“Push off, Gustav,” snarled Agatha, edging past him.
“I’m in the study,” called Charles.
Agatha walked in. “I told Gustav to phone you and tell you I was ill,” grumbled Charles.
“Oh, it was Gustav, was it? The message I got from the temp was that you had called with the message you didn’t want to see me, nothing else.”
“She probably got it wrong. Most of these temps are hopeless.”
“I don’t think so. Anyway, listen!”
Agatha told him first about the latest attempt on her life. Then she said, “This is very important. You addressed Jeremy in French in the restaurant. What did you say?”
“I said he had better stop romancing you if he wanted to be reconciled with his ex-wife. He pretended not to understand me.”
“I don’t think he was pretending. Listen to this.”
Agatha outlined all her new ideas. “You’re forgetting one thing,” said Charles. “It was his own daughter who got the death threat. It was his own daughter who was shot at.”
“Wait a bit. Bill Wong told me he’d packed up his business. He says he hopes to remarry Catherine. She’s loaded. Now just suppose he wants her money without her. Perhaps the death threat to the daughter was a blind and he really meant to shoot his wife.”
“Aggie, it’s impossible to prove any of this.”
“Well, I’m going to Paris and I’m going to see Phyllis and get an introduction to the handsome drunk. If I can get him to say he impersonated Jeremy, then I’ve got him. In fact, I’m driving to Heathrow now.”
“I’m coming with you. What about Birmingham? It’s closer, easier to park, and they’ve got flights to Paris. Gustav? Pack a bag.”
Charles moaned the whole flight and clutched his head, complaining that his ears were bursting and saying they should have taken the train. “I should have known not to fly with a cold.”
Agatha largely ignored him because she was turning ideas over and over in her head. If they drew a blank, if Jeremy had not got someone to impersonate him, it would be a wasted trip. She edged Phyllis’s card out of her wallet. She should have phoned in advance.
Charles began to recover on the taxi ride to the hotel. They were going to stay at the same one as before. The sun was shining down on Paris, and as they neared the centre of the city, people were sitting out on the terraces in the sunlight.
At the hotel, Agatha was pleased to find that this time they could have a room each. She phoned Phyllis and was relieved to find her at home and asked if she would like to join them for lunch.
Phyllis said she was busy but could meet them for a coffee in the afternoon. Agatha suggested the Village Ronsard in Maubert where they had met before, and Phyllis said she would meet them at three o’clock.
“It’s only eleven,” said Agatha when she had hung up. “Let’s go and see if we can find Felicity.”
“You go,” groaned Charles. “I’m off to my room to lie down. Honestly, Aggie, I’m shattered.”
The old Agatha would have blasted him, called him a wimp, but the new Agatha was suddenly aware of the value of friends, so she said gruffly, “That’s all right. I’ll let you know how I get on.”
She unpacked her few belongings and then went out and took a cab to the Rue Saint-Honore. Once more she entered the salon.
The woman she had met before approached her, her dark eyes flicking up and down Agatha’s rather crumpled trouser suit. Agatha had two Armani trouser suits, but the one she was wearing was a cheap one she had bought in Evesham. She could almost feel the woman pricing it in her mind and then dismissing it and its owner.
“I am here to see Felicity Felliet,” said Agatha, suddenly wishing she had insisted that Charles come with her. Charles had a reasonable explanation for calling on Felicity, being a friend of her father, but Agatha had not.
But the woman said, “Mees Felicity is not with us. She left.”
“When?”
A little Gallic shrug and a spreading of the fingers. “Last week.”
“Have you an address for her in Paris?” “Wait. I look.”
Agatha waited and fretted. Her brilliant idea was beginning to seem more and more far-fetched.
The woman returned and handed Agatha a slip of paper. It gave an address in the Rue Madame.
Agatha again hailed a taxi and found herself once more being borne across the river, but this time to the Sixth Arrondisse-ment, near the impressive baroque church of Saint Sulpice.
She paid off the taxi and looked up at the tall building. It was one of those infuriating entry systems where you needed a code to get into the building.
There was a window at the side of the door. Hoping it was the concierge, Agatha rapped on it. The curtain twitched and a face looked out. After a few moments the door swung open. A small birdlike woman stood there with a pencil thrust through her frizzy hair.
“Miss Felliet?” asked Agatha.
“Numero dix-sept.”
Agatha looked at her in bewilderment. “I don’t understand French.”
The concierge retreated into her room off the hall and reappeared with a piece of paper of which she had written “17.” Then she pointed upwards.
Agatha went over to the lift, one of those old-fashioned French ones like a gilt cage. The concierge followed her and pressed the top button. The gate slowly closed and the lift creaked upwards. When it stopped on the top floor, she got out and looked around. The building was very quiet. No cries of children or smells of cooking. Must be expensive, thought Agatha. Only the rich apartment dweller could afford this sort of hush.
There was one door with a bell-push beside it. Agatha rang the bell. She heard sounds of movement inside. Then the door was opened and a tall bespectacled man stood there.
“Can I help you?” he asked. The accent was American.
“I’m looking for Felicity Felliet.”
“No one here of that name, but I’ve only just moved in. Come in.”
Agatha walked in and looked around. There were packing cases everywhere. French windows opened out onto a balcony and a view of the rooftops of Paris.
He went over to a desk. “I’ve got the name of the estate agent here. Maybe if you tried them you could find out where she has gone. I never saw her but I assume she must have been the previous tenant. I was lucky to get a place with an elevator. The higher you go, the cheaper it gets and even cheaper if there isn’t an elevator, but I didn’t fancy carrying everything up miles of stairs.”
“How far from here is this estate agent?”
“Turn left as you go out and walk straight down to Saint Germain and then turn right. It’s about one block along.”
Agatha thanked him and creaked down in the maddeningly slow lift. She spent some time figuring out how to open the street door. She knocked at the concierge’s door but there was no reply. Then she saw a button under the light switch and pressed it. The door gave a click and Agatha pulled it open. As it was one of those enormous carved wooden doors they have in buildings in Paris, she had to use both hands.
She turned left and walked, stopping occasionally to ask people for directions by simply saying, “Saint Germain?” and following where they pointed.
At the estate agent’s, there was a wait while the people in the front office went through to the back to find someone who spoke English.
A neat little Frenchman appeared and listened courteously, his head cocked to one side like a sparrow, while she asked if he knew the whereabouts of Felicity Felliet.
“Her lease was up last week,” he said, “and she said she did not want to renew it. She said she was returning to England.”
So that’s a dead end, thought Agatha. She’s probably back with her parents.
By the time Agatha and Charles met Phyllis, Agatha was beginning to feel her whole idea was ridiculous. But Phyllis listened eagerly, exclaiming that it all sounded very exciting. “What is this Jeremy Laggat-Brown like?” she asked.
“He is well-built with a tanned face, very bright blue eyes and thick curly white hair.”
