The Splendour Falls

by Susanna Kearsley

  “Sure.” He grinned at my question, unashamed. “Because everything does make sense, when you look at it from the right angle. All you have to do is find out what that angle is, for whatever it is you want to understand, and bang, the universe becomes a rational place.”

  “Does it really?” I remained unconvinced, sagging back against the seat cushions as I brushed the hair back from my forehead. There was a pink geranium growing in a planter outside the window, behind Paul’s shoulder, and I frowned at it without really seeing it. “Well, I’ve tried every angle I can think of, and I still don’t know what to think.”

  “About what?”

  Dragging my gaze from the window, I dug into my pocket and held out my hand, palm upwards. “This.”

  Paul frowned. Leaning forward, he took the little coin and raised it to catch the slanting light from the overhead fixture. “What is it?”

  “It’s a King John coin.”

  “Really? Where on earth did you get this?”

  I was ashamed to say I’d stolen it from a donation plate, so instead I told a half truth. “I found it, up at the Chapelle Sainte Radegonde.”

  “Wow.” He turned it slowly, studying the ancient image. “I can’t imagine many people would have one of these.”

  “My cousin has one.”

  He caught on quickly did young Paul. His upward glance held total comprehension. “But your cousin isn’t supposed to be here yet.”

  “I know.”

  “So.” He handed the coin back to me, watching my face with careful eyes that were older than his age. “So you think that this is his, then? That he’s been and gone already?”

  “I don’t know what to think. I rang up the other hotels and they’ve never heard of him. I checked round the hospitals, but he hasn’t been admitted. From all accounts, he hasn’t been within ten miles of Chinon. Not recently, at any rate.”

  “Did you try the tourist office? They keep the keys, you know, for the Chapelle of Sainte Radegonde.”

  I nodded. “They said no one had asked to see the chapelle for at least a month.” Christian had a key, of course, but if Christian had met Harry he’d have mentioned it to me, surely. My cousin and I were alike enough to be brother and sister, one could hardly miss the resemblance. And while Neil had apparently managed to scale the walls somehow, I doubted whether Harry could have done the same. Harry, for all his energy, was no athlete. “It’s this coin, you see,” I said to Paul, “this bloody coin, that bothers me.” I rolled it pensively between my fingers. “His good luck piece, he called it—to help him with the book he was writing. He’d never have left it behind.”

  “Maybe he dropped it without knowing.”

  I shook my head. “No, not where I found it. Someone would have had to place it there deliberately. Besides, he couldn’t have dropped it loose like this. He carried it round in a plastic case, the kind collectors use.”

  “He’d have dropped the whole thing, you mean.”

  “Yes. Of course, the obvious answer is that this isn’t Harry’s coin at all, that it belongs to someone else. But still, it’s solid silver, and terribly old, and you’d have to be mad to put it in… well, to put it where I found it.”

  Paul was silent for a minute. Shaking a cigarette loose from his nearly empty packet he lit it with a thoughtful frown. “If you’re really worried, you could call the police.”

  “And tell them what? That I’ve found a coin that may or may not be my cousin’s?” I smiled, knowingly. “They’d send me packing for wasting their valuable time.”

  “So you don’t want to bother the police,” Paul summarized. “OK. There must be some other way of finding out whether he’s been here.”

  “Well, I can’t think of any.”

  “You said he was coming here to do some research.”

  “Yes.”

  “And where would he go to do that?”

  I shrugged, a little helplessly. “I don’t know, really. The library, perhaps, or the château… no, wait,” I broke off suddenly, remembering. “He did say he was meeting someone. Some man who’d read one of Harry’s articles and was offering some useful information about tunnels.”

  “You’re sure it was a man?”

  I thought back, closing my eyes as I replayed the week-old conversation in my head. “Yes, positive.”

  “Remember his name?”

  “No.” I opened my eyes again, faintly frustrated. “No, I don’t. I think he only said the first name.”

  “Is he French or English?”

