Monsieur Pamplemousse on Vacation (11 page)

‘This is good news, Pamplemousse. We must be thankful for small mercies. Please give him my congratulations. I have said it before and I will say it again. Pommes Frites is an example to us all.

‘However,’ continued Monsieur Leclercq, ‘that is not why I wish to speak to you. I have in front of me the results of your photographic expedition.’

‘Aah!’ Monsieur Pamplemousse brightened.

‘You may indeed say “aah”, Pamplemousse. Words fail me.’

‘I am glad you are pleased with them,
Monsieur
.’

‘Pleased!’ thundered the Director. ‘I am far from pleased! This is the
Folies
all over again. The
Folies
multiplied a hundred fold. It is no wonder you were dismissed from the
Sûreté
.’

‘With respect,
Monsieur
, I wasn’t dismissed. It was simply suggested that I should accept early retirement. Besides, it cannot be one hundred fold. The school is relatively small.’

‘Please don’t split hairs,’ said Monsieur Leclercq wearily. ‘Quite frankly, I am appalled. Whatever possessed you to take such pictures?’

‘
Monsieur
does not like them? You do not think it will boost the circulation of the Staff Magazine should you decide to go public?’

‘Given the way the poor girls are exposed to the elements,’ said the Director severely, ‘the only circulation that will need boosting is their own.’

‘I have it on good authority,
Monsieur
, that they were adopting what is known as the preferred position during a thunderstorm.’

‘I do not doubt that for one moment, Pamplemousse,’ barked the Director. ‘I also have no doubt that it is the preferred position for many other activities too numerous and unsavoury to mention. The only thing to be said for having one of your pictures on the front cover is that it would ensure a steady sale in some of the seedier establishments on the lower slopes of Montmartre. The whole thing is all the more unfortunate as I was about to prepare a Keynote Speech to all staff. I was hoping to illustrate it with some suitable blow-ups.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse gazed crestfallenly at the telephone as his dreams of having his name coupled with Cartier-Bresson or Doisneau began to fade.

‘You mentioned Trigaux,
Monsieur
. Does he feel the same way?’

‘I have no idea,’ said the Director. ‘As usual he was more concerned with technicalities than subject matter; variations in photographic rather than bodily exposure. Some of the most prolonged flashes of lightning caused a certain amount of confusion
in the automatic system. However, in his report he has pointed out that in the latter half of the film, presumably after you had stopped to change position, there is one
derrière
missing.’

‘
Pardon, Monsieur
? There must be some mistake. A trick of the light.’

‘No, Pamplemousse. There is no mistake. I know because I have been over the enlargements very carefully myself; not once, but several times. In the first set of pictures there are forty-eight
derrières
of various shapes and sizes. In the second there are only forty-seven. It is all the more apparent because the missing one belonged to a pupil who is – or shall we say,
was – très solide
. Also, in the beginning of the sequence she was the only one looking straight at the lens.’

‘Was she the third one from the right in the last row?’

‘How do you know that, Pamplemousse?’ barked the Director suspiciously.

‘If it is who I think it is,
Monsieur
, I know where she was standing.’

‘No doubt there is a simple explanation,’ said the Director.

‘No doubt,
Monsieur
.’

Simple, perhaps, but in what respect? If it was the Russian girl, she certainly hadn’t been with her parents at dinner. Perhaps that accounted for their worried looks. If she had gone missing, he hoped the school had a stand-in for tonight’s performance.

‘
Monsieur
,’ he began. ‘In case you wish to contact me again, you may like to know that the use of mobile telephones at meal times is
interdit
. I have been giving the matter some thought. We shall need a new symbol, of course, and I wonder if perhaps a telephone receiver beneath crossed knives and forks would be suitable?’

‘
Monsieur
…’

Removing the receiver from his ear, Monsieur Pamplemousse looked at the display panel and was just in time to see a flashing battery symbol before it faded from view.

‘Merde!’

Ever alive to his master’s moods, Pommes Frites disappeared into his kennel. He had been keeping careful watch on Monsieur Pamplemousse’s changing facial expressions while he had been talking; the occasional raising of his eyes towards the heavens, the staring at the object in his hand as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. Now the utterance of yet another key word; in fact not just the word itself, but the way in which it had been said, clinched matters for him.

