Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night

He was too late-at least, too late to halt the explosion.

Echoing down the long gallery of mirrors and many-paned windows that led from the library came a piercing shriek that had emanated from within the salon. Franklin knew it could only be A

"O, mon Dieu, ou est Franklin? Et qui sont ces dames-ld?"

A bit more commotion from within-raised voices, the sound of a door opened and banged shut, then a moment of silence. Franklin stepped up his painful gait along the corridor. All at once, A

Grasping her by the arms, Franklin said, "My beloved friend…" But then he caught a whiff of her. "What is that interesting aroma-a new eau de parfum?"

Helvetius glared up at him in fury.

"My milkmaid's dress! I am en camouflage!" she said, trying to keep her voice down. "That cafard of a mule. I have been on his back for hours. And now this-a roomful of women. You never entertain so early-and so many guests! I do not wish to intrude, but this is of great urgency, mon ami."

"Au contraire, my beloved madame," Franklin assured her, "you're always a welcome guest. I pray you'll join us for an early di

"Canaille!" cried Mme Helvetius, stamping her foot.

"Madame! Your language!" Franklin cautioned with a saucy grin.

With her next words, he looked as though he'd been seized with an attack of kidney stones, on top of the gout.

"Faites attention!" she told Franklin, sotto voce, lest prying ears overhear: "Le message est arrive!"

"The message!" he nearly cried aloud. "Then we should not be seen here."

Just then came the distant sound of the library door closing, followed by clicking footsteps approaching.

"My colleagues arrive," whispered Franklin. "What is the message?"

"C'est encode!" Mme Helvetius whispered back, her silvery eyes enormous.

"Of course it's encoded!" snapped Franklin, pulling in irritation at the long tail of his own hair that clung to his shoulder.

"What is it?"

When A

"'Frere Jacques,'" Mme Helvetius whispered.

The silence was broken only by the footsteps approaching the corner, where they would soon be exposed, huddled together here in the open hall.

"A name?" Franklin whispered back. "No other clue? Just 'Brother Jacques'?"

"Non, non, mon ami," she breathed in impatience. "C'est une chanson!"

"A song is the message?" said Franklin in confusion. But when Mme Helvetius hummed the first notes under her breath, he said, "Ah, I see-very clever!" With a quick pat on her rump, he said, "Make haste. To the salon, by the far door. I shall join you."

In swift comprehension, she vanished into the east hall just a moment before Adams and Jefferson rounded the corner. With his colleagues close at heel, Franklin entered the salon just as Mme Helvetius appeared breathlessly through a door at the opposite side of the crowded room. All the guests and family members turned to greet Franklin. Though his own heart was beating like a Mohican drum, he shot Mme Helvetius a confident smile across the room. He knew exactly what he must do.

12:00 noon

Le Valentinois

Benjamin Franklin looked around the table at the assorted group who had collected, as customary, for the seven-course afternoon repast at the expense of his host. Today it was a few hours early-but then, time was of the essence, was it not?

Here at the table were those who would soon represent the past: the owner of this magnificent chateau, the pudgy millionaire Donatien le Ray de Chaumont, who had an ax to grind: he was still outraged with the American Congress, which had never paid his bills to supply arms for the Revolution. Beside Chaumont, his attractive wife-the mistress, some said (de temps en temps) of the naval hero John Paul Jones. Then the revolutionary playwright Beaumarchais, author of huge hits, The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville, a man who had run more munitions into the British colonies than any other, in aid of the revolution. Mme Helvetius was seated between Franklin himself and John Adams, with Abigail at Adams's far side-looking a

Thomas Jefferson sat at the side of the table that Franklin viewed as the future. Beside Jefferson was young John Quincy Adams, seventeen, who seemed to dote on the Virginian's each word. Quincy's sister, Abigail the younger-Nabby Adams- who at age nineteen seemed to have captivated Franklin's twenty-two-year-old grandson, Temple. And Be

After the soup course had been served and the servants had departed, Franklin a

Mme Helvetius shot Franklin a steely sideways glance. Then, unilaterally changing the subject, she picked up her spoon with a charming smile, removed a bit of crayfish from her bowl and deposited it on her plate.

"This month does not have an R," she informed the group. "One should never eat les crustaces in months spelled without R-they may contain poison."

"But, Grandfather," said Be

"I have reason, my child, to believe precisely that," Franklin assured his grandson. "In support of this view, I must mention that I have recently received an encrypted message."

He paused, for Mme Helvetius was choking on her soup; Chaumont dashed around the table with some Madeira from the sideboard, and poured it into her glass. She swilled down several large gulps-more than the Adamses had ever seen a woman put away at one sitting. When things had calmed a bit, John Quincy Adams chimed in, "Dr. Franklin, we all realize that an encrypted message must be held in the greatest secrecy. Especially if it might pertain-as you seem to believe-to someone in this room. I confess I am fascinated with codes. And Mr. Jefferson here, like you, is an expert of sorts. He has promised to help train me in the basic ideas while my family and I are in France. I'd be glad if you could tell us only two things. How did you know that the message was encrypted? And have you been able to decipher what it means?"

Franklin was wolfing down his crayfish soup with gusto- with seeming disregard for whether the month was spelled with an R or not-also disregarding his painful gout and kidney stones, which he referred to as his "Grit and Gravel."

"Your first and second questions both have the same reply," Franklin said, setting his spoon aside from his empty bowl. "I knew it was encrypted, and I know what it means because I have the key!"

There was much commotion, which afforded Mme Helvetius the opportunity to give Franklin a healthy poke in the ribs. As he leaned to peck her cheek, he whispered, "Say nothing at all- the game has just begun." She lapsed into silence.

"Today is a Tuesday," Franklin said. "As many of you know, Mme Helvetius, who sits by my side, for decades held philosophical salons on that day with her husband in their Paris mansion. You may also know that Madame is the founding sponsor of an elite lodge of Freemasons, here in France, known as the Loge des Neuf Soeurs. This club, of which I am an initiate and twice a grandmaster, also meets on Tuesdays, and continues to perform many useful services for our United States. What significance can we assign to this day of the week?"