“But what would have been his motive?”

  “Sympathy for Rosine, being dragooned into marriage with a man she didn’t love. Boys can be very protective of their sisters. Tristan is on the verge of manhood, at the mercy of his glands.”

  She frowned, uncertain of my drift.

  I explained, “Lads of that awkward age often feel com­pelled to prove themselves in some way.”

  “By murdering somebody?”

  “That would be an extreme case,” I admitted. “However, one should never underestimate the glands.” I took out a cigar and put it to my lips, deciding that I’d probably said enough on the matter.

  “Are you speaking of aggressive tendencies?”

  “Er, yes, that sums it up nicely.” I struck a match.

  Then Bernhardt said in the most innocent of tones, “I thought you meant that he was in love with his sister.”

  The match went out.

  “Then the motive would be simple jealousy,” she explained.

  I was deeply shocked. “A brother and sister? I don’t care for that.”

  “Neither do I,” said she, “but it can’t be discounted. Never underestimate the glands.”

  We might have continued this unedifying discussion for some time had it not been for a sudden sound behind us, a def­inite rustling in the bracken. My steed whinnied in fright and reared, and I only stayed up with the greatest difficulty.

  “What is it?” Bernhardt asked.

  It was black and breathless. It was Ezra, the retriever.

  We resumed our progress through the copse until the view opened up. We must have been climbing without being aware of it, for a considerable tract of parkland lay below us. At the foot of the declivity was a stream where some rather scrawny sheep had come to drink. There was a derelict cottage with some of the eaves exposed. In front of it, we could see Jules and Tristan. They had dismounted and were about to enter the ruin, their guns held at the ready.

  “What are they doing?” Bernhardt asked.

  “They appear to believe someone is holed up in there,” said I. “There aren’t many other places he could be. Let’s watch for a moment.”

  It was fascinating as a spectacle, better than watching the Volunteers on maneuver in Windsor Park. Jules appeared to be guarding the front, while Tristan, bent low, prowled around the walls to the rear. We couldn’t hear what was said, if anything. I imagined they would invite the occupant (if one there was) to step out, for it was a safer procedure than walking into a possible ambush.

  “Bertie.”

  Peeved at having the sport interrupted, I said, “Yes?”

  Bernhardt said, “Look at Ezra.”

  “What?”

  “Look at the dog. He’s behaving strangely.”

  I turned and saw exactly what she meant. Ezra was obvi­ously stalking something in the bracken behind us, his belly low to the ground as he emitted a peculiar growling sound. “A rab­bit hole, I dare say,” said I.

  “I think not,” said my companion. “There’s something there, something quite big.”

  Just as I turned, Ezra gave a full-throated bark and leapt into the patch of brown and sodden bracken.

  There was a scream, but not from Bernhardt and certainly not from me.

  “Someone’s there!” cried Bernhardt.

  A man leapt up, wild-eyed, stocky, with the waxed mus­tache that many Frenchmen have. His tawny-colored hair was cropped and he looked very like a rat. Ezra had him by the sleeve of his brown overcoat, but the man swung the dog away with remarkable strength and bolted toward the thickest part of the wood. Ezra gamely stood upright again, gave a vigorous shake and set off in pursuit—with me in pursuit as well, still in the saddle.

  The rat-man didn’t get far. Ezra somehow contrived to get between his legs and he tripped heavily, hit the ground hard and groaned. My mare almost trampled him.

  I didn’t dismount. The fellow was craven, as I’m sure I would have been with a black retriever on my chest, with its teeth sunk into my collar, growling ferociously.

  “Ezra, that will do!” I commanded, but the dog ignored me. “Ezra, you can stop now. Ezra!”

  It was Bernhardt who succeeded in calling off the dog. When she said, “Heel, Ezra,” the beast immediately desisted and ran to her, wagging its tail. The fuss she had made of it in the gun room had paid a dividend.

  Unarmed as I was, I had no fear of the man.

  “On your feet and sharp about it!”