  “French,” I said with certainty. “He wrote his letter in French, I do remember that, only Harry said the fellow must know English because the article—the article about Queen Isabelle’s treasure—had been published in an English journal.”

  “Right,” said Paul. “So we’re looking for a local history nut who knows the tunnels pretty well and reads British history journals.” He smiled at me above the burning cigarette. “Sounds like a case for Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Impossible, you mean.”

  He grinned. “I mean it’s something I could probably look into for you. I don’t think there’d be too many guys in Chinon fitting that description, and the few who do must hang around the library. It’s just down the street, here,” he nodded out the window. “I can drop in tomorrow, if you like, and ask around. And if you want to take another look around the chapelle to see if your cousin left anything else there, I’m sure I could sweet-talk Christian into lending me the keys.”

  “Would you?”

  “Sure. Sweet-talking is one of my specialties.” He smiled, blowing smoke. “I have to do a lot of it with my brother.”

  I smiled back. “Where is Simon, by the way?”

  “Don’t know. He took off after lunch, treasure-hunting, and I haven’t seen him since. After last night’s ghost story, he’s been unstoppable, you know—two Isabelles, two hidden treasures, twice the chance of finding something.”

  “Look on the bright side,” I told him. “At least he won’t be quite so eager to leave Chinon, now. You’ll get to stay a few more days.”

  “Longer than that,” he reminded me, sagely. “Don’t you remember? The Echo told Simon he’d never get me to leave.” Leaning back, he stretched his arms above his head. “Listen, do you want a drink or something? Coffee?”

  I looked round the deserted room. “Is the bar open, then?”

  “Oh, sure. Thierry’s in the back room, doing paperwork.”

  “Paperwork?” It seemed an odd thing for the bartender to be doing, and Paul smiled at my reaction.

  “Yeah. I think the receptionist, Gabrielle, is helping him.”

  “Oh, I see.” I smiled back, as comprehension dawned.

  “I’m supposed to whistle if I want anything.”

  He had to whistle twice, in fact, before we heard a stirring from the room behind the bar, and a slightly muffled voice said: “Ho-kay, just a moment.”

  Across from me, Paul struck a match to light another cigarette, his eyes faintly apologetic. “Chain-smoking, I know. My mother would have a fit. But I have to enjoy it while I can, before Simon gets back.”

  I bit my lip, thinking. “Paul…”

  “Yes?”

  “You won’t tell anybody, will you, about my cousin’s coin?” If he’d asked “why not?” I would have had a devil of a time explaining. One couldn’t very well explain a feeling. And that was all it was—a feeling, an irrational suspicion that things were not quite what they seemed to be among my fellow guests. I’d felt it that first night at dinner, and again last night, here in the bar—that sense of something darker running underneath the surface, some troubled current that I couldn’t understand. It reminded me of the time, years ago now, when my father had taken us to London to see a play, only he’d read the tickets wrong and we arrived just as the second interval was end
ing. I’d sat through the final act in absolute confusion, with the motivating plot-lines of the characters long since laid out and set in motion, so that while I felt their conflict and the atmosphere of tension, I had no idea what was going on.

  But whatever the cause of the atmosphere of tension here at the Hotel de France, it didn’t seem to have touched Paul Lazarus. “Of course I won’t tell anyone,” he said. “Not if you don’t want me to.”

  “Not even Simon?”

  “Not even Simon.”

  “Thanks,” I told him. “You’re an angel.”

  Smiling, he balanced his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray and leaned back in his seat, arms folded complacently across his chest. “I do my best.”

  “Aha!” Simon, coming round the bar door, skewered Paul with a smugly triumphant look. “I knew I’d catch you at it sooner or later, I just knew it!”

  I couldn’t resist. I reached innocently across for the lit cigarette and raised it to my own lips, inhaling with perfect nonchalance. “Catch him at what?” I asked Simon.

  His face fell, and even Paul looked faintly shocked, but I managed to hold the innocent expression long enough to convince Simon.

