To Detective Second Class Gilbert Ponton, Inspector Jacques Clouseau remained something of an enigma—a clumsy, bumbling enigma, to be sure; but an enigma nonetheless.
It seemed that only two assumptions were made by those around Clouseau—that he was an unparalleled hero, an investigative genius, which his capture of the Gas-Mask Bandits seemed to support; or an absolute boob, a fool of the first order, as Chief Inspector Dreyfus assumed (and as much of what Ponton himself had observed would seem to indicate).
And yet.
There were times when Ponton wondered if this idiot might not be an idiot savant—he had a detective’s instincts, and certain abilities, a flair for foreign languages among them, though Ponton doubted the ever-increasing list of “tongues” the inspector claimed to have mastered.
And Clouseau truly was brave, if stupidly so at times. His frequent attacks upon Ponton, a much larger man, were indications of the foolhardy inspector’s enormous, possibly misguided, selfconfidence.
Now they were in New York, on the streets of Manhattan, and at a sidewalk stand Clouseau was ordering a hamburger—in an over-exaggerated, but admittedly thoroughly American, accent…which had only taken the inspector a full day to master (“hamburger” for many hours having been something along the lines of “hum-bearg-air”).
They had arrived yesterday, and Clouseau’s accent had been so convincing when they had checked into their hotel—La Sofitel—that the French desk clerk had muttered to himself in their native tongue, “stupid American,” not knowing Clouseau (and Ponton) understood.
What had followed was one of those moments that made Ponton wonder: Clouseau had had trouble with the pen provided at check-in, and requested a loan of the personal pen of that clerk (later privately referred to by the inspector as the “swine clerk”).
When the patronizing, sneering clerk had complied, Clouseau continued to fill in the registration forms, and then handed back the pen…which the clerk put in his breast pocket, unaware that an ink blot had begun immediately to blossom there. Clouseau called back, grinning, in his most exaggerated American accent, “Have a good one!”
Stupidity on Clouseau’s part?
Or cunning?
Ponton could never quite be sure. All he knew was that he felt guilty over reporting to Renard and Dreyfus behind his partner’s back. Last night, sharing the double bed the “swine clerk” had provided them, the two men had talked in the dark, like the old friends they were beginning to be.
Clouseau had admitted an attraction to Xania, but had said, “True love, my friend? It has not yet come Clouseau’s way. I, uh…never see you with the women?”
Ponton, realizing that he was one of two men sharing a single bed, had said reassuringly—and truthfully: “I am married, Inspector.”
“But I see no ring.”
“If the criminals of the underworld knew I was married, my wife, my Marie, she might be in danger.”
“Ah! So wise. You are not the fool you at times seem, Ponton. You must love her very much.”
“I do. To me, she is the most desirable woman in the world. And you?”
“I have never met your wife, but I am sure she is—”
“No, I mean…is there a woman besides Xania in your life? Nicole, perhaps?”
“Ah, Nicole…such a sweet, innocent child.”
Ponton, remembering the positions he’d seen Clouseau and the secretary share, had said gently, “But you seem so…intimate.”
“She is my pupil, like you, my friend. A naif in the ways of the world. Could a simple soul such as her keep up with the career, the life, the passions of Clouseau? This I doubt, very much.”
“Well, it is hard.”
In the darkness a few seconds passed before Clouseau had responded: “…uh, what is hard?”
“To meet the woman, in the life we lead. The life of danger. The hours so long.”
“Ah, Ponton, you are learning. You are learning.”
Indeed Ponton was learning: within moments he had deflected Clouseau’s shot in the dark and punched him in the stomach.
“Oooh!…Good night, Ponton, my vigilant friend.”
“Good night.”
“That hurt, you know.”
“If you attack me in my sleep, Inspector, the next one will hurt more.”
