“Prison!” Suzanne Ségal’s attention was well and truly caught. “Tell me all.” She moved to a chaise longue and patted the place beside her invitingly.
Miriam was too agitated to sit down. Pacing restlessly, she delivered a much edited version, omitting the destination of the gold, of the events of the last few days. Was it only a few days since the meeting in Jakob Rothschild’s house in Paris? It seemed a lifetime.
Characteristically, Suzanne went straight to what she considered the heart of the matter. “You are in love. This is obvious, but I cannot guess of which of the two you are enamoured. Both sound charming.”
“Both are charming. I am very fond of both, but I am not in love with either. They are simply dear friends.”
Suzanne gave her a knowing look. “As you will. You have not told me all, I think, and perhaps it is for the best. To rescue prisoners from the police is not so easy as to smuggle fugitives to England, but Ezra will manage it.” She cocked her head. “Listen, I believe he is come home.”
Miriam wished she had the same faith in Ezra’s omnipotence. He was, just as she remembered, no demi-god but a small, neat man with a surprisingly shy smile for so eminent and successful a businessman.
He greeted her kindly as if her arrival were an everyday occurrence, then stepped over to his wife and begged her permission to salute her.
“But of course, chérie. Do I not always delay powdering my face until you come in?” She raised her unpowdered face for his kiss, then took his hand in both hers. “Sit down, my love. Miriam has brought us a grave problem.” She took it upon herself to explain the situation, interrupted only by her husband’s condolences on the demise of Dr. Bloom. “And I know you can help her, Ezra,” she finished, “so pray do not look so solemn.”
Turning to Miriam, he lost not one whit of his solemnity. “I am acquainted with Kalmann and Salomon Rothschild,” he revealed. “The Rothschilds have a reputation for honesty in their business dealings. Is Suzanne’s exposition accurate, my dear?”
“Near enough, monsieur. I hesitate to request your aid, for the last thing I wish is to endanger anyone else.”
He pondered. “I doubt it will come to that, yet for your friends I cannot be sanguine,” he admitted. “The only chance is to approach Monsieur Lavardac, but he has little authority over the gendarmerie. Grignol, like all prefects, is appointed in Paris though he is a local man.”
“Monsieur Lavardac? The wine merchant?” Miriam asked, puzzled. “How can he help?”
“You know him?”
“If it is the same man, Uncle Amos treated him, for a liver complaint if I am not mistaken.”
Ezra Ségal began to look more cheerful. “Very good. Though Lavardac is a republican, he is now mayor of Bordeaux. He owes his health to your uncle and his wealth to me, since my bank financed the smuggling of wine to England which made his fortune. What is more, he has a running feud with Grignol over jurisdictions. We shall pay a little visit to
monsieur le maire.”
“What did I tell you?” cried Suzanne in triumph. “Ezra will save your beloved. He is equal to anything. But you must eat first, my love. Miriam, have you broken your fast?”
She nodded, her throat tight, her eyes filling with tears as she recalled the happy harmony at the breakfast table at the Prince de Galles. How she had looked forward to a future with Isaac and Felix at peace! Would she ever see them again? Inside her, the bubble of fear swelled.
Her friend rushed to embrace her, prattling words of comfort, and tugged her to the chaise longue. “Sit here, chérie, and put your feet up. Lucette shall bring you a cup of tea, and Hannah too, while I feed my starving husband. Well I know how for the English tea solves all problems. A moment, Ezra, I must powder my nose. Heavens, I am not dressed yet! But no one will call so early, I shall dress after you leave to call on Monsieur Lavardac. Unless you would like me to go with you, Miriam? No, very well, Ezra, I can see that you do not approve. Come and eat your petit déjeuner.”
The tea, doubtless smuggled from England, was soothing if it didn’t actually solve any problems. Miriam and Hannah had time to drink a second cup apiece from the delicate Limoges china before the sulky maidservant came to fetch them.
Suzanne’s farewells were punctuated with advice on transforming an admirer into a husband, but her last words were an anxious, “Tell me, Miriam, shall I dye my hair? The grey makes me look like an old woman.”
“On the contrary, Suzanne, you look
très distinguée,”
Miriam assured her, stepping into the Ségals’ carriage.
Beaming, Suzanne waved good-bye.
As the carriage started off, Miriam said with a sigh, “It is infuriating that our berline is stuffed with gold yet if I need money for bribes I cannot get at it.”
