Monsieur Pamplemousse Hits the Headlines

by Michael Bond

  ‘What will happen to the company now?’ he asked.

  ‘Who knows? It depends what arrangements have been made. It may need more than a smidgeon of creative accounting for a while, but that’s par for the course in this business. Knowing Claude I imagine he will have had it all tied up.

  ‘After you, chaps.’

  As the lift came to a stop and the doors slid open, Julian stood back. Following them out, he crossed to the windows and drew the curtains, flooding the room with light.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse registered the courtyard before taking in the room itself. Having already sampled the Chavignols’ lifestyle at their home in the 7th, he was expecting more of the same, but it was the very opposite. The walls were hung with framed theatre posters: French, American…there was even one from the Holborn Empire in London. They looked as though they were mostly from the immediate post-war years when Music Halls were fighting a losing battle with television.

  A huge bowl of fresh flowers occupied a central position on a conference-size table. Beyond it, in a far corner of the room there was a theatrical dressing table, the mirror ringed with lights for make-up. The work surface was dotted with silver framed signed photographs of the great and the famous. On the wall to one side of it there was a framed reproduction of The Conjurer by Hieronymous Bosch.

  It revealed another, more personal side to Chavignol and he wondered who in the end was the more dominant of the two, Claude or Claudette? It wouldn’t surprise him if it were the latter. More dominant, and perhaps more dangerous.

  ‘Impressed?’ Julian joined him. ‘You haven’t seen anything yet. Claude didn’t believe in stinting himself.’

  He led the way past a fairground slot machine into a second room that had been converted into a viewing theatre. A row of leather armchair type seats, each with a projecting ring for holding a carton in one arm, occupied the nearside wall; a popcorn machine in a far corner was matched by a mini bar at the opposite end. Julian selected a button in a console set into one of the chair arms and curtains between the two parted to reveal a giant screen. Pressure on a second button sent shock waves of stereophonic music through the room.

  Beyond the viewing theatre, a marble-floored area was home to Bulthaup steel kitchen cabinets and an Angelo Po oven and hob built into an island unit with a granite work surface.

  Having beaten the others to it, Pommes Frites looked round expectantly as they entered. Tongue hanging out, he was eyeing his reflection in the mirrored doors of a vast American General Electric fridge-freezer with built-in water and ice dispensers.

  ‘He’s welcome to some water,’ said Julian, ‘but I doubt if he’ll find anything worthwhile to go with it.’ Opening the door he pointed to a half-eaten pizza and a pack of Soothing Eye Masks. ‘Take your pick!

  ‘I’m afraid it does make a bit of a mockery of Claude’s standing as a gourmet. The trouble was he had no taste-buds, and no sense of smell either. Which I suppose is why he didn’t notice anything wrong with the oyster until it was too late.

  ‘He had a Japanese chef who did the cooking here whenever he was entertaining – hence all the equipment. No mean hand at it either by all accounts.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse didn’t let on he knew only too well. Instead, while the other went about filling a water bowl for Pommes Frites, he glanced at some of the labels on a hundred or so bottles behind a glass-fronted temperature controlled wine cabinet.

  ‘For someone with no taste buds he didn’t exactly stint himself.’

  ‘He was guided entirely by the right hand column of the price lists,’ said Julian. ‘Which makes life easy if you can afford it.’

  Pommes Frites looked up at the others. He had no idea what they were on about. Had they been engaged in a game of hunt the slipper they couldn’t have been further off the scent. In fact – he gazed, glassy-eyed at the bowl of water in front of him – they were getting colder by the minute.

  ‘Claude may not have been in the same league as Britney Spears,’ said Julian, leading the way back to where they had started. ‘Who else is on this side of the Atlantic? In fact, compared with most Hollywood film stars he was a non-starter, but in his own immodest way he didn’t do too badly. Fresh flowers every day. A new suit from Cerruti before every show – they have his measurements on computer – all courtesy of the budget.’