Clouseau had chuckled, or was that a whimper? “No, I think we have enough of the lesson tonight, my big little star pupil, star pupil…”
Now that they’d eaten a quick lunch as they walked the busy sidewalks of Manhattan, Ponton strode happily along with Inspector Clouseau. They were on their way to Xania’s hotel, the Waldorf. Ponton had used his laptop computer in their room at the Sofitel to make a computer check of the singer’s phone records—from New York to France and back to New York, the cyber trace went…revealing two phone calls she had made to a certain jeweler—a Simon Sykorian.
As they strolled along on this sunny day, Ponton reported these new findings; Clouseau, after taking it all in (Ponton hoped), asked, “This Sykorian, if he is a jeweler, why is this suspicious? Certainly a lovely woman like Xania has a right to adorn herself with the jewel.”
Though he used the American accent only when called for, the inspector insisted upon English while in New York, with Clouseau’s unique French accent and word-mangling patois making the trip.
“Ah, but Sykorian is a notorious scoundrel, Clouseau.”
Nodding sagely, Clouseau asked, “Have you noticed this, Ponton? How many of these scoundrels, they are also notorious?”
“Uh, yes. Anyway, he’s a black market diamond cutter.”
Clouseau stopped dead. “Do not tell me…”
“Yes. The Pink Panther, our nation’s most revered symbol of wealth and power, could be carved up in smaller pieces, for fencing purposes.”
“I asked you not to tell me!”
“There’s the Waldorf. Let us cross here, Inspector, and—”
Clouseau’s arm gripped Ponton’s. “No. You must not walk as the jay! They are very strict about their laws traffique…We will go to the corner and remain inconspicuous.”
They waited with other pedestrians for the red hand, indicating STOP, to turn to green; only it was not green, rather white, a bent-over crooked figure indicating WALK. To indicate to Ponton his strict compliance with the American traffic regulations, Clouseau crossed in that same distorted posture.
Ponton thought, Fool…clown…eccentric? Who can know?
When they reached the Waldorf, Xania—as if on cue—emerged, looking stunning in a white dress that complemented her creamy chocolate complexion and showed off her full bosom nicely. The only nod toward keeping a low profile was her floppy creamy brown hat with a white band, a blue purse slung over one arm.
Clouseau took Ponton’s elbow and whispered: “Perhaps she will take us to this notorious scoundrel. We will shadow her…”
“But she knows us, Inspector!”
Keeping the singer in his sight, Clouseau stopped at a newsstand and purchased two tabloids. He handed one to Ponton, keeping the other for himself.
“The newspaper ploy,” Clouseau explained, with a wicked little smile.
As they followed the beautiful woman, they covered their faces with newspapers. To Ponton’s consternation, Clouseau insisted upon reverting to the distorted “walking man” posture when they crossed at pedestrian lights; hardly Ponton’s idea of staying inconspicuous…
Nonetheless, Xania apparently did not make them, and within half an hour she had led them onto a side street where warehouses faced each other glaringly. The sophisticated Manhattan ambience had shifted suddenly into a film noir nightmare of suspicious vans, shoddy storefronts and seedy characters.
“And so,” Clouseau said, lowering his newspaper, “we are in that most famous of criminal districts, an area notorious for crime…”
Ponton lowered his tabloid, as well. “And what is that, Inspector?”
Clouseau flashed him a darkly meaningful glance. “The…Warehouse District!…Newspapers!”
The detectives snapped their newspapers protectively in place, Xania having paused to look back over her shoulder. They continued to follow her thusly, until Clouseau inadvertently fell down the stairs into a subway entry.
But he emerged none the worse for wear on the opposite stairs, just as Xania was rounding the next corner.
When Clouseau and Ponton came around that same corner, however, she had disappeared; but the clip-clop of her high heels alerted them to where she had gone: the nearest warehouse. They slipped inside, via a loading dock, and found themselves standing before a bank of freight elevators, one of them already rising—most likely, with the beautiful object of their surveillance in it.
Clouseau pointed to the elevator floor indicator: 12.
