CHAPTER THIRTEEN
117Alice waited a few moments, then she slipped out of her seat, dropped the money for her coffee and macaron on a plate for the waiter and made for the door of the café. She winced as the bell above the door rang, and she stepped out into the rain-drenched streets.
She was about halfway down the alley when she heard the bell ring again and knew that someone had left the café after her. Might it be Uncle Robert? She quickly pulled up the back of her coat collar to hide her hair. Perhaps Uncle Robert would not realise it was her. Then she glanced at the glass window of the shops opposite and saw that whoever was behind her was about the right height and shape. Uncle Robert’s broad shoulders and dark hair reflected back at her in the ripples of rainwater on the glass. Alice drew in her breath and began to walk more quickly, hoping that he would not recognise her. She reached the road and turned a sharp right. Maybe she would be able to flag down a passing taxi. She picked up her speed and suddenly dashed across the street, hardly noticing a car beeping and swerving around her.
Alice turned to the left. There were four cabs 118waiting at the end of the street and two businessmen heading towards them, one behind the other. If she could get to a taxi then she could escape. But if Uncle Robert was suspicious, he could follow her in the fourth unclaimed cab. If only she could distract him somehow.
Then she spotted it. Ahead of her, one of the shops had forgotten to fold up the fabric canopy that stuck out over the pavement above its window. The fabric was full of rainwater, bowing with the weight of it, almost ready to break. Alice hurried on till she was at the end of the canopy, hearing Uncle Robert’s footsteps close behind her. Then she turned to face him and, with a great leap, slapped at the canopy, pushing the water back towards him. She heard a cry of alarm and knew that he had been drenched. For a few precious seconds his face would be full of water. She turned in mid-air and dashed for one of the cabs, hearing the doors of the other two slam as the businessmen claimed their separate rides.
Alice gave the driver Claude’s address and sank down in the seat out of sight. The driver pulled away and Alice allowed herself to peer out.
Uncle Robert stood in the middle of the pavement, 119watching three cars pull away and not knowing which one contained Alice. She had escaped him.
“So he’s training a new assistant,” said Claude, a look of disgust twisting across his face.
Alice nodded. “And I think it might be Chloé. He might be taking advantage of her being so angry with Adele.”
“Well, that just shows what sort of personality she has,” said Stella crisply. “Good sportsmanship is about treating your rivals’ successes as a spur to your own work, not trying to bring them down.”
“Maybe,” said Alice, “but I still feel a bit sorry for her. Uncle Robert is a very good liar and she’s going to get hurt. She doesn’t deserve that, just for being jealous.”
“I wonder why this medallion is so important,” mused Claude.
“They said that it is the key to Monsieur Rejewski’s machine,” said Alice.
“A key?” said Claude. “That would make sense. He once built a clockwork box that would only play a tune if Madame Rejewski’s wedding ring was slotted into a circle on the lid. A medallion being the key to 120his machine would appeal to his sense of humour.” Claude smiled fondly as he thought of his friend, but then he frowned. “But if that’s the case then we must make sure they do not get their hands on it. If they do have the machine but there is a piece missing and they can’t use it then we are all much safer. You said that Hugo showed you drawings of it. Do you remember what they looked like?”
Alice dug through her pockets for her notebooks and pulled out the sketches she had made for her cake from Hugo’s designs. Stella pored over them while Claude went to his photography darkroom to get the prints of the letter from Alice’s spy camera. He dropped them on the table and Stella snatched them up.
“What a strange letter,” she said, peering at them.
“Not at all his usual style,” agreed Claude. “I have had notes from Jan before. Normally they are full of fun and the most terrible jokes. This reads like one of his clockwork machines wrote it.”
“Or else it’s in code,” said Alice, “but I haven’t been able to work out what sort. The odd thing is the capitals. None on Adele and Hugo, but he has 121added one at the start of need. Could that be a clue?”
Claude nodded. “Possibly.” He leaned closer to the photograph. His finger went out to tap on some of the letters. “Surely it can’t be that simple,” he murmured.
“What can’t be that simple?” asked Stella.
“Well, look, what if the capital letters are the clue? What if he was trying to tell us that by putting a capital in specific places? Then what do you see?”
“INEVREUX,” said Alice. “But that doesn’t tell us anything.”
“In Évreux!” Claude exclaimed. “It’s a town in Normandy.”
“But surely he wouldn’t leave his location so clearly marked,” said Stella. “What if the enemy found this letter?”
“I admit it seems odd for such a skilled codebreaker,” said Claude. “But what else could it mean? I think it’s worth checking out. I will take a trip there tomorrow. Stella, you should come too, for cover. We can pretend to be sightseeing. Alice, you go back to camp. Watch Hugo and Adele like a 122hawk and keep an eye out for Chloé.”
The next day, Alice walked through the gates of the training camp with a large cake box under her arm. Chef Michel had challenged her to create a cake for the mayor’s visit, with a centrepiece celebrating “the greatest Olympians”, and Alice had prepared most of it at the Vive Comme L’Éclair bakery so that she could spend her time at the training camp watching Hugo, Adele and Chloé.
