The Orchid Shroud (35 page)

“Listen to him. Not even born, and he tells it like he was there.” Michel’s voice was laced with the bitter irony of a man so long used to drawing the short straw that he had come to see the faintly funny side of it. He rose stiffly and refilled his mug.

“That meant,” went on the irrepressible Guy, “that my grandfather
had survived Hérault, which of course reversed the
tontine
. My grandmother approached the de Bonfonds on the matter—”

“She just wanted some kind of
redressement.”
Michel stirred in sugar. “A half-share, not the whole parcel. After all, both families had suffered enough.”

“Those grasping
avares
wouldn’t give up so much as a sou!” Mariette was unable to contain herself any longer. “Not them! ‘Land is land,’ they said. ‘It can be bought or inherited. Not given.’ ‘If Guillaume is still alive,’ they said, ‘let him come forth to make his claim.’”

“And did he?” asked Mara.

“No,” replied Michel. His tone was hollow. “He was one of many who never returned.”

“But he was a hero of the Resistance, let me assure you.” Guy went over to a table and returned with a photograph framed in silver. “This is him. Taken before the war. Ask anyone in the valley who knew my grandfather. A man of courage. A man who risked his life for others. Did you know there’s a special plaque dedicated to him in the square? That, at least, is something those de Bonfonds can’t take away from us.”

Mara and Julian saw a stout young man in his thirties. The round face, topped by curly, sandy hair, was the less fleshy precursor to Guy’s, except that it was distinguished by a broken nose that tilted comically to one side.

Guy said, “Well, you said you wanted information on the de Bonfonds. There you have it. Land-hungry and shameless. As for Baby Blue, Christophe will have a job accounting for the child in his family history”—he looked intensely gratified at the prospect—“but, then, I’m sure he employs minions to deal with that kind of thing.” He smiled blandly at Mara.

The implication caused Mara to prickle immediately. “Not me. You’ve got it wrong.” She was nobody’s minion. Not anymore. She rose and replaced Guillaume’s photograph on the table.

“But you were acting on his behalf vis-à-vis that Fournier fellow, were you not? And when you said you wanted information on the de Bonfonds, naturally I assumed …” Guy broke off, puzzled. “Then, if you’re not working for Christophe, why are you here?”

Mara hesitated. The only answer she could give him was that she was a prime suspect trying to avoid a murder charge by uncovering Jean-Claude’s killer, or at least the motive behind his death. She doubted that would go over well with a lawyer.

“Because, in addition to information on Baby Blue, I’m looking for a flower,” Julian stepped in. “I’ve only seen an embroidered representation of it, on the shawl Baby Blue was wrapped in, as a matter of fact, and I want to trace the real thing.” He addressed the lawyer directly. “Christophe’s great-great-aunt Cécile corresponded for several years with
your
great-great-great-aunt Eloïse Verdier. We’d like to know if you have any of Cécile’s letters. If Cécile did the embroidery, she may have written to your aunt about it, saying where she’d seen the actual flower or how she came to make a likeness of it.”

“Not Cécile,” Mariette surprised him by saying. “Eloïse. She was the needlewoman. There’s an example of her work just over there.” She wriggled out of her chair and led Julian to a large frame hanging on the wall at the far end of the room. Mounted within it was an antique square of silk, heavily embroidered with flowers. Julian was no judge of stitchery, but he could see that here was the same minute attention to botanical detail, the same subtle shading of tone as distinguished the embroidery on Baby Blue’s shawl. He promptly dismissed the impression of sour piety conveyed by Eloïse’s letters. Her needlework took his breath away.

“C’est magnifique,”
he murmured. The flowers were life-sized, almost as fresh as those growing in meadows and hedgerows on a spring morning:
Rosa rugosa
, the simple wild rose; the many-pronged blossom of wild honeysuckle, what the French called
chèvrefeuille;
bright-yellow cowslip, nested in a bed of puckered
leaves fashioned with cunning skill; and
Aquilegia vulgaris
, the deep-blue spurred cap of columbine. There were no orchids.

“The Verdiers have always been people of refinement,” Mariette simpered. “The appreciation of nature was in Eloïse’s blood.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t see the flower I’m looking for. You haven’t anything else like this?” Julian asked as he followed Mariette back to their seats.

Mariette shook her head.

“That’s too bad,” said Mara. “Then I’m afraid it really is down to any evidence we can unearth through other material. Such as letters.” She put the suggestion out hopefully.

Guy harrumphed. “You’re asking for access to personal family papers?” He glanced at his father, who sat watchfully in his chair, the rockers still for the moment. “I’m afraid, madame, the Verdier archives contain things of a highly sensitive nature, to say nothing of their inestimable historical value. For example, the documents in our possession chart the disposition of lands and buildings in Verdier hands for over four centuries. Moreover, our archives don’t just concern ourselves. They touch on the affairs of over a dozen local related families. I have an obligation to others.”

He shook his head, getting into his stride. “You as strangers don’t appreciate the intricacies of French succession law. Inheritance follows blood ties and is based on a priority system of entrenched heirs. Children before everyone. Barring issue, it goes to siblings and back
up
the line to surviving parents, grandparents, and so forth. Spouses didn’t count until only recently. Under such circumstances there very naturally have arisen disputes that were settled by particular arrangements from time to time. Such material is therefore highly confidential. You appreciate, of course, that we can’t allow just anyone—”

“I assume Jean-Claude Fournier also came to see you about this?” Mara interposed.

Guy turned coy. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say.”

She took that as a yes. “Do you mind my asking what he was interested in?”

“Really, madame, excuse my candor, but it’s none of your business.”

“He’s been murdered,” she told him. “Your archives might have a bearing on his death. Did you inform the police that he’d been to see you?”

