At a hundred miles an hour the plane soared above the English counties, but they took little heed of the fields and hedges, woods and hills, which fled so swiftly from beneath them. Somehow they seemed to have stepped out of their old life altogether. Time no longer existed for them, only the will to arrive at their destination in order to be active once again. All their thoughts were concentrated now upon Paris and the man who had lost half his ear. Would he be there? Could they find him if he was? And would they arrive before Mocata?
They passed over the Northern end of the English Channel almost without noticing it; Marie Lou felt a little shock when the plane banked steeply and Richard brought it circling down.
The sun was sinking behind great banks of cloud and, as the plane tilted, she saw that a thick mist lay below them in which glowed dull patches of half-obscured light. Richard and Rex knew them, however, to be fog flares of the Le Bourget lauding ground.
A few seconds more and they had seen the last of the sunset. A thin greyness closed about them. One of the flares showed bright, and the plane bounded along the earth until Richard brought it to a standstill.
Almost in a daze they answered the questions of the officers at the airport and passed the Customs, secured a fast-looking taxi and, packed inside it, were heading for the centre of Paris.
As they ran through the streets, with the familiar high-pitched note of the taxi’s horn continually sounding and the subtle smell of the epiceries in their nostrils-the very scent of Paris-they noticed half-unconsciously that night had fallen once more.
Here and there the electric sky-signs on the tall buildings, advertising Savan Cadum or Byrrh, glowed dully through the murk, and the lights of the cafes illuminated little spaces of the boulevards through which they passed, throwing up the figures that sat sipping their aperitifs at the marble-topped tables and dappling the young green of the stunted trees that lined the pavements.
None of them spoke as the taxi swerved and rushed, seeking every opportunity to nose its way through the traffic. Only Rex leant forward once, soon after they left the aerodrome, and murmured: ‘I told him the Ritz. We’ll be able to hunt up this bird’s address when we get there.’
They ran past the Opera, down the Boulevard de la Madeleine, and turned left into the Place Vendome. The cab pulled up with a jerk. A liveried porter hurried forward to fling open the door, and they scrambled out.
`Pay him off, with a good tip,’ Rex ordered the hotel servant. `I’ll see-yer-later, inside.’ Then he led the way into the hotel.
One of the under-managers at the bureau recognised him and came forward with a welcoming smile.
`Monsieur Van Ryn, what a pleasure! You require accommodation for your party? How many rooms do you desire? I hope that you will stay with us some time.’
`Two single rooms and one double, with bathrooms, and we’d best have ~. sitting-room on the same floor,’ replied Rex curtly. `How long we’ll -be staying I can’t say. I’ve got urgent business to attend to this trip. Do you happen to know a banker named Castelnau-elderly man, grey-haired, with a hatchet face, who’s had a slice taken out of his left ear?’
`Mail oui, monsieur.He lunches here frequently.’
`Good. D’you know where he lives?
‘For the moment, no, but I will ascertain. You permit?’ The manager moved briskly away and disappeared into the office. A few moments later he returned with a Paris telephone dire tory open in his hand.
`This will be it, monsieur, I think. Monsieur Laurent Castetnau, 72, Maison Rambouillet, Parc Monceau. That is a block of flats. Do you wish to telephone his apartment?
‘Sure,’ Rex nodded. `Call him right away, please.’ Then, as the Frenchman hurried off, he nodded quietly to the Duke: `Best leave this to me. I’ve got a hunch how to fix him.’
`Go ahead,’ the Duke acquiesced. He had been keeping well in the background, and now he smiled a little unhappily as he went on in a low voice:
`How I love Paris. The smell and the sight and the sound of it. I have not been back here for fifteen years. The Government have never forgives me for the part that I played in the Royalist rising which took place in the 90’s. I was young then. How long ago it all seems now. But never since have I dared to venture back to France, except a few times, secretly on the most urgent business. I believe the authorities would still put me into some miserable fortress if they discovered me on French soil.’