Clearly, his first present had not achieved the one hundred per cent success rate he had hoped for. That being so it was time to have another go. Hidden under a blanket at the back of his kennel, he had a selection of items culled since his arrival: sticks, bits of seaweed, the remains of an old beach ball, a handkerchief covered in blood, several sea shells which had taken his fancy …

Pommes Frites spent some time sorting through
the pile until he found what he was looking for. This time, as he presented it to his master, he knew that he had struck gold in more ways than one. The fact that he was wearing his ‘there’s plenty more where that came from’ expression passed unnoticed.

Returning to the table, Monsieur Pamplemousse waved aside his chicken. Suddenly he had no stomach for it. His mind was too full of other things. He looked around the crowded terrace. The Russians were no longer there.

‘I take back what I said earlier,’ said Mr Pickering. ‘About your work, I mean. Is it always like this?’

Monsieur Pamplemousse shrugged. ‘We all think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, but more often than not it is an illusion.’

Mr Pickering eyed him thoughtfully, then abruptly changed the subject. ‘For the benefit of your records,’ he said, ‘I have been making notes and I have come to the conclusion that for a country which produced Pasteur, its inhabitants spend a great deal of their time searching out unpasteurised cheese.

‘There is a Banon, of course – a Banon à la Feuille made from goat’s milk, a Chèvre Fermier du Château-Vert made by a farmer on Mont Ventoux, and what the waiter referred to as his
pièce de résistance
, a Brebis de Tende made from ewe’s milk.

‘According to him the only place you’ll find it is in Nice. In the Cours Saleya market – and then only if you are lucky! He also presented us each with a glass of
rosé,
compliments of the house. I think he was frightened we might spoil the flavour if we stuck with the red.’

Conscious of Pommes Frites’ find weighing heavily in his trouser pocket, Monsieur Pamplemousse listened with only half an ear. He didn’t know whether to tell the others or not, but in the end decided against it. Instead, he opted for a breakfast meeting with Mr Pickering and Todd in the morning.

Doucette came to his rescue by suggesting she and Mrs Pickering pay a visit to some botanical gardens nearby: the Jardin Thuret. ‘Over three thousand tropical trees and plants and it’s free!’

‘Say no more,’ said Mrs Pickering. ‘It appeals to my Scots blood.’

‘Another popular misconception,’ said Mr Pickering. ‘Scottish people are far from mean, they just happen to be canny and warm with it. That’s one of the reasons why I married Jan.’

The dessert –
Glace à la fleur d’Oranger,
an unbelievably light ice cream flavoured with orange blossom water and decorated with chocolate shavings – came and went. But for once Monsieur Pamplemousse would have been hard put to describe it. He was anxious to bring the meal to an end.

‘Why did you marry me, Aristide?’ Doucette posed the question when they were back in their room.

‘Because I pictured all the wonderful holidays we wouldn’t spend together, Couscous,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, reaching in his trouser pocket. ‘And because I value your opinion on matters such as this.’

Doucette took the object from him, held it up to the light, then weighed it in her hand. ‘It looks very valuable,’ she said. ‘It feels valuable too. Where ever did you get it?’

‘I didn’t. Pommes Frites found it.’

‘You don’t think …’

‘That it is what we were supposed to collect? I’m afraid I do.’

‘Have you told Monsieur Leclercq?’

Monsieur Pamplemousse shook his head. ‘I have already had two long conversations on the telephone with him this evening. That is enough for any man.’

‘But I expected it to be a painting of some kind.’

‘He didn’t say what it was. In fact, I’m beginning to suspect he didn’t even know. It was meant to be a surprise for his wife. Where Pommes Frites found it is another matter. But it must have been somewhere quite near here. As for
when
, perhaps even on the night we arrived. It is possible there was a struggle and during the course of it our man managed to throw it away.’

Doucette weighed the object again. ‘But that would mean it was before he …’

‘… before he was dismembered.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse completed the sentence for her. ‘I said you have the makings of a good detective, Couscous. You would have passed the exam with flying colours.’

‘I’m not so sure.’ Doucette gave another shiver. ‘I think I may have asked to be excused my practicals.’

As they began getting ready for bed, she crossed to the wardrobe. ‘Has it occurred to you to wonder why
Monsieur Leclercq picked on us to carry out his mission?’

‘Sometimes, Couscous,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘it is better not to pose such questions. But I am beginning to suspect the worst.’

As Doucette opened the wardrobe door she stifled any reply she might have had. ‘Aristide! What have you done?’

‘It is what is known in the trade as impulse buying,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. He watched Doucette’s reflection in the mirror as she held the beach dress against herself.

