The Dress Thief

by Natalie Meg Evans

  ‘Mme Kilpin hopes you will come here to her home on Avenue Foch, this evening, so you can discuss plans in detail.’ The maid gave the directions. ‘Come at seven. A taxi will take you away at eight as Madame has an engagement. Do not mention Madame’s name to anybody at your place of work, or at home.’

  ‘What about a fake beard and a big hat?’ Alix muttered as she hung up. It was starting, the theft. She felt sick.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was 29th April and tonight was the gala opening of the Rose Noire and she still hadn’t found a date. She did, however, have a dress, a breathtaking creation she ached to dance in.

  As ordered, she’d gone to Avenue Foch after work the previous Friday. The black maid had spirited her up a backstairs into a small office that clearly doubled as Mme Kilpin’s shoe room, as racks of blonde-coloured suede, kid and glacé leather lined the walls. Their meeting had been brisk, Una Kilpin doing most of the talking. Alix was to accumulate a portfolio of stolen designs, to be presented to an American associate of Mme Kilpin’s who would oversee their mass production. Alix must note every detail, as detail was key. ‘Get going and don’t get caught.’ Mme Kilpin then rang for the maid to escort Alix down to a waiting taxi. And that was it. Faster than having a tooth pulled and, actually, less painful.

  Before she left, though, there’d been an unforgettable moment. When Alix had casually mentioned the Rose Noire – her lack of anything suitable to wear to its opening night – Mme Kilpin had chuckled, ‘Poor Cinderella.’ Then, ‘Come with me.’

  She’d taken Alix into her private suite, opening a door in what Alix had presumed to be a mirrored wall, revealing …

  The eighth wonder of the world. Mme Kilpin’s evening-gown collection. Her hostess had then uttered the most magical words Alix had ever heard; ‘See if anything grabs your fancy, kiddo, but be quick. I have to go out.’

  It had taken days for Alix’s heart to stop thumping. She’d been on tenterhooks all today, desperate to leave work and have one last stab at persuading Paul to be her escort. Because without a male escort, going to the Rose Noire was out of the question. The ticking-away of the hours had been agonising. Then, having dropped her scissors for the fifth time, she’d been told to go home. She looked feverish, Mme Frankel said.

  Alix hadn’t needed telling twice. A brilliant idea had hit her: she would hire Paul an evening suit and pay Brandel, Mémé’s former charwoman, to mind Lala and Suzy for the night. Paul would have no excuse to say no. If he still objected, she’d shame him by saying that if she was thieving, he could at least take her dancing. Leaving the métro at Pont Marie, she ran to the Quai d’Anjou.

  Only to find the Katrijn gone. Alix sank down on a bench. This couldn’t be happening. Dancing to a jazz band in a rakish club had become an obsession. Which meant she had about five hours in which to find a man …

  *

  At the News Monitor offices on Rue Boccador, she learned that ‘Mr Haviland’ was on a working trip to Germany. Expected back tomorrow night at the earliest, the receptionist conceded when pressed. Alix was invited to leave a note. She wrote a few lines, feeling utterly dispirited. Was it one shovel-full of pride she’d swallowed, or two, coming here to ask Verrian to be her date? Nothing for it now but to head back to the Quai d’Anjou, a journey that took two hours because of some unexplained train failure at Châtelet. Close to crying, she stumped over the Pont Marie and down the wharf stairs … and there, in her mooring, was the Katrijn! Alix ran forward shouting, ‘Paul!’ so eagerly a fisherman on the wharf shushed her. So she threw a pebble at the cabin window.

  She saw the flick of a curtain. ‘Paul, hurry up,’ she giggled. Francine was on her boat, watering her seedlings and grinning, all gums. ‘Give him a chance. He’s hauling on his trousers.’

  Did that mean Paul was between shifts, and she’d woken him from the depths of sleep? She’d go on board, Alix decided, and wait for him to stumble into the light. The gangplank was in place. A new gangplank, with batons for grip. Her terror of the old one must finally have got through to Paul. She’d thank him for it, even kiss him perhaps. But only after he’d agreed to take her to the Rose Noire. She thought guiltily of the letter she’d left for Verrian. Maybe he wouldn’t get it in time – or at all. The girl on the reception desk had taken it very snottily.

