, despite repeated advance warnings that she was not to be left alone with him for a single second, lest the dreaded Margaret Hacker should rear her head.

  They set out ahead of us, Toby’s driver claiming to know the way, and leaving Jonathan to travel with Robin and me. We put him in front beside Pierre, whose overtures he ignored, preferring to stare stonily out of the side window.

  ‘Your little old cousin is in great form,’ Robin remarked.

  ‘Yes, isn’t he? If Ellen plays it diplomatica
lly, I doubt if Margaret will even get a mention. Let’s just pray this restaurant turns out to be as rare and beautiful as he . . .’

  ‘Where’s this guy supposed to be taking us?’ Jonathan interrupted, turning round with an enraged look on his face.

  ‘To Assy-les-Cygnes, don’t you remember? Oh no, he wasn’t there when it was all decided, was he, Robin? It’s where we’re going to have lunch.’

  ‘Why there, for Chrissake?’

  ‘Because Ellen’s father knows a good place. Any objection?’

  Obviously, he had plenty, but we did not hear about them because we were entering the outskirts of the little town and, on rounding a bend into the main street, Pierre had been obliged, with many a Gallic oath, to stand on the brake in order to avoid colliding with the back of Toby’s car.

  The street was just wide enough to allow for the passage of two vehicles, but not even the passage of one was being allowed at this time, nor had been, I judged, for some time past. We were situated at the crest of a gentle slope which descended in a straight line for about a quarter of a mile, and then rose again for the same distance on the other side. Thus, we had a comprehensive view of the half mile of road ahead of us, which was stacked from end to end with stationary traffic. Only the actual cause of the blockage was concealed from us and must have been at the lowest point between the two hills.

  Being temperamentally unsuited to waiting for things to get better or worse, some of the drivers were playing tunes on their horns, while others had lazily pressed their thumbs down and left them to sound a continuous blare. Several had emerged from their cars and were running about and taking the opportunity to make long speeches at each other.

  Both Pierre and Toby’s driver belonged to this category and, after a short but heated argument on the pavement, set off down the hill towards the heart of the fraças.

  Long acquaintance with Toby’s claustrophobia and aversion to noise warned me that it would need more than diplomacy on Ellen’s part to avert a crisis if this situation were to be prolonged, and said peevishly:

  ‘I do wish Pierre wasn’t so impetuous. If only he had kept his head and backed out we might have found another route round.’

  ‘Well, it’s too late to think of that now,’ Robin informed me, craning his head to see through the rear window. ‘There are at least half a dozen more behind us and the front one is stepping on our tail.’

  ‘Let’s get out and stroll a bit ourselves, then. I’ve got the cooped-up feeling.’

  Toby had it, too. He and Ellen had decided to proceed to the restaurant on foot, their driver having assured them it was not far, and downhill all the way. Greatly as he detested exercise of any kind, Toby was prepared to consider any means of escape from the existing torture.

  ‘Come on!’ I said. ‘Let’s all go. We have nothing to lose but our way.’

  ‘We can’t very well abandon the cars completely,’ Robin pointed out. ‘There could be a move at any minute.’

  ‘I don’t mind staying till those guys get back,’ Jonathan said, showing hitherto unrevealed traces of humanity.

  ‘How very sweet of you!’ I exclaimed effusively, paying the exaggerated tribute which is so often bestowed on disagreeable people when they display a modicum of decency.

  ‘But he can’t drive both cars,’ Robin objected.

  ‘I’ll manage okay. They won’t move too fast to start with, and if I have to I’ll just let go the handbrake so they slide down.’

  ‘I’ll stay, too,’ Ellen said, causing Toby to lose his frail, finger-tip hold on patience:

  ‘Oh, stop being boy scouts, both of you. There isn’t a sign of movement anywhere. Even when they’ve tidied up whatever it is, it will be hours before anything moves up here, and personally I don’t care what they do.’

  Saying this, he turned away and stumped off down the pavement. Ellen looked uncertainly at each of us, then skidded away and caught up with Toby. Jonathan leant back in his seat and folded his arms:

  ‘I’m staying right where I am,’ he announced mulishly.

  ‘Please yourself,’ Robin told him. ‘I don’t imagine Pierre will be long. If you’re still stuck when he gets back I suggest you get the other driver to direct you to the restaurant. You remember what it’s called?’

  ‘Sure!’

  ‘And you’d better ask them to bring both cars there at three, to pick us up.’

  ‘Kay.’

  ‘What a strange boy!’ I remarked, as we ambled down the hill.

  ‘Ghastly. Not altogether his fault, perhaps. He comes from a strange family.’