‘But when did you put it here?’

‘It must have happened when I rang the Director back,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse innocently.

‘It is exactly the right size. How did you guess?’

‘I didn’t. I looked at the label in the old one before I went out yesterday morning.’

‘Once a detective always a detective.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse sighed. Even Doucette was doing it now. It was a case of variations on a theme. Perhaps it was true and there was no escape.

‘It is also,’ he said, ‘because absence makes the heart grow fonder and I was thinking while I was on my way to Nice, I really don’t know what I would do without you.’

‘Sometimes, Aristide,’ said Doucette, ‘you say the nicest things.’

Todd and Mr Pickering were already seated at a corner table on the terrace when Monsieur Pamplemousse and Pommes Frites arrived for breakfast. Mr Pickering, umbrella hooked over the back of his chair, was studying what appeared to be a very old Baedeker guide to Southern France. Todd was doodling on a lined yellow legal pad.

Mr Pickering looked up enquiringly.
‘Ça va?’

Monsieur Pamplemousse responded with a non-committal up and down wave of his right hand. He couldn’t speak for Pommes Frites, but after the episode at the school he had woken during the night feeling somewhat less than 100%. He felt as though rain had seeped into every joint in his body.

‘Even the computer didn’t recognise my voice this morning,’ he croaked. ‘The spell-check has been having a field day. Everything was underlined in red. It will need reprogramming.’

‘Join the morning-after club,’ said Todd. ‘I’m still feeling impaired from last night.’ He gave Monsieur Pamplemousse a quizzical look. ‘From all I hear, it sounds like you got more equipment than the CIA. Right?’

‘I know a little restaurant down by the port in Antibes,’ said Mr Pickering, tactfully changing the subject, ‘where the fish soup is recommended by ear, nose and throat specialists everywhere. It’s a case of kill or cure. Either it will bring your voice back or else it will silence it forever. As an added plus the garlic not only kills bacteria and viruses, it stimulates the appetite.

‘In the meantime, to quote Macaulay, “An invitation to breakfast is a proof that one is held to be good company.”’

‘Not in the US it ain’t,’ said Todd. ‘Meaning no offence to the present assembly. Know what I mean?’

‘Anyway, that was in the nineteenth century,’ said Mr Pickering mildly. ‘Before the advent of power breakfasts.

‘Todd is having trouble with his order,’ he added.

‘I told the waiter I wanted my eggs sunny side up and you know what he said? “
Monsieur
, on ze Côte d’Azur
everything
is sunny side up.” Cheeky son of a bitch! As for hash browns, nobody outside the States seems to have heard of them.’

‘You can always rate a hotel by the quality of the breakfast,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘If the butter comes in a dish rather than a packet, if the
confiture
is home-made and not in a tiny pot, and if the milk is fresh and not Long Life, you can’t go far wrong.’

‘Even so,’ said Mr Pickering, ‘getting what you want can still be a complicated business. The Swedes are apt to start their day with pickled herring and soured milk. In the Netherlands it’s cheese and sliced meats. In the Balkans you are quite likely to end up with soup. Scotland has its porridge; Asia its rice. If you order bacon and egg in England, that’s exactly what you get – one egg; a throwback to a war that ended nearly sixty years ago. In America they take it for granted you mean two, but you practically have to fill in a questionnaire as to how you want them cooked. And when they arrive you find fruit you hadn’t asked for served on the side. Toast is even worse. Is it to be white bread? Rye? Wholemeal? Sourdough? Pumpernickel? Boston brown? … the list of possibilities is endless.’

‘Don’t forget Mexico,’ said Todd. ‘Know what a Mexican breakfast is? A cigarette and a cup of coffee.’

‘Monet had the right idea,’ continued Mr Pickering. ‘He used to combine the whole lot; a good English fry-up – Dutch cheese – sausages – toast and marmalade – and since he couldn’t abide staying up late because it upset his routine, he had any guests round to eat with him then rather than at dinner time.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse cast an eye over the other tables. ‘How about
Les Ivans
?’

‘Those hairballs?’ said Todd. ‘I doubt if they’ll be around this morning if that’s what you’re thinking. Rumour has it their kid – the one with the Cruella de
Vil smile – is missing, believed stolen. Although who’d want it, search me? When the time comes for her to get married, her Hope Chest is going to look pretty sorry for itself. Right?’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, remembering the school concert. ‘It could end up very well lined.’

