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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Monsieur Pamplemousse Series
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
When France's leading gastronomic guidebook decides to launch itself into the expanding health farm market, its Director decides Monsieur Pamplemousse is the man for the job: overweight, underactive, with a blood pressure count that threatens to shoot off the top of the scale.So the former Surete detective finds himself banished to the punitive regime of the Chateau Morgue, a Pyrenean health clinic from which a number of damning reports have already emerged, centred largely on its shady-sounding owner, Herr Schmuck.The Chateau Morgue fulfils Pamplemousse's grimmest expectations; obligatory dawn snow tramps, rock-hard beds and meals comprised solely of muddy spa water. And it also provokes his deepest suspicions. Why does a hearse pay such frequent visits? What is going on in the astoundingly luxurious Tower Block? And what is the significance of the delicious parcel of sausages sniffed out by Pamplemousse's indispensable bloodhound, Pommes Frites? With Pamplemousse and Pommes Frites on the trail truth is finally revealed - but not before their sleuthing stamina has been tested to its absolute limits...
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Monsieur Pamplemousse Takes the Cure
Michael Bond
CONTENTS
1
THE IDEAL INSPECTOR
‘Entrez!’
The Director’s voice sounded brisk and businesslike. It was undoubtedly the voice of someone who commanded and who also expected to be obeyed without question.
In the short space of time left at his disposal between rapping on the door and taking hold of the handle, Monsieur Pamplemousse tried to analyse it still further.
Was it, parexemple, the voice of a man who commanded and expected to be obeyed, and yet had also read his, Monsieur Pamplemousse’s, recent article on the subject of cassoulet – its many forms and regional variations – which had recently appeared in L’Escargot,LeGuide’s staff magazine? And if so, was it the voice of a man who couldn’t wait to hear more?
In the remaining half second or so before turning the handle, a dry cough – an obvious clearing of the throat before getting down to business – dispelled the thought. It was scarcely the cough of a man desperately trying to conceal his excitement, but more that of someone rapidly running out of patience.
On the other hand, if the summons to the Director’s office wasn’t to do with the article, why had he specifically mentioned the word ‘Toulouse’ when he rang through on the internal telephone? Toulouse, the very home of cassoulet. And why the note of urgency? ‘Drop everything, Pamplemousse,’ had been the order of the day. ‘Come to my office immediately.’
Perhaps the Director had a cold? That was it – a cold. There were a lot around at the moment. He must have read the previous article in the December issue – the one on garlic – its use in combating Man’s most common ailment.
The next remark, however, confirmed his worst suspicions. The Director was not in a good mood. Testiness had crept in.
‘Don’t hover, whoever you are. Either come in or go away.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse took a deep breath, and with all the enthusiasm of an early Christian entering the lion’s den, did as he was bidden.
Having entered the room he waited for the usual nod indicating that he could sit in the chair facing the Director’s desk; a desk so placed that its occupant had his back to the light and his face in the shadows – just as he, Pamplemousse, had arranged his own desk in the days when, as a member of the Sûreté, he’d wished to conduct a cross-examination in his office at the quaidesOrfèvres.
But he waited in vain. Instead, the Director gave a grunt and picked up a printed form from a neat pile in front of him. Adjusting his glasses, he gazed at it distastefully for a moment or two.
‘I have been studying your medical report, Pamplemousse.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse shifted uneasily. ‘Oui,MonsieurleDirecteur?’
‘It makes unhappy reading.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse felt tempted to say if that was the case, why bother? Why not try reading something more cheerful instead; his report concerning the continued insistence of French chefs on the use of fresh ingredients, for example. But wisely, he refrained. The Director was clearly in no mood for frivolities. In any case he was speaking again; intoning from the form rather in the manner of a small-part actor who has been given the telephone directory to read whilst auditioning for the part of Hamlet.
‘Born: nineteen twenty-eight.
‘Height,’ Monsieur Pamplemousse instinctively drew himself up, ‘one hundred and seventy-two centimetres.
