Heart to Heart: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective

by Don Pendleton

  Which we shall find instead of sweet repose.

  Great streams of blood are flowing in each town; Sobs only do I hear, and exiles see!

  On all sides civil discord loudly roars,

  And uttering cries on all sides virtue flees,

  As from the assembly votes of death arise.

  Great God! who can reply to murderous judges?

  And on what brows august I see the sword descend! What monsters treated as the peers of heroes! Oppressors, oppressed, victors, vanquished...

  The storm reaches you all in turn, in this common wreck,

  What crimes, what evils, what appalling guilt, Menace the subjects, as the potentates!

  And more than one usurper triumphs in command, More than one heart misled is humbled and repents. At last, closing the abyss and born from a black tomb

  There rises a young lily, more happy, and more fair.

  This prophecy, appalling as it was, was not heeded. Four years later, on the eve of her rendezvous with St. Germain, Countess d'Adhemar received the following note, in the same hand, and signed Comte de St. Germain.

  All is lost, Countess! This sun is the last which will set on the monarchy; tomorrow it will exist no more, chaos will prevail, anarchy unequalled. You know all I have tried to do to give affairs a different turn; I have been scorned; now it is too late... I will watch over you; be prudent, and you will survive the tempest that will have beaten down all. I resist the desire that I have to see you; what should we say to each other? You would ask of me the impossible; I can do nothing for the King, nothing for the Queen, nothing for the Royal Family, nothing even for the Duc d'Orleans, who will be triumphant tomorrow and who, all in due course, will cross the Capitol to be thrown from the top of the Tarpeian rock. Nevertheless, if you would care very much to meet with an old friend, go to the eight o'clock Mass at the Recollets, and enter the second chapel on the right hand.

  How good a prophet was St. Germain? He was dead center. His prophetic verse could be a capsule history of time, foretold, and deadly accurate even in the most literal sense. The revolution was actually a series of revolts and power struggles between various contending factions, raging back and forth for years and seeing a steady succession of leaders rising and toppling—and it was a revolt not simply of the peasant against the crown but of class against class, farmer versus urbanite, artisan versus businessman, all versus the church in one form or another, the church against all at various times, nobility undercutting nobility and plotting against king or nation, king resisting all and betraying the nation to its enemies without, military versus militia and both ready to strike at any hand—more than ten years toward the struggle for "liberty, equality, and fraternity" but culminating with the 18th Brumaire in military dictatorship by the thirty-year-old general, Napoleon, who became first emperor of France.

  It was not until Napoleon's defeat by the European allies in 1814 that the last line of St. Germain's prophecy began to have meaning, because Napoleon was mere epilogue to the French Revolution—or perhaps he was the vector, whatever, the flowering of St. Germain's lily into the modern French Republic was still some time away.

  But the year is now 1792; Louis XVI and his queen are in the shadow of the guillotine and a mighty nation is beginning its descent into the abyss. A mysterious foreigner known by many names has traveled to Paris in the name of friendship to counsel the queen's endangered friend, who writes in her diary: "A cry of surprise escaped me; he still living, he who was said to have died in 1784, and whom I had not heard spoken of for long years past—he had suddenly reappeared, and at what a moment, what an epoch! Why had he come to France? Was he then never to have done with life? For I knew some old people who had seen him bearing the stamp of forty or fifty years of age, and that at the beginning of the 18th century!"

  The Countess d'Adhemar had her meeting with St. Germain shortly before the king was seized and bound over for trial. And this is her record of that final conversation, quoted earlier in part:

  "I have written it to you, I can do nothing, my hands are tied by a sense stronger than myself. There are periods of time when to retreat is impossible, others when He has pronounced and the decree will be executed. Into this we are entering."

  "Will you see the Queen?"

  "No, she is doomed."

  "Doomed! To what?"

  "To death."

  Oh, this time I could not keep back a cry. I rose on my seat, my hands repulsed the Comte, and in a trembling voice I said:

  "And you too! you! what, you too!" [Saying this.]

