A Rather Charming Invitation (33 page)

“Look,” I said. “We’ve obviously just scratched the surface of this tapestry story. This guy Lunaire—Armand’s patron. We’ve got to find out what he’s all about.”

 

 

The next morning, Monsieur Felix contacted Jeremy to report that nothing had come from following our decoy, Amelia—nothing except sore feet for the poor guy, who found the English homemaker’s schedule exhausting, just as Jeremy had predicted. Monsieur Felix had not seen anyone following her, so he took Le Bug away from Amelia, and deposited it through our mail slot in London. He suggested we leave it there, since he believed Le Bug was
mort
.

“Sounds like he’s hit a dead end,” Jeremy told me. “But he’ll keep trying. He’s going back to France, where he’ll keep an eye on the usual smugglers, criminals and shady characters on the Riviera. I told him about the coins you saw on Drake’s computer, but he’s never heard of them.”

“Swell,” I said. “Well, let him watch the ports and the crooks. Meanwhile, we need to trawl the old French law records of the trials of Lunaire and Armand. But my French isn’t good enough for that.”

“Neither is mine,” Jeremy admitted. “We could have a colleague do it, but it will cost a lot.”

“No, let’s put Honorine on this!” I said, feeling suddenly inspired.

Jeremy agreed, so I went to Honorine’s room to give her the new assignment. Her door was open, to allow the maid in. Honorine was out on the balcony, talking into her cell phone in a low voice, so she didn’t see me come in, while she was gazing out at the view.

Lake Geneva was spectacular this morning, all blue sky and towering mountains and shimmering water. Little steamer ferries were plying their way across the lake, carrying visitors from one pretty town to another, where they would no doubt stop and sample the local cheeses and flinty white wines.

As I approached Honorine, something about her secretive tone made me pause, just in time to hear her say, “Oh, you know, lawyers aren’t so bad, they can be quite useful. In fact, I have heard that
some
of them make excellent lovers!”

The next words she uttered really made me stop cold. “As a matter of a fact,” she said in a wicked tone, as if confiding in a girlfriend, “I especially like English lawyers. Yes, one in particular. One I work with. That’s right.” Here she laughed lightly, with satisfaction and confidence. “Oh, he’s very handsome, and he says he’s ‘wild about me’. Yes, it’s true, he may already be spoken for, but what does that matter to a woman in love? I can surely beat out the competition, I’m younger than her, and anyway he says he’s never met anyone as sexy as me.”

I just froze right there on the spot. Not possible. Was it? Naw. But. “So, I will defeat my rival, and then I definitely see London in my future,” Honorine was concluding. She hung up, and came bouncing away from the balcony, into her room, and straight toward me. I wasn’t happy to see the surprised, stricken look on her face as soon as she caught sight of me.

“Oh!” she cried in dismay. “You are here!”

“Honorine,” I said, ready to scratch her eyes out if necessary, “I’m sorry but I couldn’t help overhearing. Who were you talking about?” I stared at her resolutely, just willing her to try to lie to me.

She stuck out her chin defiantly, then smiled in triumph. I think my heart skipped a beat. Then she admitted, “If you must know, I am in love. And nothing you say will make any difference. But Jeremy doesn’t know for sure how I feel, although I think he suspects. Has he told you anything?”

I just stared at those big brown eyes that were looking so defiantly back at me. I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it. “Jeremy?” I croaked in a dry, cracked voice. Honorine flushed bright red, and then began to stammer, in French, as if she were under such stress that her grasp of English had temporarily deserted her. “What about Jeremy?” I repeated.

“I would not want to be forced to choose between my job and the man I love, but I will if I must!” she finally managed to say. We stood there, staring at each other. Then she said pleadingly, “Surely you do not wish to cause trouble for Rupert.”

“Rupert?” I repeated rather stupidly. “Rupert?” Then the light dawned. “Ohhh . . .
Rupert
. You’re in love with Rupert?”

“For heaven’s sake, you don’t need to tell the whole hotel!” Honorine cried in dismay. “What if Jeremy should hear you? Please, don’t make so much of it—and absolutely do not tell my parents!”