  She stepped down into a windowless galley kitchen lit by an oil lamp, noticing that the draining board was strewn with the remains of lunch. Cheese rind, torn bread, olives. Perhaps Paul had taken the girls down the river for a picnic. But where were the girls?

  ‘Paul?’

  She heard whispering. Then the cabin door opened and Paul was there, naked to the hips, buckling the belt at his waist. She thought he blushed. She certainly did.

  ‘Alix – what are you doing here?’

  She searched for the smile he always had for her, that always replaced fatigue. No smile. ‘I came earlier but you were away,’ she said, fear making her sharp. ‘Where were you?’

  Before he could answer, a voice came from behind the cabin door. ‘Honey, who is it?’ Then Alix saw hair the colour of wood shavings and a determined chin, which came to rest on Paul’s shoulder. A possessive hand curled round the muscular stomach. ‘Well met by oil light,’ said the apparition.

  Alix gripped the front of her dress, bunching the fabric like a confused child. ‘Paul? Say something.’

  Paul stared at the floor.

  Mme Kilpin ducked under his arm. She was wrapped in a bed cover, dishevelled and sated. Embarrassment was nowhere. ‘Alix, this boat is too small for catfights, if your thoughts were tending that way.’

  ‘What … what … ?’

  ‘Am I doing here? Not painting the ceiling, nor watering the begonias. How about, I’ve come to inaugurate the first formal meeting of the Committee of the Three Musketeers.’ Mme Kilpin hooked the lamp off its nail. ‘Let’s go sit out on deck. Two is a love affair, so three had better be a party. Poulbot, honey –’

  Poulbot, Alix flared. She has little names for him?

  ‘– fetch the wine. God knows, this occasion calls for alcohol.’

  *

  Dusk spread over the river. The two women regarded each other across the cable-drum table, the lamp attracting moths and midges. Madame still wore her bed wrap but had pulled a fisherman’s sweater over the top. One of Paul’s. That was her privilege, Alix fumed, to wear Paul’s jerseys when it was cold.

  Paul stepped forward from the prow rail to light a cigarette, only to retreat. Struggling into his trousers, Alix thought. Ha. Old Francine knew what I was going to find. The wine was good though. A ruby Burgundy, way out of Paul’s league.

  ‘You can call me Una here.’ Mme Kilpin spread her hands around her wine glass. A square diamond glittered on her forefinger. ‘All friends, all equals.’ Getting no response, she sighed. ‘Paul, you did nothing any red-blooded young man would not. Alix, d’you begrudge me the thing you didn’t want yourself?’

  This was too much. ‘You’re a married woman and older than Paul. Far, far older.’

  ‘Ouch. You gonna tell Mr Kilpin?’

  ‘I could.’ Alix glowered at Paul, then back at Una. ‘No – I don’t know him. I don’t care about him.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ Una said. ‘By the by, I’m not old enough to be Paul’s mother, not by any stretch. I’m glad you stumbled on us, because I like things in the open.’

  ‘Yes – the old witch next door knew what was going on.’

  Una threw back her head. ‘Y’know she used to dance at the Folies Bergère in a skirt made of corks on threads? Paul, sugar, I could use a cigarette and Alix could too, if only to keep these damn flies off.’

  Paul pushed two Gauloises into his mouth and lit them simultaneously. He handed them to the women, lit another for himself, knocked back a glass of wine and said, ‘I’m tired of being tired.’

  Alix heard the strain in his voice. Meanwhile, Una descended to the cabin and returned with a piece of splintered wood,
which she laid in front of Alix. ‘If you need an incentive to get our enterprise on the road, this is it.’

  It was the neck of a half-size violin. ‘Heavens, what happened?’ Alix asked.

  ‘The other day Paul came back off the night shift. Twenty-four hours straight. Nights at Les Halles, then a day job at the World’s Fair building site, hired muscle, shoving up walls for a gangmaster who isn’t fussy about union membership. Lady Francine –’ Una jerked her thumb towards the stern of the boat – ‘was in charge of the girls. Frankly I’d rather employ an amiable dog. Paul got home to find the old cow dancing the hula dance that briefly made her the craze of Pigalle, Lala’s violin stuck on one foot, the girls weeping hysterically.’

  ‘Where are the girls?’ Alix put her hand on Paul’s shoulder and felt his muscles spasm.

  ‘With my great-aunt, Gilberte. We took them there this afternoon and she’s agreed to keep them until I can do something about the damp in this boat.’

