Folly Du Jour - Barbara Cleverly [0]
Also by Barbara Cleverly
The Last Kashmiri Rose 2001
Ragtime in Simla 2002
The Damascened Blade 2003
The Palace Tiger 2004
The Bee’s Kiss 2005
Tug of War 2006
FOLLY DU JOUR
Barbara Cleverly
Constable & Robinson Ltd
3 The Lanchesters
162 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 9ER
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Constable,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2007
Copyright © Barbara Cleverly 2007
The right of Barbara Cleverly to be identified as the author of this work has been identified by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication
Data is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-84529-528-8
Printed and bound in the EU
For my son Steve
with many thanks for his help,
and for Gary
whose enthusiasm for the Paris Music Hall was inspiring.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Prologue
Paris, 1923
Harland C. White of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania shuffled resentfully after his wife, May, through the Egyptian rooms in the Louvre museum. One vaulted stone room after another. You could lose yourself in here. Or lose your mind. He wondered whether this was a good moment to suggest they go for tea on the new roof terrace over the Samaritaine store.
‘Say! May!’ he called after her. ‘This is the fourth roomful of sarcophaguses – okay, then, sarcophageeee – we’ve done. How many more?’
They’d had lunch at Ciro’s. The food and wine had made him sleepy, the size of the check had made him grouchy. $1.00 for a slice of melon? $2.25 for a Baby Lobster? Still, lunch at Ciro’s was on his schedule. You couldn’t go home and not say you’d lunched at Ciro’s. Had to be done. Same thing, apparently, with the Louvre.
Maybelle (May, since she’d discovered all the girls over here had short names . . . though it didn’t have quite the kick of Zizi or Lulu or Kiki) had come to a halt in front of a huge, dark-painted coffin box and was doing that thing with her hands . . . Tracing the shapes in the air – hieroglyphs, she called them – and silently mouthing the sounds that went with them. Clever girl, May! She’d been to classes. She’d grown chummy with the arty folks at the State Museum. She’d gotten hold of a book called The Mummy by some feller called Wallis Budge and had learned – or so she told him . . . what would he know? – to read the sounds out loud. She’d tried to teach Harland to do it but his attention had faded after he’d mastered ‘Tut – ankh – amen.’
‘Come look, Harland! This one’s kind of special and I can work out the name of the occupant.’
His friends at the Country Club – swell blokes every last one of ’em – had been full of good advice: ‘So, you’re going to Paris? Peppy Paree! Ah! It’s the top of the beanstalk – you’ll just love it. Give my regards to Harry . . . and Henry . . . and Bud at the Dead Rat . . . and Joe Zelli – now he’s a real live wire!’
Two days down and all he’d met were three-thousand-year-old guys who lived in boxes. And here was another introduction coming up.
‘Kham – nut – see,’ said May.
‘I’m looking, I’m looking!’ he said, trying to lighten the gloom.
‘Chump! That’s his name. Kham – nut – see,’ she intoned again. ‘High