Old Bones

new permutations.

At the side of the cherrywood-fronted fireplace a dapper and liberally cologned Rene, drink in hand, was playing le seigneur du manoir to a twittery, vibrant Leona Fougeray. Leona, at her striking, brittle best in a neon orange jumpsuit cinched by a patent leather belt, laughed frequently, throwing back her head so that the reflections from the chandelier made her black Italian eyes shimmer.

A few feet away, seated somewhat stiffly in three kingly armchairs of crushed red velvet and gilded wood, Mathilde, Claire, and Sophie chatted quietly, Mathilde frequently raising her eyes to glare without effect at her pink and animated husband. And standing on the other side of the room Ray, Ben, and Jules talked man-talk. Or at least Jules did. With his rump propped against an inlaid gaming table, a martini in one hand and a quickly changing succession of canapes in the other, he prattled to his abstracted and unresponsive audience.

Gliding among them all with a tray of drinks was the granite-faced Marcel, while Beatrice hung about the entrance to a small pantry in her tent-like brown dress, lumbering grumpily out from time to time with fresh hors d'oeuvres.

When Gideon and John entered, Ray separated himself and came worriedly to them.

'Did you talk to Ben?” he asked in a low voice. “You don't still think...?'

'He didn't lie about what was in the schedule,” Gideon reassured him. “Someone altered the thing.'

'Thank heavens.” He took a relieved swig of Chablis, then did a double-take. “Altered? You mean... altered?'

'Probably not to get us,” John said, looking casually around to make sure no one else was within hearing range. “Someone used it to kill Guillaume.'

Ray's eyes opened wider. “Kill Guillaume?'

'Right. Oh, by the way, Guillaume was Alain.'

Gideon thought that John, who had been on the receiving end of something similar a few minutes before, could be forgiven for this. Ray responded with surprising aplomb, swallowing his mouthful of wine without quite choking on it. “Tell me,” he said when it was safely down, “have I been leading a particularly sheltered existence? Is this what life is like for other people?'

'Only when the Skeleton Detective's around,” John said.

Ray looked slowly about him. The others were still involved in their conversations or their tasks, but casting uneasy or even hostile looks toward Gideon and John. Almost, it seemed to Gideon, as if they were huddling for mutual support against the newcomers, as if everything were really just fine at the Manoir de Rochebonne—or would be, if not for the intrusion of these two unwelcome meddlers. Well, he thought, in a way they were right.

'It's so difficult to believe,” Ray said softly. “One of these people is actually a murderer. But who? No, whom. No, who. I'm afraid this is really getting to me.'

'Monsieur?” Marcel extended the tray of drinks.

'Merci.' As Gideon took one of the slender, fluted tumblers of vermouth the telephone rang. Marcel turned, but Mathilde, closer, picked it up. She listened, murmured something, and extended it uncordially to Gideon, her face wooden. “For you.'

It was Dr. Loti.

'Yes, hello again, it's me. I think perhaps we might have been disconnected earlier,” he said hopefully.

'Yes, I think we were,” Gideon said, repenting for having virtually hung up on the elderly physician before.

'Ah. Well. I didn't finish what I was telling you. You'll be quite interested. You see, Guillaume didn't really regain his memory ‘just like that.’ That was a figure of speech. It was Mathilde du Rocher who did it all.'

'Mathilde?” Gideon exclaimed inadvertently and glanced at her. She had remained standing a few feet away, edgy and suspicious, watching him, straining every nerve to hear, not bothering to pretend otherwise. An eyebrow flicked at the sound of her name.

He turned away from her and cradled the receiver against his shoulder. “What do you mean?'

'Exactly what I said, young man. Without Mathilde, Guillaume would have died. Certainly he would never have recovered his identity. Ah, Mathilde—Mathilde Sylvestre, as she was then; a strapping, buxom girl with skin like rose petals. She had just become engaged to Rene, and she had volunteered as a nurse at the hospital. She sat with the mutilated hulk that was Guillaume for two whole days and most of two nights, talking to him, crooning to him, keeping his interest focused on this world instead of the next.” Dr. Loti heaved a gusty sigh.

'And?'

'And? His memory came back. It never would have happened without her; I'm convinced of it. And from that moment he began to recover. You could see it in him, in the renewed fire in that single fierce eye gleaming through the bandages. He had decided,” Dr. Loti pronounced with sentimental relish, “to live.'

'I see,” Gideon said slowly.

He had decided to live, all right—with Mathilde's earnest help and counsel—but not his own life. More pieces of the puzzle: As a girl Mathilde had been engaged to Alain; Gideon already knew that. Now it seemed that she had still been in love with him when he returned. For whatever their reasons—his terrible injuries, her engagement to Rene—they had decided not to take up where they had left off. But they had put their heads together long enough to hatch a plot that put Guillaume's wealth in Alain's hands instead of Claude's for forty long years...and finally, a week ago, into Mathilde's.

'These are not the sentimental imaginings of an old man,” Dr. Loti cautioned him. “I tell you as a responsible physician: If not for Mathilde, Guillaume du Rocher would never have returned to this life.'

'I believe you,” Gideon said. “Sincerely.'

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