I couldn’t help it. I started to snicker uncontrollably. Mainly from relief, and recognition of the absurdity of my response. At her indignant expression, I smothered my laughter as quickly as I could. But I was so relieved, I could practically sing with it.

“Okay, my lips are sealed,” I gasped. Then I calmed down. “Honorine,” I said briskly, “
meanwhile
, how would you like to do some investigating? It may help us find the tapestry.” She brightened, eager to contribute to solving this case.

I explained, “We need you to do some research in France. See if you can find out anything in the historical archives about Jean Lunaire.”

I wrote down the name for her, and the relevant time period. “He’s the wealthy patron of the tapestry-maker. Lunaire got arrested for trying to poison the king, and that’s how Armand got into trouble. I’d like to know why Armand put his patron’s initials and crest on a tapestry that was made for his own daughter, not for Lunaire. So, dig into the old French law libraries for records which may not be on computers.”

We were heading downstairs now, with Honorine pulling her suitcase-on-wheels behind her. “Even if I did find such records, what good would it do, it’s so old?” Honorine said doubtfully.

“Hey kid,” I said firmly, with no time to mince words, “I’ve got a nose for this sort of thing. And
my
nose is telling me that we’ve got to go back in time and find out what happened. Not just Lunaire’s trial, but you should also look into Armand’s arrest. Remember, this is your family we’re talking about. You never know what you might turn up, so do it carefully, and, um, please don’t discuss what you find with your folks until you’ve spoken to me. All of this is top secret. Got it?”

Honorine, looking excited now, said, “I’ll get right on it.”

We had reached the hotel lobby. “Good,” I said positively. “Do you have a credit card? Great, keep all your receipts, and make a record of where you go. Names, dates, addresses, notes.”

“It will be done!” Honorine said respectfully. Jeremy was pacing around the lobby, waiting for us. Honorine went ahead to see that the bellhop put our bags into the trunk of the car.

Jeremy murmured to me, “Did I just hear you put Honorine on an expense account?”

“She can’t pay for her expenses on the little salary she gets from us!” I exclaimed. “She’ll be prudent, don’t worry. And I want her to be businesslike, when she’s on a case.”

“Fine,” Jeremy said. “Let’s get out of here, and find out what Drake thinks we know.”

W
e didn’t even bother to unpack when we arrived in London. The townhouse looked unmolested in our absence, since Monsieur Felix had been keeping an eye on it for us. We just deposited our luggage in the hallway; then we headed right back out the door, and made a raid on the jewelry store. The guy was in his shop, as usual, and he actually looked happy to see us when we entered.

“Either he’s very good at faking it,” Jeremy muttered, “or he’s totally innocent and we’re off our rockers.”

Undaunted, I said to the man quite bluntly, “When I first brought you the designs for the crest I wanted to make, why did you ask me about the source material?”

“Why, to make certain it was done right,” he said, surprised at my tone.

“Did you show it to anybody else?” Jeremy asked.

“Only the engravers,” he said, but then a look of comprehension crossed his face. “Don’t worry, they never make copies of designs that a customer has specially commissioned. You won’t see that ring on anyone else.”

“Oh, what a relief,” I said, as if he’d guessed correctly. “But, just so I know, are you absolutely sure that nobody else saw it?”

“Certainly,” the jeweler said, frowning.

“Don’t you have any employees?” Jeremy asked.

“No. It’s just me and my wife, who does the book- keeping,” he said, nodding toward a framed photo on his desk behind the counter, along with another photo of two small kids and their dog. The wife was a plump, pleasant-faced woman who bore absolutely no resemblance to Drake’s wife.

“But, we had a visit from a woman who said she worked for you, and she delivered the groom’s gift,” I said.

“A woman?” the man asked, puzzled. “I thought the engraver dropped it off to you. He said he would. I was in a hurry for a dental appointment that day, and when he came by to show it to me, he offered to take it to you himself. He and his brother have done this for me before, without any trouble.”

The jeweler repeated what he’d told me on my previous visit, which was that the engraver and his brother worked together in the coin shop around the corner. But now, of course, the notion of rare coins rang a loud bell.

