by Alp Mortal
In a little bar just off the square, she downed a brandy and then skipped to the fountain to find Boehme waiting, who duly presented her with a corsage and kissed the fingertips of her right hand.
“You look beautiful!” he announced gallantly, and Hannah just blushed again, giving him her arm.
They took a cab and en route he told her a little about the Opera, having guessed it was her first time. Then he asked her, “What do you do in Paris, Mademoiselle?”
“I am studying and taking dance lessons from Federico.”
“He is highly respected; you must be very good.”
“I have much to learn,” replied Hannah in a voice as antique as the lace of her shawl.
They arrived and he escorted her in to the building for the performance of ‘La Boheme’, and Hannah knew already she was going to enjoy the evening immensely. She was dressed at least as well as the other woman of her age and her partner was at least but probably more handsome than theirs. They made a very stylish couple; he a little older and well versed in etiquette; she like a rose in full bloom, thick velvety petals of antique cream tinged with strawberry freshness, fragrant but not too sweet.
At the interval, they had champagne and smoked a cigarette. She accepted one from his case and he lit it for her with his heavy, solid gold Rollagas which was monogramed ‘BS’.
“Are you enjoying the performance?” he asked.
“Immensely; are you?” she replied.
“I don’t remember the last time I enjoyed being here with someone so much …”
“I am studying Art but I have to confess that I have neglected Opera; I am more drawn to the costumes than to the singing.”
“If costumes are your thing then perhaps you would accept another invitation from me and accompany me to the masked ball at Fayette’s this Saturday?”
“I would need to get another night off.”
“Perhaps your days as a cloakroom attendant are coming to an end,” he suggested cryptically.
“Perhaps they are. I would love to go to the ball ... but I will arrive alone and you shall have to search me out.”
“I shall have the invitation for you tomorrow when you come to the office ... Shall we go back in?”
They watched the rest of the performance and he got her a cab to take her home, handing the driver a hundred francs for the fare.
“Until tomorrow; goodnight, Mademoiselle.”
“Until tomorrow, Monsieur …”
The cab drove away and Hannah smiled to herself throughout the entire journey. The corsage he had given her was silk and she placed it on her dressing table.
The following morning, she went to the railway station and obtained the photographs that she needed. In both cases, she adopted a very plain look, nothing very attention grabbing. She had already written down the details that were needed and put the photographs in the envelope with the neatly written sheet of paper, together with twenty thousand francs in large bills. She made her way to the office and timed her arrival to coincide with the receptionist’s departure for lunch. She ascended the stairs.
Boehme was in his office on the telephone, smoking a cigarette and drinking a glass of wine when she arrived in the reception. Initially he must have thought that it was his receptionist returning for he didn’t curtail the call and he continued with the conversation. Hannah only heard half of it of course but it made for intriguing listening and from what she could tell, he was negotiating the fee for something to be acquired; the thing had not be mentioned specifically and was simply referred to as ‘the piece’.
At one point he asked the question ‘when?’ but Hannah knew he had simply repeated the question of the other person because he went onto to say immediately, “Saturday, at the ball; no one will suspect.” The call was ended and there was silence for a few minutes before he appeared in the doorway.
“Mademoiselle; you are here!” stated with an ounce of consternation.
“The receptionist was not here so I didn’t know whether I should wait or knock,” said Hannah, perfectly innocently.
“No; quite …come through ...”
She went in and handed him the envelope which he took and placed in the drawer of his desk.
“Did you get the night off for the ball on Saturday?” he asked.
“I quit the job; it was beginning to interfere with my various occupations and projects,” she said, smiling but drawing attention away from her face by offering him a cigarette from her case. He took one and then lit hers.
“You intrigue me, Mademoiselle, greatly; I wonder if I can trust you.”
“Trust usually has to be earned, Monsieur.”
“Quite so; how would I earn your trust?”
“By completing our business promptly and by telling me what it is you have been asked to acquire for one million francs …”
“Our business will be completed satisfactorily, have no fear of that ... as to the other, if I tell you then I assume you have experience?”
“Yes, some; and I am keen to build on it …”
“What do you know of the ‘Fayette Chalice’?”
“At one time believed to be the Holy Grail itself but in any event, a fine gold chalice, adorned with gems and brought back from the Crusades; gifted to the Fayette’s by Richard for their part in his repatriation …”
Hannah had already researched the Fayette’s as soon as she had the invitation to the ball.
“That is correct and you will see it on Saturday; at least, the copy which everyone believes is on display. No one in their right mind would display the original in a private residence; even one as secure as theirs … I have been asked to acquire it for a client. They accept the risk that the chalice could be a copy but if it is then the family is barred from admitting that, seeing as a hundred thousand people a year pay twenty francs to see it …”
Hannah garnered every fibre of her confidence.
“I can do it.”
“There is no doubt in my mind that you believe that you can; whether you can pull it off is another matter. Success will earn you eight hundred thousand francs.”
“And failure?”
