Raiders of the Lost Corset (14 page)

She preferred to come as a surprise.

“My cousin thinks he’s an artist,” Magda had said with a smile.

“He’s quite bad, but you must humor him or we will get nowhere.”

Lacey had a letter of introduction from Magda in her bag.

Magda had insisted that a letter was in order in case anything happened to her. Lacey had laughed at the old woman’s caution, but now she was inclined to believe that Magda knew she was already in danger. But would a letter be enough to gain two strangers from America admittance to her cousin’s home?

Lacey navigated their course from her map, and Brooke found the right exit from the autoroute and the right little country lane, only a few kilometers short of Mont-Saint-Michel. Soon a gray stone farmhouse with dark green shutters came into view, and a twinge of apprehension twisted in the pit of Lacey’s stomach.

Chapter 13

The man stood in the open door of the farmhouse with Magda’s letter of introduction in his hand. He stared at the letter and at the two women on his doorstep.

“She is dead?”

Jean-Claude Rousseau’s accent was thick, but his English was quite good. He was a dark-haired man with a mustache and glasses, who appeared to be in his late forties. His face had a comfortable lived-in look, the look of a man who liked good wine and food. He wore a clean white shirt rolled up on his forearms, jeans that sported multicolored spots of paint, and sandals, though the day was rather cool. He scratched his head.

The news of Magda’s death did not seem to affect him greatly.

“Dead. A pity. We write letters, Magda and I. A few letters. I have not seen her for many years,” he explained with a shrug, which reminded Lacey of Magda’s shrug. An elegant shrug. She should master that graceful, dismissive French shrug, Lacey thought. She could use it on Vic, if she ever saw Vic again.

Lacey complimented him on his English. He smiled. “I lived for a time in America. I spend a year there, in university,” he announced with pride. “In Chicago. What a city. Lots of pizza.”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this.” Lacey felt awkward, but she had to get it out. “Magda didn’t die of natural causes. She was murdered, in her shop.” He blinked and said nothing. Now Lacey didn’t quite know how to go into the rest of the story, the poison, the knife, the jewels. She wondered whether he would invite them in; he hadn’t made any move to admit them. Brooke stood by, offering silent encouragement.

“And you are Mademoiselle Lacey Smithsonian?” He looked from the letter to her.

“Yes, and my friend, Brooke Barton.”

Brooke handed Jean-Claude Rousseau her card. “I’m an attorney,” she said.

“And you are a journalist?” He peered over his glasses at Lacey. “
Mon Dieu.
” Ignoring the subject of Magda, he looked at them with interest. “Two Americans. And so lovely. Would you like to pose for me? Both of you? I have not painted an American woman in awhile. A very long while. And you could —”

“Ah, no, thanks,” Lacey said. “We have so little time. And about Magda —”

“Ah. Magda. So. Someone murder her? Not a surprise.” He snorted abruptly. “What did the old gargoyle say to you about me?”

“That you live here in Normandy,” Lacey said, while Brooke choked back a nervous giggle. “And that you are an artist. A painter.”

“Yes. Did she tell you that I am a bad artist?”

“Of course not,” Lacey said.

“Because I am not bad. I am merely underappreciated. By people like my crazy cousin.”

Lacey said nothing. Brooke looked away.

With a tremendous sigh, Jean-Claude said, “Poor Magda. Old bat. She never change, eh?” He frowned. “If I let you into my house, will you not pose for me? I paint nudes. Beautiful nudes. And some landscapes. With nudes.”

Sorry Magda
, she thought,
I’m not humoring your cousin that
far.
“We just have so many things to do, Monsieur Rousseau. I’ll be writing an article about Magda. And about you, of course. And perhaps your art? If you were to let me into the coal room. Just to take a look?”

“Ha! The coal room. So that is the story.
Ma cousine
Magda and her stupid obsession? I tell you, the woman, she was a crazy, a lunatic!
Fou!
” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “We, her family, were afraid Magda would come to a bad end.” He shrugged elegantly, folded the letter neatly, and put it in his shirt pocket.

“After all, she went to America.”

“But you said you lived in America,” Lacey said.

“Ah. There is a difference,” he grunted. “I come home to France.”

Lacey took a deep breath. “Magda believed the Romanov corset that your grandfather allegedly took during the Russian Revolution is, or was, hidden in the coal room of this very house.”