‘Perhaps she’s “resting”,’ said Mr Pickering. ‘Show-biz may be getting her down. She didn’t strike me as being an over-scheduled child.’

‘
Mais
…’ Monsieur Pamplemousse was about to tell them the news concerning his photographs when the waiter arrived with Todd’s breakfast.

He used the opportunity to show his room key. ‘In France,’ he said, picking up the conversation where it had been left off, ‘we simply say
“un petit déjeuner complet, s’il vous plait.”’

‘Café, Monsieur?’
asked the waiter.
‘Jus d’orange?’

‘I told you it wasn’t easy,’ murmured Mr Pickering.

‘Make it for two,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘But no
café
or
jus d’orange
with the second. Just a bowl of fresh water.’

‘Oui, Monsieur.’

‘The thing I like about French waiters,’ said Mr Pickering, ‘is that nothing throws them.’

‘Talking of eggs …’ Monsieur Pamplemousse felt inside a trouser pocket and found what he was looking for. It was resting in a tiny pile of dried sand. ‘What do you make of this?’ Removing an ovoid object, he laid it on the table.

Todd gave a whistle under his breath. ‘Fabergé, no less.’

‘How did you come by it?’ asked Mr Pickering.

‘Pommes Frites gave it to me.’

‘I always knew he was a dog of taste and discernment.’

Hearing his name mentioned, Pommes Frites poked his head out from under the tablecloth, looked around, sniffed, then withdrew to await the arrival of the food.

‘I suspect,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘it had more to do with the torso that was washed up the other night. Would you say it is genuine?’

Mr Pickering picked up the egg, blew away a few grains of sand still clinging to the gold filigree decoration of its white enamelled shell, and held it up to the light. ‘I’m no great expert …

‘I know that Peter Carl Fabergé was born in the middle of the nineteenth century. He wasn’t a craftsman himself, but he was a brilliant designer and he had the wit and the foresight to realise that a block of gold can be fashioned into something infinitely more valuable. To that end, when he took over the family business he gathered together some of the most gifted craftsmen in Europe and set them to work.

‘As I understand it, the two foremost work-masters – Michael Evlampievitch Perchin, a Russian, and a Scandinavian called Henrik Wigstrom – used to stamp their initials on everything they did. I know that any new piece on the market should be treated
with a certain amount of reserve, but it’s one way of checking the authenticity.’

He turned the egg over and took a closer look. ‘Apart from that, there are usually Russian assay marks showing the purity of the metal, which was measured in
zolotnics
– roughly four
zolotnics
to one UK carat; so 18 carats would be 72
zolotnics
. Pure silver was even higher. Something like this, which has a lot of decoration, probably used a lower grade of metal as the enamelling adheres to it better, but that doesn’t necessarily make it any less valuable, given all the gold motifs and trelliswork, not to mention diamonds and rubies. As for the place of origin, in the old days each city had its own mark.’ He flipped open the hinged cover. ‘My guess is that it was meant for holding pills.’

‘I’ll tell you something for free,’ said Todd, not to be outdone. ‘I wouldn’t go flashing it around. Why? Because it ain’t healthy. Right?’ He took the egg from Mr Pickering, and like Doucette before him, weighed it carefully in his hand first, as though about to play a game of boules, then fished in a pocket and produced a magnifying glass.

‘It’s got Henrik Wigstrom’s stamp all right. But there’s a national mark, rather than a regional one – a woman in a traditional headdress – which makes it after 1896.

‘How much is it worth?’ He shrugged. ‘How do you put a value on any work of art? As much as the market will stand, I guess. If it’s for real, this kind of thing
is irreplaceable. Malcolm Forbes would know. He’s the multi-millionaire guy who runs Forbes financial magazine. At the last count he’d gotten himself almost as many as there are in the whole of the Soviet Union.’

‘Very tiny unadorned eggs currently fetch £4,000 – £5,000 in Switzerland,’ said Mr Pickering: ‘At the other end of the scale, a few years ago what was known as the Imperial Winter Egg was sold for just under £4,000,000.’

‘If it is possible to forge a complex miniature work of art like this,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, retrieving it, ‘then surely it is possible to forge the signatures?’

‘Bingo!’ said Todd. ‘Hole in one! It’s one of the scams the Russian Mafiya run. That’s how I got to know a bit about it. The story goes they’ve taken over a jewellery factory in Budapest specialising in the restoration of antiques – and that includes Fabergé eggs. The chances of an owner getting the original one back is something I wouldn’t like to take a bet on. It’s more likely to end up on the international market.’

