Vintage Love (22 page)

“Yes,” Bartel agreed. “She was dedicated to her father. Since his death she has become a recluse.”

George Frederick Kingston spoke up in his best Mayfair manner and said, “Knew the man slightly. Our friendship was interrupted by the war, of course. But I bought a good many shipments of fruit and other produce of the Mideast through his firm.”

Bartel nodded politely. “Jean was known as a good man of business. I was happy to have him as a partner.”

Eric said, “He was a staunch supporter of the late emperor, was he not?”

The shipbuilder hesitated and then admitted, “Yes. I guess you could call him that. But then many people in Marseilles felt warmly about Napoleon. Even after his defeat and death.”

Betsy ventured, “Do you also believe France would be better with the emperor returned, Monsier Bartel?”

He stroked his beard nervously. “I accept the turn of events which brought about his downfall. One cannot go against history.”

“It has occasionally been tried and sometimes with great success,” Eric said, studying the man.

“Forgive me, my business is shipbuilding,” Bartel said. “I am a poor historian.”

“The thing which impressed me when I knew the late Jean LaFlenche was his resemblance to Napoleon,” Kingston said.

Pierre Bartel nodded. “Yes. The resemblance was startling!”

“I suppose many people commented on it,” Betsy said.

“Yes,” the shipbuilder said. “Jean was both amused and pleased to be sometimes taken for the late emperor. It came to be a part of his life.”

Eric gave him a direct look. “I wonder if it might have become all of it.”

Bartel frowned. “I don’t follow you!”

Eric continued, “Surely you have heard the rumors that LaFlenche was spirited away from his sickbed to board a ship for Saint Helena. And that there he took the place of Napoleon. And as a result Napoleon is somewhere in Europe today under the direction of a former army officer named Raymond Valmy, who hopes to use the ailing former emperor to set France ablaze with revolution once again.”

The shipbuilder looked more and more uneasy as Eric expounded on for his benefit. He spread his hands and said, “But obviously the story is sheer fantasy! LeFlenche died in his own bed and is buried here in Marseilles.”

Betsy said, “We have heard the story is true.”

“As visitors you have been deceived by those who enjoy passing off gossip as fact,” the shipbuilder said righteously. “No one can be more dead at this moment than Jean LaFlenche.”

Eric said dryly, “I question only where he is buried.”

“Hard to think of the chap dead,” Kingston said in his grand manner.

Bartel eyed them all sharply. He said, “If you have come here hoping for some scandalous story to back these rumors up, you have come to the wrong person.”

“That would seem to be clear,” Eric said with some irony.

Bartel coughed. “I may say that several reporters from London newspapers have been here following up the same wild story. None of them had any luck with proving it. After a week or two they left disgruntled.”

“We do not mean to waste your time,” Betsy apologized. “It is just that Mr. Walters, Senior, was a good friend of Jean LaFlenche and wished to learn more about what happened to him.”

“He died,” Pierre Bartel said.

Eric rose. “I see there is no point in taking any more of your time, monsieur. I thank you for seeing us.”

The shipbuilder now looked relieved. He also rose and in a more affable manner said, “It has been most pleasant meeting you. And I insist that you have a short tour of the shipbuilding works of which LaFlenche was a full-fledged partner before you go.”

“We don’t wish to put you to any further bother,” Eric told him.

The bearded man took his black top hat from a hook on the wall, and offering Betsy his arm, he said, “It is no bother. I wish to personally escort you about the yard.”

Kingston smiled and said, “I once visited a yard in Liverpool, so I shall enjoy this.”

A few minutes later they were being shown the ways, and then they entered one of the big yards where the keel of a sailing vessel was being laid. They were midget figures inside the forty-foot walls which rose on all sides of them. The shipyard owner explained that when a ship was finished and ready to be floated out, ocean water was released into the yard and the outer wall swung away so the ship could float out with ease.

Eric studied the bare bones of the ship’s hull in the making. He said, “You are not presently working on this vessel?”

