You can find Part 1 here.
The love nest of M. Carter Blanc, honorary consul of a second city of the Near East, representing the small European nation of Titania, was, as love nests go, comfortable, but not luxurious; well-appointed, but not opulent; cosy but not langourous. The fact is, M. Blanc was not in it that much. After all, there was his villa outside of town which was his main residence.
Mrs. M., the other occupant of M. Blanc's love nest, was in it more often than not, alone, sometimes waiting for him to come -- and he didn't. She never went to his home -- that would have aroused suspicion, as she was a married and respectable woman after all, the wife --- or rather grass widow -- of a general, frequently absent though he was.
M. Blanc prided himself on the furnishings of said love nest; he had picked up some lovely, solid classic furniture when a diplomat by the name of Figura decamped from the second city, bound for glory at a more prestigious posting, and had let it go for a song. M. Blanc was glad for the rich pieces, which he liked for the clean but prosperous line that did not verge into decadence.
M. Blanc never wanted to be seen as decadent -- not after the incident at Saint-Cyr when -- but we'll leave that aside for now. Carter was unhappy at the departure of Figura if only for the loss of a good connection for his main occupation -- or pre-occupation -- which was of a covert nature, and -- but perhaps we'll leave that for now, too.
Ah, the love nest.
Aside from the love nest's main attraction -- love, of course -- there was the only good coffee in the house. Hot, brisk, Turkish coffee made by Emil, M. Blanc's rather ineffectual cook and only very occasional gardener who was mainly employed running errands for the -- well, we'll get into that later, too.
The coffee. The coffee was brewed very strong, very early in the morning the way M. Carter liked it, and was only available in his secret nook, so it lasted throughout the day, untouched by many visitors, who had to make do with the lukewarm tea and thin lemonade. Mrs. M. would bring elaborate truffle cakes from a French bakery -- her one extravagance. The general kept her on an extremely tight budget although he could afford more and would be suspicious of any strange or large expenditures. M. Blanc paid her for doing his receptions and sorting out his jumbled books -- but then all that cash seemed to go to things like tortes or taxis home or prepared meals when she was late and unable to cook.
Blanc never ate the tortes -- she nibbled on them herself, alone in the nest, drinking the strong coffee and absently reading one of the American magazines. The women in them seemed to lead lives of luxury unknown even to Mrs. M., and were curiously obsessed with recipes and cooking techniques even though, judging from the pictures and articles, they did very little cooking of their own.
M. Blanc never practiced his photographic skills inside the love nest and the photo of the nude woman draped in a veil was in fact not of Mrs. M. and Carter swore it was not any past (or current) lover of his own. He claimed he got it at an estate auction and it had been put out as part of his network of subterfuges and strategems around the house, designed to distract and foil inspectors and policemen and secret agents who might discover the nest.
Next to the photos -- behind the nude was a home in London that Carter also claimed had nothing to do with him (although she doubted him) -- was Carter's favourite piece -- a hand-made Moroccan cabinet from the old days which he had very nearly started to re-texture himself before Mrs. M. stopped him and implored him to leave it with its original beauty.
On top of the Moroccan chest was a book of Byron's poetry -- the hugely practical and business-like M. Blanc seemed to have inherited a sentimental streak from his Russian emigre step-mother -- or rather, his birth mother, as he had recently discovered although the first wife of his father, Arthur McTeague, told a story of his wife dying in child-birth with him, in fact. This was one of the mysteries Carter had only recently started to unravel, and was one of the aims of his trip to London coming up within the fortnight.
Inside the poetry book was a document that Blanc had worked hard to get and paid a handsome some for, having to deal with various relatives and strange acquaintance's of his mother's.
The document was a French Letter of Transit that would assist getting his true Russian mother's parents -- his own grandparents -- out of Russia when the Bolsheviks came to power -- another curious anachronism or tesseract, if you will, in the Villa Sirocco which perplexes readers until you follow the connection from Maxim Gorky to -- well, we'll come to that in due course.
Just as Carter hoped the poetry would be so dull to the inspector's eye and the ravishing photo of the nude woman so interesting that he would't notice the Letter of Transit, so Blanc's plans for the jewelry boxes inside the cabinet.
One of the venal policeman or detectives might be counted on to grab the jewelry inside the boxes -- and also be relied upon to conclude that M. Blanc's love nest was covering up a contraband operation -- there being no grounds for finding any lovers. If Mrs. M. was ever discovered inside, she could simply explain that the only good coffee was kept in this room, and she had been working on the books. She would cooperate fully of course! That had always been Carter's instruction to her.
Usually, when petty, venal officials steal something -- they want to get away with the loot. They won't want to stick around and keep poking into your affairs. But if they should, there was one more gift from them on top of a jewelry box so they wouldn't even have to open it.
It was hoped they wouldn't push anything further, but if they did -- the chances were 1 in a 100, give the corrupt and lazy nature of the officials -- they would find an internal passport of a man they might not recognize. They might think it was merely a scrap fallen from M. Blanc's presumed main attraction -- his provision of passport photos of letters of recommendation to "expedite" various applications for travel into and out of the Near Eastern outpost.
