Hugger-Mugger in the Louvre Read Free Page B

awning of the Restaurant Rouzier where, at just that time of year, the chef was able to procure crayfish that were worthy of what he had learned to do to them. With the ease that characterized all his actions, Evans paid the small sum due the waiter, added a tip that was right for the quarter, and guided Miriam across the cartracks to a table chez Rouzier where the headwaiter, after two years, remembered him by name and was immediately solicitous. He did not murmur “crayfish” as if Monsieur Evans were a barbarian and needed prompting. He merely tried to express in pantomime a faint suggestion of what the crustaceans might taste like, and Rouzier’s headwaiter, had he chosen, might have been a second Debureau.
    First, needless to say, there was a cool dry Pouilly, chilled but by no means iced, and once the meal had reached the coffee stage and the unlabeled brandy known to the wine-steward as “The Opal” had been served, Homer settled back in his chair and assumed that air which Miriam knew preceded a moment of confidence.
    â€œI had a strange feeling at the Dôme tonight,” he began. “I hope our friends won’t be offended. . . . We left them rather abruptly, you know.”
    â€œOf course they won’t mind,” said Miriam.
    â€œIt wasn’t when I read the headlines. It was the story that followed,” he said. “You know, sometimes I feel quite alone in the world . . . No, not that, exactly.” He backed up for a fresh start and reached for her hand, for at the suggestion that he was lonely an icy grip had chilled Miriam’s heart until it felt like an over-frosted mint julep.
    â€œI meant that I felt as if we were alone in the world,” he continued.
    â€œThat’s better,” she said and sighed.
    â€œThe point is this. We are all sitting quietly. An old man distributes newspapers. You read. I read. Our friends all read, and so do perfect strangers. This happens at the Dôme, in the place St. Michel, the Café de la Paix, in every corner of Paris. Not only the intellectuals but the laborers read, the courtesans, good wives, shop girls, street walkers. Everybody sees the preposterous tale spread with ink upon paper and nobody seems to grasp its absurdity, let alone its implications.”
    â€œI love it when you talk this way,” said Miriam, so pleased with his sudden animation that she almost purred. She had been uneasy about Homer lately, although she would not admit it even to herself. There had been times when she had been ready to believe she was somehow at fault. But now . . . His voice interrupted her reveries.
    â€œMiriam, my dear. Here is En-Tout-Cas. The story is only one column in length. The reporters didn’t have much time. Read it carefully, not too fast, and tell me, for the sake of my peace of mind, what seems inconsistent to you.”
    Obediently she took the paper and read the story, line by line. And at the end she looked up in dismay. “I’m stupid. I know I am. I don’t see how you can put up with me,” she faltered.
    â€œYou mean that you swallow that yarn at its apparent face value?” he asked, astonished.
    She reached for his hand and pressed it almost prayerfully. “Tell me what’s on your mind. I can listen well, at least ...”
    â€œThat’s what I meant about feeling alone. The entire population of this city, the center of world culture, successor to the glories of Greece and Rome, fails to see what is as plain as day. Darling. Think! Reflect! This so-called theft was carefully planned, was it not?”
    â€œI suppose so . . .”
    â€œThe exact hour. The most valuable small painting among the thousands in the Museum, in fact, the only one worth anything like three million francs that could be slipped under one’s coat without making a bulge. The only painting of such value that was hung in a small room I One of a series of rooms watched by the same