City of Secrets (18 page)

“What is this innocent’s name?”

“Malcolm. Edward Malcolm, usually called Teddy.”

“Bah! Such an English name!” Claude pulled a battered reporter’s notebook out of his pocket and handed it to Devin, who wrote the name on a blank page. The Frenchman glanced at it, then handed the notebook over to Landy.

“Connaissiez ce type?”

Landy glanced at the name, shook his head, and passed the notebook to Galembert, who said,
“Anglais?”

“Americain.”

“
Non
.”

Fournier tore the sheet out of the notebook, lit his cigarette to it, and turned back to Devin. “I am sorry, my friend. But I will keep this name in my head and make inquiries for you.”

“I would be grateful.” Devin took a swallow of the bitter coffee and added, “I’m also looking for information about a plot—an assassination.”

Landy and Galembert, who had given no indication of hearing any other part of the conversation, raised their heads in unison at that. Fournier laughed.

“
Mon Dieu,
Devin! Have I not just reminded you that this is not London? We are not so free as you imagine to speak of such things here. Such as we especially must take care.”

“Nevertheless,” Devin said, leaning closer to Fournier and lowering his voice, “although you may not speak of them, you know about them. What have you heard?”

Fournier glanced quickly around him. The tables immediately next to them were empty, but Landy and Galembert picked up their chairs and pulled them up to the single table just the same.

“There is nothing new,” Galembert said. “No one has the energy to start that again.”

Landy said something rude that even Devin could not translate. There was no keeping up with the young and their slang. He asked Landy, “What about you? Have you heard something?”

“Yes,” Landy replied in English. “Yesterday I hear a rumor of a foreign group that is come to France. Who they are and who their leader is, I do not hear. But it is said they plan ... what you said.”

“The target?”

Landy took Founder’s notebook and drew a little symbol on it, then turned the paper around in Devin’s direction. He had drawn a miniature crown.

Devin looked into Landy’s eyes, decided he could trust him, and said to Fournier, “I will take you all to supper tomorrow, Claude. And if any one of you finds out anything else, I will do more. I will pay for the printing of a new number of
L’Indépendant
each time one of you brings me some piece of information that I can use. Agreed?”

Galembert’s eyes lit up behind his wire-rimmed glasses, and he was the first to reach out his hand to shake Devin’s. “
D
’
accord!”

Landy shook his hand, too, and Fournier smiled. “
Mon ami,
you come like a much-needed new broom to sweep the cobwebs out of our minds. We will help you. It is a promise.”

They parted then, after making plans to meet the next night at Fournier’s little bistro. Landy and Galembert got up and went off in the direction of the Place de la Republique. Grant went the other way, whistling softly to himself.

#

In another café, on the other side of the street, Oliver Drummond crossed Claude Fournier’s name off Kropotkin’s list. It was just as well he had not approached the editor of
L’Indépendant
at once. Now he would have to find out what had been said in some other way, but at least he had something interesting to report to Mrs. Malcolm ... if she wanted to hear it.

Oliver turned his chair slightly so that his back was to the street and gave in to a sigh. He wasn’t quite sure—and if Louise knew, she was keeping it to herself—what Mrs. Malcolm’s attitude toward Grant, and for that matter toward finding her husband, was anymore. She seemed to swing between extremes of wanting to take some definite action, to drop the whole case, to force Grant to tell her what she wanted to hear—whether he knew what that was or not—and to have nothing further to do with him. Oliver could only try to read her moods and tell her what she wanted to hear at the moment she asked to hear it.

And then there was Grant. For a man who said he preferred to work alone, he had a large number of friends. And Oliver, who would have liked to talk to some of them, was on his own until Grant decided to let him in on what he was finding out from Fournier and God knew

whom else. He hadn’t mentioned knowing Fournier before, and when Grant came to the hotel last night, looking for Mrs. Malcolm, he hadn’t said anything about meeting Fournier today.

