“I would not have felt at ease with you.”
“Perhaps so. Or else, I might not have felt at ease. As you know, I’m really quite shy, and—”
“And me trying to buy you off with fifty thousand francs!”
“Do you have any idea where we might go to have dinner? I saw that you bought an evening gown. You’re really lucky to be such a perfect model size. But if we are going to dress, I’ll have to take you home with me, and you’ll have to wait with Mother while I—”
“Tell me, Monsieur Emile.”
“What?”
“If you could, would you send me to prison?”
The young woman’s lower lip is trembling. She feels she looks her very best. She can see her reflection in a mirror, between the bottles behind the bar. Her eyes are shining, her lips alive. And isn’t her companion, sitting next to her, showing just a bit of interest in her?
She is awaiting his answer, her fingers tensed. It comes at her like a pebble.
“Without batting an eye.”
“Don’t you have any heart at all?”
“My father, mademoiselle, was killed by... Never mind, it’s not the kind of story to tell here. I might add something more, if you think it would help keep you from doing something foolish. In case you were to attempt to ditch me, I wouldn’t be afraid to shoot you in the leg — and a very beautiful leg it is. That’s how convinced I am that you were involved in the burglaries that—”
“Pig!” she hisses at him as she kicks him in the shin.
“And now,” he asks, “are we dressing for dinner or not? Do I phone Mother to tell her to get my tuxedo ready, or do I—”
“You certainly don’t expect to stay in my room while I change, I hope.”
“Unfortunately, that’s just what I do intend. But, if you wish, I can be closed off in a corner near the door, behind a screen.”
Five minutes later, they are in the hotel elevator, on the way up to suite 125.
III
In which Torrence makes a discovery and in which a certain young lady suddenly turns as talkative as any detective could hope.
“Mother, while I’m dressing, will you please be good enough to keep an eye on mademoiselle,” Emile says, “and make sure she does not go out or communicate with anyone.”
It is a comfortable apartment, as middle-class as can be, on the Boulevard Raspail. Emile’s mother is as tiny as he is tall, and it is a sure thing that her hair, now gray, was never red. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, her son has put his gun in her hand. She acts as if she doesn’t know it is there. She smiles to her young lady guest and treats her with utter politeness, without the slightest trace of irony.
“Please have a seat, mademoiselle. Can I get you something to drink? So, it seems you are a friend of Emile’s...”
Five minutes later, the latter is ready, and he kisses his mother on both cheeks, takes the gun back from her, and sticks it in his pocket.
“Now, if you’re ready, we can go out to supper,” he says.
Not much later, they are inside The Pelican, on the Rue de Clichy in Montmartre, where there are already couples dancing among the tables to the strains of a Cuban band. Emile has lost none of his shy look, yet he orders their supper like a connoisseur.
“Would you ask the gentleman over there to come over and talk to me?” he asks a waiter.
The gentleman is Torrence, also dressed in a tuxedo, his shirtfront overly starched, looking very flushed, at a small table the other side of the dance floor.
“Will you excuse me, mademoiselle?” Emile says to her, without ever taking his eyes off the girl. He and Torrence stand talking a few feet away.
“I followed your instructions,” Torrence tells him. “I started with the better hotels that aren’t too luxurious. I showed the doormen and concierges our picture of the little bird. At the sixth hotel, the Majestic, on Avenue Friedland, it was met with surprise.
“ ‘I thought that she was up in her room,’ the concierge told me.
“He phoned the room.
“ ‘Strange!’ he said. ‘Now I see that her brother has gone out, too. He should be back any time now, I think.’ ”
And Torrence goes on.
“I asked them to call together the whole staff that worked that floor. The couple are registered as Dolly and James Morrison, of Philadelphia. The girl was in room 45 and her brother in room 47. The rooms have a communicating door between them. As far as I could find out, James Morrison keeps very irregular hours, didn’t come home to sleep last night, and they haven’t seen him since.”
“Any luggage?” Emile asks.
“I didn’t dare ask that, in front of the whole staff. So I took room 43, telling them that I had my own personal valet with me.”
His wink clearly informs Emile that the valet in question is none other than the hirsute Barbet, and that the latter, right now, is probably very busy riffling through the two adjoining rooms.
“As soon as you hear something, let me know,” Emile tells him. “Here or elsewhere. If we leave The Pelican, I’ll leave a message for you.”
“Excuse me, Miss Morrison,” he says as he comes back to their table. “A few instructions I had to give to my boss, as you can see. How is the caviar? Is it good and fresh?”
She does not seem particularly taken aback by the new information about her he has just acquired. On the other hand, her eyes bug open when he adds, “Torrence expects to have a really good talk with your brother James tonight.”
“Does he?”
“At the moment, one of our friends has taken James in tow. Torrence is going to join them, and I have no doubt your brother will gladly come across with the information we want.”
She looks down into her plate. She sighs. “Poor Jim!”
“Yes, it may be a little tough on him, indeed. Would you like a little more caviar? Some lemon on it?”
“Listen to me, Monsieur Emile.”
She is nervous and edgy.
“I never expected you to get to the bottom of this so fast. I can’t understand how my brother could have been so careless as to... Oh, well, let me ask you a question first. Just how are you involved in this case?”
“One of the largest insurance companies, which has been a client of ours for a long time, has hired Agency O to get back the jewels stolen in the thirteen jewel robberies that have taken place in the last few months.”
“Nothing more than that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that, since you don’t actually belong to the police, you are under no obligation to turn anyone over to them, are you?”
Dancers passing near them, couples having supper at other tables could have no idea of the tenor of this conversation being carried on with pursed lips.
“My brother is a jackass,” the girl goes on. “I was sure he would end up getting us in trouble. Just this morning, I had to take it on myself to keep that marked handkerchief from remaining in your hands.”
“How about a dance?” Emile asks, to his companion’s great amazement.
But what is more amazing is that he is a most accomplished dancer. They continue their conversation on the dance floor which is bathed in orange spotlights, and the girl has the feeling that her escort is hugging her to him more insistently than the occasion demands.
“You weren’t completely off the mark before, Monsieur Emile, when you talked about Baldhead Teddy. You thought you saw his fine hand in these jobs, and there’s a good reason for that. I am Baldhead Teddy’s daughter. Jim is my twin brother. Until now, our father has always kept us outside his acquisitive activities.”