[11]
Thomas Lieven had only just gone to bed at his villa in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, when the telephone rang. It was fourteen minutes to two a.m. on September 13, 1943, a historic moment. For in retrospect that telephone call could be seen to have released an avalanche of events. For it meant that he would:
(a) resume an acquaintance with a lady from which, after an extremely short period of bliss, he would barely escape with his life;
(b) make a friend of a man who would save the said life a few months later;
(c) be enabled to reveal not only a highly intelligible though at the same time reprehensible murder, but also, in connection therewith, the biggest black market swindle of the year, and:
(d) earn the eternal gratitude of a desperate housewife and an aged female cook by rescuing them from a situation peculiarly dreadful for domestically minded women.
A thoroughly mixed program, evidently enough, with a number of plus and minus signs. Nevertheless, if Thomas had suspected what was in store for him, he would have let that telephone bell ring until the Day of Judgment. But he never expected anything of the sort. So he lifted the receiver. "Yes?"
"M. Lieven?"
He knew that voice. It was that of Jean : Paul Ferroud.
Thomas inquired politely after the banker's health.
Ferroud said he was all right.
"And your respected consort?"
"She is also quit§ well, thank you. Hen* Lieven, I feel I owe you an apology for behaving so—ahem—coldly and aggressively toward you ..."
"Don't mention it, I beg of you!"
"But I must, I must! Especially after having enjoyed such an exquisite loin of pork ... I'm most anxious to make amends." The devil you are, thought Thomas. "Would you
give my wife and myself the pleasure of dining at our house this evening?"
Good God, thought Thomas.
The banker continued with suave irony: "I assume that, as an Intelligence agent, you know exactly where I live. Or am I wrong?"
Little jokes of that sort had long ceased to irritate Thomas. The retorted promptly: "But of course I know, monsieur. You live in the Avenue Malakoff, No. 24, quite near here. You have a very beautiful wife, Christian name Marie-Louise, maiden name Kleber. She owns the most valuable jewelry possessed by any lady in Paris. You have a Chinese butler named Shen-Tai, a cook named Therese, a maid named Su-zette and two bulldogs named Cicero and Caesar."
He heard Ferroud laugh. "Shall we say about eight then?"
"At eight, monsieur." Thomas hung up.
Before he could begin to conjecture the meaning of this strange invitation, someone knocked at the bedroom door. His extremely pretty maid Nanette burst in, quite out of breath. She spoke in German, as she always did when she was particularly excited. "Monsieur ... monsieur ... I've just heard on the radio that Mussolini has been rescued ... and he's already on the way to Berlin—to Hitler—to go on fighting the war as his ally..."
"Benito must be very pleased about that," said Thomas.
Nanette laughed. She came right up to the bed. "Oh, monsieur . . . you are so nice ... I am so happy you let me be here . . ."
"Nanette, don't forget your Pierre!"
She pouted. "Oh, Pierre—he's so boring*..."
"He is a very nice young man," said Thomas pedantically. He got out of bed. She was coming a bit too near him. "Off you go now, Nanette! Kitchen!" He slapped her playfully. She laughed as though he had tickled her. Then she reluctantly left the room. What does that banker want, Thomas was wondering.
[12]
«'
The villa in the Avenue Malakoff proved to be a regular museum of works of art, both European and from the Far East. Ferroud must be a millionaire.
The little Chinese butler received the visitor with the eternal smile characteristic of his race, yet with a certain arrogance
and coldness in his bearing and speech. The maid behaved in the same way when Thomas handed her a cellophane carton of three pink orchids for her mistress.
Finally, the master of the house himself gave a similar impression of arrogance and coldness. He let Thomas wait quite a while—seven minutes, as the guest checked, with wrinkled brow, from his gold repeater—in the drawing room. Then he appeared, elegant as ever, shook hands with Thomas and began to mix martinis. "My wife will be here in a minute."
Thomas thought it all a bit queer. He examined the statue of Buddha, the small inlaid cabinet, the heavy, many-branched candlesticks and the rugs. Jean-Paul Ferroud, he thought, is not dependent on anyone. He's in a position to ignore me. But if so, why does he invite me to dinner? And if he invites me to dinner, why does he behave in such a way that I am slowly getting more and more angry?