  He rose unsteadily from the bracken, now a pathetic little figure in a brown overcoat, his shirt collar ripped from its moor­ings, his face smeared extensively with mud and one end of his mustache dangling where the wax had snapped. He had angry brown eyes under bushy eyebrows. The epitome of a trespasser caught in the act.

  “Hands away from your pockets,” I ordered him, remembering the shots that had started us on this manhunt. He might well be carrying a pistol. “Now, remove the overcoat and let it drop to the ground.”

  With a scowl, he obeyed. The coat fell in a heap on the bracken. Rather to my surprise, he was wearing a passably decent gray pinstripe under it.

  “And the jacket, if you please.”

  He protested, “Monsieur, it’s cold and I suffer from asthma. Can’t you hear my breathing?”

  I said, “Do it!”

  The jacket joined the overcoat.

  “Step away from the coat. Any tricks from you, my man, and you’ll answer to the police—that is, after the dog has fin­ished with you. Waistcoat.”

  He looked up at me with malevolent eyes before removing the waistcoat.

  To be quite certain he was unarmed, I could have insisted that he remove his trousers, as well. Out of respect for Bernhardt, I spared the fellow that indignity. He looked pretty unthreatening in his suspenders and shirtsleeves.

  “Now, you had better identify yourself.”

  He shivered, gave me a murderous glare, drew in a breath, and wheezed. “I am Marie-François Goron, chef de la Sûreté.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Hotel Bristol

  Paris

  My Dearest Alix,

  Yes, I am penning this from wicked old Paris, but do not despair, for I shall be leaving directly for the Riviera. Nothing can detain me here any longer.

  I remember complaining the last time I wrote that Paris was becoming tiresome, or dull, or both. I am happy to report a distinct improvement. In fact, today has been a bracing experience. I thought I had better drive out to Montroger, the Agincourt residence, to convey the kind thoughts and con­dolences you expressed in your latest. (Before you throw up your hands in alarm and declare that I ignored your appeals, I went merely out of a sense of obligation to you and our old friends the Agincourts. Detective investigation was furthest from my thoughts.)

  Jules was deeply comforted by your concern. I didn’t see Juliette, but I met their son, Tristan, now grown up to be a fine young man of good intelligence and cultivated inter­ests, too. He is a keen sportsman and we had an intelligent exchange about shooting. But I mustn’t digress. I gave your message to Jules, and he particularly asked me to let you know how much your support means to him. With the best will in the world, I couldn’t prevent our old friend from asking me for an opinion about the murder. He insisted once again on giving me all the grisly details and it was soon transparently obvious to me that this was a crime of passion and that the culprit was young Rosine’s lover, a man of mature years, a painter by the name of Morgan. He is one of the Impressionist school and seems to lurk around Montroger ostensibly to paint scenes, but in reality to effect assignations with Rosine, who is quite besotted with him, notwithstanding her betrothal to Letissier. Impressionism in Morgan’s case is the pursuit of an impressionable young girl.

  We were discussing these matters when the sound of gunfire came suddenly from outside. No one had permis­sion to shoot on the estate, so Jules and his son saddled horses and rode off to investigate. I observed them from a safe distance while exercising their dog. As you know, there are few activities I enjoy better. I assure you, Alix, my dearest, I was well out of range of any gun. But you may imagine my astonishment when Ezra, the retriever, dis­covered a man skulking in the undergrowth. Ezra and I between us treated the ruffian with the severity he deserved for giving us such a fright.

  Now this is the bombshell. The wretched man turned out to be Monsieur Goron, the most senior policeman in Paris. A fine pickle! Fortunately, Goron’s powers of detection were sharp enough to tell him who I was, or I might have found myself in a French clink. He and I were soon on better terms, but he kept his distance from Ezra.

