The Plot

by Irving Wallace

  Walking along the street, Doyle decided that the files of the Paris bureau of ANA were too skimpy for his final research. The most complete files of newspaper clippings and back copies, and the most accessible, were those in Le Figaro’s morgue, which he had used several times. That was where he would go to find the dates of Rostov’s stay in Moscow, his disappearance from Moscow, his return to Moscow, and these dates he would place side by side with the datelines of Hazel’s stories from Moscow, away from Moscow, from Moscow again. If the two series of dates coincided, he no longer need have even a lingering doubt; if they did not coincide, he would have to move more warily. After visiting Le Figaro, he would try to locate Matt Brennan. In exchange for confidential news about his morning’s discovery, Doyle should learn every bit of information Brennan could dredge up of his personal friendship with Rostov in the Zurich days.

  Doyle enjoyed his own smile.

  Once ready, he would pull the strings and his puppets would dance for him willingly.

  Standing on the curbing of the Boulevard Haussmann, he knew that he could reach the Rond-Point and the offices of Le Figaro on foot, but he had no patience for playing pedestrian right now. He was rich. He would indulge in a taxi.

  He stepped down into the street and began to wave energetically at each passing taxi, and when he saw an unoccupied one approaching, he waved even more frantically. It slowed down.

  As he began to waddle toward it, a flashy young blond girl suddenly darted in front of him and grabbed the taxi door to open it.

  “Hey, wait a minute, ma’am,” Doyle protested. “It’s my cab.”

  “I was waving, too,” she insisted, straightening to defend her rights.

  As he regarded her with hazy recognition—she was too pretty to forget—she suddenly said, “Why, you’re Mr. Doyle, aren’t you? Don’t you remember? Hazel Smith introduced us in that café a couple days ago. I’m Medora Hart.”

  “Of course, I certainly do remember,” said Doyle gallantly.

  “I was flagging for a cabbie, on my honor, Mr. Doyle. Do you mind awfully? I’m in a mad rush for an appointment. Terribly important. Matter of life or death, I swear.”

  “I insist you take it,” said Doyle, now the complete gentleman.

  He watched her leave in his taxi, saw her raise her arm gratefully, and he waved back and philosophically prepared to find another taxi.

  Matter of life or death, she had said. The thought made Doyle snort. If people only knew what went on with other people, with himself, for instance, then maybe they’d really know what was meant by a matter of life or death.

  IN HER TAXI, approaching their point of rendezvous in St.-Germain-des-Pres, Medora Hart had never felt gayer or more self-assured.

  Ever since last night, the world had become a wonderful place. Her debut in the Club Lautrec, before an absolutely packed house, had been smashing. Not only had the show gone smoothly, not even one missed cue, but her every number had been cheered. Afterward, she had received either flowers or invitations to champagne suppers from at least a half-dozen male customers—two of them, Denise Averil had told her, extremely wealthy—but she had ignored them all to hasten back to her room at the San Régis and await Carol’s telephone call.

  The call had come, and she had hurried out to meet Carol and her date at the Lido Bar. The report on the events at the Nardeau exhibit had exceeded her highest expectations. She had awakened early this morning to suffer the suspense of listening for a more important call, but she had not suffered long. The telephone had rung, as she stepped out of the bathtub, and she had answered it with theatrical calm. She had made the rendezvous on the Left Bank, for a pre-lunch drink, for a brief business talk. Marvelous.

  There had been several hours of the morning to pass. She had written her mother, during breakfast, that there might be good news shortly, and that she expected to be home within at the most a fortnight. She had selected her outfit for the rendezvous with care. Something rather offhand yet unflashy was wanted. She had settled on a a Verona brown slacks suit, cute bolero jacket and not too tight slacks. She had combed her flaxen hair straight down, no fuss, rather Left Bank studentish. With time still left to spare, she had taken a long stroll to the Avenue de Friedland to see, as unobtrusively as possible, what the Nouvelle Galerie d’Art looked like and how the dealer had placed Nude in the Garden. Then, pre-empting the taxi of that fat-man friend of Hazel Smith’s, she had sped to the critical meeting.

