Chapter Twenty-Six
“Le franc remonte! La pluie arrive! Demandez Le Figaro!”
The newsboy had planted himself outside the Café de la Paix, swinging a folded copy at every hat that passed, though few were stopping.
The franc and the rain. A week ago he’d been crying secret deals and hidden loan terms to a pavement that couldn’t buy fast enough, and now … the franc and the rain.
Paris had moved on.
Elizabeth stepped down from the taxi and pressed the fare into the driver’s palm before turning to hand Clemmi out onto the pavement.
“Vous revoilà, mademoiselle.” Marcel was at their side before they’d reached the awning, menus beneath his arm. “A table for two?”
“For three, please. We’re expecting a friend.”
“Bien s?r.” He led them between the tables to one set back from the crush of the pavement and drew out their chairs in turn.
Elizabeth slipped off her gloves and tucked them into her bag, stealing a glance at her friend across the table. The shadows beneath her eyes had all but gone, and the colour in her cheeks this time owed nothing to the rouge pot.
“Do you know what the loveliest thing about this menu is?” Clemmi turned the page without waiting for an answer. “There isn’t a single thing on it that Dr Vernet would approve of.”
“And what does the good doctor have to say about that?”
“Not a great deal, since Oliver relieved him of his menu duties.” Clemmi set down the menu and affected her husband’s solemn tones.
“Any woman fit enough to fell an international spy with an oar is quite fit enough to choose her own luncheon.
“ She returned to her own voice with a flourish of the hand. “His exact words, I promise you.”
“High praise indeed.”
“From Oliver? It’s practically a decoration.” Clemmi’s mouth curved. “The beef tea went the very same day. The sardines, however, are still delivered three mornings a week.”
“Whatever for? I thought you were liberated.”
“I am. But somebody neglected to inform the courtyard cat, and he’d grown rather accustomed to his little parcels.
I hadn’t the heart to stop them. So now Cook prepares them, Sylvie wraps them, and I never have to so much as look at them.
Everyone is perfectly happy … except possibly Oliver, who’s still paying for fish nobody in the household eats. ”
Elizabeth’s lips twitched at the corners. “And the Sirop de Fer Bravais?”
“Ah, no, that stays. Apparently, there are limits to heroism.” Clemmi wrinkled her nose. “Though, between us … I rather miss it. Not the tonic, obviously. The fussing.” Her hand strayed briefly to her middle.
“There she is.” Clemmi raised her hand as a familiar burgundy cloche wove between the tables, a folded stack of newsprint tucked beneath one arm.
“Mesdames.” Cybil dropped into the third chair and set the papers down between the cutlery. “Forgive the lateness. I’ve spent half the morning on the telephone to London.” She slid the top one across the table, folded flat at the front page. “Hot off the boat train.”
Elizabeth took in the headline running across the top of the page, then the line beneath it. From our correspondent in Paris, Cybil Hughes.
The front page. How many of these had Cybil written over the years, only to watch them go to print under some other man’s name? And now here was the biggest story of the season, with her name sitting exactly where it belonged.
“Cybil.” Elizabeth looked up from the page. “It’s wonderful … and long overdue.”
“Let me see.” Clemmi drew the paper towards her. “Oh, Cybil. Front page of The Times. I shall be dining out on knowing you for months.”
“Harrison had little choice in the matter.
Half of Fleet Street has been asking where the story came from, and our correspondent was starting to look rather coy.
“ Cybil removed her gloves and placed them beside the stack of papers. “He telephoned this morning. It seems he’s suddenly very keen to discuss my future at the paper.”
“And so he should be.”
“Which brings me to the other half of my morning. Gaston read it over his coffee and had a message with Madame Roche before I’d finished mine. I called at Le Figaro on my way here.“ She reached for the carafe and filled her glass. “He’s offered me a desk. Rédactrice adjointe.”
“Assistant editor?” Elizabeth set down the paper. “Cybil, that’s wonderful.”
