He found himself staring into the officious looking eyes of a young Frenchman, a man in his early twenties. "Yes?" he said in French asking Drew what his business was.
"I'm looking for M. Martinon," he replied, keeping a cool head, though he had an urge to knock the young man aside and storm into the house unannounced, thence to search every room until he found his niece.
"I'm looking for Mr. M. Martinon," he replied, keeping a cool head, though he had an urge to knock the young man aside and storm into the house unannounced, thence to search every room until he found his niece.
"M. Martinon is not here," the man said brusquely.
"In that case I'd like to have a few words with a friend of his, a certain young American girl by the name of Amy Mitchell," Drew went on, taking hope from the fact that the young man's eyes narrowed with a telltale motion as if the name indeed had meaning for him.
"I know of no one of that name," he finally replied, making a move to slam the door in Drew's face.
"The fuck you don't," Drew hissed, pushing the fellow aside and making his way into the house. But no sooner had he gained admittance when he suddenly felt himself careening forward, the back of his head seemingly crushed as one would break an eggshell. He threw up his arms, blinded with pain and the last thing he'd remembered was hearing a snicker, a nasty smirking laugh echoing painfully in his head.
How long he had remained unconscious was something he couldn't tell, for the crystal of his watch had smashed from the fall and the time stood at 12:47. He groaned and tried to sit up, not knowing where he was or what had happened.
And as his eyes adjusted to the light he stopped himself from moving, freezing as he found himself staring at the seated figure of a man, a man he knew without a shadow of a doubt to be none other than the mysterious Rene Martinon.
"Good evening, Mr. Livingston, so unfortunate that you didn't get a more hearty welcome," the man said in French-accented but otherwise flawless and precise English. "But my man is very suspicious about robbers and the like, hanging around this neighborhood. He had no choice, you see…"
"So I gather," Drew said ruefully, rubbing his hand over the back of his head and feeling the lump the other young man had given him. He still felt a little dizzy, but now he lifted himself and swung his legs over the side of the old canopy bed upon which he had been lying.
"Yes, most unfortunate accident it was. But I trust you've recovered," the man went on.
Drew pursed his lips together, not knowing if Martinon was being serious or sarcastic. He didn't like the looks of the man from head to toe, though he could see at a glance what his niece had found attractive. Martinon was the very figure of a playboy, down to the loosely tied silk cravat he wore around his neck.
Well-groomed to the extreme, he was nevertheless slimmer and far less burly than Drew, lighter on his feet perhaps, though certainly not lacking in physical strength. There was a wiriness about him that put Drew on his guard and Rene Martinon continued to sit across from him in a brocaded wing chair, idly tipping the ashes of his cigarette into a rose medallion tray.
"Where's my niece, Mr. Martinon?" Obviously, I didn't come all this distance for my health. It would seem that Paris, Fontenay especially, is not very therapeutic for my nerves, to and he rubbed his hand over the swelling on his head, trying to clear the cobwebs out of his brain.
"She's resting at the moment, Mr. Livingston. But I can assure you that at the earliest possible convenience you'll be able to see her once again today."
"And when would that be, may I be so bold as to inquire?" he snapped, wondering too at the same time how Martinon knew his name. Either they checked my wallet, or Amy saw what happened, or saw me when I was unconscious, he decided, waiting for the Frenchman to answer his last question.
"Shortly, at dinner in fact," Rene said at last, laughing good-naturedly. "But perhaps now you'd like to rest a little longer, until you've regained your strength, Mr. Livingston."
"I've regained it," Drew said sharply. "And I don't intend to wait around until you decide to let the canary out of the cage, if indeed she is in a cage, if this entire house is a cage, for that matter."
"A cage? Why my good man, your niece has never been more well cared for, I can promise you. But it would be most inopportune for her to be disturbed at the moment. So I've taken the liberty of preparing a little entertainment for you, to help pass the time away, as it were. I understand so many of you Americans are so impatient. You haven't learned our Gallic way of doing things, of taking one's time, of each thing in its place."
"No, I haven't," Drew replied, at a further loss for words. But before he could say anything else, Rene Martinon turned his angular and fox-like smooth-shaven face towards the door across from where Drew was sitting up on the bed. "Francoise!" he called out and Drew expected him to clap his hands like a sultan calling for his harem girls.
Instead, at the mention of that single name, the door swung open noiselessly and Drew's eyes opened wide as he found himself staring with obvious and immediate interest at the slim and fetching figure of a young French girl, dressed in what he thought was a traditional black and white-aproned changer or parlor-maid's uniform.
"Francoise will be most willing to amuse you for the next hour or sop, while your niece rests and then prepares herself for this… how shall I put it, gala family reunion," Rene told him as he got to his feet and the girl moved towards the foot of the bed, her eyes lowered and her ripe creamy-white bosom rising and falling with rhythmic and fluid surges.
Either I beat the shit out of him or get the shit beaten out of me, or else I grin and bear it and go along with him, Drew thought to himself. It entered his mind that even now Amy might be being hustled out of the house but he decided to take his chances, knowing as he did that if he'd gotten this far, he could still go further if need be.
"The girl is going to amuse me, you said?" Drew asked, though he certainly didn't have to be told.
"Anyway you think most proper, or interesting, or diverting. She's yours to do with as you wish. Francoise is very accommodating, in every way imaginable. So until dinner, Mr. Livingston," and he got up from his chair and moved towards the door. He said something under his breath and in rapid French to the girl, but Drew unfortunately was unable to hear a word of it.
The next thing he knew the door had once again closed shut and he found himself alone in the bedroom with the young and exquisitely proportioned parlor-maid. For a few minutes he said nothing, watching her as she waited at the foot of the bed, as if she was an android or a robot, waiting to be put to work and set into motion by the very sound of his gruff manly voice.
He felt his quiet was disturbing her and that pleased him. More confused than ever, he couldn't figure out what the fuck was going on, why he was being given Francoise to enjoy, why his niece hadn't been brought to him or he brought to her. And now he had no choice but to make the most of the situation, as uncertain of Martinon's real motives as he was about his own immediate future.
"So you are Francoise," he said in French. The girl nodded her head and the flash of her creamy-white decolletage delighted him to no end.
Despite all that he had gone through, he was still quite prepared to handle the girl, especially when he recalled Martinon's words, the fact that Francoise was most willing to accommodate him in every way imaginable.
"How old are you?" he asked.
"J'ai dix-sept ans," she said in French.
"Seventeen, how perfect," he muttered aloud, pleased with that, doubly pleased because she looked even younger, a slim frail and almost waif-like creature with short curly black hair and almond-shaped dark and penetrating eyes.