Folly Du Jour(88)

Alice bent and fished about in her bag. ‘Here. Take this. It’s only a .22 but it’s a little more effective than pointing a wagging finger.’

He took it warily, resting it along his thigh between them, finger on the trigger.

‘You make me nervous, Alice,’ he said finally. ‘As nervous as you made Sir George on Saturday night at the theatre? And for the same reason perhaps? I’m afraid for my life. Should I be afraid for my life? What are your instructions this time? The same as last? Kill the Englishman?’

She looked at him, eyes darkening with suspicion inside her silk hood. ‘What on earth do you mean?’

‘I mean that I know, Alice. I know that you’d gone to the theatre that night, not for the pleasure of seeing Sir George again, but to kill him.’





Chapter Twenty-Three


‘To kill him. At the very least, to participate in his killing.’

She swallowed but remained silent, still staring through the windows.

‘Sir Stanley Somerton was never the target, was he? His death has brought freedom, much relief and even unholy joy to a good number of people but it was never intended, was it? No one put cash in an envelope and asked for him to die? Am I getting this right, Alice?’

She nodded her head. ‘As usual.’

‘Do you want to know how I guessed?’

‘No. Not particularly. I assume you to be omniscient.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you anyway. Because I shall enjoy the satisfaction of making you and your filthy organization aware that you’ve been tripped up by no more than a couple of bystanders, neither of them connected in any way to the murder that went wrong but both sharp-eyed, observing accurately and passing on their observations to those who could make sense of them.’

Alice appeared not to be listening. ‘Where’s your friend? God! Now where’s he off to? Do we have to wait for him?’

‘The star of the show, Miss Josephine Baker,’ Joe pushed on, ‘was kind enough to grant us an interview. She’s a responsive girl who feeds off her audience, is aware of them and their moods. She remembers that evening particularly because the routine was broken. Lindbergh flew in and she took it upon herself, being from St Louis, to invite the audience to celebrate with her. She was aware of you, Alice, and your young employee in Somerton’s box. She was aware enough of the two men to tell me the boxes were a mirror image of each other. Two elderly gents, two blonde young women with them. She didn’t even know which man had died. Left or right, they were much the same to her. It made no difference to the star but it was life or death for one of those men. And then it struck me. For me, the kaleidoscope suddenly shifted and settled into a different pattern when she said that.

‘And, taken with the strange behaviour of Somerton, the behaviour reported both by Sir George and by a treacherous school friend of his who happened to be in the audience, it all began to pull together. They said the same thing. George, compassionate man that he is, attempted in the only way open to him to ensure – not the virtue – but the well-being of your little tart across the way. Before the show started and you showed up, he got to his feet and in soldier’s hand language told Somerton to back off. “Or else!” he added. Accompanying his threat by a very familiar gesture. This!’

Joe performed the slow dragging of the index finger across the throat.

‘George was relieved to see his old enemy signal: “Message received and understood.” He was puzzled, though not disturbed, by the man’s further reaction. He fell about laughing. The witness in the stalls, Wilberforce Jennings, told us that Somerton “damn near slapped his thigh, he thought it so funny . . .”

‘And it was funny. In the circumstances. Very. Ironic might be a more accurate word as no one but Somerton would have been genuinely amused by the gesture. Because George was the one who was supposed to die and in exactly the way he’d mimed – by the slicing of a dagger across his throat. And the man who supplied the dagger, chose the killing place and the time, and paid for the assassination show was Somerton himself. George’s prophetic gesture added to the gaiety! The cherry in the cocktail!’

Joe didn’t care that she was barely listening to him. His outrage pushed him to try to make an impression, to make her admit an understanding. Regret and shame were out of the question, he supposed.

‘The vile Somerton discovered that Jardine, the man who’d disgraced him and ruined his life – as he saw it – was to be in Paris at the same time as himself. He wanted the satisfaction of watching while his old enemy was filleted in front of his eyes. But a solitary viewing is not an entirely satisfactory experience for a man like Somerton. He wanted to share it. He arranged to be seen, flaunting female company of the choicest kind, knowing that this would annoy Sir George. And he intended that his companion should join him in witnessing a real-life bit of theatre.’