To Catch a Thief Page 14

  It left three sides to watch. His own preference would have been an approach from the side he was on, and he had switched Coco from there to the gypsy’s former post for that reason. The villa was a three-story building, originally built to house more people than a couple and a single servant. The top floor was unoccupied, and offered an ideal entry. He had always gone in from above whenever possible, rather than from below; dogs and servants were less of a hazard on the top floors, windows were less often locked, there were many advantages to finding a way down, rather than up, in the dark, including the fact that in an emergency a man could leap farther from a high point than from a low point. The outside climb on his side was more difficult than at the back or the far side of the house, but the bedrooms were at the back, and the street light illuminated part of the far side, leaving his side in relative shadow. Not complete shadow. Even without a moon, there was enough light to make out the pale rectangular bulk of the house, the stuccoed wall that would reveal the outline of a climber.

  In the mouth of the culvert he took off his clothes and the body harness and exchanged his shoes for light glove-leather gymnast’s slippers he had brought in his pocket. Besides the slippers, he wore only shorts. The warm night air felt good on his bare skin. The grass on which he lay at full length, with only his head above the lip of the little stream bed, had a rich, cushiony texture, and some aromatic shrub near by gave off an acrid odor, like tar. It was a familiar smell. It made him think of the maquis, and other nights when he had waited in other stream beds. There had been other odors as well then—blood, frequently, and the reek of gunpowder or dynamite.

  He flexed his fingers. There would be no blood this time. He had learned to hate the men he had killed during the Occupation. He felt no hatred for the thief he hunted, only curiosity about his identity and the need to finish with him. He thought he felt as a professional fighter must feel, going into the ring. He meant to win, and he would do whatever damage to his opponent necessary to win. It did not require hatred.

  A car came up the road. He lowered his head as the lights swept above his hiding place. The car went on over the hill and disappeared.

  He found himself thinking of Francie. His premonition about her, if it had been a premonition, had left him. He knew he would never have confided in her if it had not been absolutely necessary, any more than he would confide in Paul or Oriol unless he was forced to. But he did not see how she could harm him involuntarily, and there was no question in his mind about her willingness to help him, any more than there was a question of Paul’s willingness to help him. Paul would not even demand an explanation from him. He knew it, and still he could not contemplate going voluntarily to Paul for help. He had believed at the time that his deliberate rejection of Paul’s friendship had been made for Paul’s own sake, to keep him from becoming involved. It was not so.

  It’s because you’re a thief and he isn’t, he thought, and remembered Francie’s words: “I’m glad you’re a thief, John.” She had confided in him because he was a thief. He could not confide in Paul because Paul was an honest man.

  He changed his position in the stream bed, partly to keep from leaving the imprint of his body in the grass where it could be seen later, partly to interrupt a trend of thought that made his head ache.

  The Brazilians came home at two-thirty. They were not fighting tonight. Souza seemed to be in good humor, from the tone of his voice when he let his wife out of the car. He drove a big American sedan, too large for the garage of the villa, which had been built to shelter smaller French automobiles. He had to park it under the portico at the front of the house. John heard him slam the car doors, then try them to make sure they were locked. There was a good black market for big American cars, which were easier to dispose of even than diamond and topaz bracelets.

  The lights went off in the villa at three. From then on John hardly moved a muscle in his hiding place. His eyes were alert, watching, as he knew Coco and Michel would be watching from their posts. The maquis had taught them all patience.

  The night wore on. At dawn a milk cart came over the hill and down the road, jingling, the cart wheels grinding on the gravel of the road. The driver stopped in front of the villa and ran up the path with his can to fill a pail that had been left on the front porch. After the cart had gone on down the road, the three men reassembled in the clump of shrub up the hill.

  “My bones ache,” Coco grumbled. “The ground is harder than cement.”

  “It was just as hard during the Occupation,” Michel said.

  “At least we had action once in a while, and could move around. I spit in this thief’s face. When is he coming, John?”

