Dying on the Vine (27 page)

Planning had been my intention rather than precipitous action but this was too good a chance to miss. I planted a foot against his behind and pushed with all my body strength. His head crashed into the drawer and he went down on the floor like a sack of potatoes. This was easier than I had expected.

I kicked the door shut and was unfastening his buttons when he moaned and opened his eyes. His head must have been been baked hard by the African sun—to my horror, he started to struggle to his feet. I grabbed the lapels of his tunic and banged his head hard against the file cabinet door, then again. He slumped unconscious.

I stripped off my clothes, stuffed them into a cabinet, then pulled off his uniform. It wasn't easy to get off but at least it was a near fit. I couldn't find any rope but I came across a roll of heavy tape and used that to bind the man's wrists and ankles, gag him and secure him to the handles of a file cabinet. I grabbed an empty cardboard box and put it on my shoulder to use as a screen for my face.

I followed the corridor into a large room that looked to be a lounge. One of the staff came out of an adjacent room and walked toward me. For a long second, our eyes met. He went on. I fought the overpowering impulse to look back because I recognized him as the man who had wielded the crossbow that had killed Elwyn Fox.

His footsteps on the polished wood floor continued. Deciding where to go, I saw an alcove. In it was a telephone.

Communication was only secondary to getting out of the château and its grounds, but a message to Aristide of the Huitième Bureau would bring help—maybe I could survive until the French Marines arrived. I picked up the phone.

The voice that answered immediately was male, deep and stern. I asked for an outside line. “I'll connect you, sir,” was the response. “What number do you wish?”

I didn't know Aristide's number offhand and the voice sounded as if it belonged to an in-house operator, so I couldn't ask for the police. I remembered Veronique's number, though, and I asked for that. There was a short pause, then the voice said, “I'm sorry, there seems to be a fault on that line. Please try again later.”

I went on, turned near the foot of the grand staircase in the entry hall, and had gone only a few steps when a door opened ahead of me and Simone emerged. Her smart blue shirt with a white collar and darker blue skirt made her look more attractive than I would have believed. She stopped in mid-stride when she saw me and her eyes widened as she overcame the contradiction of the uniform.

“You! They said you were dead!” Emotions were flashing across her face—first bewilderment, then fear, then horror. She raised a hand to her mouth in a little-girl gesture.

“But—but who … who was in the plane?”

“It was Arundel,” I said softly.

“Oh, no,” she moaned. Her hand dropped. Her body tightened. “Alex brought me here, I had hoped that we—” Her expression changed to anger. “You killed him!” she spat in a flash of fury. “You forced him to fly!”

“I wanted him to fly me out of here,” I admitted, “but Lewis had a gun—”

She didn't let me explain. She beat her fists on me in a rain of blows and I was trying to protect my face when she shouted, “Murderer! Murderer!”

“Wait a minute! Let me—”

She raised her voice even more, screaming, “He's here! He's not dead! He's here.”

I tried to clamp a hand over her mouth but she snapped at my fingers with sharp white teeth. A pair of strong hands seized me from behind and I was powerless. Another uniformed man arrived to help—the man I had passed in the corridor, the man who had shot Elwyn Fox with a crossbow. Simone took a step back, gave me a look of loathing, then ran down the corridor, sobbing.

“Well,” said a voice in English. “You didn't take the last plane out after all.”

Grant Masterson—or the viscomte de Rougefoucault-Labourget—came down the last few steps of the staircase. He looked suave, dressed for a day in the French countryside in a mint green polo shirt, cream slacks, and white shoes.

“A last-minute change in the passenger manifest,” I said. “Lewis Arundel felt his need was greater than mine.”

Masterson might be dressed in cavalier style but his voice and attitude were grim and uncompromising. “Yes, I noticed when I talked to him last night that he was beginning to entertain some wrong ideas about me. Pity, after he had been so useful.”

“Same with Suvarov,” I told him. “Your charm is fading fast—who's next, you must be wondering.”