  Goron, it emerged, had been keeping watch on the same derelict building that Jules and Tristan were about to search. Several of his officers, also in plainclothes, were hidden at vantage points nearby. After carrying out the most intensive investigation lasting almost two weeks, the Sûreté had reached the conclusion that I had come to in five minutes: namely, that Morgan the painter was Letissier’s murderer. Morgan was known to be in the ruined house, supposedly for some kind of assignation with young Rosine, who goes rid­ing at this time each afternoon. I was relieved to learn that she had not yet been seen. Morgan was certainly armed, for he had bagged a rabbit before entering the house; these were the shots we had heard.

  This was alarming, because Jules and Tristan had posted themselves at either end of the building and might any minute go in! We were not close enough to warn them of the danger. But it all ended benignly, with Morgan stepping out­side, unarmed, and being apprehended at the point of Tristan’s shotgun. The police closed in and made the arrest. The painter is now being questioned at the Sûreté.

  You may imagine the sense of relief at Montroger that the Agincourt name has emerged from this affair unsullied. No opprobrium can be attached to young Rosine, for the lawyers will make it clear that she had no foreknowledge of the murder. Morgan plotted his dastardly crime independ­ently, motivated, no doubt, as much by pecuniary gain as passion. Few will have any regrets when he goes to the guil­lotine. He is no great loss to the world of art if his painting is anything like the other Impressionist works I have seen. If I had my way . . . No, better not say it to one who takes so much pleasure in fine art.

  Now, to far more important matters. I have it on excellent authority from Fife that Louise is in the pink of health and the doctors are entirely satisfied with her progress. There are no indications of premature labor, so you may continue to enjoy the games of loo and—dare I say?—the currant jelly for a few weeks yet.

  Give my love, as ever, to your pretty antagonists at the loo table. I think of them constantly, as I do of my own darling wife.

  Showers of kisses, Bertie

  “Francis.”

  “Sir?”

  “I shall be going to the Théâtre des Variétés tonight with Madame Bernhardt. I see from the paper that they have revived one of my favourite operettas, La Belle Hélène, and I must on no account miss it. Have the hotel reserve my two boxes on the pit tier and send two decent armchairs. The furniture in French theaters is impossible to sit upon for more than ten minutes.”

  “I shall attend to it, sir.”

  “Tomorrow we leave for Cannes.”

  “Very good, sir.” An expression of the most ineffable relief spread over Francis Knollys’s face. He regards himself as my unofficial moral guardian (by appointment to HRH the Princess of Wales), and while Cannes is not without its tempta­tions, it possesses fewer than Paris. The worst that has happened there (in the view of Francis) was the year I attended the Battle of Flowers dressed as Old Nick, in a scarlet costume and with horns attached to my head. Everyone but Francis thought it a marvelous lark.

  Memories. While sitting beside Bernhardt in the gilded splendor of the Théâtre des Variétés that evening listening to Offenbach’s matchless music, my thoughts drifted back more than twenty years to another Belle Hélène, dear little Hortense Schneider, who for one glorious season instructed me personally in La Gâieté Parisienne—until word got back to Windsor and I was given a jobation by Mama for neglecting Alix.

  “Bertie!”

  I sat forward with a start. The crystal gasolier had been turned up for the interval.

  Bernhardt—dressed fetchingly in lemon-colored taffeta that rustled when she moved—turned to me with eyes nar­rowed and declared, “A tear has just rolled down your cheek.”

  I said, “The story is very moving, don’t you agree?”

  She said, “You were remembering an old flame.”

  I shook my head.

  “We Frenchwomen aren’t so dense as you think, you know,” she said. “Your conquests here are well known.”

  “Name one, then.”

  “One!” She laughed. “The Princesse de Sagan.”

  “Jeanne is an old friend,” I said.

  “An old friend with an absent husband,” said she, as if that settled the matter, and then she started counting on her fingers. “The Duchesse de Mouchy, the Duchesse de Luynes, Giulia Beneni, known as La Barucci, the Comtesse de Pourtalès, the Baronne de Pilar, the Baronne de Rothschild, Émilienne d’Alençon, Madame Kauchine, Liane de Pougy, Cora Pearl—”

  “She’s Irish,” I pointed out.