  “Tomorrow. Next week. Maybe never. All we can do is wait and hope. Be here tomorrow night at the same time. Bring the news from Le Borgne when you come, and both of you be careful to keep out of sight during the day. Lepic will have your descriptions out.”

  “Be careful yourself. And butter the girl good, John. Make love to her, if necessary. Admire her eyes and the swell of her bosom. I’m still more afraid of what she can do to you than I am of being caught by the flics.”

  “I’ll worry about the girl. You look out for the flics.”

  “I spit in the flics’ faces, collectively.”

  They separated, leaving the hillside one at a time.

  He did not see Francie all day. He slept in the morning, made a visit to Bellini afterward, and learned that Jean-Pierre had still avoided capture. Jacqueline, the girl with whom Claude said he had spent the night of Bastille Day, had come to confirm Claude’s story, pushed along by Claude himself and too frightened of him to be trusted as a source of reliable information. Bellini had sent Claude away and questioned her alone. He believed what she had to say, which eliminated Claude as a suspect. John agreed.

  There was no other news. The day’s edition of Nice-Matin asked baldly, What Arrest, and How Soon, M. Lepic? The plain-clothes agents patrolled La Croisette as usual. Everything was the same as it had been for days, except the weather.

  The sun still shone hotly in a clear sky, but a mistral had begun to blow from the southwest, and the force of the wind across the open sea piled waves up on the beach. The Hotel Midi’s tiny patch of sand was covered with water nearly to the promenade, and the other beaches farther along, although more sheltered from the direct force of the wind, were not much better. The sunbathers had no place to go except the promenade, which was over-crowded with chairs, mats, and cushions. John was making his way through the crowd when he saw Paul.

  Paul stood at the edge of the promenade above La Plage Nautique, looking down at the beach. John hesitated for a moment, but what he had learned about himself since seeing his friend last made him walk over to Paul’s side.

  Paul was watching Danielle and Claude on the sand below, hurrying to move umbrellas and beach chairs back from the encroaching waves. John said, “She does look like Lisa. I hadn’t noticed it before.”

  “Am I to recognize you?” Paul did not turn his head.

  “We’ve been introduced.”

  “I’m glad to see you still looking well, Mr. Burns. In spite of what you said the last time we talked.”

  “I was expecting trouble the last time, Paul. I didn’t want to have you involved. It’s the only reason I said what I did.”

  “Does that mean you no longer expect trouble?”

  “Not the same kind.”

  “Lepic is going to get you sooner or later. He’s promised your arrest soon. My offer still holds. I wish—”

  “I still don’t want to talk about it. If there was anything you could do to help me, I’d ask for it.”

  Paul shook his head, puzzled. “I don’t understand you. You’re taking a terrible risk. For what? It can’t be just money.”

  “You don’t have to understand. I’d rather you didn’t, at the moment. Some day I’ll explain.”

  “Some day it will be too late to explain.”

  All the time they talked, Paul had been wa
tching Danielle. She was too occupied with her work to be conscious of the two men looking down from the promenade above. The waves were coming in fast. Claude’s fine muscles bulged as he caught a heavy paddle board which was about to float off and pulled it to safety. Danielle, wading knee-deep for the paddle, was as quick and graceful as a sea nymph.

  John said, “Do you want me to introduce you?”

  “Will you?” Paul accepted the offer hungrily. “I’ve been standing here looking at her, feeling like a lout, all hands and feet and knuckles, trying to think of a way to meet her.”

  “You still feel the same?”

  “Worse. Or better. Or more so, at least, since I’ve seen her again. Even the way she moves reminds me of Lisa.”

  “The best way to get over it is to meet her, then. Come along.”

  They went down the steps to the sand.