“What can you tell us about those two men?” Jeremy asked.

The jeweler shrugged. “They’ve been around for years, and I’ve always found them honest and dependable,” he said. “I really think you can trust them not to reuse your design, but if it makes you feel better, you can tell them yourself.” He wrote down their phone number and address on the back of one of his own cards.

“Think he’s telling the truth?” I asked Jeremy, once we were out on the street.

“Probably,” he said, “but just in case, we’d better hurry over there before he tips them off.”

“Do
you
think we’re on the wrong track?” I queried, peering at him.

“Nope,” Jeremy said. “This is exactly the sort of peculiar spot you’ve dragged me into before. And, against all odds, logic and probability, you invariably are correct. Let’s check it out.”

When we reached the curving, narrow little cobbled street with all the hobby and antiques dealers, we quickly spotted the shop we’d seen before, with a sign that said,
Gifts and Engraving, We Buy and Sell Old Coins
. But as we drew closer, we discovered that the windows were completely empty now. Not only that, but the front door was locked, with the sign saying
Closed
hanging in the glass door, as if it would dangle there like that until the end of time.

When I peered inside, I saw that the contents of the entire shop had, for all intents and purposes, vanished. No more counters, chairs or displays. No cash register, and certainly, no coins. Just a couple of folding chairs and crumpled newspapers remained, and a bare light bulb hanging overhead, with its long pull-chain trailing forlornly. Even the window-blinds had been removed from their slots, and lay, instead, in an abandoned heap in the dusty window display.

“They’re really gone!” I said in shock.

Jeremy consulted two nearby dealers, an antiquarian bookseller and a furniture man, who were standing outside their shops, commiserating. Both shook their heads, and said that early this morning, the engraver and his coin brother had simply packed up and vanished. No forwarding address or number, and they were in a great hurry. “They must have moved most of their stuff last night, because this morning they seemed to be finishing up their packing, and took off quickly,” said the furniture guy.

“Easy come, easy go, I guess,” agreed the bookseller. “They didn’t want to chat about it, either. We figured it must be tax or loan problems.”

Then, without another word, the men turned and went back into their shops, suddenly busily rearranging their wares. It was a clear signal that they didn’t care to jawbone any longer, so we left.

When we returned to our offices, Jeremy muttered, “Think I’ll give Danny a call, to see if he can find out anything in his police files.”

 

 

Later that afternoon Jeremy reported back to me. “Danny ran a check on his computer,” he said. “Those coin blokes appear to be ‘legit’, as far as he can tell, with no police record, and nothing out of place in their drivers’ licenses and normal business records.”

He showed me his notes from the conversation. I kept staring thoughtfully at the men’s surname. I said, “Why does that name sound vaguely familiar?”

I went to my computer and did a few searches. Then finally I found the significant match. I hurried over to the file cabinet Honorine kept for us, and pulled out the folder she’d made on Drake.

“Bingo! Jeremy, look at this,” I cried. “Those coin guys have the same last name as Tina Drake’s maiden name. Before she married Parker, see? There isn’t any more info than that, but still . . . it can’t be just a coincidence, can it?”

“I doubt it,” Jeremy said thoughtfully. “We ought to talk to someone who’s knowledgeable about old coins. Do you know anyone from your research work?”

“Not really,” I said, “but it shouldn’t be so hard to find.”

By the next day, I’d located a man I thought would be helpful, and arranged a meeting with him. “He’s a curator at a museum not far from here,” I told Jeremy. “He specializes in French and European coins, and he’s supposed to have a big collection. He said he thought he’d heard something about a coin with those initials on it, and he’s going to see what he can find for us.”

“Fine, let’s go!” Jeremy said.

T
he coin museum was in a section of London known simply as the City. It’s where today’s big banking and brokering gets done, but it’s also where London pretty much began, with charmingly old-fashioned storybook names like Threadneedle Street and Cloak Lane and St. Swithin’s. Some still call this area the “heart” of the city, although its very heartless, mechanized frenzy is supposedly what inspired the poet T.S. Eliot’s grim appraisal of the modern world as a wasteland. Which gives you an idea of what transpires in all the mysterious trading offices around here.