Folly Du Jour - Barbara Cleverly [3]
‘Linen. Mummy bandage,’ said someone in the crowd.
Another voice specified: ‘Ancient mummy bandage.’
‘Well – it’s outdated rubbish,’ drawled the Englishman standing in front of Harland, to his neighbour, ‘what else would we expect the dear professor to spew forth? Let’s just hope they won’t feel obliged to check the other orifices. I, for one, should have to leave.’
A waft of some sweet, spicy scent began to wind its way through the crowd. The inside of his grandpa’s old cigar box? Cloves? Cinnamon? Myrrh? What did myrrh smell like? Just like this, Harland imagined. His memory, triggered, went off with a bang. His mother’s apple pie! Suddenly uncomfortable, he reached into his pocket for his handkerchief.
A small gold object fell from the now bloodstained bandage and landed with a tinkle on the marble at the foot of the Chief Egyptologist. He didn’t hesitate. He picked it up and held it aloft between thumb and forefinger. ‘Gentlemen. I think we all recognize the ugly, dog-headed god of Egypt?’ he announced. His arched eyebrows, quizzical, superior, assumed a special knowledge in his audience. He could have been taking class.
Harland itched to put up his hand. ‘It’s Anubis,’ he whispered to May. He knew two Egyptian gods. Ra was the other one.
Maybelle didn’t even hear his mistake. She was staring at the gold trinket. She had turned very pale. ‘Set! It’s Set!’ she hissed in Harland’s ear. ‘I don’t like it here. I don’t like these people. It’s crowded, it’s creepy and it’s making me nauseous. Get me out, Harland, or your wing-tips really will suffer!’
Serious efforts were made to bar their way. The policeman’s hand went to his holster. Orders were yelled in several languages. But Sergeant Harland C. White, survivor of Belleau Wood, supporting his wife with one arm, extended the other, stuck out his jaw and charged for the door.
Out in the main corridor and sounds of pursuit fading, they encountered two newsmen carrying cameras armed with those new-fangled exploding light bulb devices. They were looking about them eagerly.
‘Show’s back there,’ said Harland, nodding over his shoulder. ‘Better hurry, you guys. You’ve missed the first act.’
Chapter One
Paris, 21st May 1927
‘I know monsieur will have a most enjoyable evening.’
The young woman who’d shown him to his seat offered him a smile at once shy and knowing. She held out her hand for his tip and slipped it swiftly away with a murmured word of thanks. The solitary Englishman hesitated, eyeing the pair of gilt chairs snuggling cosily together in the empty box with sudden misgiving.
‘Mademoiselle!’
He detained her with his call as she turned to dart away and offered his ticket stub again for her inspection. ‘Some mistake, I think?’
The girl took the ticket and looked with exaggerated care at the number. She was an ouvreuse – yes, that’s what they called them over here, he remembered. Though what they actually ‘opened’ was a mystery to the Englishman . . . unless you counted the opening of those little bags into which their conjurer’s fingers made the notes and coins disappear.
‘No, there is no mistake, monsieur. This is indeed your box number.’ She tilted her head and the smile appeared again, this time without the softening element of shyness. ‘You have the best seat in the house.’ Her eye ran over the handsome features, the imposing figure, taking in the evening dress, correct and well-cut. She remembered his generosity and paused in her scurrying to cast a glance, amused and complicitous at the second chair. ‘A little patience!’ she teased. ‘I’m sure it will not be long before monsieur has company.’ She took the time to add: ‘There are ten minutes to go before the curtain rises. And it is no longer fashionable to be late. Certainly not for this show.’
She whisked away in a flutter of black silk and a tantalizing trace of rather good perfume, leaving Sir George Jardine standing about in something of a quandary.
He had an increasing feeling of unease. He was displaced. He ought not to be here. But the momentary touch of