“Corset! Ha! Now she says a corset.
Fantastique.
Once she tell us all there is a carton of Fabergé eggs. And in my house?” He shook his head as if that were the most idiotic thought of all. Jean-Claude Rousseau rolled his eyes heavenward. “A fantasy. The coal room, it is nailed shut for thirty, forty years. When I am a little boy I play in there.” He sighed dramatically and heaved his shoulders forward. “But I suppose there will be no posing and painting today. No American nudes for Jean-Claude. And you will not leave me alone until you get your way. Like all Americans. Americans must always get their way. Why? Because they are Americans!”

Lacey decided to simply stand there like an American who was about to get her way. And Brooke stood beside her as a united front. Brooke was used to getting her way. “It was Magda’s dying wish that we at least explore the possibility,” Lacey said. “With your permission, of course.”

“Dying wish!” he sputtered. “Dying wish.
Mon Dieu.
” He looked just like a frustrated Frenchman in the movies, the exasperated gendarme lecturing the foolish Americans. “Now you bring the ghost of a crazy woman into this matter.” Jean-Claude gestured extravagantly, which Lacey assumed meant something eloquent in French. He stopped, rolled his eyes, breathed deeply and sighed dramatically, his hand over his heart. “But who am I to deny a Frenchwoman’s dying wish?”

Jean-Claude Rousseau was, Lacey thought, pretty good theatre.

As good as Magda.

He swept them aside with an imperious gesture and marched down the front path ahead of them. He indicated that they were to follow him to the side of the farmhouse. They trotted dutifully behind him to a slanting side door that led down into a cellar. Jean-Claude went down the steps first, careful not to hit his head on the low beam. Lacey and Brooke followed, ducking on their way down out of the pale Normandy November sunlight. Lacey clicked on her flashlight.

At the bottom of the stairs, Jean-Claude reached up and pulled a chain. A dim lightbulb swung from the ceiling, barely illuminat-ing the room. He led them to the back of the cellar and knocked on a wooden door scarred by several deep gouges. He bowed deeply to the women.

“May I present to you, my famous coal room full of buried treasures?” He smiled, showing his teeth for the first time.

Lacey drew closer with her light. The coal room door was nailed tightly shut on three sides, from the ceiling to the floor on the latch side, and across the top and bottom. Dried-out seam tape partially covered the twenty or thirty nails that secured it. Monsieur Rousseau handed her a rusty hammer and a pry bar from a nearby toolbox. Her heart sank.
Hard labor.

“What is the Chicago expression? Ah, yes. Knock yourself out, Mademoiselle Smithsonian.”

She took the tools. They were heavy. “Just what I wanted to do on a beautiful fall day in France.”

“The door? Very old. So many nails. And probably the door, it is, how you say it, warped? Jammed?” he said. “I doubt if you can open it. A lot of work.” Another eloquent shrug.

If he thinks hard work will stop me, he’s sadly mistaken,
Lacey thought. She hoped it would be easy to pry the nails from the old wood.
I’ll get it open if it takes all day.

“No sweat, Lacey,” Brooke said uncertainly. “I’m sure we can handle it.” Brooke sneezed several times.

“Why is it nailed shut?” Lacey had the uncomfortable feeling a body was buried behind Door Number One.

“Ha! It is nailed shut because it is a filthy hole that no one with any sense would enter!” Jean-Claude’s lips curled into a small sneer. “When this house, long ago, it is wired for the electric, we have no more use for the coal. And the coal dust. So much black dirt.
Incroyable.
And the other door, where the coal you shovel in?

From the coal wagon? All covered. My studio now is up there.” He turned and walked up the stairs. “Adieu. Your little treasure hunt will end this foolish Magda nonsense once and for all. My cellar is not a rest stop for American tourists. And crazy dead women.”

“Wait, Monsieur Rousseau. Where are you going?” Brooke asked.

“To the market. And then to paint. A landscape, not a nude. A pity.” At the top of the stairs he turned and looked down at Lacey.

“By the way, Mademoiselle Lacey Smithsonian, if there is anything of value, do you not think we would have found it long ago?”

Jean-Claude laughed and went out the door.

“I don’t know, Jean-Claude,” she called after him. “Who nailed the door shut?” But he was gone. Brooke sneezed again behind her. “Are you okay?” Lacey asked her.

“Uh, sure. I think so.” She sneezed again. “Damn. Must be a century of dust down here.”

“Why don’t you go outside, hang out in the car? I don’t want your asthma acting up.”

