A Rather Charming Invitation (31 page)

Now here we were, face to face. Er, well, mask to mask. Even with this subterfuge, I could see that Drake was undeniably a charming, compelling man, with a South African-accented voice that was cheerfully aggressive, and a deceptively boyish attitude.

As we sidled closer, I observed that he had one of those year-round suntans on his leathery face and sinewy neck. I knew from Honorine’s research that he was in his mid-sixties, yet he appeared extremely fit and athletic, as if determined to be taken for a thirty-year-old. So his talk was mainly about his physical exploits of competitive sailing, mountain climbing, hang-gliding and car racing. I recalled that he was known to be an adventurer and supreme risk-taker, speeding his souped-up cars across treacherous desert tracks.

At the moment, he was talking, rather loudly, about having just survived a dangerous storm at sea in a sailing race around the world. As he described, with relish, his daring brushes with death, his enthralled audience “
ooh’d
” and “
ahh’d
” at each key moment.

“That was when we saw the sharks,” he was saying, pausing for effect, and when everyone gasped, he flashed a smile of blindingly white teeth, continuing his narrative, while his audience listened, spellbound. He spoke in short, simple sentences, which somehow increased his conversational power, as if he were bestowing the gift of his words like a king’s largesse.

Yet, with all this testosterone-fueled talk, I thought there seemed to be a trace of something geeky and awkward underneath. From photos I’d seen of him, I knew that his face was not conventionally handsome, that his skin was even a bit scarred. Without his mystique, perhaps he might not have been the sort of man that people were magnetically attracted to.

Drake’s monologue was occasionally punctuated by a bolstering comment from his wife, who would enhance the anecdote with quick bits like, “Yes, the Sultan of Brunei
still
wants to buy your Lamborghini.”

Tina Drake was blonde and statuesque, with large breasts that were displayed quite prominently. Her gown had a spectacularly long train that swept the ground like a peacock’s tail feathers, and around her wrist she carried an ivory fan with a silk cord. She was the kind of celebrity who seems to effortlessly strike poses, yet behaves as if completely unaware of possessing such stunning looks. Her English accent was carefully poshified, but betrayed occasional wisps of working-class tones.

“Arm candy,” someone muttered. “She used to be a fashion model, you know.”

When the music stopped again, Drake turned to his wife, making a big show of adoring her, kissing her hand as if she were one of those mountains he’d climbed and conquered. Then he walked out the door.

A moment later, one of the servants banged a Chinese gong. It must have been out in the hallway, but the sound echoed everywhere. It was a signal, because immediately, some of the men also began to leave the room. The young fellow who’d been dancing with Honorine said enviously, “It’s the card game. I hear you have to have a special pass to get in.” He turned to Honorine. “More champagne?” he asked. She nodded, and he headed toward the flowing fountain.

Jeremy glanced at me and said, “Let the games begin. Will you be okay?”

“Sure,” I said.

“You know what I mean. Don’t do anything heroic,” he said meaningfully.

“The same to you,” I said. Jeremy grinned, and followed the other men.

Honorine, still eyeing her dancing partner, complained, “That boy cannot dance, he has stepped all over my shoes. And, he talked nonstop about how rich Mr. Drake is,” she added under her breath. “You don’t need to worry that he noticed my accent, because he has no interest in hearing my opinion!”

A pair of masked men were approaching us, and we soon discovered that the masks evidently gave some guests the permission they craved to be more daring and frisky; as if somehow the disguise also cloaked their less appealing attributes of stature (short), girth (fat) or other more ordinary features (baldness or big nose). If you said you wanted to sit it out, many of these men assumed it meant that you wanted to disappear into a dark corner with them. Under such circumstances, the safest thing to do was to keep dancing.

So, Honorine and I danced, and danced, and danced. Finally, when we’d simply had enough, we met up again by the doorway and slowly sipped champagne together.

“
La-la!
” Honorine cried. “It’s all just too much!”

“Cheesit! Here comes our hostess,” I warned, seeing the golden figure approaching us. Tina Drake had been working her way through the crowd, and now, as she drew nearer, she gave us a generic smile of pleasure at our company.

