The Prisoner of the Riviera (The Francis Bacon Mysteries) by Law Janice

Author:Law, Janice [Law, Janice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2013-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Back to the gare. Fortunately, I like trains and I’m even rather fond of train stations, where once in a while fortune smiles and one meets an interesting stranger in the loo. But, today, yours truly was all business. My new passport was in my pocket, and as soon as I saw the back of Monsieur Joubert and collected the canceled gambling chits, my alter ego, Marcel Lepage, would be off for Paris and the boat train to London, where I’d be myself again and where the people who count, Nan and Arnold, would take me as I am—rowdy, promiscuous, and occasionally reckless.

Marcel, who is none of those things, had been a strain, and I would have bought the ticket and wired Arnold but for the fear of jinxing my plans. Inconspicuous behind a pillar on the eastbound platform, I brushed up on my cycling vocabulary via Nice-Matin until the Marseille express was announced. A rumble and a clatter, a hiss of steam, a wheeze of brakes, a clatter of doors, and Joubert, who was probably a Hungarian named László Bencze, came prancing out of one of the first-class carriages.

He was immaculately dressed in a dove gray suit, wearing a homburg and gloves, as if he were auditioning to play Hercule Poirot. “Ah, Francis,” he said. “Have we a car?”

Have we wings and halos and a liveried chauffeur? “It’s not a long walk,” I said and led him out of the station and up the hill past the hôtel de ville. He complained the whole way, but though he was clearly used to being waited on, he would not let me help him with his attaché case. Interesting, that. I chose the street that fronted the house, rather than the garden entrance, which Anastasie said had been used by their wartime clients, and Joubert recognized nothing until we were at the front door and the bell was ringing deep inside.

“The Chavanels,” he said, wiping his face on a silk handkerchief.

“You know them?”

“One met so many people during the war,” he said airily.

Anastasie opened the door, took one look at him, and said, “László Bencze. Bonjour. It’s been a long time.”

“It is all my pleasure, Madame.” He made a sweeping bow without looking particularly thrilled, and when we got in the hall, he gave me a sour look. “I might have known better than to rely on you, Francis.”

“You are quite wrong, there,” Anastasie said. “Monsieur Francis recovered your notebook at considerable personal risk. We have merely provided a safe house for him.”

Joubert bowed again without saying what he thought of this. Anastasie led him into the parlor and sent me to Agathe for some refreshments. In the kitchen, I whispered that she should beware of the attaché case. “He has something valuable or something dangerous.”

“Bring that carafe of wine. We will be prepared.”

I bet we would.

Back in the parlor, Anastasie had produced the notebook and demanded, bless her, my gambling chits. Joubert resisted this; he wanted the letter as well.

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