‘Weight: ninety-eightkilogrammes.’
The Director made it sound like a series of misprints, each a greater travesty of the truth than the one before.
‘I have large bones, Monsieur.’
‘They have need to be, Pamplemousse,’ said the Director severely. ‘They are bones which may well, as they grow older, have difficulty in supporting your weight. Unless … steps are taken.
‘Complexion: pique-nique. I have never heard of that before.’
‘It is a little-used medical term, Monsieur. It means pink, full of health. Even Doctor Labarre was impressed.’
The Director barely suppressed a snort. ‘Blood pressure …’ he paused again and then held the piece of paper up to the light as if he could scarcely believe his eyes. ‘Blood pressure … can this figure be true?’
‘It was not a good day, Monsieur, the day of the medical. Madame Pamplemousse was being a little difficult, you understand, and that affected me. It had been raining and Pommes Frites had the misfortune to step in something untoward while he was out for his morning walk. We had just purchased a new carpet …’
Monsieur Pamplemousse heard his voice trail away as the Director reduced him to silence with a world-weary gesture of his hand.
‘Facts, Pamplemousse. Facts are facts, and there is no getting away from them. It is high time we returned to first principles; principles laid down by our Founder, Hippolyte Duval, without whose integrity, without whose dedication, single-mindedness, clear thinking, foresight and devotion to duty none of us would be where we are today.’
While he was talking the Director transferred his gaze to a large oil painting which occupied the centre of the wall to his right. Lit by a single spotlight, it showed an ascetic-looking man eating alone outside an hotel on the banks of the Marne. Dressed in the fashion of the day, he gazed at the artist and the world through eyes as cold and as blue as the empty mussel shells piled high on a plate beside him. With one hand he held a glass of white wine by its stem – probably a Sancerre if the artist had accurately captured the label on the bottle. With his other hand he caressed one end of a waxed moustache, the curve of which neatly echoed the handlebars of a bicycle propped against a nearby tree. It was one of many velocipedes dotted about the picture, for the motor car had yet to be invented and even LeGuide itself was still in its infancy, confining its investigations to those restaurants in and around Paris which could be reached by Monsieur Duval on two wheels or by pony and trap.
While agreeing with the Director that but for Hippolyte Duval he wouldn’t be standing where he was, Monsieur Pamplemousse couldn’t help but reflect that given the present circumstances, the advantages this implied were open to debate. He’d always nursed a secret feeling that had he and the Founder of LeGuide ever met they wouldn’t necessarily have seen eye to eye. He suspected Monsieur Duval lacked humour. The faint smile on his face looked out of place, rather as if it had been hired specially for the occasion. Either that, or he had just witnessed one of his fellow cyclists falling from his machine.
The Director’s next words confirmed this feeling. Reaching into a drawer in his desk he took out a plastic box, opened it and withdrew a small red object which he held up for Monsieur Pamplemousse to see.
‘In his later years,’ he said, ‘our Founder made a great study of the effect too much food can have on the body. He came to the conclusion that Man can live happily on an apple a day. A dictum, Aristide, which, if I may say so, you would do well to consider.’
As the crunch which punctuated this last statement died away, Monsieur Pamplemousse gazed at the Director with something approaching horror. It was a well-known fact that people often grew to look like their pets – he had himself been compared more than once to Pommes Frites, but that was different, a compliment of the highest order. It was the first time he’d encountered someone who had grown to look like another person’s portrait. It hadn’t occurred to him until now, but there was no denying the fact that the Director bore a distinct resemblance to the erstwhile incumbent of his post, Monsieur Hippolyte Duval himself. There was the same fanatical gleam in his eyes; a gleam which brooked no interference or disagreement.