  “Nothing,” he said. He glanced uncertainly at Paul. “I only thought…”

  He wasn’t allowed to finish telling us what he thought. Behind him in the entrance hall the front door blew open and shut and I braced myself as the Whitakers came into the bar, shattering what little remained of the companionable peace that had settled between Paul and myself.

  “Why, Emily!” Garland raised her eyebrows in a calculated arc and widened her eyes. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  I didn’t, actually. I had given it up three years ago, as part of my more responsible approach to life, and I was somewhat relieved to find it tasted awful, but I sent Garland an almost cheerful shrug. “Well, we all have to have one vice, don’t we? That’s what my father says.”

  “Only one vice? Darling, how boring!” She sank gracefully onto the soft chair nearest the door and gave a tiny, self-satisfied sigh. “I won’t be able to get up again, now,” she pronounced. “We must have walked a hundred miles.”

  “Just over the river and back, actually,” Jim Whitaker put in, as he joined us by the window, “but my wife’s not used to walking. And those shoes don’t help.”

  Garland lifted one delicately arched foot, the better to examine her tight Italian pumps. “I know. I really must invest in a pair of sensible shoes like yours, Emily,” she said, sending me a smile designed to soften the cutting compliment. “You English always wear such practical clothes.”

  Paul’s eyes laughed at me as he positioned the ashtray nearer me, closing his unfinished book and pushing it aside. He looked at Simon, curious. “And where did you take off to, this afternoon?”

  “Oh, nowhere in particular,” Simon answered, swinging his lanky frame into the chair beside me. He whistled a snatch of something through his teeth and looked around. “Where’s Thierry, by the way? Isn’t he working?”

  “He’s in the back, doing paperwork.” The lie came easily in Paul’s unhurried voice. “He knows we’re here, though. He’ll be out in a minute or two.”

  “Thank God,” said Garland. “I could certainly use a drink after all that marching around. I prefer places we can drive the car to, you know. What about you, Emily?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind walking.” I smiled politely, folding what was left of the cigarette into the ashtray with exquisite care. “I rather enjoy it, actually.”

  Garland smiled. “Like Neil. Honestly, he makes me tired just watching him. Up and down those stairs all day, and he never even breathes hard. It’s disgusting. Jim used to be fit like that, didn’t you darling? When I first met you. The Army,” she sighed, “does wonderful things to a man’s body. Oh, there you are, Thierry, we were beginning to think you’d disappeared.”

  Thierry looked rather flushed, and more than a little pleased with himself. Garland mistook his cheerful distraction for an inability to understand.

  “We… thought… you’d… disappeared,” she repeated, in a louder voice.

  “Ah.” He grinned, and broadening his accent so that he sounded exactly like a music hall actor pretending to be French, he asked her very slowly: “Would… you… like… a… drink?”

  Even Jim smiled at that, but Garland missed the joke completely. “Oh, that’s very much better, Thierry,” she congratulated him. “You see? I told you if you kept on practicing, your English would improve in no time.”

  Thierry shrugged, a modest little shrug. I didn’t trust myself to look up again until after he’d brought the drinks.

  For the next half hour I sipped my kir and smiled politely. When it became apparent that the Whitakers were rooted to their seats for the remainder of the evening, and that Paul and I would have to wait until breakfast to talk any further about Harry, I excused myself with a rather convincing yawn and started up the winding stairs.

  Alone in my room, I closed my fingers thoughtfully round the little silver coin, still nestled deep within my pocket, and wandered over to the window. The night air was thick and full of dampness. In the square below, the street lamps spread warm yellow pools of light upon the smooth black pavement, and water spilled from the fountain like an iridescent rain.

  Beside the fountain, the little spotted dog yawned and stretched as the breeze went shivering through the acacias.

  The gypsy glanced swiftly upwards, expressionless, at my window, then looked away again and lit a cigarette with unhurried fingers. It was only the darkness, I told myself, that was giving things this air of melodrama. The gypsy had every right to be sitting in a public square, and he might have been looking at anything, really, not just at my window. But still I latched the window firmly, securely, and twitched the heavy curtains closed before I crawled beneath the covers of the wide bed, shutting my eyes tightly into the pillow like a child seeking comfort in the long uncertain night.