“That is our destination,” the inspector said to his assistant. Then he frowned. “As the American argot has it, I smell something…fishy.”
“We did pass two fish markets,” Ponton said helpfully, jerking a thumb behind him.
“No, I make the play on the words. Here—perhaps we should take the stairs, not the elevator.”
But before they could make that decision, another of the elevators came to rest, a slatted wooden door swung up, and out stepped three tall, muscular men wearing dark, tight suits, sunglasses and sneers.
The nearest one, a craggy-faced character, snarled, “What’s your business here?”
Clouseau and Ponton exchanged glances as the trio approached. That their eyes were shielded by the opaque lenses made them all the more menacing.
Summoning his best American accent, Clouseau asked, “We’re looking for a diamond cutter.”
“There’s no diamond cutter in this building.”
“Not even of the…black market variety?”
The craggy-faced man’s sneer grew and his hand slipped inside his suitjacket.
Clouseau threw a karate chop that dropped the man, and the fight was on, Ponton taking out one with a flip over his shoulder, sending the brute sprawling to the cement, Clouseau mostly chopping the air with bladed hands but making occasional contact, ducking all blows, Ponton taking the remaining two out at the same time, with a punch and a kick.
The trio lay unconscious on the floor; it was so quick they still wore their sunglasses, though one lens was spider-webbed.
“This is what they call in America,” Clouseau said, “the Welcome Wagon.”
“They seem to have fallen off it,” Ponton observed.
“You did very well! Very well! You see, my substantial sidekick! These lessons, these surprise attacks…they pay off!”
They rode up the freight elevator, which stopped at the sixth floor.
Clouseau frowned at Ponton. “We make the unscheduled stop…Vigilance, my friend. Vigilance.”
Two Asian men, burly, sinister of face, in tasteless sportshirts and tight trousers, stepped aboard. One took Clouseau’s side, the other Ponton’s. The Asians stared at the two detectives with openly threatening expressions.
The tension mounted as the elevator rose, seventh floor, eighth floor, ninth…
“Now, Ponton!” Clouseau said, as he executed a karate chop to the belly of the Asian nearest him.
Ponton grabbed the man at his side and thrust him into the wall of the elevator, its wood and steel clattering.
But these two were not pushovers, and the fight on the elevator was a brutal thing, its participants bouncing off the walls and each other, an exchange of savage blows, some missing, some connecting…
When the elevator reached the twelfth floor, however, the two Asian “swine” were in a pile, out cold, like the sunglassed thugs who’d dared assault the French detectives below.
Ponton sent the unconscious men down, and joined Clouseau in the open loft, where various work and storage areas were interspersed. Way across the room, opposite the elevators, a small, rather nondescript, fifty-ish man with a jeweler’s loupe over his right eye, and in white shirtsleeves and dark apron, sat at a work station while Xania, distinctive in the floppy light-brown hat and stark white dress, stood watching.
The man, obviously the jeweler Sykorian, had a small saw in hand, and it was buzzing, as he leaned over a glittering object in a vise.
“Like the ice you will freeze!” Clouseau demanded.
Xania looked sharply toward them, as did the jeweler, who removed the loupe to give the attention of both his eyes to these intruders.
The detectives strode over, Clouseau saying, “Stop what you are doing! And you need not try to flee—you are defenseless! We have already put out of the commission your thugs of the strongarm!”
By this time they were all but on top of the jeweler—an average-looking fellow but for his slitted, hard gaze and a harsh, full-lipped mouth that right now was scowling.
“What thugs?” he asked, with more confusion than indignation.
“Do not bother playing the game! Your bodyguards, these men strong of back and weak of mind who you have patrolling this building!”
“There’s no security here,” the jeweler said, with a little shrug, “until nightfall. There’s not much at all going on in this building right now—just the sunglasses shop and the Chinese carryout joint.”
“Ah.” Clouseau turned to Ponton and whispered, “You may owe someone an apology, my impulsive friend.”