Suddenly the white-haired banker dropped two small ice cubes. He was standing at a bar decorated with fantastically painted mirrors and filling a silver cocktail shaker. He cleared his throat with an embarrassed laugh. "Hand's trembling. Getting old! It's the booze."
A light suddenly broke it on Thomas. The man was not just putting on airs. He was nervous, frightfully nervous. So were the Chinese butler and the maid . . . The idea he had formed of them at first was all wrong. They all had the jitters, they were afraid of something. But of what?
The mistress of the house entered the room. Marie-Louise was tall, slender and flawless in her beauty. Her eyes were blue, with long lashes. Her fair hair was marvelously waved. She wore an off-the-shoulder black gown and magnificent jewelry around neck and arms. There could of course be no comparison, Thomas thought involuntarily, between that stuff and the swag we took off Pissoladiere in Marseilles. I say, what a degenerate I am already, he told himself.
'"Madame ..." He bowed deeply, kissed her hand and noted that the slim, white, delicately perfumed fingers were trembling.
He straightened, looked into her cold blue eyes, and detected panic in them also, controlled only with an effort.
Madame thanked him for the orchids, declared that she was pleased to meet him and accepted a martini from her husband. Suddenly she put the glass down on a hexagonal bronze table, pressed her fist against her lips and burst into sobs.
The white-haired Ferroud made a dash for his beautiful
spouse. "Good God—Marie-Louise—what the—control yourself, what will Hen* Lieven think of you?"
"Oh, dear," sobbed Mme. Ferroud. "Forgive me, Jean, forgive me ..."
"It's just nerves, darling ..."
"No, it's not nerves . . . it's not even that other thing . . . something else has happened!"
Ferroud's expression hardened. "Something felse—what do you mean?"
"Our dinner—it's ruined!" With a great sob the mistress of the house seized her handkerchief, blew her nose in it and exclaimed: "Therese has dropped the fish!"
Ferroud, the banker deeply suspected by German Intelligence of being one of the most dangerous key figures of the fantastic French marche noir, lost his temper. "Marie-Louise, I won't have this! You know perfectly well what's at stake this evening. And yet you go and burst into tears about some idiotic fish! You're behaving like a . .."
"M. Ferroud!" Thomas interrupted him in a quiet but resolute tone.
"What do you want—er—I mean—I beg your pardon?"
"Would you allow me to ask Madame a question or two?"
"I... er ... well... certainly, of course."
"Thank you. Madame, you say Therese has dropped the fish?"
"Yes—she's so old, you know. Her sight's so bad. The fish fell on the stove as she was taking it out of the water. It simply broke up—oh dear, I feel so awful—into a lot of little pieces!"
"Madame, there's only one sin that matters in this world and that's to lose heart. Courage, madame! You had the pluck to invite a German agent to dinner. Don't let a French fish get you down!"
Suddenly Ferroud seized his handsome head in both hands and groaned: "Oh, this is too much . .."
"I don't see why," .said Thomas. He turned to the lady. "Forgive my indiscreet
question. But what were we going to have before the fish?"
"Ham and Cumberland sauce."
"H'm." He assumed the expression of a great surgeon called in consultation. "And—er—afterward?"
"Chocolate coffee cream."
"Aha," said Thomas, helping himself to an olive. "That'll do nicely."
"What will do nicely?" The lady, who must have had quite seventy carats' worth of precious minerals on her, asked in a barely audible whisper. Thomas bowed. "Madame, you seem to me to be suffering from two quite distinct anxieties. I can easily relieve you of one of them if you will permit me to visit your kitchen."
"You . . . you think you can still do something with what's left of the fish?" Marie-Louise stared at him in utter stupefaction.
"But of course I can, madame," said our friend. "May we take the glasses and the cocktail shaker with us? One can cook so much better over a sip or two. Really excellent, this martini. Genuine Gordon's gin, eh? I can't imagine how you can still get the stuff in this fourth year of war, M. Ferroud ..."