The cake would have four tiers, each decorated with chocolate plaques on which Alice had iced the faces of some of France’s greatest athletes. The top tier would have a sculpture of the Olympic podium with three athletes receiving their medals. Alice had made the plaques and two of the cakes the night before, but had been ushered to bed by her mother while working on her topper. With so much detail to be included, she would need to work as quickly as possible to get it complete.
Weaving his tail between Alice’s feet, Casper miaowed loudly. He had a habit of appearing where he should not and today was no exception. While Alice had focused on installing her creations safely 123in the taxi, Casper had taken his opportunity to sneak in after her, hoping for a tasty morning treat. Alice discovered him as her taxi arrived at the camp and it was too late to take him back.
“I wish you were a homing cat,” she muttered. “Maybe I can get Columba to train you.”
The camp was abuzz with athletes. The gymnasts were creating a tower in the middle of the central lawn, standing on top of one another’s shoulders in a pyramid three women high. Two of the runners were out for a morning jog.
It was as Alice was approaching the Chefs’ Hall that the disaster happened. One of the runners lost their footing and staggered towards the tower of gymnasts. He caught himself before colliding with them, but it was too late. One of the women at the bottom of the tower stepped backwards. Her teammate on her shoulders wobbled and fell, and the entire tower came toppling to the ground. Alice heard a cry behind her and one of the coaches dashed across the camp. As he passed Alice he caught her elbow … and her box full of delicately balanced cakes fell to the ground, landing in a muddy puddle from yesterday’s rain. 124
Alice waited to check that the gymnasts were all right, and was glad that there were no broken bones, but she could not hide her disappointment at the loss of the cakes. She dashed to the kitchen and began work to remake them.
After a couple of hours she had made some progress and felt that she could afford a break. She folded her apron up and was just pushing open the door of the kitchen when she heard Chef Michel.
“Not so fast, Mam’selle Éclair!”
Alice turned.
“You came highly recommended, mam’selle,” Chef said, marching over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder and firmly guiding her towards the Chefs’ Hall. “But your absences have not been unnoticed and a chef who is not in the kitchen is not much use to me. The mayor’s visit is everyone’s priority today.”
Alice grimaced. She would have to try to sneak out later.
Alice worked quickly but it was so frustrating, watching the clock tick by and knowing how much she still had to do before she could get back to 125her spy work. For once she began to regret having such ambitious plans for her centrepieces. She had hoped to escape at lunchtime but Chef Michel kept them all in the kitchen and they ate lunch together at one of the stations to save time.
Alice was rolling out fondant icing to shape into a podium when she saw Sophie’s head appear round the door of the kitchen. Her friend frantically waved at her. Alice waited till Chef Michel’s head was turned, then dashed over to join her.
“Have you seen Adele or Hugo today?” asked Sophie, looking distraught.
Alice shook her head.
“They’ve gone missing. Bastien has gone too and they haven’t left a note. I can’t believe he’d leave the rest of the team in the lurch like this, and Adele’s bicycle is still here, so it doesn’t make sense that he’s taken her somewhere to train.”
“The rest of the cyclists are still here?” asked Alice.
“Yes! Why would Bastien just abandon them?”
Alice nodded. That did not make sense. She was about to say that they should investigate, when Chef Michel’s voice boomed across the kitchen at her. 126
“Mam’selle Éclair, is your cake going to be ready by the time the mayor arrives?”
Alice groaned. She just could not escape. She was halfway through building the podium for her cake out of fondant icing; the rest of the topper would take hours to get right and by that time the trail for Adele and Hugo could have gone cold. But if she bailed now, she might be ejected from the camp and would not be able to continue her investigations.
“I’ve got to go back,” she said. “But I’ll be as quick as I can, I promise. I’ll give you Claude’s number and you can let him know what’s happening…” Alice’s voice trailed off as she remembered that Claude and Stella had gone on a field trip. There would be no one to answer the phone.
She dashed back to her station and stared at the half-finished cake. “Sometimes a new plan with new ingredients can work just as well,” said her mother’s voice at the back of her head. It was something that Madame Éclair said whenever Alice was missing a vital ingredient for a recipe. But what new plan could she have that would show off her skills and celebrate the brilliance of France’s Olympic teams? 127Alice looked up and caught sight of herself in the glass of one of the kitchen windows, and a plan started to form. She reached for her mixing bowl.
Half an hour later, she was folding her apron into a heap on the workbench and beckoning Chef Michel over. The cake, with its plaques of France’s greatest Olympians, looked little different to how it had when the head chef had last seen it, but Alice had hidden a surprise on the top.
“Take a look,” she said.
Chef Michel leaned over the cake and gasped.
The top tier had been covered in golden mirror icing, the glaze so fluid and shiny that Chef Michel could even see glimpses of his face reflected back at him in the gold swirls that danced across its surface. Around the edge, Alice had iced “The greatest Olympian is you”.
“Everyone sees themself in it,” murmured Chef Michel. “Simple but brilliant. The mayor will love it.” He sighed. “Very well, Mam’selle Éclair, take a break.”
Alice grinned and popped the unused podium into her pocket. As usual, her mother had been right.