Page 90 of A Ruse of Shadows
“It’s past four o’clock in the morning,” the police chief pointed out.
“Maybe they are waiting for the darkest hours before dawn.”
The police chief shrugged, clearly not convinced. “Eh bien, we wait some more then—and you had better be right.”
Konstantin Meier left the room and found the actor in the passage. “What are you doing here? Go back upstairs. Walk some more right behind the curtain. Make sure your silhouette can be seen.”
“I’m hungry. I’ve been up all night.”
“Then go to the kitchen, eat something, take the two roast chickens to the policemen, andgo back up!”
“All right, all right,” the actor grumbled.
Konstantin Meier tried to calm himself. It was all straightforward. Someone had been troublesome for Mr. Baxter. That someone was in England—and would be punished there. But here, in Aix-en-Provence, they had a great many of her helpers, ready to storm this house to steal someone called Stephen Marbleton.
And when they did so, they would all be arrested for breaking and entering and sent to French prisons.
An excellent plan.
He hoped those two chickens would be enough to make the policemen stay until that glorious moment.
That is, if only the fools from across the street would come!
And if they didn’t, then by God, after breakfast he was going to march across the Cours Mirabeau and demand to know why they—why they hadn’t—
Except…how did one go about demanding, of complete strangers, why they had absolutely failed to trespass and commit grand larceny?
The outskirts of Paris
“Clu-cluck-cluck-cluck. Mooooooo. Cluck-cluck,” called the woman mercenary.
“Baa. Baaaaaa,” answered Mercenary Number Two, seated next to her.
This barnyard conversation had gone on for at least half an hour; Penelope barely heard it anymore. Her attention was on NumberThree, who was sliding down the banister again, for what must be the hundredth time. Not far from the staircase stood Number One, who had plucked a feather duster bare. He tossed all the feathers up and blew on them to keep them airborne, bending lower and lower until his face was nearly on the floor. Then he collected all the feathers and tirelessly started the process anew.
“Ooh la la, quel chaos,” said Madame Gascoigne, their Belgian cook, beside her, slipping back into her native French. “What did you say it was called again, mademoiselle, what young Monsieur Fontainebleu snuck into my hand before he was evicted?”
“Devil’s snare. It’s a plant from the same family as belladonna, but its toxins are deliriants. When Virginia was still a colony, soldiers in Jamestown ate the plants as greens and ended up acting like monkeys or running about naked for days on end.”
“Nobody had better run about naked in this house,” said Madame Gascoigne darkly. “Certainly not this unprepossessing lot.”
Penelope laughed, the first truly lighthearted emotion she’d felt in days.
The mercenaries had been more careful in the beginning and supervised the preparation of every meal. But after a week in the house without so much as a stomachache, they had relaxed. After ten days, they barely bothered sticking their heads into the kitchen unless it was to ask what delicious dishes Madame Gascoigne would be serving up next.
And tonight, she had put on a scrumptious late repast at ten, and by midnight Number One was crouched at the foot of the newel post, barking.
The women of the staff waited some more time before they signaled Penelope, via a lantern in the window, that she could now come back into the house.
She had to tiptoe around the three male mercenaries on all fours in the entry, sniffing one another’s behinds. Mr. Mears, released from his room, made himself presentable and immediately left to alert the police.
Knocks came at the front door. Penelope and Madame Gascoigne both froze. But it was only Mr. Mears, returning with the gendarmes.
“Oh, messieurs, thank goodness you’re here!” Penelope cried, throwing herself at the nearest officer. “You cannot believe the terror we have lived through. These three men and one womaninvadedour home. They barged in and demanded twenty-five thousand francs.
“But my aunt who owns the house is in England right now, and I couldn’t come up with that sort of money. So they settled in, these dreadful malefactors. We scarcely dared draw breaths around them.
“Then a few hours ago, they became like this.”