Presumably, Grant also preferred to act on whatever opportunities arose, without having to consult anyone else. Oliver wished he would make the first move to restore their mutual trust, but for the time being Oliver could only be observant—and patient.

“Oui, m’sieur?”

Oliver looked up. He must have signaled the waiter without even being aware that he had done so. He looked down again at his coffee cup. It was empty. It was also very early in the morning, but he suspected it was going to be a long day.

“A pernod, s’il vous plait.”

Maddie tried not to remember, but the mystery of it teased continually at the back of her mind, and when it sometimes came to the front, she gave in, not entirely with reluctance, to remembering.

There were two mysteries, really. What had Devin Grant been looking for in her hotel suite in the middle of the night? She could not imagine it had anything to do with his search for Teddy; he had been genuinely surprised to find her there.  Did he believe she was keeping some evidence about Teddy from him and, thinking for some reason that she was out, had decided to look for it instead of asking? That seemed more likely, even though she had nothing—that she was aware of—that he could possibly find useful.

On the other hand, perhaps he had known she was there. He was wearing one of his disguises, after all, in which she would not have recognized him if he had not...

Surely he had not come to...

Her mind drew circles around that second mystery, afraid to focus on it too clearly. She had awakened that night without really knowing why. There had been no sound to disturb her sleep, only an instinct, possibly the same instinct that had made her decide earlier to keep her pistol underneath the bed. She had reached down very carefully and run her hand along the carpet until it came to the cold black metal, then she had drawn the weapon slowly up and clutched it to her nightgown.

She listened. Still there was no noise, so she pushed the bedclothes aside and stood up, back against the wall to steady herself, and focused her eyes on the square of the window. It had become a ritual for Louise to pull the heavy nighttime drapes across the windows and for Maddie then to pull them aside again, for she hated sleeping in a closed room, like a cell. So only the flimsy white outside curtains covered the window, and it seemed an eternity that she stood there, holding the gun, before suddenly a figure appeared through the curtains. The movement had been so quick that it barely registered on her widened eyes.

“Raise your hands!” She hadn’t even noticed at the time that she had said it in French.

The man obeyed but did not seem frightened. He was very self-possessed, in fact, and stood perfectly still waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness so he could make her out. She ought to say something more, to make a move, but then he moved, lunging at her so suddenly that she dropped the pistol even before he reached her. She fell to the floor, with the intruder on top of her, and when she tried to reach for the gun, his hands clamped down on hers, pinning her to the floor.

It was then that she recognized him. But strangely, instead of relief, she felt fear for the first time. She drew in a sharp breath and retaliated the only way she could, with anger.

“What are you doing here?”

Devin didn’t release his grip, and she felt an unreasonable panic rising in her throat. She had to force herself to remain absolutely still, hoping that he would let her go if she didn’t struggle or scream for help. But even then, she knew what he would do next.

At least, her body knew. She could feel the tingle start in her stomach and radiate outward, and her breasts, as if of their own volition, tightened against his chest. For an instant she could see his eyes gleam in the darkness, and she gazed up at him, unable to speak. The light in his eyes shifted as he looked down at her mouth. Then his head followed his gaze, and his own mouth grazed her lightly, went away, then came back and lingered a little longer, still barely touching her.

Involuntarily, she raised her head a fraction to meet him, to offer him more. He took the invitation, probing with his tongue, then invading her, exploring and seeking the secrets she kept from him there; and, she wanted at that moment nothing more than to tell him, to show him, everything he wanted. He felt so good, so close to her. His hands released hers and began to stroke her gently, moving down her body leaving a trail of longing until every inch of her wanted what her mouth had.

He lifted his head from hers and she moved slightly, just enough to see the metal of the pistol that lay inches away from her outstretched hand. She stiffened, brought back to reality by the sight of the weapon, and this time she was able to act almost quickly enough. She jerked her knee up suddenly, and he barely escaped the insulting blow she aimed at him, cursing and rolling over to get out of her reach. She reached out to snatch up the pistol and was on her knees pointing it at him almost before he had regained his feet.

