♦
At nine in the morning, Harry walked along to the duchess’s suite to tell her about Rose’s illness. The doors were all standing open and he could see hotel servants inside, clearing and cleaning.
“Where is Madame la Duchesse?” he asked.
When he was told she had left early that morning, he muttered, “Selfish old toad.”
He went down to see the manager and explained that he would need a lady of reputable standing to act as a chaperone. The manager appeared to find his request as simple as if he had ordered flowers.
Later that afternoon, he introduced Harry to a lady called Madame Bailloux. Madame Bailloux was a small, dainty Frenchwoman in her fifties with small sparkling black eyes. She said she had previously been employed as a companion to the Marquise de Graimont, who had recently died. She had excellent references. Harry told her all about Rose’s situation and said that madame would be expected to travel with them to London.
“I know London well,” she said in prettily accented English.
“Lady Rose does have a companion, a Miss Levine, but Miss Levine is young and I need someone older to act as chaperone,” said Harry.
“I will do my best. I remember seeing Dolores Duval driving her carriage in the Bois,” said Madame Bailloux. “Could she not have been the victim of some enraged lover?”
“Then why murder Madame de Peurey?”
“Because Madame de Peurey may have known the identity of this murderer. A time ago, I remember, Dolores Duval was under the protection of a certain Monsieur Thierry Clement. He manufactures cardboard boxes and things. Very rich. I am sure this hotel can furnish you with his direction. Hotels are a mine of information.”
Harry made a note of the name, thanked her and said he would arrange accommodation at the hotel for her if she could move in as soon as possible.
♦
He obtained the name of Monsieur Clement’s factory and went off with Becket, driving out through the outskirts of Paris towards Roissey. He realized as Becket drove up to the factory that possibly someone as rich as this Monsieur Clement might very well not visit his own factory but leave it all to a manager. So he was pleasantly surprised to be told that Monsieur Clement was in his office.
A small, portly man rose to meet him. “A private investigator,” he said in French.
“I am investigating the death of Dolores Duval,” began Harry. He told him the whole story and said he was searching into Dolores’s background to try to find out who might have wished to kill her.
Monsieur Clement sighed. “Poor Dolores. I was her first. I’ll never forget that day. I was walking along the ramparts of Saint Malo and there was this vision coming towards me. She was dressed like a peasant, clogs and Breton coif, but nothing could hide that beauty. I took off my hat and asked, ‘What is an angel like you doing here?’ She said she was working on a farm. I said such beauty should not be labouring. It sounds very trite now, but her beauty struck me like a thunder-bolt. I said, ‘Come away with me and you will never have to work again. You will have your own apartment in Paris.’
“She grinned like an urchin and said, ‘Very well, I will meet you here in an hour.’
“We had a happy time. Madame de Peurey got her claws into her and the next thing I knew, I had to go to a lawyer’s office and sign papers, promising all sorts of things – jewels, a carriage, a better apartment. But a year later, she left me for another wealthy manufacturer, and so it went on. I think Baron Chevenix was the last.”
“When you met her in Saint Malo, what name did she give you?”
“Dolores Duval, of course.”
“At the farm where she worked, she was known as Betty.”
“They have terribly strong accents in Brittany, not to mention their own patois. But once when we were talking of London, she seemed to know it very well. I asked if she was English and she looked alarmed and said she was French.”
“Did she have any particular friends?”
“Apart from the terrible Madame de Peurey, no, not while she was with me.”
Harry asked him to telephone the Crillon if he could think of anything else.
♦
When he arrived back and went to Rose’s room it was to find that her fever had broken and she was asleep. He drew Daisy out of the room and told her about the chaperone.
“I am going to see Lemonier,” he said. “I feel the answer to Dolores’s murder lies in England.”
∨ Our Lady of Pain ∧
Seven
And (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry; – and upon thy sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob’s ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.
– Francis Thompson
Daisy began to feel better as the days passed and Rose regained her strength. Madame Bailloux turned out not to be the formidable dragon that Daisy had feared, but light-hearted and amusing. She set to teaching Daisy to speak French. She told Rose that the very thing to complete her recovery would be a gown made by the famous French couturier Paul Poiret. Paul Poiret, she said, despised the fashion for light colours. He damned them as “nuances of nymphs’ thighs, lilacs, swooning mauves, tender blue hortensias, niles, maizes, straws: all that was soft, washed-out and insipid.”
Daisy’s romance with Becket had come to an abrupt halt. Harry was out frequently with Becket, travelling to and from police headquarters, hoping all the while that Rose’s attacker had been found.
In the evening, Harry and Becket walked up and down outside the front of the hotel, watching the passers-by, looking all the while for anyone sinister. One evening a young man in a tweed jacket, knickerbockers and goggles cycled slowly past, staring at the hotel. Harry and Becket gave chase, halting the cyclist and demanding to know who he was.
He told them rudely to mind their own business. He was English. Harry summoned a policeman and the unfortunate young man was dragged off for interrogation. He turned out to be an Oxford student, with impeccable credentials, on a cycling holiday.
Lemonier suggested curtly to Harry that he should leave investigating to the French police in future.
As soon as Rose was fully recovered, Harry said they must leave for London. He turned down Madame Bailloux’s suggestion that they should wait a further few days until Rose had ordered a Paris gown. The bags, trunks, and hatboxes were all packed. The French lady’s maid who had been hired by the duchess had disappeared as soon as the duchess had left.
They took the train to Calais and then embarked on the steamer. Daisy was relieved that the Channel was calm. Then at Dover, another train and carriages to the Earl of Hadshire’s town house.
Fortunately, Matthew Jarvis was in residence, along with the housekeeper and staff; Brum, the butler, had gone abroad with the earl and countess. A guest room was prepared for Madame Bailloux.
The first thing Daisy did as soon as she was settled was to go upstairs to Miss Friendly’s workroom. It was empty of work basket and material. Only the sewing machine remained.
She rushed to Miss Friendly’s bedroom to find it bare, with the bed stripped. Alarmed, Daisy sought out Matthew and demanded to know what had happened to Miss Friendly.
“Miss Friendly resigned while you were away,” said Matthew. “She came into an inheritance and has left to set up a dress salon with Mr Marshall, who worked for the captain.”
Daisy felt her dreams collapse. What on earth were she and Becket to do now? But there was worse to come.
♦
“I feel we should call a doctor for Miss Levine,” said Rose to Madame Bailloux. “She was very sick this morning.”