  Now, as the taxi brought her to the corner, she could see the lettering on the awning: CAFÉ DE FLORE. Once out of the vehicle and on the narrow strip of open sidewalk—the rest of the sidewalk taken up by tables and chairs—she remembered the café from her first bad time in Paris. It was an intellectual hangout for Camus and Sartre (she had tried reading them in paperback, but no luck), and for all sorts of unshaved, seedy, Soho types, brainy young men in corduroy motorcar coats and liberated young women with dirty fingernails and revolting boy haircuts. A date had once told her in those days that he had read in some French book that the Café de Flore was “a stone which the devil threw one night into the sixth arrondissement.” This moment, she could think of something else the devil had thrown this morning into the sixth arrondissement.

  She scanned the tables of the sidewalk terrace. Most would not be occupied until an hour from now, when the real Flore habitues awakened for noon breakfast. There were fewer than a dozen shabby tourists or students or writers sitting around, and only two of them possibly female, both happily wearing short hair and chain-smoking Celtiques, probably the very ones who passed a hat for francs while their boyfriends crayoned fifth-rate Chagalls on the Right Bank sidewalks.

  Either she was early, Medora decided, or her caller of the morning was waiting discreetly inside. Medora went past the tables, through an open doorway, into the café. Except for the gossiping waiters at the bar, a wizened patriarch rustling a newspaper, and two buxom French ladies with shopping bags chatting over Alsatian beers, the place was quiet. Momentarily, Medora wondered if she had got the rendezvous spot right.

  Revolving toward the staircase beside the bar, she became aware of a young woman, definitely English, seated at a table and holding a cigarette, lost in thought. At first, Medora was not sure. She had looked for the high-fashion golden blonde of the Sunday supplements, and here was someone with platinum hair drawn back severely in a chignon, and sporting a tweed suit, with an unbecoming square-cut jacket and straight skirt, the color of Medora’s own slacks outfit, but not really, because it was actually more brown and more drab.

  Suddenly, the young woman saw Medora, too, and removed her sunglasses, pulling herself up, erect and formal. Without the glasses, and seen full face, the woman—the high cheekbones, the upturned nose and delicate nostrils, the small round mouth, the slender pre-Raphaelite neck—was at once familiar. There was no mistaking Nude in the Garden, slightly aged.

  For one hanging second, Medora’s self-composure faltered. With effort, she gathered up her nerve and the accumulation of three years’ indignation, and she went determinedly on stage.

  “Fleur Ormsby,” she said flatly, not asking, and pleased that she had courageously adhered to her vow not to ennoble the kin of the enemy with “Lady.” She had made the first warning thrust. To it she added unsmilingly, “I’m Medora Hart.”

  Fleur Ormsby’s eyebrows arched in a pretense of surprise, and she extended a limp hand. “Miss Hart. How good of you to come. Do sit down.”

  Medora took the cool hand, released it quickly, mildly annoyed by the other’s superior hostess manner. Casually, she dropped herself in the wooden chair across the table.

  “Perhaps we had better have something,” Fleur said. “I know it’s a ghastly hour, unless you haven’t had your breakfast yet—”

  “I’ve had my breakfast,” said Medora.

  “Well, I rather think I can manage a glass of sherry. What will it be for you, Miss Hart?”

  “Wine,” said Medora sullenly. ‘Tavel.”

&
nbsp; Fleur Ormsby summoned one of the platoon of waiters to take their order. Meanwhile, Medora tried to assess the enemy’s delegate. Fleur’s well-bred face was almost devoid of makeup. She wore some kind of clever new shade of lipstick, more beigy than red, and, while chic, it made her lips appear cracked and dry. Medora found the lack of makeup, and the fact that Fleur had dressed herself down for this meeting, somewhat insulting. Perhaps she had done this in order to appear inconspicuous, to avoid calling attention to the fact that a Cabinet Minister’s wife was out with a notorious striptease artist. More likely, she had done this because she had no respect for her lessers and felt she could best remind Medora that they were not equals by presenting herself in the guise of an equal. The Queen at the servants’ annual ball. Her manner, so far, was composed and social, as if they were not met here on an ugly matter, as if her mere presence would make the silly child abandon fantasy and turn tail and flee.

