Chapter Twenty
Elizabeth turned onto the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré with a quarter of an hour still in hand; the walk from the Café de la Paix having taken far less time than she’d allowed.
She had Pippin to thank for that – one mention of Le Frisson and the man had drained his coffee, invented a duty, and left her sitting on the terrace with the bill.
Your friend has a sharp eye. Six words – the sum total of what her coffee with the Honourable Peregrine Westcott had bought her. But six words were enough. The English lady of Le Figaro’s society column was indeed Lady Cecily Davenport, just as Cybil had suspected.
No doubt half the diplomatic wives in Paris had worked that out for themselves by now, and were picking Lady Davenport apart over their luncheon tables.
But it was a common enough story on the foreign postings. A husband gone for weeks at a stretch, the children at school in England, and nothing to fill the days but committees and correspondence.
Was it any wonder some turned to the card tables? A flutter to liven a dull evening. Another to recover the first. Then another, until the losses ran too deep to confess, and the game stopped being a game altogether.
“Qui paiera pour l’Allemagne? L’après-midi! Qui paiera?”
The newspaper boy had stationed himself on the corner where the side street met the Faubourg, papers wedged under one arm, swinging a folded copy at every passer-by who came within reach.
Who will pay for Germany? The question had filled the front pages since her arrival – the war reparations Germany owed and couldn’t meet, and whether the new American loan would finally settle the matter or sink under it.
“Non, merci.” She softened the refusal with a smile before turning down the side street.
Café Colette’s terrace was still busy with the lunch-hour stragglers.
Elizabeth paused at the gate, her gaze moving from table to table – a couple lingering over the last of their coffee, two men trading opinions across a folded newspaper, a waiter easing between the chairs with a loaded tray – but there was no sign of Cybil.
“Madame!” The waitress from their previous visit raised a hand, tipping her head towards a table just coming free at the railing.
“Vous revoilà.” She brushed the crumbs from the cloth as Elizabeth approached. “A café crème, yes?”
“You have a good memory.” Elizabeth settled into the chair, angling it towards the top of the street.
She drew off her gloves and tucked them into her bag, the terrace chattering on around her – the races at Longchamp, the Americans, somebody’s daughter and her unsuitable young man.
A flash of teal at the top of the street caught her eye as Cybil swept past the newspaper boy, threading her way between the tables.
Cybil dropped into the chair opposite and leaned in.
“Is it true?” She kept her voice low. “About Sir Conrad?”
“And a very good afternoon to you, too.”
“Forgive me – but as you can imagine, my head’s been in a whirl since Maggie telephoned this morning.
She was in a dreadful state, poor thing.
I tried you at the apartment straight away, but you’d already left.
” She removed her gloves and laid them on the table beside her, her eyes never leaving Elizabeth’s face. “Well … is it true?”
“I’m afraid it is. Last night.”
“Last night? That’s odd.”
“How do you mean, odd?”
“Odd, in that Gaston Vidal – a man who knows the colour of every minister’s socks before his valet does – never breathed a word. The British Ambassador dies in the middle of the German reparation negotiations, and the biggest newsroom in Paris carries on as though it’s a slow news day.”
Elizabeth arched a brow.
“Ah, do I detect the hand of a certain Monsieur Sterling here?” Cybil reached into her bag for her cigarette case. “So, how did it happen? A heart attack? An accident?” She flipped open the silver case and removed a cigarette before placing it between her lips.
Elizabeth held her gaze.
Cybil plucked the unlit cigarette from her lips and rested it on top of the case. “Don’t tell me he was murdered?”
The waitress returned and placed the café crème in front of Elizabeth. “Et pour madame?”
“Un café serré, s’il vous pla?t.”
“Bien s?r, madame.” She inclined her head and made for the kitchen.
Elizabeth’s gaze slid to the grey-haired man at the next table, engrossed in his newspaper. She leaned in closer, lowering her voice. “Lady Davenport telephoned Clemmi early yesterday evening to tell her.”
“Did she say what happened?”
“Not on the telephone, no. But Lady Davenport was in such a state that Clemmi insisted we go straight over. It turns out Oliver had gone there for some meeting or other and found him in his study–”
“You’re telling me he killed himself?”
The waitress reappeared with Cybil’s café serré. “Autre chose, mesdames?”
“Non, merci.”
“Très bien.”
Elizabeth waited until she was out of earshot. “That’s what anyone who found him was meant to believe.”
