Folly Du Jour

And concerned. The man kept his address a close secret and doubtless for excellent reasons. Joe had no intention of bringing danger within his orbit. He was keeping up his guard. He ambled around the square again, marking his exit, and when he was sure he was unobserved, he slipped off into the rue Mouffetard. A lamp-lighter was moving down the street creating romantic pools of light and Joe hurried to get ahead of him, hugging the shadows. He was looking for a baker’s shop. In the alleyway to the side of it he found a door which opened at his tap.

He was greeted by Bo

Sir George was sitting at a kitchen table shelling peas. He was under instruction from a middle-aged woman who, with her striking dark looks, could be no other than Bo

‘Now add the spring onions and the butter . . . more lettuce leaves on top . . . tiny drop of stock . . . don’t drown it . . . and there you are! Put it on the stove. Back burner . . . So glad to meet you at last, Commander!’ The voice from the telephone. Youthful, bossy and eager. ‘I’m ru

Madame Bo

‘Jean-Philippe! A glass of wine for the Commander! It’s one from our home village in Burgundy. We bring it back in quantities. You boys have ten minutes to exchange information before you present yourselves at table. It will be a very simple supper: I made some soup to start with, then the butcher had some excellent veal which will be good with George’s petits pois à l’étuvé, followed by cheese and, since Jean-Philippe tells me you Englishmen are fond of sweet things, I’ve got some chocolate éclairs from the pâtissier.’

Joe decided he’d died and gone to heaven and, as he’d always thought it might, heaven smelled of herb soup and rang with a woman’s laughter.

He went to sit in the small salon of the apartment with Jean-Philippe, listening to the chatter from the kitchen. George’s stately but adventurous French sentences rolled out, to be punctuated by sharp bursts of amusement and exclamation from Madame Bo

‘First things first,’ said Joe. ‘Security. I’m as sure as I can be I wasn’t followed here. You?’

‘Sure. But we mustn’t reduce the level of precaution. A message came by telephone late this afternoon. From Miss Watkins, I’m afraid. One of my staff took it down and I’ve translated it but I think it’s very clear. All too clear!’ He passed Joe a scrap of paper.

My new boyfriend very keen! He even came shopping with me. Was compelled to go on the offensive. He has a two-inch red scar on his left jaw.

Joe was aghast. He picked out the word which most alarmed him. ‘“Offensive”, she says?’

Bo

‘And the scar? I hardly dare ask!’

‘. . . was already a feature of his physiognomy before he encountered Miss Watkins.’

‘Thank goodness for that! But we should never have involved her.’

‘I agree. And it’s too late now to uninvolve her.’ Bo

‘That scar? Any use to us?’

‘Yes, could be. I’ve reported it to the division that keeps our Bertillon records. All marks of that kind are listed, classified and kept on card. If the chap has committed a crime before, his features will be on file and indexed. They ought to be able to come up with a few suggestions.

‘The thing that’s worrying me, Joe, is their apparent preoccupation with Sir G. They seem to have him in their sights. But why? Did he see something he’s not told anyone yet? Does he know something he ought not to know? You’ll have to grill him. I can’t seem to get near him. Any attempt on my part at putting a few questions gets batted aside – with the greatest good humour of course. Genial, avuncular, smelling of roses – and he’s as slippery as a bar of soap. But tell me – how did you get on with the widow?’

After a draught or two of the Chablis he was handed, Joe launched into an account of his evening.

‘She was off to Fouquet’s, eh?’ Bo

‘She told me she had no idea her husband was in Paris – they hadn’t communicated for years. And, of course, she was hundreds of miles away from the scene of the crime . . .’ Joe began dubiously.

‘Well, if your mad theory about the crime-order-catalogue business is correct, she would be. That’s the whole point of it. They have the telephone in England and the wires run as far as Paris, remember.’

‘Not sure she fits the frame,’ said Joe. ‘Glad enough, yes, to be rid of the old boy. As, indeed, might be the son I discover she has. The one who succeeds to the title. And who knows what else! We might check on him and the size and nature of his inheritance. But why would she or he or they bother with all the palaver? I mean the showmanship element? The theatre . . . the dagger. I watched her examine the knife. I’ll swear it meant nothing to her. She was curious, fascinated even in a ghoulish way, but there was no flicker of recognition. Just an element of his past life she’d rather not think about. Why didn’t they simply have him pushed under a bus or off a bridge? And why wait all these years?’

Bo

Joe raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Your first suspect?’

Jean-Philippe was suddenly grave. ‘Sir George, of course. I don’t like it any more than you do but the man’s up to his neck in whatever’s going on. You’d have to be blind not to see that.’

Joe produced the doctor’s copy of Le mort qui tue from his pocket and slapped it down on to the table between them. ‘Look at the title, Jean-Philippe. If we work with your suppositions, Sir George will die. An i