  He had an excuse in the money he still owed Danielle and had forgotten to leave with Bellini. The introduction of Paul as a friend was natural and casual. Danielle was businesslike, polite, glad to meet Mr. Burns’s friend, and cool to John when she thanked him for the money. Claude was too busy to pay attention to any of it. When Paul helped Danielle catch a chair that was about to drift away, John took the opportunity to walk off and leave them together. The rest was out of his hands.

  The mistral blew all day. Either because of the effect of the dry, electrically charged wind or the suspense of waiting for nightfall, he felt a tenseness he did not like. It was an unfamiliar, unpleasant feeling. He went for a walk out along the beach toward La Napoule, but he could not walk far with comfort in his padded shoes and had to return before he had worked off his restlessness. He intended to go to his room, pull the mattress to the floor, and tumble for half an hour, the most effective way he knew to relax his muscles. But when he got back to the hotel, Danielle was waiting for him in the lobby.

  She looked extraordinarily young and pretty in slacks and a slipover that emphasized the trim neatness of her figure almost as well as the bikini. She said, “Claude had to close up for the afternoon. The beach was too flooded for business.”

  He waited for her to go on. It was not a reason for her call on Mr. Burns, and he thought she was hesitating to explain further.

  But she was as direct as ever. She said, “Why did your friend want to meet me?”

  “Any young man would want to meet you, Danielle.”

  “Please. I have a right to know.”

  “He was there, you were there, I introduced him. That’s all.”

  “That’s not all. He stayed for half an hour after you left, and it wasn’t because he enjoyed standing in water up to his ankles. Was it?”

  He sat down beside her. While he was trying to decide how much to tell her about Paul, she said, “I don’t know what it was I said the other night that offended you. It must have been when I was talking about Claude and getting married, those things. I suppose I was too clear about what I wanted for myself. But French women don’t look at such things as American women do, Mr. Burns. We’re more practical than romantic. Whatever it was—”

  “I wish I could convince you that you said nothing wrong at all, Danielle.”

  “Whatever I said, it was honest. Please be honest with me. Why did your friend want so much to be introduced?”

  “You wouldn’t accept an explanation that he just happened to be there, and that an introduction was polite?”

  “Not in his case. There’s something about me that particularly interests le Comte du Pré de la Tour. I want to know what it is.”

  “You’re very acute.”

  “It wasn’t hard to tell. He didn’t try to hide it. Even Claude noticed something.”

  “What did he tell you about himself?”

  “Nothing. He asked questions, who I was, and where I came from, where I was born. He wasn’t impertinent, but he kept looking at me in a strange way, as if—I don’t know, exactly. It wasn’t just because of the bikini. I’m used to that look. His was different. And when he went away, he asked me if he could come to the beach again. That’s a stupid question, and I know he isn’t stupid.” As an afterthought, she added, “Neither am I.”

  “No. You’re not. And I suppose you are entitled to an explanation, although I hadn’t expected to make one.”

  He told her about Paul and Lisa. His own acquaintance with Paul he did not explain, implying only that it had been in the United States rather than in France, and that he had known Lisa before she died. He told her of Paul’s feeling for Lisa, and how he had reacted to her death. He said, “He saw us together one night and was struck by your resemblance to her. He couldn’t get you out of his mind. He asked me to introduce him. I did. That’s all.”

  She was silent, thoughtful. He said, “I think he only wants to talk to you, try to disassociate you from his wife, get you out of his head. It needn’t end that way, though. He’s very wealthy.”

  “Wealthy enough to afford a petite amie?”

  “That’s what I meant if petite amie means what I think it does. But it could go farther than that. You might even end up as the countess, if you handle him right.”

  “There’s a difference between being practical and being cold-blooded, Mr. Burns.”

  “I’m not being cold-blooded. You asked me to be honest, so I’m telling you what I think. You want a husband with money or brains, or both. He has both, plus a title, good manners, good looks, and good blood. Any woman would be lucky to get him. He was emotionally dependent on Lisa and he needs someone to take her place. You’re already there, in his mind. I think you would make him a better wife than a petite amie, but one could lead to the other. You might even fall in love with him, in time. If I were you, I’d make every effort not to let him get me out of his mind.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Burns. It’s what I wanted to know.”

