James Patterson - Thriller - Stories to Keep You Up All Night

"I believe that I am acquainted with that 'wench' out there- though not with her beast," he informed his companions. "I may add, in my experience, the lady has assuredly mounted animals superior to that one." He laughed as he saw the astonished faces of Adams and Jefferson.

"Do you not recognize her?" Franklin asked Adams. When the latter shook his head, Franklin clarified: "It is Notre dame d'Auteuil."

"Madame Helvetius?" cried Adams, aghast.

When Franklin nodded, Jefferson said, "Not the wife of the philosophe! But why is she dressed as a farmer's wife?"

"Ah, the upper classes are always a mystery, aren't they?" said Franklin. "Our charming queen, Marie Antoinette, has a peasant farm on the grounds of the palace, where she plays at being a poor shepherdess. Rousseau has made these 'natural' ideas so popular."

But privately, Franklin couldn't imagine why Anne-Catherine Helvetius would arrive here in this fashion, astride a recalcitrant mule. The situation did not bode well.

Suddenly he saw that Mme Helvetius had lashed her mule to a tempting-looking lemon tree with lush green leaves. While it was occupied, she was headed on foot-with a swiftness that almost resembled stealth-straight for the garden entrance to the salon, where the others Bancroft had mentioned would be waiting.

What in blazes was the woman thinking, prancing about in the garden instead of using the customary entrance? And where was her driver? Where was her cabriolet? Action seemed called for on Franklin's part-and quickly.

"Enough for the morning, gentlemen, I can rest here no longer," he announced, rubbing his leg as if to plead his eternal gout. "Let's attend to the others, shall we?"

And, leaving the two men to collect themselves, he hobbled swiftly out the door.

He was too late-at least, too late to halt the explosion.

Echoing down the long gallery of mirrors and many-paned windows that led from the library came a piercing shriek that had emanated from within the salon. Franklin knew it could only be Anne-Catherine Helvetius:

"O, mon Dieu, ou est Franklin? Et qui sont ces dames-ld?"

A bit more commotion from within-raised voices, the sound of a door opened and banged shut, then a moment of silence. Franklin stepped up his painful gait along the corridor. All at once, Anne-Catherine Helvetius came hurtling down the hall toward him, her idiotic straw hat askew. In her flush of excitement, she nearly collided with him.

Grasping her by the arms, Franklin said, "My beloved friend…" But then he caught a whiff of her. "What is that interesting aroma-a new eau de parfum?"

Helvetius glared up at him in fury.

"My milkmaid's dress! I am en camouflage!" she said, trying to keep her voice down. "That cafard of a mule. I have been on his back for hours. And now this-a roomful of women. You never entertain so early-and so many guests! I do not wish to intrude, but this is of great urgency, mon ami."

"Au contraire, my beloved madame," Franklin assured her, "you're always a welcome guest. I pray you'll join us for an early dinner." Casting an eye again at her attire, he added with amusement, "I am sorry to inform you, however, madame, that no cows will be available for milking-we were not planning to hold our meal alfresco!"

"Canaille!" cried Mme Helvetius, stamping her foot.

"Madame! Your language!" Franklin cautioned with a saucy grin.

With her next words, he looked as though he'd been seized with an attack of kidney stones, on top of the gout.

"Faites attention!" she told Franklin, sotto voce, lest prying ears overhear: "Le message est arrive!"

"The message!" he nearly cried aloud. "Then we should not be seen here."

Just then came the distant sound of the library door closing, followed by clicking footsteps approaching.

"My colleagues arrive," whispered Franklin. "What is the message?"

"C'est encode!" Mme Helvetius whispered back, her silvery eyes enormous.

"Of course it's encoded!" snapped Franklin, pulling in irritation at the long tail of his own hair that clung to his shoulder.

"What is it?"

When Anne-Catherine stood on tiptoe and put her lips to Franklin's ear, he caught another whiff of her attire-earthy, like a barnyard, but not altogether rank.

"'Frere Jacques,'" Mme Helvetius whispered.

The silence was broken only by the footsteps approaching the corner, where they would soon be exposed, huddled together here in the open hall.

"A name?" Franklin whispered back. "No other clue? Just 'Brother Jacques'?"

"Non, non, mon ami," she breathed in impatience. "C'est une chanson!"

"A song is the message?" said Franklin in confusion. But when Mme Helvetius hummed the first notes under her breath, he said, "Ah, I see-very clever!" With a quick pat on her rump, he said, "Make haste. To the salon, by the far door. I shall join you."

In swift comprehension, she vanished into the east hall just a moment before Adams and Jefferson rounded the corner. With his colleagues close at heel, Franklin entered the salon just as Mme Helvetius appeared breathlessly through a door at the opposite side of the crowded room. All the guests and family members turned to greet Franklin. Though his own heart was beating like a Mohican drum, he shot Mme Helvetius a confident smile across the room. He knew exactly what he must do.

12:00 noon

Le Valentinois

Benjamin Franklin looked around the table at the assorted group who had collected, as customary, for the seven-course afternoon repast at the expense of his host. Today it was a few hours early-but then, time was of the essence, was it not?

Here at the table were those who would soon represent the past: the owner of this magnificent chateau, the pudgy millionaire Donatien le Ray de Chaumont, who had an ax to grind: he was still outraged with the American Congress, which had never paid his bills to supply arms for the Revolution. Beside Chaumont, his attractive wife-the mistress, some said (de temps en temps) of the naval hero John Paul Jones. Then the revolutionary playwright Beaumarchais, author of huge hits, The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville, a man who had run more munitions into the British colonies than any other, in aid of the revolution. Mme Helvetius was seated between Franklin himself and John Adams, with Abigail at Adams's far side-looking annoyed by Notre dame d'Auteuil's blithe bantering to her husband-part of her inane camouflage.

Thomas Jefferson sat at the side of the table that Franklin viewed as the future. Beside Jefferson was young John Quincy Adams, seventeen, who seemed to dote on the Virginian's each word. Quincy's sister, Abigail the younger-Nabby Adams- who at age nineteen seemed to have captivated Franklin's twenty-two-year-old grandson, Temple. And Benny Franklin Bache, Franklin's other grandson, the youngest at the table at age fifteen, who was bracketed at the other side by Edward Bancroft, the mission's secretary and sometime spy.

After the soup course had been served and the servants had departed, Franklin announced portentously, "Thirteen at dinner, an inauspicious number-for it reminds one always of that other supper where the host said, 'Tonight, one of you shall deny me and one of you shall betray me.'"

Mme Helvetius shot Franklin a steely sideways glance. Then, unilaterally changing the subject, she picked up her spoon with a charming smile, removed a bit of crayfish from her bowl and deposited it on her plate.

"This month does not have an R," she informed the group. "One should never eat les crustaces in months spelled without R-they may contain poison."

"But, Grandfather," said Benny Bache, as if she had not spoken, "do you really expect someone to deny or betray you tonight? And even if you did, it surely wouldn't be any of us, here at this table."

"I have reason, my child, to believe precisely that," Franklin assured his grandson. "In support of this view, I must mention that I have recently received an encrypted message."