“Hi, I’m Tina . . . Parker’s wife,” she said in a disarmingly plain, frank welcome. “How are you ladies tonight? Don’t you just hate masquerade balls? But my husband
adores
them!”

She was older than the two of us, but much younger than Drake. She was so refreshingly blunt and cheerful, and seemed to be a genuinely friendly creature.

“Marvellous,” I said, doing my best to sound like Amelia.

“Anyway,” Tina went on, “we’ve already raised half a million euros for the little orphan kids.”

She now glanced encouragingly at Honorine. But Honorine appeared lost in thought, gazing off in the distance, not even responding with a smile for Tina, just seemingly submerged in her own world, contemplating . . . what?

I nudged her. Honorine nodded faintly and dutifully at Tina, not at all convincing, like a bad student who doesn’t even try to listen in class. Tina smiled indulgently at Honorine’s apparent youthful boredom, and was ready to move on, but then, totally inexplicably, Honorine suddenly said, with as little of her accent as she could manage, “I just love your perfume, where can I buy it?”

I sucked in my breath in dismay. Tina smiled patronizingly and answered, “Oh, sweetie, my husband had it specially made for me, with a secret formula so that no other woman in the world could have it.” She glanced at me in amusement and said, “Excuse me, I must see to my other guests.”

As soon as she was gone I turned to Honorine and said, “What on earth—?”

“That woman,” Honorine said urgently, “I have seen her before. I mean, I have
smelled
her before.”

“Honorine,” I hissed, “
what
are you talking about?”

Undaunted, Honorine continued, “Didn’t you smell that perfume of hers?”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t. And I don’t see how you could have, either, with all these Marie Antoinettes dancing around, drenched in competing scent—”

“But I did,” Honorine said calmly, “because Madame Drake’s fragrance is one that my poor nostrils could not possibly forget. And you know where I first smelled it? In your offices, when you were away. Remember I told you that a woman came to deliver your gift for Jeremy from the jeweler? And I had to open all the windows, all over the house, to make that heavy, horrible fragrance go away?
Alors!
It’s her.”

“This is one of the richest women in the world, she doesn’t work in a jewelry store,” I objected.

“
Exactement
,” Honorine said triumphantly. “Yet, she was wearing this awful perfume on that day, and she is wearing it now. She is absolutely the same woman who came into our office to deliver the ring. But how is that possible?”

Mindful of Jeremy’s admonishment, I thought about how he always avoided leaping to conclusions. I said carefully, “I suppose two different women could have the same perfume. People steal formulas all the time, don’t they? Maybe someone who worked in the factory sold it to a competitor . . .”

“
Impossible
,” Honorine said emphatically. “You heard her. No little delivery girl could get hold of such a closely guarded, private perfume formula.”

I got that prickly feeling on the back of my neck when I instinctively know that something is true, no matter how improbable. What this actually proved I couldn’t say, but now all my blood-hound instincts were aroused. We had moved out of the ballroom for privacy, wandering down the hall and approaching the foot of the big staircase.

“Honorine,” I said in a low tone, “stay right here and stand guard for me. If somebody’s on their way up the stairs, cough loudly, so I’ll know they’re coming.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked, looking a little scared, as if she’d caused this.

“Snoop around!” I said.

I suppose, on some level, I thought I might actually find the tapestry hanging on a wall like a captured moose head. But I think I just wanted to prove to myself that it wasn’t there, and that there was nothing really amiss with the Drakes; that they were simply powerful people who inhabited a universe where paranoia was unfortunately not misplaced, and, as Monsieur Felix had suggested, Drake was only carefully vetting us before allowing us into their inner circle. However, I was no longer entirely sure that I wanted to have anything to do with these strange people, so, suddenly, there seemed a lot less at stake on that score.

I scampered up the staircase to an interim landing, then hesitated. It was dark, with only a life-sized painted portrait of a young woman in a Napoleonic “empire” dress and bonnet. I continued up the next staircase, which led to the second level; but when I reached it, I discovered a creepy butler posted there, dressed in a weird costume that made him look like a medieval executioner.

