The room was a mess, and smelt of shaving soap, face powder and feet. There were newspapers everywhere, full ashtrays, an empty cognac bottle. Strands of Madame Chalmar's blonde hair decorated the pillow of an unmade double bed. Our search revealed a forgotten jar of Coty's face cream and a 25 centime piece with a hole in the middle, which I still have.
'I suppose they've bolted for Marseilles,' said Elizabeth, as we stared at one another dourly.
'We'll have to follow them.'
'We'd never find them.'
'We could ask at the shipping offices.'
'Really, Jim! They're not booking a Mediterranean cruise.'
I noticed a scrap of paper on the floor by the commode, which bore on its cracked marble top the ancient, decorative telephone in its spindly cradle. Pencilled in writing which I recognized as Lamartine's was _Bordeaux 45-444._
'Of course, the number could be one of his relatives, or another doctor or another girl-friend,' I suggested. 'But surely it's worth ringing, just to find out?'
'We'll have to go a little carefully, darling, with everyone utterly hysterical about spies. And even in peacetime, the telephone system was not one of the glories of France.'
We tried telephoning Bordeaux from the Perronets'. There was a six hour delay. 'I think we should go to Bordeaux,' decided Elizabeth after listening to the news bulletin on the TSF. 'The further we are from the front, the better our chance of getting home all in one piece.'
Our Bordeaux call came through. Madame at the other end announced herself to Elizabeth as the Hotel d'Avignon. Elizabeth asked for Lamartine. No, the doctor and his wife had not yet arrived. Elizabeth slammed the telephone back on its stand triumphantly. We decided to start early the following morning, a 200-mile drive without headlights along a Route Nationale Ten choked with traffic daunting even Elizabeth.
During our next day's crawling passage past garages chalked _Pas d'Essence,_ Mussolini announced from his usual perch in the Palazzo Venezia in Rome that Italy had declared war against the plutocratic and reactionary democracies of the West. And the French Government announced it was leaving Paris for Tours. At midnight, Monsieur Reynard and General de Gaulle were sharing the same car to quit Paris by the Porte de Chвtillon. On their heels came several million of their fellow Parisians. Elizabeth and I were somewhere between Poitiers and Angoulкme, a hundred miles from Bordeaux, and the car had broken down.
We pushed the car on the verge between the poplars, with a press of cars, lorries, carts, bicycles and walkers in the darkness on the cobbles behind us. The torrent which burst from Paris forced trickles along every country road in France, even those reserved as strategic highways by the Army. We decided to spend the night in the back, huddled under Elizabeth's khaki greatcoat. She discovered a month-old Times, and insisted on doing the crossword in the light of a torch.
About seven in the morning an Army lorry came hooting importantly upon us. Elizabeth leapt into the road. A pretty girl in a British uniform was sufficient to bring any military driver to a halt. Our only possessions in our pockets, we were dumped at Angoulкme station. There were still trains to Bordeaux, all arriving crammed from Paris. 'Then we shall have to travel on the buffers,' said Elizabeth, and I was not confident that she was joking.
We climbed on the train about one in the morning of Wednesday, June 11, jammed rigid in an unlit corridor. The engine puffed away from the station purposefully enough, but soon halted with screeching brakes in the black countryside. 'I do so want to leave the room,' complained Elizabeth. I thought of Lamartine, cosily in bed with Madame Chalmar.
We crossed the river Dordogne about six in the morning, and were shortly tipped relievedly into the Bordeaux railway terminus against the banks of the Garonne. Elizabeth and I had been almost isolated from news for two days, though the train was crawling with unpleasant rumours like a beleaguered trench with lice. We heard that the Germans had already smashed into Paris-which was untrue, for a couple of days. And that Mr Churchill was in France-he was, flown to Briare on the River Loire escorted by a squadron of Hurricanes, to tell the French Government at the Chвteau de Muguet firmly, even fiercely, that the RAF stayed on its airfields behind British coasts.
Lamartine's Hotel d'Avignon was between the famous Esplanade des Quinconces, leading down to the river, and the Jardin Public. It was much like the hotel he had fled. We arrived there about half past eight. The woman in black behind the reception desk telephoned my name, said D'accord' into the instrument, and told us to go up.
Lamartine was fully dressed, waiting in the open doorway of his bedroom. With a short bow, he invited us inside. It was larger than his last, with coffee-coloured wallpaper and a big brass bed. Madame Chalmar was sitting in the only chair, upright, attired as if about to grace some fashionable social function.
'Would you mind sitting on the bed?' invited Lamartine, lighting a Weekend. 'There would appear to be nowhere else.'
'Why didn't you give me that penicillin mould at Tours?' I demanded. I was angry, though biochemists are peaceable beings and I have the most placid of temperaments, for which my wife continually expresses gratitude.
'I would not seem very respectful of your intelligence, Mr Elgar, if I did not tell you bluntly that I have no intention of giving what you want.'
Madame Chalmar sat looking closely at her scarlet nails.
'You are going to give me that penicillin!' I was surprised to hear myself shouting.
'Mr Elgar, I must ask you to take a more compassionate view. My situation has changed since I talked to you last Wednesday in Tours. The situation of France has changed. Then, I was pretty certain that Brigitte and I had a clear run to Algiers. Mussolini coming into the war rather upset the…what do you upset in English, Shaw used it in a play?'
'Apple cart,' said Elizabeth.
'Exactly. So I shall stay here, with the famous mould. Mr Elgar, you would not leave me defenceless against the Gestapo? That's not very amiable of you.'
Elizabeth broke in, 'We know you're mixed up with the Croix de Feu. You can hardly wait until the Germans appear to give them your loot. They'll probably pin a medal on you.'
'I hope that mademoiselle is being more fanciful than offensive.'
This remark incited me to grab him by the lapels. 'Give me that penicillin.'
'Take away your hands! This is no way to treat a colleague-'
I shook him. I had never been so furious with anyone in my life before, apart from Elizabeth's mother. 'Merde…'He snatched himself away. Madame Chalmar gave a scream, quickly choked. Lamartine produced from his armpit a small black automatic pistol, pointing it alternately at Elizabeth and myself.
'That is certainly no _way _to treat a colleague,' I told him.
I was frightened. The experience accepted without undue consternation in films and television is in reality utterly demoralizing. It was horrifying to feel my life within a twitch of Lamartine's finger.
'Keep away from me,' he said, his voice shaky.
'I should not have expected a professional man to carry firearms,' I returned, somewhat primly.
'These are abnormal times.'
'Jim, stay where you are, don't do anything, don't move,' came Elizabeth's voice.
My brain resumed functioning. 'You don't seem to think highly of your own neck, Lamartine. If you shoot us, you'll be arrested by the nearest gendarme. You'd be guillotined.'
'The Germans will be here long before the necessary legal processes could be completed.'
'The Germans would hardly encourage Frenchmen to be murderers.'
'You may safely leave the Germans to me, Mr Elgar.' He was still pointing the pistol. It struck me that he was in fact a German spy, or at least in their pay. Then to my relief he tucked the gun back in its holster. 'I have made my point, I believe? You see that I am prepared to use bullets to protect my possessions. Now will you please leave us in peace.'