The Adventuress (17 page)

Chapter Fourteen

S
NAKES IN THE
G
RASSE

“I am
so glad we are leaving Paris!” Irene commented fiercely as our train rolled out of the gloomy terminal yard toward the sunny south of France.

“Why?” I asked.

Godfrey answered for her. “It’s best to withdraw from the Montpensier investigation before le Villard realizes that we know more about the matter than he does and that we have concealed facts in the case. The police in any country become abominably testy about such things.”

“And we must not forget Louise,” Irene added. “I doubt she is in immediate danger in the company of her fiancé, but that may change. She has been abducted and brutalized once already. Until we know why....” Irene settled uneasily against the burgundy velveteen seat.

I did not see how Louise’s presence in Monte Carlo, an obvious attempt to learn more of her father’s death, would clarify any of the matters before us, but I was glad enough to be leaving Paris myself. It was entirely too French for my tastes.

Our iron steed for this mission was a charger in the Ouest line; the train would speed southward through the soft, fertile lands cupped between the long arm of the Loire and the trailing fingers of the Seine—and later the Rhone—rivers. We would traverse some four hundred miles, roughly the length of Irene’s and my escape route from Bohemia eighteen months before.

I settled against the seat’s upholstered back, assured of viewing only tranquil countryside. Even the towns through which we would pass were sleepy in the extreme, bland yet fabled communities that the French interior hoards like fallen apples—Dijon, Lyon, Avignon, Arles. Then, at last, we would reach the bustling Mediterranean seaport of Marseilles.

I felt a nervous flutter about entering this unsavory city. I also harbored misgivings at leaving Casanova and Lucifer in the care of Sophie. Our maidservant was reliable but no match, I feared, for those devious creatures, each the archdemon of its species. Not that I would miss the beasts’ bedeviling company, of course, but I do take my responsibilities seriously. And among them was Irene Norton,
nee
Adler.

Irene remained pensive, watching the confluence of tracks near the station dwindle to a single set of rails alongside our own and then vanish utterly. No doubt she was troubled by abandoning Madame Montpensier to face false accusations alone. Godfrey also seemed distracted, his pale gray eyes as dull as steel. His forefinger lifted absently to smooth his mustache, something I had never previously seen him do.

I wondered if events deeper than I suspected unsettled my friends. Both were too unlike themselves to note the other’s abstraction. That is the advantage of being a third party; I alone could offer the objective viewpoint.

For now my objectivity submerged itself in the small excitement of traveling through foreign countryside. In fact, I secretly hoped that Monte Carlo would prove so removed from such lurid phenomena as tattooed girls, drowned sailors and mysterious capital letters that it would forever cure Irene of interfering in matters more fit for the police, with whom she imagined herself to be engaged in some game of wits. Not that Fate had ever much respected my hopes.

We left Paris in the morning. The train’s lavatory facilities were primitive, so Irene and I gratefully availed ourselves of the accommodation at the simple country restaurant when we lunched in Lyon, halfway to our goal. The journey from there to Avignon was horrific, including a long stretch when we hurtled ahead at more than thirty miles an hour, over rough tracks through bleak terrain. But Avignon was very near Marseilles; the Mediterranean coast lay but an hour or two away over gentler landscape.

While Irene puzzled over sketches of tattoos and Godfrey read a volume on French estate law, I watched the cows and the countryside roll by until the monotony and the railway car’s rocking rhythm lulled me to sleep.

I awoke to civilization, or the imitation of it, a steep, thronging town raked down like an amphitheater to the stage of a vast blue rippling sea and bracketed by fierce- looking fortresses. Masts made a barbed forest in the harbor, against a cobalt sky already paling before the final bloodbath of sunset. For our arrival, Marseilles pelted our compartment windows with bouquets of strong sea smell, while waves of white gulls fluttered against the sunset-drenched sky like streamers of white ribbon.