  Apart from making a mental calculation of what that would add up to over a thirteen-week series, Monsieur Pamplemousse listened with only half an ear as he ran his eye along the bookshelves. Books could say more about a person than almost anything else.

  Unlike the ones in Chavignol’s house they looked well used. Yellow marker tabs protruded from the pages and as with the posters, they appeared to be in an assortment of languages. Most had to do with illusions and the art of conjuring in one form or another; an English edition of Dunninger’s Complete Encyclopaedia of Magic, and various other titles which meant nothing to him, apart from The Expert at the Card Table by someone called S.W.Erdnase. He wondered why that rang a bell. Perhaps Glandier had mentioned it at some time.

  ‘The card sharp’s bible,’ said Julian. ‘And therein lies the biggest mystery of all. Who actually wrote it? The theory is that S.W. Erdnase is a part-inversion of Andrews, who was a Massachusetts gambler, but that’s as far as anyone has ever got for certain. He’s another one who came to a sticky end. Except his was self-inflicted. When the San Francisco police finally caught up with him he shot the woman he was with, then committed suicide.’

  ‘Never play poker with a professional,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse.

  ‘I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to take on Claude. He was never without a pack of cards. That’s what it’s all about. Practice, practice, practice. It’s the Martina Navratilova syndrome. They say she has tennis balls all over her house so that any time she goes into a room she can pick one up and squeeze it. Claude was the same with cards.

  ‘Anyway, dealing from the bottom of the pack was only one of his many talents. When he first started out he worked with people like Kellar and Hermann in America before going solo. In his day he was a class act. Then, when magic went out of favour, he adapted his skills to new ends.’

  ‘How old was he?’

  Julian shrugged. ‘Older than you think! Look, I don’t want to disillusion you any more than you probably are already, but in this business age is no barrier. There are people who get wheeled on simply because their main, perhaps their only qualification, is the ability to move around a set without bumping into the furniture.

  ‘Claude didn’t come into that category – he knew exactly what he was doing. Every move was calculated to the nth degree. He also had most of the qualities that go with being a successful television presenter. He was unflappable and never at a loss for a word – even when there was nothing to say. In short, he was a born television host. The job could have been made for him.

  ‘If television hadn’t been invented it’s hard to picture what he might have become. A card sharp perhaps, or a magician down on his luck, reduced to doing children’s parties at Christmas. As it was he took to the small screen like a duck to water and he never looked back.’

  ‘What was he like to work for?’

  ‘The scene boys call him “the big cheese” behind his back.’

  ‘Le grand chavignol? I know that syndrome too,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, with feeling. ‘The trouble is everyone thinks they are the only one to have thought of it.’

  ‘In Claude’s case it wasn’t meant as a compliment. Think over-ripe Roquefort stinking to high heaven instead.’

  ‘And you? What was your opinion?’

  ‘Try poisoned honey. The fact is his whole life was devoted to the art of illusion. With most people what you see is what you get. With Claude it was the opposite. He was a product of his own invention. Being with him when he was at the wheel of his car was something else again. Beaming out at pedestrians in case anyone recognised him, and at the same time doing his best to mow them down. No
one was safe.’

  ‘Talking of which…’ Monsieur Pamplemousse related his narrow escape on the way to the studios.

  ‘That would have been Pascal,’ said Julian. ‘He’s as bad behind the wheel, except in his case it isn’t deliberate. He just isn’t a very good driver. It’s a bit ironic really. Only the other day Claude half jokingly promised to leave him his Facel Vega when he died.’

  ‘Half?’

  ‘More than half I would say. They’ve been together for years. Pascal is part of the fixtures and fittings you might say.’ He pointed to one of the photographs on the dressing table.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse took a closer look. Even given the fact that the person in the photograph was as bald as a coot and sported a toothbrush moustache, the likeness was uncanny. The only physical difference he could see lay in the hands, which were more those of a workman than a magician.

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘All part of the service,’ said Julian, catching the look on his face. ‘I’m not surprised you were thrown. In the beginning I was caught out more than once. When he’s wearing a hat it’s hard to tell the two apart. It’s like the old saying about pets and their masters growing to look like each other…present company excepted, of course, although rumour has it they were distantly related.’