“It’s flattering, certainly. Several years too late and from the wrong side of the Channel, but flattering.” Cybil turned the glass slowly by its stem. “London finally offering respect, Paris offering a title. And no earthly way of taking both.”
“What will you do?”
“Order lunch.” She picked up the menu. “The rest can wait until I’ve eaten.”
Marcel appeared at Cybil’s shoulder, pencil poised above his pad. “Mesdames, vous avez choisi?”
“The poulet à l’estragon, please, Marcel.” Clemmi surrendered her menu.
“Bien s?r, madame.” His moustache twitched. “Et pour vous, mesdames?”
“The omelette aux fines herbes, please.”
“The same for me,” Cybil said. “Et une carafe de vin blanc.”
“Très bien, mesdames.” Marcel gathered the menus and withdrew.
“Now.” Cybil slid the second newspaper from the stack and folded it open at a marked page.
“Since we’re celebrating the press today, you’ll want to hear what the society column is serving this morning.
I nearly choked on my coffee.” She ran her finger down the column.
“One hears that a certain ministerial wife, long celebrated for her services to Franco-American understanding, has lately rendered them more generously than even her husband’s ministry might wish.
Indeed, it is whispered that during this summer’s delicate conversations, the lady’s American sympathies extended to sharing rather more than her table – and that certain positions her husband defended so stoutly at the Quai d’Orsay had already been surrendered elsewhere. ”
“They can’t mean…” Clemmi’s voice dropped to a whisper better suited to church. “Oriane de Massenet?”
“A ministerial wife devoted to Franco-American understanding? They’ve all but printed her calling cards.”
“But surely Monsieur de Massenet will simply have it quashed. Isn’t that rather what he does?”
“He can quash a story about an affair; nobody in Paris would cross the street for an affair.” Cybil laid the paper flat. “Read it again, Clemmi. It isn’t the affair they’re accusing her of.”
Clemmi’s eyes travelled back down the column, and one hand rose slowly to the base of her throat. “The negotiations. They’re saying she gave the Americans her husband’s hand before he’d played it.”
“The ministry’s finest asset, leaking the ministry’s position across a pillow in the middle of the loan talks.
There isn’t a power in France that can bury that, because by dinner every man at the Quai d’Orsay will be asking the same question: what exactly did de Massenet’s household cost us this summer? ”
“You knew.” Elizabeth studied Cybil across the table. “That day with Lenoir. You offered him the American ambassador and Madame de Massenet as though it were common currency – days before a word of this was printed.”
“I keep my ear to the ground.” Cybil reached for her glass, entirely unhurried.
“That’s not an answer.”
“Is it not?” Cybil arched a brow.
The first courses arrived, and Clemmi had barely lifted her fork before her gaze snagged on something across the terrace.
“Well, speak of the devil’s understudy. Don’t look now, but Pippin’s three tables along … and unless I’m very much mistaken, that’s Madame Charpentier he’s fawning over.”
Elizabeth followed her line of sight. There, screened until now by the lunchtime crush, sat Pippin Westcott – immaculate in dove grey, head bent attentively over his companion’s hand.
“Charpentier … the steel wife?” Cybil asked.
“The very same. She sits on two of Cecily’s committees, though I can’t say she over-exerts herself on either.” Clemmi returned her attention to her plate. “Mostly she attends to be admired.”
“And there’s certainly plenty to admire.” Elizabeth watched the diamonds catch the light as Madame Charpentier gestured. “According to Maggie, there’s a ring for every mistress she’s caught her husband with.”
“Then Pippin’s found the best-informed hand in Paris to kiss.” Cybil’s eyes narrowed over the rim of her glass. “It’s a curious thing, though. Lady Davenport, Oriane, and now the steel wife … whoever writes that column draws all his material from one rather particular circle.”
“A circle our Mr Westcott sits at the very centre of.” Elizabeth watched him bend a little lower over Madame Charpentier’s hand. “A man with no profession, no income his grandmother will admit to, and an ear at every table worth listening at.”
“And every reason to feel hard done by. Being Oriane’s chevalier servant is the nearest thing to a profession he has – and if the column’s right, she’s been devoting her attentions rather higher up the American delegation than her devoted escort.”