Ponton, ignoring that, displayed his badge to the jeweler. “Sorry to interrupt you…but what exactly are you cutting there?”
“What does it look like? A diamond—pink. Seven carats. Clear. Why?”
Clouseau thrust himself forward. “Clear? There is no flaw at the center? Of a bist that is lipping?”
“A what that is what?”
“A bist that she is lipping! A lipping bist! A lipping bist, you fool.”
Xania, matter of fact, explained: “A leaping beast. He thinks this is the famous Pink Panther.”
The jeweler laughed humorlessly. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is a clear stone—a gift from the French Minister of Justice for his new mistress. I am to provide a setting.”
Clouseau’s eyes narrowed. “And why would the Minister of France come to you, a jeweler in New York, to provide the setting for him and his mistress in which to play?”
“No, you imbecile—it’s a setting for the jewel! I’m to set it.”
Ponton was leaning over, examining the diamond in the small vise. “He tells the truth. This is not the Pink Panther.”
Clouseau, his pride ruffled, turned to Xania, chin high. “And what are you doing here, sneaking around like the naughty schoolgirl who needs the spanking? Why have you left Paris?”
From the diamond cutter’s desk nearby, Xania lifted a small clutch purse, a dark little thing studded with diamonds and stunning in its ornate deco design.
“Mr. Sykorian is the best at what he does,” she explained, with a smile even more dazzling than the diamonds in the fancy purse she displayed. “This is a valuable, priceless item, and only he could properly repair it.”
Clouseau said, “I see. And what is it that makes this purse so priceless?”
She lifted an eyebrow casually. “It once belonged to Josephine Baker.”
Clouseau’s eyes popped open. “Mon dieu…” He crossed himself, and Ponton felt himself melt inside, at the name of the renowned entertainer, beloved by all of France.
“It was a gift to her in nineteen fifty-seven,” Xania said, and then dropped her second bomb: “Given to Josephine Baker by…Jerry Lewis.”
Clouseau dropped to his knees, and hung his head, and held out prayerfully clasped hands, beseeching her, “Forgive, my dear! Forgive me for doubting you…”
Ponton, moved himself, lifted his partner to his feet and provided a handkerchief for Clouseau to dry his eyes.
Xania was offhandedly explaining, “The purse was falling apart—each of these diamonds is precious, and must be firmly in place before tomorrow night.”
Clouseau, his poise nearly regained, asked, “And what is ‘tomorrow’?”
“The Presidential Ball. In Paris.”
His brow tensed. “But you are in New York…”
“And tomorrow I’ll fly back to Paris. You did say I needed to stay available in Paris…”
Clouseau beamed at her. He took one of her hands in both of his. “And I knew I could count on you, my darling suspect.”
Ponton, less charmed, asked, “Why did you arrange to see a black market diamond cutter for such a job?”
She flashed an irritated look at Ponton, snapping, “I told you—Sykorian is the best!” Then she returned her features to an innocent cast as she said to Clouseau, “I had no idea he had this other, underground reputation.”
The jeweler said, “It’s slander. My record is flawless…like my work.”
“But not like the Pink Panther, eh? Which has its distinctive flaw.”
“Yes, I know—a ‘lipping bist.’ ”
Clouseau took Xania aside. “My dear, why did you not tell Clouseau you were leaving…and the innocent reason behind it?”
She batted long eyelashes at him. “Well, just look at the fuss you’ve made! With the Pink Panther stolen, how could I go to a diamond dealer without arousing suspicion?”
“I must admit,” Clouseau said, “you did arouse me…”
The phone on the diamond cutter’s desk rang.
Clouseau held up a hand, and went to the ringing phone. “I will answer it. It may be one of your unscrupulous clients, Monsieur Skyroian, who will want some of the black market work done…and we will see how long your reputation, it remains spotless!”
Answering, Clouseau said, “Yes?”