`Oh, Greyeyes, dear You ought never to have come.’ Marie Lou turned to him impulsively. `With all these awful things happening I had forgotten. Somehow I always think of you really as an Englishman, not as a French exile who lives in England as the next best thing. It would be terrible if you were arrested and tried as a political offender after all these years.’
He shrugged and smiled again. `Don’t worry, Princess. The authorities have almost forgotten my existence, I expect, and the only risk I run is in knowing so many people who constantly travel through France. If someone recognised me and spoke my name too loud it is just possible that it might strike a chord in some police spy’s memory, but beyond that there is very little danger.
They sat down at a little table in the lounge while Rex was telephoning. When he rejoined them he nodded cheerfully.
`We’re in luck, and Lord knows we need it. I spoke to Castelnau himself, used the name of my old man’s firm-The Chesapeake Banking and Trust Corporation-and spun a yarn that he had sent me over on a special mission to Europe connected with the franc. Told him the whole thing was far too hush-hush for me to make a date to see him at his office tomorrow morning, where his clerks might recognise me as the representative of an American banking house, and that I must see him tonight privately. He hedged a bit until I put it to him that I had power to deal in real big figures, and he fell for that like a sucker. He couldn’t see me yet though, because he’s busy putting on his party frock for some official banquet, but he figures he’ll be back at the apartment round about ten o’clock, so I said I’d be along to state my business then.!
‘To fill in time we might go upstairs and have a bath, remarked Richard, feeling his bristly chin. `Then we’d better go out and dine somewhere, though God knows, I’ve never felt less like food in my life.’
`All right,’ De Richleau agreed, `only let us go somewhere quiet for dinner. If we go to one of the smart places it will add to the chance of my running into somebody that I know.’
‘What about Le Vert Galant?’ Richard suggested. ‘It’s on the right bank down by La City, old-fashioned, quiet, but excellent food, and you’re unlikely to see the sort of people that we know there in the evening.!
‘Is that still running?’ De Richleau smiled. `Then let us go there by all means. It’s just the place.’ And they moved over towards the lift
Upstairs they bathed and tidied themselves, but almost automatically, for their uneasy sleep that morning seemed to have done little to recruit their lowered energy. As though still in a bad dream, Marie Lou undressed, and dressed again, while Richard moved about the room, for once apparently unconscious of her presence, silently and mechanically eliminating the traces of the journey. Then he submitted to the ministrations of the hotel barber with one curt order that the man was to shave him and not to talk.
Rex finished first and wandered into their room, where he sat uncomfortably perched upon a corner of the bed, but he stared at his large feet the whole time that he sat there and did not make any effort whatever at conversation.
De Richleau joined them shortly afterwards, and Marie Lou, rousing for a moment from her abject misery, noted with a little start how spick and span he had become again, after the attentions of the barber and his bath. He had produced one of his long Hoyos, and appeared to be smoking it with quiet enjoyment. Richard and Rex, despite the removal of their incipient beards, still looked woebegone and haggard, as though they had not slept for days, and were almost contemplating suicide, but the Duke still maintained his air of the great gentleman for whose pleasure and satisfaction this w
hole existence is ordered.
Actually his appearance was no more than a mask with which long habit had accustomed him to disguise his emotions, and at heart he was racked by an anxiety equal to that of any of the others. lie was suppressing his impatience to get hold of Castelnau only by a supreme effort; his feet itched to be on the move, and his fingers to be on the throat of the adversary; but as he came into the room he smiled round at them, kissed Marie Lou’s hand with his usual gallantry, and presented a huge bunch of white violets to her.
`A few flowers, Princess, for your room.’
Marie Lou took them without a word; the tears brimming in her eyes spoke her thanks that he should have thought of such a thing at such a time, and his perfect naturalness served to steady them all a little as they went down afterwards in the lift. Rex changed some money at the caisse, and they went out into the night again.