‘With the greatest respect, Monsieur,’ he said at last, ‘I would not call making do with an apple a day living – nor would I connect it with the word happiness. I also feel most strongly that it is a philosophy which ill becomes a man whose whole life was dedicated to the running of a restaurant guide. Speaking personally, I would find it impossible to conduct my work for LeGuide were I to confine myself to such a diet. An Inspector has to sample, to test. He has to compare and evaluate. Above all, he has to accumulate experience, experience which embraces both the good and the bad. There are times when he has to consume meals when all his natural instincts tell him to stop. People think it is easy. The few – the very few – who know how I earn my living, say to me “Pamplemousse, how lucky you are. How wonderful to have such a job.” But if they only knew.
‘Were I to confine myself to an apple a day, why …’ Monsieur Pamplemousse gazed out of the window as he sought hard to find a suitable parallel and ended up on the banks of the Seine somewhere near the quaidesOrfèvres. ‘Why it would be like an Inspector of the Sûreté patting a murderer on the head and saying, “Go away and don’t ever let me catch you doing that again.” It would make a mockery of my calling.
‘Being a little overweight goes hand in hand with my work, Monsieur. It is an occupational hazard – a cross we Inspectors have to bear, along with occasional bouts of indigestion alone in our beds at night.’
‘Yes, yes, Pamplemousse.’ The Director interrupted in a tone of voice which all too clearly meant ‘No! No!’
Rifling through some papers on his desk he extracted another sheet. Monsieur Pamplemousse’s heart sank as he recognised the familiar buff colour of a form P39. It had a red star attached to it. The one Madame Grante in Accounts used when a decision from higher authority was needed.
‘I have been going through your expenses, Pamplemousse. They, too, make unhappy reading. Unless, of course, we happened to be thinking of applying to the Gulbenkian Foundation for a grant. In those circumstances they would provide welcome evidence of the mounting cost of our operation.
‘If you are so concerned about the state of your digestion, I suggest the occasional bottle of eauminérale instead of wine would not come amiss.
‘On the tenth of January, for example, you and Pommes Frites between you consumed an entire bottle of Château Lafite with your boeufbourguignon. Considering the remarks you made in your report concerning lapses in the cuisine – I see you compared the quality of the meat with a certain brand of shoe leather – might not a wine from a lesser Château have sufficed? Perhaps even a pichet of the house red?’
‘If you were to check with my P41, Monsieur, you would see that January the tenth was my birthday. Rennes is not the most exciting place in which to spend one’s birthday – especially in mid-January. And it was raining …’
‘Be that as it may, Pamplemousse, there is no getting away from the fact that you are grossly overweight and it is high time something was done about it.’ The Director gestured towards the far side of the room. ‘Stand over there, please, and look at yourself in the mirror.’
As Monsieur Pamplemousse turned he gave a start. In the corner behind the door stood another figure. For a brief moment he thought a third person had been a party to their conversation and he was about to express his indignation in no uncertain terms when something about its posture made him pause. It was a dummy, an exceptionally lifelike one, complete in every detail down to the very last button on its jacket, but a dummy nevertheless.
‘Allow me to introduce our latest recruit, Pamplemousse.’ The Director sounded pleased at the effect he had achieved. ‘His name is Alphonse. No doubt you are wondering why he is there?’
Glad to be able to divert the conversation away from his P39, Monsieur Pamplemousse murmured his agreement. Expenses were always a thorny subject and it was no easy matter to strike a happy balance between the need to eat at some of the most expensive restaurants in France whilst at the same time not to overstep the rigid boundaries laid down by an ever vigilant Madame Grante, many of whose minions were hard put to eat out at a local bistro more than twice a week.
The Director rose to his feet. ‘Alphonse, Pamplemousse, represents the IdealInspector. An ideal we must all of us strive for in the future. I have been studying the many writings of our Founder and the results have been fed into a computer. From its findings I have had this model constructed.
‘I think,’ the Director formed a steeple with his bands and tapped the end of his nose reflectively as he began to pace the room, ‘I think I can say without fear of contradiction, that I know his background and his habits as well as I know my own.
