Treasure of Saint-Lazare by John Pearce Page B

and when we told him he did not say a word. In fact, he said almost nothing until the funeral was complete and they were buried, then he went to the Hotel Negresco in Nice for a week. I understand he was drunk the entire time.
    “When he returned he refused to discuss Lauren or Sam. He didn’t mention her name for five years. He was very seriously depressed, although he has so much personal discipline it didn’t show in his work.”
    Margaux stood. “I’ll show you a picture. We don’t leave it out any more because it makes Charles Edward very sad, so I moved it to my bedroom.”
    She returned and handed Jen a gold frame containing a family portrait of Eddie and Lauren seated, with a handsome boy standing between them. All three looked at the camera, the boy with an impish grin on his face. “This was made the year before Lauren and Sam were killed.”
    “I didn’t realize Lauren was black,” Jen said in surprise. “Wasn’t she pretty.”
    “She was a lovely woman and a very good mother, although I’m afraid Paris turned out to be a disappointment to her,” Margaux said.
    “Charles Edward is the best of France where race is concerned. It doesn’t matter to him at all. I think he took some grief about it at college, even though Lauren was the daughter of the campus military commander — ROTC, I think they call it. He was a decorated Army officer and Charles Edward looked up to him. I believe he’s still living, although I haven’t seen him since the funeral. His wife, interestingly enough, is French, with a Vietnamese grandfather. She worked at the American Embassy here when he was a young attaché.
    “The police never made any arrests. They were pretty sure Artie’s death was an accident, but the fires in both cases made them suspicious. Philippe says they never even got any good leads.”
    Margaux took the picture back to her bedroom and, as she returned, Eddie knocked on the service door, and Martine went to admit him.
    “That didn’t take long,” he said. “There was no sign anyone had been in the house. Anyway, it would be tough for a burglar to get in without the desk clerk seeing him.
    “Why don’t we go to the bank now?”
    Jen asked, “Would you mind if I stay here? I’m still exhausted from the flight and an hour’s nap would help me a lot.”
    Margaux and Eddie took the elevator to the ground floor and walked out onto Avenue de Breteuil. At the gate a policeman touched his cap and wished them bonjour. “Philippe said he’d have someone watch for a day or two,” Eddie told Margaux. “He thinks only one of the Germans is still free and is unlikely to try anything by himself, but he doesn’t want to take the chance they might be able to call on local help.”
    They walked in silence down the shell walkway bordering the first long block of the broad green esplanade, passing a homeless man dozing on a green bench, then a few yards further along a couple nuzzling in the sun, the remains of a picnic spread on their blanket. A plastic wine glass had tipped over, spilling its red stain dangerously near his trousers, but they were oblivious to it.
    They turned down the narrow street leading to the HSBC Bank branch where Margaux kept her accounts, just a few yards from the ornate church of St. François-Xavier, where the establishment of Paris goes to preen on Sunday mornings.

    The bank manager brought a locked steel box large enough to hold a stack of file folders and placed it on a small desk in the corner.
    Margaux tried to insert her small key into the box’s lock but fumbled. “Nerves,” she said, then turned and handed it to Eddie, who opened the lock and raised the lid of the box. Inside were two large envelopes, one marked “Place Vauban,” the other blank.
    “We want the blank one,” Margaux said. “That’s where I put everything except the deed for the house. There were some letters and papers in the safe and some on Artie’s desk, so I put them all together in the second