Deadly Slipper (29 page)

Finally, there was Alain. Was he really ignorant of what his parents had done? Could they have kept something so monstrous from him? She wanted desperately for him to have no taint of collusion. Because if Alain had known, then his silence made him as guilty as they.

•

Later that night, Jeanne returned with a blanket and a bowl of soup. Mara caught the disheartening whiff of celery and onions. The soup was greasy, oversalted, and thickened with bread. The woman seemed to take pleasure in helping Mara to eat, cradling her torso against her own bony, stale-smelling body, lips moving in sympathetic movement with each mouthful that Mara took. Despite her revulsion at the physical contact, Mara ate it all. She needed her strength to fight against them. The light from a single, naked bulb suspended from the ceiling threw their shadows against the wall in a slow, wavering duet of motion.

When Mara said she needed to relieve herself, Jeanne offered her the use of a dusty chamber pot that she pulled from under the bed. Mara refused and insisted on being taken to a proper toilet. Jeanne untied her legs and escorted her out of the garret, down the spiral stairs to the floor below. Any thought Mara had of making her escape faded when she realized how weak and dizzy she was. She could hardly walk, let alone run. The water closet, situated off the gallery, was none too clean. Since Mara’s hands were still bound, Jeanne had to help her. Mara recoiled from the intimate physical contact, but at least the woman was quick about it, pulling down her jeans, wiping her as efficiently as a nurse. Also surprisingly strong. Then Jeanne brought her back and tied her legs again, but not as tightly as before. With a murmured
“bonsoir,”
she clicked off the light. Mara heard the grating of the key in the lock.

She waited breathlessly in the dark. The great house was absolutely still. Awkwardly she dropped her legs over the side of the bed and slid to the floor. It was a painful process, rolling over the hard floorboards, and she had to stop many times to let her swimming head stabilize. When she reached the door, she pushed herself up to a standing position. She slid her cheek against the wall until she found the old-fashioned switch and flipped it on with her chin. Once again the single bulb came to life, filling the garret with a weak light.

Her exploration of the garret told her a few
things. The door was made of solid timber with no knob or handle, only a metal plate housing a deadbolt lock, an unusual fitting for a garret. No hope of escape there. The dormer window was boarded off at the bottom. That was enough to tell her it was the one she had noticed from the rear courtyard during her stakeout. She stored up this precious piece of information. At some point the PTT van would drive up the rear lane and park by the scullery door. If there was some way she could open the window, she could shout for help when the dark-haired
rouleur
arrived with the next mail delivery.

But how to do it? The window was set high in the wall, and the boarding made it impossible for her even to see out of it. There was no chair or table in the garret, nothing to climb on. She would have to shift the bed over to the window somehow. She tried moving it the only way she could, by rolling onto her back and shoving it with her feet, using the power of her legs. It was extremely heavy. She managed to slide one end of the bed a small distance from the wall before a sudden wave of nausea overcame her. She rolled onto her side and vomited a pale-yellow liquid in which gobbets of undigested bread floated. Exhausted, she closed her eyes. She slept.

•

The following morning broke cool and overcast. Julian was standing sleepily in his kitchen, pouring himself a first mug of tea. He took it well sweetened,
with a dash of milk. The back door was open, admitting a moist breeze. The phone rang.

“Julian?” It was Iris.

“Yes?” he inquired coldly, the memory of Géraud’s scoop making him uncivil.

“Look, I’ve been stewing about this since last night. I felt I simply had to call you.”

“About what?”

“Géraud, of course!” Iris’s indignation crackled in his ear. “He told me what he did to you. He was laughing about it all the way home from the Société meeting. For what it’s worth, I think it was a perfectly filthy trick.”

“Oh that. Finder’s rights.” Behind feigned indifference, Julian was still furious. The only thing that had saved the evening for him was the fact that he had arranged a double billing: the
Neottia
, which he did not show—what was the point?—and his slides
of Hammarbya paludosa
, the Bog Orchids he had discovered on his first day out with Mara. The effect, however, had been much discounted by the fact that they were not yet in flower.

“But you don’t know the worst of it,” Iris went on.