‘I know where he was born; where he went to school. I know where he lives. I know the number of rooms in his apartment and how they are furnished, what time he goes to bed, when he rises. I know his tastes and where he buys his clothes. I know where he goes for his holidays. In short, I know down to the very last detail what makes him tick.
‘The ideal Inspector working for LeGuide, Pamplemousse, will weigh seventy-six point eight kilos. He will lead an active life, rising at six-thirty every morning and taking a cold shower. In his leisure hours he will play tennis, perhaps a little squash from time to time; enough to keep his figure in trim. During his lifetime he will have no more than two point six mistresses –’
Monsieur Pamplemousse, who had been growing steadily more depressed as he listened to the growing list of what he could only interpret as his own deficiencies, could stand it no longer.
‘With respect, Monsieur,’ he exclaimed, eyeing Alphonse distastefully, ‘it is hard to imagine him having point six of a mistress, let alone any more.’
‘Would that we could all say that, Pamplemousse,’ said the Director severely. ‘Two point six would be a very low estimate indeed for some of us. That unfortunate business with the girls from the Follies, the reason for your early retirement from the Sûreté – that should keep you ahead of the national average for many years to come.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse fell silent. When the Director had a bee in his bonnet it was pointless to argue, and on this occasion he was clearly dealing with not one bee, but a veritable swarm. He braced himself mentally for the next blow, wondering just how and where it would land.
‘I must say, Pamplemousse,’ continued the Director, ‘that in many respects you fall sadly short of the ideal. In fairness, I have to admit you are not alone in this. Looking at the group photograph taken during the staff outing at Boulogne last year, clearly many of your colleagues would fare equally badly were they to stand alongside our friend here, but their turn will come. However, for reasons which I won’t go into for the moment, it is you whom we have selected for the honour of acting as a guinea-pig for what we have in mind.
‘For some time now the Board of Governors has been considering various ways in which we might expand our activities – broaden our horizons as it were. In many respects it goes against the grain, but one has to move with the times and there is no denying that some of our competitors have been forced into taking similar action. Michelin ventured into other countries many years ago. Gault-Millau currently involve themselves in areas which would make our Founder turn in his grave were he to be aware of them – magazines, special offers, things I trust we shall never do.
‘Nevertheless, it is our intention from time to time to test other waters, if I may coin a phrase. And first on the list is a survey of all the health farms in France.
‘Pamplemousse, tomorrow we want you to dip our toes into the waters of the Pyrénées-Orientales. A room is reserved for you at an establishment north of Perpignan. I wish you luck and I look forward to welcoming the new Pamplemousse on his return in a fortnight’s time.’
Having delivered himself of this salvo, a positive broadside of unexpected facts, the Director came to a halt opposite Monsieur Pamplemousse, all ammunition spent, and held out his hand.
‘Bonvoyage, Aristide,’ he said, eyeing the other somewhat nervously.
‘A fortnight!’ Monsieur Pamplemousse repeated the words with all the disbelief and bitterness he could muster. ‘At a healthfarm! Has Monsieur ever been to the Pyrénées-Orientales in March? All the winter snow will be beginning to melt. It will be cascading down the mountainside in ice-cold torrents. It is not our toes that will suffer, Monsieur, it is mine. I hate to think what might happen to them were I to risk dipping them into such waters. At the very least they will become frostbitten. At worst, gangrene could set in and before you know where you are, pouf! They will fall off!’
‘Come, come, Aristide, you mustn’t take me too literally.’ The Director stole a quick glance at his watch as he motioned Monsieur Pamplemousse towards the visitor’s chair. As he feared, it was almost lunch time. It was all taking much longer than he’d planned. A good man, Pamplemousse, but not one to be hurried. Information had to be digested and slept on. A typical Capricorn, and from the Auvergne as well – a difficult combination; whereas the new model – the Ideal Inspector – he was definitely a Leo and from some less mountainous region.
‘Dipping our toes was perhaps an unhappy turn of phrase, but don’t you think, Aristide, the change will do you good?’
