With a nice red ribbon across his shirt front he could have walked on to any stage in the role of the French Ambassador, and he wouldn't even have had to change his name for the part. It was the Marquis de Grasse.'
Molly nearly dropped her glass, and her mouth fell open. Then she gave a cry of consternation. `Oh, Johnny! What can be at the bottom of all this? De Grasse is one of the most evil men in France.'
5
Battle of Flowers and Battle of Wits
John knew about his mother's work in the war at least he thought he did. All she had ever told him was that her fluent French had secured her an interesting job as a secretary, and that later she had acted as P.A. to one of the senior officers of a department of the War Office situated in Baker Street. Since the war he had run across several people who had been connected with the same office, and from odd scraps of information they had dropped he had formed a pretty shrewd idea of the activities in which they had been engaged. Those who knew his mother spoke most highly of her, and the association had led him to believe that she too had actively participated in all sorts of cloak and dagger business designed to bring alarm and despondency to the enemy.
The belief was strengthened by the fact that she still kept a private armoury, consisting of two pistols and a number of other lethal weapons. She had often assured him that her `museum', as she called it, had been acquired only because such things had always fascinated her and, in addition, helped her to describe accurately the use to which they could be put when writing scenes of violence in her books. In this she was speaking the entire truth. Much as she would have liked to try some 'of them out, she had never used any of them. Neither had she ever been in the least danger, except during air raids, as her work had lain inside the office, helping to direct the activities of others. Nevertheless, it had given her an exceedingly wide knowledge of the French Resistance, secret agents, collaborators and the crooks who were mixed up with them.
After a moment he said, `I suppose you ran up against the Marquis when you were doing your stuff as Molly Polloffski, the beautiful spy?'
`No, Johnny. I've told you hundreds of times that there was nothing the least glamorous about my job; and I've never met de Grasse. But I know plenty about him.'
`There was a chap of that name up at Cambridge when I was there. I knew him slightly, but he went down at the end of my first year.'
She nodded. `That would have been the son, Count Jules de Grasse. His father is as slippery as they make 'em. In the war he was far sighted enough to back both sides; and his having sent his boy to school in England in 1940 went a long way towards saving him from a heavy sentence of imprisonment when the French began to catch up with collaborators after the liberation. He had been in it up to the neck with the Germans, but was able to produce that card as evidence that he had always thought and hoped that the Allies would win; then plead that he had done no more to help the Germans than thousands of other patriotic Frenchmen had been compelled to do as the only alternative to having their businesses taken from them. Of course, we knew that wasn't true, but he is immensely rich and money talks in France with a louder tongue than in most countries. His story about his son proved a good enough peg on which to hang a pardon, so he was able
to bribe his way out, and he got off scot free.'
`What was his business?'
`He is ostensibly a respectable shipping magnate; but that covers a multitude of sins. We had plenty of proof on our files that he used his ships for running every sort of contraband. Before the war he used to specialize in dope and white slaving; but more recently, I understand, he has concentrated on smuggling Jews out to Palestine, and arms to anyone in the Near East who wants to make trouble for us.'
`How do you know that, Mumsie?'
Molly coloured slightly. `Oh, sometimes friends who
worked with me in the old firm come out here, and we talk of this and that.'
He laughed. `Boys and girls who are still in it, eh? I've always suspected that they kept you on unofficially to tip them off about anything you might tumble to in their line that was going on down here.'
`Johnny, you do get the silliest ideas. The department I worked for was wound up soon after the war ended.'
`Maybe; but there are others: for example, your old friend Conky Bill's outfit. I know he pretends to be only a sort of policeman whose job it is to hunt out Communists; but like this shipping racket I bet it covers his poking that big nose of his into a multitude of other dubious goings on.'
`And if you don't keep your nose out of other people's business you may one day get it chopped off,' retorted Molly aptly.
`Touché!' he grinned. `Let's get back to the wicked Marquis, then. What else do you know about him?'
`His headquarters used to be at St. Tropez. The choice was appropriate, as before the war it had the most evil reputation of any town west of Suez. Every vice racket flourished there. At night, down by the port, it was dangerous for decent people; and your father would not allow me to leave him to do even ten minutes' shopping on my own there in the middle of the day.'
`Really! On the few occasions I've been there I've never noticed anything peculiar about it.'
`You wouldn't, now. The Germans, and later the French, have cleaned it up a lot since then. But I am told that de Grasse still spends quite a lot of his time there.'
`He is living there at present. He told Christina so. He and his wife have a permanent private suite at the Capricorn. You know, that big modern hotel that overlooks the bay from the high ground to the right of the road, just before you enter the town. On learning that Christina had never been to St. Tropez, he said that his wife loved entertaining young people, and offered to send a car to fetch her if she could lunch with them to day.'
Molly set down her glass with a bang. `I hope to goodness she refused?'
'No: she accepted. It is only in the day time that she seems to shy off any suggestion that she should go out; but of course she may have changed her mind this morning.'
`I'm afraid not. I had to go into St. Raphael earlier to do some shopping, and I got back only just before you came down. I remember now noticing that she was not on her terrace when I drove past it, and she always is at that hour. If you were very late getting in she may still have been sleeping, but ... Oh, Johnny, run round next door and make certain.'
Seven or eight minutes elapsed before John returned, panting slightly. He spread out his hands. `No dice, dearest. She was called for around twelve by a chap a few years older than myself. From the rather sketchy description which was all I could get out of her old Catalan woman, it might have been Jules de Grasse. Evidently she had changed her mind about going, though, and did not mean to, as she wasn't dressed ready to go out. It seems that they had quite an argument before she went upstairs and changed her clothes. It was close on half past when they left; so you must have passed them on your way back.'
Standing up, Molly helped herself to a cigarette. When John had lit it for her she drew hard for a moment, before she said, `I do hope she will be all right. I don't like this new development a little bit. I wish to goodness there was something we could do to ensure her getting safely out of the clutches of those people.'
John shrugged. `We certainly can't arm ourselves from your museum, give chase, and do a “stand and deliver” on the de Grasses to get her back if that is the sort of move your agile mind is beginning to toy with. They are not the Germans and there's no longer a war on; so snap out of it, Mumsie. She went off in broad daylight of her own free will, and judging by the form last night she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself:'
`You did make a pass at her, then?'
`Well, not exactly. She made it quite clear that she expected me to say good night to her in the orthodox manner. And, although she said afterwards that it was the first time she had been kissed by a man, she took to it like a duck to water. If it hadn't been that she didn't seem to know the opening moves of the game I certainly wouldn't have believed her, and I still have my doubts about it. But it wasn't of that sort of thing that I was thinking. I meant in her general behaviour; and particularly at the Casino, she undoubtedly had all her wits about her.'