“There’s worse?” He pulled up a chair and sat down heavily.

“Géraud purposely misled you to buy time for himself. He
made up
that Bird’s-nest colony outside Le Double! Meantime, he checked out your locations, which, of course, were genuine.”

Julian swore. The thought had crossed his mind,
but he had been unable to believe that Géraud would stoop so low.

“Listen, Julian, I think it’s too bad, what he did. I want you to know I had no part in it.”

“No, of course not.”

“However, to be fair to Géraud, you’re always trying to one-up him, too, and he feels the pressure. Everything’s so competitive nowadays. In fact, it’s perfectly disgusting, the tricks some Société members play to outdo each other. In old Henri de Sauvignac’s time, such things would never have happened. All the same, I think Géraud needs to be taught a lesson. The only way to punish him is to hit him where it hurts.”

“Where’s that?” Julian asked with interest.

“The Prix Vénus. He’s won it seven years running. Beat him out for it.”

Julian snorted. “How, if he’s prepared to cheat?” All the same, he was gratified by Iris’s blatant betrayal of her lover.

“Well,
I
don’t know. You’re the botanist.”

Something Iris had said earlier only now registered with him. “Wait a minute, Iris.
Who
did you say?”

“Géraud, of course.”

“No, before that.”

“Henri de Sauvignac? He founded the society, didn’t you know? But, of course, that was well before your time. Lovely old gent. Absolutely gaga about wildflowers. You’d have liked him.”

“Are you talking about the de Sauvignac of Les Colombes?”

“Well, not the present
châtelain
, of course. Henri de Sauvignac père. Avid orchidologist. Both of them.”

“Both of who?”

“He and his daughter-in-law. The two of them used to prowl the countryside collecting specimens for their plantations. Had them dotted all over the estate. He named the society for her, you know. ‘Jeannette’ is a
jeu de mots
, the diminutive for ‘Jeanne,’ which is her name. It also stands for
jeannette jaune
, yellow daffodil. He died years ago, god rest his gentle soul, but Jeanne de Sauvignac is still around, flitting through the woods.”

“And her husband, the present Henri de Sauvignac, does he share this interest in botany?”

Iris gave a peal of laughter. “More interested in
les jeunes filles en fleur
, budding young women, than daisies, if you get my meaning. A real lady-killer in his day, with a penchant for rough sex, or sex in the rough.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he had a liking for village wenches and he took it where he could get it, in field and forest. They say his youngest son drowned in a pond because the maid who was supposed to be looking after him was otherwise occupied in the tall grass with her employer. It destroyed his wife, which was very sad, especially as it’s poor Jeanne de Sauvignac who’s had to pay out all these years to hush up her husband’s sexual indiscretions. She’s the one with the money,
you see. Or was. They’re poor as church mice now, but he refuses to sell that barn of a place they live in. Family pride. Still, give the devil his due, after the old man died, Henri fils did his bit as Société president for many years, made pretty speeches at the annual assembly, handed out the Prix Vénus, which his father also founded, that kind of thing. Neither the present Henri nor Jeanne has come to meetings for donkey’s years, of course.”

Julian’s mind was racing. “The Prix Vénus … That wouldn’t happen to have been named after the Sabot de Vénus, would it?”

“Why, now that you mention it, I believe it was. Yes, I’m sure of it, because I remember that Henri senior and Jeanne once tried to grow Sabot de Vénus on the grounds of their château.”

Julian was on his feet and gaping. “Are you saying they tried to breed
Cypripedium calceolus
here?”

“What?”

“Cypripedium calceolus.
Sabot de Vénus. Lady’s Slipper.”

“Ah. I forgot that’s what you experts call it. Well, yes, come to think of it, I believe they did. From rootstock they took from, mmm, I can’t remember where.”

“Look, I’m not just talking about one or two show plants, Iris. I mean, do you know if they actually tried to establish a viable plantation of them?”

“Might have.” He could almost see her shrug. “Although, if they did, I doubt it came to very much.”

“However, you don’t know for certain that they failed, do you?” Julian was breathing hard.

“Oh,” Iris murmured vaguely, “I rather think that if old Henri had succeeded we’d all have heard about it.”

