Marrying Off Mother Read Free

disarray, but this only added to its charm, for it was the rich sunset hue that every autumn leaf endeavours to achieve and seldom does. Her skin had been touched and lit by the sun so it had the quality of peach-coloured silk. Her eyes were enormous, a wonderful mixture of green and gold under dark brows like the wings of an albatross. Her pink mouth was of the shape and texture that makes even the most faithful of husbands falter. Tears the size of twenty-two carat diamonds were flooding from her magnificent eyes and pouring down her cheeks.
    â€˜Monsieur?’ she questioned, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand to clear them of the shimmering tears.
    â€˜Bonjour, mademoiselle,’ I said. ‘Could I see Monsieur Clot if you please?’
    â€˜Monsieur Clot will see no one,’ she said, gulping, and the tears renewed their flow. ‘Monsieur Clot is indisposed. He can see no one.’
    At that moment, a very large, paunchy gendarme appeared from the back room, where the uproar had now renewed itself. His eyes were as dark as blackcurrants, his nose resplendent, a rich wine red, covered with a patchwork of blue veins, and over his pouting mouth lay an enormous black moustache like the skin of a dead mole. He gave me an all-embracing glance in which suspicion and malevolence were nicely blended. Then he turned to the beautiful lady.
    â€˜Madame Clot,’ he said, in a rich syrupy voice, ‘I must leave now, but rest assured, madame, that I will make the utmost endeavours to unmask the fiends who have perpetrated this outrage, the ghastly assassins who have dared to bring a tear to your beautiful eyes. I will move heaven and earth to bring these brigands to justice.’
    He gazed at her like a starving schoolboy regarding a cream-filled doughnut.
    â€˜You are too kind, inspector,’ she said, flushing.
    â€˜For you, nothing is too much trouble — nothing,’ he said and, seizing her hand, he pressed her fingertips into his moustache, rather as, in times gone by, a man would help a lady on with her muff. He brushed past me, hurled his bulk into his car and, with an excruciating tangle of gears, drove off in a cloud of dust, a St George in search of a dragon.
    â€˜Madame,’ I said, ‘I see that you are upset, but I feel that it is possible I may be able to help.’
    â€˜No one can help — it is hopeless,’ she cried, and the tears started to flow again.
    â€˜Madame, if I were to mention the name Esmeralda, would this mean anything to you?’
    She fell back against the wall, her wonderful eyes staring.
    â€˜Esmeralda?’ she said, hoarsely.
    â€˜Esmeralda,’ I said.
    â€˜Esmeralda?’ she repeated.
    â€˜Esmeralda,’ I nodded.
    â€˜You mean Esmeralda,’ she said faintly.
    â€˜Esmeralda, the pig,’ I said, to make the point clear.
    â€˜So you are the fiend in human form — you are the thief who has spirited away our Esmeralda,’ she screamed.
    â€˜Madame, if you’ll just let me explain . . .’ I began.
    â€˜Thief, robber, bandit,’ she wailed, and ran down the passageway screaming, ‘Henri, Henri, Henri, the thief is here demanding a ransom for your Esmeralda.’
    Wishing all pigs in Purgatory, I followed her down to the room at the end of the hall. A riveting sight met my gaze. A powerful, handsome young man and a portly, grizzled gentleman with a stethoscope round his neck were endeavouring to restrain someone — this I took to be Monsieur Clot — who was desperately trying to rise from a recumbent position on a purple chaise-longue.
    He was a tall man, slender as a minnow, wearing a black corduroy suit and a huge black beret. But his most striking attribute was his beard. Carefully nurtured, carefully cosseted and trimmed, it cascaded down as far as his navel and was a piebald mixture of black and iron grey hairs.
    â€˜Let me get at him, the misbegotten son of Satan,’