Belle - Lesley Pearse [190]
As he stepped down from the fiacre and paid the driver off, it occurred to him that the task he’d set himself was going to be harder than he had first imagined. He hadn’t been to this area of Paris for some years, and there seemed to be a great many more hotels than he remembered. He also had no idea which ones were the most fashionable now. Back in the days when he’d gone into hotels to rob the rich of their jewellery and money, there had only been a choice of about ten or so. But a great deal of building and refurbishment had been done for the Exposition Universelle in 1900 – as he recalled, the Gare de Lyon was built for it, and also the first Métropolitain train.
He walked quickly, passing by hotels and glancing in, noting the quality of the clothes and luggage of people getting out of carriages and cabs. He wasn’t going to waste his time with hotels whose guests were mainly tourists; it was the select, discreet and expensive places he was interested in checking.
The first one he went into, the Elysée, fitted those criteria. Potted bay trees flanked the mahogany double doors with shiny brass fittings which were opened by a footman in green and gold livery.
Etienne walked across a white marble floor to the reception desk and smiled at the earnest-looking clerk with horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘Could you tell me the name of your concierge? A colleague of mine said he’d leave a parcel for me with him, but I’m not sure if I have the right hotel,’ he said.
‘We have two,’ the clerk replied. ‘Monsieur Flambert and Monsieur Annily. Flambert is on duty now, he may be able to help you even if this isn’t the right hotel.’ He pointed out the concierge’s desk across the other side of the lobby where a couple of guests were talking to the man.
Neither man had the right initials, but Etienne asked if a Monsieur Le Brun was staying at the hotel. The clerk checked the register and said there was no one of that name staying now.
Etienne then asked the clerk the names of other good hotels he could try. The clerk reeled off names – some were close by, others further afield, but he helpfully marked them on a street map, and even volunteered to give Etienne their telephone numbers.
One by one, Etienne called at all the hotels, but in each case there was no one with the right initials, nor was Le Brun staying there. He made a note of each one he’d tried, with the concierge’s name beside it.
By eleven o’clock he was beginning to think that it might not be a concierge he was looking for but a hotel manager, even though he knew they were usually above making assignations for their guests. There was only the Ritz left to check now, and he didn’t hold out much hope that the most prestigious hotel in Paris would have a man working for them who would risk being involved in anything so shady. He was also wary of even going in, for it had once been his favourite place to rob people of their money and jewellery, and the last time he’d gone there he’d been interrupted by a chambermaid coming into the room to turn down the bed. He’d fled past her and ran down the back stairs, leaving by the back door with someone in hot pursuit. He wasn’t caught, of course – in those days he could run like the wind and scale walls effortlessly. But he’d never dared go back there for fear his luck would run out. However, he reasoned with himself that it was unlikely that anyone who had been working there sixteen years ago would remember a chambermaid’s description of a skinny, shabbily dressed young lad she’d surprised robbing one of their guests.
He stood for a few minutes in the Place Vendôme looking at the Ritz and tried to imagine the Belle he’d got to know so well plucking up the courage to go into such a grand hotel. But reminding himself that he’d dared to rob people there, and Belle wasn’t lacking in spirit, he went in to ask about his fictitious parcel.
And he was told the concierge’s name was Monsieur Edouard Pascal.
E.B. It had to be him.
‘But