Marseilles’ wet cobblestone streets sparkled with fish scales as bright as cut steel. The men’s faces had a robust, sun-charred cast; I spied more than one parrot perched on a seaman’s jersey-clad shoulder.

We found rooms at a hotel overlooking the Vieux-Port, since a train to Monte Carlo would not depart until the next morning. I remained there that evening, while Godfrey and Irene ventured into the raucous city streets to dine, they claimed, on
bouillabaisse,
oysters and champagne. My stomach was too uneasy after the rough trip and the commotions of Marseilles. I supped on the French bread and cheese Godfrey had found at a local market, which were quite tasty, save that the cheese had a musty flavor and the bread crust was prone to crumble. So much for the fabled French cuisine!

Still, by morning I was my cheery, uncomplaining self again and ready to resume our impetuous progress. I even welcomed the sight of our steel steed gleaming deep green in the sunlight as its pistons kicked up clods of steam and a docile herd of railway cars panted in line at the Gare Saint Charles. Ahead of us lay the spectacular mountainous seacoast to Cannes, with the perfume- bearing hills of Grasse, the great French scent district, beyond it, and then on to Monte Carlo.

“Oh, but wait!” Irene cried as we prepared to board. Even the attendant stowing our luggage on the inside rack paused at her clarion call. “I saw some wonderfully amusing postcards in the station last night. I must buy some.”

I stared at her openmouthed. “You are presumed dead, Irene; you cannot send postcards. And to whom?”

She shrugged gaily. “At least I can keep them as mementos. I saw a most macabre one of a suicide victim hanging outside the casino in Monte Carlo.”

Now I understood. I made the sound with which the parsonage housekeeper in Shropshire used to call the chickens. Novelists represent it as “
tsk-tsk
,” which hardly does justice to its implications and effect.

“Ah, postcards of Monte Carlo,” said I. “No doubt that is how Mr. Sherlock Holmes begins to investigate a new region. Who knows what hidden depths may be concealed within a simple postcard?”

“Exactly!” Irene ignored my sarcasm, an oversight I found most unsatisfying. “Godfrey will see you aboard, Nell.”

“Don’t miss the train!” I elevated my voice to an unladylike level, to no avail; Irene had turned and moved swiftly against the current of the boarding crowd.

Godfrey took my elbow reassuringly. “Rest easy, Nell; Irene is not so careless as to miss this train, though the last train we missed—the St. Gothard-line excursion over the Alps—spared us a fiery death in thin air.”

“No one could claim that the air of Marseilles is the least bit thin,” I retorted. “It’s as thick and steamy with corruption and clatter as
bouillabaisse,
perhaps even more populated by strange, whiskered denizens of the deep. It is my sincere hope that this chug-chug across France will lead to nothing but twiddling our thumbs.”

At that moment a rough fellow in a striped jersey jostled past, ramming me into the side of the compartment.

“Be careful, man!” Godfrey exclaimed in French.

The uncouth creature turned and grinned, revealing a checkerboard of yellowed and blackened teeth. “So sorry, your Highness,” the man said with a sneer, “but a first-class ticket makes this my compartment as well as yours.”

“Bridle your tongue before a lady!” Godfrey advised.

“Why don’t we discuss the state of my tongue inside this compartment, your Grace? And the lady, too. Step in, now.”

Godfrey was about to do nothing of the sort; then his face tightened. I turned to see that the lout blocking our way had caused a queue to form behind us... if one shriveled Indian man may be considered the start of a queue. I was struck by the notion that our fellow first-class passengers looked as if they had been lifted directly from the deck of a river scow.

Before I could communicate this interesting observation to Godfrey, he gripped my arm and impelled me into the empty compartment, where our baggage already lay in the overhead racks. The rude man pushed me into a seat near the center.

Of a sudden I understood the reason for Godfrey’s compliance. As the Indian followed him inside, I saw the thick, curved knife blade the ruffian pressed into Godfrey’s side.

