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WHEN I GOT DOWN FROM the mountain, I used my key on the front gate and slipped into the garden. Since the plumbers would be expecting me from the den direction, I took the path past the gravesite instead.
Instinctively my pace and slowed. I even lingered over a few of Marsford's odd figures placed among the flowers. The eerie sensation the early shadows had drawn around the graves was gone. I nodded my respects and bent to remove an untidy clump of earth from the gravel path. Since there was no newly dug garden in sight, I supposed the mud had fallen off a wheelbarrow as Henri passed by. Yet there were no tracks to support my guess.
Then I noticed the brass plaque had been uncovered. Earlier in the day I’d had to push thickly matted vines aside, but now the blanket of myrtle lay three inches lower. A closer inspection indicated someone had been digging at the base of the tombstone, maybe even deep enough to unearth the Marsfords’ bodies. Great care had been taken to conceal the work, which probably included a large tarp to hold the soil and plants until the vandals’ objective was achieved. That meant preparation and plenty of time, yet for certain it had been done sometime today. When I was on the mountain, had the man from the lighthouse also seen how far away I was?
A white-hot anger ignited inside me, but a crunch on the gravel stopped me cold. I turned sharply, my arm raised to fend off an attack. No one was in sight.
I hustled through the hedges toward the chateau and glimpsed Pascaline's blue skirt rounding a corner. Was she running? Walking quickly? I couldn’t tell. Soon she slipped around a bush and disappeared from sight.
Whatever reason she had for being near the Marsfords’ graves, my safety was now in her hands. She had seen me examining the dirt. How likely was it she’d scurried off to prepare my dinner? Not very.
Drawn back to the secluded path above the yacht basin, now I turned toward the stairs-to-nowhere and the sea. Discovering a bench in an overgrown corner, I had just sat down to catch my breath when two sets of heavy footsteps came toward me twenty feet along the path. Had Pascaline already warned someone that I’d seen the desecrated graves?
Since I was already half hidden, the quietest thing I could do was climb onto the bench and sink into the dangling ivy on the wall. If the men continued on the perimeter’s path, maybe they wouldn’t look around the comer.
Instead the footsteps clumped down some stone steps nearby. The clank of tools being tossed into metal boxes came as a relief. The plumbers had been repairing the visitors’ restrooms and were collecting their equipment at the end of the workday.
I might have slipped away on the ribbon of grass edging the path, but a word of the men's hushed conversation kept me still. "Tresor" was the word, and in English it means 'treasure.’
A coarse, unfamiliar voice, "I could have sworn it was buried with them."
"Forget it."
"What about the room where he died? Those cabinets probably have false bottoms. Maybe even another whole other closet. "
"Non. Not the alarm again, not yet. Once that step is taken we must be sure of ourselves. It is the beginning of the end of our search. Until then...Marsford referred most often to his art. We shall pursue that avenue."
"You want me to start smashing statues?"
"Nothing would please me more...risk too enormous...use our brains...where is the marble infant with the wings?"
The conversation may have continued, but that was all I got until the men came back up to ground level. What I heard then chilled me even more.
"The American, Quinn?...too stupid to...”
"Oui, but what if he learns something by accident?"
"We’ll kill him."
There was no more. The men split up, one turning toward the perimeter path–and me.
I had no choice. I leaped onto the path and pretended to be heading toward the restrooms. Ten paces later I came face to face with the phony plumber.
"Hi!" I greeted him with all the eagerness I could muster. "Fixed the W.C., have you? Not a minute too soon!"
He looked upon me as one would a drunken uncle who had exceeded everyone’s patience. I welcomed the distain, if it remained just that. Best not to linger.
Clapping him on the shoulder, I trotted down the stone steps and into the men’s room. Half of me worried I would encounter his confederate while half of me wished I would.
The second man wasn’t there, but having overheard my voice, he must have doubled back for another word with the thug. Practically holding my breath, I caught most of their whispered French.
"He’s trapped. Kill him now?"
"No.”
“But he heard us!”
“Perhaps, but he has no French."
"Without him the search would be...”
"...impossible. The gendarmes would never leave."
"But after the old woman..."
"You said that was an accident."
"Quelle difference?"
A silence, then a hissed reply in terrible French. "This is my business. If Quinn dies, I say when."
"If he gets in our way?"
“Then he is dead."
I flushed a toilet and splashed water at the sink. When I reached the top of the stairs, the men were gone.