From the depths of the armchair Monsieur Pamplemousse listened like a man who was experiencing a bad dream. A man whose feet became more leaden the harder he tried to escape. He sat up as a thought struck him.
‘I have just remembered, Monsieur, it will not be possible. My car is due for its two hundred thousand kilometre service. Later in the year, perhaps, when it is warmer.’
‘Excellent news!’ The Director rubbed his hands together with a pleasure which was so obviously false that he had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘It can be done while you are away,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I will make all the necessary arrangements. After two weeks at the Château Morgue you will be in no fit state to drive anyway. The good Herr Schmuck and his wife will see to that.’
Sensing that he had inadvertently struck a wrong note, the Director hastily crossed to a filing cabinet and withdrew a green folder. Opening it up, he spread the contents across his desk. Recognising the detachable pages contained at the back of every copy of LeGuide, the ones on which readers were invited to make their own comments, Monsieur Pamplemousse wondered what was going to happen next.
‘It doesn’t sound so bad. Preliminary investigations have already been taking place.’ The Director sifted through the papers and after a moment or two found what he had been looking for. ‘Look, here is one taken at random. I will read it to you: “Just like a home from home. The food was plain but wholesome, avoiding the excessive use of cream common to so many establishments. The first time we encountered genuine smiles in all our travels through France. My wife and I particularly enjoyed the early morning tramps through the snow (obligatory without a medical certificate). Our only criticism concerned the beds, which could have been softer, and the lack of pillows. It would also help if the bicycle racks were provided with locks. In many ways it reminded us both of our days in the Forces (my wife was an AT).”’
‘An at!’ repeated Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘What is an at?’
The Director ran a hand round his collar and then glanced at the window, wondering if he should open it. The room was getting warm. ‘It was some kind of paramilitary female organisation operating from GrandeBretagne during the war.’ He tried to sound as casual as possible.
‘You mean the people who wrote that report were English?’ exclaimed Monsieur Pamplemousse.
It figured. Memories of a week he’d once spent in Torquay during a particularly cold winter just after the war came flooding back to him. It had been his first visit to England and at the time he’d sworn it would be his last. An unheated bedroom. Everyone speaking in whispers at breakfast lest they incur the wrath of the landlady, a bizarre creature of uncertain temper who spoke some totally incomprehensible language and who wouldn’t let anyone back inside her house until after five-thirty in the afternoon. A depressing experience. Fourteen meals of soggy fish and chips – eaten out of a newspaper! He’d spent most of his time sitting in a shelter on the sea front trying to decipher the crossword.
‘It suffers a little in translation,’ began the Director.
‘May I see the others, Monsieur? The less random ones?’
‘They vary.’ The Director began to gather them up. ‘Some, perhaps, are not quite so enthusiastic.’
‘S’ilvousplaît,Monsieur.’
The Director sighed. It had been worth a try.
‘Not quite so favourable!’ Monsieur Pamplemousse could scarcely conceal his scorn as he glanced through the pile of reports. ‘Sacrébleu! They are like an over-ripe Camembert – they stink! I have never seen such reports, never. Not in the whole of my career. Look at them.
‘“The man should be arrested … his wife, too … Herr Schmuck is a …”’
There the report ended in a series of blots, rather as though the emotional strain of putting pen to paper had proved so great the author had emptied the entire contents of an ink-well over the report rather than commit blasphemy in writing.
‘That settles it!’ He rose to his feet. ‘I am sorry, Monsieur.’
