(17/40) Provence-To Die For

by Donald Bain

  I looked up. “Just a check, please, Gaspard. And thank you for everything.”

  “My pleasure,” he said. “I will get it for you right away.”

  I sat back and sighed, experiencing the sensation of well-being following a satisfying meal. I also promised myself a long walk to counter some of the calories. How did Frenchwomen stay so slim? I wondered, accustomed as they were to having major meals for both lunch and dinner. Fortunately, weight had never been a problem for me—probably because I don’t drive. Having to rely on two pedals or two feet to get from place to place was a good way to work off the sins of overindulgence. Many a time it had saved me after I’d yielded to the special doughnuts at Charlene Sassi’s bakery, or to Mara’s blueberry pancakes at the luncheonette on the town dock in Cabot Cove. Of course, at home I rarely cooked big meals, unless I had guests for dinner. Even then, by the time I served what I’d been preparing all day, I’d often lost my appetite for it.

  I pulled the note Gaspard had given me from my pocket and unfolded it. My peaceful musings disappeared instantly when I read the name of Emil Bertrand’s silent partner—P. Franc. That was the name that had been on the letter Bertrand was clutching when he died. Did that paper have any significance in his death? Was his partner aware that Bertrand was talking to others about joining the business? Guy had hopes for a partnership. Daniel said Bertrand had talked to him about going into business together. But did he know Bertrand already had a partner? Had Emil been planning to cut his partner out? Or were they planning together to expand the business?

  A burst of laughter from the table of businessmen drew my attention. The chef had come out of the kitchen to join them. Dressed all in white, he stood with his back to me; I couldn’t see his face.

  “More investors?” I asked when Gaspard placed a leather folder in front of me.

  “One can only hope,” he said. “A chef who is well financed can make himself famous, even without a star.”

  “How would he do that?” I asked, placing my credit card in the folder.

  “He can go on television, write books, open other restaurants. If he is famous, people will assume he is good, and make his restaurants a big success. And, of course, the more successful he is, the better for his staff.”

  “I see,” I said. “Well, I wish you luck with your new chef.”

  “Merci, madame.” He took my card to the cash register at the bar. I watched idly as he chatted with a man sitting on the end seat while he waited for the barmaid to process the bill. The sound of laughter drew my attention back to the chef and his clients. I tried to eavesdrop, but their voices were too low to hear clearly. The chef leaned his lanky frame over the table to shake hands with the men on the other side. As he turned, I caught sight of his profile. Wait a minute. Was that ... ?

  “Here is your card, madame. It has been a pleasure serving you.”

  “The chef, your new chef,” I said, standing and trying to see around Gaspard.

  “Yes?” He turned around, but the chef had left.

  “I know him.”

  “Yes? He leaves for his other job now.”

  “His other job?” I sank back in my seat.

  “He cooks for another restaurant at night.”

  “The Hotel Melissande, right?”

  “Ah, oui, you do know him.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “I wonder if you could help me. I’m looking for this address.” I showed the elderly gentleman the paper Gaspard had given me. It was late in the afternoon, the skies were darkening, and there were few people on the street. A cold wind had entered the city. It whipped around the sharp comers and turned what had been a light rain into a horizontal attack.

  I’d already visited Héllas, the restaurant where Daniel had said he’d been meeting a supplier during the time Emil Bertrand was killed. Henri, the maître d’, thought he recollected seeing Daniel there on Wednesday, but maybe it was Tuesday, no, definitely Wednesday, or at least probably Wednesday. The book would be no help; the restaurant didn’t take reservations for lunch. But either way, he couldn’t be sure if the young chef was there from noon to three, as Daniel maintained. “We are so busy, madame,” he told me. “I cannot keep watch on all my customers. Did he leave and come back? I didn’t see this, but it is possible.”

  The address Gaspard had given me for Emil Bertrand’s partner in the restaurant business was in a section of town I’d never been in before. I’d followed my map but had become disoriented by the twisting, narrow alleys—were they streets?—that angled off other streets, by the intersections with two or three unlabeled possibilities, by passageways that proved to be dead ends.

  “Oui. Avignon, she is confusing,” the old man said. “I will try, but I don’t have my glasses with me.” He squinted at the paper in my hand.

  “Would you like to use mine?” I slipped the cord that held my reading glasses over my head and offered them to him.

  He took the glasses, positioned the lenses in front of Gaspard’s neat handwriting, and read the address out loud. “Ah, oui. This is not too far, but you must go back there, and take the second left, not the first.” He pointed with a pudgy finger in the direction from which I’d come. “It is a small street but it will take you to a larger one. There you turn right, and then left at the next intersection. It should be down that street.”

  I thanked him and headed toward the street he’d indicated, debating whether I should abandon the search and come back another day. It was getting darker by the moment. I’d long since given up using my little umbrella; the wind had turned it inside out several times. I’d put on a scarf instead and dropped the disappointing contraption in my coat pocket.