  "Yes, I—I, like Cazotte."

  "You know...."

  "What you do not even suspect. Return to the Palace, go and tell the Queen to take heed to herself, that this day will be fatal to her; there is a plot, murder is premeditated."

  "You fill me with horror, but the Comte d'Estaing has promised..."

  "He will take fright, and will hide himself."

  "But M. de Lafayette..."

  "A balloon puffed out with wind! Even now they are setting what to do with him, whether he shall be instrument or victim; by noon all will be decided. The hour of repose is past, and the decrees of Providence must be fulfilled."

  "In plain words, what do they want?"

  "The complete ruin of the Bourbons; they will expel them from all the thrones they occupy, and in less than a century they will return to the rank of simple private individuals in their different branches."

  "And France?"

  "Kingdom, Republic, Empire, mixed Governments, tormented, agitated, torn; from clever tyrants she will pass to others who are ambitious without merit. She will be divided, parcelled out, cut up; and these are no pleonasms that I use, the coming times will bring about the overthrow of the Empire; pride will sway or abolish distinctions, not from virtue but from vanity, and it is through vanity that they will come back to them. The French, like children playing with handcuffs and slings, will play with titles, honors, ribbons; everything will be a toy to them, even to the shoulder-belt of the National Guard [one of Napoleon's routes to power]; the greedy will devour the finances. Some fifty millions now form a deficit, in the name of which the Revolution is made. Well! under the dictatorship of the philanthropists, the rhetoricians, the fine talkers, the State debt will exceed several thousand millions!"

  "You are a terrible prophet! When shall I see you again?"

  "Five times more; do not wish for the sixth. Do not let me detain you longer. There is already disturbance in the city. I am like Athalie, I wished to see and I have seen. Now I will take up my part again and leave you. I have a journey to take to Sweden; a great crime is brewing there, I am going to try to prevent it. His Majesty Gustav III interests me, he is worth more than his renown."

  "And he is menaced?"

  "Yes; no longer will 'happy as a king' be said, and still less as a queen."

  "Farewell, then, Monsieur; in truth I wish I had not listened to you."

  "Thus it is ever with us truthful people; deceivers are welcomed, but fie upon whoever says that which will come to pass! Farewell, Madame; au revoir!"

  This is not a story within a story. This is the story.

  You will understand why I say that when next you encounter the enchanting Francesca. And you will be a step ahead of me, pal, when I was there.

  Chapter Twelve: Series Earth

  It was shortly past midnight when Francesca took me to her studio to show me what I needed to know. The entire room had been converted into a gallery to display her show of paintings and sculptures, and I realized instantly that my earlier exposure to her work had been to but a small sample of the whole. Wall, easel, and pedestal now displayed some forty to fifty striking portraits and an equal number of life-size sculpted heads.

  The portraits were most arresting, in that the face of each subject seemed to have been caught by the eye of the artist just as it was emerging from a deeply dimensioned background of sheer color, each color blending into the other while overlaying somehow in a
strangely translucent effect yet converging and mixing at the surface to produce the portrait.

  I wondered how the hell she did that.

  Each face was unique, yet...connected, somehow, to all the others—some commonality implied by expression or by some subtle handling of the eyes, or...

  I had studied about five of those faces—very closely— when Francesca casually inquired, "What do you think?"

  I replied without looking at her, "This is beautiful work. How do you get those colors to...mix in there like that?"

  She replied, "The colors tell the story, do they not? Is all of art not representation?—and is all of representation not illusion?—and is all of illusion not allegory?"

  I looked at her then as I said to her, "This is the show you've been developing."

  "Yes."

  "I seem to detect some theme to all of this."

  "Yes. I call this Series Earth."

  I said, "I see," but I did not see.

  "Do you?"

  "Not really. It's haunting, but I guess all good art is haunting." I was moving along the portraits more quickly, now. I told her, "I have seen all the others, but not Valentinius. Why no Valentinius?"