  ‘So he might have been here this morning?’

  ‘Could be. He came and went all the time. Apart from being Claude’s coursier de production – his “gofer” as it’s known in the trade – “go for this – go for that”, Pascal was his stand-in during camera rehearsals. It isn’t unusual for a star to have someone do all the tedious work. It’s what they call “saving themselves” for the night.’

  ‘Why would he have come back?’

  ‘He probably had things to pick up. It’s a kind of home from home for him.’

  ‘Presumably he would have checked in at the gate?’

  ‘Not necessarily. The lift isn’t the only way in. Fire regulations. There’s a back entrance leading out to the Rue Tholozé. It came in useful the other night, I can tell you. There was quite a crowd waiting outside the main entrance.’

  That explained why the Sapeurs-Pompiers had been heard but not seen; the ambulance and the police too.

  ‘And Pascal would still have a key?’

  ‘Almost certainly.’

  ‘And the use of a company camionnette?’

  ‘There’s no reason why he shouldn’t still be using it. As I say, he was Claude’s Man Friday. All these things will need to be sorted out. It’s early days yet.’

  ‘It would be good to see him.’

  ‘I don’t have his number, but I’ll get my secretary to tell him you called.’

  ‘Did the two of them get on together?’

  ‘Claude and Pascal? If they didn’t it never showed. Although I didn’t see much of them together.’

  ‘And Madame Chavignol?’

  ‘Between you, me and the gatepost, she wore the trousers. I wouldn’t trust her any further than I could throw her. They were well matched.’

  Julian looked as though he could have said a great deal more, but he changed his mind.

  ‘Listen; let me take you down on the floor. They’ll be rehearsing Montparnasse Bienvenue…’ he named a twice-weekly soap opera, which Monsieur Pamplemousse had to admit he had never seen. ‘It’s our other bread and butter show. It’ll be a different director, but the crew will be the same.’

  The atmosphere and layout of the studio had changed completely since his last visit. The theatre with its proscenium arch and stage had disappeared, as had the audience rostra. The space was now completely taken up by sets – mostly three-walled rooms with one side left free for the technical staff to operate in. Through the window of one he could see the Montparnasse Tower painted on a backcloth; through another there was a view of the cemetery.

  He recognised the floor manager, who looked up from his clipboard and gave him a wave.

  On the surface it was the usual chaos, with everyone talking jargon: the lighting director holding a pencil vertically over his left hand, wondering whether or not to “Chinese” the barn door on a 2k; a boom operator towering above the others on a mobile platform trying to lose a microphone shadow; cameramen working out tracking lines and deciding which lenses to use as they marked up their crib cards; actors getting accustomed to their surroundings, testing door handles for size; studio hands coming and going, making sure props were in their right place, comparing their positioning with stock photos from previous episodes. A gardener was watering a row of practical plants just outside one of the windows; a scenic artist busied himself with a long handled brush, painting a floral carpet on the studio floor.

  ‘Chaos with a capital K,’ said Julian. ‘It’ll be all right on the night. It always is. Well, almost always.’ He pointed to a steel staircase in a far corner of the studio. ‘Let’s go and see where it’s all put together.’

  Following on behind until they reached the gallery, Monsieur Pamplemousse listened while Julian House explained in a whisper what each of the monitors in a long row behind the vision mixer’s desk was for.

  The voice of an actor down in the studio querying the reason for his getting up and leaving the room came over the fold-back. It sounded as though it wasn’t the first time.

  ‘Tell him his mother’s just died,’ said the director unfeelingly. ‘That’ll motivate him!

  ‘Actors!’ he groaned, masking a desk microphone with his hand.

  Looking round and recognising his visitors, he uncovered the microphone and spoke to the studio manager. ‘Tell the cast to take five.’

  Everyone in the gallery relaxed while Julian explained the purpose of their visit.

