Belle - Lesley Pearse [196]
‘Yes, I’ll tell you on the way there how we are going to play this,’ Etienne said as he hailed a cab.
*
Noah entered Le Dôme feeling decidedly nervous. He’d left Etienne further down the street.
There were only about ten people in the café, mostly men in twos and threes. One man was sitting alone at a table in the window reading a newspaper. Noah took the table next to him and while pretending to consult his diary glanced surreptitiously at his neighbour.
He was big, as tall as Noah, and well built, with the kind of ruddy face of a man who ate rather too well. The waistcoat clearly visible beneath his dark, impeccably tailored jacket was emerald green embroidered with silver thread. It seemed to match what Fritz had said about the man being larger than life. Noah watched and listened as he greeted another man at the back of the café. Noah guessed from odd words he understood that it was some light-hearted banter about a recent event. He liked the man’s deep, throaty laugh, he seemed very amiable.
Noah ordered his coffee and leaned towards his neighbour. ‘Excusez-moi. Etes-vous Monsieur Le Brun?’
‘Je suis en effet,’ he replied, and smiled. ‘You are?’
‘Noah Bayliss and I’m sorry, I speak very little French.’
‘All the English do,’ he responded with a belly laugh. ‘But I like to practise my English, so that is good.’
‘Could I share your table?’ Noah asked. ‘I have things I wish to ask you.’
The man indicated that was fine, but his expression had tightened a little, as if he was apprehensive at being questioned.
Noah moved to Le Brun’s table, then, to try to put him at his ease, asked him which restaurant he would recommend where Noah could take a young lady he wanted to impress.
This seemed to do the trick. Le Brun suggested that if he wanted to splash out, Le Grand Vefour was where Napoleon used to take Josephine, and the food was exquisite. He went on then to tell him a few other places which were less expensive but good, one of his own restaurants among them. Noah wrote the names down in his diary.
Le Brun asked him if he was on holiday in Paris, and then Noah took a deep breath and said that actually he’d come to try to find the daughter of one of his friends.
‘I had an address of the hotel she’d been staying at, but she has disappeared,’ he said. ‘It’s very strange as she left all her belongings behind. That isn’t like Belle at all. I’m getting worried now.’
He watched the man’s face, hoping that dropping her name would make him react, and he wasn’t disappointed.
‘Belle?’ Le Brun said, his eyes widening. ‘I know someone of that name.’
In Noah’s time as a journalist and investigator for an insurance company he had become astute at gauging the truthful and the dishonest. This man might be a philanderer, but he wasn’t a deceiver.
‘You do? What does she look like?’ he asked, leaning forward eagerly.
‘Like her name, beautiful with dark curly hair. But the name is just coincidence for this girl is a fille de joie.’
Noah’s heart raced.
‘You understand that expression?’ Le Brun asked a little anxiously.
Noah nodded. He didn’t reply immediately as he needed time to plan his answer.
‘I have every reason to believe that’s exactly what our Belle is,’ he said quietly. ‘You see, she was abducted from London two years ago, and myself and her family have been searching for her ever since. We feared she was dead, but then I got a telegram telling me she was here in Paris. I arrived too late though, she had disappeared.’
‘Mon Dieu!’ Le Brun exclaimed and his face had become less ruddy. ‘I spent the evening with her just ten days ago. I hoped to see her again soon, she is very –’. He stopped short, and Noah knew he’d suddenly realized this meeting was not pure chance.
‘Yes, I know, I found a note in her room from the man who makes her bookings,’ Noah said. ‘Forgive me if I have been underhand, but I’m sure you can appreciate I had to tread carefully. You see, that note said she was to meet you in Montmartre. Her landlady said she was excited to