She could see from their reactions that they had not. Guy’s mouth opened but no sound came out. The watchfulness in Michel’s eyes turned hostile. Mariette’s mind was working, and whatever it was working on made her expression tight with fear.

Michel was the first to recover. “Why should we have? There was no connection.”

“Look,” Mara conciliated, “we don’t want to cause problems. As Julian said, we’re mainly interested in the exchange of letters between Cécile and Eloïse. But I’d also like to see anything else you have pertaining to the de Bonfonds, and especially anything you showed to Jean-Claude Fournier. We’re not asking a lot. Cooperate with us, and I assure you we’ll be very respectful of your privacy.” She left the alternative scenario to their imaginations.

The situation had suddenly become tense. Father and son exchanged a quick glance. Mariette writhed in her spandex. “Oh, what does it matter?” she cried out. “Show it to them, for god’s sake. We don’t want the gendarmes on our doorstep. What is it anyway? Just some miserable bits of paper—”

“Mariette!” thundered Guy.

“Pas question.”
Michel put an end to the discussion. He did not raise his voice, yet the authority in it was undeniable. “If the police think there’s something in our family papers, let them come for them. Until then, what’s private stays private.” He rose, set his mug on the tray with a force that made the china rattle, hooked his beret from the table with a gnarled finger, and strode out of the house. They heard the back door slam. Seconds later, a car started up.

Guy and Mariette stared coldly at their visitors, clearly wanting them to go. But Julian ignored the sudden drop in ambient temperature. He had realized that it was not Cécile who would lead him to his
Cypripedium
. It was Eloïse. Her needlework was as distinctive as an artist’s brushstroke. He needed no further confirmation of who had embroidered Baby Blue’s shawl. He needed instead to know everything possible about Eloïse herself, where she had lived, walked, and ridden, for she, like Cécile, had also gone on horseback. However, in answer to his questions, the only thing Guy could, or would, tell him was that she had never married and that she had lived out her life on the old Verdier estate. But that was no longer in the family, hadn’t been for 169 years.

“Where is it?” Julian asked.

Mariette stared at him as if he were stupid. “In the valley, of course. Antoine has it. It used to be called ‘Les Verdiers.’
They
renamed it ‘Les Chardonnerets,’ but to us it will always be ‘Les Verdiers.’” In English, it was a nasty play on words. A kind of avian one-upmanship.
Chardonneret
meant “goldfinch.”
Verdier
meant plain old “greenfinch.”

For Julian, it was the worst possible news. He knew the house all right. Les Chardonnerets stood in the middle of a vineyard. Any orchid that might have once grown there had long since given up the ghost.

T
hey didn’t want us poking around in their papers,” Mara observed as they drove out of Sigoulane Village. “But they were willing to let Jean-Claude have a look. I wonder if that means he found something in those archives that now has the Verdiers running scared.”

Julian gave her a sideways glance before downshifting. “You think Christophe may not be the only one Jean-Claude tried to blackmail?”

“I think he made a practice of it.”

SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 16 MAY

T
he little man was breathing hard. The normally rosy O of his mouth was gray and drawn back sharply against his teeth. Unused to exertion, he struggled up the rugged slope, fighting his way through the heavy undergrowth, running as fast as his short, plump legs would carry him. The sounds of pursuit spread out noisily through the woods below him, men yelling, crashing through the trees, the frantic barking of a dog.

“Get it! Get it!”

“Over here!”

“Merde!”

Damn his luck! With so much forest all around, why did he have to run into those savages just here? Thank god there was only one dog, an awful liver-and-white Brittany spaniel. But the howling it had set up when it had scented him was bloodcurdling and sounded like a pack in full bay.

The explosion of a shotgun caused him to utter a shriek of terror. Dear god, now they were shooting at him. He knew from his boyhood hunting days what a shotgun could do. At close range, the shot entered as a solid mass, leaving a crater big enough to put your fist into. From a distance, the shot rained out, peppering the target with bloody holes. Rifles were infinitely more elegant.

He ran, clambering over roots, dodging branches, tripping, pushing himself to his feet, and continuing to scramble as best he could up the steep, forested incline. Just as he thought he could go no farther, another explosion drove him on. At last his legs gave
way beneath him. Christophe fell heavily to the ground, his lungs burning, his breath squeezing painfully out of him in broken sobs. Eventually, he managed to drag himself under the branches of a broadly spreading pine.

The irony of it was that
they
were on
his
land! As he lay recovering, he was briefly tempted to stand his ground, to order those morons off his property. But he knew he could not do that. He could keep his hands in his pockets, but his eye, his yellow, slanting eye, would certainly raise suspicion. His only safety lay in going to ground and remaining hidden until the situation changed.

The dog had ceased barking. Everything was oddly quiet. Had he succeeded in throwing the hunters off his trail? He sat up shakily. Peering through foliage, he found that he had a view of the clearing at the bottom of the slope. What he saw astonished him. Another group of people, women among them, had converged on the hunters, one of whom held the dog in check by the collar. However, instead of joining forces and coming after him, it seemed that they were having an argument. Some of the newcomers were waving their arms, and one carried a placard. SAVE—he squinted to make out the large, hand-painted letters—SAVE OUR WOLVES. Christophe almost burst out laughing. Not lingering to question his change of luck, he got to his feet and hurried away.

He had to get to Didier before it was too late, and he had very little time.

M
ara heard the distant gunfire as she made her way down the path toward Didier’s hut. Was the old man off hunting with his Babette? she wondered. If so, he was definitely out of season. To her surprise, the door with the blistered green paint swung back just as her knuckles made contact with it.

“Ah, bonjour, Didier.”
She jumped slightly as the gardener materialized, troll-like, out of the gloom.
“Vous êtes là.”