“You don’t really think…” Clemmi glanced from one to the other, then back across the terrace. “Pippin? But he’s harmless. He’s … Pippin.”
“So was Miss Bembridge … until we scratched beneath the surface.”
Across the terrace, Pippin glanced up from Madame Charpentier’s rings and found the three of them watching. He didn’t so much as blink – merely raised his glass a fraction in their direction and returned to his audience.
“Harmless,” Cybil murmured, “doesn’t usually toast the jury.”
“Well, I refuse to let Pippin Westcott put me off my lunch.” Clemmi turned her back on the far table.
“Besides, I have proper news. Oliver told me last night – Mr Arbuthnot is to return to London after all. Not to that dreadful posting, either. Something rather senior, apparently, by way of an apology.”
“I’m glad.” Elizabeth could still see him pausing beside her chair, his eyes finding hers beneath the brim of her cloche. Whoever you are, I hope you wrote it all down. “He’s owed considerably more than an apology.”
She reached for her glass, turning her attention back to Clemmi. “And Miss Bembridge? Has there been any word?”
“Also recalled to London, but under rather different circumstances. Oliver says she asked to be tried here, though heaven knows why; he was rather vague on the particulars. And she’s given them nothing. Not a single name. I still can’t believe it and keep waiting for it to make some kind of sense.”
“In her mind, the British government owed her, and she was simply taking what was hers.”
“Which means the people she was selling to are still out there.” Cybil settled back in her chair. “And thanks to her silence, nobody even knows where to start looking.”
“And Lady Davenport? How is she bearing it?”
“Better than anyone has a right to expect, though she’s dreading the funeral. It’s Miss Bembridge she can’t get past. How the woman could have stood in her drawing room sugaring her tea, knowing all the while that Sir Conrad lay dead in his study … and by her hand.”
“Nobody ever paid Ruth Bembridge much attention. That was how she got away with it for so long.”
Cybil glanced at her wristwatch.
“Heavens. I promised Harrison an answer this week, and there’s a telephone call to place before London shuts up shop for the evening.” She reached for her bag, but Elizabeth’s hand came down over hers.
“My treat. Front pages don’t come along every day.”
“Indeed, they don’t.” Cybil rose and tucked the newspapers beneath her arm. “You know, Gaston’s is the better offer. It’s the Channel I can’t decide about – I’ve moved my life across it once already.”
“And Harrison?”
“Harrison can wait until tomorrow. It won’t hurt either of them to wonder.”
She pressed a kiss to Elizabeth’s cheek, inclined her head to Clemmi, and set off between the tables towards the boulevard.
Elizabeth watched her go until the burgundy cloche was lost among the lunch crowd, then turned back to Clemmi.
Marcel set the small silver saucer on the table beside her. “L’addition, mademoiselle.”
Elizabeth settled the bill, adding a little extra for Marcel, and gathered her bag and gloves.
Clemmi rose and drew on her gloves. “What time is Jonathan collecting you tonight?”
“Seven. And before you say anything, it’s just an exhibition.”
“Of course it is.”
“We simply have the same taste in art; that’s all.”
“Nonetheless, you’ll want to look your best, won’t you?
” Clemmi tucked her arm through Elizabeth’s as they stepped out onto the pavement.
“Have you given any thought to what you’ll wear?
What about your sapphire silk with the silver beading?
Or perhaps the champagne – no, the sapphire, definitely the sapphire… ”
If you enjoyed Elizabeth's adventures in Paris, then join her, Meli and Winston as they travel north for a Scottish Christmas of log fires and festive feasting with her sister-in-law Caroline's family.
Only for their journey to be cut short by a blizzard deep in the Yorkshire Dales. Forced to seek shelter in the village of Little Kettleby, the passengers find the snow-covered cottages, carols and festive cheer a delightful diversion while they wait for the thaw.
Delightful, that is, until a man is found murdered.
And with the pass snowed shut and the police beyond reach, no one can leave Little Kettleby. Not even the killer.