‘Imitation is not only the sincerest form of flattery,’ broke in Mr Pickering, ‘it’s often the most lucrative, particularly if the original artist is dead.’

‘If all the Renoirs in Hollywood were laid end to end,’ said Todd, ‘it would be a hell of a long walk. Right? Vanity is on the forger’s side. No one likes to admit they’ve been taken for a ride – especially when their judgement is called into question.’

‘I’ve always understood that if you put a fake Fabergé alongside the real thing you don’t need to be
all that much of an expert to tell the two apart,’ said Mr Pickering. ‘It’s a matter of attention to detail and the quality of the workmanship. The enamelling in a genuine egg has a translucency which only comes from the technique of using many layers. If there is any kind of wallpapering effect – a rippling – rather like the pattern left in the wet sand after the tide has gone out – then it will have been applied to one of the inner layers rather than on the surface.

‘If its original box were available that would be the best clue. The quality of the workmanship in those was superb too.’

‘Unless Pommes Frites has it,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘I’m afraid that is how it came.’

‘Like I say,’ broke in Todd, ‘if the Ruskies are involved, watch your step.’

‘The thing is,’ Mr Pickering lowered his voice, ‘As you’ve probably guessed by now, I’m here on what you might call a working holiday. Mrs Pickering doesn’t really approve of my mixing business with pleasure, but the powers that be have decreed otherwise. How about you?’

‘I am what
les journaux
usually refer to as an innocent bystander,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘And that is the truth. I rarely mix business and pleasure with Madame Pamplemousse either.’

‘And I got no plans for going plural,’ said Todd.

Seeing the waiter about to arrive with the
petit déjeuner,
Monsieur Pamplemousse slipped the egg back into his pocket, and moved his chair slightly so
that there was room for Pommes Frites’ water bowl.

‘You can tell me to mind my own beeswax if you’d rather not open up,’ said Todd, when they were alone again. ‘On the other hand …’

Taking Todd to mean what he thought he meant, Monsieur Pamplemousse brought the other two up to date, omitting nothing apart from giving an edited version of his last conversation with the Director. He wasn’t sure how news of Uncle Caputo’s involvement would go down with Todd.

At the end of his story they sat in silence for a moment or two.

Mr Pickering was the first to speak. ‘You think the egg may be the “work of art” you were supposed to collect?’

‘It is the most likely explanation,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘I can’t think of another.’

‘And for some reason our disarticulated friend who was supposed to deliver it fell foul of the Russian Mafiya on the way?’

‘I fear so.’

‘So how did your dog come by it?’ asked Todd.

‘I think something must have happened while my wife and I were at the school concert. In retrospect, when we came out he was very restless, and clearly from the way he behaved when what remained of the body was washed up, he evidently made some kind of connection in his mind.’

‘Criminal gangs everywhere have a vested interest in instability,’ said Todd thoughtfully, ‘but it’s a question of territories. You know what I mean?’

‘What about the Beaune Summit that happened a few years ago,’ broke in Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘The Heads of all the crime rings in the world are supposed to have met up and worked out a pact parcelling up the territories?’

‘When it comes to territory, no one wants to give up what they’ve already staked a claim to. That goes for the guy who gets shoved off his patch at a baseball game, or finds someone parked on his front drive when he gets back home, all the way up through Northern Ireland via Bosnia, to the Arabs and the Jews slugging it out in the Middle East. I’ll give you a dollar for every North America Indian you can show me who doesn’t still harbour a grudge.

‘There’s what you might call a certain amount of unrest amongst the natives over here. The French and Italian Mafia don’t take kindly to strangers muscling in. Maybe this was a warning shot on the part of the Ruskies, making the point that they want a part of the action. Right?’

‘Which is?’

‘In this part of the world? Mostly drugs – although historically in France that’s Marseilles territory. Prostitution. Door to door insurance …’

‘The protection racket,’ added Mr Pickering, by way of translation.

‘Applied statistics …’

‘Another word for gambling,’ broke in Mr Pickering. ‘Carried out by “members of a career-offender cartel”.’ He gave a sigh. ‘And they used to say the French have a phrase for it!’

Todd snorted. ‘Meaning no disrespect to our friend here. We’re in a country where they call female traffic wardens goddam “periwinkles”!’

‘Not officially,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Officially the
Conseil Supérior de la Langue,
who are responsible for these things, have more important matters on their mind – such as whether or not we should do away with the circumflex accent.’