The Deadly Dance - M. C. Beaton [68]
Phyllis, Jean-Paul and Charles proceeded to chat in French while Agatha sat in a sullen, worried silence.
When they at last said goodbye, Charles suggested that as their plane wasn’t until the morning, they might as well take a walk along the Seine and visit Notre Dame.
“Seen it,” said Agatha crossly.
“Well, see it again.”
They turned off Place Maubert and down Rue Frederic Sau-ton. “Oh, look,” said Charles. “There’s an AA office, right across the road from that Lebanese restaurant. Shall I ask there? I mean, Phyllis only goes to English-speaking meetings.”
“If we must,” sighed Agatha. “But I’m beginning to feel very silly. I mean, why would he get a drunk to impersonate him when he could possibly have found someone sober?”
“Maybe it was hard to find someone sober who looked like him.”
Charles pressed the bell and spoke into the intercom and they were buzzed in. Agatha sank down onto a chair and stared numbly into space while Charles rattled away in French.
And then she noticed that Charles was beginning to look excited. She straightened up. “What’s going on? What’s he saying?”
“Listen to this one, Aggie. There’s a clochard—you know, a drunk—who passes his time with the other drunks by the fountain on Place Maubert. Sometimes he’s sober, sometimes not. He’s usually there in the evenings. His nickname is Milord. He has white hair and blue eyes. He occasionally comes down to this office, swearing he wants to get sober, but he never manages it.”
“Do you think he could have managed it for long enough to keep up a pretence?”
Charles spoke in French again. When he heard the reply, he turned to Agatha. “They say he might if there was enough money in it for him.”
When they left, they were both too excited to do anything other than go to the Metro brasserie, which had outside tables facing the fountain, and wait.
They waited and waited. They could hear the great bells of Notre Dame beginning to chime at five-thirty. The brasserie began to fill up and people dropped in for coffee on their road home from work. There were still plenty of tourists around. Cycling tours glided past and then roller-blading tours. Around them, American, Dutch and German voices mingled with the French ones.
As dusk fell, several drunks could be seen sitting at the fountain, some with their worldly goods in shopping carts, others with their dogs.
And then they saw a white-haired man approaching. He sat down on the edge of the fountain and pulled a bottle from the ragged pocket of his jacket and took a swig.
Charles paid the bill and they got up and approached him.
Charles began to speak while Agatha’s heart beat faster. Milord had the same blue eyes and white hair, though his once-handsome face was marred with red veins. Charles turned to Agatha. “He says he’ll sober up for money,” he said. “He’s called Luke.”
“Do anything for money,” said Luke in perfect English.
“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” said Agatha. “Let’s go somewhere quiet. Are you very drunk?”
“Not yet,” said Luke amiably. “Just woke up.”
“We’ll head down to the Seine,” said Charles, “and sit down by the river.”
They went down to the river and walked down the steps and sat on a bench facing the floodlit bulk of Notre Dame.
“How much?” asked Luke.
Agatha thought quickly. “One hundred euros.”
He shrugged. “I got a thousand from the other one.”
Agatha had collected exactly a thousand euros from a post office on her road to Birmingham Airport. She had spent some of it but knew she could get more with one of her bank cards at a cash-dispensing machine.
“All right,” she said. “But you’ve got to make a statement to the police.”
“No, that’s out.”
“Look, tell us the story. I don’t think you’ve anything to fear from the police. I mean, he didn’t say, ’Impersonate me while I go and murder my wife,’ did he?”
“No, he said it was a joke, that was all.”
“Then you have nothing to fear. One thousand euros.”
There was a long silence. A bateau mouche sailed past, lighting up their faces and turning the plane trees on the quay