“No,” Pierre Bartel said. “We have been asked to complete a ship that’s nearly finished. So we have sent all our considerable labor force there until that vessel is completed and launched. But I thought you would enjoy seeing the inside of a yard.”

“We have!” Betsy agreed. “Though I found the stairway descent dizzying.”

Bartel smiled and glanced toward the open steps up one side of the yard. “It can be frightening when you are not used to it. We cannot spare time to indulge in the frills of a safety railing. The majority of our men are old hands and well used to coming down the narrow steps.”

They were still discussing the yard when a man came hurrying down the steps to tell Bartel that he was needed to make some important decision. He excused himself and went up the steps to join the messenger, leaving them in the bottom of the yard. As he climbed the unprotected steps, his figure grew tinier.

Betsy turned to Eric and said, “We’ve seen all we wish here. We should have gone up to the ground level with him.”

“Yes,” Kingston said, looking about him apprehensively. “I find it rather disturbing being down here.”

“There’s no danger,” Eric assured the older man. And to Betsy he explained, “I want to ask some other lead questions, and they may not seem so annoying here as they might in his office.”

“I see,” she said. “So we wait for him to come back down.”

“Yes, I think so,” Eric agreed. “What do you make of him?”

“He’s lying,” Kingston said with some annoyance. “I think that is plain.”

“I agree,” she said. “I’m sure he knows all about the LaFlenche affair and that he is a staunch supporter of Valmy.”

“That’s the way I see it,” Eric said. “There is no question that he is anxious to be rid of us.”

“And showing us around down here is just part of that,” she suggested.

“Exactly,” Eric said. “But I wish to make the best of it. When he comes down again, I’m going to ask him some more questions about the exact time of LaFlenche’s death. His answers may be helpful in condemning him.”

“Why not put him down as a liar and let it go at that,” Kingston grumbled. “He surely can’t believe he’s deceiving us.”

“I have an idea he knows we’re seeing through him,” Eric said. “That makes him dangerous.”

As Eric finished speaking, they were all aware at once of a great roaring sound. It frew louder every second, and she turned to see what was causing it and paled! Coming at them from the ocean end of the yard was a great wave of water! In a moment it would be on them, overwhelming them!

“THE SLUICE gates!” Eric cried. “Someone has opened them!”

“We’re lost!” Kingston shouted in dismay.

“Come on!” Eric roughly seized Betsy as she stood there frozen by the sight of the growing mountain of advancing sea water coming down on them.

Kingston was already scrambling in the direction of the steps, his top hat gone, his coat streaming behind him as he raced with a speed hardly believable in one of his temperament.

Eric stopped trying to force her along and lifted her up and carried her toward the steps in his arms. He was not able to make the same speed as Kingston with her as a burden. He had only gone a step or two when the water was at his ankles, then at his knees, the roaring horrendous now. And by the time he staggered to the bottom of the steps, the water was waist-high on him.

“Give me your hands, girl!” Kingston cried, bending over from a higher step to catch her hands.

She obeyed him without a word. Passed from one man to the other, she hardly realized what was happening. Then a soaked Eric was clambering up the steps behind her and urging her and Kingston on.

“Hurry!” he cried. ‘The water is gaining force all the time! It will soon be catching up with us!”

Her fear of the steps without a railing was now behind her. She was terrified of a far worse fate — that of being drowned in the yawning area of the yard! Kingston was literally clawing his way up the steps to freedom.

Sobbing and gasping, she followed the actor with Eric’s encouraging cries coming from behind her. They finally reached the safety of the grassy area by the steps. All three of them collapsed on the ground there while they gazed down at the yard now almost completely filled with ocean water.

Kingston gasped. “The mad blighter tried to drown us!”

“He did!” Betsy sobbed in agreement.

“I know,” Eric placated them. “This has been no accident, but we dare not accuse him openly. It would do no good in any case!”

“You’re going to let him get away with it?” Betsy asked in dismay.

“It is the political thing to do at the moment,” Eric said grimly. “One day I will hope to bring Monsieur Bartel to task for what he’s done!”

The bearded man was running across the grass to join them with some of his workers following on his heels. He looked shocked as he reached the spot where they were resting. “My good people, I do not know what to say,” he said in consternation.