  ‘Feel free,’ said the director. ‘I’m afraid I can’t be much help. I go with this show, but I saw it all happen on the box at home. Shame you weren’t able to catch Chavignol in time.’

  ‘It would have needed a miracle,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse.

  ‘That kind of miracle wouldn’t come cheap,’ said the director cryptically. ‘Anyway, apart from my secretary, Désirée,’ he gestured to a blonde girl sitting beside him, ‘she calls the shots and generally keeps me in order, everyone else here was working on the show. Anne-Marie, the vision-mixer …Didier, technical operations manager…’ A wave toward a window beyond the monitors embraced the sound supervisor, ‘Jean-Michel.’ He glanced up at a wall clock. ‘They’re all yours, but I’d be grateful if it doesn’t take too long, otherwise we shall start running out of time.’

  ‘Isn’t it unusual for a network to take a live feed for Chavignol’s kind of programme?’ asked Monsieur Pamplemousse.

  ‘Unique,’ replied Didier. ‘Especially in this day and age.’

  ‘On the other hand,’ said Julian, ‘it was one of the things that kept the viewing figures high. Human nature being what it is, viewers lived in hope that one day something might go wrong; a bit like people secretly wanting a trapeze artist to miss his footing.’

  ‘In Chavignol’s case they got their wish,’ said the director drily.

  ‘He was a perfectionist,’ said Julian. ‘He hated people to think his tricks were performed by sleight of TV. He believed they should be things of the moment.’

  ‘How did he get away with it?’ asked Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Going out live, I mean.’

  ‘Let’s just say he had “friends” in high places,’ said Julian. ‘He could be very persuasive.’

  ‘My understanding is that he wasn’t very practical when it came to working in the kitchen.’

  ‘He was paranoid about his hands. They were insured for God knows how much.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘wasn’t it unusual for him to open the oyster himself? It isn’t the easiest thing in the world.’

  ‘You’re right. But he was very insistent on doing it himself for once. I guess it was because there was only one. It was probably the magician in him. It would have offended his sense of drama.’
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  ‘Who supplied it?’

  ‘He brought it in himself. He had his own chef at home. He supplied most of the dishes he used on the show.’

  ‘As for opening it,’ said Didier, ‘I suspect it was helped on its way earlier. Although they do have a tendency to close up again.’

  ‘We can check with the studio manager,’ said Miles. ‘But I agree. It must have been that way. Timing was everything with Claude. It has to be on a live show. There’s no second chance. On the surface he made it seem as though he was skating on thin ice, but believe me that was very rarely the case.’

  Memories of Chavignol’s boiled egg still lingered in Monsieur Pamplemousse’s mind. ‘But there must have been times when it was touch and go,’ he insisted, reminding the others of the moment.

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Didier. ‘He had eyes like a hawk.’

  ‘It’s a very good example,’ said Julian. ‘When we go back down on the floor, have a look behind where last night’s audience were sitting. You’ll see a large clock with a sweep second hand high up on the wall. It was kept covered up for most of the show. Unbeknown to them he knew exactly how long he had.’

  ‘If everything was so cut and dried,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse thoughtfully, ‘it must have come as even more of a shock when he keeled over like he did.’

  ‘Panic stations,’ said the vision mixer. ‘If you are wondering why the programme wasn’t faded at once, it’s because the ball was in the network’s court. It was only a matter of seconds, but in this business a second can seem like an eternity’.

  ‘Camera One simply did what most cameramen would have done,’ said Didier. ‘He followed the action.’

  ‘There’s nothing worse than being left with a blank screen,’ agreed the vision mixer. ‘Besides, there was nowhere else to go. The other cameras had already peeled off. Two and Three were lining up reaction shots of the audience drinking champagne. Camera Four was in the middle of making a move.’

  ‘So what happened after I left?’

  ‘There was nothing anyone could do,’ said Julian. ‘My understanding is he was taken straight up to his apartment to await the arrival of the medics. As soon as his wife realised he was dead she asked to be left alone with him. We agreed of course.’