  Una relit her cigarette in the candle. ‘I’ve made Paul a loan to pay their keep, but they can’t stay with Tante Gilberte indefinitely.’ A cynical smile danced. ‘Alix dear, watching you is like a dose of Pathé News. It’s all on your face, all at once. Yes, loaned. I have to have it back because, believe me, I’m as broke as you are. Mr Kilpin checks every item of my expenditure, and if he doesn’t like it, hell breaks loose. Lesson for you; rich men may keep their wives poor. Hubby has an accountant, a bean-counter called Pusey, who goes over my spending line by line, down to my underwear. Even I blush when Pusey intones, “Oyster silk camiknickers, twenty-two dollars fifty.”’

  ‘You should divorce,’ Paul said bitterly.

  ‘I cannot. My business in New York went down owing an infinity of dollars. My husband keeps the debt collectors away from my family in Texas. In return, I look pretty and do as I’m told. Alix, you’re just ol’-fashioned poor, but you can still join our club.’ Una topped up their wine. ‘Let’s hear it for the Three Musketeers, who will battle their way to wealth, health and happiness. Hey, what’s that?’

  Alix had taken out her invitation to the Rose Noire and was holding it in the lantern flame, meaning to burn it. Una snatched it from her, blew it out and read it.

  ‘Gala opening, what a hoot. Why don’t we pile in there tonight, the three of us, and celebrate? We’ll take Mr Kilpin – somebody has to pay for the drinks. Are we on?’ She kept her glass high until the others wearily raised theirs.

  Chapter Fifteen

  At the precise same moment, at the News Monitor, Verrian closed the doors of the second-floor lift and listened to the noise of a single, clacking typewriter. He followed the sound and put his head around the door of a glass-walled office. ‘Evening, Beryl.’

  A middle-aged woman stopped typing, but instead of the smile he was used to, he got ‘You’re back early! Since you’re here, you’d best go straight to the boardroom. Oh, dear, I’m glad I’m not you!’

  ‘That puts rare heart into me, Beryl. What’s happening in the boardroom?’

  Beryl Theakston, the unwaveringly loyal editorial secretary of the News Monitor, stared at him. Verrian guessed that even as she pondered his dangerous ignorance, she was marking his lack of tie.

  ‘Surely you knew? Mr Chelsey informed you before you left for Germany?’

  ‘Derek Chelsey tells me nothing. It’s a policy of editors – never tell humble journalists anything that could be useful or flattering. What’s going on, Beryl?’

  ‘Lord Calford has arrived. He got here an hour ago in a bad temper. Well, actually –’ her voice dropped – ‘a monumentally dreadful temper. You didn’t know Lord Calford was in Paris?’

  ‘No, or I wouldn’t have come back. Is Sturridge up in the picture studio?’

  ‘It’s daylight, Mr Haviland, and as far as I know there isn’t a hurricane blowing. So, yes, our picture editor is in his studio.’

  It was unusual for Beryl to be wrong about anything in the building, but Verrian found the picture studio deserted, dark rooms ajar. He took several canisters of film from his pockets. Driving from the French city of Mulhouse across the border to Köln, he’d found the German roads clogged with military transport. Streams of them, heading west. It had opened his eyes to the extent of German military build-up. Returning his hired car to Mulhouse, he’d caught the fastest train back to Paris. He had an article drafted and he wanted his pictures by tomorrow morning. Calling Sturridge’s name and getting no reply, he resigned himself to waiting, eyeing the shelves that lined the studio.

  Photography was Sturridge’s passion, but French painting was the man’s obsession. Sturridge was compiling an encyclopaedia to be titled Light Upon the Impressionists and clearly using this place to house his research material. Verrian lifted down a file marked ‘M’ which contained handwritten notes, cuttings, postcards and photographs of the painter Monet. After flicking through, he replaced it and reversed back along the row looking for the letter ‘L’. He found another ‘M’ and ‘K’, but no ‘L’. Good, he thought. He didn’t want to spend the afternoon reading about Alfred Lutzman. Then he heard a muffled cough.

  ‘Sturridge? That you?’

  The next moment, a wiry man in khaki shorts and shirt emerged from a side room carrying a metal contraption. Heavy, from his grunting.

  Verrian grabbed its base and helped hump it on to a table. ‘What the hell is this?’