  I turned left at the second intersection, as instructed. It was more an alleyway than a street—I doubted it was wide enough to accommodate a car—and it was deserted; there wasn’t another pedestrian in sight. At least the wind was calmer here. I walked quickly toward a store window halfway down the block, its fluorescent glow a comforting beacon as the daylight died away. When I neared the window, the light went out. A man emerged from the shop door, locked it behind him, and scurried past me in the opposite direction. I listened to the fading sound of his shoes on the cobblestones as he lengthened the distance between us. But then there was another set of footsteps behind me. They weren’t vanishing; they were getting closer. I increased my pace and the footsteps sped up. Was someone following me? Or was it my imagination again, spurred by the drama of being lost and alone in a gloomy, unfamiliar city?

  I reached the end of the alley and rounded the comer. The street was larger, as promised, but just as quiet as the previous one. I jogged to the next comer and glanced back to see a tall man in a trench coat standing at the intersection from which I’d just come. A hat hid his face. He hadn’t been there less than a minute ago. I turned left, hoping to find the company of fellow pedestrians. A couple under an umbrella was leaning against a car about twenty yards ahead, completely absorbed in each other. Relieved, I walked past them, searched for the right address, and spotted it on the other side of the street.

  The wooden door creaked when I pushed it open and entered a small vestibule. I peered at the names on the mailboxes but didn’t find a listing for P. Franc. The interior door was also unlocked. It was glass but had been painted over, preventing anyone from seeing into the poorly lighted hallway. There were doors to three offices, one of which stood open, and just past them an emergency exit marked by a red light. At the end of the hall was an elevator. I poked my head into the open office; the lights were on but there was no one inside. Perhaps they’d gone on an errand, never thinking a stranger would walk in uninvited. I checked the names painted on the frosted-glass windows of the other doors; nothing sounded familiar and no lights shone through the glass. I knocked anyway and tried the doorknobs, but they were locked. Either the offices weren’t open on Saturday or they had closed early. Should I wait in the open office until someone returned? Or should I see if I could find Franc’s name
on the second floor?

  There was no knob on this side of the emergency exit. I rang for the elevator. It opened immediately and I took it to the second floor. One dim ceiling fixture, fitted with a red bulb, hung between a stairwell door and the elevator. At the far end of the corridor, twilight leaked in through a smudged window. The rest of the hall was in shadows. I walked slowly, trying to make out the names on the darkened glass panes of the doors. At the last one, nearest the window, I found what I was looking for. The sign said AGENT IMMOBILIER, real estate agent, and underneath the gold letters were two names. The first was the one I was seeking: P. FRANC. But the second name was a surprise: M. POUTINE. Was this Mme Poutine’s husband?

  A sound outside drew me to the window; I looked down on the wet pavement. A man in a trench coat crossed the street. Was it the same man I’d seen on the comer? I heard the creak of the outer door downstairs as he entered the building. Why was he following me? What did he want? Whoever he was, I had no desire to confront him in an empty building with no one around to sound the alarm.

  How could I get out? The elevator was not an option. I rushed back down the hall, praying the stairwell door wasn’t locked. I twisted the knob and leaned with my shoulder. It opened. I closed the door quietly and crept down the stairs, wary of making any noise that would give away my location. The door on the first floor had an emergency push bar to allow people to leave, but not to permit access from the other side.

  I put my ear to the door and listened. The whine of the elevator made me jump. I heard the elevator door open and close on the first floor. The engine whined again, and I waited for the sound of the door opening on the second floor before I pressed on the bar and escaped into the hall. All the office doors were closed now, and I fled the building, knowing the squeal of the front door would alert my pursuer. I hugged the buildings as I hurried down the street, hoping he wouldn’t be able to see the direction in which I was heading if he looked out the window. Bright lights at the intersection ahead promised a bigger thoroughfare, and I gratefully turned the comer onto a street with traffic and stores.

  “Madame Fletcher. It is good to see you again, but I don’t think the authorities would be happy for you to be here.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, Guy, so I won’t tell them if you won’t.”

  “I am closing my lips with a lock,” he said with a sad smile. “Would you like to go in?”

  I leaned against the side of the arched entry and scrutinized the medieval dining room where Emil Bertrand was killed. “Yes,” I said. “You won’t mind?”

  “There is no need to keep away. The police have finished their forensic work in here. We start our classes again next week.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” I said, stepping down into the room. “Will you be teaching?”

  “As a matter of fact, I will,” he said, brushing off the front of his white apron, which was stained with the ingredients of tonight’s dinner. “Daniel has asked me to be director of the school.”

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  We gravitated toward the school kitchen. Guy opened the door and flicked on the overhead lights. I took the seat I’d sat in as a student. The room was immaculate. There was no sign of the last meal prepared here. The butcher-block table had been scrubbed; no rabbit blood stained its surface. In fact, it was empty except for a stack of folders next to a pile of starched white aprons. Guy walked around checking materials. He straightened the folders and turned the aprons so all the strings were on the same side. He adjusted the angle of one of the tall olive jars lined up on the shelf jutting out from the oven hood, making sure its “hermine” was precisely centered. He counted the number of knife handles jutting from a pottery pitcher.

  “I take it the police returned all your knives,” I said.

  “How do you know about that?” Guy asked.

  “Daniel told me,” I said. “I met him at the truffle market in Carpentras.”

