The Adventuress (27 page)

Their third-floor rooms were still quiet. When I knocked, the door edged open slightly. French maids are famous for disrespecting closed doors, either by blithely opening them or by leaving them unlatched for the next innocent party to blunder through.

I entered to find the parlor deserted and stood perplexed. Had Irene and Godfrey gone out for an early luncheon? Or had they risen at all?

A burrowing sound issued from the bedchamber, a hasty rummaging rustle that reminded me of an animal or a child getting into mischief. I approached the door, which was also ajar, my footfalls muffled by the heavy Turkey carpet.

I heard a sharp intake of breath, a moment’s silence, and then again the fevered rustling. At that moment I appreciated the figure of speech about being on the threshold of a decision. Should I enter, and risk an embarrassing intrusion? Should I retreat, perhaps permitting a sneak thief to steal at his leisure? Should I remain as I was, poised like a statue on the threshold?

A renewed burrowing noise decided me. I swung the door wider and stepped through. The bedchamber was shrouded in that lazy, secret semi-darkness that exists only when one knows that bright sunlight is pressing against the closed curtains.

The bed had not been made and, much as I disapproved of this state, I was relieved to see that it stood unoccupied as well as disheveled. Unfortunately, the room itself was not unoccupied. I stared at the swarthy man who, half bent over an open bureau drawer, stared back at me.

“You trespass, sir!”

He gazed at me uncomprehendingly, frozen in a posture I can only describe as being “caught in the act.” As a governess, I had often apprehended children so. My recourse then had been stern reprimand. I saw no reason not to apply the back of my tongue to this intruder while I hastily contemplated how to make my escape.

“You are in the wrong room, sir.” I edged toward the open door.

“Not likely,” said he in rough-spoken French, stepping toward me.

Even in the dim light I could see matted black hair escaping a filthy wool cap and the crooked line of a scar along his equally crooked nose. An aroma of the sea— or rather, of fish—assaulted my nostrils and mixed uneasily with the perfume of Irene’s favorite Parma violets.

In backing away, I caught my heel in the rug. I fell against the door, which in turn fell shut, immuring me in the darkness with the thief.

He was on me in a thrice, his fingers loosely circling my wrist, his face bowed to snarl into mine. “I’ll thank you to keep quiet.”

“Oh, I will be quiet,” I whispered with some irritation. “But I must know what you are about on the premises.”

“Lifting a watch,” the fellow said with a grin, elevating Godfrey’s pocket timepiece by its long golden chain. The man’s breath reeked of onions, and I averted my face.

“Aren’t we nice? You’ll not say anything to anyone about me?”

I shook my head vigorously while shrinking against the door to avoid any contact with this disreputable person’s clothing. At first I might have suspected Irene in disguise, but there was no way that her magical touch with theatrical paint could extend her height by several inches or enlarge her hands. This man had the aspect of a powerful street bully.

“Promise?” A yellowed eye rolled in that shadowed, brutal, unshaven face with its white-streaked mustache.

“On my honor. But please go! You don’t want to be caught by my friends, do you?”

“Caught? A slim chance that anyone catches Black Otto at his work,” he cackled. “A good thing that the room is dark and you haven’t had a good look at my face, or—”

He released my wrist as if he found me as unappetizing as I did him, and slouched to the window.

A billow of French brocade puffed toward him. Then the drapery was snatched back, revealing a figure limned against the violent daylight.

“Irene!” I shrieked in warning and, I admit, relief, for I had grown to expect her mastery of any situation.

The thief never hesitated. As Irene moved into the room, he entwined her in a grotesque mazurka against the bright windows, lifting her as if she weighed no more than a fashion doll and swinging her around. I shrieked as Irene whirled in the man’s grasp, her feet flying above the floor.

Another screamed with me: Irene. “No!” she shouted. “No, you idiot, put me down!”

“Never, Madame!” he boldly shouted back. “I am an unrepentant ruffian who will never free you for as long as I live.”

Such a threat was too much for me. I seized a parasol leaning by the door and fell upon Irene’s captor, raining blows of split bamboo and ruffled silk upon his shoulders and head.

The uproar, if anything, increased. Irene called “No, no, no!”

The man cried “Stop!”

And I—admonishing him to be “Away!”—continued my assault.

Somehow, in the melee we three became tangled with the draperies. An awful crack resounded, followed by a deluge of brocade and dust. I found myself foundering in the fallen fabric, coughing. Near me, Irene was gasping, “Stop, I beg you!” And laughing.

So was the thief. Laughing. And coughing.

In the blazing light of the denuded French windows, Irene surfaced from the billowing brocade with tears furrowing her cheeks and her face convulsed with merriment.

The blackguard in our midst was neatly swaddled by the curtains, but when I raised the broken handle of Irene’s parasol for a final blow, she stopped me. She did not stop laughing, however.

“I fail to see what amuses you, Irene. We have captured a desperate villain rifling your rooms!”

“My parasol!” She pointed. “Poor thing!”

I felt it unbecoming of her to display toward an inanimate object the concern she ought to have felt for me.

Irene, immune to my feelings, was burrowing in the hummocks of fabric, pushing them aside to reveal our catch. The same swarthy, sly, unappealing face I had glimpsed in the shadows emerged into broad daylight, along with a grin as wide as a window.

“Nell,” Irene said, proceeding to brush matted hair from the brute’s grimy forehead, “you have given Godfrey quite a fright.”