  She replied mysteriously, "He is there."

  I said, "Guess I missed him. Did you ever paint St. Germain?"

  She gave me a perplexed look, averted her gaze for a long moment then brought it back to say, "I have been there, but..."

  "I wasn't talking about a place."

  "Oh. I referred to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, at the outskirts of Paris." She said it Pah-ree. "Some famous treaties were concluded there. Louis XIV built a chateau there, overlooking the Seine. A lovely spot. But I did not paint

  it."

  "I was talking about Le Comte de St. Germain."

  "There is no Le Comte de St. Germain."

  "Used to be. I understand he befriended the French throne and particularly Marie Antoinette."

  Those beautiful eyes rebounded instantly from mine and brimmed with moisture. "Dear heart," she murmured.

  I felt suddenly very weird and awkward. Were we thinking of the same "let them eat cake" queen? "Yes," I said, not knowing what else to say.

  "And so misunderstood. They hated her first because she was Austrian, then they hated her the more for fleeing that hatred and taking refuge at the bosom of kinder friends. The French, the French...they do not know how to treat a lady."

  I said, "Always thought they revered their ladies."

  She said, eyes still brimming with tears, "They revere prostitutes who masquerade as ladies. They burn or behead their ladies."

  I had the strongest urge to take her in my arms and comfort her, but I just said, "Well, not in a long time."

  She replied, "Once is quite enough."

  I was thinking about the two Francescas. The one I had met first on arrival at Pointe House was your typical American girl-next-door. This Francesca was old-world European in both manner and language, and I was more than a little disturbed by that—much more so than by our conversation on the beach, earlier. I mean, after all, this is Southern California—Laguna Beach even, which has its cup overrunning with sects and ashrams—where one hardly blinks an eye anymore at hearing public references to past lives, mystic experiences, and the like. Such talk is part of the environment here; you do not feel compelled to interpret it literally.

  I was disturbed also by the works of art; this stuff had master stamped all over it, yet I had never heard of Francesca Amalie before Pointe House, nor, I suspected, had the art world. Does an artist of this stature emerge overnight, with no shadows cast before her?

  And the clay!—those beautifully sculpted heads that seemed ready to come to life at the snap of some magician's fingers...

  I had to look again, and I was right: sculptures and paintings were all of a piece, went together, almost blended together—yet every lump of clay was Valentinius!

  "He is there," she'd told me.

  Damn right he was there.

  He was there in each of them.

  Chapter Thirteen: On the Beach

  I was suddenly dog-tired in both mind and body—soul- weary maybe—so I said good-night to Francesca as soon as I could go gracefully, and went straight up to bed. I paid no attention to the time but it must have been close to one o'clock when I reached my suite. I stripped naked and got in bed, intending to mentally review the day's events, but I guess I was asleep before my head was firmly upon the pillow.

  I slept well and did not dream of Pointe House, thank God. Hai Tsu awakened me at a few minutes past eight with coffee and juice on the side table. "Official visitor awaits, Shen," she informed me.

  I guessed that she meant Jim Sloane, the lawyer, and I wanted to see him too, so I asked her to make him comfortable and to tell him that I would be right down.

  I hit the shower as soon as Hai Tsu left the room, then got into tennis shorts, a polo shirt, and sneakers, and went down without shaving.

  Sloane was not in the library and there was no sign of Hai Tsu so I went exploring and found the "official visitor" enjoying coffee at a courtyard table. Actually there were two visitors and neither was Jim Sloane. They were plainclothes cops from the county of Orange, Sergeant Alvarez and Detective Beatty; they were being entertained by Francesca in skintight workout suit and nothing else—and obviously enjoying the experience immensely.