The Director heaved another sigh; a deeper one this time. ‘I am sorry too, Aristide. I had hoped that your dedication to duty, the dedication we older hands at LeGuide have come to admire and respect, would have been sufficient motivation. Alas …’ With an air of one whose last illusion about his fellow man has just been irretrievably shattered, he played his trump card. ‘It leaves me with no alternative but to exercise the authority of my position. An authority, Pamplemousse, which I must remind you – although speaking, I hope, as a friend, it saddens me that I should have to do so – you were only too happy to accept when you first joined us. You will be leaving for Perpignan on the seven forty-one train tomorrow morning. Your tickets are with Madame Grante.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse sank back into his chair again. He knew when he was beaten. What the Director had just said was true. He owed LeGuide a great deal. The memory of that fatal day when, out of a sense of moral duty and against the advice of many of his colleagues, he had handed in his resignation at the Sûreté, was still very clear in his mind: the sudden cold feeling of being alone in the world when he’d walked out of the quaidesOrfèvres for the last time, not knowing which way to turn – left or right. As it turned out, the Fates had been kind. Obeying a momentary impulse, he’d turned right and headed towards the seventh arrondissement. And as luck would have it, his wanderings had taken him past the offices of LeGuide. There he had bumped into the Director; a Director who had cause to be grateful for the satisfactory conclusion to a case which, had it been handled differently, could have brought scandal on France’s oldest and most respected gastronomic bible.
But if the Director had cause to be grateful to Monsieur Pamplemousse, the reverse was certainly true. Hearing of the latter’s plight, he had, without a second’s hesitation, offered him a job on the spot. In the space of less than an hour, Monsieur Pamplemousse had moved from one office to another; from a job he had come to think of as his life’s blood, to one which was equally rewarding.
He rose to his feet. It had been a generous act, a noble act. A gesture of friendship he could never hope to repay. He was left with no option but to accede to the Director’s wishes. To argue would be both churlish and unappreciative of his good fortune.
‘Come, come, Aristide,’ the Director allowed himself the luxury of putting an arm on Monsieur Pamplemousse’s shoulder as he pointed him in the direction of the door. ‘It is only for two weeks. Two weeks out of your life. It will all be over before you know where you are.’
While he was talking the Director reached into an inner pocket of his jacket with his other hand and withdrew a long, white envelope. ‘These are a few notes which may help you in your task. There’s no need to read them now. I suggest you put them away and don’t look at them until you reach your destination. What is the saying? Lacorde nepeut êtretoujourstendue. All work and no play makes Jacques a dull boy? Who knows, they may help you to kill two oiseaux with one stone.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse blinked. For a moment he was mentally knocked off balance by the Director’s disconcerting habit of mixing his languages as well as his metaphors when the occasion demanded. Absentmindedly he slipped the envelope inside his jacket without so much as a second glance.
‘Oh, and another thing.’ As they reached the door the Director paused with one hand on the latch. ‘I think you should take Pommes Frites with you. He, too, has been looking overweight in recent weeks. I think he is still suffering from your visit to Les Cinq Parfaits. Besides, you may find him of help in your activities.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse’s spirits sank still further. It hadn’t occurred to him for one moment that he might not be taking Pommes Frites. Pommes Frites always went with him. He was glad he hadn’t thought of the possibility earlier, otherwise he might have said more than he had already and regretted it.
‘Dogs are not normally allowed at ÉtablissementsThermaux,’ said the Director, reading his thoughts, ‘not even with the payment of a supplement. It is a question of hygiène. Not,’ he raised his hands in mock horror at the thought, ‘not that one questions Pommes Frites’ personal habits for one moment. But the presence of dogs seems to be particularly frowned on at Château Morgue. Chiens are definitely not catered for. I had to resort to a subterfuge. I insisted on his presence on account of your unfortunate disability.’
‘My disability, Monsieur?’
The Director clucked impatiently. Pamplemousse was being unusually difficult this morning. Difficult, or deliberately unhelpful; he strongly suspected the latter.
‘The trouble with your sight. I made a telephone call on your behalf late yesterday evening in order to explain the situation. I’m sure Pommes Frites will make an excellent guide dog. It’s the kind of thing bloodhounds ought to be good at. You can collect his special harness along with some dark glasses and a white stick at the same time as the tickets.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse stared at the Director as if he had suddenly taken leave of his senses. ‘Perhaps, Monsieur,’ he exclaimed, ‘you would like me to learn Braille on the journey down?’
His sarcasm fell on deaf ears. ‘Such dedication, Aristide! I knew from the outset you were the right man for the job.’