‘Queer-isn’t it;’ remarked Richard as he looked out of the taxi window at the fog-bound streets. ‘I’ve always said what fun it is to make a surprise visit for a couple of nights to Paris -in May. It’s like stealing in on summer in advance-tea in the open at Armenonville-a drive to Fontainebleau, with the forest at its very best-and all that. `I never thought I might come to Paris one May like this.!
‘I’ve a feeling there’s something wrong about it-or us,’ said Rex slowly. `Those servants in the hotel back there didn’t seem any more natural than the weather to me. It was as though I was watching them act in some kind of play.’
De Richleau nodded. `Yes, I felt the same, and I believe Mocata is responsible. Perhaps he surrounded Cardinals Folly with a strong atmospheric force, and we have brought the vibrations of it with us, or he may be interfering with our auras in some way. I’m only guessing, of course, and can’t possibly explain it.’
At the Vert Galant De Richleau ordered dinner without reference to any of them. He was a great gourmet, and knew from past experience the dishes that pleased them best, but as a meal it was one of the most dismal failures which it had ever been his misfortune to witness.
He knew and they knew that his apparent preoccupation with food and wine was nothing but a bluff; an attempt to smother their anxiety and occupy their thoughts until the time to go to Castelnau’s apartment should arrive. The cooking
was excellent, the service everything that one could desire, and the cellar of Le Vert Galant provided wines to which even De Richleau’s critical taste gave full approval, but their hearts were not in the business.
They toyed with the Lobster Cardinal, sent away the Pauillac Lamb untasted, and drank the wines as a beverage to steady their nerves rather than with the consideration and pleasure which they deserved.
The fat maitre d’hotel supervised the service of each course himself, and it passed his understanding how these three men and the beautiful little lady could show so little appreciation. With hands clasped upon a large stomach, he stood before the Duke and murmured his distress that the dishes they had ordered should not appear to please them, but the Duke waved him away, even summoning up a little smile to assure him that
It was no fault of the restaurant and only their unfortunate lack of appetite.
Throughout the meal De Richleau talked unceasingly. He was a born raconteur, and ordinarily, with his charm and wit, could hold any audience enthralled. Tonight, despite his own anxiety, he made a supreme attempt to lift the burden from the shoulders of his friends by exploiting every venue of memory and conversation, but never in his life had his efforts met with such a cold reception. In vain he attempted to divert their thoughts, laughing a little to himself, as he reached the denouement in each of his stories, and hoping against hope that he might raise a smile in those three anxious faces that faced him across the table.
For Marie Lou the meal was just another phase of that horrible nightmare through which she had been passing since the early hours of the morning. Mechanically she sampled the dishes which were put before her, but each one seemed to taste the same, and after a few mouthfuls she laid down her fork, submitting miserably to the frantic, gnawing thoughts which pervaded her whole being.
Richard said nothing, ate little, and drank heavily. He was in that state when he knew quite well that it was impossible for him to drink too much. Great happiness or great distress has that effect upon certain men, and he was one of them. Every other minute he glanced at the clock on the wall, as it slowly registered the passage of time until they could set forth once more on their attempt to save his daughter.
There was still half an hour to go when the fruit and brandy were placed upon the table, and then at last De Richleau surrendered.
‘I’ve been talking utter nonsense all through dinner,’ he confessed gravely; `only to keep my thoughts off this wretched business, you understand. But now the time has come when we can speak of it again with some advantage. What do you intend to do, Rex, when you see this man?’
Marie Lou lifted her eyes from the untasted grapes which lay upon her plate. `You’ve been splendid, Greyeyes, dear. I haven’t been listening to you really, but a sentence here, and there has been just enough to take my mind off a picture of the worst that may happen, which keeps on haunting me.’
He smiled across at her gratefully. `I’m glad of that. It’s the least that I could try to do. But come now, Rex, let’s hear your plan.’