  “Oui, they did.”

  “Do you ever go to the truffle market?”

  “Non. It is for the master chefs, not the sous chefs. Of course, I could go, if they gave me the money to buy. I know what a good truffle should be.”

  “Of course you do,” I said. “You’re a chef with many years’ experience.”

  He smoothed his mustache with his thumb and forefinger. “C’est vrai. That’s true.” He removed his glasses, letting them dangle by their cord, and leaned against the wall, his arms and feet crossed.

  “I hope Daniel appreciates that,” I said.

  A puff of air escaped his lips. “Poufft! No one ever gives me credit,” he said. “Daniel, he says I have great administrative skills. He thinks I don’t know he isn’t complimenting my cooking.”

  “He doesn’t realize how observant you are.”

  He nodded in agreement.

  “You said once that Daniel hires chefs for the school even if he doesn’t like them,” I said.

  “True.”

  “I got the impression you were talking about Chef Bertrand.”

  He nodded again.

  “Why didn’t he like Emil?”

  He pushed himself away from the wall and put his glasses back on. “The old man, he thinks Daniel is challenging him. He never likes that Daniel gets the hotel position, even though he didn’t want it himself.”

  “And Daniel held that against him?”

  “No, no. That wasn’t it at all.” He slid his fingers under his eyeglasses and rubbed his eyes.

  “Then why?”

  He blinked several times and squinted as if he were trying to see the story. “Daniel, he thinks Emil kept him from getting a star,” he said.

  “How could he do that?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s a long tale, and maybe it’s not true about the star.”

  “I heard there was a scandal about Emil some years back. Is this what they’re talking about?”

  “Oui, oui. I am sure it is.”

  “You have to tell me what happened. You can’t leave me in suspense.”

  “All right. I will tell you. But the story has been embellished so many times, it may not be true.”

  “Okay. I’ll take it with a grain of salt.”

  Guy started to giggle.

  “Did I say something funny?” I asked.

  He tried to hold it in, but his laughter broke out anyway. I watched, perplexed, as he bent his long body in half, hands holding his knees, and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks. All the tension of the last week must be catching up to him, I thought. Finally he wiped his eyes, and blew his nose in a big white handkerchief. “You will see in a minute,” he said with a grin. He cleaned his spectacles with a comer of his apron and pulled the sidepieces over his ears. The lenses magnified his eyes so that the one that turned in was now even more noticeable.

  “Now you really have me curious,” I said, smiling at him.

  “It’s called ‘L’ Affair du Sel,’ ” he said, stifling another giggle.

  I laughed, too. “The Salt Affair?” I translated.

  “Oui. C’est ça. That’s it.”

  “So tell me.”

  He pulled out another of the tall stools and sat. He sighed, still smiling. “As an instructor, Emil, he is permitted to use the hotel kitchen for his food supplies for the classes. You understand?”

  I nodded.

  “It was said he put salt in the sugar box.”

  “Uh-oh!”

  “You can see what will happen, yes?”

  “How bad was it?”

  “Daniel, he has a table of important guests. He ruins his famous dessert, which takes many hours to make.”

  “Oh, my goodness! Did he serve it to them?”

  “He didn’t mean to. He sees something is not right, tastes the dish, and puts it aside. He is furious. He screams for the sous chef to get another dessert from the locker, and he goes to call who he thinks is the culprit. While he is out of the kitchen, the waiter finds the famous dessert unattended and brings it
to the table with great fanfare.”

  “What happened?”

  “The guests take one spoonful of the dessert and spit into their napkins. The meal is ruined. They forget the delicious dishes that preceded this one and complain to the management that the chef is trying to poison them. News of the disaster flies all over the dining room, and people at other tables start to feel sick.”

  “The power of suggestion,” I said.

  “Very much so. One lady faints. Another throws up at the table. People are running from the room without paying for their meals. Ambulances arrive and cart the people off to the hospital. The reporters cover the story and Daniel is made a laughingstock. He was very lucky not to get fired.”

  “And did Bertrand do that? Did he switch the salt and sugar?”

  Guy shrugged. “He denies this, of course, but Daniel accuses him.”

  “How could he be sure it was Bertrand who made the switch? And if Bertrand did do it, how can Daniel be certain it was deliberate? Couldn’t that have happened accidentally?”

  “Emil was the instructor for that day. So he had the right to use the kitchen. He was furious at Daniel. Daniel had been sous chef under him, and he was offended that his student would be so ungrateful. He said that the famous dessert was just not good, and that Daniel made up a story to explain his failure. They didn’t speak for years.”

  “And Daniel thinks that incident kept him from earning a star.”

  He shrugged. “He could not know. The Michelin inspectors, they never reveal themselves. But he suspected they were here that night. He still has not been given a star, and he is a very fine chef. It is a pebble in his shoe.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “I must get back to the kitchen. I have taken too much time away. Do you want to stay more?”

  “No. I’ll go, too,” I said, getting up and pushing the stool back into place.

  Guy turned off the overhead lights, and we walked across the ancient courtyard.

  “If you’re going to be director of the cooking school, does that mean you won’t be cooking for L’Homme Qui Court anymore?” I asked.