MENU
(Boiled Ham and Cumberland Sauce
^Bahed Fish Souffle
Chocolate Coffee Cream
PARIS, 13 SEPTEMBER 1943
Thomas rescues first a fish and then a blonde.
Cumberland Sauce
Mix one cup of red currant jelly with half a cup of red wine, the juice of two oranges, one teaspoonful of English mustard and the peel of one orange cut into thin strips after removing the pith. This mixture should be kept cold. It can be used as a sauce for any kind of cold meat, especially game.
Baked Fish Souffle
Boil a while fish, remove skin and bones and cut the flesh into pieces. Prepare a roux with butter and flour, add sour cream, white wine, grated Parmesan cheese and a little fish stock. Cook to a thick white sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Add some cooked mushrooms and a few capers. Place the pieces of fish in a well-buttered souffle dish, pour the sauce over it, sprinkle it thickly with grated Parmesan cheese and small flakes of butter. Then bake in oven till golden-
brown. Before serving garnish with fleurons, i.e., crescents of baked puff pastry. This dish can be prepared from all firmly fleshed fish, such as cod and any shellfish.
Chocolate Coffee Cream
Boil six ounces of squares of cooking chocolate, and a little sugar in four cups of milk. Three yolks and a flat tablespoon-ful of corn flour are well beaten in a pan. The boiling liquid is added to the mixture and it is stirred continuously. Cook on very small flame until thick, without bringing to the boil. Add a soupspoonful of coarsely ground coffee (not pulverized) and the egg whites, beaten stiff, to the cream after removing it from the flame. Chill and serve.
[13]
What, then, was really the trouble at Ferronds'?
Thomas could not guess even in the gigantic, tiled kitchen. With an apron tied over his dinner jacket he neatly eliminated all traces of the catastrophe with the fish. The group of admiring spectators consisted of the humiliated, short-sighted old cook, the pallid mistress of the house and its equally pallid master. The strange pair had forgotten, for the time being at any rate, their intense nervousness. Thomas thought, well, I can wait. Till the small hours, if they like to keep it up so long. Some time or other they're bound to start talking.
He boned, skinned and sliced that disastrous fish. Then he took a sip of his martini and observed: "I have learned by bitter experience during these difficult years, ladies, that life usually allows just one more chance. A fish in bits is always better than none at all. We'll start making a really good sauce now. Have you any Parmesan cheese, Therese?"
"As much as you would like, monsieur," the old cook piped up. "Oh, I feel so terrible about what has happened, it was all my fault!"
"Pull yourself together, my friend. Take a sip of that stuff. It will do you good." The master of the house handed the cook a full glass. Thomas added: "White wine, sour cream and butter, please."
He got what he wanted. Everyone watched him preparing the sauce. Then a sudden tumult broke out in another part of the house. Two high-pitched voices, male and female, could be heard. The mistress of the house grew paler still. Ferroud
rushed to the kitchen door. On the threshold he encountered the Chinese butler. The latter had a simple way of keeping what he had to say secret. He jabbered it in Chinese.
He also pointed back over his shoulder. Mme. Ferroud, who obviously understood Chinese, uttered a scream. Her husband admonished her sternly in the same language. She dropped onto one of the kitchen stools. Ferroud followed Shen-Tai without excusing himself, banging the door behind him.
Well, well, thought Thomas. I suppose this sort of thing must happen even in well-bred French families. Don't see what I can do about it. He decided to keep calm whatever happened. "Have you any capers, Therese?"
"O Mary Mother of God, my poor mistress!"
"Therese!"
"Capers—yes, we have some."
"And mushrooms?"
"Ye-yes . .. madame, can I do anything for you?"
Mme. Ferroud spoke with an effort at self-control. "Hen* Lieven, please excuse all this excitement. Shen-Tai has been with us for ten years. We have no secrets from him. We engaged him in Shanghai, where we lived for a long time ..."
Raised voices from another room could be heard, followed by the crash of overturned furniture. Thomas thought, As my friend Corporal Karli Schlumberger would say, "Wait for it!"
"And put this lot in the stove, Therese."
"My cousin is rather a trying girl, Heir Lieven."
"I'm sorry to hear that, madame. Bake with a small flame now."