“If caught then a very long jail sentence and you’d probably never get a job again, even in a theatre cloakroom.”
“Then the risk is all mine.”
“There could never be any trail back to me.”
“How should I get paid?”
“The handover is almost immediate; you would be handed an untraceable bearer bond for the eight hundred thousand francs.”
“Is your fee always twenty percent?”
“Invariably, and I am going to give you the twenty thousand francs back that you gave me earlier because you’ll need it for the costume on Saturday; these things are legendary.”
“I agree to do it for eight hundred thousand francs as long as the documents I need are with the bond at the handover …”
“That is pushing it but I agree … I am taking a huge risk.”
“So am I ...”
He opened the desk drawer and withdrew the twenty thousand francs from the envelope she had given him and handed them back plus the invitation she needed for the ball.
“The handover is at one in the morning on the platform of the Argentine Metro station; direction Chateau de Vincennes. The man to whom the chalice should be given will announce himself as ‘Le Coeur de Lion’ …”
“How will he recognise me?”
“Not too difficult if you are still in costume, I should say.”
“I hardly think that is wise; it would draw far too much attention. No, the handover will take place the following day at ten o’clock in the morning, here in this office, and I will hand it over to you; I trust no one else.”
He paused and looked hard for a second or two and then said, “Agreed; if you had agreed to my suggestion then I would have judged you to be the novice that I thought you were; I am happy that isn’t the case. Let’s not forget that we have the ball to look forward to
as well ... Are you still going to tease me and arrive alone?”
“Most definitely; but you won’t be alone for long.”
They heard the receptionist return and took that as their cue to conclude their business and Hannah left, heading straight for the Fayette residence where for twenty francs she was admitted to a public area of the house to view the chalice, along with fifty other tourists.
Then she went home.
Chapter Three – Preparing for Fayette’s Ball
The ball was a Venetian Ball so the costumes were expected to be magnificent, and of course everyone would be wearing a mask ... but dressed in her costume was not how Hannah planned to arrive. She contacted the firm which was providing the catering staff and asked if they needed waitresses. Fortunately they did and her passable Japanese and Russian, near native French and perfect English got her a job for the night ... having been a cocktail waitress for six months also helped. Being employed as one of the bar staff gained her entry to the house earlier than the guests and gave her access to areas which they were excluded from; and in Hannah’s experience, a young cocktail waitress, running an errand for the bar manager, could get away with almost anything in the chaos which typified the ‘behind the scenes’ of these shindigs.
Her visit to the house to see the chalice had been to confirm that the piece was heavily protected; and it was. It was secured in a cabinet made of inch thick glass, cordoned off by a metal railing. A smash and grab raid this most definitely was not; at least, not in the usual style of such things. The room where the chalice was exhibited to the public was also under camera surveillance and two heavy-set security guards manned the entrance until six p.m when the public room was closed.
Her conversation with Boehme had taken place on the Wednesday lunchtime so she had two clear days before the ball and was only required to call into the office of the catering firm to sign a form and be issued with an ID badge. She organised her costume and went for ‘the court jester’; deliberately androgynous and far less bulky to pack into a modest-sized holdall, and a darn sight cheaper to hire too! The single prop she needed was far easier to come by than she had anticipated; replicas of the chalice were on sale in the foyer of the public viewing room; sold by the cartload to the Japanese tourists. A fact which Hannah thought was incredibly tacky but at two hundred euros, a nice little side-earner for the Fayette’s
On the Friday afternoon at three o’clock, she returned to the public viewing room and trudged around the display with another fifty tourists; this time dressed as a tourist.
She left the group to use the toilet. In the ladies’ toilet there was a waste paper basket for the paper towels that were provided to dry one’s hands. She set light to the contents and quickly made her way back to the main room to wait for the alarm to go off; which it did three minutes later.
Obviously a fire was the least expected event because when the alarm did go off, no one knew what to do initially and there was just a lot of panic and milling around, shouting and confusion. In that melee, Hannah edged her way towards a fire extinguisher which was located on the wall between the cabinet and the door to the toilet area. It dispensed powder rather than water; a fact she had previously checked because only by discharging nine kilos of powder into the room, would it serve her purpose ... and she did, adding to the panic as now visibility was reduced. In that crucial thirty seconds, she hurled the spent extinguisher into the display cabinet, smashing it to smithereens. She whipped out the chalice; the powder in the air effectively masking her actions, particularly from the security cameras. She didn’t take the chalice but lobbed it behind the counter of the gift shop where there were at least twenty others, then she dashed out and milled around with everyone else, coughing and spluttering. It wasn’t difficult to edge away and disappear before more security, the pompiers and gendarmes turned up.
Why was all this necessary? To flush out the original chalice.
If a copy was indeed on display then there was no possibility that the chalice would be a ‘no show’ the following day, and given the timing of Hannah’s escapade there was very little chance that a new display case would be available with the same security as the original. Hannah was hoping that she had weakened the system sufficiently to provide an opportunity the following evening to swipe the cup; the original cup for that matter.