  They stood up to shake my hand anyway as we exchanged introductions. I have worked with cops, but not much in this particular jurisdiction. These two seemed like nice guys, entirely courteous and affable, relaxed, respectful. Francesca I (the girl-next-door) laughed lightly as we all sat down. "Now you can tell me why you're here," she declared in a conspiratorial tone. "It's driving me crazy."

  Alvarez and Beatty exchanged glances but both were smiling as Alvarez looked at me and said, "The housekeeper tells me that you two are the only residents."

  I opened my mouth to correct that impression, then decided to save it for later. The cop did not notice; he was already asking, "Who drives the Maserati?"

  I said, "Guilty."

  He turned the gaze to Francesca, asked, “And the VW Beetle...?”

  "Mine all mine," she said. "Made the last payment two months ago, so you couldn't be here to repossess it."

  "No other vehicles on the property," the cop noted.

  "Only when someone comes," she replied.

  I said, "Uh, I am one of those someones. I don't live here."

  The two cops again exchanged glances. Beatty took a sip of his coffee and Alvarez asked me, "Where do you live, Mr. Ford?"

  "I live in Malibu."

  "Would you mind telling me why you spent the night here last night?"

  I replied, "Not after you've told me why you want to know."

  He smiled, said, "We are conducting a routine investigation. You are not suspected or accused of any crime. We'd appreciate it if you would cooperate, make our job simple, and we can be on our way without disturbing you further."

  I asked, "Routine investigation of what?"

  He sighed, glanced at Beatty, said, "The air patrol spotted a body on the beach below this house early this morning. We are trying to develop information relative to that."

  I said, "I'll bet you are. Are we talking a dead body?"

  "Yes. Male. Fully clothed. Apparently fell from the top of the cliff. The body had not been in the water."

  Francesca was holding her breath, staring at the cop and hanging on every word. She softly exclaimed, "Wow! This is a murder investigation!"

  Alvarez showed her a faintly embarrassed smile as he replied, “Not at all. Cause of death has not been determined. We are merely developing information. Your housekeeper assured us that no one here is missing. So-”

  I asked, "Have you identified the victim?"

  "No. It's the body of a white male, age thirty to thirty- five, no identification."

  I lit a cigarette, pushed back my chair, said, "I arrived from Malibu at about two o'clock yester
day afternoon and had a meeting with Jim Sloane of Sloane, Sloane and James, attorneys for the owner of this property. I have been retained to develop information, to use your own terminology, for use in the defense of a suit by the state of California to seize this property. That is all I know about anything here. But of course I will cooperate with your investigation in any way that I can."

  Beatty had been taking notes as I spoke.

  Alvarez smiled and told me, "Thanks, we appreciate your attitude. You wouldn't mind taking a look at the body, then, and..."

  "How did you recover it?"

  "Still there. One of our marine units from Newport Harbor is on the scene and standing by. And of course we'd appreciate it if our medical examiners could use your private access to, uh, reach and secure the scene. They should be here at most any minute now. I'm assuming that you do have beach access. We noted stairs from the lower shelf. Do they go—?"

  "To an elevator," I told him. "Entry hall, inside the house."

  "No other way down?"

  I said, "Sounds like someone found it."

  He gave me a wry smile, said, "Could we see the elevator?"

  The guy wanted to see more than the elevator, so I

  played his game and led them through the long way so he could satisfy his curiosity inside. Hell, I just took charge, assuming it was expected of me by whoever sent for me. We encountered Hai Tsu along the way. I explained the situation to her and hinted that it could be a long day of official traipsings. I have to say that I was a bit numb about the entire thing; the news of a corpse on the beach neither alarmed nor surprised me. But I did suggest that she contact Sloane and alert him to the situation.

  As it worked out, Francesca and I took the elevator down with Alvarez; Beatty remained topside to greet and direct the expected official traffic.

  A powerful looking police cruiser was idling just beyond the surf line and two deputies in wet suits were on the beach. They'd covered the body with an orange tarp and were just sitting there on the sand as though enjoying a day at the beach. Alvarez excused himself and went over to have a word with them.