‘But …’ Monsieur Pamplemousse found himself clutching at straws, straws which were wrenched from his hand the moment his grip tightened. ‘Would it not be easier and infinitely more satisfactory if someone else went?’
‘Easier, Pamplemousse, oui.’ The Director’s voice cut across his own like a pistol shot. ‘More satisfactory … non! We need someone with your knowledge and experience, receptive to new ideas, able to collect and collate information. Someone totally incorruptible.
‘Oh, and one final thing,’ the Director’s voice, softer now, reached Monsieur Pamplemousse as if through a haze. ‘I am assuming that to all intents and purposes your régime has already begun. There is, I believe, a restaurant car on the MorningCapitole. However, I shall not expect to see any items from its menu appear on your expense sheet. It will be good practice for you and Pommes Frites, and it will put you both in the right frame of mind for all the optional extras at Château Morgue – such things as massages and needle baths. Make full use of everything. Do not stint yourselves. I will see things right with Madame Grante.
‘And now,’ the Director held out his hand, donning his official manner at the same time, ‘aurevoir, Aristide, and … bonnechance.’
Although the handshake was not without warmth, the message that went with it was icily clear, delivered in the manner of one who has said all there is to say on the subject and now wishes to call the meeting closed.
The Director believed in running LeGuide with all the efficiency of a military operation, and clearly in his mind’s eye Monsieur Pamplemousse was already but a flag on the map of France which occupied one entire wall of the Operations Room in the basement; a magnetic flag which on the morrow would be moved steadily but inexorably southwards as the MorningCapitole gathered speed and headed towards Toulouse and the Pyrénées-Orientales.
As Monsieur Pamplemousse made his way slowly back down the corridor towards the lift, he turned a corner and collided with a girl coming the other way. She was carrying a large tray on which reposed an earthenware pot, a plate, bread, cutlery, napkin and a bottle of wine: a Pommard ’72.
‘Zut!’ The girl neatly recovered her balance and then made great play of raising the tray in triumph as she recognised Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Alors! That was a near thing. MonsieurleDirecteur would not have been pleased if his cassoulet had gone all over the floor. Nor would the chef – he made it specially. MonsieurleDirecteur said to me when he phoned down a moment ago how much he was looking forward to it. I think he has had a bad morning.’
‘Cassoulet!’ Monsieur Pamplemousse repeated the word bitterly as the girl hurried on her way. ‘Cassoulet!’ He had a sudden mental picture of the Director clutching his apple sanctimoniously while he laid down the law. The mockery of it all! The hypocrisy!
He hesitated for a moment, wondering whether he should snatch a quick bite to eat before visiting Madame Grante, and decided against it. His digestive tracts were in a parlous enough state as it was without adding to their problems.
Besides, if he was to catch the early morning train there was work to be done. His desk would need to be cleared of outstanding papers, the contents of LeGuide’s issue suitcase would have to be checked. He had a feeling some of the items might come in very useful over the next two weeks – the portable cooking equipment for a start.
The thought triggered off another. He might try and persuade old Rabiller in Stores to let him borrow a remote control attachment for his Leica while he was away. He’d heard there was one in stock awaiting field trials. With time on his hands he might try his hand at some wildlife photography. An eagle’s nest, perhaps? Or a mountain bear stirring after its long winter rest. He would take the precaution of stocking up on film.
Then he would need to be home early in order to break the news to Madame Pamplemousse. She would not be pleased. He had promised faithfully to decorate the kitchen before the spring. That would have to wait now, and in his weakened state after ‘the cure’ who knew when he might be fit enough to start work on it?
Pommes Frites, too. Pommes Frites liked his set routine. They would need to be on their way by half past six at the very latest, which would mean doing him out of his morning walk. There was also the little matter of getting him used to his new harness before they set out.
Almost imperceptibly Monsieur Pamplemousse quickened his pace. One way and another there was a lot to be done and very little time left in which to do it.