  Medora considered playing along against simply resorting to unladylike candor, showing her trump card at once, taking her trick, and having the mean barter over with. Before she could decide, she realized Fleur Ormsby had dismissed the waiter and was studying her with interest from behind the tinted glasses she had put back on.

  “Have you been long in Paris, Miss Hart?”

  “What’s today? Tuesday? I drove in from the Riviera three days ago. I saw Nardeau before I left. We’re old friends, you know. And he gave me a farewell gift. The nude you inquired about at his exhibit.”

  “How fortunate you were. Well, that explains it.” Fleur Ormsby waited while the drinks were served, then continued. “I looked in on the exhibit last night. Nardeau has always been one of my favorites among contemporary artists. I thought the study of the adolescent in the garden rather a charmer. Not exactly from Nardeau’s best period, but there was a naturalness, a joie de vivre about it, that attracted me.

  I thought, when I saw it, that the oil might make a rather nice decorative balance with a Sisley my husband and I possess. Out of curiosity, I asked the dealer to tell me who owned it. He gave me your name. I must say that I was a bit puzzled. Most of the names of those loaning pieces to the exhibit were familiar to me. They are, almost all, well-known art collectors. I had never seen your name among them before. But now you’ve explained it.” She lifted her glass of sherry. “Well, cheers.”

  “Cheers,” said Medora, sipping her Tavel.

  “Mmm. Delicious,” murmured Fleur Ormsby. She set the glass down. “Well, now, where were we? Oh, yes. Nardeau. How sweet of him to give you so valuable a gift He must think a good deal of you.”

  “If he does, it’s mutual.”

  “A lovely farewell gift, I must say,” said Fleur Ormsby. “I assume you came to Paris to appear in that cabaret show? It took me a while to place your name, after I’d heard it at the Galerie. I should have known at once. I’ve been seeing your name everywhere, on every kiosk.”

  Medora had tired of the fencing. She wanted an opening, and here it was. “I didn’t come to Paris to appear in the show, Mrs. Ormsby. That was merely an afterthought and a convenience.”

  “Oh? Well, then—”

  “I came to Paris to see your husband.”

  “My husband? Really?” For the first time, Fleur Ormsby’s brow had furrowed. “For whatever reason?”

  “I thought that he might be interested in acquiring Nude in the Garden: 9

  “What could possibly have given you such an idea?” She offered a short mirthless laugh. “Sir Austin’s a perfect idiot when it comes to art. He merely pampers my interest.” She paused. “Perhaps you read of my interest in Nardeau and thought that he shared it?”

  “I had an idea he might be particularly interested in this particular painting.”

  Fleur Ormsby offered her mirthless laugh once more. “My dear, you couldn’t be more mistaken. He is interested in no art at all.” She smiled. “But as you seem to know, I am. No doubt you’ve guessed that I suggested this meeting for no other purpose than the faint hope that I might persuade you to part with the painting. But you’ve just made it clear that you came to Paris prepared to sell it, anyway.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we should have no problem, my dear. Suppose we discuss terms?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Of course, the question of authentication is always a factor. But you have said you acquired the oil directly from Nardeau. I presume that he would acknowledge ft and certify it as his own.”

  “No problem at all,” said Medora. “He’s sent me a document not only certifying Nude in the Garden as his work but explaining when he painted it, where, even the name of the model, all from his records. I think possessing that should be of great interest to any buyer, don’t you?”

  Fleur Ormsby stared across the table. “Very well. I’m quite satisfied. Since I’m in rather a hurry, I see no reason why we cannot settle the terms of the transaction right here and now.”

  Medora was briefly tempted to prolong the game. She had never before played the role of cat in cat-and-mouse. “It’s a costly painting,” she said. “Wouldn’t you prefer to have your husband see it first?”