  Chapter 17

  “…we give you, being strange

  A licence: speak, and let the topic die.”

  Paul answered my knock at the door next morning with the telephone slung from one hand and the receiver cradled close against his cheek. Smiling, he motioned me in, not missing a beat in his conversation. He was speaking in French. “Ah. I see. Yes, I’ll wait, it’s no problem.” Fingers cupped round the mouthpiece, he smiled again. “Come on in,” he told me. “Have a seat.”

  Which was easier said than done. The boys’ room was the mirror image of my own, except that where I had one huge bed they had two narrow ones, one neatly made and strewn with maps, the other rumpled and half buried beneath a set of curtains, still anchored firmly to the curtain-rod. Three spreading piles of clothing, sorted by color, rose like miniature Alps from the carpet at my feet. There was very little room to stand, let alone sit.

  Paul had solved the problem by sitting on the cluttered desk, feet braced against a chair that had been buried thick in newspapers. He resumed his seat now, while I made my cautious way around the mounded clothing to perch upon a corner of the neater bed by the window.

  Simon, I thought, had a point—the window did look better without curtains. It stood fully open to the morning air, and the jumbled sounds of traffic, talk and fountain drifted upwards from the square beneath, like some discordant modern symphony.

  Paul was still on hold, and humming to himself.

  “Any joy?” I asked him.

  “Sort of. The library isn’t open yet, but the staff is there. This guy’s just gone to ask the librarian if he knows anyone who—” He broke off suddenly, and bent his head. “Yes, I’m still here.” A shorter pause, and then: “Yes. I’m a student, you see, and I’m writing a paper on… that’s right. And I was told there might be someone here who might be good to talk to. Pardon?” He leaned forward to scribble a few lines on the pad of paper
at his side. “Yes, I’ve got that. Belliveau, that’s B-e-l-l…? You don’t have the telephone number, do you? Yes, of course, I understand. Well, I’m sure it won’t be a problem. Thanks so much.” He replaced the receiver with a smug expression, and struck a match to light a cigarette. “Well, that was fun.”

  “You want to watch out, Sherlock,” I said drily. “Big brother might walk in and catch you smoking.”

  “Simon,” Paul informed me, savoring the words, “isn’t here. He left half an hour ago, with the Whitakers.”

  “Simon’s gone off with Jim and Garland?” I couldn’t quite believe my ears. “Why on earth would he do that?”

  “Because they were going to Fontevraud, where your Queen Isabelle is buried. Simon thought there might be clues there, as to where she hid her treasure.” Paul shrugged. “But mostly he went because I reminded him today is Tuesday, our weekly laundry day, and Simon really hates the laundromat.”

  I smiled slowly. “You’re a whopping sneak.”

  “I know.”

  “And how are we supposed to play detective, might I ask, if we have to do your laundry?”

  “Thierry and I have it all under control.”

  “You didn’t tell Thierry?” I asked, startled.

  His eyes held soft reproach. “Of course not. I promised, didn’t I? I only told him you and I were taking off to do some sightseeing on our own, and could he help us keep it secret from Simon?”

  I smiled. “Well, that’s torn it. He’ll be thinking we’ve gone sneaking off to do something romantic.”

  “Nah.” Paul grinned. “We could do that right here at the hotel. Besides, Thierry knows me better than that.”

  “What, I’m too old for you?” I teased him.

  He shook his head. “Hardly. But I’d never hit on someone else’s woman.”

  “Someone else’s…?”

  “Anyhow,” he changed the subject, picking up his notepad. “Do you want to know what I’ve just found out?”

  I stopped frowning and leaned forward. “Please.”

  “Well, the librarian only knows of one man who reads foreign history journals and takes an interest in the tunnels—a local poet by the name of Victor Belliveau.”