But an internal passport? That would be dismissed as insignificant, perhaps merely a piece of identification to secure the foreign travel document. It would be unlikely that a) the official would pick up the scrap and b) tie it together with any news story of any man found with explosives in Aqaba. "I long for the gardens of Cordoba...but first must come the fighting..."
As Mrs. M. sat waiting longingly in the love nest late in the afternoon after the courier left, she wondered sometimes if the love nest -- and she herself ! -- were the cover for the smuggling operation -- or whether the smuggling operation was a cover for the affair with her (she wished!) -- or both of them covered up some other secret activity whose purpose she could only guess at -- and not think about, because it alarmed her.
There on Carter's bureau was a photo of some men -- she surmised intellectuals and leaders of a national resistance movement -- and a Berber dagger which had been given as a gift by a man who once visited late at night and never gave his name.
Again, M. Blanc was counting on the photo not to get a second glance -- or the gun inside the chest to be noticed -- once the gleam of the silver items in the grooming kit fell into the field of view of the prodding detectives.
The gun, in any event -- as one ill-clad visitor once explained to her during a long evening they waited for Blanc to return -- only made a lot of noise, as it had blanks in it. It was meant to scare off intruders.
If anyone thought that M. Blanc's system of subterfuge meant that something was hidden behind the photographs -- they would be wrong. There was nothing there. Should anyone get past them to look. Nothing there because -- as Mrs. M. suspected -- it had been recently removed.
Emil -- who supposedly served as houseboy, cook, gardener and did none of these jobs fully or well -- was often away on errands that were more important to M. Blanc than Emil's finishing the cherry pies that Mrs. M was trying to get him to make -- truffle cakes were expensive and she wanted to have something to impress the other foreign visitors when they came to one of M. Blanc's teas that she herself organized.
The thought had crossed her mind that maybe the teas were for show, too, but Carter seemed to enjoy them and spend a lot of time in the corner smoking with some of the more important dignitaries -- whose homes he also visited.
Although M. Blanc had purchased a shiny new American store out of a mail order catalogue and had it shipped for use in the villa, Emil claimed that he couldn't work its flues and it didn't cook things through, and preferred the Moroccan style oven that kept its heat after you shoveled in the coals. He baked bread daily -- well, weekly. But the fire was kept up.
Subterfuges were at work in the oven as well, and it was just as well Emil didn't bake anything. Inside was a rather risqué set of drawings by a British author that were rather old hat at home but sensational in M. Blanc's adopted land.
The drawings could be counted on to keep inspectors fascinated enough not to look further in the oven -- which was strangely cold, with pies unfinished.
To be sure, pie filling was bubbling on the stove and all that was required was to pour it into the pie crust -- already made -- and cover it with more criss-crossed dough -- if only Emil would return and finish the job.
If any policeman did begin to wonder what ELSE might be inside the oven, he would quickly singe his fingers on the drawers that were kept hot with coals -- he might not stop to think why, when nothing was inside.
Their attention would be drawn to another obvious hidey-hole -- the tea-bin, another item from the British society that M. Blanc seemed to keep but spoke sparingly about -- said to be a gift from a dear old governess. That indicated perhaps he had spent time being raised in England, away from the wheat fields of his alleged home.
The tea-bin -- true to form -- had an assortment of tea-tins and packets and tea biscuits -- that were more appreciated by M. Blanc's guest than himself or Mrs. M -- they preferred the strong coffee. But tea-time means tea, and there you have it.
The searchers could be reliably depended upon to help themselves to the open biscuit tin and scoop up some of the packets -- if they noticed anything colourful underneath they would initially assume these were more of those exotic British packets -- actually of tea made in India.
And -- here M. Blanc counted on his deep knowledge of such officials' psychology -- if they filched something, they'd want to get away from the scene hastily, and not look further.
If they did they would find passports.
Fresh, clean, new passports, for all kinds of countries.
Now, that was odd.
What were they doing here?
If they merely needed photos or letters of "expedition," they'd be on the desk where Mrs. M usually sat, no?
It was a mystery that we were not able to get to the bottom of right away -- we were no better able to solve it than one of the errand boys who, after a longish wait in the reception area, risked a theft of the biscuits while he was rummaging around for something more to drink after the lemonade ran out (he actually found a warm ginger beer in the cabinet, which fascinated him and also kept him from examining the passports further).
But soon Mrs. M. would examine the last petition for Carter -- who was delayed once again! -- and flush the whining errand boys out of the waiting area because it was time to get ready for the guests coming any minute for a late tea.
Things were rather dismal in the kitchen as Emil had disappeared once again and Mrs. M. was thinking sadly of the need to raid the love nest for her expensive truffle cake to serve the guests, when suddenly Emil appeared to finish up the cherry pie and pop it in the oven -- taking the book of drawings and disappearing in the direction of the studio.
Guests arriving would smell the delicious pie cooking and other savory aromas from a meal Emil had already placed upstairs and not notice the scraggly rose bushes -- they got enough of gardens at all the other lavish establishments along the diplomatic row.
To be continued...
Credits to come.
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