“It looks pretty good so far. Definitely a chateau, I’d say. Minor chateau, of course, but with chateau-like qualities, and that’s what counts these days, rather than the inconvenience of the real thing; the feeling of being in a house that might have a ballroom, without the bother of the ballroom itself. Does that make sense? In any case, here we are with an early-eighteenth-century gem whose original features have been carefully preserved through the generations. Imposing, of course, and standing in its own cultivated grounds, secluded but not isolated. I can see the sales brochure now. The guys in Monte Carlo would rip your head off to get their hands on this. Oh, I forgot.” He unrolled a pair of trousers and produced a bottle of Laphroaig. “Still drinking whisky, I hope. Now then. Where’s the beautiful lodger?”
Christie had spent the morning with guidebooks and a map of Europe, trying to decide where to go next. London? Venice? Paris? She looked up from the kitchen table as the two friends came in.
“Christie, this is Charlie.”
Max saw Charlie’s eyes widen. He smoothed back his hair and held out his hand. “Lovely to meet you. Thank God I won’t have to dance with Max tonight.”
Christie giggled. The two of them stood smiling at one another without speaking while Max went to fetch glasses, and a bottle of wine from the refrigerator.
Madame Passepartout came out of the scullery and studied the couple, still silent, still smiling. Clearly pleased at what she saw, she tiptoed over to where Max was uncorking the bottle. “Monsieur Max,” she said, in the muffled boom that for her passed as a conspiratorial whisper, “perhaps they would like to have lunch alone.”
“What? Nonsense. I haven’t seen Charlie for ages. We’ve got lots of catching up to do.”
A sniff from Madame Passepartout. It took a woman to recognize these things.
It had been Max’s intention to spend lunch going over the business of Roussel’s wine in greater detail, but he was instead treated to an example of Charlie’s sales technique-selling himself, of course, but under the guise of promoting the charms of London compared with Venice or Paris. “Did you know,” he was saying to Christie, “that at this time of year there are more tourists than pigeons in Venice? True as I sit here. Also, one false step and you’re in a canal, being run over by gondolas. Damned dangerous place. As for Paris, well, the whole city is closed for the summer; you’d be lucky to find the subway open. The Parisians are all down here on the coast, or in one of their little spas, bathing their livers in fizzy water. Now, London has it alclass="underline" the theater, clubs, pubs, shops, restaurants, Beefeaters, Buckingham Palace, Notting Hill-think of the postcards you could send home-a climate that is absolutely guaranteed to do wonders for the female complexion, taxi drivers who speak English… well, of course, everybody speaks English.”
“Wow,” said Christie. “Fancy that.” She reached across the table and rescued Charlie’s napkin from his salad, tucking it back in the top of his shirt.
“Seriously, that’s a big advantage, particularly the first time you visit a place. And the other big advantage is that you have a contact who knows London inside out, and who’d be delighted to show you around.” He leaned back in his chair and tapped his chest. “Moi.And I have a spare room.”
Charlie was for once managing to keep his eyebrows under control, and his expression innocent. Watching the two of them smiling at one another, Max felt it was as though he weren’t there. He also thought that the spare room would probably stay empty. He broke the silence with a loud sigh of mock relief. “Well,” he said, “that’s a load off my mind. Now that you two have settled your travel arrangements, do you think we could talk about the wine?”
Max went through it all again, and came to the same conclusion: They could confront Nathalie Auzet and try to extract a confession from her, which Max thought was unlikely and Christie dismissed as an impossibility. Or they could wait for the mystery truck to come back in September.
“Then what?” asked Charlie. “Ask them nicely where they were taking the wine? Tell them to hang on while you call the police?” He shook his head. “And another thing: how do you know Roussel hasn’t already told Nathalie Auzet that the game’s up?”
Max had to admit that was possible. “He told me he wouldn’t say a word, but I suppose we can’t be sure of that.”
Christie was frowning at the empty wine bottle on the table in front of her. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Max, didn’t you say you’d seen something at Nathalie Auzet’s house? Some kind of label?”
Max nodded. “You’re quite right. I remember making a note of it, but God knows where I put it.” He stood up. “Why don’t you show Charlie round while I go and have a look.”
Madame Passepartout had abandoned her observation post at the kitchen window to come out and clear the table, and she watched with an approving eye as Christie and Charlie left the courtyard, their heads close together in conversation. “It is as I thought,” she said with great satisfaction. “Un coup de foudre.”
Max spent a frustrating hour going through the pockets of all his clothes and the various piles of lists and papers that he had stuffed into the chest of drawers and in the back of the armoire. Eventually, he found what he was looking for, scrawled on the back of his English checkbook. It was no more illuminating now than it had been when he’d written it down.
He went downstairs to find Charlie returned from his tour of the property in a high state of excitement. “It’s sensational,” he said to Max, “all you need to do is a bit of work on the house-and put in a pool; must have a pool-and you’d be sitting on seven figures. That’s sterling, of course.” He looked around, a real estate agent’s gleam in his eye. “You’re protected at the back by the mountain, and there’s a cushion of land surrounding the house, so there’s no problem with neighbors. Why, if you…”
Max held up a hand. “Charlie, before you get carried away and put in a helicopter pad, take a look at this. Does it mean anything to you?”
Charlie looked up from the checkbook, tapping it against his free hand. “It rings a bell,” he said, “but I can’t be sure.” He looked at his watch. “ London ’s an hour behind, isn’t it? Billy would know. Let me see if I can catch him.”
Christie watched him go into the house, with the smile that had scarcely left her face since she’d met him.
“I’m glad you two have hit it off,” said Max. “I’ve known Charlie for twenty years. We were at school together. He’s one of the best.”
“He’s awfully cute,” said Christie. “Is he always like this?”
“Cute?” Max grinned at her. “I don’t know about that, but he never changes-it’s one of the reasons I like him so much. You’ll have a lot of fun in London.”
At Christie’s urging, Max began to tell her about the London he thought she should see, from the Tate Modern and the National Portrait Gallery to Harvey Nichols and the Portobello Road market, adding a few things she should avoid like the plague: plastic pubs, Piccadilly on Saturday night, anything masquerading as doner kebab. He was moving on to the sometimes bizarre attractions of Soho when Charlie returned, shaking his head.