“But?” Cybil wrapped her hands around the coffee cup, her head low over the table.
Elizabeth weighed her promise to Oliver. Anything she’d learnt within the walls of that room was bound by the Official Secrets Act. She’d trust Cybil with her life, but she’d given her word.
“There were…” Elizabeth chose her words carefully, only able to reveal what she’d seen with her own eyes and deduced from her own findings.
“Certain anomalies with the wound that weren’t consistent with an injury inflicted at close range.
And the note–” She caught herself. “I can’t recall the exact contents.
It was dark, and I had very little time. ”
“Can’t recall?” Cybil’s eyes narrowed. “Or aren’t at liberty to say because of Oliver Sterling’s involvement?”
“Yes, but not for the reasons you think. Oliver’s no more a murderer than you or I; on that you have my word.”
“Say no more. The Official Secrets Act has cost me enough front pages to wallpaper Whitehall,” Cybil replied, picking up the cigarette resting on the case.
“With Oliver Sterling off the suspect list, who are we left with for Ashby’s murder?
And is it connected to Sir Conrad’s?” She slipped it between her lips, reached for the Café Colette matchbook beside the ashtray, and dragged a match along the strike without so much as a spark. A second fared no better.
Elizabeth retrieved the black matchbook from her bag and tossed it down onto the table between them. Cybil removed the cigarette from her lips for a second time and placed it back inside the case. “Where on earth did you get that?”
“Another coffee?” Elizabeth raised her hand to catch the waitress’s eye.
“Not for me.” Cybil laid her palm flat over her cup.
“Un café crème, s’il vous pla?t.” Elizabeth waited until the waitress had retreated, then filled Cybil in – how Pippin had scribbled his telephone number inside that matchbook at Le Figaro, how Oriane de Massenet had produced its twin the day they’d lunched at Le Jardin Suspendu, and how a third had sat beside the ashtray in Lady Davenport’s drawing room the night Sir Conrad died.
“If you hadn’t telephoned this morning about that piece on the society page, I probably wouldn’t have given it another thought.”
“A chevalier servant, a minister’s wife, and the Ambassador’s widow.” Cybil picked up the matchbook, turning it over between her fingers. “Quite the little congregation.”
“And Le Frisson?”
“No sign above any door, no address on any card, and yet anyone in Paris with a taste for the tables and deep enough pockets knows exactly where to find it. And a patron like Lady Davenport.” Cybil broke off as the waitress returned with the café crème, waiting until she’d moved on to the next table before continuing.
“émile Girard would have welcomed her with open arms.”
“émile Girard?”
“The owner of Le Frisson. Utterly charming, indecently handsome, and generous to a fault – his credit flows as freely as his champagne. Until it’s time to collect. Then God help you, because the préfecture certainly won’t.”
Elizabeth pressed the back of her hand to her lips, smothering a yawn. “But why Lady Davenport in particular?”
“Because a woman with everything to lose doesn’t quibble over terms, Elizabeth. Girard could have named any figure he pleased, and she’d have paid it, and kept on paying, until she had nothing left to give.”
Cybil’s words settled alongside the line from Le Figaro’s society column.
Whether her long-suffering husband will continue to settle what fortune declines to is anyone’s guess.
“Le Figaro’s piece called Sir Conrad long-suffering, which suggests it wasn’t the first time he’d settled his wife’s debts.”
“Perhaps he’d finally had enough.” Cybil tapped the matchbook against the table. “It would certainly explain the retirement announcement. According to Maggie, it was all very sudden and caught the whole chancery off guard, Lady Davenport included.”
Elizabeth set her cup down without tasting it. “What if he refused to pay this time, and Lady Davenport…”
“Murdered him?” Cybil set the matchbook down between them.
“Well, if he had refused, then she certainly had reason enough, and the debts were only the half of it. His retirement would have cost her everything she’d built here – the residence, the entertaining, half of Paris at her table – and by all accounts she made no secret of how she felt about giving it up. ”
Another yawn escaped before Elizabeth could raise her hand to it.
“Two coffees and still yawning.” Cybil arched a brow. “Am I really such dull company?”
“Anything but, I assure you.” Her lips curved into a smile. “I’m afraid last night was rather a late one.”
“Then might I suggest an early one tonight.” Cybil slipped the cigarette case back into her bag and signalled to the waitress for the bill.