Paris Match Read Free

true.”
    “How long do we have until dinner?” Viv asked.
    Stone looked at his watch. “An hour.”
    “Then please excuse me, I have a lot to do.” She vanished into their room.
    “Me, too,” Dino said. “See you later.” He followed Viv.
    Stone went to do his own unpacking and freshening.
    —
    THE WHITE Mercedes van awaited them in the courtyard, sans Rick.
    “Where are we going?” Dino asked.
    “To a wonderful restaurant called Lasserre,” Stone said. “Marcel duBois is our host, and I understand there will be some other people there, too.”
    They arrived at the restaurant, in the Avenue Franklin Roosevelt, and were taken up in an elevator. They walked into a large, square dining room with a sunken center. To Stone’s surprise, all the guests were milling around the room, drinking champagne and talking with each other.
    Marcel duBois broke from a knot of people and came across the room, arms spread. There followed the usual kissing of both cheeks, and Stone reintroduced him to Dino and Viv. “Marcel,” he said, “why is no one dining?”
    “Because I have not yet told them to,” Marcel replied.
    “Do you mean you’ve taken the whole restaurant?”
    “I had to. I couldn’t get everyone I wanted you to meet into my dining room at home.”
    “Who are these people?”
    “The crème de la crème of Paris, of course,” Marcel replied. “Business, show business, hotel business, writing business, you name it. Come and meet them.”
    For half an hour they were ushered from group to group and introduced. When they were done, Stone could remember only one name: Mirabelle Chance, who was about five-two barefoot, raven of hair and ivory of complexion.
    “Come, let us sit down,” Marcel said.
    At a signal from Marcel a chime rang, and the guests began finding their place cards. Marcel headed the table in the very center of the room.
    Viv looked up. “The roof is opening,” she said. She was right: the frescoed ceiling slid open to reveal a rose arbor on the roof.
    “Whenever it gets a bit too warm,” Marcel explained, “the ceiling opens and lets out the hot air.”
    Stone was pleased to see that the place card next to his read MIRABELLE CHANCE , although there was no sign of her. A parade of food and wine ensued.

      4
    T hey were halfway through their first course, a slab of fresh foie gras, when Mirabelle Chance finally took her seat. The gentlemen all rose to receive her, and Marcel introduced her to those at the table she had not yet met.
    “I do beg your pardon,” she said, with the slightest French accent layered over upper-class British English. “There was a line in the loo.”
    “There always is,” Viv said, and everybody laughed.
    “Now, Mr. Barrington,” Mirabelle said, “since I know your name, it is time for me to learn who you are, where you come from, and everything else about you of any possible interest.”
    Stone laughed. “Well, I am an attorney,” he said. “I comefrom New York, and everything else about me you will have to root out, one piece of information at a time.”
    “Then I must work for my supper?”
    “Only as hard as you wish to,” Stone replied, “but before you start, I think I’m entitled to an exchange of information.”
    “All right,” she said. “I am a Parisienne from my birth, though, having a British mother and an indifferent French father, I went to school and university in England, then I at first modeled, and now I design dresses, including the one I am wearing.”
    Stone looked her up and down. “You are very good at what you do,” he said.
    “Now, my turn to dig,” she said. “Where were you schooled?”
    “Within a few blocks of my home in Greenwich Village, at P.S. Six, at New York University, then at their law school.”
    “No further graduate work?”
    “Yes, I got my Ph.D. as a patrolman and detective with the New York Police Department. I attended for fourteen years, but the degree is purely honorary.” He nodded