Ponton watched in rapt anticipation…
“Yes,” Clouseau said, “you raise the point interesting, monsieur…No, no, no…I did not know these things!”
Clouseau and Ponton traded significant, sly smiles.
“Yes…yes. That does sound like a steal…Yes, let us go through with this scheme. As it happens…I am not happy with my phone service! I will take the plan five-year.”
Ponton sighed and watched the floor while Clouseau gave the operator his credit card information, then hung up.
“No one can say Clouseau did not accomplish anything here this afternoon!” the inspector said. “I believe I just made the deal very shrewd…”
Again the phone rang, but this time Ponton held up his hand, saying, “Let the machine take it.”
“Ah, yes,” Clouseau said. “Let the mysterious client leave the massage.”
The jeweler frowned. “The what?”
“Quiet, you fool!”
The voice on the machine had a European accent that Ponton could not quite place. “The ‘animal’ is out of its cage. And since you are the world’s greatest ‘trainer,’ it will find its way to you…in good time. Call me.”
The machine clicked off.
“Well,” Ponton said with satisfaction. “It is obvious that whoever that was has the Pink Panther!”
The jeweler looked at the nearest wall, his face an expressionless mask.
Clouseau chuckled patiently, and took Ponton’s face in his hands like that of an adorable child. “My silly, silly goose of a pupil. Sometimes the hot dog, she is merely the hot dog, the train tunnel, only the train tunnel, the two large balloon, only the two large balloon. Clearly this massage was in regard of an animal that had escaped from her cage. Nonetheless…”
The inspector thrust a pointing forefinger at the jeweler. “This answer-massage machine, she must not leave town! Is this understood?”
The jeweler’s eyes did not in fact register understanding, but he said just the same, “Uh…sure. Why not.”
Clouseau accompanied Xania as they left the warehouse, Ponton trailing, feeling somewhat shellshocked. As they reached the street, an ambulance was loading in gurneys bearing the trio of men in sunglasses and the two Asians from the earlier encounters.
“This is a rough neighborhood,” Xania said, and clutched Clouseau’s arm.
“Yes, my dear, in this savage American city,” Clouseau said, “the senseless violence, she is around every corner…Would you excuse me for a small moment?”
“Of course…”
Clouseau took Ponton aside and whispered, “I see that you were correct, my cunning friend—she knows much that she does not tell us. For example, what time is her plane leaving tomorrow?”
Ponton blinked. “Why not just ask her?”
“Too obvious. I need her to be inside of my confidence, and I to be inside of…her.”
Ponton frowned. “What…?”
Clouseau leaned even closer. “I believe the seduction ploy, she is called for.”
“Why don’t you just ask her?”
“But then she may be deceptive, whereas if I pump her for the information…”
Xania approached. “Uh, Inspector? Is there any chance you’d like to join me tonight, for dinner at the Waldorf?”
“Of course, mademoiselle! But my friend Ponton, he is busy this evening. He has the many museum to visit.”
Ponton frowned. “I do?…I mean, I do.”
Clouseau, stepping away from his partner, taking Xania by the arm, asked, “And what time, my dear?”
“Say…eight o’clock?”
He shrugged. “Eight o’clock.”
“Say…in my room, on the second floor?”
“In my room, on the second floor.”
“No…my room.”
“Oh. Yes, of course, your room.”
She smiled at him, with a wattage even the Pink Panther might well envy. “I’ll see you there, then.”
Clouseau, trembling, swallowed and managed, “Yes. Yes. There you will see me. You will see me there. There I will be seen…”
The devil was in her smile as she walked down the street, chocolate legs swishing under the white ice-cream dress, to hail a taxi.
Ponton was at Clouseau’s side, as the inspector said, “You see, my sizeable subordinate? She plays into my hands like the putty.”
“It could be a trap,” Ponton cautioned.
“It is a trap! It is Clouseau’s trap…She is the rat, and I am the cheese!”
Ponton nodded. “That sounds about right.”