‘I’ve hardly got one,’ Rex confessed, shrugging his great shoulders. ‘We know he’ll see me, and that’s as far as I have figured it out. I presume it’ll boil down to my jumping on him after a pretty short discussion and threatening to gouge out his eyeballs with my hands unless he’s prepared to come clean with everything he knows about Mocata.’
De Richleau shook his head. That is roughly the idea, of course, but there are certain to be servants in the flat, and we must arrange it that you have a free field for your party.’
‘Can’t you take us along with you?’ Richard suggested. ‘Say that we’re privately interested in this deal you’re putting up. If only the three of us can get inside that flat God help anybody who tries to stop us forcing him to talk.’
‘Sure,’ Rex agreed. ‘I see no sort of objection to that. We can park Marie Lou at the Ritz again, on our way, before we beat this fellow up.’
‘No!’ Marie Lou gave a sudden dogged shake of her head. ‘I am coming with you. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, and I will keep out of the way if there is any trouble. You cannot ask me to go back to the hotel and sit there on my own while you are trying to obtain news of Fleur. I should go mad and fling myself out of the window. I’ve got to come, so please don’t argue about it.’
Richard took her hand and caressed it softly. ‘Of course you shall, my sweet. It would be better, perhaps, for you not to be with us when we see Castelnau, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t wait for us in his hall.’
De Richleau nodded. “Yes, in the circumstances it is im possible to leave Marie Lou behind, but about these servants -did you bring that gun that you had last night with you?’
‘Yes, I brought it through the Customs in my hip pocket, and it’s fully loaded.’
‘Right. Then if necessary you can use it to intimidate the servants while Rex and I tackle Castelnau. It is a quarter to. Shall we go?’
Rex sent for the bill and paid it, leaving a liberal tip which soothed the dignity of the injured maitre d’hotel, then they filed out of the restaurant.
‘Maison Rambouillet, Pare Monceau,’ De Richleau told the driver sharply as they climbed into the taxi, and not a word was spoken until the cab drew up before a palatial block of modern flats, facing on to the little green park where the children of the rich in Paris take their morning airing.
‘Monsieur Castelnau?’ the Duke inquired of the concierge.
This way, monsieur’; the man led them through a spacious stone faced hall to the lift.
It shot up to the fifth floor and as he opened the gates, the concierge pointed to a door upon the right.
‘Number Seventy-
two,’ he said quietly. ‘I think Monsieur Castelnau has just come in.’
The gates clanged behind them, and the lift flashed silently down again to the ground floor. De Richleau gave Rex a swift glance and, stepping towards the door of Number Seventy-two, pressed the bell.
Chapter 31
The Man With the Jagged Ear
The tall, elaborately carved door was opened by a bald, elderly manservant in a black alpaca coat. Rex gave his name, and the servant looked past him with dark, inquiring eyes at the others.
‘These are friends of mine who’re seeing Monsieur Castelnau on the same business,’ Rex said abruptly, stepping into the long, narrow hall. ‘Is he in?’
‘Yes, monsieur, and he is expecting you. This way, if you please.’
Marie Lou perched herself on a high couch of Cordova leather, while the other three followed the back of the alpaca jacket down the corridor. Another tall, carved door was thrown open, and they entered a wide, dimly-lit salon, furnished in the old style of French elegance: gilt ormolu, tapestries, bric-a-brac, and a painted ceiling where cupids disported themselves among roseate flowers.
Castelnau stood, cold, thin, angular and hatchet-faced, with his back to a large porcelain stove. He was dressed in the clothes which he had worn at the banquet. The wide, watered silk ribbon with the garish colours of some foreign order cut across his shirt front and a number of decorations were pinned to the lapel of his evening coat.
‘Monsieur Van Ryn.’ He barely touched Rex’s hand with his cold fingers and went on in his own language. ‘It is a pleasure to receive you. I know your house well by reputation, and from time to time in the past my own firm has had some dealings with yours.’ Then he glanced at the others sharply. These gentlemen are, I assume, associated with you in this business?’
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