Very purposefully, he stepped in my path, and said loftily, “No women allowed on this level. Sorry. The powder room is down on the main level.” I realized that this must be where the men had gone to Drake’s private game room to play cards.

I nodded compliantly, feeling somewhat protected by my eye-mask, so that the guy wouldn’t really be able to identify me. I went back down to the little interim landing where I’d just been, and I ducked out of his sight, hiding in the shadows, my back pressing against the wall. And while I stood there trying to figure out my next move, I saw something very odd: the “painting” moved.

Drake’s P.R. man stepped out from behind it, barking orders at someone into a cell phone. So, it was a secret door! I shrank tighter into the shadows, trying not to breathe. When he went past me I heard him say distinctly, “Well, she’s around here somewhere, dammit, so find her.” He closed the door, and moved on downstairs.

My heart pounding, I waited till his footsteps died away. Once I was certain that he was gone, I returned to the painting, searching for the hidden spring. Sure enough, behind the right side of the frame was a little metal square button. I pressed it, and the door opened obligingly. I stepped inside.

There was a private staircase, lit only by strips of small lights on the floor, along both sides of the stairs. Should I go up or down? In the dim lighting I peered down, and surmised that the stairs eventually led outside, judging by the grassy footprints that the P.R. man must have left behind. So I opted to go up. It was a longer climb than I expected, which indicated to me that I was bypassing the second level with the executioner-butler, and climbing to a higher floor.

I had reached a small, unassuming door, but it opened into an elaborate private suite with a personalized gym and massage table, small kitchen, refrigerator and bar, a bathroom, a steam room and a sizeable bedroom.

Beyond all this was an enormous office. Everywhere were photographs of Drake in all his exploits—sailing, climbing, flying a small plane, and big-game hunting. There were also tons of trophies and awards, for everything from these athletic competitions, to recognition of his charitable impact. The world had given him the keys to their kingdoms, and every conceivable token of their admiration, yet here was a man who apparently needed to be reminded of these things at every turn.

I’d instinctively gravitated to his office, with its massive desk and a computer connected to a huge flat screen. The entire wall behind the computer desk looked like one big glass bookshelf. As I approached, I saw that it was actually a very elaborate display case, locked, and filled with gleaming objects.

I drew nearer . . . and gazed at row after row after row of coins . . . rare coins that he’d amassed, illuminated within their case. Every one of them was fastidiously labelled, with the country of origin and the time period. Each sat upon its own little velvet throne, like a jewel. Roman coins. French coins. German, Iberian, Swiss, Austrian, Byzantine, medieval European, Indo-Greek, Caribbean, Scottish; and coins from Paraguay and Singapore and Bulgaria and the American colonies. Money, money, money. As far as the eye could see.

In a strange way, it made sense that coin collecting would be one of Drake’s hobbies, perhaps even his secret favorite. For I could well imagine him in his geeky adolescence—an awkward teenage boy hoarding his best ones, and haunting the coin swaps. As I peered closer, I saw from their labels that they were very rare coins indeed. My researcher’s “nose” was captivated by their historical value.

Then I reminded myself that I was not in a museum and should not be lingering like this. One thing I had certainly not seen was a tapestry, not a single one; and if Drake was interested in them, I’d surely have found a whole collection. I considered that I was probably wasting my time, but I should check out the rest of this suite, and then sneak back downstairs before I was discovered and accused of trying to steal something.

I was very careful, moving as quietly as possible. But when I pussyfooted past the sleeping computer, my motion made the computer “wake” and the screen went on with a soft, obliging groan. The screen now displayed several open files, with various photographs of rare old coins; so many that I didn’t know what to look at first.

But then my eye was caught by an enlarged drawing of a coin that appeared startlingly familiar. As I drew closer, I gasped. I certainly recognized the “J.L.” coat of arms and the half-moon behind it. It was absolutely the same insignia as the one on the tapestry. But what was it doing on this rare old coin? I squinted and leaned closer, trying to see what the text beneath it said, but . . .