“Godfrey!” I half rose, but the man in the jersey pushed me back down.

“Stay put, Madame,” he said, “and close your mouth. Your husband and I have a matter to settle. If you happen to be present, it is your misfortune.”

Godfrey and I stared at each other in confusion. He glanced to the window, then quickly away. Beyond his shoulder I glimpsed the flow of people on the platform outside. Among them I spied Irene emerging from the station building, her eyes lowered as she examined the tiny fan of postcards in her hand.

Jerseyman jerked his head at his swarthy accomplice, then at the window. The Indian oozed over in a thrice and began drawing the curtains on their brass rods. (Only the French would be frivolous enough to install velvet curtains in a railway car!)

Irene glanced up from her purchase to look for us, seeking the compartment window framing our waiting faces. Alas, we were not there. Puzzlement—as well as a new alertness—crossed her face.

Then that familiar face was shuttered from our view as the Indian pulled the fabric shut. It was like watching opera curtains close on Irene at the end of an act: first the relentless advance of heavy cloth narrowing her figure to a mere sliver, then nothing.

Godfrey’s face showed relief just as the curtains closed, plunging the compartment into a rather ominous dusk. Although I applauded his manly intent to spare his wife danger, I was not sure I was pleased to be taken for that wife in such a situation.

The Indian slipped to the door to perform the same service with the drapes there. I noticed only then that he was barefooted—and black-footed, so grimy were his toes!

“The gaslight?” Godfrey suggested quickly, before the last daylight had been banished.

Jerseyman nodded permission. Godfrey scratched a lucifer on his boot bottom and reached up to light the gasolier that depended from the ceiling. In the artificial light, the compartment’s brass trimmings—ceiling scrolls, baggage racks and curtain rods—glittered as if for an audience. The burgundy velvet upholstery and curtains radiated a deep, gemlike sheen.

Given our unseemly companions, the civilized scene was ludicrous. Mingled odors of sulfur and gaslights reminded me of an opera box during a performance of “Faust.”

“Might I smoke?” Godfrey still held his burning lucifer.

“I always grant a man a last wish,” Jerseyman said. I realized that his French bore a cockney twist. “And give me one, Guv.” Godfrey complied. “I’ve had naught but bottom ends for the past few weeks.” Jerseyman lit up, then blew out a putrid stream of smoke.

With the curtains drawn, Godfrey and I were gestured toward the window seats. Jerseyman barred the door, sitting at Godfrey’s side. My seat partner was the silent Indian, who promptly lifted his filthy feet to the velvet cushion and crossed his ankles, knees akimbo. He set between us a woven basket of a peculiarly flat shape. I appreciated any barrier, however homely, that would separate myself and my strange captor.

For we were prisoners, that was clear. The Indian rested the dreadful knife across his draped thigh; he wore no trousers, only some foreign cloth, similar to a dresser scarf, wrapped around his nether regions.

Jerseyman flaunted his own knife, less exotic but equally visible. And very dirty fingernails.

The scene reminded me of the occasion when the King of Bohemia’s henchman had trapped me in a train compartment during the escape from Prague, save that this time no Irene with cane in hand and pistol in pocket would come to rescue me.

There was Godfrey, of course, but his use in a crisis of this type was unproven. Smoking serenely now as if we four made a congenial party of fellow travelers, he eyed Jerseyman with a lively interest.

“I presume you have a reason for your most curious form of introduction,” Godfrey said.

The Jerseyman’s evil grin was his answer, along with a deep i
nh
alation upon the cigarette Godfrey had given him. I recalled demons who were said to breathe fire.

Around us, the compartment throbbed with the train’s prelude to departure. Godfrey and I eyed each other, imagining Irene hunting us and failing.

“Your reason, man!” Godfrey demanded more urgently.

Jerseyman, almost genteel now that his lungs were sufficiently smoke-clogged, smiled and spoke in English. “Your friend on the platform will just have to do without your company.”