  It was not until we were nearly at the bottom that we found the obstruction which was causing all the trouble. The village at this point was divided through the middle by a shallow, high-banked stream and the ancient bridge which spanned it was just wide enough for a single vehicle. Poised on top of this bridge, and leading the oncoming traffic, was a shabby little country bus. There was space for the driver to proceed in safety and the traffic going in our direction had halted far enough back for him to do so. The snag was that on the right-hand side of the road, on the corner of a lane which ran alongside the stream, a vast Buick with a green number-plate had been parked half in the road and half on the pavement, but with its front wheels and bonnet jutting over the lane. This was at the very point where the main road narrowed down to the width of the bridge. A small crowd had collected to watch the fun, and a sergent de ville was straddled across his motor-bike, communing with his walkie-talkie, but no one seemed willing to take any practical steps to alleviate the situation.

  ‘One of your spies, no doubt,’ I remarked to Robin, as, still following the other two, we edged round the front of the car and into the lane.

  ‘Not a very efficient one,’ he replied. ‘One could hardly applaud him for drawing attention to himself quite so blatantly.’

  ‘Ah, that’s probably just his cunning. He is creating a diversion, so that he can do the real spying somewhere else.’

  ‘You have an answer for everything,’ Robin said, but it did not escape me that he made a note of the licence number.

  The Auberge du Père Bernard was a mere five minutes’ walk from the bridge, a cosy, farmhouse kind of building, with a garden bordering the banks of the stream, and a sight to restore our jaded spirits. Toby had booked a table and we were royally received, despite being ten minutes late for our appointment.

  ‘For five, isn’t it?’ the patron asked, looking faintly mystified.

  ‘For five,’ Toby agreed. ‘There is one more to come. We shall consult the menu while we wait for him.’

  It was the size of a pillowcase, written in dashing violet ink and more like a gastronomic adventure-story than a menu. When we had studied, argued, studied again and changed our minds half a dozen times, Jonathan had still not arrived.

  ‘I don’t think we need wait any longer before ordering, do we?’ Toby asked. ‘Or do we?’

  Ellen, who had been the principal target for these questions, was studying an illustrated map of the region on the back of the menu card.

  ‘No need at all,’ she answered. ‘He’ll only want biftek and frites, when he does come.’

  There was only one major topic of conversation during the ensuing twenty minutes, which was a fair compliment to the Pere’s cuisine, and I drew Toby’s attention to the fact that people are more inclined to discuss food and wine when they are enjoying it than at any other time.

  ‘Which is why the French talk about it more often than we do,’ he replied. ‘In England it is considered poor taste to talk about what one is eating, and in most houses it would be. If only Ellen had plodded on with Megs Witherspoon, ours might have been one of the laudable exceptions. But, heigh-ho, it was not to be.’

  ‘You’d have hated it,’ Ellen told him crossly. ‘The only thing we learnt was how to cut up tomatoes to make them look like roses.’

  ‘Oh well,’ he admitted. ‘I do prefer my roses to be made of rose, it’s true; but I daresay yo
u would have graduated to something more practical as time went on.’

  It was plain that he was faintly put out by having his little pleasantry so severely stamped on, and it was so far outside Ellen’s nature to be snappy that I guessed that Jonathan’s continued absence must be to blame. I leant across the table, saying in a low voice:

  ‘Cheer up! I’m sure he’ll be here soon.’

  ‘I’m sure he won’t,’ she retorted crisply.

  As a matter of fact, I was inclined to agree with her, but we were unable to prolong this unprofitable exchange because a waiter had materialised and was hovering by our table. He announced to no one in particular that Mademoiselle Crichton was wanted on the telephone.

  ‘Oh Lord!’ I said, bounding to my feet. ‘It must be Pierre. He’s the only one who calls me that. What now, I wonder?’

  The telephone was in a tiny alcove just behind the bar and there was a good deal of clatter and chatter going on around me, making it difficult to hear. A female voice, which I dimly recognised, commanded me not to quit the apparatus and was replaced by a more familiar one saying:

  ‘Is that you, Ellie? Listen, I’m here at—’

  It was just about the longest sentence I had ever heard him speak, and instead of allowing him to complete it, like any sensible person, I instinctively cut him short.

  ‘Just a minute, Jonathan. This is Tessa speaking. Is it Ellen you want, or will I do?’

  There was a brief silence and when he spoke again it was in his normal gruff and toneless manner:

  ‘Just say I won’t be along.’

  ‘Oh, why not? Where are you speaking from?’

  ‘Lisieux. I’m at the railroad station. I’ll get a train back in.’

  ‘Whatever for? And how did you get there? Did Pierre drive you?’

  ‘No, there was this bus coming up. It was heading for Lisieux, so I got on.’

  ‘But why, Jonathan? Is anything wrong?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Just give Ellie the message, will you?’ he said and rang off.