  “Not necessary,” said Fleur Ormsby curtly. “I have my own drawing account. Not to waste time, I’ll proceed on the assumption that you are fully aware that Nardeaus are rather dear today. His oils, similar to your own in size and subject, occasionally go for as high as £5,000 at Sotheby’s. Of course, selling without an intermediary, you won’t have to be out a commission. I’m prepared to write you a check for £5,000 in return for your bill of sale and the document covering the picture’s provenance.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Medora, shaking her head slowly, “it’s not quite what I wanted.”

  Fleur Ormsby frowned. “I’m surprised at you, Miss Hart. That’s a great deal of money for anyone, but I should think especially for—well, someone in so unstable a field as entertainment.”

  Fleur peered at Medora, waiting, but Medora sat silently, a complacent smile on her face, also waiting.

  “Oh, very well,” Fleur Ormsby said suddenly. “I detest haggling. I’m sure you do, too. Let’s have it done with.

  When I want something, I want it. I’ll give you my top offer. I’ll give you £6,500. Shall we call it a deal?”

  Medora’s complacent smile remained. “No,” she said, “it’s not a deal.”

  “My dear child—”

  “I’m not interested in selling it for money,” said Medora,

  “Not interested in selling for money? What on earth do you think you can sell it for?”

  “A re-entry visa to England,” said Medora. “That’s my price.”

  “I haven’t the faintest notion what you’re speaking about.”

  “Of course, you have, Mrs. Ormsby. You know who I am. You know about Sydney and me and the Jameson mess. You know what your husband did to me. If you wish to own the painting, all you need do is go to your husband, ask him to cancel the immigration ruling against me and get me a safe passage, and you shall have your painting.”

  “My dear, what are you going on about? Of course, I know your record, your past—I was trying to save you the embarrassment of having it brought up—and I know how Sir Austin saved you by sending you abroad. That the Government discovered you were quite possibly not a British citizen, as well as determining you were morally undesirable, surely is no concern of mine or Sir Austin’s. And now you want me to put pressure on Sir Austin, to make him controvert the law, as the price of a mere dab of oil? Really, my dear. I can tell you, there are a thousand paintings for sale in this city—”

  “But there is only one,” Medora interrupted, “only one of Lady Ormsby, wife of the Foreign Minister, posing naked as a chippy. There is only one such—and, my dear, I have it.”

  Fleur Ormsby sat unmoving, and even Medora had to admire her poise. Fleur’s eyes had become flinty. “You’re rather sure of yourself.”

  “I am. I have the painting. I have Nardeau’s statement, in his own h
and, that you posed for it. Two wonderful art pieces, I should think, for the world press assembled here this week.”

  “You know the penalties for blackmail, I presume.”

  Medora was all innocence. “Blackmail? Mrs. Ormsby, how can you ever imagine that? I mean, isn’t it correct to show appreciation for a favor by sending over a gift? If Sir Austin is so kind as to straighten out for me a clerical error made by our immigration department, I would surely be remiss not to thank him in some way. With a painting of his wife, perhaps.” Suddenly, Medora had sickened of this, and she said bitterly, “You’re bloody right it’s blackmail or whatever you want to call it, but whatever it is, I tell you it’s a damn sight less vicious than what your goddam Sir Austin is doing to me. He’s kept me away from my home for three years. And now I’m going back, because if I’m not, I’ve a hunch you won’t have any home to go back to, either. There you have it, Mrs. Ormsby. There’s the price for an authentic Fleur Grearson.”

  Fleur puckered her lips thoughtfully. Her eyes did not leave Medora’s face. At last, she reached beside her chair and picked up her handbag. She shook her head. “Miss Hart, you are a sick young lady,” she said. “My husband and I are not interested in your terms.”

  “The world press will be, I assure you of that! If I don’t have the re-entry visa in forty-eight hours, every newspaper in the world is going to be filling its front page with my picture of the perfect British Cabinet Minister’s wife. Quite an eyeful, I must say. I wager a bob you’ll get more attention out of this bloody scandal than I got out of the Jameson affair.”

  Fleur slid from behind the table. She stood up and calmly secured a button of her jacket. “Miss Hart, you are inviting serious trouble for yourself.” Her smile was chilling and her voice contained. “No one will take the word of a senile old painter and a vindictive little whore against that of—”