Eric smiled wryly and got to his feet. “Someone made a bad error.”

“A ghastly mistake!” Pierre Bartel apologized. “I do not know how to explain.”

“You might try!” Betsy said as Eric and Kingston helped her up.

Pierre Bartel removed his top hat and mopped his brow with a large white handkerchief. “It is like a bad dream! I had an inspiration when I came up here. I decided to show you how the yards flood when the sluice gates are opened. A most impressive sight!”

“We witnessed it at close range,” Eric said grimly.

“But the stupid oafs opened the wrong sluice gates. I told them clearly yard number one, and instead they flooded number two where you were standing.”

“A simple error,” Betsy said bitterly. “Yet it nearly cost us our lives.”

“I shall make those stupid men suffer for their mistake,” the shipyard owner promised. “In the meanwhile what can I do to make up to you for this dreadful accident?”

Eric said, “Have our carriage brought to us as soon as possible. Our tour here is ended. We must get back to the inn.”

Pierre Bartel continued to bluster and apologize, but he was hardly convincing. Betsy even thought she saw a smug smile cross his face as the carriage drove off with its three soaked and dejected passengers.

She told the other two, “I’m sure he is laughing at our discomfort.”

Eric said, “He would much prefer our having drowned in there. He failed in his instructions.”

Kingston stared at the younger man. “You think he had orders to kill us?”

“Yes,” the young secret service man said, sitting back against the carriage seat. “And I’m sure he’s not the only one out to get us. We are fair game as long as we threaten their scheme.”

“I jolly well wish that Felix Black had been down there when the water came flooding in,” George Frederick Kingston complained. “He’d know a bit of what we’re up against.”

Eric said quietly, “He knows about it already. Black was an agent once himself. He has faced every sort of threat in his time.”

“Never fancied being drowned like a rat!” the actor said, hunching miserably in his wet clothing.

Betsy gave him a small smile of encouragement. “We will all feel better when we’ve had a change to dry things.”

“This is my best outfit,” Kingston said in an injured tone. “Probably ruined!”

As soon as they returned, Betsy had a warm bath and changed into her yellow dress. She had just completed the change and given her clothes to the innkeeper’s wife to be dried out and looked after when Eric, also in a dry outfit, came to join her in the hallway of the inn.

“How is Kingston?” she asked.

“Still complaining about his fine clothes being ruined,” Eric said with an amused look. “He seems to have forgotten how near he came to drowning.”

“What now?”

“We must plan our visit to the tomb of Jean LaFlenche,” he said.

She hesitated. “Must we? We have enough evidence to know the exchange took place.”

“Checking the tomb is essential. Felix Black demands it.”

Betsy shrugged. “I must confess I’m beginning to have some sympathy with Kingston. I almost wish that Felix Black was here to enter that tomb, not any of us.”

The young man smiled. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“This isn’t turning out exactly as I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“That we would be doing the harassing. We would be tracking down the plotters. Thus far we appear to merely be making targets of ourselves. And we are being threatened by enemy agents wherever we go and whatever we do! We are the pursued!”

Eric said, “It may seem that way, but that is only for the moment. The tempo of things will change. And soon!”

“I hope so.”

He patted her on the arm. “You have done well. You mustn’t falter at this time. I have good news. I have received a message from London from Black. The innkeeper had it waiting for me when we returned.”

“What is the message?” she asked eagerly.

“Tomorrow we sail for Naples. That is why it is urgent we check on that tomb tonight.”

“Has our passage been booked?”

“No. I will look after that this afternoon,” he promised. “There is a continuous traffic between here and Naples. Ships sail every day over the route, and it is only a short voyage.”

“Why Naples?”

Eric leaned close and said, “Because at this very moment Valmy is there with Napoleon. It could be your chance to come face-to-face with the emperor.”

She was at once excited and eager again. “Do you really think so?”

“Yes,” he said. “We do not know their hiding place. But it is somewhere in the city. That is the information passed on to Black.”

“So we may not have to wait long,” she said.