  ‘Technical name is “loupe”, old bean, but to you and me it’s a magnifier.’ Sturridge rubbed the creases out of his hand and shook Verrian’s. ‘It helps me with the fuzzy bits of photographs. I snapped a respectable French politician the other day viewing the World’s Fair building site with his lady. Only I wasn’t sure if it was his lady or somebody else’s. Best to know. The Monitor doesn’t like scandal. Too much flack from the embassy and the FO.’

  ‘Of course.’ Verrian had used hand loupes in the past, but never anything this big.

  ‘Ten times magnification,’ Sturridge told him proudly. ‘You can pick out faces from the murkiest crowd. Enemy of the adulterer, the loupe. If you like, we can count the whorls on your fingerprints.’

  Verrian indicated his rolls of film. ‘I’d rather you processed those for me. I’ll owe you dinner.’

  ‘Pleasure. Been to Germany, I heard. Fun?’

  ‘No, it was …’ Verrian stopped, his eye falling on a black binder on a nearby table. He went to it, consulted its spine. ‘L’. He opened it and raised his eyebrows at Sturridge. Could this perpetual Boy Scout and all-round good egg also be a mind-reader? ‘The artist Lutzman – you know about him?’

  Sturridge joined Verrian at the table. ‘Ah, the last of the “L’s”. Not much in his file, unfortunately. When I’ve done him, I’ll be halfway through the first draft of my book. Did I tell you I’m compiling an encyclopaedia?’

  ‘You did. Tell me about Lutzman.’

  ‘Painter from Alsace.’ Sturridge turned a page to a sepia photograph of a bearded man aged forty-five, fifty. Hard to tell. The gaze was myopic, but obsidian eyes told Verrian he was looking at Alix’s grandfather. Had she ever seen this picture?

  ‘These are typical of his later work.’ Sturridge showed him a set of colour postcards, reproductions of landscapes typical of the French Impressionist movement. Or what Verrian associated with Impressionism, which, he calculated, would have come into vogue during Lutzman’s early manhood.

  ‘Did he study in France?’

  ‘Not a chance,’ Sturridge replied. ‘By the time he was out of short trousers, the dear Bosch had invaded his homeland. Many natives of Alsace fled to France, but Lutzman’s lot stayed put. Painting trips over the border weren’t on the cards. Germany in the 1870s had little time for radical art, and Impressionism was radical when it started. Lutzman was kept an eye on. He was Jewish and his family had Bolshevik sympathies.’

  Verrian nodded. ‘What’s his story?’

  ‘Son of humble tobacco-pipe makers. Went into the family business. But by the age of twenty he was livi
ng in Deptford, in a sprawling mansion by the Thames, under the aegis of English Impressionist Martin Fressenden.’

  London. Things were edging into place. ‘Fressenden?’

  Fetching down another binder, Sturridge gently exposed Verrian’s ignorance. ‘A fashionable painter of the late-Victorian period, able to indulge his passions thanks to a private art school run mainly by his wife. Lutzman studied there.’

  In the prints of Fressenden’s work, Verrian detected a similarity between master and pupil. To his eye, the pupil was more interesting, particularly in his use of colour. He thought of Alix giving his sister a palate of hues Lucy wouldn’t have put together in a hundred years. ‘I confess, I’d not heard of either of them.’

  ‘You’re not alone. Good artists both, but fashion moves on. Fressenden was one of those men, in my view, who had more charm and determination than talent, but stretched that talent a long way. Lutzman … Lutzman had talent by the bucket but was blighted by his own character. Tricky customer – reclusive, reluctant to finish his work. Why the interest?’

  ‘A friend mentioned him. She said his career failed to blossom.’ On Boulevard St-Germain he’d told Alix, You don’t have to explain yourself to me. So why was he scratching through her life, looking for clues?

  ‘Course,’ Sturridge said, ‘most records disappeared when Germany handed Alsace back to France after the war. Archives were lost – Lutzman’s paintings seem to have gone the same way. Most of what I know is thanks to his former pupil, Raphael Bonnet, who is a painter of no small talent himself.’

  ‘I know him,’ said Verrian. ‘He lives next door to me.’

  ‘Good Lord. Then you’ll know why Bonnet’s genius will never flower.’ Sturridge mimed a man knocking back a glass of wine. ‘Do him a favour, lock up his corkscrew.’