"We wished her to dine with us, you know. But just now she wanted to run out of the house. Shen-Tai only just managed to stop her."
"Certainly rather disturbing for you. But why did your respected cousin want to run away?"
"Because of you."
"Because of— me?"
"Yes. She didn't want to meet you." Mme. Ferroud rose. "My husband will be in the drawing room with her now. Please come with me. I'm sure Therese will be able to manage now."
"Sprinkle thickly with Parmesan, capers and mushrooms, Therese," said Thomas. He picked up his martini and the cocktail shaker. "Madame, I look forward to meeting your
relative. When a lady tries to avoid me before she has ever met me, I feel terribly flattered!"
He followed the mistress of the house. As he entered the drawing room, he did a thing he had never done before. He dropped his martini. The liquor seeped into the thick carpet.
Thomas, rooted to the spot as though paralyzed, stared at the slender young woman seated in a chair of antique design. Ferroud stood at her elbow like a bodyguard. But our friend could only see the girl's pale face, compressed lips, slanting green eyes, severely combed fair hair and high cheekbones. He heard her say hoarsely: "Good evening, Herr Sonder-fiihrer."
"Good evening, Mile. Dechamps," said he with an effort. Then he bowed to the former assistant of Professor Debouche and former Crozant partisan, who hated Germans so much, who had spat in his face at Clermont-Ferrand and wished him a prolonged and agonizing death
Jean-Paul Ferroud picked up the glass Thomas had dropped and said: "We did not tell Yvonne who was coming to visit us this evening. But she . . . she heard your voice while we were going into the kitchen and recognized it. Then she wanted to leave the house . . . you can imagine why."
"I certainly can."
"Well, we're at your mercy now, Herr Lieven. Yvonne's life is in danger. The Gestapo are after her. Without help, she will be done for."
The eyes of Yvonne Dechamps narrowed to slits, as she stared at Thomas. He could read shame and anger, bewilderment and hate, fear and indignation in her beautiful face. He was thinking: I have deceived her twice over, once as a German and once as a man. She will never forgive me that last deception. That's why she hates me. If I had only stayed in her room that night at the Gargilesse mill . . .
He heard Ferroud say: "You
are a banker like myself. I am not concerned with the emotional, but only with the practical aspect of this matter. You require information about the black market. I require the safety of my wife's cousin. Is that clear?"
"Quite clear," said Thomas. His lips had suddenly become as dry as parchment. He addressed Yvonne: "How is it that the Gestapo are after you?"
She threw her head back and glanced aside.
Mme. Ferroud called our sharply: "Yvonne!"
Thomas shrugged his shoulders. "Your cousin and I are old
enemies, madame. She can't forgive me for letting her escape at Clermont-Ferrand. I gave her at that time the address of a friend of mine named Bastian Fabre. He would have hidden her. But unfortunately it appears that she made no attempt to find him."
"She went to the leader of the Limoges resistance group," said Ferroud, "so that she could go on fighting for France."
"Our dear little patriotic heroine," Thomas commented with a sigh.
Yvonne suddenly darted a calm, frank look at him. For the first time there was no hatred in it. She said quietly: "France is my country, Heir Lieven. I wanted to go on fighting for it What would you have done?"
"I don't know. Perhaps the same. Then what happened?"
She lowered her head.
Ferroud said: "There was a traitor in the group. It was the wireless operator. The Gestapo caught fifty-five of the others. Six escaped. One of them is sitting here."
"Yvonne has relatives in Lisbon," said Mme. Ferroud. "If she can get there she will be all right."
The two men looked at each other without speaking. Thomas realized that a successful collaboration was about to begin. But heaven only knows, he reflected, how I can induce my colonel to agree to it!
The Chinese butler appeared, bowing. "Dinner is served," said Mme. Ferroud.
She preceded the others to the dining room. As they followed her Thomas Lieven's hand touched Yvonne's arm. She started as if she had received an electric shock. He looked at her. Her eyes had suddenly grown dark. Her cheeks reddened.
"Youll have to stop all that at once," he said.
"What—what do you mean?"
"Starting and blushing like that. As a German Intelligence agent you'll have to exercise more self-control."
The Monte Cristo Cover-Up Page 36