Barbara Cleverly - Folly Du Jour

The Gare de Lyon was bustling with smartly dressed travellers, porters hurrying along behind carts piled high with luggage. Trains whistled and panted and whooped. Joe and Bonnefoye struggled with Heather Watkins’ hand luggage and packages, hunting for her compartment. Finally settled, she leaned out of the window to talk to them.

‘Well, here we are. . Oh, good grief! Joe! Jean-Philippe! Do you see who that is — down there, thirty yards off, just getting in. Crikey! Shall we pretend we haven’t seen them?’

Joe looked along the train, puzzled. ‘George! It’s George! I said goodbye to him this afternoon at the hotel. . I don’t need to show my grinning face again.’

‘The last thing he’d want to see at this moment, I think,’ said Heather mysteriously. ‘Look! He’s with a woman.’

Bonnefoye saw her at the same moment. With one hand she picked up the hem of her dark blue evening cape and with the other grasped the hand of Sir George standing gallantly at her side. Laughing, she stepped nimbly up into the train, turned and pulled him up after her into her arms.

‘They’ve gone into a sleeping compartment,’ said Bonnefoye, astonished.

‘That’s what people do on the Blue Train,’ said Heather, giggling. ‘What fun! How smart! She’s very pretty! And — I have to say — what a lucky lady!’

‘That was no lady — that was my mother!’ spluttered Bonnefoye. ‘What the hell! Visiting my aunt Marie indeed! And she has the nerve to go off wearing my birthday present.’

‘Glad to see it got there on time,’ said Joe, smiling.

‘It was you , wasn’t it?’ Bonnefoye rounded on Joe. ‘Duplicitous fiend! It arrived with a card — Amélie, with eternal gratitude from an English Gentleman . She thought it was from George!’

‘If he’d been aware, I’m sure it would have been,’ said Joe. ‘I didn’t quite like to disillusion her. Delphine in the rue de la Paix was very understanding when I nipped in with my cheque book and a disarmingly salacious story. Let’s hope they’re as understanding at Scotland Yard when I present them with my expenses! So that’s what you earn in a month, Jean-Philippe? You’re really doing rather well, aren’t you?’