“Ma chère, do I not own a bank? Your father’s credit is good with me. That is the least of our troubles.”
Though the streets were crowded now, they soon reached the new quarter. Monsieur Ségal decided to try the Hôtel de Ville before Lavardac’s home or business. They were in luck: the gendarme on guard duty outside the splendid eighteenth-century town hall reported that the mayor was in his office. Miriam did her best not to flinch as they walked past the guard in his blue uniform.
Inside, Monsieur Ségal was recognized at once. Up stairs and down passages, they were rapidly passed from flunkey to flunkey until they reached a large anteroom where a score of people sat or stood about, apparently waiting. A secretary bowed and begged them to be seated while he informed monsieur le maire of their arrival. He vanished into the inner office.
Dismayed, Miriam prepared for a long wait. However, the door to the office opened again at once and Monsieur Lavardac strode out. She recognized the brawny wine merchant although his girth was considerably diminished and his cheeks had lost the sickly yellow tinge she remembered. Uncle Amos’s prescribed diet must have succeeded.
The mayor didn’t recognize her. “Give me two minutes, mon cher Ségal,” he said, shaking his banker’s hand vigorously. “A troublesome affair I must clear up--these scoundrelly lawyers!-- and then I shall be all yours.” He hurried back into his office.
True to his word, he very soon ushered out a tall, lanky individual and invited Ezra Ségal to step in. He looked a trifle taken aback when Miriam and Hannah also rose.
“Mademoiselle is with me,” Ségal said quickly. As soon as the office door closed behind them he added, “You have met Mademoiselle Jacobson before, Lavardac. Dr. Bloom was her uncle.”
Lavardac expressed his apologies, enquiries, condolences, gratitude for his improved health. “Sit down, sit down, mademoiselle. What can I do for you?”
Miriam turned to Ségal. His version of the story turned out to be as different from his wife’s as hers had been from Miriam’s original. She realized he was stressing that the prefect’s orders came from Paris, that conceivably Grignol was exceeding his authority in arresting foreign visitors to Bordeaux without consulting the mayor.
Suzanne’s tale had leaned heavily on the fact that the travellers were transporting gold for the Rothschilds, fellow Jewish bankers. And Miriam, now she came to consider it, had presented to Suzanne an adventure (properly chaperoned!) with two dashing young men, mingled with her longing to go home.
She couldn’t help being amused, despite her anxiety.
Lavardac waxed indignant. “That Grignol is a poor excuse for a Gascon! The Paris prefect is not even his superior, merely a colleague. And your passports, mademoiselle, they were indeed signed by the Minister of Finance?”
“And by Savary, the Minister of Police, monsieur. I saw Monsieur Grignol examining them.”
“Ha! Then he cannot plead ignorance. Perhaps you are aware, Ségal, that Grignol’s family owns a vineyard near Castelnau? You may guess, mademoiselle, that I have a great influence in the wine trade.” He winked.
Miriam began to feel more hopeful. Her spirits sank again as the mayor went on.
“However, it is no easy matter to pry prisoners from the dungeons once they have been incarcerated. Legally, you understand, I have no authority over the prefect. I can guarantee nothing.” The light of battle entered his eye. “But I shall try! I go at once--there is no one of importance waiting to see me. Do you accompany me, Ségal?”
“That goes without saying.”
“My secretary shall make you comfortable here, mademoiselle, unless you prefer to return to Madame Ségal?”
Miriam glanced at Hannah, who looked as resigned as if she knew in advance what the answer would be. “I shall go with you, monsieur.”
The mayor stared at her in surprised disapproval. “That is unwise, mademoiselle.”
“Please, let me go with you.” She couldn’t bear to be left biting her nails to the quick, but she didn’t think that argument would influence him. “If you succeed in freeing my friends, we may have to leave in a hurry.”
“True,” he conceded, “but a woman...”
“Best let her come, Lavardac. She and her maid can wait in the carriage outside.”
“As you wish. You understand, mademoiselle, that if I am unable to free your friends I may also be unable to protect you from arrest?”
“I understand, monsieur, and I thank you.” Miriam stood up, impatient of delay. Whatever the danger, she had no intention of waiting meekly in the carriage.