“You're an irritating fellow, you must learn to choose your words more carefully.” His voice hardened. “But I'm afraid it's too late for that.”

A peal of bells cut into his last words and all heads turned to the main door across the hall. The uniformed man on duty there opened it and spoke briefly to someone outside. He turned to Masterson.

“An ambulance is here. They say they had a report from the village that a body was seen to fall from the sky and land inside the grounds.”

Masterson turned to glare at the crossbowman.

“Impossible,” the man grated. “A kilo of plastic explosive was wrapped round that fuel tank. Neither of them could have remained in one piece.”

“Send them away,” snapped Masterson to the guard at the door. “Tell them we have found no bodies.”

The guard pulled the door open a few inches and spoke quickly. A flow of voluble French came from outside. The guard argued. Voices were raised. Masterson glared in exasperation and was calling to the guard to get rid of the unwanted ambulance when Simone reappeared. She was pale and tense. One arm was behind her back and I thought she was coming for me but instead she confronted Masterson.

“I heard you,” she said in a voice that trembled. “It was you—you killed Alex!”

Her eyes blazed fiercely and before either of the uniformed men could intervene, the arm came from behind her back and she swung a long, curved dagger, evidently pulled from one of the weapon racks on the walls. She slashed viciously at Masterson. Taken unawares though he was, he had enough presence of mind to throw up an arm in defense. The blade sliced deep through the fleshy part of his forearm and bright red blood spurted.

“Bring those ambulance men in!” I shouted loudly. “We have a man here bleeding to death!”

Behind me, the grip of my captor hadn't relaxed, but he didn't move, uncertain. Simone hefted the dagger for another swing. The noise had attracted another guard and he grabbed Simone's arm, saving Masterson from further damage.

The guard at the door stared mesmerized at the sight of the blood spattering the flagstones of the hall, then another peal of bells was accompanied by a thunderous banging. The door swung open.

A man in a black suit and a black homburg came in, carrying a black bag. He pushed his way past the flustered guard and behind him came three white-garbed attendants. The newcomer in black looked at Masterson, shocked and frozen, staring at his arm still spouting blood, then at Simone with the dagger still in her hand, and finally at me, immobile in the grip of the guard.

“Take care of that man!” he ordered in clipped tones. Unaccountably, his three attendants stood, unsure what to do, then one of them opened a large white metal case with a green cross and moved to the stunned Masterson.

I was looking at the doctor. Somehow, those black clothes didn't belong … and that black homburg seemed out of place … then I recognized the bristly black mustache and the round glasses. It was Aristide Pertois.

“I need medical attention too,” I called out. “So does this woman.” I nodded to Simone.

“Bring them all out to the ambulance,” ordered Pertois in a voice of command. The grip on me hadn't relaxed, but I pulled against it, toward the door. We might have made it, but Simone called out in a high-pitched voice.

“This man is a murderer!”

She pointed to Masterson with the dagger, which still dripped blood, even though a guard hung onto her arm. “He killed Alex Suvarov and I will testify to it

“Bring them to the ambulance,” repeated Pertois, but Simone turned to him. “You're a gendarme. Arrest him!”

The confused guards stared at Pertois. For a second, he looked nonplussed. He would have preferred to maintain his masquerade as a doctor and avoid a confrontation, but now it was too late.

It was Masterson, the viscomte, who recovered first. Still spurting blood, he sprang to the partly open door and dashed through. The engine of the ambulance roared and gravel screeched and clattered.

The guard released me and I ran to the door. The ungainly white vehicle bounced and swayed as it rocketed toward the main gates. The engine bellowed in a crescendo of noise as it gained speed.

The gates were closed. Masterson was leaning out of the driver's window, waving and shouting at the guards, but it was not until he was about a hundred meters away that they must have recognized him. The big gates began to swing open.

If Masterson had slowed, he would have made it through, but his foot must have been flat on the floor and he didn't relax it. Another meter wider was all he needed.