“Godfrey!?” The man’s evil grin only widened. Despite the use of lampblack on a pair of teeth, I saw that indeed some semblance of himself lurked under the surface. I was tempted to employ the parasol once more to eliminate a grin obviously at my expense.

“I surrender,” Godfrey offered meekly in his normal tone. “Had I known what a tigress you were with a sunshade, I would have revealed myself sooner.”

I levered myself upright with the shattered parasol, refusing all aid with the conviction that only the indignant can muster.

“Really! You are a pair of schoolchildren, two of a sort. Scamps of the first water.” I slapped dust off my hands and sneezed, ardently. “What has this charade accomplished, save that the draperies have had a good dusting?”

“At least,” said Irene, rising, “we know that Godfrey’s disguise was sufficient to deceive a friend.”

“You take liberties with that description of our relationship after this incident,” I said sternly. “What is the point of making Godfrey resemble a pirate?”

He stood in turn, gingerly, having borne the brunt of the curtain rod. “So I can go to the harbor and investigate among the sailors, and also elude Sherlock Holmes,” he said as if by rote. Obviously, the guise was Irene’s idea.

“That ensemble would not gull an albatross. And we do not even know that Mr. Holmes has the slightest interest in our activities. The rumor of his presence may be just that. And why do you want to make inquiries in the harbor?”

Godfrey jerked his head in Irene’s direction.
'"She
says it is necessary.”

“Irene says much is necessary when it is merely intriguing to her.”

“Well.” Ignoring our revenge upon her, Irene began dusting off Godfrey’s worn pea jacket. “I must say Godfrey makes a dashing old tar. Appearances before the bar are superb preparation for thespian endeavors. I’m satisfied he can prowl the waterfront bistros tonight with a rolling gait and a squint and be perfectly safe among the rough sort to be found there. And my survey of the balcony shows Black Otto can come and go discreetly. At least—” Irene eyed me with rebuke
“—I
am not attempting to assume this role myself.”

“Thank God.” I turned to survey the damage. “Will the hotel be able to reinstate these curtains by nightfall?”

“That matters little,” Irene answered irrepressibly. “Godfrey will be out ’til all hours of the morning with his fellow old salts. We shall not need the privacy of curtains until tomorrow.”

“A most unfortunate accident with the parasol,” Irene told the hotel manager that afternoon. “It snapped as I was walking by. I caught hold of the curtain to keep from falling, and you see the rest.”

The manager, a slight man in a morning coat, blinked primly behind his spectacles. It was difficult to imagine the delicate hand that Irene waved so airily bringing down the massive curtain rod and yards of brocade. As Delilah, she was believable; as Samson, not.

He shrugged, his position requiring not belief, but discretion. “Madame is correct. The curtains cannot be replaced until tomorrow. I will move you and your husband.”

“Oh, no, Monsieur. We will stay here.”

“Without draperies?”

“For one night, why not?”

The pomaded head so like a sleek black seal’s shook dolefully. Soulful seal’s eyes grew resigned, and he agreed. Visitors to Monte Carlo were known to indulge in high jinks of a volatile nature. It was not a hotel manager’s place to question his guests.

When he had gone, Irene breathed a sigh of relief. “Godfrey will be coming back early in the morning to these very French windows. I do not want him returning to an empty suite, or finding a zealous hotel employee tidying up.”

I went to the windows and pushed one open. A mock balcony rose waist-high. “Irene, our room is on the third story.”

“Godfrey cannot enter the Hotel de Paris at an ungodly hour in his sailor guise; he would never be admitted. He will have to climb.”

“But four floors! And the ground floor alone must be twenty feet high.”

“That’s why men wear trousers: so they can climb when necessary. I have already surveyed the route. He will manage it; more, he will consider it an adventure.”

“And where will
we
be while Godfrey is slinking through the seamy bistros in the harbor?”

“We will have a picnic in the parlor.”

“A picnic in the parlor?”

“Don’t echo me; you sound like Casanova. It will be like old times in Saffron Hill. A loaf of French bread, a jug of country Burgundy, and thou.”

She took my elbow to steer me into the parlor, where indeed a large wicker basket ordered from the hotel kitchen waited upon the Aubusson rug. Irene lifted the lid with the prideful expression of a stage magician revealing a lady, or a tiger, within.

“How can we consume such a great quantity of food?” I studied the array of breads, meats, mustards, fruits, cheeses and the mentioned bottle of wine—two bottles, in fact.

“We will have a long evening waiting for Godfrey,” Irene explained simply. “And he will be hungry when he returns, as we will be ravenous for news of his expedition.”

Chapter Twenty-one

L
ADIES
L
UNCH,
G
ENTLEMEN
C
AROUSE

“What is
this?” I asked Irene sometime after midnight.

“What is what?”

“This brown mess in a tin.”

“A famous French delicacy.”

“Then it must consist of something disgusting; I have learned that much about French cuisine.”

“Pass it to me, then. Pȃté de foie gras is too precious to waste on the stomachs of the idiotic English, whose cuisine features disgusting things like pig-brain puddings, and is boring to boot.”

The hour was too late and the level in the first wine bottle too low for me to argue. Irene and I reclined against the tapestry bergères, the remnants of our feast spread on a gros-point ottoman. Our feet were slippered and our hair lay loose over our shoulders. I had returned to my suite to don a combing gown before joining Irene for our informal indoor picnic. A lavender satin robe billowed around her like a frothy wave.