  “French by inclination. Where was I?”

  “You’ve used up all your fingers,” said I.

  “Then I can start again. The widow Signoret, the Comtesse de Boutourline, Miss Chamberlayne, Hortense Schneider, Yvette Guilbert, Jeanne Granier—”

  “This is the silliest nonsense,” I broke in, for it was obvious that she intended to continue for some time. “And you haven’t mentioned the only one I’d be willing to admit to.”

  “Who’s that?” she demanded fiercely.

  “Sarah Bernhardt.”

  She thought a moment, frowned, and blushed. “But you and I have never—”

  I placed my hand over hers. “You didn’t listen properly. I said I’d be willing. It was an offer, not a boast.”

  She clicked her tongue and said, “You’ve had too much champagne.”

  With more than a hint of invitation, I told her, “We are partners, successful partners, my dear. We solved the murder together. Tonight is for celebration.”

  She said, “The police solved it without our help.”

  “But we were absolutely right in our deductions. Morgan was the murderer and it was a crime of passion, just as you said at the beginning. More champagne, partner?”

  Charming as the music was, when the show resumed, my concentration had gone. I spent the whole of the second act mak­ing mental lists, counting furtively on my fingers. Sarah had been wrong over several names, but I hadn’t challenged them. It would only have strengthened her suspicions about those that I didn’t challenge. There’s no winning a game like that. Besides, there were others she might have mentioned, and hadn’t.

  At the end of the performance, she turned to me and said without prompting, “That was naughty of me. I got carried away. In my case, it was an excess of champagne.”

  I said, “In mine, an excess of lady friends, apparently.”

  She laughed and leaned toward me for a kiss, which she received. Then she said, “Let’s eat at Maxim’s.”

  I had to be careful here. I pondered the matter with a judi­cial expression before saying, “Do you like caviar?”

  “I adore it,” said Bernhardt with a little quiver of anticipa­tion.

  “The caviar at my hotel is quite the best I’ve tasted,” said I.

  “Oh, I couldn’t possibly eat at the Bristol,” she said at once. “I’m sure the food is divine, but we’d be seen.”

  I said, “That, surely, would be a cause for congratulation. Most ladies of my acquaintance—” I stopped myself just in time. “If you wish to be discreet about it, my dear, I have a key to a back door. We shall eat in my rooms and no one will hear of it.”

  Of two minds, she said, “I do think Maxim’s would be simpler.”

  Not for what I was planning. I said as if the world was coming to an end, “This is my last night in Paris. Tomorrow we leave for Cannes.”

  This did the trick. She said, “Then let us both be quite clear, Bertie. I would be coming only to try the caviar.”

  I said, “I don’t think it will disappoint you, my dear.”

  And we took a carriage almost to the Bristol. I say “almost” because I instructed the driver to put us down at the Place Beauvau and we walked the short distance to the hotel. I shep­herded Bernhardt to the back door and not a soul spotted us. There were two flights of back stairs to negotiate, but it was exceedingly quiet and poorly lit. At the first landing, my com­panion stopped unexpectedly, faced me, tipped my hat upward, put her arms around my neck, and kissed me passionately.

  Then she said out of the blue, “Did I tell you that to reach the stage door at the Théâtre des Variétés you go up the Passage des Princes?”

  Bemused, I said, “Really?”

  She said, “In the profession, that is what we call Hortense Schneider—the Passage des Princes.”

  It was a wicked slander on a dear old friend, but I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.

  Humor is the best aphrodisiac. On the next landing, I returned the kiss with interest and told my own Schneider story. “One royal admirer of Hortense was Ismail, the former khedive of Egypt. Once when he was at the spa at Vichy, he got bored with the cure and told his equerry to write to Hortense. But through a mistake, the letter was delivered to an American salesman called Harold Schneider. This gentleman could not believe his good fortune when he read, ‘By order of the khedive, a suite is reserved for you at the Grand Hotel at Vichy and your presence will be to Ismail as an oasis in the desert.’”

 

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