He looked at her for an instant, as if judging how likely she was to shoot him, then guessed correctly and backed toward the window.

“Wait!”

The word came out before she knew she was going to say it. She didn’t know why she did. But it was still too late. He was gone.

#

Maddie drifted through the next days as if she had no connection with anything going on around her. She heard what was said to her and did what was expected of her, but it was as if she were watching someone else perform the motions. She could not understand why no one else seemed to notice that she was not really there, but they behaved as if everything were perfectly normal.

“Florence has decided to set up a salon,” Geoffrey Wingate was saying to her and to Daisy and Lady Jervis one afternoon, two days later. Maddie looked around and saw that she had dressed herself in a perfectly suitable, even attractive, new tea gown in pale peach with cream-colored lace trimming, that her favorite hat with the peach-dyed feathers seemed to be securely fastened, and that she had somehow got herself to the garden restaurant of the Ritz without stumbling. She even remembered that they were waiting for Laurence Fox to join them for tea.

It was a warm, lazy kind of afternoon, such that Maddie thought her lethargic mood probably seemed natural to the others. Good. They wouldn’t mind, then, if she did not talk very much. Lady Jervis, who was taking the opportunity to catch up with her travel journal, would certainly not notice. Geoffrey, who was watching her out of the corner of his eye, may have been concerned but would not press her to join in the conversation.

Fortunately, Daisy was still capable of ordinary polite small talk. “What is a salon?” she asked in her ingenuous way, and Geoffrey Wingate explained that many of the old Parisian aristocrats held salons, or open house, once or twice a week in order to keep up on the latest gossip, introduce their friends to some new musical or literary talent, and generally keep better days alive in their fading memories. Maddie wondered vaguely why Florence would want to do such a thing, but when Geoffrey explained it to Daisy, that young woman at least thought it a splendid idea.

“It seems to me an excellent way to meet people,” Daisy said. “One begins by inviting one’s friends on the condition that each brings a guest, and the next time, the guest brings a guest, and
voilà!
”

“Is it customary in Paris to do such things in one’s hotel suite?” Lady Jervis lifted her pencil long enough to ask.

The Wingates had, despite everyone else’s being at the Ritz, remained at the Bristol, for which Maddie had been grateful, even if she also felt a little mean for being content with less of Florence’s company. Still, the Bristol was only across the square from the Ritz, and Florence could come to see her, too.

She had been glad earlier that morning when she encountered Geoffrey by himself, however, while she and Daisy were having coffee at the Café de la Paix. Geoffrey had been out walking, and with his malacca cane and pale blue coat and white hat had looked very much the Parisian flâneur. He had stopped to chat, in that pleasant way he had, and he seemed to sense something of Maddie’s mood, for after one acute glance at her, he did not attempt to draw her into further conversation. Instead, he expressed a wish that she might feel more like herself later, and they agreed to meet for tea.

“I did suggest that renting a small house might be more suitable,” he was saying now, “but Florence said we would only waste time redecorating and hiring servants. And you know, just between us, that it is as likely as not that Florence will become bored with this new idea as quickly as she has taken it up—so the hotel remains the best venue for the time being.”

Geoffrey passed the plate of macaroons to Daisy, who declined a second one, having made up her mind to slim down to do justice to her elegant new clothes. Today she was dressed—“delightfully
jeune fille
,” Geoffrey told her—in a blue-and-white shirtwaist dress with strips of lace down the front of the bodice and a large straw hat with a blue ribbon hanging down the back.

When she and Maddie had arrived, arm in arm, Daisy had cast a comprehensive glance around the garden, where a number of elegant ladies were already seated at the round, linen-covered tables under the striped umbrellas. She had apparently decided that she could hold her own with any of them, for she had not given them a second glance since.

Maddie had to admire the quick way Daisy was turning herself into a belle, having been given only a little shove in the right direction. Daisy had not lost her charming directness, however, which only added to her appeal. Maddie decided that Laurie Fox didn’t stand a chance; it was only a matter of time.