Folly du Jour

Also by Barbara Cleverly

The Last Kashmiri Rose 2001

Ragtime in Simla 2002

The Damascened Blade 2003

The Palace Tiger 2004

The Bee’s Kiss 2005

Tug of War 2006

FOLLY DU JOUR

Barbara Cleverly

Constable & Robinson Ltd

3 The Lanchesters

162 Fulham Palace Road

London W6 9ER

www.constablerobinson.com

First published in the UK by Constable,

an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2007

Copyright © Barbara Cleverly 2007

The right of Barbara Cleverly to be identified as the author of this work has been identified by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication

Data is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-84529-528-8

Printed and bound in the EU

For my son Steve

with many thanks for his help,

and for Gary

whose enthusiasm for the Paris Music Hall was inspiring.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Prologue

Paris, 1923

Harland C. White of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania shuffled resentfully after his wife, May, through the Egyptian rooms in the Louvre museum. One vaulted stone room after another. You could lose yourself in here. Or lose your mind. He wondered whether this was a good moment to suggest they go for tea on the new roof terrace over the Samaritaine store.

‘Say! May!’ he called after her. ‘This is the fourth roomful of sarcophaguses – okay, then, sarcophageeee – we’ve done. How many more?’

They’d had lunch at Ciro’s. The food and wine had made him sleepy, the size of the check had made him grouchy. $1.00 for a slice of melon? $2.25 for a Baby Lobster? Still, lunch at Ciro’s was on his schedule. You couldn’t go home and not say you’d lunched at Ciro’s. Had to be done. Same thing, apparently, with the Louvre.

Maybelle (May, since she’d discovered all the girls over here had short names . . . though it didn’t have quite the kick of Zizi or Lulu or Kiki) had come to a halt in front of a huge, dark-painted coffin box and was doing that thing with her hands . . . Tracing the shapes in the air – hieroglyphs, she called them – and silently mouthing the sounds that went with them. Clever girl, May! She’d been to classes. She’d grown chummy with the arty folks at the State Museum. She’d gotten hold of a book called The Mummy by some feller called Wallis Budge and had learned – or so she told him . . . what would he know? – to read the sounds out loud. She’d tried to teach Harland to do it but his attention had faded after he’d mastered ‘Tut – ankh – amen.’

‘Come look, Harland! This one’s kind of special and I can work out the name of the occupant.’

His friends at the Country Club – swell blokes every last one of ’em – had been full of good advice: ‘So, you’re going to Paris? Peppy Paree! Ah! It’s the top of the beanstalk – you’ll just love it. Give my regards to Harry . . . and Henry . . . and Bud at the Dead Rat . . . and Joe Zelli – now he’s a real live wire!’

Two days down and all he’d met were three-thousand-year-old guys who lived in boxes. And here was another introduction coming up.

‘Kham – nut – see,’ said May.

‘I’m looking, I’m looking!’ he said, trying to lighten the gloom.

‘Chump! That’s his name. Kham – nut – see,’ she intoned again. ‘High Priest of Ptah.’

‘Do you have to spit your baccy on my brogue, May?’ he said, never knowing when to give up.

May ignored him. ‘At Memphis.’

‘Memphis?’

‘That would be Memphis, Lower Egypt, not Memphis, Tennessee.’ May could be very squashing.

‘Well . . . whoever . . . your buddy’s just sprung a leak,’ he said crabbily. He didn’t like the look of adoration on Maybelle’s face – the way she opened shining wide eyes and moistened her lips. Never looked at him that way. He pointed to the foot of the upright coffin. ‘There. He’s sprung a leak – or taken one.’

The ticking off for loose language he was expecting didn’t come. May was staring at the marble floor at the base of the mummy box. He looked again. A dark red-brown glutinous fluid was ponding there.

‘Ah! I’ll tell you what that is . . . it’s embalming fluid,’ said Harland, decisively. ‘Come away, May. Time to move on, I think.’ He tugged at her arm.

‘No, it’s not embalming fluid,’ said May. ‘It’s blood. You ought to know that. I’ll stay here. You go get help. Somebody’s climbed in there and died.’

‘But not four thousand years ago . . . No, you’re right, Maybelle – that’s blood. And it’s still flowing!’

Oddly, the room guardian wasn’t at his post. Nor was the one in the preceding room. What was this – the tea break? He saw not another soul until he came to a grand staircase he remembered. A party of four men, all carrying briefcases and paper files of notes, were coming down, laughing together and chatting in several languages.

‘Hey there!’ shouted Harland. ‘Anyone here speak English?’

One of them, a smart-looking Anglo-Saxon type, all floating fair hair and ice-blue eyes, detached himself from the group, responding to the urgency in the American’s voice. ‘I do. Can I help you, sir? Jack Pollock, British Embassy.’

‘Thank God for that! I need someone to come and inspect a mummy. There’s a High Priest of Memphis, Egypt, down there and he’s bleeding to death!’

Jack Pollock should have his name added to the list of live wires about Paris, Harland reckoned. In minutes he’d managed to send for the chief curator, the specialist in Egyptology, the police and a doctor, and was relaying what was going on to his party. And all in a babble of English, French, Italian and German.