Chapter 14
Horrified, Hannah surveyed the anteroom, bestrewn with heaps of clothes. “The vandals!” she exclaimed in Yiddish. “Have they no respect for other people’s belongings?”
Dropping to her knees, she started to fold Miriam’s green evening gown. The youthful gendarme who had tried to prevent their following the mayor moved towards her, opening his mouth to utter yet another weak protest. She glared at him and he stepped back irresolutely.
The abigail was not likely to come to much harm. Miriam went on alone to the door Monsieur Lavardac had flung open moments earlier. She stopped in the doorway, making no effort to draw attention to herself.
The small, foppish man last seen in the inn yard sat behind an ornate desk, half hidden by Lavardac’s stalwart figure. Ezra Ségal stood quietly to one side. Two gendarmes were trying to explain to Grignol that they had requested monsieur le maire to attend only a minute while they enquired whether monsieur le préfet was free to see him. Lavardac’s roar drowned their voices.
“One tells me that you have arrested two foreign visitors. I reply, it is not possible that my friend Grignol should make such a stupid mistake.”
“It is no mistake, Lavardac.” The prefect’s face was stony but Miriam caught a flicker of apprehension in his eyes.
“What! You are trying perhaps to ruin the wine trade. Even the Swiss import our wines. Or is it that you wish to destroy the reputation of the Gascons for hospitality?”
“I received orders from Paris to arrest these men.”
“From Paris, hein!” Now the mayor sounded sarcastic. “From the Minister of Police, I suppose.”
Grignol flushed and his narrow black moustache twitched. “From Monsieur Pasquier, the prefect.”
“So, now you take orders from a fellow prefect? You dance to Paris’s tune? Where is your pride, Grignol? Are you a Gascon or a goose?”
A hastily suppressed snort of laughter from one of the gendarmes turned the prefect’s face purple and brought him to his feet. “If you have nothing better to do, I’ll find you something,” he snarled at his minions.
As Miriam stepped aside to give them room to flee past her, she spared a quick glance for Hannah. Her maid had finished packing her belongings and moved on to Felix’s. Praying that the labour might not be in vain, she turned back to the scene in the office.
She must have missed something, presumably a refusal by Grignol to be intimidated into releasing his prisoners for Lavardac was hauling out the heavy artillery.
“It would be a pity,
mon vieux,”
he said with a false air of ponderous bonhomie, “yes, it would be a shocking pity if the harvest of the Grignol vineyard failed to find buyers this year.” He appeared not to notice when the prefect blanched and sat down suddenly. “The winemakers are so demanding these days,” he continued. “The slightest flaw in the grapes and pouf! they are rejected. I was saying just the other day when I called at the Château Lafite--or was it at the Château Margaux?
N’importe
--I was saying, `You fellows can ruin a family’s livelihood if you decide their grapes are less than perfect.’“ He paused.
Grignol rallied. He too had big guns in reserve. “Fortunately, the produce of my family’s vineyard is as faultless as my proof that the so-called Swiss travellers are in fact English spies!” He picked up a stack of papers and shook them in his opponent’s face. “A whole box of papers written in a secret code.”
Lavardac glanced back at Ségal, his confidence obviously shaken. Miriam was aghast. The banker, however, moved forward with imperturbable calm and reached for the papers.
“You permit, monsieur? Ah, as I suspected. Allow me to translate. `In the village Radovich, two sons of the Mendel family are afflicted with the crippling condition. Their mother states...’“
“How did you know?” Grignol howled. “You talked to him! You talked to that hook-nose Yid. You’re all in collusion but you can’t trick me. I’ll break the code, I swear it.”
“Yiddish,” said Ezra Ségal, unmoved. “Dr. Bloom’s notes.”
“Dr. Bloom’s?” Lavardac was delighted. “It is possible that I myself am mentioned?”
Miriam decided the time had come to take a hand. She left the shelter of the doorway. “Of course you are mentioned, monsieur. If my uncle’s box is here, and if Monsieur Grignol has not disarranged the papers, I can find your name with ease.”
Ségal gestured at a corner and there was the red leather box. No wonder he had not faltered--he must have recognized it for he had often seen Uncle Amos working on his notes in the evenings. The desk had hidden it from Miriam until she entered right into the room.
With the ease of one who had hoisted many a wine barrel in youth, the mayor swung the box up onto the desk. It landed with a clunk. Grignol howled again.
“My desk!”