The following morning she went back to the public viewing room to see how the land lay; a chalice was on display in a hastily installed cabinet. Was it the original? She couldn’t tell but her goal was easier to accomplish. She went to the gift shop and purchased a replica, asking the sweet young thing for the one that wasn’t boxed.
“It’s a little dusty,” admitted the girl.
“It doesn’t matter; it makes it look older,” said Hannah, smiling, and for two hundred francs she purchased the copy of the chalice and had secured herself eight hundred thousand francs in the process. The original was still her object but now there was less pressure.
She was also convinced that she had the copy because the theft the day before had not been reported; merely the fire had made the newspaper and that had been played down. If the original had been stolen then she was sure that the matter would have been dealt with very differently.
Chapter Four – The Masquerade
On Saturday morning, Hannah danced and read the newspapers and, after lunch, she packed up her things into two very smart cases and took them to Montparnasse Station where she left them in a left luggage locker. She returned to the room to change into her waitress’s uniform and she stowed the court jester costume for the ball in a small nylon holdall. In the room there remained the copy of the chalice, her travel clothes and bare necessities for her ‘toilette’.
She had demanded that the handover be on the Sunday because the receptionist would be off and the office downstairs would be deserted. She had purchased her railway ticket when she had stowed the bags in the locker. All she needed was the bearer bond and the fake IDs from Boehme.
With plenty of time, she made her way to the Fayette residence and checked in for duty, putting the small holdall under the bar counter. She stocked shelves and polished glasses, sharing the banter with her colleagues and generally blending in as far as she could. She had dressed her hair very plainly; simply tying it back and she wore her ‘glasses’ which had clear glass lenses. It was all designed to make her appearance unremarkable and forgettable.
At eight-thirty, the bar manager asked her to fetch more champagne flutes from the stock room which was reached along a corridor from behind the bar area. At that end of the corridor there was a door which led into the public viewing area. She tried the door and found it to be unlocked. Peering in, she saw no one on duty and the cabinet was now unlit but the security cameras still displayed their tell-tale red lights. A room on the right just before the end of the corridor held the security systems and that door was also unlocked and slightly ajar but the room was manned by a security guard who was watching the CCTV monitors which covered almost the entire house. She fetched the flutes and got ready for the beginning of the ball. Guests were already starting to arrive, musicians were warming up and waiters began to ferry champagne out into the main area for the first arrivals. The Fayette’s were all there, dressed in the most magnificent costumes, and by the look of it, adorned with most of the family heirlooms! It kept attention firmly in their quarter and well away from the bar.
Boehme had no idea what costume she was wearing to the ball but she knew what he was planning to wear. The receipt for the hire of his costume had been on the receptionist’s desk when she had visited him on Wednesday. It said, as best could be translated, ‘black and gold highwayman outfit’.
“How appropriate,” she had said to herself and at nine-thirty she spied him as he entered, looking like a cross between Adam Ant and Louis the Sun King.
She worked solidly, keeping her eye on him and watched him as he searched for her. At first, he just scanned the room then he entered into idle chit-chat
with a few women. He was beginning to get frustrated she thought and judged it nearly time for her to join the party. She took her bag from under the counter and dived into the corridor, placing the bag in the stock room from where she had retrieved a bottle of champagne and a flute. She opened the bottle and poured a glass and then emptied the powdered contents of about five sleeping capsules into the liquid. She knocked on the door of the security room and the security guard opened it.
“Philip says this is with the compliments of the bar manager,” she said in something approaching verlan.
He took the glass and the bottle, saying something crude which she just smiled at, and then she left, diving into the stock room again to change into her costume, stowing her uniform in the bag which she left there. She re-entered the corridor and checked on the security guard who was now pleasantly dozing in his seat. She turned off all the cameras and made her way into the public viewing area, picking up a replica chalice from the gift shop. No one was in the room and the new cabinet was much less secure than the old one. She was able to open the lock with her nail file, taking out the chalice and replacing it with the replica. She returned to the security room and turned the cameras back on. She put the chalice in the bag with her uniform and then headed into the party. Her only entry point was the bar itself but she figured by now no one was going to care or probably notice as the gala was in full swing.
She picked up three lemons on her return and started to juggle them as she entered the bar, and her impromptu performance allowed her to get away with it. As far as the bar staff were concerned the ‘jester’ was probably hired for the occasion and they just played along, catching the lemons as she lobbed them in their direction.
She made it out onto the main floor and quickly found Boehme in the crowd who, even behind his mask, was looking pretty sullen. She tiptoed up to him and presented him with a silk flower which she pulled from out of the arm of the costume. He accepted it and he offered her his hand and they made their way to the dance floor and waltzed for the next ten minutes. He went off to grab them some drinks and she made her way out into the inner courtyard to smoke a cigarette.
When he found her he said, “I had almost given up hope that you would come.”
“I wouldn’t have let you down. I had to attend to some business beforehand; it took a little longer than expected …”