Instead, the ambulance hit the gates endwise and they sliced into the front of the vehicle like two giant knives. The frightful impact was transmitted to the stone pillars; one held firm but the other splintered with a crack like thunder and the ambulance disappeared in a cloud of dust and gravel.

W
E SAT IN THE BAIE
des Anges Café on the second floor of the Nice-Cote airport. A Swissair Boeing rumbled into the air and across our field of vision, but the double glazing was efficient enough to dim the sound of the aircraft's two engines and we did not even have to raise our voices.

Aristide Pertois sat opposite me. He looked like the proverbial cat that has swallowed the perfectly cooked canary and I told him he had every right to do so.

“My chief is very pleased at this successful resolution of the case,” he said.

“I didn't mean that,” I told him. “I meant figuring out where I was and then coming and saving my life.”

He shrugged as if he saved lives every day.

“Naturally, we had been keeping close track of all those involved in this case. When Mam'selle Ballard drove out to the ultralight airfield and left with Suvarov in his aircraft, I was informed immediately. I had the flight log checked. Their château destination coincided with a fair known to be held there, a fair where both vineyards had exhibits. When Madame Ribereau told us—”

“Surely she's not a police informer!” I was horrified.

Pertois continued smoothly as if I had not interrupted. “She told us that a German girl had picked you up in a red Maserati. We alerted all road patrols, who reported her very distinctive car to be heading in the same direction as the ultralight. I arrived at the local gendarmerie that night and was aroused the next morning when phone calls came in concerning a huge explosion in the sky.”

He paused to sip his pastis. “I hoped you were not in that explosion but I had no doubt that you were involved in some way.”

“It should have been me in that ultralight,” I said. “I feel responsible for both their deaths—Arundel and Suvarov.”

“You cannot blame yourself,” Pertois said firmly. “The man with the crossbow was also the explosives expert—he planted the plastique.”

“Tell me something … if Masterson hadn't been killed, would you have had enough evidence to convict? With his money, he could have assembled a formidable defense.”

“My colleagues in the Huitième Bureau had been very active,” Pertois said. “They had compared dates and times of vessels in and out of the port of Ajaccio with the death by drowning of Andre Chantier. They interviewed all the officers and crew members of all those vessels. Among them was
Windsong,
M'sieu Masterson's boat. Then one of our people investigating the theft of the crossbow from the museum at Porticcio found that one of the museum staff had heard of an ex-Legionnaire known to have participated in many crossbow contests. It was found that he was in the employ of the viscomte, who had recently bought the chateau to which you had gone.”

“Masterson received an urgent phone call last night from Gregali, the captain of
Windsong.
He must have been reporting your inquiries.”

“He was,” said Pertois. “We monitored the call.”

“You tapped his phone? Isn't that unlawful?”

Pertois gave me a look of surprise. “Is it? I didn't know that. Anyway, we are now making further interrogations of
Windsong'
s crew. So far, we have confirmed that Chantier and Morel had been on the vessel. More revelations will follow, I am sure.”

“Congratulations! You're an ingenious group in that Huitième Bureau.”

“We are ingenious,” he agreed. “And you—you are very lucky…” He nodded over my shoulder and I turned to see Veronique and Simone approaching, both looking stunning. “Lucky to have two such lovely ladies here to bid you farewell. It might have been three”—I looked askance and he went on—“however Fraulein Monika is still in our custody and likely to remain so for some time.”

“What are you charging her with?” I asked curiously. “She was Masterson's mistress, obviously, but since when has that been a crime in France?”

“Poof!” he said contemptuously, “of course it is not. But in such a position, she must know a great deal about his operations and we intend to detain her until she tells us all she knows.”

“Can you do that?”

His black eyebrows went up at least two millimeters. “Certainly! Why ever not?”

He finished his pastis and nodded to the waitress who was passing. He evidently had an “arrangement” here too. He rose to his feet and put on his cap. “Ladies,” he said, bowing to Veronique and Simone, “I must go. I have other crimes to attend to. I leave this fellow in your gentle hands. Please make sure that he does not miss his flight. If he stays in France any longer, I fear for the future of our wine industry.”