“And does Géraud know about this attempt to grow
Cypripedium?”

“Bound to. But you know Géraud, vain as a peacock, scoffs at anything anyone else tries. Doubt he ever believed in it.”

Until, of course
, Julian thought sourly,
I turned up with that photo.
Aloud, he said, “Thanks for telling me this, Iris. You’re a real treasure.”

She chuckled conspiratorially. “Just give the old devil what’s coming to him, all right?”

“You’re on,” he assured her.

Julian hung up with two thoughts driving everything else from his mind. First and foremost, if
Cypripedium calceolus
had been established at Les Colombes, then the plant could have mutated and the resulting flower could have been the one Bedie had photographed nineteen years ago. Second, Géraud, nobody’s fool, was, like himself, on the hunt for the Lady’s Slipper, probably closing in on it at that very moment.

A panicky urge to rush back to Les Colombes seized him, but he restrained himself. Les Colombes and the surrounding forest encompassed a large area, and he might be looking for a single plant.
If it
had survived. The logical approach would be to find out
from Jeanne de Sauvignac where she and her late father-in-law had tried to establish the
Cypripedium
rootstock. That at least would narrow the search. Assuming the woman could remember. She sounded barmy, from Mara’s description.

He took it for granted that he could count on Mara’s cooperation. She wanted to find the
Cypripedium
as much as he—for different reasons, of course. However, he was aware that a coolness had set in between them ever since that damned Alain had happened along. Julian was quite certain that she looked at him differently of late, almost as if—Well, it was past thinking. All the same, it gave him a stab of uneasiness.

He drove straight out to Ecoute-la-Pluie. There he found Mara’s front door open and the cleaning woman, a bony person named Madame Audebert, on hands and knees in the main room, vigorously waxing the floor. The smell of encaustic hung sweetly in the air. She looked up at Julian with eyes like olive pits. He asked if Mara was in.

“But her bed has not been slept in, monsieur,” Madame Audebert told him sardonically, as if to imply that, if he did not know why, then it was none of his business.

Alain, Julian, concluded wrathfully.

The
femme de ménage
added that she came at nine twice a week and let herself in with her own key. Sometimes Madame Dunn was there when she arrived and sometimes not. This time not. Regardless,
she got on with her work. She gave him an acid look.

“Oh, right—” He was about to leave her to it when he was startled by a deep bark. “Wait a minute. Is Jazz here?”

By way of answer, Madame Audebert jabbed her hairy chin in the direction of the back of the house. Julian strode across the room. Through the glass panels of the double doors, he could see the dog straining at the end of a chain, looking anxious amid the Patsy Reicher statuary.

“He hates the vacuum,” Madame Audebert muttered at his back, “so I put him in the garden. He barks a lot because he doesn’t like being tied up.” She seemed to imply that Julian should do something about it.

“Look,” Julian said, “I want to leave Mara—Madame Dunn—a message.” He peered about for something to write on. The woman was unhelpful. He settled for the back of a bill he found in his pocket. Hastily he scrawled:
Mara—where the hell are you? Call me. Urgent. Julian.

“I’ll put it here, shall I?” He placed it conspicuously on one of the Louis Something consoles.

“Comme vous voulez, monsieur.”
From the floor, Madame Audebert pursed her lips, as the French picturesquely called it,
en cul de poule.
It was a fitting description, Julian thought nastily. Her puckered mouth really did resemble a chicken’s arse.

No sooner had he returned to his van than he regretted leaving a message at all. What was the
point of waiting for Mara to take her sweet time getting back just to tell her about his discovery? Now that she was so thick with Alain, he wouldn’t put it past her to cut him out, use the son to get the information from Jeanne de Sauvignac, and try to find the
Cypripedium
herself. Just to spite him. And the damnable thing was, the bloody woman might succeed. After all, her sister had stumbled on it. His anger and his resentment mounted.

He was considering retrieving his note when another volley of barks, desperate this time, sounded from the garden. Julian hesitated, then walked around to the back of the house. Jazz, frantic with delight, lunged and scrabbled on his tether.

“Oh, all right,” Julian gave in grumpily. “But just this once.”