  She stood up to leave. He stopped her.

  “Let’s be friends again, Danielle.”

  She smiled, and put out her hand to him. He took it for a moment, felt the firm clasp of her fingers, then watched her walk away, and thought he had never seen anyone who could lend so much chic to beach slacks and a sweater. He was not ordinarily impressed by chic, since all French girls were born with it, rich and poor alike. Danielle was exceptional. Lady’s maid or countess, she would never be otherwise.

  The mistral had stopped blowing when he made the rendezvous on the hillside at midnight. The Brazilians came in at one o’clock, early for them. He expected to hear a quarrel, but it did not come. The lights went off before two. At dawn the milk cart came clattering over the hill. Nothing else had happened.

  Before they separated, Coco told him that Le Borgne was complaining of rheumatism after sleeping on the ground of their cave. Le Borgne had nothing else to report except that preparations were going forward at the Combe d’Or for the coming gala. Lights were being strung over the terrasse and through the château gardens.

  “One Eye says if they keep stringing lights, there won’t be any way for a thief to approach the house except by burrowing,” Coco said.

  “He’ll burrow, then,” John said. “There’ll be two or three hundred million francs there for the taking. I wouldn’t pass it up.”

  “You wouldn’t pass up this Brazilian poule, either, and what good has it done us?” Coco did not enjoy life in the cave any more than Le Borgne. It soured him on everything. “I think this dung-heap of a thief has retired for good.”

  Michel said, “It’s only two days since the last theft. Patience.”

  “I spit in the face of patience! You can talk. You sleep in a warm bed when you sleep. I sleep on a layer of pebbles.”

  “They’ll give you a warm bed at the nearest jail if you want one,” John said. “Stop grumbling.”

  Coco growled apologetically. “Eh, don’t mind me. I have to grumble for the exercise. Tomorrow night at the same time. And if he does come, I want first clout at him, to pay for the pebbles.”

  He slapped his palm with the limber
, shot-loaded leather of his skull-cracker.

  John was back at the Midi by sunrise. He stopped to chat for a moment with the doorman about roulette and his luck for the evening. Afterward he slept, woke at noon, and read the newspapers.

  Nice-Matin repeated its leader of the previous day, word for word. What Arrest, and How Soon, M. Lepic? There was no other news. The Sûreté agents patrolled La Croisette as usual, the sun was hot, the beach crowded, the sea green and inviting in the shallows, deep blue farther out.

  He did not call on Bellini. There was nothing for him to report, and Bellini would get word to him if there was anything he should know. When he made his regular afternoon appearance on the beach, he found Francie and her mother back in their usual places.

  Mrs. Stevens was asleep in the shade of the umbrella. Francie was reading. She closed her book when she saw John, and came to meet him.

  “Let’s go for a stroll. I’ve got something to tell you.”

  They walked down the promenade to the far end of the beach, past the Hotel Napoleon and beyond, to where there was no beach, nothing but rocks and a solitary fisherman squatting with his pole. The patrolling agents never came that far.

  Francie said, “Mother and I spent all day yesterday cultivating the Sanfords. We’ve been invited to the gala. So have you.”

  “Why me?”

  “I thought you might want to be there, if you expect something to happen. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

  “I’ll probably still be watching the other house, but I’ve got three men covering the Combe d’Or. They’ll take care of anything that happens.”

  “I just thought—I wanted to help, if I could.”

  He had not counted on the possibility that she would take positive action on her own, and he did not want to find himself at cross purposes with her. His arrangements were too final, too carefully planned. He said, “I don’t need your help, Francie. All I asked is that you keep quiet and give me a chance to work things out my own way.”

  “Are you so sure of yourself that you can’t accept help?”