“I couldn’t leave you here,” Brooke said. She sneezed several more times. “But if you’re sure you’ll be okay?” she asked sheepishly. “I mean, it’s pretty scary down here.”

“Oh, you mean here in the scary dark cellar in the isolated farmhouse where the monster lurks?” Lacey laughed, but she was suddenly seized by visions of the Man in the Iron Mask lunging out from behind the coal room door.

“Yeah, that’s the one. You know, the lunatic skulking behind the furnace.”

“Thanks so much, Brooke. I hadn’t even considered the furnace.” Lacey looked around. “Anyway, I’m sure the lunatic is dead of asthma by now. So it’s probably just his corpse. We’re the only live lunatics down here.”

She aimed her flashlight into the dark spaces in the cellar. There were dim shadows on the wall, a collection of broken chairs in one corner, and behind her an ancient wringer washing machine. Lines of sagging rope were strung from one side of the room to the other to dry laundry, holding a few stiff towels. Brooke sneezed again.

“Okay, this is what I’m going to do,” Lacey said. “I’m going to make sure there are no madmen hiding in corners, dead or alive.

Then you can go upstairs and watch the door from the car — the locked car — to make sure no maniacs come in or out. If you see anything, honk the horn. Or call my cell; it’s in my purse. Okay?”

“I’ve got your back,” Brooke assured her with a sneeze.

A tiny engine roared to life outside. They listened to the sound of Jean-Claude’s motor scooter departing.

“We’re all alone now.” Brooke looked worried.

“That’s good. We don’t want company. Now go. You’re on outside guard duty.”

Brooke nodded, but she didn’t move. “Guard duty. Don’t worry. I’m on it.” She paused. “Uh, Lacey? Will you walk me to the car?”

“Chicken.” Lacey tried to sound brave, but she couldn’t deny the air of creepiness that filled the cellar. “See what happens when you get us both paranoid? Next you’ll be telling me about the French version of Bigfoot.
Le Gros Pied
, right? Hang on a minute.”

Lacey paced the small cellar, stabbing her light into all the dark corners. She explored the deepest shadow, behind the furnace.

There was nothing there but boxes of old dishes. “See, Brooke? No bogeymen.” Brooke sneezed. Lacey marched her friend up the stairs into the sunlight, made sure the motor scooter was really gone and Jean-Claude wasn’t hanging around with an ax. She saw Brooke safely into the Citroën, gave her a handkerchief, and turned back to face the dim and sinister cellar all alone.

The sharp smell of old dirt and mildew hit her even stronger as she descended the stairs. She marched with determination to the coal room door. Lacey swung the hammer and hefted the pry bar, testing their usefulness as weapons. Satisfied, she placed them by the door and started tearing the brittle tape from the side, the top, and the bottom.

Why would anyone nail the door shut? Why not simply close it?

A glimmer of hope rose in Lacey. With such precautions, maybe there
was
something of value concealed behind the nailed door.

According to Magda’s instructions, the corset was supposed to be hidden behind loose stones in the wall opposite the door, about five feet above the floor. If the door had really been nailed shut for decades, maybe it was still there, no matter what Jean-Claude said about his crazy cousin.

Lacey set the flashlight on a box of dishes and pointed its beam at the door. She took off her jacket and hung it and her purse from the nearest clothesline. She rolled up her sleeves and pulled her hair back into a bun. Then she picked up the hammer, slid the claw under a nail head that stood a little above the wood on the top of the door, and leaned on the handle. The nail gave a little squeak and popped right out. This is easy, she thought, and she pulled the first few nails. She had a tougher time with the next few, but the top row of nails was soon done. Then halfway down the door, near the doorknob, she got stuck. These nails were pounded down flat.

Perspiration was beading on her forehead and running down her back. Magda had promised it would be a piece of cake.
Yeah
, Lacey thought,
just like Marie Antoinette’s little problem was a
piece of cake.
She turned the knob and rattled the door. At least it wasn’t locked too. The top squeaked and gave a little, but the rest was stuck fast. She took a deep breath, grabbed the hammer again, and attacked more nails, adding more ugly gouges to the wood.

Lacey hoped
The Eye Street Observer
wouldn’t have to buy Jean-Claude a new door. But he had handed her the hammer. “Knock yourself out,” he said. And there was no way she could ruin the ambience of this charming dungeon. Lacey wiped her brow, streaking her sleeve with sweat, and checked her watch.